Come Follow Me Insights (Doctrine and Covenants 102-105, Sep 13-19)

i'm taylor and i'm tyler and i'm casey this is book of mormon central's come follow me insights today doctrine and covenant sections 102 through 105. we're excited to have casey griffiths with us today as we cover these particular sections there is a lot going on in sections 102 through 105. we're going to be covering a lot of ground in in this particular lesson let's begin with section 102 where the lord sets up our first high council and section 102 might seem a little bit odd as you're reading through the doctrine and covenants because it's not really a revelation it's a collection of minutes from the very first kirtland high council that was held the reason why it's placed in the doctrine covenants though is because it gives some really important instructions about how to run a council so maybe you'll remember um i remember when i was growing up that in my steak center there was this one room that had this big long table and on both sides of the table there's six chairs um and then at the very end of the table there were three chairs right here like this and if you got to hold sunday school in here it was like the best day ever right everybody felt like they were part of the jedi council well that's literally what section 102 is describing sects 102 describes how to hold a high council specifically in case there's been some kind of dispute in fact the wording in section 102 verse 2 says the high council was appointed by revelation so everybody sitting in these chairs is called by revelation for the purpose of settling important difficulties which might arise in the church which could not be settled by the church or the bishops council to the satisfaction of parties so first things first to hold the council like this is relatively rare most disputes that happen within the church can be settled within the church or by the help of a bishop or in extreme cases the bishop and his counselors if something like this is happening that means that there's something pretty serious that's gone on and the council is here together to basically assist the person in going through the repentance process or being corrected or whatever they need to do however the principles here that that again are used in generally extreme cases kind of diffuse through all councils in the church and the description here is kind of a good way to show us how we'd use a council to resolve a really serious uh issue or difficulty that's happening so what it describes in section 102 is that the council would meet together and the people that are sitting right here on the end are the stake presidency the stake president of the kirtland stake was joseph smith so when everybody arrives in the council meeting they would be assigned lots this could happen just as simply as you have a box with a bunch of papers in it and the lots are numbered 1 to 12. according to the directions that are given in section 102 of the doctrine and covenants the counselors the draw even lots that's 2 4 6 8 10 and 12 are the individuals who are supposed to look after the needs of the accused person the people that draw odd-numbered lots are assigned to look after the needs of the church and this pattern which you're seeing in section 102 according to joseph smith was actually the pattern that existed among the church anciently in jerusalem joseph smith said he saw and vision how ancient councils were conducted and the law of the church in fact one of the things that he points out is that the people on this side that are supposed to look after the deeds of the accused aren't the defense attorneys and the people on this side that are supposed to look after the needs of the church aren't the prosecutors either joseph smith instructed that it was not in the order of heaven and ancient councils to plead for or against the guilty as in our judicial courts but that every counselor when he arose to speak should speak precisely according to the evidence and according to the teachings of the spirit of the lord no counselor should attempt to screen the guilty when his guilt was manifest the person accused before the high council had the right to one half of the members of the council to plead his cause in order that this case might be fairly presented before the president that a decision might be rendered according to truth and righteousness so typically and and tyler you've probably served on one of these councils before when when the person comes in they they know they're not trying to present themselves as an innocent person they've usually already talked to their ecclesiastical leader and shared what hap what's happened and it's been deemed serious enough that a state council can help and this isn't this could look like it's an intimidating setting the stake high council i served on our stake president would actually have him sit right here next to the state presidency uh and was very very clear in saying hey we're not we're not here to persecute you or punish you we're here to try and help you so one of the interesting caveats here to to see unfold through time is early on these are these are seen in in the eyes of many general membership looking at this as a punitive thing even though it wasn't intended to be that way in fact the the title is this disciplinary council well in our most recent handbook of instructions we don't call them disciplinary counsels we're not here to to discipline the person although technically the root of disciplinary is disciple to help them be a better disciple so that is still absolutely in place but now we call them membership councils and i think there's a good reason for that to see it as a step in their repentance in their discipline in their level of discipleship to christ when when i was on a stakehouse and and served in some of these many of the councils that i participated in were reconvening is where someone had had been involved in a serious transgression and now it was some time later and they were getting ready to come back into the church or be re-baptized or get all their privileges back and the council was reconvening to just hear it and so as weird as it might sound some of these meetings were some of the most spiritual meetings that i ever attended because you got to hear how the savior helped the person that had done something really serious come about through the repentance process and even in the few of these that i attended where we did have to deal with the question of a person's membership there was always this overwhelming spirit of love so this isn't the spanish inquisition um in fact it's it's almost the total opposite of it and that every individual here is really focused on trying to help the person and and help them understand what they've done um how to deal with it and what the next steps to repentance are yeah so that that repentance element that the the root of repentance is this idea that we're trying to help people change to become more like christ hence this this whole effort isn't to to punish or rebuke or push somebody out it's to try to get them onto the straight and narrow path and invite them to to come and partake that's really important and the new handbook actually gives three reasons why you would hold the council like this that we ought to make clear so reason number one according to the this is the handbook that just came out in 2020 in february 2020 is to protect others so there might be at times when we hold the council like this to try and protect someone that's vulnerable something something serious has gone on and the council's being held to to make sure that the person that's vulnerable is being protected number two and in my experience this was by far and away the most common reason to hold one of these councils was to help a person repent or access the redeeming power of the atonement number three the reasons for these councils was to protect the integrity of the church so there were times and there are times when sometimes a person who is a member of the church teaches or does something uh that that affects the integrity of the church let's say for example you had an ecclesiastical leader that had embezzled funds or something like that we we want the members of the church to be able to trust their leaders with with the funds that they give to them those are sacred precious funds and so a council like this could be hold in that case in order to protect the integrity of the church um in the latest iteration the handbook two the actions that the council can take have also been changed as well um so the word excommunication for instance is now removal of church membership and that's kind of the most extreme thing that happens in these cases but other possibilities could be official curtailment of church responsibilities that might be where they say to somebody we're not going to have you hold the calling or exercise the priesthood for a little while while you're going through this repentance process and then the third outcome is could be that the council decides to not take any action but to allow the individual to continue to work with their their bishop or other ecclesiastical leaders to try and work through the issues that they're dealing with at that time yeah formal versus informal uh counseling with with time limits attached now you'll notice in section 102 it it gives this instruction that as you draw those numbers draw those lots and you have certain responsibilities if it's a really simple case then only two people are going to speak if it's a more complex issue then you add two more but in the most extreme cases it says you only have three and three representing the the good name of the church and making sure that the the individual is being represented fairly and appropriately once again as casey said this is not like a a prosecution and defense attorney set up in a court of law this is different uh where we're seeking truth not trying to defend the indefensible to get him off on on a little uh minor technicality it's we're trying to figure out what really happened and make sure that the good name of the church as well as the good name of that individual is protected to the greatest degree possible that they're they're uh going to be able to be encouraged to move forward in faith trusting in the lord now stop and think about this for a minute the the overview or the the structure of section 102 trying to set up the power of a council in the church and why so many people i mean it wouldn't be a lot easier if you just said let the three or better yet let the one just make the decision in every single case now as casey said some cases are simple enough that that's all it takes a bishop even or a bishop's bishop rick can make those decisions but in the more complex issues today the the handbook of instruction says that most of these issues that come are going to be resolved by just the stake presidency and it's only in the much more complex issues that we convene this full council kind of as outlined in section 102 so that adjustment has been made where if it's if it's pretty cut and dried the decision can be made it's where we're not quite sure what the situation is that's where we convene this council why because revelation is scattered among us and there are different perspectives that can be brought in to that discussion and it's pretty powerful as you have this many people all connecting with heaven seeking for heaven's aid to know what to do that uh the spirit can be manifest and we can come to um conclusions that no one individual person would have figured out on their own another thing to know about these councils that that my students ask a lot is these councils are relatively rare if you were a teenage kid that broke the law of chastity for instance you probably wouldn't be called before a council like this you'd probably work with your with your ecclesiastical leader your bishop or your branch president to get through the sin typically a person that's called before accounts like this is usually somebody that's made temple covenants and somebody uh that if if you're male holds the melchizedek priesthood but the principles here diffuse through all councils in the church and that's what makes section 102 so valuable so for instance a council like this could exist in the form of just a bishop and his counselors are working with an individual that that's committed a serious transgression in those cases the bishop might say i'm going to appoint this counselor to look after the needs of the individual and this counselor to look after the needs of the church and then conduct the meeting going forth from there at all times and a good principle to remember here is that whenever we have to conduct any kind of disciplinary action and maybe that's not the best word but when we have to help a person repent is that we're balancing the the needs of the individual with the integrity of our faith part of the reason why we hold these councils in the first place is because it's a big deal to be a member of the church every member of the church in some way or form is a spokesman for the church and their actions and the integrity that's associated with their actions can reflect positively or poorly onto the church so we're concerned with the individual salvation that's the number one concern but we're also concerned with the fact that if a person isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing we want to get them to a point to where they can in an earlier section of the doctrine and covenants the lord says where much is given much is required and so a person that holds the priesthood or has made sacred covenants in the temple does have a little bit higher expectation for them part of the reason why the church might take an action to remove a person's membership isn't as a form of punishment it's a way of saying you made a mistake we want to help you solve your mistake the expectations are higher right now so we'll remove some of those expectations some of those covenants and allow you to to work through it without those expectations on your shoulders it's kind of the same thing when an ecclesiastic leader asks somebody to withhold from taking the sacrament for a little while that's not intended to be a punishment in any way shape or form it's intended to uh prevent the person from making a covenant that they're not in a position to keep at that time so there was a time when i was serving on a council like this and i pulled lot number one and we had talked about what the individual had done and i'm not going to share any specifics here because that wouldn't be appropriate but the the decision of the council the revelation that came to uh our state president was that the person's membership should be withdrawn as number one he turned to me and said brother griffiths can you explain why we're doing this and i gave an explanation very similar what i've just said that we weren't doing it to punish the person that we were doing it to try and help them resolve the problems that they had without the expectations that come from the covenants that they had made and after a person has gone through a period of repentance let's say if their membership is withdrawn they can come back into the church uh through rebaptism and then about a year after re-baptism there's a ceremony called the restoration of blessings where the person's temple covenants uh where everything up to and including their patriarchal blessing are restored so section 102 is giving you kind of the extreme case and situation and one of the things that i really like about this is that there's nobody that's exempt from this when we get to section 107 a little further down the road it even gives the procedure for what to do if a president of the church engages in a serious transgression you'd still hold the council like this and follow the principles that are in section 102. in fact we've only ever had one president the church that god brought before accounts like this and it was joseph smith joseph smith wanted to take this out for a test drive and and see how it would work and so when someone accused him of unchristian-like behavior he said let's call it council almost enthusiastically in the case president smith wasn't completely exonerated the person that had accused him of unchristian-like conduct and joseph smith were invited to make amends with each other and enter into christian fellowship and so the the way that this works is to just kind of help everybody along the road to immortality and eternal life by giving them a chance to fully engage with what they've done address what they've done and ask the savior's help and receive the savior's help through the members of the council to fully become cleansed so i'm going to erase this we're going to step back actually we're gonna we're gonna step up and look down from a heavenly perspective for a moment on why in the world would we set this up as councils this idea of of going to this great effort to try to discover the truth many times you'll have people in scripture have heavenly visions and what will they report seeing up in heaven they see usually gods sitting on his throne surrounded with numberless concourses of angels and the word that often gets used in scripture is councils heavenly councils it's people who are conversing together and counseling together so what happens is section 102 for me becomes this heavenly manifestation of god saying okay the church is now at a place where we can give you line up online where we can give you another layer of what it's like to be heavenly of of how to become more more celestial more like god because stop and think about this for a minute how hard honestly really how hard would it be for jesus to do all of this for us it is the church of jesus christ after all he could come down in kirtland and and personally manifest himself to the people and say have ye any disputations among you have you any sinners among you have you any who are struggling bring them all and i will take care of everything and i will pass a perfect judgment on every situation every hardship and every every decision you're trying to make i'll give you the right best case scenario answer to all of it you realize jesus could do that in every single case but what is what is the point then of having a council why call presidencies why call councils why have anybody get together to share their thoughts and listen to others and ask questions it's because there's growth that happens as we are given tasks to accomplish make decisions carry out church procedures we learn from our experience and in the process like a little baby being put down and let go for the first time to walk we learn how to walk and then we learn how to talk and we learn how to run and we learn how to read and write and do arithmetic and all these other things because we're given opportunities to be in settings where we can learn where we can share where we can experiment and we're growing brothers and sisters the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints in in the section 102 context is all about jesus sharing his perfection with us in our imperfection and one of the ways to to uh protect against individual imperfection is to put you in a in a council together with people whether it be a husband and wife whether it be a bishopric or a young woman's presidency or a high council or a first presidency in quorum of the twelve there's something powerful about actually listening to other people in that council and having all sides represented it would be silly if in those high council settings everybody drew an even number and we're all looking out for the the one side and totally ignoring the other side there's power to guard against my own imperfections and my own personal weakness and my own biases when i get in a council setting and i don't know about you but there have been many times going into a meeting whether it's an official church meeting or in a a session where my wife and i are talking about some needs of the family a family council so to speak i've gone in thinking i already know the answer i already know what we're gonna do it's all very clear and after counseling and praying and pleading for help you come out of that council at the back end and say wow it's a good thing we didn't just do what i thought was so obvious at the outset there's great power in counseling with our councils president russell or m russell ballard has talked about that a lot this idea of coming together whether it's in a family or a church setting great power why because it's giving us an opportunity to connect with god and become more like him because he could do this all himself but he doesn't he lets us grow through the process so in section 102 you'll find the names in verse 3 of the the people who are originally called to this high council with the presidency there listed first and then the 12 high counselors towards the end of verse 3. it's interesting that we're missing a name in in verse 3 that was actually replaced lorenzo young was originally called in this list and he stood up in in the council and he rejected it because he didn't feel um capable he he felt unable to fulfill that calling whether it was he didn't feel like he he was um worthy enough or smart enough we don't know for sure he's just saying he's not fit for that culling so it was removed the the reality is there will be times when leaders will be inspired to extend a calling that the lord already knows that person isn't going to fulfill for whatever reason it may be but isn't it amazing that growth and self-reflection and repentance can still take place or cause to be uh taking place even if the calling isn't fulfilled we don't know all the backstory with lorenzo young we don't know how the lord worked with him and continued to teach him through receiving this calling even though he didn't accept it and move move forward hopefully and he's going to come up in a variety of other places down the road um the other consideration moving forward as we finish off section 102 and get ready to jump into 103 is the need to constantly be as casey said looking for how to apply these principles in all aspects of our life to not assume that we have all the answers and that we know everything but rather go in seeking the lord's will and seeking to listen and learn from other people realizing they have parts of the puzzle that we don't bring to the table with us what a beautiful principle this this whole idea of councils becomes well and another thing to remember about councils is that it's not always about you being the shining star it's about you training the next person who's gonna have to step in and take over i can't tell you how valuable it was in those meetings i was in to watch my stake president and the way that he interacted with the other members of the stake high council and even with the individual that was there for the council the person that had committed a transgression to see the way that he acted towards them taught me a ton i learned a lot just by observing and that is is another reason why section 102 shouldn't just be flipped over because it's not a revelation it gives this idea that there's real strength that comes from well not just going out and doing the lord's work but in looking to and training the next person who's going to have to do the lord's work in fact there's an interesting thematic connection here if we can we go to section 103 section 103 uh which comes up right next is about the call of zion's camp so zion's camp which we've come to call it zion's camp joseph smith at the time called it the camp of israel this name is kind of taken over by brigham young and the pioneers of 1847 and zion's camp becomes our preferred term but zion's camp is a relief or rescue mission that's intended to go and help the saints in missouri that have been struggling since the summer before when they were forcibly told to leave jackson county now they're told in july that they they're going to have to leave and then in october in probably the worst time of the year to be kicked out of your home when it's starting to get cold when there's freezing rains coming the saints are forcibly ejected from zions county from science county sorry from jackson county um joseph smith is is absolutely torn apart over this he's trying to handle the business of the church in kirtland we'll see some of that in section 104 but he's also trying to find a way to help the saints in missouri and so joseph smith asks the lord and the lord gives section 103 which effectively asks joseph smith to take a group of people and go to missouri and try and help the saints there get their land back now one thing to note historically about this is there's a lot of brand new converts in kirtland that have just shown up that are going to go on this journey that are basically going to drop what they're doing and take a few months of their life among them you've got guys like brigham young brigham young has just barely arrived in kirtland and at this point he's remarried to mary and angel his first wife miriam's passed away three little kids take care of but he sets that aside i'm going to go help my brothers and sisters brigham young takes along his best friend heber c kimball hebrews kimball has a wife and kids but i'm going to go help my brothers and sisters missouri there's a brand new convert that's just barely shown up named wilford woodruff that goes along with zion's camp and actually writes down a lot of the information stories from zion's camp that are valuable to us you could list off parley p pratt hiram smith lyman white a bunch of important people in early church history all go on this relief mission led by joseph smith to missouri to try and assist the saints that are there now what are they trying to do the governor of missouri had left suggestions that if the saints brought and and provided some men he would provide state militia and they'd be able to escort the saints back to their homes in jackson county so joseph smith sets out with this expectation that this is how we're going to solve the problem the lord's already told us where the city of zion is supposed to be built and now this big barrier has been placed in our path where we've been ejected from the place where the city is supposed to be built this is the solution he's thinking this is the way that we're going to get the saints back to where they're at and a lot of the people that are recruited from zion's camp are also thinking this is where the lord's going to manifest his power in kind of an old testament sort of way that they're going to go in there and they're going to be able to forcibly put the saints back into their homes because the power of god's going to be made manifest them now this journey is a lot about their expectations and what they're thinking is going to happen versus what the lord kind of has in mind and some of this does relate back to our theme of councils that we've talked about because joseph smith has the opportunity for three months as they cross the country from kirtland ohio to independence missouri to interact with to train and to set an example for a lot of these newer converts to the church and to inadvertently train them to become the sort of leaders that they are i mean it's not a stretch to say that brigham young when he's planning the exodus west is thinking back on the principles that he learned from joseph smith on the journey that zion's camp makes from kirtland to independence now let's turn our attention to section 103 if we're looking at the text in section 103 there you could get the impression that that was what the lord was calling them to do that they were gonna go to zion they were gonna go in and they were gonna clean house basically there's a few places in here where the lord says verse two being driven and spitting by the hands of my enemies on whom i will pour out my wrath without measure in my own time so one expectation is the lord's going to get retribution for what's happened to the saints in missouri and he's also laying the foundation here to tell them that they're going to play a role in salvation for instance verse 9 he says they were said to be light of the world and to be the saviors of men and as much as they're not the saviors of men they are salt that's lost its savior and therefore good for nothing to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men jump down to verse 12 after much tribulation as i have said to you in a former commandment cometh the blessing this blessing i promised after your tribulations and the tribulations of your brethren your redemption and the redemption of your brother and even their restoration land of zion to be established to be no more thrown down so you could if you're joseph smith in the winter of 1834 when this revelation is given expect that yeah it's going to be tough and we're going to go through some things but we're going to go there and when we get there the miracles are going to happen and the doors are going to open and we are going to go in and get zion back they could have no idea that the tribulation and the delay in the building of the city of zion wouldn't just be a couple months it'd be a couple decades maybe even a couple centuries until the saints were fully ready to build that but part of the reason why the lord is telling them to gather here is the journey that they're about to go on and the experiences that they're about to have together initially the call is for 500 people to go to zion they aren't able to recruit quite that many they wind up somewhere around 300 there's also several women that accompany them on their trip to zion as they seek to cross the plains trying to with this good intent help the brethren and sisters as they have enzyme gain back their inheritances the lord says to joseph smith verse 22 saying unto the strength of my house my young men and middle aged gather yourselves together to the land of zion upon the land which i have bought with money which has been consecrated unto me he also sets up a couple different things like sydney rigdon in verse 29 is going to stay behind and hold down the fort preach to the eastern congregations parliament and lyman white and a few others are all going to be elected to go out and recruit people so that in the summer they can travel to missouri and assist the saints in getting their lands back they think but there's more to the journey than they really kind of have in mind and as it is a lot of times in our life we sometimes go into a class a business venture you name it expecting one outcome to happen and the lord has something completely different in mind as to what he wants to accomplish like these early leaders of the church we have to be flexible enough to realize we might not always see the end that the lord does and what we want might not always necessarily be what's best for us in that case let me let me illustrate that principle with an example that might might uh might make some sense for some of you um many years ago when i was teaching institute up at the logan institute of religion adjacent to the campus of utah state university one of my assignments there for four years was to work with seminary pre-service so i would i would help train people who wanted to look at potentially teaching seminary full-time for the church and then i would go and observe and make recommendations for who who i felt should get hired there were on many many many occasions during those four years there were people who would come to the office and say brother griffin my patriarchal blessing tells me i'm i'm going to be a seminary teacher or my mission president gave me a blessing as i left the mission telling me that i would be a seminary teacher that i should pursue seminary or i i have this impression that i need to teach seminary the problem is out of the logan pre-service center we would only generally hire somewhere between two to five maybe six in a really good year back then full time in an entire year and i would have lots of these people coming in saying this was this was what needed to happen so here i found myself with a person at point a saying that they needed to be a full-time seminary teacher for whatever reason and so what i learned after the first one or two years of of going through a process and then watching what happened and realizing this person isn't going to be a full-time seminary teacher and watching some of them be devastated by that and feeling let down like well i thought the lord told me this is what he wanted me to do and i learned the difference between point z and point b often what happens is the lord gives you instructions as casey was talking about and this isn't just an occupation this could be in relationships you could start down a road with somebody in dating and think oh i'm being inspired this is good and you get further down the road and then something happens and it doesn't put you at the point z you anticipated the reality is is god gives us instructions to say i want you to pursue this i want you to go here i want you to go after this goal whatever it may be now that it's been many years after having been in that pre-service setting i've talked to some of the students that i had back then who didn't get hired who ended up in other careers and in every case i ask them did we make the right decision and in every case of people that i've talked to they've said yes i am so glad that things have worked out the way they have that i didn't get hired full time but wow the things i learned through that process i use them all the time the lord was shaping me through that experience to accomplish what i needed to accomplish that i didn't know was what i needed to accomplish back then because i thought it was leading to full-time seminary employment not the lord preparing me for something different that he had in my future that to me is the biggest overarching lesson of this whole zions camp experience you've got these in some cases guys who are just really exciting to go out for a fight which by the way clarification joseph smith from the outset i don't know that his intent is to go out and start an offensive campaign the problem is governor duncan had told them if you get enough support i'll call out the state militia to restore the people to their lands but then i'm going to call the militia off and you have to have people in place to to defend them so it was more of a of a defense mission rather than an offensive campaign to go and say let's start a war it was more once we get them back on their lands we need people there to help defend them so the same thing doesn't just end up happening again you'll notice by the way that there are a variety of reasons why a person goes from point a to b to c and sometimes end up getting derailed and not make it to the point z that they had in mind or in some cases that the lord had prepared for them you'll notice in verse 31 behold this is my will ask and ye shall receive but men do not always do my will because of this power of the agency given to us sometimes we do our will rather than his one of my favorite c.s lewis quotes is where he says in the end they're really only two kinds of people those who say to god thy will be done and those to whom god says thy will be done because he's not going to force us so you'll notice just because god gives revelation or gives direction or empowers us to do something doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to happen because sometimes we don't follow through on our side you'll notice he told him to ask in verse 31 look at verse 35 therefore as i said unto you ask and ye shall receive there it's repeated so between that what it what's happening between those two bookends he's telling them to go out and recruit and try to get 500 monsters and if you can't get 500 get 300 and if you can't get 300 well get what you can look now at verse 36 all victory and glory is brought to pass unto you through your diligence faithfulness and prayers of faith i love that that he he says i'm not going to just guarantee all of these outcomes you have to be diligent faithful and offer prayers of faith in order for the the desired outcomes to occur now we shift gears into section 104 and talk about the united order and some adjustments that are going to be made and how that's carried out this law of consecration now this isn't something that we talk about a ton in the church but the doctrine covenants is concerned with it and those are principles of church finance over three quarters of the revelations and the doctrine and covenants discuss financial matters and you might be asking yourself why is that this is supposed to be a spiritual book really early on in the doctrine covenants in section 29 the lord says i've never given you a temporal commandment they're all spiritual commandments to him the temporal and the spiritual are the same thing and so when the lord says something like build a house it's a spiritual commandment to him we might think of it as physical sometimes we like to separate out commandments like the word of wisdom and say that's a physical or temporal commandment but the lord's just saying no it affects your spirituality as well and the reason why he speaks so much about finance is it's really hard for a person to be spiritual unless they're temporally well they're wondering where their next meal is going to come from or if their house is going to be foreclosed on it's difficult for them to focus on spiritual things so section 104 happens right before they leave on zion's camp it's received in april of 1834 and part of the idea here is to get the church's financial house in order before they go on this mission to try and rescue the saints in missouri there's a lot of moving parts that are going on here for instance the saints and kirtland are trying to build their own house of the lord they're building the kurdland temple joseph smith who's leading that effort is going to be gone for the summer trying to assist the saints in missouri and so the lord is reorganizing church finance in all the earliest revelations the term that is used here is united firm now under joseph smith's direction when these revelations were published the term firm was taken out and the word order was placed in sometimes the united order is used as a synonym for just the law of consecration altogether that's generally how brigham young and a lot of later church leaders even into the 20th century referred to it but the united order at this point in time is a small group of church leaders that have consecrated everything that they have to build up the church in ohio and missouri what this revelation does is there was a united firm in missouri that one is going to be ended in this revelation because the saints in missouri have lost their lands they're in survival mode that united firm collapses and this lord instead continues the kirtland united firm now sprinkled throughout this revelation are a number of principles of finance we don't use the system that's set up in section 104 right now in the church but the principles that are set here are intended for forever in fact it says right in verse 1 i give this as an everlasting order for the benefit of my church and the salvation of men until i come with a promise immutable and unchangeable that inasmuch as those whom i've commanded were faithful they should be blessed with a multiplicity of blessings so while this particular specific system of finance is now the church is operated the lord is saying the principles that i'm going to teach you here are eternal and they're going to stay for quite a while so let's walk through the revelation itself and identify some of the principles of church finance that the lord gives to the early saints for instance if you look in verse 11 it is wisdom in me and a commandment i give unto you that you shall organize yourselves and appoint every man his stewardship so even though we tend to think of consecration as everybody sharing everything and i can come in and borrow tyler's tie or take taylor's shoes it never worked that way everybody agreed to consecrate what they have to the lord but consecration or consecrate is just a term that means make holy after it was consecrated or basically recognized by the lord a stewardship was given back to the individual and that stewardship was their private property and the individual was allowed to basically work with what they had and do what they could with it for the benefit of themselves their family and the larger church another principle and this is found in verse 14 is to recognize that everything belongs to god the savior here says i the lord stretched out the heavens and built the earth by very handy work and all things therein are mine so a second principle of church finance is to recognize that everything belongs to god that what we're working with whether it's our home the money that we make from our profession uh whatever blessings we've been given it really ultimately belongs to god and we need to think of it in that way that it's not our personal property it's god's property that he's loaning to us to help us to build up the kingdom of god he also asks verse 16 it must needs to be done in my own way and this is the way that i the lord have decreed to provide for my saints that the poor shall be exalted and the rich we made low now that's just expressing this basic idea that you help the poor that you try and find the best way to help them and sometimes that means that you give them a meal or you help them find clothes or furniture for their home and sometimes it means that you help them find education to get a better job or another way to empower them get them a higher paying job so that they can afford a little bit more as you continue to go through the lord appoints a series of stewardships the people that are in the church and gives them responsibility so he's just kind of acting out what he's explaining here that you give a person a stewardship you explain to them where their blessings come from and then you give them a charge that if they have extra if they're provided for themselves that they think about what they can do to try and help but lift up those that don't have what they have now you can see a little bit of a switch halfway through the revelation around verse 47 where the lord says now concerning zion so he switches from general principles of finance to sort of principles of church finance and there's a few items of guidance that he gives her to for instance if we jump down to around verse 57 the lord gives them a couple specific charges i've appointed you stewards to be over my house stewards indeed and for this purpose i've commanded you to organize yourselves to print my words the fullness of my scriptures and the revelations which i've given unto you and which i shall hereafter from time to time give unto you so one important charge given to the church was to print the scriptures to help people obtain the word of god and know what god's will was through reading and understanding the words that he's given to prophets to that end the lord commands them to organize two treasuries as you can see as you go through the verses down below verse 60 appoint unto yourselves a treasury and the lord gives the purpose for this treasury which we're going to call just basically here the sacred treasury the sacred treasury as the savior sets out here is intended specifically to do the following he says to make use of the stewardship this is verse 63 which i've appointed unto you exclusive of the sacred things for the purpose of printing the sacred things that i've said and to the avails of the sacred things that are had in the treasury so this sacred treasury is intended to get the word of god out there that could mean in joseph smith's day it meant the revelations they're getting ready to publish the doctrine and covenants for the first time after their printing establishment in missouri was destroyed he also asked them to use it to carry out the work of the lord and he says this verse 59 to prepare my people for the time which i shall dwell among them which is thy in hand this treasury like the savior says has a seal placed upon it and is used to perpetuate and help with sacred things but the savior also talks about a second treasury this is down in verse 67 where he says there shall be another treasury prepared which i don't know if that's the best name to give it we'll just label it another treasury sometimes when i look at this i think of it as the secular treasury but i don't like that line between sacred and secular because this really isn't a secular act but he says all the monies this is for 68 that you receive in your stewardships by improving upon the properties which i've appointed unto you in houses in lands or in cattle or in all things save it be the holy and sacred writings which i've reserved unto myself for holy and sacred purposes shall be cast in the treasury as fast as you receive monies so they take the benefit from these other stewardships that they have from the lands the properties the buildings of the church owns and they use it to set up another treasury that's used to improve the communities in the places that they live around them now using this as a governing principle of church finance let's ask a couple questions the church spends a significant amount of money every year on different projects uh for instance a lot of you are watching this on a mobile device and on mobile device you've got gospel library which is this comprehensive source that has almost everything that a prophet has ever said ever and is updated continually and has a light and a dark mode and a lot of need a crewman's would you say that that comes from the sacred treasury or this or the other treasury in 2021 that's what it looks like to get the words of god into someone's hand in 1834 it meant that you build the printing press and you print and you bind and put a book together in 2021 it means that you develop an app and you put the app as on as many stores as possible so that as many people as possible can download it it's literally possible for you to talk to somebody on a different continent and say just download a copy of the book of mormon or download gospel library and they can read and see and view almost anything that the church has produced so that would probably be an item that comes from the sacred treasury now a few years ago in in salt lake city there was some controversy because the church built a mall the city creek center that was built president hinckley specified not from the tithing or sacred funds of the church but from the church's secular investments we would say this would be an example of using items from the other treasury to make communities a little bit better president hinckley outlined the reasons for building that structure was because downtown salt lake was starting to falter so the church made an investment in the community that it was in using its secular funds what one of the things that's always been unique about our church is this fusion between what other people see as the spiritual and the secular in fact an interesting story problem i sometimes present to my students is the church owns the biggest theme park in the hawaiian islands they own a theme park called the polynesian cultural center maybe some of you have been there is that something that comes from the sacred treasury or the secular treasury well this is a place where the two things might mix the reason why the polynesian cultural center exists is because byu hawaii is right next door they're just separated by a fence and the students that come to byu hawaii come from all over the pacific and asia a lot of them come from places where it's it's really difficult for them to have enough money to attend school so they need to work in the little town where byu hawaii was located that's laiye there weren't enough jobs to provide for all the students so the polynesian cultural center was built in order to give them jobs in order to assist them to pay for their schooling that's helping them understand the word of god that's a sacred treasury responsibility but it's also beautifying and helping the community that they're in that's another treasury item i visited the polynesian cultural center a couple years ago and i walked up to this young lady who was weaving a palm frond hat and i walked up to her and said do you feel like you're being exploited for your labor and she said i used to make these for free back home now we charge 10 bucks for each one i feel like i'm exploiting you and i said i don't mind being exploited then they handed me a little smoothie inside of a hollowed-out pineapple and i was like being exploited feels great frankly it's a case where the secular or what the world would call the secular and the spiritual are mingled together in order to accomplish the purposes of the kingdom of god and one thing that section 104 really brings out is this idea that a person that like me teaches the gospel for a living isn't making any greater contribution than a person that's really good at accounting can towards the kingdom that everybody has these different gifts and abilities and the savior is able to use them to accomplish what he needs to accomplish you might not think about it but when you're out there punching in the numbers and doing the job that you're doing the savior is thinking of ways to use your gifts to help the church or help a church member maybe in a completely different country but one last principle that the savior puts in here and this is around verse 78 because this is a fairly long revelation he says this concerning your debts it's my will that you should pay all your debts built into the doctrine covenants and you can see this as early as section 19 where the savior's telling them to pay off the printing for the book of mormon is this idea that we do what we can to get ourselves free from debt he refers to it down in verse 83 as bondage and the idea is if you're in debt to someone else then you're less likely to be able to use your talents your gifts and the blessings the lord has given you to help other people as well now another thing to take away from section 104 is just the timing joseph smith has on his mind the relief mission that he's going to send to independence to help them before he does that though he inquires of the lord to make sure that the saints in kirtland are okay um he wants to have everything financially kind of under control before he has to take off and go on this kind of uncertain venture to go to missouri and try and assist the saints there and maybe a principle to take away from this too is that you're limited in your ability to help others if you don't take care of your own home of the place that you're at elder christopherson gave a talk where he said bread winning is a consecrated activity where you have to be at work and make sure that you are good at your job and competent at your job so that you can provide for the people back home now it's possible for that to get out of balance and for you to become too focused on breadwinning and making money and then that causes all kinds of other problems but if you've ever felt that paying a guilt and i know i have and having to spend an extra hour half hour accomplishing my job it's okay joseph smith right here wants to make sure that the church in kirtland is financially secure before he has to leave and go to missouri and on his way to missouri he it's nice to know that these principles of finance have been well established among the leaders of the church that are going to keep the home fires burning while he's traveling to assist the saints in missouri so this might seem like a strange interruption in the story of zion's camp which is the big story you want to tell in these sections but it's valuable to just show that joseph smith wasn't the sort of person that would just run off on an adventure he sat down and asked the lord what do we do to reorganize the church and take care of everyone's needs everywhere before we go and assist these people that are struggling then you jump to section 105 which takes place in a totally different context this is the only revelation that i know of that's received at this specific location and it comes after joseph smith and the men of zion's camp the men and women i should say have already traveled hundreds of miles to assist the saints in missouri when they get there they're expecting big things to happen and big things do happen but not necessarily the things that they were expecting to happen so as the this zions camp moved westward word preceded them into western missouri and what did the what did the enemies of the church do with those numbers so as they get closer and closer to jackson county and this revelation is received at the fishing river which is just outside of jackson county to the north the saints start to hear rumors that there's a force being raised against them in fact they run into a a woman who tells them there's a group out here that aims to kill you and they all get in defensive mode they've got their weapons ready they're ready to fight one person even begged joseph smith to prematurely seek out the people that were coming after them and attack them first they finally camp near a fork in the fishing river which is this little stream and five bend right into the middle of their camp and tell them that they have raised 500 men from jackson county and that night they are coming to destroy them to wipe them out at this point everybody kind of you know gets their powder out starts loading their musket and says joseph we're ready to fight according to wilford woodruff joseph smith turns them and says no we're not going to fight brethren stand still and see the salvation of god then wilford woodruff gives the most vivid explanation but he said we saw a dark cloud appear on the horizon that then unfurled like a scroll and then a storm of the most ferocity they'd ever witnessed broke upon zion's camp and caused the river that separated them from this group of people that were coming to attack them several feet so that it was virtually impassable while the hailstone is falling everybody runs to seek a shelter in this little baptist church that's nearby and wilford woodruff remember joseph smith coming in and shaking the water off of his coat and saying boys this means something i think god is in this storm so what we could technically call the battle of fishing river is the lord intervening so that they don't have to fight it's impossible for us to know how many people actually were coming to attack them but they're protected at least that night and now it's the next day and they really are excited thinking we've seen the power of god manifest it's time for us to go in and take back our land help our people get them back to where they need to be unfortunately this is where the lord's expectations come into play and they don't quite get what they were seeking yeah the difference between point b and point z uh joseph receives this revelation saying basically well done you passed this test but it wasn't you didn't come here to fight look at verse five zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom otherwise i cannot receive her unto myself and my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience even if it must needs be by the things which they suffer which is an illusion over to hebrews chapter 5 verse 8. here's here's this group of men and you've got the women and children with them as well but especially the men are ready to fight and they're being told nope stand down this is this is not the the end result that the lord had in mind for us we all anticipated that's what was going to happen but not the lord uh a good friend rory bigelow he shared this concept once with me that we love the hymn number 270 i'll go where you want me to go dear lord i'll say i'll do i'll be what you want me to be and rory said i wish we had a hymn right next to it that said i'll stay where you want me to stay dear lord because sometimes god asks you to stand down or to be still or to stay sometimes saints are given the calling to stay and can we be disciples can we serve the lord in those settings as much as when he gives us the big go build an ark kinds of revelations and go on designs can't march yes this big huge endeavor i'll do that but sometimes we falter when we're asked to stay and serve in a more simple way as far as the world's concerned and you can see some of that in these sections right here for instance verse 9 it says mine elders should wait a little season for the redemption of zion in other words they're right there they're right on the edge of jackson county and they think that now they've got the power to go and do it and the savior's saying hold up and he gives a couple of reasons why for instance in verse 11 he says this cannot be brought to pass until mine elders are endowed with power from on high this is a reference to the building of the temple in kirland and the keys and powers that are going to be given to them there lord says i'll fight your battles but he also tells them if you jump down to verse 24 and this might hint a little bit at what he's addressing about the motives of the people in zion's cab talk not of judgments neither boast of faith nor mighty works but carefully gather together as much in one region as can be consistently with the feelings of the people in other words even though these people were hostile towards them and had persecuted their friends and their family the lord said you have to take into consideration them you're thinking you're going to go in there and you're going to wipe out the wicked and act as my destroyers the lord says no you need to consider the feelings of the people in fact in verse 26 he says this way you may find favor in the eyes of the people until the army of israel becomes great he even tells them how they're going to get the land back in verse 28 he says the lands in jackson county should be purchased and the land's round about in other words he's cutting off the avenue that it seems like some of the elders in science camp wanted to follow which was to use violence to get their lands back they had been violently treated by the people in jackson county and they wanted to use violence in return to get back what they felt was theirs the savior's saying we're not going to do it that way we're going to do it peacefully you're going to purchase the lands sometimes hard for us who think in terms of minutes and hours and days to know that the savior thinks in terms of decades and centuries and millennia and we might have to wait a little bit longer because we still have among us those violent tendencies to want to go in and bring down fire and brimstone and destroy the people that we see as our enemies the savior's saying first of all don't see them as your enemies and second of all i can't build a holy city on a foundation of blood that's just not how it's going to work it's going to be built on principles of righteousness after you've gained the respect of the people the love of the people and you've legally obtained the land without violence or force it's a beautiful principle casey and you look at the way he ends this section that i would i would hope that we could see our own life and our own situation reflected here not just the situation there the fishing river in missouri look at verse 38 again i say unto you sue for peace not only to the people that have smitten you but also to all people he wants he wants his followers to be true peacemakers not not warmongers verse 39 lift up an enzyme of peace make a proclamation of peace under the ends of the earth i don't know if you have family members or if you have colleagues at work or if you have neighbors or ward members who there's been tension or contention in the past i think the lord would be inviting us to say let's let's mend those bridges let's lift up the banner of peace let's freely forgive and let's let's sue for peace rather than than demand justice look at verse 40 make proposals for peace unto those who have smitten you according to the voice of the spirit which is in you and all things shall work together for your good therefore be faithful and behold and low i am with you even unto the end even so amen this section closes here at the fishing river and uh casey it wasn't well received by everybody in zion's camp no i don't think so and there is a coda to this story that's important to understand the section that's coming up next uh section 106 in section 107. um joseph smith explains that because of unfaithfulness in the camp a scourge will be put upon them and the camp is struck in with cholera which is this terrible water-borne disease that makes almost everybody in the camp including joseph smith sick several members of the camp several real stalwarts in church history including sydney gilbert who some of the earlier sections of the doctrine covenants were given to die because of this joseph smith loses a close cousin of his jesse smith who's the last person to die of cholera and zion's kemp who marched triumphant across the plains separates into smaller groups and goes back to kirtland but in those moments when when joseph smith was close to dying he may have been wondering who's going to take over for me if anything happens and that winter after they have traveled the missouri and everybody's made it back to kirtland ohio joseph smith gathers together the priesthood in kirtland who are largely the same individuals that traveled with science camp and gives this explanation what happened he says god did not want you to fight he could not organize his kingdom with 12 men to open the gospel doors to the nations of the earth and with 70 men under their direction to follow in their tracks unless he took them from a body of men who'd offered their lives and who made his greatest sacrifice as did abraham nine members of the original quorum of the twelve were people that had marched on zion's camp 63 members of the original quorum of the 70 were people that had marched on science camp as well and it seems like the end that the savior was actually going for wasn't to reclaim the lands in jackson county that's going to happen but in its own due time it was to train these men and have them demonstrate their level of faithfulness in order to set up the other councils in the church at this point there's already a first presidency that's been around since 1833. now there's going to be a first presidency and a quorum of the 12 and a quorum of 70 underneath them to lead the church and provide additional leadership if anything were ever to happen to joseph smith it's almost a decade after this that that system fully comes into play but right now the lesson that joseph smith needed to learn from this was that councils were something that was important like tyler said revelation is distributed amongst a number of individuals and even if you're amazing and you are amazing you're wonderful um it's good for you to hear from the voices of other people and learn from their perspectives it helps you be a better disciple and it helps the process of revelation to fully flow within the church thank you for joining with us wherever you are we hope you've been inspired and edified as you listen to these stories of past saints who like you desired to be building the kingdom of god we want you to know wherever you are god knows you he knows your path and he will bless you we encourage you to fill his love in your life know that you're loved we encourage you to spread light and goodness wherever you go [Music] you

Channel: Book of Mormon Central

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Keywords: Come Follow Me, Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith, Church History, Mormon, LDS, Latter Day Saint, Latter Day Saints, Lesson

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Length: 67min 28sec (4048 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021