I'm Taylor, and I'm Tyler. This is Book of
Mormon Central's Come Follow Me Insights. Today, Doctrine and Covenants
sections 94 through 97. I want to begin today with a story. This happened
a few years ago in our ward. You can picture in your mind's eye, hopefully, a sacrament
meeting that is a fast and testimony meeting, and partway into the meeting in the back
door walked one of our ward members who had spent some time in jail. He'd had many, many
struggles through his life, not an easy life. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and
his hair looked pretty disheveled, and he sat there on the back row all alone.
Partway through this fast and testimony meeting this individual got up and started to come to the
front, and when he stood at the pulpit he looked out at the audience there, the congregation, and
he started to apologize. He said how sorry he was to so many people in the congregation who had been
his teachers back in Primary and in the Scouting program and in the Sunday School program and in
Young Men's, and he told them how sad he felt that he hadn't applied the principles or the teachings
that they had given him in those classes. And then he apologized again for his lack of eloquence
in bearing his testimony. He said, I don't know all of the right words to say like the rest
of you do, and he said, you have to forgive me because my testimony is under construction.
And then he finished by saying there's only one thing that I really know. I know that
God still loves me. And then he finished and he sat down. That was interesting, because every
testimony after him for the rest of that meeting, the individuals who stood up said, my
testimony is also under construction. I like that. I like that idea of whether
you're just beginning or whether you're right at the end of your life or whether you're
halfway through your life starting over again trying to rebuild, all of us have testimonies that
are under construction. None of us have arrived. Now, with that foundation, we jump into sections
94 through 97. For starters, there's going to be a lot of discussion today in these sections about
building temples, about having these buildings be under construction. Now as we dive into the
actual scriptures, it's helpful to recognize that section 94 is chronologically out of place.
It should actually come right after section 97, so it's right here, given on the same day as
section 97, August 2nd, but because of a clerical error and because of so many script mess-ups,
it ended up getting stuck with the wrong date, May 6, 1833, which turns out to be wrong based
on further research that you can find at the Joseph Smith Papers Project, and other Church
resources point us to placing this one in August 2nd. So we're going to begin today's lesson,
we're going to do them in chronological order rather than in their section orders,
so we're going to start in section 95. Now, look at verse 1. "Verily, thus saith the
Lord unto you whom I love," and then he pauses, this is almost a parenthetical statement
here, "and whom I love I also chasten that their sins may be forgiven, for with the
chastisement I prepare a way for their deliverance in all things out of temptation, and I have loved
you." It's this beautiful companionship that he puts together, this principle of if I love you,
I'm going to chasten you. I'm going to help you find cleanliness from your sins, forgiveness of
your sins, but that doesn't come by constantly just patting you on the back and saying, hey,
keep up the good work; don't change anything. So it's an interesting word here because we
know the word chaste, which means to be like pure and actually the word pure comes
from the word fire, it means to, you are purified by fire, chastening literally
means to be pure. So God is trying to purify us, which means he has to burn off the
dross which is a little bit painful. I know I want in my own life, I want God to purify
me, but sometimes it's pretty painful and I'm like is there a way you can do this when it's not so
difficult, that it doesn't feel like chastening? But it's this beautiful word that he wants
us to be chaste, and so he chastens us. It's beautiful. This reminds me, Taylor, of Enos, chapter 1 verse 1 when he says that he had
benefitted from the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It's that – it's the nurture is
that soft, congratulatory, encouraging side, and then the admonition is that correction, that
rebuke, that disciplining side that we need both, and by the way, have you noticed in your own life
that sometimes it's those difficult, purifying, fire chastening moments of life that are
the most painful that actually turn out, once the pain is gone, that turn out to
be in hindsight some of the most cherished and shaping experiences of our life where we
actually learn significantly more at times than if it's always patting on the back, well done,
thou good and faithful servant kinds of moments. Well, it makes me think about this faithful
brother who you talked about who had some difficult life circumstances, but he had
been chastened and what he had learned was that God still loved him. God still loves
all of us, but he's still under construction, his testimony is under construction. That makes
me think about the analogy of the metaphor of a sculptor who can see the beautiful statue
that's within the rock, and the rock probably, if it had feelings, doesn't like being chiseled
and hammered so that the beautiful image that is in there can be released, and that's what
God is doing for us. That's what God was doing for this lovely brother who gave this
amazing testimony, doing for all of us, and as humans with fallen nature, we – we sometimes wish
it would be a little bit easier that we would just plop out fully formed and not to have all that
chiseling and hammering and the chastening, and yet God in his loving kindness will remind us
that his role is to help us become like him and this is all part of the plan, and so when things
get hard, we shouldn't be surprised, we shouldn't say woe is me, all is lost, just say, God is doing
his work with me and I can be part of this work. Interesting. So instead of, you know, what you're
saying here, perhaps instead of scratching our heads saying why me? Why are all these bad things
happening to me, maybe the better question would be to ask, Lord, what would thou have me learn
from this? Because chastening doesn't have to be punitive in nature; it can be – it can be very
shaping as we're going to see through here. Look at verse 2. "Wherefore, ye must needs be
chastened and stand rebuked before my face; for ye have sinned against me a very grievous
sin, in that ye have not considered the great commandment in all things, that I have given
unto you concerning the building of mine house." Interesting, the sin that they've committed
is God commanded them to build a house. It's been about a year ago when that first
came and they haven't done anything yet. Look at verse 4. "For the preparation wherewith
I design to prepare mine apostles to prune my vineyard for the last time, that I may bring
to pass my strange act, that I may pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." I need you to build
a house in order for some things to occur for you, that I can give you some things that you
don't have any idea what I'm really trying to do because I've only given you point
A where you are, and I told you, point B, I need you to get that house.
You have no idea where point Z is, but I can't get you to point Z until you've –
you work with me on point B, is what he's saying. I'm reminded of a time in my life when I was
finishing up my master's degree at Utah State University in instructional technology,
and I had some incredible professors who came to me and encouraged me to
continue on past the masters and get a PhD in instructional technology, and I thought,
I have no interest in a PhD, and I decided on over twenty occasions and I'm not exaggerating,
it was over twenty times when I decided, and my wife together and I, decided yeah, no,
I'm not going to do a PhD. But it would just keep coming up and it would keep coming up
from different angles from different people, and we would think about it and talk about
it and ponder and even fast about it, and the thought was, no, I don't need
a PhD, I don't want to work on a PhD. I don't want to spend that time away from my
family. I'm good. I'm good with a master's degree. And I'll never forget – and by the way – over
twenty times deciding not to do it, that probably gives you a clue that it wouldn't leave me alone. I'll never forget the occasion sitting on the
couch in our home there in Brigham City, Utah, watching General Conference that
particular year, many years ago, and President Hinckley said, we encourage
you to get all of the education that you can. And at that moment, that thought came
yet again, you need to go and get a PhD. I didn't know why. I didn't know what point Z was.
I just kept getting this – this prompting and I kept resisting it and I kept ignoring it and kept
pushing it back and not doing anything about it. And in that moment it was a – it was a
gentle chastening, it was a purifying fire of correction and rebuke. It wasn't a
painful one, but it was a clear one, and I decided then, okay, I need to do this.
And little did I know what doors that particular decision was going to open for me. I didn't know
what to even ask for, but God was guiding me. With your testimony under construction, you'll notice that God usually isn't
giving you the directions for point Z, he's usually giving you directions for point B,
and I'll never get to point Z and you'll never get to point Z until we act on what he's already given
us, and he's – he’s reminded these people on a few occasions to build that temple and they haven't
done anything about it yet, and so now the Lord ramps up that chastening and makes it very clear,
I have to have you accomplish this. I'm going to be giving you some things you don't know about
yet, but you have to build a temple for me. Okay? Look at verse 5. "Behold, verily I say unto you,
that there are many who have been ordained among you, whom I have called but few of them are
chosen." We're going to come back to that theme when we get to Liberty Jail in section 121, this
idea of being called versus chosen. Verse 6, "They who are not chosen have sinned a very
grievous sin, in that they are walking in darkness at noon-day." In your own realm,
I'm sure you can think of times in your life when the Lord has given you direction but you
haven't acted on it like I'm describing from my own personal background here, and it's interesting
that the Lord would use this analogy of it's as if you were walking in noon-day
but you're choosing to walk in darkness. You have all this light that's available to you
but you're choosing not to look to the light, for whatever reason. It either feels like a
task that is way too big, it's a gargantuan effort and you don't feel like you have the
means or the energy or the time or the money to be able to accomplish it, but I love the
fact that he's saying, how much energy really does it take to walk in noon-day light and
acknowledge the light that comes from above? And, by the way, I love that concept
that C. S. Lewis shared on one occasion, speaking of light and the sun. He said, I believe
in the sun, not because I can see the sun, but because of the sun, I can see everything
else clearly. You'll find that when we act on revelation that the Lord gives us, sometimes it's
not just the end goal of that particular, specific revelation that gets illuminated, sometimes it
illuminates all kinds of other things in our life that before were hidden in darkness, in dark
corners of our life that we couldn't even see, we had no idea they were even
there as possibilities for us. And so I love this concept that God is
trying to bring these people into the light of his revelation which is all centered
on what? Them building a temple. So let's pick it up in verse 8. "Yea, verily I say
unto you, I gave unto you a commandment that you should build a house, in the which house I design
to endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high." So he gives them a hint that you're
going to get power; you're going to be clothed, endowed, empowered from on high. "For this
is the promise of the Father unto you; therefore I command you to tarry,
even as mine apostles at Jerusalem." This whole temple motif that we're going to
now be focusing on over the next many years here in Kirtland and once we get to Nauvoo,
in Missouri, we're going to see later on in this lesson, that second temple in
Independence is a significant issue that we're going to have to wrestle with:
God wants us to build temples. Fascinating. If you look at 1st Corinthians chapter 3
over in the Bible, Paul gives us this little teaching that for me puts so much of our temple
construction and temple worship and temple meaning into – into context. Look at 1st
Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16. Paul, speaking to these Corinthian saints says,
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If
any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which
temple ye are." Now it's kind of significant to recognize that in 1st Corinthians 3:16 and
17, the temple that he's referring to here, he's using the pronoun ye, which, if you look in
the Greek text, he's not speaking to individuals, he's speaking to the church collectively in
Corinth, the Corinthian branch of the church, or stake or ward, whatever you want to refer to them
as, that group. He's calling them you collectively are the temple of our God and the Spirit
of God needs to dwell in that congregation, and if you defile the temple of God, then
what he says is God shall destroy that person. He doesn't want that individual
destroying the collective. Now let's go to the singular, because
Paul later on in chapter 6 verse 19, he's going to give the same analogy of a temple,
but in this case it's in the singular form of the pronoun, so he's referring to individuals. Look
at how the wording comes out. Chapter 6 verse 19: "What? know ye not that your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not
your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body,
and in your spirit, which are God's." So now he says, oh, the individual is also a
temple of the Holy Ghost and we're not our own. So I love this idea that as we bring it back now
into 1833 in Kirtland, God's asking them to build a temple. He wants a physical building so he can
endow them with power from on high. That temple, that building in Kirtland, is an object lesson for
what God is trying to do with you as an individual as well as what God is trying to do with you as
a family, as a ward, as a stake, what he's trying to do with us as a Church across the world, as
nations, as communities, is to build this place where God's spirit can feel at home, can feel
welcomed and invited and to become a part of us. Look – look now at verse 11 back in
section 95. "Verily I say unto you, it is my will that you should build a house. If
you keep my commandments you shall have power to build it." Now again, I get it. We're talking
about the physical building in Kirtland right now, but we're also talking about your testimony
that's under construction right now. If you have faith to keep the commandments that
God has given you, if you act on the revelation that he's already given you, it might be simple
things and it might be really big things that are scary for you, but if you do your best,
you shall have power to build that testimony, that conversion, that discipleship, you
will be given that power along the way. The beautiful concept for me when it comes
to temple construction and temple building, which we're in an era of the Church that is
unprecedented with numbers of temples being built, I love the symbolism of watching
all these temples being – being announced and built all over the world, and yet
at the end of the day, those temples aren't going to be saved in the Kingdom of
God. The temples, those physical temples, are simply a means to the end of what God's doing
with you and what he's doing with me through them. Now this happens in English, it's an
interesting word, we use this phrase a building, so temples are buildings and as my son David
reminds me, he's like we should call it a built because the building is complete and
yet we call it a building as if it's still ongoing, in progress, in process, and that is the
same with our testimonies, that our testimonies are a temple, it's a building that is
ongoing. A couple of interesting thoughts point out here that in often in western culture
we focus a lot on ourselves, and it's interesting here that Paul was also focusing on the community.
He wants the temple of the community built by individuals who are temple oriented. In
fact most of 1st Corinthians is focused on how do you build a solid group of saints who
are unified? And it's interesting he focuses on you cannot have a holy society if people in
that society are unholy, and so in order to have a holy society that we all focus on
building, we also have to focus on ourselves. This is interesting in verse 11, "If you
keep my commandments you shall have power to build it." Now that phrase - if you keep
my commandments – shows up all over scripture. It's usually the way that scripture ends, is
if you keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land. So look at this variant now,
and know that that's the main phrase, if you keep the commandments, you prosper. Notice
how God provides additional insights, if you keep my commandments you shall have power to build a
temple, whether it's the temple of God that we all love to see and participate in or our own temple
of our testimony. So if you keep the commandments, God will continuously be building with you that
sure foundation that leads you into his presence. Let me just share one more final insight.
What I love is how God works with his people, that in this section that's so focused on building
temples, he has these little insights packed in here that are actually very temple-focused.
For example, he talks about back in verse 2, he says you must needs be chastened and stand
rebuked before my face. And that little phrase before my face is actually temple language. If you
think back to the time of Adam and Eve, they were with God face to face. Moses in Mount Sinai was
with God face to face. The brother of Jared was on a high mountain with God face to face. Those
were all temple experiences and when you go to the temple, symbolically, you are with God face
to face. That's just what God wants. When he calls us, he is calling us that we might be face to face
with him and be embraced by him, and those who choose to be gathered are chosen, and those
who decide to walk away miss that embrace, and all of this is the purpose of temples is
to symbolize and to enact that God is trying to envelop us in his love and his embrace, and that
is what it means to be before the face of God. Excellent. Now, let's look at verse 13. "Now
here is wisdom, and the mind of the Lord – let the house be built, not after the manner of the
world, for I give not unto you that ye shall live after the manner of the world; Therefore,
let it be built after the manner which I shall show unto thee – or show unto three of you
whom ye shall appoint and ordain unto this power." When we're building up this temple in Kirtland,
he's saying, you're not going to build this after the traditional ways that other church
houses or places of worship have been built in the world. It's going to be different and I
will show it to you. And he's going to show this building committee that is selected here
– he's going to give them a vision of what that building should look like. Interesting. It's
kind of like Nephi's example back in 1st Nephi when he's going to build the boat, and it's
not after the manner of men; it's going to be after the manner that the Lord will show him.
So whether we're talking about Nephi building the boat or Joseph Smith and the temple – or
the construction committee building the temple, or whether we're talking about a
relationship of marriage of a family or leadership or church callings that you have or
the way you build your own personal discipleship and your own testimony, it can't be done after
the manner of the world. If it's going to be a temple to our God, it needs to be using his
blueprints, his guidance, and his direction. So I love that they have this command given
and, by the way, can we just point out here that you have these two Church centers, okay?
Kirtland, Ohio, Independence, Missouri, clear out on that western frontier of Missouri, and both
groups are going to be commanded to build a temple and both groups are about as poor as can be, and
some of the people don't even have the resources to build a suitable house for themselves for
their own family, and now the collective group is being asked to build a large temple, 55 feet by
65 feet, two stories high, with all of these rooms and not built out of logs. This
is a very, very expensive project that is commanded of very, very poor people who,
as they look in the mirror, are probably thinking, why is God asking me to do this? I don't
have what it takes. But I love the fact that Hyrum Smith and a couple of the other people
there on the committee, once the revelation comes, they may not have a lot of money in their pocket
but Hyrum has a shovel in his hand, so what does he do? He goes up to the property where it's
designated that the temple is going to be built, and Hyrum Smith takes that shovel and he starts
digging. Isn't that interesting? He doesn't have money to buy lots of building materials at this
point, but he at least has a shovel. I love the fact that a journey of a thousand miles begins
with getting up and taking one step forward, right? So that's what Hyrum's doing, and brothers
and sisters, whether it's a mission call, whether it's a marriage, whether it's
a calling, whether it's a new career, whether it's embarking on a difficult, long,
drawn-out medical battle that you're going to have to face because of a new diagnosis, whatever
it may be, your footsteps of faith begin with that very first thing that you can do, stick
your shovel in and start digging the foundation. What's interesting is God's talking about
building a temple up and what do they do? They start by digging down. At any time that
you want to build anything of significance, you have to start by digging down so
you can get a strong, firm foundation, and before we turned on the camera we were
talking about the Salt Lake City Temple. It took forty years to build that temple and they
spent all that time digging the foundation, laying the foundation, they had it all set up, it
was a lot of work, and then in the 1850s who shows up? Johnston's Army comes to town so they cover
over that foundation. Yeah, the members of the Church were like we don't want the U. S. military
to destroy what we've done, let's cover it so they don't know it's there. It's probably a blessing
that Johnston's Army showed up because when the crisis was over, the members of the Church
unbury the foundation and discover the sandstone was all cracked; it’s actually--looks like solid
rock but was very, it wasn't a good foundation, so they go down to Little Cottonwood Canyon and
start getting granite, really powerful rock, and they have to pull the foundation out. Now in
my own life, I really don't like it when I put a lot of work into something and people will say,
nice effort, I think you need to start over. But ultimately, this symbol of our faith now stands
strong and firm because of the strong foundations. How firm a foundation is laid for your faith? There are so many things out there. Now if you're
struggling, if you're struggling with personal issues or with doubts or with questions
about your testimony or your conversion, I love something that Jared Halverson has shared
in a couple of settings where he said it's best to go down to the foundation and analyze what you
really believe, and if there are cracks in it, get rid of it and start over. Start at the ground.
Start with your belief in God and then go from there to your belief in Jesus Christ and then
from there to your belief in prophets and then build the foundation, rather than persisting in
trying to build on a faulty, sandstone foundation. A great question that I think we can always ask
in our lives is what have I learned? Because we do have foundations in many areas of our lives,
and at times we have to go back and look at how things are doing, and we might say, gosh, I
don't want to spend all this time on this work, but the process gives us the opportunity to grow
and develop, and this is one of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself on a regular basis:
what have I learned because of this experience? What am I going to do about it? I might point
out we've been using this Salt Lake Temple as a metaphor here, as a strong foundation.
Right now this video is being filmed in 2021, and the Salt Lake City Temple, the foundation is
being re-done right now, and why is that? Because since the time of the early saints in the 1840s,
50s, 60s, and 70s and 80s, and 90s when they were building it, we have learned more geologically
about the earthquake zone that is in Utah, and we've realized that even though there's a
really strong foundation to hold the temple up, if a large earthquake hit, it might be a problem, and
so they're making some updates to the foundation. They've learned things and said, okay, let's
actually strengthen the foundation even more. So what originally was sandstone became granite,
and now from granite they'll add some other features to help the temple in case an earthquake
ever happens, that that building will not fall. I just find that fabulously instructive that all
of us, wherever we are in our lives, can ask, what have I learned and what can I do to make
sure my foundation continues to be strengthened? I love that. So our testimony really is still
under construction. Something as firm and steadfast and immoveable as the Salt Lake
Temple, it still could be improved upon. So when can you and I relax or rest and say, ah, I've
studied, I've prayed, I've fasted, all I need to, I'm just going to coast for the rest of my
life because I've built my testimony. I am no longer under construction. The minute we
do that, then those earthquakes can come along and topple that which we thought was
so – so unshakeable, so immoveable. So let's just very quickly touch on section 96.
This is, remember that the Church pulled together quite a bit of money to be able to be able to
buy the Peter French farm and tavern up on this flat part of Kirtland, and that's where they're
going to be building the temple, and they're commanded to build another big house for the first
presidency and a house for the printing and then different lots for other houses. Well, in section
96, this is the time when they ask John Johnson, remember the Johnson farm out in Hiram, Ohio, John
and Elsa Johnson? They've asked him now to join the United Firm, which we now call the United
Order, and come and use his business expertise to help pay off some of the debt that is being
incurred by the Church, so that's all section 96. Now we shift over to section 97 and we
turn our focus and our attention westward to the branch of the Church out in Zion or in
Independence. So we pick it up in verse 1. "Verily I say unto you my friends, I speak unto you with
my voice, even the voice of my Spirit, that I may show unto you my will concerning your brethren in
the land of Zion, many of whom are truly humble and are seeking diligently to learn wisdom and
to find truth." Wow, that line is so prophetic. You'll notice the date. It's August 2nd. Well,
it was less than two weeks ago on July 23rd that everything seems to hit a boiling point
in Jackson County, 800 – 900 miles away. You have the mob who is kind of fed up with the
Church members in Independence for a variety of reasons. You have this huge influx of members of
the Church coming. Many of them are poor, they're not – they're not rich, they're not increasing
the economy, so to speak. They're bringing with them some ideals that don't always align with the
Missourians, because most people living in Jackson County, Missouri, are very much oriented with
the ideals of the southern states, and Missouri is a slave-holding state, and you've got many of
these members of the Church coming and you've got some members of the Church who have been baptized
who are freed blacks and they're coming and living here, and a lot of these Missourians don't like
what they see happening, and they don't like the things that are being printed in the paper by
W. W. Phelps about the promises of this land and what the members of the Church are going
to do to Independence, doesn't exactly align with the political or personal ideals of the
majority of the inhabitants of Jackson County. So it was in July when many of these local
Missourians took the law into their own hands and they said, we're done. So it's at that
point when they go and break into the printing office of W. W. Phelps, break into this home, go
up to the second floor, throw the printing press out the window into the street below, destroying
the printing press, it's that time when they throw all of the papers that had been printed that are
going to be – that were intended to be the Book of Commandments, the original what we would call
today the Doctrine and Covenants, it's there where the two sisters, the Rollins sisters get those
papers and run out into the cornfield, that's that day, so they ransack Sidney Gilbert's store,
they tarred and feathered Bishop Edward Partridge and Charles Allen, and this is a terrible
day and they demand that these Church leaders sign an agreement that they will leave, entirely
leave Jackson County by the spring of next year. And here are these men. They are stuck between
this rock and this hard place of what do we do because we know all the revelations about this
land and now here's the mob telling us we have to sign this or they're going to kill us. And
so finally they end up signing this document that they'll leave by April – March or
April – spring of the following year, and they're left now in these subsequent
days – they've sent letters back to Joseph, notifying him of things and those events that
have transpired, but they don't know what to do. Now in that context, Joseph hasn't gotten word yet
from any messengers coming east from Independence. No letters have arrived. But section 97, look
at verse 1 one more time, the second half of it, "many of whom are truly humble and are seeking
diligently to learn wisdom and to find truth." They don't have a clue what they're
supposed to do at this point. "Verily, I say unto you, blessed are
such, for they shall obtain; for I, the Lord show mercy unto all the meek, and upon
all whomsoever I will, that I may be justified when I shall bring them unto judgment." It's this
beautiful line saying you have a lot of questions, but if you trust me and if you are meek,
I'll guide you, I'll lead you along. Now jump down to verse 7. "The ax
is laid at the root of the trees; and every tree that bringeth not forth good
fruit shall be hewn down and cast into the fire. I, the Lord, have spoken
it." So let's look at verse 8. "Verily I say unto you, all among them who
know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing
to observe their covenants by sacrifice – yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command
– they are accepted of me." Did you notice you've got a whole bunch of people out in Zion; they're
trying really hard to be good. Some of them trying a little harder than others, and some really,
really terrible things are happening to them. Some unjust judgments are being passed upon them
and some mob action is occurring against them. I love the fact that the Lord is reminding them
that if their hearts are honest and broken and their spirits contrite, that they are accepted
of him, that people on the earth can do really bad things to you, but at the end of the day,
the most important thing is being accepted of the Lord, that he'll guide us, he'll lead us
through those struggles, those trials of life. Look at verse 9. "For I, the Lord, will cause
them to bring forth as a very fruitful tree which is planted in a goodly land, by a pure
stream, that yieldeth much precious fruit." Unfortunately, for you and me – it's fortunate
but it doesn't always feel fortunate – he uses the analogy of a fruit tree. If you know anything
about fruit trees, you know you can't just plant a fruit tree and then walk away and let it just
absorb the nutrients in the water and it will become a fruitful tree. It doesn't happen. For
it to be a fruitful tree, it has to be pruned with care, which means that tree is going to get
branches lopped off and cut off and pruned off, that it put great effort into building. It worked hard to produce that and now it's going
to get cut off. So it is with the saints of God. The Lord of the vineyard is going to plant us in
certain places, but he's also going to prune us. He's also going to chasten us along the way
because that's what makes us fruitful. That's what causes the tree to realize, oh, my purpose in life
wasn't to grow wood and leaves, it was to grow fruit, and it's only once wood is cut off that
the tree then puts more of its energy into the fruit which ironically carries in it the
seeds for future generations of trees to be grown and to then start the process as well
which ties in this multi-generational conversion and faith principle
into this fruit tree analogy. Now notice verse 15. "Inasmuch as my people
build a house unto me in the name of the Lord, and do not suffer any unclean thing to
come into it, that it be not defiled, my glory shall rest upon it." They are being
told to build a temple in Jackson County after the mob has forced them to sign
this thing saying we're going to leave. Wow! What do you do with this? Look at
verse 16. Yea, my presence shall be there, I will come into it, and all the pure in heart
that shall come into it shall see God. So here these people have a choice. Are you going
to start building a temple or are you going to turn horizontal in fear? Upward in faith or
outward in fear as far as what the mob can do. Verse 18, "Now behold, if Zion do these things
she shall prosper." You'll notice that little two letter word if – you could circle that. I can't
tell you how many times in my life where I've had promptings to do things that it made absolutely
no sense. It either seemed like the wrong timing or the wrong – the wrong effort but there – there
are so many examples where God will give you the instructions of what to do and if you just trust
him – if you do these things, you shall prosper and Zion will then spread herself and become very
glorious, very great and very terrible, and then there are all of these other promises of what's
going to happen if they begin to build the temple. Now we will never know what would have happened
exactly and how that would have played out. Why? Because they didn't start building
a temple. They didn't go to that land on that bluff west of the courthouse
there in Independence and start constructing. And it's easy for us to judge them, isn't it? It's
easy for us to say, why didn't you just do it? I don't know what I would have
done in that setting with those Missourians living in Jackson County, threatening
me with violence. What we do know is that the mob realized that the members of the Church
were probably going to continue to try to bring more people in and so they didn't
wait until spring. They're going to actually ramp up the mob action and burn houses, burn
crops, kill livestock, pillage – take anything they wanted from the saints, and push them
out of Jackson County beginning in October and November of this year, of 1833. And so we're
going to cover that in subsequent lessons here in the coming weeks, but it's interesting to me
to come back to that two-letter word in verse 18, if Zion do these things. We'll never know because
when they got this revelation later on in later August, they didn't start building a temple
yet so we'll never get that end of the story. Now we jump back to section 94 because that
section was given on the same day as section 97. And now you'll notice in section 94 verse
1, "And again, verily I say unto you, my friends, I give a commandment unto you that ye
shall commence a work of laying out and preparing a beginning and foundation of the city of the
stake of Zion, here in the land of Kirtland, beginning at my house." So they actually draw
out a whole city plat plan with the temple at the center and going out. And they'd done the same
thing for Jackson County with the temple at the center and a whole city plan for how it would lay
out. But here, section 94, this is for Kirtland. Look at verse 8. "Ye shall not suffer
any unclean thing to come in unto it; and my glory shall be there, and my presence
shall be there. But if there shall come into it any unclean thing, my glory shall not be
there; and my presence shall not come into it." You'll notice we're talking about the temple and I
think if the Apostle Paul were here he would say, what? Know ye not ye are the temple of our God? We're talking about more than just brick and
mortar; we're talking about the flesh that our spirits reside in. If we allow unclean things
to come into our life, then what that does is it leaves less room for the Spirit to guide
us, to be a part of us. We will have a harder time hearing him, hearing the voice of Jesus
Christ and seeing his face and seeing his hand in our life everywhere we turn. So for
me, these sections, 94, 95, 96, and 97 are a gentle invitation and at times a loving
rebuke – chastening from a God who loves us and who is saying I have so much light and truth and
knowledge and power and intelligence to give you, but I can't give it to you if you don't build
a temple in such a way that you could have on the face of the temple written
Holiness to the Lord. This is a house of the Lord, a house of glory, a
house where the Spirit feels welcome. So our hope and our prayer for us and for all
of you is that as we move forward in life, don't be ashamed to say, my testimony is
under construction. And for some of us, it might – it might be a vision of Hyrum
picking up a shovel and walking over to a wheat field and pushing that shovel in for the
first load. Your temple is now under construction. For some of you it might be standing back and
making a really hard decision at looking at some past beliefs or past pursuits
or past efforts and recognizing they're cracked. They're not strong. They're not a
firm foundation and they need to be taken out and you need to start over with granite. For some of
you, it might be that you're placing the capstone on your temple of conversion. For others it
might be in the wintertime of your life where you realize that the building is fully constructed but
now maybe we need to put the scaffolding back up and dig down deeper and reinforce that foundation
like is happening at the Salt Lake Temple. The huge project to renovate
the Salt Lake Temple continues. From my office I have a front row seat to watch
the work taking place on the temple project. As I have watched workers dig out old tree
roots, plumbing, wiring, and a leaky fountain, I have thought about the need for each
of us to remove, with the Savior's help, the old debris in our lives. The gospel
of Jesus Christ is a gospel of repentance. Because of the Savior's atonement, his gospel
provides an invitation to keep changing, growing and becoming more pure. It is a gospel
of hope, of healing, and of progress. Thus, the gospel is a message of joy. Our spirits
rejoice with every small step forward we take. Brothers and sisters, God loves you
because you are his daughter or his son. He loves you way more than he ever
loved a building out of brick and mortar or stone of any kind. The real construction
project of the Savior is your conversion in your eternal life that can only come through him. He's
the master builder and if we let him in, he'll do the real constructing of those testimonies
and conversions that we’re seeking. Know that he lives, know that he loves you, and we leave
that with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
