Estudo do Vem, e Segue-Me (Doutrina e Convênios 41-44, Abr 19-25)

i'm taylor and i'm tyler this is book of mormon central's come follow me insights today doctrine and covenants sections 41 through 44. so before we jump in today let me just share a personal experience with you that that happened last night as we've been preparing for and and teaching these little episodes each week from the doctrine and covenants and and the further we get into it the more complex the history becomes and and the more people come into the storyline and it can get really really overwhelming at times so last night my wife went with

part of my children to the school play that they were in and i stayed home with some of the younger some of our youngest children and took care of them and then began about a two and a half hours session of preparing for today's lesson today and reading lots of books and lots of stories and fact checking a lot of things and there came a moment when i felt completely overwhelmed and completely inadequate and this sense of i'm never going to be good enough when it comes to knowing everything that i should know about these

sections and the the church history events at these at the times when these sections were given enough to where i'll be able to make sense of them in presenting to other people and it was in that moment of feeling uh terribly inadequate and overwhelmed that the simple still small whispering of the spirit came into my mind with the thought of don't try to run faster than you have strength you've got enough and the thought came to my mind of some of you in the world with so many things on your plate so many demands on

your time and energy and your efforts and realizing that you have families or you have church callings or you have responsibilities to to teach and people want to learn they want to be edified they want it to be a good experience and sometimes it's really easy as a parent or as a leader in the church or as a teacher of the gospel to feel overwhelmed so as we jump into today's lesson i just wanted to share that with you that whatever effort you put in the lord will magnify and it doesn't you don't have to

know everything about every person and you don't have to memorize all the dates and the places and the connections sometimes as we go into the into history just to to become at least a little bit familiar with their setting and their situation and their life challenges opens doors for the holy ghost to reveal to us principles then from our study and our teaching of the scriptures that become relatable applicable relevant to the situations that we're facing in our world today so to kind of make things a little bit simple here's what we're going to do

today i'm going to give out a couple of ideas of key themes to look for in these sections then i'll share a few stories from what uh some of the people that were alive at this time and they were making this transition to ohio in january 1831 before the sections are revealed in february of 1831 and then we'll dig into the doctrines that god reveals to his people so let's begin with this some of the themes that we have in these sections we have the theme of gathering theme of operations of the spirit and we

also have the theme of church administration these are some of the key ideas that you'll find in these sections there's lots of other things we could put on the board i also want you to understand that if you look at the doctrine covenants many of the sections that we've been reviewing at this point were delivered to individuals and we have a marked transition at this point in the doctrine and covenants where most of the revelations from here on out are actually delivered to the church generally even though there are still some specific revelations given to

specific individuals for the most part now revelations are giving to the body of the church why is that well the church is growing quite a bit and we started with six members in april of 1830 by january of 1831 there may be three four five six hundred members of the church and so god is now giving revelation that is providing guidance and direction to far more people and it's interesting that we start getting more of these revelations about gathering people together all these dispersed groups let's bring them together so we can build a temple let's

teach people about how the spirit works so we can have unity and not disorganization and let's teach people how to administer the church so that people can better understand the gospel and follow jesus christ so those are just some things you might want to look for so let's tell a couple of stories of people gathering joining the church and gathering with the body of the saints let's begin with zebedee coltrane january 8 1831 it's very cold in ohio the ice on the water is a foot thick and a man named solomon hancock is in strongsville

ohio preaching and zebedee coltrane hears from him in fact they stay up late at night talking about the gospel and after solomon falls asleep around one o'clock in the morning zebedee stays up pondering upon the things he's heard this powerful witness of the gospel and he determines late that saturday night we might call it really early sunday morning i'm going to be baptized into god's kingdom so the very next morning sunday morning they cut a hole in the ice a foot thick and he gets baptized now i grew up in minnesota and there's something called

the polar bear plunge there is a lot of sacrifice at times to be a member of the church and i just find it incredible that zebedee was so anxious to join a god kingdom not even a foot of ice and the cold biting wind of a january in ohio could keep him from the warmth of the spirit that he'd receive by baptizing and being brought into god's kingdom now what's amazing about zebedee is he is one of the longtime faithful early members of the church he ended up dying in 1887. he came with the body

of saints out to utah many years later in 1847 and he eventually became a church patriarch and one of the great stories of zebedee coltrane is two apostles george albert smith and melvin j ballard when they each were individually 13 years old received their patrick blessings from zebedee culture and he promised each of them prophesied in their picture of blessings that they had become apostles in the church and years later when they did and they got talking about their young lives they discovered this common connection that both of them had received their patriarchal blessings under

the hand of zebedee coltrane and had received the promise that they would become apostles just a fun story of what's happening as joseph smith is transitioning from new york to ohio that we have these saints that are gathering people discovering the gospel like zebedee culture another story that i really love at this time is that of mary rollins some of you might know her she was this young girl who with her sister preserved what had been printed in the book of commandments the early doctrine covenants after a mob had ransacked the printing press well when

she was 12 years old she was living with her widowed mother and her family at her uncle's house sydney gilbert and one of the early lds missionaries isaac morley had come into town with a copy of the book of mormon now even though many copies have been printed in the book of mormon isaac morley apparently only had one and mary rollins this 12 year old girl pressed upon isaac throughout the day like i want to read this book and he kept looking at her like hey this is my only copy and i have other people

i need to teach and other people who should read this finally he relented and allowed mary to take the copy with her so that evening with her family they took turns reading to each other from the book of mormon and stayed up quite late reading well the next day isaac comes to retrieve the book of mormon and let me share with you in her recollection what that exchange was like and how isaac you know this this missionary didn't really expect a 12 year old girl to have been that faithful at reading the only copy of

the book of mormon that was available for dozens of miles she said this after she woke up the next morning as soon as it was light enough to see i was up and learned the first verse in the book when i reached brother morley's they had been up for only a little while when i handed him the book he remarked i guess you did not read much of it i showed him how far we had read he was surprised and said i don't believe you can tell me one word of it i then repeated the

first verse also the outlines of the history of nephi he gazed at me in surprise and said child take this book home and finish it i can wait i love the faith of a 12 year old girl we might remember that jesus at age 12 was also going about his father's business just this is what we also see with mary rollins and so wherever we are in our lives we might take encouragement from the story of mary rollins of this intense and loving desire to read god's word now luckily we live in a day when

access to the scriptures has been far easier than ever before and i hope that all of us have the same alacrity and desire to consume the word of god as we saw with mary rollins we tell these stories to enlighten and inspire us these individuals gathering into god's kingdom but also to remind us that there is sacrifice involved when we choose to follow jesus i mean we could tell a story again of joseph smith here he is in january packing up yet again how many times have they moved now in their four years of marriage

with emma like four or six times quite a few times and the fact is is remember emma has already lost one child their first born named alvin and now she's in her third trimester of pregnancy with twins and she's struggling it's painful it's it's middle of the winter they've gotten into this sleigh with uh so we're coming to the ohio with sydney rigdon and edward partridge who had come to new york to meet joseph so we're relocating we don't have a place to really live we arrive in kirtland joseph jumps out of the sleigh goes

into new okay whitney's store goes bounding in sticks his hand out and says knew okay whitney thou art the man and he's like you got the better of me i couldn't i don't know what your name is i don't know who you are and he says i am joseph smith you prayed me here now what do you want me to do and thus begins this this bond this friendship where the whitneys actually moved to their upstairs to allow joseph and emma a place to stay that was kind of their landing spot later on they're going

to move to the isaac morley farm and from there later on in the year they're going to move to hirem ohio to stay with john and elsa johnson on the johnson farm and so we're bouncing around but there's incredible sacrifice and shortly after giving birth to these two twins neither one of them survive another couple in kirtland had just had twins themselves the murdochs and unfortunately sister murdoch passed away and so joseph and emma are able to take those two twins and adopt them and to provide for them and to to raise them and sometimes

these are hard stories to tell because later a mob attacks the john johnson home where joseph smith is staying and dragged him out and and actually one of the twins is exposed to cold and later dies and hopefully none of us have to experience such hardships but we want you to know that god is with us and he's aware that we all suffer and struggle it is part of life and he provides revelations to provide us guidance and encouragement and i'm just impressed with joseph smith i think about my own life the things that i

feel impressed by god to get done if i had to be packing up every couple months of moving into somebody else's house and like and not even having a routine where i can get stuff done and so we just tied this together these stories that sacrifices involved when we're invited to participate in god's kingdom and so don't be surprised if life's a little bit difficult just know that you can always turn to god and he will provide the comfort support and salvation that you need to make your way through sounds a little bit like the

fourth verse of praise to the man sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven it just you see it throughout the scriptures not just in church history but throughout all of the scriptures but here it's a little closer to us and on a personal note i often have said to god in my moments of sacrifice like listen you could give me a multiple choice test about sacrifice and i think i could probably get in a b or maybe a minus range and answering the questions but do you really need me to actually like i don't need

to take home assignment here so yeah i don't want to have that kind of test i'd rather have the written test not the not the limit kind of a test that god just says to me oh brother taylor that's not quite how it works here yeah that's beautiful now let's open up section 41. you'll notice this is the the first of what is the 65 sections given in the kirtland era this is where the biggest number of doctrine and covenants sections are revealed and this is the very first one section 41 which comes right before

the big one the law and we'll get to that in a minute but as we now transition into the ohio you'll notice there are some questions where where do we live uh a guy by the name of lehman copely has a very large farm in the thompson township near kirtland and he he has offered to to take care of joseph and emma and have them come and so as they ask the lord what do you want us to do about this section 41 is given and in this section we get we get more than what

we asked for which happens all the time for us as we as we kneel down and plead with heaven for particular blessings have you noticed that sometimes god answers your question or answers your prayer but then he gives you answers to questions you didn't even ask or he gives you direction you you weren't even capable of of approaching him to seek his guidance on because you didn't know about it yet that's kind of what seems to be going on here in section 41. so first of all they're told that they need to continue to assemble

together and that a house needs to be provided for joseph and emma um and then you'll notice in verse 5 actually as he leads into this he's he's contrasting between two people two kinds of people and he even though he doesn't use the exact words here like he does in the book of mormon and in the new testament of the wise and the foolish whether it be the virgins or the wise men and the foolish man he's constantly in scriptures showing you the contrast between that which is just really wise to do and that which

you should just avoid it at all costs because it's foolish we'll look at the contrast here verse five he that receiveth my law and doeth it the same is my disciple and he that receiveth it and doeth it not the same is not my disciple and shall be cast out from among you it's pretty simple this is not this is not rocket science here you'll notice that in both cases both groups of people receive the law both of them know exactly what god wants them to do the contrast so that's the similarity now the contrast

is the wise actually do it they they strive to live it to become that the foolish reject it they they don't follow what they've received so he talks about how to become a disciple this is an interesting word it actually is from the same word discipline now many of us want to do important things in our lives or at least do something that matters and it takes discipline to do things that matter or say if you go to school you might study a particular discipline so you can either be chaotic in your thinking you're doing

or you can be disciplined and follow a standard practice or ideas or rules of thumb or whatever it might be or or scientific ideas so the idea here is that to be a disciple you have to be disciplined you have to be willing to be disciplined and this goes back to the idea of the sacrifice that's involved in following god it's not just a free-for-all and it's not always easy it sometimes requires well actually it always requires that we are discipled or disciplined in our efforts so as you think about what we hear in in

these this section you ask yourself am i willing to discipline myself as god has asked me to do am i willing to be careful about my appetites and passions and to discipline myself so that i'm really willing and able to hear god's spirit speak to me so now they're told in verse 7 this is this the verse where it refers to to joseph smith jr should have a house built in which to live and translate so it's not just to live but it's a place that like taylor was talking before a space where i can

carve out some time some energy some effort to be able to do the things that god has has asked him to do in this case one of the major jobs that that lies in front of him is to to complete that translation process of the of the bible then you get the additional stuff that comes starting in verse 9. again i have called my servant edward partridge and i give a commandment that he should be appointed by the voice of the church and ordained a bishop under the church to leave his merchandise and to spend

all his time in the labors of the church he's been trained as a hatter he build he he makes hats that's his occupation and he's told leave that occupation and now come and in this early day of the the church it was going to be a full-time job for him to be our first called and ordained bishop and since that time we've had tens of thousands of bishops in the church and it's a remarkable office in the priesthood this calling for for him and for everyone since then to be a bishop to be this shepherd

over the flock to to watch over and and direct and work with and help the saints move forward uh you'll notice verse 10 the description to see to all things as it shall be appointed unto him in my laws in the day that i shall give them in other words i'm going to give my law through the prophet but it's the bishop who's going to see to it that these things are actually carried out at that more local level from from our perspective of the church today so our english word bishop uh originally comes out

of the greek word epi scopos scopos means to see like our word spectacle uh so epi means over and scopos to look at so it means an overseer somebody who watches over and what a great name what a great title what a great word that god would use to describe a position an office a priesthood opportunity to look out for people you have to kind of be on the high ground or in the tower right we often hear the watchmen on the tower somebody who has a larger perspective of what's going on and is able

to warn and encourage and support so this title is a very important one and section 41 is the first time in the modern day and restoration where we have a bishop and if you want to find where we first have bishops mentioned in the new testament it's acts chapter 20. now i do want to point out even though there's an official priesthood office of being a bishop any one of us who were overseeing those within our realm of influence say a parent overseeing children we aren't bishops per se officially but we are playing the role

of an overseer so yes god is officially called overseers but all of us should be looking out for one another and assisting the bishop who's assisting jesus in the work of god okay section 42 you could just write in your scriptures if you like marking them the law because it's been promised that it would come and and we've gathered to the ohio and here the lord gives it to them actually beginning on february 9th but then two weeks later he's going to give the the last uh sec part of the section versus 74-93 they're going

to come a couple of weeks later and kind of in follow-up to to some questions and to some clarification that was needed regarding the implementation of the law as it was originally laid out now keep in mind we call it the law and there's a whole bunch of crossover between what you get in section 42 and what you get at mount sinai where the law the original law of moses was given and then jesus gives us the higher law on the mount of beatitudes and in the book of mormon at the sermon of the temple

and you're going to see a lot of crossover between these different givings of the law it's important to note that when god reveals his law it's not to say okay now totally disregard everything i've said before it's to in the words of president hinckley it's bring all the good that you have and then watch as i add to it as we build on it and that's kind of what's going to be unfolding here in section 42 for this this quickly growing body of saints that are going to be continually gathering to the ohio they're given

the law now it would help to to understand what brought this on in the original version they had actually written down in the manuscript the questions that these elders had asked that then the lord gives the response and in subsequent uh versions of of the printing of the book of commandments in the doctrine and covenants rather they've crossed out those questions that were given that brought on section 42 because they felt like this is not on the same level because it's not revelatory these are just our questions but it's helpful for us to know what

those questions were so here you go the first 10 verses section 42 verse 1 through 10 are an answer to this question shall the church come together into one place or remain as they are in separate bodies that was the simple question verse 1 through 10 is going to give us the answer then the huge chunk verse 11 through 69 11 to 69 the question that is being answered is what is the law regulating the church in her present situation till the time of her gathering and then verse 76 through 73 is going to help

the priesthood holders learn their obligations that the church owes to the families while they're fulfilling their obligations to the church in other words you've got the bishop edward partridge and his two counselors who are devoting basically all of their their time and energy and effort to the building up of the church and so those verses refer to what is the church's responsibility to help them now provide for their family since they're no longer performing their their trades or their their normal work and then the final set of verses 74 through 93 once again they they're

answering specific questions that the elders had uh regarding questions of church discipline and what do you do when when people don't keep certain laws that have been given how do we how do we manage that how do we move forward and before we jump into this law we want to remind everybody that that god is a covenant making and a covenant keeping god in fact it's interesting if we go back to the law of moses uh he gave it side that god gave to moses people sinai the word law the underlying hebrew word there is

torah and it actually is interesting the word torah really comes from the hebrew meaning of instruction and really it's actually covenantal instruction and loyalty so let me just explain this briefly section 42 is the law of god but it's torah it's instruction god is giving us covenantal instructions to show us how to be loyal to him god has all these things he wants to offer us he wants to freely give them to us though we have to show our acceptance of what he wants to freely give by being loyal to him and how do we

know how to be loyal you cannot be loyal unless it's revealed and that's why you need god's laws so you have instructions for how to show covenantal love and loyalty back to god so as you look at these verses in section 42 you can say to yourself what has god revealed to me in the latter days that i can do to show that i am loyal to him that i love him and what you'll notice much of it is giving instructions for how we love others for as we love others we are showing that we

love god so now let's watch as god makes very clear his identity in this case it's it's jesus christ look at verse one o ye elders of my church who have assembled yourselves together in my name even jesus christ the son of the living god the savior of the world in as much as you believe on my name and keep my commandments so he sets very clearly the intro now we're going to answer the question and he he tells them about the need for them to come together to be strengthened but then to separate two

by two and go out into the world north south east and west and preach this gospel which is a gospel of gathering israel to invite this god um the savior of the world the son of the living god to be able to come into their life and have them come into the fold into that covenantal fold of god look at verse 9 he tells them that they're going to to go out and preach in every region verse 9 until the time shall come when it shall be revealed unto you from on high when the city

of the new jerusalem shall be prepared ye may be gathered in one that ye may be my people and i will be your god so here we have the nutshell definition once again of every covenant that we ever make with god and it's very simply put him saying to us i will be your god and then the other part of the nutshell definition you will be my people and brothers and sisters this this covenant connection this relationship with the god of the universe who knows all things has all power he's saying gather people in one

into my fold that's that's what missionaries are doing that's what mommies and daddies are doing that's what we're doing every time we repent i love what president nelson said anytime we do anything to help anyone on either side of the veil come closer to god we're helping to gather israel we're helping god to prevail in in the world and in in the lives of of people all over the world it's a powerful invitation that he gives us now verse 12 this is you could call this the law for teachers or the law of teaching in

the kingdom of god in the latter days verse 12 13 14. notice the wording here again the elders priests and teachers of this church shall teach the principles of my gospel so number one teach principles of my gospel not just ethics not just philosophies of the world but teach the principles of my gospel which are in the bible and the book of mormon in the which is the fullness of the gospel now at the time that this was given we don't have a book of commandments that's not going to come until 1833 and then the

book of doctrine and covenants the first edition 1835 we don't have that but if we had i think the lord would have included the bible the bookworm and the doctrine and covenants and then much later decades later the pearl of great price the canon of scriptures is where we find the principles of the gospel now notice this verse 13 and they shall observe the covenants and church articles to do them and these shall be their teachings as they shall be directed by the spirit you know taylor mentioned this earlier it's a lot easier to pass

a multiple choice or a written test asking questions about principles of the gospel it's way easier to do that than it is to actually live the gospel in its in its fullness going through life and notice the qualifier in 13 they shall observe the covenants and church articles to do them if you want to teach with power it's not just knowing all the facts and the figures and the dates and the names and the places it's putting those in a in a way that they sink from your head into your heart and then out to

your hands where you actually put the gospel into practice you don't just talk about it you don't just memorize facts but you strive to become more like god so if we're going to love him with all our heart might mind and strength you'll notice we dedicate our our feelings and our heart to him and our mind we worship him with our mind which means we study whenever you study the gospel whenever you open your scriptures whenever you engage in a study of the words of the living prophets and our church leaders that is one way

that you're showing god that you love him by loving him with all of your mind you're thinking you're pondering you're studying but then it's with your might and strength as well that you overcome these natural man and natural woman tendencies of the flesh in a fallen world and you observe the covenants and church articles to do them and you do this as directed by the spirit i love verse 13 and then verse 14 and the spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith and if you receive not the spirit ye shall not

teach it's interesting if you were to change that ye into a thou then it becomes very similar to mount sinai language thou shalt not teach you teach what you are did you catch that it's not just what we say or write or put up on a screen those are those are techniques those are elements of teaching you teach what you are or who you are look at jesus christ the master teacher why was he the master teacher it's because he was the master disciple he his words his miracles all of his doings and sayings all

of it combined were simply a reflection of who he was and there was incredible power in everything he did and everything he said hence the master teacher because he had perfectly observed the covenants and church articles to do them and it shows now notice he then goes down to verse 16 and as you shall lift up your voices by the comforter ye shall speak and prophesy as seemeth me good so if you're sitting at home feeling overwhelmed feeling like you're never going to be good enough you're never going to have enough knowledge to be able

to teach or to train your children or to help your grandchildren or loved ones or serving your church calling brothers and sisters if you come back to the law of the lord he doesn't he doesn't fill us with this spirit of overwhelm of overwhelmment he gives us this spirit of peace that you do the best you can at learning the the principles of this the gospel from the scriptures and the words of living prophets and then do the best you can to observe to do them and to strive to live the gospel and the holy

ghost will help you speak and prophesy as seemeth him good it's very very comforting for for anybody who has to teach or lead in any way then he shifts gears into this long list of of the second half of what would be the law of moses's ten commandments the ones that are associated with how to treat each other love your neighbor you'll notice the first four commandments of the ten are really focused on how we love god and then the final six are focused on how we love our neighbors ourself well verse 18 thou shalt

knock hill verse 20 thou shalt not still 21 thou shalt not lie verse 22 thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart and shall cleave unto her and none else do any of you find it interesting that there are only two people in the scriptures that you're commanded to love with all of your heart it's the lord and your wife or your spouse i think i think he's helping us understand the importance of that covenantal connection not just with him but in this context with in a marriage covenant that we we love our spouse

with all of our heart and cleave unto her and unto none else and then he talks about adultery unlusting in 23 and 24 and uh working our way through this process of repentance as need be then look at verse 30 behold thou remember the poor so now we're shifting into this you can't move forward and leave people behind in the gospel and the poor in this context are the the financially poor and destitute he tells them that will remember the poor and consecrate of thy properties for their support that which thou has to impart unto

them with a covenant and a deed which cannot be broken so now we're shifting gears in verse 30 and then leading down 31 through 39 40 we're going to talk about the law of consecration so you have a group of people living at the isaac morley farm who have agreed to to live a communal life and this was before the missionaries even showed up and then they learned the gospel and many of that group joined the church and so now they've had some struggles at the isaac morley farm with how to implement this this communal

living they're trying to do what they're reading about in the book of acts where peter and the early christian church are are living this united order where they have all things common and they're struggling at the at the morley farm so here in the law the lord lays out some principles of the law of consecration that clarify and make it a little more structured on how this should work in the kingdom and it's uh it's fascinating to watch different phases of church history in different locations where they try to live this this united order all

things in common and there are some times when it works really well and other times when even with this additional information it doesn't it doesn't work great but the principle is very simple with the bishop as the over seer he has all of the resources of the church that everybody pays into and the bishop then sees what your needs are and he appoints you what you need for your family to some less than others and others have greater needs it's this uh it's this amazing principle the law of consecration which is rooted on a couple

of key elements the first key element is this because if we're not careful discussions about the law of consecration quickly evolve into discussions of well then why why don't we try to promote complete uh takeover of all resources at a central location than to redistribute it and that gets into all kinds of crazy political discussions that we're not going to touch with a 10-foot pole here the fact is agency is completely involved here it's core to what's going on the second thing is an understanding of stewardship versus a principle of ownership where in in some

contexts we think everything i've got is mine and in this context they're saying you have a stewardship you give everything you own to the to the building up of the kingdom of god and then you're given a stewardship back that's what you have to be responsible for and you have to develop this and take care of it and magnify it multiply it make it make it shine make it beautiful so they're going to be some people you'll notice who who do really really well with this model they're going to be some who do okay with

it and then others who struggle and others who completely reject it and it's going to cause a lot of problem for that group so there's this wide wide range of response to the lord's law of consecration and to what it means to actually be a steward and to use my agency to trust god in this kind of a a economic setting i want to share just a really really quick personal experience with you that is relevant to this particular issue years ago when my wife and i were first married we were we were pretty poor

i was finishing my final year of my bachelor's degree at the university up at utah state and we had a very very strict line item budget we knew where every dollar was going to be spent because we didn't have very many of them so we needed to know where they were all going and then something happened our first baby boy was born and when benjamin arrived that kind of changed our line item budget a little bit and after one month the the budget was all in the red in every category and i could see we

were going to be in trouble if we didn't make some adjustments and so i asked my wife to sit down and let's analyze the budget and i said honey we've got to cut back on some of our spending in areas that we can so my wife sat down next to me and she said okay i think we should add five dollars to our fast offering and i said honey we're trying to cut back on the budget not add to the budget we've got a spending problem here not a not a saving problem and she said

i i understand and i think we should add five dollars to the fast offering budget i said honey look at the fast offering budget we're poor starving college students with a new child and we've already we're already paying what i think is a generous fast offering it represents more than what we would pay for missing those meals once a month this is already a sacrifice for us and she looked at me and she said tyler i get all of that but i think the first thing we should do is add five dollars to our fast

offering budget i was so frustrated i was praying heavenly father help her to understand basic principles of mathematics because she's clearly not getting this so i said tell you what sweetie how about if we go through this process of subtracting and and and cutting back on other areas and if at the end we can find five additional dollars somewhere else to cut then we'll put it in the fast offering budget and she said once again no i think we should start by adding five dollars to the fast offering budget that didn't uh that didn't sit

well with me and we we weren't angry but boy i was a bit frustrated and i said you know what let's just figure this out later and she agreed that happened to be the saturday of a fast sunday so the next day was fast sunday and i had to fill out a tithing slip with our with our tithing and fast offering that very day so she was in the room not with me and i pulled out the tiding slip and i filled it out for the the old amount but we didn't have a tithing envelope

in our day planner so the tithing slip and the check were just sitting there later in the day kiplin came and found those and she she came to me in the kitchen and said oh tyler thank you that means a lot to me and i had no idea what she was talking about and she's hugging me and i'm all confused and then later i went to the day planner after she had left and i opened it up and i pulled out the tithing slip and there in my handwriting was written the fast offering amount plus

five dollars more than what we normally pay i felt like my agency had been violated i didn't know how this had happened because i had intentionally tried to write the old amount but somehow in that process i had written the new amount and the check was written out for the the new amount and brothers and sisters it was in that moment that my prayer to understand basic principles of mathematics for her was answered on my own head where little old tyler griffin understood basic principles of mathematics the way the lord does math the principle i

learned from my sweet wife was sacrifice just a little bit of what you feel like you don't have and then watch what god does to multiply the remaining portion of what you do have whether that be with money whether that be with talent whether that be with time or energy or resources or expertise whatever it is if we can be more kind and outward turned with the poor and the needy whether it be in the financial room or any other realm watch what the lord does with the remaining portion i'll never forget the lesson that

day that the lord taught me through my dear wife now very quickly um let's let's jump down to verse 40. again thou shalt not be proud in thy heart let all thy garments be plain and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands it's this idea of he's inviting these people don't try to be pleasing to the world but try to be pleasing to god and verse 41 let all things be done in cleanliness before him that verse right there is actually part of the temple recommend interview where the lord has commanded

that all things are to be done in cleanliness before him it's a beautiful phrase and then he speaks in this law of consecration it doesn't it doesn't work if you've got a lot of people sitting out here idle and so he he talks about that thou shalt not be idle for he that is idol shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer everybody has to be contributing to the best of their ability and there are going to be varying levels of ability and that's totally okay but you're all contributing and then

he talks about how to deal with the sick and the afflicted and tells them that the elders should be called to lay hands upon them and if they die they shall die under me and if they live they shall live unto me we know that there are many of you who are watching this who have lost loved ones either recently or or in the more distant past and in many cases these are situations where people with priest authority laid hands on their head to bless them and maybe those blessings didn't always result in healing and

it can be pretty troubling because we we as humans from our mortal perspective we want everybody to always be healed and and everything to always work out for for a long long long life of peace and prosperity and sometimes it doesn't work that way really really quickly another personal experience from my mission i was brand new in brazil serving in the kurichiba brazil mission with elder pratt and we had found this elderly gentleman named sebastian who had had a pretty rough life and here towards the end of his life his late 70s we teach him

the gospel and he is so excited to receive the gospel and he's looking forward to his baptism date a few days before he was to be baptized we find out that he's in the hospital with a terrible case of pneumonia and he's not doing well and he asked for us to come and give him a blessing so we go and elder pratt being the incredible trainer that he was and and working with me and helping me to develop he he insisted that i be the one to give sebastian the blessing and he would do the

anointing keep in mind i'm i'm still brand new and i'm struggling with portuguese and having a hard time i had no idea what to do elder pratt finished anointing and then i laid my hands on sebastian's head and he was very clearly in pain and not doing well having a hard time breathing and it came very very distinctly into my mind the words in portuguese of let him go release him it's his time but here i was a brand new missionary and i was i was going to be able to baptize him and so i

didn't bless him to let him go i blessed him that he would get better i blessed him that his family would come and join him in the church and throughout that blessing the words kept coming to my mind let him go let him go let him go but i didn't let him go because that wasn't my will at the end when i finished the lesson or the blessing sebastian turned to me and he said really really i'm gonna get better i didn't have a lot of confidence when i kind of feebly nodded and said yeah

i think you're gonna be okay and as we were walking out elder pratt turned to me and he said elder griffin did you really feel like he's gonna get better and i said no i had the words to let him go keep coming to my mind but i didn't want to let him go he said that's interesting because that's what i was feeling the whole time is that we should have uh allowed him to move peacefully to the other side of the veil sebastian died a few days later two days later and uh that was

a lesson that i learned uh the in a painful way is when you're when you're standing there speaking for the lord if the person is appointed to live then they're going to live with this prayer faith this blessing of faith and if it's their time to go or to die then it's best to let the spirit decide that and to follow that direction that's one of the things i look forward to in the next life is meeting sebastian and going up to him and asking him to forgive me for seeking to do my will rather

than the lord's will but i know that he was comforted in in those final days of his life regardless of the imperfections of a brand new missionary serving in his area there in tarumah brazil then the rest of this section for the sake of time he he gives various elements of the law of scriptures and the coming forth of scriptures the establishment of new jerusalem some more clarification on the law of consecration and then some issues with church discipline before we jump into section 43 so section 43 is an interesting one because we have yet

again the question in the young church where do we receive revelation there was a woman who came in their midst named laura hubble and she had been professing revelation and similar to what happened some sections before with hiram page and his seer stone and people thought well gosh i mean hiram's a good person let's follow him as well and joseph had received revelation that there is order in how revelation is received and this section again declares the order of revelation that god's church god's kingdom is a kingdom of order so it's a very lovely section

and that again is the context and in your own life you can ask yourself what are the sources of truth that i have in my life and am i looking to the right sources for truth so like taylor said we're not going to cover all the verses but i just wanted to to focus your attention on two verses very quickly verse 8 now behold i give unto you a commandment notice this isn't just a suggestion or recommendation this is a commandment that when ye are assembled together you shall instruct and edify each other you'll notice

all of our meetings in the church and in our families it's this idea of instruct teach and edify edify coming from the same root as edifice it's this building up it's a constructive thing so you you instruct and edify each other why that or we might say today so that or in order that ye may know how to act and direct my church how to act upon the points of my law and commandments which i have given verse 9 unless you shall become instructed in the law of my church and be sanctified by that which

you have received and you shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me that's the essence of this gospel message to the world is to come and bind ourselves to god and to to make and keep those covenants even though we have all these tugs and pulls of the world trying to get us to to abandon those those promises that we've made verse 8 9 is a really really good blueprint for us to follow anytime we're going to assemble and have any kind of a meeting it's beautiful to see his his invitation to the

whole world what our missionaries are doing they're going out and preaching the gospel and he's promising them saying you know we've been preaching the message but if you don't repent then the day comes when thunders are going to start preaching this message and you're going to have the the voice of god speaking to you in other ways that maybe aren't quite as pleasant as having some missionaries teach you the gospel and he he invites all nations of the earth to listen and to come unto him section 44 is a interesting little section the church had

been meeting every quarter for a general conference now we do it every six months and apparently with everything was going on in early january with moving everybody from new york to ohio uh apparently the plan for the next conference had not been uh the date had not been established and so god here reveals to joseph smith that people should gather the church should gather again a date was established and he gives instructions about why they should be gathering and what they are supposed to be doing in preparation for that gathering so as you get ready

on a bi-annual basis to participate general conference you might look at section 44 for some guidance and insight from god about why he wants his people to gather on a regular basis we want to say thank you for spending time with us we love your love for the gospel and we want you to know that god loves you and we encourage you to spread light and goodness wherever you go [Music] so you