BYU SPEECHES OF THE YEAR, 1987-88 TABLE OF CONTENTS KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS--BEGINNING RIGHT NOW! M. RUSSELL BALLARD FEAR NOT PATRICIA T. HOLLAND "WHO WE ARE AND WHAT GOD EXPECTS US TO DO" JEFFREY R. HOLLAND TRUTH AND LIBERTY L. TOM PERRY FREE AGENCY AND FREEDOM DALLIN H. OAKS THE LAW OF CHASTITY EZRA TAFT BENSON THE STREAMS OF YOUR LIFE DAVID B. HAIGHT CRYING WITH THE SAINTS GLENN L. PACE OF SOULS, SYMBOLS, AND SACRAMENTS JEFFREY R. HOLLAND THE UNIVERSITY OF MORTALITY L. TOM PERRY KEEPING THE GOSPEL SIMPLE GLEN L. RUDD BEING A WORTHY YOU PHILIP T. SONNTAG UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE HEART ROBERT D. HALES CYCLE OF LIFE J. THOMAS FYANS STUDY, FAITH, AND THE BOOK OF MORMON JOHN W. WELCH LESSONS FROM THE MASTER MARVIN J. ASHTON ONE MAN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE F. MELVIN HAMMOND THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS MARION D. HANKS KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS--BEGINNING RIGHT NOW! M. Russell Ballard Elder M. Russell Ballard was sustained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 7 October 1985. He was previously a member of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy and served as Executive Director of the Church's curriculum, correlation, and missionary departments. Elder Ballard was born in Salt Lake City, graduated from East High School, and attended the University of Utah before serving a mission from 1948 to 1950 in England, where he served as counselor to two mission presidents. Twice he has been a bishop and considers experience in a bishopric to be "one of the greatest schooling grounds of the Church." He has also served in the high councils of two stakes, and at the time of his call as a General Authority he was president of the Canada Toronto Mission. Elder Ballard has been successful in various business enterprises, including the automotive, real estate, and investment businesses. Elder Ballard and his wife, Barbara Bowen, are the parents of two sons and five daughters. This fireside address was given in the Marriott Center on 6 September 1987. We call this a fireside. I'm not really sure what that means in the Church. But let me use my own interpretation tonight if I may. I would like to talk to you as I would talk to my own family--somewhat informally, but very earnestly. I would like to talk to you tonight about matters I think are of deep concern and I hope of deep interest to you in your lives as you prepare for the future. NOW IS THE TIME Let me begin by reminding you that being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a very special privilege. Understanding the basic principles of the plan of salvation and the principles of life that we are to live by here upon the earth is a great blessing. Some of you may need to study the doctrines more diligently so you will know the full significance of the covenants and ordinances of the gospel plan and how it provides for us. Brothers and sisters, it's wonderful to know of God's plan to exalt his children. In mortality, separated from our Heavenly Father, we all walk by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must know his teachings and keep his commandments. The missionary Amulek had some marvelous instructions on this subject. I read from the writings of Amulek as recorded in chapter 34 of Alma. Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you. For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors. And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed. Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world. Amulek continues, For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked. And this I know, because the Lord hath said he dwelleth not in unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell; yea, and he has also said that the righteous shall sit down in his kingdom, to go no more out; but their garments should be made white through the blood of the Lamb. [Alma 34:31-36] Brothers and sisters, today, tomorrow, next week is the time for our preparation. In fact, it's a lifelong effort; it does not stop until we are safely dead with our testimony still burning very brightly. We ought to reverence life and cherish every minute of it. It should be so precious to us that we feel compelled to commit ourselves to making each day the very best day that we can, preparing ourselves someday to meet our Heavenly Father. Not one of us here tonight knows how long he will be here upon the earth. Therefore, a wise man or a wise woman will constantly evaluate his or her life in light of the teachings of the gospel. We need to look deep into our own hearts and compare what we see in our lives today against what we have been taught about the glorious plan of salvation. Many may find that their lives are out of synchronization with the plan of salvation. If we see something in our lives that is not what it ought to be, then we must have the courage to repent and make the necessary changes immediately. Tonight, my beloved young people, will you think about your own life? Think about how you're doing right now in keeping the commandments of God. Do you see something in your life that is less than what you want it to be? Are you struggling with some habit or behavior that is not in harmony with the plan of salvation? Our Heavenly Father has such great confidence and trust in us that he has given us the freedom to make our own choices in life. Please listen to your conscience; it will help you make proper decisions if you will learn to follow its promptings. Looking inward into one's own life takes a lot of courage. I know this because I have to look into my own. And sometimes we may see things in our lives that must be changed if we are going to enjoy the blessings of the gospel and prepare ourselves for eternal life. If you know of things in your life that you do not like, ask your Heavenly Father for help and you will find the inner strength to change. Do not deceive yourselves, my beloved young people, and never suppose that you can deceive the Holy Ghost. We can deceive ourselves and others, but we cannot deceive the Holy Ghost. He is our spiritual teacher and knows our thoughts and the intents of our hearts. Please do not attempt to accommodate your habits or behavior by making your own plan or by modifying or adjusting or tampering with God's plan. Sometimes we find young people who think that the gospel is too narrow. They think that the plan of salvation is too restrictive and come to believe that God will "understand" if they elect to "do their own thing." Please do not be lulled into that kind of thinking; rather, exercise faith and develop the courage to look inward, comparing your life to our Heavenly Father's plan. The world is full of many voices saying that God's plan of morality, honesty, and integrity is old-fashioned and no longer required. You must never believe anything like this, but rather you need to know the doctrine and live by the teachings of the gospel. The prophet Alma said: And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance; But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering; Having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter into his rest. And may the Lord grant unto you repentance, that ye may not bring down his wrath upon you, that ye may not be bound down by the chains of hell, that ye may not suffer the second death. [Alma 13:27-30] Tonight, brothers and sisters, find the courage to repent if necessary. By so doing you win cleanse your life and you will demonstrate unto your Father in Heaven your love for him. Many people find that making commitments is difficult. However, in my opinion, you will find that you can make some commitments tonight just as easily as at any other time in your life. In fact, it might be easier tonight, as you look into your life, to make those commitments you need to make to improve your life. Righteous commitments that improve your life now will bring blessings both here in mortality and in the eternities to come. FIND YOUR ETERNAL COMPANION There shouldn't be a more righteous group of young students anywhere in the world than you who are beginning a new year here at BYU The standards are high at this university, and they should be, for this is the university sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ. University training is preparation for life. The opportunities to meet fine friends of similar beliefs and standards are excellent here on this campus. Now, may I speak about a principle of the plan that needs more of your careful attention. The principle is temple marriage. I worry about you handsome returned missionaries (I emphasize returned) who may be postponing or delaying marriage. Brethren, I do not believe you're thinking straight about this part of the plan that is required if you are to inherit the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. President Joseph F. Smith said, I want the young men of Zion to realize that this institution of marriage is not a man-made institution. It is of God. It is honorable, and no man who is of marriageable age is living his religion who remains single. [GD, p. 272] It is abundantly clear that young men can understand the gospel plan and know that the celestial kingdom will be a wonderful place to live; but to get there, a man must enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. Now, brothers and sisters, don't be afraid of the future. I hear some young people say, "With the economic situation the way it is in the world and with the uncertainties in the world, I just feel I must be financially secure before I can enter into a marriage relationship." Let me tell you something about that. The reality is this: you must not look at marriage from a financial point of view, butrather from the eternal point of view. Far too many young men and women in the Church are allowing the economics of marriage to influence the decision of whether or not to get married. Please keep the financial concern in its proper perspective and do not allow it to be the factor determining when you marry. Look at your eternal destiny in light of the glorious plan of salvation that God has given to you. With this in mind, look for and find that companion who will assist you and strengthen you and be a helpmate to you. Some of you are not working on this as you should. Find your eternal companion, then get married and begin the most fulfilling time of your life. I think back to 1951 when Sister Ballard came into my life. When I saw her' I fell in love. I have to admit that I worked very hard to get her to understand that I was the only true returned missionary. Brethren, sometimes you have to put forth that kind of effort! I have often told our children that the best sales accomplishment of my life was getting their mother to agree to marry me. In my case, I had to work hard to win the heart of my precious companion. Some of you may need to do the same. We were married in the Salt Lake Temple. I had a part-time job and was attending the university (I won't name which one). She also had a job. Together we were very careful. We saved what we could. We had a hard time and we had some desperate moments. But as we look back on our thirty-six years together, some of the most beautiful times of our lives were during those early days of our marriage when we were your age. Sister Ballard was nineteen and I was twenty-two. Do not miss living through the difficult times with your companion. I believe in many ways Barbara and I became more dependent upon each other and more dependent upon the Lord in those early days of our marriage than perhaps at any other time. Some are concerned about supporting children. I tell you tonight: do not worry about it. If Barbara and I had sat down and figured out what children would cost and whether we could afford them, we never would have had any. Yet we are now the parents of seven children and grandparents of twenty-two grandchildren--and within a matter of weeks, twenty-three. Of all our life's accomplishments, our children and our grandchildren are the most precious. We could not afford any of our children, but they are here and doing well. We have given them much love and they have given us much love in return. Today when we gather together as a family, it is glorious to us. We made it work and so can you. President Benson said recently, Young mothers and fathers, with all my heart I counsel you not to postpone having your children, being co-creators with our Father in Heaven. Do not use the reasoning of the world such as "We'll wait until we can better afford having children, until we are more secure, until John has completed his education, until he has a better-paying job, until we have a larger home, until we have obtained a few of the material conveniences," and on and on. This is the reasoning of the world and it is not pleasing in the sight of God. [Address given at a fireside for parents by President Ezra Taft Benson, 22 February 1987] In section 131 of the Doctrine and Covenants we read: In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase. [D&C 131:1-4] Brethren, don't tamper with this truth. Keep thinking straight about fulfilling this most exhilarating, exciting opportunity you will ever have in mortality. To me, there is no more important thing for you to do than to find your companion, drawing him or her close to you, and together building an eternal family. The words of our beloved hymn, 'Oh My Father," are true: In the heav'ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason; truth eternal Tells me I've a mother there. [Hymns, 1985, no. 292] May I say a word to you sisters? Please continue to be sweet, clean, pure, and prepared. Live each day with an eternal perspective in mind. I'm aware that there are some here tonight who may never have the opportunity of marriage here in mortality. President Spencer W. Kimball had this to say on the subject: Marriage is honorable. It's a plan of God. It is not a whim, a choice, a preference only; it's a must. We are talking to normal young people. Generally there are husbands for most young women. There might be an occasional young woman who does not find her companion, but there is little excuse for the normal young man. I tell young women who seem to have missed their chance for desirable marriage that they should do all in their power to make themselves attractive physically in dress and grooming, mentally in being knowledgeable on many subjects, spiritually in being responsive, emotionally in being genuine and worthy. And if one fails to find a companion after having done everything possible, then there will be provision for her in eternity. ["Marriage Is Honorable,' Speeches of the Year, 1973 (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974), pp. 261-62] President Kimball also said: Women of the church who do not in this life have the privileges and blessings of a temple marriage, through no fault of their own, who would have responded if they had an appropriate opportunity--will receive all those blessings in the world to come. [TSWK, p. 295] The key, then, for all of us is to live worthily by keeping the commandments. REPENTANCE Just three weeks ago, a friend of mine who is now serving as a bishop here at BYU came to my office. The purpose of his visit was to seek some counsel from me on how to deal with the moral transgressions his ward members were confessing to him. The bishop shared the fact that in the five months he'd been bishop, seventeen students had confessed moral transgressions. He was concerned that more women were involved than men. This report concerned me, so I looked into the matter further and learned that some students have unconfessed transgressions before arriving here and others transgress during their enrollment, but they deliberately wait until they are about to graduate or get married before they clear up their problem with their priesthood leaders. Some have indicated they were afraid to confess earlier because they might face Church discipline that could affect their right to continue as students. I doubt that repentance deferred for that kind of perceived advantage will ever bring the same cleansing power and peace that a more timely confession would produce. I now understand more and more why Jesus taught repeatedly that we are to declare nothing unto this generation except repentance. I used to think that was a little narrow. Now I am beginning to see the power in it. As men and women understand the principle of repentance and as they apply the principle to their daily lives, repentance is the process of cleansing, purifying, and sanctifying themselves to prepare them to become Saints. Thus we can all become sanctified, cleansed, and purified through the blood of the Lamb. My plea to you students is to keep the commandments beginning right now. If you have a problem that needs to be confessed to your bishop, then I urge you to see him this week. Don't wait, for he will help you repent and start the cleansing process that you need in your life to remain on the path ultimately leading you to the celestial kingdom. Be grateful, brothers and sisters, that the plan provides for repentance and be wise enough to use it when you need to in your lives. THE PLAN OF SALVATION Some sisters say they are confused because the Church teaches them to prepare to be a wife and a mother but also to prepare to be self-sufficient. Some say a career is so important they will not allow marriage to interfere. As in all aspects of life, we must each find a proper balance and then wisely maintain it. I was interested in a recent article I read. It reported that many women who are very successful in their chosen careers oftentimes feel unfulfilled and desire more than anything else in life to become mothers. This desire is easy for us in the Church to understand because motherhood is a divinely proclaimed blessing. Sisters, there is a need for you to continue preparing yourselves for a happy and fulfilling life, and you can do this best by living true to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I would rather be a woman not entering into marriage in mortality than a man. I would not want to stand before the Lord as a healthy, normal man and try to explain why I never married. Please understand that temple marriage is absolutely vital in our quest to inherit the highest degree of the celestial kingdom. Now we may ask, Why do the prophets teach that today is the day of our salvation? Why do they teach us not to procrastinate our repentance or our other important decisions in life? My grandfather, Elder Melvin J. Ballard, said: It is my judgment that any man or woman can do more to conform to the laws of God in one year in this life than they could in ten years when they are dead. The spirit only can repent and change, and then the battle has to go forward with the flesh after-wards. It is much easier to overcome and serve the Lord when both flesh and spirit are combined as one. This is the time when men are more pliable and susceptible. [We will find when we are dead every desire, every feeling will be greatly intensified.] When clay is pliable it is much easier to change than when it gets hard and sets. This life is the time to repent. That is why I presume it will take a thousand years . . . to do what it would have taken but three score years and ten to accomplish in this life. Grandfather continues: The point I have in mind is that we are sentencing ourselves to long periods of bondage, separating our spirits from our bodies, or we are shortening that period, according to the way in which we overcome and master ourselves. [Melvin J. Ballard--Crusader for Righteousness (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), pp. 212-13] Let us remember, brothers and sisters, we knew before we were ever born that except we receive a body of flesh and bone and experience mortality we can never become like our Father in Heaven. He has a body of flesh and bones that has been glorified and exalted. He is our father; we seek to be like him. He has told us we can be like him. He has given us the plan, the central figure of which is his only begotten son, even Jesus Christ. The Savior is the key to making the plan work in our lives. The more the mysteries of the kingdom of God unfold to us and the more we understand God's plan for us, the more adoration, affection, love, and commitment will fill our hearts for his beloved son Jesus Christ. I pray that our Heavenly Father will bless every one of us with an increase of love for the Lord and a keen desire to serve him, to keep his commandments, and to live true to the plan of redemption and exaltation that is ours. In section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants we read: Now, verily I say unto you, that through the redemption which is made for you is brought to pass the resurrection from the dead. And the spirit and the body are the soul of man. And the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul. And the redemption of the soul is through him that quickeneth all things, in whose bosom it is decreed that the poor and the meek of the earth shall inherit it. Therefore, it must needs be sanctified from all unrighteousness, that it may be prepared for the celestial glory; For after it hath filled the measure of its creation, it shall be crowned with glory, even with the presence of God the Father; That bodies who are of the celestial kingdom may possess it forever and ever; for, for this intent was it made and created, and for this intent are they sanctified. And they who are not sanctified through the law which I have given unto you, even the law of Christ, must inherit another kingdom, even that of a terrestrial kingdom, or that of a telestial kingdom. For he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory. [D&C 88:14-22] So it is quite simple--if we want a celestial glory in the eternities, then we must live by the celestial law now. The plan of salvation is the glorious process by which men and women walk through mortality with the light of the gospel giving correct spiritual direction. Jesus has shown us the way to live here upon the earth. Brothers and sisters, we can inherit a celestial glory, we can dwell where God and Christ dwell and live with them forever and ever. All of these promises, however, are predicated upon our willingness to love God with all our hearts, to keep his commandments, to repent of our sins, and to love and serve our neighbors and our fellowmen. The first principles and ordinances of the gospel are clear and simple to follow. Through our obedience and willingness to keep the commandments and to serve, love, and honor the Lord, we can purify our lives. MAY GOD BLESS YOU God bless you to love this church and all that it teaches you. You will never possess anything in life remotely as precious as your understanding of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation God has for his children. Love the Lord and follow his plan, including getting married and having a family. We are grateful that you students are enrolled here at BYU. We want you to enjoy your time here. We hope you will study hard and learn as much as you can about your chosen field of education. We pray that in all of your learning, you will learn for yourselves that you have a glorious eternal potential. You must study hard and pray continuously to know the fullness of our Father's plan. When you and I understand this eternal truth of the gospel and bind ourselves to keeping all of the commandments, we will find joy and happiness in this life beyond comprehension. The more you love and serve the Lord--you missionaries here tonight will soon learn this as you embark on your labors in your missions--the more you will prepare yourselves to dwell in his sacred presence. You are wonderful young people. There are none better--we know that. General Authorities of the Church often talk about you, this great generation of young people. We love you, we have confidence in you. We want you to be the very best you can be. If there is something holding you back from being your very best, I'm here tonight to say that with this new school year, what better time is there to clear up any problem you might have? Then you can get on with the positive things in your life. We hope you will take every advantage while on this campus to prepare yourselves intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually for the challenges that lie ahead. You are in training here at BYU. Your spiritual preparation and training are an essential part of your education to prepare yourselves to lead your own families as well as to assume other leadership responsibilities that will surely be given to you in the Church. I testify to you that what I have been talking about here tonight is true. I know that Jesus is the Christ. Brothers and sisters, you simply cannot do the work that members of the Council of the Twelve and other General Authorities are called upon to do if you do not know that Christ lives. He is very close to this work, and I love him. No greater honor could ever come to a man than to be asked to bear witness of our Savior's name throughout an the nations of the earth. I do that with great humility and gratitude. I witness to you tonight that he is the Son of God. This is his church. The plan of salvation that we have been talking about is from our Father in Heaven and our Lord Jesus Christ. The commandments are for our good, and if we will repent when we need to and then live true to every commandment, we will surely rejoice when the day comes for each one of us to pass by the angels into the sacred presence of our Heavenly Father and his beloved son Jesus Christ. God bless you. May he bless you to always think clearly about your life, that you may progressively learn to live in complete harmony with the teachings of the gospel. May the Lord bless you with peace and happiness while here at BYU. Live the standards here. Don't fight them, brothers and sisters, live them. Keep the commandments of God and you will gain a positive assurance that the gospel of Jesus Christ is God's plan of happiness for his children here upon the earth. This I know to be true. Because of my great affection and love for you, the youth of the Church, and the great affection I have for the missionaries of the Church throughout the world--some thirty-three thousand now--my prayer is that you'll catch the vision, that you will see the big picture, now. Don't wait--get it now and understand that each of you has glorious eternal potential. Do those things that you need to do in your own life. Correct those things that need to be corrected. Be a better you as we start a new year here at this great university. I invoke a blessing upon you now. Humbly, I plead with the Lord to bless you, my beloved young people, the youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--the cream of the crop of all of the youth of the world, as far as I'm concerned. May he bless you to cherish the plan of salvation--to know it, to study it, to strive with all the power within you to live true to it, that you might make the contribution to this world and particularly to this church that is uniquely yours to make. You can do this through your faithfulness, through your attention to spiritual things, and through your willingness to strive with all the power that you have to love and serve your Father in Heaven and his beloved son Jesus Christ. May this be your blessing, may this be a blessing to your leaders and to me, that we all might go forward together in accomplishing the glorious purposes of God. This is my humble prayer, my testimony, and my blessing upon you, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen. FEAR NOT Patricia T. Holland Both Patricia Terry Holland and her husband, President Jeffrey R. Holland, were born in St. George, Utah, and went to Dixie College. They were married while attending BYU, and their first child was born while Jeff was working on his master's degree. Moving from Provo to New Haven, Connecticut, for Jeff to attend Yale University, the Hollands returned to Provo, only to move to Salt Lake City when Jeff became the Church commissioner of education. In the midst of all this activity and moving around, Patricia Holland became the mother of three children, Matthew, Mary Alice, and David, supervised the packing and unpacking, and made their various residences seem like home, finding time to practice her music and to work in the Church. She served four times as Relief Society president and also in the Young Women and Primary organizations. In May 1984, Patricia was called to be first counselor to Ardeth G. Kapp, president of the Young Women organization of the Church, and held that position for two years. Both Sister Holland and President Holland spoke in the Welcome Back Assembly, a devotional held in the Marriott Center on 15 September 1987 as the school year began. If my fourteen-year-old son's vocabulary is any indication, it is in vogue to be "weird" or feel "weird" or act "weird." I'd like to begin this morning telling you of a truly "weird" experience I had last year. A "WEIRD" DREAM Some of you will remember that last November we had a concert on campus featuring Billy Joel. Now President Holland and I aren't quite up to the Billy Joel kind of performance (we are more into the St. George Senior Citizens Chorus), so we didn't attend. But the night after the Billy Joel concert, I had a very unusual dream--a "weird" dream, I think it is safe to say. I dreamed that Billy and I were driving down the highway talking about his experience at BYU. I was driving the car and completely in control, but suddenly I became terrified of something that was ahead. So, instead of continuing on our journey, I veered off the road and sent the car careening over the edge of a steep cliff. Instead of the crash landing expected, we were somehow plucked out of the car and perched safely on a ledge hidden from view. We sat comfortably, watching huge crowds of people milling down below. They were coming and going and looking around but never discovering the occupants of the battered car. When I awoke the next morning, I was incredulous! What on earth--I said to myself--would a forty-five-year-old mother hen to thousands of BYU students have in common with Billy Joel? Now, at this point, I suppose I do have to confess to you that one of my lifelong secret desires has been to play the drums in a rock band, but that didn't seem to be adequate motivation for a 3-D, Cinerama, Dolby sound, full-length "weird" dream. I pondered a long time about that dream--and whether it is the right interpretation or not, I finally decided that I had associated Billy Joel's concert performance for you with my own frequent assignments to speak to the same kind of crowd in this same monstrous hall and with every one of those same eyes upon me. I surmised that neither of us needed to put up with such performance fears any longer, so I just detoured us over the cliff. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask Billy if he wanted to accompany me. But that's the price he had to pay for riding with me. Next time he may want to take Greyhound. Nonsense and rock concerts aside, I think I really did identify with the public performance of such a concert and subconsciously preferred to hide in safety, far from the gaze of the crowd. Anonymity has always seemed pretty appealing to me, yet here I am--and there you are--and the show must go on, again! I tell that ridiculous, but true, story for a purpose this morning. I have wondered and worried and prayed about what to say to you. And I have felt that perhaps some of you, who may feel a bit shy and more than a little overwhelmed at a place like BYU, need to know that the rest of us are pretty shy, too, and that lots of people--maybe most people--have fears about new experiences with people we don't know. As long as I'm already on the analyst's couch with my dream, I will go on to confess that I have always had my fair share of fears, too, and maybe you have as well. Life has lots of challenges, and some of them can be fearful. THE REAL PROBLEM I remember the fear I had coming here as a new student. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to pass my exams or even find the classrooms. I was afraid I wouldn't get along with my new roommate. I worried that my money would not last, and I was certain that I would never get asked for a date. On occasion I still awaken in the night in a cold sweat, having dreamed I had gone a whole semester without attending a class I'd registered for and that my transcript had incompletes and UWs stamped across the front of it. I have, in the course of my forty-plus years, managed to worry about almost everything. That's the bad news. The good news is that almost none of the things I have worried about or been afraid of have ever happened. I suppose that is why Elder Packer said recently, "You can't tell me worrying doesn't help because the things I worry about never happen." So I have come to realize, as perhaps you need to, that our real problem is not so much fear of things or people or places but rather fear itself. I've learned, as many of you have, that such anxiety is one of Satan's greatest tools, and it needs to be opposed. REPLACE FEAR WITH FAITH In a motherly sort of way, I plead with each one of you to understand that your opportunity to learn can greatly magnify your faith--faith in yourself, faith in your future, faith in a God who is your father and who loves you. Please understand this right now--God is not a vengeful, punitive god who is somehow looking for new ways to torment, embarrass, and punish you. For too much of my young life that is the way I saw him, and I often obeyed him out of guilt and anxiety rather than faith and genuine desire. But you--you are here at the university that teaches of a living God, of which Elder George Q. Morris, a former member of the Council of the Twelve, once said, "It is called the Brigham Young University, but it is the University of the Kingdom of God" (Ernest L. Wilkinson, ed., Brigham Young University: The First One Hundred Years [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975] 4:391; emphasis added). Please understand, you have come to a place designed by God, governed by apostles, and presided over by a prophet to help you discover your divine potential. I promise you that if you will treat it seriously and sacredly, faith will begin to replace fear, and you will stand confident before God and man, Brother Dennis Rasmussen of our philosophy department has written: To be a child of God is to share his divine nature. But that nature is still potential in man, and the purpose of life (and I might add learning) is to make it actual.... Man has invented many names for himself, most of them are wrong. But man wears them like labels and often comes to believe them. Who has not worn with shame and mute belief the name of Stupid or Awkward or Nobody or even Wicked? But God calls to man with a new name that only God can speak. He addresses his children born in his image and asks, "Can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?" (Alma 5:19.) [Dennis Rasmussen, The Lord's Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response (Provo, Utah: Keter Foundation, 1985), pp. 7-8; emphasis added] We owe it to that divine potential in us to look up to God without fear. Some of you wonder whether God even knows you exist, or if he does know, does he care that you exist? He declares in reply that he knows every one of you and loves you dearly and can call each of you by name. He has promised that the very hairs of your head are all numbered to him. "The very hairs of your head"--that proclaims a lot of fatherly interest. He has also declared that not even one sparrow will fall to the ground unnoticed. "Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than ... sparrows" (Matthew 10:30-31). Did you notice the way the Lord begins that scripture? "Fear ye not." Have you noticed how often the Lord prefaces so many things that he has to say with the words fear not? He knows that an people struggle with fears and anxieties and problems. He wants so much for us to know that. If we will but come to him, he will comfort and reassure us. And he will carry us in his arms until we are able to walk by ourselves. For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. [Isaiah 41:13, 10] "I WILL NOT FORGET THEE" As a new school year begins, I know that some of the pressures of study, finances, employment, and dating weigh heavily upon you. Take your fears to the Lord. Talk to him and listen to him. Then, if you feel a spiritual motion as tiny as the touch that a butterfly's wing might make, acknowledge it, heed it, and let his influence work upon you. The Lord wants you to succeed even more than you want to yourself. Have faith in a perfect Father's love, fearing nothing. Remember that love is promised not just to those who have never made a mistake, but that love is promised to every one of us--who have all made mistakes. I think I have a glimpse of that kind of love because of my own experience of giving birth to three beautiful children. I have discovered that the child who is at the moment content and happy often has little need of me. That gladsome child usually runs away to play. But the child who has made a mistake, has faltered, or is wounded or frightened turns quickly to come back home for reassurance. As that child draws near unto me, nothing--I repeat, nothing--can stop the opening of my heart or the reaching out of my arms to enfold him or her into my protection. Is anything more powerful than a mother's love? The scriptures say one thing is more powerful. But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me--but he will show that he hath not. For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget [As unwilling as I am to believe it, Pat Holland may forget her children. Yea, earthly mothers may forget], yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. [I Nephi 21:14-16; emphasis added] Christ's compassionate atonement is more powerful than even a mother's love. He has engraven us upon the palms of his hands, and those marks make certain that he will never forget us. I bear my witness that he will never forget us. I promise that we will not forget you either. We love you and pray for your success. "Fear not," in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. "WHO WE ARE AND WHAT GOD EXPECTS US TO DO" Jeffrey R. Holland President Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife, Patricia Terry Holland, are natives of Utah's Dixie. After serving a mission to England, Jeff returned to his hometown of St. George, where both he and Patricia graduated from Dixie College and then came to BYU. They were married before Jeff received his baccalaureate degree with highest honors in 1965, and their first child was born in Provo while he was working on his master's degree. He was a seminary teacher in Hayward, California, and Seattle, Washington, before being able to take up graduate studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he received his Ph.D. in American Studies in 1973. From New Haven, the Hollands returned to Provo, where Jeff was dean of Religious Instruction at BYU before he became the Church commissioner of education. In 1980 he was called to be president of Brigham Young University. Sister Holland and President Holland spoke in the Welcome Back Assembly, a devotional held in the Marriott Center on 15 September 1987 as the school year began. Sister holland and I are delighted to welcome you back to BYU for a new school year. We especially welcome those who are with us for the first time, whether as freshmen, transfer students, or those simply seeking good, solid catastrophic insurance coverage. Welcome one and all. We want you to have the best year ever. REMINDERS FROM THE PAST Even as we greet you at the university, however, I am aware that at least one writer believes most of what you need to know was suggested to you more than a dozen years ago. Given the costs of a university education, such an assertion is worth investigating. Consider his argument. Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandbox. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some, and draw and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap in the afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up, and nobody really knows why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup--they all die. So do we. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: look. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The golden rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations always to put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. [Robert Fulghum, "We Learned It All in Kindergarten," Reader's Digest, October 1987, p. 115] I admit that is a pretty good beginning-of-the-school-year speech, whether you are five or fifty or a university student at BYU. In fact, maybe most of the important things we need to hear in life have long since been said to us--probably many times. The inestimable Samuel Johnson once said that people needed reminding far more than they needed instructing, so my few moments with you this morning win be devoted to reminders largely drawn from the past. OUR TRADITION But preserving our past without compromising the present is often no easy matter--it can put us in a precarious position, something like, well, a fiddler on the roof. In fact, for this morning's message I wish to invoke Tevye's help in recounting and reminding very briefly truths taught to most of us since kindergarten and before. Here's Tevye on "tradition." When he says "Anatevka," think " Provo. A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up here if it's so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in a word--tradition! Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything--how to eat, how to sleep, how to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered and always wear a little prayer shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I'll tell you--I don't know! But it's a tradition. Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do. ["Fiddler on the Roof," in Great Musicals of the American Theatre, ed. Stanley Richards, vol. 1 (Radnor, Pennsylvania: Chiton Book Company, 1973), p. 393] "Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do." Who are we, then, here at BYU? And what does God expect us to do? For one thing, he expects us to remember we are heirs of a gospel dispensation that had among its earliest commandments the challenge to "seek . . . diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, [to] seek ... out of the best books . . . learning, even by study and also by faith" (D&C 88:118; see also D&C 88:78). This crucial commandment was inextricably linked with the profound restored truth that taught us we are literally sons and daughters of God and that we can someday become like him. Restored truth taught that God's glory is his intelligence and that it is to be our glory as well. That inestimable doctrine, restored to a darkened world more than a century and a half ago, has in that length of time developed into a strong tradition for Latter-day Saints, the earliest of whom labored by day and read books by night in an effort to become more like God "by study and also by faith." It is not insignificant that the central symbol and only tract of their early faith was a book, a written record that would give meaning to all they did and to everything they believed. No one had to tell them the importance of reading; it was a "habit of the heart." Later they would gather in the upper room of their Ohio temple to study not only theology but also mathematics, philosophy, English grammar, geography, and Hebrew. And on the banks of the Mississippi they would plan Nauvoo, the City Beautiful, their Zion-like city/state, around two great centers of learning--a temple and a university. Even when driven from their homes, the Saints kept the dream alive. In dugouts and cabins, handcarts and Conestogas, school kept. It was not easy but it was doctrine. "It is impossible ... to be saved in ignorance," their prophet-teacher had told them, and "Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection" (D&C 131:6, 130:1819). They believed him. They were as hungry as Erasmus, who said, "When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left [over], I buy [bread]" (in Distilled Wisdom, ed. by Alfred Armand Montapert [Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1964], p. 39). "Wherever Mormon settlements have sprung up, the village school has been among the first things thought of and provided for," said future president of the Church Lorenzo Snow. In those parts of the new Mormon territory where buildings were not available, schoolteachers simply did the best they could. Said Apostle George A. Smith of his experience in southern Utah, My wicky-up is a very important establishment, composed of brush, a few slabs and 3 wagons. [It has a] fire in the center and a lot of milking stools, benches and logs placed around, two of which are fashioned with buffalo robes. . . . [It was, however, unpleasant] to see my school some of the cold nights in February, scholars standing round my huge camp fire, the wind broken off by the brush and the whole canopy of heaven for covering. Thermometer standing at 7 ... I would stand with my grammar book, the only one in school, would give out a sentence at a time and pass it around. [Ernest L. Wilkinson and W Cleon Skousen, Brigham Young University: A School of Destiny (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1976), p. 15] Out of that tradition for learning, that near-unquenchable thirst for knowledge, has come this university--a far cry from milking stools, buffalo robes, and one text; a far cry from what a century of our pioneer ancestors fought for and dreamed of but for the most part did not live long enough to see. We owe them something. We who are the beneficiaries of their sacrifice and their faith--we owe them the best effort we can put forward in obtaining a truly edifying and liberating and spirit-soaring education. Work hard this year. Take advantage of every opportunity. Play a lot less and study a lot more. Learn to write and speak well. Make an investment in yourself the way the tithe payers of the Church have made one in you and see that bread cast upon academic waters come back to you and your posterity a hundredfold. Load your handcart full of books and start off for Zion. Take this university forward in the same way your ancestors took it forward--often with nothing more tangible to sustain them than their dreams and their traditions. "The glory of God." "Light and truth." Most of you have heard all of that since kindergarten or before. The question for us now, this year, at BYU, is, "What will we do with this ideal?" Remember Anatevka. "Everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do." Tradition! A TWO-FOLD MISSION Closely linked with that latter-day pursuit of learning is another tradition at BYU. The first year I came to the university as president I coined a homely Latin phrase, virtus et veritas, to define a two-fold mission at BYU. I added to the search for veritas (truth)--a motto from the Harvards and Yales of the world--a second task, virtus (virtue), believing with all my heart that how one lived was the ultimate test of an education, that truth standing undefended or unexercised was unworthy of the investment that had gone into her discovery. In doing so I knew I had not only the philosophers but also the prophets of God on my side, past and present. Indeed, a modern First Presidency of the Church said this in a better way than most professional educators would ever say it. Said Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards: If men [and we would add women] would be great in goodness, they must be intelligent, for no man can do good unless he knows how; therefore seek after knowledge, all knowledge, and especially that which is from above, which is wisdom to direct in all things, and if you find any thing that God does not know, you need not learn that thing; but strive to know what God knows, and use that knowledge as God uses it, and then you will be like him; [you] will . . . have charity, love one another, and do each other good continually, and for ever... But if a man have all knowledge, and does not use it for good, it will prove a curse instead of a blessing as it did to Lucifer, the Son of the Morning. [Millennial Star 14:22, 15 January 1852; emphasis added] What a striking educational philosophy! It sounds so simple: learn and love, strive to know what God knows, use that knowledge as God uses it, and you will be like him. Strive for education to do each other good continually and forever. But of course that was first taught to you in your kindergarten years. Play fair. Don't hit. Clean up your own mess. Hold hands and stick together. Our education has always carried with it ineluctable moral obligations. How important is all of this in 1987 as we balance precariously on the BYU roof? Very important, I think. As a nation we are swirling in--and seemingly overwhelmed by--ethical and cultural and political chaos. The moral implications for our society, as severe as any America has faced, are serious partly because they threaten the very idea of society so directly. These violations of the commonweal damage our efforts to live together in trust and reciprocity. "The United States needs to recover some idealism," read one recent newspaper headline (commentary by George R. Plagenz, Newspaper Enterprise Association). "Universities are turning out highly skilled barbarians," trumpets a national news magazine (U.S. News & World Report, 10 November 1980, p. 57). We are a "nation without honor," declares a monthly periodical; a "nation of liars," cries another. Even the Pope travels to America to remind us of our lost virtues. And no less an arbiter of national virtue than Time magazine runs a cover story on "sleaze, scandals and hypocrisy, " documenting the nation's frenzied search for its values, a mad scramble for bearings in a time of stunning moral disarray (Time, 25 May 1987, cover). I say stunning because I simply can't quite keep it all straight lately. Was it Gary Hart and Fawn Hall or was it Jessica Hahn and Michael Deaver? Ivan Boesky was trading something--was it arms for hostages or a fake blessing given to Joseph Smith III? And which were the good marines and which were the bad? Were the call girls in the Russian embassy or in the recreational theme park? Was it a PTL boat that landed in Nicaragua? Or have I got Tammy Bakker mixed up with Howard? Forgive me if I seem to grope. But lest we smile, university students have also contributed their share to the general morass. Consider this from a recent educational quarterly: Popular literature has painted today's generation of college students as a cynical bunch of money-grubbers, willing to stoop to any level to "get ahead. " . . . Sadly enough, ... students [today do] not cherish or even understand the basic principles of academic honesty. The evidence, based almost entirely on self-reporting, shows clearly that the levels of [university] cheating are high.... The picture ... is of a self-centered, competitive, insecure, and cynical generation of students, committed to getting the most out of the present [regardless of the cost to others]. In this context, it is not surprising that colleges and universities are becoming concerned about the ethical standards of their students. [Richard A. Fass, "By Honor Bound: Encouraging Academic Honesty," Educational Record, Fall 1986, p. 32] Becoming concerned? "The ethical standards of their students" is not just a trendy issue at BYU; it is our heritage, our tradition. And it should be a tradition at every university. But quite frankly, universities as universities only can't do it. As Hitler rose to power and forged the infamy of the Third Reich, Germany had the finest university tradition in all of continental Europe. And most of the truly desperate and severe problems I have referred to in America--whether moral, political, or cultural--have come at the hands of university-trained men and women. (I intentionally use the word "trained" rather than "educated.") No, "full and fair intellectual inquiry" alone won't do it. Academic instruction unmeasured and untempered by integrity, instruction unenlightened by the civilizing forces and moral obligations that go with the truth will simply produce ever more "highly skilled barbarians." And almost any newspaper or nightly news broadcast can show us plenty of those. Remember, "If a man have all knowledge, and does not use it for good, it will prove a curse instead of a blessing as it did to Lucifer, the Son of the Morning." Of course, the saddest element in all of this for me is not that the world doesn't understand civilizing values or, worse yet, that educationists often don't, but saddest of all is that each year a few of us at BYU don't seem to get it either--even with long-established and frequently repeated LDS traditions to guide us. The infractions of those very few then often damage the experience and opportunity of the rest of you. You are a remarkable generation in every sense of the word. I salute you and admire you and love you. A SHARED SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY It goes without saying that at BYU we do bear a special burden because we point out we are different here, because we say we stand for something traditional and spiritually worthwhile. Of course the moment we say that, we are marked women and men--there are multitudes who would love to bring us down. But that's all right; it's just all the more reason for us, after cookie and milk time, to hold hands and stick together. By the time we come to a university we've had adequate time to consider this shared sense of responsibility we have for life lived together. This bicentennial year of the U.S. Constitution is a good time to consider that earlier pledge from the Declaration of Independence--that democracy rightly lived requires a commitment no less than "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor," as Jefferson finally phrased it. I'd like to think in some modest way that BYU's "gamble" in the twentieth century on the virtue and morality and integrity of young men and women is not unlike America's gamble in the eighteenth. Ben Franklin spoke for all of us at BYU when he said at that fateful signing, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately" (to John Hancock, on signing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). We don't have to quote John Donne at this point to remember that no man is an island. "Ask not for whom the BYU carillon bell tower chimes, it chimes for thee." Everyone who enters this university has, in a rather literal way, entered a covenantal society. When we come to BYU we come to take our position on the roof, with violin in hand, and we declare to the rest of the world, "Tradition." Our tradition. BYU tradition. And that doesn't just mean ringing the victory bell after a ball game or lighting the Y at Homecoming, as fun and rewarding as those lesser traditions are. Indeed, lighting the Y doesn't mean one thing, doesn't justify the electricity it takes to do it, if the meaning behind that mountaintop symbol, "the spirit of the Y," is not manifest in each of our lives. In covenantal societies, everyone has to help, everyone is accountable because one theft of a piece of art (or bicycle or backpack), or one abuse of drugs (prescription or otherwise), or one sexual transgression seemingly pursued in darkened secrecy and the light on that hillside Y grows a little dimmer. It isn't just the flame of education that flickers then; it is the even more serious faltering of covenants that have been compromised. Tradition? Tradition! A lot of it, dearly earned and even more dearly defended. It's tough keeping our footing on a slippery roof, but there we are, determined to stay so long as there's a BYU. I am just biased enough to believe it is the best university in all the world for you to attend. That is why we care about your lives, including how you look as well as how you act. Be well groomed and modest as an outward statement of an inner grace. Shorts and miniskirts are not acceptable dress on this campus, and we ask you not to wear them. Please be aware that far more important than (but not unrelated to) outward appearance is the integrity and the disciplined behavior displayed by a citizen voluntarily choosing to live in a rigorously disciplined society. Be true to Christ and your covenants. In an age when culture is about five miles wide and three-six- tenths of an inch deep, I am asking for something deeper. I want an inspiring past, present, and future--in short, a tradition--that will give depth and height and millennia of meaning to your relatively short time at BYU. It will only come from our understanding of the glory of God and our determination to enjoy fully his blessings to us. Do you remember the seed and the cup from the kindergarten story? "The roots go down and the plant goes up, and nobody really knows why." At BYU I want our roots down and our plants up--and the more visible those stems and branches and blossoms are, the deeper our roots will have to go to sustain them. Please don't get caught in shallow soil, intellectually or spiritually. The Savior taught powerful parables about seeds needing to be planted deeply and houses needing to be built on strong foundations. I want you to know that I love you and that I care very much about you--about your hopes and your dreams and your future. You--and your experience while attending BYU--mean everything in the world to me. Let me close with a BYU story. It is a story about our tradition here. The account is nearly one hundred years old, which makes it about the time you were in kindergarten. FULFILLING A DESTINY Karl G. Maeser was certainly one of the most refined and educated men to join this Church in the first fifty years of its restored existence. Trained in the great classical tradition and distinguished in Saxony for his breadth of learning, he gave up virtually everything he had to enter the waters of baptism. Ostracized in his community and with no way to make a living, he brought his wife and two children to America, serving missions as he came and finally joining the Saints in these valleys of the Rocky Mountains. Once here he gave the rest of his life to the educational efforts of the Church, including fifteen years in abject poverty as the first and greatest principal of the then new and struggling Brigham Young Academy located in Provo, Utah. In December of 1900, two months before he died, Brother Maeser was brought back to see once more the modest single-building campus on University Avenue he had built and loved and defended. He was helped up the stairs and into one of the classrooms where all of the students instinctively stood as he entered. Not a word was spoken. He looked at them slowly, then made his way to the chalkboard. With his bold classical script he wrote four statements on the board, turned, and walked out of the BYA forever, closing as he did so perhaps one of the most distinguished educational lives this university has ever known. Several years after Brother Maeser's death a proposal was made to construct a memorial building in his name, not downtown on University Avenue but high atop Temple Hill where a new campus might be built consisting of as many as three or perhaps four buildings someday. The cost would be an astronomical $100,000, but the Maeser Building would be a symbol of the past, a statement of aspiring tradition, an anchor to the university's future. In spite of a staggering financial crisis clouding the very future of the university at the time, the faculty and student body took heart that in 1912 the Maeser Building was at least partially complete and the university would give diplomas to its first four-year graduating class. But even as graduation plans were being made, equally urgent plans were underway to sell the remainder of Temple Hill for the development of a new Provo suburb. The university simply had to have the money to survive. Eighteen members were graduating in this first four-year class, but even if the student body tripled in the years ahead, surely there would be more than enough room to accommodate them on the space now occupied by the Maeser, Brimhall, and Grant buildings on our present campus. Yes, the rest of the space on the hill should be sold. The graduation services would conclude with a sales pitch to the community leaders in attendance. When Alfred Kelly was introduced that morning as the student graduation speaker, he rose and stood absolutely silent for several moments. Some in the audience thought he had lost the power of speech. Slowly he began to speak, explaining that he had been much concerned over his remarks, that he had written several versions and discarded every one of them. Then, early one morning, he said, with a feeling of desperation regarding his approaching assignment, he walked north from his downtown apartment to where the partially completed Maeser Building stood (as Horace Cummings would later describe it) as an "air castle" come to earth on Temple Hill. He wanted to gain inspiration from this hope of a new campus, but he felt only grim disappointment. The sky was starting to glow from the morning light, but the darkly silhouetted Maeser Building seemed only a symbol of gloom. Kelly then turned his eyes to view the valley below that was also still in shadow. The light from the rising sun was just beginning to illuminate the western hills back of Utah Lake with an unusual golden glow. As morning came, the light gradually worked down from the hilltops, moved across the valley floor, and slowly advanced to the spot where Kelly stood. He said he partially closed his eyes as the light approached and was startled by what he could still see. He stood as if transfixed. In the advancing sunlight everything he saw took on the appearance of people, young people about his age moving toward Temple Hill. He saw hundreds of them, thousands of young people coming into view. He knew they were students, he said, because they carried books in their arms as they came. Then Temple Hill was bathed in sunlight, and the whole of the present campus was illuminated not with one partially completed building, nor with homes in a modern subdivision, but rather with what Kelly described to that graduating class as "temples of learning," large buildings, beautiful buildings, hundreds of buildings covering the top of that hill and stretching clear to the mouth of Rock Canyon. The students then entered these temples of learning with their books in hand. As they came out of them, Kelly said their countenances bore smiles of hope and of faith. He observed that they seemed cheerful and very confident. Their walk was light but firm as they again became a part of the sunlight as it moved to the top of Y Mountain, and then they gradually disappeared from view. Kelly sat down to what was absolutely stone-deaf silence. Not a word was spoken. What about the sales pitch? No one moved or whispered. Then longtime BYU benefactor Jesse Knight jumped to his feet and shouted, "We won't sell an acre. We won't sell a single lot. " And he turned to President George Brimhall and pledged several thousand dollars to the future of the university. Soon others stood up and joined in, some offering only a widow's mite, but all believing in the dream of a Provo school boy, all believing in the destiny of a great university which that day had scarcely begun. (See B. F. Larsen, "Fifty Years Ago, " speech given at a BYU Alumni meeting, 25 May 1962, B. F. Larsen biographical file, BYU Archives, p. 4.) When you leave here today, consider a campus that now stretches from that newly renovated Maeser Building to the very mouth of Rock Canyon itself where a special temple of learning (built on BYU property) watches by night and day over this very pleasant valley. Think of the buildings and think of the lives and think of the tradition. It is now your tradition. Oh, yes. I suppose you are wondering about those four things Karl G. Maeser wrote on the board that day. They are part of the tradition, too. 1. [To love] God is the beginning of all wisdom. 2. This life is one great [homework] assignment ... in the principles of immortality and eternal life. 3. Man grows only with his higher goals. 4. Never let anything impure enter here. A fiddler on the roof? It's a tough assignment, but we are all up there together, defending that inheritance. Welcome to our precarious and beautiful place. I express my love for every one of you and my conviction of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It is true and gives eternal meaning to our work here. With Tevye I invite you to discover in our BYU tradition of learning and love and purity "who you really are and what God expects you to do," in the blessed name of Jesus Christ. Amen. TRUTH AND LIBERTY L. Tom Perry Elder L. Tom Perry was sustained as a member of the Council of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1974. From October 1972 until that time he was an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve. His previous Church positions include terms as stake president, member of stake high councils and of bishoprics, and missionary in the Northern States Mission. Following his mission he served for two years with the U.S. Marines in the Pacific. Then, after completing his undergraduate and graduate work in finance at Utah State University, he entered the retail industry in the field of finance in department store operations, working in Idaho, California, and New York. At the time of his call in 1972 he was employed as vice-president of finance and treasurer for two large retail firms in the Boston area Elder Perry and his late wife, Virginia Lee, are the parents of three children. In 1976 he married his second wife, Barbara Dayton. This address was given on 17 September 1987 in a special forum held in the Marriott Center. A MEMORABLE EVENT At two o'clock this afternoon, throughout all of the United States, bells of all shapes, sizes, and sounds will ring. Two hundred years ago today, at approximately two o'clock our time, delegates to the Grand Convention in Philadelphia started queuing up to sign their proposed constitution of the United States. It would still require nine months before it could really be called a constitution. This happened on 21 June 1788, when New Hampshire, the ninth state, ratified it. During that hot and humid summer of 1787, the delegates labored nearly four months in a stuffy building with windows closed most of the time to prevent their words being heard by the outside world during their deliberations. You from the East Coast know what it is like even with air-conditioning. I can't imagine what it would be like with windows closed in a small, stuffy room. Tempers would flare, some delegates would go home early--compromise and crisis would take place. Yet on 17 September 1787 they signed the document that is now the oldest written constitution of its kind in the world. It has served nearly 457 million Americans to date--247 million of whom are alive today. How was it possible that these delegates, living in an eighteenth-century rural society, could write a constitution that would effectively serve 247 million people living in the twentieth-century space age? What did they know that writers of hundreds of other constitutions since have not known? Was there something unique about its creation or the men who wrote it? Many of the delegates realized the importance of what they were doing. Benjamin Franklin had said that if the convention failed, "mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest" (Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia [Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966], p. 126). Possibly this is the reason, in spite of ill health and personal suffering, that he attended the convention. Another delegate, Rufus King, said that his fears were more agitated for his country than he could express, that he conceived this to be the last opportunity of providing for liberty and happiness for the people. Madison had also said at the beginning of the convention that the delegates "were now digesting a plan which in its operation would decide forever the fate of Republican Government" (26 June 1787, Records of the Federal Convention, vol. 1 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911], 423). Hamilton had written in the Federalist Papers: It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. [The Federalist, No. 1] Certainly, their recent experience with the British and with the Articles of Confederation would have led to this concern, but it still doesn't answer the question of how they were able to write our Constitution. I believe our beloved prophet, Ezra Taft Benson, put his finger on the answer when he said: It would be erroneous for us, however, to conclude that the document was the sole genius of the Founding Fathers. Theirs was a combined wisdom derived from heavenly inspiration, knowledge of political government from ages past, and the crucible of their own experience. [The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1986), p. 1] THE ASSEMBLY For our purpose today, let's start by looking at some of the delegates. Who were they? What was their background, experience, knowledge? Thomas Jefferson had said of the Convention, after he heard who the delegates were, that it was "an assembly of demigods" (Jefferson to John Adams, 30 August 1787, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters, vol. 2, ed. Lester J. Cappon [Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1959], 196). John Adams said: The deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a place is, without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen. [John Adams, 26 December 1787, quoted in Clinton Rossiter, ed., 1787: The Grand Convention (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 11] And Albert J. Beveridge, quoted by Everett Wilson in his book about the Constitution, stated: The American system was devised by the ablest group of men who ever appeared at the same time in the same country throughout the history of the world. Just as former times produced masterpieces of literature, philosophy, and art, just as our own period is producing masterpieces in science and commercial organization, so the architects of the American plan of self-disciplined liberty produced a masterpiece of free government. [Quoted by Everett P. Wilson, The Constitution of the United States of America, a Bulwark of Liberty (Chadron, Nebraska: Caxton Printers, 1955), pp. 59-60] The U.S. Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission asked the question: Who were the fifty-five men who, in varying degrees, were the framers of our National Constitution? The knowledge concerning some of them is indefinite, but the following facts are substantially correct. All of them except eight were natives of the colonies. Franklin, the oldest, was 81; Dayton, the youngest, was 26; fourteen were 50 or over; twenty-one were less than 40. Twenty-five were college men.... These men were almost without exception acquainted with public affairs: forty-six had been members of one or both of the houses of the colonial or state legislatures; ten attended state constitutional conventions; sixteen had been or were to be governors or presidents of states. In national affairs forty-two were delegates to the Continental Congress, eight were signers of the Declaration of Independence, six signers of the draft of the Articles of Confederation, seven had attended the Annapolis Convention, and three had been executive officers under the Congress. . . . Two future Presidents of the United States took a prominent part in the proceedings of the convention and one future Vice President. Two others were to be candidates for the highest office in the land and these and one other, candidates for the Vice Presidency. The positions which these men had occupied or were later to fill are indicative of the regard in which they were held by their fellow citizens, and of their character and worth. The most important man in the convention was George Washington; indeed, his acceptance of the deputyship, made reluctantly and after long consideration, was the initial triumph of the movement and a foreshadowing of success, so great was his prestige. Madison and Randolph, his fellow deputies from Virginia, were very active in the work of the convention. . . . Madison's great knowledge of political science, the fact that to him more than to any other deputy public life was a profession, and his grasp of the essential problems before the convention and the means by which they could be solved, enabled him to become the principal architect of the Constitution. Franklin was the seer of the convention. His great age and infirmities forbade very active participation, and he was probably responsible for little of the detailed results; but his very presence gave the gathering importance and dignity and his advice must have been eagerly sought and carefully considered. He and Washington were the two great harmonizers. Washington presided over the formal sessions, taking little part in the debate, but in committee of the whole and in the private conferences which were such an important underpinning of the formal structure as it arose, he was in constant consultation with his colleagues. Also, as the character of the plan developed, there was a general recognition of the fact that he must be a leading man in the early operation of the new government, and this of necessity influenced its shape. [History of the Formation of the Union Under the Constitution, Sol Bloom, US. Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941), pp. 16-17] Years after the convention, James Madison had written: I feel it a duty to express my profound and solemn conviction, derived from my intimate opportunity of observing and appreciating the views of the Convention, collectively and individually, that there never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them, than were the members of the Federal Convention of 1787 [Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, arr. Jonathan Eniot, vol. 5 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1901), p. 122] They were extremely knowledgeable of government and had gained considerable experience as a result of serving in their various states. Some twenty-three of the signers had served in the War for Independence and were intimately familiar with deprivation and suffering caused by a weak central government and the lack of a strong union. George Washington had served eight years as their commander and understood, better than most, this need. Even those who hadn't felt the direct effects of a weak and inefficient government at Valley Forge, Morristown, New York, and other battle sites had witnessed the deteriorating state of their republic after the war: commerce problems, rebellion, inflation caused by the printing of money. This was enough to convince even the most ardent supporters of the Articles of Confederation that something had to be done to render the Articles effective to the needs of the day. Their individual and collective experience gained from the war and their involvement in state and national government would help. Some had helped write their state constitutions; but they needed more--an understanding of what had been tried in the past and what other ideas and opinions and options were available to them. Most of the delegates were ardent students of government and had read extensively on the subject. In fact, during the previous two decades, America had been awash with political tracts and writings on government and liberty. It was of deep interest to me to find their major source of ideas for the Constitution: Two professors, Donald S. Lutz and Charles S. Hyneman, have reviewed an estimated 15,000 items, and closely read 2,200 books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, and monographs with explicitly political content printed between 1760 and 1805.... From these items, [they] identified 3,154 references to other sources. The source most often cited by the founding fathers was the Bible, which accounted for 34 percent of all citations. The fifth book of the Bible, Deuteronomy, because of its heavy emphasis on biblical law, was referred to frequently. The most cited thinkers were not deists and philosophers, but conservative legal and political thinkers who often were also Christians. [John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1987), pp. 51-52] THE HAND OF PROVIDENCE Now we have so far reviewed two elements mentioned by President Benson--experience and knowledge. What about heavenly inspiration? Did any of the delegates attribute the writing of the Constitution to inspiration? The challenge before the delegates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was how to protect the individual's basic rights and, at the same time, provide for a union. Before the convention started, George Washington, who was elected president of the convention, said: It is probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God. [Frank Donovan, Mr. Madison's Constitution (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1965), p. 39] A year later, the day after Massachusetts ratified the Constitution, Washington wrote to another friend, Lafayette, of the miraculous nature of their efforts: It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the Delegates from so many different States (which States you know are also different from each other in their manners, circumstances and prejudices) should unite in forming a system of national government. [Letter of 7 February 1788, in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., Writings of George Washington (1788), vol. 29 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931-1944), p. 409] As president of the convention, George Washington also said: The hand of Providence has been conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. [Washington to Brigadier-General Nelson, 20 August 1778; quoted by William J. Johnson, George Washington the Christian (Milford, Michigan: Mott Media, 1919, 1976), pp. 119-20] Many of the other delegates also recognized divine inspiration in their work. Writing in The Federalist (No. 37), James Madison, often referred to as the Father of the Constitution, wrote: It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution. Alexander Hamilton, famous as the originator of The Federalist and author of 51 of the papers, said: For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which, without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests. [Paul Leicester Ford, ed., Essays on the Constitution of the United States (Brooklyn, New York: Historical Printing Club, 1892), p. 288] In a letter to the editor of the Federal Gazette in 1755, Benjamin Franklin said: I have so much Faith in the general Government of the world by Providence, that I can hardly conceive a Transaction of such momentous Importance to the Welfare of Millions now existing, and to exist in the Posterity of a great Nation, should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live, and move, and have their Being. [Albert H. Smyth, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 9 (New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1970), p. 702] Such comments were not limited to delegates themselves, but came from others who had studied the events concerned as well. Daniel Webster, a noted defender of the Constitution, although not a delegate, said in 1847: I regard it (the Constitution) as the work of the purest patriots and the wisest statesmen that ever existed, aided by the smiles of a benignant Providence; ... it almost appears a Divine interposition in our behalf. . . . [T]he hand that destroys the Constitution rends our Union asunder for ever. [The Works of Daniel Webster, vol. 1 (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1851), p. 404] And we can look today for great students of the Constitution, one being my fellow apostle, Elder Dallin H. Oaks. He recently spoke here in Provo, while most of you students were away during the summer, and cited five inspired fundamentals of that document: 1. The separation of powers branches of government; 2. The division of powers states and federal government; 3. The Bill of Rights; 4. The principle of popular sovereignty; 5. There is divine inspiration in the fundamental underlying premise of our whole constitutional order, the rule of law and not of men. All the blessings we enjoy under the United States Constitution are dependent upon the rule of law. That is why President J. Reuben Clark said, "Our allegiance run[s] to the Constitution and to the principles which it embodies, and not to individuals." The rule of law is the basis of liberty. [The Divinely Inspired Constitution, speech given 5 July 1987 at the Freedom Festival Religious Service, Provo, Utah, pp. 11-12] Concerning the fourth of these great truly divine principles inspired by the fundamentals, that of the sovereignty of the people, Elder Oaks also said: Perhaps the most important of the great fundamentals of our inspired Constitution is the principle of popular sovereignty: The people are the source of government power. Along with many religious people, Latter-day Saints affirm that God gave the power to the people, and the people consented to a constitution that delegated certain powers to the government. Sovereignty is not inherent in a state or nation just because it has the power that comes from force of arms. Sovereignty does not come from the divine right of a king, who grants his subjects such power as he pleases or is forced to concede, as in Magna Charta. The sovereign power is in the people. I believe this is one of the great meanings in the revelation which tells us that God established the Constitution of the United States. "That every man may act . . . according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. "Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. "And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land." [D&C 101:78-80] In other words, the most desirable condition for the effective exercise of God-given moral agency is a condition of maximum freedom and responsibility. In this condition men are accountable for their own sins and cannot blame their political conditions on their bondage to a king or a tyrant. This condition is achieved when the people are sovereign, as they are under the Constitution God established in our nation. From this it follows that the most important words in the United States Constitution are the words in the preamble: "We, the people of the United States . . . , do ordain and establish this Constitution. " President Ezra Taft Benson expressed the fundamental principle of popular sovereignty when he said, "We [the people] are superior to government and should remain master over it, not the other way around" (The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner [Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1986], p. 7). The Book of Mormon explains that principle in these words: "An unrighteous king doth pervert the ways of all righteousness.... "Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye maybe judged according to the laws.... "Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law--to do your business by the voice of the people." [Mosiah 29:23-26] Popular sovereignty necessarily implies popular responsibility. Instead of blaming their troubles on a king or other sovereign, all citizens must share the burdens and responsibilities of governing. As the Book of Mormon teaches, "the burden should come upon all the people, that every man might bear his part" (Mosiah 29:34). [Oaks, The Divinely Inspired Constitution, pp. 9-10] TAKING ON THE RESPONSIBILITY As a nation, we've been showered with numerous blessings that have been a direct result of our Constitution. Unfortunately, many of us have forgotten that with the receipt of such blessings also comes responsibility. Probably our most important responsibility is to ensure the continuance of freedoms that we have received for our children and for our grandchildren. We cannot do that from the sidelines. Patriotism is not a spectator sport. We must become involved in the process of freedom. Wherefore, honest men and wise men should be sought for diligently, and good men and wise men ye should observe to uphold. [D&C 98:10] Further, we need to understand the great principles of the founding documents. How can we "befriend . . . that law which is the constitutional law of the land" if we are not familiar with it and its genesis? We need to drink deeply at the wellspring of this great document. We must also recognize that, as President John Adams said, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. " We are facing this situation to a degree in the world today. Therefore, we have the responsibility to remain unspotted from the world, to be upright and honest in all of our dealings, and to set the example for that which we have been given. Francis Grund wrote: The American Constitution is remarkable for its simplicity; but it can only suffice a people habitually correct in their actions, and would be utterly inadequate to the wants of a different nation. Change the domestic habits of the Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter of the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government. [Francis J. Grund, The Americans, in Their Moral, Social, and Political Relations (Boston: Marsh, Capen and Lyon, 1837), p. 171] As Latter-day Saints we should take to heart what the late President David O. McKay counseled: 'Next to being one in worshiping God there is nothing in this world upon which this Church should be more united than in upholding ... the Constitution of the United States" (CR, October 1939, p. 105). We, as a people, have been the recipients of some of God's most choice blessings, and I believe they came only as a result of the dedication and sacrifice of our forefathers. We need, at this time and in this place, to follow the counsel of yet another great American, Abraham Lincoln, who said: Let every American, every level of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity [support the Constitution.] Let ... it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; [and in particular, establish a reverence for the Constitution.] [Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, vol. 1 (New York: Francis D. Tandy Co., 1905), p. 43] I love this great land of the free. I always feel a great feeling of pride within my very soul whenever the flag passes by I was taught this as a young child when Dad would always make us get out of the car when the American flag passed by in a parade. These feelings have only increased over the years as I stood as a young Boy Scout in early-morning flag-raising ceremonies and pledged allegiance to the flag each day throughout the years I attended school. Yes, and there have been times on foreign soil when after a battle I stood and, in dirty dungarees and with a rifle in hand, saluted our flag as it was raised to the top of a handmade flagpole. Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our Trust!" And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! [Hymns, 1985, no. 340] May God bless each of us with a desire to gain a real understanding of the blessings granted to us under this great Constitution of the United States of America. And may we have the strength and the courage to defend and uphold it for our generation and for all who follow after us. This is my humble prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. FREE AGENCY AND FREEDOM Dallin H. Oaks Elder Dallin H. Oaks was called to be a member of the Council of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1984. Elder Oaks was born in Provo and received his bachelor's degree in accounting from Brigham Young University. He earned his doctor of law degree, cum laude, from the University of Chicago. He began his career with a year as law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United States Supreme Court and then practiced law in Chicago for three years. From 1961 to 1971 he was a professor of law at the University of Chicago, where he also served for a time as associate and acting dean of the law school. He has been executive director of the American Bar Foundation (1970-71) and has authored or edited seven books and over one hundred other publications on legal and other topics. On 1 January 1981 he was sworn in as a justice of the Utah Supreme Court and filled that position until his call to the Council of the Twelve. Elder Oaks served as president of BYU for nine years, from 1971 to 1980. For three years he was president of the American Association of Presidents of Independent Colleges and Universities. In addition, his work in the Public Broadcasting Service led to his election in 1980 as chairman of its board of directors, a position he occupied for five years. He has also filled numerous callings in the Church, including stake mission president, counselor in two stake presidencies, and Regional Representative. Elder Oaks and his wife, June Dixon, were married while both were attending BYU. They are the parents of six children. This fireside address was delivered on 11 October 1987 in the Marriott Center as part of the Third Annual Book of Mormon Symposium. I appreciate this opportunity to participate in BYU's annual symposium on the Book of Mormon. This year you are focusing on the second book of Nephi. That book provides some of our most important doctrinal insights on the significance of free agency in the gospel plan. I have therefore chosen to speak about free agency and freedom. The scriptural terms are agency and free. When we refer to agency, we usually combine the two words and say free agency. But we sometimes use this term to refer to freedom as well as agency. And the scriptural term free sometimes means free agency and sometimes means freedom. In view of this confusion, I need to define the terms I will use. When I say free agency I refer to what scripture calls agency, which means an exercise of the will, the power to choose. (In view of the current prominence of this term on the sports pages, I must add that this "free agency" does not refer to the contract status of professional athletes.) When I say freedom, I mean the power and privilege to carry out our choices. This includes everything from thoughts, such as hate, to actions, such as running. In the first part of my talk I will speak of the doctrine of the Church. In the second part I will describe some applications of that doctrine. I. DOCTRINE Sister Oaks is my best critic. She tells me that when I speak about doctrine my talks are pretty dry, probably more understandable to read than to hear. Perhaps it would help listeners to this first part if I began with an outline of the nine points I will make from the scriptures. 1. Before the world was created, we existed in the presence of God. 2. Free agency is a gift of God. 3. We had free agency in the premortal existence. 4. There Satan presented a plan that would have taken away our free agency. 5. When God rejected Satan's plan, Satan and those who followed him rebelled and were cast out of heaven. 6. Pursuant to God's plan, Adam and Eve made the choice that caused the Fall, making mankind subject to mortality and sin in the world. 7. We are here to be tested, and this cannot occur without opposition in all things. 8. To provide that opposition, Satan is permitted to try to persuade us to use our free agency to choose evil. 9. If we choose evil and do not repent, we can ultimately become captives of Satan. To appreciate the significance of the added gospel knowledge restored in this dispensation, notice how many of these essential gospel truths are revealed or clarified in the Book of Mormon, especially in 2 Nephi, and in the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. 1. Before the world was created, we existed in the presence of God (see D&C 93:29). Abraham saw that God stood in the midst of these spirits and chose some of them to make his rulers (see Abraham 3:23). We do not know much about the premortal existence. The scriptures sometimes refer to preexistent "intelligences" and sometimes to preexistent "spirits" (see Moses 6:36; Abraham 3:18-23, 5:7; D&C 93:29-33.) For present purposes it is unnecessary to distinguish between the two. The important thing is that in the premortal existence we had individual identities and we dwelt in the presence of God. 2. Free agency, the power to choose, is a gift of God. As we read in 2 Nephi: "Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself" (2 Nephi 2:16). Further: Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves--to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life. [2 Nephi 10:23] And in modern revelation the Lord said, "Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself" (D&C 29:35). The Prophet Joseph Smith described agency as "that free independence of mind which heaven has so graciously bestowed upon the human family as one of its choicest gifts" (Teachings, p. 49). The word free is also used to describe free agency in this hymn Latter-day Saints have been singing since our first hymnbook in 1835: Know this, that every soul is free To choose his life and what he'll be; For this eternal truth is given: That God will force no man to heaven. He'll call, persuade, direct aright, And bless with wisdom, love, and light, In nameless ways be good and kind, But never force the human mind. [Hymns, 1985, no. 240] 3. We had free agency in the premortal existence. This is evident from the fact that more than one plan was put forward in the Council in Heaven, and that a third of the hosts of heaven could choose to follow Satan and rebel against the Father. (See Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954-56], 1:64, 70.) 4. Satan's plan, presented in the premortal existence, would have taken away our free agency. During what we call the Council in Heaven, the Father explained the conditions of the next step in the progression of his spirit children. They needed to receive a mortal body, and it was necessary for God to "prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them" (Abraham 3:25). Satan came before God with this proposal: Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor. [Moses 4:1] But the Beloved Son, our Savior, who was "Chosen from the beginning," said to the Father: "Here am I, send me" (Abraham 3:27), and 'Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever" (Moses 4:2). In the book of Moses God describes Satan's effort: Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down; And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice. [Moses 4:3-4] Satan's method of assuring "that one soul shall not be lost" (Moses 4:1) would be to "destroy the agency of man" (Moses 4:3). Under his plan, Satan would have been our master, and he would have led us "captive at his will" (Moses 4:4). Without the power of choice, we would have been mere robots or puppets in his hands. 5. When God rejected Satans plan, Satan and those who followed him rebelled and were cast out of heaven. The contest the scriptures call the "war in heaven" (Revelation 12:7) concerned Satan's attempts to usurp the power of God and to destroy the free agency of his children. One-third of the hosts of heaven exercised their agency to follow Satan. The Bible describes this in veiled references to Lucifer's attempt to exalt himself and to a war in which the dragon and his angels were cast out of heaven. (See Isaiah 14:12-15, Revelation 12:7-9, Abraham 3:28.) The event is described more clearly in modern revelation: For [the devil] rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency; And they were thrust down, and thus came the devil and his angels. [D&C 29:36-37; see also D&C 76:25-26] In his great poem "Immanuel, " Orson F. Whitney describes this event in the council of gods when "The destiny of worlds unborn hung trembling in the scale." One arose: A stature mingling strength and grace, Of meek though Godlike mien, The lustre of whose countenance Outshone the noon-day sheen. The hair was white as purest foam, Or frost of Alpine hill. He spake--attention grew more grave-- The stillness e'en more still. "Father! "--the voice like music fell, Clear as the murmuring flow Of mountain streamlet, trickling down From heights of virgin snow-- "Father!" it said, "since One must die Thy children to redeem, Whilst Earth--as yet unformed and void-- With pulsing life shall teem; "And thou, great Michael, foremost fall, That mortal man may be, And chosen Savior yet must send, Lo, here am I, send me! I ask--I seek no recompense, Save that which then were mine; Mine be the willing sacrifice, The endless glory--Thine! He ceased and sat; when sudden rose Aloft a towering Form, Proudly erect, as lowering peak That looms above the storm. A presence bright and beautiful, With eye of flashing fire, A lip whose haughty curl bespoke A sense of inward ire. "Give me to go," he boldly cried, With scarce concealed disdain, "And none shall hence, from heaven to earth, That shall not rise again. My saving plan exception scorns-- Man's agency unknown. As recompense, I claim the right To sit on yonder Throne!" Ceased Lucifer. The breathless hush Resumed and denser grew. All eyes were turned; the general gaze One common magnet drew. A moment there was solemn pause-- Then, like the thunder-burst, Rolled forth from lips Omnipotent, The words: "I'LL SEND THE FIRST!" 'Twas done. From congregation vast, Tumultuous murmurs rose; Waves of conflicting sound, as when Two meeting seas oppose. 'Twas finished--but the heavens wept-- And still their annals tell How God's elect was chosen Christ, O'er One who fighting fell. ["Immanuel-A Christmas Idyl," The Poetical Writings of Orson F. Whitney (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1889), pp. 136-142] 6. Pursuant to God's plan, Adam and Eve made the choice that caused the Fall, making mankind subject to mortality and sin in the world. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it [the Lord told Adam and Eve], nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. [Moses 3:17] Adam and Eve were able to bring about the Fall by choice because they had alternatives and they had free agency, whose essence is described in these words: "Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee" (Moses 3:17). Thus we see that what we call "the Fall" and the "transgression of Adam" was a necessary step that resulted from our first parents' exercise of their gift of free agency. As we read in 2 Nephi, Lehi explained: But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. [2 Nephi 2:24-25] With the Fall came mortality and an opportunity to be tested. The Lord told Adam that his children were given "to know good from evil; wherefore they are agents unto themselves" (Moses 6:56). Alma taught that with the Fall man became as Gods, knowing good from evil, placing themselves in a state to act, or being placed in a state to act according to their wills and pleasures, whether to do evil or to do good. [Alma 12:31; also see Alma 42:7] Similarly, the prophet Samuel taught: For behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free. [Helaman 14:30] Note that in this teaching the word "free" means free agency. 7. We are here to be tested, and this cannot occur without opposition in all things. On this subject 2 Nephi enlarges our understanding. Father Lehi taught his son Jacob: For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one. [2 Nephi 2:11] In other words, if we did not have opposition, we could not exercise our free agency by making choices. "Wherefore, " Father Lehi explained, "the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other" (2 Nephi 2:16). Without opposition in all things we could not achieve righteousness. All things would be a compound in one, a mixture--no distinction between wickedness and holiness. In that state of innocence, mankind would be "having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin" (2 Nephi 2:23). As we read in modern revelation, And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet. [D&C 29:39] 8. To provide the needed opposition, Satan is permitted to try to persuade us to use our free agency to choose evil. In 2 Nephi, Lehi declares that the Messiah will come "in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall" (2 Nephi 2:26). Then he gives us this important explanation: And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. [2 Nephi 2:26-27] "Free . . . to act for themselves" and "free to choose" refer to free agency. "Free according to the flesh" refers to freedom, as I will illustrate later. 9.If we choose evil and do not repent, we can ultimately become captives of Satan. Lehi's assurance that we are free "to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon" has this exception: "save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day" if we have chosen "captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil" (2 Nephi 2:26-27). He then pleads with his sons not to choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom. [vs. 29] Similarly, Amulek taught: For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked. [Alma 34:35] In summary, free agency, the power to choose, is a gift of God, conferred on his children and exercised by them in the premortal existence. It is an essential precondition of the further progression we seek in mortality. But free agency cannot be exercised unless there is opposition in all things. That opposition is provided by Satan, who once sought to destroy our free agency. His effort continues. He tries to persuade us to do evil, and to make those choices that will finally give him the mastery he was denied in the premortal existence--to have all power over us, to lead us captive at his will. II. APPLICATION Now I win discuss some applications of these scriptural principles. First, because free agency is a God-given precondition to the purpose of mortal life, no person or organization can take away our free agency in mortality. Second, what can be taken away or reduced by the conditions of mortality is our freedom, the power to act upon our choices. Free agency is absolute, but in the circumstances of mortality freedom is always qualified. Freedom may be qualified or taken away (1) by physical laws, including the physical limitations with which we are born, (2) by our own action, and (3) by the action of others, including governments. 1. Lehi taught his son Jacob that "men are free [have freedom] according to the flesh" (2 Nephi 2:27). For example, in the flesh we are subject to the physical law of gravity. If I should hang from the catwalk here in the Marriott Center and release my grip, I would not be free to will myself into a soft landing. And I cannot choose to run through a brick wall. A loss of freedom reduces the extent to which we can act upon our choices, but it does not deprive us of our God-given free agency. A woman who has spent much of her life confined to a wheelchair expressed that thought in verse. Annie Johnson Flint writes: I cannot walk, but I can fly; No roof can house me from the stars No dwelling pen me in its bounds, Nor keep me fast with locks and bars. No narrow room my thoughts can cage, No fetters hold my roving mind; From these four walls that shut me in, My soaring soul a way can find.... And when the long, long day is done, I clasp the dearest book of all, And through the dim, sweet silences, I hear my Father's accents fall. Then, though, in chains, yet I am free; Beyond the pressure of my care, Above earth's night, my spirit mounts On eagle wings of Faith and Prayer. ["My Wings," Annie Johnson Flint] 2. Other limitations on freedom are self-imposed, such as the immobility we seek when we buckle our seat belt or the commitment we make when we sign a contract. In these examples we limit one freedom in order to achieve a larger and more important one. 3. Many losses of freedom are imposed by others. The science of government is a consideration of the procedures by which and the extent to which the official representatives of one group of citizens can impose restrictions on the freedom of another group. Decisions on the extent to which government power should restrict the freedom of individuals are among the most difficult decisions we face in an organized society. How much should zoning laws restrict a person's right to use his own property? How many taxes should we extract, and what compulsory functions should government perform with them? How much harm can society allow a person to do to himself, such as by self-mutilation or drug use? These are all questions of freedom. We have to accept some government limitations on freedom if we who live in communities are to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A condition of uninhibited individual freedom would allow the strong to oppress the weak. It would allow the eccentric desires of one person to restrict the freedom of many. Interferences with our freedom do not deprive us of our free agency. When Pharaoh put Joseph in prison, he restricted Joseph's freedom, but he did not take away his free agency. When Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple, he interfered with their freedom to engage in a particular activity at a particular time in a particular place, but he did not take away their free agency. During my nine years at BYU I read many letters to the editor in the Universe that protested various rules as infringements of free agency. I am glad I don't see those funny arguments anymore, probably because I no longer have to read the letters to the editor in the Universe. The Lord has told us in modern revelation that he established the Constitution of the United States to assure "that every man may act ... according to the moral agency which I have given unto him" (D&C 101:78). In other words, God established our Constitution to give us the vital political freedom necessary for us to act upon our personal choices in civil government. This revelation shows the distinction between agency (the power of choice), which is God-given, and freedom, the right to act upon our choices, which is protected by the Constitution and laws of the land. Freedom is obviously of great importance, but as these examples illustrate, freedom is always qualified in mortality. Consequently, when we oppose a government-imposed loss of freedom, it would be better if we did not conduct our debate in terms of a loss of our free agency, which is impossible under our doctrine. We ought to focus on the legality or the wisdom of the proposed restriction of our freedom. Third, we receive assurance from our doctrine that Satan, who sought to take away our free agency in the premortal existence, is not permitted to take it from us in this life. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that the devil cannot compel men to do evil; he has "power over us only as we permit him" (Teachings, pp. 181, 187, 189). Elder James E. Faust elaborated this in our last conference, when he said, "Certainly he can tempt and he can deceive, but he has no authority over us which we do not give him" ("The Great Imitator," Ensign, October 1987, p. 35). Fourth, as suggested by these teachings, Satan is still trying to take away our free agency by persuading us to voluntarily surrender our will to his. This subject has a morbid fascination for mankind. The long-lived German legend of Faust concerns a man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. This is also the theme of Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster." A variety of modern practices tend toward this surrender, and they carry eternal dangers. As Elder Faust warned us at conference, The mischief of devil worship, sorcery, casting spells, witchcraft, voodooism, black magic, and all other forms of demonism should be avoided like the plague. ["The Great Imitator," p. 33] Fifth, we should also avoid any practices in which one person attempts to surrender even part of his will to another person or in which another person attempts to take it. Whether the means are chemical, behavioral, electronic, or others not yet dreamed of, such attempts run counter to the heavenly plan and further the adversary's plan. Free agency, the power to choose and direct our thoughts and our actions, is a gift of God, and we should resist any means that would compromise it. Sixth, we should avoid any behavior that is addictive. Whatever is addictive compromises our will. Subjecting our will to the overbearing impulses imposed by any form of addiction serves Satan's purposes and subverts our Heavenly Father's. This applies to addictions to drugs (such as narcotics, alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine), addiction to practices such as gambling, and any other addictive behavior. We can avoid addictions by keeping the commandments of God. Seventh, we should be aware that some people are more susceptible to some addictions than other people. Perhaps such susceptibility is inborn, like the unnamed ailment the Apostle Paul called "a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure" (2 Corinthians 12:7). One person has a taste for nicotine and is easily addicted to smoking. Another person cannot take an occasional drink without being propelled into alcoholism. Another person samples gambling and becomes a compulsive gambler. Perhaps these persons, as the saying goes, were 'born that way." But what does this mean? Does it mean that persons with susceptibilities or strong tendencies have no choice, no free agency in these matters? Our doctrine teaches us otherwise. Regardless of a person's susceptibility or tendency, his will is unfettered. His free agency is unqualified. It is his freedom that is impaired. Other persons are more free; though they unwisely sample the temptations, they seem immune to the addiction. But regardless of the extent of our freedom, we are all responsible for the exercise of our free agency. As Lehi taught, in mortality we are only free "according to the flesh" (2 Nephi 2:27). Most of us are born with thorns in the flesh-some more visible, some more serious than others. We all seem to have susceptibilities to one disorder or another, but whatever our susceptibilities, we have the will and the power to control our thoughts and our actions. This must be so. God has said that he holds us accountable for what we do and what we think, so these must be controllable by our agency. Once we have reached the age or condition of accountability, "I was born that way" does not excuse actions or thoughts that fail to conform to the commandments of God. We need to learn how to live so that a weakness that is mortal will not prevent us from achieving the goal that is eternal. God has promised that he will consecrate our afflictions for our gain (see 2 Nephi 2:2). The efforts we expend in overcoming an inherited weakness build spiritual strength that will serve us throughout eternity. Thus, when Paul prayed thrice that his "thorn in the flesh" would depart from him, the Lord replied, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Obedient, Paul concluded, Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. [2 Corinthians 12:9-10] Whatever our susceptibilities or tendencies, they cannot subject us to eternal consequences unless we exercise our free agency to do or think the things forbidden by the commandments of God. For example, a susceptibility to alcoholism impairs its victim's freedom to partake without addiction, but his free agency allows him to abstain and thus escape the physical debilitation of alcohol and the spiritual deterioration of addiction. Eighth, beware the argument that because a person has strong drives toward a particular act that he has no power of choice and therefore no responsibility for his actions. This contention runs counter to the most fundamental premises of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Satan would like us to believe that we are not responsible in this life. That is the result he tried to achieve by his contest in the premortal existence. A person who insists that he is not responsible for the exercise of his free agency because he was "born that way" is trying to ignore the outcome of the War in Heaven. We are responsible, and if we argue otherwise, our efforts become part of the propaganda effort of the adversary. Individual responsibility is a law of life. It applies in the law of man and the law of God. Society holds people responsible to control their impulses so we can live in a civilized society. God holds his children responsible to control their impulses so they can keep his commandments and realize their eternal destiny. The law does not excuse the short-tempered man who surrenders to his impulse to pull a trigger on his tormentor, or the greedy man who surrenders to his impulse to steal, or the pedophile who surrenders to his impulse to satisfy his sexual desires with children. I suppose it is inevitable that those who have surrendered to impulse would try to use the defense of "irresistible impulse. " But in the courts on high, this defense will be transparent to the Great Judge, who sees all our actions and "knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Alma 18:32). There is much we do not know about the extent of freedom we have in view of the various thorns in the flesh that afflict us in mortality. But this much we do know, we all have our free agency, and God holds us accountable for the way we use it in thought and deed. That is fundamental. God has commanded us not to become entangled in sin (see D&C 88:86). In modern revelation he said: And go ye out from among the wicked. Save yourselves. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. [D&C 38:42] This principle of individual responsibility and these commands to go out from among the wicked and to be clean apply to a multitude of circumstances. In terms of free agency and freedom, I urge you to apply these commands in this way: If you have a weakness or a susceptibility to some particular transgression, especially one that can be addictive, use your free agency and your freedom to steer a course far from the circumstances of that particular transgression. May God bless us to live our lives so as to avoid entangling ourselves in sin and compromising our precious and unique gift of free agency. May we accept responsibility for our thoughts and our actions. May we use our free agency to make righteous choices and to act upon them as we have the freedom to do so. For my conclusion I come back to the words of Nephi in the concluding chapter of 2 Nephi: I, Nephi, have written what I have written, and I esteem it as of great worth, and especially unto my people.... [2 Nephi 33:3] And it speaketh harshly against sin, according to the plainness of the truth. . . . [v. 5] ... And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.... [v. 10] And I pray the Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day. [v. 12] I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. THE LAW OF CHASTITY Ezra Taft Benson President Ezra Taft Benson was ordained and set apart as Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sunday, 10 November 1985. Called to the Council of the Twelve in 1943 while serving as the first president of the Washington D.C. Stake, he has devoted his whole life to the Lord's work. In 1973 he became President of the Quorum, succeeding President Spencer W. Kimball in that position. Twice as a General Authority he presided over the European Mission, the first time in 1946, when Europe needed help and strong leadership in the aftermath of World War II. During his second term in Europe in the early sixties, he rededicated Italy to missionary work and opened the Italian Mission. President Benson was born in Whitney, Idaho, served a mission to the British Isles, and graduated with honors from Brigham Young University. He completed his master's degree at Iowa State University and did further graduate work at the University of California. Among other achievements in a long and distinguished career, he helped organize the Idaho Cooperative Council and was its first secretary; he served as executive secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives; he was one of a four-man agricultural advisory committee for President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and for eight years he was secretary of agriculture in the cabinet of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is a member of the National Advisory Board of the Boy Scouts of America and holds Scouting's highest council, regional, and national awards. He is also chairman of the board of trustees of Brigham Young University. President Benson and his wife, Flora Amussen Benson, are the parents of six children. This devotional address was delivered on 13 October 1987 in the Marriott Center. MOST DEAR AND PRECIOUS My dear brothers and sisters, what a thrill it is to look out over this congregation. I so much appreciate the collective power of righteousness that you represent. In this dispensation the Lord reiterated the commandment given at Sinai when He said, "Thou shalt not ... commit adultery, . . . nor do anything like unto it" (D&C 59:6; emphasis added). From the beginning of time, the Lord has set a clear and unmistakable standard of sexual purity. It always has been, it is now, and it always will be the same. That standard is the law of chastity. It is the same for all--it is the same for men and women; it is the same for old and young; it is the same for rich and poor. In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Jacob tells us that the Lord delights in the chastity of His children (see Jacob 2:28). Do you hear that, my brothers and sisters? The Lord is not just pleased when we are chaste. He delights in chastity. Mormon taught the same thing to his son, Moroni, when he wrote that chastity and virtue are "most dear and precious above all things" (Moroni 9:9). My dear brothers and sisters, the law of chastity is a principle of eternal significance. We must not be swayed by the many voices of the world. We must listen to the voice of the Lord and then determine that we will set our feet irrevocably upon the path He has marked. REAPING THE CONSEQUENCES The world is already beginning to reap the consequences of its abandonment of any standards of morality. As just one example, recently the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in the United States warned that if a cure for AIDS is not quickly found, it could become a worldwide epidemic that "will dwarf such earlier medical disasters as the Black Plague, smallpox and typhoid" ("HHS Chief Says AIDS Will Dwarf the Plague," Salt Lake Tribune, 30 January 1987, p. A-1). As the world seeks solutions for this disease, which began primarily through widespread homosexuality, people look everywhere but to the law of the Lord. There are numerous agencies, both public and private, trying to combat AIDS. They seek increased funding for research. They sponsor programs of education and information. They write bills aimed at protecting the innocent from infection. They set up treatment programs for those who have already become infected. These are important and necessary programs, and we commend those efforts. But why is it we rarely hear anyone calling for a return to chastity, for a commitment to virtue and fidelity? I recognize that most people fall into sexual sin in a misguided attempt to fulfill basic human needs. We all have a need to feel loved and worthwhile. We all seek to have joy and happiness in our lives. Knowing this, Satan often lures people into immorality by playing on their basic needs. He promises pleasure, happiness, and fulfillment. But this is, of course, a deception. As the writer of Proverbs says: "Whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul" (Proverbs 6:32). Samuel the Lamanite taught the same thing when he said, "Ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of . . . righteousness" (Helaman 13:38). Alma said it more simply: "Wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10). Do not be misled by Satan's lies. There is no lasting happiness in immorality. There is no joy to be found in breaking the law of chastity. Just the opposite is true. There may be momentary pleasure. For a time it may seem like everything is wonderful. But quickly the relationship will sour. Guilt and shame set in. We become fearful that our sins will be discovered. We must sneak and hide, lie and cheat. Love begins to die. Bitterness, jealousy, anger, and even hate begin to grow. All of these are the natural results of sin and transgression. On the other hand, when we obey the law of chastity and keep ourselves morally clean, we will experience the blessings of increased love and peace, greater trust and respect for our marital partners, deeper commitment to each other, and, therefore, a deep and significant sense of joy and happiness. We must not be misled into thinking these sins are minor, or that consequences are not that serious. One of the most sobering statements about being unchaste is that of Alma to his son Corianton: "Know ye not, my son," he said, "that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?" (Alma 39:5; emphasis added). Very few of us will ever be guilty of murder or of the sin against the Holy Ghost. But the law of chastity is frequently broken, and yet it stands next to these other sins in seriousness in the eyes of the Lord. My beloved brothers and sisters, are we living in accordance with these scriptures? Do we clearly understand the seriousness of sexual sins? Do we constantly stress the blessings that come from obedience to this law? I say again, as have all the prophets before me, there is one standard of virtue and chastity, and all are expected to adhere to it. What the Lord says unto one, He says unto all: "Ye must practise virtue and holiness before me continually" (D&C 46:33). SIX STEPS TO PREPARE AND PREVENT There is an old saying that states: It is better to prepare and prevent than it is to repair and repent. How true that is of the law of chastity. The first line of defense in keeping ourselves morally clean is to prepare ourselves to resist temptation and prevent ourselves from falling into sin. For those who are pure and chaste, may I give six steps that are steps of preparation and prevention, steps that will insure that you never fall into this transgression: 1. Decide now to be chaste. The decision to be chaste and virtuous need only be made once. Make that decision now and let it be so firm and with such deep commitment that it can never be shaken. Don't wait until you are alone in a parked car or caught in a compromising situation to decide to be chaste. Decide now! 2. Control your thoughts. No one steps into immorality in an instant. The first seeds of immorality are always sown in the mind. When we allow our thoughts to linger on lewd or immoral things, the first step on the road to immorality has been taken. I especially warn you against the evils of pornography. Again and again we hear from those caught in deep sin that often the first step on their road to transgression began with pornographic materials. The Savior taught that even when a man looks upon a woman to lust after her, or in other words, when he lets his thoughts begin to get out of control, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart (see Matthew 5:28, D&C 63:16). 3. Always pray for the power to resist temptation. Temptation will come to all of us. It will take many forms and appear in many disguises, but the Lord has given us the key for resisting it. He said to the Prophet Joseph: "Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work" (D&C 10:5). It should be part of our daily prayers to ask the Lord for constant strength to resist temptations, especially temptations that involve the law of chastity. 4. If you are married, avoid flirtations of any kind. Sometimes we hear of a married man going to lunch with his secretary or other women in the office. Men and women who are married sometimes flirt with and tease members of the opposite sex. So-called harmless meetings are arranged or inordinate amounts of time are spent together. In all of these cases, people rationalize by saying that these are natural expressions of friendship. But what may appear to be harmless teasing or simply having a little fun with someone of the opposite sex can easily lead to more serious involvement and eventual infidelity. A good question to ask ourselves is this: Would my spouse be pleased if he or she knew I was doing this? Would a wife be pleased to know that her husband lunches alone with his secretary? Would a husband be pleased if he saw his wife flirting and being coy with another man? My beloved brothers and sisters, this is what Paul meant when he said: "Abstain from all appearance of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22). 5. If you are married, avoid being alone with members of the opposite sex whenever possible. Many of the tragedies of immorality begin when a man and woman are alone in the office or at church or driving in a car. At first there may be no intent or even thought of sin. But the circumstances provide a fertile seedbed for temptation. One thing leads to another, and very quickly tragedy may result. It is so much easier to avoid such circumstances from the start so that temptation gets no chance for nourishment. 6. For those who are single and dating members of the opposite sex, carefully plan positive and constructive activities so that you are not left to yourselves with nothing to do but share physical affection. Once again this is the principle of filling one's life with the positive so that the negative has no chance to thrive. When young people are left to themselves for long periods of time with no specific planned activities, often they turn to necking and petting to fill the empty hours. FIVE STEPS TO REPAIR AND REPENT But I realize that there may be some, even now within the sound of my voice, for whom the counsel to prepare and prevent is too late. You may already be deeply entangled in serious sin. If this is the case, there is no choice now but to repair your lives and repent of your sins. To you I would suggest five important things you can do to come back to a state of moral purity. 1. Flee immediately from any situation you are in that is either causing you to sin or that may cause you to sin. When Joseph of Egypt was entrapped by Potiphar's wife alone in the house, it would have been easy for Joseph to have rationalized. After all, he had not encouraged her. After all, he was her servant. After all, it would hurt her feelings if he refused. Had Joseph stood there and rationalized, he could easily have fallen. There is a great lesson in how he did respond. The scripture says, "And he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out" (Genesis 39:12; emphasis added). He fled and got him out. My beloved brothers and sisters, if you are currently in a situation where your moral purity is being or could be compromised, follow Joseph's example. Flee from it and get yourself out. You cannot linger in sin and expect to have success in repentance. 2. Plead with the Lord for the power to overcome. One of Satan's most effective strategies with those he has lured into sin is to whisper in their ears that they are not worthy to pray. He will tell you that Heavenly Father is so displeased with you that He will never hear your prayers. This is a lie, and he says it to deceive us. The power of sin is great. If we are to extricate ourselves from it, especially serious sin, we must have a power greater than ourselves. No one is more anxious to help you flee from sin than your Father in Heaven. Go to Him. Acknowledge your sin, confess your shame and your guilt, and then plead with Him for help. He has the power to help you triumph. 3. Let your priesthood leaders help you resolve the transgression and come back into full fellowship with the Lord. Certain sins are of such gravity that they put our standing in the Church in jeopardy. Sexual sins are among those of such seriousness (see D&C 42:24). Full repentance of such sins requires that we not only confess our sins and resolve them with the Lord, but that we also do so with the Church. This is done through appropriate priesthood leaders. The bishops and stake presidents have been appointed by revelation to serve as watchmen over the Church and as judges in Israel. While only the Lord can forgive sins, the priesthood leaders play a critical role in the process of repentance. Even if we are disfellowshipped or excommunicated, it is a beginning step in the process of repentance, and the sooner one begins, the sooner one can find the sweet peace and joy that come with the miracle of forgiveness. 4. Drink from the divine fountain and fill your lives with positive sources of power. It is not enough simply to try to resist evil or empty our lives of sin. We must also fill our lives with righteousness. We must engage in activities that bring spiritual power. I speak of such activities as immersing ourselves in the scriptures. There is a power that flows into our lives when we read and study the scriptures on a daily basis that cannot be found in any other way. Daily prayer is another source of great power. Fasting for specific strength or special blessings can strengthen us beyond our normal ability. Christian service, church attendance, service in the kingdom--all can add to our storehouse of strength and power. We must do more than simply remove the negative influences from our lives. We must replace them with righteous activities that fill us with the strength and determination to live as we should. 5. Remember that through proper repentance you can become clean again. Moroni taught that "despair cometh because of iniquity" (Moroni 10:22). Those who are caught in immorality may be experiencing the devastating effects of despair. But there is an alternative. For those who pay the price required by true repentance, the promise is sure. You can be clean again. The despair can be lifted. The sweet peace of forgiveness will flow into your lives. FINDING JOY The words of the Lord through Isaiah are sure: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18). And in this dispensation the Lord spoke with equal clarity when He said, "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more" (D&C 58:42). As I said earlier, when it comes to the law of chastity, it is better to prepare and prevent than it is to repair and repent. My beloved brothers and sisters in the gospel, our Heavenly Father desires nothing for us but to be happy. He tells us only those things that will bring us joy. And one of the surest principles given by God to help us find that joy is the law of chastity. I pray with all my heart that you will consider most solemnly the joyful consequences of keeping this law and the tragic consequence@ of violating it. And I do this in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. THE STREAMS OF YOUR LIFE David B. Haight Elder David B. Haight was named to the Council of the Twelve Apostles on 8 January 1976. Elder Haight had served as an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve since April 1970. A noted civic and business leader in California before assuming full-time church responsibilities, Elder Haight was mayor of Palo Alto for two terms, Red Cross campaign chairman and Blood Bank director, a member of Rotary Club, director of Stanford-Palo Alto Hospital and Chenning House Retirement Center, and a governor of the San Francisco Bay Area Council of Mayors. His business activities have included executive positions with ZCMI in Salt Lake City, district manager in California for Montgomery Ward and Company, and later the regional manager in Chicago, directing 165 stores and more than 5,000 employees. He was also president of a retail organization in Palo Alto, California. Elder Haight, in addition to his regular assignment as a member of the Council of the Twelve and chairman of the Missionary Executive Council, is a member of the executive committee and board of directors of Bonneville International Corporation as well as Deseret Management Corporation, a member of the board of directors of First Security Corporation, and serves on the board of advisors of the University of Utah College of Business. He has served his church as Regional Representative, president of the Scottish Mission, a member of the Priesthood Missionary Committee, president of the Palo Alto Stake for twelve years, high councilor, and bishop's counselor. After returning from Scotland he served three years as assistant to the president of BYU. Elder Haight was born in Oakley, Idaho. After attending Oakley High School and Albion State Normal School in Idaho, Elder Haight finished his schooling at Utah State University. During World War II he served as a commander in the United States Navy. He received a special citation from Admiral Nimitz of the Pacific Fleet. In 1978 Elder Haight received the "Distinguished Alumnus Award" from Utah State University for his service to the university and to the community, and serves as a member of that university's National Advisory Board. He and his wife, Ruby Olson, are the parents of two sons and a daughter. This devotional address was given on 24 November 1987 in the Marriott Center. This joyous season that brings us Thanksgiving and Christmas is the best time of the year when we think of families, loved ones everywhere, and things of the heart. I have prayed for divine guidance that these few precious moments might be beneficial to all. I am mindful of my responsibility as well as my desire to encourage you in your own personal lives to follow the course of our Savior unto salvation. SPREADING THE WORD It is not possible here to explore or examine the vast realm of revealed gospel knowledge about our mortal existence available to you at this unusual university. And so, on this day, I bring you not an argument or a doubt, but a witness of heaven-sent revelations that this is the church of Jesus Christ, restored to the earth in these latter days; that God our Heavenly Father lives and that he loves each of us-his children; that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, our Savior. The heavenly event related by young Joseph, then only four or five years younger than most of you, after he came out of a grove of trees--which we appropriately refer to as the "Sacred Grove"--is true. I bear this witness and testimony to you. Joseph Smith was directed, after scripture study and prayer, to pray for guidance; and he did see and communicate with God the Father and his son Jesus Christ. This church is led today by his prophet, upon whom the Almighty has bestowed the greatest gifts that mortal man is capable of receiving, even our prophet Ezra Taft Benson. I am a witness to the bestowal of the authority and the gifts upon President Benson. A few days ago, a most unusual news article about the Mormons appeared in the Sunday magazine section of the London Times, one of the most influential newspapers in the world with one of the widest circulations in the world--one million, three hundred thousand copies (ten times the circulation of Utah's largest newspaper!). As I studied this rather remarkable article, because it is so favorable and positive about us, I reflected upon the promise and direction our Lord gave twenty-six-year-old Joseph Smith at the Johnson farmhouse in November 1831. Joseph was instructed to translate the Book of Mormon and promised he would be given the "power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth" (D&C 1:30). In my lifetime I have been permitted to witness events, to see and feel divine influences of the Lord in his providence, revealing his gospel by the power of the Holy Ghost. Imagine the stretch of events from the humble but heavenly directed proceedings of the restoration of the gospel to this publication in the London Times! We had nothing directly to do with the article, but the press and the British Broadcasting Corporation were conscious of and involved this past summer in our 150th anniversary celebration of our first missionaries arriving in Great Britain. The interest developed by writers for the London Times resulted in this most complimentary article about our growth and message, and it was written by a nonmember. Well, unusual things are happening all over the world to bring the message of the Restoration to every nation and every people, to tell everyone of the divine Sonship of the Lord Jesus. That faith also might increase in the earth; That mine everlasting covenant might be established; That the fulness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and rulers. [D&C 1:21-23] You who attend this university have such unusual opportunities and blessings available to you. Every facet of your lives should be enriched by what you do, how you govern your lives, and what you learn while here. I urge you to take full advantage of every uplifting aspect of university life--spiritually, academically, socially, and physically--to feed your souls as well as your minds. STREAMS, CLEAR AND PURE Someone has likened each of our lives to a mighty river as it flows to the sea. It is the product of many streams--some large, some small--even little brooks, created by the melting snow high in the mountains. I thank God for the streams, clear and pure, that have influenced my life; for noble parents who taught me the goodness of life, of honor and virtue, and who taught me to love the Lord; for my widowed mother who, like the Prophet Joseph, taught correct principles with understanding and patience; for the priesthood and for the activities of Scouting; for the desire I had to go to college; and for the blessing of finding my sweetheart (I knew when I first saw her that she would be my eternal companion, if I could only convince her to feel the same way I did.); for the blessing of our three children and their posterity, three of whom are here today. My gratitude for the many, many streams and rivers that have affected my life goes on and on. I'm so grateful! Each stream has a beginning, a source from which it springs. Yours has emerged and developed from sources such as parents, home, family training, early schooling, and the many, many people who have touched your lives. Soon you will be moving out into the world on your own with the necessity and hoped-for ability to make your own way. You are at junctions in your lives, or nearing them, where your stream may take you on to great heights or not so high, to joy and happiness or regret and disappointment. I urge you to use your time wisely, to stretch your intellect and expand your horizons, that you may be prepared to fulfill your personal role in the restored Church and kingdom and to be all that you can be, using correct principles to contain the waters within the banks of your own personal stream as it flows on a true course toward the high reward of eternal life. You might say at this point, "Oh, we hear that from you brethren all the time!" So, maybe you do. But we who love you will continue to encourage each of you to determine where you are on the ladder as you climb step by step upward through this testing period, because we, too, have been there. The Savior taught in the Sermon on the Mount: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). I received a letter this past week from a young father who, with his wife and two children, joined the Church four months ago. He had attended a regional conference of eight stakes that we held in Arizona last month. He wrote: "At the conference I learned of love of God and for my fellowmen. I learned that spiritual acts and a 'help-thy-neighbor' attitude will be more valuable than all the riches of the world. I learned to not just wish for higher income but to work to earn enough for our needs. Some of the time and effort I would normally spend just making more money will go to reading the scriptures and teaching my family the gospel at family home evenings. I realized what I received through . . . baptism might be wasted by not making the proper decisions and effort to earn the blessings of the celestial kingdom." I was impressed by this new member and his family and with the fact that after only four months of participation, their "precious faith" was already increasing that they might receive the "precious promises" as declared by the Apostle Peter. 'THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL' Several years ago I sat in a little white room in the Los Angeles Temple--a simple, little room with no fancy adornments on the walls. My wife, Ruby, was there by my side. We had one son and his wife there along with our daughter and her new husband. Our other son was kneeling at the altar holding the hand of the young lady he was about to be sealed to. As I looked around the room, I knew the great moment of my life was there, then, because all I had that was really important--remember, really important-- was in that room. The bishops and stake presidents had found each member of my family worthy to be in that room. It is not the number of cars you own or the size of your bank account or the number of cattle you have in the hills, but the eternal values that count. You remember the Lord said something about moth and rust getting through to our worldly possessions (see Matthew 6:20). I knew that the greatest moment in my life was having all of our family in that little white sealing room in the Los Angeles Temple. Each of our children and their companions had participated in the sacred ordinances and ceremonies that pertain to salvation and exaltation in the kingdom of God. One of the greatest blessings of life is to realize what is truly important in our lives and then work toward that end. Our Lord and Savior's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane that last evening for the souls of all mankind, taking their sins and sufferings upon himself, dearly shows the need for us to know, respect, love, and obey our Eternal Father when he emphasized: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). LIVING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Some years ago, Cecil B. DeMille, producer of the epic film The Ten Commandments, gave an address in which he discussed the pressing need for making that great film. Many today in this so-called "modern" and materialistic society think these commandments a bit archaic. But our Lord God revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai the great governing principles we all are subject to and by which man will be judged. Moses received these commandments twice--on each occasion written by the finger of the Lord on tablets of stone. The first commandment: I AM THE LORD THY GOD. THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME. We do not bow before giant birds of carved granite or wooden idols with stone eyes. But we have other gods competing with God. We may never have bowed before a calf of gold, but we may still worship gold.... Is there a man or a woman who can honestly say that he has never put his ambitions or his vanity above God? Or worshipped flesh more than God? Or worshipped the blue-white glisten of a fine diamond, or the earthy beat of rock and roll, or even worshipped himself above the worship of God? ... These ... can ... enslave us and betray us into modern idolatry. THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN. When I was a boy I thought that referred only to profanity--but far worse than profanity is the use of the Name of God for personal worldly gain, for ambition, for intolerance, for selfish power over other men, or as a righteous cloak for unrighteous deed. We take the Name of God in vain whenever we misuse the power of God or whenever we say to Him, "Not Thy will, but mine be done. [Cecil B. DeMille, quoted in "The Ten Commandments," Deseret News, 23 February 1957, Church News section, p. 16] President Kimball told the story about being in the hospital after one of his operations. He was lying on a gurney that was being wheeled onto an elevator. The floor of the elevator was not flush with the corridor floor, and as the cart moved into the elevator, there was a big bump. President Kimball, just coming out of the anesthetic, heard the orderly take the Lord's name in vain. This great man said to the orderly, "Oh! Don't say that! He is my best friend." The young man apologized and promised to never do it again. And now to the next commandment: REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY fares none too well in the head-long rush of modern living. Mankind has coined countless . . . slogans about the value of time, but this Commandment reminds us that time belongs to God and that some of it should be set aside for Him. The vital and essential heart of this Commandment is that we cannot remain close to God unless we set aside periods of time as God's time--periods of rest from the affairs of the world and the body to seek true communion with the Spirit of Truth, in meditation, in prayer. [Cecil B. DeMille, "The Ten Commandments"] Students should organize their time so that most studying can be done on weekdays, leaving the Sabbath for worshipful activities. The Lord said, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." And so it is with all the commandments. Each of God's laws is essential, but particularly today they are vital in our somewhat confused society. The Lord commanded, "Neither shalt thou commit adultery," and added in modern revelation, "nor anything like unto it" (see D&C 59:6). The commandments are basic to the gospel and the plan of salvation and are as true and valid and real as the day they were cut into tablets of stone by the finger of God. Our living the law of the Ten Commandments is only the beginning--or the foothills--in our climb toward perfection. The Savior told the rich young man who was keeping the basic commandments to sell all his possessions and follow the Master, suggesting he should move up to a higher plane in his quest for eternal life. Joseph Smith declared, "I teach the people correct principles and they govern themselves" (quoted by John Taylor, ID 10:57-58). You students have been taught, hopefully, in your homes or through religious associations, correct principles. You also have the unique opportunity to be taught correct principles while here at this university. I hope you learn your lessons well that your streams may become mighty rivers of pure, clear water as they flow into the sea. THE LOAF OF GOD A willingness to serve in the kingdom when and wherever called demonstrates a life of faith and goodness, and is one of those streams in our lives that can so bless not only others but ourselves as well. I was impressed with the remarks of a stake president at a recent stake conference as he was released from his assignment. His remarks were of thankfulness for the opportunity to serve his stake and for the way the people served each other. He said: My service has been out ... for all to see. But think of the many auxiliary and other leaders and individual members of the Church who have at the same time quietly done their duty and been faithful to the Lord. Some of the greatest service rendered while I have been your president has been done silently out of great sacrifice by individual members. Theirs is the widow's mite. Theirs is the blessing of true service. The president remembered his ancestry, his parents, his children, his business partner, his professional secretaries, members of his high council, stake clerks, and secretaries. And then he stated: "I would not have been able to serve a single week without the help, love, and support of my dear wife." In tribute to the bishops, branch presidents, and other leaders, he said, "They serve where the tire hits the road. They have been faithful and loyal to me, as well as to the Lord." The president expressed appreciation for his counselors, and for one in particular who declared to him, "You may not wear the hair shirt"--meaning the stake president was never to feel guilty. He had been called by the Lord and was not to feel guilty for difficult decisions that only he could make. He told of looking in the mirror the day after October general conference and seeing in his mind's eye the hands of God, kneading the bread dough of his kingdom, and folding him (the stake president) back into the general loaf of the kingdom of God. "Mine," he said, "was a time to rise for a moment, but now I would become a part of the general membership again, as a brother in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so other lives will now be blessed and raised, for the good of the loaf of God." What a wonderful attitude!--a stake president demonstrating and teaching how we believe and pray and study the scriptures, earn our livelihood, and serve our God with love. His life's stream is right on course. HOW IS IT WITH THEE? The Lord wants and needs all of you to be strong, to be believers, to be examples of goodness to all the world. You can become mighty rivers, flowing with truth. Mediocrity and weaklings come with little effort. The world has an abundance of them. I would urge you to use your time wisely. Don't waste it on frivolous pursuits. As Ted Koppel, a national newscaster, told the graduates of Duke University last spring: [We] can partake of [TV's] daily banquet without drawing on any intellectual resources; without either physical or moral discipline.... . . . In the place of Truth we have discovered facts; for moral absolutes we have substituted moral ambiguity. We now communicate with everyone . . . and say absolutely nothing. [Commencement speech given by Ted Koppel at Duke University on Sunday, 10 May 1987, pp. 5-6] I admonish you to live so you can ask for the personal revelation you are entitled to. Someone has written, "Souls are not saved in bundles--they are saved individually. The Spirit says, 'How is it with thee--thee personally?' " How are things with you personally? How are you doing? To help evaluate how you are doing, I will pose some questions to give you a greater understanding of exactly who you are and what your potential may be, and then respond with answers from the scriptures, which hold and bear record of truth. WHO ARE YOU? You are a literal spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents. Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female." Romans 8:16: Paul said, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? Your spirit body came from your heavenly parents. Your spirit lived in the presence of celestial beings, whose exalted glory is like unto the sun in comparison with the moon and stars. Ecclesiastes 12:7: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. WHY ARE YOU HERE? You are here because you kept your first estate. You are here to be proved and tested, to show you can keep your second estate by making right choices and being faithful to them. Abraham 3:25-26: "And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;" "And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever. " D&C 98:11,15: "And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall ... live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God." "For I have decreed in my heart, saith the Lord, that I will prove you in all things, whether you will abide in my covenant, even unto death, that you may be found worthy." You are here to develop the gifts and talents to which you were born heir. You will also have the opportunity to gain additional talents. D&C 82:18: "And all this for the benefit of the church of the living God, that every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents, yea, even an hundred fold, to be cast into the Lord's storehouse, to become the common property of the whole church." You are here to sow good works and lay up treasures in heaven. D&C 11:7: "Seek not for riches but for wisdom; and, behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich." You are here to meet the requirements and complete the ordinances to become an heir of celestial glory. D&C 124:38-39: "For this cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was." "Therefore, verily I say unto you, that your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and your solemn assemblies . . . are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name." To become an heir of celestial glory there are requirements that must be met. You are to be sealed to your companion for time and all eternity. You are to work out your exaltation and be of assistance to others. You are to learn to use the body to accomplish spiritual objectives and to obey the law of procreation. You are to strive for perfection and receive a fulness of joy. With your understanding of truth: You have power to do many things of Your own free will and choice and to glorify his holy name (D&C 58:26-27). You have the power of prayer (see D&C 93:49). You have power over Satan (D&C 10:5)You have the power of forgiveness (D&C 82:1). You have the power of the Holy Ghost (2 Nephi 33:1). It is within your power to discipline all your appetites and inclinations. (D&C 50:35) You have the power to choose your destiny; to inherit the celestial or the terrestrial or the telestial kingdom (D&C 58:28, 88:22-24). [Adapted from Thomas C. Byrne, Discover Your Divine Self-Esteem (Salt Lake City: Hawkes Publishing, Inc., 1985), pp. 100-121] I pray that God will bless you to rise to the heights that can be yours, that you will magnify the opportunities that come into your lives. May each of you be blessed. May the streams of your lives lead you toward the ultimate goal of life everlasting in the celestial kingdom of God our Heavenly Father. We love you and leave our blessings, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. CRYING WITH THE SAINTS Glenn L. Pace Bishop Glenn L. Pace was called to be second counselor of the Presiding Bishopric in April 1985. He worked many years in the Welfare Services Department, including four years as the managing director of the department. A certified public accountant, he is a graduate of Brigham Young University with a master of accounting degree. He worked for a national accounting firm and acted as chief financial officer for a land development company. Bishop Pace was born in Provo and is married to Jolene Clayson, also of Provo. They are the parents of six children--four sons and two daughters. Bishop Pace served a mission in the New England states; his other Church callings have included counselor in a ward bishopric, elders quorum president, stake clerk, and youth leader. This fireside address was given on 13 December 1987 in the Marriott Center. Several years ago I heard a popular song that contained the line "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. "My immediate reaction was anger. The next day I heard the song again, and I laughed at myself because in the interim I had figured out why the line made me so mad. It was because it sounded so true! In grade school, while others went to the movies, my parents made me go to church. In junior high school, I collected fast offerings while others slept until noon. In high school, I passed up working on Sunday and earning double time at a grocery store so I could keep the Sabbath day holy. During my mission, for two years, I walked down the streets on Saturday nights with my companion while everyone else our age drove past us with their dates, laughing, pointing, and asking, "What's with those guys?" As a young married couple, we attended church with our squirming children. On Super Bowl Sunday, while the world ate, drank, and cheered, we could be found pulling the hair and flipping the heads or ears of our children and encouraging them to listen to the words of a member of the stake high council. While traveling in our old clunker of a station wagon, we would pull up alongside a Mercedes Benz. The occupants, with their national average 1.7 kids dressed in designer jeans, would point and laugh at my six kids dressed in their Toughskins. Now do you see why that line made me so mad? My frustration peaked last year when my college-age kids prevailed in getting me to attend a concert in this very facility (no sacrifice is too great for my kids). When the singer announced the song from which this line is taken, the crowd went wild. He said, "I'm not trying to convert anyone, I just want to provide you with an alternative." I thought the roof was going to come off this place. I wanted to race down the steps, grab the microphone, and give my opinion on the subject. Of course, my kids would have been horrified, and you would have thought me tacky. The statement "sinners laugh and saints cry" is a simplistic generalization at best. We Saints definitely have our share of laughter, and some sinners leave a trail of broken lives and buckets of tears. For saints as well as sinners, all that is meaningful in life doesn't have to be funny. However, to brush aside the meaning of the line in the song with this equally simplistic argument would be to ignore a reasonable question. At a given point in time, don't many who make no effort to live the Church standards appear to be enjoying life more than those who do? Our lives seem to be controlled by inhibitions, constraints, service, sacrifice, guilty consciences, and financial obligations. "FOR THY GOOD" In the world we see people with none of these so-called restrictions who are home with their kids on more than just Monday night. And they have ten to fifteen percent more of their gross income to spend. By the time we meet our financial obligations, it seems we can't afford to do anything wrong. Let's be honest with ourselves: the Saints do a lot of crying. However, nothing worth having is free. The celestial happiness we seek does not come without a price. We obtain celestial joy the old-fashioned way--we earn it. The voguish phrase "no pain, no gain" applies equally well to things of the Spirit. Sometimes we cry out, "What have I done wrong to deserve this?" Often trials and tribulations are allowed to come into our lives because of what we are doing right. We are striving for the purification and sanctification that will lead us to exaltation. We all must pass through a certain amount of sacrifice that makes our spirits pliable in the hands of the Lord. Joseph Smith's life helps us understand this principle somewhat. By all outward appearances, there was probably not a darker period in his life than the winter of 1838-39 when he was imprisoned in Liberty Jail. The Saints were being persecuted, robbed, and murdered, and there were dissension and apostasy in the ranks. We may be inclined to underestimate Joseph's. suffering. I don't speak of the coldness and dampness of the jail, but of his discouragement. We may think his anguish would be mitigated by his memory of seeing the Father and the Savior, by his memory of the visits from Moroni, John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John, and a host of other heavenly messengers. In reality, this knowledge may have intensified the pain. After all, he had a perfect knowledge that God could free him. It was in this setting that Joseph cried unto the Lord, "O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?" (D&C 121:1). To this agonized plea came the Lord's answer, "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment" (121:7). "Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good" (D&C 122:7). For thy good? What possible good could come from that experience? B. H. Roberts gave his insight when describing Joseph's reaction to a similar experience in 1842. But what is most pleasing to record of this period of enforced seclusion while avoiding his enemies, is the development of that tenderness of soul manifested in his reflections upon the friends who had stood by him from the commencement of his public career... No act of kindness seems to go unmentioned. No risk run for him that is not appreciated. Indeed he gathers much benefit from those trials, since their effect upon his nature seems to be a softening rather than a hardening influence; and the trials of life are always beneficial where they do not harden and brutalize men's souls; and every day under his trials the Prophet seems to have grown more tender-hearted, more universal in his sympathies; his moments of spiritual exaltation are superb. No one can read them and doubt that the inspiration of God was giving this man's spirit understanding. [HC, vol. 5, introduction, p. xxviii] After the Lord told Joseph, "These things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good," he said, "The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?" (D&C 122:7, 8). Part of the reason for the Savior's suffering in Gethsemane was so he would have infinite compassion for us in our trials and tribulations. He also qualified himself to become the perfect judge. Not one of us will be able to approach the Savior on Judgment Day and say, "You don't know what it was like," because he "descended below them all." TEARS IN GETHSEMANE As a loving Father in Heaven viewed his beloved son suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Savior cried out to him: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matthew 26:39; emphasis added). Can you imagine the tears in the eyes of the Father when he had to deny his son's request? Can we comprehend the sacred tears shed by the Father when he had to abandon the Savior on the cross and then hear him say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). And yet, even as God the Father and his son Jesus Christ wept, the sinners laughed. So that we can know the Savior, each of us must pass through our own Gethsemane. Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote a beautiful poem by that name: In golden youth when seems the earth A Summer-land of singing mirth, When souls are glad and hearts are light, And not a shadow lurks in sight, We do not know it, but there lies Somewhere veiled under evening skies A garden which we all must see-- The garden of Gethsemane. With joyous steps we go our ways, Love lends a halo to our days; Light sorrows sail like clouds afar, We laugh, and say how strong we are. We hurry on; and hurrying, go Close to the border-land of woe, That waits for you, and waits for me-- Forever waits Gethsemane. Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams, Bridged over by our broken dreams; Behind the misty caps of years, Beyond the great salt fount of tears, The garden lies. Strive as you may, You cannot miss it in your way. All paths that have been, or shall be, Pass somewhere through Gethsemane. All those who journey, soon or late, Must pass within the garden's gate; Must kneel alone in darkness there, And battle with some fierce despair. God pity those who can not say, "Not mine but thine," who only pray, "Let this cup pass," and cannot see The purpose in Gethsemane. [ "Gethsemane, " by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, in Poems of Power (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1903), pp. 147-48] There is probably no greater Gethsemane for saint or sinner than the grief felt over the death of one's child. I am going to read a portion of a letter written by a father to his ten-year-old daughter just minutes after he learned of her accidental death. Note how this good man's Gethsemane became a sanctifying experience because of his knowledge of the gospel and because of the gift of the Comforter. Contrast his reaction with what it may have been without the light of the gospel. I read it with his permission. If you may be permitted to listen, these are some thoughts your "Dear Ol Dad" would like to express in his and your mom's hour of joy and sorrow. You have been an angel of light in our home. Even in your passing you have sanctified the experience by the sweet sorrow of this temporary parting. As I sit in this hotel room many miles from home and only moments after hearing of your passing, I have confidence that you are really home. It's pleasing to know that you are now unencumbered by the mild, but troublesome physical limitations you accepted and lived with in such an adorable non-complaining way. Mom and I and your seven brothers and sisters are better because you came to our house. Soon after your day of birth you helped us to accept fear and the unknown; to better love others with physical, emotional, or mental challenges; to accept the disappointment accompanying an unknown prognosis and to query and plead with our Father, who today you know better than we do. As you grew older, we learned determination from you, who had every right to spill your milk but never did, who royally beat your mom and dad in tetherball, who averaged ninety-seven percent in spelling for an entire year and by sheer grit struggled with math, and who without ever a complaint sat with your mom every night--summer and school months--to read and understand what you had read. Yes, we did our best to help you learn, but what we learned from you cannot be printed in books--cannot be written because it is almost too sacred to rehearse. We pray for all of us who the Lord expects to stay here on the job for yet awhile. Our prayers are that we will be worthy to be reunited with you and to see you whole and perfect. Oh, how we would have loved to have you stay. How we would love to hear your ever so spontaneous "I love you." How we'd thrill to feel that clinging embrace. Oh yes, especially today. As you shed your tears in Gethsemane, while others laugh with the sinners, don't curse the purifying mold in which you have been placed. Your crucible is divine and will lead you to perfection and ultimate exaltation. We don't seek the unpleasant things of life. We don't look for pain and suffering. However, we recognize the sanctification that occurs when the trials and tribulations of life are met and turned into spiritual stepping-stones. TEARS OF JOY We have been speaking of tears of sorrow and pain. I shall now speak of a different type of tears. They are unique to the Saints and will never be shed by the sinners. I speak of the tears of spiritual joy. In an elders quorum presidency, we worked with several less-active families. In a personal interview with one couple, I asked, "Isn't it about time you went to the temple with your family?" I couldn't believe their answer--they said, "Yes." We cried. They were asked to speak of their "conversion" in a Saturday evening session of stake conference, and as they expressed their love, I cried. I thought I was all cried out by the time we went to the temple--until I saw them with their beautiful daughters kneeling at the altar, being sealed for time and all eternity. Shortly after my call to the Presiding Bishopric, I received a letter from one of my uncles. "Dear Glenn: I saw you on television last Sunday. Do you realize what an accomplishment it was to get your old reprobate of an uncle to watch general conference?" That summer he and his wife celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. After the reception I walked them to their car and said, "You know, with this calling, I have received the sealing power. If you will commit to a temple marriage, I'll tell you what I'll do for you. I'll perform the ceremony for free." A year passed, and as I arrived home late one night, a message awaited me. "Please call your uncle no matter what time you get home." I called and he said, "Glenn, I'm calling to collect on your golden wedding anniversary offer of a free marriage sealing in the Salt Lake Temple." I asked, "Are you serious? When?" He said, "My bishop thinks I can be good enough by December." A year ago I sealed them to each other and then sealed two of their sons to them. After fifty-one years of marriage, my uncle and aunt received their crowning glory and blessings. The entire family cried. Just ten days ago President Ezra Taft Benson stood before the General Authorities of the Church in the monthly temple meeting. He has been ill, and this was the first time we had been together with him since general conference two months ago. He expressed his love to us and said, "Brethren, it is so good to be with you again." And then, the prophet cried. At the conclusion of the Savior's visit to the people of Nephi, he felt their love and faith and was deeply touched. He had just announced that he must leave, but as he looked at the people he beheld they were in tears, and did look steadfastly upon him as if they would ask him to tarry a little longer with them. And he said unto them: Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you. [3 Nephi 17:5-6] Then he healed the sick, and those who were now whole did "bow down at his feet, and did worship him; and ... bathe his feet with their tears" (V. 10). And then Jesus "commanded that their little children should be brought. So they brought their little children and set them down upon the ground round about him" (vs. 11-12), and he said, Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full. And when he had said these words, he wept, . . . and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them. And when he had done this he wept again. [vs. 20, 21-22)] Elder Bruce R. McConkie spoke of tears in general conference just a few weeks before his death. In one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard, that special witness, with full and complete knowledge that his passing was near, said, I testify that [Jesus Christ] is the Son of the Living God and was crucified for the sins of the world. He is our Lord, our God, and our King. This I know of myself independent of any other person. I am one of his witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears. ["The Purifying Power of Gethsemane," Ensign, May 1985, p. 11] Those of us who witnessed the delivery of this magnificent address can testify that those tears were flowing even as he stood at the pulpit. They were not tears of sorrow relative to leaving this mortal existence, but tears of joy at the anticipation of the blessing awaiting him. Just one day before Elder McConkie's address, I received my call to the Presiding Bishopric. One day after his address, on Easter morning, at 5:00 a.m., I was writing my remarks to be delivered that afternoon. As I reflected on Elder McConkie's beautiful oration, I was overcome with the knowledge of my own weaknesses and inadequacies. However, as I began to comprehend what had taken place in my own life, self-doubt was replaced with peace, confidence, and eternal joy. I wept. I penned the words that seem appropriate to repeat at this time: I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I love the transformation his atonement has wrought in me. I once was in darkness, and now see light. I once lost all of my confidence, and now know all things are possible in the Lord. I once felt shame and now am "filled . . . with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh" (2 Nephi 4:21). "I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love" (2 Nephi 1:15). I feel the same at this Christmas season as I did on that Easter Sunday two and a half years ago. That knowledge brings tears. Would I rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints? Not for one moment. Once one has felt the joy of the gospel there is no going back to a frivolous world. Try as we might, travel where we may, there is an emptiness all the laughter the world has to offer cannot fill. That emptiness can be filled only by placing ourselves in tune with eternal truths and living according to the prescribed laws of God. As our understanding increases, we realize that tears of sorrow can be exquisitely beautiful, and they ultimately give way to tears of eternal joy. Throughout the world at this season, congregations will sing, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come" (Hymns, 1985, no. 201). Little does the world know of true joy. I thank God for the restoration of the gospel which gives that understanding. I pray that each of you will discover the majesty of crying with the Saints, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. OF SOULS, SYMBOLS, AND SACRAMENTS Jeffrey R. Holland President Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife, Patricia Terry Holland, are natives of Utah's Dixie. After serving a mission to England, Jeff returned to his hometown of St. George, where both he and Patricia graduated from Dixie College and then came to BYU. They were married before Jeff received his baccalaureate degree with highest honors in 1965, and their first child was born in Provo while he was working on his master's degree. He was a seminary teacher in Hayward, California, and Seattle, Washington, before being able to take up graduate studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he received his Ph.D. in American Studies in 1973. From New Haven, the Hollands returned to Provo, where Jeff was dean of Religious Instruction at BYU before he became the Church commissioner of education. In 1980 he was called to be president, of Brigham Young University. This devotional talk was delivered in the Marriott Center on 12 January 1988. This responsibility to speak to you never gets any easier for me. I think it gets more difficult as the years go by I grow a little older, the world and its litany of problems get a little more complex, and your hopes and dreams become evermore important to me the longer I am at BYU. Indeed, your growth and happiness and development in the life you are now living and in the life you will be living in the days and decades ahead are the central and most compelling motivation in my daily professional life. I care very much about you now and forever. Everything I know to do at BYU is being done with an eye toward who and what you are, and who and what you can become. The future of this world's history will be quite fully in your hands very soon--at least your portion of it will be--and an education at an institution sponsored and guided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the greatest academic advantage I can imagine in preparation for such a serious and significant responsibility. But that future, at least any qualitative aspect of it, must be vigorously fought for. It won't "just happen" to your advantage. Someone said once that the future is waiting to be seized, and if we do not grasp it firmly, then other hands, more determined and bloody than our own, will wrench it from us and follow a different course. It is with an eye to that future--your future--and an awareness of this immense sense of responsibility I feel for you, that I approach this annual midyear devotional message. I always need the help and sustaining Spirit of the Lord to succeed at such times, but I especially feel the need for that spiritual help today. HUMAN INTIMACY My topic is that of human intimacy, a topic as sacred as any I know and more sacred than anything I have ever addressed from this podium. If I am not careful and you are not supportive, this subject can slide quickly from the sacred into the merely sensational, and I would be devastated if that happened. It would be better not to address the topic at all than to damage it with casualness or carelessness. Indeed, it is against such casualness and carelessness that I wish to speak. So I ask for your faith and your prayers and your respect. You may feel this is a topic you hear addressed too frequently at this time in your life, but given the world in which we live, you may not be hearing it enough. All of the prophets, past and present, have spoken on it, and President Benson himself addressed this very subject in his annual message to this student body last fall. I am thrilled that most of you are doing wonderfully well in the matter of personal purity. There isn't as worthy and faithful a group of university students anywhere else on the face of the earth. You are an inspiration to me. I acknowledge your devotion to the gospel and applaud it. Like Jacob of old, I would prefer for the sake of the innocent not to need to discuss such topics. But a few of you are not doing so well, and much of the world around us is not doing well at all. The national press recently noted, In America 3,000 adolescents become pregnant each day. A million a year. Four out of five are unmarried. More than half get abortions. "Babies having babies." [Babies] killing [babies]. ["What's Gone Wrong with Teen Sex," People, 13 April 1987, p. 111] That same national poll indicated nearly 60 percent of high school students in "mainstream" America had lost their virginity, and 80 percent of college students had. The Wall Street Journal (hardly in a class with the National Enquirer) recently wrote, AIDS [appears to be reaching] plague[like] proportions. Even now it is claiming innocent victims: newborn babies and recipients of blood transfusions. It is only a matter of time before it becomes widespread among heterosexuals.... AIDS should remind us that ours is a hostile world.... The more we pass ourselves around, the larger the likelihood of our picking something up.... Whether on clinical or moral grounds, it seems clear that promiscuity has its price. [Wall Street Journal, 21 May 1987, p. 28] Of course, more widespread in our society than the indulgence of personal sexual activity are the printed and photographed descriptions of those who do. Of that lustful environment a contemporary observer says, We live in an age in which voyeurism is no longer the side line of the solitary deviate, but rather a national pastime, fully institutionalized and [circularized] in the mass media. [William F. May, quoted by Henry Fairlie, The Seven Deadly Sins Today (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), p. 178] In fact, the rise of civilization seems, ironically enough, to have made actual or fantasized promiscuity a greater, not a lesser, problem. Edward Gibbon, the distinguished British historian of the eighteenth century who wrote one of the most intimidating works of history in our language (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), said simply, Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity. . . . The refinements of life [seem to] corrupt, [even as] they polish the [relationship] of the sexes. [Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 40 of Great Books of the Western World, 1952, p. 92] I do not wish us to spend this hour documenting social problems nor wringing our hands over the dangers that such outside influences may hold for us. As serious as such contemporary realities are, I wish to discuss this topic in quite a different way, discuss it specifically for Latter-day Saints--primarily young, unmarried Latter-day Saints, even those attending Brigham Young University. So I conspicuously set aside the horrors of AIDS and national statistics on illegitimate pregnancies and speak rather to a gospel-based view of personal purity. Indeed, I wish to do something even a bit more difficult than listing the do's and don'ts of personal purity. I wish to speak, to the best of my ability, on why we should be clean, on why moral discipline is such a significant matter in God's eyes. I know that may sound presumptuous, but a philosopher once said, tell me sufficiently why a thing should be done, and I will move heaven and earth to do it. Hoping you will feel the same way as he and fully recognizing my limitations, I wish to try to give at least a partial answer to "Why be morally clean?" I will need first to pose briefly what I see as the doctrinal seriousness of the matter before then offering just three reasons for such seriousness. THE SIGNIFICANCE AND SANCTITY May I begin with half of a nine-line poem by Robert Frost. (The other half is worth a sermon also, but it will have to wait for another day.) Here are the first four lines of Frost's "Fire and Ice." Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. A second, less poetic but more specific opinion is offered by the writer of Proverbs: Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? ... But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. [Proverbs 6:27-33] In getting at the doctrinal seriousness, why is this matter of sexual relationships so severe that fire is almost always the metaphor, with passion pictured vividly in flames? What is there in the potentially hurtful heat of this that leaves one's soul--or perhaps the whole world, according to Frost--destroyed, if that flame is left unchecked and those passions unrestrained? What is there in all of this that prompts Alma to warn his son Corianton that sexual transgression is "an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost" (Alma 39:5; emphasis added)? Setting aside sins against the Holy Ghost for a moment as a special category unto themselves, it is LDS doctrine that sexual transgression is second only to murder in the Lord's list of life's most serious sins. By assigning such rank to a physical appetite so conspicuously evident in all of us, what is God trying to tell us about its place in his plan for all men and women in mortality? I submit to you he is doing precisely that--commenting about the very plan of life itself. Clearly God's greatest concerns regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of it. These two most important issues in our very personal and carefully supervised progress are the two issues that he as our Creator and Father and Guide wishes most to reserve to himself. These are the two matters that he has repeatedly told us he wants us never to take illegally, illicitly, unfaithfully, without sanction. As for the taking of life, we are generally quite responsible. Most people, it seems to me, readily sense the sanctity of life and as a rule do not run up to friends, put a loaded revolver to their heads, and cavalierly pull the trigger. Furthermore, when there is a click of the hammer rather than an explosion of lead, and a possible tragedy seems to have been averted, no one in such a circumstance would be so stupid as to sigh, "Oh, good. I didn't go all the way." No, "all the way" or not, the insanity of such action with fatal powder and steel is obvious on the face of it. Such a person running about this campus with an arsenal of loaded handguns or military weaponry aimed at fellow students would be apprehended, prosecuted, and institutionalized if in fact such a lunatic would not himself have been killed in all the pandemonium. After such a fictitious moment of horror on this campus (and you are too young to remember my college years when the sniper wasn't fictitious, killing twelve of his fellow students at the University of Texas), we would undoubtedly sit in our dorms or classrooms with terror on our minds for many months to come, wondering how such a thing could possibly happen--especially here at BYU. No, fortunately, in the case of how life is taken, I think we seem to be quite responsible. The seriousness of that does not often have to be spelled out, and not many sermons need to be devoted to it. But in the significance and sanctity of giving life, some of us are not so responsible, and in the larger world swirling around us we find near-criminal irresponsibility. What would in the case of taking life bring absolute horror and demand grim justice, in the case of giving life brings dirty jokes and four-letter lyrics and crass carnality on the silver screen, home-owned or downtown. Is such moral turpitude so wrong? That question has always been asked, usually by the guilty. "Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness" (Proverbs 30:20). No murder here. Well, maybe not. But sexual transgression? "He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul." Sounds near fatal to me. So much for the doctrinal seriousness. Now, with a desire to prevent such painful moments, to avoid what Alma called the "inexpressible horror" of standing in the presence of God unworthily, and to permit the intimacy it is your right and privilege and delight to enjoy in marriage to be untainted by such crushing remorse and guilt--I wish to give those three reasons I mentioned earlier as to why I believe this is an issue of such magnitude and consequence. THE DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL First, we simply must understand the revealed, restored Latter-day Saint doctrine of the soul, and the high and inextricable part the body plays in that doctrine. One of the "plain and precious" truths restored to this dispensation is that "the spirit and the body are the soul of man" (D&C 88:15; emphasis added) and that when the spirit and body are separated, men and women "cannot receive a fulness of joy" (D&C 93:34). Certainly that suggests something of the reason why obtaining a body is so fundamentally important to the plan of salvation in the first place, why sin of any kind is such a serious matter (namely because its automatic consequence is death, the separation of the spirit from the body and the separation of the spirit and the body from God), and why the resurrection of the body is so central to the great abiding and eternal triumph of Christ's atonement. We do not have to be a herd of demonically possessed swine charging down the Gadarene slopes toward the sea to understand that a body is the great prize of mortal life, and that even a pig's will do for those frenzied spirits that rebelled, and to this day remain dispossessed, in their first, unembodied estate. May I quote a 1913 sermon by Elder James E. Talmage on this doctrinal point: We have been taught ... to look upon these bodies of ours as gifts from God. We Latter-day Saints do not regard the body as something to be condemned, something to be abhorred. . . . We regard [the body] as the sign of our royal birthright.... We recognize ... that those who kept not their first estate . . . were denied that inestimable blessing. . . . We believe that these bodies ... may be made, in very truth, the temple of the Holy Ghost.... It is peculiar to the theology of the Latter-day Saints that we regard the body as an essential part of the soul. Read your dictionaries, the lexicons, and encyclopedias, and you will find that nowhere [in Christianity], outside of the Church of Jesus Christ, is the solemn and eternal truth taught that the soul of man is the body and the spirit combined. [CR, October 1913, p. 117] So partly in answer to why such seriousness, we answer that one toying with the God-given-and satanically coveted-body of another, toys with the very soul of that individual, toys with the central purpose and product of life, "the very key" to life, as Elder Boyd K. Packer once called it. In trivializing the soul of another (please include the word body there), we trivialize the Atonement that saved that soul and guaranteed its continued existence. And when one toys with the Son of Righteousness, the Day Star himself, one toys with white heat and a flame hotter and holier than the noonday sun. You cannot do so and not be burned. You cannot with impunity "crucify Christ afresh" (see Hebrews 6:6). Exploitation of the body (please include the word soul there) is, in the last analysis, an exploitation of him who is the Light and the Life of the world. Perhaps here Paul's warning to the Corinthians takes on newer, higher meaning: Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.... Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.... Flee fornication....... He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.... . . . 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. [1 Corinthians 6:13-20; emphasis added] Our soul is what's at stake here-our spirit and our body. Paul understood that doctrine of the soul every bit as well as James E. Talmage did, because it is gospel truth. The purchase price for our fullness of joy--body and spirit eternally united--is the pure and innocent blood of the Savior of this world. We cannot then say in ignorance or defiance, "Well, it's my life," or worse yet, "It's my body." It is not. "Ye are not your own, " Paul said. "Ye are bought with a price. " So in answer to the question, "Why does God care so much about sexual transgression?" it is partly because of the precious gift offered by and through his Only Begotten Son to redeem the souls--bodies and spirits--we too often share and abuse in cheap and tawdry ways. Christ restored the very seeds of eternal lives (see D&C 132:19, 24), and we desecrate them at our peril. The first key reason for personal purity? Our very souls are involved and at stake. A SYMBOL OF TOTAL UNION Second, may I suggest that human intimacy, that sacred, physical union ordained of God for a married couple, deals with a symbol that demands special sanctity. Such an act of love between a man and a woman is--r certainly was ordained to be--a symbol of total union: union of their hearts, their hopes, their lives, their love, their family, their future, their everything. It is a symbol that we try to suggest in the temple with a word like seal. The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps ought to render such a sacred bond as "welding"--that those united in matrimony and eternal families are "welded" together, inseparable if you will, to withstand the temptations of the adversary and the afflictions of mortality. (See D&C 128:18.) But such a total, virtually unbreakable union, such an unyielding commitment between a man and a woman, can only come with the proximity and permanence afforded in a marriage covenant, with the union of all that they possess--their very hearts and minds, all their days and all their dreams. They work together, they cry together, they enjoy Brahms and Beethoven and breakfast together, they sacrifice and save and live together for all the abundance that such a totally intimate life provides such a couple. And the external symbol of that union, the physical manifestation of what is a far deeper spiritual and metaphysical bonding, is the physical blending that is part of--indeed, a most beautiful and gratifying expression of--that larger, more complete union of eternal purpose and promise. As delicate as it is to mention in such a setting, I nevertheless trust your maturity to understand that physiologically we are created as men and women to fit together in such a union. In this ultimate physical expression of one man and one woman they are as nearly and as literally "one" as two separate physical bodies can ever be. It is in that act of ultimate physical intimacy we most nearly fulfill the commandment of the Lord given to Adam and Eve, living symbols for all married couples, when he invited them to cleave unto one another only, and thus become "one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). Obviously, such a commandment to these two, the first husband and wife of the human family, has unlimited implications--social, cultural, and religious as well as physical--but that is exactly my point. As all couples come to that moment of bonding in mortality, it is to be just such a complete union. That commandment cannot be fulfilled, and that symbolism of "one flesh" cannot be preserved, if we hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously share intimacy in a darkened corner of a darkened hour, then just as hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously retreat to our separate worlds--not to eat or live or cry or laugh together, not to do the laundry and the dishes and the homework, not to manage a budget and pay the bills and tend the children and plan together for the future. No, we cannot do that until we are truly one--united, bound, linked, tied, welded, sealed, married. Can you see then the moral schizophrenia that comes from pretending we are one, sharing the physical symbols and physical intimacy of our union, but then fleeing, retreating, severing all such other aspects--and symbols--of what was meant to be a total obligation, only to unite again furtively some other night or, worse yet, furtively unite (and you can tell how cynically I use that word) with some other partner who is no more bound to us, no more one with us than the last was or than the one that will come next week or next month or next year or anytime before the binding commitments of marriage? You must wait--you must wait until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you are at least legally and, for Latter-day Saint purposes, eternally pronounced as one. To give illicitly that which is not yours to give (remember--"you are not your own") and to give only part of that which cannot be followed with the gift of your whole heart and your whole life and your whole self is its own form of emotional Russian roulette. If you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted devotion to a truer, later love. You may come to that moment of real love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved has been spent, and--mark my word--only God's grace can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue. A good Latter-day Saint friend, Dr. Victor L. Brown, Jr., has written of this issue: Fragmentation enables its users to counterfeit intimacy.... If we relate to each other in fragments, at best we miss full relationships. At worst, we manipulate and exploit others for our gratification. Sexual fragmentation can be particularly harmfull because it gives powerful physiological rewards which, though illusory, can temporarily persuade us to overlook the serious deficits in the overall relationship. Two people may marry for physical gratification and then discover that the illusion of union collapses under the weight of intellectual, social, and spiritual incompatibilities.... Sexual fragmentation is particularly harmful because it is particularly deceptive. The intense human intimacy that should be enjoyed in and symbolized by sexual union is counterfeited by sensual episodes which suggest--but cannot deliver--acceptance, understanding, and love. Such encounters mistake the end for the means as lonely, desperate people seek a common denominator which will permit the easiest, quickest gratification. [Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy: Illusion and Reality (Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1981), pp. 5-6] Listen to a far more biting observation by a non-Latter-day Saint regarding such acts devoid of both the soul and symbolism we have been discussing. He writes: Our sexuality has been animalized, stripped of the intricacy of feeling with which human beings have endowed it, leaving us to contemplate only the act, and to fear our impotence in it. It is this animalization from which the sexual manuals cannot escape, even when they try to do so, because they are reflections of it. They might [as well] be textbooks for veterinarians. [Fairlie, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 182] In this matter of counterfeit intimacy and deceptive gratification, I express particular caution to the men who hear this message. I have heard all my life that it is the young woman who has to assume the responsibility for controlling the limits of intimacy in courtship because a young man cannot. What an unacceptable response to such a serious issue! What kind of man is he, what priesthood or power or strength or self-control does this man have that lets him develop in society, grow to the age of mature accountability, perhaps even pursue a university education and prepare to affect the future of colleagues and kingdoms and the course of the world, but yet does not have the mental capacity or the moral will to say, "I will not do that thing"? No, this sorry drugstore psychology would have us say, "He just can't help himself. His glands have complete control over his life--his mind, his will, his entire future." To say that a young woman in such a relationship has to bear her responsibility and that of the young man's too is the least fair assertion I can imagine. In most instances if there is sexual transgression, I lay the burden squarely on the shoulders of the young man--for our purposes probably a priesthood bearer--and that's where I believe God intended responsibility to be. In saying that I do not excuse young women who exercise no restraint and have not the character or conviction to demand intimacy only in its rightful role. I have had enough experience in Church callings to know that women as well as men can be predatory. But I refuse to buy some young man's feigned innocence who wants to sin and call it psychology. Indeed, most tragically, it is the young woman who is most often the victim, it is the young woman who most often suffers the greater pain, it is the young woman who most often feels used and abused and terribly unclean. And for that imposed uncleanliness a man will pay, as surely as the sun sets and rivers run to the sea. Note the prophet Jacob's straightforward language on this account in the Book of Mormon. After a bold confrontation on the subject of sexual transgression among the Nephites, he quotes Jehovah: For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land.... And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people . . . shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts. For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction. [Jacob 2:3133; emphasis added] Don't be deceived and don't be destroyed. Unless such fire is controlled, your clothes and your future will be burned. And your world, short of painful and perfect repentance, will go up in flames. I give that to you on good word--I give it to you on God's word. A HOLY SACRAMENT That leads me to my last reason, a third effort to say why. After soul and symbol, the word is sacrament, a term closely related to the other two. Sexual intimacy is not only a symbolic union between a man and a woman--the uniting of their very souls--but it is also symbolic of a union between mortals and deity, between otherwise ordinary and fallible humans uniting for a rare and special moment with God himself and all the powers by which he gives life in this wide universe of ours. In this latter sense, human intimacy is a sacrament, a very special kind of symbol. For our purpose here today, a sacrament could be any one of a number of gestures or acts or ordinances that unite us with God and his limitless powers. We are imperfect and mortal; he is perfect and immortal. But from time to time--indeed, as often as is possible and appropriate--we find ways and go to places and create circumstances where we can unite symbolically with him, and in so doing gain access to his power. Those special moments of union with God are sacramental moments--such as kneeling at a marriage altar, or blessing a newborn baby, or partaking of the emblems of the Lord's supper. This latter ordinance is the one we in the Church have come to associate most traditionally with the word sacrament, though it is technically only one of many such moments when we formally take the hand of God and feel his divine power. These are moments when we quite literally unite our will with God's will, our spirit with his spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real. At such moments we not only acknowledge his divinity, but we quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves. Such are the holy sacraments. Now, once again, I know of no one who would, for example, rush into the middle of a sacramental service, grab the linen from the tables, throw the bread the full length of the room, tip the water trays onto the floor, and laughingly retreat from the building to await an opportunity to do the same thing at another worship service the next Sunday. No one within the sound of my voice would do that during one of the truly sacred moments of our religious worship. Nor would anyone here violate any of the other sacramental moments in our lives, those times when we consciously claim God's power and by invitation stand with him in privilege and principality. But I wish to stress with you this morning, as my third of three reasons to be clean, that sexual union is also, in its own profound way, a very real sacrament of the highest order, a union not only of a man and a woman but very much the union of that man and woman with God. Indeed, if our definition of sacrament is that act of claiming and sharing and exercising God's own inestimable power, then I know of virtually no other divine privilege so routinely given to us all--women or men, ordained or unordained, Latter-day Saint or non-Latter-day Saint--than the miraculous and majestic power of transmitting life, the unspeakable, unfathomable, unbroken power of procreation. There are those special moments in your lives when the other, more formal ordinances of the gospel--the sacraments, if you will--allow you to feel the grace and grandeur of God's power. Many are one-time experiences (such as our own confirmation or our own marriage), and some are repeatable (such as administering to the sick or doing ordinance work for others in the temple). But I know of nothing so earth-shatteringly powerful and yet so universally and unstintingly given to us as the God-given power available in every one of us from our early teen years on to create a human body, that wonder of all wonders, a generically and spiritually unique being never seen before in the history of the world and never to be duplicated again in all the ages of eternity--a child, your child--with eyes and ears and fingers and toes and a future of unspeakable grandeur. Imagine that, if you will. Veritable teenagers--and all of us for many decades thereafter--carrying daily, hourly, minute-to-minute, virtually every waking and sleeping moment of our lives, the power and the chemistry and the eternally transmitted seeds of life to grant someone else her second estate, someone else his next level of development in the divine plan of salvation. I submit to you that no power, priesthood or otherwise, is given by God so universally to so many with virtually no control over its use except self-control. And I submit to you that you will never be more like God at any other time in this life than when you are expressing that particular power. Of all the titles he has chosen for himself, Father is the one he declares, and Creation is his watchword--especially human creation, creation in his image. His glory isn't a mountain, as stunning as mountains are. It isn't in sea or sky or snow or sunrise, as beautiful as they all are. It isn't in art or technology, be that a concerto or computer. No, his glory--and his grief--is in his children. You and I, we are his prized possessions, and we are the earthly evidence, however inadequate, of what he truly is. Human life--that is the greatest of God's powers, the most mysterious and magnificent chemistry of it all--and you and I have been given it, but under the most serious and sacred of restrictions. You and I who can make neither mountain nor moonlight, not one raindrop nor a single rose--yet we have this greater gift in an absolutely unlimited way. And the only control placed on us is self-control--self-control born of respect for the divine sacramental power it is. Surely God's trust in us to respect this future-forming gift is awesomely staggering. We who may not be able to repair a bicycle nor assemble an average jigsaw puzzle--yet with all our weaknesses and imperfections, we carry this procreative power that makes us very much like God in at least one grand and majestic way. A SERIOUS MATTER Souls. Symbols. Sacraments. Does any of this help you understand why human intimacy is such a serious matter? Why it is so right and rewarding and stunningly beautiful when it is within marriage and approved of God (not just "good" but "very good," he declared to Adam and Eve), and so blasphemously wrong--like unto murder--when it is outside such a covenant? It is my understanding that we park and pet and sleep over and sleep with at the peril of our very lives. Our penalty may not come on the precise day of our transgression, but it comes surely and certainly enough, and were it not for a merciful God and the treasured privilege of personal repentance, far too many would even now be feeling that hellish pain, which (like the passion we have been discussing) is also always described in the metaphor of fire. Someday, somewhere, sometime the morally unclean will, until they repent, pray like the rich man, wishing Lazarus to "dip ... his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:24). Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. In closing, consider this from two students of civilization's long, instructive Story: No one man [or woman], however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life [or hers] before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group. [Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35-36] Or, in the more ecclesiastical words of James E. Talmage: It has been declared in the solemn word of revelation, that the spirit and the body constitute the soul of man; and, therefore, we should look upon this body as something that shall endure in the resurrected state, beyond the grave, something to be kept pure and holy. Be not afraid of soiling its hands; be not afraid of scars that may come to it if won in earnest effort, or [won] in honest fight, but beware of scars that disfigure, that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone, that have befallen you in unworthy undertakings [pursued where you ought not have been]; beware of the wounds of battles in which you have been fighting on the wrong side. [Talmage, CR, October 1913, p. 117] I love you for wanting to be on the right side of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I express my pride in and appreciation for your faithfulness. As I said earlier, you are an absolute inspiration to me. I consider it the greatest of all professional privileges to be associated with you at this university at a time in your lives when you are finalizing what you believe and forging what your future will be. If some few of you are feeling the ,'scars . . . that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone," I wish to extend to you the special peace and promise available through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. I testify of his love and of the restored gospel principles and ordinances which make that love available to us with all their cleansing and healing power. I testify of the power of these principles and ordinances, including complete and redeeming repentance, which are only fully realized in this the true and living church of the true and living God. That we may "come unto Christ" for the fullness of soul and symbol and sacrament he offers us, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. THE UNIVERSITY OF MORTALITY L. Tom Perry Elder L. Tom Perry was sustained as a member of the Council of the Twelve of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1974. From October 1972 until that time he was an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve. His previous Church positions include terms as stake president, member of stake high councils and of bishoprics, and missionary in the Northern States Mission. Following his mission he served for two years with the U.S. Marines in the Pacific. Then, after completing his undergraduate and graduate work in finance at Utah State University, he entered the retail industry in the field of finance in department store operations, working in Idaho, California, and New York. At the time of his call in 1972, he was employed as vice-president of finance and treasurer for two large retail firms in the Boston area. Elder Perry and his late wife, Virginia Lee, are the parents of three children. In 1976 he married his second wife, Barbara Dayton. This fireside talk was given on 7 February 1988 in the Marriott Center. YOUR TURN Imagine with me a scene from the premortal existence. The time is about two decades ago, plus or minus a few years. We see an eager spirit at the front window watching the mailbox located out by the street. The mailman arrives and a delivery is made. The spirit rushes out to the mailbox with great anticipation that a long-awaited letter has been delivered. Plowing through the usual junk mail and monthly statements, we see a large white envelope. This may be it! Eagerly the letter is opened. Your name and address heads the letter. You read on: "Greetings! Your application to the 'University of Mortality' has been accepted." The letter goes on to give you instructions on the date your first semester will begin and the names of your new dorm parents. There's a catalog attached detailing information and opportunities available to you in this once-in-a-lifetime experience. The long wait is over! With anticipation you have looked forward to this day. You remember the time of the Grand Council in Heaven when you elected to be tested as a mortal. You have watched through the centuries, and now the Lord's instructions to his prophets ring in your ears. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? [Job 38:47] Now is your time to shout for joy, for now it is your turn to be on earth! THREE DEGREES Preparation for your birth date finds you studying the catalog over and over again. If you are accepted for graduation from the University of Mortality, it will be possible for you to receive one of three degrees--a telestial degree, terrestrial degree, or a celestial degree. The choice will be yours as to which one you will prepare yourself to obtain. The opportunities in the eternities to come depend on which degree you decide to strive for. As you study the options, only the celestial degree offers eternal growth and opportunity and life with Father again. We read: These are they whose bodies are celestial, whose glory is that of the sun, even the glory of God, the highest of all, whose glory the sun of the firmament is written of as being typical. And again, we saw the terrestrial world, and behold and lo, these are they who are of the terrestrial, whose glory differs from that of the church of the Firstborn who have received the fulness of the Father, even as that of the moon differs from the sun in the firmament. And again, we saw the glory of the telestial, which glory is that of the lesser, even as the glory of the stars differs from that of the glory of the moon in the firmament. [D&C 76:70-71, 81] The choice is clear. You will shoot for the sun, the celestial degree! We now turn to the section in the catalog on the required courses for the celestial degree. We find there subjects that are elective and those that are required. Because we are just beginning, we want to start with the required courses. The names of these courses are most interesting. Let us consider the names and course descriptions of just a few. SELF-WORTH Here is an interesting one! It is entitled "Self-Worth 101." We read on in the description: Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come. [D&C 130:18-19] The description states further, "It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance" (D&C 131:6). From this we understand the high priority the Lord, our Eternal Father, has placed on education and our constant striving to better our situation, to improve our minds, and to learn and grow. "True education," according to President David O. McKay, "is awakening a love for truth, a just sense of duty, opening the eyes of the soul to the great purpose and end of life" (David O. McKay, "True Education," The Instructor, August 1961, p. 254). He also said, "Wisdom is the right application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character" (McKay, "True Education," p. 253). Man's diligence and obedience are prerequisites for his obtaining this intelligence. The spiritual level of man's understanding is determined by his faithful response to God's commandments. So if his level of intelligence determines the level of his resurrection and degree of glory for which he has prepared himself, then it must follow that those who are more diligent and obedient than others in this world will obtain greater advantage in the world to come. Gaining knowledge is one thing, and applying it is another. If a man makes "wise" decisions, he has applied his knowledge to the experience he might already have gained, to the good counsel he might have received from another, and to the core of values he possesses, coming up with intelligent thinking or a righteous application of his knowledge. If we are to survive in our mortal experience, we must be able to apply our knowledge wisely and make intelligent decisions. We must prepare ourselves spiritually as well as intellectually. We must be part of the kingdom of God first, before we are part of anything else the world has to offer. Therein lies our strength to meet the battle head-on and come up a winner! If we treasure our membership in God's kingdom, and if we learn by the Spirit as our teachers teach by the Spirit, no matter under what circumstances, we will shore up our defenses and be strengthened. We will be in a much better position to keep our life's priorities in proper order. There is a danger, however, and it is a well-recognized fact that if too much emphasis is placed on the intellect, if a person learns to lean too heavily on the arm of flesh--that is, so-called "recognized authority," scientific facts, formulas, etc.--to the exclusion of spiritual knowledge and nurturing, he will lose the Spirit and begin to doubt. And if something cannot be proven absolutely according to the world's formula, he will disbelieve. Balance is so important in our lives! We must be certain our academic learning, our intellectual knowledge, is balanced with a proportionate share of things of the Spirit. President Kimball has said: This time of intellectual testing must also be a time of equivalent testing and flexing in things spiritual too. "The spirit giveth life" is so true in so many ways. When there is an inner-emptiness in the life of man, his surroundings, however affluent, cannot compensate. When there is a crisis of purpose, nothing will really seem worthwhile or meaningful. When man's relationship with God has been breached, we will be as Isaiah said, "restless as the 'sea which cannot rest!'" [Spencer W. Kimball, "Education for Eternity," Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year (Provo, 12 September 1967), p. 2] If we value these words of a prophet of God, if we are anxious to be obedient, and if we are striving to be like him who is the supreme example, then we will know that we must be about our Father's business. We will know that secular knowledge, though very important to us in our mortal lives, must take its proper place, and that the knowledge of God and his kingdom and eternal life with him is the very beginning and end of all we hold dear. President Kimball then went on to use the example of Peter and Andrew, called to be disciples of Jesus. Though they would be considered ignorant and unlearned in the world today, yet they had a knowledge of that which was necessary to instill in their hearts a simple yet perfect faith. They had an understanding of what was required to reach life eternal. This was an essential requirement for their mortal experience--a commitment and dedication to the Lord to drop whatever they were doing and follow him and learn of him. This qualified them for life eternal--a celestial degree. According to President Kimball, they will have eons of time to learn about geography, history, zoology, and mathematics in the eternities to come. "Education for eternity" is not just a catchy phrase--its consequences are eternal. What an intriguing class! We will want to put this high on our list of courses for our celestial degree. MORAL CLEANLINESS Here is another course of great interest: "Your Standard of Morality, Course 110." One of the great heroes we have been able to study in the Old Testament is Joseph. When he was only seventeen, his brothers sold him to the Ishmaelites, and he was carried away as a slave into Egypt. There he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian who was an officer of the pharaoh and a captain of the guard. Even though Joseph was young and inexperienced, he made his way to being chief among all the servants in Potiphar's house. But his position was not without challenge, for Potiphar's wife liked his looks and invited him into her chambers. He refused by letting her know what his standard of morality was. One day she found him going about his business in the house, and there was no one else around. She caught hold of his garment. Joseph literally left his garment in her hands and fled, as the scriptures record, "and got him out" (Genesis 39:12). He physically removed himself from the temptation. Joseph would not violate the trust placed in him, nor his commitment to the Lord to follow the Lord's code of morality. He had established for himself a standard of values that were the same as the Lord's. I have made quite a remarkable discovery lately in my study of the computer. There are at least three integral parts--input devices, a storage unit, and output equipment. Only information put into the computer and stored can be produced as output. We cannot expect something to come out that has not been properly input. It is similar in our human mind. We have eyes and ears to see and hear as input devices. Our brain stores the information we see and hear, and makes it available to us when we need output in the form of speech, expression, or movement. It is only what we store in our mind that will be available to us to produce the output we need for life. President Romney has said: The great overall struggle in the world today is, as it has always been, for the souls of men. Every soul is personally engaged in the struggle, and he makes his fight with what is in his mind. In the final analysis the battleground is, for each individual, within himself. Inevitably he gravitates toward the subjects of his thoughts. [Marion G. Romney, "The Book of Mormon," Ensign, May 1980, p. 66] Certainly the writer of Proverbs declared an eternal truth when he said: "For as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). Pornography, or near-pornography, is easily available to us in the world today. It degrades humanity. And once we allow our minds to become filled with it, we find that we lose power over our actions. The sexual sins of fornication and adultery seem to follow soon afterward in the lives of those who fill their minds with this filth and trash. The value of moral cleanliness is great. It cannot be bought with gold or silver. It will do more to bring about eternal happiness than almost anything else we can do. It was Paul who counseled the Galatians when he said: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. [Galatians 6:7-8] Moral cleanliness or virtue is a standard of decency that should be observed by all thinking people who want good homes, strong communities, and a great country. The subject matter of this course will certainly determine the kind of world we want to help build, and the type that we will enjoy living in. It will help us make the decisions that will not allow us to succumb to the pressures and temptations so prevalent today. We will have the courage to keep ourselves separated from the degrading influences of life and, if necessary, will be like Joseph and remove ourselves physically from them. "And go ye out from among the wicked. Save yourselves. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord" (D&C 38:42). BEING TRUE Here is another interesting required course. It is entitled "To Thine Own Self Be True 120." This course will teach us the value of honesty--which includes honor, integrity, and truthfulness. We will study great Church leaders such as President N. Eldon Tanner, who assumed the burden and responsibilities for the financial affairs of the Church for so many years. He was noted throughout the world as a man of integrity. When President Tanner shook hands on an agreement or signed his name on a contract, everyone knew he could be trusted without question. All terms would be rigidly adhered to in an honest and fair way. He said: There is far too much immorality, dishonesty, and lack of integrity in the lives of those who are leading and guiding the affairs of our nations, our schools, and our communities. Somehow we must get back to the lofty ideals ... of those who fought and died for truth, religion, and freedom. [N. Eldon Tanner, "Remember Who You Are," Ensign, January 1983, pp. 3-4] In a similar tone, President Kimball has said: Practically all dishonesty owes its existence and growth to the inward distortion we call self-justification. It is the first and worst, and most insidious and damaging form of cheating, to cheat oneself. [Mexico/CA Area Conference, August 1972, p. 27] So often in mortality, men with promising futures justify declaring themselves an unauthorized bonus, only to be discovered and have their careers destroyed. The stigma of dishonesty literally marks them for life. President Heber J. Grant said: The fundamental thing for a Latter-day Saint is to be honest. The fundamental thing for a Latter-day Saint is to value his word as faithfully as his bond; to make up his mind that under no circumstances, no matter how hard it may be, by and with the help of the Lord, he will dedicate his life and his best energies to making good his promises. [Heber J. Grant, "As Other Men Judge Us," Improvement Era, June 1938, p. 327] You will find those in mortality who want as much latitude as possible, as much gray area as they can find, between honesty and dishonesty. The Lord has established the standard. It is the same as the Savior taught. There is no gray area. Brigham Young taught the pioneers: We want the Saints to increase in goodness, until our mechanics, for instance, are so honest and reliable that this Railroad Company will say, "Give us a Mormon elder for an engineer, then none need have the least fear to ride, for if he knows there is danger he will take every measure necessary to preserve the lives of those entrusted to his care." [JD 12:300] William Shakespeare wrote, "Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done" (King Richard the Second, act 1, sc. 1, lines 182-83). Here is a course that will teach us to have a value standard of honesty that will be in harmony with divine law. It will build within us an integrity that will tell the world we can be trusted. HONEST LABOR Now here is another basic course, this one entitled "By the Sweat of His Brow 130." It appears as if in mortality we are to learn the joy of honest labor, how to produce with our heads and our hands something creative for mankind. President Kimball gave us this example of his experience as a boy. As a boy I saw how all, young and old, worked and worked hard. We knew that we were taming the Arizona desert. But had I been wiser then, I would have realized that we were taming ourselves, too. Honest toil in subduing sagebrush, taming deserts, channeling rivers, helps to take the wildness out of man's environment but also out of him. The disdain for work among some today may merely signal the return of harshness and wildness-perhaps not to our landscape but to some people. The dignity and self-esteem that honest work produces are essential to happiness, It is so easy for leisure to turn into laziness. [TSWK, p. 362] This course will not only teach us to be productive, to work, to be busily engaged, but to not waste our time in idleness. There appears to be another virtue in this course as well, and that is not to waste the valuable resources the Lord has given to us, but to preserve and protect them for the use of mankind. In fact, the Lord has told us that if we needlessly waste what he has blessed us with, he will take it away from us. This course will teach us about the Lord's system of providing abundantly for his children, so long as we will be industrious and take care of that which he has provided. The beehive was the pioneer emblem. Industry has always been a vital part of the heritage of our Father in Heaven's children. President Grant's words should ever ring in our ears: The aim of the Church is to help the people help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership. [CR, October 1936, p. 3] This is a course that will teach a standard of industry that will give us a sense of accomplishment from our daily labors. A TEMPLE OF GOD There is another required course. It is entitled "Know Ye Not That Ye Are the Temple of God? 140." Again there is the example of another one of the great prophets of the Old Testament, Daniel. During the period of time in which he lived, Israel was not faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord. Because of this she lost her power and was not able to defend herself against her enemies. Strategically, she was in an awkward position. The powerful nations of Egypt and Syria bordered her on the south and on the north. Instead of doing battle on their own lands, these two nations took turns overrunning Israel and making her their battleground. It was under these conditions that Daniel was born. When he was just a child, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem. As part of the spoils of his conquest, he took the sacred vessels from the holy temple back as trophies. Then, in order to make his nation still stronger, he took hostage all of the bright and promising Israelite children. As the scriptures record, the king took those Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. [Daniel 1:4] Daniel was one of those taken back to the palace as a slave by Nebuchadnezzar, to be trained in the king's way and used to help make the empire stronger. It was not long after Daniel had been taken from his home in Jerusalem that he faced his first real test. The young men of Israel had been apportioned a daily provision of the king's food, consisting of meat and wine. Daniel knew in his heart, because of the training of his parents, that the food and the wine provided by the king would not be good for him. He knew it would defile his body. So he went to the prince who was over them and pleaded with him that he not be required to eat the meat and drink the wine of the king. The prince was astonished at this request. He did not dare allow Daniel the privilege of eating anything other than that the king had ordered. He was afraid he would lose his position, or perhaps even his life, if the king found out. Daniel understood this, but he had been taught correct principles. He bargained with the prince this way: He would eat only the foods he had been taught were good for him for just ten days. If after ten days his countenance was not fairer and healthier than all the rest, he would then eat the king's portion of meat and drink the wine. Of course, because Daniel followed the Lord's way, at the end of the tenth day he was the strongest of all those taken before the king. You have been taught that your body is a temple of God, and you are to treat it as such. Sometimes you may be ridiculed and laughed at for refusing to partake of those things that will destroy your body. We challenge you to remember that just as Daniel of old received strength by obeying the Lord's commandments, you will too, and will be blessed in the same way. COMPLETING YOUR DEGREE The Lord's laws are eternal. Just as sure as we follow them, we will receive his blessings. For he has promised us that All saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health ... ; . . . wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. [D&C 89:18-20] Thumbing through the catalog beyond the basic required courses that begin with 100, we find an overwhelming selection of courses with numbers of 200, 300, 400, 500, etc. The University of Mortality is going to offer us an abundance of electives to bring beauty into life and opportunities to improve talents. There will be courses offered in helping us improve our appreciation for the cultural arts, music, paintings, dance, and drama. There is a large section on career choices that will give us variety in the work-a-day world. Yes, and there is even one section on the characteristics to look for in our selection of an eternal companion, the most important choice we will make while attending the University of Mortality Of course, no university experience could be complete without periods of examination to test our progress toward the degree of our choice. A pattern of earthly ordinances has been established. The completion of these ordinances is required to qualify us for the highest degree offered. Before being allowed to participate in an ordinance, we will be required to sit in front of a priesthood leader and be tested on our faith, testimony, and obedience to gospel principles. A true record of our responses will be made and will become a permanent part of our requirements for graduation. A record will be made of the integrity of our responses to a priesthood leader before passing the test of having the ordinances of baptism, confirmation, gifts of the priesthood, and those ordinances performed in the holy temples. The honest completion of each one entitles us to move forward on the next step toward our celestial degree. The failure to pass any one of the required tests will, of necessity, reduce us to a lower, less-wanted degree. However, the university does recognize the possibility of failure in an examination. There is a process of repentance, correction, and the opportunity again of redirecting our course toward the highest objective. Make-up tests will be allowed. There is, of course, the resulting sorrow that comes from failure, the recognition that extra effort must be exerted to make up for lost time, and the struggle and need for a new determination to get us back on course. HERE AND NOW It is now 1988. You are presently enrolled in the University of Mortality, having arrived here without knowledge of the decisions you made in the premortal existence. In fact, you find yourself enrolled in one of the most exciting, challenging semesters of your entire earthly experience. It is the semester when many of the most important decisions in mortality must be made. The balance of your life here and in the eternities to come will depend on the decisions you make now. Your future happiness depends on these decisions. They are, of course, educational goals, career paths, talent enhancement, marriage, and the degree you want to obtain in this life to wear gloriously and proudly in the eternities to come. We challenge you to study and internalize the basic required courses for life with the promise that conducting yourself in harmony with the Lord's law will bring the only true, fulfilling, and rewarding happiness that this experience in the University of Mortality can produce. Our Eternal Father stands ready to bless you. He will not forsake you, so long as you do not forsake him. Even then, he is willing to extend a helping hand to those who honestly and sincerely repent and strive to do the works of righteousness. May God bless you with the strength of spirit to choose wisely the values by which you will govern your life, and may he bless you with the courage and commitment to stand steadfast in keeping the commandments of the Lord. This is my prayer, in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. KEEPING THE GOSPEL SIMPLE Glen L. Rudd At the time of his call to the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 1987, Elder Glen Larkin Rudd was president of the New Zealand Temple. Elder Rudd was born in Salt Lake City, attended the University of Utah, and served as a missionary in New Zealand. After working twelve years in his own poultry processing business, he was named manager of the Church's Welfare Square, where he served twenty-five years. Later he was director of zone operations for the Welfare Services Department. Elder Rudd has served as president of both the Florida Mission and the New Zealand Wellington Mission, Regional Representative, first counselor in a stake presidency, bishop, bishop's counselor, Boy Scout leader, ward clerk, and chairman of the Salt Lake and Pioneer Regional Bishops' councils. He is married to Marva Sperry, and they are the parents of eight children. This devotional address was given on 16 February 1988 in the Marriott Center. MATTHEW COWLEY Many years ago I went on a mission to New Zealand, and the day I arrived I had the opportunity of meeting President Matthew Cowley for the first time. He was to be my mission president. During the next two years we became close friends, and during the latter part of my mission I had the honor of living in the mission home with the Cowleys and traveling with President Cowley throughout New Zealand. He was an excellent teacher and a most interesting person. Some years later, while he was a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, I had the opportunity of bringing him here to BYU on two or three occasions when he was the speaker at devotionals. Everyone loved to hear him and his stories. Even though he has been gone for over thirty-four years, there are people in many parts of the Church still interested in the faith-promoting stories he used to tell. As I have prepared to come here today, I have been reminded over and over of the inspirational talks he gave to the students who were here. Those students might have been your parents--and for some, even your grandparents. Over and above everything else, President Cowley tried to keep simple the things he taught. In fact, he said many times that he was unable to speak very often of things beyond the first principles of the gospel. I remember well that he spoke about prayer, faith, and repentance. For several years he had a talk ready on baptism, but he was never able to get that far along and give it. He had some ideas on baptism that he wanted to give in general conference, but life ran out before he gave his special talk on baptism. He lived simply. He really didn't concern himself with his own personal needs. He only wanted to bless people and inspire them to live the gospel in a simple way. Because of his great faith, many wonderful things continued to happen after our missions were over. We found ourselves blessing people all over who called for him. I was a very young bishop in those days who had a rather difficult time earning a living because President Cowley would insist I leave work and go with him. After we would bless people, he would fast and pray for them and return again and again to those who needed him. We saw great miracles happen in those days. My testimony to you students is that miracles do happen! They are happening on the earth today, and they will continue to happen, particularly to those who believe and have great faith. Miracles occur frequently in the lives of humble, fine Saints who have the faith to make them possible. My feeling about miracles is that the greatest of all miracles is the one that happens in the life of a person who really learns how to pray, who exercises faith to repent, and who lives the gospel in a simple and obedient way. President Matthew Cowley said many times, "The gospel of Jesus Christ is simply beautiful and beautifully simple." He spent his whole life trying to explain that there isn't anything very complicated about the Church. In fact, most of the Church leaders whom I have known have taught the same thing. Many of us complicate simple things to the point of causing confusion. The Savior has always been direct and plain in giving commandments to us. I am convinced that understanding increases when we talk or teach in a direct and simple way. For instance, we are told to do missionary work by the Spirit. We could complicate this by writing books on how to follow the Spirit in missionary work, but that is really unnecessary because the Lord has a manner of communicating with us in a very simple way. Generally, all that a person has to do is pray in faith and wait for the answer. Sometimes he needs to do a little more than just wait, but the more simple he can keep his prayers, the more simple and more direct the answer will be. Now, let me say a little more about Matthew Cowley. He was a very uncomplicated man. Some who couldn't understand his simplicity became confused about the things he was able to do and found it difficult to understand him. I had the opportunity of being his close associate for fifteen years. After he died, some people asked me to explain Matthew Cowley to them. One man in a high position said, "I just can't understand how he did all the things he did." The real answer was that he went directly to the Lord, told the Lord what he wanted, and received the answer. There wasn't anything hard about that. He just did it. President Cowley was different from mission presidents today. Mission presidents in this day and age are well-organized in order to hold district and zone meetings and all the necessary appointments and interviews. They have almost every day planned weeks in advance. Brother Cowley never planned anything. He just lived by the Spirit of the Lord. As his traveling companion in the mission field, I received instructions from him to keep my briefcase packed with a couple of clean shirts, clean socks, and clean underwear. Then he said, "When I say, 'We're going,' you grab your bag, beat me to the car, and don't ask any questions." When that would happen, I would grab my bag and go to the car. Being a young, eager missionary, I would wonder, "Where are we going now?" But I didn't ask. Once, after we had driven a few miles, he asked, "Would you like to know where we're going?" I said, "Yes." Then he said, "So would I! I'm not sure just where we're going, but we'll keep going. And when the Lord tells us to turn, we'll turn, and we'll end up where he wants us to be." The Maori people used to pray for President Cowley to come to them. One day he drove up to the front of a post office in a rather distant city in New Zealand. There were two sisters standing by the post office waiting. When he got out of the car, one said to the other, "See, I told you he would be here soon." President Cowley said, "Hey, what's going on here?" One of the sisters said, "We needed you and we've been praying. We knew you would be coming, and you always go directly to the post office, so we decided to wait here until you arrived." It was just that simple. People would tell the Lord what they wanted, and somehow or other President Cowley was led by the Spirit to go where they were. Now, he wasn't totally disorganized, but I have never known anyone who planned less and accomplished more, simply by doing the things he felt impressed to do. During the last several months, while I have been speaking at stake conferences, I have had difficulty myself getting past the simple principles of personal and family prayer, faith, and repentance. I believe in these things. I think they are as plain and simple as anything in the whole world can possibly be. I am going to tell you four simple stories about prayer, faith, repentance, and baptism. PRAYER Prayer is the way we talk to the Lord. We bow before him and in humble prayer pour out the feelings of our hearts, thank him, and ask him for special blessings. If we have simple faith, those answers will come. Just to illustrate this, one day when President Cowley and I were traveling, we arrived at the home of Brother Stewart Meha, a great and wonderful Maori man. He was in every way a pure patriarch. He had never been ordained a patriarch--he just was one, and he presided over his large family as a true father and leader. President Cowley and Brother Meha spent all afternoon sitting on the porch just talking about the Church and other interesting things. I listened to them part of the time and then visited with the kids and others who lived in this little area near Brother Mehids home. Incidentally, there were two or three other homes in this little Maori village, but I discovered that most of the people living there belonged to his family. They were his children and his grandchildren. When it came time for the evening meal, Brother Meha stood on his front porch and, in the Maori language, shouted out to all of his large family, "Haere Mai Ki Te Kai." Then he said, "Haere Mai Ki Te Karakia." This simply meant "Come on home for supper" and "Come on home for prayer." Soon family members came from every direction. We all assembled in his home in the big front room. This room had very little furniture in it, and everybody gathered in a large circle. Brother Meha was at the head of the circle and on his left was President Cowley. I was next to the president. On Brother Meha's right was a little child about eight years of age. All around the rest of the circle were the other children with some adults in between. Finally Brother Meha said to the little boy on his right, "You start." I bowed my head in anticipation of the little boy's prayer. Instead of praying, he quoted a scripture, after first reciting the chapter and verse. Then the young person next to him gave a scripture with the reference. After about four scriptures had been given, I realized that we were going around the circle with each person quoting a different passage of scripture. One youngster started to quote one that had already been used, and he was quickly corrected. I immediately began to think of a scripture that I could quote when my turn came. I had been in the mission field just a little over a year and had mastered two wonderful passages of scripture. I mentally polished up my first scripture and had no sooner silently rehearsed it than one of the young people gave that exact scripture. This, of course, slowed me down for a minute, but I thought I was okay because I still had one in reserve. I worked a little on it, only to hear someone directly across from me quote it. I then became panicky as I realized I could not think of another scripture I could give. My turn was coming closer and closer, and I felt tension building up within me. My mind went totally blank. In my moment of greatest concern, President Cowley nudged me with his elbow and, out of the side of his mouth, said, "Quick--tell me a scripture. I can't think of a single one to say." I then realized that the two of us were in the same desperate situation. At that moment it was my turn. I bravely said the first article of faith. President Cowley followed by quoting the second article of faith, and then Brother Meha prayed. I think that night he prayed for the mission president and the missionaries a little more than usual. When the prayer was finished, a little boy about eight years of age came over to us and said, "I guess you two guys don't know that the Articles of Faith are not allowed in our scripture study." Now, brothers and sisters, that was an excellent example to me of family prayer and how children can be taught the scriptures. If we would just gather together and have prayer, it would probably be the finest teaching experience that a mother and father could give to their children. Prayers do not need to be long or complicated. They only need to be simple and sincere. If we want to talk to the Lord, we do it through prayer. If we listen with faith, we will hear his answers. We can also search the scriptures, for in the scriptures we are given in an uncomplicated way the answers to the things we need to know. Prayer is simple and should remain that way. FAITH Now let me say something to you about faith. Faith is the first principle of the gospel. Faith is a gift from our Heavenly Father. No one seems to have enough faith. It is hard to tell how much we have, but we all need a little bit more. The faith of most of us seems to come and go. Faith is simply knowing that the Lord is there and that he will keep his promises to those who humbly approach him. Let me tell you an unusual experience that happened to me personally while I was presiding over the old Florida mission about twenty years ago. It all started when I received a letter written in Spanish. Upon reading the translated letter, I learned it was from a young member of the Church--a sister twenty or twenty-one years of age, Flavia Salazar Gomez--who was living in the city of Santiago in the Dominican Republic. I understood that Santiago at that time had close to 200,000 inhabitants. It is located about ninety miles north of Santo Domingo, which is the main city in that country. Flavia stated in her letter that she had joined the Church when she was about twelve. Her sisters and mother had also joined the Church, and she had been very active in Mexico. Later on she had fallen in love with a Dominican boy, married him, and gone with him to the Dominican Republic to live. Flavia thought she was the only Latter-day Saint in the whole country of five million people. She mentioned in her letter that she had a year-old baby boy who had not been named or blessed by the priesthood. She wrote that she was seriously ill with cancer and had been told by doctors that she did not have very long to live. She asked if it would be possible for someone holding the priesthood to come to Santiago and give her a blessing. I wrote her back and told her we would get there as soon as possible. It wasn't long before I was to go to a district conference in Puerto Rico. There was one Latter-day Saint family living in Santo Domingo--Brother and Sister Dale Valentine and their children. Brother Valentine was an elder, and they were a good, active, fine Latter-day Saint family. I wrote Brother Valentine and asked if he would take me to Santiago so we could find and bless Flavia. I took Elder Gert Forestor with me and flew into the Dominican Republic. Brother Valentine and one of his children met us at the airport in Santo Domingo, and early the next morning all four of us got into his station wagon and drove up to the city of Santiago. It was a rather long ride because the highway was crooked and traffic was quite heavy. When we arrived at the outskirts of Santiago, Brother Valentine asked me where she lived. At that moment we realized that none of us knew exactly where she lived. We didn't have a street address for her. All I knew was her name and that she was hoping we would come. We stopped the car for a few minutes on a high point overlooking the city. I told Brother Valentine to drive his car down into the city and turn to the left. He obediently drove on. I then told him to make a right turn and proceed toward the center of this large, congested city. As we drove down this busy street, we began looking for a parking place. But there was none to be found. After traveling several more blocks, Brother Valentine said, "What can we possibly do to find her?" I said, "Go to the next corner, make a right turn, and after you turn you will find an empty parking place." He drove to the corner and made the right turn. There in front of us in the second or third slot was an open place where he parked the car. We got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk. He said, "Now what do we do?" I said, "Let's just start asking people." Brother Valentine just looked at me as if I had lost all my marbles. I wasn't sure myself, but I had a feeling we were okay. There was a man on the sidewalk leaning up against the front of a residence. Brother Valentine went over to him, spoke in Spanish, and asked if he knew Flavia Salazar Gomez. The man looked at him in surprise and said, "Yes, she's my wife. She's just inside that door." We had parked in front of their home. Her husband went in, and she came out onto the sidewalk with her little baby boy. We were pleased to see what a lovely person she was. We were invited into their humble little home. I asked Brother Valentine to interview her and see how close to the Church she had remained. We were delighted to know that she was still living the Word of Wisdom and that she prayed every day. Of course, she had no church to attend and was unable to make any contributions to the Church, but she felt she was a good, faithful member. She asked if President David O. McKay was still alive and well and asked a few other questions about the Church. It had been at least two years since she had left Mexico, and during that time she had been out of contact with the Church. We named and blessed the little boy, and then I requested Brother Valentine to give her a blessing in Spanish. I felt impressed to tell him to bless her that she would recover from her cancerous condition and become well. After the blessing and a brief visit, we drove back to the city of Santo Domingo. A month or two later, I heard from Brother Valentine that Flavia and her husband had moved into Santo Domingo. Six months later, as I was on my way to Puerto Rico again, I stopped over in Santo Domingo, and Brother Valentine drove me out to where Flavia and her husband were living. We found her in good health, looking well and happy. She told us she had been completely cured. The doctors told her she no longer had cancer, and it seemed she was going to be all right from then on. They were delighted to see us again. It was a great thrill to meet this lovely Latter-day Saint sister and realize the blessings of the Lord that had come to her. Actually, what happened was that this lovely, young Mexican mother needed a priesthood blessing. She knew there was no way to get one except to ask the Lord to help her. She very simply wrote a letter to the mission president, who she didn't know. The mission president read her letter and immediately did the thing that the Lord told him to do. He arranged to go and answer her need. It was just that simple. There may be those who question such things as this, but they happen all the time. Almost any priesthood leader, if he thinks for a moment, can tell you how faith has led him to do things that he hadn't planned to do. REPENTANCE Repentance is just about as simple as prayer and faith. All that a person really has to do to repent is to quit doing what is wrong and then make amends as much as he can to rectify the problems he has created. Then he must tell the Lord about it, and sometimes he needs to tell the bishop or the branch president, but it can all be handled in a simple, practical way. Repentance is understood by some people to be a long, drawn-out process. That is absolutely not necessary. We just quit doing what is wrong, make up for it in the best possible way, and let the Lord do his part. He has promised that when a man repents, he is forgiven. If he does not commit the wrong again, the Lord will not even remember it. Let me read from section 58 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verses 42 and 43: Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins--behold, he will confess them and forsake them. Nothing is more direct or simple than that scripture. Now, let me tell you an interesting story about repentance. There was a man by the name of Syd who lived in a little Maori village on the east coast of New Zealand. At that time a large branch of the Church was there with about 400 members. One Saturday afternoon after a long, eight-hour drive, President Cowley arrived at this village and went directly to see his old friend Syd. As a young man, Syd had been an outstanding athlete. Some missionaries had taken him to America, where he attended high school and some college. He became a well-known basketball player and, as an all-star athlete, he received a lot of publicity. His picture was in the papers many times, and everybody knew about this fine athlete from New Zealand. He was ordained a seventy while he lived here, but when he went back to New Zealand he found he was the only seventy in the whole country. He didn't have a quorum to belong to, and he became somewhat inactive. The first thing he knew, he was tampering with the Word of Wisdom and was in the habit of taking it easy. But deep within his heart he still knew the gospel to be true. Now, as mission president and as friend, President Cowley called on Syd. Let me explain that among the Maori members and the missionaries, President Cowley was known as "Tumuaki, " a word of utmost respect meaning "president" or "beloved leader" in the Maori language. "Tumuaki" found Syd sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch smoking a big cigar. He didn't stop chewing on his cigar as President Cowley sat beside him to visit. After they had talked and laughed for a while, President Cowley became serious and said, "Syd, I want you to come to church tomorrow. " They both looked toward the old chapel that was nearby, and Syd said, "I think it would fall in! I haven't been there for a long time. I don't think I'd better risk it." President Cowley said, "Syd, I want you to be there. I'm going to do something important tomorrow." Syd inquired, "What are you going to do?" President Cowley answered, "I'm going to release the branch president and put in a new one." Syd said, "Why don't you just tell me who the new branch president will be, and then I won't have to get myself cleaned up for church in the morning." President Cowley said, "Well, I'll tell you who it is. It's going to be you." Syd had that old cigar in his mouth. He pulled it out and looked at it and said, "Tumuaki, you mean me and my cigar?" President Cowley said, "No, Syd--just you. We don't need your cigar." Then Syd threw the cigar out on the ground in front of the porch. He thought for a moment, turned to President Cowley, and very humbly said, "Tumuaki, I don't break the Word of Wisdom anymore. I'm a full-tithe payer. I'll be the branch president, and I'll be worthy. Tomorrow morning I'll be there, and I promise you that I'll be the best branch president in the whole country. You won't have to worry about me and whether or not I'm living the gospel." For the next several years, Syd served as one of the strongest and finest leaders in New Zealand. His son became the first bishop in the ward when the stake was created, and his grandson was just recently released as a bishop. His whole family is strong and active in the Church today and is one of the great families in New Zealand. Why? Because old Syd knew how to repent. He repented on the spot. When he was called to repentance, he quit his worldly ways. He became and remained a faithful Saint until the day he died. Now, that's all there is to repentance. You see how simple that really was? President Cowley never did ask Syd to repent. He gave him an opportunity to be of service to the Church. He gave him a priesthood calling. Syd knew he could no longer sin, so he immediately quit. It was over--just like that! The Lord accepted his repentance, and Syd became a great leader. BAPTISM Now, baptism and confirmation are just as simple as prayer and faith and repentance. Baptism is simply doing what the Savior has told us to do. Go before the priesthood, be baptized by immersion, and receive the Holy Ghost through the laying on of hands. These ordinances do not need to be complicated. I don't have time to tell you much about baptism except to tell you that it has to be done exactly right. There was an interesting old Maori man in New Zealand who loved to baptize people. In fact, as he grew older he did a most unusual thing. He would go down to the ocean, gather up all the kids who were playing on the beach, and take them out in the water one by one and baptize them. This is not the way we do baptisms in the Church! None of the kids was ever confirmed and nothing ever came of his baptisms, but all the missionaries knew him and loved him. They called him "Cannonball." He was a funny old Maori man who had a great heart and loved the Lord. The elders finally got him to quit baptizing. My whole purpose in telling you these stories today is to bear testimony to you that simplicity is possible. Almost every principle and every doctrine of the Church can be made simple if we make the effort. It is absolutely possible to live righteously and properly in a simple way. The Lord knows how to hear our prayers--so pray! The Lord knows how to give us faith--so ask him for faith! The Lord knows how to help us repent--so repent as needed! In the most simple way I know, I bear to you my humble witness that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and the head of this church. Today a great man stands before us as our president. He is a living prophet of the Lord. May we all sustain him, support him, and be the kind of followers of Christ that we ought to be. This I humbly pray, and I leave my blessings upon each and every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. BEING A WORTHY YOU Philip T. Sonntag Elder Philip T. Sonntag was called as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 1984. At that time, he was serving as a Regional Representative with responsibility for the Philippines. During a lifetime of Church service, he has been a mission president in New Zealand, president of the Salt Lake Hillside Stake, a high councilor, bishop, and bishop's counselor. After his return from New Zealand, he served as director of visitors' centers on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, directing more than 1,200 volunteer tour guides, hosts, and hostesses for more than 2.2 million visitors annually. In that capacity he was also a counselor to the president of the Utah Salt Lake City North Mission of the Church. A wholesale jeweler, he owned and operated Philip & Company. A Salt Lake City native, he attended the University of Utah and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Involved in athletics all of his life, Elder Sonntag played on several all-Church championship teams. Elder Sonntag and his wife, Voloy Andreasen, are the parents of two daughters and one son. This fireside address was delivered on 6 March 1988 in the Marriott Center. I'm honored to be invited to participate at this special time, to view this great and vast audience, and to feel the impact that is possible in the world because of your lives. Your life is sacredly yours. It has never been lived before and no one else can ever live it. Only you can set the bounds. You have the capacity to determine exactly what you are to become. WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT Many of us focus our existence on earning--on acquiring, spending, and consuming. We use up our time getting things and then maintaining them, finding a place to store them, fixing them up when they break, guarding them against theft, and then upgrading them when a newer model comes out. When I think of accumulating things and the difference it makes, I think of the experience I had in Bacolod, on the Negros Island in the Philippines. We were being driven to stake conference by President Ruiz. He had borrowed a car so we would have transportation. When we drove up to the little chapel there in Bacolod, there was no one around. I said, "President, maybe the conference is at another time." He replied, "No, they're all inside." We drove into the parking lot-ours was the only car there. We got out of the car and walked into the chapel. It was packed to capacity and people were standing on the sides. The meeting commenced and the great stake president, President Villerette, stood. He looked at his people and tears began to stream down his face. He said, "I'm hungry. My wife and my children are hungry. All we have to eat is a little bowl of rice each day." Then he said, "But you, my brothers and sisters, are hungry too. And I promise you that if you will live and keep the commandments of the Lord that this will pass, and one day again we will have our stomachs full and be able to enjoy the blessings of our country. Our success at business, sports, friendship, love, and life--nearly every enterprise we attempt--is largely determined by our own self-image. People who have confidence in their personal worth seem to be magnets for success and happiness. When I think of happiness, I think of an experience we had in Tarawa. We were traveling to Tarawa, and as the plane landed and pulled up to the very humble terminal, the door opened, and a man jumped in, saying, "Elder Sonntag, please come quickly." We did not know what the urgency was, but we came quickly out of the airplane, walked right through Immigration (they knew we weren't going anywhere else), and then walked over to two vans. There was a tarp spread between the two vans, and sitting on the tarp were nineteen young men and women. We were informed that they were missionaries--young people from the islands that dot the sea, islands that really have not even been given names. They were young people who had come to Tarawa to try and get an education, to learn how to read and write. While they were there they felt the spirit of the gospel and joined the Church. Now they wanted to go on missions. But as they sat there under that equatorial sun, huddled close together looking at that airplane that they never dreamed they'd have the experience of getting on, they were frightened. They asked for a special blessing. And we had the privilege of giving them that blessing--the Lord was good to us that day. We gave them that blessing, and then they arose and climbed the steps to the airplane. Their feet had never had a pair of shoes on them. They had only one white shirt each and the clothes on their backs with just a little sack of personal belongings as they entered that airplane. They had never eaten with a fork or a spoon or a knife. They'd only eaten with their fingers. They didn't know what a cup was. They had drunk from a half shell of a coconut all their lives. And yet here they were going to be the very first missionaries in the history of the Church to leave the island of Tarawa and go to New Zealand to the Missionary Training Center. They were the first of their young people to ever have the privilege of going to the temple to receive their endowments. We could hardly wait until we got home so we could call President Palmer at the New Zealand MTC and find out how our Tarawan missionaries were--they were just like little scared mice. When we talked with President Palmer on the phone, he said, "Oh, President, what a great experience it was. When they came in they saw their first neon sign. They saw their first big bus. They saw their first high rise. They looked at the boats in the harbor at Auckland and were just amazed at the types of ships they saw. Everything they did was a new experience. We hardly had enough water supply because every time we went by a tap they'd turn it on to see running water. They would flush every toilet they went by. They couldn't believe what was taking place. " "But," he continued, "when they came into the classes they again huddled into the corners." And then he said, "On the fourth day we took them to the temple. They walked in petrified and unknowing. We had prepared them as best we could. But, President, when they left the temple of the Lord they came out as giants of the Lord. And you cannot believe the difference that took place. And I want you to know that we have nineteen young people who are now worthy to represent the Savior." Maybe we ought to take a look at what life is all about. Perhaps we should be like the man who said he had more than Carnegie or Rockefeller. "How is that?" asked a friend. "Because I have all that I need, and they always kept wanting more." Let us learn to simplify our wants and then our lives, throwing open the windows of our souls and letting a clean, sweet breeze flow through. Let us learn to evaluate what we think we need under stricter guidelines. You might ask the questions: Will this really enhance my life? Is it worth the financial tension it will cause? Can I do without it? None of us really wants to spend our hours primarily on things that will yellow with age and break down or end up in the city dump. We pass this way only once, and there are many finer things to do. You can follow the crowd and be one of the crowd and follow the mainstream of life--or you can be somebody. You may criticize the past and the present, and you may wonder why things are as they are. Or you may marvel at what has been accomplished in medicine, electronics, industry, farming, and education. As you evaluate your thoughts, make sure that in this life you will contribute to the world as much as those of the past have done. BE READY AND BE YOURSELF Our responsibility is to take the talents we have and parlay them into the highest possible achievement. Opportunities abound on every side for those who are willing to put forth the effort. Each opportunity presents a challenge. Nothing is accomplished without dedication and preparation and the will to win. I remember the story of a young man who went out for quarterback on a football team. He was the third-string quarterback. He was at every practice. He suited up for every game. But at the games it seemed the coach forgot who he was--he didn't get to play at all during the season. He was on a good team, though, and they were playing for the championship. He said to himself, "Well, this is great. I've got the best seat in the house." And so he went out and put on his uniform, did the exercises, and felt very comfortable. When it came game time he found his place on the bench. He got a nice warm blanket, wrapped himself in it, and even called the hot-dog boy over and had a hot dog. He took his shoes off. It would be lots more comfortable watching the ball game without his cleats on. And so he sat there in that condition. The first string quarterback didn't move the team very well. The coach brought out the second-string quarterback, but he was having a worse time. Then, out of the sounds of the stadium, there came this young man's name. He jumped up off the bench and ran onto the field in his white socks. The whole stadium had their eyes glued on those white socks. He went into the huddle. The team members looked at those white socks and wondered what the coach was doing. Of course, the play was a disaster. Time-out was called, and this young man ran off the field to put on his shoes. But the call didn't come again. He had had his chance. Life does not give too many chances. You really have to be ready when your time comes. Don't be caught with your shoes off when your chance comes. You make a wonderful you. Don't try to be somebody else. Learn the power of proper decisions and do what you know is right. Have the ability to say no when things are not as they should be. Remember, what you do really counts. One day I had the privilege of playing golf with President N. Eldon Tanner and his brother-in-law and nephew. We were standing on the first tee at Bonneville Golf Course. Young Wayne Moore, the nephew, didn't hesitate to ask President Tanner any questions. You know, sometimes it seems difficult to approach a General Authority and ask him a question. But it's so easy. Wayne said, "Uncle Eldon, when President Joseph Fielding Smith called you to be his counselor, did he give you any instructions?" President Tanner took a couple of practice swings with his club and then said, "No, Wayne, I don't think he gave me any instructions. His only lesson was this: If it's wrong, don't do it." There is a whole sermon preached in that little word do. It's a great guide in the process of our lives. No habit chips away at our self-confidence quite so effectively as that of comparing ourselves with the people around us. When we find somebody who is indeed smarter, better looking, or funnier, it diminishes our sense of self-worth. A rabbi was asked on his deathbed what he thought the kingdom of God would be like. "I don't know," he replied. "But one thing I do know. When I get there I'm not going to be asked, 'Why weren't you like Moses? Why weren't you like David?' I'm only going to be asked one question: 'Why weren't you you?'" There is nothing so common as unsuccessful people with talent. Usually the problem lies not in discovering your natural aptitude but in developing it. Sometimes in the process of our lives we think the little decisions we make are not important. But what you do at any time in your life is important. I think of Judge Ginsburg, who had the opportunity of being appointed to one of the highest offices in the country--one that would bring fame and fortune, dignity and prestige to him and his family. He would be recorded in the history books of the world. And yet in college he made some bad decisions. He decided he would go along with the crowd. And so, as the river drifted and he tried and experienced and experimented with things forbidden by God and man, he changed his course in history. Some people are as reliable as the sunrise. You can see it in their smile and feel it in their handshake. You can tell their life is fulfilling and their work is rewarding. Happiness is something they have created for themselves with a vision of what is possible and the ability to do what is achievable. They have attained real self-worth. When we decide to give of ourselves, then life is filled with joy. The feeling of service becomes paramount in our lives. Don't complicate things. Simplify things and show forth love. So often we are like the man with his feet in the ice bucket and his head in the oven who says, "On the average I'm doing okay." Don't influence a life unless it is for good. Be excited about life. Remember, it doesn't take a muscle spasm to show a little enthusiasm. LEARN TO GIVE There is a challenge in decision making. I'd like to tell you a story about what happened when I was a young man in a priesthood class. There were twelve of us in this class. And we were a real challenge to a teacher--as a matter of fact, to many teachers. We had a different one about every three weeks. In the process of this the bishop said, "C. N., here's your challenge." C. N. Christensen, a wise old man, walked into this class of twelve boys who were filled with energy, loved to play ball, and liked to do all of the things that made life exciting and fun. He sat down that first priesthood class and tried to teach us how to wiggle our ears. That was about the best priesthood lesson I'd had for a long time. The next week he taught us how to make faces by throwing the sides of our mouth down and up. We didn't realize what he was doing, but we were very much impressed. One Sunday he said to us, "I'd like to show you a trick." We said, "Okay." He said, "I want you to hold out your left hand. Now, take your right hand and put your little finger by it over like that and then hook your next finger. Then bring your middle finger and put it on your thumb. Move your fingers back and forth and hit the palm of your hand with the finger of your right hand." We said, "Well, that's great." Now he had accomplished two things. He not only kept our hands busy, but our minds' attention was on them. Then he said, "Now what have you got?" We said, "Two little boys chopping wood and one picking it up." "Well," he said, "whenever I ask you to chop wood I want your full attention." So we mastered putting our hands together. I can do it so fast now. If I asked President Holland to do that it would take him about an hour. Nevertheless, we mastered that. And then he said, "I want your attention when I say let's chop wood." And so this great leader said, "Let's chop wood." Then he would say, "God lives! Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the World! Joseph Smith was a prophet of God!" Our attention span was about that long. About four times every priesthood class he would bear that testimony to us. And then one day he said, "I'd like to issue you a challenge. There are twelve boys sitting in this class. If all twelve of you reach the age of nineteen and are worthy to go on a mission, I'll give each one of you a thousand dollars." We thought this was the best deal we'd ever heard of. Back then you could buy a new Ford convertible for $999. So we said, "You're on." All through the twelve-, thirteen-, and fourteen-year-old age group when someone wasn't in church, two of us were dispatched to bring him physically back. Fourteen, fifteen, and then sixteen years old, and all twelve boys were active. At seventeen, all boys were active. I'll never forget standing out in front of the old First Ward--twelve boys around the now weathered, snow-on-top-of-his-head C. N. Christensen. He was looking at these boys, and we all kept saying, "Are you saving your dough? You know we're gonna take it!" All of a sudden tears started to roll down his cheeks; we figured we'd pushed him a little too far. We had a little more sense by then. But he said, "Oh, these are tears of joy. The happiest day of my life will be if all twelve of you boys are worthy to go on missions when you're nineteen." When we were eighteen years of age, two boys moved to Ogden. Can you imagine the talking-to they got when they had to move to Ogden? They said, "Don't worry about us. " They came from homes where parents were not active. They went to Ogden, they went to church, and they were ignored. They went for a couple of months and they still didn't have any attention. The kids wouldn't even speak to them in school. They were from Salt Lake City, and Ogden people didn't like Salt Lake City people. As a result, they found other friends, and those friends took them out of the Church. One day the two boys that had moved were walking down a street in Salt Lake City, one with a cigarette in his hand. My buddy and I saw them. And we saw a pigeon fly up; it seemed to us he was carrying away a thousand dollar bill in his beak. Look what was accomplished by this great man because he gave of himself. He changed the lives of ten wonderful boys who made great contributions to the Church--the Church legal counsel, stake presidents, Regional Representatives, and bishops. Ten married in the temple and served on missions. What a great tribute and blessing it was because one man learned to give. We're to live our lives line upon line, precept upon precept. We can't be everything and do everything all at once. Know where it is that you want to go and then go forth with a vision of what you can become. There will be many mountains you'll have to climb, young people. Life's mountains are much easier to climb when you've got somebody to climb with you. But remember, each must climb his own mountain. It doesn't matter what your grandfather or your father has accomplished. You still must do your own thing. Have confidence in yourself. Say to yourself, "I'm a winner." I like men who build their world around confidence and integrity. Build a world around you. Reach out and give of yourself. Reach out to lift others up. Your influence may be the difference that makes life worthwhile to someone. Keep yourself clean in mind and body and then your influence will be a strength to all you associate with. Most important, you'll be in tune with the Spirit of the Lord. We can't be everything to everybody. But there's something we can do and take with us, and it is more important than all the gold and property that we might amass in our lifetime. That something is character. Character is so important that it affects our entire future existence--in fact, it affects all eternity. Our character--that is what will be judged in the last day--will determine whether we will go to the celestial kingdom. To attain that highest degree, we must be Christlike. We must learn to know where we are going and how to get there. Then we must have the determination to put forth the effort whereby we can accomplish that which we desire. MAKE A COMMITMENT I remember a story of what took place in Kezar Stadium in San Francisco at a professional football game between the San Francisco Forty-Niners and the Cleveland Browns. On the field was the great all-American, all-pro Jimmy Brown. He was a running back for the Cleveland Browns. Outside the stadium was another person. He was only ten years old. In fact, he'd been raised in the ghettos of San Francisco and was so undernourished that he had developed rickets. His bone structure was so weak that he needed braces simply to hold him up. His legs were beginning to bow. He didn't have the money to get into the football game, so he waited until after the third quarter, when the guards left the gates, and then walked into the stadium. He didn't walk in to watch the football game. He walked into the players' tunnel. The young man waited until the final gun sounded. As Jimmy Brown came off the field, muddy, bloody, tired, sweaty, ready for the shower, the young boy stepped in front of him. He said, "Mr. Brown, can I have your autograph?" Jimmy Brown, the great hero that he was, signed his name, just as he had done so many times before. He started to go. The boy grabbed hold of the jersey of number 32. He said, "I'm not through with you yet." When Jimmy Brown turned around, the boy brought himself to attention and said, "Mr. Brown, I want you to know that I watch you on television every chance that I get. I've got your poster in my room, and I know all the great records you hold. I think you're the greatest player in professional football." The ten-year-old boy had been practicing that speech almost in his sleep. Jimmy Brown, caught up with his enthusiasm, looked him in the eye and said, "Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that." He turned again and headed for the shower. But the boy grabbed his jersey again and said, "I'm not through with you yet." "Yes?" he said, "What is it now?" The young man stretched himself as tall as he could. He looked up and said, "Mr. Brown, I want you to know one other thing. I'm going to break every record you hold." Jimmy Brown looked down at him and said, "What's your name, young man?" He said, "Simpson, sir. Orenthal J. Simpson. My friends call me O. J." Now most of you know that O. J. Simpson has taken all but three of Jimmy Brown's rushing records while playing on two of the worst knees and two of the worst teams in professional football. He made that commitment--that dedication to excellence. Just think what you can do from your strong position with a sound body, with a real purpose and an effort, and with the direction of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You need to stay true and have a purpose in your life. LOTS OF LOVE In a stake conference in Palmerston North, New Zealand, a few months ago, I invited a reactivated member, a new convert, and a returned missionary to bear their testimonies. When we walked into the chapel there was a Maori sitting on the stand. I asked the stake president, "Who is that man on the stand?" He said, "He's the one that was recently activated." I said, "Wonderful." We proceeded. When this man stood before the people, he said, You all know me. I've lived in Palmerston North all my life. You know I have not been active in the Church. I would like to tell how I became active. One day I was sitting at home. The afternoon movie was on. It was one I wanted to see. I had a big bag of potato chips and a great big drink--I was perfectly content. All of a sudden, I heard the back door open. My daughter walked into the room. She put her arm around me and said, "Daddy, will you take me to the temple?" I said, --No, I won't take you to the temple. Now, when a Polynesian says that, you know he means it. She walked around for a while and then went to her bedroom. The time came for a commercial break. I heard some crying. I got out of my chair, walked into the bedroom, and saw a pillow that was wet. I looked at my little daughter and said, "Sweetheart, what is the matter?" She said, "Daddy, I've been praying for the privilege of going to the temple for baptisms for the dead and the opportunity came. The bishop invited me to go, and I promised him I would. Then I told the Lord that no matter what, I would go. I had to work late. The boss wouldn't let me off and I missed the bus. I know the Lord's going to be disappointed and I know the bishop's going to be upset." I said, "All right, I'll take you to the temple." [The temple is four and a half hours from Palmerston North.] I got in the car and was so mad that I had agreed to take her to the temple that I didn't speak to her all the way there. I drove up in front of the beautiful New Zealand Temple. She opened the door. She leaned over and put her arms around me. She said, "I love you, Daddy. Thank you very much. " She kissed me on the cheek. She got out of the car and started to walk up the steps of the temple. As I saw that young girl walk up the steps of the temple, my life started to change! By the time she had reached the doors of the temple I said to myself, "Is this the way it's going to be in eternity? Am I going to be on the outside as I see my family receive the blessings the Lord has promised me and our people? " I sat without moving in that car for two hours. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of repenting. Then all of the sudden I saw the doors of the temple open. That little girl--she was radiant! It seemed like she was just almost translucent! She bounded down the steps. She opened the door and said, "Oh, Daddy, it was wonderful! There was such a special spirit there. Thank you, thank you! I love you!" She kissed me again on the cheek. We talked all the way home about the sacred and the important things. This Maori man continued, "That's why I'm here. That was six months ago. And now I want you to meet my family." He turned a little to the side and said, "Will you stand?" Eight children stood. He looked at each one and said, "She's been active five and a half months. And this one has been active five months. And this one four and a half months." Then he said, "And there's my angel. The one that brought me back into the kingdom of my Father in Heaven." And he continued down the row. Finally, the last one was a tall boy. He didn't exactly look like a Latter-day Saint. He had long hair and he still had his hippie clothes on. But his dad said, "That's my last one. He's only been active two weeks. Give him a couple more and he'll look like the rest of us." Eliminate your reluctance to reach out to one another. Build a network of supportive relationships. Utilize all the techniques that would bless and strengthen and build your life. Develop confidence. One of the surest ways to improve confidence is to make sure you have lots of love in your life. Go to whatever lengths are necessary to construct a network of sustaining and nurturing relationships. The real answer in accomplishing this is to deepen the friendships that you presently have. Utilize your family for strength and support. The ties that you make within your family are eternal ties. Learn to sacrifice for others. Be practical. Have fun. Enjoy one another. That is what life is all about. "Men are, that they might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25). When you're really willing to give of yourself, then life takes on a special meaning. It's not easy. Everything that you are going to accomplish in life that is worthwhile will have to be won by a struggle. IT'S UP TO YOU I recently read the story of Sugar Ray Leonard--one of the great boxing athletes of our time. He tells how when he was a little boy he would have to walk fifteen miles on Saturday morning to go to the Smithsonian Institution. He stood in front of the museum and watched the tourists. As the tourists came to the entrance--there being no food allowed inside--they would take a last bite out of their hamburger and then deposit it in the garbage. "We would get those hamburgers and we would finish'em off," Sugar Ray said. "It's embarrassing now. But it filled my stomach then, and that was more important than anything else." He first became an athlete involved in fencing. He was in a championship match to win the gold medal, but the referee was not giving him the points he was making. Finally, he turned to the referee and said, "If you're not going to call my points, I'm not going to continue." The referee ordered him to continue. He created such a fuss that 500 people gathered around them. "I needed all the witnesses I could get that knew I was winning the points." He was down, according to the referee at that point, seven to two. He won his match nine to seven. He had put forth the effort. He had to make a decision, and he made it well. After he had finished with fencing, his manager asked him what he was going to do with his life. He said, "I don't know." What a difficult position it was to be of a minority race and have to struggle to get to the top. Sugar Ray Leonard decided to become a boxer. His story is well known. He became a world champion. His statement, after all the struggles and the things that he went through, was simply this: "If it's going to get done, it's up to you." Open your mind! Learn how to be successful in what you do! Remember Vince Lombardi's famous statement: "Success is winning--fairly, squarely, by the rules, but winning." Success is a worthy pursuit of a worthy ideal. If you want to, you can accomplish anything in life. You are a child of God. A very part of deity dwells in you. You respect that deity! You render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. You need to keep yourself clean! Clean in mind, in body, and in person! So often lives are destroyed because you bow to someone else's standards. Your body and your mind are sacred. The way you treat them and cultivate them will determine the type of person you really are. Remember that no man can serve two masters. Chart your course on correct principles. Keep the things of most value. One is your personal relationship with your Heavenly Father. In your mad struggle to get success and happiness in your life, to accomplish all the dreams that you dream, remember where it is that you really want to go. PROVING YOUR WORTH NOW Not long ago a prominent attorney was called to take an important position in the Church. He hesitated because he knew it would take a lot of time, and he asked if he could think about it overnight. He came back the next morning to his priesthood leader with a broad grin on his face and said, "You know, when I get on the other side, I really don't think the Lord is going to ask me how many cases I've tried. I need to prove my worth now. " In all your efforts to succeed, remember the scripture that reads, "For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors" (Alma 34:32). Oh, how I would pray that you would respect yourself enough to be a self you respect! This means having a deep sense of responsibility for your thoughts and actions. It means keeping your word and being faithful to your family. It means believing in what you do and working hard. It means setting your internal standards and not comparing yourself to others. It is not a question of being better than somebody else. It is a question of being a worthy you. Respect and integrity demand that you be better than you thought you could be. Be loyal to yourself. Many experiences in life fortify and strengthen the family relationship. So often in our lives we take for granted the special blessings and opportunities we enjoy. When they are taken from us, our hearts are filled with sorrow and regret. I think of the many blessings given under the inspiration of the Lord and the promises made if we but keep the commandments of God. How quickly these blessings affect our lives--the blessing of children, administering to the sick, the special blessings of priesthood that are given on occasion, and the prayers said by those who are faithful. The influence of the Spirit and our response to it make for an enriched and a happy life. Be ye clean who bear the vessels of the Lord! You need to be proud of yourself, proud of who you are, proud of the heritage you have. You are the only you that has ever been created. You are the only you that will ever live. You are the only you that you can be proud of. One of my favorite poems goes like this: When you get what you want in your struggle for self And the world makes you king for a day, Just go to the mirror and look at yourself And see what "the man" has to say. For it isn't your father or mother or wife Whose judgment upon you must pass. The fellow whose verdict counts in your life Is the one staring back from the glass. You may be like Jack Hortier and chisel a plum And think you're a wonderful guy. But the "man in the glass" says you're only a bum And you can't look him straight in the eye. He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest, For he's with you clear to the end. And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test If the man in the glass is your friend. You may fool the world down the pathway of years And get pats on the back as you pass. But your only reward will be heartaches and tears If you've cheated "the man in the glass." ["The Man in the Glass"] We must come to understand that there are basic truths and principles, basic conformities necessary to achieve happiness. There are some things that are false, some things that are wrong. For instance, we cannot be simultaneously happy and wicked. Never! Regardless of how generally accepted that course may be, wickedness never was happiness never indeed can it be, nor will it ever be! We must understand that life is governed by laws, and when we receive any blessing or reward it is because of obedience to those laws. Take with you your faith, your patriotism, your virtue, your integrity! If you've made mistakes in life, repent. You will come to know in the years ahead that life has precious little to offer without those attributes. Listen to the proper voices. Listen to the prophet of God. What good does it do to have a prophet if we do not listen? Respond to his teachings. Be faithful in all things. Commit yourself to others. Believe in others. Take time to nurture their dreams. Turn disappointments into strengths. Learn that you can strengthen and build the lives of people as you become involved with them. Lift them. Give them support and strength when their time of need comes. The pages of history are filled with heroic stories of men and women who have overcome difficulties and adversities. Lift up people! You may make another Abraham Lincoln or another Helen Keller because you have extended a feeling of love toward them. Enjoy life's process, not only life's rewards. Just know that you can accomplish anything in this life, but know, too, that you need to enjoy life as you go. We become so involved in life that we want a three-minute oatmeal, a one-hour dry cleaning, and instant hamburgers and success. We must live one day at a time, enjoying and rejoicing in the little victories and realizing that life is an endless journey of self-discovery and personal fulfillment. It means taking time to be kind to your friends, to your wife, to your children, and then to other people. Become involved in something bigger than yourself! I do not believe you will live happily if you set out to live life for yourself alone. Choose a cause bigger than you are, and work at it in the spirit of excellence. It will become part of you. Don't try to measure success by what you have done. Measure success by what you can do. Take time for what is important. We live in a busy world. There are so many things to do, so many responsibilities vying for our attention. But we need to take time for what is important. Learn, in the process of your life, that your families are priceless. Just remember that each one of us has a sacred responsibility to take time for that which is important. One of the greatest blessings of life will be to have the approval of your conscience when you are alone with your thoughts. Those thoughts, then, are like being in the company of true and loving friends. Merit your own self-respect! Be someone. Be a self that you can respect. Get your life in order, and then you can truly be an asset to the Lord. Learn the beauty of being square with your Heavenly Father. When the Lord finds out that you are using all that he has given you, he will give you much more. Oh, my young people, will you please try to develop a personal relationship with your Heavenly Father? It makes the process of life so much easier. As you feel of his spirit, as you listen to the right voices, you know you're on safe ground. Now the purpose and blessing of the Church is to bring the peace of the Savior into your lives and let you taste of the sweetness of the gospel by living its commandments. We love you. We sustain you. We are honored to live in the time when you live, for you are the noble sons and daughters of God. And we are grateful that as the Church grows and develops, it will be placed in your sacred hands. We rejoice with you in our knowledge and understanding of the purposes of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We leave our witness and blessing with you. And I'd like to leave with you my choicest blessing, and that is my knowledge and testimony of the gospel. For with every power God has given me to know and to feel and understand, I know God lives! I know God lives! I know God lives! I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the World, the Son of God, the Prince of Peace! His is the only name under heaven whereby men can get back into the presence of our Heavenly Father. I know that God the Father and his Son appeared unto the Prophet Joseph Smith, that he saw what he said he saw, and he heard what he said he heard! And because of that vision of the Father and the Son, the kingdom of God has been established upon the face of the earth. And this is that kingdom--the only kingdom under heaven whereby we can get back into the presence of our Heavenly Father. I know that we have a living prophet standing at the head of this great church. I bear my witness to you and express my love for him. I know the Book of Mormon is a second witness to all the world that Jesus Christ is who we claim him to be. So I express my great love to you. I rejoice in the opportunity of bearing witness and testimony to you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE HEART Robert D. Hales Robert D. Hales was called as the eleventh Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1985. Before that he served as president of the Church's North America Southwest Area and as first counselor in the Sunday School General Presidency. Born in New York City, he attended Great Neck High School in Long Island, New York, graduated from the University of Utah in 1954, and then received his MBA from Harvard in 1960. His business career and service in the United States Air Force provided him opportunities to serve in the Church as branch president, bishop, high councilor, and stake president in the United States, England, Germany, and Spain. He served as president of the England London Mission from 1978 to 1979. Bishop Hales served as a Regional Representative from 1970 until his call as an Assistant to the Council of the Twelve in April 1975. He was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy in 1976. At the time he was called as a General Authority of the Church in 1975, he was group vice-president of Chesebrough Ponds' Inc. Prior to that he was vice-president of Max Factor Co., president of Hughes Broadcasting, president of Papermate Company, and general manager of Gillette Safety Razor Division in Spain as well as the company's marketing director in England and Germany. Bishop Hales is married to Mary Elene Crandall, and they have two sons-Stephen and David. This devotional address was delivered in the Marriott Center on 15 March 1988. Each time I come to Brigham Young University, I realize that I am standing before a "royal army" prepared to go out to be "in the world but not of the world." BYU is an exceptional university of learning because it was founded on the premise that all subjects taught here would be taught with a special spirit of learning that would allow you to develop your gifts and talents and prepare each of you for the tests of life. It enables those who come here to be temporally and spiritually self-sufficient--not just for their own goals and creature comforts, but to stand strong on higher ground in order to lift, help, and serve others. THE PURPOSE OF LIFE You are preparing to meet the tests of mortal life. We voluntarily came from the presence of God the Father to this mortal probation with free agency, knowing we would have "opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11). Our objective is to take upon us the "whole armor" and withstand "the fiery darts of the adversary" with our sword of the Spirit and shield of faith (see 1 Nephi 15:24 and D&C 27:15-18), to endure to the end, and to be worthy to stand and live in the presence of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ for all eternity--to achieve what is called eternal life. PREPARATION FOR THE TESTS OF LIFE Most of you are in your third decade of learning. The first two decades were years of development and growth in preparation for this third critical decade of learning. This is a period of your life to prepare for the tests of future years. How do you prepare for the tests to come? "WITH ALL THY GETTING GET UNDERSTANDING" In the Bible, the book of Proverbs outlines a progression of learning that is important to all of us. We are taught that basic intelligence (which is innate) and worldly knowledge (which is learned) are the beginnings for our attainment of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom [and knowledge]. [Proverbs 9:10; see also Proverbs 1:7] But fools despise wisdom and instruction. [Proverbs 1-.7] A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels. [Proverbs 1:5] From wisdom, if we will listen to wise counsel and take the teachings to our hearts, we will gain an understanding in our hearts. To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding. [Proverbs 1:2] So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; . . . and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. [Proverbs 2:2-6] Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. [Proverbs 4:7] Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil. [Proverbs 3:5-7] When we have done wrong, Solomon's advice is: My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. [Proverbs 3:11-13] Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom, get understanding. [Proverbs 4:4-5] The difference between intelligence and knowledge--at the lower end of the hierarchy of learning--and wisdom--which comes through life's experiences, turning us to the Lord and ultimately to learning in our hearts--is shown in a simple scripture: "The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens" (Proverbs 3:19). There is a great deal of difference between raw intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, and finally, the understanding with which the Lord established the heavens. This learning process applies to each of us, but especially to you who are studying at this unique university because this university recognizes the progression of learning that begins with God-given, innate intelligence. It recognizes knowledge through your courses of study and then the attainment of wisdom-recognizing obedience to laws, ordinances, and commandments--ultimately leading to an understanding in your hearts of true gospel principles that far exceed the teachings of men. This education leads us to use our gifts and talents in selfless service by helping others and caring for the needy. The importance of understanding in one's heart is that our faith in believing becomes a full knowledge of understanding, and it causes us to control our actions. In three decades of counseling I have become aware of many ways we may be tested. Here are but a few tests that those assembled here today may have to face in their lives. Will you be prepared? How will you respond? 1. The test for some will be being single and lonely. Are you prepared to be self-sufficient and productive, and are you prepared to be of help to others? 2.The test for some will be being married to the wrong person, resulting in abuse and divorce. 3.Then, the test may be to provide for a family without a partner's support. 4.Some will have the test of not being able to have children. The test may come even when you have lived faithfully, abiding by moral laws and commandments of chastity, faithfulness, fidelity, and love to an eternal companion. A sobering thought, but one that should be noted in your prayers, is that national studies have shown that one in five men and two in five women will have complications or will be unable to have children. Sometimes a physical law circumvents a spiritual goal, and you may have to consider the alternative of adoption. Do not base your testimony on one goal and allow bitter disappointment to prevent you from enjoying your companionship and the greater goal of eternal progression. 5.The test for some will be having the children who can both be the joy and the trial of your life. 6. Some will have the test of being widowed or will experience the death of a loved one. Do not become angry and blame your departed loved one for leaving you alone. Do not blame God for allowing it to happen or yourself for having done something to cause the death. 7 Some will have the test of illness and poor health. 8. Some will have friends and companions betray their trust. 9. For some the test will be having financial woes of employment failure, economic depression, or unwise investments. INVULNERABILITY Wouldn't we all like to avoid the tests and trials of this mortal probation? In Greek mythology, Achilles was the hero of Homer's Iliad. In addition to Homer's historical account of Achilles, later authors developed fables or folklore about Achilles and his mother, Thetis. Thetis, in an attempt to make Achilles immortal, concealed him by night in fire and anointed him by day with ambrosia. According to some accounts, Thetis also endeavored to make Achilles immortal by dipping him in the River Styx. She succeeded in making Achilles' body invulnerable and immortal with the exception of the ankles by which she held him. Achilles grew up to be an invincible warrior, leading the Greek army against Troy. His death is mentioned in The Odyssey. He is said to have been killed by Apollo, either in the likeness of Paris, or by an arrow of Paris directed by Apollo to his only vulnerability--his ankle (the Achilles tendon). Wouldn't every mother like to find the secret of protecting her children, making them invulnerable from the fiery darts of the adversary? Unfortunately, we cannot protect ourselves from the slings and arrows of misfortune. In fact, we are told to carry the shield of faith to protect us from the fiery darts of the adversary. We also know from Lehi's advice to his son Jacob that there must be "opposition in all things" in this mortal probation (2 Nephi 2:11). A basic reason for our learning experiences in this life is to enable us to endure to the end. Our challenges, learning experiences, and the opposition we come up against are supposed to strengthen us, not defeat or destroy us. Joseph Smith pleaded with the Lord in Liberty Jail for the suffering Saints. Joseph, with several companions, had been in Liberty Jail under miserable conditions for several months. He pleaded, 0 God, where art thou? ... How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people . . . , and thine ear be penetrated with their cries? . . . how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions, before thine heart shall be softened toward them, and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them? [D&C 121:1-3] The Lord's clear answer was calming: My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph overall thy foes. [D&C 121:7-8] Our hurts, as difficult as they are to endure and as unbearable as they may seem to us in the present tense of time, are, in the Lord's eternal perspective, but "a small moment." The test is whether we endure the adversity and affliction well, without losing our faith and breaking commandments. Joseph was told in his difficult circumstances that God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit, yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost. [D&C 121:26] We can have that same gift if we remain faithful. How important it is during troubled times, when we are tested, that we do not do anything to lose the Holy Ghost's gentle persuasions, comfort, and peace that will give us assurance to make the correct choices in life in order to weather the storm and bring us closer to God's ways--not man's ways. Joseph Smith was told: Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands. Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job. [D&C 121:9-10] Our friends are important at all times, especially in times of need when we are depressed with feelings of loneliness and despair. Choosing our friends wisely is important. In times of trouble, do your friends stand by you? What kind of a friend or companion are you? Often we choose our friends by their physical appearance and personalities. The best dancer, the most fashionable, the same geographic home area (city or rural, east or west), the most athletic, the sharpest car, the most handsome, the most beautiful, the most charming personality, the most intelligent, the richest, or the poorest are just a few of the criteria for selecting dates or friends. These are all superficial. The first test of friendship and companionship is knowing that in their company it is easier to live according to the commandments you have been taught and know are important to happiness. The second test of real friendship and companionship is whether you are asked as a condition of their friendship or companionship to choose between their way and the Lord's way. For example, true friendship does not exist if a condition of that friendship is to participate in breaking moral laws or the Word of Wisdom with phrases like: "Try it just once," "Everyone does it," "Who is going to know?" "Show me that you really love me. " My point in naming a few of the tests we face is to remind you that blessings come after the trial of our faith and that opposition is given as an essential element in our mortal probation and spiritual growth even if we are as perfect as Job. Yet Job suffered the loss of his material possessions, his sons and daughters were taken from him, boils from head to foot were inflicted as a painful physical test, and he experienced depression as a mental test. In his depression, Job said: My soul is weary of my life . . . ; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. [Job 10:1] I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. [Job 10:19] I am full of confusion. [Job 10:15] In all of Job's trouble, he wept for him that was in trouble and his soul grieved for the poor. This is the mark of a great man. (See Job 30:25.) In all of Job's trials, he kept his testimony that his Redeemer liveth. At the end of the first chapter of Job it says he "sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." When we are marred spiritually or physically, our first reaction is to withdraw into the dark shadows of depression, to blot out hope and joy--the light of life that comes from knowing we are living the commandments of our Father in Heaven. This withdrawal will ultimately lead us to rebellion against those who would like to be our friends, those who can help us most, even our family. But worst of all, we finally reject ourselves. Those who are alone and lonely should not retreat to the sanctuary of their private thoughts and chambers. Such retreat will ultimately lead them into the darkening influence of the adversary, which leads to despondency, loneliness, frustration, and to thinking of themselves as worthless. After one thinks of himself as worthless, he then ofttimes turns to associates who corrode those delicate spiritual contacts, rendering their spiritual receiving antennas and transmitters useless. What good is it to associate with and ask advice of someone who is disoriented himself and only tells us what we want to hear? Isn't it better to turn to loving parents, friends, and associates who can help us reach for and attain celestial goals? And he said: Go and tell this people-Hear ye indeed, but they understood not; and see ye indeed, but they perceived not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes--lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and be healed. [2 Nephi 16:9-10] What can you do to prepare yourself during your college years for the tests and trials of your life? 1. You must learn to work hard toward your goals, to pray for strength and guidance in your daily decisions, always acknowledging "Thy will be done. " 2. Study the scriptures, history, biographical literature, and psychology to give you an insight into how others have met life's challenges and, with a testimony, endured to the end. 3. Select friends and an eternal companion from whom you can seek counsel and who will lift you and make it easier to live the commandments by just being together. 4. Learn to be of service and of help to others in their tests no matter how busy you are or how much you are hurting from your own tests and trials of faith. 5. Learn that even in a perfect life the tests and trials will come, but remember that you can bring affliction upon yourself and those near you through your own actions. Be willing to accept the consequences that come and don't blame them on God. 6. Learn that when you have made a mistake, regrets are not enough. Feeling sorry is not enough unless your sorrow brings about a remorse of conscience and a change of heart resulting in true repentance. 7 Learn that true education is not only test scores and grade point averages, but also gaining wisdom through life's experiences, listening to sound counsel, gaining an understanding in your heart, and caring for others less fortunate. Then, no amount of temptation, testing, trials, or coercion can make you depart from the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life. 8. Learn that in mortal probation you are here for tests and trials even though you live a perfect life. 9. Learn to know yourself while you here at the university. You are in a laboratory that simulates the world with individual competition and the inner stress of learning. There will never be a better time in your life to have the contemplation and introspection needed to know yourself. Take time to ponder who you are and act accordingly. General education requirements are given not only to give you a well-rounded education, but also to give you an opportunity to assess your intellectual and spiritual strengths and weaknesses. What are your God-given gifts and talents? (See D&C 46.) Elder Bruce R. McConkie, in his book The Mortal Messiah, has said: Spirits developed an infinite variety and degree of talents while yet in pre-existence. Being subject to law, and having their agency, all the spirits of men, while yet in the Eternal Presence, developed aptitudes, talents, capacities, and abilities of every sort, kind, and degree. During the long expanse of life which then was, an infinite variety of talents and abilities came into being. As the ages rolled, no two spirits remained alike. Mozart became a musician; Einstein centered his interest in mathematics; Michelangelo turned his attention to painting. Cain was a liar, a schemer, a rebel who maintained a close affinity to Lucifer. Abraham and Moses and all of the prophets sought and obtained the talent for spirituality. Mary and Eve were two of the greatest of all the spirit daughters of the Father. The whole house of Israel, known and segregated out from their fellows, was inclined toward spiritual things. And so it went through all the hosts of heaven, each individual developing such talents and abilities as his soul desired. The Lord endowed us all with agency; he gave us laws that would enable us to advance and progress and become like him; and he counseled and exhorted us to pursue the course leading to glory and exaltation. He himself was the embodiment and personification of all good things. Every desirable characteristic and trait dwelt in him in its eternal fulness. All of his obedient children started to become like him in one way or another. There was as great a variety and degree of talent and ability among us there as there is among us here. Some excelled in one way, others in another. The Firstborn excelled all of us in all things." [Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, Book 1 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), p. 23; see also D&C 46] Have you given yourself an honest chance to develop your natural skills, or are you limiting your development to the requirements for graduation or a profession without assessing how you will make the greatest contribution and be the happiest during your sojourn on earth? Before a seventies quorum meeting, one of the seventies was asked if he could play the piano. His response was classic: "I don't know, I haven't tried to play the piano. " Your university educational experience should be a microcosm of life. For this reason, if the opportunity presents itself, serving on committees in student government, social committees, or interacting with the faculty and university administration will simulate civic involvement in your future life. Your social committees and social awareness and interactions are all part of the laboratory in which you are privileged to participate. Some years ago, when Howard S. McDonald was inaugurated as president of Brigham Young University, in the inaugural address entitled "The Glory of God Is Intelligence," Dr. Edwin A. Lee said: While I was an undergraduate at Columbia University, there was a man in attendance already known as the perennial student. He had been left a modest but adequate bequest with the stipulation that it should continue as long as he was engaged in collegiate study: thereafter, the income was to be given to charity. When I returned for graduate work twelve years later, he was still there and he remained a student until he died just a few years ago. It was said that he had been granted every degree offered by Columbia and had taken practically every course. He was a man who was the epitome of erudition. No field of knowledge was foreign to him. He was probably more widely-read than the best of his professors. He was a cultured gentleman. But, he was not a truly intelligent man. Certainly such intelligence as he possessed was not that which is the Glory of God. Inherently he was selfish. He never married. He was without ambition or influence. He was a joke to the students and a freak to the faculty. He knew a prodigious lot, but his real index of intelligence was low, no matter what his I.Q. [Inauguration Services of Howard S. McDonald, 14 November 1945, in BYU Archives, p. 34] And so knowledge of facts alone can be of little value. In section 46 of the Doctrine and Covenants, we are told to beware lest ye are deceived; . . . seek ye earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given; (v. 8) For verily I say unto you, they are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep all my commandments, . . . that all may be benefited that seek or that ask of me. . . . (V. 9) For all have not every gift given unto them .... (v. I 1) To some is given one, and to some is given another. (v. 12) The key is "that all may be profited thereby. " May I repeat for emphasis "that all may be profited thereby." And all these gifts come from God, for the benefit of the children of God. [D&C 46:26] And finally, from section 46 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verses 28 and 29: "He that asketh in Spirit shall receive in Spirit; ... in order that every member may be profited thereby." The reason you are here at the university is not solely to improve your value in the marketplace or for selfish reasons of intellectual gamesmanship. You are here for the eternal perspective of learning, to enable you to stand on higher ground to lift, to serve, and to care for those in need around you, both in your family and in the communities in which you reside. "Thee lift me and I'll lift thee, and we will ascend together." Please remember to give--before you leave this unique institution of learning--appreciation and deserved praise to members of the faculty and staff for their dedication to the eternal principles of learning. Sincere recognition of your teachers' contributions to your life is small payment for their sacrifices in sharing their gifts and talents with many who pass through without acknowledgment of their service. STEWARDSHIP In June of 1965, a group of brethren in the Physical Facilities Department of the Church was doing some work outside the Hotel Utah apartment of President David O. McKay. As President McKay stopped to explain to them the importance of the work in which they were engaged, he paused and told them the following: Let me assure you, Brethren, that some day you will have a personal priesthood interview with the Savior, Himself. If you are interested, I will tell you the order in which He will ask you to account for your earthly responsibilities, First, He will request an accountability report about your relationship with your wife. Have you actively been engaged in making her happy and ensuring that her needs have been met as an individual? Second, He will want an accountability report about each of your children individually. He will not attempt to have this for simply a family stewardship but will request information about your relationship to each and every child. Third, He will want to know what you personally have done with the talents you were given in the preexistence. Fourth, He will want a summary of your activity in your Church assignments. He will not be necessarily interested in what assignments you have had, for in his eyes the home teacher and a mission president are probably equals, but He will request a summary of how you have been of service to your fellowmen in your Church assignments. Fifth, He will have no interest in how you earned your living, but if you were honest in all your dealings. Sixth, He will ask for an accountability on what you have done to contribute in a positive manner to your community, state, country and the world. [From Notes of Fred A. Baker, Managing Director, Department of Physical Facilities] May we be able to meet these tests with affirmative answers and receive a loving welcome home from the Lord, who we hope will say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." It is my fervent desire that each of us will use our God-given intelligence to gain the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in our hearts to meet life's tests and trials and to endure to the end. May each of us use our gifts and talents to protect, love, and lift others in a caring way is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. CYCLE OF LIFE J. Thomas Fyans Elder J. Thomas Fyans is currently serving as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. He is also the Area President for the Utah North Area and is a managing director in the Family History Department. Elder Fyans returned in August 1987 after having served two years as the Area President in the South America South Area. Previously he served as the Senior President of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Other Church headquarters positions have included associations with the Family History, Correlation, Priesthood, Internal Communications, Distribution, and Translation departments as well as the Presiding Bishopric's Office. He has also served as a coordinator of area general conferences, Area Supervisor for four years in the Mexico/Central America Area, zone administrator for the Japan/Korea/SE Asia/Philippines Zone, president of the Uruguay Mission, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, Regional Representative, member of a stake presidency for ten years, and a bishop. Elder Fyans spent twenty years as an executive of ZCMI and has been director of several other companies. He is married to Helen Cook, and they have five children and 25 grandchildren. This fireside talk was given in the Marriott Center on 10 April 1988. MOUNTAINS AND VALLEYS Recently, while flying from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, the pilot suggested we look out the right side of the plane and see in the distance a snow-capped mountain called Mount Whitney. Mount Whitney is one of the highest peaks in the United States. It reaches into the sky 14,495 feet. The pilot immediately drew our attention to another interesting sight. This was Death Valley--the lowest point in the United States at 280 feet below sea level. How unusual to see, in this panoramic picture out of an airplane window, both these extremes of nature. The higher up the mountain we climb, the broader our vision. We can see peaks and valleys. We can see the beauty of forests, and then we notice barren places above the timberline. There is a parallel to these heights and depths in the way people live their lives--some living below the sea level of humanity and others towering high in the heavens above them. The distance from Mount Whitney to Death Valley, the way the crow flies, is approximately seventy-five miles--so close in distance, yet so far away and different in circumstances. A mountain-peak view of life can be seen clearly in the lives of those people recorded in the Book of Mormon. We observe the continual climbing and falling, the living high and low in life's strata. They prospered, then found themselves in the very depths of despair in captivity. Now take a moment and think: Where are you living? On top of Mount Whitney or in Death Valley? We can learn lessons of eternal perspective by observing the lives of others. Life can be a cycle of various levels of existence. The living of life is a great contest, greater than basketball or football. The prize is the hearts of men and women--your heart and my heart. When our hearts are not properly attuned, we are unlikely to respond to the pleadings of the Spirit. Satan is most anxious to capture our hearts and place us in bondage to him to draw us into spiritual darkness. He ... is the author of all sin. And behold, he doth carry on his works of darkness . . . from generation to generation according as he can get hold upon the hearts of the children of men. [Helaman 6:30] For thousands of years Satan has refined his devious tactics designed to capture our attention--one way is by enticing us through our physical senses. He coaxes, entices, and cajoles us to reach out--to reach out to that which degrades. He convinces even intelligent creatures to walk in paths covered with roots and brambles, hoping to trip us so we might fall and sink into the gloom of his power. If we do fall, we will be deep in the ravine of life, weighed down by spiritual darkness. In this uncomfortable, far-off place we see a sign: "Bondage." Bondage to whom? To Satan. But if we will look up, we will see a small ray of light piercing through the circumstances of spiritual darkness. This gives us hope. How can we find the path that will lead us upward? The Lord will beckon us to turn to him. Ammon teaches that If ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage. [Mosiah 7:33] How can we be delivered from this spiritual bondage? When the heart grows cold and hard, the light of spirituality goes out. Hardening of the heart can be just as dangerous to one's spiritual health as hardening of the arteries is to one's physical health. Hardening of the arteries can cause physical death. Hardening of the heart can cause a more serious death--the death of the spirit. When the heart is softened, the Lord can reach out--bringing comfort and spiritual warmth--and give us direction to help us reach our ultimate destination. CLIMBING UP THE MOUNTAIN As we consider making a trip, one of our first priorities is to find a road map that will clearly outline roads and distances. If we are traveling in a car, we make sure it is in good condition. We make certain our car insurance is current and in force. Having selected our route, we fill the gas tank. As we travel, highway numbers and warning signs will be carefully observed. Being on the correct route and traveling with a consciousness of varying conditions such as speed limits, curves, and narrow bridges will allow us to arrive safely at our destination. Warning signs are extremely important. The same is true as we hike on a trail in the mountains. Signs will indicate direction as well as dangerous conditions. We'll want to be aware of narrow places on the trail and where there are precipitous slopes down the mountainside. Loose rocks, sand, or anything that could cause unsafe footing will be most carefully observed. Do you need some direction so you can climb to a higher plane? Let's listen to this counsel: He [the Lord] did deliver them because they did humble themselves before him; and because they cried mightily unto him he did deliver them out of bondage; and thus doth the Lord work with his power in all cases among the children of men, extending the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in Him. [Mosiah 29:20] They did two things. "They did humble themselves before him" and "they cried mightily unto him." So we have the attitude of humility and supplication in prayer. This will bring to us a desire to reorder our lives. Responding to this counsel, we observe at the base of the mountain a trail with a sign lettered "Humility" pointing up the mountainside. Mustering all our strength, we find ourselves moving slightly upward. We feel exhilaration. It occurs to us that if we follow this marked trail with proper effort, there is a possibility we could climb even higher. King Benjamin counseled: And again, believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if You believe all these things see that ye do them. [Mosiah 4:10] The Lord will reward our honest efforts. At the side of the trail we now notice the sign marked "Repentance." In Mosiah the Lord is quoted directly: "Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses" (Mosiah 26:30). Warmed by his spirit of forgiveness, we climb higher up the mountain and find yet another sign on the path--this one marked "Obedience." We will have a very strong yearning to be obedient and yield our hearts to our Heavenly Father. Speaking of the experiences of the Nephites, we are told: They did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God. [Helaman 3:35] What will be the result of moving out of spiritual bondage and up the mountainside through humility and prayer, then passing through repentance and obedience? King Benjamin tells us that all that [the Lord] requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you. [Mosiah 2:22] Keeping the commandments has led us to stand now atop the mountain peak. How magnificent the view! How pure the air! How stimulating the feeling of having arrived! THE DESCENT As we now live on this mountaintop of spiritual communication with our Heavenly Father, are we safe? Or are there some cautions? And now there was nothing in all the land to hinder the people from prospering continually, except they should fall into transgression. [3 Nephi 6:5] Why would anyone want to fall into transgression from this sweet communication with him who is our Father? What could possibly cause us to lose our footing and slip partly down the mountainside? Let's listen to the wisdom of the scriptures as they describe earlier travelers through this life who began to yield to human tendencies. And in the fifty and first year of the reign of the judges there was peace also, save it were the pride which began to enter into the church--not into the church of God, but into the hearts of the people who professed to belong to the church of God. [Helaman 3:33] And it came to pass that the fifty and second year ended in peace also, save it were the exceeding great pride which had gotten into the hearts of the people; and it was because of their exceedingly great riches and their prosperity in the land; and it did grow upon them from day to day. [Helaman 3:36] Pride was born in their hearts because of the gift of prosperity from him who temporarily shared a part of his creation with them. As we take inappropriate pride in our earthly accumulations, we distance ourselves from him who is the fountain of all that is good. Thus we have started our descent down the mountainside. Can we turn about and climb up again? Yes! How? We must forget our foolish pride in human accomplishments, turning our faces once again upward in supplication and gratitude. If we fail to return upward, loose rocks or shale can make us lose our footing and cause us to be drawn farther down the side of the mountain. Alma asks, "Behold, I say, is there one among you who is not stripped of envy?" (Alma 5:29). As we look about and find others who have fine homes and cars and boats and we observe our own possessions, the eye of envy purges humility from our hearts; then we slip down farther into the valley. Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually. [Moroni 7:12] If we respond to the invitation to sin and do evil continually, and allow pride and then envy to envelop us, we drop back into the bondage of him who is the author of spiritual darkness, and we are now found below sea level in the depths of Death Valley. We have completed the cycle of life as described in the sacred scriptures. WHERE ARE WE IN THE CYCLE? Now let's check the map of life to see where we have been according to the cycles reported in the scriptures. Beginning in spiritual darkness--which is being in bondage to this evil but very real power of one who is trying to claim the hearts of those of us here in this probationary state of our existence--we journey through humility and the beginning of faith in him who governs this world. The momentum of this move will carry us through repentance and then to obedience to the principles of the gospel. We then come to the destination and heights of spiritual peace and prosperity. The challenge is to maintain our equilibrium in this state of close relationship with the Spirit of the Lord. If we then become careless and allow pride to enter our hearts, followed by envy, we'll soon lower our resistance to the foolish acts of transgression and arrive once again at the bottom, with our vision impaired by spiritual darkness. Life gives us two options. One is to go through this cycle repeatedly, experiencing all the heights and depths of ascension and descension but never learning. Or we can struggle up the mountainside of life, observing, learning, internalizing, and acquiring spiritual character that will position us on the mountain peak of spiritual peace and prosperity, where we can see to the eternities and enjoy the companionship of the Holy Spirit. In all of this journey of life it is well to remember that a loving father is in his heaven pleading, reaching out to us through prophets in their records of sacred writ. Our Father in Heaven has manifested his love for us by ransoming his son in our behalf that we might be forgiven our foolishness and lifted out of the bondage of spiritual darkness. If you were to ask me, "What can I do to keep myself properly attuned to the Spirit of the Lord?" and "If I feel a distancing from the Spirit, what will help me close the distance and warm my relationship?" I would suggest a daily and a weekly program. Talking something through with someone we respect brings us to a common understanding. We are given the advantage of the other person's wisdom. Who better to talk with concerning our challenges and plans than the wisest of all, our Heavenly Father? Verbalizing these concerns brings them to the surface and exposes them to the wisdom of the ages. Then we must listen for promptings and impressions from that divine source. The heavens want to communicate with us and lift us heavenward. Our responsibility is to tune in the proper channel. So, I suggest to you that you pray daily, morning and night. One other practice will bring a great return on the time invested: drinking daily from the scriptures. It might be as little as a verse some days. Other days it could be chapters and many pages. The ever-constant taking in of spiritual truths will develop sinew and muscle to carry us forward and upward in the pursuit of life in its eternal journey. With the daily practice of prayer and scriptural exposure, we will be protected from many otherwise unhappy moments. But unhappy moments will come. We will not always live up to even our own expectations. There is a weekly opportunity to reorient our journey--to ponder, meditate, and inventory our feelings. We can bow in reverence for the gift of atonement--the forgiveness proffered us by the cross and the sepulchre. We partake of the bread and water and witness that we are willing to take upon us the name of the Son, always remembering him and keeping his commandments so we may have his spirit to be with us. CHANNELS OF POWER Let me share a growing experience between a man spiritually mature in his understanding and appreciation for the significance of these sacred emblems and a young deacon who was but beginning his association with eternal truths. The sacrament never really meant much to me until the Sunday I was ordained a deacon. That afternoon I passed the sacrament for the first time. Prior to the meeting, one of the deacons warned me, "Look out for Brother Schmidt. You may have to wake him up!" Finally the time came for me to participate in the passing of the sacrament. I handled the first six rows quite well. Children and adults partook of the bread with no noticeable thought or problem. Then I got to row seven, the row where Brother Schmidt always sat. But I was surprised. Instead of being asleep he was wide awake. Unlike many of the others I had served, he took the bread with what seemed to be great thought and reverence. A few minutes later I found myself again approaching row seven with the water. This time my friend was right. Brother Schmidt sat with his head bowed and his big German eyes shut. He was evidently sound asleep. What could I do or say? I looked for a moment at his brow, wrinkled and worn from years of toil and hardship. He had joined the Church as a teenager and had experienced much persecution in his small German town. I had heard the story many times in testimony meeting. I decided finally to gently nudge his shoulder in hopes of waking him. As I reached to do so, his head slowly lifted. There were tears streaming down his cheeks and as I looked into his eyes I saw love and joy. He quietly reached up and took the water. Even though I was only twelve then, I can still remember vividly the feeling I had as I watched this rugged old man partake of the sacrament. I knew without a doubt that he was feeling something about the sacrament that I had never felt. I determined then that I wanted to feel those same feelings.... It had been seven years since John had the experience of first passing the sacrament to Brother Schmidt. Since that time he had watched Brother Schmidt carefully. John continued to gain a greater and greater appreciation for his faith and love of the Savior. In two weeks John would be in the mission field, but prior to leaving he wanted to do something he had desired for years--have a personal talk with Brother Schmidt. Saturday evening John went to Brother Schmidt's home. He lived alone. His wife had passed away a few years earlier. As John entered the small but neatly kept home, he felt a special spirit. Pictures of some of the temples were hung neatly on one wall. On another wall was a painting of the Savior kneeling in Gethsemane. John began, "Brother Schmidt, ever since I first passed the sacrament to you I sensed it has a profound meaning in your life. Before I leave for the mission field, I want to find out why this ordinance that some seem to take so lightly is so meaningful to you." Brother Schmidt didn't answer for a few moments. His eyes seemed to focus on the picture of Christ that hung on the wall before him. Then he said, "John, after I joined the Church in Germany, many of my friends deserted me. My family was also upset and for a time I was left almost completely alone. I desperately needed a source of strength and power to help me survive the challenges I was facing. One day I was reading in the Doctrine and Covenants." Brother Schmidt turned to these verses and read: "Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. "And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; "For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live. (D&C 84:20-22). "As I read those verses, " he continued, "the revelation came to me that the powers of godliness are really manifest in the ordinances of the gospel. I began to see that ordinances are indeed channels of power. That is to say, through ordinances we can literally partake of the spirit and power that emanates from God. I then began a personal study to learn all I could about the ordinances of the gospel. As I studied I became impressed that the sacrament is one of the most important keys to spiritual growth and strength. I decided as a young man that, no matter what went on around me, my ability to live the gospel and to have a personal relationship with Christ could be strengthened as I partook worthily of the sacrament. Sunday after Sunday I went to the sacrament service hungry--hungry to partake of the power of Jesus Christ in my life. Gradually I learned that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness can be filled with the Holy Ghost. Since then, John, I have tried to make the sacrament a time of total worship--a time to think of the Lord and of my behavior during the preceding week, a time to repent and to make commitments. Now, each day of the week, I look forward to the sacrament. To always remember my Savior is a commitment for every day, as well as Sunday." John was greatly impressed by what Brother Schmidt had said and asked, "But, Brother Schmidt, don't you ever get distracted by the noises during the passing of the sacrament?" "John, it isn't always an easy thing to make the sacrament a total worship experience. Sometimes outside influences and distracting thoughts can sidetrack our purpose for being there. But I have found that if I go to a sacrament meeting with a purpose and desire to communicate with the Lord these distractions c,an be handled more easily." As John walked home, he again remembered that day seven years earlier when he had watched Brother Schmidt. Once again the emotions welled up within him. With renewed determination he whispered, I want to feel those feelings too. " [Book of Mormon Student Manual (Religion 121-122) (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979), pp. 417, 422-231 The fuel for our eternal journey can be prayer, scriptural truths, and the companionship of the Holy Spirit through partaking of the sacrament. If we are thus fortified, spiritual darkness cannot place us in bondage. If captured momentarily, we will break out through humility, repentance, and obedience to find spiritual peace and prosperity. Then pride, envy, and wickedness will not pull us down the mountainside into the depths of Death Valley. The power of heaven is awaiting our efforts. May we--you and I--be responsive to this beckoning surge of power that we might be safeguarded from the protruding roots across our paths and the loose rocks or sand that can impede our eternal journey. May we place our hand in his to be guided and lifted heavenward, prepared to give our hearts fully and completely as evidence of our desire to be warmly embraced in his love. God is in his heaven. Jesus Christ is our Savior. He lived in the meridian of time. He organized the Church. He called others about him. He was placed on the cross and then in the tomb. He lives today. And because he lives today we can live eternally. May we live on this spiritual plane in close communication with the source of all power, I pray humbly in the very sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen. STUDY, FAITH, AND THE BOOK OF MORMON John W. Welch John W "Jack" Welch is a professor of law at Brigham Young University and the president of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (F.A.R.M.S.). A law professor since 1980, Welch earned his juris doctorate at Duke University in 1975 and practiced law for five years in Los Angeles. Professor Welch graduated with highest honors from BYU in 1970 with a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in classical languages. He was also a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and studied at Oxford University from 1970 to 1972. Brother Welch is currently working on two books: a commentary on King Benjamin's speech and a study of the ancient legal backgrounds of the Book of Mormon. He is also a director of the BYU Religious Studies Center and is general editor of The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley. He is married to Jeannie Sutton, and they are the parents of four children. He plays jazz clarinet and saxophone and enjoys skiing and backpacking. Just released as bishop of a BYU singles ward, he is now the Gospel Doctrine teacher in his home ward. This devotional talk was given on 10 May 1988 in the de Jong Concert Hall. President Holland, fellow members and friends of the Brigham Young University community, I am humbled by the invitation to speak to you this morning. And I pray, as we pause for these few minutes, that the Lord will bless our minds and spirits as he has so many times before in devotionals on this great campus. As I speak today, I consider my two principal credentials to be my testimony of the divine origins of the Book of Mormon and my unrelenting desire to know more about this wonderful and wondrous book. Over the last twenty years, I have made the Book of Mormon a matter of continual study, and the book has rewarded me far beyond anything I fully deserved and far beyond anything I could ever have imagined. That's the way I have always found it with the Lord--you can never fully anticipate his ways or really deserve all his blessings. My desire this morning is to present a few ideas about current Book of Mormon research, and I hope and pray you will find them interesting and enlightening. A BOUNTEOUS BOOK We have heard much about the Book of Mormon in recent years. A person would need to be both deaf and blind not to have noticed that President Benson has made it a main theme of paramount importance. The significance of the Book of Mormon to us as a people, both individually and collectively, can hardly be overstated. "Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations," Joseph Smith said, "and where is our religion? We have none" (HC 2:52). This book has given us more than just a name. Far more, it serves us as a spiritual tutor, teaching us to hear and know the voice of our master and to recognize the witness of the Holy Ghost. It serves us as a fountain of wisdom, explaining like no other source the plan of salvation and our present human condition. It stands as a sign of the Restoration in these the latter days and as a witness of Jesus Christ, signaling to all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see that God has been at work here in this world. It is a key to our covenants. For example, few of us think about the fact that the words of the baptismal prayer and of the sacrament prayers we use every week were first revealed in this dispensation through the translation of 3 Nephi 11 and Moroni 4-5. The book is also our guide to how we should live and contains a full disclosure statement about how we will be judged. It is many, many things. It is a wonderful book with endless uses and applications. It is the primary vehicle through which God has chosen to communicate his covenant gospel in our day to all people--the rich, the poor, the old, the young, black, white, married, or single. There are few things in this life more important for us to do than to know, love, and follow the Book of Mormon. Because it is so full and rich, many of its dimensions remain sealed to all who do not make its study a matter of lifetime pursuit. No matter who you are--a recent convert or a serious scholar, a saint or an unrepentant sinner--the Book of Mormon speaks to your level. It begins where you are and addresses your needs and your interests. In its fullness, we have hardly scratched the surface. There are many lessons, of all kinds, that we have yet to learn from its pages. The Lord has been after his Saints for a long time to do more with the Book of Mormon. As early as 1832, he chastised the members of the Church in Kirtland, Ohio, for neglecting the Book of Mormon, saying that "the children of Zion, even ail . . . shall remain under . . . condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon" (D&C 84:56-57). As recently as 1984, President Benson reissued this same stern admonition. In October conference that year, he said, "As I participated in the Mexico City Temple dedication, I received the distinct impression that God is not pleased with our neglect of the Book of Mormon" ("A New Witness for Christ," Ensign, November 1984, p. 6). He made it very clear that we are still languishing under that same condemnation of 150 years ago. Despite all we have done in the past, we still have miles to go to understand and obey that which we have been given. Let me give you a few examples of recent studies that illustrate what I mean about how our appreciation for the Book of Mormon is still growing. AN ASTONISHING ACHIEVEMENT First, some history--the year 1829. Only recently have I come to appreciate what a staggering achievement it was for Joseph Smith to bring forth the Book of Mormon at all. The mere fact that it exists is more of a miracle than many of us realize. Consider, for example, the simple question of how long it took Joseph to translate the Book of Mormon. Many solid and independent historical documents written by people like Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Knight, David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, and even public records like the mortgage on Martin Harris' farm, thoroughly corroborate the details and reveal an amazing story. After the setbacks of 1828, the translation of the Book of Mormon finally began on April 7, 1829, two days after Oliver Cowdery arrived in Harmony, Pennsylvania, guided by a personal revelation from the Lord to come and serve as Joseph's scribe. A short five weeks later, by May 15, they had already reached the account of Christ's ministry among the Nephites in 3 Nephi 11. By June 11, we know they had translated the last of the plates of Mormon, for Joseph used the words from the title page as the legal description on the copyright application he filed that day. By June 30, the job was finished at the Whitmer farmhouse in Fayette, New York. From start to finish--no more than eighty-five total days. But even from that must be subtracted some time and disruption when Joseph and Oliver moved the first week in June in a buckboard from Harmony to Fayette, some 120 miles away; time for trips to Colesville for supplies (sixty miles round trip); time to receive and record thirteen sections now contained in the Doctrine and Covenants; time to restore the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods; time to convert and baptize Samuel and Hyrum Smith and several others; time to experience manifestations with the three and the eight witnesses; and I suppose a little time to eat and sleep. (For a full discussion, see John W Welch and Tim Rathbone, "The Translation of the Book of Mormon: Basic Historical Information," F.A.R.M.S. W&R-86; John W. Welch, "How Long Did It Take Joseph Smith to Translate the Book of Mormon?" Ensign, January 1988, pp. 46-47) This leaves only about sixty to sixty-five days on which the Prophet could have worked on the translation--that's about the length of this spring term. This works out to a phenomenal average of eight or nine finished pages per day--day in, day out. Only a week to produce I Nephi, with all its subtle religious and cultural baggage that Hugh Nibley has taken volumes to unpack! (See Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites; An Approach to the Book of Mormon; Since Cumorah [Deseret Book (Salt Lake City, Utah) and F. A. R. M. S. (Provo, Utah), 19881; volumes 5, 6, and 7 of The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley.) It took a day and a half to translate King Benjamin's speech, one of the most masterful texts anywhere in religious literature. Besides teaching doctrines about the Atonement, service, humility, conversion, and covenants, the speech also reflects ancient Israelite piety infused with the true gospel of Jesus Christ! Yet there was no time for Joseph to consult at libraries (even if there had been a library in Harmony, Pennsylvania-which there was not). There was no time to study the Mishnah to find out how, in fact, Israelite kings delivered covenant renewal speeches, like Benjamin's, from towers to their people, who gathered by families in tents around their temple (see John W. Welch, "King Benjamin's Speech in the Context of Ancient Israelite Festivals," F.A.R.M.S. Wel-85c). There was no time to revise and refine, no time to cross-check entangled dates and interwoven details. Instead, the text came, as Oliver recorded five years later, "day after day . . . , uninterrupted," as the words fell "from his mouth" (see JS-H 1:71n). Seeing this has brought home to me the magnificence of the text of the Book of Mormon. This was an astonishing achievement. The text came one time through, the final copy was dictated. And thus it has stood, except for minor stylistic editing, to this day. As a lawyer, I know what it is to dictate. After years of practice, I still cannot count on dictating anything perfectly the first time. MATTERS OF LAW Take a second case--from antiquity. As a lawyer, I have been fascinated and impressed with the technical sophistication of the Book of Mormon in ancient legal affairs. Whoever wrote the Book of Mormon had intimate familiarity with a completely consistent, operating legal system, grounded in the jurisprudence and legal terminology of ancient Israel. This is especially true of Alma, who after all was the chief judge. The reports on the trials of Abinadi, Nehor, and Korihor turn out to be remarkable legal documents in light of what we know about the ancient laws regarding reviling, false witnessing, blaspheming, murdering, heralding the results of an infamous conviction, and so on. Law was of great importance to the Nephites, as it was for Israelites in general. It is hard for us to imagine the Israelite commitment to teaching, learning, and living the law. They loved the law. On festival days they venerated the law, parading their law books around the city. By comparison, imagine what would happen if we were to parade a copy of the Internal Revenue Code at one of our celebrations! Thus it is significant that Alma says the Nephites were strict in observing the law of Moses (Alma 30:3), which they were, down to the coming of Christ. Nephi also says that they kept "the judgments, and the statutes, and the commandments of the Lord in all things, according to the law of Moses" (2 Nephi 5:10; emphasis added)-"in all things" would mean in their civil and criminal matters as well as religious. How true this was can be seen by such things as the following. It turns out there was a big difference under the law of Moses, and in ancient Near Eastern criminal law generally, between being a "thief" and being a "robber." (Discussed in John W. Welch, "Theft and Robbery in the Book of Mormon and Ancient Near Eastern Law, " F. A. R. M. S. Wel-85a; summarized in "New Developments in Book of Mormon Research," Ensign, February 1988, p. 12. See also Bernard Jackson, Theft in Early Jewish Law [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975].) A thief was an inside member of the community; he usually worked alone, and he stole things like chickens at night. A thief's criminal offense was not serious, and he was punished lightly, usually being required to return double that which he had stolen. A robber, on the other hand, was an outsider, literally an outlaw, living outside the community and outside the protection and rights of local law. Robbers hid out in the hills in bands, swearing oaths of secrecy and swooping down on villages, openly assassinating and plundering. Robbers were one of the greatest scourges of ancient civilization; sometimes in Egypt they occupied whole cities. Soldiers were sent out after them, and when they were caught, they were put to death on the spot--no trials were necessary. This kind of information turns out to be significant in understanding the Book of Mormon, for it, too, observes this distinction. The Gadianton robbers are always called robbers, never thieves. They live out in the hills, and the army goes out to battle against them. When the Nephites catch one of the robbers, as in the case of Zemnarihah in 3 Nephi 4, they put him to death on the spot. No trial is mentioned, and they hang him on a tree and ritually chop the tree down (a form of notorious execution that indeed has a remarkable parallel in another obscure corner of Jewish law that oddly requires that the tree from which the culprit is hung be chopped down). (See Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin VI. 6; and Maimonides, Sanhedrin XV9.) Indeed, the Hebrew word for bandit (gedud) may even have some connection with the name Gaddianton, especially since that name, like the Hebrew gedud, was spelled in the original Book of Mormon manuscript with a double d. Now we can also better understand why Laman was so frightened by Laban's threat. When Laman tried to obtain the plates of brass, you recall, Laban threw him out, saying, "Thou art a robber, and I will slay thee" (I Nephi 3:13). Indeed, Laban was a military officer. If he chose to characterize Laman as a robber (and although he was not one, he was the son of Lehi, a wanted man who was now living out in the hills), Laban had the power to put some real teeth into his threat! Of course, if the text had said, "Thou art a thief, and I will slay thee," it wouldn't have sounded quite right. But that too is a telling point, for there is little substantive distinction between "theft" and "robbery" in Anglo-American law; nor could Joseph have learned the a ncient distinction from his Bible, for the translators of the King James Version use these two words indiscriminately and interchangeably. For example, in the story of the Good Samaritan, the King James Version says that a man went down from Jerusalem and fell among "thieves" (Luke 10:30)! Of course, you do not fall among "thieves" out in the desert, but among "robbers," which is how the Greek reads. Unlike the King James Version, however, the Book of Mormon uses these two terms correctly. A LITERARY ACCOMPLISHMENT Third, consider something from the world of literature. I first became aware of the remarkable precision of the Book of Mormon when I was serving a mission in south Germany. There, twenty years ago, I was introduced at a lecture in a Catholic seminary to the idea of chiasmus in the Bible. Chiasmus is a variety of parallelism that was frequently used in the ancient Near East literature, especially in Hebrew, although not exclusively. Instead of simply saying something twice in direct parallel form (a-b-c-a-b-c), a chiastic text repeats itself the second rime in the opposite order (a-b-c-c-b-a). A good example of this is in Leviticus 24, where the three elements " killeth any man, " " killeth a beast, " and "cause a blemish" appear first in that order and then are repeated in reverse order, framing the talionic justice formula "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Leviticus 24:17-21). Since chiasmus is a rather distinctive, recently detected mode of expression that often helps in analyzing biblical texts, I was excited early one morning to discover that several writers in the Book of Mormon also employed this stylistic device. As it turns out, some of the most meaningful and well-constructed examples of this form of writing found anywhere in the world appear in the pages of the Book of Mormon (John W. Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies [1969]; also in New Era, February 1972, and reprinted in Noel Reynolds, Book of Mormon Authorship [Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 19821; see also John W. Welch, ed., Chiasmus in Antiquity [Hildesheim: Gersterberg, 1981]). A fine example of chiasmus is in Mosiah 5:10-12, where the six elements "name, called, left hand, remember, blotted out, and transgression" appear first in that order, and then reappear in the opposite order. Another creative example is in Alma 41:13-15. As in Leviticus 24, chiasmus is used brilliantly here to depict the reciprocal aspect of restorative justice. And nothing surpasses the chiastic composition of Alma 36, where Alma places at the pivot point of his intricately balanced chapter the central spiritual turning point of his entire life--namely, the point at which he called upon Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to atone for his sins. Alma could have drawn on no better literary expression to place Christ more squarely at the middle of things than chiasmus. LESSONS YET TO BE LEARNED Finally, consider some more practical and spiritual kinds of lessons we have yet to learn from the Book of Mormon. As bishop of a BYU student ward, I found over and over that answers to spiritual struggles were there to be found in the Book of Mormon, but they did not sink in until we had prayerfully searched the scriptures to obtain an answer to our needs. For example, I had one member in my ward who could not feel completely forgiven, even though she had sincerely tried. It occurred to us how Benjamin had counseled and commanded his people that they must impart of their substance to the poor in order to retain a remission of their sins from day to day (Mosiah 4:26). This turned out to be the answer. Giving offerings to the poor has long been a part of holy Israelite fast days on which they sought atonement for their sins. Perhaps here is a lesson we all should learn, a forgotten step in the repentance process, to remember the poor and the needy. On other occasions, I counseled members of my ward who were struggling with temptation to pray more effectively by pleading with the Lord to help them overcome what was tempting them. I learned this lesson, too, from the Book of Mormon, for it says that the righteous Nephites offered up a prayer every day "that they might not enter into temptation" (Alma 31:10). When was the last time you asked your Heavenly Father that you not be influenced by such and such a temptation? Or again, have we really comprehended how the devil operates? Lehi's vision of the great and spacious building, for example, tells us graphically that the one main weapon used by the wicked is mocking and derision. I don't think we guard ourselves enough against behaving this way. Yet when you know your opponent's playbook, it's a lot easier to plan your defense. No better expose of the cunning but rakish ways of the devil can be found than in the Book of Mormon. Or again, have we really noticed what Alma actually says about planting that seed of faith in Alma 32? What is it that he tells us we will know when the seed begins to grow? Do we know that the seed is "true"? Well, for Alma, it says we will begin to know that the seed is "good" (Alma 32:30-33, 36). Now there is an important difference between knowing that something is "true" and knowing that it is "good." Satan, for example, knows much that is true, yet he knows little of the good. We must know both. How great it is to know not only that the gospel and the Book of Mormon are true, but also that they are good! This list could go on and on, but consider one more. There are lessons yet to be learned about making and keeping our covenants. When Jesus had but a few days to spend with the righteous people at Bountiful, what did he spend his time saying and doing? Just a few months ago, it dawned on me that in 3 Nephi 11 he met them at the temple, where he entered into covenants with them. It began with a great Hosanna Shout (3 Nephi 11:17), with instructions about baptism and priesthood ordinations (11:18-28). He told them how they were to make the covenant. If any of them had hard feelings toward another, Jesus told them they should go and reconcile themselves and then come unto Christ at the altar (12:23-24). There their oaths were to be sworn simply by saying "yes" or "no" (12:37). This was serious, sacred business. If anyone wrongly disclosed these holy things to the unworthy, Jesus told them they would be torn and trampled (14:6). In 3 Nephi 12 and 13, Christ gave the people a series of commandments that they then agreed to obey. They were the new laws of sacrifice (the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit) and of obedience (12:19-20), of proper conduct toward brethren (no derision, no anger, no ridicule) (12:22), of chastity (12:28), of loving your enemies (12:44), of prayer (13:5-13), and of consecration (for a man cannot serve both God and mammon) (13:19-24). In the end he promised them that those who know and do these things will be allowed at the last day to enter into the celestial kingdom. But others who have not so known the Lord will not be allowed to enter (14:21-23). All this was taught as Jesus prepared these people to make covenants at the temple, to keep these commandments, to take upon them his name, and to remember his marked body he had just shown them and that they had received and touched with their own hands. If Jesus had but a short time to spend with these people and chose to spend it with them at the temple, shouldn't we spend a little more of our time there as well? BY STUDY AND ALSO BY FAITH Well, why have I told you these things? There are several reasons. First, because I find them exciting. I never cease to be amazed by the Book of Mormon. The chiastic passages of the Book of Mormon, for example, are so obvious once they are pointed out, I wonder how Mark Twain could have missed them. Seeing the covenant-making context of Jesus' sermon at the temple is so plain and precious to me, I wonder why I hadn't focused on it before. The Lord has said the Book of Mormon contains the "fulness of the gospel" (D&C 20:9). That statement is truer than we realize. Sealed away in its pages, I know, are many lessons yet to be learned and many things yet to be discovered. I also tell you these things because I know them to be good and true. One of the stated purposes of the Book of Mormon is to be a convincing witness that Jesus is the Christ. Its purpose is to convince Jew, Lamanite, and Gentile. Recognizing that all evidence must be evaluated carefully, I find the accumulation of points like these to be quite persuasive and indeed convincing that this book bears a true witness that Jesus is the Christ. Does this mean I am trying to prove that the Book of Mormon is true? That question is often asked, but not often enough thought about. In this regard, I like what Church historian B. H. Roberts said in 1909: [The Holy Ghost] must ever be the chief source of evidence for the truth of the Book of Mormon. All other evidence is secondary to this, the primary and infallible. No arrangement of evidence, however skillfully ordered; no argument, however adroitly made, can ever take [the] place [of the Holy Ghost]. However, he continued: Secondary evidences in support of truth, like secondary causes in natural phenomena, may be of first rate importance, and mighty factors in the achievement of God's purposes. [B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1909), pp. vi-viii] I believe that historical documents from 1829, legal distinctions between theft and robbery, and other such studies give us just this kind of first-rate secondary evidence. They help us appreciate the miraculous origins of the Book of Mormon, the complexity of the legal and literary systems embedded in the text, and the profundity of its doctrines. This is no simple book dashed off from the top of any young man's head; it reflects the best of a thousand years of civilization and inspiration. Of course, the Book of Mormon remains a debatable subject--and fortunately the Lord has left it primarily in the realm of faith. Not every question will be answerable to everyone's complete satisfaction, but when has that ever been the case with the Bible, with mathematics, or with anything else? Still, God has not left us without ample positive reasons that will lead the teachable, inquiring mind to the point of faith. I have also said these things to show that many approaches will be necessary to fathom the depths of the Book of Mormon. Historical, doctrinal, theoretical, practical, religious, legal, literary, intellectual, and spiritual approaches are all needed. President Benson has said that not only should we know what history the Book of Mormon contains, but we should understand its teachings. "God expects us to use the Book of Mormon in several ways" (Ezra Taft Benson, "The Book of Mormon Is the Word of God," Ensign, January 1988, p. 3). The book has many stated purposes. They will demand the best of all our faculties. The approaches I have sampled give only a glimpse of the range of work being done today by many people on our campus: Hugh Nibley, on the book's ancient cultural patterns and their modern implications; John Sorenson, on the limited geography internally required by the book itself; Robert Matthews and Monte Nyman, who have a great interest in the book and contemporary Mormonism; Stephen Ricks, Dan Peterson, and Stephen Robinson, working on Hebraic, Arabic, and early Christian comparisons; Bob Millett and Joseph McConkie, exploring its doctrinal meanings and significance; Noel Reynolds, reading 1 Nephi through a political perspective legitimating Nephi as Lehi's political successor; Roger Keller, adding a second contribution this year to computer-aided authorship analyses; Paul Hoskisson, seeking possible etymologies for Book of Mormon proper names; and many others. Each approaches the Book of Mormon differently, which helps me see the incompleteness of my own knowledge. As the Apostle Paul said, we only "see through a glass, darkly," our knowledge is incomplete, we only "know in part," and we even prophesy only "in part" (1 Corinthians 13:9, 12). Similarly, President Benson has said that we must never rest in our study of the Book of Mormon. It will wear us out long before we will ever wear it out. Every Latter-day Saint should make the study of this book a lifetime pursuit. Otherwise, he is placing his soul in jeopardy and neglecting that which could give spiritual and intellectual unity to his whole life. [Benson, "The Book of Mormon Is the Word of God," P. 5] Note well what President Benson says here: "Spiritual and intellectual unity to your whole life." Another reason I have told you these things is because I think they are the kinds of things that may help us to achieve the spiritual and intellectual unity President Benson is talking about. There is a verse from the Doctrine and Covenants on a plaque in the Lee Library. It's in the stairwell going up from the circulation desk to the fourth floor. As a student here in the sixties, I saw it several times every day; it made a deep impression on me. It admonishes us to ,"seek learning, even by study and also by faith" (D&C 88:118). Spirit and intellect, study and faith, science and religion, testimony and academics--often we see these as opposites, but ultimately they are not. If our eye is single to God and his glory, if in our learning we are always willing to hearken unto the counsels of the Lord, if we are equally rigorous about what we think and how we reason, we shall see how all truth may be circumscribed in one great whole and that all things shall work together for our good. Scholarly tools can be used in learning more about the scriptures. Here, too, we must be, as the Greek reads, "as astute as serpents but as pure as doves" [phronimoi, akeraioi] (Matthew 10:16). Any tool can be used for good or for evil. A hammer can be used to build up or to tear down. It can even injure the careless or unskillful person who is trying to use it. But for that reason alone, we do not eschew all hammers. All tools must be used carefully, with training, and for their intended purposes. Everyone must be cautious not to exceed these bounds. We must all temper enthusiasm with competence and zeal with knowledge, but also we must temper our premises with inspiration and scholarly assertions with humility. But given the right tools used in the right ways, we can do some great things. The Book of Mormon remains a book sealed by many seals. Proper tools and methods will unlock more and more of them and of its fullness to us. It is sealed to us by our unfaithfulness and lack of prayer. It is sealed to us by our inattention to detail and background information. It is sealed to us in part by its nature because it is an abridgment. It is sealed further by our failure to listen to the Brethren and to apply the teachings of the Book of Mormon to ourselves daily. It is sealed when we take its divine origins and simple elegance lightly. It is sealed when we fail to see the people of the book as they saw themselves. It is sealed when we don't blank out our eyes and when we don't stop hearing what we want to hear. We must sit back and let the Book of Mormon speak to us, instead of us to it. Now the book is supposed to speak from the dust; that doesn't mean the dust of our bookshelves. All this will take tremendous effort. But the promised rewards are more than worth it. Sooner or later the Book of Mormon will be unsealed in your life. In the last days, Isaiah says, this book will not be a sealed book. Finally, "in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness" (Isaiah 29:18). Then, he says, shall the meek increase their joy and the scorners shall be consumed (Isaiah 29:19-20). This will happen, Isaiah says, when they that have erred shall come to understanding, and they that have murmured shall learn doctrine (Isaiah 29:24). Both will be required: correct understanding and devotion to doctrine. At the final judgment we will also see these words again. The books of life will be unsealed, and all things shall be made manifest, whether they be good or whether they be evil. The words of the Book of Mormon will figure prominently on that day, for they are the words by which you and I will be judged. As God has spoken it, these words will stand as a bright testimony at the judgment (Mosiah 3:23-24, Moroni 10:27). We hope that day will not be the first time the Book of Mormon is truly unsealed and laid opened before us. I testify that the Lord has given us a truly marvelous blessing in the form of the Book of Mormon. He and his servants, the prophets, have given much so we could have it. I pray the Lord will bless us all to love and to know him and this marvelous book, with all of our hearts and might, minds and strength, that we may thereby come to eternal life. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. LESSONS FROM THE MASTER Marvin J. Ashton Elder Marvin J. Ashton has been a member of the Council of the Twelve since 1971, Previously he had been a Assistant to the Twelve. Elder Ashton was born in Salt Lake City and graduated from the University of Utah in business administration. While serving in the British Mission from 1937 to 1939, he captained a team that won the British National Basketball championship and was associate editor of the Millennial Star. He has been active regionally and nationally in the Boy Scouts of America. He holds the Silver Beaver and Silver Antelope Scouting awards for outstanding service to boys, is an Eagle Scout, and has served on the General Board of the Young Men Mutual Improvement Association. Elder Ashton serves as chairman of the Priesthood Executive Council and is first contact for the Caribbean, which is part of the North America Southeast Area. He is presently serving as a member of the following Church committees: Correlation Executive Committee, General Welfare Services Committee, and Council on Disposition of the Tithes. He is chairman of the board of the Polynesian Cultural Center, Laie, Hawaii, and is a member of the Church Board of Education and a Trustee of Brigham Young University. Elder Ashton is an official of several business firms, including Deseret Book Company and ZCMI. He is well known for his work with youth, and, as a Utah state senator, he spearheaded legislation to improve statewide juvenile detention facilities. In 1984 he received a doctorate degree of law from the University of Utah. He is married to Norma Bernston, and they are the parents of four children. This fireside address was given in the Marriott Center on 5 June 1988. I am pleased to share with you the fact that the kingdom of our Heavenly Father rolls forward--not without challenges, not without hurdles, and not without the efforts of others to thwart or impede the progress of the Church. BRINGING A MESSAGE What a thrill it was last Thursday in the Salt Lake Temple to be on hand when President Howard W. Hunter was set apart as President of the Council of the Twelve and to have the members of the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve place their hands upon his head with President Benson being the voice. What a joy it was to be there on that occasion and feel of the Spirit and the love for this great man, President Howard W. Hunter--who at the present time is without his mobility but has a sweet spirit and an alert mind. He's a quorum president that I love, and I not only bring President Benson's love to you tonight, but also President Howard W. Hunter's. Last Thursday I was impressed with the fact that while we conducted our normal business activities and cleared our agenda, trying to handle some of the affairs in our Heavenly Father's kingdom, President Benson said a number of times, "Thank God for good people." In a day and age when it's disturbing to read and hear about the activities of people who are leaning in the direction of misconduct and mistrust, I bring you that message from our prophet as he met with his counselors and those in the Council of the Twelve: Thank God for good people. I feel the same way about you. I thank God for you and for what you do. I encourage all of us to be positive and appreciate the good and the good people around us. LESSONS OF LOVE Let me now read a favorite scripture and ask you to remember it so we can refer to it later. You're all familiar with it, but you will never be as familiar with it as I would like you to be. Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. [John 8:1-12] For as long as I can remember I've had a special love for Jesus Christ. I was taught he was the Son of the Living God. I was taught he was my friend, my teacher, and my strength. In years past, when the calling and responsibility and honor of bearing special witness of him have come into my life, I have endeavored to be taught by his life and his ways. Truly, he is the Master Teacher. To assist me in my labors and commitment, I have found myself turning frequently to the eighth chapter of John in the New Testament for strength, for guidance, and for example. If you please, let us walk through some of the verses to strengthen our lives and our relationships with Jesus. These lines and words help me to better understand him and give me the desire to do and be more like him. The first word: Jesus. I love the word Jesus. I love Jesus of Nazareth. It troubles me when I hear this sacred name used in vain. Do not allow yourselves to speak the word Jesus without reverence. Even though it's the world's way today to use that name in exclamation, in failure, to get attention, to curse, let us not allow ourselves to use the name Jesus without reverence. I like the second word. I learn from it that Jesus went, he wasn't carried. He wasn't picked up. He wasn't conveyed. He went. Self-motivated. Self-disciplined. I love that word went. He sought privacy, seclusion for meditation, even in the Mount of Olives where he could ponder and pray and prepare. Early in the morning he was about his father's business. President Ezra Taft Benson has always started early, too. He knows how to work and starts early. Early in his life he learned to pray, work, and study. One early morning my telephone rang in the Church Office Building. I don't want to sound as if I'm boasting, but it was a little before seven in the morning. Some of us take a little longer to get in a day's work. And that familiar voice of President Spencer W. Kimball--weak, but powerful--said, "Marvin, could I come up to your office and see you?" And I said, "President Kimball, if you want to see me, I'll be right down." He said, "Would you do that?" (I could make a sermon on courtesy, but gather that from what I just said.) I was down in his office in thirty seconds. He handed me a letter. He said, "Would you read this and tell me what you think?" I suppose he's done this with a lot of us--asking for our opinion. My opinion isn't that special. I read it and said, "President Kimball, you might want to think about doing it this way." And, bless his heart, he said, "That's what I thought and that's what we'll do." I went back to my office and felt fear and trembling and uneasiness for the rest of the day. Just two or three weeks ago, President Benson phoned early in the morning. His greeting was, "Marv, I knew you'd be there." Be early. Get a good start. Jesus came again. It was a habit. It was a regular way of the day. A way of life. And all the people! He attracted people! All came. He was personable, wise, and kind. May I say for our encouragement and future patience in activities that all the people came. They were attracted to him, but not all were converted. Some remained enemies. Some remained bitter. Others were taught. We recall Luke's record--so very well done. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man. [Luke 2:52] Following up again on the beautiful scripture I love so much and am inclined to use as a guideline for my personal use, Jesus sat down on their level. He didn't talk down. He didn't talk up. He spoke to them as friends. The Master Teacher taught on the mount, along the road, in the marketplace, in a boat, or on the shores--wherever and whenever as he lived. Can we sit down when we teach and communicate? He sat down and taught them. He didn't threaten. He didn't scold. He didn't belittle. He humbly showed the way with parables, kindness, and great wisdom. Certainly he was not a scribe. He was the Son of God. He taught eye to eye, person to person, and heart to heart. He sat down. May I recall, and some of you have heard this before--but may I repeat it? I had the opportunity of sitting down with the prophet once in an unusual circumstance. It is something I shall never forget. President Kimball called me one day and said, Id like to go to the Utah State Prison and visit for a limited time. " Without going into detail, the thing I think that prompted his request and his motivation was something as simple as pure religion--going undefiled before God visiting the fatherless, the downtrodden, the weary, the prisoners. So we went to the Utah State Prison. He wanted to shake hands with a few, visit for a while, and then return to his office. When we arrived at the institution, the warden had arranged to have two prisoners in his office. There with President Kimball and the warden (just five of us with the door closed), I looked at these two criminals (and they looked the part) in silence. One was convicted of murder and the other of grand larceny. There they were in prison uniforms, looking at the floor. One was a member and the other a nonmember. The warden and I were sitting there waiting to see what President Kimball would do. What would he say? He could have said, "I'm sure ashamed of you two," "What did you do to get here?" "How many times have you been here before?" President Kimball looked at the one. He hadn't even raised his eyes off the floor. President Kimball kept looking at him. Finally he looked up, and President Kimball said, "Tell me about your mother." This prisoner told President Kimball about his mother. And when that was over, President Kimball looked at the other one (who was now looking up from the floor) and asked, "What does your father do?" Will Elder Ashton ever forget that moment? Instead of "You big dummy, you should have known better than that," he said, "What does your father do?" The man told about his father, and it wasn't very good. I was taught by a prophet. I saw a prophet with a Christ-like approach. Now, back to the scripture. They brought unto him the woman taken in adultery. These enemies who would disturb, embarrass, ridicule, and display their cunningness--they tried to trick him. They sat her in the midst as an exhibit, as a sinner, as someone unclean. He didn't flee from her presence. They called him "Master." I become a little emotional because I feel close to that situation where they approached him as "You who have all the answers, tell us." They probed. They were unreasonable. She was taken in adultery--in the very act. There was no doubt about her guilt. They were setting him up in what appeared to be an impossible situation. Moses' law says to stone her. "What sayest thou?" they asked, tempting him, trapping him--putting him in a no-win position. Whatever he said, he would be accused of wrongdoing, wrong judgment. They were tempting him to see if they could get him to lose his patience and forget who he was. Stoning her would be cruel. Ignoring her would be wrong. Asking her to leave would be beneath him. He stooped down and wrote on the ground as though he heard them not (getting their attention and preparing everyone within earshot to be taught). We don't know what he wrote on the ground with his finger. For our purposes here today we'll say he was getting their attention while ignoring their cries for action and response. In your roles as leaders and students, having silent periods during interviews and counseling can be important. That silent period in this interview was so powerful. And while it was silent they continued asking. I can hear the questions of mischief: "C'mon, say something. We've got you. Are you afraid to answer?" But Jesus was in charge. Soon this would be evident, but the quiet period had to go on a little bit longer. Jesus lifted up himself, in humble and meek majesty, and said these most powerful words: "He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her." A perfect answer from a perfect person. Today in our responsibilities, situations, and callings, we need to be reminded of this over and over again. In our dealings with all people, let him who is without sin be the first to criticize or find fault or belittle or be the first to stone someone's character. He stooped down and wrote on the ground. They heard what he said. They felt the impact of his silence of spirit while he said nothing. Convicted by their own conscience they left on their own, not driven away. They went out one by one--not to find stones, but to nurse their spiritual wounds. He was left alone with the woman. I'm glad that's recorded. Some of us are inclined to avoid being with those who have fallen. They're beneath or below us. Left alone with the woman, he said, "Where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?" He was involving her in the interview and teaching at the same time. Jesus Christ took time to ask and to listen. Oh, if we could do more of that! Our answers would be so easy, so much improved. I recall a few years ago we had a call from a stake president. He said, "I haven't been able to resolve this situation. Would you be good enough to help us?" We arranged a time and met with a young man from Brigham Young University--265 pounds, an all-conference tackle--and his mom and his dad. This young man was a sophomore with two more years of football to play. His mom thought it would be nice if he played football, but his dad wanted him to go on a mission. The more interviews there were, the more confusion there was. After the usual greetings, I looked at the mother by the side of this football player big enough to pull a plow and said, "Do I understand right that you favor your son's playing football?" She said, "Yes, I think I lean in that direction. " I looked at the father and said, "Am I right in assuming you would like to have your son go on a mission at this time?" He said, "Yes, I lean in that direction." So I looked at the football player and said, "What would you like to do?" He said, "I'd like to go on a mission." I said, "Why don't you?" The interview was over and he went on a mission! I love those difficult situations! How much fun I could have had if I'd spent a half hour arguing about which comes first and when, how, and where. The woman taken in adultery answered the Lord's question regarding her accusers by saying, "No man, Lord." And then this powerful declaration came: "Go, and sin no more." The Master was teaching in that day and also teaching in this very hour. His great message: Despise the sin, but love the sinner. I hope that can give us strength and confidence and a closer relationship to our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus did not condone adultery. He gave the woman love instead of an authoritative lecture. She and the accusers needed a lesson in love. The situation called for mercy and compassion. How rewarding it is to know that Jesus believed that man is greater than all of his sins. Is it any wonder he was referred to as the "Good Shepherd?" He loved all of his sheep whether they were strays, hungry, helpless, cold, or lost. CHRIST'S OWN TESTIMONY At the conclusion of this great teaching experience, this lesson of love and compassion, is an important verse. Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. [John 8:12] Let us follow his light. Let us refer often to these few words. I bear witness to you that they were preserved for the good of everyone within the sound of my voice. We shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Later on in this same chapter of John, in verse twenty-five, after the Pharisees had been with the Savior and were confounded, confused, impressed, and touched, they were heard to say, "Who art thou?" And his simple answer was "the same that I said unto you from the beginning." Recall Peter's answer when Jesus asked, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" The disciples replied, "Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets." Then Jesus asked, "But whom say ye that I am?" (Matthew 16:13-15; emphasis added). I challenge you with that question tonight. Whom say ye that Jesus Christ is? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. [Matthew 16:16-18] Let us have our answer when the question comes to us or pops up in our minds: "Who art thou?" Let us know with each passing day who he is and live closer to him. Another of my favorite verses is also in the eighth chapter of John. After this series of teachings and experiences, with people asking who he was and what his purpose was and trying to trick him and embarrass him, I suppose Jesus came to the point where he thought, What do I have left to say to them? My life and my ways don't seem to affect them. In verse twenty-six, at the climax of this story, Jesus said, "He that sent me is true" (John 8:26). Jesus Christ was bearing his testimony that God is real and that his ways are true and right. I would like to have us remember that when we don't seem to have all the answers and we're not very effective in communicating the feelings of our hearts through words, we should go to the scriptures, where we have a powerful ally in testimony and testimony sharing. We may not have all of the answers yet. But I want you to know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. And if nothing else seems to influence or affect you, remember that I have this testimony and I know it is true. A testimony is a priceless possession, and it's peculiar and valuable only in this great church of ours. Don't ever forget its importance. When all other channels seemed to be plugged with poison prejudice, Jesus bore his testimony. "IF YE CONTINUE" God the Father has not left us alone. We have membership in the church of Jesus Christ. Do the things that please him, and you will have joy in him and in yourself. If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. [John 8:31-32] I love that word continue. If you continue, you are his disciple. Some missionaries--past and present--have felt that to be a disciple you have to be an assistant to the president or a zone leader or a senior companion. The truth is that all you have to do in missionary work or in life to be a disciple is to continue. I want you ladies to know that continuing is more important than earning the crown of human approval. All of us can continue. Not all of us may be called to positions of heavy and mighty responsibility. But it gives satisfaction to me--and I hope to you, too--to know that the final test is are you continuing and will you continue?" I was out with the missionaries last week. After we had had some discussions and presentations, we opened up a question-and-answer period. That's always a little fun and a little dangerous. One missionary said, "Did your patriarchal blessing say you were going to be an apostle?" I've been asked that question before, incidentally. Because I've been asked that before--and because I've put in proper perspective what the real blessings are, what it means to continue--I carry with me one little verse or paragraph from my patriarchal blessing. And I take satisfaction in repeating it here tonight with my sweetheart at my side. She's never heard me read this from my patriarchal blessing in public before. So brace yourself, Sister Ashton. I share this only to emphasize the fact that callings and offices are not as important as family, and continuing, and love, and compatibility. I also bless thee, Brother Ashton, through prayer and humility of heart thou shalt be provided with a companion in life whose heart and spirit shall be in harmony with thine, and that together you will provide a home that shall be a place of safety, a haven of rest, a sanctuary wherein the spirit of the gospel and the spirit of love shall remain supreme. I'm so glad that blessing was pronounced and made available to me for ratification if I lived worthily for it. The family, the home, the continuing make us disciple--not titles or honors. Not only do I know Jesus Christ as the Master Teacher, our Redeemer, our Savior, and the Only Begotten of the Father--I know him in ways that touch my soul and give me daily direction. God lives. He is our father. He loves us. Jesus is the Christ. This is his church. Jesus is the light and the way. I leave you my blessing and thank you for being here tonight. I hope and pray that in some small way we can go forward from tonight with a closer association and appreciation for Jesus Christ. And I pray this in his name. Amen. ONE MAN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE F. Melvin Hammond Born in Blackfoot, Idaho, F. Melvin Hammond graduated from Brigham Young University in political science with a B.A. in 1958 and an M.A. in 1962. He first became involved in the Church Educational System by teaching seminary and institute while pursuing graduate studies at BYU and at the University of Colorado, Professor Hammond has been a teacher of political science and of religion at Ricks College since 1966. He has twice been elected Outstanding Professor of the Year, once by students and once by colleagues, and in 1979 was elected Ricks College Man of the Year. A member of the Idaho House of Representatives for 16 years, Brother Hammond served six years as the House minority leader and twelve on the legislative council. His academic career and public service were both interrupted in 1984 when he was called as president of the Bolivia Cochabamba Mission. Melvin Hammond is a popular speaker with groups of all ages, having lectured in the Know Your Religion series, at BYU-Ricks Education Days, the Ricks College Last Lecture series, and others. He has also given devotional speeches at Ricks and at the LDS institutes at Idaho State and Boise State universities. He is listed in Who's Who in the United States, Who's Who in the West, and Who's Who in Religion in the United States. Brother Hammond and his wife, Bonnie Sellers, have six children. This devotional talk was delivered in the de Jong Concert Hall on 21 June 1988. My dear brothers and sisters, I am happy to be with you today, especially as you are beginning a new summer session of study at Brigham Young University. It is pleasing to me to see so many of my dear friends--President Holland, my family, and my mission family, who have come to lend their love and spiritual strength to me on this occasion. This is a devotional assembly. It is a moment for each of us to think of heavenly things, of things that will build our spiritual strength and draw us closer to our Heavenly Father. I realize, in part, the responsibility that has been placed upon me. Therefore, I seek for the spirit of the Holy Ghost to be with me. And I pray that you, too, will sense my desire and let your faith and prayers be exercised in my behalf. The famous Christian reformer, Billy Sunday, is quoted as having said that the secret to his success was that "He started a fire in himself and the people came to watch him burn." I feel that I have come with a fire in my heart, kindled by the love that I have for the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that as the Spirit burns in me, this same Spirit will ignite a fire in you. "Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together" (D&C 50:22). BECAUSE OF ONE MAN Some time ago, while laboring in the Lord's missionary service, a wonderful missionary came to see me. It was near the end of his mission. He was very depressed. Saddened by his own perception of personal success, he had imposed upon himself a standard from which he had fallen far short. As he spoke, he recounted for me the difficult time he had experienced in the MTC. While he was there, his father had died unexpectedly, and for a brief period of time the elder had considered leaving the mission and returning home. But, encouraged by a loving mother and spurred on by an individual commitment, he continued his training and finally found himself in the beautiful country of Bolivia. I listened to him as he told me of the initial efforts he had made in his mission to work hard, pray often, follow all the rules, and be a model missionary--expecting, of course, to be rewarded with hundreds of baptisms. But, unfortunately, the baptisms had not come. Gradually he began to slacken his pace. He felt that his prayers were not being heard, so why pray? The mission rules seemed somehow to be burdensome. They were restrictive, silly things, written by the mission president only to goad and irritate him and the other missionaries. In despair, he said, "And now I'm nobody! What I do won't make any difference!" Then searchingly, he quickly added, "Will it, President Hammond?" For an instant the same questions passed through my own mind. "Can he make a difference? Can I? Can anyone? Does it matter what one man does?" Then, in my mind's eye I saw a myriad of people and events. I found myself talking eagerly and enthusiastically. "Elder, do you remember a man named Copernicus?" For more than a millennium men's ideas about the universe had been cemented in the theories of the Greeks, of Ptolemy and Aristotle. That is to say, the earth was the center of the universe. Even the Catholic church in the thirteenth century, influenced by St. Thomas Aquinas, had adopted the Aristotelian view that the earth lies right in the middle of the heavens. The dreaded Inquisition managed to silence any radical views that might have been expressed. Then, in A.D. 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published a new truth: that the earth rotates daily on its axis and the planets revolve in orbits around the sun. Of this, Martin Luther is reputed to have said, "The fool wants to turn the whole science of astronomy upside down" ("Pioneers in Man's Search for the Universe," National Geographic 145, no. 5 [May 19741:627). Copernicus did just that, and in so doing set astronomy free. One man! And today we are awed into humility by the tremendous scope of the universe. Yes, we measure space by light-years, the distance light travels in one year at the rate of 186,282 miles a second. We know that galaxies are as common as blades of grass in a meadow--perhaps over a hundred billion of them. There are distant objects known as quasars, placed at ten billion light years away from the earth, that in one second throw out enough energy to supply all the earth's electrical needs for billions of years. And we know of neutron stars whose matter, if contained in a teaspoon, would weigh over a billion tons. The learning goes on and on because of "one man." THOUSANDS FOLLOWED The elder seemed interested. For a moment he had forgotten himself and was listening intently. Therefore, I continued. I know of a man raised in India and educated in England as an attorney. He loved his native land and longed for the time that she would be free from the domination of Great Britain. Most of his life he lived in a mud hut that had no electric lights, no running water, no telephone. He didn't own an automobile, and he never sought or held a public office. By some he was thought to be the most Christ-like person who had ever lived, and yet he was not even a Christian. To India he was the "Mahatma" or "The Great Soul." He described himself as a "self-remade man." When Britain was struggling for survival against the Axis powers during World War II, and some prominent Indian leaders wanted to revolt and throw off her authority, he said, "We will not steal even our independence." In his efforts to stop the continual fighting between India and Pakistan he often subjected himself to prolonged fasts. During one of those lengthy ordeals a medical doctor tried to get him to take a small portion of beef broth, to which he commented, "Even for life itself we may not do certain things. There is only one course open to me--to die, but never to break my pledge." And as they begged him to eat or drink, fearing for his life, for his kidneys had begun to fail, he simply said, "Life is more than science and God more than chemistry" (see Sterling W. Sill, The Glory of the Sun [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1961], pp. 309-10). Someone has said, "When Cicero speaks, the people say, 'How eloquent!' When Demosthenes speaks, the people say, 'Come, let us march!' " When this humble Indian went out from his house to walk, multitudes followed him. Thousands were willing to submit to death rather than take up arms against their enemies because he did not believe in violence, but rather in the principles of peace and love. On 30 July 1948, as he hurried to the village prayer ground, blessing the people as he went, a religious fanatic shot and killed him. The Mahatma was gone. His name was Mohandas K. Gandhi. Only one man! Yet through his efforts, India was granted her freedom. The name Gandhi will live on forever in the annals of time. "IN THE HANDS OF MAN" "You see, Elder, there are men who have truly made a difference." Yet we must use prudence in our study, for it is possible that evil men can also have a lasting effect upon their fellow beings. A demented Austrian with a view of total world control used his evil genius to disrupt the whole earth. Plunging the civilized world into war, his powerful armies created havoc throughout all of Europe. His regime left behind a path of death and destruction that had few equals in the history of the world. His racial myth of Aryan supremacy was responsible for the mass murder of over six million Jews and many more millions of members of other races, supposedly "inferior" to the Germans. The names of the death camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and others will long be remembered as horrible proof of the depth of depravity to which supposedly civilized countries may descend. Such atrocities were instigated by one man, Adolf Hitler, who caused himself to be called simply "Der Fuhrer." In a pamphlet written of the tragedy of Dachau, the author said, "Man cannot trust himself in the hands of man" (pamphlet distributed at Dachau). Truly a man may make a difference, but if he is not guided by the Holy Spirit, but rather by the evil one, he may jeopardize all that is sacred in this life and in the life to come. MORE THAN ANY OTHER MAN The elder sat quietly Hardly moving. Not speaking. "Are you beginning to understand?" I asked him pointedly. "I believe I am," he responded. "But, please, don't stop now, President. Go on!" I thought for a moment and then continued. "Very well. There are two others I would like to tell you about." On 23 December 1805, a baby boy was born to Joseph and Lucy Smith. They named him after his father. As he grew and developed in mind and in body, schooled in godly principles by his devoted parents, his inquisitive mind sought for religious truth. In response to his humble pleading, the most glorious manifestation ever given to man appeared before him. He saw the living God and Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son. Acting upon their admonitions, one boy (one man) began the incredible task of preparing a way to preach the restored gospel of salvation to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (D&C 133:37). Progress was slow. The translation of sacred records into the Book of Mormon required considerable time and great effort. There were persecutions, killings--every possible delaying tactic conceivable was employed by Satan to stop the work. Still, "having put his hand to the plough" (Luke 9:62), he did not look back. Many followed him. They were driven from place to place. Finding no rest from their tribulations, they relied only on his leadership and their implicit faith in the Savior of Men. When he was only thirty-nine years old, a bloodthirsty mob stormed a jail in Carthage, Illinois, where he had been imprisoned unjustly, shooting and killing him and his brother Hyrum. His murderers believed that in this way they would stop the work Joseph had begun. But the work did not stop, for it is the work of God. Today, because of one man and his indomitable character for good, the truth is being proclaimed in much of the known world. Of him, Elder John Taylor has said, Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. [D&C 135:3] BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US "And now I come to the last, yet by far the most significant of all," I said to the young elder. He was born a babe in Bethlehem of old and placed in a manger by his beautiful virgin mother, Mary. He was the firstborn son in the spirit world and the only begotten son of Eloheim in the flesh. As he grew, "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52). At the age of thirty he began his public ministry. To the ancient prophet Nephi, an angel said, Look and behold the condescension of God! And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, of whom my father had spoken.... And I beheld that he went forth ministering unto the people, in power and great glory; and the multitudes were gathered together to hear him; and I beheld that they cast him out from among them.... ... And I looked, and I beheld the Lamb of God going forth among the children of men. And I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits. . . . And they were healed by the power of the Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out. ... And I looked and beheld the Lamb of God, that he was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the world; and I saw and bear record. And I, Nephi, saw that he was lifted up upon the cross and slain for the sins of the world. [1 Nephi 11:26-33] As a resurrected being he proclaimed to the Nephites, on this continent: And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil-- And for this cause have I been lifted up. [3 Nephi 27:14-15] All this was precipitated by one thing: his infinite love for all of God's children. The Apostle John said, "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). One man!--the Son of the Eternal God, who submitted himself to all of these things in order that we, you and I, might live again with the hope of eternal life. ONE FAITHFUL ELDER Now I spoke softly to the young missionary with all the fervor of my soul. I placed my hand on his and said, "Are you ready to go back out into the field of labor? Can you make a difference in the lives of these special Bolivian children of our Heavenly Father? Are you ready to once again 'take up your cross, follow [him], and feed [his] sheep?' " (D&C 112:14). It was apparent that his attitude had changed. With a renewed spirit of dedication, tears slipping down his face, he committed himself once again to the work of the Lord. We knelt in prayer together. I blessed him that he would be able to find the way. Although he had been weak, I felt an inner confidence in him. As I sought to find direction from the Spirit for a new assignment for the elder, I surprised even myself by sending him to one of the most difficult and remote areas of Bolivia--a small community near the Argentine border named Bermejo. The work had gone badly there for some time, with only a few baptisms to reinforce the little handful of Saints who were discouraged and finding it hard to keep the faith. But the Lord and his ways are wonderful to behold. In his weekly reports to me the missionary told of his diligent efforts to contact the people and preach the gospel to them. He indicated that they were slow to listen, but that he was continuing his faithful stewardship in that part of the Lord's vineyard. And then it happened! Overnight a small river running near the village of Bermejo, fed by heavy rains in the mountains, rose to a height never before known in the history of the land. Homes were swept away and people were drowned. The only bridge connecting the city to the main road was torn from its footings and washed downstream. Communications were destroyed. There was chaos everywhere. Two young missionaries were caught in the turmoil of death and destruction caused by the flooding waters. And one remembered that "a man can make a difference. " He threw himself into the turbulent waters to rescue many who were drowning; he sought for those buried beneath fallen buildings; he gave relief to the injured and succor to the hungry. And a miracle occurred! He became a hero. He was lauded by the newspapers. His name was spoken over the airwaves. The people mentioned his name with reverence. Those who had previously rejected him and the message he carried now searched him out. Their doors were opened to receive him. They loved him! They accepted his burning testimony of Jesus Christ and the gospel restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. In the few months that remained of his mission he brought scores of wonderful people into the Church. He saw the men receive the holy priesthood and their wives become more lovely in Relief Society activity. Today a beautiful chapel stands in Bermejo. On the Sabbath day it is full of people who still remember one faithful elder who made a difference. WHAT DIFFERENCE WILL YOU MAKE? And now, just for a moment: What can you do to make a difference? Each one of those about whom I have spoken paid a price for his remarkable achievements. It seems there is always a price! May I suggest a few methods that will start you on the road to making a difference. First, attend all three of your Sabbath-day meetings--without fail! Then you will be instructed in principle and truth. You will be reminded of sacred baptismal covenants as you take the Lord's sacrament. Second, pay your tithing and your offerings faithfully. Then you will begin to understand the purpose for the law of sacrifice and the law of consecration. Third, maintain a resolute firmness in keeping the law of chastity. Then you will be a pure vessel where darkness is removed and where light remains. Fourth, when you are prepared, go to the Lord's house. There you will be taught in the ways of godliness and be prepared to receive a fullness of the priesthood. Fifth, preach the everlasting gospel in word and deed. Then you will share in the joy of a converted soul--you will understand true joy. And you will win the crown of eternal life. And what difference will you make? The kingdom of God will be strengthened by your membership. Your character will become as strong as steel. You will be a source of spiritual wisdom and strength to many. And God will love you! As I look at you, children of Israel, I see the light of truth glowing in your eyes. I know that your desires are good. I pray that you will remember the lives of such great men as Copernicus and Gandhi, that you will not forget what evils can be wrought by men such as Adolph Hitler. I beseech you to think often of Joseph Smith and how his life has affected your own. I humbly remind you of the only pure, sinless life ever lived on this earth, that of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I sincerely confess to you my love for him. I witness that he lives and that he loves us. Seek for him! Be like him! He is the Way, the Light, and the Life. And when you find him, you, too, will make a difference. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS Marion D. Hanks Marion D. Hanks serves as a member of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is currently Executive Director of the Priesthood Department of the Church and formerly served as president of the Salt Lake Temple, as president of the British Mission, and as Church Administrator in Southeast Asia/Philippines, living in Hong Kong. Under his direction a significant pioneering effort in refugee services by the Church was initiated in several Asian countries. Elder Hanks served for several years as a Presidential Appointee on the United States President's Citizens Advisory Committee on Children and Youth and on the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. He has participated in a number of White House Conferences on Children and Youth. In 1978 he was presented the Distinguished Service Award of the President's Council. In Scouting, Elder Hanks has served as a member of the National Executive Board and as chairman and member of several committees of the Boy Scouts of America. He has been awarded the Silver Beaver, the Silver Antelope, the Silver Buffalo, and the Order of the Arrow, and in 1973 he was presented the first honorary award of the National Eagle Scout Association. Among his civic services, Elder Hanks was the first chairman of the Utah Committee on Children and Youth, board member of Weber State College and Southern Utah State College, and a member of the Snow College Institutional Council. Past president of Salt Lake Rotary Club, he was District Governor of Rotary for 1977-78. He has served on the Board of Trustees of Brigham Young University and on numerous civic boards and committees. Elder Hanks earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Utah. An author and editor, he was for many years a teacher and has been awarded honorary degrees from several institutions of higher learning. During World War II Elder Hanks served aboard a submarine chaser in the Pacific. He is married to Maxine Christensen, and they are the parents of four daughters and one son. This fireside address was given on 7 August 1988 in the Marriott Center. If you were asked the question "What element of Christ's life or attribute of his character or part of his ministry best represents to you his majesty and personal relationship with us," what would your answer be? I am going to talk specifically about one potential answer. It is the answer I have been thinking about for some time; it would likely be my answer to the question. I am going to lay a foundation by presenting to you a few ideas I have carefully considered. I hope they will have appropriate inspiration for you in your hearts. I have been thinking about speaking on this subject at this school for a long time because I have had very strong feelings about it and, of course, for this school and you who attend it. But I have not done so--intimidated, perhaps, by the supposition that so important a theme has already been sufficiently treated, or that it surely should and would be by those more qualified to address it. I have also had the recurrent remembrance of a college experience to deal with, and I confess that worries me even now. I had carefully prepared and presented quite well, I thought, a briefing of a consequential case in an important course, and then awaited the response of the learned professor and several students previously assigned to critique my efforts. I had the feeling that all were poised somewhat in the fashion of runners straining at the blocks waiting for the starter's gun. But it was not of the students that I was most apprehensive. The dean of the school, who was teaching that class, had earned a reputation as a crusty and vigorous defender of the law, against ignorant and callow students. His brief comment came soon enough to my anxious ear: "Thank you, Mr. Hanks, " he said, "for that thoroughly unnecessary delineation of the obvious." The class then undertook to consider the deeper meaning of the matter at hand. So basic is this subject today, and so widely discussed and written of and so generally thought to be believed and understood already, that there may be those present less charitable than others who may be tempted to murmur when I am through, "That was an unnecessary delineation of the obvious." Nonetheless, I undertake the challenge of speaking about the "great commandments" and, specifically, though they are inseparable, about the second great commandment. The Apostle James called it the "royal law." Paul told the Galatians that "all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself " (Galatians 5:14; emphasis added). LOVE THE LORD AND LOVE THY NEIGHBOR There are fundamentals of our faith so essential to our ultimate creative opportunities, possibilities, and associations that we call them first principles and ordinances. Perhaps not all of us are inclined to consider loving and serving and giving to our fellowmen among them. Yet the Savior of mankind thought they were critical, as manifested in his totally unselfish life and in his teachings. When Christ was asked by a contentious lawyer, "Which is the great commandment in the law?" (Matthew 22:36)--or, as another gospel writer reported it, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25)--he answered, as Matthew recorded it, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [Matthew 22:37-39] In Luke's version, Jesus then asked the questioner what the old law said in answer to his own question. Quoting from the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, the man answered just as Jesus had answered. From Deuteronomy 6:5: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." From Leviticus 19:18: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. " In Matthew's account the Savior added these words: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:40). Luke's gospel then provides the setting for Christ's sobering parable of the Good Samaritan by quoting the lawyer asking Christ, "And who is my neighbour?" (Luke 10:29). Out of this powerful story known to all of you--this story of a traveler from Jerusalem to Jericho who was set upon, robbed, wounded, and left at the wayside by thieves--comes a basis for understanding who is the neighbor we are commanded to love and what our own status is as a neighbor to those in need. You will remember that involved in the story were a priest (church leader or teacher) and a Levite (one of the tribe assigned to temple service). Both of them "passed by on the other side," neither stopping to help (see Luke 10:31-32). Both were preoccupied or too busy with important assignments. Or both were too unimpressed, perhaps, with the "weightier matters" of which Christ spoke. Christ joined mercy with just judgment and faith as the "weightier matters" with which we should be concerned (Matthew 23:23), and in this parable he defined mercy for us as the care and concern shown by the Samaritan who did not pass by on the other side but stopped to give immediate and sustained assistance. Jesus then said to the questioner and to us, "Go, and do thou likewise" (Luke 10:37). Loving neighbor, mercy, giving, service, caring, sacrifice-all are brought together in one compelling, understandable, and personally applicable example. I hope we all can repeat what many people outside the Church who are committed to strong religious conviction can repeat: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16; emphasis added). It is written again that Christ "so loved the world that he gave his own life" (D&C 34:3; emphasis added) that we might become his spiritual sons and daughters. And it is again written, Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. [Luke 6:38; emphasis added] And again: "Ye are to be taught from on high," said the Lord in the latter times. "Sanctify yourselves and ye shall be endowed with power, that ye may give even as I have spoken" (D&C 43:16; emphasis added). OBEDIENCE TO THE PRINCIPLES Loving and giving. God loved and gave. Christ loved and gave. We are here to learn how to love enough to get our minds off ourselves, at least sometimes. As a commitment to Christ and as an element of our religious faith, we must look for, seek for, and respond to the needs of those about us. As children of God, loving him, we have all his other children as our neighbors and we have the commandment to love them. We are neighbors to them; we are to show mercy. This royal law--this one word in which all the law is fulfilled, this companion law with love of God, on which all the law and prophets depend--is indispensable as a solid base upon which our eternal opportunities rest. Now, these fundamental laws we speak of, obedience to which an blessings are predicated upon, are in nature really opportunities--gifts--since they open the way toward that spiritual maturity possessed in its fullness by our Father and our Lord and which they desire us to develop. These laws are not designed to limit us. They are the laws the scripture says 'also maketh you free" (D&C 98:8)--coupled with the truth, which "shall make you free" (John 8:32). These laws are more inclusionary than exclusionary. The spirit of entitlement is in them as well as commandment. Gifts they are, bestowed to support us as a foundation, pointing us toward the ultimate development of our eternal potential. But, you ask, is giving help, across the wide spectrum the scriptures teach us, really as important as those other first principles? Yes! And that I believe is the burden of my message and conviction. Yes, it is as important, as a principle! For all of these fundamentals relate to and include each other indivisibly, inseparably. Jesus so lived and so declared and so the scriptures teach. We do not need an extensive rehearsal of what these first principles and ordinances are--only a line or two about each: Without faith it is impossible to please [God]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. [Hebrews 11:6] Justice will have its place, but mercy claimeth the penitent, and "none but the truly penitent are saved" (Alma 42:24). "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," and "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he [she] cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5). Paul taught us (and our experience corroborates it fully) that the things of God can only be taught and only be understood through the Spirit of God. We have learned that affliction and tribulation are part of living mortally and that "Whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day" (Alma 36:3). We know that there are other essential sacred ordinances available in sacred places for those who desire them. We know that nothing unclean can be received into the kingdom of God. Affirming these and other commandments, the principle we are thinking about tonight announces that our salvation and our happiness depend as much upon how we treat other human beings and help them meet their needs as it does upon the other great fundamentals. Indeed, this is the test of our understanding and internalizing of the other fundamentals. If through them we do not become more Christ-like, we have not felt the efficacy and power of those sacred principles and ordinances. This principle is as important as missionary work and temple work, and, indeed, is of the same spirit and same significance--inseparable, I repeat, from the heart of that work. One signal verse of scripture gives promise to those who worthily experience the ordinances of the temple: And that they may grow up in thee, and receive a fulness of the Holy Ghost, and be organized according to thy laws, and be prepared to obtain every needful thing. [D&C 109:15] What remarkable consequences are performed for obedience to the principles and ordinances of the gospel. All of them lead us to Christ and our Father in Heaven. When Christ commanded his disciples to go into the world to teach and baptize, what else did he say? He told them to go out to all nations, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20). And what would this include? In his last three great summational parables recorded in chapter 25 of Matthew, Christ taught about the wise virgins who prepared themselves and about the virgins who did not. And then he taught about talents and their bestowal and their enjoyment and their application--or not--and the consequences of our choices. Then, in the third and one of the best known of his parables, he taught about a time when the king will return and separate the sheep on his right hand from the goats on his left. To those on his right the king will say, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat. [Matthew 25:34-35] You know the rest of that special parable: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. [Matthew 25:35-36] The modest people on the king's right hand will say, because they are honest or they would not be there, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee?" (Matthew 25:37). They wanted more than anything to enjoy the blessing he was holding out to them, but they didn't really feel worthy. They didn't remember ever finding him hungry and feeding him, or thirsty and giving him drink, or naked and clothing him, or homeless and taking him into their homes, or sick or in prison and visiting him. I pray all of you know the answer, and you should know it verbatim: "And the King shall ... say unto them, . . . Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). But that isn't the end of the story. In the rest of the parable he said some harsh things to those on his left hand: "Depart from me . . . into everlasting fire. . . . For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat" (Matthew 25:41-42). And then he went through the whole litany. They were indignant: "Why are we here? Why aren't we on your right hand? When saw we thee an hungered? Why, Lord, we would have crawled from here to wherever to give you our last morsel, had we known it was you!" Do you remember how he finished? Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. [Matthew 25:45-46] These, the book says, did not "minister" to those to whom they were neighbors. They did not minister to those who were their neighbors. Does this sound like an option to you, this second law interpreted in terms of our relationship with the way we treat others, the way we look upon them, the way we regard them, interpreted, as Jesus did, in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10)? OUR READINESS TO MEET THE LORD Out of the Book of Mormon, this strong source of so much that is so good, I read from Alma where he establishes a series of questions as the standard by which we may judge our own readiness to meet the Lord. "If ye have experienced a change of heart [if you have ever felt it in your viscera, your eyes, or your backbone; if you have ever tasted it, sensed it, responded to it; if you have ever had this], I would ask, can ye feel so now? Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? . . . [Have you] been sufficiently humble? . . . Are ye stripped of pride? ... If ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God" (see Alma 5:26-28). Is there one among you who is not stripped of envy?...such an one is not prepared; ... And...is there one among you that doth make a mock of his brother, or that heapeth upon him persecutions? Wo unto such an one, for he is not prepared, and the time is at hand that he must repent or he cannot be saved! [Alma 5:29-31] The specific and significant prophetic instructions in the teachings of the Lord on our responsibility to each other are so numerous and clear that it would seem beyond misunderstanding. And yet I wonder if in our own minds we have elevated to its holy significance this relationship established by that invitation and command: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. I have earnestly sought to understand what the scriptures teach about this matter. I believe and attest and testify that the way we treat each other and our fellowmen is as significant a criterion of our character and the quality of our faith and our future as any other principle or ordinance of the gospel. Repeatedly and unequivocally the Lord specifically points to our response to those who are poor, needy, afflicted, hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick, and imprisoned, and also to those who have other needs. In the days of serious struggle in the fledgling Church in June 1831, a conference was held in Kirtland, Ohio, at which significant priesthood matters were announced. Missionary emphasis was given and assignments were made, sending out the men two by two. And let them journey from thence preaching the word by the way, saying none other things than that which the prophets and apostles have written, and that which is taught them by the Comforter through the prayer of faith. Let them go two by two, and thus let them preach by the way in every congregation, baptizing by water, and the laying on of the hands by the water's side. [D&C 52:9-10] This is a plain statement of fundamental first principle and ordinance. Note what is subsequently said in this same section. The place of ordinances is discussed. We often hear the greatest of emphasis given to ordinances, and so we should, but note the pairing of ordinances and personal preparation: Wherefore he that prayeth, whose spirit is contrite, the same is accepted of me if he obey mine ordinances. He that speaketh, whose spirit is contrite, whose language is meek and edifieth, the same is of God if he obey mine ordinances. [D&C 52:15-16] There is no question about the significance of the ordinances. Then this plain and understandable declaration is made: Let the residue of the elders watch over the churches, and declare the word in the regions round about them; and let them labor with their own hands. . . . And remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple. [D&C 52:39-40; emphasis added] The charity taught in the scriptures is defined as the pure love of Christ. It is very broad in its meaning, but it seems never better expressed to me than when we share with others in the spirit of his unselfish life--doing what good we can, giving, serving, sharing, listening, lifting the burden. "Bear ye one another's burdens," wrote the Apostle Paul, "and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). There is one magnificent summation out of a multitude that might be read that I want to share with you to express my understanding of the spiritual maturity the Lord represents and wants us to attain. It comes in the words of a solemn and stirring witness by Amulek as he testifies of Christ's atoning gift--the last great sacrifice, infinite and eternal. He referred to the great question in the people's mind--whether or not Christ was indeed the Son of God. Then he said, "And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all" (Alma 34:28). Amulek talked about the fundamentals, about exercising their "faith unto repentance," about prayer and all that it implies. Do you remember that long list of remarkable, repetitious, and yet fresh invitations? This is how it finishes. Surely every missionary would have this marked in his mind and his book: And now behold, my beloved brethren [and sisters], I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need--I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is in vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith. Therefore, if ye do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden underfoot of men. [Alma 34:28-29; emphasis added] Time does not permit me to share much more of the wealth of the scriptures at this time, but I urge you to be interested as you read for understanding. Think what the Lord has to say about our response to the needs of each other. His words are sobering, to say the least. If any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment. [D&C 104:18; emphasis added] I presume that means whoever he is and whatever else he has done. "Behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands," he said to a group of his people who had a great commission and had not succeeded in it, but [they] are full of all manner of evil, and do not impart of their substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and afflicted among them; And are not united ... ; And Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom. [D&C 105:3-5] Apparently those laws include the very matters of which we speak. There is a remarkable line out of a long and important passage in the great story of Mosiah about one who turns aside a beggar: 0 man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent [taking the attitude that he has had his chance, he won't work, his problems are his own fault]; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God. [Mosiah 4:18] That doesn't sound very optional, does it? After we have done all the good things we have been called to do with as much sincerity as we have to commit to the cause, if we do not take a lively interest in those who have special needs, then we do not meet the conditions. We have mentioned only those fundamentals in the Savior's initial declaration which early in these few moments I pointed to as the heart of what I wanted to say. Christ talked of the hungry, thirsty, naked, homeless, sick, afflicted. There are many who have other needs. Look around you with your minds for a moment. Are there those who have need of a kind word or a gentle arm? Is there someone who could prosper from a little note that says something sincere and generous and encouraging? YOU HAVE MUCH TO GIVE I will open very slightly the door to my modest closet of remembered personal experiences of this kind and tell you about a time when I was a missionary standing on a street corner in a major city in the United States with my companion, without a cent in our pockets. We had laughed about that; our money hadn't come. It was scarce anyway; we had little, but we had always had sufficient for our needs. This day we only had car fare to go to and come back from an area where we were teaching some people--we had transfers for the streetcar in our pockets. We were quite a way from our apartment. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw a man standing by a light pole. He seemed to start toward me hesitantly, and I quickly turned away. I just had an intuition he was going to ask me for help. My first thought was that I could not help him and I panicked a bit at that. I looked back and he had quickly retreated. He had caught that I had turned away. I felt sick as I saw his embarrassment. I went to him and said, "I sense that you would like to talk to me and I have to tell you that we are missionaries. I am sorry that there isn't anything we can do for you tonight." He was immediately apologetic, backing away and saying, "I didn't know that. I wouldn't ask missionaries for anything. Please forgive me." I said, "Tell me a little about yourself." "I'm from Hamilton," he said, "a town fifty miles away. I lost my job recently. I came here this morning trying to find a job but didn't get here in time. I have no way to get home. I have not eaten, I haven't money to telephone my family, and I know my wife and children will be worrying and afraid." I said, "We're not far from where we live. I have a transfer for the streetcar. Please use it and get on with my companion. I won't be much longer than you getting there, though I will likely be delayed a little." He said, "Oh no, no." I said, "Yes, yes, please. I have already had a heartbreak in turning away because I sensed your need and had no money to give you. We cannot leave you here. " It wasn't a big expostulation. It was a young man's guileless expression of what I had learned all my life in a widow's home. He finally agreed. He was discouraged and afraid. And so I ran, all the way. I ran fast and hard and got there a little ahead of them. We had good food in the apartment and I prepared some. The landlady was a gentle person who had a room where he could stay. We called Hamilton, Ohio, and he talked to his family. I said, 'Please tell them you will stay here tonight. Maybe tomorrow there is something we can do to help." The next morning I called the branch president, a wonderful, gracious, Christlike man who built and rebuilt and refurbished and brought homes up-to-date. I told him the story. He said, "He can have a job starting this morning." President Gilliam provided a place for him to stay and, soon, a place for his family, and he was on his way up. And I have nurtured in my heart for more than forty-five years a blessing I would have missed had I not helped this man. I honestly believe this sense of concern was motivated both by the Spirit and by a home where helping an elderly little Scandinavian lady who lived a block away from our house was normal and expected. Sister Olsen needed help and had no helping family, so Mother regularly saw that she had food and that her little room was cleaned, and we tagged along. It was not particularly palatable for a little boy. I used to hold my nose and I'm ashamed of that. But we would go in and clean up. I think often of my mother, to whom so many people came for help when she had heavy burdens of her own, including taking care of her little children by herself after our father died. She had the disposition to help others, and she seemed to find the time and resources necessary to meet the needs. Look around you. Maybe, just maybe, limited as you are, and perhaps even in trouble yourself financially, there is someone to whom your outreach can mean much. There are so many who have needs that we may be able to help. I desire to mention another special personal experience. I was teaching a class of many, many people in a chapel and adjoining cultural hall at the university. It was too large a class to permit much participation, but one night, facing maybe six or seven hundred people, I looked down and saw a face and said, "Bishop Garrett, do you have something you would like to share with us on the subject we are discussing?" This startled him for a moment, and then he said, "Yes, I think I do, Brother Hanks." He came to the front and spoke: "A wonderful older couple lived in our ward. I was their bishop, and I also became almost like a son to them. They had no relatives and really no close friends. For reasons not necessary to mention, they moved to a little town far from this city. We kept in touch by phone because they had so few other contacts in this country. "Then one night, as I walked to an early meeting of my bishopric, I had a clear vision. I am not a visionary man, but in my mind I saw something that night. I saw a long, narrow, oblong room with a casket at one end and a lady standing alone by it. I had read of the husband's death in the morning newspaper. I had said to my wife, 'We ought to go, but I can't. I have an important meeting that I cannot miss.' "I rushed to the meeting that evening and told my counselors I had made a bad mistake and should be someplace else and asked them to go on without me. I drove too swiftly all the way to that small town with its small mortuary. I went inside the long, narrow room, and there inside was my vision specifically fulfilled: a single, solitary little soul standing by the casket of her beloved, her husband of many years. I went to her and held out my arms. She said, 'Oh, Bishop Garrett, I knew you would come.'" Well, we ended the class with a testimony and an expression of gratitude. I knew what the Lord had wanted us to learn that night. I pray that some of the same sweet spirit from these scriptures we have read tonight will cause you to understand that you have much to give. I want to add that one time I had wisdom enough to pick up a pen and paper and write a letter to a coach in our state. He had dismissed almost his entire offensive and defensive starting team because they had conspired to break training rules. They thought he would not dare cut them off prior to their very big, publicized game, but they had clearly broken the rules under plain understanding of what was to happen. The few that remained did valiantly, but their team was slaughtered that weekend by a lower-ranked school. I said in my note to the coach, "I have one son, and it probably won't happen, but if the good Lord were willing and that boy could play under your leadership, I would do anything I could to get him to you." I never met the man; I have not met him yet. I said, "I honor you. I commend you. I am grateful to live on an earth where there is somebody like you, because I love kids and you have just done something important." He wrote back and said, "You would be interested, Mr. Hanks, to know what has happened to me since that day when I cut those boys off the team. I have had the ugliest threatening letters and warnings, been hanged in effigy, had a cross burned in my lawn, been told to get out of town or else, had parents who would like to beat me up. I have had all kinds of letters from the other side, and two--yours and the college president's--that commended me. Because of those two letters I have stayed." This note didn't come until more than a year later when he had met the same opposing team with a team he now had that understood him and kept the rules. He was a great coach. They won the game, but that isn't really important. It isn't the publicity or the fame; it is the deed that counts. He had that kind of backbone. I had no such grand ideas when I penned that note. I was just honestly telling him how I felt as a human being. You and I need to look around, reach out, assess our own capacities, and see those who are lonely, disaffected, and feeling unloved. Those people are no whit less valuable in God's eyes than the sweetest and handsomest and most talented of you. I am not suggesting that you run about foolishly, but I am suggesting that you open your eyes. This principle is sacred in the eyes of God Almighty and his holy Son. We are not justified if we "pass by on the other side," hurrying to our priesthood meetings or to the temple or to do visiting teaching or anything else if there is something at hand we should do that the Lord wants done. I don't think we should or need to choose between serving God and serving our fellowmen. We cannot run faster than we have strength, and it is true also that there are seasons in our lives when we can do more than at other times. But all of us can do something, and most of us more than we are doing. l honestly think you won't be overwhelmed with competition if you begin quietly to look! For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? [Mormon 8:37,39] May God bless you. I testify that there is the sweetest joy in this world that I know of in the small and seemingly unimportant little things we do, not for the fame or glory or so we can talk about them, but because we see a need and we act. There was a little girl who had had a hard time being born. I spoke with her for a minute about her name. I have a daughter with the same name; it is a beautiful name. Some time passed and her father said to me one day, "You didn't know, but Mary died not long after you were with us. She had been disturbed over her name. Kids made fun of her because it was so plain. Then you stopped for a minute or two and talked to her about it and that made a difference. Mary thereafter had some of the happiest weeks of her life." Would that make you feel exalted with importance? What it made me do was weep and wonder how many times I might have done something to help someone and missed the opportunity and the blessing. I have wept in the night For the shortness of sight That to somebody's need Made me blind. But I never have yet Had a twinge of regret For being a little Too kind. May God bless us, I pray, that we may have some sweet sense of relationship with him that comes about because what he did we are trying to do, too, in our own small patterns. God bless you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.