DOCTRINE & COVENANTS 104-106

Doctrine & Covenants 104:9

“Buffetings of Satan”

One has been given into Satan’s hands without the protective power of the priesthood.

Doctrine & Covenants 104:17

“Doctrine of the Devil”

The precepts of men would have you believe that by limiting the population of the world, we can have peace and plenty.

That is the doctrine of the devil.

Small numbers do not insure peace; only righteousness does.

A major reason why there is famine in some parts of the world is because evil men have used the vehicle of government to abridge the freedom that men need to produce abundantly.

True to form, many of the people who desire to frustrate God’s purposes of giving mortal tabernacles to his spirit children through worldwide birth control are the very same people who support the kinds of government that perpetuate famine. They advocate an evil to cure the results of the wickedness they support (Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April, 1969, 12).

Doctrine & Covenants 104:47-53

“Separate the United Order in Zion from the Order in Kirtland”

“The Lord… commanded that there should be a separation of the United Order in Zion from the Order in Kirtland,” explained Joseph Fielding Smith.

“Each was to act henceforth independently of the other. Distance was too great between these places for unity of purpose in all things. Each order was to be organized in the names of the brethren residing in each place, and to do business in their own names. This separation and dissolving of the former order came about also because of the transgression and covetousness on the part of some” (Church History and Modern Revelation, 1:489).

Doctrine & Covenants 104:58

“Even to Print My Words”

Lack of financial support from the Saints, persecution, and pressing temporal concerns prevented the new translation of the Bible from being printed during the Prophet’s lifetime.

Doctrine & Covenants 104:78

“You shall pay all your debts”

Those who were called to positions of trust similar to that of members of the United Firm assumed the debts and obligations entered into by their predecessors. Brigham Young accepted responsibility for the Prophet Joseph Smith’s debts.

“Joseph was doing business in Kirtland,” Brigham explained, “and it seemed as though all creation was upon him, to hamper him in every way, and they drove him from his business, and it left him so that some of his debts had to be settled afterwards; and I am thankful to say that they were settled up; still further, we have sent East to New York, to Ohio, and to every place where I had any idea that Joseph had ever done business, and inquired if there was a man left to whom Joseph Smith, Jun., the Prophet, owed a dollar, or a sixpence. If there was we would pay it. But I have not been able to find one. I have advertised this through every neighborhood and place where he formerly lived, consequently I have a right to conclude that all his debts were settled” (Journal of Discourses, 18:242).

Doctrine & Covenants 104:78-80

“I know of no situation where happiness and peace of mind have increased with the amassing of property beyond the reasonable wants and needs of the family” (President Kimball, Conference Report, Oct. 1979, 120).

Elder Franklin D. Richards taught five principles for freeing oneself from debt:

1. Live within your income.2. Prepare and use short and long-term budgets.3. Regularly save a part of your income.4. Use your credit wisely, if it is necessary to use it

at all. 5. Preserve and utilize your assets through

appropriate tax and estate planning.

President Heber J. Grant said,

“If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means, and if there is any one thing that is grinding, and discouraging and disheartening it is to have debts and obligations that one cannot meet; (Relief Society Magazine, May 1932, 302)” (Conference Report, April, 1979, 56).

How to Get Out of Debt!

How to Get Out of Debt.wmv

President J. Reuben Clark Jr., on debt said:

“May I say something about interest? Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours; it never has short crops nor droughts; it never pays taxes; it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is un-housed and without home and so has no repairs, no replacements, no shingling, plumbing, painting, or white-washing; it has neither wife, children, father, mother, nor kinfolk to watch over and care for; it has no expense of living; it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff.

Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away for it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, nor orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you (Improvement Era, vol. 41, June 1938, 328).

DEBTThe time has come to get our houses in order!

(Gordon B. Hinckley)

“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:77).

“Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).

And I would that ye should remember, that whosoever among you borroweth of his neighbor should return the thing that he borroweth, according as he doth agree, or else thou shalt commit sin; and perhaps thou shalt cause thy neighbor to commit sin also” (Mosiah 4:28).

The American Barr Association has indicated that 89 percent of all divorces can be traced to quarrels and accusations over money.

Others have estimated that 75 percent of all divorces result from clashes over finances.

Professional counselors indicate that four out of five families are strapped with serious money problems.

These Marriage tragedies are not caused by lack of money, but rather by the mismanagement of personal finances (Elder Marvin J. Ashton).

In the home, money management between husband and wife should be on a partnership basis, with both parties having a voice in decision and policy making (Elder Marvin J. Ashton).

Elder Dallin H. Oaks said:

“The possession of wealth or the acquisition of significant income is not a mark of heavenly favor, and their absence is not evidence of heavenly disfavor.”

“Those who brood over the prosperity or seeming happiness of the wicked put to much emphasis on material things.”

Spencer W. Kimball said:

“Well-meaning relatives have broken up many a home. Numerous divorces are attributable to the interference of parents who thought they were only protecting their loved children. Live in your own home even though it be but a modest cottage or a tent. Live your own life” (“John and Mary, Beginning Life Together,” New Era, June 1975, 4).

Doctrine & Covenants 105

“Zion”

Doctrine & Covenants 105:15

“Destruction in Missouri during the Civil War”

“Between the ‘jayhawkers’ of Kansas and the ‘bushwhackers’ of Missouri some whole counties were plundered, some were desolated by fire and sword, and some were almost depopulated” (Comprehensive History of the Church, 1:547).

“Missionaries joined the dark passions of the south to the rough turbulence of the west. Violent feelings, violent words, and violent deeds came naturally to them” (Castel, William Clark Quatrill, 2-2).

“If Missouri in the preceding generation had sown to the wind, when the Latter-day Saints were the victims of their cruel lawlessness, Missouri in the Civil War period reaped the whirlwind,” noted B.H. Roberts.

“The measure they had meted out to the saints was surely meted out to them again, pressed down and running over more than a hundred fold was measure increased into her…

Especially western Missouri, suffered more than any other state of the Union. In other states the war lasted at most but four years; but counting her western border warfare in the struggle for Kansas, the war was waged in western Missouri from 1855 to 1865, ten years; and for many years after the close of the Civil War, a guerilla warfare was intermittently carried on by bands of outlaws harbored in western Missouri – especially in Jackson, Ray, Caldwell and Clay counties – that terrorized the community and shocked the world by daring and atrocity of their crimes – including bank robberies in open day, express train wrecking and robberies, and murders…

Doctrine & Covenants 105

“The Quorum of the Twelve”

On 14 February 1835 the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was organized for the first time in this dispensation.

Doctrine & Covenants 105:19

“Zion’s Camp”

The prophet Joseph Smith told the brethren of Zion’s Camp:

“Brethren, some of you are angry with me, because you did not fight in Missouri; but let me tell you, God did not want you to fight. He could not organize His Kingdom with twelve men to open the Gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men under their direction to follow in their tracks, unless He took them from a body of men who had offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham” (History of the Church, 2:182).