A Feast of Fat Things

 

Today, on the last day of 2020, I'd like to recommend a phenomenal talk on establishing Zion by Sharon Eubank, first counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency and director of Latter-day Saint Charities.

You can find a published version of the video presentation here:

https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/clarkmemorandum/68/

Except:

THE ZION REVOLUTION

Finally, I speak about the revolution that creates Zion. This stage will be difficult and messy because Satan uses all these revolutions for his own twists and misery. Pollution from technologies engulfs the earth. Filth, debasement, and inhuman acts are communicated to every remote corner of the earth. Politics falls into brute violence as human rights are violated for power. 

As opposition increases toward the end of the earth, the polarization will grow stark.

Either you believe in God or you do not. Either you are willing to work in harmony with others or you are not. Either you will keep the rule of law for the good of society or you will not. Zion will be built by those who are willing to unify their hearts and minds for peaceful progress, dwell in obedience to law, and eradicate all kinds of poverty. Everything outside of that will eventually destroy itself.

Latter-day Saint Charities, the collective humanitarian efforts of Latter-day Saints themselves, is striving through both givers and receivers to unify hearts and minds for peaceful progress and to address issues of poverty. Its work, essentially, is to help lay the foundation stones of a Zion society. This would include sharing expertise freely so we can be of “one mind,” working side by side with others very different from us so we can be “of one heart,” keeping the laws of heaven and earth so we can “[dwell] in righteousness,” and building up our characters so there will be “no poor among [us].” (Moses 7:18)

Zion and temples

Brigham Young:

By-and-by Zion will be built up; Temples are going to be reared, and the holy Priesthood is going to take effect and rule, and every law of Christ will be obeyed, and he will govern and reign King of nations as he now does King of Saints. Pretty soon you will see Temples reared up, and the sons of Jacob will enter into the Temples of the Lord. What will they do there? They will do a great many things. When you see Zion redeemed and built up—when you see the people performing the ordinances of salvation for themselves and for others (and they will hereafter), you will see simply this (but I have not time this morning to tell you only a little part of it). About the time that the Temples of the Lord will be built and Zion is established—pretty nigh this time, you will see (those who are faithful enough), the first you know, there will be strangers in your midst, walking with you, talking with you: they will enter into your houses and eat and drink with you, go to meeting with you, and begin to open your minds, as the Savior did the two disciples who walked out in the country in days of old.

About the time the Temples are ready, the strangers will be along and will converse with you, and will inquire of you, probably, if you understand the resurrection of the dead. You might say you have heard and read a great deal about it, but you do not properly understand it; and they will then open your minds and tell you the principles of the resurrection of the dead and how to save your friends: they will point out Scriptures in the Old and New Testament, in the Book of Mormon, and other revelations of God, saying, “Don’t you recollect reading so and so, that saviors should come up on Mount Zion?” &c.; and they will expound the Scriptures to you. You have got your Temples ready: now go forth and be baptized for those good people. There are your father and your mother—your ancestors for many generations back—the people that have lived upon the face of the earth since the Priesthood was taken away, thousands and millions of them, who have lived according to the best light and knowledge in their possession. They will expound the Scriptures to you, and open your minds, and teach you of the resurrection of the just and the unjust, of the doctrine of salvation: they will use the keys of the holy Priesthood, and unlock the door of knowledge, to let you look into the palace of truth. You will exclaim, That is all plain: why did I not understand it before? And you will begin to feel your hearts burn within you as they walk and talk with you.

You will enter into the Temple of the Lord and begin to offer up ordinances before the Lord for your dead. Says this or that man, I want to save such a person—I want to save my father; and he straightway goes forth in the ordinance of baptism, and is confirmed, and washed, and anointed, and ordained to the blessings of the holy Priesthood for his ancestors. Before this work is finished, a great many of the Elders of Israel in Mount Zion will become pillars in the Temple of God, to go no more out: they will eat and drink and sleep there; and they will often have occasion to say—“Somebody came into the Temple last night; we did not know who he was, but he was no doubt a brother, and told us a great many things we did not before understand. He gave us the names of a great many of our forefathers that are not on record, and he gave me my true lineage and the names of my forefathers for hundreds of years back. He said to me, You and I are connected in one family: there are the names of your ancestors; take them and write them down, and be baptized and confirmed, and save such and such ones, and receive of the blessings of the eternal Priesthood for such and such an individual, as you do for yourselves.” This is what we are going to do for the inhabitants of the earth. When I look at it, I do not want to rest a great deal, but be industrious all the day long. For when we come to think upon it, we have no time to lose, for it is a pretty laborious work.

(1850s, 1852, BY Extensive ¶66–69 • JD 6:294–JD 6:295)

seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion;

 

1 A great and marvelous work is about to come forth unto the children of men.

2 Behold, I am God; give heed unto my word, which is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, to the dividing asunder of both joints and marrow; therefore give heed unto my words.

3 Behold, the field is white already to harvest; therefore, whoso desireth to reap, let him thrust in his sickle with his might, and reap while the day lasts, that he may treasure up for his soul everlasting salvation in the kingdom of God.

4 Yea, whosoever will thrust in his sickle and reap, the same is called of God.

5 Therefore, if you will ask of me you shall receive; if you will knock it shall be opened unto you.

6 Now, as you have asked, behold, I say unto you, keep my commandments, and seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion;

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.

8 Verily, verily, I say unto you, even as you desire of me so it shall be unto you; and if you desire, you shall be the means of doing much good in this generation.

9 Say nothing but repentance unto this generation; keep my commandments, and assist to bring forth my work, according to my commandments, and you shall be blessed.

(Doctrine and Covenants 6:1–9)

Nibley on King Benjamin's address

Hugh Nibley's classic essay, "Work We Must, but the Lunch Is Free," includes a discussion of King Benjamin's address. Here is an excerpt:

Benjamin now recognized that they were ready to “hear and understand the remainder of my words,” because at last they were “awakened... to a sense of your nothingness, and your worthless and fallen state” (Mosiah 4:4–5), aware that they could only put their “trust in the Lord,... keeping his commandments;... Believe in God;... believe that ye must repent;... always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and longsuffering;... If ye do this ye will always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God” (Mosiah 4:9–13). 

That being so, “ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every man according to that which is his due” (Mosiah 4:13). And who decides what is due him? Not you! The Lord will tell you that: “And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked, [or] ... transgress the laws of God” (Mosiah 4:14). Lunch will be provided, and “ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another,” with no fighting or quarreling among themselves—this was not to be a competitive society (Mosiah 4:15). 

And beyond your family, “ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him.” 

A beggar is one who asks, for some reason or other not having what he needs: “Ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish” (Mosiah 4:16). He begs because he is hungry, and we must all eat to stay alive—to turn any beggar down, for all you know, is to sentence him to death—it has happened (Mosiah 4:16). The usual pious appeal to the work-ethic—there is no free lunch—will not do: “Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I... will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just”—I worked for mine! (Mosiah 4:17). 

Indolent and unworthy the beggar may be—but that is not your concern: It is better, said Joseph Smith, to feed ten impostors than to run the risk of turning away one honest petition. Anyone who explains why he denies help to another who needs it, says Benjamin, “hath great cause to repent... and hath no interest in the kingdom of God” (Mosiah 4:18), which kingdom is built up on the law of consecration. 

“For behold, are we not all beggars?” That is no mere rhetoric—it is literally true: we are all praying for what we have not earned. No one is independent: “Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for ... food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver and for all the riches which we have?— You are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are” (Mosiah 4:19–20). And that is just what you must consecrate to the building up of the kingdom: “O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another” (Mosiah 4:21–22). 

We all give and we all receive, and never ask who is worthy and who is not, for the simple reason that none of us is worthy, all being “unprofitable servants” (Mosiah 2:21). “And if ye judge the man,” who asks for your “substance that he perish not,” and find him unworthy, “how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God,” who wants you to hand it on, and is testing you to see just how willing you are to hand it back to him when he asks for it—not at some comfortably unspecified date, but right now (Mosiah 4:22). 

Benjamin says he is speaking here to the rich, but the poor may not hold back either, for everyone should have enough but not wish for more; hence the poor who want to be rich, who “covet that which ye have not received,” are also guilty (Mosiah 4:24–25). In giving, the poor may keep what is sufficient for their needs, and food, clothing, and shelter covers it (Mosiah 4:26), for the rule is summed up simply, that every man “should impart of [his] substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath”—which is also the wording of Deuteronomy, for all have a right to food, clothing, and medical care, “both spiritually and temporally according to their wants” (Mosiah 4:26; 18:29).

Seeing eye to eye

 

And the Scriptures say that when the Lord shall bring again Zion her watchmen shall see eye to eye. They shall see alike, they shall comprehend alike, they shall be under the same influence. 

What else shall it do? It shall show you of things to come. You shall be enabled to look through the dark vista of the unborn future, to draw aside the veil of the invisible world, and comprehend the things of God; to know your destiny and the destiny of the human family, and the events that will transpire in coming ages and times.

That is what the Holy Ghost will do, and therein is the difference between that Spirit and the little portion of that spirit which is given to every man to profit withal.

John Taylor; Journal of Discourses, 23:376.