The Wisdom of Chastity

Speaking on chastity and morality, President Gordon B. Hinckley said,

You should recognize, you must recognize, that both experience and divine wisdom dictate virtue and moral cleanliness as the way that leads to strength of character, peace in the heart, and happiness in life. Will and Ariel Durant, who wrote eleven large volumes of history covering thousands of years, declared: “A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by customs, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life 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” (The Lessons of History, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968, pp. 35–36).

“Reverence and Morality”
April 1987 General Conference

The Administration of the Sacrament

Regarding the administration of the Sacrament, Gordon B. Hinckley taught,

“The priest at the sacrament table places all in the congregation under sacred covenant. The offering of the prayer is not a ritual to be thoughtlessly spoken. It is, rather, the voicing of an obligation and a promise. Cleanliness of hands, as well as purity of heart, should be taught to the priests who officiate at the sacrament table.”

“Reverence and Morality”
April 1987 General Conference
Priesthood Session

Teach Reverence at Home

As I was reviewing a talk by President Hinckley entitled, “Reverence and Morality,” I came across this invitation:

“I wish that every father in the Church would make this a matter of discussion with his family at the next family home evening and occasionally in family home evenings thereafter. The subject for discussion might be something like this: “What each of us can do to improve the spirit of our sacrament meetings.” Wonderful things will happen if this is done.” (April 1987 General Conference)

This is something that I have thought about with our children, but I am grateful for the prophetic reinforcement. With a younger child, I see it valuable to teach very early how sacred and important the sacrament is. I want to start early by bringing my children to the chapel on a week day, dressed up for Sunday and have a chat where we discuss good and appropriate behavior.

Sure we’ll likely still have outburst here or there, a bad day or two now and then, but The expectation can begin early with a context of why, that will allow them to begin earlier to reverence, even enjoy, the sacrament.

The Chapel is a Sacred Precinct

Gordon B. Hinckley taught,

“Socializing is an important aspect of our program as a church. We encourage the cultivation of friends with happy conversations among our people. However, these should take place in the foyer, and when we enter the chapel we should understand that we are in sacred precincts.”

“Reverence and Morality”
April 1987 General Conference
Priesthood Session

Sincere Prayer

Joseph Fielding Smith taught us something about praying with real intent when he said,

“I have never had very much confidence in the proclamation or the request that was made asking the people of this country to pray for peace, for the very good reason that it was not sincere. We cannot pray to the Lord and say: ‘Listen to our cause, bring victory to us, do what we want you to do, but don’t ask us to do what you want us to do.'”

“Power of Repentance”
October 1944 General Conference

The Foundation for Faith

An important component to faith is our personal integrity. Henry B. Eyring taught,

“The ground must be carefully prepared for our foundation of faith to withstand the storms that will come into every life. That solid basis for a foundation of faith is personal integrity.

Our choosing the right consistently whenever the choice is placed before us creates the solid ground under our faith.”

2012 April General Conference, Mountains to Climb, Sat. Morning Session

14 July 1943

I think sometimes we look at the lives of the Apostles and put them on a different plane of existence. The real struggle in this following account of Spencer W. Kimball in reaction to his call to the Quorum of the Twelve,

No peace had yet come, though I had prayed for it almost unceasingly. . . . I turned toward the hills. I had no objective. I wanted only to be alone. I had begun a fast. . . .

My weakness overcame me again. Hot tears came flooding down my cheeks as I made no effort to mop them up. I was accusing myself, and condemning myself and upbraiding myself. I was praying aloud for special blessings from the Lord. I was telling him that I had not asked for this position, that I was incapable of doing the work, that I was imperfect and weak and human, that I was unworthy of so noble a calling, though I had tried hard and my heart had been right. I knew that I must have been at least partly responsible for offenses and misunderstandings which a few people fancied they had suffered at my hands. I realized that I had been petty and small many times. I did not spare myself. A thousand things passed through my mind. Was I called by revelation? . . .

If I could only have the assurance that my call had been inspired most of my other worries would be dissipated. . . .I knew that I must have His acceptance before I could go on. I stumbled up the hill and onto the mountain, as the way became rough. I faltered some as the way became steep. No paths were there to follow; I climbed on and on. Never had I prayed before as I now prayed. What I wanted and felt I must have was an assurance that I was acceptable to the Lord. I told Him that I neither wanted nor was worthy of a vision or appearance of angels or any special manifestation. I wanted only the calm peaceful assurance that my offering was accepted. Never before had I been tortured as I was now being tortured. And the assurance did not come. . . .

I mentally beat myself and chastised myself and accused myself. As the sun came up and moved in the sky I moved with it, lying in the sun, and still I received no relief. I sat up on the cliff and strange thoughts came to me: all this anguish and suffering could be ended so easily from this high cliff and then came to my mind the temptations of the Master when he was tempted to cast Himself down—then I was ashamed for having placed myself in a comparable position and trying to be dramatic. . . . I was filled with remorse because I had permitted myself to place myself . . . in a position comparable, in a small degree, to the position the Saviour found Himself in when He was tempted, and . . . I felt I had cheapened the experiences of the Lord, having compared mine with His. Again I challenged myself and told myself that I was only trying to be dramatic and sorry for myself.

. . . I lay on the cool earth. The thought came that I might take cold, but what did it matter now. There was one great desire, to get a testimony of my calling, to know that it was not human and inspired by ulterior motives, kindly as they might be. How I prayed! How I suffered! How I wept! How I struggled!

[Edward L. Kimball and Andrew E. Kimball, Jr., Spencer W. Kimball (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977), p. 192–95]

Cherish Your Spiritual Battles

In a discussion of the temptations Christ faced with the wilderness while fasting, Jeffrey R. Holland taught,

“And so I ask you to be patient in things of the spirit. Perhaps your life has been different from mine, but I doubt it. I have had to struggle to know my standing before God. As a teenager I found it hard to pray and harder to fast. My mission was not easy. I struggled as a student only to find that I had to struggle afterwards, too. In this present assignment I have wept and ached for guidance. It seems no worthy accomplishment has ever come easily for me, and maybe it won’t for you—but I’m living long enough to be grateful for that.

“It is ordained that we come to know our worth as children of God without something as dramatic as a leap from the pinnacle of the temple. All but a prophetic few must go about God’s work in very quiet, very unspectacular ways. And as you labor to know him, and to know that he knows you; as you invest your time—and your convenience—in quiet, unassuming service, you will indeed find that “he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up” (Matthew 4:6). It may not come quickly. It probably won’t come quickly, but there is purpose in the time it takes. Cherish your spiritual burdens because God will converse with you through them and will use you to do his work if you carry them well.”

“The Inconvenient Messiah”
BYU Devotional Address, 15 February 1982

Private Choices are Never Completely Private

James E. Faust taught,

First, adults need to understand, and our children should be taught, that private choices are not private; they all have public consequences.

There is a popular notion that doing our own thing or doing what feels good is our own business and affects no one but us. The deadly scourges that are epidemic all over the world have flourished in the context of this popular notion. But this is simply not true.

All immoral behavior directly impacts society. Even innocent people are affected. Drug and alcohol abuse have public consequences, as do illegitimacy, pornography, and obscenity. The public cost in human life and tax dollars for these so-called private choices is enormous: poverty, crime, a less-educated work force, and mounting demands for government spending to fix problems that cannot be fixed by money. It simply is not true that our private conduct is our own business. Our society is the sum total of what millions of individuals do in their private lives. That sum total of private behavior has worldwide public consequences of enormous magnitude. There are no completely private choices.

“Will You Be Happy?”
April 1987 General Conference

Focus on Family Names

Elder Russell M. Nelson taught,

“Here, on this side of the veil, there are limitations of available time and temples. This means that choosing to identify and perform ordinances for our own kindred should receive our highest priority. The Spirit of Elijah will inspire individual members of the Church to link their generations, rather than submit lists of people or popular personalities to whom they are unrelated.”

“The Spirit of Elijah”
April 1994 General Conference

Vicarious Temple Work

Several years ago Elder Howard W. Hunter said:

“Does it seem reasonable that persons who have lived upon the earth and died without the opportunity of baptism should be deprived throughout eternity? Is there anything unreasonable about the living performing the baptisms for the dead? Perhaps the greatest example of vicarious work for the dead is the Master himself. He gave his life as a vicarious atonement, that all who die shall live again and have life everlasting. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. In a similar way we can perform ordinances for those who did not have the opportunity to do them in lifetime.”

Quoted by Russell M. Nelson,
October 1994 General Conference