I hope you enjoy some insights from my Come, Follow Me for Doctrine and Covenants 135-136. If you missed last week’s insight, for Doctrine and Covenants 133-134 click here for it. Please share this with your friends or use this picture to save this pin to read later:
The Martyred Prophets Joseph and Hyrum.
“…He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!”
Doctrine and Covenants 135:3
Whereas many people know that Joseph and Hyrum were Martyred that fateful day in June 1844, what many people do not realize is that Hyrum was called to serve as the Prophet with Joseph and that we lost two Prophets in Carthage jail. Joseph Fielding Smith taught.
“The sealing of the testimony through the shedding of blood would not have been complete in the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith alone; it required the death of Hyrum Smith who jointly held the keys of this dispensation.”
Joseph Fielding Smith (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:218–19)
For more about Hyrum see
The Blood of Martyrs and The Work of The Lord
“…their innocent blood, with the innocent blood of all the martyrs under the altar that John saw, will cry unto the Lord of Hosts till he avenges that blood on the earth. Amen.
Doctrine and Covenants 135:7
This verse references Revelation 17:6 which reads, “And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.” This is important because repeatedly the Lord teaches that the blood of the righteous calls for vengeance and it is the justification for the wrath poured out without measure in the last day.
Mormon speaking of our day in Mormon 8:41 declared, “Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer.” Furthermore in prophesying about the impending Civil War in Doctrine and Covenants 87:7 Joseph Smith gave the reason for the Civil War as, “That the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies.”
One has to wonder if Joseph realized that the blood that needed to be avenged was his. Speaking of the Martyrdom, in 1869 at the end of the Civil War Wilford Woodruff declared, “Somebody has got to pay the bill for the shedding of that innocent blood. Shedding innocent blood has cost the Jews eighteen hundred years of suffering, mourning, woe and destruction; it has cost this nation already four years of war, with two millions of men laid in the dust, and four thousand million dollars in money; and woe be to that nation, tongue or people that sheds the blood of the Saints of God, or undertakes to oppose the work of God in this or any other generation. They will have to reap what they sow.”
Am I suggesting that the Civil War was punishment for Martyrdom? No, I am not suggesting it. Wilford Woodruff is declaring it. It has ever been the case that when the Saints of God are permitted to suffer death that their blood cries for vengeance to justify the actions of God. Doctrine and Covenants 136:34-36 (also this week’s readings), teaches this clearly,
34 Thy brethren have rejected you and your testimony, even the nation that has driven you out ;
35 And now cometh the day of their calamity, even the days of sorrow, like a woman that is taken in travail; and their sorrow shall be great unless they speedily repent, yea, very speedily.
36 For they killed the prophets, and them that were sent unto them; and they have shed innocent blood, which crieth from the ground against them.
Let us press forward knowing that in the words of George Q. Cannon from the 1884 Conference, “There is no power that can overthrow this work of our God. Men may be sent to prison … for their religion, for practicing that which they believe to be of God — men may be sent to prison by hundreds, men may be slain … as brethren were in years gone past in Missouri, as our Prophet and Patriarch were in Illinois, as our revered President was shot to pieces at the same time — men’s blood may be shed, the blood of the Saints may stain the ground, the soil may be drenched with it, but though this may be the case, yet as sure as God lives so sure will this work that He has established, roll forth and prevail. The principles of truth connected with it are unalterable and eternal. They can not be changed, they can not be destroyed. You might as well try to destroy the throne of the Great Eternal Himself, as to destroy this work, for it is eternal. The truths of this Gospel are imperishable. They can not be changed; they can not be obliterated nor overthrown. And God has said this concerning this work — that it will stand forever.”
Influence and Property
“Let every man use all his influence and property to remove this people to the place where the Lord shall locate a stake of Zion.”
Doctrine and Covenants 136:10
This verse is speaking about the relocation of the Saints and calls all men to use their influence and property to gather Zion. Now the gathering of Zion is not so much a physical relocation of people from one place to another, but a spiritual relocation of people from one place to another.
But the same two things are used to help with the gathering of Zion. Influence and property. Property is rather straightforward, tithes, offerings, and supporting missionaries cost money. Property that is paid into the Church allows for the work to move forward.
Unlike property that is often an ‘event’ that happens, IE, you earn $100 you pay $10 in tithing, influence is consistent. One cannot say they ‘used their influence for good’ if one day you invited a coworker to listen to the missionaries and then the next yelled at him for not completing a task on time.
I recently listened to an Ensign Article where Elder Groberg related a story of getting on an airplane and the man next to him asking what he did for work? He explained to the man that he was a missionary. The man in disgust said that he hated missionaries. Elder Groberg rebutted, but you are a missionary!?! The man denied the accusation and asked why Elder Groberg would’ve made it. Elder Groberg explained that his words and actions were an influence on others, that he was a missionary for his way of life. For example, he told the man, you have cigarettes in your pocket. You believe in smoking. You are doing the missionary work for the tobacco people.
This concept has been swirling around my head for days and I am writing a whole article about it (look for it to be published in the next week or two). But the point I wish to make today is rather simple: Your influence, what you do at work, what you say to those you meet while going about your day, what you post on social media, all those things advocate causes, but are the advocating the cause of Zion? Would someone reading through your Facebook posts even know you were a Latter-day Saint? Let each of us ask ourselves, how do I exert my influence? Is it to gather Zion? Or some other cause?
Tried in all things.
“My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom.”
Doctrine and Covenants 136:31
Often times we forget the trials are not only a byproduct of the fall but actually one of the reasons we came to earth. We came to be tested. To experience the full range of emotions. So that we can learn to control them.
Trials forge within us the attributes of deity. If the Lord wants us to become like Him, He will lead us into our own Gethsemane’s. Where we too will be tried in all things, but as surely as He leads us into our trials He will lead us out of them. Sometimes He will not “deliver us” as much as He will support us in our trials. After all, even the Father could not deliver Jesus from Gethsemane but rather sent an Angel to support Christ.
“Each trial in life is tailored to the individual’s capacities and needs as known by a loving Father in Heaven.”
Howard W. Hunter
See also: