Your Salvation for $75,000?

I have always been intrigued by the commitment of Martin Harris to financially support Joseph Smith in the printing of the first edition of the Book of Mormon. You remember Martin mortgaged his farm for $3,000 to print 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon.

How big of a sacrifice was that? We take out a home second mortgage today for many worthwhile things: an education, a wedding, a long overdue family vacation, a much needed car. So was it a big deal what Martin did? Wouldn’t we do it too?

Maybe, maybe not. Let’s put this in modern terms.

The $3,000 Martin Harris gave E. B. Grandin for publishing the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon would be the equivalent of about $75,000.00 today!

Now would you think twice about giving that money? One of the tools I use in scripture study is to take a person in the scriptures and get to know them better by researching about them. One such person was one of the 3 Witnesses—a man named Martin Harris.

As I searched, I had a lot of questions.

• ˜ Why did Martin Harris believe Joseph Smith’s “gold bible” story about the Book of Mormon when all the other townspeople did not?
• ˜ Why was Martin’s wife so against Martin and Joseph?
• ˜ Why did he help Joseph with the translation of the Book of Mormon?
• ˜ Why were the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon even given to Martin?
• ˜ Why was Martin chosen to fulfill prophecy by going to Charles Anthon in New York?
• ˜ Why did Martin continue to help Joseph financially with more than just the printing of the Book of Mormon?
• ˜ Why was he chosen to be one of the 3 Witnesses when there were so many others that could have been witnesses?
• ˜ Why did Martin have to get a different revelation at a different time about the Book of Mormon than Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer?
• ˜ Why did Brother Harris feel he never left the church but the church left him?

˜ Did Martin Harris ever come back into the church?

In answering these questions, I got to know Brother Martin Harris better.  I acquired an appreciation of what a real testimony means when applied in a practical way. In other words, to coin a phrase, Martin Harris “put his money where his mouth was.” I also learned Martin Harris ultimately lost his mortgaged farm because people didn’t buy enough copies of the Book of Mormon.

In the end, brother Harris most likely gained much more than he lost—he gained his eternal salvation!

Not a bad trade for $75,000.

 

Mark 10:21 “Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.”

~Brother Bruce Barton

Satan’s Convention

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons.

In his opening address he said, “We can’t keep Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from forming an intimate abiding testimony of their Savior. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken.”

“What shall we do?” cried his evil angels.

“Let them go to their churches; let them have their dinners and parties and conservative lifestyles, BUT steal their time…so they can’t develop a relationship with God.”

“This is what I want you to do,” said the Devil: “Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!”

“But how shall we do this?” shouted his demons.

“Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds,” the Devil answered.  “Tempt them to spend, spend, spend—and borrow, borrow, borrow.  Enslave them to work.  Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours—and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles.  Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work! Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or CD player loudly whenever they drive. Have them keep the TV, VCR, DVD players, CDs and their PCs going constantly in their homes. See to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays raucous music constantly. This will jam their minds and break any connection with Christ.  Fill their coffee tables with sensational magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogues, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.  Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so the husbands will believe that outward beauty is what’s important, and they’ll become dissatisfied with their wives. Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands. If they don’t give their husbands the love they need, they will both begin to look elsewhere. Give them headaches too!  Ha, that will fragment their families quickly!

Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from any recreation exhausted and tired for the coming week. Keep them too busy to go out in nature and in quiet moments reflect on God’s creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead—and have them do it every weekend—especially on Sundays. Keep them busy, busy, busy!  And if and when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in small talk and gossip so they leave with troubled consciences and hurt feelings. Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek real power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause. It will work! It will work!”

It was quite a convention, an ingenious strategy—a great plan! The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get more busy and more rushed, going here and there quickly, having less and less time for their God and their families. I guess the on-going question is—has the devil been successful at his scheme?  You be the judge!  Does “busy” mean: B-eing U-nder S-atan’s Y-oke?

Are you too BUSY?!

~Author Unknown

 

Doctrine and Covenants 88:121
Psalms 25:15
Ecclesiastes 3:1
Doctrine and Covenants 109:8-9

[submitted by Brother Bruce Barton]

Foundations

Do you realize that the very first building ever constructed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a temple? It wasn’t a chapel, but a temple. It was built in Kirtland, Ohio by command from the Lord, which included instructions for the design.

The Salt Lake Temple was the sixth temple to be dedicated. Do you remember that the Saints had only been in the valley for four days when Brigham Young selected a ten-acre plot of ground for the temple? Someone said to President Young, “We never begin to build a temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring.” Brigham Young said, “Yes, and I want to hear them ring again.”

The Saints feared that as soon as the cornerstone was laid all hell would break loose and they would be driven from the Valley. President Young knew that even though there is always opposition when a temple is built, an increase in the power to overcome that evil would be forthcoming as well. And, really, the main reason for coming to the Salt Lake Valley was so that the Saints could build a temple and receive the saving ordinances performed therein.

Brigham Young prophesied that the Salt Lake Temple would last not only throughout this dispensation but through the millennium! In other words, one thousand years – plus!

Work on the temple began in 1853. The foundation was 16 feet thick and made of stones hewn out of the canyons 20 miles away.

In 1857, President James Buchanan sent an army of 2500 men to Salt Lake City. The Saints didn’t know what to expect but they were worried the Army would take over, force them out and they would lose all they had worked to build again. So Brigham Young told them to empty their homes and to fill them with hay and leaves so their homes could be burned. They were also told to carry provisions to the mountains so they could hide out there if they needed to.

All work stopped on the temple. The foundation was buried so it would look like a farmer’s freshly plowed field to prevent unwanted attention from the federal troops.

Johnston’s Army stayed for four years!

When they finally left, the temple foundation was uncovered. Brigham Young sat on the walls of the foundation and looked around. The stones were fine but the mortar between them had cracked under the weight of the dirt camouflage. He realized the temple wouldn’t endure the millennium if the foundation couldn’t even last four years.

So, they started over.
Some of the rocks were used again, but all the mortar was taken out and the rocks were chiseled and grooved to fit perfectly together this time. Not even a knife can fit between the stones. A “rock-solid” foundation now existed!
It wasn’t until 1867 that the temple walls finally rose above the ground for the first time.
No wonder it took forty years to build the Salt Lake Temple!
Over the doors of each temple, cast in stone, are the words: “Holiness to the Lord—the House of the Lord.” What an awesome thing it is to have here on earth a place where God can and does come. It’s remarkable that the Temple isn’t just a place where the prophet can go, or the general authorities or only bishops and stake presidents. The temple is for all of us. The blessings are for all of us. If the time comes when you can’t attend anymore, you are still blessed because they are in our midst.

Brigham Young said, “Men grow mighty under the results of temple service, women grow strong under it. The community increases in power until the devil has less influence than he ever had before. The opposition to truth is relatively smaller if the people are engaged actively in the ordinances of the temple.”

Give thanks this week for the vision and dedication of people who began building a temple before they even had their own lives in order or their own homes built!

By the way…..how is your foundation?

 

Helaman 5:12 “And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.”

~ Sister Pat Barton

 

Seagull Day?

One nice thing about holidays is that it forces us to remember the reason for the day. Generally, any holiday has activities to help us remember the origin of that holiday.

God understands the nature of human beings, after all, he made us. That is why He gave the Israelites many holidays and festivals to observe. He wanted them to REMEMBER the PURPOSES for the holidays. As an example, when the Jews celebrate Passover they remember the miracle of their leaving Egypt—and honor the God who delivered them.

The Passover holiday could be very analogous to the early pioneers in Utah.  We also had a miraculous event happen which was taken as a sign God was looking out for his people. Do you remember the story of the crickets and the seagulls? In fact, when was the last time you heard that story? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a holiday for just this miraculous event? Sure, we have Pioneer Day on July 24^th with its rodeos and parade and fireworks, but the Miracle of the Gulls has been overlooked in Pioneer Day events. We have a monument, the Seagull Monument, located on Temple Square in Salt Lake City which commemorates this event. And because of this event, the California Gull is Utah’s state bird. But the story isn’t connected with Pioneer Day anymore.

In 1848, it was a time of intense faith and prayer because the very existence of the 4,000 pioneers in the valley of the great Salt Lake was in jeopardy. Having been here less than one year, the people planted their spring crops of corn, wheat, and garden vegetables to have food to survive the coming winter.

At a critical time when the crops were growing in late May, the crickets came! Not just a few, but tons of them—tens of thousands! It was an invasion. As large as three inches long and traveling more than a mile a day as they advanced in swarms. Unable to fly and cannibalistic in nature they ate everything in front of them, including other crickets and ALL crops. Vanishing before the eyes of the pioneers was their future. With their food gone, they would be gone. The settlers tried everything humanly possible to stop those “Mormon” crickets, as they are called today. Shovels, ditches and even fire, but to no avail. Thousands upon thousands of crickets kept advancing and eating everything in sight.

Then the pioneers turned to their last hope—their God. They knelt in fervent prayer, sincere and desperate were their feelings. They wondered, “Did God guide them to this valley only to have them extinguished through starvation?” “ No,” they reasoned and continued to work to save themselves and cry for help from God. After many days of the insect plague, God did help them—in the form of seagulls! They were rescued from an enemy to their existence just like the Israelites. It was the early part of June when the gulls came, swept up mouthfuls of crickets, drank water, regurgitated, and went back for more. This continued each day for about three weeks until the crickets were gone.

But why then the crickets? With all the other problems the pioneers had in establishing themselves in a foreign place, why this one? What would you think the reason could be?

I believe God needed to remind them of their relationship to Him as His covenant people. DO NOT FORGET JESUS CHRIST was the message. Your very existence—both temporal and spiritual— depends on your Savior. The same message He gave the Israelites when He delivered them from their enemy of extinction, Pharaoh and the Egyptian army. And deliver His people He did, both times, then and now— with a miracle!

The Jews remember their miracle in Egypt with a holiday, the Passover. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could remember ours with a specially named holiday? Perhaps even—Seagull Day!

 

Exodus 12:14 “And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.”

~Bruce Barton

THANK YOU

At this time of year our thoughts turn to our country, the soldiers that have served her, and the freedoms we enjoy.  There are thousands of stories that bring tears to our eyes and gratitude to our hearts for those who have given us all we have – heroes.

My thoughts and prayers are first for those serving in the military now, and of course, their families.  Though we do not always agree as citizens of this great nation, the desire for freedom and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good has kept our country strong and together.  We must remember this in the days ahead.

Next, it is only appropriate to show gratitude to those who built what we enjoy today.  For those who belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, this includes the pilgrims of our land and the pioneers of our religion.  In both instances, their suffering and martyrdom has assured our quality of  life.

I find it interesting that the fight for freedom is often fueled by the desire to worship God as followers of Christ.  The fathers of our country dared to fight against tyranny and die so they could worship God freely. Our ancestors endured unspeakable hardships to bring Christ’s Gospel to their children.

Look to Captain Moroni as an example Alma 43:48.  He was devoted to his God and the freedom of his country.  And he inspired thousands to stand next to him in defense of both.

Last of all, I’d like to mention one of my personal hero’s.  His gentle nature and Christian kindness was evident to everyone he met. This man quietly served his country, state, city and family.   He was required to see and do things offensive to his soul in protection of his country and those he loved.  Despite his experiences, he continued to gently love and serve throughout his life.  His name was Mark Lowe Theurer.  He is my grandfather.  This scripture reminds me of him.  Alma 60:36  “Behold, I am Moroni, your chief captain. I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Tiffany Birrell

We Can Do Hard Things

It’s almost July! If you are like me, your thoughts turn to the amazing stories of the pioneers and their heart-wrenching stories of sacrifice. The story of Ellen Breakell Neibaur is one of my favorites…..it’s worth telling to the kids in Family Home Evening!

Ellen was the daughter of a wealthy farmer in England.  She married Alexander Neibaur, a French and Polish Jew.  He also belonged to a very wealthy family and had been educated to become a Rabbi in the Jewish faith.  They lived in Preston, England when Heber C. Kimball served his first mission there and they were converted to the Church.  Ellen and Alexander left almost everything they had to join in the second company with Brigham Young in 1848 to cross the plains and join the Saints in the Salt Lake Valley.  It took all their money to buy a team and wagon and supplies for the journey.  Ellen didn’t even have enough money to buy a pair of shoes.  She wrapped her feet in rags and came all the way across the plains barefoot!

After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the family, which included 7 children (eventually 14 children were born to them), lived in a tent.  They often went hungry.  Alexander became a teacher and Ellen took in laundry.  For the next eight years, any time she could save a little money, she put a penny or two aside.  After eight long years, she was finally able to buy a pair of shoes from a mail order company.  High-top, patent leather, button shoes!  She knitted herself some blue and white stockings.

Just a few days after the shoes arrived, a company led by Franklin D. Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve, rode into Salt Lake with very disturbing news.  It was October, 1856 and two handcart companies were stranded out on the plains with over a thousand people struggling to survive in the Wyoming snowstorms.  Brigham Young stood up in General Conference the next day and explained that these two companies were still 700 miles away.  “They must be brought here.  We must send them assistance,” he said. President Young called for teams, wagons, food, and clothing to help those who were stranded.

When the Brethren came around collecting clothing to take with them to meet the pioneers, Alexander said he had nothing to give them, but Ellen said, “we must give them something.”

Then, Ellen Neibaur, after 8 years of waiting for a pair of shoes, removed her brand new shoes and hand-knitted stockings from her feet and gave them to the rescue effort. Once again, she bound her own feet in rags.

When a new company came into the Valley, all the Saints would go out and line the streets to greet the newcomers. Most were looking into their faces to see if there was anyone they knew, but Ellen wasn’t looking at faces.  She was looking at feet.  She wanted to know who had gotten her shoes.

When Ellen Neibaur saw her shoes, she looked up and to her absolute amazement, wearing them was an old friend from Preston, England who had joined the Church since Ellen had left England!  Ellen’s sacrifice had helped to save her friend’s life and had helped her come to the Valley safely. 

Sacrifices must be made in our own day.  Much will be required of us if we are to remain righteous and worthy to stand side by side some day with our pioneer ancestors.  Their stories of faith and courage can remind us that we are capable of much more than we think we are.

We, too, can do hard things!

Matthew 22:37-40
~ Sister Pat Barton

ScriptureKIT Book 2

How to Use it

Scripture Index Strips

Advanced Marking Technique

There are Two Seas

There are two seas in Palestine.

One is fresh, and fish are in it. Splashes of green adorn its banks. Trees spread their branches over it and stretch out their thirsty roots to sip of its healing waters. Along its shores the children play as children played when He was there. He loved it. He could look across its silver surface when He spoke His parables.

And on a rolling plain not far away He fed five thousand people. The river Jordan makes this sea with sparkling water from the hills. So it laughs in the sunshine. And men build their houses near to it, and birds their nests; and every kind of life is happier because it is there.

The river Jordan flows on south into another sea. Here no splash of fish, no fluttering of leaf, no song of birds, no children’s laughter. Travelers choose another route, unless on urgent business. The air hangs heavy above its water, and neither man nor beast nor fowl will drink.

What makes this mighty difference in these neighbor seas? Not the river Jordan. It empties the same good water into both. Not the soil in which they lie; not the country round about.

This is the difference. The Sea of Galilee receives but does not keep the Jordan. For every drop that flows into it another drop flows out. The giving and receiving go on in equal measure.

The other sea is shrewder, hording its income jealously. It will not be tempted into any generous impulse. Every drop it gets, it keeps.

The Sea of Galilee gives and lives. The other sea gives nothing. It is named The Dead.  There are two kinds of people in the world. There are two seas in Palestine.

Bruce Barton (1886-1967) wrote this short piece, “There are Two Seas” for McCall’s in 1928. It was also reprinted in the Reader’s Digest in 1946.

 

Doctrine and Covenants 104:18

~Bruce Barton