simple people bear the weight of the world

It is not the multitude that serve and save the world but the righteous remnant that walk humbly before God. For the sake of ten the Lord was willing to spare Sodom, but they could not be found. (See Genesis 18:32.) Zarahemla narrowly escaped the fate of Sodom because of the few who were righteous. “Yea, wo unto this great city of Zarahemla; for behold, it is because of those who are righteous that it is saved…. Behold, if it were not for the righteous who are in this great city, behold, I would cause that fire should come down out of heaven and destroy it.” (Helaman 13:12-13.) 

Today as in the past God withholds his dreadful judgment for the sake of his Saints. The nations are not preserved by armaments and the threat of war, nor by economic power and technology. Before the God who made all things, these things are as reeds in the wind. The destroying angels are kept from their work by the lives of unknown people “who seek not for riches but for wisdom” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:7) and who try each day to serve the Lord….

Simple people bear the weight of the world.

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Four, “Whom Shall I Send?” p.42, 43

pray that I do my duty

Don’t pray for my safe return, pray that I do my duty.


Reverend Clark Poling in One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America by James P. Moore, Jr. Doubleday, 2005. p.310

whoso treasureth up my word shall not be deceived

It is the duty of the members of this Church to make themselves familiar with the revelations as they have been given and with the commandments as they have been taught in these revelations, or have been presented in them and given to the people, that they might know the truth which makes us free. And if we will study them, if we will put them into practice, if we will keep the commandments of the Lord, we will know the truth and there shall be no weapon formed against us that shall prosper. [D&C 71:9-11] There shall be no false doctrines, no teaching of men that will deceive us. There are many cults and many false faiths, there are many strange ideas in the world, but if we will search these revelations then we will be fortified against errors and we will be made strong. False teachings will have no effect upon us, for we will know the truth which makes us free…

Let me read to you this key that the Lord gave to his disciples when he was in his ministry. Speaking of the last days, the days just preceding his coming, he said:

And whoso treasureth up my word shall not be deceived, for the Son of Man shall come, and he shall send his angels before him with the great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together the remainder of his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other…. [Joseph Smith 1:37]

If you treasure up the word of the Lord, if you study these revelations, not merely those that are in the Doctrine and Covenants, but those that are in all the standard works of the Church, and you put into practice the commandments that are here found, you will not be deceived in these perilous times, but you shall have the spirit of discernment and you will know the truth and shall know falsehood, for you shall have power to know the spirits of men and to understand the Spirit of the Lord.



Joseph Fielding Smith, Conference Report, October 1931, pp. 17-18 as quoted in Latter-day Prophets and the Doctrine & Covenants, Volume 1 compiled by Roy W. Doxey. Deseret Book. 1964. p.8,9

safety lies in repentance

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord' (Psalms 33:12). Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the commandments of God.


Gordon B. Hinckley, The Times in Which We Live', General Conference, Sunday Morning Session, 7 October 2001 Psalms 33:12

Our safety lies in the virtue of our lives. Our strength lies in our righteousness. God has made it clear that if we will not forsake Him, He will not forsake us. He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps (see Ps. 121:4).


Gordon B. Hinckley, “Till We Meet Again,” Ensign, Nov. 2001, 89

The Lord has made it very clear in the revelations that even though times become perilous, even though we be surrounded by temptation and sin, even though there be a feeling of insecurity even though men's hearts may fail them and anxiety fill their souls if we only trust in God and keep his commandments we need have no fear.


Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, October 1950, Afternoon Meeting 146.

Why must men rely on physical fortification and armaments when the God of heaven yearns to bless them? One stroke of his omnipotent hand could make powerless all nations who oppose, and save a world even when in its death throes. Yet men shun God and put their trust in weapons of war, or in the ‘arm of flesh.’


President Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969, p. 318.

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; … In him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; [who] savest me from violence. I will call on the Lord, … so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

2 Sam. 22:2–4