Doctrine and Covenants 27 & 28

THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH’S ROLE IN BRINGING TRUTH TO LIGHT

(This picture from In the Cavity of a Rock blog.)

D&C 5:10—“This generation shall have my word through you.” 

D&C 21:5—“For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.” 

We must have a testimony of Joseph Smith if we are to have a testimony of any of the restored gospel. Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Restoration, has been the vessel through which a great amount of new scripture came into the world. Being uneducated did not matter to this cause because he was connected to God, the Author, but this was not always apparent to those around him who had more schooling.

“At a conference of members in Hiram, Ohio, in November 1831, there was a…challenge to Joseph’s authority. Some of the brethren believed that someone with more learning could write the revelations from God better. The Lord promptly issued a counter challenge (recorded in D&C 67:5-8).” (Latter-Day History, p. 96) “After the foregoing was received, William E. McLellin, as the wisest man, in his own estimation, having more learning than sense, endeavored to write a commandment like unto one of the least of the Lord’s, but failed; it was an awful responsibility to write in the name of the Lord.” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church 1:225, quoted in LDH, p. 96) Those who witnessed this attempt were strengthened in their testimony of Joseph Smith as the spokesman for Jehovah on the earth.

Brigham Young never had a problem with his testimony of Joseph Smith’s role as a revelator. He always regarded Joseph Smith as the mouthpiece of the Lord, and later in life, as the prophet himself, he said, “What I have received from the Lord, I have received by Joseph Smith” (John A. Widtsoe and Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, Deseret Book, p. 458).

When describing the Prophet’s ability to understand and teach the gospel, he said, “Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the last days, had a happy faculty of reducing the things of heaven to the capacity of persons of common understanding, often in a single sentence throwing a flood of light into the gloom of ages. He had power to draw the spirits of the people who listened to him to his standard, where they communed with heavenly objects and heavenly principles, connecting the heavenly and the earthly together—in one blending flood of heavenly intelligence. When the mind is thus lit up with the spirit of revelation, it is clearly discerned that the heavens and the earth are in close proximity—that time and eternity are one” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 9:310).

“…Joseph [Smith] has been instrumental in bringing us more holy writ than Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Matthew, John, Paul, Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni put together” (George A Horton, Jr., 1/93 Ensign, p. 11).

This lesson examines the canonized scriptures that have come through the mouth of Joseph Smith, Jr.

THE BOOK OF MORMON

First Edition Book of Mormon 

from ChurchofJesusChrist.org

The Lord said to Joseph of Egypt: 

"But a seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins; and unto him will I give power to bring forth my word unto the seed of thy loins--and not to the bringing forth my word only, saith the Lord, but to the convincing them of my word, which shall have already gone forth among them.  Wherefore, the fruit of thy loins shall write; and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write; and that which shall be written by the fruit of thy loins, and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah, shall grow together, unto the confounding of false doctrines and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of thy loins and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter days and also to the knowledge of my covenants, saith the Lord." (2 Nephi 3:11-12. This prophecy is also contained, nearly word for word, in the Old Testament JST, Genesis 50.) 

Not only would Joseph help bring forth the Book of Mormon, his works would also convince men of the truth of the Bible they already had. He would help this generation understand those things which are in the Bible. In addition the Bible and the Book of Mormon will “grow together.” The longer the Bible and Book of Mormon are used together, the better we will get at cross-referencing them, and our ability to use their sacred knowledge and power will be compounded and expanded continually. (Read also 2 Nephi 3:3-16.)

THE JOSEPH SMITH TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE

Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible, 

by Herald House Publishing

Moses 1:70-71—“And now Moses, my son, I will speak unto thee concerning this earth upon which thou standest; and thou shalt write the things which I shall speak. And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught and take many of them from the book which thou shalt write, behold, I will raise up another like unto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of men—among as many as shall believe.”

“No study of the Bible would be complete without a thorough familiarity with the information and doctrines contained in the JST [Joseph Smith Translation]—especially in the five books of Moses, Psalms, Isaiah, and the four Gospels of the New Testament” (George A. Horton, Jr. Ensign, January 1993, 12).

The Book of Mormon was mostly translated and published in the year 1829. The next three years, 1830-33, Joseph Smith translated the Bible, beginning with the Old Testament. He continued to revise and edit this translation until his death in 1844. Scribes for the work of the Bible translation included Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, Sidney Rigdon, Emma Smith, and Frederick G. Williams. The manuscript of the JST is 467 pages long and contains notes as to dates and geographical locations indicating when and where certain parts were being translated. Joseph completely rewrote some of the parts, in some he just wrote in some things and crossed out others. In several places, he wrote little notes and pinned them to the manuscript (since paper clips had not yet been invented).

Emma Smith put significant effort into protecting the manuscript of the JST, even tying it under her skirts in a bag to safeguard it while traveling 200 miles to safety from the mobs. At Joseph’s death, she still had the original manuscript with Joseph’s revision, and she gave it to her son, Joseph Smith III, who became the president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ, now called Community of Christ. In 1867 the RLDS Church published the Inspired Version, or what we now call the Joseph Smith Translation (Ensign 1/86, p. 46). It is through the generosity of the Community of Christ that LDS Scholars have been able to use the JST in recent years, and add excerpts into our LDS scriptures.

The Joseph Smith Translation, published by the Community of Christ’s Herald House Publishing, contains at least 3,410 verses rendered differently from their counterparts in the King James Version. These are additional verses or enlargements of existing verses. The account of Enoch in JST Gen.6-7 (Moses 6-7) contains 5,200 more words about Enoch than the King James Version does. One Old Testament book is omitted in the JST because, the manuscript states, the Song of Solomon is “not inspired”…More than 700 passages from the JST are provided in the footnotes and the appendix of the LDS edition of the KJV first issued in 1979 (Arnold W. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History, p. 591).

The Scriptures Publications Committee (which published the 1979 edition of the LDS scriptures that included the JST), consisting of Elders Thomas S. Monson, Boyd K. Packer, and Bruce R. McConkie (with many others called to assist), was appointed by the First Presidency. To meet the space limitations, they did not attempt to include the bulk of the JST. “While there were several reasons why the entire text of the Joseph Smith Translation was not incorporated in the 1979 LDS edition of the Bible, unreliability of the JST text was not one of them” (Robert J. Matthews, Ensign, 6/92, p. 29). The RLDS Church preserved the manuscript exactly as Joseph Smith had left it at his death.

The Scriptures Publications Committee used the following guidelines to determine what to include:

1. Selections must be doctrinally significant
2. Selections must contribute something not readily apparent in the other standard works
3. Priority should be given to passages that clarify the mission of Jesus Christ, the nature of God, the nature of man, the Abrahamic covenant, the priesthood, the antiquity of the gospel, and the latter-day restoration.

Excerpts 8 lines or shorter were placed in footnotes. Longer sections were printed in the Appendix. And the two large sections that were already included in the Pearl of Great Price (Moses 2-8 and JS-M) were left there (Robert J. Matthews, Ensign, 6/92, p. 29).

THE REVELATIONS IN THE DOCTRINE & COVENANTS

First Edition Doctrine and Covenants, 

from ChurchofJesusChrist.org

The D&C contains a index entitled "Chronological Order of Contents of the D&C." “Most of the revelations dealing with doctrinal subjects [found in the Doctrine and Covenants] were revealed to Joseph Smith…from June 1830 to July 1833, which was exactly the time he was working on the Bible translation. While the Prophet was engaged in such a concentrated study of the scriptures, it was natural for him to ask questions and ponder on various subjects, inquire of the Lord, and receive divine revelation in answer to his inquiry” (Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation,” BYU Press, quoted in Ensign, 1/86, p. 42).

“The Joseph Smith Translation is not just a better Bible; it was a channel, or the means, of doctrinal restoration in the infancy of this Church.” (Robert J. Matthews quoted in Robert L. Millet, The Capstone of our Religion: Insights into the Doctrine and Covenants, 64).

THE COMPILATION & PUBLICATION OF THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

First Edition Pearl of Great Price,

from ChurchofJesusChrist.org

• The Book of Moses was translated from the Old Testament Genesis in 1830-31. Joseph Smith – Matthew would have been translated later. 
• The Book of Abraham was translated from papyri between 1835 and 1842. 
• Joseph Smith’s History was written beginning in 1838.  
• The Articles of Faith were written in 1842. 

These were all just individual writings and revelations, not connected to each other in any significant way, and the way that they came to be published together in one volume is an interesting story. And first we have to understand the significance of newspapers in America in the mid-19^th century.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a contemporary of Joseph Smith's, reporting on his travels in America for his European readers, wrote, “The influence and circulation of newspapers is great beyond anything known in Europe. In truth, nine-tenths of the population read nothing else. Every village, nay almost every hamlet, had its press. Newspapers penetrate to every crevice of the nation” (Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 168, quoted in Garr, et. al., 72). Newspapers did not attempt to be neutral, but were highly editorialized--prejudiced, if you will--to match the beliefs of the editor and his intended readers. Newspapers would feud with each other, and they could certainly stir up mobs and riots. For these reasons, it was very important for the Church to have its own press, to defend the doctrines of the gospel and teach them to the saints. In Independence, Missouri, it had The Evening and Morning Star; in Nauvoo, The Times and Seasons; and in Great Britain, The Millenial Star.

Early versions of the sections of our current Pearl of Great Price were printed individually by the Missouri press in 1832-33, or ten years later by the Nauvoo press. Just as the tales of Sherlock Holmes and Charles Dickens were published in installments in periodicals, so was Joseph Smith’s History. The Book of Abraham, as we have it, was also published in three installments, and more of that translation was to be published, but mob violence derailed that plan. Parts of the Book of Moses were published here and there.

It wasn’t until 1851 (seven years after the Prophet’s death) that these “miscellaneous” writings were compiled into one body, The Pearl of Great Price, similar to the way that it is today. So who thought of the name, The Pearl of Great Price? And who thought to put these revelations together? Well, surprise!--it was not the Prophet Brigham Young. It was not even done under the direction of the First Presidency! It was a mission president who thought of the idea, Elder Franklin D. Richards. 

By that year, 1851, there were 31,000 members of the Church in Great Britain (twice what there were in all of North America) and 2/3^rds of those had been members of the Church for four years or less. They had never had access to those revelations published in the early Church periodicals. So Elder Richards, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and President of the British Mission, put them together, titled it The Pearl of Great Price, and distributed it among the British saints (James R. Clark, The Story of the Pearl of Great Price, Bookcraft; quoted in Ensign, January 1986, 44). This publication included the Books of Moses and Abraham, as well as the History of Joseph Smith, the Articles of Faith, Joseph Smith – Matthew, some selections from the D&C, and a poem entitled “Truth.”

In 1878 Elder Orson Pratt, the Church historian, edited and rearranged The Pearl of Great Price, putting the Book of Moses in chronological order, similar to how it is today. What is now Moses 1 was titled “Visions of Moses,” and the rest of Moses (chapters 2-8) was titled “Writings of Moses.” In October Conference of 1880, The Pearl of Great Price was accepted as scripture and became part of the standard works. “Canonizing did not increase its truth or worth but did make it official Church literature” (Garr, et al., p. 114).

TRUTHS CLARIFIED IN THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM

A concise explanation of the Abrahamic Covenant (2:6-11)

An account of the vastness of God’s creations, including the order by which the various planets and stars of his kingdom are governed (3:1-13)

The doctrine of the premortal existence of man and his eternal nature (3:18-22)

The doctrine of foreordination (3:23)

The concept of the earth as a testing ground for God’s children (3:24-26)

The account of Abraham's escape from death at the hand of Pharoah’s idolatrous priest (1:7-20)

The understanding that the earth was organized out of already existing materials rather than being created out of nothing (3:24)

More than one god participated in the creation (4)

The creation was planned in a heavenly council before it was carried out (5:1-3)

TRUTHS CLARIFIED IN THE BOOK OF MOSES

God’s purpose in creating man and the earth (1:27-40)

All things were created spiritually before physically (3:4-7)

The premortal council in which the Redeemer was appointed and Satan rebelled (4:1-6)

The effects of the fall (5:9-12, 6:47-56)

The introduction of the gospel among fallen man (5:4-15, 58-59)

The baptism of Adam (6:53-68)

The wickedness of Cain and his deal with the devil (5:16-41)

The intelligence of Adam and his righteous posterity, including their pure spoken and written language (6:5-6)

The visions of Enoch (6:24-8:1)

More about the ministry of Noah (8:8-32)

Animal sacrifice as a similitude of the Sacrifice of Christ (5:7)

Children are saved without baptism (6:54)

The concept of Zion introduced through the story of the City of Enoch (7:18)

EXAMPLE CLARIFICATIONS PROVIDED BY THE JST OF THE BIBLE

John 4:24 “God is a Spirit” vs. JST John 4:25 (in footnote) “God hath promised his spirit”

Romans 7 “I am carnal, sold under sin…” (verse 14-16) vs. JST “when I was under the law, I was yet carnal, sold under sin. But now I am spiritual; for that which I am commanded to do, I do; and that which I am commanded not to allow, I allow not. For what I know is not right I would not do; for that which is sin, I hate.”

There is a great deal of increased knowledge about Jesus Christ’s mortal life and teachings that the JST of the New Testament provides. it also sheds a lot of new light on John the Baptist’s life (January 1995 Ensign).

THE IMPORTANCE OF USING THE REVELATIONS GIVEN TO US

Image from ChurchofJesusChrist.org

“Reading Genesis without the benefit of the JST…would be something like [eating] a T-bone [steak] with much of the meat cut off” (Horton, 42). And yet, we don’t spend very much time studying it. If you’re like me, you’re too lazy to look up the references, and if they don’t require you to read it for Sunday School class, you never get around to it on your own. (Suggest that sometime this year class members study The Pearl of Great Price and the Joseph Smith Translation Appendix. Also, suggest they find a way to highlight JST footnotes in a manner that will make them obvious when studying the Bible. On my paper scriptures, I colored the footnote letter in the text and its corresponding letter at the bottom of the page blue, an idea I got from Logan Insitute teacher, Jerry Wilson.  You can do the whole Bible as one project, starting at Genesis and going through Revelation and then you have them all.  If you don’t do it, you won’t see the changes.  I also drew a blue slash through any large passages that are seriously altered by the JST, such as the entire chapter of Romans 7. With my electronic scriptures, I underline the word or passage in dark blue to draw my attention to the footnote.)

On August 27, 1842, Joseph Smith said, speaking for Heavenly Father, “…no good thing will I withhold from them who walk uprightly before me, and do my will in all things—who will listen to my voice and to the voice of my servant whom I have sent; for I delight in those who seek diligently to know my precepts, and abide by the law of my kingdom; for all things shall be made known unto them in mine own due time, and in the end they shall have joy” (Joseph F. Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Deseret Book, 257).

“[Joseph Smith] has given us more revealed truth than any prophet who has ever lived upon the face of the earth” (Elder LeGrand Richards, Ensign, May 1981, 33). Do we crave it? Do we use it? If your answer is yes, keep doing what you are doing! If your answer is no, I invite you to figure out one way (small or great) in which you can incorporate more of the scriptures into your daily life. If you have time, add more study. If you are a young mother with small children, think on a single scripture as you go throughout your day. If you have always read the scriptures slowly and deeply, verse by verse, try switching it up and reading a whole book as fast as possible--you will see patterns you missed before. If you have always read fast, try reading only a few verses at a time and digging deep into the meaning of the words. Whatever your approach, if it has become less fruitful, try changing just one thing. 

Feel free to share your comments on how you do your scripture study, or how the scriptures of the Restoration have blessed your life. (Commenting may not be available on the mobile version.)

Doctrine and Covenants 1

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS

My dear late friend, Sadie Sproles, joined the Church many years ago while living on the East Coast.  The missionaries told her that Joseph Smith asked questions and the Lord gave him the answers, he wrote them down, and that is the Doctrine and Covenants.  She immediately said, "I want that book!"  They gave her a copy and she received a testimony of the truthfulness of the restored Church through reading the Doctrine and Covenants.  "You're not supposed to get your testimony from the Doctrine and Covenants!" she said to me. "You're supposed to get it from the Book of Mormon!" But that's where she got hers.

President Benson said, "The Book of Mormon brings men to Christ.  The Doctrine and Covenants brings men to Christ's kingdom" (April 1987 General Conference, quoted by Steven E. Snow, "Treasuring the Doctrine and Covenants", Ensign, Jan. 2009).  President Gordon B. Hinckley called it, "The constitution of the Church"  (ibid.).

THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS

The Doctrine and Covenants is not chronological. The first revelations in this dispensation to be sustained as scripture (at the first general conference of the Church, June 9, 1830) were called the "Articles and Covenants."  They were read at the start of every general conference through Joseph Smith's and Brigham Young's tenures as presidents.  These are what we know now as Sections 20 and 22 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

After this conference, in July of 1830, Joseph Smith wrote down other previously received revelations. They called this the Kirtland Revelation Book. (See Joseph Smith Papers: Introduction to the Manuscript Revelation Books.)

Brother Woolley says there are two characteristics of Latter-day Saints:  1) We're packrats [think: food storage], and 2) we all have to have our own copy of everything. The faithful early saints wanted their own copies of the revelations. Those who had access to them made copies. First Oliver Cowdery handcopied them for himself, then David Whitmer and William W. Phelps and others did as well.

Book of Commandments (1831)

Finally a special conference was held in which to decide whether the revelations should be printed and published at Hiram, Ohio, November 1, 1831.  There were 12 members in attendance, including the most well-educated church members and Joseph Smith, one of the least educated.  There were four more revelations received during those three days.  The consensus of the conference was that the revelations should not be published as making them too freely available would be "casting pearls before swine."  But Joseph Smith was for publication, and his opinion was ratified by a revelation which is one of seventy revelations published in the History of the Church and not in the Doctrine and Covenants.

The decision was made to publish 10,000 copies initially.  (5,000 copies were printed of the first edition of the Book of Mormon.)  Olivery Cowderey, Sidney Rigdon, and William E. McLellin were assigned to write a preface for the revelations during a recess in the conference.  They were stymied and finally asked Joseph Smith to pray for help.  The preface was then revealed to Joseph Smith, the first revelation to be dictated as it was received, and thus we have the only book in the history of the world whose preface was written by God Himself, now Section 1 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Section 67 (the third revelation received at this conference) was given after the brethren were still balking at publishing the revelations because they thought the wording of them simplistic and unsophisticated.  It was then that Joseph Smith issued the challenge to the most educated, William McLellin, to write a prophecy which 1) came from the Lord, and 2) was new doctrine never before received on the earth.  Of course, we know the story:  Brother McLellin could not come up with a thing, and acknowledged that revelations received through the prophet were best as they were.

The fourth revelation received at this conference was called "Appendix to the Revelations," regards what will happen at the Second Coming, and is now Section 133. 

While they were preparing this Book of Commandments for publication, William W. Phelps, the printer, published parts of it in the periodical, The Evening and Morning Star. He used his personal copy of the Kirtland Revelation Book, therefore it is not a perfect match with the Book of Commandments (Sections 65, 68, 72, 76, 83, and part of 80).

Meanwhile, while living with her uncle, A. Sidney Gilbert, 15-year-old Mary Elizabeth Rollins gained a great love and esteem for the revelations that were to be printed.  In her own words, "One evening the brethren came to Uncle's house to converse upon the revelations that had not been printed as yet, but few had looked upon them, for they were in large sheets, not folded. They spoke of them with such reverence, as coming from the Lord; they felt to rejoice that they were counted worthy to be the means of publishing them for the benefit of the whole world." (Mary Elizabeth Rollin Lightner Autobiography, published by Robert Barrett on FindaGrave.com)

When the typesetting of the Book of Commandments was done and the copies of five large sheets containing 32 uncut pages each (160 pages total) had been printed, the press was destroyed by enemies of the Church.  The pages were thrown out into the street, but were heroically rescued by Mary and her 13-year-old sister Caroline.  (See James E. Faust, "Courage in the Cornfield", Friend, July 2007.)

More from Mary's autobiography: 

"The mob renewed their efforts again by tearing down the printing office, a two story building, and driving Brother Phelps' family out of the lower part of the house and putting their things in the street. They brought out some large sheets of paper, and said, 'Here are the Mormon Commandments.' My sister Caroline and myself were in a corner of a fence watching them; when they spoke of the commandments I was determined to have some of them. Sister said if I went to get any of them she would go too, but said 'They will kill us.' While their backs were turned, prying out the gable end of the house, we went, and got our arms full, and were turning away, when some of the mob saw us and called on us to stop, but we ran as fast as we could. Two of them started after us. Seeing a gap in a fence, we entered into a large cornfield, laid the papers on the ground, and hid them with our persons."

 Picture from lds.org

"The corn was from five to six feet high, and very thick; they hunted around considerable, and came very near us but did not find us. After we satisfied ourselves that they had given up the search for us, we tried to find our way out of the field, the corn was so high we could not see where to go, looking up I saw trees that had been girdled to kill them. Soon we came to an old log stable which looked as though it had not been used for years. Sister Phelps and children were carrying in brush and piling it up at one side of the barn to lay her beds on. She asked me what I had. I told her. She then took them from us, which made us feel very bad. They got them bound in small books and sent me one, which I prized very highly."

As well she should!  Besides being of great spiritual value, they are the most expensive antique books relating to Church history today.  Only twenty are known to exist. 

Those pages which were hand-cut, hand-assembled, and sewn together were printed up as the Book of Commandments. The Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) has published replicas through their Herald House printing company. 

My replica of the Book of Commandments--

much smaller than the present day triple combination.

Title Page

First page of the revelations

Because only the first 160 pages had been printed before the mob destroyed the press, this book ends abruptly at Section 64, verse 47 in the middle of a sentence.

You can see that in the original handwritten manuscript which W.W. Phelps was using, that final word "Ephraim" had been circled--the point at which he had stopped for the day. 

Images are from my replica

Please also see Robert J. Woodford, "How the Revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants Were Compiled", Ensign, Jan. 1985 for more details on the structure of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Doctrine and Covenants (1835 to present-day)

A second special conference was held August 17, 1835 in Kirtland to discuss republishing the revelations in a new book.  Each revelation was read and ratified by the First Presidency, then the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, then the Seventy, and on down through the whole membership of the church.  They stood and voted in turn to sustain the book as scripture.  There is no evidence that there was a single negative vote.

The first edition of this book called Doctrine and Covenants was printed that summer.  It contained two sections: Joseph Smith's Lectures on Faith, and 102 revelations, divided into "chapters" rather than "sections."  Frederick G. Williams was the printer.

In 1844, the second edition of this book was published in Nauvoo, the last one that was proofread by Joseph Smith.  The wording has never been changed.  Two more editions were published from these same plates in 1845 and 1846.

In 1876, 26 sections were added.

In 1908, the "Manifesto" was included.

In 1921, the printing was put into double columns and the book included 136 sections and the Manifesto.  The Lectures on Faith were now left out.  James E. Talmadge was the editor.

In 1930 a different edition was published called Latter-day Revelation.  It omitted the personal revelations.  It was never sustained as scripture, however, and did not last.

Our current edition of the Doctrine and Covenants was published in 1981.

(Source: Bruce Woolley, "Structural Development of the Doctrine and Covenants," Lecture, BYU Education Week, August 18, 2005, personal notes, Book 7, p. 137-142)

Section 1: A Voice of Warning

In Section 1, the purpose of the Doctrine and Covenants is put forth by the Lord, and a call is made to "hearken" to it--to pay rapt attention to it, to internalize it and follow it. Verses 1-16 talk about the bad trajectory of the people of the earth and their state of wickedness. In verses 17-18, He states that to remedy this situation, the Lord has given this revelation. 

--Let me interject here that I go back and forth between loving the paper scriptures and the electronic scriptures. I love that I can put limitless notes into the electronic scriptures, and link things without having to copy them out or remember them. But one thing I can't see on the electronic scriptures so easily are the lists. I love scriptural lists, and in my margins, I mark them with numbers or with dots.--

Doctrine and Covenants 1 has two great lists. The first is prophecies that will be fulfilled if the people hearken (verses 19-23):

• The weak things of the world will break down the mighty.
• Every man might speak in the name of God.
• Faith will increase on the earth.
• God's everlasting covenant will be established.
• The fulness of the gospel will be proclaimed by the weak to the mighty.

He then states (verse 24), that "I am God and have spoken it," and that he gave the commandments purposely to weak servants, so that (verses 24-30):

• They might come to understanding.
• They might know of their mistakes.
• They might learn, if they seek wisdom.
• They might be chastened regarding their sins, so they can then repent.
• They can become strong, if they are humble, and be blessed from on high.

He points out that with these revelations Joseph Smith was able to translate the Book of Mormon, and the foundation of the Church was laid, and will come forth out of obscurity to the world.

In verses 31-38, the point of the voice of warning is given, and in every case in the scriptures it is the same: When the Lord points out the error of His children's ways, and warns them of calamities to come, He also gives them the opportunity to repent. Always!

In verses 37-38, the commandment is distilled: "Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful and the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled. What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heaven and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."

Then He seals up this warning, by telling us how we can be sure that the prophecy written here is by His own voice (verse 39): 

"For behold, and lo, 

the Lord is God, 

and the Spirit beareth record, 

and the record is true, 

and the truth abideth forever and ever. 

Amen."

If we were there in 1831 to hear this commendment spoken by the mouth of Joseph Smith, the young and uneducated prophet, and if we were willing to hearken to it, "the Spirit would have borne record" to us, individually, and we would have received our own testimony of that truthfulness. That is the "record that is true"--our own testimony, witnessed by the Holy Ghost. It doesn't matter that we were not there, though. The same can happen for us today, as it happened for my friend, Sadie. That "record [that] is true," that witness of truth borne by the Spirit, will stand--either to guide us as we retain and grow our testimonies, or to judge us if we ignore it. The consequences of those two options are laid out clearly in this introduction. The choice is ours.