The Law Of Zion – Hyrum Andrus Lecture Highlights

 

Full lecture at: https://youtu.be/BwQwIs_ih5U. These are highlights of the lecture as I understand them, be sure to see the full lecture. From Andrus’ Book of Mormon lecture 16.

The Lord may appear to his prophet from time to time, but he will never come to the saints until they are living the law of consecration until they have built Zion.

Sanctified Christian free enterprise with individual stewardships, not collective machinery, is how we consecrate. It’s not communism.

You will never become a joint heir with Christ and be exalted if you don’t learn consecration, no matter how many times you go to the temple.

George Q. Cannon was one of the great theologians of the church. He loved Joseph Smith and he understood the doctrine.

There was a covenant made with Enoch and renewed with Noah related to the rainbow; it was manifest by the bow and indicated the presence of God. Below it was mortality and each layer of the rainbow represented a different level of heaven. God tells Noah when I look on the rainbow I’ll remember the covenant I made with Enoch, that when men obey all of God’s commandments there will be glorious Zion.

The church is a construction crew. It’s job is to do work. It brings people to Christ and then sanctifies them in Christ. Christ is the king of Zion. Once the saints are perfected in the Holy Order, the church construction crew has no more work to do, so it is dissolved just like a normal construction crew; after they finish a project they go away.

You must be born again as a child of Christ to take upon you His name. That’s how you become an heir with Him. He becomes your father by adoption.
The Church of Christ is to babysit the children of Christ. Is a nurturing program, it is a program to take the gospel to the world, and it is also the organized mechanism of constructing temples. If you want the blessings of the temple you have to serve in the church. The son’s and daughters of Christ do not remain children forever, they grow up and become parents themselves.

One becomes spiritually parents by the program of the temple, the program of Adam. Those who become part of the gospel become sons and daughters of Abraham as Abraham is not only a father physically, but a father spiritually under Christ. Abraham is called the father of the faithful – this is spiritual parenthood. As sons of Abraham, we must lead our families in spiritual matters.

Parents should be consulted before their children are called to priesthood offices.

The order of building Zion as taught by Joseph Smith (teachings page 340) is the spirit of Elias, then Elijah, then Messiah last.

Elias is a forerunner, a preparatory gospel. Gabriel (who is Noah the great patriarch) after the flood comes and announces the birth of John the Baptist as recorded in the Book of Luke, and says John the Baptist will come in the spirit and power of Elias to prepare to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers, etc. This is the spirit of missionary work.

Then comes the power of Elijah, the building of the temple, which is also symbolic of building the Holy Order all the way up to the capstone, placing the seals of the Melchizedek priesthood upon all of Israel. This takes people and puts them into families, sealing marriages and children. They are thus organized and this places the seals of the priesthood on them and makes everything ready. He uses the gentile science of genealogy to extend these same blessings to past generations.

Home teachers (aka ministers) are to help the children learn how to become sons and daughters of Christ, and help the parents know how to be spiritual leaders.

Finally Messiah comes to his Temple, which is last of all; he puts the capstone on, meaning giving the glory and making the saints priests and kings indeed. Christ will come to the Jackson County Temple to put the capstone on.

In the initiatory ordinance we are anointed to become kings and priests, but for that to actually come to pass we have to have an even greater endowment of the spirit. The endowment is not just to learn a few things and get involved in some symbolism; there’s living power in there. This is why we endow missionaries before they leave, because they need that power, and this is why Christ told the disciples to tarry at Jerusalem until you are endowed with power. You don’t share the gospel merely by telling a story, you preach by power. A radiant and lightning witness, a spiritual power comes after being endowed in the temple.

Sit down with your wife in the celestial room and talk about how you can better live your covenants. We must get the posture of consecration and live on a consecrated plane.

The law of Zion has its center in the temple.

What is the law of the Gospel? It is summarized in The sermon on the Mount – that is what we covenant to obey. The sermon on the mount teaches us to go the second mile to love our enemies. The primary purpose of the gospel is not to change your behavior, it’s to change your hearts and give you a new soul. To make you a new creature, and then your conduct will follow. The old law dealt with external acts, the new law deals with the inner soul, and it is hard.

Christ tells the Nephites unless you keep what I’ve taught you now, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So we see that if we do not keep the law of Christ, this higher inner change, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. To the Christian world in general the Sermon on the Mount is a great ideal that we never attain, but Christ said we better attain it. The fact that He commanded us all to be perfect implies that He gave us the wherewithal to do that.

3 Nephi 12:1-2 is the foundational beatitude, and it is different than what we hear in the New Testament Sermon on the Mount. It is that we give heed to the 12 Apostles He has chosen. That by them, you are baptized and cleansed by the Holy Spirit.

Some don’t want to learn; they’re like skinny calves; they don’t know where to go to be nurtured. A true Latter-day Saint is one who hungers for truth. When you really hunger for the truth the spirit can lay it out for you in whole sentences explaining things. Be in the attitude like when fasting for 3 days without food or water and being offered food; that’s the amount of hunger we need to have for spiritual truth. Like the man who asked Socrates how to be a philosopher, and Socrates held him under the water and told him he needed to want to learn like he wanted air. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness are the principles by which we become saints.

When no one has a stewardship and people are all just taking orders of what to do that day in the community in the shared economy, that is Christian communism, and it is not the Lord’s way; that is not how the law of consecration works.  We need to have stewardships. The right way is to have Christian free enterprise under the covenants of the Gospel. Brigham City led by Lorenzo Snow did fairly well at this but other areas like the Salt Lake City program, the Provo program, the Parowan program, and Orderville, all of these places were doing more of a Christian communism thing without stewardships (and it didn’t work out).

When a person consecrates, that person is in position to be an heir. Joseph Smith taught the need for a balance between the bishop and the church. The bishop should not be a king who makes all the decisions, and the people shouldn’t be able to walk all over the bishop and get whatever they want. There must be some mutual discussion, etc.

Joseph Smith said a man is bound by the law of the church to consecrate everything to the bishop before he becomes a legal heir in Zion. The saint consecrates his wealth his land and himself to building the kingdom of God in Zion, and thus becomes a legal heir in Zion.

Consider giving up what you have to become an heir with a billionaire. You then have the same right to draw upon that account as he does, you’re gaining access to all the Father has.  We then will have all things in common. You can change the word from ‘common’ to ‘Christ,’ we have all things in Christ.

As an heir you have three major rights – first is the right of stewardship. After you’ve consecrated everything to the bishop, you sit down with the bishop and discuss what type and size of stewardship you should have. There will be a council of 12 high priests wherein six would represent the interest of the individual and the other six would represent the interest of the church. There would be discussion, it would not be one capitulating completely to the others will.

D&C 42 says you have the right to stand in your stewardship, meaning you have the right to govern it, to control it, to be in charge of it. Once you have got your harvest, you’ve produced your product, you don’t turn it into the storehouse, you sell it on the open market. D&C says don’t take from your brother, pay. There is competition in an open market, not cutthroat, however. So, if you can make a better product, you can sell it better. You can get out of the stewardship what you justly need/want for your situation.

You account at years end with the bishop on your stewardship concerning what you’ve gained. And it goes to the storehouse.

Consecration is not a one-time thing; you regularly contribute to the treasury. And the order must consent for withdrawals. The treasurer is accountable too, he can’t just give money to anyone.

In Mosiah 18, Alma 1, and 4 Nephi we see examples of living the law of consecration.

It’s united-order-ism. It’s its own thing. It’s unlike any other system we know of. Mutual covenant and friendship are what make consecration work. When this is all in place they will look back at us and think that we were in the dark ages economically. The law of consecration is the path to wealth. It works so well that many lose the faith and get too into materialism.

The law of consecration is a means to an end; the end is to establish Zion. The law of Zion is what ushers in the millennial order.

The Holy Order is that of kings and priests like King Benjamin and King Mosiah; then we can have political truth and justice like the Nephites had, the standard of liberty. See Mosiah 29.

There should be total separation of church State and economics. The founding fathers never intended to establish two political parties; something more in line would be a Theo-democratic government. Joseph Smith invited all the world to live under the Constitution.

You don’t have to convert the whole world before you can raise the ensign and usher in the millennial kingdom. We won’t even convert a fraction of the world before the kingdom becomes universal. The way we help the poor starving children all around the world is by raising an ensign politically economically etc. so people can see the right way and come to it. Poor countries have no truth in these matters, this is why they suffer.

The Lord is more concerned about the Latter-day Saints who are walking in darkness at noonday than he is concerned about the crud going on in Babylon.

 

 

The Idea of Zion – Hyrum Andrus Lecture Highlights

See the full lecture at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODPcnMe5QQ

The Millennium can’t happen until there is a Zion people.
Don’t ask when the millennium will be, ask when Zion will be. Zion will be established and Christ will dwell there years even decades before the millennium.

Note – We know Zion comes before millennium, but we don’t know how long between the two. Surely there will be a season of missionary work going out from Zion, and a cleansing of the world before the millennium is considered fully ushered in. For all intents and purposes, where there is Zion, there is Christ, so the Saints will experience the blessings of the millennium before the rest of the world.

If you aren’t Zion, you aren’t celestial. Till we have a cloud and fire on our dwellings, we aren’t Zion, we aren’t saints. We are ‘aints and complaints, focused material things.

Without the temple, the fullness of priesthood attained there (which requires marriage), one cannot have the glory of Zion. The temple is the focus, church is the sideshow. Joseph Smith said those who don’t get all the temple ordinances will not get the fullness of glory. The temple is the beginning of the glory which will rest on Zion and her municipals. The cloud by day and fire by night is by the temple (and spreads to every dwelling of the saints). Even the trees and grass and flowers will be full of glory in Zion.

Only the Church of the Firstborn goes up with Jesus in the cloud at His coming in glory. Some others endure the day, but they don’t get to go up with Christ.

There are no great big personalities in the church, none are great, but some do have gifts of the spirit and apply themselves unto it in brotherhood.

Note – Joseph Smith was a good example in this, he didn’t insist on a title, just “brother Joseph.”

3 Nephi 20:22 speaks of the New Jerusalem in America existing prior to Christ’s coming in glory.

Note – Henry B. Eyring has recently reminded the saints that Zion must be built before the Lord’s return, and he called upon us to be the people to do it.

The D&C Revelation about the New Jerusalem says that they would build the foundation and bare record of the place, but they wouldn’t build it yet because there had to be much tribulation first, and only after that would the saints get to have all that glory, an amount of glory that is hard to fathom.

Zion is not a foreign thing, it is merely the infusion of God’s law into everything we do. Each occupation will be needed in Zion. It is the sanctification of every profession, including lawyers.

In the church women do not administer in priesthood ordinances, but in the temple and the Zion order they do. Joseph Smith said it is in connection with their husbands.

The saints will be cleansed and prepared by a holocaust.
The Lord is going to turn things around, the mountains will be low and the valleys will be high, so yes there will still be mountains in the millennium, the Lord is a mountain man.

Ephraim as who gets the richer blessing not because of favoritism, but because he has born the heat of the day; he has been through the refiner’s fire.

In building the New Jerusalem, the pure-blooded gentiles will assist the Indians who will assist those who have the priesthood keys, namely Ephraim. It is a rank misconception if we think that the Indians are going to be in charge of and basically doing the entire job of building the New Jerusalem.

The sealing on the forehead with the name of the father, Joseph Smith said in teachings page 321 that this is symbolic of getting all the ordinances, getting all of the blessings and glory.

The New Jerusalem isn’t just a city, it’s a complex of cities of 15,000 to 20,000 members per city.

Note – For reference, Santaquin UT has about 12k, Payson UT has about 20k., so we are looking at these approximate sizes. Keeping it small like in the old testament city organization. See Cleon Skousen “The Majesty of God’s Law” for more on this.] The Zion cities will be between the mountain ranges (the lecture also mentioned how far north, I missed that part). This revelation to Joseph Smith has been lost but we have record of someone who referenced it.
[Another note: There is evidence that when Joseph said all of America is Zion from north to south, he was referring to northern states and southern states of the US area, not to the continents of central and south America.]

Zion is a covenant society based on having people who make covenant to Christ and they use their freedom in that way. (This concept is from Andrus’ D&C: A Volume of Modern Scripture lecture (see https://youtu.be/MtdaCRemW-M)