Elders Quorum
The lesson was based on Elder Bednar’s October 2013 General Conference talk, The Windows of Heaven
Elder Bednar told of when he was a child that his wife's mother noticed that their medical expenses were lower as they paid their tithing. That is a financial blessing, but also a health blessing. If they had lower medical expenses, then the family was likely healthy.
Often other church denominations go through a big thing to build a church in a less developed country. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have programs in place where everyone pays tithing and that money is used anywhere in the world to build church buildings. It doesn't matter that the people in that area make very little money. All the tithing is gathered to move forward the Church everywhere.
The Lord always sets us up to succeed. This is true even when he allows trials to come upon us. It is all for our experience, growth, and success in the long run.
The Church has a lot of money, but it lives within its means. No only within it means, but in most things it lives very modestly.
Does the Church spend money on entertainment? Yes. We often have gymnasiums, stages for performances, elders quorum activities, relief society activities, and primary activities. Nonetheless, those entertainments are generally modest.
Paying tithing is a privilege.
Sunday SchoolMoses 5:11
11 And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.
11 And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.
Adam and Eve disobeyed a law of God that had the consequences of removing them from their condition in the Garden.
God used that consequence to open up other opportunities for them if they were faithful going forward.
Some think that had Adam and Eve not transgressed we would all live in a utopia. Even setting aside that they could not have children in that state, the doctrine that we would all live in utopia missed the purpose of coming to Earth. We come here to be tested and tried and to learn and to grow from that.
Adam and Eve were tested and tried and learned and grew from it. The results of that was that we would have the opportunity to learn and grow.
Mosiah 3:19
19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
2 Nephi 9:10
10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.
10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.
Did the garden remain in that state after Adam was driven out and was hidden or were they driven out as a symbol and it was changed like the rest of the earth? Or were they driven out because it changed around them.
Sacrament ServiceA young man recently called to the Atlanta Georgia North Mission spoke to us.
“Happiness is true food, wholesome, nutritious and sweet; it builds up the body and generates energy for action, physical, mental and spiritual; pleasure is but a deceiving stimulant which, like spirituous drink, makes one think he is strong when in reality enfeebled; makes him fancy he is well when in fact stricken with deadly malady.
“Happiness leaves no bad aftertaste, it is followed by no depressing reaction; it calls for no repentance, brings no regret, entails no remorse; pleasure too often makes necessary repentance, contrition, and suffering; and, if indulged to the extreme, it brings degradation and destruction.
“True happiness is lived over and over again in memory, always with a renewal of the original good; a moment of unholy pleasure may leave a barbed sting, which, like a thorn in the flesh, is an ever-present source of anguish.
“Happiness is not akin with levity, nor is it one with light-minded mirth. It springs from the deeper fountains of the soul, and is not infrequently accompanied by tears. Have you never been so happy that you have to weep? I have” (Elder James E Talmage, Improvement Era, 17 [no. 2]: p. 173).
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