Doctrine & Covenants Lesson # 27
“They Must
Needs Be Chastened and Tried, Even as Abraham”
Introduction
The sacrifice of Isaac is known as the Akedah and
there is a great deal of literature written about it. I remember Truman Madsen
saying that one of the reasons Abraham had to go through it was that Abraham
had to learn about Abraham. How can we know to what lengths we will go to
adhere to principles we know to be right—to obey our Heavenly Father—unless we
are tried and tested. It’s not an easy lesson to learn. And it is not a whim to
put us through such trials. Even if we fail, and to a certain extent we will
almost certainly fail at some point, that failure chastens us and lets us know
our limitations, our weaknesses, and gives us something to work on. Inevitably
it makes us stronger and better able to face the next trial.
The Lord knew He was going to save Isaac; Abraham (and
Isaac) did not. Even Christ Himself did not know He would be able to successfully
complete the trial in the Garden and thereby effect the Atonement, yet nothing
greater has ever been or will be at stake.
The sections today center around the persecution in
Missouri, Zion’s Camp, and the lessons learned during what might on the surface
look like a futile excursion. But nothing that we experience, as long as we
strive to have His Spirit with us and to act as He would have us act, is
futile. For the first time, because of preparing for this lesson, I understand
the parable of the vineyard from D&C 101:44–62 as it pertains to not
second-guessing the Lord’s commands, and that when the prophet speaks, we should
listen and obey (see D&C 103:21). From the participants in Zion’s Camp came
leaders who were able to bring the Saints West, through unimaginable hardships
and peril, to the comparative safety of these everlasting hills. Fitting that
we should be studying this as we approach Pioneer Day.
1. The Saints settle in Jackson County, Missouri, and are
later driven out.
There were two centers of the Church from 1831–1838,
Missouri and Ohio. The temple in Kirtland had been revealed but not yet built,
so the Saints were not yet “endowed with power from on high” (D&C 105:11). This
week and next we will mostly be concentrating on what was happening in
Missouri.
Many people had come to Jackson County and the Saints
were well-established, to the consternation of the local residents. Here is an
excerpt from one of the additional material readings for this week
On July 20, 1833, leaders of a mob in
Jackson County, Missouri, called a meeting with William W. Phelps and other
Church leaders. . . . They felt threatened by the Saints’ belief that Jackson
County was a promised land that they called Zion. They objected to the large
number of people, many of them poor, who had come to their county over the
previous two years to build up Zion. And because of an article Phelps had
recently published in the Evening and the Morning Star . . . the mob was
afraid that free black Church members would soon begin gathering to Zion,
disrupting the racial dynamics in their slaveholding state. . . . The mob gave Phelps and his fellow Church leaders 15
minutes to agree to move the whole Mormon community away by the next spring—or
suffer the consequences. . . . [however] revelation to Joseph Smith had
declared Jackson County to be “the place for the City of Zion.” . . . Without a
promise that the Saints would leave, the mob began a campaign of violent
intimidation. . . . Bishop Edward Partridge and Charles Allen were tarred and
feathered, and Sidney Gilbert’s store was attacked.
On 4 November, near the Big Blue River, members of
the mob began a battle against a small group of Latter-day Saint men and boys (Our
Heritage, pages 42–43). During the next two days more than 1,000 Saints
were driven from Jackson County in the bitter cold. Destitute, most of them
crossed the Missouri River and found temporary refuge in Clay County.
2. The Lord instructs the Saints who were driven from
Jackson County.
Joseph heard about this persecution and enquired of the
Lord. The answer is D&C 101. As we read this section, can we see why the
Lord allowed this persecution (vss. 2–8). Trials don’t always come because of
our failings, but even when they do, the Lord is quick to have compassion on
His people (see vss. 9–19).
Of the Lord’s compassion, Elder Craig Cardon said,
His compassion and grace do not excuse
us when “[our] hearts are not satisfied. And [we] obey not the truth, but have
pleasure in unrighteousness.” Rather, after we do all we can do, His compassion
and grace are the means whereby “in process of time” we overcome the world
through the enabling power of the Atonement. As we humbly seek this precious
gift, “weak things become strong unto [us],” and by His strength, we are
made able to do that which we could never do alone.[1]
3. Zion’s Camp is organized and marches to Missouri.
In this case, the Lord’s compassion took the form of
sending physical, militant, help. Here’s an excerpt from another of the additional
material, the account of one of the members of Zion’s Camp, Nathan Baldwin:
Nathan Baldwin responded to the call
for volunteers. On May 3, 1834, he arrived in Kirtland, just two days before
Joseph departed with a contingent of men for Missouri. . . . Nathan Baldwin
fully expected to fight as a member of the camp, and as someone more inclined
to peace, that worried him. “Hardly anything could be more repugnant to my
feelings than the display of the instruments of death,” Baldwin recalled, “but
I procured a rifle, equipage and ammunition, and tried to school myself to
their practice.” . . . The participants largely paid camp expenses themselves. .
. . Nathan Baldwin felt it an honor to consecrate $14 of his own. . . .
On June 19, Nathan remembered, the
group “encamped on an eminence between two forks of Fishing River, near a
Baptist meeting house, built of hewn logs.” As the party prepared the camp for
the evening, “several armed men” approached and told the group they would “see
hell before morning.” A large group of men—Nathan remembered it as 1,600, but
others placed it around 500—waited to attack the camp when the sun had set. No
sooner had this threat been made, Nathan recalled, than “a small black cloud
appeared in the west and increased in size until shortly the whole blue arch
was draped in black, presenting a vengeful appearance, while the rain descended
in torrents, the winds bellowed and such vivid flashes of lightning and such
peals of thunder are seldom seen and heard.” Hail fell as well, some “as big as
tumblers,” breaking off tree limbs and splintering fence rails. The great storm
caused the river to become “wonderfully swollen, so that [they] could not
advance, neither could [their] enemies reach [them] if they had a mind so to
do.”
Though he experienced privations and
difficulties on the trip, Nathan Baldwin’s time with Zion’s Camp laid a
foundation for the rest of his life. He soon had the privilege of participating
in the School of the Elders in Kirtland with Joseph Smith and other pupils. He
was also among those camp members called to serve in the first Quorum of the
Seventy. He would always remember what the Lord had declared in section 105
about the camp’s participants: “I have heard their prayers, and will accept
their offering.”
What did Zion’s Camp accomplish, since it really did very
little for the beleaguered Missouri Saints? Here’s what the manual says: “In
February 1835, five months after the camp was disbanded, the Quorum of the
Twelve Apostles and the First Quorum of the Seventy were organized. Nine of the
Twelve Apostles and all 70 members of the Quorum of the Seventy had served in
Zion’s Camp.” Joseph himself said ““Brethren, some of you are angry with me,
because you did not fight in Missouri; but let me tell you, God did not want
you to fight. He could not organize His kingdom with twelve men to open the
Gospel door to the nations of the earth, and with seventy men under their
direction to follow in their tracks, unless He took them from a body of men who
had offered their lives, and who had made as great a sacrifice as did Abraham”
(History of the Church, 2:182).
4. The Lord reveals that His people must “wait for a
little season for the redemption of Zion.”
Zion is being established, as we know, not only in the
shadow of these everlasting hills, but all over the world. What are the
conditions for Zion? We can find them in D&C 105:1–13. As we establish Zion
in our own homes and families, we cannot but be grateful for the rich heritage
of the Pioneers, even if we are not descended from them. Our ability to be part
of Zion is due in large part to their sacrifices, their trials, and their
failings. It is a testimony of the compassion of our Heavenly Father and His
Son. And an example of just how weak things can be made strong.
Additional resources for this lesson
·
“Waiting
for the Word of the Lord”: This article discusses the crisis created
by early persecution of the Saints in Jackson County, Missouri, and the role
that revelation played in the Saints’ response.
·
“The
Acceptable Offering of Zion’s Camp”: This article uses the perspective of
Nathan Baldwin to help tell the story of Zion’s Camp.
·
“Revelation,
16–17 December 1833 [D&C 101]”: This page from the Joseph Smith Papers
website gives in-depth historical background for Doctrine and
Covenants 101.
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