The Idea of Zion   The Doctrine & Covenants Lecture 04 by Hyrum Andrus
Channel: Light and Truth
Date: 24/06/2016

Hyrum L. Andrus August 15 - 19, 1991
Lecture – 4 THE IDEA OF ZION
I just want to say again how much I appreciate being here with you folks and feeling the Spirit and particularly having Helen Mae with me. We’ve had an enjoyable trip down. She has a whole big batch of files on President Benson, and she brought them with us, and we read Ezra Taft Benson from Alpine to Snowflake. It was just a thrilling experience to read through discourse after discourse that he has given. As I’d drive along, she’d read and we’d discuss and say, “Hey, that’s a great idea; where can we work that one in?” It’s a thrill and a pleasure to be with you.
Our subject for this hour is The Idea of Zion. As you read some of the early Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, Sections 11, 12, 14--and it’s easy to remember, because they’re all verse 6 in those three revelations, and they all say the same thing. The thing that they say, as in Section 11:6, is, “Now, as you have asked, behold I say unto you, keep my commandments, and seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion.”
The Prophet Joseph Smith makes this statement as he talks about the importance of Zion. This is Teachings, page 160: “We ought to have the building up of Zion as our greatest object.” As our greatest object. Some people say that teaching the gospel is the greatest work, and other people say that the redemption of the dead is the greatest work, and there are ways in which that comment needs to be understood to make it more meaningful. But the building of Zion will include both of them, won’t it? So if there’s an end to controversy, it will be on this.
We need to build Zion, not just as something that’s going to happen in the last days. We need to build Zion for our salvation. Let me put it this way: no person will enter into the celestial kingdom as an heir to be exalted therein who has not established in his life the principles, the knowledge, the doctrine and the program of Zion. You become exalted by becoming a Zion people. And to the degree that we are a Zion people, we are prepared for celestial existence. The building of Zion is not just something for the Millennium, it’s something that I need to do if I ever expect to be exalted in the celestial kingdom, because exaltation is not based on any other principle. You cannot neglect the building of Zion and be exalted; it just cannot be done. And you cannot neglect understanding the principles and the doctrine of Zion, and be exalted; it simply cannot be done.
You can be baptized and get into the celestial kingdom and be a ministering angel and run around loose in eternity as a free-lance celestial being, as it were--sealed, however, to some family. But you cannot be exalted unless you have learned and internalized the principles of Zion.
Here in Section 105, as the Lord spoke to the Saints in June of 1834, at a place called Fishing River in Missouri, the setting is Zion’s Camp which had traveled this thousand miles, thereabouts, from Kirtland to Missouri, to give the Saints support in being reinstated upon their lands. When they got there, the Lord gave this revelation:
Verse 2: “Behold, I say unto you, were it not for the transgressions of my people, speaking concerning the church and not individuals, they might have been redeemed even now. But behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of all manner of evil, and do not impart of their substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and afflicted among them; And are not united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom.” That “union” is union based on Spirit, testimony, the revelations of God’s will and mind to each person, which brings a natural union.
He says, “And Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself.” That last phrase is very, very important. It has more than one application. It means for the here and now, for this earth, that Christ will not come in the second coming until he has a people established on the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom. You can talk about the second coming, you can speculate when it’s going to take place, but you write this down that he will not come in his glory and in his power until there is a body of people living the full law of the Doctrine and Covenants concerning Zion. It simply will not be, because he cannot come and receive them unto himself.
Then that extension goes on into the resurrection. He cannot receive us as his people, and we be his people in the resurrection, except it is on the basis that we have received, embraced, applied, internalized the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom. So this is very important.
In the Inspired Revision of the Bible, in tÖ Get the full transcription from www.hyrumandrus.com!