Doctrinal Library

Altar, Tent, Well

Contrast this view of woman with the current prattle that demeans motherhood and her exalted role; that even condones abortion and its attendant evils; that sets aside the role God gave to her. It would be hard to imagine a more exalted role of woman and her place in the eternal plan than is held and taught in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We invite you to consider this carefully, for it comes from God.

Are you a Member Missionary?

First, you can stand up for the truth wherever you are, at all times, and in all places. Sometimes our members are fearful to speak up for the truth in clubs, associations, or even, at times, among members of the Church. As the Lord has said, it should be done with boldness but not overbearance. Speak out for the Lord and for his prophet on the vital issues of the day.

Success – A Journey or a Destination?

May this be our goal, and may we be willing to pay the price to obtain it and not be taken in by all the misinformation which is abroad in the land today about birth control, abortion and sex education, and other Satan-inspired philosophies; that we may look to the Lord and follow his living prophets and oracles today. I pray that we will, for I bear witness that God our Heavenly Father lives, and that he hears and answers prayers, and that he is concerned about his children, so much so that he sent his Only Begotten Son that we might have immortality and eternal life.

Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple

Further, in Roe v. Wade in 1973 the Supreme Court granted individual women the right to choose an abortion, thereby rejecting long-held beliefs in our culture about not only the social interests held by unborn children but also the social purposes served by allowing elected legislators to decide collectively about a question as value laden and sensitive as when life begins.

Three Tools to Build a Sacred Home

Our tarantulas and snakes are moral ones, and they are ever so subtle. They include disdain for household work, the difficulty of holding family mealtimes, changing roles for mothers and fathers, abortion, and the erosion of marriage through divorce, cohabitation, and same-sex marriage.

Our Mortal Body-A Sacred Gift

Many temptations, testings, and challenges come through the body. There must be opposition in all things. This is part of our proving ourselves. Most of the evil and temptations in our society today are directed at the body. Satan and his followers are seeking our destruction that we may become subject to him. Pornography, physical abuse, drugs, moral transgression, perversion, abortion, suicide, and murder are all vicious designs of Satan to destroy the souls of man. All are directed at the body. Our choice of music, literature, dance, movies, videos, television, friends, etc., can lead to base thoughts and actions regarding the body or to uplifting, respectful thoughts and feelings about the body. Those choices are ours.

Protect Our Homes, Renew Our Powers

We usually don’t have to worry about actual tarantulas and snakes invading our houses; instead, we have even more dangerous influences threatening us. Unlike Sister Burt’s invaders, our tarantulas and snakes are moral ones, and they are ever so subtle. Our modern advances have brought us the Internet; TV; DVDs; the erosion of marriage through divorce, cohabitation, same-sex marriage, and abortion; the difficulty of holding family mealtimes; the clothing we wear; our cultural disdain for household work; and changing roles for mothers and fathers. It would be nice if we could beat these invaders back with rolling pins and broomsticks, but literally it’s not possible—and figuratively we’ve lost many of our rolling pins and brooms.

The Sanctity of Life

In times past we have looked upon a person who saves another human life as a great hero; yet now we have come to a time when the taking of an unborn human life for nonmedical reasons has become tolerated, made legal, and accepted in many countries of the world. But making it legal to destroy newly conceived life will never make it right. It is consummately wrong.
For the unborn, only two possibilities are open: It can become a live human being or a dead unborn child.
Because she feels it, every mother knows there is sacred life in the body of her unborn babe. There is also life in the spirit, and some time before birth the body and the spirit are united. When they do come together, we have a human soul. For the Lord has said, “And the spirit and the body are the soul of man.” (D&C 88:15.)
One of the most evil myths of our day is that a woman who has joined hands with God in creation can destroy that creation because she claims the right to control her own body. Since the life within her is not her own, how can she justify its termination and deflect that life from an earth which it may never inherit?

The Price of Love

I read an interview with a lady who was suing her doctor because he did not tell her about amniocentesis, and therefore, she was not able to learn in advance that her baby was a mongoloid child and destroy the child through abortion. In the interview she said, “I’m happy that I know Tommy, but I would also have been happy if I hadn’t known him.” I wonder if that is true. I wonder how long the reverberations of destroying that life might have followed her, had she done it. There comes a time when you must pay the price, the sacrifice of love. How lucky she was to get the chance to pay it.

Appreciate Your Opportunities

What I’m saying to you is that we need to appreciate the special heritage and values that have come to us. Think for a moment what particularly distinctive insight the kingdom of God offers you in these matters: God, Christ, man, life, sex, marriage, family, resurrection, eternity. Special instruction has been given to us concerning conservation, pollution, liberation, population, elections, freedom, abortion, government, Christ. In these and many other very important principles, programs, doctrines, and matters, there are distinctive, special insights we have to share. But just knowing that or hearing it doesn’t really suffice, does it? We must learn to understand these insights and become really converted to them, and to act on them.