Doctrinal Library

Think Celestial!

The power to create life is the one privilege of godhood that Heavenly Father allows His mortal children to exercise. Thus, God set clear guidelines for the use of this living, divine power. Physical intimacy is only for a man and a woman who are married to each other.

Keep the Commandments

Disregard for the commandments has opened the way for what I consider to be the plagues of our day. They include the plague of permissiveness, the plague of pornography, the plague of drugs, the plague of immorality, and the plague of abortion, to name just a few. The scriptures tell us that the adversary is “the founder of all these things.” We know that he is “the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men.”

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

With so much of sophistry that is passed off as truth, with so much of deception concerning standards and values, with so much of allurement and enticement to take on the slow stain of the world, we have felt to warn and forewarn. In furtherance of this we of the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles now issue a proclamation to the Church and to the world as a declaration and reaffirmation of standards, doctrines, and practices relative to the family which the prophets, seers, and revelators of this church have repeatedly stated throughout its history.

Save the Children

I realize that notwithstanding all of the teaching that can be done, there will be those who will not heed and will go their willful way only to discover to their shock and dismay that they are to become parents, while they are scarcely older than children themselves. Abortion is not the answer. This only compounds the problem. It is an evil and repulsive escape that will someday bring regret and remorse.

To the Young Women of the Church

Adultery, or anything like unto it, is abominable in the sight of the Lord. President Kimball also wisely observed: “Among the most common sexual sins our young people commit are necking and petting. Not only do these improper relations often lead to fornication, pregnancy, and abortion—all ugly sins—but in and of themselves they are pernicious evils, and it is often difficult for youth to distinguish where one ends and another begins. …

The Lord Expects Righteousness

My brothers and sisters, there seems to be a general state of wickedness in the world in these perilous yet crucially momentous days. But in the midst of all the turmoil about us, we can have an inner peace. We are richly blessed and have so much to be thankful for. As I meditate upon these things, I remember the words of the Lord, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required.” (Luke 12:48.) The Lord expects of us righteousness and obedience to His commandments in return for the bounties of life He has so richly bestowed upon us. It seems that iniquity abounds on all sides, with the Adversary taking full advantage of the time remaining to him in this day of his power. The leaders of the Church continually cry out against that which is intolerable in the sight of the Lord: against pollution of mind and body and our surroundings; against vulgarity, stealing, lying, cheating, false pride, blasphemy, and drunkenness; against fornication, adultery, homosexuality, abortion, and all other abuses of the sacred power to create; against murder and all that is like unto it; against all manner of degradation and sin.

We Need a Listening Ear

Living the completely chaste life, committing no adultery or fornication, being completely true to one’s spouse, and honoring the marriage covenant would rid the world of the ravages of the ugly, painful, and costly venereal diseases. It would strengthen the home, abolish the evils of divorce, and eliminate the necessity for the calamity of unwarranted abortions—one of the major evils of our day.

Privileges and Responsibilities of Sisters

It was never easy to bear and rear children, but easy things do not make for growth and development. Loud, blatant voices today shout, “Fewer children,” and offer the pill, surgery, and even ugly abortion, which has reached monumental numbers. It is an awful thing when mothers without righteous cause take the lives or participate in the taking of the lives of their unborn children.

The Foundations of Righteousness

The growing permissiveness in modern society gravely concerns us. Certainly our Heavenly Father is distressed with the increasing inroads among his children of such insidious sins as adultery and fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, abortions, pornography, population control, alcoholism, cruelty expressed in wife-beating and child-abuse, dishonesty, vandalism, violence, and crime generally, including the sin of living together without marriage.

A Report and a Challenge

Abortion, with all its heartaches, to say nothing of the destruction of life, continues to rise alarmingly. Last year in the United States alone, there were reported over one million legal abortions. That is nearly fifty times the number only seven years before, in 1969. One leading authority estimates that by 1980 there may be 2.4 million legal abortions. Abortions in many other countries are running similarly high.
Abortion, the taking of life, is one of the most grievous of sins.
We must put on the armor of righteousness and resist with all our might these satanic influences. The time is now when members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must take a stand fearlessly and relentlessly for the Lord’s ways as opposed to those of Satan.