“Pay Thy Debt, and Live”
God grant us the wisdom and the faith to heed the inspired counsel of the priesthood to get out of debt, to live within our means and to pay as we go—in short, to “pay thy debt, and live,”…
Prophet Seer Revelator
Faith in America
“I cannot leave this subject without a sincere and heartfelt prayer that the spirit of Almighty God shall be upon all men everywhere. May our…matchless Constitution, our love of freedom and liberty be noted by other nations and, insofar as they can be made applicable, be adopted by them…”
Fathers
Breadwinning is a consecrated activity. “Work and family are overlapping domains.” …This, of course, does not justify a man who neglects his family for his career or, at the other extreme, one who will not exert himself and is content to shift his responsibility to others. …We recognize the agony of men who are unable to find ways and means adequately to sustain their families. There is no shame for those who, at a given moment, despite their best efforts, cannot fulfill all the duties and functions of fathers. “Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.”
Preserving Agency, Protecting Religious Freedom
“As we walk the path of spiritual liberty in these last days, we must understand that the faithful use of our agency depends upon our having religious freedom. We already know that Satan does not want this freedom to be ours. …he is fiercely undermining, opposing, and spreading confusion about religious freedom—what it is and why it is essential to our spiritual life and our very salvation.”
The Celestial Nature of Self-reliance
“The practice of coveting and receiving unearned benefits has now become so fixed in our society that even men of wealth, possessing the means to produce more wealth, are expecting the government to guarantee them a profit. Elections often turn on what the candidates promise to do for voters from government funds. This practice, if universally accepted and implemented in any society, will make slaves of its citizens.”
The Constitution
“In broad outline the Lord has declared through our Constitution his form for human government. Our own prophets have declared in our day the responsibility of the Elders of Zion in the preservation of the Constitution. We cannot, guiltless, escape that responsibility. We cannot be laggards, nor can we be deserters.”
Principles of Temporal and Spiritual Welfare
Unfortunately, there has been fostered in the minds of some an expectation that …we should look to either the Church or government to bail us out. Forgotten by some of our members is an underlying principle of the Church welfare plan that “no true Latter-day Saint will, while physically able, voluntarily shift from himself the burden of his own support.”
General Smith’s views of the powers and policy of the government of the United States
“No honest man can doubt for a moment, but the glory of American Liberty, is on the wane, and that calamity and confusion will sooner or later destroy the peace of the people.”
Protecting Freedom—An Immediate Responsibility
Moroni raised a title of liberty and wrote upon it these words: “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children”. Why didn’t he write upon it: “Just live your religion; there’s no need to concern yourselves about your freedom, your peace, your wives, or your children”? The reason he didn’t do this was because all these things were a part of his religion, as they are of our religion today.
Dedicatory Prayer – Idaho Falls Temple
“As we look about in the world among the various countries we find philosophies and forms of government the effect of which is to deprive men of their free agency, but by reason of Thy timely warning to us, we know that they are not approved of Thee. Since the God of this choice land is Jesus Christ, we know that His philosophy of free agency should prevail here.”