Doctrine and Covenants 4

When I was a young man, going to church in a small suburb of Boston, the entire body of Priesthood brethren would start off opening exercises reciting Section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that the Doctrine and Covenants are revelations from our Heavenly Father, given through the Prophet, Joseph Smith. We believe that while these revelations were given over one hundred years ago and often times they were given for specific individuals. That being said, we believe that the lessons taught in these sections are still very applicable to us, in our day. This is especially applicable to Section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

"Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men. Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work; For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul; And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work. Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence. Ask and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen."

This is the entire section. While it is not lengthy in duration or flowery in it's speech, it is deep, powerful and very potent in it's language. Having had this memorized, perhaps longer than I have had almost anything else memorized, I have had the chance to think long and deeply about what this means in my life. There is no wasted language in this verse, no superfluous words or phrases. I'd like to think that this is because the Lord is busy enough answering our prayers, making miracles come to pass and loving us, his children, that candy-coating things just isn't in our best interest. For example, look at what the Lord says qualifies us to do his work, " This boggles my mind, and is something that I feel is so misused and under-appreciated. The fact is, the Lord wants us to do his work, if He didn't, there would be a lot more to qualify whether or not someone was able to do the work. He allows us, mere mortals, to do godly work as long as we have the desire to do so! This is incredible to me.

There are many little tidbits that I love about D&C 4, but when looking at the entire section as a whole brings an entirely different perspective on the awesome nature of it. When speaking specifically about the fourth section, President Joseph Fielding Smith said, “This revelation is very short, only seven verses, but it contains sufficient counsel and instruction for a lifetime study. No one has yet mastered it. It was not intended as a personal revelation to Joseph Smith, [Sr.] but to be of benefit to all who desire to embark in the service of God. It is a revelation to each member of the Church, especially to all who hold the Priesthood. Perhaps there is no other revelation in all our scriptures that embodies greater instruction pertaining to the manner of qualification of members of the Church for the service of God, and in such condensed form than this revelation. It is as broad, as high, and as deep as eternity. No elder of the Church is qualified to teach in the Church, or carry the message of Salvation to the world, until he has absorbed, in part at least, this heaven-sent instruction.” (President Joseph Fielding Smith, CHMR, Vol. 1, pp. 32-33) The fact that a prophet of God said that no one has fully taken advantage of the wealth of knowledge presented in just seven verses. The other thing that I think about is the fact that if a Prophet has said that this section is so important, we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are over-looking and not appreciating the pearl we have here.

I served my mission in the former Yugoslavia. While there, I learned that missions are difficult. While I don’t want to get into the specific challenges that missionaries in my mission have to deal with, I do want to say that there are specific traits that every missionary needs. Every mission has different challenges, but the Missionary Handbook has laid out many rules and regulations that most missionaries are expected to follow. When a missionary follows these rules and regulations, one can expect to be met with success in his mission. While there are different definitions as to what success is, we’ll use the satisfaction of being very tired spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally as our definition today. So, what else does a missionary need other than obedience to the rules established in the Missionary Handbook to succeed? All of the traits and strengths a missionary needs, or needs to develop are listed in section 4. Faith, Hope, Charity, Love, Focus on the Glory of God, desire, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence and to remember to pray to our Heavenly Father and ask him for success, and for the blessings that we know he wants to pour out onto us.

I would like to touch on a few of these aspects. It is worth mentioning that the attribute “faith” is cited twice in the section. Faith is one of those things that you cannot have too much of in missionary work. I remember when I had been in Croatia for four months, I didn’t speak the language well (even in comparison to the missionaries I came to the country with) and I didn’t feel prepared to do much but sit there and learn from a senior companion. My mission president put me in as a District leader over a very young district and in a city that had seen one baptism in five years. Looking at the situation on paper it didn’t look like a small group of very young missionaries would be able to make much of a difference in that small city, but collectively, I was working with one of the best sets of sister missionaries in the world, as long as one the very best senior couples in the world, them coupled with my two wonderful companions (I was in a group of three at the time) make it so much easier to have a little faith in what we were doing. Not only did we all have faith that the work would go forth despite the fact that we were a very young group of missionaries who, in general spoke the language quite poorly at the time, and we also had great faith in one another. Since that district started working in that city, it has seen over 50 baptisms in the last few years. Not only were we met with great success but we also set a precedent for how the work should be conducted throughout the rest of the mission. Faith is a tool that is greatly underestimated in the work of missionaries and by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The other attribute that I would like to mention is ‘godliness’. As members of the church we believe that our Heavenly Father allows us to participate in his work, which is by His own definition is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of us, his children. We believe that he loves us, and wants us to return to him some day. How much closer to godliness does helping our godly Father do His work make us? I would submit that second only to parenthood, Missionary is the closest we can be to godly in this lifetime. Because of His great power and omnipotence, God does not necessarily need our help, but allows us to take part in his work so we can gain a better understanding of what it is like to truly be selfless and love someone that may have difficulty helping themselves without us.