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United Firm and Tithing Revelations Doctrine and Covenants 92, 104, 119, 120.

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United Firm and Tithing Revelations Doctrine and Covenants 92, 104, 119, 120
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Page 1: United Firm and Tithing Revelations Doctrine and Covenants 92, 104, 119, 120.

United Firm and Tithing Revelations

Doctrine and Covenants 92, 104, 119, 120

Page 2: United Firm and Tithing Revelations Doctrine and Covenants 92, 104, 119, 120.

Aliases and Revision in United Firm Revelations

• They were decided not to be “published at this time” in 1831-1833

• Decision was made to publish them, although in altered form, in 1835 D&C

• They were made to appear as if from the days of Enoch

• Names were replaced with ostensibly ancient names; “Firm” was replaced with “Order”

• Most names closely resembled biblical names, especially from Genesis

Page 3: United Firm and Tithing Revelations Doctrine and Covenants 92, 104, 119, 120.

Examples

• Newel K. Whitney: Ashadah• Joseph Smith: Enoch, Gazelam• Cainhonnoch: New York• Lane-shine-house: Printing Office

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D&C 92 Origin

• Section 82 organized several church leaders into a corporation called the United Firm, better known by the pseudonym United Order, in April 1832 to manage the church's finances, properties, and publishing projects (see Section 82). In January 1833, the Lord gave a revelation calling Frederick Williams to be a counselor and scribe to Joseph and to consecrate his substantial farm to the church. "Let thy farm be consecrated for bringing forth of the revelations and tho[u] shalt be blessed," the Lord told Frederick. Section 90 affirmed Frederick's calling as counselor to Joseph, and a few days later Section 92 came.

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D&C 92 Outcomes

• Frederick joined the United Firm, consecrated his farm, was ordained a counselor to Joseph Smith, continued to serve as a scribe, and was otherwise "lively" though soft spoken in building Zion. Joseph wrote in his journal that "Brother Frederick is one of those men in whom I place the greatest confidence and trust for I have found him ever full of love and Brotherly kindness. . . . He is perfectly honest and upright and seeks with all his heart to magnify his presidency in the church."

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D&C 104 Origin• Joseph Smith and other members of the United Firm in Kirtland were mired in debt.

The members of the Firm in Missouri had been driven from their land, store, printing office and, therefore, from the ability to make money to pay the Firm’s bills. And as a result of Section 103, Joseph was determined to aid them by making an expensive trip to Missouri. Joseph and others visited Saints in New York to raise money. At one council meeting he called on the able-bodied men to march with him to Missouri, “and for the Church to gather all their riches and send them to purchase land according to the commandment of the Lord. Also, to devise means, or obtain moneys for the relief of the brethren at Kirtland; say two thousand dollars, which sum will deliver Kirtland from debt for the present.” The brethren in the council pledged to raise the money and split up to visit the Saints in the region.

• Joseph returned to Kirtland without the needed funds. He met with other members of the Firm for prayer and asked the Lord for a miracle. Otherwise, Joseph explained, he could not go to Missouri, “and if I do not go it will be imposseible to get my brethren in Kirtland . . . to go and if we do not go it is in vain for our eastern brethren to think of going up to better themselves by obtaining so goodly a land which now can be obtained for one dollar and a quarter per acre and stand against that wicked mob for unless they do the will of God, God will not help them and if God does not help them all is vain.”

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D&C 104 Origin• Joseph was deeply frustrated that the Saints “will not help us

when they can do it without sacrifice with those blessings which God has bestowed upon them.” He prophesied that unless the Saints willingly consecrated as he had done, “God shall . . . prevent them from ever obtaining a place of reffuge or an in heritance upon the Land of Zion.”

• Still the Saints withheld the Lord’s resources. Joseph and the members of the United Firm (Order) in Kirtland met on April 10 and reluctantly decided to dissolve the Firm and make its members individual stewards over its various properties.

• Two weeks later the Lord revealed Section 104, affirming the decision to dissolve the United Firm and gave each of its members their respective stewardship.

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D&C 104 Outcomes• After the Lord revealed Section 104, Joseph and his brethren in the United Firm at

Kirtland assumed control of the individual properties the Lord had assigned each of them as stewardships. They also forgave each other all debts they owed to the Firm. This relieved Joseph of paying more $1151.31 and the six men combined forgave debts they owed each other totaling $3635.35. Still this did not satisfy the debts they owed to outside creditors.

• Ever mindful of those obligations, Joseph and his brethren acted on this revelation. They did the specific things the Lord set forth as terms on which He promised to “soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, until I shall send forth means unto you for your deliverance” (104:80-82). Joseph’s journal records humility, diligent effort, and faithful prayers for this deliverance, and documents that it came as prophesied. On the day the revelation came, Joseph and other members of the Firm “united in asking the Lord” to bless Zebedee Coltrin and Jacob Myers in their efforts “to borrow for us.” Meanwhile, donations began to pour in from consecrating Saints. Joseph and Oliver Cowdery “united in prayer” for such blessings to continue, and covenanted as the Lord was enabling them to pay their debts, they would return one-tenth of what they received “to be bestowed upon the poor of his Church, or as he shall command, and that we will be faithful over that which he has entrusted to our care.” They prayed and prayed, asking the Lord “to lift the mortgage on the farm upon which the temple was being built.”

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D&C 104 Outcomes• One evening they received an impression “that in a short time

the Lord would arrange his providences in a merciful manner and send us assistance to deliver us from debt and bondage.” Two months later as creditors were about to foreclose on the temple site, a converted hotel owner from New York, John Tanner, arrived in Kirtland with $2000 “with which amount the farm was redeemed.” Good for His word, the Lord had sent for the “means” He promised to deliver (104:80). In the meantime, Joseph and his brethren learned to trust in the Lord, pray in faith, to be humble and diligent. The Saints in general also rose to the occasion and, though belatedly, consecrated to the building of Kirtland and its crowning temple. As a result of their offerings, the Lord poured out blessings in that temple that no amount of money could buy (See Sections 109-110).

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D&C 119 Origin• In early February 1831, Joseph Smith received the law of

consecration. It commanded the Saints to freely offer the Lord what he had given to them. Then he would consecrate a stewardship to them. Thereafter, the Saints were to be stewards of what they needed to be “amply supplied” and return surplus to the bishop of the church as his stewardship “to administer to the poor and needy” (42:34).

• The Lord revealed the law of consecration to relieve poverty, purchase land for the public benefit of the Saints, and to build temples and New Jerusalem so that his covenant people could be saved by gathering to his temple (D&C 42:30-36). Joseph and the church’s bishops worked to implement the law of consecration, but unwilling Saints and antagonistic neighbors in both Ohio and Missouri thwarted their efforts.

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D&C 119 Origin• By mid-1837, the Church was financially desperate and the United States had slumped

into an economic depression that would last five years. Feeling the financial pressure keenly, bishop Newel Whitney and his counselors in Ohio issued a letter proposing that the Saints be tithed. “It is the fixed purpose of our God,” they wrote, “that the great work of the last days was to be accomplished by the tithing of His Saints.” They evoked Malachi 3:10 to assert that “the Saints were required to bring their tithes into the storehouse, and after that, not before, they were to look for a blessing that there should not be room enough to receive it.” The bishopric in Missouri proposed and adopted a similar but more specific policy in December 1837, recommending that the Saints be tithed two-percent annually after paying their debts. Both bishoprics emphasized the voluntary nature of the offering based on the principle of individual agency.

• Joseph moved from Ohio to Missouri early in 1838. There the city of Far West began to bustle with people and economic enterprise, the Saints planned and the Lord approved the construction of a temple (See Section 115), and hundreds of eastern Saints gathered with more coming all the time. By July the prospects of establishing an enduring stronghold in northern Missouri appeared both promising and daunting. The church needed revenue to accomplish its divine mandates. Joseph prayed, “O! Lord, show unto thy servents how much thou requirest of the properties of thy people for a Tithing?”– Making Sense of the Doctrine & Covenants, Section 119.

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D&C 119 Outcomes• Brigham Young was present when the Lord revealed Section 119. He was assigned to go

among the Saints “and find out what surplus property the people had, with which to forward the building of the Temple we were commencing at Far West.” Before setting out he asked Joseph, “‘Who shall be the judge of what is surplus property?’ Said he, ‘Let them be the judge themselves.’”As a result, some Latter-day Saints offered their surplus property. Some offered some of it. Some offered none. None were coerced. And so it remains.

• As poorly understood and obeyed as it is, Section 119 is stunningly effective. When significant numbers of Saints obey even just the instruction to offer a tenth of their annual increase, the church has prospered and been able to carry out at least some of its divine mandates. Temples dot the earth and Israel is being gathered, educated, and prepared for Zion because of partial obedience to this revelation (D&C 105:9-11). The money offered is calculable. The resulting blessings are not. The Lord has opened heaven’s windows and poured out a blessing. One wonders, however, when there will be a sufficient number of saints willing to keep the covenant of Section 119 to actually “sanctify the land of Zion.” Until then “it shall not be a land of Zion unto you” (6). Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (London and Liverpool: LDS Booksellers Depot, 1855–86), 2:306.

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D&C 120 Origin

• Joseph moved to Missouri in 1838 as the Church was abused by dissent from within and persecution from without. The Church regained its footing in Far West, Missouri. On the same July day that Section 119 reaffirmed the law of consecration and defined tithing, the Lord gave Joseph Section 120, “making known the disposition of the properties tithed as named in the proceeding [preceding] revelation.”

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D&C 120 Outcomes• Less than a month passed before this newly revealed council met in Far West, Missouri to

obey the revelation, that is to “take into concideration the disposing of the publick properties in the hands of the Bishop, in Zion, for the people of Zion have commenced liberally to consecrate agreeably to the revelations, and commandments of the Great I Am of their surpluss properties.” The council agreed that the First Presidency should keep all the property they needed “and the remainder be put into the hands of the Bishop or Bishops, agreeably to the commandments, and revelations.”

• Section 120 created the council that continues to guide the Church’s financial and property management, and declared the principle of revelation by which they do so. When Section 120 was revealed, Far West served as church headquarters and its bishop and high council served with the First Presidency. The quorum of twelve apostles and the presiding bishopric replaced the local authorities as those quorums developed and matured and as Church headquarters moved. Today, in other words, the council is composed of the First Presidency, Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and the Presiding Bishopric.

• Speaking from nearly two decades as a member of this council, Elder Robert D. Hales said, “It is remarkable to witness this council heed the Lord's voice. Each member is aware of and participates in all the council's decisions. No decision is made until the council is unanimous. All tithing funds are spent for the purposes of the Church.” Elder Hales continued, “I bear my testimony of the Council on the Disposition of the Tithes. . . . Without exception, the tithing funds of this Church have been used for His purposes.”


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