ZION BUILDERS' SERMONS A Series of Sermons Addressed to the Young People of the Church Preached at Lamoni, Iowa, and Independence, Missouri BY PRESIDENT ELBERT A. SMITH Ufa INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI 1921 Z1ON BUILDERS' SERMONS A Series of Sermons Addressed to the Young People of i the Church Preached at Lamoni, Iowa, and Independence, Missouri BY PRESIDENT ELBERT A. SMITH INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI 1921 Zion Builders' Sermons Faith Sermon by President Elbert A. Smith, during Zion Builder Services at Lamoni, Iowa, March 13, 1921. Reported by Winsome Smith McDonald. .... You might naturally imagine that after a man has preached for a number of years under various conditions that he would approach a sermon or a series of sermons with absolute un- concern, but I believe that whenever a man reaches that con- dition he ceases to preach. He may keep on talking but he is not preaching any longer. Certainly I have never felt a more profound feeling of responsibility than I feel in entering upon this series of meetings, and I depend very greatly upon your faith and prayers. The subject as announced for to-night is that of faith, and the text is found in Mark 11 : 23, "Have faith in God," the language of our Lord and Master. Some two or three weeks ago a group of Chinese students studying in the University of Illinois sent out a questionnaire to one thousand prominent men of the United States, men supposed to be Christians. There were only three questions in this questionnaire: "Do you believe in God? If so, why? What kind of a God do you believe in?" It would seem to be a litle bit ironical that it should be necessary for "heathen Chinese" to ask Christians if they believed in God; but evidently these students considered it necessary, and certainly they went to the root of the matter, because the first question in the "greater catechism" is, Do you believe in God? I do not refer to any catechism of any denomination, but the greater catechism that con- fronts humanity and soon* or late presents its question mark to every human. What Is Your Mental Attitude? I want to ask you first of all, What is your mental at- titude toward this question? Alma, one of the Book .of Mormon preachers, has a wonderful sermon on faith in the Zion Builders' Sermons sixteenth chapter of Alma, and in it he exhorts his hearers to have faith; but he adds that if they can do nothing more than merely desire to believe they should let that desire work in them and cultivate it and presently it will give place to faith. Do you desire to believe? That may seem to be begging the question before the evidence is presented; but I have on my desk in the office a book by a very modern philosopher named William James, and the title of that book is The Will to Believe. It is not so easy to get the meaning of William James as it is of Alma; getting his meaning is something like trying to extract an ounce of gold from a ton of quartz. With William James it is somewhat difficult to extract the gold, while the gold of Alma lies on the surface; anyone can carry it away, and the vein will never be any the poorer. But when you have extracted the meaning from James's book it is identical with the advice given by Alma. He holds that it is not illogical, or begging the question, to have a will and desire to believe. Why not? Faith offers you everything that man needs; doubt offers you nothing and would take away even that which you seem to have. It is the creeping paralysis of all hope and all human initiative. What have you young people to do with atheism! Nothing! Faith Dynamic in All Human Institutions and Activities Faith is dynamic in all human activity, and in all human institutions and governments. It may seem to be something intangible, but it underlies all human institutions and trans- actions. The family and the home, for instance, are considered by all writers on economics and sociology as the unit of civili- zation. Faith underlies the family and the home. Some bright day some one of these girls appears on the street or in the parlor with a diamond ring on her finger which she is trying to conceal from her companions yes, she is not. Where did she get that diamond ring? Did she pick it up in the street? No, your guess is wrong. Did her mother give it to her to pay her for washing the dishes or darning socks? You are getting farther away all the Zion Builders' Sermons time. Some young man for whom that girl never did a day's work in the world spent his last dollar to get that diamond ring, and while bands played, and rainbows danced round him, and heaven poured its glory into his heart, he put it on her finger. I am not making light of that transaction; that ring tells a story that is as old as Adam and as sacred as religion. But why did he put that ring on her finger? Because he had faith in her. Why did she permit him to put it on her finger? She had faith in him. Well will it be for that home if they "keep tKe faith." I heard a new version of the marriage covenant the other day: "We promise to love, honor, and behave." It seems to me that if a man can, and indeed desires to trust his name and his honor and the immortal souls of his children to a woman, he ought to trust the God who made the woman. Faith underlies all government, particularly all democratic government. There sat around a table in France four men, the Greek Orlando, the French Clemenceau, a little Welsh giant named David Lloyd George, and a Yankee Puritan and idealist named Weodrow Wilson, and while the world looked on they handled the destinies of nations as children play with cob houses. Why were they permitted to do it? Because the world had faith in them. No king ever had the power that Woodrow Wilson had, but mark you how soon it faded when the people for some reason or other began to lose their faith in him. All business is transacted on faith, or nearly all of it. How long since any of you saw a ten-dollar gold piece? I have g, recollection of seeing one at one time, but it was a long time ago. I believe it was yellow. We do not see them any more. About all we have is paper money with the promise of the Government or some bank or individual on it and indeed most of our business is done on personal check. It does seem to me if we can trust the promises of men on paper we ought to trust the promise of God who has at- tached his name to the greatest promissory note that man ever read. Faith is the dynamic that moves people in all of their Zion Builders' Sermons undertakings. By faith men plant, believing they will reap. By faith they build, believing they will occupy. By faith they explore, thinking they will discover. By faith Columbus discovered America. Faith is a universal instinct. I am not speaking now of faith in humanity, but of faith in some higher power. All races of men have some form of religion, and have always had some form of religion. Every idol, no matter how crude, stands for an ideal ; it testifies of the never-ending search for God by man. But on the other hand atheism is an artificial culture, not spontaneous in the heart: it must be kept alive by argumentation and breaks down in every great crisis. Faith in Law the Basis of Science Some one may have told you that science is antagonistic to religion, but the greater scientists apparently do not take that view of the question. Lord Kelvin tells us that "science positively affirms creative power." (Christian Apolo- getics p. 25.) Sir Oliver Lodge tells us that "religion has its roots deep down in the heart of humanity and in the reality of things." (Continuity, p. 106.) Edgar Lucien Larkin, head of Lowe Observatory, says: "There is not a great scientist now living not aware of the existence of mind in the Sidereal Universe a dominating mind." Within the Mind Maze, p. 364. Some day you may meet some little two-by-four instructor who has read two or three pages of Darwin who may tell you that religion and science are in hopeless conflict, but re- member the statements of these men, and no keener minds have existed in our time. Essentially both religion and science rest on faith. All of the sciences are based on faith in the universality of law and the continuity of law. Now let us explain that for a moment. We cannot go back into history very far, that is in recorded history. We may go back to Egypt, Nineveh, and Bablyon, but back of that we cannot hope to find any record of anything even approaching scientific observation; yet science has the most implicit faith that law has always been in force, and that it will always continue without change Zion Builders' Sermons or deviation that law is the same now as it was millenniums ago, and will so continue forever and forever. Sir Oliver Lodge has a wonderful lecture on "Continuity," and bases his faith in the immortality of the soul on that law. So we may say that by faith geology reads the prehistoric record of the earth as it was written in the rocks, believing that the same laws were in force then that are in force now, in other words basing all conclusions on faith in the con- tinuity of law. We are bound by the forces of circumstances to this old earth; it seems to us to be a stupendous affair, but compared with some of the heavenly bodies it is almost insignificant. It would be insignificant were it not for the freight it bears of human souls, human aspirations, and human destinies. We are limited and chained to this little old earth that Mark Twain dubbed "the wart." It is true, we may get into an airplane and travel up the heavenly speedway for a few miles, but law ever reaches after us and pulls us back again. All we can touch with our hands, all we can break to pieces with a hammer, all that we can put into the acid is on this small globe. And yet science has faith that law is universal. What a stupendous conception! Talk about the faith of religion! If a man could start to-night for the most distant star that can be seen through the most powerful telescope and travel with the speed of an express train, he would be old and dead before he got out of the switch yards ; and his bones would be turned to dust long before the conductor came to take up his ticket. Yet science believes that in that far-away star and in others that we can never hope to see with any in- strument, faith reigns universal. So we may say that by faith science weighs the stars. And by faith chemistry mixes her compounds. Science rears her edifices then upon faith in universal and continuous law; while religion builds her temple on faith in an everlasting, unchangeable, universal Lawgiver, the same yesterday-, to-day, and forever, without beginning or ending of years, all powerful, all wise. Zion Builders' Sermons Faith Bears Her Own Credentials Faith bears her own credentials. Doubt is negative and usually destructive. Faith is affirmative and constructive. Why not ally ourselves with the builders, and certainly if we are to be Zion Builders, we shall need to have faith, be- cause when we move out into the building of Zion we are undertaking an experiment that is stupendous, that is filled with perils as well as possibilities. We must have faith in the God who promised Zion and in the laws that will redeem Zion, and more than that we must have faith in the fellow men who work with us, whether they be general church officials or local officials, in the endeavor to redeem Zion. If we look with a doubtful eye on the promises of God we will never put our all into the venture; if we look with the cold eye of suspicion on those who are directing the destinies of the church we cannot hope to cooperate with them in the redemption of Zion. We must have faith. Atheism leads inevitably to anarchy. That is its logical course. Emma Goldman so expressed it frankly in a state- ment of her creed. She said, "I believe in no God!" And her statement followed very logically, "I believe in no govern- ment! I believe in no marriage! I believe in no property!" And we gave her a free ticket to Russia where she hoped to find no God, and no government, and no marriage, and no property. Atheism leads to anarchy, not only individually but nation- ally, and only a short time ago a prominent Jew, the presi- dent- of the chamber of commerce in Boston, is reported to have said, "You may be astonished to hear me, a Jew, say this; but in my opinion we stand before two alternatives either anarchy or Jesus Christ." Every individual in his own life faces that choice, be- tween Jesus Christ or anarchy. Do you want something, my young friends, that will give you a definite purpose, that will give you abiding principle? Come and stand with me in imagination on the banks of the Niagara River as I stood not so long ago. The night is falling, and we see pushing out over the waters into the darkness a boat. This boat pursues a definite course, it has a certain goal somewhere, Zion Builders' Sermons 9 it speaks of purpose and of power. A moment later we see another boat, but its oars are drifting in the water, its rudder swings with the current, it is directed by the waves and winds of chance, and it is going down stream to inevitable ruin. Haven't you seen human lives that bear the same com- parison? One young man starting out in life with a purpose and ideals, governed by principles instead of .impulses, while another simply allows himself to drift? My young people, I want you during these meetings to make a decision ; I want you to compare the lives of some men you may observe around you and see what kind of a man or woman you want to be. Pardon the seeming indelicacy of calling names, but look at some of the young men in the community, men like Floyd M. McDowell, Cyril E. Wight, Harold C. Burgess, or Max Carmichael, or fifty others I might name, who are endeavor- ing to shape their lives towards a certain goal that they may fit their lives to -serve men, which is the service of God ; men who are governed by principle, not by impulse. Then you may compare them with the hangers-on of society whom you see in every village and city, young men whose only vocation is to hang around street corners and in bum restau- rants or in back rooms where greasy cards are shuffled; who poison the air with tobacco smoke, render it discordant with oaths, and ruin the appearance of society by projecting into it vicious and dissipated faces. Now what kind of man do you want to be? And you girls, look at the lives of some of the women around you that you have reason to admire, young women who are modest and wish to cultivate themselves that they may become true women. Compare them with some of the overpainted and underdressed creatures that you see on the street, whose only desire is to work up a flirtation, and alas for them, the only kind of men to whom they may appeal is the kind of creature I have just described. I am not going to force a decision on you, but God will force it on you. I know many of you have made your decision, and made it right. Steel your wills during these meetings to abide by your decision. But if there are some here who have not yet made a decision, God will plead with 10 Zion Builders' Sermons them. I can only talk with them for forty-five minutes, but God's Spirit will plead with them when no one is by. I wish, oh, how I wish, I could help even one of them to make the decision that he would be a man of principle and of power, a man who would take Jesus Christ to be his guide. If I could influence even one to do that during these meetings, I would be well repaid; and I think all of us who have helped in any way to make these meetings a success would have drawn out rich dividends on the investment. I would rather have the most insignificant share in that kind of an enterprise than the controlling stock in the great Corn- stock Mine when it was at its richest. Religion gives men principles, purpose, faith, power, a definite goal, a certain course. The Sound Basis of Faith Faith has a sound basis. Some people confuse faith with credulity. But credulity has its root in ignorance. Any man can be credulous ; the halfwit can be credulous ; but faith calls for the keenest minds and the biggest hearts and the cleanest lives that ever were developed. Faith has its roots in ob- servation and in revelation, and the two meet together in one soul and qualify him to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith takes its stand on the known and reaches into the unknown, or as the Apostle Paul tells us in the Roman letter that the invisible things of creation are understood by the things that are seen. When we study creation, it argues the existence of a Creator, to say the least. When we see a painted picture we know there was an artist that painted it; the colors did not spontaneously arrange them- selves on a self-created canvas. We see a house and we know some one made it. Whe,n we see creation, we reason that back of it is a Creator; but worlds without end we can- not find him out by human observation alone, because our eyes are fitted to see material things, and God is a spirit. That is where revelation steps in and reveals to us his character and his will concerning man, so the two meeting together, observation and revelation, create and upbuild faith Zion Builders' Sermons 11 in the human heart neither one is complete without the other. Faith Taught by the Revelations Faith is justified by our consideration and contemplation of the written revelations of God. I should say by all the revelations God has given to us. The whole body of the written word as we have it in the Bible, in the Book of Mor- mon, and in the Book of Covenants appeals to man's faith for the simple reason that it answers his spiritual needs; it gives him hope where otherwise there would be no hope, brings him light where otherwise there would be no light; so I say the whole body of the written revelations of God appeals to the faith of men and supplements the great com- mandment that Jesus Christ gave when he said, "Have faith in God." But perhaps even greater than that is the revelation of God that we have in the character and life of Jesus Christ himself. I want to tell you, my young friends, that the older you grow and the more you contemplate and study the character of Jesus Christ, the more wonderful it will be- come to you. During the last few years of my experience, there is one thing that has grown bigger and bigger to me, grander and ever more grand, and that is the character and life of the man of Galilee. One autumn evening I stood on the very summit of Mount Manitou. About me were the mighty granite bowlders and the great pine trees, and there spread out directly at my feet lay the Colorado plains. I could look over them for hundreds of miles and see the play of sunlight and Titanic shadows. About me were the rush and roar of the elements, because it was storming up there in the mountains. And there I had such a conception as I had never known before of the awful majesty and power of Almighty God. It was written in the universe, in the heavens, and in the rocks under my feet; but the more his majesty and power and greatness were borne in upon me, the smaller and smaller and more insignificant I became in my own vision. I saw nothing in all those things to indicate to me that God cared anything for me or that there was any more possibility that 12 Zion Builders' Sermons I could ever communicate with him or have fellowship with him than there was for the ant that was crushed under my foot. Then there came to me the absolute necessity that Jesus Christ should come into the world in the flesh to reveal to us the character and the love and the mercy of God his Father. The mountains revealed to me a God of power and of do- minion, but Jesus Christ came into my life revealing to me a personal God of love. The law of Moses came out of Sinai with thunder so the children of Israel hid their faces and they said, "Our God is a terrible God," but Jesus Christ came walking along the shores of Galilee with love in his heart, and he said, "Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I thanked God for the revelation of Jesus Christ as I stood on the mountain. It was as though some one had lighted a lamp and put it in the window and the uni- verse had a new meaning for me. The War Between Faith and Doubt Now in conclusion, my brothers and sisters, I wish to pre- sent to you this thought, There is a great war that has been going on for centuries. It will go on so long as men think. No man who thinks can escape it. I refer to the war between faith and doubt. You cannot avoid it. You cannot escape the war between faith and doubt; but you can make your de- cision and you can choose which side you are going to fight on. You can stand in the shadows with doubt and resist the appeal of God that comes into your heart and says, "Believe in me." Or you can stand in the light with faith and resist the encroachment of paralyzing doubt that comes into your life from time to time. You need not be surprised that you have doubts. Your soul is a battle ground between God and the Devil, and the very fact that the battle is raging in you shows you are worth consideration. You cannot escape the struggle. You can only choose which side you will fight on. Why not choose to fight under the flag of King Immanuel ? I call to mind the experience of the life of one of our most brilliant elders who years ago was in the field but was con- stantly troubled with doubts. He doubted this and he doubted Zion Builders' Sermons 13 that, and finally he grew tired of the never-ending struggle against doubt and quit his ministry and finally quit the church, thinking he would find peace. But he did not escape that war. There is no escape from that war. He still was torn with conflict, while he lived, but the trouble with him then was that he was fighting on the wrong side. Often there came into his mind the thought, "Perhaps after all it was the work of God; perhaps I had in my hands the pearl of great price, and I have simply thrown it away. Perhaps God gave me a trust and a mission and I did not prove true to it." He did not escape the fighting or find peace, but instead he was found fighting on the wrong side, trying to resist the divine appeal and keeping God out of his life. Our call to you is to enlist on the side of faith, and though you may have to fight all your life against doubts, you will be fighting under the banner of Jesus Christ, and your faith will grow brighter and brighter and finally faith will lead you to the knowledge Alma speaks of in the Book of Mormon. May the Spirit and the grace of God abide with you, is my prayer. Zion Builders' Sermons 15 Repentance Sermon by Elbert A. Smith in Young Peo- ple's Zion Builder Services, Lamoni, Iowa, March 14, 1921. Reported by Winsome Smith McDonald The text to-night is from Mark 1: 15: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." The Story of Cocklebur Farm I remember how some years ago when I was a boy living on a farm in the northern part of Iowa there was a farmer by the name of Fancher who owned a homestead, and one spring when plowing his corn he discovered between the rows in a certain place a new plant; at least it was entirely new to him. As that was a new country, plants from the East had not yet moved in to any extent. He became exceedingly in- terested in this plant and plowed around it very carefully and even hoed it and encouraged it to grow and go to seed. Verily his patience was rewarded, in a way, because it turned out to be nothing but an ordinary, and as we say in Missouri, an "ornery," pestiferous cocklebur, and in a short time it had seeded his whole farm and had spread abroad to other farms. His homestead became headquarters for cockleburs for the whole country. His farm was "Cocklebur Ranch." If you have never worked on a farm you don't know just how mean a cocklebur is. It is one of the criminals of the vegetable kingdom. It attaches itself to your clothing and rides around until it drops off in some fertile field and starts a new colony of criminals, just like the effect of an evil exam- ple taking root in other lives. You can hoe a cocklebur off close to the ground and in a week's time it will be up again. There is only one way to be rid of them, and that is to pull them up by the roots and burn them in fire. I was back there last summer and I took occasion to visit that old place, and it is yet a foul, run-down, unprofitable farm. Some one has to repent for it and sweat and toil and dig up all of those cockleburs and make corn grow in their place. 16 Zion Builders' Sermons Well, you say, that man was a fool. But did you boys and girls ever cultivate cockleburs? A young man finds a bad habit growing up in his life and immediately he wants to see what it will amount to; he becomes profoundly interested; he cultivates it with great care, and presently it has seeded down his whole life, and perhaps the lives of some of his neighbors. He should have puHed it up at the opportune time. And so presently with sweat and with tears, and with great exertion of will power, he must root up every one of those cockleburs and make corn grow instead. That is repentance. Analysis of the Text Now let us analyze the text. When is the time to repent? The time is now . "The time is fulfilled." Where is the place to repent? The' place is here: "The kingdom of God is at hand" Who is the person to repent? "Repent ye, and believe the gospel." These sermons are to be doctrinal, but they are not given over entirely to the expounding of cold doctrinal principle. We want an appeal to go with them ; and if there is one in- dividual in this audience who has that in his life that should be rooted out, the commandment to him on this occasion is, "Your time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come unto you; repent ye, and believe the gospel." Do not put it off; at- tend to it during this very series of meetings. The admonition to repent comes to us first in the form of an invitation, in Acts 3: 19: "Repent ye therefore, and be con- verted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." We are gathered here for a great revival service, a time of refreshing. We may do all that we can, and I thank God from the bottom of my heart for this noble response this eve- ning oh, how it fills my soul with joy to think you are stand- ing by me. On Monday night when I thought many seats would be empty they are all fiPed, and you are here to sup- port us in this work; you are willing to do your part, and all that God has given me of strength of body, clearness of mind, or faith of heart, or love of soul, I am willing to pour out on the altar of service in these meetings. Yet when it is all said and done, we must bow and say, "Lord, it isn't very much. Zion Builders' Sermons 17 We wait for the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord." The revival comes from above. If we need to repent of anything let us repent, that our sins may be blotted out in this time of refreshing sent from the heavenly Father. The call to repent comes to us next in warning, where the Master says, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Luke 13:3. The Nature of Repentance Repentance may be of a twofold nature; first, there is a worldly form of repentance that consists merely in being sorry when one is caught and about to be punished. Not long ago in the city of Los Angeles two men kidnapped a young married woman and took her to an old shack and held her for ransom. One of these men drove into Los Ange- les and called the husband by telephone and asked him to guarantee the ransom. A telephone operator overheard the conversation, called the police, and when the villain stepped out of the booth two burly policemen waited one on either side of the door. He was caught. You never saw a man re- pent more quickly than he did. He was sorry. What was he sorry for? He was sorry he was caught. He was sorry he was about to be punished. The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 7: 10: "The sor- row of the world worketh death." Now what is the philosophy of this? It is simply that when a man's repentance consists in being sorry he is caught, the only effect had on him is to cause him to resolve that he will do the same thing again but will be a little more careful, from which is evolved the philos- ophy of the world, "If you cannot be good, be careful!" This works death, because no matter how careful a man is the Bible says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatso- ever a man'soweth, that shall he also reap." Galatians 6: 7. That kind of repentance deceives a man and leads him on until eventually it ends in destruction. There has been a great deal of discussion about deathbed repentance. It seems to me that deathbed repentance has in it these very elements of worldliness. People sometimes think, "This repentance is a good thing. I will wait, and have 18 Zion Builders' Sermons a good time while I am young. I will accumulate the things of this world, and when I get to be about eight-five years old and about to die I will repent and get all there is out of re- pentance and get into glory and so beat the game both ways in both worlds." That is a little like the Jew we heard of. Two Jews were riding on a train, so the story goes. One owed the other fifty dollars, and number two had tried to get it time and again. While they were on the train a bandit came into the car with pistols in his hands to rob the passengers. Number one took out his pocketbook and handed number two fifty dollars, saying, "Here, Jacob, iss the fifty dollars I owe you so long." So some think they will accumulate all the things of this world and hold them until the bandit of death has his pistol on them, and then repent. It won't work! But there is a godly repentance which Paul says "worketh sorrow that needeth not to be repented of." (2 Corinthians 7: 10.) That is the true repentance, and as we are told in Matthew 3:8, it brings forth "fruit meet for repentance"; that is, it bears in the life of the individual the kind of fruit that is a clear indication that it is a real, genuine, godly re- pentance. Isaiah gives us to understand that repentance in- cludes ceasing to do evil and learning to do good. (Isaiah 1: 16, 17.) We must pull out the cockleburs and plant corn in their place. We are given to understand, at least by implication, that repentance includes restitution. Zaccheus, as you will re- member, was a publican and a sinner. He was a little man, so when the Savior passed through the streets he had to climb a tree to see over the crowd and see the Master. He was a small man, but in some regards he was bigger than a great many Christians, because he said, "If I have taken any- thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him four- fold." Luke 19: 8. We received a letter a year or two ago from a district president in the West in which he said he had converted a man who desired to be baptized, but that the man made a confession that twenty years ago he burned his house and col- lected the insurance. He wished to know what to do about it. Zion Builders' Sermons 19 We advised that if that insurance company were still in busi- ness he should restore the money, together with interest. Whenever a man can do so he ought to make restitution. Of course, as some have pointed out, there are things that cannot be restored. If you trample a lily into the mire under your brutal foot, you may be sorry for it, and you may try to make it stand upright, but worlds without end you cannot restore it to its natural beauty. If you destroy the purity of a woman or the virtue of a man, you can never restore that which you have destroyed. But God is merciful, and he does not require the impossible of any man; he does require, how- ever, that when individuals repent they shall make the wrong right, if possible to do so. It has a splendid influence on hu- man character. The Story of a Penny I remember how when I was about five years old I went into a grocery store, and there on the counter lay a new penny. No one seemed to be watching it or watching me. I looked at that penny. I was tempted as much as any bank teller ever was tempted by a million dollars. Children do not weigh values. They would rather have a new penny than an old ten-dollar gold piece, 'and that penny had all the power of the Devil wrapped up in it. I walked past it and I came back and looked at it. I looked around, no one was watching, so I put it in my pocket, and went away feeling that I had "thief" written across my forehead. !tried to rub it off and went home to my mother. Mothers have a sort of X-ray attachment. They know when you have been swimming, and when you have been in the jam pot, and when you have stolen a penny. My mother looked right through me and saw that penny. Do you know what I had to do ? I had to go to that store, and marching in before all the customers, say, "Mr. Groceryman, I stole this penny. I am sorry. Here it is. I will never do so again." I never had the least desire after that to steal. The Objective of Repentance What is the objective of repentance ? It has a twofold ob- jective. The first object is to get right with God, or as the icnition is, "Be ye reconciled to God." 2 Corinthians 5: 20 Zion Builders' Sermons 20. This is an exceedingly important consideration, to adjust ourselves to God. D. T. Williams says, "When a man's watch is wrong, he doesn't attempt to reach up into the sky and set the sun by his watch; instead he sets his watch by the sun. He could not change the sun, and if he could it would be an ill-advised thing to do, because everyone else might undertake to do the same thing." Yet the confession of faith of one of the most popular churches made that mistake. That confession said that Jesus Christ was manifest in the flesh that he might reconcile God to man. Some one has reached and tried to set God by man's watch. I am not here to attack churches, but I wish they would correct that statement. If I saw a man attempting to drive down the street with the cart ahead of his horse, I should advise him to turn them about, and that creed has the cart ahead of the horse. Jesus Christ did not come to reconcile God to man in any sense of the word. He came to set man by God's watch. This is a fundamental thought because it has a great bearing on the atonement of Jesus Christ. Did he come and suffer and die on the cross that a sullen, vindictive, and offended God, looking on, might at last be melted and pleased and say, "Well, perhaps I will forgive, and come down and reconcile myself to man" ? Do you believe that ? Nothing of the kind, absolutely. There were reasons why Jesus Christ was mani- fested in the flesh, and one was to interpret God to us. We cannot understand Go3 in the abstract. During all past ages man has attempted to visualize God individually. A 1 ! the idols that have been were but an effort to make something to look at, to help man's mind to picture and understand the abstract idea of God. So Jesus Christ came to give us an objective lesson. And there are reasons why he suffered on the cross, not that he should reconcile God to man, but among other things that he should break the hard hearts of men and turn them towards our heavenly Father, and there never has lived a man who came to understand the mission of Christ and his matchless love that it did not have that effect on him. Every man sooner or later will hear the gospel so that he will un- derstand, and for that reason Jesus says, "If I be lifted up Zion Builders' Sermons 21 I will draw all men unto me." (John 12: 32.) Some men will go a long way and receive celestial glory; some men will go part way and receive a lesser glory; and some men will turn back and not receive any; but sooner or later they will all feel the matchless power of the Son of God who was lifted up on the cross. So we read along this line in 2 Corinthians 5: 18-20, "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconcilia- tion; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. . . . Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." That is the substance of my sermon to-night put into a few words, "Be ye reconciled to God." I cannot sound that into your ears with the force I wish I could, but there is another preacher in this room to-night. He has been here during this series of meetings from the beginning, and with His still small voice, though you see Him not, He searches you out, and He whispers into your hearts, "Be ye reconciled to God." My advice is that you heed that admonition, for Jesus Christ says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with me." Revelation 3 : 20. This is your opportunity. But repentance has another objective. First to adjust our- selves to God, and next to adjust ourselves to our fellow men. This is the very essence of religion, to get right with God an'd to get right with our fellow men. So some one has very wisely said that it takes three persons to live the Christian religion. Some one may ask, Cannot one man live it? No, not alone. He must first come into communion with his God; that is two; and then he must make himself right with his brother; that is three. That is the eternal triangle, the man and his God and his brother. There must continuously be fellowship flowing from every point of the triangle or a man is not liv- ing his religion. If his intercourse and fellowship is broken with his fellow men, it breaks his intercourse with God. Let us see if that is not true. "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother 22 Zion Builders' Sermons hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Matthew 5: 23, 24. Here is a man who is trying to get right with God. There is God in the heavens. Here is an altar, and here is the man who has brought his gift, but something is between him and his brother, and the Lord says, "Before you and I can enter into communion you have to make it right with this man, and when you have made it right with him and the triangle is com- plete, then come back to the altar and give the gift, and I will be very glad to receive it." That is the very basis of the building of Zion, the establish- ment of a fellowship that shall include a continuous commun- ion with God and a continuous fellowship with man. This objective of getting right with God and man under repentance is greatly helped by confession. Whether the con- fession is private or public depends to a great extent upon the nature of the offense. A young man had done wrong and everyone knew about it, and at our late revival services in Independence in the presence of one thousand young people this young man stood up in prayer meeting and made his con- fession. I presume there was not a heart in that room but was enlisted on his side, and he had a thousand friends. Con- fession serves many purposes, and it is a great aid toward the objective in getting right with God and your fellow men. The Great Story of the Prodigal Son Now this theme would not be complete, no sermon on re- pentance is complete without an analysis of the great story of the prodigal son which we have read for our scripture reading. There can be no question that when Jesus told this story he meant that the father should represent God, and the prodigal son should represent any sinner who has need of re- pentance. Let us consider then the attitude of the son. In the first place, this young man was absolutely impervious to reason. It did not do any good to advise with him. The experience of others meant nothing to him. He had his inheritance. He intended to use it as he pleased. In the second place, he fell a victim to the "lure of the far Zion Builders' Sermons 23 country." That is a high-sounding term. Where is that far country? It may be under the bright lights of New York City (in this century) or in Chicago, or it may be just down town in Lamoni, or just around the corner in any village in some back room where men gather to drink bootlegged whisky or play cards or congregate with immoral women. It is a far country in the sense that it is a long way from your father's house, and it is absolutely a foreign country as compared with the spirit of that home where you were raised by a godly father and where to-night perhaps your mother on bended knees pleads for you at the throne of grace. In the next place, when he had reached that country he squandered his inheritance. What is our inheritance? It may be money, it may be land, it may be good health, it may be a good character that can be lost, it may be a good name that your father has handed down to you, a name that has been known in the community for honor and integrity for many years, and that you may smirch in a single month by a life of folly. Your inheritance may be all of these things or any one of them. Anyway this young man squandered his inheritance, and then he discovered he had no friends. When a man squanders his inheritance, the gang with whom he has associated will soon leave him alone, and this young man was left in a pitiable condition. He was reduced to the straits of taking care of hogs. Jesus was a master story- teller. He was talking to Jews, and you know the Jew despises a hog, and so he drew them a picture in which the prodigal became an attendant of hogs, the ultimate degradation. He was even willing and anxious to eat the stuff they were feed- ing the swine. And in this condition we are told he "came to himself," or as you young people might say, he "tumbled to himself." It is a good thing for a man to "tumble to himself" and wake up and see where he is and what he looks like to other people. He came at last to himself, to his right mind, and he said, "I have sinned before God and before my father, and I will hasten home." This young man went home repentant and humble. He did not come back like some young men might, saying, "Father, I am back. Bring on the fatted calf. I hope it is in good shape." He came right down in the depths of humility 24 Zion Builders' Sermons and said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: inake me as one of thy hired servants." Luke 15: 18, 19. That was the attitude of the son; that was genuine repentance. Now what was the attitude of the father? The father had never cast the son off. He did not disinherit him. The son lost the inheritance himself. The father had always loved him; and so with God. He did not hate humanity. Jesus did not have to come and bribe the Father; but we are told that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3: 16.) God always loved man. He loved man before Christ came. So the father saw this boy coming a long ways off. There is no eye so keen as the eye of a father or mother who waits a boy returning home; and there is no eye so keen as God's eye that sees into our hearts before others read it in our counte- nance that we are inclined to return to our Father's house. So the father ran out and met him half way, and greeted him with kisses, and made him welcome, and put a. ring on his finger and a robe on him, and said, "This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found." Luke 15: 24. This, the Master wants us to understand, is the attitude of God, and he tells us there is joy in heaven over one sinner that is returned; so you need not hesitate, you need not feel slow about confessing anything you may have done that is wrong, and take the necessary steps that will return you to God and to fellowship with the church. The Lord will by no means resist your advancements; neither will he cast you off. The Gospel Mirror There is another beautiful story that is told in James, the first chapter. It is a story of the gospel mirror, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he be- Zion Builders' Sermons 25 ing not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." James 1: 22-25. Here we have a picture in words that anyone can under- stand. It hardly needs an explanation. A man looks into a mirror and sees himself. He sees defects there that need correction; but if he goes away and forgets to make the nec- essary change, it has not benefited him. If he does make the necessary change, he has been blessed. It does everyone good to look into a mirror occasionally. No need to stand in front of it too much, but mirrors and soap and water and towels are agents of civilization and righteousness. But suppose one of the young men of the college football team should come in after playing .on a hot afternoon till his clothing was saturated with sweat and his face black with dust turned to mud, and coming into the dormitory he should look into a full length mirror, and should see himself in all his beauty ( ? ) , and then should go away and forget all about it, and in the evening . go to the banquet to meet with the boys and girls of Graceland, and the visiting team as well. Suppose he should get in, and in the middle of the banquet should suddenly think of the picture in the mirror; he would be one of the most unhappy men on earth. You people are looking into the gospel mirror during this series of meetings, and in these prayer services such as we had on Sunday, and you are seeing not only the doctrines of Christ, but it is showing you what you are. I do not need to call out John Smith or anyone by name and tell this audi- ence what he has been doing; you know what you have been .doing, and when you look into the mirror you see the things in your life that need correcting. Friend, are you going to go away and profit by it, or are you going to go away and forget it? By and by when the marriage supper comes, if you find yourself so unfortunate as to get in there in your soiled clothing, how will you feel then? I will tell you. I know. Some years ago when I lived in Lamoni, I had a great many chores to do about the place, and one evening I heard that a particular friend of mine, a man from California, was to preach; so I rushed around' and did the various jobs of work that had to be done, and being late I hurried off to church 26 Zion Builders' Sermons and got a seat in the audience under a bright light. In the middle of the sermon I looked down and, lo, I had on my old, dirty, greasy, work coat with the sleeves torn off near the el- bows. I spent about the worst half hour I have experienced in my life, and at the close, when the preacher said amen, I got into my overcoat and sneaked out. I imagine that if a man with the filth of this world on his garments should be so unfortunate as to get into heaven in the midst of the pure and the good, there would be such a thing as being in hell in heaven. You young men do not run that risk when you come from the football game. You get under the shower, and you change your clothing. You put on clean clothing and a clean collar and a clean tie, and you go to the banquet looking like the gentleman you are. We are all interested in this church. By and by, Jesus Christ is going to serve a great feast when the church and the bridegroom will be united. The church will have on pure garments which are the garments of righteousness, and those who have on the wedding garments clean and white will come in and they will be happy. If men haven't the wedding gar- ments on, no one would need tell them to leave. They will be glad to leave. The gospel mirror shows us what we are, and it shows us what we may become. The Tiger and the Derelict You young people are entering upon what may be to you a terrific struggle, the struggle of life. The forces of good and of evil are struggling within you, and it is a question which will be victorious. Every man has that fight. I remember reading a strange and weird tale when I was a little boy. It appealed to my imagination. I suppose I should not have read it at all. It was about a captain and crew who were on the ocean in their ship, and one morning they heard the muffled tolling of a bell coming to them over the waves. They were miles from any land, but they could hear the funeral toll of that bell. That appealed to my imag- ination as a boy. Finally they 'sighted the hulk of an old ship without mast or sails, wallowing in the trough of the Zion Builders' Sermons 27 sea. A bell had been rigged up to the stump of a mast, and when the ship rolled it tolled the bell. I can hear it yet. They drew alongside of this strange ship, and as they did so there seemed to be no life on board, yet they heard a ter- rible roar, as from some wild animal. I can hear that roar yet! Yoi* know children have a wonderful imagination. My little boy said the other day, "Daddy, I see some mighty queer things at night when the lights are turned out. One night I could just see my clothes in the dark, and it seemed as if they just raised up and started for me." Well, I could hear that bell and that roar after I had gone to bed. They landed on the ship with their rifles and battered open the hatches and went down into the evil-smelling cabin, and there they saw a half-starved Bengal tiger, which they killed. And in one corner of the cabin they found the skeleton of a man, and the leaves of a diary that he had been writing. The story was that this man had been put there by pirates, and the tiger had been chained with a little chain which would break when he grew hungry and violent. So day by day the man wrote his story until one day it came to an end. That queer tale made a wonderful impression on me. You will say such a thing as that never happened, but hundreds of times I have seen, on the sea of life, the battered wrecks of men in which the beast had killed the man the beast of ap- petite and passion and lust and greed. You have but to look around you and see .it. It is the business of the gospel of Jesus Christ to kill the beast and redeem the man. This struggle goes on. You cannot escape it>. Under the influences of these meetings you have noble desires. If a bad thought came into your heart you would cast it out; but to- morrow some awful, contemptible temptation may take hold of you and wrestle for your life. And you will think, What kind of a man am I that I should change so ? Don't you have those experiences ? Haven't I ? Don't you have to make the fight? You need not be ashamed. It is the forces of good and of evil fighting for your soul, and that indicates you are a man, a potential man, and both God and the Devil want you. You are a potential good man, and God wants to make you, and the Devil wants to destroy you. That is what distin- guishes you from the animal from vegetables. Hogs are not 28 Zion Builders' Sermons tempted. Cabbages have no conscience. Pumpkins do not debate right and wrong. It is men that battle between right and wrong. The Devil told a half truth when he said we should become as the gods, knowing right and wrong, so it has become the province of man to know right and wrong and fiave the strength to do the right and resist the wrong. So do not be discouraged because temptations come into your soul. Every man has them. Whittier wrote a poem about the "two voices" that held debate in his heart, one ad- vocating wrong, the other pleading for right. Tennyson wrote of two "moods." The Apostle Paul says, "When I would do good, evil is present with me. . . . But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind." Romans 7: 21-23. But it is the business of the man, it is the crowning glory of the man to buckle on his armor, and struggle, and the more terrific the struggle the greater the glory. It is the crowning glory of a man to stand up and be a man and put down temptation, and put evil out of his life; he can do that only through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Zion Builders' 1 Sermons 29 Baptism Sermon by Elbert A. Smith in Zion Builder Series, Lamoni, Tuesday, March 15, 1921. Reported by R. A. Wight and Estella Wight. "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. [Peter is speaking to the assembled Jews on the day of Pentecost.] Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized." Acts 2 : 36- 41. When we preach on the subject of baptism, it is quite pos- sible that some one may be offended, but that is not our in- tention. We respect the belief and the feelings of other peo- ple; but it is obviously true that when we speak on this subject we must tell the people what we believe. You would not wish us to do otherwise. I remember hearing a very noted evangelist in a series of sermons. He started the first sermon by saying, "I am going to preach the truth here, if I have to take my wife home in a wheelbarrow." A little later when he came to the subject of baptism, he said, "I will tell you that you must all be bap- tized; but I will not tell you how to be baptized, because if I said sprinkling, I would offend some, and if I said immer- sion, I would offend a great many others/' He took his wife home in a Pullman car. I did not bring my wife with me. However, I will te 1 ! what I believe about baptism, and take a chance on Brother R. V. Hopkins taking his wife home in a wheelbarrow. I am quite sure he would take her that way before he would leave her. Some years ago I had occasion to visit a minister who 30 Zion Builders' 1 Sermons was about to lecture on the subject of "Mormonism." In the course of our conversation he said, "Brother Smith, do you people believe the Bible? I have been told that you do not." It is really absurd the fool stories and rumors that get out about Latter Day Saints. Some years ago in a distant city where we lived, my son was telling a neighbor that I had married a couple that day, and he looked at him with specula- tive eye and said, "Two in one day! How many does that make him?" One of our apostles was baptizing in Australia. He noticed a commotion on the bank, and when he inquired later he dis- covered that a man was very busy telling the people that when one of our converts was baptized, he had to say the name of Brigham Young three times while under the water. If one of our converts should do that he might drown. It is about all we can do to say the name of Brigham Young out of the water, without strangling, under ordinary conditions. Present-Tense Religion So this minister desired to know if we really believed the Bible. I said to him, "Well, I preach every Sunday night at our church near here and I always take my text from the Bible." Perhaps I should have stopped there, but I did not. I said, "It is possible that we adhere more closely to some portions of the Bible than you do." And he replied, "My brother, that cannot be possible!" "Well, how about this: 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover."' (Mark 16: 15-20.) He replied, "I will say this: I believe that the signs did follow." And I answered, "That is exactly the difference between re- ligion in the past tense and religion in the present tense." Whatever you may say about Joseph Smith, it is true that he restored the present tense to religious terminology. Every- one else on earth was saying that God used to reveal his will Zion Builders' Sermons 31 to men, and Joseph Smith stood up to say, God does reveal his will and he does speak to man. Everyone else was saying that God used to heal the people, that he used to bless men, and give them the gift of prophecy; but Joseph Smith said God does heal the people and he does give them the gifts of the gospel. Everyone else was saying that God used to have a church on earth organized with apostles, prophets, evangel- ists, pastors, elders, bishops,' priests, and teachers; but Joseph Smith stood up and said God has a church on earth with apos- tles and prophets now. Joseph Smith was like the prophets of old, of whom Walter Rauschenbusch says in his book, Christianity and the Social Crisis, "They went to school with a living God that was then at work in his world, and not with a God who had acted long ago and put it down in a book." I like the present tense in religion because I happen to be living to-day. I want a religion that applies to-day and not one that speaks only of the long dead past. I said to this minister, "Take another text. How about the statement of Jesus Christ in the third chapter of John: 'Ex- cept a man be born of water, and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' " John 3: 5. He said, "Well, I believe very strongly in the baptism of the Spirit, but I do not know exactly what to think about the bap- tism of water." 'I left shortly afterwards, because it did not matter what he thought about it or what I thought about it. The question is, What does God think about it? Jesus Christ is not like some preachers. He did not talk just to be talking. He meant something when he spoke of the birth of water and of the Spirit. His commandments are binding to-day just as of old. In that, too, we believe in present-tense religion. Let the Witnesses Testify There is one text that Latter Day Saints very frequently refer to: "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8: 20. And another statement: "In the mouth of two or three wit- nesses every word may be established." Matthew 18: 16. Very well; let us summon the witnesses. Let us see what 32 Zion Builders' Sermons is written in the law. Let us hear the testimony of the wit- nesses. There are scores of them who testify in the word of God, but we have not time to hear all of them to-night. We will hear from seven of them. And if two or three witnesses in the word of God, and in the civil courts, establish a fact, certainly the testimony of seven unimpeachable, witnesses ought to clarify the question under consideration. John the Baptist The first of these witnesses that we shall summon is John the Baptist, and it is said of him in John 1:6: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." He should be a very good witness. And John tells us : "He that sent me to baptize with water " John 1:33. While in John 1:26, he adds, "I baptize with water." This witness which cannot be impeached, a man sent of God, says that God sent him for the express pur- pose that he should baptize with water and that Jesus Christ should follow after and baptize them with the Holy Spirit. Peter The second witness that we introduce is Peter. You will re- member that when Jesus departed he told the disciples, "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Luke 24: 29. And on the day of Pentecost, as we read in the second chapter of Acts, this divine power rested on the apostles, and Peter stood up and preached to them. So we have as witness a man endowed with power from on high. And Peter said: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Acts 2 : 38, 39. That was a great commandment and a wonderful promise that reached to the end of time. As many as the Lord shall call, even to-day, are commanded to be baptized and are prom- ised that if they will have faith and repent and be baptized that they shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Zion Builders' Sermons 33 On another occasion this same individual was preaching to the household of Cornelius. You remember the story. The people of the household of Cornelius were Gentses. On the day of Pentecost Peter was talking to the Jews, but the gos- pel had at last gone to the Gentiles and they received it. The Holy Ghost came to them and Peter said, "Can any man for- bid water, that these should not be baptized which have re- ceived the Holy Ghost, as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized." Acts 10: 47, 48. It is obvious then that baptism followed with the gospel from the Jew to the Gentile and comes to us with all the other teachings of our Lord and Master. Paul The third witness that we have to summon to-night is the Apost'e Paul. You will remember that the Lord said of the Apostle Paul, "He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Is- rael." Acts 9:15. ' This is especially interesting to us because the Apostle Paul was a chosen vessel to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, and you and I are Gentiles in the sense of the term as then used. That is, we are not Jews. The Apostle Paul was a chosen vessel to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to us, and so he should certainly be a satisfactory witness for us to hear. And he tells us: "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection" [or as the Inspired Version has it, "therefore, not leaving the principles," which obviously is correct, because no one would argue that we should leave either faith or repentance. Those will be preached as long as the church stands]. "Therefore, not leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." Hebrews 6:1, 2. He has baptism in the plural. That includes baptism of water and of the Spirit. As Jesus expressed it: "Except a 34 Zion Builders' Sermons man is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3: 5. This man chosen to be a special messenger to us, epito- mizes the principles of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. There are six of them, and one of them is the doctrine of baptism. And you will remember how on a certain occasion Paul and Silas were imprisoned and while in that condition the earth- quake came and opened the door of the prison so that they were loosed, and their jailer came to them in great fear, and while he was in that condition Paul and Silas preached to him the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us read a few words from this chapter. It is the 16th chapter of Acts, beginning with the 30th verse: "And [the jailer] brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" That is the very important question that has often come to the lips of man. "What must I do to be saved ? " "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Acts 16: 31. Right there is where a great many people stop. They do not read any farther, and the gist of their message is that all you have to do is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and sal- vation is sure, but the record goes on to say, "And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway." Verses 32, 33. Philip The fourth witness is Philip, "a preacher of Jesus Christ." We find him on a certain occasion taking a journey. And on the way he came to the eunuch, who was traveling in a char- iot, and preached to him the gospel of Jesus Christ. The rec- ord says: "Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?" Acts 8:35, 36. Zion Builders' Sermons 35 It seemed that wherever they went and preached Jesus, the subject of baptism came up. "And Philip said, If thou belicvest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God." Verse 37. Under the terms of modern theology that was all he needed to do. The case was ended. But not then not in those days: "And he commanded the chariot to stand still; and they went down, both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip." Acts 8:38, 39. You will note in passing that when they baptized in those days they went down into the water and baptized. There can be no question as to the mode of baptism. Ananias The fifth witness is Ananias (not the Ananias who told the lie) ; this is the Ananias who is spoken of in Acts 22: 12, as "a devout man according to the law" and a man of good repute. That is the kind of a witness we want a devout man of good repute "according to the law" so that when he speaks we may know that he speaks according to the law. You remember the experience of Paul, how he was on the way to Damascus to persecute the Saints, and on the way Jesus Christ appeared to him and he was 'stricken down and blinded so that they had to lead him to Damascus. And this devout man, according to the law, was commanded by the Lord to go to the house of Paul and tell him what he must do. He did not go there to ask Paul what he wished to do, or what he thought about it. He went there to tell him what he must do. For Paul had been told: "Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." Acts 9:6. Ananias came to him and told him many things and finally reached a point where he said, "And now, why tarriest thou ? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." Acts 22: 16. That is what Paul had to do to obtain salvation. There was no choice in the matter if he would please God, and he 36 Zion Builders' Sermons had reached the place where above everything on earth he wished to please God. Paul said that his gospel "came not in word only, but also in power, and in the Ho ] y Ghost, and in much assurance" (1 Thessalonians 1:5), and he did not hesitate a moment. He did not raise a single objection. He did not "tarry." He yielded obedience to baptism and became one of the great evangels of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ The sixth witness, and we speak the name reverently, is Jesus Christ our Lord. The commandment in divine writ is, "Hear ye him." Thatjs a very important commandment, and I pause right here to remark that in 1820 when Joseph Smith received his first vision and the heavens were opened and Jesus was pointed out to him, the great command that came to him was, "This is my Son, hear ye him." No matter what the world may think or say, that is the keynote of our message and has been from the beginning and will always continue to be the keynote. What does Jesus have to say about baptism? The first glimpse that we catch of Jesus as a man is on the banks of the river Jordan, when he goes down into the water and is baptized of John. And he says unto us, "Take up thy cross and follow me." And the very last glimpse that we catch of him here on earth is when he is talking to his disciples and saying to them, "He that believeth and is baptized, sha 1 ! be saved." Mark 16: 16. That is a definite promise. Some one else may make you a promise on some other terms. I do not care for their promises. I care for the promise of Jesus Christ, and he says, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Again, hear ye him: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Matthew 28: 19, 20. I want Jesus Christ with me, and he makes it conditional that I shall teach "all things that he has commanded." Most Zion Builders' Sermons 37 positively one of the things he commanded us to teach is bap- tism: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." God Last of all, and we speak this name with equal reverence, the seventh witness is God. When Jesus was baptized, God said, "I am well pleased." Mark 1: 11. Do you wish to please God? It is written we ought to please God rather than men. It is not a question of pleasing your father or your mother, not when it comes to the salva- tion of your soul and obedience to Christ. It is not a question of pleasing your brother or sister or your friends or your companions. It is a question of pleasing God, and it is a singular fact that the moment of all moments that God chose to open the heavens on high and say, "I am well pleased," was when Jesus Christ was coming up out of the waters of baptism. The Mode of Baptism We come next to the question of the mode of baptism. We have established from seven great unimpeachable witnesses that baptism is essential, that it is one of the gospel princi- ples, and that it is commanded of God and pleasing in his sight. On this question of the mode of baptism the Apostle Paul tells us in the Roman letter, "Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Romans 6: 4. This language is not capable of misconstruction. If you had a little sand sprinkled on your coffin, would you think that you were buried? Well, you would not think anything about it, because you would be dead, but the board of health would say that you were not buried. It is obviously a fact that the historical mode of baptism was burial in water, a likeness to the burial of Jesus Christ, who was buried in the earth; so in the likeness of his burial we are buried in water that we may come up out of the 38 Zion Builders' Sermons water new creatures as Jesus Christ came up in the resur- rection to a new and glorious life. Paul continues, "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likenesss of his resurrection." Verse 5. He uses another simile that can- not be misunderstood. You do not plant seeds on the top of the ground; you cover them up. You bury them. And then they come up to a new life, just as the candidate is buried in water and comes up a new creature, if he has made a true covenant. This is repeated in more than one place. In Colos- sians 2: 12: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." That idea of burial may account for the statement: "John was baptizing in ^Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there." John 3: 23. It does not take very much water to baptize in some ways, but if you are to bury a man in water in the likeness of the burial of Jesus Christ enough water is needed to cover the body, so when they baptized an- ciently, they searched about until they found "much water," and there they administered the ordinance. This was the baptism of John. He "was baptizing in ^Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water." You remem- ber the question that Jesus asked the Jews ? The baptism of John, "Was it from heaven or was it from men?" (Luke 20: 4.) And they did not dare to answer him. They did not dare to say it was of men, because they were afraid of the people, and they did not dare to say it was of God, because then he would ask them, "Why were ye not baptized?" Christians should not fear to answer the question: The baptism of John, who baptized where there was much water, was it of heaven? Well, the Bible says, there was a man sent of God whose name was John, and he came doing the will of God. We have selected these examples because they show very clearly the mode of operation in days gone by in the primi- tive Christian church. We have already mentioned the bap- tism of the eunuch under the administration of Philip, how they went down into the water both Philip and the eunuch Zion Builders' Sermons 39 and when Philip had baptized him they came up out of the water. There is no question about the method of that baptism. The very origin of the word baptism, baptizo in the Greek, means to plunge, to overwhelm, to cover up, and there is no question either that the historical method of baptism was by immer- sion. In support of that we will perhaps pause to read some ex- tracts from history. Mosheim who was recognized as a learned and accurate historian, in writing of the first century, says, "Baptism was administered in this (first) century, without the public assemblies, in places appointed and prepared for that purpose, and was performed by an immersion of the whole body in the baptismal font." Eusebius, known as the father of church historians, re- counts what, so far as I know, was the first case of any other form of ceremonial known as baptism, the case of Novatus about the year 263, of whom he says, "when attacked with an obstinate disease and being supposed at the point of death, was baptized by aspersion, in the bed on which he lay; if, in- deed, it be proper to say that one like him did receive bap- tism. But neither when he recovered from disease, did he partake of other things, which the rules of the church pre- scribed as duty, nor was he sealed, (in confirmation) by the Bishop. But as he did not obtain this how could he obtain the Holy Spirit?" This man was supposed to be at the point of death, and he was baptized by sprinkling, but when he recovered he was not admitted to church privileges. The monks of Cressy, A. D. 754, inquired: "Is it lawful, in case of necessity, occasioned by sickness, to baptize an infant by pouring water on its head, from a cup, or the hands?" To which Pope Stephen III re- plied: "Such a baptism performed in such a case of necessity, shall be accounted valid." This was in the eighth century. However, it was not until the year 1311 that the council at Ravenna declared immersion and pouring indifferent. We have then briefly presented before us this consideration, that for at least one or two hundred years after Jesus Christ, immersion was practically the only form of baptism that was known or that was resorted to, but finally there came a time 40 Zion Bialders' Sermons when one and then several were baptized in other ways be- cause of their illness; but it was not until 1300 years after Christ that such baptism was declared legal, and then who was it that said it was legal ? A Roman Catholic council and a Roman Catholic pope. If we are to concede that in the dark ages of apostasy of the world's history the Catholic Church represented God and had the right to change his ordinances, why, then, let us all be Catholics; but if we will not concede that, and all Protes- tantism rises up in protest against it, then let us go back of the council of Ravenna to the testimony of Paul who says that we ought to be buried with Christ in baptism. I heard a discussion between one of our men and a very prominent priest. It was very significant. Our elder quoted to him the statement in Isaiah: "They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant," and he charged the Catholic Church with changing the ordi- nance of baptism. The priest merely answered, in substance, "Why, of course we changed the ordinance of baptism. We had a right to. We know very well that originally immersion was the form." What are you going to do about it? If Protestants do not concede papal authority, why do so many Protestants wink at the changes made? The Question Box, a book by Reverend Bertrand L. Conway, of the Paulist Fathers, is published by the Paulist Press of the Catholic Church and has a preface by Cardinal Gibbons. It says: "The Catholic Church, therefore, as the infallible in- terpreter of the gospel of Jesus Christ, declares that all three ways of baptizing are equally valid, by immersion, by pour- ing, or by sprinkling. The present mode of pouring arose from the many inconveniences connected with immersion, fre- quent mention of which is made in the writings of the early church fathers." It seems to me very clear that the ancient historical method of baptism was by immersion. In the light of that and the further fact that the Scriptures tell us specifically that when Jesus was baptized he "came up out of the water," there can be no shadow of doubt that he was immersed. He went down into the River Jordan and was plunged under its rolling waves Zion Builders' Sermons 41 and came up out of the water. Is the servant greater than the Master? If Jesus Christ did that, shall I stand on the bank and quibble? Where is the occasion for any quibbling or for any ques- tion ? The facts of the matter are as it is stated, "They that gladly received his word were baptized." Acts 2:41. If a man receives it gladly there is no question. The baptism of Jesus is good enough for me. If I were to come to you, to-night and offer you your choice of a dozen $100 bank notes, saying, "One out of the dozen is absolutely genuine, it will be taken at any bank in the world, no one questions it; but the others, some say, are genuine, some say not; some banks may cash them and some may not; take your choice," which would you take ? There is not a man here that would hesitate for a moment. Why don't men use the same logic in religion. There is no question that immersion is gen- uine baptism and that it brings with it all the blessings that are promised. Then why should we hesitate ? Why not arise as they did of old, who heard the word and were gladly bap- tized? The Meaning of Baptism Last of all, we may consider baptism in its meaning. It is symbolical. From time immemorial man has expressed him- self in symbols. You can think, if you take time, of hun- dreds of symbols that man habitually uses the flags of na- tions, the key to the city, the seal of state, the wedding ring, prostration in prayer or in obeisance. There are literally thou- sands of symbols. Some oAhem are material, like the flag. When we see the Starry Banner, we think of America. When we see the Union Jack we think of Great Britain. Some of them are ceremonial, as the sign of the cross that some peo- ple use, or prostration in prayer, or in reverence before a king. Man habitually expresses himself in symbols. He sees them objectively and they help him to visualize the conception that is in his mind, or that somebody else wishes to put into his mind. Our heavenly Father speaks to men in a language that they can understand. He speaks to man many times in symbols. Baptism is a symbol, and when the Lord chose a symbol that would stand to man for cleansing, he chose baptism in water. 42 Zion Builders' Sermons Anyone can understand that. Man has always cleansed his body in water, and so we can understand the symbolism of washing away the sins of the spirit in water. Of course, we know that the water does not actually touch the spirit and wash the sins away, but it is symbolical of the cleansing proc- ess that goes on, and for that reason Ananias said to Paul, "Why tarriest thou? Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." Acts 22: 16. When the Lord wanted to choose an ordinance that would stand for washing and cleansing and for spiritual regeneration he chose washing in water. He chose a symbol that is full of significance and great beauty, but change ruins it. Baptism a Beginning Finally we come to consider baptism as a beginning. It is in a sense the door of the kingdom. Jesus Christ himself said, "Except a man be born of the water, and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3:5. He made the door of the kingdom to be through baptism of water and of the Spirit, or the birth of the water and of the Spirit. You know that Paul tells us in the fourth chapter of the Ephesian letter, there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Ephesians 4: 5); but baptism is dual. As there is only one man composed of body and spirit, so there is one baptism which includes the baptism of the water and of the Spirit. Jesus said so. He says in another verse, "Except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingom of God." John 3 : 3. That is one reason why I think it? is so necessary our people should be taught the fundamentals. I know that some think, "Why should we not go on and confine ourselves to the con- sideration of the great Zionic principles?" But let me tell you, friends, before we have a people ready to enter into Zion, we must have a people who have been born of the water and of the Spirit. They have to go through this fundamental edu- cation in the primary principles of the doctine of Jesus Christ before they can even "see the kingdom," as Jesus Christ in- timated in his language, or see Zion, as we might say. Baptism is the beginning of a new, clean life in Christ Jesus. As the Apostfe Paul says, "If we are buried with Christ in baptism, so shall we arise in newness of life." Zion Builders' Sermons 43 That is the beautiful thing about it. It gives every man a chance to start a new life. How many times do you hear men say, "I wish I could have another start. I think I could do better. My life is filled with mistakes. I wish I had an- other chance"? The gospel of Jesus Christ comes to every man and says, "God will give you another chance. You may wash away your sins and start all over, and if you think you have learned any lesson, profit by it. In addition to that you may have the Spirit of God to guide you and keep you through life." So in conclusion, we may say, if there are those here who have already been baptized, then it remains only for them to continue in this new life and see to it that they do not crucify again the Lord afresh. But if there are those who have not been baptized, in the language of the Bible, we say unto them, "Why tarriest thou ? arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the