D&C 59:16-24

59:16-20 - The Lord continues by making an interesting promise, that if we keep the Sabbath day holy, “the fullness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walked upon the earth; Yea, and the herb, and the good things which come of the earth, whether for food or for raiment, or for houses, or for barns, or for orchards, or for gardens, or for vineyards. Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart; Yea, for food and for raiment, for tastes and for smell, to strengthen the body and enliven the soul. And it pleaseth God that he hath given all these things unto me.” Here the Lord seems to relate temporal blessings to the keeping of the Sabbath, which if you think about it seems kind of counter-intuitive because it doesn’t make sense that taking a day off of work to rest and worship God would mean making more money, but that’s exactly what God is saying here, take the day off and you’ll do better, kind of interesting. The IM teaches, “One of the prominent themes of the Book of Mormon is that ‘as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper.’ ‘Prosper’ implies more than an accumulation of physical wealth, but temporal prosperity is included in that blessing. Moses told the Israelites, ‘It shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that… he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine (cattle), and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.’ The Lord promises to bless the land as well as the people. In section 59 the Lord again promises temporal blessings for spiritual obedience, including obedience to the law of the Sabbath. After a serious drought had ravaged the western United States, President Spencer W. Kimball asked if such a natural calamity might not be related to the obedience of the people, especially their observance of the Sabbath. ‘The Lord uses the weather sometimes to discipline his people for the violation of his laws. He said to the children of Israel” ‘If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; The I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increased, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach into the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time; and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid… neither shall the sword go through your land.’ With the great worry and suffering in the East and threats of drouth here in the West and elsewhere, we asked the people to join in a solemn prayer circle for moisture where needed. Quite immediately our prayers were answered, and we were grateful beyond expression. We are still in need and hope that the Lord may see fit to answer our continued prayers in this matter… Perhaps the day has come when we should take stock of ourselves and see if we are worthy to ask or if we have been breaking the commandments, making ourselves unworthy of receiving the blessings… But today numerous of the people of this land spend the Sabbath working, devoting the day to the beaches, to entertainment, to shows, to their weekly purchases. The Lord makes definite promises. He says: ‘Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.’ God does what he promises, and many of us continue to defile the Sabbath day.’” Pretty interesting, especially considering that from our human perspective, our rewards or punishments don’t come immediately so that we can say “oh I’m being blessed with a better job because I kept the Sabbath day holy yesterday.” For instance, in the August 2015 Ensign, there is an article in which a man is scheduled to have his pea crop harvested on a Sunday, but instead schedules it for the next day and goes to Church and spends the day with his family. That Sunday night, there is an intense hail storm and the pea crop is destroyed. From the outside appearance, the man is being punished for keeping the commandments, even though we know that that’s not the case, but it would be easy to think “I’m not being blessed for being obedient, I’m being punished.” But that is not the stance taken by the man, he takes a deep breath and pushes forward. A few weeks later he decides to go to mechanic school, and then a few months after that is offered a better job in San Diego working as a mechanist. From the long term perspective, the blessings were great, a new career that he loved and could thrive at, a new place to live and raise his family, so that was definitely a positive, but it didn’t look that way immediately, it took some time and a good attitude. If the man would have harvested on Sunday, or if the hail storm wouldn’t have hit Sunday night, the man would have stayed in the career that he was in and never would have explored what else the Lord had in store for him.  

59:21-24 - Having left off on the pleasure that God gets from blessing his people, the Lord reminds us that “in nothing doth man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things.” DJR comments, “It is significant to note that the importance of gratitude is pointed out rather dramatically in verse 21. If you look carefully, you will see that the Lord groups all other commandments into one but places gratitude into a category of its own. Thus, gratitude is mentioned exclusively, in effect being compared in importance to all the other commandments combined. While we need to be careful not to go overboard in our analogy here, nevertheless it is obvious that the Lord considers gratitude to be one of the most important and saving attributes. Failing to have and express gratitude is apparently one of the most serious and damaging of all human traits.” I like that, gratitude as a saving attribute, and ingratitude as serious and damaging to our spirits. The Lord finished this revelation by comforting us that “he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world and eternal life in the world to come.” The IM has an interesting take on this saying, “The fruits of the gospel and the price required for them,” and quoting Elder Marion G. Romney as teaching, “When earth life is over and things appear in their true perspective, we shall more clearly see and realize what the Lord and his prophets have repeatedly told us, that the fruits of the gospel are the only objectives worthy of life’s full efforts. Their possessor obtains true wealth- wealth in the Lord’s view of values. We need constantly to deepen our understandings and sharpen our realization of what the fruits of the gospel are. The Lord has defined them as …’ peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.’ It is a bit difficult to define the ‘peace in this world’ referred to in the revelation. But we may be assured that it is not the ease, luxury, and freedom from struggle envisioned by the world’s utopian dreamers. Jesus told his apostles that it would be found by them even in their days of tribulation. ‘Peace I leave with you,’ he said, ‘my peace I give unto you.’ And then, by way of caution, it seems to me, he added, ‘…not as the world giveth, give I unto you.’ The other fruit of the gospel named in the quotation – ‘eternal life in the world to come’ – must be a glorious thing, for the Lord has said that ‘he that hath eternal life is rich,’ and that the ‘gift of eternal life is the greatest of all the gifts of God.’ He who obtains it will obtain an exaltation in the celestial kingdom of our Father in heaven… This gift of eternal life in the world to come may not, of course, be fully realized during earth life. As assurance that it will be obtained in the world to come may, however, be had in this world. As a matter of fact, the blessings of the celestial kingdom are promised only to those who have such assurance. According to the vision, a successful candidate for these blessings must qualify on three counts: First, he must have ‘… received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his name’ and been ‘…baptized after the manner of his burial’; second, he must have received ‘the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of his who is ordained and sealed unto this power;’ and third, he must be ‘sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.’ The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that one so sealed would have within himself an assurance born of the spirit, that he would obtain eternal life in the world to come. He urgently and repeatedly admonished the Saints of his day to obtain such an assurance by making their calling and election sure. It is this assurance within a person which brings to him peace in this world which will sustain him in every tribulation… These fruits of the gospel- assurance that we shall obtain eternal life, peace in this world sustained by such an assurance, and finally eternal life in the world to come- are within the reach of us all… I conceive the blessings of the gospel to be of such inestimable worth that the price for them must be very exacting, and if I correctly understand that the Lord has said on the subject, it is. The price, however, is within the reach of us all, because it is not to be pain in money nor ir any of this world’s goods but in righteous living. What is required is wholehearted devotion to the gospel and unreserved allegiance to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints… A half-hearted performance is not enough. We cannot obtain these blessings and be like the rich young man who protested that he had kept the commandments from his youth up but who went away sorrowful when, in answer to the question, ‘What lack I yet?’ Jesus said unto him, ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor… and come and follow me.’ Evidently he could live everything but the welfare program. There can be no such reservation. We must be willing to sacrifice everything. Through self-discipline and devotion we must demonstrate to the Lord that we are willing to serve him under all circumstances. When we have done this, we shall receive an assurance that we should have eternal life in the world to come. Then we shall have peace in this world… Let us each day in solemn honesty confront ourselves with the rich man’s question, ‘What lack I yet?’ And thus, with utter frankness, discovering our own limitations, let us conquer them one by one until we obtain peace in this world through an assurance that we shall have eternal life in the world to come.”