D&C Section Eighty Four

The Doctrine and Covenants contains revelations and inspired writings. This section is one of the great revelations in the D&C. It's filled with topics that you could spend pages and pages on. If you study it closely and with the Spirit, you can be taught many things that are deep and filled with multiple meanings and applications to our life. Only a prophet could reveal something like this. This section is known as the great revelation on the priesthood. I'm only going to outline the main points.

1. It has been known by all the prophets from Adam to Abraham to Moses, Enoch and others that the purpose of the priesthood in the latter days is to establish Zion through the preaching of the gospel. All of the ancient prophets knew that the City of Zion would be established on this continent in the latter days. Establishing Zion is at the heart of gospel because it is to Zion that the Lord will come.

2. There are two priesthoods, the lesser or Aaronic and the greater or Melchizedek. The lesser priesthood holds the keys of the ministering of angels and preparatory gospel of repentance and baptism. It prepares people for the greater priesthood. The greater priesthood administers the ordinances of the church and it is through the ordinances that the power of God is manifest. It is the priesthood ordinances that enable a person to be transfigured and see God without being consumed and destroyed.

3. A person who receives the Melchizedek Priesthood must enter into the oath and covenant of the priesthood. The oath is the Father's promise that he will give the priesthood holder all that he has. The covenant is the agreement the priesthood holder makes with God to magnify his priesthood, to "give diligent heed to the words of eternal life... [to] live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God."

4. Our minds can become darkened when we forget the Book of Mormon and its commandments. It is important that we not only say, but do the commandments contained in it.

5. If we bear testimony to the world of the restored gospel and what the Lord has revealed in the latter days, our sins are forgiven us. The church should go into all the world and bear testimony of the Lord's work.

Tomorrow, I'll go over the promises the Lord gives in this section.