King Benjamin’s Speech
[King Benjamin’s Speech in Three Parts]
[Part One: Celebration of Good Times]
[Part Two: Don’t let Prosperity Change You]
[Part Three: Greed and Inequality Will Destroy You]
[The Law of Moses Requires Also the Atonement of Christ]
[Christ Will Come: They consider Him a Man]
[“For behold are we not all beggars”]
[I wouild that ye should impart of your substance to the poor.”]
[Celebrate a Universal Birthday]
464 Here’s a very interesting statistic for today with regard to our book of Mosiah when he [King Benjamin] talks about if a person puts up his petition and you refuse to give him something to eat. What happens to you? You have grave need of repentance when you say, “Well, I’ve earned mine, etc.” Never in the Book of Mormon is there such a thing as the “worthy needy.” If a person is in need, he is in need and that’s that. Whether he’s worthy or not has absolutely nothing to do with it.
465 We are on [Benjamin’s] great speech, and the speech has three parts. Notice in the first part they are celebrating. He is telling them that the good times they have been having are just a prelude to great things to follow and to eternal life when they can have joy and salvation forever if they do the right thing. The second part is saying don’t let it go to your head. Notice how he cuts them down in that second part—you are nothing, you are the dust, you poor miserable creatures, etc. What a way to be talking to the people at a great national celebration. Then the third part is devoted entirely to economics—what do you mean if it goes to your heads? Then you will get this idea of inequality resulting in greed. He says it will destroy you here and it will damn you forever.
466 Mosiah 3;9,13; John 1:5 “And lo he cometh unto his own.” Now, this is how it happens. He cometh unto his own, and he tells us, for example, in verse 13 who his own are. “And the Lord hath sent his holy prophets among all the children of men [his own will carry on the work for him when he isn’t there. He comes to his own with that purpose that salvation, through them, might come to the children of men who have faith on his name. They will carry abroad the name and the doctrine. They will perpetuate and spread the name because, of course, he is not there anymore. You have his name to call upon. He comes to his chosen people, and he trusts them to carry on the name to the rest of the human race—Alma 7 is marvelous on that—”that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name.” But he will be turned down cold. Remember the beginning of John: “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:5). He came to his own and his own received him not. They wouldn’t receive him, but there’s that very important addition—just a few did. But to as many as did receive him “to them he gave power to become the sons of God.” What a prize! It is worth it going through all that. But he is going to be refused by the world and by his own people, as we all know from the New Testament, of course. Verse 9: “They shall consider him a man, and say that he hath a devil, and shall scourge him, and shall crucify him.” But his blood atones for the sins of those, who aren’t guilty and have never heard the gospel. They won’t be damned forever because that has been taken care of. “But wo, wo unto him who knoweth that he rebelleth against God! [That’s a different story entirely, but the door is open to him, too.] For salvation cometh to none except it be through repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s why he keeps hammering away at repentance here.
466,467 Mosiah 3:13 Here are his own: “And the Lord God hath sent his holy prophets among all the children of men, to declare these to every kindred, nation, and tongue [believe that and this is the first step; this is what they must do in verse 13 here] that thereby whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice with exceeding great joy, even as though he had already come among them.” Don’t worry what dispensation you live in. You are going to have the same trials and you are going to have just the same privileges that any other dispensation has. The strongest test in the Book of Mormon as to whether people will have faith on the mission of Jesus Christ is what? Well, he hadn’t come yet. There were people like Sherem and Korihor and the rest who said, “He hasn’t come yet. We don’t believe there is such a thing. We are supposed to look forward to something we haven’t seen. He won’t even come here.” Then after he had come, what happened? Well, in the 1940s and since then in the theology of all the Christian churches— led by such people as Rudolf Bultmann, the great Lutheran pastor, and Albert Schweitzer—the big thing was to demythologize and de-eschatologize Jesus. Anything that is supernatural to his story, the story about his being the Son of God, that’s a myth, so you demythologize it. You move that out of the New Testament, and then you have the real story of Jesus, the good teacher, the kind man. That was it; that’s as far as you have.
457 So, he is just as hard to accept after his coming, though he did come and we have the record, a very good record, especially John’s record. Remember, John is the only New Testament figure mentioned in the Book of Mormon. They take the record and they demythologize it; they take the whole message out. But the hardest time of all was when he was actually there. That was the hardest time to believe him. They wouldn’t believe him then because they could see he was just a man. They said, Abraham we know and Moses we know. He is our prophet. But who is this guy? [paraphrased]. And they wouldn’t accept him at all. It is an equal trial for any dispensation. If he hasn’t come yet, are you going to believe? If he has already gone long ago, two thousand years ago, who can believe that old mythology? That’s a test, too. When he was actually there, that was the hardest of all. They said, “Look, you can see he’s a man; that’s all there is to it.” So he was crucified and the rest.
467 Mosiah 3:14 “Yet the Lord God saw that his people were a stiffnecked people [he knew that they would refuse him] and he appointed unto them a law, even the law of Moses.” That was for their weakness. It catered to their weakness, of course—as much of the law as they could take. But they didn’t understand “that the law of Moses availeth nothing except it were through the atonement of his blood.” It has to be completed; you have to have the original. They thought that just by keeping the law they would be saved.
467 Now he talks a lot about the little children. Why the emphasis on little children? Because the little children are the only segment of society that offer no resistance to the message. They qualify and they offer no resistance because they are not guilt-ridden. Because they don’t feel guilty, they are not afraid to accept. As little children they are naive, etc. But the reason we shy off and don’t want to go for all of this is that we have a subconscious burden of guilt. We have been doing wrong things and are not up to it. That’s why whenever an angel appears everybody is scared stiff, and the angel must say, “Don’t be afraid; I have a good message.” It’s that culture shock. We don’t want to be exposed to another world—to what we might be, etc. It’s too much to take. It’s terrifying, utterly terrifying. You would sooner go crazy, and people do, rather than that.
468 Mosiah 3:16-18 “And even if it were possible that little children could sin they could not be saved; but I say unto you they are blessed; for behold, as in Adam, or by nature, they fall, even so the blood of Christ atoneth for their sins.... There is no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men [can you think of any other way?” We follow this pattern because it was the pattern that was laid down in the eternities in the Council in Heaven], only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. For behold he judgeth, and his judgment is just [men are not],... but men drink damnation to their own souls.” Don’t try to do it yourself; it’s like do-it-yourself brain surgery, or something like that, trying to save yourself. The reason is this. We might atone for our sins in this life in the things we do. We might make up for them, etc. But we are talking about eternal life and going on forever. There is nothing you can do to equip yourself for that—to qualify yourself for that by removing all your sins, etc. We are going to talk about men being carnal, sensual and devilish. We have to get along here, anyway.
It [salvation] is only “through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent. For the natural man [here it is] is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, [you shy off, you won’t have anything to do with it]... unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit.” The thing is this. See, you have blown it now. There is only one thing you can do—put yourself entirely into my [the Savior’s] hands, and it will all be taken care of. But you have to do something. By putting yourselves into my hands, the Lord says, that doesn’t mean you just lie down and don’t do anything, which is by grace you are saved. We have heard that a million times—NUR GNADE, only grace. There is nothing you can do about it; you are reborn and that is all there is to it, etc. No, it’s as if you had taken off in a small plane at the airport. You have never flown in your life. You turn on the key and you are suddenly in the air. What do you do? The tower says, “All right, put yourself in my hands. Do exactly as I tell you, and I can get you there. But don’t try to do anything on your own or fix it yourself. Do as I tell you to do.”
469 Mosiah 3:19,20 So that’s the enticing—the Holy Spirit wants to help you. He is enticing and doing everything he can to bring you into his orbit. He wants you to cooperate and do something for yourself, and he will tell you what to do. But you have to put off the natural man. As I said, you have to be able to put yourself entirely into his hands (don’t try to do the thing yourself) and become as a child. Why the emphasis on children? As I said, children will accept the gospel. They will accept the plan and obey and will offer no resistance. Verse 20: And the gospel “shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.” Again, the universality of the Book of Mormon. When all have had the chance, “And behold, when that time cometh, none shall be found blameless before God, except it be little children, [the others can save themselves] only through repentance and faith on the name of [Jesus Christ] the Lord God Omnipotent.” Why the name? Because he is all we have. The account of him is the story—the name that we refer to. You have no identity without your name. You have to know who you are talking about, you see. If you say, “Let’s worship So-and-So,” I would say, “Well, give me his name. I don’t know who to worship unless you tell me who I am worshipping.”
469 Mosiah 3:24,25 “And thus saith the Lord: They shall stand as a bright testimony against this people, at the judgment day; whereof they shall be judged, every man according to his works.” That’s good, according to his works. It’s not whether you believe or not, but what you do, or your intentions. People were burned at the stake for believing the wrong things, not for anything they did that was bad, but for believing—that was the standard thing. And it’s [man is] in the singular, you notice, every man according to his works. You won’t be judged with the society. You are not judged by your associates or anything like that, but what you do is what you will be judged by no matter what society you are in. Solzhenitsyn wrote the great book The Gulag Archipelago. We used to read it, but we don’t read it anymore. It’s too big and too hard to read, I suppose. But the point is this. In this prison, the worse possible prison where nobody had any freedom at all, everybody was just as free as air because they could do and think what they wanted to, regardless. Nobody could stop you from doing that. The idea is that you will be judged by your works and your words, as he is going to tell us later on. But then what will happen? As I said, if you see the angel, what do you do? You “shrink from the presence of the Lord into a state of misery [anything is better than that; you draw back deliberately into a state of misery, which is safer] and endless torment, from whence they can no more return; therefore, they have drunk damnation to their own souls.”
470 Mosiah 4:1,2 Now, the fourth chapter. This is the reaction of his people, the PROSKYNESIS. They all fall to earth. In [the account of] Nathan the Babylonian they do. It’s to show that you are overwhelmed. Of course, the Moslems still do that five times a day. You fall down right flat on your face, and that’s PROSKYNESIS. They fell to earth, and they viewed themselves— not as fiends in flames and burning coals and things like that. Verse 2: “And they viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth [now he cuts them down—boy, is he going to work on that].
470,471 Mosiah 4:2 “And they all cried out with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ [notice, atonement is mentioned quite a number of times in this chapter] that we may receive forgiveness of our sins,... for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men.... And the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they were filled with joy [it was a joyful celebration, a great time, you see; they could all hardly stand it, they were so joyful here] ... because of the exceeding faith which they had in Jesus Christ who should come.” This is a marvelously happy event, you see. He is ready to bring us back into the great eternal order of things. But how is he to do it? You see, this is what they are talking about here. Even if we could make up for our sins here, it is that other life that they are thinking of. Now they have had a glimpse of it, they are filled with joy. They are filled with the spirit. These times come because of exceeding faith. We think of the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. That’s the sort of thing that happened when the marvelous manifestations were received and everybody had revelation, or the day of Pentecost, those days. Under normal conditions they would be normal, but the earth is a bad place.
471 Mosiah 4:5,6 Then King Benjamin replies to them. Notice, it’s a conversation. It’s an antiphonal between the king and the people. The singing is always antiphonal, but we can’t go into that. It’s divided into groups, one group answering the other as they discuss this. Verse 5: “For behold, if the knowledge of the goodness of God at this time has awakened you [see, they are just full of this knowledge of goodness] to a sense of your nothingness, and your worthless and fallen state.” Now here, when they are in the height of their glory, he starts reminding them of their worthlessness and their nothingness in their worthless and fallen state. I don’t think that would offend them at all. If you were in the presence of celestial glory, you would certainly feel that way and you wouldn’t feel at all insulted. They don’t feel like crawling under rocks though. They feel pretty good about it. He says, You have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God; you see how good he can be now. This is the grace of God. And then he says, This is the atonement prepared from the foundation of the earth, going back to the premortal existence when they discussed the creation [paraphrased]. This is a biblical expression, too—”the atonement prepared from the foundation of the world”—although Christians ignore that. What was going on then if they prepared a plan at that early time? Verse 6: “... that thereby salvation might come to him that he should come and put his trust in the Lord, and should be diligent in keeping his commandments, and continue in the faith even unto the end of his life.” The plan was prepared from the foundation of the world. You come here, you have faith, you put your trust in him, and then you do something—keeping his commandments. It is faith that keeps you on the track here. We go along with these things.
471,472 Mosiah 4:8-10 “And this is the means whereby salvation cometh. And there is none other salvation save this which hath been spoken of.” This is the only way. Why this peculiar way? As I said, can you think of any other? After all, our condition is desperate. We have to trust him, put our trust in the Lord. Trust him and you will be safe; then you will do something and feel better about it. He says there are no other conditions given to you. These are what they are in verse 9: “Believe in God, . .. believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.” Now this justifies you in believing in God. St. Augustine is baffled at the beginning of the Confessions. Why should I believe in God? If I believe in God, I am not playing fair. I am cheating because I believe in him already, and I haven’t seen him or anything like that. I have to let him make the first move [paraphrased]. So he argues around and around about that. “You have made us in such a way that our hearts are restless until we have been joined to you somehow.” Well, he is right there, but what do we do about it? The point is this. “Believe that man doth not comprehend all.” There are all sorts of things you don’t know, so it’s quite possible that God can exist. That’s among other things. “Believe in God,... believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.” Of course, that’s the greatest stumbling block of science, as Karl Popper says. Then the next step: “And again believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them.” Notice that the verse ends that way. First you believe in him. Then you repent and humble yourselves before God, realizing that you are nothing, “and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them.” It all comes down to action here. That’s the first premise, to become aware of your nothingness and your fallen state.
472,473 Mosiah 4:11,12 “And again I say unto you as I have said before [this marvelous verse 11 reviews the things you must keep in mind; he says he is going to give them a reminder; he is hammering it home, you see] that if ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love.” He catches them at this high point in this euphoria. This is the time to get to work on them without offending them and get through to them. Their minds are open and they realize that anything is possible now] and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls [notice, he keeps repeating joy in this chapter] even so I would that you should remember [along with your joy], and always retain in remembrance [always keep this in mind] the greatness of God, and your own nothingness [if you put the two together, you have nothing to worry about because you won’t be disturbed by your own personal ambitions and disappointments or anything like that; nothing will bother you that way if you realize your own nothingness], and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures [he is certainly flattering the people here!], and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily [this is what you are supposed to do now after this], and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come [which you have just received]. Behold, I say unto you [now here is the guarantee— it’s worth it; it’s a darn good investment, he says, in verse 12] that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice.” So, if you want to be happy, this is the way you do it. I certainly believe that.
473,474 Mosiah 4:12-15 He shows he is cutting them down. But you will always rejoice, and I think that’s a fair exchange. I am perfectly willing to laugh at myself and realize what I am because it is a fair exchange. And now he gets into the economic part which is very important. This is very interesting here. If you have proper sense of balance and sense of humor (verse 12), then “ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.” Then you will have a true knowledge, a true value of things. Notice just and true. You will have the correct values, as we would say today. And in the knowledge of him, that’s a real at-one-ment. And then in the next verse, the reward of that socially: “And ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every man according to that which is his due.” If you realize that you are nothing and that the Lord will take care of everything—everything will be solved if you obey and do what he wants you to do—then you won’t have any intention to injure one another. There won’t be any rivalry, and you will find plenty of this in the Book of Mormon. Envy, jealousy, fights, murders, the desire for power and asserting your ego and the like all come from the same thing. Then you will have no mind to injure anyone. You will live peaceably and render to every man according to that which is due. That would make dull fare on prime time, wouldn’t it? Verse 14: “And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked [40,000 children die of hunger and hunger-related diseases every day; something is wrong here; that’s something to be afraid of]; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another [as kids do], and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers [that other one].... But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.”
484 Mosiah 4:16-20 This is another piece of news. It was on the NEC news last night. This year, so far, 160 people have died on the sidewalks of San Francisco. Can you believe that? They starved on the sidewalks of San Francisco. What is going on here? What a society when it comes to that. So he says here: “And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer your substance unto him that standeth in need [he doesn’t say to the worthy needy or unto him that deserves it; it’s not a case of deserving, as he says here]; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish. Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery [I got mine and he didn’t work, he is a lazy bum—that is the excuse we all make, of course]; therefore I will stay my hand, and I will not give unto him of my food or impart unto him of my substance [I work for mine] that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—[he is not one of the deserving poor, but even if this is true] But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God [in which the law of consecration is mandatory].” You have no choice but to keep it. We have accepted and promised to keep it, too. Verse 19: “For behold, are we not all beggars?” This stings a lot of people; they don’t like it at all. They try to give it an allegorical or symbolic interpretation—spiritually beggars, etc. I have heard people doing that, but of course, he says “of your substance.” I am talking about goods and substance and going hungry and that sort of thing. I am not talking about what you call spiritual things. “Behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend on the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have.” Notice, not just for our spiritual fare, but substance—food and raiment. He says, I am talking about economics; I am talking about food supply (food and raiment) and gold and silver and the luxuries you have, too [paraphrased].
474,475 Mosiah 4:21 “And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are.” He mentioned that before, remember; if you worked 24 hours a day just for the Lord you would still be an unprofitable servant. You can’t produce anything, and that’s made so very clear today more than anything because the great money makers are not producing anything. They are [behind] the takeovers. They destroy companies and take them over, by a manipulation of the computer rather than the tape anymore. By manipulation they become hundred-millionaires overnight. You know the deals, the takeovers and the junk bonds, the parachutes and all that sort of stuff. We will see what King [Benjamin] does just to drive home his point. He goes out and works in the field, and he does it quite seriously. Kings do that, you see. They were on the level here of Indian culture, actually. This is the way they keep things going and have a stable society. It has a good deal to say in this National Geographic about the society that is stable and the expanse of a society that has to go out and wreck anything if it is not growing at least four percent a year. But you can’t go on doing that forever. There is only a limited base on which we can operate.
475,476 Mosiah 4:22,23 “And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not and condemn him.” You judge him, you say he is not worthy. Have you worked? Do you deserve this? He puts up his petition, you see. He is desperate; he has no choice. You read Brigham Young’s account of his first mission in England in the 1850s. It was horrifying. It was a bad year, and in cities like Manchester and Leeds people literally were dropping dead in the streets everywhere. And England was never richer than at that time. The rich were just rolling in the fatness of the land, and these people were actually dropping dead. You can see why that got through to Brigham Young and why he became such an ardent champion for the United Order, etc. But you don’t judge a man. You don’t hesitate and say, “I don’t know whether I should or not,” and condemn him. That’s what you do. You say he hasn’t worked as hard as you have. Maybe he has and maybe he hasn’t. We have the interesting philosophy that you are either making money or you are doing nothing. That’s the choice you have. You can either work for a profit—either prepare to make money or make money—and if you are not doing that, you are doing nothing. You can be considered idle in that case. That’s why we have reinterpreted “the idler shall not eat the bread of laborer.” Of course, for all these thousands of years it just simply meant that the idle rich shall not eat the bread of the laboring poor, which has been the rule down through the ages. We turn it right around today—I worked for mine, so you won’t eat my bread. Well, we won’t go into that. Stick to Mosiah. Don’t look at me; I didn’t say it. He says here, “... and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God [what he asks you to do with it is this, he says; it belongs to Him] ... and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou has done. I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him [and, of course, you can’t take it with you]; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world.” Frankly, he says, this is an economics discourse I am giving you here.
476 Mosiah 4:24,25 “And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, [can keep body and soul together] ... I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.” Salt Lake City is a great place, the crossroads of the West, for panhandlers and for tramps going through—and for getting turned down. They will tell you it’s the hardest town in the country as far as that goes. Every tramp knows that if you want a handout you don’t go to a rich house; that’s the last thing you do. You will get thrown downstairs or thrown out the back porch. You go to people who are poor and they will give you something. That is the best chance you have. It’s the same way with contributions, etc. It has to be sincere. Verse 25: “And if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless.” Of course, if you are rich you can’t possibly say it in your heart. You must be very poor indeed. Even the poorest is going to share; you are going to see that’s the way.. Mother never turned them down (we never should) because she learned this from her father when they lived on the plains up in Alberta. They went out to Raymond and ranched out there. Whether it was an Indian or anyone else, their father (like Brigham Young) just hammered it into them, “Never, never, never turn anybody away.” Many have been visited by angels unawares. They may be testing you, as far as that goes. So that has always been the policy never to turn anybody away.
477 Mosiah 4:26,27 Here is the rule, and this is a very important rule “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs.” That is the same slogan as we have here, but the next verse tells us how that can go wrong. Verse 26: “I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath [if you have an awful lot of reserve laid away, a couple of hundred million in the bank or something like that, you haven’t given according to that which you have, I am sure. If you have anything left at all in fact], such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.” Their wants need to be supplied and that’s all there is to it. But this is what goes wrong. This is where we break down in the next verse. You may say, “That’s a fine theory, but I won’t have to do that.” It has to be administered in the proper way, and, as I said, that’s where the breakdown has been. Human beings haven’t had these principles of the gospel or haven’t had this vision of the eternities to inspire them and keep them on the track as the early Saints had. It says: “And see that all these things are done in wisdom and in order [that’s the trouble—it leads to disorder and squabbling. Inevitably that happens when you try, in any kind of economic order, and it’s pretty bad]; for it is not requisite that man should run faster than he has strength [that is the usual weakness—getting ahead of the program, trying to do it all overnight. You call it revolution—a sudd