Prophets and Armor. Feb 25th

Sections 21 and 27
It had to have been so surreal for Joseph to receive revelation and read back over it. Also, a relief to receive such direct, revelation to be written and referred to. For instance, vs. 7-8:

"For thus saith the Lord God: Him have I inspired to move the cause of Zion in mighty power for good, and his diligence I know, and his prayers I have heard. Yea, his weeping for Zion I have seen, and I will cause that he shall mourn for her no longer; for his days of rejoicing are come unto the remission of his sins, and the manifestations of my blessings upon his works."

How very important and necessary it is to have a prophet, and one who has all the keys of the kingdom and priethood. One who is a seer, who sees with spiritual eyes, a translator to give clearer meaning to words of our language or other languages, a teacher of truth, the teacher of truth on the earth, a special witness of Christ. And there is just one at a time, with all the keys, to reduce confusion and chaos, though he has apostles called as prophets to counsel and support him. We are told not to deify prophets, for they are men. They are men who have made good choices, just like we are capable of making, but they have actually made those choice and lived the life they should (and continue to work at it daily, just as we do). They have my respect and love and more. Praise to the man, indeed.

Section27: I have always loved the imagery of the armor of God. We have been given our bodies. Now, we have to make a conscious choice to protect our bodies and spirits. I will quote from the DC manual as it is written well :

"We have the four parts of the body that. . . [are] the most vulnerable to the powers of darkness. The loins, typifying virtue, chastity. The heart typifying our conduct. Our feet, our goals or objectives in life and finally our head, our thought. . . We should have our loins girt about with truth. . knowledge of things as they are, things as they were and things as they are to come. . . We shall have over our hearts a breastplate of righteousness. . [with which] we can judge between right and wrong. Your feet, objectives or our goals, should be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And then finally the helmet of salvation. . salvation is to be saved from death and saved from sin."