FREEDOM THROUGH OBEDIENCE

Release from Autocracy of Sin

"COME unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30.)

A blessed invitation indeed!

Seemingly faint at heart over the unbelief of the people, our Lord had sought strength in prayer. With the soulful eloquence characteristic of the anguish-laden communion which at recurrent periods He had with the Father, the Savior voiced His reverent gratitude that God had imparted a testimony of the truth to the humble and lowly whom He likened unto trusting babes, rather than unto men proud in their learning and arrogant in self-assumption.

Then turning to the common people, the multitude who had just witnessed His miracles and listened to His lofty yet simple precepts, He urged anew their acceptance of Him and His Gospel in one of the grandest outpourings of spiritual emotion recorded for man to read.

His summoning yet pleading call was addressed to priestridden and Rome-governed Jews. Many of them yearned for release from thraldom, but the national spirit had been so broken that most of them had become inured to vassalage and tolerant of bondage.

The priestly hierarchy was boastful of its status, and strove effectively to deceive the people into the belief that they were free while sweating under the burdens of unrighteous exaction.

What had Christ to offer in mitigation of their grievous state? Certainly not the emancipation for which false rabbinical precept had led them to look—the reestablishment of the throne of David as an earthly kingdom, destined to subjugate all other nations by force of arms and make supreme the scepter of rehabilitated Israel.

Christ's kingdom was not, is not, nor ever shall be a merely secular or political dominion. His throne and crown are not of earthly make.

The people of Israel had brought themselves into bondage. Their vanished glory and fallen status had been foretold as an alternative fate, which would fall upon them if they departed from the covenant and proved recreant to the God of their fathers. But more burdensome than Roman mastership was the literal serfdom of priestly misrule. Rome was tolerant and conciliatory, while those who for the time sat in Moses' seat gloried in the shackles they had riveted upon the people through a blasphemous misapplication of the Law.

To the overladen and weary Jews came the offer of rest and peace. The Lord pleadingly invited them from drudgery to pleasant service, from the well-nigh unbearable burdens of ecclesiastical exaction and traditional formalism to the liberty of true worship, from slavery to freedom.

But they would not.

The Gospel He offered was and is the embodiment of liberty, untainted by selfish license. True, it entailed obedience and submission; but even if such could be likened unto a yoke, what was its burden in comparison with the incubus under which they groaned?

The offer, the call, the invitation is in full force and effect today. Transgression of the law is primarily or indirectly the cause of all suffering. Obedience to righteous law is the price of liberty. In such obedience lies happiness.

By a government of the people, administered in equity, every man is under wholesome restriction in compliance with which he finds privilege and protection.

Irresponsibility is directly opposed to enduring freedom. But what are the restraints of democracy in contrast with enslavement under autocratic rule? How easy the yoke, how light the burden, and how glorious the blessings of righteous government!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the expression of the eternal truth that shall make men free. It prescribes obedience, compliance, voluntary submission as the conditions of enfranchisement in the kingdom of God. In its conflict with sin the Gospel neither slays nor makes men prisoners. Its weapons are persuasion, invitation, and awakening summons. Its antagonists suffer self-inflicted punishment, bring upon themselves imprisonment within the bars of lost opportunity, and formulate their own sentence of eventual banishment as alien enemies of the truth.

Liberty through obedience was the theme of Benjamin, the ancient prophet and king who thus addressed his penitent people, respecting their acknowledgment of Christ as the Author of salvation:

"And under this head, ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God, that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives." (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 5:8.)

And unto the repentant and obedient of the present day the Lord has spoken through the prophet Joseph Smith:

"Abide ye in the liberty wherewith ye are made free; entangle not yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean, until the Lord come." (D&C 88:86.)

The Lord has spoken, saying to all men and nations: Come unto me in faith, doubting not; repent of your sins; be baptized for the remission thereof; and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost and He shall guide you in the truth that shall make you free.