Liberty Jail

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Lessons from Liberty Jail

September 2008

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Experience Liberty Jail

A More Sure Word of Prophecy

Peter taught that he had received what he called “a more sure word of prophecy” (2 Peter 1:19). The Prophet Joseph Smith defined what this term means: “The more sure word of prophecy means a man’s knowing that he is sealed up unto eternal life, by revelation and the spirit of prophecy, through the power of the Holy Priesthood” (D&C 131:5). On another occasion, the Prophet Joseph Smith instructed further: “I would exhort you to go on and continue to call upon God until you make your calling and election sure for yourselves, by obtaining this more sure word of prophecy, and wait patiently for the promise until you obtain it” (in History of the Church, 5:389).

We Need a Shepherd - Jeffrey R. Holland

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

“For Times of Trouble”

We need a shepherd because in innocence or ignorance—but on occasion willfully and against counsel—we turn “every one to his own way” and as a result “have gone astray.” We wander here and scamper there, inspect this and nibble at that, until at some point we look up and realize we are either lost or about to be destroyed. We realize that we, or others who affect us, have done either something stupid or something wrong—which are so very often the same thing. We realize we desperately need help; we are in trouble and frantically look about for our shepherd, our defender, our savior.

…Life will be quick to teach us that we are all going to need a shepherd “at all times and in all things, and in all places.” How loving and strong, how devoted and determined that shepherd is in His care will be the all-important issue of our lives, though that may not be as obvious as it should be until we are in peril. Of course, what we often fail to remember is that in a fallen world and with a tempter bent on destroying us, we are in peril all the time. Thank heaven—literally—that Christ is our protector. As the prophet Isaiah promised, when the Lord comes, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom…”

Cast thyself down...

"The Inconvenient Messiah" 

- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

BYU Devotional - February 27, 1982 

(Then President of BYU)

“If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from the pinnacle of this temple.”

Satan knows this holy scripture is the center of religious life for Israel’s people. It is the edifice to which the promised Messiah must come. Many are even now coming and going from their worship, many of who through their traditions and disbelief will never accept Jesus as their Redeemer. Why not cast yourself down in a dramatic way and then, when the angels bear you up, as the scriptures say they must, legions will follow you and believe? They need you. You need them—to save their souls. These are covenant people. How better to help them see than to cast yourself off this holy temple unharmed and unafraid? The Messiah has indeed come.

The temptation here is even more subtle than the first. It is a temptation of the spirit, of a private hunger more real than the need for bread. Would God save him? Would he? Is Jesus to have divine companionship in this awesome ministry he now begins? He knows that among the children of men only suffering, denunciation, betrayal, and rejection lie ahead. But what about heaven? How alone does a Messiah have to be? Perhaps before venturing forth he ought to get final reassurance. And shouldn’t Satan be silenced with his insidious “If, if, if”? Why not get spiritual confirmation, a loyal congregation, and an answer to this imp who heckles—all with one appeal to God’s power? Right now. The easy way. Off the temple spire.

But Jesus refuses the temptation of the spirit. Denial and restraint there are also part of divine preparation. He will gain followers, and he will receive reassurance. But not this way. Neither the converts nor the comforts he will so richly deserve have been earned yet. His ministry has hardly begun. The rewards will come by and by. But even the Son of God must wait. The Redeemer who would never bestow cheap grace on others was not likely to ask for any himself.

And so I ask you to be patient in things of the spirit. Perhaps your life has been different from mine, but I doubt it. I have had to struggle to know my standing before God. As a teenager I found it hard to pray and harder to fast. My mission was not easy. I struggled as a student only to find that I had to struggle after-wards, too. In this present assignment I have wept and ached for guidance. It seems no worthy accomplishment has ever come easily for me, and maybe it won’t for you—but I’m living long enough to be grateful for that.

It is ordained that we come to know our worth as children of God without something as dramatic as a leap from the pinnacle of the temple. All but a prophetic few must go about God’s work in very quiet, very unspectacular ways. And as you labor to know him, and to know that he knows you; as you invest your time—and your convenience—in quiet, unassuming service, you will indeed find that “he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up” (Matthew 4:6). It may not come quickly. It probably won’t come quickly, but there is purpose in the time it takes. Cherish your spiritual burdens because God will converse with you through them and will use you to do his work if you carry them well.

Read the full talk HERE.

Israel, Israel, God Is Calling

Excerpts from the October CES Devotional

with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

...Lesson number one for the establishment of Zion in the 21st century: You never “check your religion at the door.” Not ever....

...My young friends, that kind of discipleship cannot be—it is not discipleship at all. As the prophet Alma has taught the young women of the Church to declare every week in their Young Women theme, we are “to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in,” not just some of the time, in a few places….

...Having said that, I remind us all that while reaching out to and helping back a lamb who has strayed, we also have a profound responsibility to the 99 who didn’t—and to the wishes and will of the Shepherd. There is a sheepfold, and we are all supposed to be in it, to say nothing of the safety and blessings that come to us for being there. My young brothers and sisters, this Church can never “dumb down” its doctrine in response to social goodwill or political expediency or any other reason. It is only the high ground of revealed truth that gives us any footing on which to lift another who may feel troubled or forsaken. Our compassion and our love—fundamental characteristics and requirements of our Christianity—must never be interpreted as compromising the commandments. As the marvelous George MacDonald once said, in such situations “we are not bound to say all that we [believe], but we are bound not even to look [like] what we do not [believe].”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland - Priesthood Session - Oct. 2011

Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

I try to imagine what an intensely poignant moment it must have been for our Father in Heaven when the Savior cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. I don’t believe Father in Heaven forsook His Son on the cross. I do believe the cry was motivated when that Son felt removed the sustaining support He had always enjoyed from His Father. His Father recognized that the Savior needed to accomplish the Atonement totally and completely on His own, without external support. The Father did not abandon His Son. He made it possible for His perfect Son to win the eternal fruits of the Atonement.

Elder Richard G. Scott - General Conference April 2010

Now I speak very carefully, even reverently, of what may have been the most difficult moment in all of this solitary journey to Atonement. I speak of those final moments for which Jesus must have been prepared intellectually and physically but which He may not have fully anticipated emotionally and spiritually—that concluding descent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal when He cries in ultimate loneliness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The loss of mortal support He had anticipated, but apparently He had not comprehended this. Had He not said to His disciples, “Behold, the hour . . . is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” and “The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him”.

With all the conviction of my soul I testify that He did please His Father perfectly and that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required; indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland - General Conference April 2009

President Brigham Young spoke of what evoked the why from Jesus, saying that during the axis of agony which was Gethsemane and Calvary, the Father at some point withdrew both His presence and His Spirit from Jesus (see Journal of Discourses 3:205-6). Thereby Jesus personal triumph was complete and His empathy perfected. Having descended below all things, He comprehends, perfectly and personally, the full range of human suffering!

Elder Neal A. Maxwell - General Conference October 1997

Elder Holland - Good Things to Come.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland - BYU Speeches - 1988

Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments
12 January 1988

If some few of you are feeling the “scars . . . that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone,” I wish to extend to you the special peace and promise available through the atoning sacrifice of the  Lord Jesus Christ. I testify of his love and of the restored gospel principles and ordinances which make that love available to us with all their cleansing and healing power. I testify of the power of these principles and ordinances, including complete and redeeming repentance, which are only fully realized in this the true and living church of the true and living God. That we may “come unto Christ” for the fullness of soul and symbol and sacrament he offers us.
View the full talk HERE.