Tag Archives: Word of Wisdom

“My Spirit Will Not Dwell in an Unclean Tabernacle”

David O. McKay shared the following experience:

“One of the great influences upon my youth was the memorizing of that important saying: “My spirit will not dwell in an unclean tabernacle” ( Hel. 4:24). I recall other warnings. One came to me as a boy. I sat on a spring seat by the side of my father as we drove into Ogden. Just before we reached the bridge across the Ogden River, a man came out of a saloon on the north bank of the river. I recognized him. I liked him because I had seen him on the stage. But on that occasion he was under the influence of liquor and had been, I suppose, for several days.

“When he saw us, he broke down and cried and asked Father for 50 cents so that he could go back into the saloon for another drink. As we drove across the bridge my father said, “David, that man whom you just saw in that drunken state used to go with me to visit the members of the ward in their homes as a representative of the priesthood.” That was all my father said to me about the incident, but it was a very vivid warning to me about the effects of dissipation that I have never forgotten.”

“A Citizen Who Loves Justice and Hates Evil Is Better and Stronger Than a Battleship”
David O. McKay, Conference Report, October 1968, pp. 4-9

Word of Wisdom Key to Personal Revelation

Boyd K. Packer taught,

Our physical body is the instrument of our spirit. In that marvelous revelation, the Word of Wisdom, we are told how to keep our bodies free from impurities which might dull, even destroy, those delicate physical senses which have to do with spiritual communication.

The Word of Wisdom is a key to individual revelation. It was given as “a principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints.” ( D&C 89:3.)

“Revelation in a Changing World”
October 1989 General Conference

Bishop Dyer’s Loyalty

Transcript:
The late Alvin R. Dyer faced something of this challenge when he was a bishop many years ago. He had a member of his ward who said that smoking was the greatest single enjoyment he got out of life. He said, “At night I set my alarm every hour on the hour and wake up to smoke a cigarette. Bishop, I love smoking just too much to give it up.”

A few evenings later the man’s doorbell rang at 10:00 p.m. There on the doorstep was Bishop Dyer.

“Well, Bishop, what on earth are you doing here at this hour? I’m ready to go to bed.”

“I know,” said Bishop Dyer. “I want to see you set that alarm and watch you wake up and smoke.”

“Good heavens, I can’t do that in front of you,” the man said.

“Oh, sure you can. Don’t worry about me. I’ll just sit in the corner somewhere and be very quiet.”

The man invited him in and they talked about everything Bishop Dyer could conjure up to hold the man’s interest. “I pursued every idea and conversation I could think of to keep him speaking. I thought he was going to throw me out a number of times, but shortly after three o’clock in the morning I said, ‘Well, heavenly days! You’ve missed five alarms already. Please forgive me! I have ruined your evening’s enjoyment. The night is such a disappointment now that you might as well just go to bed and forget the rest of the alarms this once!'”

Then note this language:

At that moment [I] felt [in him] a sense of honor and a dignity. . . . He looked at me with a peculiar smile. . . and he said, “All right, I will.” [And] he never touched another cigarette [for the rest of his life]. [See Alvin R. Dyer, Conference Report, April 5, 1965, p. 85.]

How would you describe Brother Dyer’s loyalty? Was it loyalty to that inactive man, or loyalty to the members of his ward generally, or loyalty to his office as bishop, or loyalty to the Word of Wisdom, or loyalty to the principle of revelation, or loyalty to the Church, or loyalty to God, or—well, you get my point.

 

Jeffrey R. Holland was president of Brigham Young University when this devotional address was given on 21 January 1986.

The full address of this talk is available on BYU’s Speeches Website.