7/23/2017 - Section 53:1-7

July 23, 2017

Section 53:1-7

Gospel Changes, Converts, Missionary Changes, Growth, Draw Near Unto Me, Weaknesses To Overcome, Prayers Work, Labor for the Lord, Grow Better Grow Brighter Grow Stronger, Born Again,

The historical background for this section is quite interesting to me. There is evidently little information about Algernon Sidney Gilbert before he was introduced to the gospel in 1830. But we know he was then the senior partner in the successful mercantile firm of Gilbert and Whitney in Kirtland. In this section we learn he was to be ordained an elder to (v3) “preach faith and repentance and remission of sins…and the reception of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands.” In v 4 he is called to serve as a bishop’s agent. In section 57 we learn that as an agent he was to receive monies for the Church and to buy land. He was to assist Edward  Partridge in managing the temporal affairs of the Church in Missouri. The other things we know from History of the Church 2:119 that his feelings of inadequacy in preaching the gospel prevented him from fully responding his call to missionary work—although there is an account of his successful missionary labors among his fiends and family in Huntington, Connecticut. He also traveled to Missouri where he was to buy land and operate a small store. P113 “When mob violence broke loose, Sidney Gilbert closed his store upon request and helped appease the mob temporarily. On 23 July 1833 he, with others, offered himself as a ransom for the Saints. [whom I believe were not always being true ‘Saints’ to those outside the church] He was devoted and faithful and sacrificed all of his goods during the persecutions in Missouri. He lacked confidence in his ability to preach, however, and, according to some reports, he said he ‘would rather die than go forth to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles’. Ironically, he later contracted cholera and died. Heber C Kimball recorded in his journal that ‘the Lord took him at his word’. Elder B. H. Roberts wrote of Brother Gilbert, ‘The remarks in the body of the history, and this expression from Elder Kimball’s journal are liable to create a misunderstanding concerning Brother Algernon Sidney Gilbert, than whom the Lord has had few more devoted servants in this dispensation.” We all struggle with weaknesses. I know my efforts to if not overcome my weaknesses, to at least ‘weaken’ my weaknesses, take continuous and repeated efforts. I don’t think the Lord condemns anyone for that. We are to forgive 70 times 7. He forgives every time we come to him with contrite hearts and with real intent to not repeat our mistakes. Sidney Gilbert took the gospel to his family, he indeed opened a store as he had been asked to do, and he showed not just courage, but amazing charity for his fellow saints who were not all  ‘saints’. 

The Lord begins this section with “Behold, I say unto you, my servant Sidney Gilbert, that I have heard your prayers; and you have called upon me that it should be made known unto you, of the Lord your God, concerning you calling and election in the church, which I, the Lord, have raised up in these last days.” (v 1) In our lives, and in our efforts, the Lord will answer our prayers just as thoroughly. We merely have to have the patience to wait upon His timing, keep His commandments to the best of our ability, and to follow every prompting we receive as quickly as we can.

After these beginning instructions to Sidney, the Lord told Him [and all of us] that “the residue shall be made known in a time to come, according to your labor in my vineyard.  And again, I would that ye should learn that he only is saved who endureth unto the end.”  (v7-6). I should not be surprised when the Lord asks for new efforts from me. If I have learned my lessons from previous assignments, then I SHOULD be ready for new assignments. For all commandments and callings are either for our benefit, for the benefit of those we work with, or for the benefit of spreading and strengthening the Church: those in the Church, and possibly those who are not yet in the Church. Sidney Gilbert’s life shows two truths: one, that he was human, and two, that he was sincerely dedicated to following the Lord and the Lord’s servants.

In the 1899 Gen Conf, Geoge Q. Cannon was talking about the phrase “forsake the world”—which could also mean “draw near unto me”: “We need to be born again, and have new hearts put in us. There is too much of the old leaven about us. We are not born again as we should be. Do you not believe that we ought to be born again? Do you not believe that we should become new creatures in Christ Jesus, under the influence of the Gospel? All will say, yes, who understand the Gospel. You must be born again. You must have new desires, new hearts, so to speak, in you. But what do we see? We see men following the ways of the world just as much as though they made no pretensions to being Latter-day Saints. Hundreds of people who are called Latter-day Saints you could not distinguish from the world. They have the same desires, the same feelings, the same aspirations, the same passions as the rest of the world. Is this how God wants us to be? No; He wants us to have new heats, new desires. He wants us to be a changed people when we embrace his Gospel, and to be animated by entirely new motives, and have a faith that will lay hold of the promises of God.”

5/19/2021 – D&C 53

Sidney Gilbert asked Joseph to inquire of the Lord as to his work and appointment in the church. He was ready to do what the Lord would have him do. The Lord answers: “…my servant Sidney Gilbert…I have heard your prayers…” (v 1) Sidney is to live with faith and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. That is how  the Lord would have us all to live. And then Christ asked Sidney to be an agent unto the Church; he is also to journey with Joseph Smith as he travels to visit the saints in Missouri. Then Lord told him that “the residue shall be made known in a time to come, according to your labor in my vineyard” (v 6) —and that’s exactly what he did.

The Lord’s final statement to Sidney was that he should “endureth unto the end”—and that’s exactly what Sidney did. 

In the summer of 1831 Sidney left Kirtland and his business there, arrived in Missouri and established a mercantile store, and helped Bishop Edward Partridge in purchasing land there. 

When mob violence broke loose, Sidney Gilbert closed his store upon request and helped appease the mob temporarily. On 23 July 1833 he, with others, offered himself as a ransom for the Saints. (See History of the Church, 1:391, 394n.) He was devoted and faithful and sacrificed all of his goods during the persecutions in Missouri. He later contracted cholera and died. Elder B. H. Roberts wrote of Brother Gilbert: “…the Lord has had few more devoted servants in this dispensation.”

Like so many of the early Saints, Sidney Gilbert was devoted to the Lord and valiantly endured to the end…and performed so many good works within that short time. He met every challenge with great love for others. He truly had charity.