Doctrine and Covenants 56-57

(October 20, 2015)

                There is something to be said about recognizing that the Lord gives commandments when He chooses and revokes them when He chooses.  There are certainly eternal laws that need to be complied with, but there are applications to particular situations that may differ from those laws.  Murder was and is against the commandments – except when the Lord commanded Nephi, for example, when not killing Laban would have been violation of Nephi’s obligations towards the Lord.

                The desire to seek consistency in commandments from the Lord is little different from the desire to seek consistency in the commandments of an army leader.  It would be foolish to believe that if the charge order comes in, that the soldiers must either always charge or ignore the charge order as invalid.  No, instead when the soldier is told to charge he should charge until he is told to stop.  Likewise, when a commandment or policy comes to us, we should follow it until it is conveyed to us that we should not follow it.