Warren Cowdery: "Grace and Assurance"

This article gives a lot of detail with the background on D&C 106 in which the Lord appointed Warren Cowdery, the brother of Oliver, to lead the Church at Freedom, New York in 1834.  This revelation is an interesting one because of the way it both commends and chastises Warren.  He was “appointed and ordained a presiding high priest” and told how “there was joy in heaven” over him and that he was “blessed” in the eyes of the Lord.  And yet the Lord also referred to his “vanity” and implied that he been slow to bow to the Lord.  He apparently took four years to join the Church after the time that he learned about the Book of Mormon, and the Lord suggested that one of the reasons was because he was tied up in the “crafts of men.”  Warren clearly had both strengths and weaknesses, and I love the language of this section in which the Lord invited Warren to be faithfulness.  He was told to “devote his whole time to this high and holy calling” and to seek “diligently the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness.”  The Savior told Joseph, “I will lift him up inasmuch as he will humble himself before me. And I will give him grace and assurance wherewith he may stand.”  What incredible promises those must have been to Warren, and surely they helped inspire him to “continue to be a faithful witness and a light unto the church” as the Lord invited him to do.  According to the article he did do just that while in Freedom helping the Saints and after he moved to Kirtland in 1836.  He was a clerk to Joseph and “his most lasting contribution can now be found just a few pages from the revelation directed to him—in 1836, he recorded the entry in Joseph Smith’s journal describing the visit of the Savior and other heavenly messengers to Joseph and Oliver in the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836.” 

                The conditional statements of D&C 106 also seem to suggest that there was a question about whether or not Warren would remain faithful.  His blessings are promised only “inasmuch as he will humble himself before [the Lord]” and his eternal reward will come only “if he continue to be a faithful witness.”  Though he was faithful for a time and served the kingdom in many ways, he did not stay true to the end.  In 1837 “he grew rebellious against the Prophet and fell away from the Church.”  And unlike his brother Oliver, he never came back to the fold.  Our place certainly isn’t to judge him, but as we read this section it should be a reminder of our own need to stay true.  In the middle of the section we have this warning: “And again, verily I say unto you, the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and it overtaketh the world as a thief in the night—Therefore, gird up your loins, that you may be the children of light, and that day shall not overtake you as a thief.”  We must gird up our loins and seek to be the children of light, or, in other words, the children of Christ.  That comes through covenants and commitment, and as we continue in the path the Lord will give us the “grace and assurance” to overcome trials that might come our way.