Live By Every Word

At the end of the oath and covenant of the priesthood the Lord gave us this instruction: “And I now give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life. For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:43-44). This appears to be an allusion to the words of Moses that he spoke to the children of Israel: “[The Lord] humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deuteronomy 8:3). Thus one of the lessons that the children of Israel were to learn from the experience with the daily manna they received was that they needed the words of the Lord every day even more than food. This is the same lesson that Jesus used when rejecting the offer of Satan to turn the stones into bread to satisfy His hunger: “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). He used the word of God to show that the word was indeed more powerful and sustaining than physical food. The Lord again renewed this commandment in our dispensation when He said this: “And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God. For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:11-12). Whether in the time of the ancient Israelites, the meridian of time when the Savior walked the earth, or in this last dispensation, our spiritual need is the same: we must live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

               The question which comes to mind when considering this instruction is this: how do I know if I am living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God? Perhaps the Savior’s response to the adversary gives us a litmus test to answer that question. If we value food (or any other material thing) more than the word of God, then we are probably not living by the word of God as much as we should. The Savior refused to satisfy His physical appetite by doing something that went against the holy word. My mission president put it this way to a missionary departing from the field to return home (paraphrased): “If the time comes in your life when you are so busy that you have to choose between eating and reading your scriptures, and you eat, you’re a fool!” In other words, we must make the same choice the Savior did when tempted by the adversary and value God’s word over physical comforts. I love this secular quote from Erasmus about his general desire for learning and knowledge: “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes” (see here). Surely that should be our attitude for the words of the Lord: they must mean more to us than all the physical comforts we could buy. The 1831 council felt this way about the revelations from the Lord that Joseph Smith had received as they sought to publish them: They were “worth to the Church the riches of the whole Earth.” I love the way the Elder Scott spoke about the need to put the word of God as a top priority in our lives: “Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media. You may need to reorganize your priorities to provide time for the study of the word of God. If so, do it!”

If we are to live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God, we must first know those words and spend time with them so that we can use them to guide our lives. In this same revelation with the oath and covenant of the priesthood in which the Savior instructed us to live by His word, He also gave this chastisement which is surely still relevant to us today: “And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received—Which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation. And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all. And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:54-57). We must not treat lightly the words of the Lord He has given us but rather seek to read and study and live by all the words in the scriptures He has given us.