The Sweat of Thy Face

As the Lord sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, He said this to Adam: “By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground—for thou shalt surely die—for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou wast, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Moses 4:25). The first verse which then describes Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the garden says this: “And it came to pass that after I, the Lord God, had driven them out, that Adam began to till the earth, and to have dominion over all the beasts of the field, and to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, as I the Lord had commanded him. And Eve, also, his wife, did labor with him” (Moses 5:1). Thus one of the foundational principles of mortality is that we must labor for what we need. As one podcast highlighted, Cain subsequently slaying Abel to get his sheep was a violation of this important command of the Lord. Cain sought to get something for nothing; he sought to have the sheep without laboring for them. Cain declared, “Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain” (Moses 5:31). That was the principle inspired by Satan: you can sin and get what you want instead of working for it. On this podcast Dr. Shon Hopkin suggested, “Think about any sin and how it's actually motivated somewhere lower in the motivation, as we build towards that sin, I want to get something for nothing.” That’s true of such sins as lying, stealing, and committing adultery—all depend on avoiding work to obtain what is not deserved. This is an idea that is just as prevalent today, and we have to guard ourselves against the temptation to seek what we don’t deserve, to get our bread not from the sweat of our brow. The Lord’s command to work for our reward is still in force.

                In this dispensation the Lord has been clear that He expects us to work. In the law revealed in Kirtland He said, “Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer” (Doctrine and Covenants 42:42). He said again to His servants coming to the land of Zion: “I give unto them a commandment, thus: Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known” (Doctrine and Covenants 60:13). Later in the same year He said this about Zion: “And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord. Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them… their eyes are full of greediness” (Doctrine and Covenants 68:30-31). The next year He spoke again about work in this scripture: “Behold, I say unto you that it is my will that you should go forth and not tarry, neither be idle but labor with your might…. Let every man be diligent in all things. And the idler shall not have place in the church, except he repent and mend his ways” (Doctrine and Covenants 75:3,29). Clearly the Lord is serious about us doing work.

                Modern prophets have likewise emphasized the importance of this command given to Adam and Eve. President Heber J. Grant spoke of the purpose of the Church’s welfare program set up in the 1930s this way: “Our primary purpose [in establishing the Church’s welfare program] was to set up, in so far as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.” President Benson, very much involved in the application of the welfare program and intimately familiar with the struggles of the poor, similarly said this: “One of the first principles revealed to father Adam when he was driven out of the Garden of Eden was this: ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground’ (Gen. 3:19). All we obtain in life of a material nature comes as a product of labor and the providence of God. Work alone produces life’s necessities. Man is commanded by God to live by the sweat of his own brow, not someone else’s. Ours is a gospel of work—purposeful, unselfish and rendered in the spirit of the true love of Christ.” And President Hinckley also said this: “I believe in the gospel of work. There is no substitute under the heavens for productive labor…. It is work that provides the food we eat, the clothing we wear, the homes in which we live. We cannot deny the need for work with skilled hands and educated minds if we are to grow and prosper individually and collectively.” He applied this to work in the Church as well: “Everybody works. You do not grow unless you work. Faith, testimony of the truth, is just like the muscle of my arm. If you use it, it grows strong. If you put it in a sling, it grows weak and flabby. We put people to work. We expect great things of them, and the marvelous and wonderful thing is they come through. They produce. Nothing happens in this Church unless you work.” President Nelson more recently summed it up this way: “The Lord loves effort, because effort brings rewards that can’t come without it.” We must strive to follow the examples our first parents who labored like the Lord commanded, and we must avoid the temptation of Cain and so many since to get from life something for nothing (Moses 5:1).