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New Testament LESSON #36
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BELOVED OF GOD, CALLED TO BE SAINTS
by Ted L. Gibbons
 I have often thought about my experience with the infiltration course, the six weeks I spent learning leadership and military skills and playing military games in the swamps and hills of western Georgia and eastern Alabama, as a wonderful metaphor for the experience of mortality. We make our way forward toward the conclusion of our lives, the end of the course, our goal often nearly invisible in the darkness, and our ability to concentrate on that goal fettered by the filth and the noise and the danger of our surroundings.
None of us except the Savior has ever made the journey unblemished. All of us from time to time will find ourselves with mud in our pockets. Paul said that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23.)
But the accumulation of grime is not the most serious problem, provided we do not cling to it in the same way it clings to us. We are invited by the Savior to get into the showers whenever we are inclined to do so. “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil.” (Isaiah 1:16.) Of course it is always the Lord who provides the water for this cleansing: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity,” David pled, “and cleanse me from mine sin . . . . wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51:2,7.)
And the water is always available for those who want to be clean.
Paul’s letter to the Romans is a plea for cleanliness. He recognized that many of the saints, while struggling through the mud of mortality were carrying an unneeded burden of monumental proportions. They were trying to live perfect lives in the useless hope that their own righteousness would save them in the kingdom of God. Paul, even though he knew how important it is to live righteously, knew that the best of us would have need of a cleansing before our lives were through. Romans is, in part, a powerful witness of the cleansing power of the atonement, and of our eternal need for it to be efficacious in our lives.
As you ponder and explore this remarkable letter, let the sweetness and clarity of Paul’s witness warm and warn you. You will be saved by grace or you will not be saved at all. Paul’s testimony in Romans 3:10, 12 is perfectly true. “There is none righteous, no, not one . . . They are all gone out of the way.”
Capturing a few words from Romans and other texts to describe myself (and perhaps a few of you as well) I can say with prophetic and scriptural certainty that I am wicked, carnal, sensual, devilish, sinful, unclean, fallen, lost, rebellious, unholy, and unworthy. Given that description of myself, what do I deserve? I deserve Hell, of course. Left to my own devices, I will become, and remain, filthy. I deserve to suffer for my sins. And the default setting in mortality is on judgement, not mercy. We have got to do something, change the settings, to merit mercy. It is for this changing that Paul is pleading.
> Read the Entire New Testament Lesson
 DESERT BLOSSOMS #104
by Ted L. Gibbons
Historical records indicate that the attack on the jail at Carthage, Illinois that resulted in the martyrdom of the Prophet and the Patriarch was carried out by a mob composed mostly of the disbanded troops of the Warsaw Militia. The names of many of the participants are given in History of the Church, vol. vii, pages 143-145. I have had a careful look at those names trying to find someone named Brooks. He is at the center of an enigma that has puzzled me for a few years. Perhaps you will find the narrative as interesting as I did, and perhaps one or more of you will be able to give me some information.
I know this much because I have seen it and photographed it. There is a grave at the rear of the Peoa, Utah cemetery. The grave lies beneath a large stone. On the stone is a metal plaque with these words inscribed:BROOKS Participant in the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I have heard the following but have no correlating sources:
The rock over the grave rolled from the mountain behind the cemetery at some point in time—I have no idea when—and stopped directly over the grave. Those who care for the graveyard determined not to move the stone, but rather to leave it as a marker. The plaque was fastened to the rock and left there in that form.
I have also heard that “Brooks” was a miner who came west and spent some time in Park City. How he got to Peoa I do not know. Why he came to Utah and lived among Mormons I do not know. How he was associated with the mob in Carthage I do not know. If any of you have any information on any of these matters, I would be delighted to hear from you. My email is [please note that this is a change!] <quoxittlg@yahoo.com> .
I have often reflected on the motivation of those who climbed the stairs and fired their guns into the bodies of the men incarcerated in that Illinois Jail. Our own history and the secular histories of contemporaries are so divergent in their conclusions that it is difficult to discern the incentives that filled the hearts of the attackers with such resolute bitterness.
Some men were brought to trial for this loathsome deed, but no one was convicted. We are left to rely on the same considerations of those church members who were there at the time, and who were left to deal with a loss much more intimate and personal than our own.
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In the streets about the Mansion ten thousand sorrowing people were assembled, and these were addressed by several leading citizens, among whom were the counsel for the murdered men, Messrs. Reid and Wood; also W. W. Phelps, Stephen Markham and Dr. Willard Richards.The latter admonished the people "to keep peace, stating that he had pledged his honor and his life for their good conduct."The people then "with one united voice resolved to trust to the law for a remedy of such a highhanded assassination, and when that failed, to call upon God to avenge them of their wrongs (B.H. Roberts: Comprehensive History of the Church, vol 2, p. 292).
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