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By Jesse Fisher
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Previously we mentioned that the 1868 General Conference focused on preparing the Saints to support a church-wide rollout of the Brigham City system of cooperatives with ZCMI as its centerpiece. Let’s look at what the prophet said in one of his talks at that conference. He reveals his motivation to lead the Saints in become economically independent of the world’s corrupt economy.
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President Brigham Young began his talk by pointing out that the Kingdom of God is as much concerned about our temporal salvation as our spiritual. “The object of the teachings at this Conference … has been to teach the people how to save themselves daily, in a temporal point of view ….” He then declares that the Lord wants us to leave Babylon. He said, “We are called upon to come out from among the wicked, as it is written, ‘Come out of her, O my people,’ that is, come out of Babylon. What is Babylon? Why, it is the confused world: come out of her, then, and cease to partake of her sins, for if you do not you will be partakers of her plagues.”
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Brigham then states the Saints must become economically self-sustaining as a people because God said Babylon is destined to fall. He states, “… suppose this is true concerning the gathering out of the Saints, and that Babylon, or a confused and wicked world, will cease its operations as they are now going on, and the time spoken of shall have come, when the merchants will mourn and weep because there is no one to buy their merchandise …. By and by there will be a gulf between the righteous and the wicked so that they cannot trade with each other, and [interstate commerce] will cease …. We want you henceforth to be a self-sustaining people. Hear it, O Israel! Hear it neighbors, friends and enemies, this is what the Lord requires of this people.”
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Brigham then asks a very important question applicable to us today: “But if this is the Kingdom of God and if we are the Saints of God … are we not required to sustain ourselves and to manufacture that which we consume, to cease our bartering, trading, mingling … and joining with all the filth of Babylon?” Tough question. How would you respond Brigham’s call for the Saints to become economically self-sustaining?
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Discuss this at BuildingZion.org.
