Mosiah 2

Regarding service to others, Elder Antoine R. Ivins said: “The great value, I believe, that the Church has for us is the opportunity it gives us to serve, for, after all, the great benefits of life come from service. Generous, open-hearted, full service to our fellows, I believe, is the thing which brings us the greatest happiness. We can serve our families and gain happiness by it; we can serve our friends and gain happiness by it; but if we would be happy we must serve and serve generously, and I believe myself that the greatest happiness that comes to me from observing the standards of the Church and meeting my obligations to it is the spiritual values that I get out of that service. I would like to be able to say that I always serve for the sheer love of service. I don’t know whether I can honestly say that or not, but I hope I can.

 I would like to suggest that all of us who serve, serve for the same motive, out of sheer joy and love of service. I would that every man who accepts a responsibility in a priesthood quorum would accept it because of the opportunity for service which it offers him; not that he be a good deacon so he may be the president of his quorum. Not that he be a good priest that some day he may be made president of the elders’ quorum. Not to be a good bishop, that when the stake is reorganized he may become the president of the stake, because if he serves with that motive, there is very likely to be a day of disappointment for him, but if he serves because he loves to, if he serves because he loves his fellows, then whether the other things come or not, he is never disappointed” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1948, pp. 47–48).

Mosiah 2:24

“We are not our own, we are bought with a price, we are the Lord’s; our time, our talents, our gold and silver, our wheat and fine flour, our wine and our oil,  our cattle, and all there is on this earth that we have in our possession is the Lord’s. . . .

“. . . There is no man who ever made a sacrifice on this earth for the Kingdom of heaven, that I know anything about, except the Savior. He drank the bitter cup to the dregs, and tasted for every man and for every woman, and redeemed the earth and all things upon it. But he was God in the flesh, or he could not have endured it. ‘But we suffer, we sacrifice, we give something, we have preached so long.’ What for? ‘Why, for the Lord.’ I would not give the ashes of a rye straw for the man who feels that he is making sacrifice for God. We are doing this for our ownhappiness, welfare and exaltation, and for nobody else’s. This is the fact, and what we do, we do for the salvation of the inhabitants of the earth, not for the salvation of the heavens, the angels, or the Gods” (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, pp. 176–77). 

Mosiah 2:38. Eternal Punishment

“Eternal punishment, or endless punishment, does not mean that those who partake of it must endure it forever. ‘It is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment. Again, it is written eternal damnation; wherefore it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory. . . . Behold, the mystery of godliness, how great is it! For, behold, I am endless, and the punishment which is given from my hand is endless punishment, for Endless is my name. Wherefore—Eternal punishment is God’s punishment. Endless punishment is God’s punishment.’ [D&C 19:6–12.]

“The laws of God are immutable, and from this explanation we learn that the same punishment always follows the same offense, according to the laws of God who is eternal and endless, hence it is called, endless punishment, and eternal punishment, because it is the punishment which God has fixed according to unchangeable law. A man may partake of endless torment, and when he has paid the penalty for hitransgression, he is released, but the punishment remains and awaits the next culprit, and so on  forever” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:228).