Description

Open Your Mouth

In the Fall of 1830, Ezra Thayer received a copy of the Book of Mormon and began to ponder it. One day in a gathering of friends in Canandaigua, New York the topic of discussion turned to the Book of Mormon. Those assembled ridiculed the Book while Ezra boldly defended it, though he was not yet baptized. He returned to his home in Farmington, New York and sat down to ponder the events of the day. As he did, he said,

“I was in the Spirit. A man came and brought me a roll of paper and presented it to me, and also a trumpet and told me to blow it. I told him that I never blowed any in my life. He said you can blow it, try it. I put it in my mouth and blowed on it, and it made the most beautiful sound that I ever heard. The roll of paper was the revelation on me and Northrop Sweet. Oliver Cowdery was the man that brought the roll and trumpet. When he brought the revelation on me and Northrop Sweet, he said, ‘Here is a revelation from God for you. Now blow your trumpet,’ and I said, I never blowed a trumpet. He said, ‘You can.’”

The revelation spoken of is Doctrine and Covenants 33. In it the Lord said, “For verily, I say unto you that ye are called to lift up your voices as with the sound of a trump, to declare my gospel unto a crooked and perverse generation.”

Later in the revelation the Lord commands three times, in the spirit of crying repentance to the world, “open your mouths.”

One day, as a young seminary teacher, I wanted to impress upon my students why it is so important to open our mouths and share the Gospel. I came to class wearing two pair of suit pants. I stood carefully behind my lectern setting up DC 33 then when it came to the verses about open your mouth. I stepped out from behind my lectern before my students—with my zipper down. I went on teaching as normal wanting to see if my students would tell me. The giggles, laughing and tittering erupted throughout the class, but no one said anything. Finally, when I could see when they weren’t going to tell me, I stopped, stuck my hands in my pockets, and forced the zipper to the bottom. The class really erupted then. I then did the unthinkable. I unsnapped the pants and let them fall to the floor. You can imagine their reaction to that, that is until they saw the pants underneath. “You were not going to tell me, were you?” I said to them. “You were just going to let me carry on, embarrass myself and make a complete fool of myself, weren’t you?”

I then went on to describe how they would feel if they had a friend who was figuratively walking around with his zipper down—spiritually making mistakes that would eternally and forever embarrass and humiliate them, and we did not take the courage to warn them—in love and kindness.

I will never forget later in the day, with another class. The moment I stepped out from behind the lectern one tender innocent little girl seated near the front saw me. Her eyes grew wide and her hand shot up immediately. But I wasn’t ready yet, so I ignored her and kept waiting for the rest of the class to notice. She kept her hand up, growing more insistent by the moment. Finally, when I wouldn’t call on her, she just blurted it out, “Brother Rawson, your zipper’s down!”

Bless that girl. I want to be more like her.

Sources:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/OH/sain1860.htm
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/person/ezra-thayer