Lessons from the Doctrine and Covenants 2025
Lesson No. Ten 

Beware of Pride and Pray Always - D&C 23

Introduction: Shortly after the Church was organized five early brethren, desiring to know their duties, asked for a personal revelation. (See D&C 23, Headnote). Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Knight received specific commandments which have universal application.

Beware of Pride

Oliver was warned to “beware of pride, lest thou shouldst enter into temptation” (Vs 1). President Joseph Fielding Smith explained that pride “was one of Oliver Cowdery’s besetting sins. If he could have humbled himself in the troubled days of Kirtland he would not have lost his place and membership in the Church. That which had been bestowed upon him was exceedingly great and had he been willing to humble himself and it was his privilege to stand with the Prophet Joseph Smith through all time and eternity holding the keys of the dispensation of the Fulness of Times.” Near the end of his life, Oliver came back to the Church he had been instrumental in establishing.

Beware of Pride by President Ezra Taft Benson is one of the great sermons of our day. (See Ensign, May 1989) There are many things from this sermon to be remembered, including the following:

- “Pride is a very misunderstood sin, and many are sinning in ignorance. In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride—it is always considered a sin…. Pride is a damning sin in the true sense of that word. It limits or stops progression…Pride is the universal sin, the great vice.”

- “When pride has a hold on our hearts, we lose our independence of the world and deliver our freedoms to the bondage of men’s judgment…Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion.”

- “The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judged to be on the ladders of worldly success. They feel worthwhile as individuals if the numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are large enough. Pride is ugly. It says, “If you succeed, I am a failure.”

- “Pride affects all of us at various times and in various degrees…Pride adversely affects all our relationships—our relationship with God and His servants, between husband and wife, parent and child, employer and employee, teacher and student, and all mankind. Our degree of pride determines how we treat our God and our brothers and sisters.”

- “God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble. Alma said, “Blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble….Let us choose to be humble.”

Elder Bednar in his sermon entitled In the Space of not Many Years expounded on what President Benson had said, (Liahona, Nov. 2024): “At the individual level, each of us must “beware of pride….May I suggest that if you or I believe we are sufficiently strong and stalwart to avoid the arrogance of pride, then perhaps we already are suffering from this deadly spiritual disease. Simply stated, if you or I do not believe we could be afflicted with and by pride, then we are vulnerable and in spiritual danger….If, however, you or I believe we could be afflicted with and by pride, then we consistently will do the small and simple things that will protect and help us become “as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us].”

The pride of comparison effects the worldly. President Benson explained: “The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone” (Beware of Pride).

The pride of self-satisfaction effects those who are “preoccupied with self, and is accompanied by an aloofness and a withdrawal from concern for others” (Dallin H. Oaks, Pure in Heart, p. 92). This pride often effects those who rely on the wisdom and learning of the world.

The antidote for any and all pride is to increase in love and humility by emulating our Savior Jesus Christ!

Pray Always

Joseph Knight was told “that you must take up your cross, in the which you must pray vocally before the world as well as in secret, and in your family, and among your friends, and in all places” (Vs 6). In other words, as the scriptures admonish, he was to “pray always.”

After a near death experience, President Jeffrey R. Holland explained how and why we should “pray always – If we “ask not amiss, there are no limits to when, where, or about what we should pray. According to the revelations, we are to “pray always.” We are to pray, Amulek said, for “those who are around you,” with the belief that the “fervent prayer of a righteous [people] availeth much.” Our prayers ought to be vocal when we have the privacy to so offer them. If that is not practical, they should be carried as silent utterances in our heart. We sing that prayers are “motion[s] of a hidden fire,” always to be offered, according to the Savior Himself, to God the Eternal Father in the name of His Only Begotten Son.

“My beloved friends, our prayers are our sweetest hour, our most “sincere desire,” our simplest, purest form of worship. We should pray individually, in our families, and in congregations of all sizes. We are to employ prayer as a shield against temptation, and if there be any time we feel not to pray, we can be sure that hesitancy does not come from God, who yearns to communicate with His children at any and all times. Indeed, some efforts to keep us from praying come directly from the adversary. When we don’t know how or exactly for what to pray, we should begin, and continue, until the Holy Spirit guides us into the prayer we should be offering. This approach may be the one we have to invoke when praying for our enemies and those who despitefully use us” (Motions of a Hidden Fire, Liahona, May 2024).

President Holland elaborated more fully on this experience at RootsTech on March 8, 2025. He said that during that experience he received two admonitions to take back to the Church:

1. Pray Always, and pray more frequently and meaningfully: “I thought I prayed all the time, more or less. But the lesson was, ‘Pray more than you pray.’ However much you’ve prayed, pray more. And in however many places you’ve prayed, pray in more places. However many times during the day you pray, pray more times in the day….And it started to give meaning to me, an overwhelming meaning to me that … it was quite literal when God had said, ‘pray always.’”

2. Testify of Christ More Often: President Holland said he was taught the urgency and importance of testifying of Christ, to be a witness. He concluded: “However much you testify, testify more.”

Testimony – A good goal for all of us would be to double our efforts to beware of pride, to pray always, and to testify of Christ more often. I am resolved to do this!

Released on March 22nd. 2025.