Theodore M. Burton

First Quorum of the Seventy (October 1, 1976 – September 30, 1989)
Assistant to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles (October 8, 1960 – October 1, 1976)

General Conference Addresses

• October 1985 General Conference
  • Let Mercy Temper Justice
    • “Thus, as one of the General Authorities, and in fulfilling part of my present duty, I plead with you to be kind to these distressed children of God who need you now more than ever.”
• April 1983 General Conference
  • To Forgive Is Divine
    • “As we plead for mercy, we need to show mercy to others. The injury people do us may appear at the moment to be very great. Yet, just as time heals the wounds of the body, so time also heals the wounds of the soul. As we apply disinfectants to aid in healing the wounds of the body, we need to apply love and understanding in disinfecting the wounds of the soul. To the extent we give forgiveness to others, we can expect to receive forgiveness for ourselves. It is all part of the process of repentance.”
• April 1981 General Conference
  • Light and Truth
    • “God’s light includes the physical light we see, which makes us feel so warm and comfortable. God’s light is also the power to understand and comprehend all things. In other words, all kinds of light are related to intelligence and truth.”
    • “We can control the body and its bodily appetites. It is fallacious to say that we were created with propensities and appetites we cannot control. It is simply not true that people are born with such powerful appetites and passions that they are powerless to control them. God would not be a righteous God if man were created with drives he could not control.”
• April 1979 General Conference
  • The Need for Love
    • “True love is the exact opposite of the present philosophy of selfishness which seems to permeate the world. Selfish interests color people’s dealings with each other and even color person-to-person contact within the family.”
    • “The necessity to practice unselfish love in courtship becomes imperative in marriage. Persons interested only in romance soon find the realisms of marriage too much to cope with.”
• April 1977 General Conference
  • Neither Cryptic Nor Hidden
    • “The instructions and teachings of Jesus following his crucifixion were so sacred that they were not reduced to writing. Nevertheless, hints were given to faithful members of the early church as the apostles urged them to be more faithful in the discharge of their Christian duties.”
• April 1976 General Conference
  • The Word of Wisdom
    • “Frightening and vicious though drug use is, equally destructive in the long run is the use of alcohol and tobacco. They constitute our major drug problem today, for these substances are truly drugs and should be so regarded.”
• April 1975 General Conference
  • Salvation for the Dead—A Missionary Activity
    • “God reserved for these days some of his most valiant sons and daughters. He held back for our day proved and trusted children, who he knew from their premortal behavior would hear the voice of the Shepherd and would accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. He knew they would qualify themselves to receive the priesthood, that they would use the holy priesthood to limit Satan’s destructiveness and make it possible for God to complete the work he had planned for the saving of his children.”
• October 1974 General Conference
  • “Blessed Are the Peacemakers”
    • “The answer appears to me to be that each person today wants to “do his own thing,” to demonstrate his complete independence of everything and everyone. We forget that we are not, and cannot be, totally independent of one another either in thought or action. We are part of a total community.”
    • “At times we may feel justified in arguing or fighting for truth by contentious words and actions. Do not be deceived. Satan would rather have you contend for evil if he could, but he rejoices when we contend with one another even when we think we are doing it in the cause of righteousness.”
• April 1974 General Conference
  • The Power of Elijah
    • “I sincerely believe if we do everything in our power to be obedient to the will of God, we and our families will never lack. If we are obedient as true followers of Christ and share what we have with those less fortunate than we, the Lord will keep his promise to watch over us and care for us. I will then be glad that I have stores of food on hand so I can be of assistance to others. Perhaps like the widow who fed Elijah, the meal will then never fail in our barrels nor the oil ever fail in our cruses until prosperity comes again.”
• October 1973 General Conference
  • The Need for Total Commitment
    • “I believe we must become so immersed in the gospel of Jesus Christ that we become physically as well as mentally more and more like the Lord himself. We must yield our whole hearts to him. What we then do is done not because we are asked to, nor because we are forced to, but because we want to.”
    • “As I understand this scripture, it means that Jesus Christ is kind and merciful to us when we serve him with our whole hearts, but not any of us can take refuge in past righteousness or service. It also means that there is a possibility that any one of us can fall out of good standing, even those who have already achieved a certain degree of righteousness. Therefore, we need to be on our constant guard, each of us, that we not allow ourselves to fall into habits of carelessness in our faith, in our prayers, or in our various Church activities or responsibilities.”
• October 1972 General Conference
  • Genealogy: A Personal Responsibility
    • “Stated, then, in simple words, I say to every member of the Church that you have a personal, individual responsibility to become engaged in priesthood genealogical activity. The real impact of the priesthood genealogy program is one of individual responsibility. The actual work must be performed by individuals, not by organizations.”
    • “But I would like to turn again to this personal responsibility which God has given us to become saviors on Mount Zion. Note that we are to become saviors for our own direct ancestors or progenitors and not for collateral relatives who are direct-line ancestors of somebody else. Note that it is our line of ancestry that is to be preserved, for the promises of Abraham come to us through these lines of lineage.”
• April 1972 General Conference
  • Salvation and Exaltation
    • “Limited knowledge is a dangerous thing. What we need is more truth—unlimited truth—until finally we know all things.”
    • “In order to understand this passage of scripture, for root read “progenitors” or “ancestors” and for branch read “posterity” or “children.” Unless, then, through obedience to the laws of God you can qualify yourself to go to the temple and have your family sealed to you, you will live forever separately and singly in an unmarried state. It seems to me that would be a very lonesome type of existence—to live without the warming influence of family life among those you love, who in turn love you.”
• October 1971 General Conference
  • “Thus Saith the Lord”
    • “Churches in many areas are becoming centers of political activism. Ministers and priests are leading protest marches for political causes. Pastors are turning to psychology, psychiatry, and social science in an attempt to serve and fill the emotional and spiritual needs of their parishioners. When sermons are given, they are intellectual masterpieces of learned men trained in schools of divinity as orators, but the heart has gone out of their words. They give messages full of man’s wisdom, but not of God.”
• April 1971 General Conference
  • Kingdom of God
    • “The literal fulfillment of the scriptural predictions of a universal apostasy is made so plain by a reasonable study of ecclesiastical history as to be unmistakable. Nevertheless, Daniel’s prophetic interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream must eventually go into fulfillment. The question to be answered is: When?”
• October 1970 General Conference
  • The Spirit and Power of Elijah
    • “Now, how does all this affect us? Perhaps I can state it in this way. If Jesus Christ made such a point of stressing this doctrine in his day, it must be just as important for us in our day also. Jesus taught that it was important that his gospel be preached to those who lived before he was born as well as to those then living. It must be just as important for that gospel to be preached since his day to those who have died without hearing these glad tidings, as well as to those now living on the earth.”
• April 1970 General Conference
  • Honesty is the Best Policy
    • “I devoutly wish that all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could be numbered among the honest, trustworthy people of this world. Some members of the Church succumb to the world in which they live. They wear their religion on Sunday, but forget it when they enter the business world. There they become as sharp and untrustworthy in business dealings as some of their associates. You can be both successful and honest—in fact, you can be more successful as an honest man than you ever can as a self-seeking, dishonest person.”
    • “The telling of a lie may appear to be a little thing, but one lie leads to another until a person’s reputation is lost. Once a person is branded a liar, a cheat, or a thief, it takes a long period of repentance and restoration to bring back a reputation so easily tarnished by a careless and thoughtless act. As long as we have to learn to be honest or dishonest, why not learn to be honest?”
    • “You know as I know that the ways of God will not fail. His purposes will be accomplished and he will save us from our sins if only we will not harden our hearts.”
• October 1969 General Conference
  • The Principle of Unity
    • “If men are to retain their sanity and hope, they must have an assurance of a peaceful solution for the ills of mankind.”
    • “This doctrine is built upon true love, even the love of Christ, and is a most important principle of the gospel. Without the love of one man for another, how can justice and real freedom ever be achieved? Unless every man esteems his brother as himself and practices virtue and holiness before the Lord, how can that person hope to live in the presence of God, where unity, love, virtue, and truth abound? No unrighteousness can exist in the presence of God, and unless we learn to overcome disunity and unrighteousness here upon the earth, we cannot hope to be restored to live in the presence of God the Eternal Father in the resurrection to come.”
• April 1969 General Conference
  • The GIANT System
    • “Experience, however, can be a very dear teacher. If we live life without direction and without someone to guide us, it is as dangerous as playing with dynamite. A slight mistake made innocently through lack of knowledge and life blows up in our face. Mistakes can be so serious that sometimes we can never fully repair the dam age done. Some mistakes may even result in loss of life itself. Simply stated, we need guidance and help.”
    • “The Lord is a very wise teacher. He knows that one can’t teach a student until that student is ready to listen. I think failure to understand this principle is the cause of many of our present-day ills. We too often give when the recipient doesn’t want to receive. We preach when people refuse to listen. Young people complain they can’t communicate with their elders when really that obligation rests upon youth. Youth doesn’t ask for counsel, but seeks to give advice of what should be done, based on limited experience. Youth doesn’t seek for information, and we unwisely give youth advice that youth doesn’t want in the first place. If the youth want to communicate with the older generation, let them first take the initiative themselves and ask for and seek further light and knowledge.”
• October 1968 General Conference
  • Prove Thy Lineage
    • “This is a very wrong and dangerous assumption. It is up to the individual to see that the ordinance is properly recorded. It is my responsibility to see that my works are properly recorded. If I cannot find this record through diligent searching, or if I cannot establish a record through proper witnesses who can testify that the ordinance was performed, then I would go to my bishop, state my problem, and ask that I immediately be permitted to be baptized and to have my ordination to the priesthood and my endowment ratified in order to establish a proper record on the books of the Church.”
• October 1967 General Conference
  • The Importance of Temples
    • “The thing that worries me is that not all who go to the temples do so with a proper attitude. Some go to fulfill a duty almost in a spirit of “Let’s go and get it over with!” They make no effort to prepare themselves by prayer and study for such sacred work. They take their problems and worries and secret sins to the temple with them. They are tense and many times selfish. They are in a hurry to be out again and so do not take the peaceful spirit of the temple back into their daily lives. They do not find the happiness and joy within the temple which should be found there. A person can never give what he does not receive. Unless we go to the house of the Lord taking with us the influence and spirit of God, we cannot expect God to fulfill the oath and promise he made to those who really love and serve him out of the abundance of their hearts.”
    • “It is a time to seek the Lord humbly by knocking at the doors of his holy house with the sheaves of our offerings in our hands. These sheaves of offerings are the names of our progenitors to present before the Lord, that we and they may be saved through a sealing in that family relationship which is characteristic of the patriarchal order of the priesthood.”
• April 1967 General Conference
  • Priesthood Responsibility
    • “So in checking on temple attendance, it is important to know that each member of the quorum and his wife understand the principles involved and attend the temple regularly. It is not necessary to know how many times a month the member and his wife have been to the temple, any more than the leader needs to know how much tithing has been paid. His only interest is to know that each man for whom he is personally responsible to the Lord has taken advantage of every spiritual blessing to which that member and his wife are entitled by reason of their faith and righteous living.”
• October 1966 General Conference
  • The Temples of God
    • “So modern temples constructed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are built as houses of the Lord and are as beautiful as we can make them in a simple, dignified manner. Entrance to these temples is restricted to those who have proved their faithfulness and loyalty to God, and the temple serves as a pivotal point in our belief being a place of revelation of the will of God to man.”
    • “Note that he did not rebuke them for this doctrine, but merely told them not to pass judgment on people based on what we can see and experience as mortal beings. As spirit children of God, we covenanted to agree to accept this life. But life on this earth does have a purpose, and much of what we experience in this life is based on the kind of life we led before we came here. One thing we can state with confidence: God will give an opportunity to every man to make the best use of whatever life he was assigned in his mortal station. God has made it possible for us to find on this earth the reason for existence and has given or will give every man, every woman, every child born upon this earth an opportunity to make a new and everlasting covenant with him to accept Jesus Christ as a living Lord and Savior.”
    • “Although repentance later on is not impossible, it is certainly more difficult than it is right here in mortality.”
• April 1966 General Conference
  • A Modern Sacrifice
    • “By his death Jesus redeemed all men, women, and children born upon this earth, that in him they all would be made alive again. Jesus, however, did more than just redeem us from death and the grave. He came into the world not only to redeem mankind from death, but to exalt all men and women who would make a covenant to accept him as their Savior and keep that covenant to the very end of their lives.”
• October 1965 General Conference
  • The Responsibility of the Melchizedek Priesthood
    • “Now brethren, I have spoken only of the first step along the path of progression which will yield eventually a fullness of the blessings which God the Father has in store for us if we are willing to pay the price attached to those blessings. Let us then go on to the next step up the ladder of progression.”
    • “This is my testimony of the responsibility of the Melchizedek Priesthood. It is to be loyal to those who preside over us and direct us toward righteous endeavors, to become tender and gentle and kind in the use of the greatest power God has ever given to man.”
• April 1965 General Conference
  • The Work of Elijah
    • “It stretches credulity beyond the breaking point to assume that Joseph Smith the Prophet could have kept all these details in mind when the fulness of the gospel was restored. There is only one explanation which can fill all the requirements of the scripture, and this is that the events transpired just as he claimed they did. Following his great vision of the Father and the Son, an angel came to administer to Joseph and teach him what had to be done to restore the gospel again to the earth before the coming of the great and dreadful day for the wicked, but for the righteous, the glorious day of the Lord.”
• April 1964 General Conference
  • The Gospel—and the Dead
    • “Men will be judged by what they do in this life. We will be rewarded for the good we do on this earth, and we must pay dearly for the sins we commit. There is altogether too much disobedience and sin in the world. Sin is a weakness of the flesh. This weakness to some is an excuse to justify their sins, but to the strong it is a challenge to overcome this weakness of the flesh. This is possible by exercising the faith inherent in all men to conquer temptation and live as God intended we should.”
• October 1962 General Conference
  • Testimony—A Motivating Force
    • “These are dedicated converts, willing to sacrifice and willing to work. There was nothing new in what these brethren told us. We can summarize it in just about four simple statements, but they are fundamental principles; for instance, there is happiness in work, and we all know that. There is joy in dedication, and that we know, too. There is success in spirituality, and achievement comes only through sacrifice. By using these magical keys we have had our present success, and things look very wonderful for the future.”
• April 1962 General Conference
  • Catching the Vision
    • “The missionary effort of our Church, which has established many missions in that area and has sent literally thousands of missionaries there to bear testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ in that land, is clearly justified. The action of the Church in bearing witness in that area is absolutely necessary. Therefore, I am glad that I have had the privilege of again being a missionary in that area and that we have such missions of our Church in Europe.”
• October 1961 General Conference
  • Trust the Prophet
    • “So, if you were to translate that word you would have to know how it was used. Thus a translator must understand the meaning of the information he is to present; otherwise, his translation is impossible. So, if he is to translate, he must become an authority in other fields much more than just an authority in the language with which he is working. He must understand something about the subject being translated.”
    • “Life for the ordinary man is ofttimes frightening and bewildering. There is so much that we mortals fear. There is so much that we do not understand. There is so much that we do not know. When we talk of knowing, we talk of knowledge, and it would be well to ask ourselves what we mean by “knowledge.” Knowledge is only our interpretation of the evidence before us. If our interpretation of the evidence is wrong, our knowledge is false.”
    • “Thus one can trust a seer because a seer may see the heavens open. He may see the great vision of God working in all his majesty. He may see the fulness of truth as it is revealed to him by God who makes no mistakes. The evidence is clear, therefore, and the interpretation is clear. The seer can bear personal testimony, not based on books, not based on scholarship, not based on tradition, but based on the evidence of things that God himself can reveal to him in an actual experience with Deity. He may receive a revelation from God by actually seeing and hearing and being instructed in the real truth.”
• April 1961 General Conference
  • With All thy Getting Get Understanding
    • “We must take this responsibility very seriously and realize that we were not chosen nor set apart to rule, but chosen and set apart to serve, to be the servants of all with whom we come in contact. We can best serve by teaching the divinity of Jesus Christ.”
    • “A simple tool in the hands of a skilled craftsman would be a marvelous thing. On the other hand, the finest of hand tools, or even a machine tool, in the hands of a clumsy oaf would be valueless.”
    • “God did not hesitate to use simple tools wherever he had to.”
    • “In other words, they were cursing those who believed the Son of God. In the pride of their learning they were not humble enough to believe, and God could not use such people. They had ears, but they could not hear. They had eyes, but they could not see. And so it was that God promised that in the last days he would restore all things of the kingdom, and just as the Lord had promised, he had to fulfil. So it came time for the Lord to keep the promise he had made and restore all things, but he needed someone on earth he could trust. He needed someone he could teach.”
    • “What causes intellectual apostasy? Why do some learned men and women turn from the faith? It is not learning, for there are hundreds of us, thousands of us, equally well-trained. It isn’t being exposed to different ideas, for we too were exposed to these ideas in the finest universities of the land. Why, then, do they lose their testimony? Principally out of vanity and pride. They want to impress others with their learning. To put it indelicately, it is the problem of the swelled head, because that is exactly what the Prophet said.”
    • “Now remember, it isn’t the simplicity of the tool that determines its value, but the skill of the workman who uses that tool. God, I am sure, would prefer to use the most skilled, the most able, the best-trained person that he could find, but that person must be humble and he must be teachable, and he must be willing to learn something new. We, with all our learning, stand just at the threshold of things that we need to know, just at the beginning of wisdom, with the rudiments of wisdom in our hands.”
• October 1960 General Conference
  • Gratitude
    • “I am frightened, but only to this extent—frightened that I might not measure up to the responsibility that has been given me. President McKay told me that my responsibility would be to principally bear witness to the divinity of Jesus Christ, and this I can do from the bottom of my heart. I do know that Jesus is the Christ. I have covenanted with him to be his son. I have covenanted to bear that name, and I pray that I might always bear it honorably, that I might never do anything to bring dishonor to that glorious name.”

Other Talks

Articles in Church Publications

Other Publications and Resources