Ether 12:25-41 ...when people you care about not only don't get it, they think it's stupid...

 Moroni’s conversation with the Lord.  

Ether 12: 25-41

 

Moroni: We are trying to express what we know is true and right as clearly and compellingly as we possibly can, guided as much by the Spirit as we can, but, knowing them, I am afraid that they will not believe any of it, but instead consider our words foolish, naïve and laughable and not understand that which is so essential that they understand.  My best efforts at persuasion or explaining are not enough. And knowing that, I am concerned and dismayed.

 

The Lord: Yes.  They will mock.  And, in the end, they will be very sad that they did not pay attention or consider what you wrote.   But remember that my grace, my loving, willing, powerful help, is enough to prevent them from irrevocably misusing what you have written.

    That’s the power of my grace.  And my grace can be enough for every man or woman who struggles with weakness and is humbled as he/she realizes that weakness and turns to me for help. That’s a major reason why I give you weakness.  It helps you to humble yourself and to want and ask for my help.  And then, with my grace, what is a weakness when you try by yourself, becomes a strength as we work together.  (Working together is an essential element of celestial life.)

     Those people who will mock?  They will, in time, see clearly the eternally erroneous elements of the position they have taken.  I will show them that the things they are espousing and doing that they think are good and strong, are not; that if they wish to be one with me what they really need to do is become full of faith in me, place their hope in what I know is possible for them, and become truly filled with charity.  You can trust me with that work.

 

Moroni: Thanks.  Being reminded of that is helpful.  I will trust you as this unfolds. …I know the power of charity, and how essential it is.  I know the power of faith in you…just look at what Jared’s brother was able to do because he trusted you so faithfully.  I understand what glorious future may await us and the immense love you have for us; so immense that you gave your life for us.  It is woven throughout your work.  Truly charity is absolutely essential to and the very essence of celestial life.

   I understand now that, if those we are so very concerned about do not respond with charity to our efforts and words, but instead mock or deride what we believe and know, that you will make it so that, in time, they will be able to see themselves and their choices exactly as they are, and what they really are when they are without the strengths they have that you have given to them and out of touch with the grace that you offer to them.

    So, Lord, would you please, with your grace, make it so that they have more charity and become open to your grace sooner than later?  That would save so much time and trouble and sorrow for them and for me.

 

The Lord:  Don’t worry about whether or not they have charity.  That’s for me to address.  Your not worrying about that helps you to continue to work with me to assist others, to increase in faith, repent, be forgiven, become more at one with me, and grow in charity and grace.

     Your awareness of your own weakness and your turning to me for help opens you to working with my grace, making you more empowered to do good in the world and preparing you to be able to come to the place I have prepared for you.  Focus on that.

Moroni (later, speaking to the audience):  And now I..bid farewell to you, and to my brothers who I dearly love, until we shall meet before the judgment-seat of Chist…And then shall you know that I have seen Jesus, and that he has talked with me face to face, and that he told me in in plain humility, even as a man tells another in my own language, these things.

     I would strongly and kindly and fervently recommend that you seek Jesus, so that you can come to know and experience first hand the grace that comes from Him, and from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost (who bears record of them) and so that you can also experience His amazing grace in your life not just once, but forever.

        

James Talmage on the concept of hell

"During this hundred years [since 1830] many other great truths not known before, have been declared to the people, and one of the greatest is that to hell there is an exit as well as an entrance. Hell is no place to which a vindictive judge sends prisoners to suffer and to be punished principally for his glory; but it is a place prepared for the teaching, the disciplining of those who failed to learn here upon the earth what they should have learned. True, we read of everlasting punishment, unending suffering, eternal damnation. That is a direful expression; but in his mercy the Lord has made plain what those words mean. "Eternal punishment," he says, is God's punishment, for he is eternal; and that condition or state or possibility will ever exist for the sinner who deserves and really needs such condemnation; but this does not mean that the individual sufferer or sinner is to be eternally and everlastingly made to endure and suffer. No man will be kept in hell longer than is necessary to bring him to a fitness for something better. When he reaches that stage the prison doors will open and there will be rejoicing among the hosts who welcome him into a better state." James E Talmage - CR1930Apr:95-97

2020: Watching “the elect”, those who have made sacred covenants, be deceived.

It’s been foretold.  But hope is not gone.  Keep going.  Do not let your heart fail. Love God. Read His word with humility and never use it for self-justification.  Keep anger and pride out of your heart.  Love of God and others is what opens us to personal revelation and casts out fear.

This from Jeffrey R. Holland in October of 2009

“Prophecies regarding the last days often refer to large-scale calamities such as earthquakes or famines or floods. These in turn may be linked to widespread economic or political upheavals of one kind or another.

“But there is one kind of latter-day destruction that has always sounded to me more personal than public, more individual than collective—a warning, perhaps more applicable inside the Church than outside it. The Savior warned that in the last days even those of the covenant, the very elect, could be deceived by the enemy of truth.

“If we think of this as a form of spiritual destruction, it may cast light on another latter-day prophecy. Think of the heart as the figurative center of our faith, the poetic location of our loyalties and our values; then consider Jesus’s declaration that in the last days “men’s hearts [shall fail] them.”

“The encouraging thing, of course, is that our Father in Heaven knows all of these latter-day dangers, these troubles of the heart and soul, and has given counsel and protections regarding them...

“The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.” That phrase—taken from Moroni’s final lines of testimony, written 1,000 years after Lehi’s vision—is a...testimony of the only true way.”

From “Safety for the Soul”, October 2009

To be perfected in Him is to learn, from Him, how to love and bless as fearlessly and wisely and well as He does.

1st Timothy, chapter 1: Fables, longsuffering, warfare, hope, charity, and shipwrecks

So, reading through Timothy 1, I hear Paul speak of Jesus as “our hope”.  And he speaks of Timothy’s responsibility in Ephesus: to “charge” members who teach things that are not doctrine, but who instead teach “fables” and complicated genealogies which generally just serve to make people start digging for answers to questions that are based upon stories, or conjecture or tradition and who feel like they are accessing higher understanding. when, actually, they are being seriously sidetracked.

And he then, in verse 5, gives a way to be able to recognize this error.  Does what is being taught create a desire to be more full of charity, simply for the sake of the virtue of charity, without guile, and motivated by faith?  If so, it is good.  If not, it may well fall into the “fables” category.

And then later, in verse 12, Paul talks about the time in his life when he, himself, was involved in the kind of teaching he is warning against.  Like most who do that, he did it because he thought it was a good thing to do.  It felt energizing and right. And he talks of the great grace of God that came to him to change and enlighten and heal and forgive him.

And then this: “that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all longsuffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting”.

Some might think that this could be a message to those of us who are fable teachers that, when we realize what we’ve been doing, we need not fear wrath, but instead be grateful for God’s longsuffering with our erroneous assumptions and find hope in His forgiveness.

I am struck that it is also a message for those of us who recognize those fables or false beliefs taught by members of our faith, that we should also remember God’s longsuffering and knowledge of purveyors of “fables”, and refrain from abandoning charity towards those who teach such, and not lose hope due to our dismay, sorrow or pain over the results of the spread of those fables and the neglect of charity that it entices people to engage in.

So my question to myself is this: Is my truth-speaking, my “good warfare” (verse 18) response to “fable teaching” as full of longsuffering, charity, and grace as the Father’s is?  Is that charity, longsuffering and grace what enables us to connect with God in such a way that we do not lose hope?

Because, for sure, sometimes that fable preaching can feel like it creates a veritable “shipwreck” (verse 19) among us.