Chapter XII: Part 12

Hosts of capable souls have heedlessly put themselves into the enemy's power by yielding to the treacherous invitation to fraternize with sin. Such a one is made welcome in the camp of the foe, and, at first a visitor, he sooner or later awakens to the fact that he is a prisoner, and withal a deserter from the ranks of patriotism and honor.

The young man, rich in hope and promise, sets out to see the world for himself--just to see, that's all, he says--and is overpowered in the grog-shop trench or the wanton's den--a prisoner in the power of a merciless and exulting foe.

Solemn as the sound of doom, piercing as the blast of angel's trump, is the Lord's affirmation: "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." (John 8:34.)

Who can find so much as excuse to think of himself as a freeman when he knows he is a slave--to base passion, to dishonorable desire, to hypocrisy and crime?

The prisoner's fate is as commonly the result of negative sin--of neglect, indolence, failure to do--as it is the consequence of ill-directed activity and positive transgression. Refusal to comply with the prescribed laws and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to permit or invite capture by the arch-enemy of souls.

Obedience is the test of allegiance, and he whom we obey, the leader we elect to follow, is the master who directs our destiny, whether in the liberty of righteousness or the serfdom of sin.

"Know ye not," wrote Paul of old to the proud Romans, "that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (Rom 6:16.)

The certainty of capture by the enemy through passive irresolution or aggressive violation of Divine law, together with the actuality of the captive state was set forth by a Hebrew prophet on the Western Hemisphere centuries before the birth of Christ, as follows:

"For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger and perish.

"For behold, at that day [this latter, modern, present day] shall he rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good.

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say, All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well; and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.

"And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them, I am no devil, for there is none; and thus he whispereth in their ears until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.

"Yea, they are grasped with death, and hell; and death, and hell, and the devil, and all that have been seized therewith, must stand before the throne of God, and be judged according to their works, from whence they must go into the place prepared for them, even a lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment." (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 28:19-23.)

It is evident from the foregoing and from the following, that captivity to the devil shall extend into the eternities as the state of those who have failed to establish their status as citizens in the Kingdom of freedom:

"For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance, even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked." (Alma 34:35.)

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WHAT DOTH IT PROFIT A MAN?

Worldly Gain--Eternal Loss

"FOR what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:36-37).

These are questions put by the Teacher of teachers. They are related; we may consider them as one. Simple, like unto all the Master's teachings--for high precept and profound philosophy are embodied in the interrogatory--the question is searching, peremptory, challenging. Who that hears or reads can brush it aside? Compelling in its incisive brevity, it is of haunting directness. Once considered, even cursorily, it will not down; once admitted to the inner consciousness, it will not out. The baubles of earth are set over against the priceless jewels of heaven; the fleeting things of mortality are put in contrast with the enduring verities of eternity.

Granted that this is a material world, and that experience in material affairs is a pervading and indispensable element in the curriculum of life's school, it is no less truly a fact that earth-life is neither the beginning nor the end of individual existence and progression.

Material belongings, relative wealth or poverty, physical environment--the things on which we are prone to set our hearts and anchor our aspirations, the things for which we sweat and strive, ofttimes at the sacrifice of happiness and to the forfeiture of real success--these after all are but externals, the worth of which in the reckoning to come shall be counted in terms of the use we have made of them.

Is the plow more than the field to be furrowed, or the sickle than the ripened grain? Can gold stay the hunger pangs better than the nourishing food that the money may buy?

The context with which occurs the crucial interrogation quoted above points the question sharply: "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's; the same shall save it."

The cross to be taken up may be heavy, perhaps to be dragged because too burdensome to be borne. We are apt to assume that self-denial is the sole material of our cross; but this is true only as we regard self-denial in its broadest sense, comprising both positive and negative aspects. One man's cross may consist mostly in refraining from doings to which he is inclined, another's in doing what he would fain escape. One's besetting sin is evil indulgence; his neighbor's a lazy inattention to the activities required by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, coupled perchance with puritanical rigor in other observances.

But the great question, striking home to every thoughtful soul, is that of the Master--"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" (Matt. 16:26).

It is possible then for a man to lose his own soul. To deny is to reject the Lord's own doctrine. The safeguard against such incalculable loss is specifically indicated--to follow the Savior; and this can mean only keeping His commandments, whatever the temporary suffering or worldly sacrifice may be.

The occasion of Christ's question with its accompanying brief but forceful discourse was this: He had reiterated to the disciples, with greater directness than ever before, the facts of His approaching death and the ignominy that would be forced upon Him. Peter, impetuous and impulsive as ever, exclaimed "Be it far from thee Lord: this shall not be unto thee." In that remark, though well-intended and bold, lay the suggestion that Jesus should avert the impending tragedy to Himself, and save His own life. The Lord's reply to Peter was a rebuke of the severest kind.

Then followed the avowal that one who saves his life at the cost of righteous duty shall lose it, and the comforting assurance that he who is ready to sacrifice his life in the Master's service shall find it. If this be true with life as the stake, how more so shall it be with wealth, station, worldly power, or pet but false theory and doctrine, as the thing to be gained or lost?

Consider the words of Jacob the Nephite:

"O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves--wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. . .. Behold, the way for man is narrow but it lieth in a straight course before him; and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and He employeth no servant there; and there is none other way, save it be by the gate, for He cannot be deceived; for the Lord God is His name. And whoso knocketh, to him will He open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches; yea, they are they, whom He despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them." (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 9).

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THE GARDEN OF GOD

And the Weeds of Human Culture

"BUT He answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." (Matt. 15:13.)

This significant and comprehensive avowal by the Lord Jesus Christ while in the flesh was spoken by way of rejoinder to a report from certain disciples that the Pharisees were offended at His doctrine. Some of the learned scribes and punctilious Pharisees had voiced the criticism that our Lord's disciples were in transgression because they ignored the tradition respecting the ceremonial washing of hands. The Master's rebuke was incisive and severe. He demanded of the casuistical complainers: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" And He cited the glaring instance of the then current violation of the Divine command respecting the honor due to parents from their children, as occasioned by the hierarchic vagary of the Corban practise, by which undutiful children were enabled to escape their filial obligations. Then, calling to the multitude He loudly proclaimed, in denunciation of the unlawful exaction of arbitrary rule: "Hear and understand: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man."

Who that heard could fail to note the clear differentiation between man-made rules and Divine law, between human tradition and the commandments of God?

Then followed the sweeping declaration cited above. What were the plants of Pharisaical tradition but noxious tares, doomed to be rooted up and burned?

Only the wheat of Divine planting shall be gathered into the garner of the Lord. But, as so impressively taught in parable, the wholesome grain and the poisonous tares are allowed to grow together for a season, lest perchance the premature extirpation of the weeds imperil the wheat.

Nations and kingdoms rise and fall, sometimes by God's immediate direction and through the instrumentality of men foreordained to the occasion, sometimes by Divine permission or allowance incident to the exercise of individual or national agency.

I cannot believe that God ever planted the noisome fungus of tyranny or kingly despotism. Nevertheless it has been permitted to flourish rankly in the soil of ignorance and false tradition; and its spores have been surreptitiously scattered even in the fields of fair freedom's flowers.

With God as with man there is a time of seeding and a time of harvest. Only now has the world been even measurably prepared for government based on the consent of the people, for the kind of government that shall yet be established in other lands as it has been already developed in America. Fifty, twenty, aye, even ten years ago, to have attempted forcibly to uproot the weeds of autocracy would have endangered the precious wheat of real democracy. There is a dominant element of timeliness in all the works of God. Verily He doeth all things well, and in propitious season.

Have you never read that in the last days all things shall be in commotion? We live in the predicted time of shaking, when every unstable structure shall totter, and only such as are established upon an eternal foundation shall stand. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews so understood, as witness his admonitory precept:

"See that ye refuse not him that speaketh." The reference is to Christ. "For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." (Heb. 12:25-27.)

The things of God are not to be shaken even by the boom of man's heaviest artillery; they shall abide in spite of bomb and shell. But the works of human craft shall be shattered. Not only so as to material structures, but likewise man's sophistries, erroneous theories, conjectures, philosophy, and such science as is falsely so called.

Institutions of human origin may persist long years, but shall surely come to an end. In and after the resurrection they shall have neither place nor name. Institutions established by the authority of heaven alone can endure.

To administer in the ordinances of God requires an authority distinctively different from any that man can originate or arrogate to himself. Let Caesar regulate the things of Caesar, if you will, but let not Caesar essay to administer the things of God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is eternal, it shall never be destroyed nor shaken. The laws of God are immutable and compliance therewith, in mode as well as in spirit, is indispensable to salvation. Thus hath the Lord decreed:

"Behold! mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion. Will I accept of an offering, saith the Lord, that is not made in my name! Or, will I receive at your hands that which I have not appointed! And will I appoint unto you, saith the Lord, except it be by law, even as I and my Father ordained unto you, before the world was! I am the Lord thy God, and I give unto you this commandment, that no man shall come unto the Father but by me, or by my word, which is my law, saith the Lord. And everything that is in the world, whether it be ordained of men, by thrones, or principalities, or powers, or things of name, whatsoever they may be, that are not by me, or by my word, saith the Lord, shall be thrown down, and shall not remain after men are dead, neither in nor after the resurrection, saith the Lord your God. For whatsoever things remain are by me; and whatsoever things are not by me shall be shaken and destroyed." (D&C 132.)

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THE LAST DISPENSATION

Today is the Sum of all the Yesterdays

THE student of history recognizes distinct epochs, periods and ages in the chronicles of events, and classifies his subject-matter accordingly. Single facts and isolated occurrences may be of immediate importance; but when studied in relation to one another they take on a vastly augmented significance.

This is equally true with respect to both secular and sacred history. In the latter field, which comprises the record of God's direct dealings with man and the unfolding of the Divine purpose as attested by prophecy and its fulfilment, the existence of progressive plan and orderly design is strikingly apparent.

Holy Writ affirms a succession of dispensations, each characterized by distinctive features of Divine authority and commission revealed to man. Illustrative of these dispensations are the Adamic, the Noachian, the Abrahamic, and the Mosaic. In due course came the Meridian dispensation, glorified by the personal ministry of our Lord, the Christ; and this was immediately succeeded by the Apostolic dispensation.

Both Christ and the Apostles foretold a great falling away, a general apostasy, a long era of spiritual darkness, which was to be succeeded by a new dispensation distinguished by the restoration of the Gospel and the establishment of the Church of Christ on earth for the last time. The Scriptures affirm that the new dispensation is to comprise all the authority, powers, and gifts of earlier dispensations, and is therefore distinctively a time of restitution, reorganization, and restoration. It is appropriately named the Last Dispensation, and the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.

The comprehensiveness of this period of restoration was forcefully expressed by Paul: "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth." (Eph. 1:10.)

Peter, addressing the penitent Jews, who were pricked to the heart because of their guilty consciousness of having consented to the Lord's death, held out to them hope of forgiveness in a time then far future, the time of restitution of which the prophets had spoken. Ponder his profound admonition and assuring promise:

"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:19-21.)

The Dispensation of the Fulness of Times has been inaugurated. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is again preached upon earth, and the Holy Priesthood is made operative by direct bestowal from the heavens, for the administration of the ordinances without which no man can enter the Kingdom of God.

In the year 1820, God the Eternal Father, and His Son Jesus Christ manifested Themselves as bodily Personages to Joseph Smith; and from the mouth of the resurrected and glorified Savior the youthful prophet received the glad tidings that the predicted time of restoration had arrived. Thus was ushered in the Last Dispensation. The darkness incident to the long night of apostasy was dispelled; the glory of the heavens once more illumined the world; the silence of centuries was broken; the voice of God was heard again by man.

Visitations of other heavenly personages followed. John the Baptist, who held the keys of the Lessor or Aaronic Priesthood, appeared as a resurrected being and conferred upon Joseph Smith authority to minister in the ordinance of baptism for the remission of sins. Peter, James and John ordained him to the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood, including the Holy Apostleship; Moses brought to earth the commission of gathering scattered Israel; Elijah transmitted the appointment of vicarious service in behalf of the dead. (See Mal. 4:5, 6.)

The great consummation shall be realized in the return of Christ to earth, in power and glory, to rule and reign, as the holy prophets have foretold. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints appeals to the world to heed the fast ripening signs of the Lord's coming, to repent and be baptized, by which means alone is salvation through Christ attainable. Heed ye the merciful warning of the Lord, our Savior:

"Wherefore, be faithful, praying always, having your lamps trimmed and burning, and oil with you, that you may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom: For behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, that I come quickly. Even so. Amen." (D&C 33:17-18.)