“To deal carelessly with truth,
to deny it when once gained,
to defy the laws of truth which are the laws of God,
must be counted among the greatest sins.
Those who deal lightly with truth in their lives, though they may not become sons of perdition,
must expect a heavy punishment. “
(Evidences and Reconciliations, pp. 213‑14; 1970 ed., Elder John A. Widtsoe)
People who think they are learning truth usually only want it one way. And the truth they want... needs to fit perfectly with their current paradigm and/or worldview.. The truth for them only has one hue. A good metaphor for this is that someone might hold tight to a baby rattle. They don’t know anything differently, nor maybe want or realize that there is anything greater. However… there is a series of progression. For example…from the baby rattle some naturally move on to a board game.. From a board game they move on to a digital computer games.. from the electronic game they move on to driving a sports car. We need to allow progression and yet still understand that we still are all Latter Day Saints.
How often are we afraid to think out of the box, to let our minds stretch into the dark abyss and stretch into heavenly abodes. Instead, we go to LDS.org or our bookshelf to pull out a quote from a GA and stop our searching there. Is that not indeed a road block we're setting up in our mind, hindering our personal revelation, our personal "Word of God"??
God cares more about us than we do of ourselves. God sees all as potential Gods.
God is noisy; He has a lot of things to say to us. He says a lot about a lot of thing.
If He is quiet in your life, repent.
- Seek for more wisdom....the ability to discern between truth and error.
- Desire to progress... increasing in truth and light.
- Receive glory...the possession of light an truth which bestows power.
Sidenote:
The messenger of truth should NEVER and is NOT as important as the message. The messenger should never get in the way or take precedence over the message. We should look to the Source from where the message originates and not to the one delivering the message. Be careful to listen to any author or speaker who dominates or lifts himself up and writes and speaks about him or herself over the content of the message.
4 comments:
Excellent thoughts.
Let's also remember that sin darkens the mind. To the extent we give in to sin, we lose light and truth and the ability to discern good and evil, truth and error. In order to learn great wisdom, we must keep all the commandments continually over time. (One of my former bishops was making such foolish comments in GD the other week I began to wonder if perhaps he were involved in an affair!)
Only those who are unafraid of the truth will find it.
Most members of the Church seem too fearful of truth to study it all out on their own and ask questions about what their leaders are saying and doing. They seem to not want the responsibility to discern truth from error on their own. Most seem so fearful of the idea of 'false prophets and false doctrine' that they don't even believe it's possible in the Church and thus they won't even go their in their minds. They easily fall for any leader who tells them that 'all is well' and that he or the Prophet won't lead them astray.
But it is the Devil who tells us to not study, ponder or pray about everything we hear, especially in Church. It is the Devil who tells us that the thinking has been done for us and that we are to just obediently follow and accept whatever the leaders say or do. He wants us to think that church leaders and Prophets are always 'true' and inspired and that they can't be wrong or lead us astray.
And most people easily fall for the devil's philosophy of 'prophets can't lead us astray' because most people don't want to have to 'prove all things' and discern for themselves if a prophet is really a true prophet or not, or if what he says is correct or not. That's just far too much work than most want to do.
It's so much easier to believe that we can get to heaven just playing 'follow the leader' and hanging on to a Prophet's coat tails. Most people love the devil's idea of following church leaders 'unquestioningly'. He has infiltrated that idea into most major religions, so the people don't question their leaders or think for themselves and thus don't see any falsehoods being presented, and thus most people are very easily led down to hell and they never know it, believing all the way that they are safely in the right church and are righteous.
While the raw truth is that any prophet or person or leader can fall and most do, and we are on our own to find our way to heaven, hopefully with the help of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures that teach the same things as Christ did. Occasionally we will be blessed with a true prophet to help us along the way, yet we should always beware that even 'he' could fall and lead us astray.
Along with leading people astray by 'false' prophets in and out the Church, (which Joseph Smith warned the Saints that most people easily fall for and think they are true prophets) The Adversary also easily leads people astray by 'personal revelation'.
For most people assume and believe that their revelation is coming from God, (especially if they are in the temple) when usually it is coming from the Adversary. For the Adversary's revelation is always easy to hear, everyone can hear what he is whispering to them continually, and he usually tells us things that sound right and good to us, things we want to hear.
But only a rare few are living a pure enough life to really hear the whisperings of the Holy Spirit and fewer yet test their revelations against what Christ has taught to see if what they are hearing is really true or not.
It is no wonder that the Book of Mormon prophets foretold of and saw the complete apostasy and corruption of the Holy Church of God in the last days (today), where everyone in the Church today has been deceived by false prophets and false doctrine to support or do evil, except a rare few, yet they know it not, they all still feel righteous and right.
For whenever God establishes his Church it has quickly gone into apostasy, because few mortals are willing to 'prove all things' as the Apostle Paul warned, to make sure they are not being led astray by false prophets or false personal revelation.
Wow, amen Anonymous 11:37 AM!
Breaking through paradigms only comes with sincere prayer, pondering and asking the Lord to know the truth. Few seek after it so few know.
I think the truth of our situation is indeed sobering. Moroni said it was awful. Those that have eyes to see understand how awful it is now.
However, there is great hope. If we hold fast to the word of God we'll make it through the coming cleansing and be part of the building of zion.
I also second Anon at 11:37. And Anon at 10:15. Good discussion.
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