The False Gods We Worship
Alison Coutts
JST Matthew 1:5–11, 22 (Matthew 24)
And Jesus answered, and said unto them: Take heed
that no man deceive you;
6 For many shall come in my name,
saying—I am Christ—and shall deceive many;
7 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted,
and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations, for my name’s sake;
8 And then shall many be offended, and
shall betray one another, and shall hate one another;
9 And many false prophets shall arise,
and shall deceive many;
10 And because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many shall wax cold;
11 But he that remaineth steadfast and
is not overcome, the same shall be saved. . . .
22 For
in those days there shall also arise false Christs, and false prophets, and
shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch, that, if possible, they shall
deceive the very elect, who are the elect according to the covenant.
In 1976, as a Bicentennial Address to the Church,
President Spencer W. Kimball gave a stern sermon on the state of the world.
Although nearly 40 years ago, Pres. Kimball’s comments are chillingly accurate
and applicable to the world today. Quote:
The Lord gave us a choice world and expects righteousness and
obedience to his commandments in return. But when I review the performance of this
people in comparison with what is expected, I am appalled and frightened.
Iniquity seems to abound. The Destroyer seems to be taking full advantage of
the time remaining to him in this, the great day of his power. Evil seems about
to engulf us like a great wave, and we feel that truly we are living in
conditions similar to those in the days of Noah before the Flood.[1]
Elder Oaks in the recent October 2014 General Conference had
this to say,
Even as we seek to be meek and to avoid contention,
we must not compromise or dilute our commitment to the truths we understand. We
must not surrender our positions or our values. The gospel of Jesus Christ and
the covenants we have made inevitably cast us as combatants in the eternal
contest between truth and error. There is no middle ground in that contest.
The Savior showed the way when His adversaries
confronted Him with the woman who had been “taken in adultery, in the very act”
(John 8:4).
When shamed with their own hypocrisy, the accusers withdrew and left Jesus
alone with the woman. He treated her with kindness by declining to condemn her
at that time. But He also firmly directed her to “sin no more” (John 8:11).
Loving-kindness is required, but a follower of Christ—just like the Master—will
be firm in the truth.[2]
False prophets seem to me to fall into two categories:
Animate and Inanimate. Let’s deal with the Inanimate first. Pres. Kimball gives
an example of a young man choosing to invest his savings in a shiny new car
rather than a mission. Elder Uchtdorf brings the analogy a little closer to
home,
We need to accept that the commandments of God aren’t just a
long list of good ideas. They aren’t “life hacks” from an Internet blog or
motivational quotes from a Pinterest board. They are divine counsel, based on
eternal truths, given to bring “peace in this world, and eternal life in the
world to come.”6 So we have a choice. On the one hand,
there is the opinion of the world with its ever-changing theories and
questionable motives. On the other hand, there is God’s word to His
children—His eternal wisdom, His certain promises, and His loving instructions
for returning to His presence in glory, love, and majesty.[3]
Now that’s not to say that there aren’t memes out there that contain eternal
truths. In fact the Church has made available many from the recent Conferences
alone. But in all things ethereal—and by that I mean in the Ethernet—we need to
let the Spirit guide us. I recently had to evaluate who I was following on
Twitter—a beloved English actor and raconteur, very popular on Twitter and very
funny for the most part, started getting pretty adamant about the correctness
of his views on marriage. Much as I enjoy watching him act, and reading his
stories, I realized that what he was writing was eliciting sympathy for a cause
I cannot and will not support. But now I am straying into the Animate.
While we are talking about virtual realities—a term
that Pres. Kimball would not be familiar with, but which, he nevertheless
foresaw—Elder Bednar offers us advice and a warning:
We are blessed to live,
learn, and serve in this most remarkable dispensation. An important aspect of
the fulness that is available to us in this special season is a miraculous
progression of innovations and inventions that have enabled and accelerated the
work of salvation: from trains to telegraphs to radios to automobiles to
airplanes to telephones to transistors to televisions to computers to satellite
transmissions to the Internet—and to an almost endless list of technologies and
tools that bless our lives. All of these advancements are part of the Lord
hastening His work in the latter days. [4]
And the warning:
Sadly, some . . . in
the Church today ignore “things as they really are” and neglect eternal
relationships for digital distractions, diversions, and detours that have no
lasting value. [They] waste countless hours, postpone or forfeit vocational or
academic achievement, and ultimately sacrifice cherished human relationships
because of mind- and spirit-numbing video and online games. As the Lord
declared, “Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment … : Thou shalt
not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be
known” (D&C 60:13).[5]
I work in the temple and I have often thought and
stated that I aspire to be the person I am in the temple. Kind, patient,
loving, non-judgmental, calm, confident, always with a smile and a helpful
attitude. Temple worker is one of my avatars
if you will. A persona that I adopt for a particular role—if we do set up
avatars or personas with which we meet other people in the virtual world, how
do we behave? What impression do we give to those other virtual personas we
interact with, and, possibly more important, how much do they influence us.
While I was thinking about this talk, I was also
preparing my Sunday School lesson for today. Isaiah 40–49 are chapters that put
into stark and unmistakable contrast Christ as Jehovah, the Messiah and graven
images, manmade gods. And the scripture from the Sermon on the Mount and at the
Nephite Temple kept going through my head, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures
upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and
steal; But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal” (3 Nephi
13). In Isaiah 46 1–4, the Lord scorns the ancient graven images—idols—which had
to be carried about, and in contrast the Lord carries us.
Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the
beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a
burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; they could
not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. Hearken unto
me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are
borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: And even to your
old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I
will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
Isaiah chapters 40–49 are replete with such imagery, but
perhaps the most pervasive is that of spiritual blindness and deafness. The idols
are blind and deaf, and so the people who replace true doctrine, the true
Gospel, are equally blind and deaf and neither can help the other. Christ
brings light, He brings truth to our ears. If we are to be blind and deaf, then
it should be to those who:
“seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but . . .
walketh in [their] own way, and after the image of [their] own God, whose image
is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which
waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall
fall.” (D&C
1:16.)
In Isaiah 46:5 the Lord decries the futility of putting our
resources where they will do no good:
“To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me,
that we may be like? They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the
balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they fall down, yea,
they worship. They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in
his place, and he standeth; from his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall
cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.”
Pres. Kimball, echoes that with a story of monkeys who could
only be caught when a nut they desired was put in a jar with the neck only wide
enough for their empty hand, not with the nut, and because they would not let
go of the nut, they were easily captured. He concluded:
And so it often seems to be with people, having such a firm
grasp on things of the world—that which is telestial—that no amount of urging
and no degree of emergency can persuade them to let go in favor of that which
is celestial. Satan gets them in his grip easily. If we insist on spending all
our time and resources building up for ourselves a worldly kingdom, that is
exactly what we will inherit.[6]
In Isaiah 46:5 the Lord sharpens that focus,
“To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me,
that we may be like? They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the
balance, and hire a goldsmith; and he maketh it a god: they fall down, yea,
they worship. They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in
his place, and he standeth; from his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall
cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.”
A friend called me a day or so ago. His married daughter, a
good and faithful member of the Church had been disturbed when her best friend
left the Church apparently because she read, and believed, some anti-Mormon
literature about the Book of Abraham and Joseph’s translation. The daughter was
now having doubts about Joseph and his revelatory skills. I was able to point
him to some articles that dealt with those accusations—false of course—you just
have to consider the source, but what is easy for me to dismiss, obviously is a
sticking point for some people. In the recent conference, Elder Neil Anderson
had this to say:
A testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith can come differently
to each of us. It may come as you kneel in prayer, asking God to confirm that
he was a true prophet. It may come as you read the Prophet’s account of the
First Vision. A testimony may distill upon your soul as you read the Book of
Mormon again and again. It may come as you bear your own testimony of the Prophet
or as you stand in the temple and realize that through Joseph Smith the holy
sealing power was restored to the earth.22
With faith and real intent, your testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith will
strengthen. The constant water balloon volleys from the sidelines may
occasionally get you wet, but they need never, never extinguish your burning
fire of faith.[7]
The Apostle Paul warned, “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:11–14). Elder Ballard expanded on this:
In the Lord’s Church
there is no such thing as a “loyal opposition.” One is either for the kingdom
of God and stands in defense of God’s prophets and apostles, or one stands
opposed.[8]
Our defense is grounded in our faith, and our faith
is grounded in our knowledge of, and commitment to the scriptures and the words
of our prophets.
Nearly 40 years ago, Pres. Kimball presciently told
us:
What are we to fear when the Lord is with us? Can we
not take the Lord at his word and exercise a particle of faith in him? Our
assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in
themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the
gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies.
We must leave off the worship of modern-day idols and
a reliance on the “arm of flesh,” for the Lord has said to all the world in our
day, “I will not spare any that remain in Babylon.” (D&C
64:24.)
The only edit I would make to that is that now the “arm of
flesh” is also an “arm of pixels.” If we follow the scriptures and the words of
the prophets, the blessings that come are sweeping as Elder Bednar promises:
We have been and are blessed in so many ways; and where much
is given, much is required. As an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I invoke
this blessing upon you: that you may come to understand more fully the
spiritual significance and blessing of living in the dispensation of the
fulness of times, that you may have eyes to see clearly both the possibilities
and the pitfalls of the remarkable technologies that are available to us today,
that you may increase in your capacity to use these inspired tools
appropriately, and that you may receive inspiration and guidance about the role
you should play in helping to sweep the earth as with a flood of truth and
righteousness. As you press forward in this holy work, I promise you will be
blessed in mortality in the individual, specific, and necessary ways that will
prepare you for eternity. I so bless you.[9]
Testimony
[1] Spencer W. Kimball, “The False
Gods We Worship,” Ensign, June 1976
at https://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/06/the-false-gods-we-worship?lang=eng.
[2] Dallin H. Oaks, “Loving Others
and Living with Differences,” https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/loving-others-and-living-with-differences?lang=eng.
[3] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Living the
Gospel Joyful,”
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/living-the-gospel-joyful?lang=eng.
[4]
https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/to-sweep-the-earth-as-with-a-flood?lang=eng.
[5]
https://www.lds.org/liahona/2010/06/things-as-they-really-are?lang=eng.
[7]
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/joseph-smith?lang=eng.
[8]
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1999/10/beware-of-false-prophets-and-false-teachers?lang=eng.
[9]
https://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/to-sweep-the-earth-as-with-a-flood?lang=eng.
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