Moses 7 and the Establishment of Zion

This week our study in the Old Testament in Come, Follow Me points us to Moses 7 in the Pearl of Great Price. There is not another topic that fires one's imagination more than the establishment of the ideals represented in the revelations of God to His prophets, particularly as it relates to Enoch's society and the establishment of the ancient city of Zion that was translated. Even the chapter heading is a fabulous summary for all who desire further light and knowledge:

Enoch teaches, leads the people, and moves mountains—The city of Zion is established—Enoch foresees the coming of the Son of Man, His atoning sacrifice, and the resurrection of the Saints—He foresees the Restoration, the Gathering, the Second Coming, and the return of Zion.

In 1982, I concluded my research in the scriptures by producing a pdf manuscript consisting of every reference to the word "Zion" in all four standard works and the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was a personal quest born out of my inexhaustible curiosity over what the future of the Church might hold for all the faithful saints of the latter-days.

My conclusions all those years ago will follow in this post. My daughter Emily asked me this morning if I had ever gone back to make revisions to the original manuscript, and my answer was, "No." It goes without saying as I now share this link with everyone "out there" that my foresight in 1982, could not possibly have predicted that I would live long enough to see the proliferation of temples worldwide we are witnessing in 2026. That is only one example, but I am certain there are others. 

With that said, please enjoy your study of Enoch's society in Moses 7, and my blessings as you delve deeper into the topic of Zion. Truly, it is the study of a lifetime that will bless you and your families.

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CONCLUSIONS:

There is an inherent weakness in this compilation that might be as obvious to the reader who has waded through the material, as it is to the author. The weakness I speak of is the learning curve. Not only have I learned as I have written, but my awareness of all that I do not know about Zion has increased exponentially. Further, prophetic events in the world seem to fill the headlines each day at an accelerated pace. That which I wrote a year ago is not as complete as it would be if I were writing today, nor is it as comprehensive as it may someday be. Further, as these rapidly unfolding events in the world occur each day, the shrouded prophetic picture of Zion seems to materialize more clearly. Predictions made in yesteryear are more accurate as events shape and focus our future destiny. We are all learning day by day, and I suppose for this reason the wisest authors reserve publishing their views until late in life when they are full of wisdom and knowledge. I do grow older – in that sense I qualify – but make no claim to either wisdom or knowledge. In my ignorance I would nevertheless make the attempt to state my conclusions if for no other reason than to brush a little dust and grime off the portrait of our destiny.

People

Zion is a covenant people, set apart, consecrated, and sanctified from the rest of the world. They are different, they are peculiar and they are pure. They have come out of the world, entered in at the gate of baptism, are born of the Spirit and have taken hold of the iron rod. They reject the clarion voices from amid the mists of darkness, and ignore the taunts and jeers of those in the spacious building of sin. God has purged his people in all the other dispensations of which we have record, and the purification has come as a result of extreme adversity and affliction. Gold is never refined in an air-conditioned chamber. If the covenant people cannot sacrifice and consecrate their lives to God, it has forever been the case that the rest of the world was willing to cast them out, throw them into the lions' den, or stoke up the fiery furnace. Let us never be deluded into thinking we will inherit Zion in any other way, nor be worthy of the company of earlier martyrs at that future wedding feast unless we consecrate.

Place

Zion is two world centers of righteousness and judgment that are ultimately joined together physically. One is Independence, Missouri, the "centerstake," from which “the law” will emanate, the other is Jerusalem, from which “the word” will go forth. Those who love and cherish the Constitution of the United States, it would seem, will rally to Zion and her stakes upon the American Continent. Christ will come to the Earth and sit in his temples in Jerusalem and in Jackson County, from which will go forth his word. They will combine eventually in the Lord's timetable with the heavenly Zion when the earth enters the terrestrial phase of its existence, thus returning to the status it once enjoyed referred to in the 10th Article of Faith as "paradisiacal glory."

This telestial world in which we now live will give way to a terrestrial world that will stand for one thousand years, a period of time referred to as "The Millennium." This is the place at the end of the path in Lehi's vision where the tree of life grows.

Condition

Zion will stand apart from all worldly influences. Men and women of honesty and truth will seek the peace Zion affords, trust their temporal and spiritual welfare to each other, or sink lower and lower with the rest of the world who will be at war. There will be no middle ground -- either total acceptance of God's salvation, or Lucifer's damnable embrace of death and destruction. Zion will be the light on the hill, and so formidable will be her strength and beauty because of God's overshadowing presence that her enemies will shrink at the sight of her. The society will be characterized by people of one heart, one mind, and one objective -- spreading the truth of God's salvation over the face of the earth as with a flood.

Time

Zion will come to pass in the due season of the Lord, and that season is upon us even now. We live at the end of the sixth seal of John's Revelation, meaning the end of the sixth thousand-year period since the Fall. It is called "today" in the scriptures, and it is a day of sacrifice. It is not a day in which to trust in the arm of flesh, seeking security in the carnal pleasures of today's society. Zion's time is not fully ripe until the Bridegroom comes to accept the Bride, as John foresaw. The paradox of Zion's timetable is that she will be nurtured as it were in the bull rushes like Moses, in the midst of unparalleled wickedness and abominations among men. The wheat and tares continue growing together, and the tares keep looking more and more like the weeds they are. And we also see the fig tree putting forth its leaves every day.

The Spirit whispers the truth that Zion will indeed have to be led out of bondage as the children of Israel were led out under Moses. While we are in the midst of spiritual bondage right now, the scriptures are replete with types and shadows of a physical bondage yet to come that will precede the day when all things are fulfilled.

We will not see the establishment of the headquarters of Zion until the temporary landlords who now occupy the sacred sites of the habitations of the New and the Old Jerusalem are swept off. The reclamation of those lands will come in the wake of destruction as foretold by all the prophets who witnessed the promised day, and that time is not far distant. Without an understanding of the impending destruction as the lynch pin to prophecy, the promises of the Lord to Israel that she will ultimately redeem the promised lands of her inheritance seem incomprehensible. One need not read far into The Book of Mormon to discover that this land is not promised to the Gentiles who now occupy it. Rather, it will be given to the scattered remnants of the House of Israel now being gathered, and to those relatively few Gentiles who repent, embrace the gospel and by adoption become Israel. To think otherwise would be to deny the very faith that gave the prophets their utterance. And this despite the obvious evidence that the Gentiles who occupy this Promised Land today have material wealth and military might beyond even the wildest imaginations of the prophets who foresaw their destruction.

Ephraim's descendants will figure prominently in the leadership of the House of Israel in the development of Zion, but it would be a gross error to assume that Zion is the private domain of Ephraim. The scriptures speak plainly of ALL the tribes coming to their inheritances in their various lands. We are witnessing the emergence of all these long-lost cousins in Israel in our day, as adversity, lawlessness, and political upheavals continue to drive them to our borders of freedom.

They come because of wars, famines, diseases, natural disasters, and the love of freedom, but whatever the reasons, they are coming to claim their promised blessings at the hands of Ephraim. Let us never be so surfeited by the things of this world that we cannot embrace them, when they come with little more than the clothes on their backs.

There is not a clear road map to Zion, a "checklist" if you will, that will land us unerringly at the gates of the Holy City. To come to Zion requires clean hands, a pure heart, and pure faith. To be a consecrated saint is to hearken to the voice of the Lord by the power of the Holy Ghost, to receive revelation upon revelation, and to possess a submissive heart that endures all that the Lord sees fit to inflict upon us. All the inhabitants of Zion are as little children, full of faith, and eager to do the will of the Father in all things.

We are not worthy of Zion's society in our present state. The institution of the Church that has served us so well to this point in the dispensation will be of little worth in the wilderness that still must be traversed by Zion's caravan. Programs, like scaffolding, must be dismantled, institutional thinking, like jetsam, must be thrown overboard as the caravan rolls onward. Those who cling steadfastly to their institutional faith, never risking the failure of individual responsibility for their decisions will sink in the depths of forgotten dust with the discarded baggage. We cannot endure the journey to Zion on borrowed light, nor will we find the oil of the Spirit to buy at midnight.

We must beware of repeating the patterns of old. The institution of the Church today can easily be discerned of bearing all the earmarks of the institution of the Jews in Christ's day. Despite the law of Moses designed by the Lord himself to prepare them for his kingdom, they tripped on form, on organizational neatness and perfection, on vain practices, and on outward works of professed righteousness for all men to see. In reality they were nothing but whited sepulchers having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. There is a tendency among us toward this same condition today. The liability of institutions is they tend to produce the undesirable qualities of self-righteousness and they miss the mark. Satan loves a parade, but Zion is a caravan of strangers and foreigners seeking a city built without hands. It is to be expected that the "corporate" Church would have difficulty implementing the celestial principles upon which Zion will be built. That reality does not make the Church's doctrines any less true.

This is an important point that cannot be glossed over. The Church’s compromise with Babylon in 2002 is nearly complete. In a forthcoming day there will be an entire separation of the righteous from the wicked. Babylon is slated for destruction. That fact is a well-documented scriptural reality, and so is the establishment of Zion. We are in the world as never before in our history, and we are more of the world too. We have a long and well-established history in the twentieth century of trying to have it both ways. We had to give away our “weird” history to convince the world we are no longer “weird.” 

President Gordon B. Hinckley has made the point well in his unprecedented outreach to the mass media on the world’s stage. In order to fulfill our mandate to take the gospel, even the least part of the gospel – that salvation is in Christ – to the world we had to make peace with our past. From the days of Brigham Young whose mission was to separate the saints from the world by leading them to these remote valleys of the Mountain West, to the administration of Gordon B. Hinckley who has welcomed the world with the red carpet, we have come full circle. Living prophets lead the way.

But the caravan is on course, never fear, though there will always be those among us who cling to the past fiercely, as though we are going to return somehow to the purity and simplicity of an earlier time. These somehow wish they could live in the days before the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and started rolling downhill. We are picking up speed as the little stone rolls forward. But let us not be smug. We are no better than our earlier counterparts in Israel who sinned against the covenant. 

President Ezra Taft Benson made a convincing case that the Church was still under condemnation for treating lightly The Book of Mormon. God will cut short the work in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. The Bride may have grown weary while waiting and defiled herself with the world, but this time there will be a wedding with the Bridegroom and the Church will become the Bride of Christ. The best course we can take is individual repentance and to let the rest of the Church and the world who fail to repent go their merry way to destruction.

As midnight draws nigh there will be fewer opportunities to obtain oil to light our little lamps of faith. Unconsecrated material possessions in that hour will be a poor store of value, ancient prophets used the word “slippery.” (Helaman 13:31).

Now I offer this final observation. Patience with the unfolding timetable of the Lord is indispensable to the true disciple. Many, knowing what the scriptures reveal concerning conditions in a Zion society, and observing these circumstances do not now exist in the Church, and thinking they have somehow been "called" to lead the way, have made unwise and premature decisions to move out in front of the caravan. Like the ancient Rechabites of Jeremiah’s day they prefer the separatist life to the heat of the day in the kingdom with all its paradoxes, contradictions and ironies. They are never wise stewards, and seem to lack the faith they proclaim. The keys of the priesthood reside with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and those keys and this kingdom will never again be taken from the earth. The path to Zion is first discovered deep within the hearts of men and women, and they gravitate to others who have made a similar discovery, all of whom are subject to the Lord's mouthpiece. That man, the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like Moses who stood at the head of another caravan, will lead Israel out of whatever form of bondage awaits us.

Until that promised day comes, it is enough to hear the Lord whisper again, "Be still, and know that I am God." His promises will never fail, and the gates of the Heavenly City await us.

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Jesus Christ will come again in the last days.

Enoch’s vision, especially what’s recorded in Moses 7:59–67, is one of history’s first prophecies of the Savior’s Second Coming. What impresses you about the way these verses describe the last days? For example, consider how you feel the prophecies from verse 62 are being fulfilled. What do these phrases teach you about God’s work in the latter days?

Enoch was a true prophet whose entire city of the faithful saints was translated:

And Enoch and all his people walked with God, and he dwelt in the midst of Zion; and it came to pass that Zion was not, for God received it up into his own bosom; and from thence went forth the saying, Zion is Fled.

The Descent into The Indecent

I was reminded again the other day that we have been on a slow and steady downward slope in our public discourse. I've lived 70 years now, and have some perspective, though I am certain others will have their own takes on what I intend to say today.

One of my grandsons, who has picked up enough of the recent news headlines to form the question, asked me, "Grandpa, what does 'groping' mean?"

In case you're living under a rock and haven't been bombarded by the news of the day, that word "groping" seems to emerge in every daily news broadcast. The word is associated with a growing list of celebrities and prominent men from many walks of life who have been accused of sexual deviance and misconduct in what has become an avalanche of disclosures with seemingly no end in sight. Once celebrated for their achievements, now we learn about the dark underbelly of their secret lives and double standards. It makes me so sad that we must explain to the young and innocent what is meant by these allegations.

Now the facts are coming to light, once hidden and seemingly buried, but widely heralded for all to hear and see in fulfillment of prophecy:

And the rebellious shall be pierced with much sorrow; for their iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops, and their secret acts shall be revealed. (D&C 1:3).

Back in the day when Bill Clinton was POTUS, the nightly news was filled with detailed explanations about his sexual encounters, all of which later proved to be true. His victims are still seeking some degree of justice, and yet surprisingly he seems to escape those judgments. But now we all know what really happened.

Questions from young children included seeking for clarification about what those stains on the blue dress were. Others wondered how a cigar could figure into sexual activity. Still others were educated far too early about oral sex. It reached the height of idiocy when "sexual relations" had to be defined and the parsing of meanings included, "It all depends on what your definition of the word 'is' is". At one point I concluded the nightly news was no longer suitable for my young children. Now the re-runs of those interviews with Clinton are being rebroadcast. Because of the emergence of the truth, to watch what a skilled liar he was back then is almost comical if it weren't so pathetic.

Now those young children with children of their own have concluded they cannot have television in their homes and have pulled the plug. Have you watched the content in commercials lately?

We have reaped the whirlwind of those earlier years. Today's bombshell included news about a Disney executive. There are no safe havens left, apparently. There is nowhere to run far enough away to avoid it. I tuned out politics in the last election cycle, and that is difficult, so pervasive has the coverage become. It seems politics rules our very existence, but I will tell you this - it doesn't have to.

Turn away from the sordid and the salacious. I was encouraged when I saw a number of women who had worked with Tom Hanks step forward to declare what a "nice" man he was in their interactions with him. This is the day that was once foretold in many places in the scriptures. Men are continuing to cover up their infidelity with lies, payoffs, "non-disclosure" agreements accompanied by cash settlements and cover-ups. Little is left to the imagination. Hollywood has always been a hotbed for scandal and corruption, and on the other coast Washington D.C. rivals it for headlines.

We cannot rely upon mortals for an example of goodness. Mere mortals are weak and subject to the wiles of the fleshy appetites. It will forever be the case.

In more recent years in the Church we have been hearing an increasing number of references to the atonement of Jesus Christ from our leaders. Interestingly, I have looked over the years for sermons delivered by Joseph Smith where he highlighted the subject of the atonement, and I haven't found any. It is my considered opinion that having failed to impress upon the saints the need for living the commandments, and witnessing so many public and embarrassing failures, our leaders are now pointing us to repentance and relying wholly upon the merits of Christ's perfection to save us. And that is how it must be.

There is a lot of speculation in Utah right now about what Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) will decide to do. Will he conclude it is time to retire? He has said if someone like Mitt Romney were to decide to run for his seat that he would step aside. Now that Mitt is beginning to express interest in the idea, the Hatch camp has gone noticeably silent on the topic.

Regardless of how that turns out, my hunch is that even Mitt Romney would be powerless to stem that tide of ongoing corruption and deprivation.

In my reading of The Book of Mormon this morning, I saw these lines:

My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever.
And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in the heavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his power, until all things shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with you forever. Amen. (Moroni 9:25-26).

Speechless. . . and Clueless

I don't know how many people have noticed, but I'm getting this question a lot recently: "Why haven't you been writing about this election?" A close second in popularity is: "Who are you voting for?" Forgive my rant, but I will lay it all out.

In answer to the first, my response has been, "This election leaves me speechless." And it's true. What do you say that hasn't already been said? The two major political parties have been through a bruising primary season, eventually settling for their respective nominees on the two candidates with the highest negatives in terms of popularity in modern history. Right now, I am conflicted.

Which leads me to the answer to the second question. Ask me in November who I'm voting for, because right now I haven't got a clue. The electorate is woefully fragmented. The hashtags #nevertrump, #neverhillary are everywhere. As never before, this election looms as a vote AGAINST someone, rather than FOR someone. I talk to people every day who say they will NEVER vote for Trump and NEVER vote for Hillary. One thing is clear - they are both loathed in record numbers, and apparently loved by enough to grab their respective parties' nominations. Mind-numbing, right?

You Be The Judge, Make Your Choice - November Looms

On the one hand, we have a serial adulterer, working on wife number three, the owner of hotels, golf courses, casinos, escort services, a multi-billionaire with really bad hair who has built an empire on the foundation of his father's fortune, and a newcomer to the political scene who changes policy positions like you and I change our socks in the morning.

His demise has been predicted repeatedly for over a year because he has violated every pundit's political playbook of rules multiple times.

He's managed to offend nearly every ethnic group in America on a "platform" of building a wall on the Southern border, excluding Muslims from immigrating to America, and then touting a long list of populist conservative agenda items sufficient to win over Sean Hannity, among others. And by the way, Fox News is nearly unwatchable now. He played "bimbo" Megyn Kelly like a fiddle.

He personally attacked each Republican candidate along the way. His rhetoric against them was over the top. And everyone ate up his politics of personal destruction. Apparently, while we denounce bullies publicly, we embrace a "tough guy" with our votes. In the Utah primary, I voted for loser John Kasich, the obvious "protest" vote I could find against Trump and Cruz.

Despite the deep divisions within the party, Trump went on to secure the requisite number of delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot at the upcoming Republican convention.

Give him this - he has succeeded in a tough New York real estate business where few do. Were there ethics violations involved? Probably. Were bankruptcies the result in some cases? Who cares?

Despite Mitt Romney's protestations to attempt to wreck his chances, he has survived even the most blistering attacks from inside his own party. Romney called him "a fraud," "a con man," and worse. It  didn't matter in the least. Take a principled stand against Trump and he gains strength.

His reckless abandon in making his spontaneous and seemingly irresponsible comments is somehow appealing to the voters who have stoutly supported him and rejected every one of his opponents from among what appeared at the outset to be the strongest field ever assembled on the Republican side. Now as they coalesce around him, it seems beating Hillary is enough to unite the majority at any cost.

On the other side, we have a serial politician, dishonest lawyer, driven by power, greed and amassing a fortune based upon trading influence for contributions to a specious "foundation." The list of donors and their contributions to the Clinton Foundation and the favors obtained in exchange will be fully documented before November. Who cares?

She's the wife of an inveterate and skilled politician who enabled her husband's sexual exploits, then mercilessly berated and publicly humiliated all his accusers. Some voters in this election cycle are simply too young to remember. They will get a list of particulars from her opponent, no doubt. But will anyone really care?

The list of her political scandals is as long as a career criminal's rap sheet, spanning a period of well over forty years. She makes Ronald Reagan's "Teflon" moniker laughable. Reagan was around when character mattered, and his character was so well-documented nothing seemed to stick that was critical. These days nothing critical seems to stick to the Clintons, even suspected criminal activity. In that sense she and Trump have a lot in common.

Her record is clear, and her self-inflicted e-mail server debacle of handling sensitive classified documents while she was serving as Secretary of State under the Obama administration is only the latest in that long line of scandals. Is she guilty of felonies? Who knows? What she is guilty of is poor judgment on a host of issues. And setting all that aside, this qualifies her to serve? Go figure.

Somehow, her supporters have looked the other way in their enthusiasm for her candidacy. When pressed to name even one substantive accomplishment of this woman, those who are interviewed are routinely stumped by the question.

She has been opposed by only one seemingly weak candidate - an over-the-hill and underwhelming self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist whose honesty creds are at least legit, who prolonged the primary contests to the very last voter, even longer than it took Trump to vanquish the large Republican field. And what has been his platform? That Hillary Clinton wasn't liberal enough, not socialist enough, not progressive enough.

And finally, after setting aside his bruising and prolonged opposition, Clinton has enough votes for delegates, "super" or otherwise, to become the first woman from a major party to win her party's nomination. Being the first woman in politics may be her only achievement, but it is sufficient, it seems, in the minds of many.

And, Trump-like, that accomplishment in a tough game of politics may in fact be an achievement. If an upstart Senator from Illinois can win two terms in the White House, why not her? Why not Trump? There are many who love the narrative of the first black POTUS followed by the first woman POTUS, qualifications for the job notwithstanding. Elections have turned on less. Whose resume was thinner than Obama's?

Morality, it would seem, has taken a permanent holiday in American politics. If making America great again were to include a return to morality, I would be on board with it. However, the American psyche, it would seem, now favors looking for a departure from the politics of the past at almost any price. Bernie Sanders has made outrageous proposals for socialism on steroids. Give him points for sincerity and honesty. You can judge for yourself if he's credible. However, the fuzzy math associated with how to pay for it all is mind-boggling, and yet his appeal even here in redder-than-red Utah is stunning. He turned out BY FAR the largest crowds for his rallies of any and all competitors in Utah.

One has to suspend all reason and all rational thought to suppose that his foolishness in American politics is sustainable to any degree. We are living on borrowed money, and yet there is no serious debate any more about a balanced budget. Both political parties are spending us into oblivion. Does anyone believe either Trump or Clinton will curb the spending? They aren't even talking about it. The military leaders are warning that our national debt is our biggest security threat. Oh really? You don't hear politicians echoing that warning at all. They can't even agree on whether the attack last week in Orlando on defenseless gays and lesbians that killed 49 innocents in a bar was carried out by a "radical Islam" adherent or a "deranged madman." Are we at war with the Islamic State that has sworn to destroy America, or is what happened in Orlando merely a police matter?

The sad reality for me is that we have brought our current state upon ourselves, and we have no one else to blame.

Both Sanders and Trump have struck a raw nerve of discontent that has overthrown all the conventional wisdom traditionally ascribed to politics. All the enthusiasm in this cycle has been for Trump and Sanders. Trump logged more votes in the Republican primary season than anyone in history! No small feat. He claims that's because he's added Independents and Reagan Democrats to the mix. How or if that will translate into a win in November remains to be seen.

If I take my cues from the prophetic Book of Mormon, I would not be remiss in sizing up this election as unfathomable. Likening the years preceding the coming of our resurrected Lord among the Nephites on this continent to our day, there are ample precedents to suggest things are going to get a lot worse than better. Begin your reading in Helaman 1 through 3 Nephi 9. Consider these chilling insights:

. . . they did destroy the government of the land. . .  and all this iniquity had come upon the people because they did yield themselves unto the power of Satan. And the regulations of the government were destroyed, because of the secret combinations of the friends and kindreds of those who murdered the prophets. (3 Nephi 7:2; 5-6).

There are many ways to murder the prophets without killing them outright. One of the most effective is to simply ignore their warnings. Few people I know outside the Church care much about the contents of the Book of Mormon, nor the prophets, ancient and modern, who have given specific counsel about the days in which we live.

I've abandoned all hope of coming up with a palatable scenario to my liking at this point, and remain simply speechless and clueless about how all this turns out in November.

The Gospel Principle That Can Save Us

Continuing his tradition of writing to his former missionaries in the California Arcadia Mission at General Conference time each year, my father has asked me in recent years to help him prepare his semi-annual message. What follows is the most recent one.

Dad is in his ninety-third year now, and is gradually deteriorating badly physically. He still has a sense of humor about his obvious shrinking frame, however, as he refers to himself as "the freak." Amazingly, at one time in their lives he and President Monson were the same height. What is still in tact, however, is his mental acuity, for which I am grateful.

President Thomas S. Monson, L. Brent Goates

Yesterday, he had a surprise visit from President Thomas S. Monson, who had heard about Dad's most recent medical challenges. Dad had a malignant melanoma removed from his back, and then developed some cellulitis in his leg.

President Monson came with "healing in his wings," like the angel of love and mercy he has always been to our family and everyone else he can serve. He listens to the Spirit and then responds.

He offered a priesthood blessing to Dad, but before he pronounced a blessing the two of them reminisced about their memories of their association with one another dating back to their time at the University of Utah. There were smiles and laughter all around to the delight of both.

He cheered, lifted and blessed my father, as he has done again and again throughout his life. Dad said to him, "Tom, you have changed the Church with your example of Christ-like service to others." And so he has. . . How grateful we are to President Monson as a family. There is such love for others in this man.

* * *

October, 2014

THE GOSPEL PRINCIPLE THAT CAN SAVE US

Many careful students of The Book of Mormon have observed and stated that each time they finish reading these amazing scriptures they are usually rewarded with a new perspective of enlightenment. My most recent experience has likewise impressed me and in some ways even surprised me.

For many decades past I simply accepted the obvious – that the Nephites were the chosen and favored tribe, and the Lamanites were their constant antagonists and evil tormentors. This division is taught in the very beginning as the separation of Lehi’s sons takes place and the elder two sons, Laman and Lemuel oppose their father and his more faithful son Nephi. Thus to Nephi and his posterity went the birthright, the government and the priesthood leadership, with the rebellious Lamanites doomed to offer constant resistance toward righteousness.

Yet, the final scorecard offers no such one-sided victory for the Nephites. Both tribesmen, indeed, all of the Lehi descendants fail to fulfill our Father’s hope for a righteous brand of Israelites to flourish in the New World. Their descendants regress to savagery and fall far short of the glory promised.

In reflection, it is easy to be beguiled and view the distinction between these two segments of brotherhood as being so totally black and white in contrast. The Nephites had their marvelous moments of righteous leadership with many famous prophets who taught us glorious gospel doctrine. We are so grateful to the several Nephis, to Mosiah and his son King Benjamin, and to the mighty warrior Ammon. Consider the inspiring works of Alma (both of them), and the shining hero, Moroni, of whom it was said, “If all men had been, and ever were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.” (Alma 48:17). They and others fought valiantly to lift their brethren from stages of wickedness. They deserve our veneration as prophets.

But it must be remembered that the Nephite leaders were the ones writing this history. Their bias would naturally lure us to be sympathetic to their viewpoint.

The outcome of this family history was revealed early in the book in the vision of Nephi, who saw their end of days, and wrote:

And while the angel spake these words, I beheld and saw that the seed of my brethren did contend against my seed, according to the word of the angel; and because of the pride of my seed, and the temptations of the devil, I beheld that the seed of my brethren did overpower the people of my seed. . .
And the angel said unto me: Behold these shall dwindle in unbelief.
And it came to pass that I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations. (1 Nephi 12:19; 22-23).
 
The Prophet Jacob, Nephi’s younger brother, treats the judgment even-handedly. While he denounced the wickedness and depravity of the Lamanites, he said of his own people, “Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites.” (Jacob 2:35). How could we have so easily minimized that evaluation?

This same reversal of roles was recorded by Nephi, who wrote of the people of Zarahemla:

. . . ye have set your hearts upon the riches and the vain things of this world, for the which ye do murder, and plunder, and steal, and bear false witness against your neighbor, and do all manner of iniquity. . .
For behold, thus saith the Lord: I will not show unto the wicked of my strength, to one more than the other, save it be unto those who repent of their sins, and hearken unto my words. Now therefore, I would that ye should behold, my brethren, that it shall be better for the Lamanites than for you except ye shall repent.
For behold, they are more righteous than you, for they have not sinned against that great knowledge which ye have received; therefore the Lord will be merciful unto them; yea, he will lengthen out their days and increase their seed, even when thou shalt be utterly destroyed except thou shalt repent. (Helaman 7:21; 23-24).

So, who are victors in this battle of unrighteousness - the backsliding Nephites or the depraved Lamanites? Hear now the conclusion of noted scholar, Hugh W. Nibley, who says, “The answer is written all over The Book of Mormon – the righteous are whoever are repenting, and the wicked whoever is not repenting.” (BYU Studies 25:1, 10, 1985).

Repentance is one of the first principles of the gospel. It appears with the arrival of mankind in mortality and is reaffirmed and emphasized at the outset of every dispensation of time through the teachings of angels and prophets.

These same painful lessons are essential in our day of wickedness to meet the trials of the last days. There is no more important and vital principle of submission and contrition than to show forth daily sincere repentance. It alone can protect us and give us the assurance that when all else is failing around us, we can still flower in God’s grace – if we will repent.

Always, your friend,



President L. Brent Goates

The Old Morality

I admit it freely - I am a cultural laggard. When you ask me to name a current pop icon in any venue, I am stumped for an answer. My idea of cutting edge entertainment these days is Michael Buble, and he's a throwback to Frank Sinatra.

I watch a lot of old movies these days with my dear wife. TCM is our very favorite cable channel. That's Turner Classic Movies for the uninitiated. During the Christmas holidays we watched sappy, emotionally-charged melodramas on the Hallmark Channel, so predictable it felt like a cookie-cutter script factory was hard at work behind the scenes. Because I now own one, I was stunned to observe how many of the heroes in those movies also drove the Toyota Prius. So maybe at least in that one respect I can qualify as an "early adopter" of a cutting edge technology. But to give you some idea of the real me, the last movie we saw in a theater was "Saving Mr. Banks". I'm not ashamed to admit I shed tears watching Emma Thompson's portrayal of the stiff upper lipped Englishwoman, P.L. Travers (she was really Australian), who brought the character of Mary Poppins to life in her books. So cutting edge, right?

I offer this background to illustrate why I am dragging my feet on same-sex marriage initiatives that will be wending their way through the courts for as far as the eye can see into the future. I have tried to make clear in previous posts to this page that I am intimately familiar with the personal struggles of people with same-sex attractions. Though I am not a pop culture progressive liberal-minded individual, I am also not a homophobic bigot either. I have empathy for those who are confused by this issue.

My purpose today is to state the stark contrasts I see in the way the debate keeps playing out - legal activists pitted against (sometimes) self-righteous moralists. While those who would lobby for legal rights in the courts have made their arguments based primarily upon an "equal rights" and "equal protection" Constitutional platform, and that sounds perfectly legitimate in many minds, what has gone missing and is completely obscured is the inefficiency of the legal system to rule in matters with a moral component as religiously charged as homosexuality. Those who take the moral side, arguing that homosexuality is sin, fail to recognize the legal courts and the courts of public opinion have never been the place for making the moral argument stick. Morality is something quite separate and apart from legal machinations, and we would do well to keep them distinctly separate.

When I was a boy I remember a weak argument I always made with my Mother. I would say, citing some cool new thing "everyone" was doing, "But Mom, everybody's got one, or is doing it, or is going to it, or is (fill in the blank)." To which she would invariably respond, "David, just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it right." Ah, the indispensable wisdom of Mom.

America is now on the precipice of slipping off its perch as a moral beacon for the world. Some would argue America never was moral and never should be judged on that basis. Very well, have it your way if you wish. However, our early Founders spoke about the need for Americans to remain a moral people, because only a moral people could stand a chance of self-governance. They set an admirable, though not flawless, example for us to follow. At their core, however, these were remarkable men who acknowledged the right to freedom was granted by an all-wise Providence who was the Lawgiver. I have written extensively in many past blog posts about them. Moral agency was enthroned in the founding documents as the means through which freedom won in such a bloody enterprise as the Revolutionary War could be maintained. It was from God we gleaned our rights as free men, they told us, and from no other source. They argued freedom could not be obtained in any other way and from any other fountainhead.

Fast forward to 2014. God's laws have never changed. Policies, practices, procedures and politics have changed. Many of the practices of the past, while legal, were never moral. Slavery is one. Alcohol is another. Nazism and Adolf Hitler flourished in Germany before World War II in an environment legally permitting their existence. Cigarettes are legal, but all of these stand on weak ground when making a moral judgment. Apartheid in South Africa was legal until Nelson Mandela challenged the law with a more well-defined moral argument. Walter Williams correctly observed, "Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people." He also argues that private immorality (homosexuality) cannot suddenly somehow become moral just because it is openly practiced collectively and gains widespread acceptance. None of those facts change the underlying core reality it is morally wrong. Does the fact that marijuana has been declared legal in some states change smoking it into a moral activity merely because the courts have ruled it is legal and people now line up at a retail outlet to purchase it instead of in some back alley? Does same sex marriage, permitted in some states as legal, now alter the moral requirement of God?

Indeed, all those things are always in transition. Just because Obamacare is the law of the land today, is it morally defensible to fund it with the most massive theft of personal wealth ever attempted by economic redistribution? I hope Richard Lugar (former Republican Senator from Indiana) is right. The fundamental moral principles upon which America was founded are anchored in the bedrock principle of moral agency - the freedom to make moral judgments for the benefit of individuals and the whole society.

The moral law of sexual purity before and during marriage remains valid. The Church cannot condone immorality in any form it takes. Because we are all sinners and come short of the mark, Christ's atonement cleanses those who purify themselves in His perfection. (Moroni 10:32-33). The leaders of the Church, while sympathetic to the struggles of those with same-sex attraction, are not empowered nor authorized to alter the moral law upon which the plan of salvation rests, and in The Family: A Proclamation to the World (1995), they made the eternal law explicit and understandable. Gender differences are foreordained and were in place in our pre-existent unembodied spirits, just as they are in our mortal bodies now, and will be in our disembodied spirits awaiting our resurrected bodies hereafter. Neither can the leaders of the Church give a free pass to this supposed "protected class" of sinners over that imaginary "unprotected class." We are all sinners. All are subject to the principle of repentance. None is exempt. No One. So plain is that straight-forward declaration, it would seem, no one reading it could possibly misunderstand. The gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

But the debate rages on, even among those in the Church who should know better. I would suggest there is little that can be done in the courtroom of popular opinion or within the courthouse to alter wrong-headed thinking on this topic. The moral agency to make errors in judgment is also part of the plan of salvation. The latter-day reality has come when homosexuality is as rampant and acceptable as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, and one can only speculate on how wicked the world must become before it is ultimately cleansed by fire.

The old morality is still the new morality and it is chiseled in stone. It has never changed. The requirements for happiness here and hereafter will never change. But don't be one of those who is beguiled by the siren call of immorality disguised as acceptance and tolerance at the expense of your own moral convictions. You hold fast to what you know is true, even if you lose badly in the court of public opinion.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Elder Dallin H. Oaks framed this debate very well in his last General Conference sermon, entitled "No Other Gods":

"There are many political and social pressures for legal and policy changes to establish behaviors contrary to God’s decrees about sexual morality and contrary to the eternal nature and purposes of marriage and childbearing. These pressures have already authorized same-gender marriages in various states and nations. Other pressures would confuse gender or homogenize those differences between men and women that are essential to accomplish God’s great plan of happiness.

"Our understanding of God’s plan and His doctrine gives us an eternal perspective that does not allow us to condone such behaviors or to find justification in the laws that permit them. And, unlike other organizations that can change their policies and even their doctrines, our policies are determined by the truths God has identified as unchangeable.

"Our twelfth article of faith states our belief in being subject to civil authority and “in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” But man’s laws cannot make moral what God has declared immoral. Commitment to our highest priority — to love and serve God — requires that we look to His law for our standard of behavior. For example, we remain under divine command not to commit adultery or fornication even when those acts are no longer crimes under the laws of the states or countries where we reside. Similarly, laws legalizing so-called “same-sex marriage” do not change God’s law of marriage or His commandments and our standards concerning it. We remain under covenant to love God and keep His commandments and to refrain from serving other gods and priorities — even those becoming popular in our particular time and place." (emphasis mine).

If you are living the moral law of chastity, I would predict you will never have the peace you seek in hoping the world will someday turn to righteousness because you believe the way you do in your heart of hearts. As in the days of Noah, the wicked will cling steadfastly to their wickedness and will be in denial until the floods of anger flow freely and they seek, too late, to be admitted into the sanctuary of the ark. In that day the flood took them into the spirit world where they could finally be in a place to learn the truths of the gospel.

In the latter days, when we live upon the earth, the unquenchable fire of destruction will also overtake the world, and the cleansing will be just as widespread, "equal rights" and "equal protection under the law" handed down by the suborned courts notwithstanding.

False Prophets and Christs

Today I stumbled over a stunning statement made in a General Conference sermon by Elder Harold B. Lee in 1950, one that could only be described as "prophetic" when it leaped off the page at me:

President Harold B. Lee

"False prophets and Christs (Matthew 24:24), as foretold by the Savior, may come to deceive us not alone in the name of religion, but if we can believe the history of Italy and Germany and Russia, they may come under the label of politicians or of social planners or so-called economists, deceitful in their offerings of a kind of salvation which may come under such guise."

Given the last several years and the results of the current administration, I can only draw one conclusion - he was speaking of our day.

It started me thinking about all the statements of President Harold B. Lee with which I have been familiar through the years in helping us all to discern truth and how to separate the true prophets from all the false voices. I am indebted once again to Clyde Williams, who compiled President Lee's teachings in Teachings of Harold B. Lee (hereafter "THBL"). Here's a sampling:

"When you see one who is tearing down and finding only the bad in men, seeing nothing of their good qualities, there you may see one whose heart is not pure, who finds it easy to criticize.  Shall I give you a test to try your own souls?  How did you react to the last conference?  Did you accept the declarations of the Brethren who spoke as the declarations of the prophets of the living God? Or did you make it a pastime in your private circles or around your family table to find flaws and express your displeasure at the fact that there was something said about politics or about labor and [you] wished the Brethren would keep their mouths shut about this and that?  Which was your reaction after the last conference?  You Latter-day Saints, the men who preside in this church are only prophets to those who accept them and their teachings as the prophecies from the living God.  It's great to live in a day when the prophets are leading us.  Moses, Paul, Peter — it was great in those days, but there were just as many critics and just as many who didn't receive them.  The Master said a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, and He might have added, in his own day and time (see Mark 6:4).  So today, these are prophets who lead us only if we accept them as such and apply their teachings in our lives. (THBL, 516; 50-09).

"Therein lies one of the greatest problems among those who are criticizing and finding fault and wanting exceptions, because they don't trust the Lord.  To say it another way, they are not willing to listen to the admonition of the Lord as He gave it as a preface to His revelations in this dispensation.  And these are His words:  'And the arm of the Lord shall be revealed; and the day cometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants, neither give heed to the words of the prophets and apostles, shall be cut off from among the people' (D&C 1:14). (THBL, 516; 70-18).

"Oh, you Latter-day Saints, there was never a time when you needed to look so much to the leadership of this church to know the truth.  When one comes into your midst claiming revelation, and this one on this side a new interpretation, you have the good sense to remember what Paul said to the Ephesians.  The purpose of putting prophets, teachers, pastors, and evangelists in the Church was to keep us from running to and fro as children, tossed about by every wind of doctrine (see Ephesians 4:11-14).  If you want to be guided in truth, you follow the light the Lord has given us in the leaders He has set to preside.  And the first one to go to is your bishop and your stake president; and if, through them, you need an answer from the Brethren who preside in the Church, it will be forthcoming.  That is one of the safeties to keep you in the path by which faith might come." (THBL, 516; 53-01, 354-55)

"The safety there is in this church is in listening to the counsel that comes from the authorities of this church. The Master said something else that we have not listened to very well. He said:
"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
"And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-27).
"What was the Master trying to say?  He was trying to present a great truth: that the storms of adversity, trying in difficulty, are going to descend upon every soul.  All of us — the good, the bad, the rich, the poor, the humble, the haughty — all are going to have the rains of difficulty, the floods of disaster, the overhanging clouds testing faith, the winds and blasts of slander, of misrepresentation.  Everybody is going to have those things.  That is a part of life.  The only ones whose houses will not fall will be those who have built their houses upon the rock.  What is the rock?  Listening to the words of God as they come from His own mouth or from the mouths of His prophets."  (THBL, 517; 53-06).

"I can imagine the ridicule and scorn that Noah suffered during the months he was building a great ship out in the middle of a comparative desert to house himself and his family and the selected of earth's bounties in preparation for the flood that through his faith in God's prophetic revelation he knew was coming to destroy the earth.  Don't you be as the foolish virgins with no oil in your lamps because of your unbelief in God's warning of things to come (see Matthew 25:1-12).  Dare to listen to the leaders of the Church, the prophets of God, without a revelation to whom God said He would do nothing (see Amos 3:7), despite the jeers of the worldly and unrighteous who have no faith and who dare not, because of their own sinning, believe that these threatened judgments might be so. Through your faith in the inspired revelations, you will always be given time to build an ark of safety that will eventually land you on a Mount Ararat. (THBL, 517; 45-09, 80).

"The great historian Will Durant once said, "In my youth I wanted freedom. In my mature years I want order."  There is nothing so important in the kingdom of God as order; yet the tendency today is to resist law and order, which must be maintained in the kingdom of God if we are to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord.  "Be one," the Lord said; "and if ye are not one ye are not mine" (D&C 38:27).  The only way we can be one is by following the leadership of the Church as the Lord has directed. (THBL, 518; 71-02, 215).

"A man came in to see me and said that he had heard that some man appeared mysteriously to a group of temple workers and told them, 'You had better hurry up and store for a year, or two, or three, because there will come a season when there won't be any production.'  He asked me what I thought about it, and I said, 'Well, were you in the April conference of 1936?'  He replied, 'No, I couldn't be there.'  And I said, 'Well, you surely read the report of what was said by the Brethren in that conference?'  No, he hadn't.  'Well,' I said, 'at that conference the Lord did give a revelation about the storage of food.  How in the world is the Lord going to get over to you what He wants you to do if you are not there when He says it, and you do not take the time to read it after it has been said?'
"The Lord is going to keep His people informed, if they will listen.  As President J. Reuben Clark Jr. said in a classic talk, 'What we need today is not more prophets.  We have the prophets.  But what we need is more people with listening ears.  That is the great need of our generation.' (In Conference Report, October 1948, 82)."  (THBL, 518; 64-04, 159-60).

"When the welfare program was being structured and some of us were trying to assist, President Heber J. Grant made one of the saddest comments a President of the Church could make.  I was invited to the office of the First Presidency, and as we presented the outline of the plan that was proposed, President Grant, who had listened in silence for quite some time, said, 'Well, there is just one thing wrong with it. It won't work.'  President David O. McKay, his counselor, asked, 'Why won't it work, President Grant?'  And he said, 'I am afraid it won't work because we can't trust the membership of this church to follow our leadership.  See what they did when I pleaded with them to vote against the repeal of the liquor amendment?  Until the Saints learn to follow our counsel, there is not much we can do about it.'" (THBL, 519; 66-01, 16).

"The Master, in His Sermon on the Mount, made another very expressive declaration when He said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God' (Matthew 5:8).
"You will remember that in His lifetime there were some who saw Him only as the son of the carpenter. There were some who said that because of His words He was drunken with strong wine — that He was a winebibber.  There were some who even thought Him to be possessed of devils.  Only those who were pure in heart saw Him as the Son of God.
"There are some who look upon the leaders of this church and God's anointed as men who are possessed of selfish motives.  The words of our leaders are always twisted by them to try to bring a snare to the work of the Lord.  Mark well those who speak evil of the Lord's anointed, for they speak from impure hearts.  Only the pure in heart see the divine in man and accept our leaders as prophets of the living God."  (THBL, 519; 47-05, 223-24).

"I listened to an excerpt of a testimony of a man who was a member of the Twelve and of whom President Grant had said that he never knew a man who had a greater gift of prophecy than did this man.  There was put in my hands a quotation from a sermon that he had delivered some fifty years before, which proved to be the last sermon he had ever delivered as a member of the Twelve.  Before another conference, he was dropped from the Council of the Twelve and subsequently left the Church.  This is what he said, in that last sermon:  'That person is not truly converted unless he sees the power of God resting upon the leaders of this church and it goes down into his heart like fire.'  And I repeat that to you here today.  The measure of your true conversion and whether or not you hold fast to those ideals is whether or not you are so living that you see the power of God resting upon the leaders of this church and that testimony goes down into your heart like fire."  (THBL, 520; 73-29, 90).

"I am reminded of an interview I had with one of you [teachers].  Maybe he is here tonight, and I am not sure but that I may have touched his soul as we talked that day.  We came around to the question as to whether or not he felt to follow the leadership of those who presided in the Church today.  He said with some hesitancy, 'Well, I didn't agree with President Clark when he gave his talk about 'Our Dwindling Sovereignty' up at the University of Utah.'  I repeated, 'I was there and I listened to President Clark.  You know, when I go to hear a great thinker on some subject, I don't go to criticize, I go to listen; but I suppose it would be difficult for a pygmy to get the viewpoint of a giant.'  And it was then that I seemed to bring him down to my level so that we could talk a little."  (THBL, 522; 68-07).

"The trouble with us today [is that] there are too many of us who put question marks instead of periods after what the Lord says.  I want you to think about that.  We shouldn't try to spend time explaining what the Lord didn't see fit to explain.  We spend useless time.
"If you would teach our people to put periods and not question marks after what the Lord has declared, we would say, 'It is enough for me to know that is what the Lord said.'"  (THBL, 522; 72-42, 108).

"We have some tight places to go before the Lord is through with this church and the world in this dispensation, which is the last dispensation, which shall usher in the coming of the Lord.  The gospel was restored to prepare a people ready to receive Him.  The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand.  There will be inroads within the Church.  There will be, as President [N. Eldon] Tanner has said, 'Hypocrites, those professing, but secretly are full of dead men's bones' (see Matthew 23:27).  We will see those who profess membership but secretly are plotting and trying to lead people not to follow the leadership that the Lord has set up to preside in this church. 
"Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day when the Church was organized.  We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through His prophet, 'as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith' (D&C 21:4-5).  There will be some things that take patience and faith.  You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church.  It may contradict your political views.  It may contradict your social views.  It may interfere with some of your social life.  But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory' (D&C 21:6)."  (THBL, 526; 70-28, 126).

"As I have labored among the Brethren and have studied the history of past dispensations, I have become aware that the Lord has given tests all down through time as to this matter of loyalty to the leadership of the Church.
"I have been in a position since I was called to the Council of the Twelve to observe some things among my brethren, and I want to say to you:  Every man who is my junior in the Council of the Twelve I have seen submitted, as though by Providence, to these same tests of loyalty, and I have wondered sometimes whether they were going to pass the tests.  The reason they are here today is because they did, and our Father has honored them. 
"It is my conviction that every man who will be called to a high place in the Church will have to pass tests not devised by human hands, by which our Father numbers them as a united group of leaders willing to follow the prophets of the living God and be loyal and true as witnesses and exemplars of the truths they teach."  (THBL, 522; 50-02, 51-52).

* * *

We're going to see the day coming when the only reliable guides who can be trusted will be the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are moving toward the time when all who would presume to be called "leaders" must submit to tests "not devised by human hands" and they will be found wanting. The collapse of trust in the government in the last few weeks has been stunning. I have not seen anything like it since the days of the Sixties, when rebellion against the government was rampant. When the severity of those tests becomes sufficient, all the people of good will who remain will be looking for leaders tried in the crucible of faith and I predict they will find them in the ranks of the leadership of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ.

Scouting, the LDS Church and the LGBT agenda

This week produced an interesting statement from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with regard to the proposed membership policy change from the Boy Scouts of America. The BSA will now admit members to its ranks without regard to their sexual orientation, but will continue to exclude openly gay leaders. After a long preamble of WHEREAS statements, this is what they are now proposing, and one assumes from the Church's statement it will not be opposed. If you read the entire proposed policy change by clicking the link above, you will get the sense a lot of lawyers cobbled it together:

WHEREAS, the current adult leadership standard of the Boy Scouts of America states: The applicant must possess the moral, educational, and emotional qualities that the Boy Scouts of America deems necessary to afford positive leadership to youth. The applicant must also be the correct age, subscribe to the precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle (duty to God), and abide by the Scout Oath and the Scout Law. While the BSA does not proactively inquire about sexual orientation of employees, volunteers, or members, we do not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission of the BSA. . .

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT: The following membership standard for youth members of the Boy Scouts of America is hereby adopted and approved, effective Jan. 1, 2014: Youth membership in the Boy Scouts of America is open to all youth who meet the specific membership requirements to join the Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Varsity Scout, Sea Scout, and Venturing programs. Membership in any program of the Boy Scouts of America requires the youth member to (a) subscribe to and abide by the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law, (b) subscribe to and abide by the precepts of the Declaration of Religious Principle (duty to God), and (c) demonstrate behavior that exemplifies the highest level of good conduct and respect for others and is consistent at all times with the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law. No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.

* * *

I was chided as recently as this morning for my "verbosity" in a previous post I made some years ago, so I will be brief and come directly to the point. In 2003, ten years ago, I wrote:

"I realize it is our Church almost single-handedly that supports and sustains the Boy Scouts of America. Could we really give it up as the globalization of the Church continues? What if the moral issues attacking Scouting (like gay issues and “Duty to God”) become an impasse in the years ahead? They seem to be settled for the moment, but the moral onslaught will continue.

"Elder William R. Bradford explained to me that when the Church finally has the missionary manpower to enter mainland China, we will do so armed only with the basic elements of the gospel, not the full-blown Church menu of programs. What he said in essence was that Lord Baden Powell simply wouldn’t fit into the overseas suitcase in the years ahead. Aren’t we already moving in the direction of eliminating Scouting in parts of the world where its introduction is impractical?

"Perhaps in future years Scouting will join Church basketball as more jetsam and flotsam from the ship of ZION is tossed overboard as it sails on into the darker nights and stormy seas ahead. The key, I believe is to develop an approach inspiring young men to catch the vision of what the scriptures offer BEFORE they reach the MTC, modeled more closely after what the young women are doing. Cooking, camping and hiking merit badges are often touted as ample justification for mission preparation, so I guess Scouting is tantamount to the only true gospel among its adherents. But after all isn’t it just 'another gospel' like Sigma Chi or Pi Kappa Alpha? (Too harsh? Paul didn’t think so – see Galatians 1:6-12). I realize this is something of a paradigm shift, and I suspect it will not occur overnight, but we might someday view it as eliminating a desirable but unnecessary option. Until then, I will pray for more enlightenment on its relevance with the gold standard goal of paving the way toward eternal life."

It is my considered belief the Church will not be able much longer to thread the needle of political correctness when it comes to the LGBT agenda. Now that I've said it again in 2013, one wonders what the NEXT ten years will look like. . .

I believe the un-nuanced "entire separation of the righteous and the wicked" will be fulfilled in its time:

“As this work progresses in its onward course, and becomes more and more an object of political and religious interest and excitement, no king, ruler, or subject, no community or individual, will stand neutral. All will at length be influenced by one spirit or the other; and will take sides either for or against the kingdom of God, and the fulfillment of the prophets, in the great restoration and return of his long dispersed covenant people. . .

”You cannot therefore stand as idle and disinterested spectators of the scenes and events which are calculated in their very nature to reduce all nations and creeds to one political and religious standard, and thus put an end to Babel forms and names, and strife and war. You will, therefore, either be led by the good Spirit to cast in your lot, and to take a lively interest with the Saints of the Most High, and the covenant people of the Lord, or on the other hand, you will become their inveterate enemy, and oppose them by very means in your power.” - (James R. Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, Vol.1, p.256-257 ).

"These things are the things that ye must look for; and, speaking after the manner of the Lord, they are now nigh at hand, and in a time to come, even in the day of the coming of the Son of Man.

"And until that hour there will be foolish virgins among the wise; and at that hour cometh an entire separation of the righteous and the wicked; and in that day will I send mine angels to pluck out the wicked and cast them into unquenchable fire." (D&C 63:53-54).

There can be little doubt what we are witnessing in the rapid penetration of the LGBT agenda amounts to equalizing homosexuality with normalcy. It is all part of a subversive plot to weaken America from within, and it is succeeding almost without a whimper of opposition.

Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually.

But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.

Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren, that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.

For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.

For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. (Moroni 7:12-17).

We live in the very day Elder Bruce R. Mcconkie prophesied about in 1980:

"But the vision of the future is not all sweetness and light and peace. All that is yet to be shall go forward in the midst of greater evils and perils and desolations than have been known on earth at any time.

"As the Saints prepare to meet their God, so those who are carnal and sensual and devilish prepare to face their doom.

"As the meek among men make their calling and election sure, so those who worship the God of this world sink ever lower and lower into the depths of depravity and despair.

"Amid tears of sorrow — our hearts heavy with forebodings — we see evil and crime and carnality covering the earth. Liars and thieves and adulterers and homosexuals and murderers scarcely seek to hide their abominations from our view. Iniquity abounds. There is no peace on earth.

"We see evil forces everywhere uniting to destroy the family, to ridicule morality and decency, to glorify all that is lewd and base. We see wars and plagues and pestilence. Nations rise and fall. Blood and carnage and death are everywhere. Gadianton robbers fill the judgment seats in many nations. An evil power seeks to overthrow the freedom of all nations and countries. Satan reigns in the hearts of men; it is the great day of his power."

Zion's Four Facets

I continue to get questions from people I know well about the end of the world. It seems the political upheavals we are witnessing continue to trouble even the most grounded saints. These concerns arise as a natural consequence of the bad news we hear every day.

The budget and deficit spending in America is out of control. The prophets of doom and gloom continue to spread fear and uncertainty all around. Conspiracy theories abound. Few are escaping the effects of the 2008 financial market meltdown. Widespread doubts about the future are escalating. Inflation is eroding purchasing power. Gas prices are averaging $4 per gallon in five states, and continue rising in more. The price of basic food is rising at the grocery store. It is a troubling time for most.

In the aftermath of General Conference two weeks ago, I've had a chance to review the content, topics and themes we heard expressed by the living prophets. Patsy and I were asked to speak about the prophets in a recent sacrament meeting.

I chose to focus on the two senior Apostles -- President Thomas S. Monson and President Boyd K. Packer. What did you hear from them two weeks ago? I heard a clear emphasis on priesthood power as it relates to family. Temple ordinances and marriage covenants were also themes. Missionary work and proclaiming the gospel throughout the world also came up more than once. Temple marriage was a plea from the Prophet to young single men.

So where were the themes of doom and gloom, predictions of the pending demise of the planet being ground into dust? Conspicuously absent. Rather, we hear the announcements of three new temples echoing each opening statement by the Prophet as General Conference begins each six months. Just this week a new "super building" housing 5 stakes and 48 wards in Provo was announced. The City Creek project surrounding Temple Square in Salt Lake is on time set for opening in a year from now.

Time and again we hear, "and this is just the beginning" in the promised establishment of Zion in the midst of Babylon. Living prophets are decidedly optimistic because of their absolute faith in the plan of salvation. There seem to be no fears in any of the living prophets.

Many years ago I began putting it all together on paper. I discerned four facets related to our understanding of the word "Zion" in the scriptures. I found that in each scriptural reference to Zion one could pinpoint one or more applications of the word. These four facets are people, place, condition or time.

People

Zion is a covenant people, set apart, consecrated, and sanctified from the rest of the world. They are different, they are peculiar and they are pure. They have come out of the world, entered in at the gate of baptism, are born of the Spirit and have taken hold of the iron rod. They reject the clarion voices from amid the mists of darkness, and ignore the taunts and jeers of those in the spacious building of sin. God has purged his people in all the other dispensations of which we have record, and the purification has come as a result of extreme adversity and affliction. Gold is never refined in an air conditioned chamber. If the covenant people cannot sacrifice and consecrate their lives to God, it has forever been the case that the rest of the world was willing to cast them out, throw them into the lions' den, or stoke up the fiery furnace. Let us never be deluded into thinking we will inherit Zion in any other way, nor be worthy of the company of earlier martyrs at that future wedding feast unless we consecrate.

Place

Zion is two world centers of righteousness and judgment that are ultimately joined together physically. One is Independence, Missouri, the "centerstake," from which “the law” will emanate, the other is Jerusalem, from which “the word” will go forth. Those who love and cherish the Constitution of the United States, it would seem, will rally to Zion and her stakes (and by extension her temples) upon the American Continent and throughout the world wherever they may find themselves. Christ will come to the Earth and sit in his temples in Jerusalem and in Jackson County, from which will go forth his word. They will combine eventually in the Lord's timetable with the heavenly Zion when the earth enters the terrestrial phase of its existence, thus returning to the status it once enjoyed referred to in the 10th Article of Faith as "paradisiacal glory." This telestial world in which we now live will give way to a terrestrial world that will stand for one thousand years, a period of time referred to as "The Millennium." This is the place at the end of the path in Lehi's vision where the tree of life grows.

Condition

Zion will stand apart from all worldly influences. Men and women of honesty and truth will seek the peace Zion affords, trust their temporal and spiritual welfare to each other, or sink lower and lower with the rest of the world who will be at war. There will be no middle ground -- either total acceptance of God's salvation, or Lucifer's damnable embrace of death and destruction. Zion will be the light on the hill, and so formidable will be her strength and beauty because of God's overshadowing presence that her enemies will shrink at the sight of her. The society will be characterized by people of one heart, one mind, and one objective spreading the truth of God's salvation over the face of the earth as with a flood.

Time

Zion will come to pass in the due season of the Lord, and that season is upon us even now. We live at the end of the sixth seal of John's Revelation, meaning the end of the sixth thousand-year period since the Fall. It is called "today" in the scriptures, and it is a day of sacrifice. It is not a day in which to trust in the arm of flesh, seeking security in the carnal pleasures of today's society. Zion's time is not fully ripe until the Bridegroom comes to accept the Bride, as John foresaw. The paradox of Zion's timetable is that she will be nurtured as it were in the bull rushes like Moses, in the midst of unparalleled wickedness and abominations among men. The wheat and tares continue growing together, and the tares keep looking more and more like the weeds they are. And we also see the fig tree putting forth its leaves every day.

The Spirit whispers the truth that Zion will indeed have to be led out of bondage as the children of Israel were led out under Moses. While we are in the midst of spiritual bondage right now, the scriptures are replete with types and shadows of a physical bondage yet to come that will precede the day when all things are fulfilled.

We will not see the establishment of the headquarters of Zion until the temporary landlords who now occupy the sacred sites of the habitations of the New and the Old Jerusalem are swept off. The reclamation of those lands will come in the wake of destruction as foretold by all the prophets who witnessed the promised day, and that time is not far distant. Without an understanding of the impending destruction as the lynch pin to prophecy, the promises of the Lord to Israel that she will ultimately redeem the promised lands of her inheritance seem incomprehensible.

One need not read far into The Book of Mormon to discover that this land is not promised to the Gentiles who now occupy it. Rather, it will be given as an inheritance to the scattered remnants of the House of Israel now being gathered, and to those relatively few Gentiles who repent, embrace the gospel and by adoption become Israel. To think otherwise would be to deny the very faith that gave the prophets their utterance. And this despite the obvious evidence that the Gentiles who occupy this Promised Land today have material wealth and military might beyond even the wildest imaginations of the prophets who foresaw their destruction.

Ephraim's descendants will figure prominently in the leadership of the House of Israel in the development of Zion, but it would be a gross error to assume that Zion is the private domain of Ephraim. The scriptures speak plainly of all the tribes coming to their inheritances in their various lands. We are witnessing the emergence of all these long-lost cousins in Israel in our day, as adversity, lawlessness, and political upheavals continue to drive them to our borders of freedom. They come because of wars, famines, diseases, natural disasters, and the love of freedom, but whatever the reasons they are coming to claim their promised blessings at the hands of Ephraim. Let us never be so surfeited by the things of this world that we cannot embrace them, when they come with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Conclusion

There is not a clear road map to Zion, a "checklist" if you will, that will land us unerringly at the gates of the Holy City. To come to Zion requires clean hands, a pure heart, and pure faith. To be a consecrated saint is to hearken to the voice of the Lord by the power of the Holy Ghost, to receive revelation upon revelation, and to possess a submissive heart that endures all that the Lord sees fit to inflict upon us. All the inhabitants of Zion are as little children, full of faith, and eager to do the will of the Father in all things.

We are not worthy of Zion's society in our present state, but the chastening is in full effect and the spiritual mettle of us all will be put to the test in due time. Those who persist in their hidden sins while proclaiming their beliefs with their lips only, will fail to accumulate the needed midnight oil droplet by droplet over a lifetime of faithfulness. Those who cling steadfastly to their institutional faith, never risking the failure of individual responsibility for their decisions will sink in the depths of forgotten dust with the discarded baggage. We cannot endure the journey to Zion on borrowed light, nor will we find the oil of the Spirit to buy at midnight.

We must beware of repeating the patterns of old. Zion is a steadily progressing caravan of strangers and foreigners seeking a city built without hands. It is to be expected that the "corporate" Church would have difficulty implementing the celestial principles upon which Zion will be built. That reality does not make the Church's doctrines any less true, nor the need for the Church's organization less compelling. One laudable development is that the Church is adapting to the worldwide need for simplicity, as evidenced by the priesthood and Relief Society manual of instruction – it’s back to basics with Gospel Principles.

This is an important point that cannot be glossed over. The Church members' compromise with Babylon is nearly complete. In a forthcoming day there will be an entire separation of the righteous from the wicked. Babylon is slated for destruction. That fact is a well-documented scriptural reality, and so is the establishment of Zion.

We are in the world as never before in our history, and we are more of the world too. From the days of Brigham Young whose mission was to separate the saints from the world by leading them to these remote valleys of the Mountain West, to the administration of Gordon B. Hinckley who has welcomed the world with the red carpet, we have come full circle. Living prophets lead the way.

But never doubt for one minute -- the caravan is on course, though there will always be those among us who cling to the past fiercely, as though we are going to return somehow to the purity and simplicity of an earlier time. These somehow wish they could live in the days before the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and started rolling downhill. We are picking up speed as the little stone rolls forward. But let us not be smug.

God will cut short the work in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. The Bride may have grown weary while waiting and defiled herself with the world, but this time there will be a wedding with the Bridegroom and the Church will become the Bride of Christ. The best course we can take is individual repentance and to let the rest of the Church and the world who fail to repent go their merry way to destruction. As midnight draws nigh there will be fewer opportunities to obtain oil to light our little lamps of faith. Unconsecrated material possessions in that hour will be a poor store of value -- ancient prophets used the word “slippery.” (Helaman 13:31).

Now I offer this final observation. Patience with the unfolding timetable of the Lord is indispensable to the true disciple. Many, knowing what the scriptures reveal concerning conditions in a Zion society, and observing these circumstances do not now exist in the Church, and thinking they have somehow been "called" to lead the way, have made unwise and premature decisions to move out in front of the caravan. Like the ancient Rechabites of Jeremiah’s day they prefer the separatist life to the heat of the day in the kingdom with all its paradoxes, contradictions and ironies. They are never wise stewards, and seem to lack the faith they proclaim.

The keys of the priesthood reside with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and those keys and this kingdom will never again be taken from the earth. The path to Zion is first discovered deep within the hearts of men and women, and they gravitate to others who have made a similar discovery, all of whom are subject to the Lord's mouthpiece. That man, the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like Moses who stood at the head of another caravan, will lead Israel out of whatever form of bondage enslaves us.Until that promised day comes, it is enough to hear the Lord whisper again, "Be still, and know that I am God." His promises will never fail, and the gates of the Heavenly City await us.

So put away your Mayan calendar, and add to your food storage in the spirit of faith not fear.