The Word of God is Offensive

I have heard people say that I’m negative on my posts and I need to focus on the positive. Obviously it is important to see the good in others and in the world. It’s also important to judge righteous judgment. If we were here to blissfully dance through life without seeing evil we would never learn to prize the good. We would follow the course of least resistance and be carefully led to hell. It takes no effort to end up in hell. Whereas it takes monumental effort to go against the current and fight against the grain. This nation would never have been created without the blood, sacrifice and tears of the families that put it all on the line for freedom and liberty. It has always been this way and it will always be this way going forward. Though, there are many, many roses and blessings along the way worth stopping and smelling and gazing upon, there is also work to be done.

Interesting that the Lord put it all on the line for freedom and liberty to be preserved. Without his atoning sacrifice liberty and freedom would dam us in our progress. We all have misused these freedoms by using them to commit sin. He died that we might live and progress. 

We have been commanded by the Lord to waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness wherein they lie in wait to deceive (see D&C 123:11-17). It’s interesting in these verses it mentions that we should “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power.” That is so important. God isn’t desperate or exasperated, he cheerfully seeks to help us come to know him as we desire and sincerely seek him out. Just because the Lord and his servants expose darkness doesn’t mean they’re negative or angry. It just means they’re exposing darkness.

Above all, we remember God’s purpose in his work, to bring about our immortality and eternal life (see Moses 1:39), so shouldn’t our purpose also be the same if we are truly becoming one with him? Therefore we ought to waste and wear out our lives as the Savior did. 

I think about the atonement. I read a quote by Ezra Taft Benson once where he said something to the effect that if man doesn’t realize he has fallen, then he will never desire the atonement. If man doesn’t realize he is hungry, then he will never desire nourishment. We are in a malnourished world. Many don’t realize they are undernourished and are flooding our hospitals with full bellies. Full bellies don’t equate to nourishment. 

And so it is with our churches. Many leave a church service having their bellies full but lacking in true substance/nourishment. And so the Lord sends warning voices. 

John the Baptist, Noah, Enoch, Lehi, Alma, Nephi, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joseph Smith...etc all came preaching change, repentance. They weren’t popular. Jesus came with the same message. Many of these prophets and the Son of God were killed or cast out or both. The pattern is familiar. They were too negative, telling the people all was not well, that the people had drifted into false traditions, a false sense of security, and apostasy.

If we only preach smooth sayings, things that make us feel good, then we miss the substance and purpose of our lives. We are here for heavy lifting, heavy climbing, experiences that help us see our darkness with the opportunity to thrust out the natural man and become holy. As we become holy, we see our baggage and collateral damage. Someone must balance the scale of justice. Jesus, the Savior of all mankind, steps in to do this. 

So, if someone isn’t polite or politically correct, or comes off negative, maybe it would still be worth our time to compare their words to scripture and see if God might be sending a message through him or her. 

Here are a few verses worth pondering. I’d also suggest looking at all the prophets in scripture and pondering if their messages may have come off as negative to the people. Maybe people were the same then as now, mostly wanting to go about their days without seeing evil and having to combat it. It’s too time consuming to engage in these battles, plus you stick out like a lunatic. You look like you just want attention. It may require change to consider the message. Lots of arrows and stones available to shoot or throw at Samuel and Stephen, as there are today.

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Revelation 3:19).

“Yea, wo unto this people, because of this time which has arrived, that ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them, and do all manner of iniquity unto them, even as they did of old time.

25 And now when ye talk, ye say: If our days had been in the days of our fathers of old, we would not have slain the prophets; we would not have stoned them, and cast them out.

26 Behold ye are worse than they; for as the Lord liveth, if a prophet come among you and declareth unto you the word of the Lord, which testifieth of your sins and iniquities, ye are angry with him, and cast him out and seek all manner of ways to destroy him; yea, you will say that he is a false prophet, and that he is a sinner, and of the devil, because he testifieth that your deeds are evil.

27 But behold, if a man shall come among you and shall say: Do this, and there is no iniquity; do that and ye shall not suffer; yea, he will say: Walk after the pride of your own hearts; yea, walk after the pride of your eyes, and do whatsoever your heart desireth—and if a man shall come among you and say this, ye will receive him, and say that he is a prophet.

28 Yea, ye will lift him up, and ye will give unto him of your substance; ye will give unto him of your gold, and of your silver, and ye will clothe him with costly apparel; and because he speaketh flattering words unto you, and he saith that all is well, then ye will not find fault with him.

29 O ye wicked and ye perverse generation; ye hardened and ye stiffnecked people, how long will ye suppose that the Lord will suffer you? Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides? Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light?

30 Yea, behold, the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you; behold, he hath cursed the land because of your iniquity.

31 And behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that they become slippery, that ye cannot hold them; and in the days of your poverty ye cannot retain them.

32 And in the days of your poverty ye shall cry unto the Lord; and in vain shall ye cry, for your desolation is already come upon you, and your destruction is made sure; and then shall ye weep and howl in that day, saith the Lord of Hosts. And then shall ye lament, and say:

33 O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out. Yea, in that day ye shall say: O that we had remembered the Lord our God in the day that he gave us our riches, and then they would not have become slippery that we should lose them; for behold, our riches are gone from us.

34 Behold, we lay a tool here and on the morrow it is gone; and behold, our swords are taken from us in the day we have sought them for battle.

35 Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because of the curse of the land.

36 O that we had repented in the day that the word of the Lord came unto us; for behold the land is cursed, and all things are become slippery, and we cannot hold them.

37 Behold, we are surrounded by demons, yea, we are encircled about by the angels of him who hath sought to destroy our souls. Behold, our iniquities are great. O Lord, canst thou not turn away thine anger from us? And this shall be your language in those days.

38 But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.

39 O ye people of the land, that ye would hear my words! And I pray that the anger of the Lord be turned away from you, and that ye would repent and be saved” (Helaman 23:24-39).

“Yea, wo unto this people who are called the people of Nephi except they shall repent, when they shall see all these signs and wonders which shall be showed unto them; for behold, they have been a chosen people of the Lord; yea, the people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them” (Helaman 15:3).

There are many more but I’ll let you look them up. 

By the way, I can testify that if you’re willing to go down this path, the grass is much greener than you ever imagined. Shades of green you hadn’t considered or even knew existed. Fruit more delicious to the soul than ever imagined (see 1 Nephi 8, 11). I’m just nibbling now, but I know the Lord will continue to give me his fruit as I stay the course. 

It’s amazing to see how many are being led independently down these same paths to come to know the Lord. Each unique, but what’s in common is it lands squarely on Jesus Christ and knowing Him. For this is eternal life (John 17:3).