I’m grateful for this opportunity I now have to speak to you today. It is good to be back with you in the
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
I think we sometimes underestimate the power of the Holy Ghost. He is not just a small spirit, he is the third member of the Godhead and he can be with us at all times. I hope all of you will listen to Holy Ghost as I speak to you and let him be the teacher today.
I’d like to start by sharing a story from the Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi chapters 3 and 4. Giddianhi, the leader of the band of Gadianton Robbers, sends a very threatening letter to Lachoneus, the chief judge of the Nephites at the time, telling him that his band of robbers is going to come down to their land and attack them. He offers Lachoneus a deal. If Lachoneus and the Nephites would surrender and join the band of robbers, they could live, otherwise the robbers were going to come down upon the Nephites and kill every one of them. Giddianhi made sure to brag about the strength of the robbers, saying that there was no way that they could be defeated by the Nephites. Lachoneus’s actions are real heroic. Instead of fearing Giddianhi by submitting to his proposal, he chooses not to fear and prepares his people, both spiritually and temporally. He tells the Nephites to repent and have faith on the Lord or else the robbers will win. The Nephites respond positively, repented of their sins, and preparations of defense were made. Because of their trust in the Lord that he would deliver them, when the robbers come down upon the Nephites the Nephites defeated the robbers. The response of the Nephites after they win is one that has caught my attention and taught me a lesson. It is recorded in the last verse of Chapter 4:
“And their hearts were swollen with joy, unto the gushing out of many tears, because of the great goodness of God in delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; and they knew it was because of their repentance and their humility that they had been delivered from an everlasting destruction.”
Gratitude is the principle that sticks out here. How often are we as grateful as the people in this story? I fear that many times we aren’t as grateful as we should be. It’s a shame, because we have a lot to be grateful for, especially here in
Location aside now, I have found that it is also a great privilege just to be members of this church. This is a blessing that I did not fully comprehend until I arrived in first area,
Yet through all this, I have found that, although few people are following the true path, there are so many great people. Many people are out there just as it declares in D&C 123:12 that are hidden from the truth only because they know not where to find it. And regardless of whether or not they are wicked or righteous, every person born on this earth is a son or daughter of our heavenly father. It seems as if there is an issue here. That issue is the subject that I have been assigned to speak to you about. It is the subject of Adversity.
I am grateful that I was assigned this subject because it is the perfect subject for a returned missionary to speak about. Missionary work is a great privilege and I can testify that the power of the gospel is very strong and does indeed change people’s lives. This is why Satan spends extra effort fighting the missionary work. One might think that being a missionary would be real easy because of the great message we declare and the tools that we have, but it was in fact a very hard uphill battle that I have been fighting, one that would be so easy to just give up. Adversity is very strong in the lives of missionaries, investigators, and converts. I have experienced that first hand.
Now when I teach someone or when I am being taught, I delight in simplicity and plainness. I love the big picture to be painted, because I think it helps us become better people; so that is what I will attempt to do today as I address the subject of adversity. In order to understand adversity, I think it is important to understand the person who I feel comfortable in calling the author of adversity, Satan. In order to understand Satan, I have called on someone to help me – James E Talmage. Those of you who don’t know who he is, Talmage was an apostle of the Lord here in this last dispensation who lived and died several years ago. He left behind his words in several great books. The book of his I will use today is called Articles of Faith. On pages 62-63, Talmage gives a great description of Satan. It reads as follows:
“We have had occasion to refer frequently to the author of evil among men. This is Satan, the adversary or opponent of the Lord, the chief of evil spirits, called also the Devil, Beelzebub, or the Prince of Devils, Perdition, and Belial. The figurative appellations dragon and serpent are applied to Satan when reference is made to his fall. We learn from the revealed word that Satan was once an angel of light, then known as Lucifer, a Son of the Morning; but his selfish ambition led him to aspire to the glory and power of the Father, to secure which he made the pernicious proposition to redeem the human family by compulsion; and, failing in this purpose, he headed an open rebellion against the Father and the Son, drawing a third of the hosts of heaven into his impious league. These rebellious spirits were expelled from heaven, and have since followed the impulses of their wicked natures by seeking to lead human souls into their own condition of darkness. They are the devil and his angels. The right of free agency, maintained and vindicated by the war in heaven, prevents the possibility if compulsion being employed in this fiendish work of degradation; but the powers of these malignant spirits to tempt and persuade are used to the utmost. Satan tempted Eve to transgress the law of God; it was he who imparted the secret murder for gain to the fratricide, Cain. Satan experts a mastery over the spirits that have been corrupted by his practices; he is the foremost of the angels who were thrust down, and the instigator of the ruin of those who fall in this life; he seeks to molest and hinder mankind in good efforts, by tempting to sin; or it may be by imposing sickness, or possibly death.”
So all of us are children of our Heavenly Father and before we came down to earth we lived with our Heavenly Father as spirits. Satan was one of these spirits. He is referred to as an angel of light in the Pre-earth life. However, when Heavenly Father presented his plan for all of us, Satan allowed his pride to get the best of him and he rebelled against Heavenly Father, wanting all the glory for himself. All of us were given the agency to follow either Heavenly Father or to follow Satan. One-Third of the hosts of heaven chose to follow Satan. This caused Satan and his followers to be cast out. This turn of events is referred to by many as the war in heaven.
At a moments glance, it may seem as if the war in heaven ended when Satan and his followers were cast out, but if one looks deeper he or she will discover that the war has not ended, but rather continues here on earth, because not only is earth the place that we were all sent to, but is also the place where Satan and his followers were cast down to. Our purpose in coming down to earth is to prepare to return to live with our Heavenly Father and we need to improve our time while in this life. Our earth life is known as a time of probation and of testing to see if we will do all that is necessary to return back. Satan is definitely not ignorant of this plan. He is very well aware of what is happening and what our Father in Heaven’s purpose is. Without this knowledge, he wouldn’t be so good at fighting against it, which is exactly what he is doing. Satan will do everything in his power to stop us from returning. He knows our weaknesses and is very good at attacking them at just the right time. As we get closer to doing what is right, Satan will in turn attack us harder because he does not want us to make it.
There are many examples of this; the first of which I will mention comes from the life of Joseph Smith. At a young age, Joseph was concerned about the welfare of his soul. There were many different Christian religions around all claiming that they were the truth and these claims confused Joseph. All that he wanted to know is which one he should join. He spent a lot of time searching it out in his mind and finally came to the conclusion that he needed to ask God which one he should join. It was in the year
As missionaries, we had the privilege of helping people make the critical decision to get baptized. This is one of the biggest steps that all of us need to take in order to return home and thus is a step that Satan does not want people to take and so he does all he can to make sure people don’t take it. I remember the first experience I had with an investigator who was close to getting baptized. His wife was a less active member and together they had four amazing young children. We first came in contact with her and she was rather cold with us. It didn’t seem that she was at all ready to come back to church, but then we met him and as we started to teach him, he really caught fire. He started to read the Book of Mormon and come to church and he loved it. He was really excited for the day that he was going to get baptized. By like I mentioned, not only does Satan not want us to do what is right, but he will attack us harder right before we are about to do what it right. Such was the case with this couple. The week before his baptism, this young man received some strong adversity from Satan and his countenance totally changed. We did all we could to try to help him, but he let Satan get the best of him and the baptism was cancelled. He didn’t get baptized while I was there and I believe that to this day he still hasn’t been baptized.
While this was a spiritual low of my mission and especially hard for a young missionary like myself, I learned from it. By the time I had gained experience on my mission, I had seen the adversity from Satan so much that I started to warn the people I taught of this adversity so that they could see it coming. Without fail, every investigator I taught received some sort of adversity right before their baptism. About a year after this first experience, there was another couple I taught in which the wife was a less active member and the husband was a nonmember. Their story is too long to relate here, but needless to say, after much work on both our part and there’s, the husband decided that he wanted to get baptized and so, like I had previously done with people, I warned them that they would receive adversity right before he got baptized. Like I had warned them, the adversity came. Fortunately, they were able to work through it and the baptism went through. However, adversity didn’t slow down with them, as Satan also likes to attack new members. A few weeks later, the wife told me that I had been exactly right with what I had said; it had been the hardest weeks of their lives. It was as if I had prophesied what would happen to them.
Some may wonder why this adversity is a necessary part of God’s plan, because it is quite obvious that it is. If we look at the account of Job’s life in the Old Testament, we will see that God clearly gave Satan permission to attack Job. In 2 Nephi 2:11, 15-16, the prophet Lehi, in talking to his son Jacob, teaches us why it is necessary. He states:
“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.”
We need to have the choice in front of us. Our salvation is up to us. We need to choose good. We cannot choose good if there is no bad choice to reject. We need adversity. Without it, it is impossible to be righteous. Adversity will come to all of us. There is no getting out of it. How we deal with that adversity tells a lot about who we are. If we look back into religious history, the greatest men had the hardest lives. And if we look at the life of the greatest man to walk the earth, even Jesus Christ, we will find out that he had the hardest life of all. If Christ wasn’t exempt from adversity, what makes us think that we will be?
Yet with all this said, we know that there will come a time when this war that we are waging against Satan will end. Even though at times it may seem otherwise and that Satan is doing a very good job, God will win and Satan will lose. There is no question about it. The question lies in where each of us individually will stand. If we are not devoted followers of Christ doing everything that we can possibly do, then, as
“Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.”
The way that we can fight Satan is indeed by very small and simple things. There is an age old spiritual formula that I have come across and as I’ve discovered this formula, I have found it almost comical. The tools that we have been given are the classic primary / Sunday school / seminary answers that we have given our whole life. Three tools: read the scriptures, pray, and go to church. I have been amazed at how well these things work if we use them together.
First off, we should read the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. God hasn’t left us alone in our journey here through our earth life to fight Satan. Throughout time, God has always called prophets. Prophets communicate with God. God tells them what the people need to know and they in turn tell the people what God wants them to know. The words of these prophets are frequently written down and become known as scriptures. It is truly a great blessing to have the words of God for us to study and apply in our lives and we should take advantage of this great gift to us by studying the scriptures daily, because, as Nephi tells us (in 2 Nephi 32:3), the scriptures will tell us all things that we should do. They will guide us in our lives. And, as I have noticed, this same process of scriptures being written for us continues today. Here in our day we have a prophet, his two counselors, and the quorum of the twelve apostles, along with various other church leaders that get together every six months in the form of general conference. They are inspired by God as to what they need to tell us and, after much preparation, they give us that specific counsel for us to apply to our lives, which counsel comes directly from God. These words of counsel are written down and given to us in the ensign. What a blessing it is to receive new scripture every six months.
As I have also been in what is known to be the Bible belt, I have come across a common tactic that Satan uses to deceive people. He will let them believe in God. He will let them believe in the atonement of Christ. He will let them believe that God has called prophets and thus given us scripture. But the thing that he uses in all that to deceive the people is that he makes them limit God to only one book of scripture, the Bible. If anyone comes with any other new book of scripture or claims that another prophet has been called, the people will close their minds and cast them out without even listening, as if they had spoken blasphemy. It was very sad to see this mindset among people, because who are we to limit God? God has always commanded all of his people to write the words which he gives them and then to study those words. He definitely will not curse us for studying an additional book of scripture that he caused to be written. I testify that he has caused more to be written and one book that we should especially study is the Book of Mormon.
In the introduction of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith makes a bold statement. He says, “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”
Many investigators would read that, get a shocked look on their face as they read, and then ask us, “Did Joseph Smith ever read the Bible?” Yes, he did. In several languages actually, and he said that the Book of Mormon was the most correct book. The whole chapter of 1 Nephi 13 explains this beautifully and I would suggest all of you to go home and study it. In essence, it tells us that at the time of the apostles, the Bible was a pure book, but during the dark ages there were many plain and precious things that were taken out of the Bible. God being all knowing, he caused the Book of Mormon to be written at the same time as the Bible on the American continent and preserved it to come forth in these last days to bring back the plain and precious things that were lost in the Bible.
With this in mind, it is clear as to why the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. If the Book of Mormon is a true book of scripture, then that means that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and everything that Joseph Smith taught was from God. All concerns can be resolved by finding out if this book is true.
The second tool that has been given to us is the gift of prayer. In our battle against Satan, God has instructed us how we can talk directly to him. That is through prayer. If we pray to God, he will help us through our challenges. He will inform us of the direction we need to take our lives. If there is anything that we need or want that is righteous, he will give it to us. The Bible Dictionary, on pages 752 to 753, gives some great instruction on prayer that has meant a lot to me as I have studied prayer:
“As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part. Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work, and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.”
With this idea in mind, prayer has a whole new meaning to it. The relationship that we can have with God through prayer is the same type of relationship that a father can have for a child, because God is our father. He’s our heavenly father. A father wants to hear from his children. He wants to help them in times of need. Most of the times, a father already knows what his children want and is more than willing to help them, but usually can’t do anything if the child refuses to ask for help. It is also worth mentioning that the relationship between father and child would be quite damper if the only time the child ever talked to the father was when he or she was in trouble.
Many, if not all of us, know at least one person who is struggling with their testimony or does not have a faith in Jesus Christ. We hope that they have an experience like Alma the younger did when an angel appeared to him and convinced him that he was in the wrong and needed change and he immediately became a totally different person, a devoted follower of Christ. As I recently studied this miraculous story, there was a part of it that stood out to me and changed my whole look at the story. That part comes in Mosiah 27:14, where the angel is speaking to
“And again, the angel said: Behold, the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is they father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth; therefore, for this purpose I have come to convince thee of the power and authority of God, that the prayers of his servants might be answered according to their faith.”
This speaks to me that
The final tool in which I will talk to you about today is that of coming to church. In order to help us in our journey, God has once again called a prophet for us in our day, and established his church on the earth. But not only has he called a prophet, he has also called twelve apostles, seventies, stake presidents, bishops, and many other church leaders to help us all. That church is spreading miraculously and is found on every part of earth. This system is set up that we have the great opportunity of attending this church every single week. Everywhere we go, the church is set up the exact same way. Not only can we go once a week, but the leaders of the church are there for us to help us and guide whenever we need it. Church isn’t a sanctuary for the saints; it is a hospital for sinners. While the church organization itself is absolutely perfect, there isn’t a single member of the church that is. The only perfect person in the entire history of the earth died about 2,000 years ago. With this in mind,
To conclude, I would like to go back to
“O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our fathers; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever.”
It is my testimony to all of you that God is my heavenly father. Jesus Christ is his son. Christ came to the other to suffer the penalty for my sins so that I could return home. God the Father and Jesus Christ did both appear to the young man Joseph Smith and called him to be a prophet to establish Christ’s church back to the earth so that I could have the fullness of the gospel in my life. The Book of Mormon was provided as a comfort for me and as an evidence for me that I can know that this is all true. How grateful I am for this in my life. I know that all of this is equally true for all of you in your own individual lives. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
