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One day many years ago I was crossing Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. It was noon, and armies of people were going in every direction. As I got to the middle of the street, I glanced up at the throng crossing the other way. My eyes met those of a comely young lady, and she smiled at me. I smiled back and we passed each other, neither breaking stride. But I nearly collapsed and could barely make it to the other side of the street.

Now if you have lived in New York City, you know what it is to be pressed among throngs of people. And you know that you never are to smile at anyone on the street, for that leads to big trouble. Needless to say, I had just had a very unique experience.

The smile was not what made the experience so different; the smile was just the frosting. What was so unusual was the overpowering sense of wholesomeness that I felt radiating from that young lady. It was not a romantic or physical attraction. What I felt was that I had just seen an angel, a holy person, and that she had looked me in the eye, smiled at me, and had left an indelible impression on my mind and heart.

At that moment, I did not understand what was going on. I just knew that I had seen a very unusual person, one who radiated goodness and light. I wondered if I would ever see her again.

And see her again I did. The next Sunday as I came to church at the Manhattan Ward, there she was, still radiant. I got to know her, but soon she was gone, as were so many who passed through Manhattan Ward in those days. But I have never forgotten her, even though I no longer remember her name.

But now I understand what happened back then, decades ago. What happened was that I had made contact with an especially pure and holy person, a Latter-day Saint who was truly a saint in deed as well as name. Which idea is my theme for this talk this evening. I will speak of holiness, and how we may become holy.

The word “holy” means whole, sound, healthy. It means whole in the sense that as children of God, when we are whole, we have the full set of attributes and powers that are the heritage of the children of God. We may not have those attributes and powers in their fullness, but we have them and exercise them if we are holy and whole. The most important of these attributes is love, the pure love of Christ, which itself centers in forgiveness and a reaching out to assist others to come to and know the goodness of Christ. So to be holy is to be whole, and to be whole is to be wholesome. To be in the presence of someone is holy and wholesome is to feel their goodness and love for us, and to know that unless we love evil, we have nothing to fear from them.

The word “saint” means one who has been sanctified, which is another way of saying, has been made holy. Little children are born holy and lose it only as they sin. Those of us who have sinned can become holy again only through Jesus Christ. The purpose of the life and mission of Christ is to make it possible for all who have sinned again to become holy, that they might then have the opportunity to become as God, to be good and pure and wholesome, and return to live with Father. To live with Father, to be whole as He is, to do His work of love as He does, is called “eternal life.”

The enemy of holiness or wholesomeness is sin. When we break the commandments of God, which is sinning, we cut ourselves off from the abundance of the gifts and blessings of God, and are no longer a whole child of God. We as sinners may look to the untrained natural eye as if we are whole physically, and may indeed have marvelous human gifts and powers, including physical attractiveness, physical strength, keen intellect, or special discernment. But the sinner is always short on love and forgiving of others. Vengeance is the special weapon of the sinner. It is as though the sinner knows that evil in others hurts him, and he is going to punish those who hurt him. The saint, on the other hand, extends love and forgiveness to all, knowing that any of us, ourselves or our enemies, have the opportunity to become whole, wholesome, happy and blessed only in Christ and through His Gospel and its ordinances.

In the Pearl of Great Price there is a marvelous passage in which Enoch lays out the great plan of the salvation of mankind from nastiness, littleness and misery unto health, wholeness and love. Let us look at chapter 6, beginning with verse 55. I will comment after each verse.

And the Lord spake unto Adam, saying, Inasmuch as thy children are conceived in sin, even so when they begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts, and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good.

Little children are conceived into a fallen, sinful situation, in which Satan has power to tempt them eventually. As babes, they are holy, but as they become accountable, Satan attacks them and is able to get every one of them to sin by the age of eight years.

And it is given unto them to know good from evil; wherefore they are agents unto themselves, and I have given you another commandment.

The knowledge of good and evil is the reason for our earthly existence. Adam fell so that each of us might be tempted by both good and evil, and we, being agents, perforce must choose between good and evil in almost every decision of our lives. We are in mortality to build an eternal character, and we do so by our daily choices between good and evil.

Wherefore, teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence; for, in the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name, and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous judge, who shall come in the meridian of time.

Once having sinned, we become stunted, deprived, unwholesome and incomplete persons. The only remedy for this is to put our trust, our faith, in Jesus Christ, and repent. To repent is to stop choosing evil and choose only good as we are led by Christ. Then we, too, can again become holy, even as Father, the Man of Holiness, and as our Savior, the Son of Man of Holiness.

Therefore, I give unto you a commandment, to teach these things freely unto your children, saying: That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world of water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory;

When we put our trust in Christ and obey His commandments by being born again of water and the spirit, our Savior does two things for us. First, because of our expression of willingness to choose only the good from now on in order to be holy, He forgives us of our past choosings of evil. Second, He sends His Holy Spirit to be with us that we might have special help in choosing and doing good and in avoiding doing evil henceforth. For adults, there is no holiness without the atoning blood of Christ.

For by the water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified; and by the blood ye are sanctified;

So by allowing ourselves to be immersed in the waters of baptism, we keep the commandment to repent and be baptized. By receiving the Holy Spirit we have a personal tutor to help us learn to know and keep every commandment of God; God’s word is His law, and when we obey His word, we become lawful or just. And through the atoning blood of Christ we are forgiven of our sins and made whole so that we can do all the good that a child of God of our age and station should do.

Therefore it is given to abide in you; the record of heaven; the Comforter; the peaceable things of immortal glory; the truth of all things; that which quickeneth all things, which maketh alive all things; that which knoweth all things, and hath power according to wisdom, mercy, truth, justice and judgment. (Moses 6:55–61)

When we are whole, we do enjoy the peace of Christ and all the peaceable things of the kingdom of God on earth, and we have a lively hope for the things of immortal glory. We may enjoy the truth of anything we need to know, and be quickened for any task or assignment, to be make fully alive to all things in wisdom, mercy, truth, justice and godly judgment.

So there it is. You and I are all invited to a party. This is a work party. The work is helping souls come unto Christ. You and I come to Christ only by helping others to come to Christ, which is to become holy, to become pure, to keep Father’s law fully even as does our Savior. Then we are wholesome, spiritually healthy, able to fill every and any mission our Savior has for us.

Let us make no mistake: life is a mission. We are sent by God to learn to be as He is. When we find the Gospel of Jesus Christ and enter into the covenant, then our mission becomes more specific: to help others to come to Christ and become wholesome, happy and powerful in the work of righteousness.

Through Moses, God said to the children of Israel while they were in the wilderness: “For I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy.” (Lev. 11:44)

In His earthly ministry, our Savior told us: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

To be perfect means to be complete, whole, holy, through our Savior.

In these latter days our Savior spoke through the Prophet Joseph Smith: “Therefore sanctify yourselves that your minds may become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you, and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will.” (D&C 88:68)

Though ultimately we are forgiven through the grace of God and are sanctified only through the blood of Christ, still we must do all we can do. That “all we can do” is to keep the commandments of God. In Section 43 of the Doctrine and Covenants we read:

And now, behold, I give unto you a commandment, that when ye are assembled together ye shall instruct and edify each other, that ye may know how to act and direct my church, how to act upon the points of my land and commandments which I have given.

And thus ye shall become instructed in the law of my church, and be sanctified by that which ye have received, and ye shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me—

That inasmuch as you do this, glory shall be added to the kingdom which ye have received. Inasmuch as ye do it not, it shall be taken, even that which ye have received.

Thus we are sanctified, made holy, by keeping the commandments of God which we have been given. Another way of expressing this is to say that faith in Christ leads to keep the commandments of God, thus it is our faith ln Christ which allows him to make us whole. Remember the times when the Savior healed someone and said to them, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”

From the days of Adam to the time of Moses, to the time of Christ, to the last days, the message is always the same: Be ye Holy, for I, God, am holy.

Let us turn from consideration of what we must do to how it is done. The first step in becoming holy is to learn to recognize that which is holy. There are holy persons, holy places, holy books, holy experiences. First another story about a holy person.

I had a friend and colleague who became a general authority of the Church. I had not seen him for many years when he came to talk at BYU. After the talk, I went up to greet him and to congratulate him on his helpful presentation. As I did so, I experienced something like that which I felt with the young lady in the middle of Amsterdam Avenue. As I approached this man, I could literally feel his presence and power as I got close to him. By the time I was within ten feet of him, the phenomenon was powerful, as though I was entering a force field. My how he had grown spiritually since I had known him. What a wonderful thing to see a friend who had acquired the power of God. And how wonderful to be able to sense that acquisition. The first step in becoming holy is to be able to recognize someone or something that is holy when we experience it.

The reason this recognition is so important is that the root ability we must have is to be able to tell the differences between the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit. Each human being who comes into this world is given as a gift from God: the ability to know good from evil. We are constantly in the presence of both good and evil, and if we are careful, we have the opportunity to distinguish them. But they do not come labeled. It is our agency to decide for ourselves which is the good and which is the evil spirit. Having made our choice, we promote that which we think is good and shun that when we think is evil. Woe unto us if we call evil good, and good evil.

But if we have made a correct identification of which is the good and which is the evil spirit, then we are in a position to recognize the Holy Spirit when it comes to us to bring the special witness of Jesus Christ, and in our dispensation, of Joseph Smith. Building on what we know is good, we can go on to more good, following as a little child, until we become holy in Christ.

There are places that are holy. Temples come to mind. Every temple of the Church is a holy place and has a feeling which seldom is matched outside the walls of a temple. It is special to be in the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York, for that is no ordinary grove of trees. It is special to be at Adam-ondi-Ahman; but for me the holy place there is more the valley below than the hill where the altar was said to be. I grew up in the desert, wandering alone where there was no trace of civilization. The desert is holy to me, a place that is clean and beautiful. But I often feel the same thing when I am on a mountain top or in a pristine forest. And there are places which are evil. The most pointed experience I have ever had of an evil place was at the coliseum in Rome, Italy. It was dead, totally dead, as to any good spirit.

There are holy books. Let me tell you a story about one man’s experience with a holy book.

This person as a young man emigrated from Sweden to the United States and settled among a number of his countrymen from Sweden in South Dakota. He was a faithful Lutheran. He lived alone, not being married, and attended church every Sunday. Each day as he came in from his work on his farm for lunch he would read something. He liked to keep his hat on in the house and put his feet up on the table and read for a while. But when he read the Bible, he would always take off his hat and bring his feet down off the table because he knew he was reading something holy.

One day as he was reading the Bible, he came across the Savior’s instruction about little children, how the Lord wanted them to be able to come unto him that he might hold them and bless them. He got to wondering about infant baptism, but could find nothing in the Bible which gave clear instruction on the matter. He resolved that he would bring up the matter and get help from his pastor the next Sunday.

After the meeting the next Sunday, he broached his question to the pastor, who looked at him sharply and told him that he was not to ask such questions. He took the reproach very personally, because he had been a real supporter of the local congregation. He vowed that he would not return.

The next day he went to town and stopped at the local public library and asked for a copy of the Koran. He was informed that someone else had already checked the Koran out, but that they had another heathen book which he might read if that would please him. It was a Book of Mormon. He opened it and began to read. After reading a bit his feet came down off the table. In another few minutes his hat came off. He became so engrossed that he sat there reading until he had finished the whole book, which was noon the next day. He knew that the book was holy. But the story does not end there.

He found the address of the Deseret Book Company in the book and wrote for further literature. He obtained the Articles of Faith and Jesus the Christ among other works, and devoured them completely. He still had never met a Mormon.

When fall came and the crops were in, he got in his car and took off for Salt Lake City, Utah, for he was determined to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He went to Salt Lake City, got a room in the Temple Square Hotel, and went over to Temple Square and joined a group being guided about the grounds. At the conclusion of the tour, the guide asked if there were any questions. Our friend said he had a question: How could he be baptized into the LDS church?

The guide immediately turned him over to the missionaries and he repeated his question to them. They told him that he must first be instructed. He told them he was already instructed and that they might question him to see if he knew enough. They began questioning him and he was able to answer every question. So they gave in. They interviewed him for baptism and set a time and place. And they warned him that Satan would try to stop him from being baptized.

He went back to his hotel room. Once there he began to have doubts, and they became a fierce torment. He recognized that these were not thoughts from the Holy Spirit, for he had felt it many times. So he fasted and prayed until the time of his baptism appointment the next day.

He was baptized in the tabernacle font and confirmed there also. At the conclusion he bore his testimony to those present, many of whom were non-members. Then he got in his car and went back to South Dakota. But the story is not over yet.

As soon as he got home, he began visiting his friends and neighbors, telling them about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. Tirelessly he combed the county around him. In the course of this missionary labor he converted 75 of his friends and neighbors, among whom was a young lady who became his wife. He was a branch president to these people, then district president. The kingdom of God prospered where he was.

How did all of this happen? It happened because Ivor Sandberg could tell that which was holy from that which was not. And he had the good sense to pursue with vigor that which he knew to be holy. And in the process, he himself came to be holy.

Just for curiosity, is there anyone here who is a descendant of Ivor Sandberg of South Dakota, or is a descendant of someone whom he brought into the church? Ivor Sandberg is a legend. I know what I know of him from word of mouth, so please forgive me if all of the details are not exactly as it was related to me. But I know that the main thrust of the story is true, confirmed by family members.

So what is the point of all that I have said? There are two main points that I hope you will remember.

Point no. 1: To be holy is good. It is to be wholesome. Wholesome people are happy, hardworking, self-sacrificing, fun to be around. They make wonderful companions. To find a wholesome person you have to be a wholesome person. There is nothing more important to be in this life than to be a wholesome, holy person. For then you will have power to do every good thing which you desire to do in bringing souls to Christ. To be whole is to have power, the power to do good. And if you gain that power while yet in mortality, you will enjoy and enjoy using it into all eternity.

Point no. 2: We become holy by coming unto Christ in the waters of baptism, receiving His Holy Spirit as our constant companion, and learning then to keep every commandment of God. It is not the easiest thing in the world to do. As a matter of fact, it is the most difficult thing in the world to do. But everyone who desires to do it can and will do it, for all that God asks is for each of us to do what we can, then He makes up the difference through His grace.

It is good to be holy. It is good to be faithful. I hope and pray that each of us will search our souls and choose that which is holy and good in our friends, our entertainment, our vocational pursuits, our community service, in our families, in our dress, in our eating and drinking, and especially in our marrying.

I would like to conclude with some scriptures. The first is a description of the times in which we live. I quote from the Joseph Smith version of Matthew 25 found in the Pearl of Great Price:

And, as I said before, after hearing the tribulation of those days, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken, then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory;

And whoso treasureth up my word shall not be deceived, for the Son of Man shall come, and he shall send his angels before him with the great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together the remainder of the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree—When its branches are yet tender, and it begins to put forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh at hand;

So likewise, mine elect, when they shall see these things, they shall know that he is near, even at the doors;

But of that day, and hour, no one knoweth; no, not the angels of God in heaven, but my Father only;

But as it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be also at the coming of the Son of Man;

For it shall be with them, as it was in the days which were before the flood; for until the day that Noah entered into the ark they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage;

And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.

What to do to prepare for the Second Coming? The answer is partly in D&C 87:8: “Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen.”

Holy places are the stakes of Zion and the temples, the places where holy persons, true Latter-day Saints, gather.

The other part of the answer comes from Moroni 10:32–33:

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in no wise deny the power of God.

And again, if you for the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.

It is my prayer that we will not sell our souls to Satan for the pleasures, powers and rewards of this world, but that we will get on our knees, seek that which is holy, and cling to it until we become holy in Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

POSSIBLE

Christmas is a time to think deeply about Jesus Christ.

1.   What is the first Christ people worship?

2.   What is the second Christ which people revere?

3.   What is the third Christ which people focus on?

4.   What is the fourth Christ which is important to people?

5.   How do these four different conceptions of Christ affect the way people worship the Savior?

6.   What is the best way to worship the Savior?

7.   What does it mean to say, “In the name of Jesus Christ shalt thou serve him?”

8.   Would you please explain the meaning of the terms heart, might, mind, and strength?

9.   Why are these four in that particular order: Heart, might, mind and strength?

10. Is there another order in which these four could be placed for understanding?

11. How does one go about worshiping God with Heart, Might, Mind and Strength?

12. That sounds like a good beginning. What comes next?

13. Is there a recognizable step after that?

14. What is the goal of these steps?

15. Now tell us what worshiping God in the way we have described has to do with the four Christs which people worship.

16. What you have described seems like a difficult task. How can one actually do these things?

Possible answers to these questions:

1.   The first Christ people worship is the Babe in the Manger.

2.   The second Christ people worship is the Great Healer and Teacher.

3.   The third Christ people worship is the Atoning Christ on the Cross.

4.   The fourth Christ people worship is the risen, reigning Lord of heaven and earth.

5.   Worshiping the Babe is so easy, because as a baby He makes no demands.

Worshiping the healer and teacher is difficult, because the life he commends is strait and narrow.

Worshiping the suffering Christ on the cross brings both gratitude and sorrow. Gratitude for His willingness to suffer for all of us humans, sorrow that we humans have made so much suffering necessary for Him.

Worshiping the reigning Lord brings love for Him for those who obey Him, fearful looking for His Second Coming for those who reject Him.

6.   The best way to worship Christ is to become his covenant servant and try to become as He is,

7.   To serve Him in His Name is to become His covenant servant and to bless others in His power.

8.   Heart: the desires of a person.

Might: the power one has to affect other beings and persons.

Mind: our understanding of the truth of existence.

Strength: The powers of our physical body, including the power to beget children.

9.   This given order is the order of importance.

10. Another ordering of these elements is: Mind, heart, strength and might. This order is the temple order and follows the time sequence in which we actually use these elements.

11. One fully worships God be keeping all of his commandments, especially following the temple order.

12. What comes next is enduring to the end, which end is to become like Christ Himself.

13. Being like Christ Himself, the next step is to minister as He does to all eternity.

14. The goal of these steps is to bring as much happiness as is possible to the universe.

15. We need to learn to worship all four Christs at once, and to do that for the rest of eternity.

16. We can do these things only if we want to do so with all of our heart.

One of the things that makes it delightful to be a philosopher is the opportunity to look at the big picture. Let us share musings for a few minutes about the sweep of the way things really are as we examine the human condition. We will speak sub species aeternitas, as if we were god, as is the philosopher’s wont.

The human condition is a continuum. At one extreme is the totally natural state of a human being as represented by feral children, those raised by animals with no human nurture. Such persons are essentially animals, knowing nothing of human language or knowledge, of history or of future, living from moment to moment and day to day by reacting to their immediate environment to nourish and to protect themselves.

The middle ground of the human continuum is filled with human activity which is a response to human conventions. Human conventions are systems of cooperation which are achieved in a more or less arbitrary manner and which enable human beings to enter into and fulfill cooperative arrangements.

One very prominent human convention is language. The sounds of any human language are arbitrary, intrinsically worthless. But by having agreements as to the significance of those sounds and how they are to be organized, we humans manage to communicate with each other in rather sophisticated ways about quite complex matters. This communication is a cooperation which makes possible a great many other cooperative endeavors which take the human being far beyond the feral state. Human conventions are civilization, and civilization is simply the sum of the conventions a group of human beings employ.

Using language, human beings organize and conduct family cooperation, that foundation stone of all civilized peoples. The family cooperates to produce food, clothing and shelter and to perpetuate whatever civilization the persons involved enjoy.

Beyond family life, language enables exchange of goods in an organized manner, which is the economic structure of groups of families. Civil government is a convention created to govern the relationships of families to each other and the relationships of individuals from different families to each other. Technology, the production of goods and services, begins in the family but gains power and scope through language usage to become a community affair. Art, which is a species of technology, flourishes through human conventions of systems of representation and presentation. The highest human conventions are sometimes the moral codes which govern human conduct and guide aspiration and cooperation.

Conventions have their seamy side as well as their good side. Conventions are used by some persons to enslave others. They are used to promote false ideas and evil morality. They are used to pursue war to gain advantage over others by taking their lives, property and goods.

The fact that human conventions are used by humans to produce evil as well as good, and that sometimes the evil of the conventions is greater than the good, causes some persons to be pessimistic about the whole human enterprise, to see it all as simply an arbitrary game for gaining advantage over other persons. Thomas Hobbes pointed out that even bad conventions are better than no conventions, for bad civil governments are still better than the feral condition of no government.

But fortunately, there is another end to the human continuum. In addition to the feral state of nature and the more or less arbitrary human systems of conventions which create civilization, there is also the presence of God and His covenant with man. Whereas the feral state is animal, evil in the sense of being little, essentially sub-human, the other end is divine, essentially super-human as human beings take upon themselves the divine nature and become as God. Whereas the middle ground of human civilization is built upon arbitrary conventions which enable cooperation for both good and evil, the divine end is built upon cooperation with God in doing only good. Whereas the feral condition is one of relative powerlessness and local effect only, the divine condition is a focus of power, knowledge and goodness that reaches out to eternity. Whereas the feral condition has minimal cooperation and rewards selfishness, the divine condition is one of total cooperation and oneness, the consummation of selflessness.

While the feral and the divine conditions provide us with very distinctive alternatives, the bridge between the two is the human system of conventions. The only way one can go from the feral condition to the divine is through the system of human conventions. So let us examine the human conventions a bit more closely.

We have already noted that human conventions tend to be arbitrary. It is arbitrary whether we drive on the right or left side of the road, and whether we use English, Swedish or Swahili. It is arbitrary whether we use a patronymic or a matronymic naming system. It is arbitrary where we place local, state and national boundaries. The tax laws we enact are arbitrary, as are the requirements for citizenship and the legislative process. So much of what civilization consists of is so obviously arbitrary, that some among us have concluded that everything is arbitrary, that there is no right or wrong, good or evil, and we can and should just do as we please. To do as each of us would please without any conventions would take us back to the feral jungle, which almost everyone recognizes as undesirable. So the pressure is to use our arbitrary human conventions to feature evil as good.

If we pretend that there is no divine, then anything more feral is appropriate if we desire it. Everyone admits there is a feral end, but not everyone admits that there is a divine end to the continuum. Without the divine, civilization tends to sink toward the feral until it is destroyed, even as happened to the Nephites, the Jaredites, and the Romans.

But there is a divine influence in this world. It infuses the arbitrary human systems with real good, with ideas which point men toward divinity. The more a civilization incorporates the divine into its conventions, the more it will prosper and gain power, and the more it will perpetuate itself.

So: the real question with which every civilization must grapple is the question: Is there a divine opportunity or is everything just arbitrary? Another way to say this is to ask if there is an imminent God who can and does help human beings, or is everything simply accidental and natural. The United States government and most of the first universities of this country were founded on the premise that there is a God and there is a good. But the sentiment that there is no God and that all is arbitrary is taking over our nation.

Three current issues show the difference clearly. The first issue is abortion. If there is no God and no right and wrong, then whatever is legal is appropriate. So if the government passes a law that its unborn have no legal protection, it doesn’t matter. The whole thing is a game anyway, so why not make it convenient for our selfishness.

The second issue is same-sex marriage. If marriage has no divine purpose because there is no divine, then why not accord to any so-called marriage the legal conveniences of traditional marriages?

A third issue is euthanasia. If there is no divine, if human life is only a convenience, if there is not right and wrong, then why should any human being have to suffer? Why not let anyone who is in mental, physical or social pain just apply to someone who can quickly and efficiently cause death and receive legally sanctioned assistance? If it is only a game anyway, why not have it be a game we enjoy playing?

What is behind all of each of these issues is that men sometimes reject God, then play being their own god in their own pleasant games. God gives human life, but men who do not want a god, take life and think that they give it or deny it at their own pleasure, thus playing god. God ordained marriage between man and woman for eternal purposes, to bring the couple into the nature of the divine. But men and women who do not want to serve the true and living God want to subvert marriage to mere convenience, be it heterosexual or homosexual, thus becoming gods unto themselves. It is God who ordains death and the suffering of human life, and in his economy, no suffering or pain is lost or wasted; it all has its purpose. But those who know not the true God want to play god and take life whenever they feel like doing so. The next step is of course to take the life of those who are deemed by others to have no purpose in living, even as Hitler executed the ill, the mentally incompetent and the genetically undesirable.

The playing of god by humans has a long and complicated history. Fathers and mothers have done it, judges, doctors and generals regularly do it, scientists and philosophers try their hand at it. The most glaring examples of playing God, however, are when men set themselves up as a light unto the world and dispense wisdom and instruction to get praise and gain, both in and out of the churches of the world.

So each of us has a very practical choice. Each of us in our thinking and acting must either worship the true God, worship a false god, or play god ourselves. If we worship the true and living God, we will stand for truth and right, even if we must sacrifice to do so. If we worship a false god, such as the “will of the people” or some charismatic human, we become pawns in their posturing as God. If we play god ourselves, then we will do as we please to compromise with evil and bring the civilization crashing down around ourselves.

Civilization can be good or evil. Good civilization is filled with right from the true God, and it prospers. Evil civilization is filled with evil and selfishness, and it crumbles. But the worst civilization is the one that knows the true and living God and deliberately turns its back on Him and plays at being its own god. This is why the Nephites were destroyed and the Lamanites persevered. The Nephites wound up deliberately playing god, while the Lamanites played god because they did not know God.

The conclusion of my tale is that you and I have a great personal responsibility in the future of our civilization. If we know that there is a true God but pretend that there is no god by going along with those who know not God, we create the conditions for the destruction of our civilization. We are sent to leaven the lump, but if the leaven has lost its lifting power, it is to be cast out and trodden under foot and the lump will be utterly destroyed as in the prophecy of Malachi.

For we know that the conventions of men are not all arbitrary. There is a right and a wrong about many issues, and we must stand for the right. We cannot say with the world, “I will play the game and pretend that there is no God and no right and wrong about political issues.” For us to do so is spiritual death to ourselves and a condemning of our civilization to death as well. For if a population has in it those who know God and yet serve Satan, it is a worse population than another where no one knows God and serves Satan by default. If you and I do not rise to the occasion and serve Jesus Christ, who is the God of this land, we doom this land to another destruction, just like the three previous nearly total destructions which have come upon it.

There is a clear prophecy that if the constitution of the United States is to be saved when it hangs by a thread, it will be the elders of Israel who will save it. But the prophecy does not say that it will be saved. That is up to you and to me.

In conclusion, then, we have a choice. We may pretend that the human conventions in which we all participate are all arbitrary and whatever is legal is acceptable, or we can wield the sword of the Spirit of God in promoting that which is just and true. We are endowed and empowered agents before the true and living God, and the choice is ours.

Thank you.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “quid pro quo” as follows: “One thing (or action) in return or exchange for another; tit for tat.” It is plain that quid pro quo is the essence of justice: one should pay for that which he takes from the system, or one should be paid for that which he contributes to the system. A distant reflection of this principle is found in Newton’s law of motion: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

We now ask: Is the principle of quid pro quo a rightful part of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Quid pro quo is the obvious basis of the Law of Moses. The “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” idea is clearly essential to that law. But the Law of Moses, though clearly the platform on which the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is based, is not the Restored Gospel. So far we cannot conclude that quid pro quo is part of the Restored Gospel.

Our Father in Heaven is a being of justice. He cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance; so any sin for which there has been no acceptable quid pro quo suffering prevents the perpetrator of the sin from dwelling in Father’s presence. Though his Son, Jesus Christ, has suffered the quid pro quo for every sin of every human being, past, present and future, neither our Savior’s suffering nor a quid pro quo suffering of the perpetrator of the sin, nor both of those possible sufferings, suffices to bring the perpetrator of a sin to be able to dwell in the Father’s presence. Because justice is not the essence of Father’s being. The essence of his being is Love, which is more than justice.

The pure love of the gods is a delicate balance of justice and mercy. Justice must always be satisfied: there must always be a quid pro quo somewhere, somehow. Mercy cannot rob that quid pro quo. Mercy is forgiving the quid pro quo due from someone else by paying it oneself. What mercy accomplishes is the transference of the obligations of quid pro quo. If there is a debt, justice requires that the debt be paid, but mercy allows the debt to be paid by someone other than the person who accrued the debt. Just as justice must always be satisfied, so mercy must always be extended for God to remain God.

Human beings who understand and accept the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ are in apprenticeship training for godhood. The essence of that training is first to learn obedience, then to learn the pure love of Christ by becoming both just and merciful. Obedience enables faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ enables acting in the same manner is which Christ acted: to show perfect justice and perfect mercy. Perfect justice and perfect mercy when combined with power through obedience fulfill perfect love.

Perfect justice is to meet all of one’s obligations with quid pro quo. One’s obligations are partly defined by the fulfillment of all of the promises or contracts which one has made, including fulfilling any penalties due for non-performance of any promise or contract. The remainder of the obligations of justice are defined by paying the quid pro quo for any person for whom one has a fiduciary responsibility if that person is not fully an agent.

Perfect mercy is to extend to all of one’s debtors, those who have trespassed against one by breach of promise, contract or law, whole-hearted forgiveness. This is not the forgiveness of indifference nor that of awarding the problem to someone else: it is the personal payment of the quid pro quo which justice demands of one’s debtor, then restoring that person to the place of honor as if that person had been just.

In the apprenticeship for coming into the image and stature of Christ, it seems that obedience is the least difficult, justice through obedience is the next most difficult, and mercy through obedience and justice is the most difficult of all. Apparently that is why those who gain a little obedience, but not enough to become just, are telestial. Those who become fully just through their obedience become terrestrial. And those who are able to add mercy to their justice through obedience are able to become celestial.

Our Savior fulfills obedience by doing all that Father instructs and nothing else. He fulfills justice by perfectly completing all of his own promises and contracts and the law, then by fulfilling the quid pro quo of justice for all human beings because he has a fiduciary responsibility for each of them and none of them is fully an agent. He fulfills mercy by extending to all humans forgiveness of all requirements of justice due for past performance (where human beings are essentially not agents), on the condition that they become just in present performance wherein they are agents.

To become a disciple of Christ is first to learn obedience by looking unto him in every thought and by doing all things which he commands. Then it is to learn to keep every promise and contract, and to fulfill every law, through the power which obedience to Christ makes possible. Thirdly, it is to extend unconditional mercy to all men wherein they have of seem to have acted unjustly against us.

Our Savior does not extend unconditional mercy to all men. He does not because it is He that enables each to be agentive and he can judge to what degree each human being is agentive and how well each is using that agency. He extends mercy where the agent is not able, but requires justice where the agent is fully able.

It is tempting for humans to attempt to extend mercy conditionally, as the Savior does, rather than unconditionally as He asks us to. He can extend it conditionally because he is God. He knows exactly when it is in the best interest of a human being to extend mercy and when it is best to require justice. He has all power in heaven and earth. And because He has all power, He extends mercy and justice unfailingly as well as unerringly.

No human being is of himself or herself very powerful, very knowledgeable, or very wise. Only in Christ do we find these. Therefore, it is only through all the obedience, faith in Christ, that we can muster that we can fulfill justice justly or extend mercy mercifully.

Since we cannot be obedient or just, save we are supported and enabled by Christ, our obedience and justice are not ours, but His. We cannot claim any reward or prerogative for our obedience of justice, for without him those would never have happened. True it is that we must do all we can, and that without all we can do He is powerless to make us obedient or just. All He asks is that we give Him our heart, might, mind and strength, all of each, that he might remake them into his own image.

The key factor is the heart. The heart must become pure where it is now selfish. It must become large where it is now small. It must learn to love and serve God above all else where it now tends to be hard, independent, carnal and sensual.

The heart of man cannot be purified and perfected except by fire. The first application of fire is the struggle to become obedient to Christ. The second application of fire is the struggles to become just. Winning the first struggle enables one to shine with the light of the stars. Winning the second struggle enables one to shine with the light of the moon. But the third purification by fire is the greatest of all: the requirement to learn mercy unconditioned by our own wisdom. He who wins this last struggle is able to shine with the light of the Son. For he then has charity, which is the greatest of all.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a quid pro quo arrangement. The God-given reward for living the gospel is immense compared with the pittance required of human beings. But the reward is only guaranteed to be spiritual in this mortal sphere; the full reward is promised only for those who look forward to eternity with the eye of faith. God is just and merciful; He is always there, ready to save. Thus the independent variable, the controlling factor in the system of salvation, is that bitter pittance that humans must offer. It is bitter because there is no guarantee of a quid pro quo in this life. One is asked to be obedient, just and merciful when many around one do none of those and seem to prosper, even prosper in the Church of Jesus Christ. They have their reward. But eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the blessings which are to be poured out upon the heads of those who learn through the New and Everlasting Covenant to be obedient, just and merciful.

Be in tune with the Savior:

• Repent of every sin. (Checklist: Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount)
• Get rid of every unrighteous desire.
• Be strong and steady of mind.
• Search the Spirit daily, to do the Savior’s will.

Think out:

• Find the correct goal (by the Spirit)
• Plan backward from the goal each necessary step, until you arrive at the present.
• Search out each thing that can go wrong; plan prevention or adequate remedy.
• Plan a criterion by which you will know when the goal is obtained.
• Obtain necessary approvals on plans.

Work out:

• Assemble tools and materials.
• Concentrate resources, attack goal with full strength.
• Pay special attention to your people; they are your greatest resource.
• Polish and finish the job, 100%.
• Conserve tools and materials.
• Pay bills.

Evaluate:

• Test for completion of goal.
• Evaluate planning.
• Evaluate performance.
• Estimate value of project.

Our Savior has said that we should be holy, for He is holy. Holy is a form of the word, “wholly.” What can we do to be holy? Be wholly focused on Him.

1. Have your mind constantly on the Savior, discerning whether you are pleasing Him or not.
2. Look with compassion, kindness and forgiveness toward every other human being you encounter during the day. Let your constant prayer be: How can I serve this person?
3. Own what is necessary and keep it in good order and repair, ready to present it to the Savior.
4. Dress, look, and act like the living prophet.
5. Never overeat nor consume anything that is not good for you.
6. Be out of debt, and be current and generous in tithes and offerings.
7. Search the scriptures, the conference reports, and the Holy Spirit daily.
8. Pray constantly. Let your day be a long conversation with the Lord.

1. There is no “English language.”
2. Reason produces no truth.
3. Man is not a rational animal.
4. Objectivity is impossible.
5. No man can demonstrate self-righteousness.
6. Rule of law is impossible.
7. There is no equality short of identity. (Individuality crisis)
8. Every man is a success (Quality wise)
9. There are “natural” laws of morality.
10. Empiricism is impossible. (Pure)
11. Induction is always guesswork.
12. Every person has a religion. (But some are more religious than others.)
13. Theory governs our lives. (Adduction)
14. Imagination is the key.
15. Abstraction simplifies the world.
16. Every person has a God.

The most important event in the total history of this world is the event known as the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is possible to construe what the atonement is narrowly or broadly. To see it in narrow focus is to emphasize the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the last day of his mortal life and ministry, culminating in his death on the cross. To see the atonement in broad focus is to emphasize the total mission of our Savior from the time of the grand council in heaven until the last judgment is over and every person once mortal has entered into his or her eternal future. Let us explore the broad perspective and note how it also includes the narrow focus.

The English word “atonement” is made up of three words conjoined: “at-one-ment.” This word signifies the labor of bringing two sides or parties together, to make two into one. It is our Savior’s task, as assigned in the council in heaven, to assist every human being who ever has or will live on this earth to become one with our Father in Heaven. To be one with Father means to share all that He is and has: His perfection, power, knowledge, priesthood, and opportunities. Our Savior is one with our Father and it is His desire, attempt and mission to bring all of us humans to be one with Father, even as He is. This is the “at-one-ment.” He can do this, of course, only for those who will trust Him and cooperate.

Let us now recount the steps and stages of this attempt to help us become one with Father.

The first step was the cleansing of heaven after the grand council. A third of the hosts of heaven rebelled against Father and His plan to bless all of His spirit children. These rebellious souls were cast out of Father’s presence by our Savior, and cast down to this earth to await a future need for their services.

The second step was the preparation of this earth as a dwelling place for mankind. This planet was not created out of nothing, for it was already in existence when the Savior came down to form it for man’s habitation. The earth was prepared with all things necessary for man to live on it in the flesh, then Adam was placed on the earth, the first flesh on earth. All of the plants and animals created for this world were brought here to be useful to Adam and Eve and their posterity.

The third step was the creation of the world. The world is a spiritual kingdom on the earth, the earth being this planet. The world was created after Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden as a married couple, having covenanted with Father to obey him in all things and having received the instruction to multiply and fill up the earth with their posterity. One of the first things they did was to disobey Father by yielding to the temptations of Satan. The result of that disobedience was the Fall. The earth fell out of its then orbit, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden and out of Father’s presence, and they were put into the power of Satan because they had obeyed him. Satan gaining power over Adam and Eve was the creation of the world, or Satan’s kingdom on this earth. Satan and his third of the hosts of heaven are here to torment and try each of us every day of our mortal lives.

The fourth step was giving Adam and Eve and their posterity a new covenant, the New and Everlasting Covenant, which would enable them to eventually work their way back out of the power of Satan. They were taught and empowered how to become godly instead of carnal, sensual and devilish as man had become in the Fall. This fourth step was teaching Adam and Eve and their posterity the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that through faith in him and repentance of all their sins they could be saved from the evil within their own selves. Through receiving the ordinances of the holy priesthood and keeping their covenants, they could change their basic eternal natures which had allowed them to fall and become as Christ is in heart, might, mind and strength. Part of this fourth step was the sending of the Holy Ghost, angels, and prophets, seers and revelators to keep the posterity of Adam informed about the wondrous news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to keep the offer of the New and Everlasting Covenant before the people through the Church of Jesus Christ. Adam’s posterity kept rejecting the Holy Spirit, the prophets, the church, the Gospel and the new covenant, so these were taken away and then restored many times.

The fifth step of the atonement was the mortal life and mission of that God who had created and presided over the earth up to this point. Christ was born to Mary, was the son of our Father in Heaven, and lived a perfect life in obeying all of Father’s commands. Having lived a perfect life, he needed no savior or redeemer for his own future. And being perfect, he could offer his own spotless life as a sacrifice for the remainder of mankind. So he sacrificed. He gave up his potentially unending mortal life in exchange for the keys of death. Having seized the keys of death, that assured that all mankind would be resurrected in the flesh and live forever, even as he will. And he suffered. He suffered the pains of all men, both for the sins they had committed and for the sins committed against them, so that there could be a forgiveness of the penalties and consequences of every human sin. And as a god, Christ undertook restitution for the sins of all humankind. As a God he blessed every human being with a restoration of every blessing they would have received had the not been sinned against. With this restitution, every human being exists in eternity as if they had not been sinned against, shortened in their enjoyment of Heavenly Father’s blessings.

The sixth step of the atonement is the judgment. As Christ was lifted up by mortal men and crucified, so Christ will draw all men up to him at the last day and will judge them. He will judge them by what they did when the Holy Spirit testified to each of them that he was and is the Christ, the Savior of mankind and that they should forsake all ungodliness and become sinless, as he, Christ, is. An integral part of the atonement is that every soul receives a full witness and explanation of the salvation through Christ before coming to the bar of judgment, and the person is to be judged by what they do after they have received that full witness and opportunity to be saved from themselves and their own wickedness. So all men will stand before Christ and will be judged, even as each of them judged him and accepted or rejected him. Those who did good will be given great eternal reward. Those who did evil will be sent to receive all that they can stand, which may be but a little.

The seventh step of the atonement is that the Savior takes all who have accepted him and his covenant in their probation, who did have faith in him and repent unto a pure heart, and teaches and nurtures them in the ways, powers and duties of godhood until they have received a fulness of all things and have become as He is and as Father is. This seventh step is the climax of the atonement: each soul who will receive it is now like the Father and the Son. These enter into their rest and become one with all the gods in all of their future exciting adventures in creating worlds, peopling those worlds with souls, and giving each of those souls the same opportunity to become one with Father and Christ that we have been given. Thus, the final step of the at-one-ment is actually bringing each soul who will receive it into a spiritual and functioning oneness with Father and the Son in their eternal round of creating worlds and blessing souls.

Thus the atonement of Jesus Christ is the whole basis and reason for the existence of each human being. We exist to be given the opportunity to inherit all that our Father is and has. How grateful we ought to be to our Savior for carrying out this wonderful plan of our Father to bless each of us. How we ought to strive to fight against the power of the adversary to stop us from receiving our heritage through Jesus Christ!

I would like now to make some specific suggestions as to how each of us might profit from the atonement in our daily lives:

1. Carefully inspect all things that come before us and separate them into really good, indeterminate, and really bad.
2. Focus our heart and mind on that which we know is really good. Leave aside all the indeterminate and really bad. All that is good comes from Christ.
3. Plan and work each day to do all of the really good you can. This will include constant prayer in the name of Christ, daily reading of scripture, careful attention to serving those around us, being cheerful and happy, being thankful for all things the Lord sees fit to inflict upon us.
4. Deliberately seek out and foster everything that is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy. The sum of these four steps is to be as a little child before God and to shun the teachings and ways and fashions of this world as one would flee a raging fire.

May the Savior ever be in our hearts; may his magnificent atonement ever be on our minds to inspire and guide us; and may we ever follow the whisperings of his Holy Spirit and overcome this world through Christ, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

1. We are born into this world with a body fashioned in the likeness of those of the gods. (Christ is the creator of all things in heaven and in earth.)
2. The light of Christ is given to each person who comes into this world, to teach them the difference between good and evil. Everyone knows the difference, but each of us gets to say which one is good and which one is evil for us.
3. By the light of Christ everyone will eventually be able to locate the Holy Spirit and its teachings. It will teach us of Christ.
4. By the Holy Spirit, each of us will eventually receive and recognize the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by those who have the true authority of God. They will invite us to be baptized.
5. As we accept baptism, we covenant to be willing to take upon us His name, to remember Him always, and to keep all the commandments He gives us.
6. When we make the covenant of baptism, we are given the right to the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The Gift is the constant companionship, differing from the occasional witness which led us to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
7. If we actually receive the Holy Ghost when we are confirmed, or after, we also receive at least one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
8. As we treasure the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost by being humble and obedient, and as we use well the gift of the spirit we have been given, we become heir to all of the other gifts of the spirit.
9. As we learn well to serve others, young men are given the Aaronic Priesthood to enhance the power of their service to bless others temporally.
10. As a young man serves well in the offices and responsibilities of the Aaronic Priesthood, he becomes ready and receives the Melchizedek Priesthood, which further increases his power to serve and bless others. There are three steps in receiving the full power of the Melchizedek Priesthood:
          a. Conferring of the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordaining to the office of elder. This grace gives one the power to bless others spiritually.
          b. Receiving one’s endowment (gift from God) in the holy temple. This enables one to resist the power of Satan and overcome the world.
          c. Being sealed to one’s spouse in the holy temple by the power of God. This gives a man and a woman the right to have children and to preside over their posterity as an eternal kingdom.
11. Callings and opportunities to serve in the Kingdom of God on earth come (but none is greater or more important than the opportunity to preside over and bless one’s own posterity). The person grows in power and ability as he or she is faithful in family and church responsibilities.
12. The ultimate grace is to overcome the world through faith in Jesus Christ and to be given the gift of a pure heart. He who has the pure heart has everything. He who lacks the pure heart is still nothing. He and she who receive the pure heart will be exalted, will become one with the Father and the Son. The scriptures call this gift, “charity.”

How to live the Restored Gospel without falling on your face.

The reason we need to come to Christ is because we keep falling on our face. Until he rescues us from ourselves, we will continue to fall on our face (to sin), and we cannot stop it. So when we fall on our face we need to struggle to our knees and acknowledge before heaven and earth that we need the help of Jesus Christ. We avail ourselves of that help by doing four things: (All that follows assumes that we know that the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is true.)

1. We need to stop sinning. We can examine ourselves to admit what we know already: we are sinning and then stop it. We must stop every sin we know about and replace each sinning with positive, righteous acts.
2. We need to partake of the New and Everlasting Covenant. We can be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, receive our temple endowments, be sealed in the temple in the covenant of eternal marriage.
3. We need to take upon ourselves the harness of the priesthood in serving faithfully and valiantly in the Kingdom of Christ. We can get behind the presiding officers over us in the church, pray for them, sustain them with our faith and prayers, fully fulfill any calling they extend to us to serve in the kingdom, and especially to do all of those voluntary, quiet labors of Christian service which being a neighbor to needy people can bring.
4. We need to persevere in the path of righteousness until we have done all that we can do through faith in Christ to be righteous, then to implore the Savior that he will purify our hearts, to give us that greatest gift of charity. For we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, but only after all we can do to perfect ourselves by the means he has already given us. By doing all we can first, we demonstrate that we really do want what he has to give and that we are willing to make any sacrifice necessary to do our part. Then he will make us pure. Then we will no longer have any desire to sin. Until we receive charity, that pure heart, we will continue to sin. Thus until we persevere to that end, we are as nothing.

We do not do these things, these four steps, in serial order, one at a time. We work on each of them constantly, every day, and the more we do of one, the greater our capability becomes to do the others.

What is the secret to doing these things fully and faithfully, to endure to the end? The secret is simple: to perfect each day. We can study out in our minds a plan for each day, then live as intelligently as we are able within our plan. Some elements should be in every plan:

1. Personal prayer upon arising, upon retiring, and all during the day.
2. Family prayer night and morning.
3. Daily scripture study, privately and as a family.
4. Planning each day’s work with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
5. Executing the work of each day in the spirit of love and pure knowledge.
6. Constancy in scanning the horizon for souls who may be in need of our help.
7. Building our lives around the three great works of the latter days: missionary work, perfecting the Saints (establishing Zion), and redeeming the dead.

1 Peter 1:13–16: Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.