Category: Restored Gospel

Chauncey C. Riddle

We will talk about the creation of the earth and of the world as a setting for the probation of man. This earth was set up as the perfect place for man’s probation. Into this setting, now comes the gospel of Jesus Christ with its message of hope, life, and salvation. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of life. Life being the greatest kind of living.

There are three kinds of life Father is trying to give us: He is trying to give us a certain duration and quality of physical life. He is trying to give us life in connection with righteousness. He is trying to give us life in connection with posterity. Now, any person who has all three of those who has a celestial, immortal body, who has become righteous and has the right and the opportunity to have posterity eternally. He has the fullness of eternal life or it’s called eternal lives. So, that’s what the Father is trying to give us through the gospel. He’s trying to give us salvation.

The Prophet Joseph said that salvation was to be put beyond the power of our enemies. Who is our enemy? My understanding is that Satan is not our enemy, he’s not our friend either. He’s just there to do his job. My understanding is that our enemy is ourselves. And that what we need to do is to get rid of our selfishness. And if we can ever manage to do that, that is salvation. Because that’s the enemy we need to fear, is our own selfishness. When the Savior came among the Jews, they wanted to be saved but they had a different definition of salvation. Their definition of salvation was to smash the Roman Armies so they could become an independent political kingdom. His definition of salvation was to help them stop being selfish. And that they did not want. They wanted him to smash the Roman Armies and they rejected him as the Messiah because he had the audacity to tell them he was the Messiah and yet would do nothing about the Romans. Well the Savior had the Romans there for a special reason, that was part of the plan. It was his idea but most of the Jews’ nation did not see the idea and therefore missed the opportunity for life and salvation.

The natural man is given this opportunity not because all of them will want it. All of them will want pieces of it. All of them will get immortality for instance but not all will have eternal lives in the full sense.

The gospel itself is a short message. It consists of perhaps ten ideas which can be said in one breath if you have a good lung capacity. The gospel is compatible with all truth, indeed it embraces all truth and light in the universe. But it itself is a very limited short message. It is basically the message a person has to know to be ready worthy meaningfully baptized. So we are gong to review these ten ideas now. We’re not going to give them in the one breath, we’re going to expand on each one a little bit.

First, Jesus Christ is the Son of God the Father. That’s the first thing we have to know. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So the first thing we have to know is who Jesus Christ is. He is the Son of God. And that simply means, he was not a God at first but became a God, thus he is called the Son of God. Having become a God he has inherited all that the Father has. And that’s important because he extends that same opportunity to you and to me. He was Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament who’s name means, “will be.” He is the God who would be, that is to say, who was to come, on the earth. He was the God who would be born of Mary in the land of Jerusalem of the seed of Abraham, of the seed of David. But also he is literally the only begotten Son of God the Father in the flesh. He has this divine heritage and the natural mortal heritage. He had blood in his veins but he had sufficient of the divine heritage he could have lived for ever, not needing to die. And because he was the son of God and had the presence of his Father with him at all times and was perfectly obedient to his Father, he did not sin.

He came into the world to do his Father’s will and to do nothing but his Father’s will. He did this completely and perfectly. His Father’s will was, that he should first lead this sinless life and then give up this perfect and potentially unending mortal life that he might ransom the souls and bodies of all mankind.

Second, the Father’s will was that he be lifted up upon the cross, that is to say the main reason the Savior came to the earth was to atone for our sins. He didn’t apparently do anything else that was, for instance somebody else could have set up a church and taught the gospel. That wasn’t essential to his mission though he did those things. What was essential was that he do the two things; that he live a sinless life so that he could atone for our sins and then atone for our sins.

The cross is the symbolic symbol of his working out the atonement. So having lived this sinless life because of his divine heritage he was able to personally, voluntarily take upon himself and suffer the debt of justice due for each and every sin that had been committed or would be committed by any human being on this earth. Again this is something that boggles the mind because this necessities that every sin (The Father is so omniscient that every sin that had been committed was carefully cataloged) every sin that was being committed was carefully cataloged, every sin that would be committed was carefully cataloged already when the Savior wrought his atonement.

So there was something known about your life and my life, every lie that we ever tell was already known back when the Savior did his atonement. Does that mean we are free? Well, stop and think about how we are free. The thing that is important to us is that we must recognize that when we sin, we sin of our own choice. That is to say, after we know the gospel and have the Spirit as our companion. If we then sin deliberately then we are deliberate adding to the Savior’s burden, that is say it was known back then that we would deliberately know we were sinning against him and adding to his atonement. So even that’s known. So we have to be careful that we do not crucify him afresh. Shed his blood again by our own deliberate sins. That’s the thing that is very hard to get forgiveness for. It’s much easier to receive forgiveness for a sin that’s not known, that is to say when we don’t know what we’re doing. Whenever a person does the right thing, there’s a measure of blessing that goes out to everybody whom he effects.

Happy, smiling, full of the Spirit, he affects everybody that passes by. This is fun to watch in New York City where the contrast is so obvious. You walk down the street and here comes somebody who is a saint. It’s as there was a light extending out about eight or ten feet and it’s so special to see that. To see the missionaries standing on a street corner and sometimes that light will be around them. It’s so special, so precious in that situation. Well, that’s the nature of our lives, we were sent into the earth to radiate a certain amount of blessing and happiness and good to others. Now anything short of that possible radiation happens because we disobey God. That shortness is the measure of our sin. So if we either shorten that blessing or replace it with evil, that is to say we spread an evil influence. That’s the measure of the sin of our lives. And the debt of justice is, somebody has to make up for all of that.

God put everybody on earth intending, that is to say, when things are right everybody is radiating this good. So everybody is getting so much radiation of good from others that their life is completely happy. Now, if we were to live in Zion we would see that kind of situation. Everybody would be so happy and so blessed, there would be no sickness, no depression, no schizophrenia, no problems. Everybody would be so busy doing what they’re supposed to do to serve the Father that everybody would be in a constant state of joy. I said it wasn’t a state. Everybody would have joy and be in a constant state of happiness. And that is the heritage of all human beings to live in that kind of a state.

Whenever any human being defies the commandments of God he shortens someone else in receiving that happiness. That is sin. And justice is, that person has to account for having shorted his fellow beings. I hope that makes sense. So, whenever we sin we cause others to suffer. And the measure of our lives is the amount of suffering we have caused. And we have to account for all the suffering. It is expected that as children of God with this wonderful heritage we would not cause suffering. But when we deliberately go against God and cause suffering then we have to pay for it. We have been set free but to be free also means that we must also be accountable. Now, what did the Savior do? He came into the earth and took the sum total of all this suffering that ever had been caused, that was being caused, that ever would be caused on the earth and suffered for all that pain in one twenty-four hour period.

Now you and I can’t imagine how much suffering we’ve caused with our own lives. We can think back a little bit about how others have caused us to suffer through their sins. And we have some sense then of how we have caused others to suffer. But you sum that up for all human beings over all time, it’s an impossible thing for us to imagine. But it is such a great weight of suffering no human being can even understand it, let alone suffer it.

But the Savior, being a God, could both understand it and suffer it, every last particle. It’s no wonder he asked the Father if it be possible that the cup might pass from him. He was in intense pain. Had he had the privilege of spreading that pain out over a thousand years, that would have been a little easier to bare. But he had to do it all in that one twenty-four hour period. That was his cup. That’s why he was born. For that hour he came into the world and lived a sinless life. So that then he could suffer that suffering. Why did he suffer that suffering? So that then he could forgive us. Because you and I if we’re not forgiven can never go back to the Father. The Father being a perfect being cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. So anybody who has sinned and has not made up for it can’t ever be in his presence again. And you and I can’t make up for our sins. Because there is another part to sinning besides the suffering.

The suffering has to be paid for but then the recompense has to be paid back to the person we sinned against. So that their life is as though we had never sinned against them. How do you go back and make all the reparations? Our sins go on through time, think how much suffering and evil it brings into the world with those acts. We’re responsible for this and until those wrongs are set right and suffered for and all the wrong that was set in motion by that is set right, the thing is not whole.

Now the Savior’s mission is to make that whole thing whole. So he has to atone for the sins of and then set everything right. He has to restore everybody to that happiness that they would have had if nobody sinned against them. Which of course only a God can do. You and I can’t do that, that is to say, we can try to make recompense for our sins but we really can’t begin. We just begin, we can’t really do it. Without the Savior it would be hopeless for us to account for our sins. So we need that atonement, we desperately need his help. We should be so grateful to him for the fact that he was willing to come and suffer and not only that but make up for all the sins that we committed. Make it up to the people we hurt.

Thirdly. He allows us to be taken out of hell, out of the power of Satan when we die.

Fourthly. He enables us to be resurrected. Now accomplishing those four things is a mighty work. That’s the work of the Savior’s atonement. So he performed his work perfectly so that everyone of us can have blessings that are possible. This is why it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because he is the one who is the way. He provided the opening of the door that makes it possible to get back to the Father. The door is himself, his suffering and we must go through him to get back to the Father.

Fifthly. It is our Gather’s will that after the Savior had paid the debt and made salvation possible for every human being that every human being be required to stand before the Savior to account for the opportunity that each has to repent of his sins. So the judgment comes.

There is a way for each human being to prepare for the judgment:

1. To put one’s faith, one’s trust in Jesus Christ. We have to yield ourselves to him as the Savior to be saved. Salvation comes through him and through him only. All our needs for light and truth or light and salvation are met through him.
2. Repentance under the direction of the Holy Spirit. That is to say through faith in Jesus Christ. Each of us must undertake to go through our heart, our mind, our strength, and our might and set in order all these things according to the truth and light which the Savior sends to us.
3. Enter the covenant
4. Receive the Holy Ghost
5. Endure to the end. Life eternal
6. Promise to match the warning

The gospel of Jesus Christ is simply that program that teaches us how to love God with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. It’s one thing to know that that’s the great commandment, it’s another thing to be able to do it. And the only way to be able to do it is to receive knowledge and power through Jesus Christ.

To me the theology of the LDS Church is the most important body of knowledge in the world.  If I were a musician, I would write music about it and perform that music.  If I were a painter, I would paint it.  I’m neither of those, I’m a philosopher so I have to talk about it.  Talking about it is a special privilege.  This is not supposed to be anything new.  It’s like hearing Beethoven’s Fifth over again or something.  But hopefully through sharing ideas we can accomplish something good.  Now I’m going to talk for approximately fifty minutes, then there will be a few minutes for questions.

The subject for today is first of all the creation, then the gospel.  One further word of introduction:  What I’m thinking is my personal picture.  My hope and intent is, that it is not incorrect. But necessarily it will reflect my personality, my understanding, my knowledge.  If it doesn’t square exactly with yours, I hope you will forgive me.  The process we’re all engaged in is that we will all come to a unity of faith.  I’m over here, you’re over there. But if we will all move toward the center we will meet some day and see eye to eye on all these matters.  And it is such an occasion as this that might perhaps help us come a little closer together. So, let’s begin.

The universe is made of intelligences.  I understand that intelligences are material and all matter is intelligences.  Some material and intelligences are finer, some courser.  Creation was the process of organization, or, in other words, reorganization of these intelligences.  Apparently the word create does not mean to make out of nothing.  It means to change the form of, to organize.  Some intelligences are organized to act, others are organized to be acted upon.  The fundamental choice for action is whether to act righteously or selfishly.  Righteousness is to so act that one promotes as much as possible the happiness of all beings one affects by ones actions.  Now let’s try that again because that’s fundamental.  Righteousness, as I understand it, is to act in such a way that you benefit everybody you effect as much as possible by what ever you do.  Now that’s a tall order to do that.

Righteousness it seems to me, is the alternative to selfishness.  Selfishness is to choose to act to promote our own personal welfare without regard to the concerns of others.  In righteousness each intelligence seeks the interest of his neighbor.  And this is the only possible basis for living together in harmony eternally.  My guess is that righteousness is a principle that’s built into the very structure of existence.  It is not something that’s arbitrary at all.  It’s the way things have to be to be harmonious when you deal with people who are your equals and you live with them eternally.  It seems to me the only basis that will make eternal harmony and happiness possible is this principle of each person having his neighbor’s interest instead of his own.  Righteousness I take is the pivotal concept of all correct theology.  It is the independent variable of the whole system, in a way.  Everything depends on and relates to this concept of righteousness.  God is a god of righteousness, that’s why he is God.  Righteousness does not come from him, he is God because he himself yields to and obeys the necessities of righteousness.  So the fullness and perfection of righteousness is God.  And that fullness and perfection is found only in God.

As is there but one righteousness so there is but one God.  That one God (capital G) is made up of many intelligences who have obtained pure righteousness.  They too are gods (small g.)  So there’s no contradiction as far as I can see in saying that we have three gods in our Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  And they are one God.  They are one in the sense that they are absolutely united.  They are united in the priesthood structure that so unites them that they act as if they were a single entity.  They act perfectly, unerringly for the welfare and happiness of all individuals, that is to say they act in righteousness.  My understanding is that righteousness is the source of God’s power because God is a God of righteousness.  Most of the intelligences are delighted to associate with God and to serve him, to obey him, and to keep his commandments.  That’s not true of everything however.  So, the universe consists then of three things as I understand it:  The universe consists of God, the kingdoms of God (which are many. We know of a Celestial Kingdom, and a Terrestrial Kingdom, and a Telestial Kingdom, and a kingdom without glory or any light.)  And then there are those who resist God.  Those three things, as I understand it exhaust the universe.  “There are Gods many and Lords many,” as Paul said.  But to us there are three that are especially important; our Heavenly Father, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.  These three are one God, infinite and eternal.  They are perfectly righteous, that is to say they never act selfishly.  Because they are omniscient they know how to be righteous. Because they are omnipotent and have all power to do all things that can be done they can act righteously.  So our God is sufficient to righteousness.  Righteousness, I take it, is the most difficult thing to achieve in the universe.  It is the supreme achievement.  It is the order of the universe that makes dwelling in the universe a happy thing to do.  We should be very grateful for the goodness of our God for his perfection and for the power, knowledge, and righteousness of our God.

Now the key to theology, according to Parley P. Pratt, and I think this is profound insight, is that men are the children of the Gods.  Literally, of the race, of the seed, physically begotten of the Gods.  Literally the same flesh and bone.  And thus are heirs to Godliness.  The heirs of Godliness, of course means, heirs to righteousness.  Each human being is invited by the gospel of Jesus Christ to become a god, with a small g.  To become part of God, with a capital G.  To join in the eternal work of God, eternally.  The Savior prayed his disciples might become one with him, even as he was one with the Father.  That also meant all that they would bring would become one with them.  This is the grand design.  The design is that every soul born on this earth should have the invitation to claim their rightful heritage.  Which is, to grow up in righteousness unto the fullness of it.  But since righteousness is a thing that is done by will power.  That is to say, cannot be done by any creature which apparently is acted upon.  Righteousness is a thing which can be achieved only by intelligences which are organized to act.  Therefore man had to be set free.  Otherwise he could not have obtained righteousness.

This earth was recently created.  That is to say, reorganized to be the habitation of Adam and Eve.  The creation was personally supervised by the Father.  Our Savior was and is the executor of this creation.  The creation, as I understand it, is still going on actually and will continue into the future.  The spiritual creation was finished before the physical creation began.  But the physical creation has gone on since that time.  Apparently the spiritual creation may have started as recently as fifteen thousand years ago,  was completed in seven days, and the physical creation has been going on. We don’t know exactly how long. But we know there have been about six thousand years of the earth’s continuation or existence since the fall.  The gap in our knowledge is how long before the beginning of creation, of the creation of the earth for Adam’s habitation and the time of the fall.  It could have been a long long time, but we don’t know what the time period is, at least I don’t have the answer to what that might be.

The important thing about the creation of this earth (there are two things that are important.)  First, that all things physical have there counterpart to that which is spiritual.  Spiritual was created first then the physical follows along and is done in the same form and image as the spiritual.  That is important because it is the spiritual that controls and governs the physical.  The thing that I think is avoided in this whole process of understanding creation is the superstition that the world has fallen into to suppose that this creation was natural.  That is to say, that somehow it proceeded by itself, by chance.  We are told the creation story over and over again.  And I think the purpose of that is that it will finally sink into us that this was not a natural process.  This was a process that was carefully directed by the Father, executed by the Son in very great detail and I suppose in full detail.  They looked at it and saw that it was good.  They created it just the way they want to to fulfill the work of righteousness.  Being perfect creatures then, their creation was perfectly suited for its task.

The fall of Adam marks the creation of the world.  The creation of the earth and the creation of the world are two different things.  The earth is the physical globe on which we live.  A world is an extensive place of existence and action.  This world is the place for the creation of righteousness.  It had to be set up so that it would be maximumly designed to allow the sons and daughter of God to become righteous, or in other words, to become Gods.  To become one with the Father to become one with God.  So the fall of Adam was the process by which the world was created.  This world was also created by the Son under the direction of the Father.

Satan and one third of the hosts of heavenly intelligences chose selfishness over righteousness in the pre-mortal war in heaven.  Because of that they were damned at that point, that is to say their growth in righteousness and in light.  Light being wisdom and truth being knowledge was stopped at that time.  And though they had considerable light and truth and some knowledge of righteousness their growth ceased and they were cast down to this earth.  So when the world was created they were here ready to do their part.  The factors necessary for the creation of the world were:

one, there needed to be Gods present to create and to control and to teach of righteousness.

Two, there needed to be  Satan to provide an intense opposition to God and to righteousness.

Three, there needed to be an earth suitable for the habitation of man.

Four, the children of God needed to be here, innocent and ignorant ready to be proved.  So, Adam and Eve the children of the God’s were placed on earth in the garden of Eden.  Innocent; that is to say, having no sin to their charge and ignorant; having forgotten everything they knew and not knowing good and evil.

They had Celestial bodies, that is to say, they had spirit matter flowing in there veins.  Our Father instructed them to care for the garden but not to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, lest they die.  Now that one little bit of commandment was the only real agency they had.  They knew they may partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but they knew they should not and they knew the consequence of disobeying.  That was the only particular in which they were really free.  Satan convinced Eve that she would be better off knowing good and evil than obeying Father.  And Eve convinced Adam also to disobey and as promised, they died spiritually that very day.  But they did become as the Gods, knowing good and evil.  Speaking of Eve convincing Adam that knowing good and evil rather that obeying father, I ponder about that one because she was right.  It’s a good thing she did it but how do we justify that?  I guess we can’t.  Well, what we know is this, our Father set up this situation so that Adam and Eve would fall.  I think he had the thing tilted so much that they couldn’t help themselves, they had to fall.  But my understanding is that he wanted them to fall of their own free will.  Had he thrust them out of his presence and said to them, “All right now you go away so that you can be out of my sight and be proved.”  Then in justice he would of had to have brought them back.  So when they of their own free will and choice go out of his sight and create the conditions of the fall then they of their own free will and choice have to fight their way back.  Now he provided the door by which they could come back.  But had he simply gathered everybody back, it wouldn’t be quit the same thing as I understand it.  So, Eve did a wonderful thing, even though she transgressed the commandment of the Father.  And Adam was smart enough to go along with her.  I’m glad he was that smart.  Well, anyway they did die spiritually and that set in motion all the things that were necessary for the creation of the world.

So, to know good and evil is to have the eyes of one’s understanding opened.  To see then in every choice a person makes there is the opportunity to pursue righteousness on the one hand by obeying God, or to pursue selfishness on the other hand by doing anything other than the will of God.  Now, not everybody’s eyes are opened to the same degree.  Some people only see that choice in some things. The more a person’s eyes are opened, that is to say, the more they understand what goes on.  They come to see that there is a right and a wrong to every action.  And the more they are enlarged to righteousness, through the help of God, eventually they will come to the point where they will be able to discern exactly in every case between righteousness and selfishness and their eyes are fully opened.

Having obeyed Satan rather than God, Adam and Eve became subject to Satan.  Satan was given power over their bodies to cause disease and death.  But only as the Father allowed such, that is to say, he has to go get permission whenever he wants to take somebody’s life.  The story of Job is the pattern for that.  Satan was given power to tempt Adam and his children to entice them away from that righteousness which comes only through obedience to God.

Satan’s temptation to us is to self righteousness.  To suppose that we of ourselves know better than God.  This is a temptation to man because sometimes his own desires and lusts cause him to want to disobey God.  So the real question is, will we obey our own lusts or will we obey the Father?  We are assured in the scriptures that Satan’s only power over us is to confirm us in our own lusts.  That is to say, if we don’t want something evil, there is no way that Satan can tempt us with that.  I’m sure we have all had the experience of being in the presence of great evil and not be tempted by it in the least.  On the other hand, being in the presence of evil and we’re greatly tempted by it.  I’m indebted to Dan Ludlow for one point that I hadn’t picked up on till last year.  And that is, that it is not the body that lusts, it’s the spirit.  And when we lust after something evil, it’s not because our body wants it, our body does not like to over-eat, for instance.  Or to do a number of other things that are wrong.  It’s our spirit that wants that.  And the cure is not in the body, the cure is in the spirit.  The cure is in our hearts which are part of our spirit.  Until we get our hearts straightened out we can’t solve this problem we have, say of over-eating or whatever it is.

I think that is a very important insight to realize that by, for instance age or aging will not cure our problems.  Cause though the body ages, the spirit doesn’t.  And if a young man leads off doing things that are evil when he gets older it’s because he doesn’t want to.  That is to say unless his spirit has changed, he may have stopped doing it because he can’t, but he still wants to, is what I’m trying to say.  And I think that we need to be so careful that we don’t suppose there’s some natural process that leads through aging or something that doesn’t take any will power on our part that gets rid of this selfishness out of us.

My understanding is, that getting rid of the selfishness is something that you and I have to do by taking ourselves in hand and recreating ourselves.  God gives us the power to do it but he cannot do it, he will not do it.  He insists that we take full charge.  He supervises, he instructs, he guides, he gives the power but we’re the ones that have to do it.

This world is then the place designated by God where he would send his children to see if they would love him and his righteousness more than they would love themselves and their own selfish desires.  Each would be given the light of Christ by which to know good and the companionship of evil spirits by which to be enticed to follow selfish desires.  Now we would have selfish desires if it were not for Satan.  What Satan does, is he loads the situation so that it compress the time necessary to have probation.  It probably would take a lot longer if we were just left without Satan to tempt us.  We would still want to be selfish.  But Satan is here to put pressure on the situation so that we can get it over with.  And that’s a blessing.  Especially for those who choose evil, they get it over with.

So, each mortal is given a limited time and space to love and to act to show what he or see really desires.  And the situation in which we are placed is where righteousness is only a hope and appealing and selfishness is an ever-present opportunity.  Now, it seems that it’s almost loaded against righteousness.  Selfishness seems to win most of the time.  But my guess is, is that it’s very much like a class.  Now when a teacher grades a class, you can skew it to make the examinations very very hard.  So that you stretch out the A students and get a variation amongst them.  Or you can make the test very easy and all the A students bunch up at the top and you spread out everyone else.  Well, my guess is that this earth is designed to make it very very difficult.  So that we wouldn’t get that spread at the top.  That is to say, so that it would be very clear who qualifies for exaltation.

I think the key to this world is that this world was not created to create Telestial spirits, (although it produces a lot of them) or Terrestrial spirits.  It was not created to produce people who just barely make it to the Celestial Kingdom.  But it’s set up to be so difficult that you clearly qualify for exaltation (which is the top one third of the Celestial Kingdom) if you make it, now that’s my guess. And I suppose that’s why it’s a great benefit to live on the most evil of all creations that Our Heavenly Father and the Savior have ever created.  Because it’s the most evil situation, we have the most opportunity to show our love for righteousness.  Because there’s no end to the evil we can turn away from and help to overcome in the world.  It’s virtually an unlimited opportunity.

The world ends when God sees the purposes of this mortality are either finished or are being thwarted.  As the world ended in the flood, the purposes were being thwarted.  This world will end twice again.  When the Savior comes again, (the beginning of the millennium) and at the end of the millennium.  This world is essentially the kingdom of Satan on earth.  The kingdom of Satan on earth was created by Adam’s disobedience.  Satan gained power then over man that there might be a world.

The natural man is the fall of man. The ordinary human creature who is without God and Christ in the world.  This person is an enemy to God, meaning that he does not love God.  He may not love God because he has never had the opportunity.  Or he may not do so out of choice.  It’s hard for us to judge. We don’t know who really has had the full opportunity or who hasn’t (although we can sometimes tell and the person themselves know.)  This natural man is sustained in life and thought and deeds continually by the power of God. And the light of Christ witness to him of good and evil, right and wrong.  This natural man sins because he can not help but break the laws of God.  He struggles to survive and make his way in the world by intelligence and brute strength.  Usually he thinks there is no hope for the world as a whole.  So he just tries to get a piece of satisfaction for himself, ere he meets that unwanted fate of death.  Death holds variously imagined terrors for him.  The righteous do not fear death.  The natural man fears death.  The natural man is carnal, in that he recognizes only physical evidence as the basis for knowledge.  He is sensual, in that he principally seeks for pleasure to bring him satisfaction.  He is devilish, in that by either not knowing or by  rejecting God he backs himself in the arms and power of Satan. Even though he may not believe in Satan, he nevertheless is captive to Satan and does Satan’s will.  And unless he’s is very rich his physical life is likely to be brutish and short.  Not a very pleasant situation but nevertheless a good situation.

So, to summarize the conditions of the world:

(1) God is in charge.  He controls and governs all things and witnesses of righteousness to all men.  Men are sufficiently instructed to know the difference between right and wrong and we will be judged on the basis of that knowledge.

(2) Satan is present with power over man as God gives him permission.  He tempts men to do their own thing and to disobey God thereby.  Hoping to enlarge his eternal kingdom of followers.  He pretends to be the God of this world.  He’s not.  But he claims that.

(3) Man has become spiritually dead.  Telestial, mortal he understands good and evil and is subject now to his own will.  He could not be subject to his own will until he clearly understood good and evil.  And the more he understands good and evil in more things, the more he is subject to his own will.  Then if he uses his will to choose righteousness, he grows and grows in the stature of righteousness, until eventually he can obtain the stature of Christ.  If he chooses selfishness he has the privilege of growing in that until he can obtain the stature of Satan.  In a sense become more powerful than Satan, having a body.

(4) The earth itself is fallen and telestial.  A place of opposition and work, but a place of order and beauty.  My conclusion about this whole matter is, that we live in a perfect earth and a perfect world.  I say that because it’s has been designed and created by a perfect being.  There’s no way to improve it.  Now don’t mistake me, it is possible for men to repent and to improve themselves but the situation cannot be improved upon.  It would not be good to remove Satan from this situation.  It would not be good to remove wars and diseases and terrors and all kinds of things from the earth.  Even though you and I are supposed to work against those things.  But if somehow we could reach out and remove all sickness and diseases form the earth, would that be a good thing?  No, if that were a good thing God would do it.  But he doesn’t do it because it’s good for men to have sickness.  Why?  Because it reminds them of their weakness and mortality and their fallibility.  Sickness brings people to their knees many times.  And were it not for sickness they would not resolve to compensate.  Sickness brings them to reflection, it brings them new understanding, it brings them to repentance.  And thus the work of God goes on.

Everything that happens on this earth, my testimony is, that God’s hand is in everything.  And he doesn’t let happen a single thing he doesn’t want to happen.  He doesn’t cause everything to happen but if he doesn’t want it to happen he prevents it from happening.  Now you and I cause much of what happens because our wills are part of this world.  We help create the world too.  We help it to be worldly when we disobey God.  We help push it towards the direction of righteousness when we obey God.  So we’re part of this too.  But God can eliminate our power to affect the world at any moment simply by taking us or by taking our power away.  Giving us a stroke or something so we can’t talk, can’t act.  He has very careful control over what you and I do.

So, it’s interesting to contemplate that whenever an evil man acts, he’s acting by the power of God in a sense.  God gave Hitler the power to kill all those Jews.  He didn’t particularly want Hitler to do it.  Hitler had to have the opportunity to do that and a number of other people had to have the opportunity to stand by and watch him so they could prove themselves.  Some people fought against him, they proved themselves.  Some people suffered and died and they proved themselves.  Some people suffered and died and became more righteous in the process and gained a great blessing out of it.  Some people suffered and died angrily, they lost in the process.  But the whole thing, as I understand it, is calculated to be the perfect situation for the probation for the souls of man.

So, there is a passage of scripture that is marvelous and pertinent to what we have talked about today and I’d like to read a few verse here.  II Nephi chapter two.  That chapter is so profound.  Father Lehi on his death bed after all the things he had said to his children.  When he was trying that one last time to say something important to Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ismael and their wives. He went back to the story we just talked about and tried to emphasis to them the situation.  So let’s begin with verse fourteen,

“Now my sons I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; there is a God.”

See they had been maintaining there wasn’t one.  How could they do that, when they had seen angels, when they had seen the power of God?  Well, they very conveniently dismissed all of those evidences because they didn’t want them.  They wanted to think that everything was just natural so they could get everything they wanted by their own strength.  So that’s the way they tried to operate.

“He hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.  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 to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.”

The word existence itself means opposition.  Exist means to stand out, to be opposed, to be different from something.  It’s difference that makes existence.  So there had to be a difference between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  There had to be a difference between God and Satan.  There has to be a difference between a good man and a bad man.

“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.”

Now, the great lesson we learn about this, is that we are free.  Even now if we are adult human beings and know the gospel of Jesus Christ, whatever we are is what we want to be.  That is to say, we have chosen ourselves into our present state.  We can also choose ourselves out of this present state if we wish to repent, by making different choices than we have in the past.  As we make choices we change our habits which changes our character which changes us.  We have the power to change ourselves.  The leopard can change his spots in this case.  We are children of God and he has given us this heritage of the power to change ourselves.  We are free, we won’t be able to blame a single soul for anything that happened in our lives as to why we became what we became when it’s all.

“And I, Lehi, according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God.  And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind.”

He wanted them to be damned as he was damned.

“Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.”

Part truth, part lie.  Part truth in the sense that they would know good and evil and they would be as God in one sense.  But there are sure a lot of other ways to be as God.  That didn’t make them like God.  That just gave them one little piece of being like God.  After Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the Garden of Eden to till the earth and they brought forth children, yea, even all the family of the earth.  Adam, (the word Adam means man.)  I was interested to find that the word Eve in Hebrew is (hava), which means living, which might bring some connections for you.  And they brought forth family, yea, even the children of the earth.

“And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men.  For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed unto all men that they that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents.”

Lost? In what sense?  They were lost from the presence of God.  The fall of Adam caused all of us to be fallen.  That is to say, to be spiritually dead, to be out of the presence of the Father, into the world where we would have the opportunity to choose our way back to life.

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden.  And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.”

That was an eternal kingdom, a Celestial Kingdom, a perfect kingdom that would have endured forever, but pointlessly.

“And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.”

So this fallen world then is better that that paradise was, in fact much better.  Because now we’re not innocent but can become again so.  We can have joy, we can have children, we can do good.

“…all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.  Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”

Do you know what joy is?  My guess is, that it is not happiness.

“And the Messiah cometh in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall.  And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.”

Now he comes to the very point.

“Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh;”

In other words, as I read what he is saying, is that we are free from our own flesh, through the gospel, through the Savior.  We need not be creatures of our flesh.  The gospel gives us the power to start telling our flesh what to do, rather than it telling us what to do.  And we can become free of all the physical, social, and environmental pressures that work upon our flesh that try to get us to conform to this world.  We can then give our allegence to the Savior and become a new creature.

“… they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.  I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;  And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein…”

So the dividing line between righteousness and selfishness then simply comes down to spirit and flesh.  If we become spiritual and yield to the Father and to the spirit, then we go in direction of righteousness.  But if we stay carnal and yield to the flesh, then we go in the direction of selfishness.  Well we’ve come to that time when we have a moment for questions.

question – (unheard)

“And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein.”  Satan’s only access to us is through our flesh.  He can not get at our spirit but he can affect our bodies.  So the avenue of his temptation is through the flesh.  But it isn’t the flesh itself that wants it.  Now  you and I, if we don’t want that thing, it’s no temptation at all, as I said.  It’s the spirit that decides whether it’s a temptation or not.  There’s somethings in my life, I hate to mention anything that I’ve stopped being tempt by … but nevertheless I’ve checked on this since then (probably referring to the Dan Ludlow statement).  It’s our spirit, if we’re gluttonous, it’s because our spirit craves satisfaction through gluttony. …  I thought so too until he said that.  And when he said that I was about half asleep, and when he said it, it was like someone had hit me with a sledge hammer.  The spirit shook me and said, here’s something we need to learn.  And I’ve thought about it for this whole year, year and a half, and I’ve come firmly to the conclusion that that is a correct insight.  And that what we have to do, is to see that we have control.  We don’t have control over the influences that come to our body but we do have control  over our spirit and how it reacts to the body.  That’s where our point of control is.  And how we’re going to get rid of these temptations is by stealing our spirit.

Now, you’ve all, I’m sure had the experience of being busily engaged in a project that was so intense and so interesting and so much fun or so important that hours go by and you don’t even notice the fact that meals times have gone past and the usual messages that come to the body don’t even get through.  Now that I think is one of the clues to the fact, that because the spirit is busily engaged the body doesn’t have that much power over it.  And I think the clue to righteousness is to get the body so busily engaged in the work of the Lord, that we tell our body when it’s suppose to rest, and when it’s suppose to eat and drink so that we can do the works of righteousness.  And we never assume the subject to it’s whims and desires.  I admit, that’s a tuff one.  Don’t believe me and don’t believe Dan Ludlow.  But I commend to you to work on that.  To think about it.

question – (unheard)

Intelligence is us.  The spiritual body and the physical body are tabernacles.  They’re instruments of the self, the real self is the intelligence, apparently.  Now apparently the spirit body has been welded into that intelligence and is part of the self now.  In the resurrection, this physical tabernacle will be welded into the spirit body and we will be all one being and that will be our being, never again to be divided.  But not so now.  We are very loosely attached to our bodies right now.  Apparently all you have to do is unzip it and away it goes.  And that’s the sensation some people say they have when they die, just like there being unzipped.

question – something about transformation from a Celestial body to a telestial body.

My understanding is that that transformation took place with the ingesting of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  It probably wasn’t just that ingesting but that probably was the occasion.  It was something that the Father did to them to change them into mortality so that they could die and that they would have this blood in their veins then that would allow their lives to be very temporary.  You are aware maybe, that scientists have discovered that there is this clock in living cells.  They will divide so many times and then they cease to divide no matter what you do to them.  You can freeze them and they will stop dividing, and then you thaw them they go on dividing till they get to that number and stop and die.  There is a time appointed for the death of man.  Our life is genetically controlled and genes are very important to the body we have.  Have you ever stopped to realize, it’s possible that you and I have in our bodies genetic material that once was part of the body of Adam and Eve.  Physically we are linked to them by that process.  And if that’s true, then we have in our bodies material that physically was in the body of God, because we are the children of Gods.  And you see, part of our salvation is to get this flesh transformed and renewed.  But that depends on our righteousness.  Just as the fall depended upon disobedience and unrighteousness.