Nephi tells us the day will come when churches are built up
to bring riches and power to people. Who
usually pays for these things? It is
usually the poor who give their money because of their misplaced belief in
those who run these churches. People
struggling to live on their meager incomes give to these churches and they and
their faith are exploited by those who are puffed up in their pride.
As we read the Book of Mormon, we will see that the Nephites
are continually afflicted with the Nephite Disease – that of pride. Preaching to the people in Zarahemla, Alma2
chastised and challenged them. “[C]an ye withstand these sayings; yea, can
ye lay aside these things, and trample the Holy One under your feet; yea, can
ye be puffed up in the pride of your hearts; yea, will ye still persist in the
wearing of costly apparel and setting your hearts upon the vain things of the
world, upon your riches” (Alma 5:53).
As the Nephites were being destroyed as people, Moroni2 would finish his father’s book with these
comments.
And I know that ye do walk in the
pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift
themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine
apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all
manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become
polluted because of the pride of your hearts.
For behold, ye do love money, and
your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more
than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.
O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye
teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted
the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed
to take upon you the name of Christ? Why
do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery
which never dies—because of the praise of the world?
Why do ye adorn yourselves with
that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the
naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?
Yea, why do ye build up your secret
abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord,
and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers
and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon
your heads?
Behold, the sword of vengeance
hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the
saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer.
Mormon 8:36-41
The leaders of these churches will be a stiffnecked[1]
people. They will continue their “pride, and wickedness, and abominations,
and whoredoms” (2 Nephi 28:14).
Solomon warned, “An high look [OR
Haughty eyes], and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked [OR the
cultivating of wickedness] , is sin” (Proverbs 21:4).
Most will go astray rather than teach the things of
God. Alma2 told the people of
Zarahemla, “O ye workers of iniquity; ye
that are puffed up in the vain things of the world, ye that have professed to
have known the ways of righteousness nevertheless have gone astray, as sheep
having no shepherd, notwithstanding a shepherd hath called after you and is
still calling after you, but ye will not hearken unto his voice” (Alma 5:37).
A few, who are humble followers of Christ, will continue to
live righteously in spite of their corrupt leaders. Unfortunately, they are still being led
astray because “they are taught the
precepts of man” (2 Nephi 28:14).
Peter warned the church, “Ye
therefore, beloved, [JST 2 Pet. 3:17 ... seeing ye know before the things which are coming, beware
lest] ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness”
(2 Peter 3:17).
Christ chastised the Pharisees when they questioned Him. “Jesus
answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power
of God” (Matthew 22:29).
Noel Reynolds further comments on this topic.
[M]any people throughout the ages
preceding the restoration and the second coming would be true, humble followers
of Christ who erred only because of their leaders (2 Nephi 28:14). We know
further that the Spirit continued to strive with men and that some men were
inspired … Joseph Smith, when he read Foxe's Book of the Martyrs which
records all those who have died for the faith from the early apostles to the
Protestant movements, said that many of these people were true disciples who
would receive salvation. President John Taylor said in 1873, "There were
men in those dark ages who could commune with God, and who, by the power of
faith, could draw aside the curtain of eternity and gaze upon the invisible
world … have the ministering of angels, and unfold the future destinies of the
world.”[2]
[1]
Dictionary.com defines stiffneckedness
as haughty and obstinate; stubbornly disobedient. Accessed November 28, 2013.
[2] What
Went Wrong for the Early Christians? Noel B. Reynolds, Maxwell Institute,
accessed November 28, 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment