17 But behold, if the inhabitants of the earth shall
repent of their wickedness and abominations they shall not be destroyed, saith
the Lord of Hosts.
18 But behold, that great and abominable church, the
whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall
thereof.
19 For the kingdom of the devil must shake, and they
which belong to it must needs be stirred up unto repentance, or the devil will
grasp them with his everlasting chains, and they be stirred up to anger, and
perish;
In the last days, Satan will do many things to destroy the Christ’s church. Anger will be one of his tools. Lehi, speaking to Jacob, told him that Satan “had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind” (2 Nephi 2:18). John the Revelator was shown that “it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations” (Revelation 13:7).
Anger is an intriguing and powerful emotion. It can be used for good, as in righteous
indignation. Most of the time, anger is
a destructive emotion. It divides us,
causes conflicts, and destroys families and friendships. It is at the root of violent crime. The devil loves this tool. Christ is love. Christ is persuasion. Satan is destruction.
Though anger is an effective tool, the devil is a cunning
enemy of righteousness. He knows our
weaknesses and uses them to defeat Christ’s work and us.
He attacks members of the Church. He wants us to believe, “All is well is
Zion.” He lulls the member and that
person becomes complacent. When you
become complacent, you are ripe for the picking. The devil then “cheateth their souls, and
leadeth them away carefully down to hell” (2 Nephi 28:21).
Jacob was concerned about this complacency of the soul. When preaching to the people under Nephi’s
direction, he warned, “O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in
transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the
enticings of that cunning one. Remember,
to be carnally–minded is death, and to be spiritually–minded is life eternal”
(2 Nephi 9:39).
He also warned his people, “O my brethren, hearken unto my
words; arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake
from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye
may not become angels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and
brimstone which is the second death” (Jacob 3:11).
Hugh Nibley observes:
“And so the timely reminder to the Church is this: Do not ‘suppose
that ye are more righteous than the Gentiles. . . . For
. . . ye shall . . . likewise perish; . . . ye
need not suppose that the Gentiles are utterly destroyed’ (2 Nephi 30:1). The
Church is in the same danger as the Gentiles: ‘Wo be unto him that is at ease
in Zion. Wo be unto him the crieth: All is well!’ (2 Nephi 28:24—25). Here we
see how the label of Zion has been processed in a smooth soft-sell by
broadcasting: ‘All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well
. . . the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully
down to hell’ (2 Nephi 28:21). That's the business of advertising, to cheat and
lead carefully.”[1]
Another tool of the devil’s is flattery. He will flatter people, whispering in their
ear there is no devil nor is there any hell.
People will begin to believe this and become wrapped by “his awful
chains, from whence there is no deliverance” (2 Nephi 28:22).
Alma2 understood what Nephi meant when writing about
the chains of hell. “Now, as my mind
caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of
God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about
by the everlasting chains of death” (Alma
36:18).
Let’s close with the words of Hugh Nibley.
“The most famous passage relevant to our subject is from
another medieval epic, the opening refrain from Macbeth: ‘Fair is foul, and
foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air’ … The worst thing about the
‘filthy air’ is that it turns out to be a smoke-screen; Macbeth is led on and
put off from day to day until he is done in. It is a smooth, white-collar scam
such as Macbeth half suspected from the beginning: ‘But 'tis strange; And
oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence.’ What kind of
honest trifles? Such pleasant bits as those pacifying public relations
assurances, ‘We are not monsters or ogres, we are people just like you. We love
our families just like you, we go to church too!’ Or to quote the scriptures, ‘I
am no devil’ (2 Nephi 28:22). That, of course, is all perfectly true—the
workers are not the culprits, but the pawns of owners, who use them to justify
profitable pollution while hiring as few workers as possible and paying them as
little as possible.[2]
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