2.246 Walking in Darkness at Noon-day

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends, it's great to have you with me.

Today let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. Are you still with me after our message day one idea yesterday? Did you stick around?

Tough love is a real thing. The Lord loves us, and He chastens us to help us avoid temptation in the future. That's the first part.

We are reading this week Doctrine and Covenants Sections 94 and 97 as well as Helaman 6 and 7 and Helaman 1 and 2. We were reading the beginning of a sentence yesterday in Doctrine and Covenants Section 95, verse 1. That's Part 1.

If you missed it, you might want to go back and catch Part 1 there. We're going to pick up Part 2 of this thought here, but it actually comes right immediately after the sentence finishes. So read all of the sentence, and in it you're going to see that we find out that what the people have done here—these people that the Lord loves but He's going to chasten—were given a command to build a temple.

And then they kind of dragged their feet. They didn't dive in. They didn't get started.

And the Lord chastens them for that. He's like, "Wait a second, I told you to start this house for me!" And then we get verse 6. And verse 6, I love Savory Salt for what it does for me.

Can I just say that? This message, these are messages that I see out loud into a microphone here while internalizing what they are for Allen Roberds. And so today you get a little bit of Allen Roberds here in his own message here.

But our verse for today is Doctrine and Covenants Section 95, verse 6. He says, "Because they who are not chosen have sinned a very grievous sin, in that they are walking in darkness at noonday." My friends, what a haunting image for us, for those of us that are seeking to keep our covenants, for those of us that have made covenants with the Lord, whether baptismal covenants, temple covenants, or marriage covenants, they are walking in darkness at noonday. There is so much around us to distract us.

There is so much to stick us on the hamster wheel of life. And we get running, and pretty soon the hamster wheel gets going. And then all of a sudden the hamster wheel is going so fast that the hamster inside is simply rolling in the wheel.

And I have absolutely experienced those times in my life where I was walking in darkness at noonday. My friends, don't let the busyness of the world put us in darkness. Take time for the Lord.

Take time for your personal prayer and personal scripture study. Take time with your families to pray and read with them. Study the words of the prophets.

Serve in the temple. Repent daily. These things sound so simple, so textbook gospel, and yet skipping these things leaves us in a state of darkness at noonday.

I am grateful that the Lord loves me enough to say, "Allen, you're off track." Some people say that's not love. Holding people accountable is not love. Attention and discipline and consistency.

And I love my family at such a level that I want myself to be held to that standard. And I'm grateful to the Lord for waking me up sometimes and saying, "Hey Allen, you're walking in darkness at noonday! Wake up!" My friends, I hope that you and I can rise up, as the hymn says.

I hope that you and I are not found walking in darkness at noonday. As the Lord prepares to come again, He will help us wake up. He will call us to action.

If we will heed His voice and repent, we will have a greater abundance of His Spirit in our lives. I believe that. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave unto the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt.