2.348 There Came Many Prophets

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. In the days of Ether, the prophets warned and the prophets warned, but surely the prophets don't warn that much in our day, do they?

We're finishing off this week with the Articles of Faith and Official Declarations, as well as Ether chapters 8-11. And there's some verses inside reserves we're getting this condensed version, we're getting entire generations just over told in 3 or 4 verses and then more generations told and then more. And so just picked one verse that really could be a report on several of them throughout these chapters, that really got me thinking.

The verse for today is Ether 11:12. It says, The Bible says that in the days of Ether there came many prophets and prophesied again unto the people. Yea, they did prophesy that the Lord would utterly destroy them off the face of the earth except they repented of their iniquities.

Now, this verse again could be duplicated several times throughout these chapters. The prophets come; they prophesy. Stood out to me this time and I wondered, gosh, I wonder if this is a thing or not.

So let's just go down the thought process here for just a second. The maybe could have been, but I wonder if these prophets prophesying the utter destruction is what was so hard for the people to believe. Most of the times the prophets are coming in this time of great abundance and great prosperity and the people are overindulgent.

And the prophets are coming and they're like, hey, full, utter destruction is coming. I wonder if the people were like, there's no way. We know that earlier in the Book of Mormon with the Lamanites and the Nephites where the Nephites are like, there's no way.

And the Lamanites even, they're like, there's no way we would be destroyed. Right? It just, there's no way that the Lord could do that in a day.

And so I wonder if these people were like, our life is so good, there's no way that utter destruction could come. And so then I paused and I thought, are modern-day prophets warning us of things that we think are so far out there that we don't take it seriously maybe? And then that just kind of took me down the road of like, "well, wait, what are our modern prophets warning us of at all?" And so I went back really to my own memory lifetime.

So this doesn't go back my entire life, but it goes back to President Benson. And what I did is, and you'll see in this episode that there are a lot. So, I hope this is like an episode people can come back to and just look at these references.

But the first thing that came to mind was President Benson warning of pride, April 1989. President Benson was kind of like Book of Mormon prophet and pride prophet, right? Like he had some very powerful talks there.

And so I thought, oh wow, that an interesting warning, a very specific warning from President Benson. And then I thought, well, what about President Hunter? He didn't serve as President very long, but what were his warnings?

And we have "As Followers of Christ" in October 1994, where he warned against violence and abuse and unchristlike homes. And he did another talk about moral cowardice and cultural pressure called "Standing for Something" in October 1994. Same conference.

He's on it, right? He did another one about losing reverence for Jesus Christ in our lives in April. I'll make sure all these links are in here.

Fast forward to President Hinckley. I can remember specifically, timing of it was very weird for me, but like he talked about gambling, right, inside of his talk, "The Moral Fabric of Society" in October 1997. He warned against pornography, "Pornography—A Tragic Evil among Us" in October 2004.

He warned again, another abuse warning, and "Personal Worthiness to Exercise the Priesthood" in April 2002. President Monson warned of moral drift in his famous talk, "Dare to Stand Alone." There's a church video made of his moment of "Dare to Stand Alone." That was October 2011. Pornography again in October 2013 in "True Shepherds." We have "Neglecting the One" as a warning from President Monson in April 2014, and "Love—the Essence of the Gospel." And then you go, well, President Nelson, he was such a positive prophet.

Surely he didn't warn us of things. He was just encouraging us to be better. And yet he warned of what happens if we lack personal revelation in "Revelation for the Church," "Revelation for Our Lives," April 2018.

He warned of contention if you remember with "Peacemakers Needed" in April 2023. I don't know if you remember the Worldwide Devotional that he did in May 2022, but he warned of identity confusion in "Choices for Eternity" in that talk. He warned of casual covenant living in "The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation." President Oaks has warned about doctrinal redefinition, selective obedience, and religious freedoms.

These are warnings we have from our prophets today, living prophets, my friends. Friends, I hope that you and I take an opportunity to heed the warnings given to us. The people of the time of Ether heard the warnings and didn't believe them.

Perhaps it's a lesson for us to heed the warnings of the prophets and make sure that we stay aligned with our covenants and with our Savior, Jesus Christ. That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave to the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt.