Such help and hope are dearly needed because in this worldwide congregation today are many who struggle with any number of challenges—physical or emotional, social or financial, or a dozen other kinds of trouble. But many of these we are not strong enough to address in and of ourselves, for the help and peace we need is not the kind “the world giveth.” No, for the truly difficult problems we need what the scriptures call “the powers of heaven,” and to access these powers we must live by what these same scriptures call “principles of righteousness.” Now, understanding that connection between principle and power is the one lesson the human family never seems able to learn, so says the God of heaven and earth!
And what are those principles? Well, they are listed repeatedly in scripture, they are taught again and again in conferences like this, and in our dispensation, the Prophet Joseph Smith was taught them in response to his own version of the cry “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” In the cold, uncaring confinement of Liberty Jail, he was taught that the principles of righteousness included such virtues as patience, long-suffering, gentleness, and love unfeigned. Absent those principles, it was certain we would eventually face discord and enmity.
In that regard, may I speak for a moment about the absence in some quarters of these principles of righteousness in our time. As a rule, I am an upbeat, cheerful kind of fellow, and there is so much that is good and beautiful in our world. Certainly we have more material blessings than any generation in history, but in 21st-century culture generally and too often in the Church, we still see lives that are in trouble, with compromises resulting in too many broken covenants and too many broken hearts. Consider the coarse language that parallels sexual transgression, both of which are so omnipresent in movies or on television, or note the sexual harassment and other forms of impropriety in the workplace about which we read so much these days. In matters of covenantal purity, the sacred is too often being made common and the holy is too often being made profane. To any who are tempted to walk or talk or behave in these ways—“as the world giveth,” so to speak—don’t expect it to lead to peaceful experience; I promise you in the name of the Lord that it won’t. “Wickedness never was happiness,” an ancient prophet once said. When the dance is over, the piper must always be paid, and most often it is in a currency of tears and regret.
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