Continuing from the previous post on this subject “The Distress of Nations with Perplexity II” Neal A. Maxwell wrote:
“Poverty and conspiracy combine to create more terrorists each year than we can produce peacemakers in a generation. In this regard, we have yet to plumb the depths of these verses with all their implications as to greed and envy:
“But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin (Doctrine and Covenants 49:20).”
“Neither shalt thou desire . . . anything that is thy neighbors. (Deuteronomy 5:21)
. . . .“In other words, can the challenges attendant to avoiding nuclear war really be dealt with apart from the need for general righteousness on this planet? If failure tragically results (See Zechariah 14:2, Malachi 4:1, 2 Nephi 27:2, 2 Nephi 6:15), will the various political systems bear the full guilt? Or will individuals? Or will both? (see JST Matthew 24:31)
If, for instance, a person samples the Ten Commandments he will be forced to conclude that we can scarcely expect genuine and widespread peace to prevail if people engage in stealing—whether land or goods. How much security can there be if people tell lies and bear false witness against each other? If people are guilty of covetousness, or if people engage in murder, there can be no real peace.
Today, those aggrieved can act out their vengeance in many ways and on an awesome scale. The urge for revenge, for instance, is as real as ever, only now what was once the adjoining village is all mankind!
Can there, in fact, be peace in the world if there is not peace in our homes as well as in our hearts? Can we, in fact, really expect to have peace in the world if the civil wars raging inside so many individuals do not subside? Or if there is a rampant and desensitizing sexual immorality, adultery, and “all things like unto it” tearing at the fabric of individual souls and families? Or, just when we especially need mortal minds at their best in order to deal with complexity, if enslaving and desensitizing drugs are more and more pervasive.
The vices of humanity are far more interactive than many people realize. In the societies of Sodom and Gomorrah there was rampant sexual immorality; there was also inordinate pride, idleness, and a neglect of the poor and the needy. (Ezekiel 16:48-50.) A haughty attitude towards God (who had given strict counsel on the need to care for the poor) led to the neglect of the poor and the needy. This is something those who would focus all of their attention on poverty, without any concern for adultery . . . . —and vice versa—would do well to ponder upon.
But some will quickly say that the requirements of generalized righteousness are too exacting and too unmanageable for mankind and, therefore, if we rely upon this ultimate solution, then nuclear war is inevitable. Something else, they say must be done, even if the solution is secular. It is hoped for by many that treaties, for instance, may be negotiated which will rest upon shared fear; treaties which are verifiable even if nations do not care for or trust each other.
Christians are often chided, sometimes rightly, because some of us do not do as we have been told to do: “renounce war and proclaim peace” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:16). We would do well to look at our own posture with regard to peace and our responsibilities to be peacemakers.
At the same time perhaps we cannot be fully blamed if we are not reflexively enthusiastic about the approach to peace which many would use, when it is so bereft of accompanying spiritual content. Yes, there was repentant Nineveh. Yes there have been intervals of peace in human history. But time and space have collapsed, and man’s interdependence has never been as pronounced as now. ~ Neal A. Maxwell, Sermons Not Spoken (Salt Lake City, Bookcraft 1985). 35-37
continued. . . ‘Distress of Nations with Perplexity IV’ (concluded)
