From previous post, Why Chastity VI, or to start at the first post of this series click “Why Chastity:” . . . Those who are in error must not call the cadence for our lives, for those who boast of their sexual conquests are only boasting of that which has conquered them—in the same way that drinkers who make nervous jokes about drunkenness are only mocking that which has come to mock them. We may pity behavioral clones, but we do not envy them.
In our concern for justice, let us, therefore, deal justly with ourselves. . . . and (now continuing. . . ) There is a very telling verse in the Book of Mormon that describes an ancient political leader with these words: “He did do justice unto the people but not unto himself because of his many whoredoms.” (Ether 10:11.) This verse represents the paradox we often see in secular leaders. William Law, seventeenth century writer, in writing of a lady of some renown, said of her that she was “nice in everything that concerned her body or dress, careless of everything that might benefit her soul.”
Thus some of the sad consequences attached to that immorality which breeches the seventh commandment are: pills instead of children; transient partners instead of marriage; childbirth with unwed parents; old perversions masquerading as new thrills—and all of it soaked in alcohol (or in today’s vernacular substance abuse).
As far as the stern but sweet seventh commandment is concerned, obedience is also entrance. By avoiding the evils and consequences of unchastity, we also gain entrance and access to such blessings as always accompany those who keep the commandments. Moses promised ancient Israel that if they would keep the commandments, certain blessings would come on them and overtake them. (Deuteronomy 28:2) These next blessings and others shall come on us and overtake us if we keep the seventh commandment.
Keeping the stern seventh commandment, in the full sense, yields the blessings of serenity through our being in harmony with divine law and the Lord—an immensely important blessing in this age of alienation. Obedience likewise gives the blessing of vivid identity through our being in our own potential selfhood. The gospel helps us think of ourselves not only for what we are, but for what we have the power to become.
Keeping the seventh commandment brings the blessing of specific and deserved self-esteem. How many neighbors go unloved because so many people thus despise themselves?
The keeping of this commandment blesses us with freedom from tyranny of appetite, which may be the most oppressive tyranny of all.
There comes the blessing of freedom from corrosive guilt with its wasted rationalizations and self-pity.
We come to know the blessing of expanded free agency by learning to act wisely for ourselves rather than merely to be acted upon by appetite, a vital dimension of agency. (2 Nephi 2:26)
There is too the significant blessing of personal momentum that always comes when we practice decision making in which we both reject wrong and choose the good. We thus avoid what one prophet called the in-betweeness of “sorrowing of the damned.” (Mormon 2:13.) It is not enough to reach a bland behavioral point when we no longer take pleasure in sin; we must hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Additionally there is the immensely important blessing of integrity of the soul, which leads to personal wholeness and unafraid openness. How can we, for instance, become “one flesh” in marriage if, as we enter into marriage, we are sundered and several selves? Chastity, integrity, and serenity—these are interdependent and inexpressible blessings that come from purity and charity.
Therefore, part of being a true believer is to keep the seventh commandment, for “the commandment is a lamp” and the true believer walks by the light of the lamp. He knows he dare not do otherwise, for it is only by that light that he sees his remaining spots and can continue the scrubbing of his soul! ~Neal A. Maxwell, Not Withstanding My Weakness (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 1981), 103-05
