Elder Jörg Klebingat of the Seventy said in the Sunday afternoon session of April 2022 general conference:
Moral agency is God’s precious gift to each of His children.1 We are “free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil.”2 God won’t force us to do good, and the devil can’t force us to do evil.3 Though some may think that mortality is a contest between God and the adversary, a word from the Savior “and Satan is silenced and banished. … It is [our] strength that is being tested—not God’s.”4
In the end we will therefore reap what our lifelong choices have sown.5 So what does the sum total of our thoughts, desires, words, and works say about our love for the Savior, His chosen servants, and His restored Church? Do our baptismal, priesthood, and temple covenants mean more to us than the praise of the world or the number of “likes” on social media? Is our love for the Lord and His commandments stronger than our love for anything or anyone else in this life?
. . . . The adversary and his followers have always sought to destroy the works of Christ and His prophets. The Savior’s commandments, if not ignored altogether, have been rationalized into meaninglessness by many in today’s world. Messengers of God who teach “inconvenient” truths are often dismissed. Even the Savior Himself was called “a man gluttonous, and a winebibber,”6 accused of disturbing public sentiment and being divisive. Weak and conniving souls “took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk,”7 and His “sect” of early Christians was “every where … spoken against.”8
The Savior and His early followers dealt with serious internal and external opposition, and we experience the same. Today it is almost impossible to courageously live our faith without occasionally attracting a few actual and virtual fingers of scorn from the worldly. Confidently following the Savior is rewarding, but at times we may get caught in the crosshairs of those advocating an “eat, drink, and be merry”9 philosophy, where faith in Christ, obedience, and repentance are substituted by the illusion that God will justify a little sin because He loves us so much.
Speaking “by [His] own voice or by the voice of [His] servants,”10 did the Savior not say about our day that “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers” and that many “shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables”?11 Did He not lament that “in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”?12 Did He not warn that “of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them”?13 Did He not foresee that “evil [would be called] good, and good evil”14 and that “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household”?15
So what about us? Should we be intimidated or afraid? Should we live our religion at periscope depth? Surely not! With faith in Christ, we need not fear the reproach of men or be afraid of their revilings.16 With the Savior at the helm and living prophets to lead and guide us, “who can be against us?”17 Let us be confident, not apologetic, valiant, not timid, faithful, not fearful as we hold up the Lord’s light in these last days.18
The Savior made clear that “whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father. … But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father.”19
Consequently, while some would prefer a God who comes without commandments, let us boldly testify, in the words of Elder D. Todd Christofferson, that “a God who makes no demands is the functional equivalent of a God who does not exist.”20
For Elder Klebingat’s complete talk, including working links, click. . . . Valiant Discipleship in the Latter-days
