(Note from Kent. . . . From the related previous post a couple of paragraphs are now added by way of correction. Continuing from The Veil of Unbelief II:
According to President Benson, all of our teachings should be circumscribed by the “great plan of the Eternal God.” Elder Dallin adds yet a finer point on what our precepts should include: The reality of our total dependence upon Jesus Christ for the attainment of our goals of immortality and eternal life should dominate each and every action of every soul touched by the light of the restored gospel. If we teach every other subject and principle with perfection and fall short on this one, we have failed in our most important mission.” (Sins, Crimes and Atonement, CES, “An evening with Dallin H. Oaks, 7 February 1992, p. 3)
The world cannot help but study the human being outside the eternal plan of God, thus distorting truth about how human beings flourish in the fullest sense. These turncated teachings about the nature of man become the precepts of men because, cut off from the eternal plan of God, they necessarily deny the power of God. Man’s spiritual, emotional, even physical well-being cannot be studied meaningfully outside the plan of the eternal God.
The most dangerous precepts of men may have a form of godliness; that is, they may sound high principled, but, as the Lord said to Joseph Smith, they deny the power of godliness (see Joseph Smith—History 1:19). The Savior said to his Apostles about our day, “For in those days there shall also arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch, that, if possible, they shall deceive the very elect, who are the elect according to the covenant. . . . And whoso cherish up my word, shall not be deceived.” (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:22, 37.) Speaking of the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, the Lord said, in fact, that the scriptures would be given “to the salvation of mine own elect” (Doctrine and Covenants 35:20).
The danger of riveting false concepts upon our hearts, of embracing the precepts and uninspired philosophies of men, is that they limit our perception of the truth and thus inhibit our spiritual power and happiness: they thicken the veil. It does matter what we believe. It does matter what vocabulary we use to describe the nature of man and the means by which he prospers, because so much of the trouble and suffering in our lives rises out of our false assumptions. When we govern our thoughts and our actions by untruth, we reap unhappiness and confusion in the emotional, spiritual and even the physical dimensions of our lives. The assumptions we make about the purpose or the world, God’s interaction with his children, and the nature of the people around us and what our relationship should be to them—these make all the difference in the quality of our lives, here and hereafter.
Jeremiah prophesied of our day, implying the solution to our problems. “This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel . . . I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31:33-34). We must know the word so well that, written in our hearts, it becomes the governing force in our lives. In this manner we ignite the power of the Spirit in our inward parts and transcend much of the sorrow of this world.
Having turned our daily minds to the spirit of prophecy and revelation, we can obtain what has been promised in these verses: If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal” (Doctrine and Covenants 42:61).
Men’s precepts are a burden to the Saints. To embrace the Lord’s constructs about how man flourishes is to receive spiritual lightening. ~M. Catherine Thomas, Spiritual Lightening (Salt Lake City, Bookcraft, 1996) 4-6
