Bringing Good Out of Evil

The word of God teaches us that humans are spiritually deficient and that our goodness is flawed goodness. Because God's word is light and spirit, we receive both as we receive His words. We not only learn that we 'cannot merit anything of ourselves' and that we must 'rely wholly upon the merits' of Christ, but we also experience our own lost, fallen and corrupt state. His words teach us that redemption is not a matter of legislation, moral exhortation, proper examples, rules, regulations and good education. We also learn why this is true--these methods require imperfect people to be in charge of making themselves and others perfect. Certainly there can be human goodness in such efforts, but they cannot bring about our redemption.

We must not only accept, but also experience that mankind (and each one of us) is spiritually flawed and our plight is beyond human remedy. And we experience this through His words (which are Him) which He has imparted unto us. We also, through His word, experience His goodness and greatness and come to know that our salvation does not come through our good works, but through His righteousness, and we attain this righteousness through faith in Him. Rules and regulations cannot empower us. The potential for sin can be clarified by the law, but not eliminated by it. That is why the law can only be a schoolmaster to teach us of our plight and to encourage us to look for the remedy. The remedy is not the law. Redemption comes in and through the Holy Messiah.

This we hear directly from His voice through His words: "There is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God save it be through the merits, and mercy and grace of the Holy Messiah, for ye cannot come to him save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in Him, relying wholly upon the merits of Him who is mighty to save."

Why is it then that we insist on thinking that our performance will somehow earn a greater reward? And that we will be able to flash our outstanding report cards at the judgment and all will be well? There is only one answer to this question and that is we have not received, or 'laid hold' upon the word of God which He has so lovingly revealed to us! Instead we have bought into the gospel of performance rather than the gospel of repentance. Because we have substituted the word of God with the teachings of men--a perverted gospel--we are conditioned that we must do it with our strivings, our efforts, our doing, our goodness, our successes, our virtues, and our activity. But how do we eliminate this from our thinking? We must hear His voice in His words! We must look higher than the pulpit. There is no other way.

Important in the records of the dispensations is that when men depart from God's way and substitute their own ways in its place, they usually do not admit that is what they are doing. Often they do not deliberately or even consciously substitute their ways for God's ways. On the contrary, they easily and largely convince themselves that their way is God's way. The apostasy described by the Ephraimite Gentiles before the endtime is not a desertion of the cause, but a perversion of it, a process by which the righteous are removed and none perceives it.

But this is what happens when we neglect the word of God. Our minds, like a land neglected by the cultivator (us) necessarily produces thorns and thistles, so our sense, by long neglect, produces a plentiful crop of noxious opinions, dogmas, tenets and perverted teachings. There is need now for much care in cultivating the field of our minds, that the word of truth, which is the true and diligent husbandman of the heart (His word is what nourishes us), may cultivate our minds and hearts with continual light and truth.

We do not like to think of ourselves or our minds as being corrupt, and yet that is the word the Lord uses to describe us, for when we take strength unto ourselves and boast in our own strength, then we are left to our own strength, and we will not prosper. Our 'own strength' is a state of corruption and we cannot overcome this corruption by our goodness, our virtues and our activity. When the Lord asked His servant "Who is it that has corrupted my vineyard?" the servant answers that the vineyard becomes corrupted by corrupted people who take strength unto themselves, or rely on their own strength: "...is not this the cause that the trees of thy vineyard have become corrupted?" And a corrupt people brings forth wild fruit.

As a result of the fall we are all corrupted and do not merit anything of ourselves. So the problem does not lie solely in the fact that people take strength unto themselves, but that corrupt people take strength unto themselves, and we all are, everyone of us, corrupted as a result of the fall. Again a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.

The Lord also said that men who set themselves up as a light unto the world have corrupt minds, because their minds are filled with corrupt teachings, ideas and opinions. We have all gone out of the way (are not in the way) and have become corrupted.  Because of pride and because of false teachers and false doctrines, even our churches have become corrupted. Why? Again it is corrupt people (the fall) with corrupt minds (the false teachings and false doctrines). Add to this the desire for the things of the world (all corruptible), and we are in a very sorry state indeed.

Of course Christ is the remedy, but how do we come to Christ? How exactly do we partake of His goodness, His incorruptible state of righteousness, and His promise to make us incorruptible like He is? 

The answer is through His words. When we are born we are neither good nor evil, we are innocent, but are "conceived in sin, even so when (we) begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in (our) hearts, and (we) taste the bitter, that (we) may know to prize the good." (Moses 6:55) And "it is given unto (us) to know good from evil, wherefore (we) are agents unto (ourselves)..." (Moses 6:56) So with these competing influences--good and evil--how do we learn to prize the good? Before leaving the Garden, Eve told Adam that it was better for them to pass through sorrow so that they could learn to prize the good. In D&C 84, the Lord makes it clear that we come unto Him through His words, and that "whoso receiveth not my voice (His words) is not acquainted with my voice, and is not of me." 

So we experience the darkness within ourselves and in the world. But we should not deny the darkness within or avoid the darkness of the world. We should acknowledge it, accept it, but transcend it by seeking God's light shining in the darkness! And that light is His word!

This plan for us which offers both good and evil requires that we learn to recognize the difference and understand exactly what is good and what is evil. Again we turn to His words which tell us that good is the righteousness of God, and evil is everything else. One way is narrow and the other broad. The Lord tells us that we get in the right way because of His words and we stay in the right way because of His words. We see this by virtue of the word of God being identified as the Rod of Iron, with the word being compared to the Liahona and with the word of God being truth, light, spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Why? Because the word of God leads us to the fountain of living waters, the love of God and to the righteousness of God. While ignoring and not receiving His words keeps us in darkness and leads us to wander in strange paths and eventually being captured by the chains of hell. And when we shine the light of His words upon ourselves, we see the corruption, the flawed goodness, the evil. And yet at the same time we see His goodness and righteousness, and willingly rely wholly upon His merits.

Ask yourself this question: Is my faith so little that I cling to the deeds that I do, calling them good, because I am afraid to see the evil in myself? Yet it is only through seeing the evil in us that we can exercise the faith to see the good in Him.

And exactly how do we know to see the good in Him? By what our Father in Heaven has revealed to us about Him and about ourselves. And how do we get this revelation? Through His words that he has spoken and caused to be recorded.

"I would that you should take upon you the name of Christ and retain His name always written in your hearts, and that you hear and know the voice by which you are called, and also, the name by which He shall call you." For "how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart."