ON PERMISSIVENESS

 

“The growing permissiveness in modern society gravely concerns us. Certainly our Heavenly Father is distressed with the increasing inroads among his children of such insidious sins as adultery and fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, abortions, pornography, population control, alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse, dishonesty,  vandalism, violence, and crime generally, including the sin of living together without marriage.

“We call upon our Church members everywhere to renew their efforts to strengthen the home and to honour their parents, and to build better communications between parent and child.

“Important as it is, building stronger homes is not enough in the fight against rising permissiveness. We therefore urge Church members as citizens to lift their voices, to join others in unceasingly combating, in their communities and beyond, the inroads of pornography and the general flaunting of permissiveness. Let us vigorously oppose the shocking developments which encourage the old sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and which define the human body as the temple of God….

“God will not be mocked. His laws are immutable. True repentance is rewarded by forgiveness, but sin brings the sting of death….

“As we think back upon the experiences of Nineveh, Babylon, Sodom and Gomorrah, we wonder – will history repeat itself? What of our world today? Are we forgetting in our great nations the high and lofty principles which can preserve the nations?

“When the patience of the Lord with us is exhausted, shall we stand trembling while destruction comes upon us? Or shall we wisely see the handwriting on the wall and profit by the sad experience of the past and return unto the Lord and serve him?”

-          (Spencer W. Kimball, in Conference Report, October 1977, pp 5-7; or Ensign Nov 1977, pp 5-6)

This warning was given to us in 1977. Since then we have added these blatant sins, amongst others: human trafficking, organised gang rapes, butchering of our bodies through sex change, numerous sexual orientations, gender identities and sex variations,  mothers murdering their children, full term abortion, rogue judges who acquit criminals thus perpetrating further crime, government fraud, government sponsored drug inducing centres, abduction of children and most heinously an increase in murder. We have permitted it all in the name of ‘progressiveness’. We have lifted ourselves above all the laws and call ourselves civilised and progressive….when in fact we are collectively just a plain, evil society bereft of peace and a sound mind.

In 1800s the Prophet Joseph Smith prophesied of a time when no one would have peace except in Zion: “I saw men hunting the lives of their own sons, and brother murdering brother, women killing their own daughters, and daughters seeking the lives of their mother. I saw armies arrayed against armies. I saw blood, desolation, fires. The Son of Man has said that the mother shall be against the daughter and the daughter against the mother. These things are at our doors. They will follow the Saints of God from city to city. Satan will range, and the spirit of the devil is now enraged. I know not how soon these tings will take place.” (History of the Church, 3:391)

This is the true picture of our society. At one stage I was following the ‘true crimes’ Youtube channel. It was all about murder and in each instance I could predict it was either the husband or wife or one of children. It was so amazing to me and made me remember Joseph Smith’s vision. I couldn’t watch that channel for very long.

I agree with President Kimball about history. The dangerous thing about it is that history repeats itself. The destruction that came to ancient cities will one day come to us because God will indeed not be mocked. Evil will be wiped off the face of the earth together with all those who have upheld it.

When the Saviour comes again He will subdue all enemies under his feet and most of all his archenemy Lucifer, Satan, the devil, the father of all lies who so shrewdly and subtly leads us “by the neck with a flaxen cord” to do his bidding, until he binds us with “his strong cords forever” (2 Nephi 26:22).

We are here on a spiritual battle ground. How’s your armour???  (Ephesians 6:11-18)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

TO SERVE GOD 2

 

Whereas ancient Israel’s conquest was a physical one, ours is a spiritual one. Israel’s charge was to conquer land for the temporal and eternal possession, our charge is to create a Zion society of God’s chosen people. Both responsibilities rested on one commandment, to serve God but in two different ways.

Ancient Israel was to serve God through obedience to His commandments and worship through the law of Moses, we are to serve God by our obedience to His commandments and to serve one another to prepare us for Zion. Consider these two commandments that came long after the conquest of Canaan:

-          Matt 25:40: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me……and: Matt 25:45 – when we don’t do it for “the least of these”, we don’t do it for Him;

-          Mosiah 2:17: “….when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

Our societal structure is more different from the ancient one which depended so much on possession of land and as a result was more used to physical warfare. We, however, fight a spiritual battle with the prince of darkness who seeks to destroy us spiritually in diving us to the point where our hearts have turned cold one towards another (D&C 45:26,27). This is not to overlook the increase of wars and rumours of wars in these latter-days as prophesied (Mark 13:7)

This is why the spiritual battle is more devastating to God’s people today. Zion can only be built in preparation for the Saviour’s return ‘according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom’ (D&C 105:3-5). It is this union that enables men to obey the law of consecration whereby they impart of their ‘substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and the afflicted’ (v 3). This was the success of the city of Enoch. Because they were of one heart and one mind they willingly met each other’s needs so there was no poor among them (Moses 7:18).

If God’s goal for the human family is unity, you can be assured that Satan’s is division. Right now the world is divided into left and right and contention and disunity is rife. The Church leaders are constantly warning us against this because our destiny as the Church of Jesus Christ is great.

The celestial law that will get us to Zion is not just about obedience but also love. Love leads to unity. The Lord called the city of Enoch, Zion the Pure in Heart. The people of this city ‘walked’ with God (Moses 7:69) which means they were ‘true’ followers of Jesus Christ and as true followers of Jesus Christ they were endowed with the ‘pure love' of Christ (Moroni 7:48).

This is the key: He leads and we follow. We follow His example of love, compassion, understanding, tolerance, respect, giving and ministering……today obedience, tomorrow Zion, the day after, Celestial Kingdom. In Joseph’s words: “We are on the pathway to eternal fame, and immortal glory.”

I knelt before the throne of God

And asked of Him today:

Lord, when will I become like Thee?

To my feeble self He answered:

When you start to walk with me.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Come Follow Me by Gabriel Heaton)

THE GOD OF VICTORY

 

As the children of Israel marched toward Canaan, their magnitude and size drove fear into the nations they encountered along the way. The most warlike nation they encountered inhabited the lands of Gobolitis and Petra and were called Amalekites (the descendants of Esau).

This is what the Amalekites saw: a formidable army of strangers, which by their strength, escaped the slavery of Egypt and which needed to be crushed before they came to be prosperous and take over the cities and all their goods…..therefore they had to be destroyed. (Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities” Book 3, Chapter 2:1).

The Amalekites made two big mistakes. The first was making the wrong assumption of the Hebrews which were ill prepared for war, who had nothing and only escaped Egypt through the strength of their God. The second mistake they made was cowardly attacking the rear end of the marching Israelites killing the feeble and the faint and the weary. This did not sit well with God who commanded the Israelites to “utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven” (Exodus 17:14; The Old Testament Student Manual p 123).

This slaughter of their weak members drove incredible fear into the rest of the camp. Lucky for them they had one great advantage over all the other nations they would encounter in their sojourn. They had a living prophet among them. Moses exhorted his people to be courageous and to look upon their entire prosperity at the hands of God since they left Egypt and to believe that God will deliver them again (Josephus, "Jewish Antiquities" Book 3, 2:2).

Moses had a brilliant battle strategy: First, he appointed as the captain of the army a man of great courage, of great abilities and very serious in the worship of God, and very much like Moses who the people could have confidence in. Enter Joshua, the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim. Secondly, he directed his brother Aaron and Miriam’s husband, Hur, to stand on each side of him and uphold his hands to be a beacon of God’s power which would ensure the victory (Exodus 17:8-13)

The children of Israel won that war, terrified the neighbouring nations and enriched themselves with the spoils, having not lost one soul while those of the enemy’s army were too many to be numbered (“Jewish Antiquities” p 117).

I wasn’t going to write about this part of the Israelite’s journey but I saw something very significant in it. I saw the importance of a living prophet who represents the one who stands at the head. The Israelites could never have made it to the promised land if they did not have a prophet holding his hands up invoking the power of Him who had said:  “….and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 16:12)

Never in the history of the world have we needed a living prophet as much as we do now. The spiritual battle is raging, the evil power is the greatest it has ever been. The battle ground is fierce. Our promised land awaits but we need not fear.  I offer thanks this day that we have a prophet who is willing to hold up his hands to remind us we are led by the God of victory.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)

THE ENEMY

 

The most profound thing that Mormon uttered which also summed up his earthly life was said in exhortation to his son Moroni: “….for we have a labour to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness” (Moroni 9:6)

Is there anybody that has ever fought the enemy of all righteousness more than Mormon? I cannot fathom atrocities such as he was exposed to in the most-evil of all societies (Moroni 9:8-10).

Mormon described his people as brutal, strong in their perversion and delighting in everything that is not good. He went on to say that ‘tongue could not tell, neither could it be written’ of the suffering among the women and children (Mormon 9:19).

I cannot fathom it. I live in a peaceful country where the worst I have seen are street protests. I hear of crimes in the news but I have not witnessed anything evil. Mormon did. He was exposed to it all to the point where he cried to God to ‘hide their sins, and wickedness and abominations from before His face!” (Moroni 9:15).

Mormon knew the enemy and he knew him well. He wrote the whole Book of Mormon in such a way that we will come to know the enemy and ‘be more wise than they have been’ (Mormon 9:31)

I might not be a witness to his atrocities but I know that the enemy is working today in secret ways, in corridors of power and in personal battlefields. He seeks our destruction and when he succeeds, he laughs and he and his angels rejoice (3 Nephi 9:2).

We are on the spiritual battlefield today. We are fighting an enemy that cannot be seen. We cannot fight him with ammunition. Our line of defense is to fortify ourselves against the powers of darkness so that we might be endowed with the power of God that Nephi saw in his vision of us (1 Nephi 14:14).

We must stand up for righteous values by shunning the wrong and promoting the right. As we do so our efforts will reverberate throughout the earth. Even though small in number, we will 'come forth out of the wilderness of darkness, and shine forth fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners" (D&C 109:73; 105:31). Evil can only be fought with righteousness.

The adversary knows us. He observes our behaviour and our choices and our words. He knows what buttons to push.  He sees those moments when we are the weakest. He waits for those moments. He lives for those moments.

Very often we refer to Satan as our foe but I propose that we are HIS foe. He has no power but what we give him. Therefore, we are more powerful than him. We, the strong, the valiant, the noble sons and daughters of God are the foe of evil and destructive forces of faith because we bear the image of the Son of God in our countenance.

We are the children of Christ. We are the warriors of today, called at such a time as this to prepare the way for Him to crush the enemy under His feet….

There is a desire in my soul

That wants to conquer Goliath

And watch him fall….

This warrior within me never sleeps

And yearns to hear the angels’ call,

A call to battle to make the devil fall.

And when Christ comes in clouds so holy

He will conquer that enemy

And we will confess His glory.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)

SATAN'S COLD WAR

 

I recently watched a very inspiring interview with Jim Caviezel who was promoting his latest movie.  The  interview quickly progressed into his passionate speech about the importance of fighting a battle when one presents itself as opposed to shrinking back thinking fighting is not acceptable. He spoke of how the Christian pastors of our day are opting for appeasement and are not engaging in Satan's 'cold war'. I will not name the context of his interview because I do not want to be drawn into political debates. What I do want to do is talk about Satan's 'cold war'. 

We might ask ourselves what that exactly is. In my mind it is everything that is overtly taught today as 'good' but is covertly an opposition to Christian values and teachings. It is anything that is leading us away from God. It is: political correctness; cancel culture; racism madness; greed for power; human polarisation; governmental abuse of human rights; denial of truth; spreading of lies; secret combinations; oppression of others for personal gain; vilification and slander of others, and the list goes on. The structure of our society reflects all of this. The frightening part is that it is upheld and even perpetrated by governmental and bureaucratic men who seek only one thing, power. Why is this frightening? Because it is  leading to Christian persecution at large which will one day culminate in the persecution of the 'church of the Lamb of God' (1 Nephi 14:12-3). That means us. 

Satan is raging in the hearts of men and only for one reason. Because he has been allowed to do it. He has no power except what we give him. Fighting an enemy that one cannot see can be daunting. Nephi, however, gave us hope when he wrote that he saw the power of God descending on the saints of the Church of the Lamb (1 Nephi 14:14).  And even though Nephi saw that our numbers were few and that we were scattered upon the face of the earth, we were 'armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory' (v14)

In 166 BC, Judah Maccabee led the Maccabeean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. When he and his men arrived at the temple and saw its neglected condition they rent their clothes and wept. Judah cleared the temple of all Greek statues and gods and restored it to its proper use. How could he not when the ensign he set up at the onset of the revolt was: "Who among the Gods is like unto thee O Jehovah?" (Exodus 15:11).  No one. What Greek gods could possibly rival the one true and living God? No god. Judah Maccabee fought for his God and he died fighting. His death stirred the Jews to renewed resistance and they achieved independence and the liberty to worship freely. 

We are the warriors from the front lines of heaven's battle sent to such a time as this to fight Satan's empire which spreads far and wide throughout the world today. To overcome the enemy of all righteousness (Moroni 9:6) we must first fortify ourselves against the powers of darkness that we might be endowed with the power of God. And secondly, we must stand up for righteous values by shunning the wrong and promoting the right. As we do so our efforts will reverberate throughout the earth. Even though small in number, we will 'come forth out of the wilderness of darkness, and shine forth fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners" (D&C 109:73; 105:31).

- Cathryne Allen, Did Not Our Hearts Burn When He Opened To Us The Scriptures?

published 2021 by amazon.com

ARMOUR OF GOD

There is an interesting story in chapter 22 of 1 Kings in the Old Testament  featuring King Ahab, the most wicked and powerful king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Ahab had married Jezebel who introduced the worship of Baal and Asherah to the Kingdom of Israel. Together Ahab and Jezebel sought to slay all the Lord's prophets and eradicate the worship of Jehovah from Israel. It was a very grim time in Israel's history.

After three years of peace with Syria, Ahab decided that he wanted to conquer the land of Ramoth in Gilead which he believed belonged rightfully to Israel. To strengthen his forces against Syria Ahab approached Jehoshaphat, King of Judah for an alliance. Jehoshaphat agreed but he wanted assurance from God that this was a good move so he asked Ahab to inquire of the Lord. Ahab gathered together his 400 'prophets' and asked if he should go against Syria to capture Ramoth-gilead. The prophets flattered him and told him to go for it and he will prosper because the Lord will deliver Syrians into his hand. Jehoshaphat who must have seen through these false prophets asked if there was a prophet of the Lord that they could also ask. Ahab replied there was one Micaiah but that he hated him because he always prophesied evil against him. Really???  Under Jehoshaphat's persuasion Ahab summoned Micaiah and put the same question to him. Micaiah replied: "I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd" (1 Kings 22:17) and then recited to him an amusing anecdote. He said he saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven around him and the Lord asked "Who shall persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?" Several made different propositions and then one spirit came forward and said, "I will persuade him". When the Lord inquired how he proposed to do that, he answered that he will put a lying spirit in Ahab's 400 prophets who will tell him to go to battle. And the Lord agreed to this plan. This angered Ahab terribly and he ordered for Micaiah to be put into prison and be fed nothing but bread and water until he returns from battle in peace. Micaiah's only response was: "If you return at all in peace, the Lord has not spoken it by me!" (1 Kings 22:28)

Ahab and Jehoshaphat did go to battle with Syria. In his arrogance and self-importance Ahab devised what he thought was a clever plan, to disguise himself so Syrians would not know who he was on the battle field. This he did taking elaborate measures but he overlooked one thing - he did not wear a full armour. Once on the battle field a certain man randomly drew his bow and 'smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness' (1 Kings 22:34) wounding him without even knowing who he was. By the time the evening came Ahab had bled to death.

When Paul was imprisoned for the firs time in Rome he wrote a letter to the Ephesian saints in 61 A.D. reminding them that they were on a spiritual battle field fighting against 'the rulers of the darkness of this world' and admonished them to wear the full armour of God or they will not be able to stand (Ephesians 6:11-17). He named protective parts of the armour such as the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, being the word of God. At the start of this same letter Paul mentions 'the dispensation of the fullness of times' (Ephesians 1:10) making it clear to us of this dispensation that we too should take heed because the battle that began so long ago is still raging. In our need for protection, which parts of God's armour could we afford not to wear in our combat with the forces of evil? We cannot afford to choose which part of the armour we will wear and which we will ditch because it's 'too heavy'. A section or two is not enough. Almost all the armour will not do. Full protection requires full armour.

When the fiery darts of the adversary strike will they find an unprotected part of us to sink into or will they bounce off the armour that's in place? Will we conquer the enemy of all righteousness or will we bleed to death on the battle field?