Apostasy of Israel

In my last post, I discussed the steps of an individual going apostate. Another type of apostasy is of an entire nation going apostate. It happens as individuals lose sight of God and we can learn by looking at these societal patterns how what may seem like a personal choice can have consequences for a larger community. As I am drawing from the scriptures, the examples given are for the apostasies of Israel and Judah.

The history of Israel is littered with dozens of examples of the nation going into apostasy and then being restored again, but I would like to focus on one apostasy in particular that had very long lasting effects. I would like to break apart some of the teaching of Isaiah and Jeremiah. These were two prophets who preached concerning the time period known as the Babylonian Captivity, when Babylon conquered Judah, slaughtering a good number of the people and taking the rest captive back to Babylon. Before this happened, Judah was openly practicing pagan rituals that were forbidden by the laws of God and committing all manner of sins without remorse or shame. Isaiah foresaw and prophesied of all this happening about 100 years before it occurred, while Jeremiah actually live through it. Isaiah and Jeremiah, along with other prophets, were called of God to preach repentance, and to warn the people that if they did not repent, then they would be conquered by other nations.

So what had happened to Judah to make it so wicked?

*They had grown prideful with their own accomplishments (Isaiah 2:8)

8Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:

*They had changed the holy ordinances and practices of their religion (Isaiah 24:5)

5The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

*They were worshiping other gods and taking up the practices of their neighbors (Jeremiah 11:13)

13For according to the number of thy cities were thy gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have ye set up altars to that shameful thing, even altars to burn incense unto Baal.

*They were openly breaking the commandments (Isaiah 3:9, Jeremiah 23:10)

9The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

10For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.

*They rejected the prophets God sent them (Jeremiah 35:15)

15I have sent also unto you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but ye have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me.

All of these can be done by an individual in a private life, but in the strongest sense these are societal choices that change the entire make up of a nation.

A lot of people believe that freedom of religion means that everyone should be free to practice, secretly in their own homes away from their neighbors, whatever they want. What they do not see is that religions freedom means being able to have an open dialogue of what one believes and feels that society should adopt. As a study of this topic shows, when it comes to moral practices, it is not just a personal practice that will determine a nations future, but of what that nation's inclinations are towards religion and God that will lay the foundation for its future prosperity.

Apostasy of Individuals

Topics without scriptures: apocalypse; apocrypha; Apollos; apostasy.

When I began this topic, I figured it would be about a ton of individual stories of people who went Apostate. There are enough stories in the scriptures. But instead, almost all of these scriptures are about how apostasy happens to someone and the consequences.

For a definition of apostasy, it begins with two alterations, one in a persons heart as described in Deuteronomy 29:18:

18Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

And in how a person interacts with the church as described in Isaiah 24:5:

5The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

After this, unless repentance kicks in, a dark bitterness sets in. I am not saying that everyone does this, but in my personal experience at least about 80% of the people who I have known who have left the church have become bitterly opposed to it. In a lot of cases, it has been shocking to me to see the alteration of my friends to the point where they are living lifestyles that are so completely opposite to who they once were, and hurtful in how much they hated and wanted to hurt the church and those who still belonged to it. In a lot of way, Alma 47:36 about another group of apostates is in more than one way prophetic:

36Now these dissenters, having the same instruction and the same information of the Nephites, yea, having been instructed in the same knowledge of the Lord, nevertheless, it is strange to relate, not long after their dissensions they became more hardened and impenitent, and more wild, wicked and ferocious than the Lamanites—drinking in with the traditions of the Lamanites; giving way to indolence, and all manner of lasciviousness; yea, entirely forgetting the Lord their God.

This is a very delicate and personal topic for me because I've had to live through it with friends many times, and every time I dig up the past memories it hurts. Not from any self-righteous "oh, they left the faith" type of feelings, but because in almost all the case I've lost friends.

The scriptures give a warning of what the resulting eternal consequence are for those who become apostate. In short, they are dammed, as in their eternal progression is stopped. However, Alma 24:30 describes what the immediate consequence it:

30And thus we can plainly discern, that after a people have been once enlightened by the Spirit of God, and have had great knowledge of things pertaining to righteousness, and then have fallen away into sin and transgression, they become more hardened, and thus their state becomes worse than though they had never known these things.

God is just, and I know that we will be judged off of what we know. I've heard it said that the devil and evil men can not bring down Christ's church on earth, that the only thing that can stop it's progression is the apostaty of it's members.

To end with, this is a serious issue that affects a lot of people. The idea of apostasy of the resulting consequences can be summed up in Doctrine and Covenants 82:3:

3For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation.

Apathy

Topics without scriptures: Anxiety.

In the scriptures, the theme of "apathy" is most often addressed in two ways. The first of which is our general concern for God and for His commandments. The second is our apathy for the poor. Or in other words, for being lax in our love for God and our love for our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40).

Focusing on the first one, what it means to have apathy towards God and His commandments is summed pretty well in 2 Nephi 28:21:

21And others will he ^apacify, and lull them away into carnal ^bsecurity, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the ^cdevil ^dcheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.

In other words, one of Satan's most effective methods is to convince people that everything is fine and that they do not need to be paying attention or working hard. God's reaction to these type of people can be found in Revelations 3:16:

16So then because thou art ^alukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will^bspue thee out of my mouth.

Note that God is not saying that we are not of worth or that He does not love us, He is saying that in all honesty when we become slacker we really are not useful. To bring it home, have you ever been assigned to a project group or committee where there is that one person who really just does not care? How frustrating is it when you know how useful that person could be, but instead they really are just holding everyone else back?

God's call to us is simple, to wake up (Romans 13:11) and get moving (Alma 34:33) with special emphasis on taking care of the poor (Alma 34:28). God does not want a little bit of who we are, He wants our "heart, might, mind and strength" (D&C 4:2) because anything less won't be enough to face the trials that come to us.

Remember, the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is apathy.

Antichrist

This entry is actually anti-climatic. With an entry like "antichrist" you would expect some high spirited show-down, but in reality it is pretty simple. An antichrist is just anyone who is against the gospel of Christ.

The scriptural definition of "antichrist" can be found in 1 John 2:22:

22Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.

Another definition can be found in the LDS Bible Dictionary:

A word used by John to describe one who would assume the guise of Christ, but in reality would be opposed to Christ. In a broader sense it is anyone or anything that counterfeits the true gospel or plan of salvation and that openly or secretly is set up in opposition to Christ. The great antichrist is Lucifer, but he has many assistants both as spirit beings and as mortals.

So an antichrist could be anyone against being a good person in general or saying that Christ wasn't who he says he was. With that last one there could be lots of people who would fit under the category of antichrist, but I think where it becomes a problem is when you start trying to convince others of your ideas or telling Christians themselves that they are deceived. You can argue points this way and that, but in the end you can't argue faith.

An example of an antichrist who came to a tragic end can be found in Jacob 7. In short, there is a man named Sherem who openly opposed the gospel declaring that there was no Christ. He was so confident in himself that he sought out the current prophet Jacob to try and prove him wrong.

I've been in situations like this. I'm not saying that I'm a prophet, but I've kind of found these situations more than a little pointless. As I said before, you can't argue faith. If someone has it, you can't really smash it. If someone doesn't have it, you can't argue it into them. I have rarely met someone who for reasons of faith are bitterly against our church, but instead have problems with some historical or scientific reasoning that doesn't make sense to them. I've kind of realized that whether a religious conversation is going to go well with mutual respect or if it is going to turn into me sitting there while they spew angrily at me can be based off of their response to two questions. Both of which it would be a good idea of we all answered ourselves either with a "yes" or a "no":

1. If you had all of your scientific and historical questions answered and resolved, would it be enough for you to enter the water's of baptism and unite with us in our faith?

2. If God gave you a personal revelation confirming to your heart in a way that you could not deny, that this was the true church and that you were to join it, would it be enough for you to enter the water's of baptism and unite with us in our faith?