Christ is the Answer

In the middle of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, President Russell M. Nelson asked, “how have current events made you feel about the future?” “Admittedly,” he then responded, “the Lord has spoken of our day in sobering terms. He warned that in our day ‘men’s hearts [would fail] them’ and that even the very elect would be at risk of being deceived. He told the Prophet Joseph Smith that ‘peace [would] be taken from the earth’ and calamities would befall mankind.” (Russell M. Nelson, “Embrace the Future with Faith,” October 2020) Now, almost four years later with wars raging, turmoil on campuses and a United States election cycle as divisive as ever, has our perspective improved?

Speaking of peace being taken from the earth, one political commentator’s observation that “we [in the United States] are currently living in a 50/50 country”[1] ominously brings to mind eerily similar “50/50” conflicts that resulted in the destruction of the Jaredite and Nephite civilizations. See Ether 13 in the Book of Mormon, describing how “millions of the Jaredites are slain” in a suicidal, civilization-ending battle and Mormon 6 in which history repeats itself.

Moving from the global to the personal, does our perspective improve? For many, at least judging by the plethora of pundits, podcasters and self-help gurus proliferating in social media, one wonders.

What is the answer? Speaking from heaven after the massive destruction on the American continent after his crucifixion,[2] Jesus Christ tells us, “O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they [who were destroyed], will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?” (3 Nephi 9:13) As President Nelson has testified, the gospel of Jesus Christ “is the only enduring solution for peace. His gospel is a gospel of peace.” (Russell M. Nelson, “Preaching the Gospel of Peace,” April 2022)

Hopefully, the world will not need civilization-ending conflict to learn the lessons the surviving Nephites learned. After His ascension into heaven in Jerusalem, Christ appeared to the Nephites at their temple on this continent. He taught them His “doctrine” (2 Nephi 31:21) and “gospel” (3 Nephi 27:21). The surviving Nephites accepted and covenanted to live by the truths He taught, as evidenced by their being baptized and receiving the ordinances of the temple.[3] As a result of the change in their very natures these events enabled in them, they were able to create an enduring society (three centuries’ worth at least!) in which “there was no contention in the land,” “no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness,” “because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.” Among all the civilizations that have existed since Enoch’s people were translated (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5; Moses 7:18-19, 69), there has not been “a happier people among all the people who [have] been created by the hand of God.” (4 Nephi 1:16-17)

World peace, as we all know, can only come, as President Ezra Taft Benson taught, “from the inside out”. (Ezra Taft Benson, “Born of God,” Ensign, November 1985, 6) How can we eliminate personal contention from our lives? Envy? Dishonesty? How do we acquire charity, “the pure love of Christ”? (Moroni 7:47) And all other Christ-like attributes?

One simple solution the Lord through His prophets seems to be telling us centers in the temple. How often has President Nelson reminded us that “nothing will strengthen your spiritual foundation,” your ability to move the mountains in your life, to overcome the world, “like temple service and temple worship.” (Russell M. Nelson, “Make Time for the Lord,” October 2021) “If you don’t yet love to attend the temple, go more often—not less,” he has admonished. “Let the Lord, through His Spirit, teach and inspire you there. I promise you that over time, the temple will become a place of safety, solace, and revelation.” (Russell M. Nelson, “The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation,” October 2021)

Why the temple? Because Christ is the answer to both societal and personal challenges. In the temple we take upon ourselves more fully His name, authority and power. “Without the ordinances” of the temple and the gospel, the Lord has declared, “the power of godliness,” the power to have our very natures changed, “is not manifest unto men in the flesh” (D&C 84:19). Think of Saul, who God "turned into another man" and to whom he gave "another heart" (1 Samuel 10:6, 9). As we look to Christ, the “Living Water,” “and to no other person, [philosophy] or thing,” the Prophet has promised that our ability to “draw upon” the spiritual treasures of the temple “will increase.” (Stephen L. Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, xii (quoting Russell M. Nelson, “Spiritual Treasures,” October 2019)

If we have not yet internalized these powerful truths of the gospel so that they are “written in our hearts” (Mosiah 13:11) and found in the “marrow of our bones” (Proverbs 3:8),[4] let us accept the Lord’s invitation to “really study” them. “What could possibly be more exciting than to labor with the Spirit to understand God’s power—priesthood power” with which women and men are endowed in the temple? President Nelson has asked. (Russell M. Nelson, “Spiritual Treasures,” October 2019) God has promised that as we gain and apply such understanding about how to draw Christ's power into our lives, “nothing shall be impossible” to us (Matthew 17:20), including, most importantly, becoming “perfect in Christ” (Colossians 1:28;Moroni 10:32) —Stephen L. Fluckiger

[1] “Trey Gowdy: We are currently living in a 50/50 country and I don't see it changing,” Fox News Special Report, May 24, 2024, https://www.foxnews.com/video/6353630709112 (at 1:35). [2] For a description of the massive loss of life accompanying the “tempests, earthquakes, fires, whirlwinds, and physical upheavals” that occurred on the American continent at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, see Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 8. [3] See Stephen L. Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, 103-104 & n.2 and xxi note 11 (quoting Russell M. Nelson, “Come, Follow Me,” Ensign, May 2019 [“Lehi and Sariah, and all other devoted disciples of Jesus Christ—since the world was created—have made the same covenants with God. They have received the same ordinances that we as members of the Lord’s restored Church today have made: those covenants that we receive at baptism and in the temple"]. [4] See Marianne Holman Prescott, “Missionaries Need Doctrine of Christ Written on Their Hearts, Elder Russell M. Nelson Teaches,” Church News, July 6, 2015, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/missionaries-need-doctrine-of-christ-written-on-their-hearts-elder-russell-m-nelson-teaches?lang=eng (“More than anything else, we want our missionaries to receive that blessing [the covenant of eternal marriage], to have the doctrine of Christ engraved in their hearts—rooted deeply in the marrow of their bones.”).