The “Glory of the world” vs. “Eternal glory”

Who has not been fascinated, amazed or even felt a twinge of jealousy when viewing images of luxury displayed in architectural, lifestyle, or travel magazines, movies, TV series, social media posts, and, to some degree, all around us? Questions like “Do you have any money?”[1] or “Don’t you wish you had as much money as ____?” seem to bombard us constantly. Fascination with the “rich and famous” did not begin with the Forbes listing of billionaires first published in 1987 and is, no doubt, as old as the world. [2] Scripture, literature, and, yes, real life, testify of the truth that the “glory of the world” (2 Nephi 27:16; Ether 8:7; D&C 10:19), indeed, can be intoxicating.

This theme of how the “things of this world” can sometimes distract or even beguile us into deviating from our eternal goals came to mind during a recent four-day stay in our friends’ condo in a luxury resort in Costa Rica with two of our granddaughters. The resort’s marina (pictured below) was filled with beautiful (and no doubt very expensive) boats. Taking one of them west into the Pacific about 45 minutes to a nearby island for the day was, yes, spectacular. Is that to say that such “worldly pleasures” (or the things of this world that money can buy) are bad?

Reading John’s description of the “holy [city] descending out of heaven from God” in Revelation 21:10, which is made of “pure gold, like unto clear glass” with its walls “garnished with all manner of precious stones” (vv. 18-19), it does not appear that God has a problem with beautiful homes or even whole cities of indescribable splendor per se. What is the issue then? It is not so much about the “what”—money or material things in themselves not being intrinsically evil—but the “who,” or whose influence we choose to follow in life, God’s or the devil’s. The Lord put it this way in an early revelation to the Saints in this dispensation: they “who believe not,” that is, act not in faith in Jesus Christ to follow God’s plan of redemption, “cannot be redeemed from their spiritual fall, because they repent not; . . . and they receive their wages of whom they list to obey” (D&C 29:42-45).

While much of the world will deny it,[3] there is always a “who” working to influence our attitudes about the “things” in our lives. Perhaps the greatest example of this truth is found in Satan’s efforts to thwart the Savior from his foreordained mission, tempting Him with “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” presumptuously asserting “all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:8-9; Luke 4:5-7).[4] Moroni explained, “All things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually” (Moroni 7:12). Even more diabolical, as President Oaks has so eloquently taught us when Satan can’t tempt us (in any particular moment) with evil, he will do the next best thing, that is tempt us (in any particular moment) to do the “good” instead of the “better” or “best” (Oaks, “Good, Better, Best,” Ensign, November 2007, 104).

How is modern man faring generally in resisting the pull of the “love of glory and the vain things of the world” (Alma 60:32)? The “honor of the world” (Alma 60:36)? The getting of “gain and glory of the world” (Helaman 7:5; Ether 8:7; D&C 10:19)?[5] Not well if we believe the Lord’s description almost 200 years ago: “They who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of  . . .  the prophets and apostles . . . seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own God, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall” (D&C 1:16).

The opposite of loving the glory and vain things of the world is overcoming the world. In his General Conference message on this very subject, “Overcome the World and Find Rest,” President Nelson taught that overcoming the world “means choosing to refrain from anything that drives the Spirit away. It means being willing to ‘give away’ even our favorite sins.” While “it does not mean,” he added, that we “won’t still make mistakes,” “overcoming the world does mean that [our] resistance to sin will increase. . . . Overcoming the world means growing to love God and His Beloved Son more than [we] love anyone or anything else.”

How do we constantly inoculate ourselves from one of Satan’s most insidious temptations? President Nelson has compared “our covenants to spiritual inoculation, which comes as we receive and understand the doctrine associated with and taught through gospel ordinances. He explained, as he often likes to do, the derivation of the word ‘inoculate,’ which ‘comes from two Latin roots: in, meaning “within”; and oculus, meaning “an eye.”’ ‘To inoculate, therefore, literally means “to put an eye within”—to monitor against harm.’ . . . ‘Jesus chooses . . . to indoctrinate. His method employs . . . the teaching of divine doctrine—a governing “eye within”—to protect the eternal spirits of his children” (Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, 34-35 n. 3, quoting Nelson, “Children of the Covenant,” Ensign, May 1995, 32). I would add that this spiritual inoculation comes most powerfully when studying or being in the scriptures has become a “holy habit” or personal “rite” or religious ritual in our lives (see Drawing,  267-69).

As he always seems to do, President Nelson also suggests that to overcome the pull of the world, we “spend more time in the temple, and seek to understand how the temple teaches you to rise above this fallen world.” While far from perfect, we are trying to do this in our family. On that trip to Costa Rica, the very first thing we did was to keep an appointment (which I had made months before) with our two beautiful granddaughters in the beautiful San José Costa Rica temple. I was privileged to baptize each of them on behalf of some of our ancestors. It was definitely the highlight of the trip for me—more so than all the natural (and man-made) beauty of that incredible country. In the temple, we gain just the slightest glimpse of what the Lord has promised to ALL those who faithfully keep their covenants with Him, even “thrones, kingdoms, principalities, powers [and] dominions” (D&C 132:19). More importantly, we learn and gain confidence in His ability and omniscient power to prepare and qualify us for those blessings, to make us holy (D&C 60:7).

Why at this late hour in the history of the world is this so important? Because service in and understanding of the temple (as evidenced by this remarkable and unprecedented era of temple-building) is one the best resources the Lord is giving us to become “a people who are able, ready, and worthy to receive the Lord when He comes again, a people who have already chosen Jesus Christ over this fallen world, a people who rejoice in their agency to live the higher, holier laws of Jesus Christ.” (Nelson, “Overcome the World and Find Rest”). May each of us avail ourselves of every tool and means the Lord has given us to overcome the constant pull of the “glory of the world” to choose, instead, that “eternal weight of glory” that awaits the righteous (2 Cor. 4:17; D&C 63:66; 130:2; 132:16). “For since the beginning of the world have not men heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath any eye seen, O God, besides thee, how great things thou hast prepared for him that waiteth for thee” (D&C 133:45; 1 Cor. 2:9).

[1] “Do You Have Money? Or Does Money Have You?” The Ridge Community Church, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MwV4P8IL6w (quoting Luke 16:9-13 NIV (“you cannot serve both God and money (mammon, meaning ‘riches or the thing you trust in’)” and arguing that “mammon is a spirit” or is “something that wants to have power over us”; as I noted above, that “spirit” has a name, a face and, in fact, is a real being). [2] “Cain was ‘wroth’ that Abel’s offering was acceptable but not his [Moses 5:20-21]. Sometimes, brothers and sisters, we, too, worry if someone else seems to be more favored than we. Worse still, we want to be accepted by the Lord—but on our terms, not His!” Neal A. Maxwell, “Murmur Not,” Ensign, November 1989, 82 [3] Many in our day deny that there is a devil, as Korihor argued, believing that “every man prosper[s] according to his genius,” “conquer[s] according to his strength” and that “whatsoever a man [does is] no crime,” “that when a man [is] dead, that [is] the end,” there is nothing after death (Alma 30:17-18). Similarly, Alma taught his son Corianton not to be beguiled by the argument (made apparently even in his day) that because there is no eternal law (or moral absolutes), there can be no sin and no eternal consequences (Alma 42:17-22). These arguments are reflected in “postmodernism,” a “complex philosophical movement,” according to Britannica, which began in the 1960s and ’70s and which regards “the very idea of objectivity as a dubious invention of the modern—i.e., post-Enlightenment—era. From the time of the Enlightenment, most philosophers and scientists believed that there is an objective, universal, and unchanging truth about everything—including science, ethics, religion, and politics—and that human reason is powerful enough to discover this truth. . . . According to postmodernism, however, the Enlightenment-inspired idea of objective truth, which has influenced the thinking of virtually all modern scientists and philosophers, is an illusion that has now collapsed.

“This development, they contend, is due largely to the work of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and his followers. Nietzsche rejected the naive faith that human beliefs simply mirror reality. Instead, each of our beliefs is grounded in a ‘perspective’ that is neither correct nor incorrect. In ethics, accordingly, there are no moral facts but only moral interpretations of phenomena, which give rise to different existing moral codes. We may try to understand these moralities by investigating their histories and the psychology of the people who embrace them, but there is no question of proving one or another of them to be ‘true.’ Nietzsche argues, for example, that those who accept the Judeo-Christian ethical system, which he calls a ‘slave morality,’ suffer from weak and fearful personalities. A different and stronger sort of person, he says, would reject this ethic and create his own values.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethical-relativism (emphasis added—sound like Korihor?). [4] After all, as we learn in the temple, Satan claims to be the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). In truth, however, Satan was and is a “liar from the beginning” (D&C 93:25). Christ, “the KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16) is the Creator and will be the ultimate ruler of this world under His Father (D&C 130:9). [5] Even “learning” or becoming “educated,” can become a spiritual trap when our learning leads us to “think [we] are wise and [to] hearken not unto the counsel of God [or] set it aside, supposing [we] know of [our]selves,” in which case our “wisdom” becomes “foolishness and it profiteth [us] not.” (2 Nephi 9:28).