NOAH, LOT, AND THE 5 OF THE TEN VIRGINS

ANOTHER GEM FROM LDSAVOW.COM:

ANOTHER PRINCIPLE AT WORK....
ONE THAT IS MISUSED AND NOT UNDERSTOOD
THE GREAT FALSE ASSUMPTION #2

Most members of the Church also work under a second false assumption. This is because they are confused about two separate principles of the gospel and how to correctly apply them. These principles are the principles of justice and mercy.
They confuse the mandate/commandment of sharing and taking care of the poor and needy with sharing their food with the rebellious. This false assumption is held not only by the rebellious (who often use it to justify their rebellious ways and minimize the outlined consequences) but by many of the obedient as well.

There is a big difference between the two concepts of taking care of the
truly poor and needy and taking care of the rebellious.

The First Principle, the one concerning taking care of the poor and needy which everyone remembers, is exemplified by the following scripture:

“For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things,
and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
“Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart
not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he
shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.” 14

The second principle, the one that everyone often forgets to apply, (especially when its application produces negative consequences) is outlined here:

“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated--
“And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon
which it is predicated.” 15

The reverse of this law is the point that the wicked do not like. Those who are disobedient to the law receive the consequences of their disobedient or rebellious actions as well...because this is right and just. The Lord mentions some of the consequences for those who are disobedient and rebellious:

“Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and
obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days.
“And the rebellious shall be cut off out of the land of Zion, and shall be sent away,
and shall not inherit the land.

“For, verily I say that the rebellious are not of the blood of Ephraim, wherefore
they shall be plucked out.” 16

A few other verses help us to recognize this principle even further:

“Hearken, O ye people who profess my name, saith the Lord your God; for behold, mine anger is kindled against the rebellious, and they shall know mine arm and mine indignation, in the day of visitation and of wrath upon the nations.
“And he that will not take up his cross and follow me, and keep my commandments,
the same shall not be saved.
“Behold, I, the Lord, command; and he that will not obey shall be cut off in mine
own due time, after I have commanded and the commandment is broken.” 17

It is important to recognize the difference between the wicked and the rebellious. The two groups are mentioned :

“Wherefore I, the Lord, command and revoke, as it seemeth me good; and all this to be answered upon the heads of the rebellious, saith the Lord.
“Wherefore, verily I say, let the wicked take heed, and let the rebellious fear and
tremble; and let the unbelieving hold their lips, for the day of wrath shall come upon them as a whirlwind, and all flesh shall know that I am God.” 18

President Joseph Fielding Smith hit the proverbial nail on the head when he wrote:

“One of the great failings of mankind is to ignore warnings of punishment for sin.”19

For good or for bad....It is actually all part of the law of consequences.
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And now the heart of the question.... “Is it right and just for the obedient who have sacrificed their means to be obedient and laid up in store for their families...to give to those who had the same opportunity...but who refused to obey the commandment and laid up nothing?” Wouldn’t that be rewarding the rebellious for their rebelliousness? How are the disobedient going to suffer the consequences of their actions or inactions? How will the obedient gain from being obedient... if they
have given all their food away during a time of famine?
It is one thing to share with those who either did not know the commandment or were prevented from complying (the truly needy and poor)...and something completely different to share with those who willfully rebelled against the commandment and were disobedient.

How many times have you heard the phrase (or something like it)....oh, I don’t have any food storage...I will just share from my neighbor who has food storage. (Unfortunately, most of the neighborhood thinks the same...and so if it was allowed to come to pass, the family who had sacrificed and gathered the one year food storage would have nothing left after a few days.)

And yet... because of the nature of the true disciple...they would share with the disobedient, because they would share with any and all. What is the answer to this dilemma? Luckily, the Lord takes the problem and the decision away from us. Again, we go to the scriptures to see what the Lord has done in a similar type situation.

A Key Message For Us In The Parable of the Ten Virgins

First let us look at the parable of the Ten Virgins, a parable given by the Savior himself, that we have been told specifically refers to events in the last days. President Kimball indicated that the parable is specifically about and directed towards the members of the Lord’s Church. There are several important lessons presented in this short parable but the key one is concerning the preparedness
issue. In the parable, the preparedness issue is presented concerning physical preparedness. However, President Kimball indicated that it can be applied to spiritual preparedness as well.

Two groups of Church members are waiting for the coming of the Savior. Both are dressed in white, meaning that in all outward appearances they are the Lord’s true disciples, but there is one difference between the two groups. What is it?
1) Both groups appear the same.
2) They both are standing or waiting in the proper place and are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
3) Both groups have received the same instructions.

The only difference between the two groups is that concerning the preparedness issue...and in the parable, it makes all the difference in the world. In fact
it is the one single difference between the one group being welcomed in by the Savior and the other group being rejected. One group has fully prepared and the other group has only partially prepared. In other words, one group has taken the Lord’s commandments and directions to heart and have followed them explicitly and completely...while the other group, though righteous in every appearance, has only followed those same instructions partially.

When the Savior does come and the importance of the issue of preparedness becomes critical, what do the ones who have prepared fully do? They don’t share with the unprepared!!! The unprepared are left to suffer the consequences of their own inactions, and the consequences are extremely severe.

Wow!! What a hard, difficult and brutal lesson/message is presented here. The
justice of the consequences are apparent...but where is the mercy? Justice, ie receiving the consequences of ones actions, is an eternal principle and it is often hard.

Mercy is an eternal principle as well. However, it must be remembered that in the eternal law of mercy...mercy is only
extended to those who accept and abide by the conditions attached to it...ie. by doing fully what the Lord has commanded them to do.

Is there any past experience where this hard lesson concerning preparation has been applied? The answer is yes....Noah and the Ark.


NOAH AND THE ARK, A TYPE AND A SHADOW OF OUR DILEMMA

Here we have the quintessential application of the principal of preparedness as taught by the Savior in the parable of the Ten Virgins. We do not need to belabor the story of Noah and the Ark. Those who listened to the counsel of the prophet, which had been given for several hundred years, to prepare by boarding the ark were saved. Those who didn’t listen to the counsel of the living prophet
and didn’t board the ark...died. The lesson is very brutal and hard.

There are, however a few interesting points to be presented.
Noah was a just and a perfect man in his generation and he, along with his three sons, walked with God. Noah’s daughters, who had married wicked husbands, did not heed their father’s counsel and died along with the other wicked. How hard it must have been for Noah and his wife and sons to not extend mercy to their family members, especially when it started to rain.

The question might be asked...why didn’t they open the doors of the ark and let them in, or perhaps others in? The answer
is because the Lord wouldn’t let them. The Lord had foreseen the problem and had taken care of it by taking it out of the hands of Noah.

We read that the Lord shut the door or shut Noah and his family into the ark.

“And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had
commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.”

I am sure that when the rain started and the floods started coming up that there were a lot of people who were suddenly very repentant and asked to be let into the ark. Could you imagine what it sounded like for those inside the ark to hear the screams, pleas and pounding of those, including children, outside of the ark?

And yet the Lord in his wisdom did not give Noah the difficult choice of whether to show mercy and open the door and save them also or not. The Lord took Noah out
of the decision making process on the issue. Instead we find that the Lord suffered them to receive the just consequences (death by drowning) of their non-action to heed the counsel of preparedness.

Of course the important lesson of Noah’s Ark is applied to us specifically by a prophet of God concerning following the prophets counsel regarding food storage.

“The Revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal
welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah.”

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So how might the Lord take such difficult decision making away from those in the last days who have kept the commandment to have food storage...and not share with those who have not stored anything?

The answer is to remove the faithful people (the wise virgins) from among the foolish. This allows the faithful to reap the benefits of their obedience...while at the same time allowing the foolish to suffer the consequences of their disobedience.

In other words...gather/invite out the faithful/obedient to places of relative safety...which is usually to live in tents.

Examples of this abound in the scriptures and have been mentioned previously. Again, it would make sense that the Lord would so do again in the last days. In fact, Joseph Smith said it was the only way in the last days to be saved temporally:

“In addition to all temporal blessings, there is no other way for the Saints to be saved in these last days, than by gathering...”

An invitation to gather out from among the wicked, including away from those Church members who have not prepared (but who should have) to a separate place...will do so many things. Such a gathering would only include those with true faith in a living prophet. It automatically separates the wheat from the chaff...and gathers the wheat (who have prepared themselves for this time by collecting food storage) into places of relative safety. It takes away from them the problem of having to make the decision to sacrifice the fruits of their obedience with those who were disobedient and rebellious. It then allows the Lord to deal with those same disobedient and wicked people in a manner that will not harm the righteous...because they are not there.

As Lot and his family were gathered out from Sodom and Gomorah so that they would not suffer with the Sodomites their just consequences of their choices...so likewise, those who follow the counsel of the Prophet and Church leaders to flee from Babylon... will avoid the prophesied catastrophes.

THERE IS NO MINCING OF WORDS HERE. I BELIEVE ALL OF THIS TO BE GOOD PRINCIPLE AND COMPLETELY IN HARMONY WITH THE LORD'S TEACHINGS OF PREPAREDNESS, JUSTICE, MERCY, AND THE SIFTING OF THE WHEAT AND THE TARES.