The Flaxen Cord Effect

The Flaxen Cord Effect

 

Do we really believe that we can spin transgression or sin into a plea deal with the Lord when judgment and sentencing time comes? That there is a way we can somehow demonstrate to Him that we were Morally Immoral or Immorally Moral? Righteously Unrighteous or Unrighteously Righteous? Lawfully Unlawful or Unlawfully Lawful? Just look around, the answer is yes, we do! However awkwardly those ideas may work out, they describe perfectly the spirit of our times, our zeitgeist and the dominating characteristics of our local and world culture. We do seem to believe our personal brand of immorality is moral because we think it so in our uniquely situated existence. We do believe in our world time and setting that there is some way to be unrighteous in a way that the Lord looks upon it as righteous when weighted against other people and times. That His laws are fungible and pliable enough to be molded into our lives in a way that He will uphold our misdeeds and look the other way when considering just judgment. Do we not unitedly seem to imagine that God’s judgment will be a weighted against our own perception of truth? We cannot live and behave a “to each their own” existence and have as our governing norm a thought that there is no universal or absolute set of moral principles and expect that God’s grace will take up the slack and be the adjustment we need for salvation in the end. It will be the standards passed along by prophets through holy writ that will serve as the bar against which we are measured.  The standards through each generation of time are invariable, they do not change. 

 

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians advises “for now we see through a mirror, darkly, but then face to face.”(RE 1 Corinthians 1:53) One implication being that our current assessment of ourselves is inaccurate but will someday be repaired by God so that we see clearly. Our continued alignment with a doomed world and our studied ignorance will not serve well when that day comes. “Ignorance and hell,” says Denver Snuffer, “go hand in hand. The loss or failure to retain truth is the chains of hell.”    

 

We seemingly live in a world that fits comfortably into Nephi’s conversation with an angel:

“…Yea, and there shall be many which shall say, Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die and it shall be well with us. And there shall also be many which shall say, Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God, he will justify in committing a little sin. Yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor, there is no harm in this. And do all these things, for tomorrow we die. And if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Yea, and there shall be many which shall teach after this manner false, and vain, and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord…” (RE 2 Nephi 12:1)

 

Ultimately the path we’re on has been marked by Luci, short for Lucifer.

            “For he is the foundation of all these things, yea, the foundation of murder and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord until he bindeth them with his strong cords for ever.”(RE 2 Nephi 11:15)  That’s the flaxen cord effect!

 

However, there’s another choice – as described by Eliza R. Snow in the hymn How Great the Wisdom and the Love – “He marked the path and led the way, And every point defines. To light and life and endless day Where God’s full presence shines.”

 

Take that path, it’s better.

 

Signed 

 

John The-Not-So-Beloved