My Talk in Sacrament Meeting

[Jonathan Scott]

Honoring the Law

Jacob 4:10

When I was a child, I really wanted to learn how to read.  So, I begged my Mom to teach me.  Day after day, I would go to her and she would work with me with flash cards and children's books.  I was very young, so I don't remember these events well, but I do remember them some.  They were very happy experiences.

My Dad was a heavy smoker.  So, luckily for us, there were always cigarette boxes lying around the house that my Mom could use to make flash cards from.  We had a good time.

When I was about 13, I overheard my Dad telling my Mom that his pay just wasn't enough anymore.  He just couldn't make enough money to pay the bills.  So, my Mom went to work as a screen printer.  Because of this, when we came home from school, no one was there anymore.

When I was a child, my mother was always there.  And it was very nice.  When I was a teenager, my mother wasn't there nearly as much.  It was a lot sadder.  My Mom had eight children, so, it wasn't just sad.  It just wasn't enough.  We really needed her there when we got home.

My talk today is on honoring the law.  To begin, I'm going to read a scripture from the Book of Mormon.

Jacob 4:10

10 Wherefore, brethren, seek not to ^acounsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in ^bwisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.

The speakers in general conference speak a lot about this theme.  They always show some person who chooses to not follow wise counsel.  Then they show the consequences that person has to endure because of their disobedience.

In October Conference of last year, there were two talks that stuck out to me.  The first involved a young boy who chose to walk through a Middle-Eastern desert in just his sandals.  He had been told by his parents to always wear boots when he walked outside.  He chose to ignore the counsel.  He was then stung by a scorpion and for the next several hours, as he travelled to the closest hospital, he and his family thought he would die.

Another talk involved a young rancher who's responsibility it was to keep cows from eating growing wheat.  When cows eat growing wheat, their stomachs can bloat and the cows can die from suffocation.  The speaker then mentioned that one cow managed to break though a fence and eat quite a lot of it before she bloated and died.

When God gives commandments, he doesn't always say why.  And even when He does say why, this doesn't stop some foolish people (myself included) from disobeying the wise counsel, and then suffering the consequences.

I wrote a book last year.  In it, I explained a phenomenon that has occurred in the United States (and worldwide) since the sixties.

In the fifties and sixties our church leaders counseled married women that, whenever possible, they should not work.  No one really listened...except, of course, for some of the people in the church.

Has the world changed since then?  How?  Why?

Here's a graphic I did that tries to illustrate some things that I believe are important.  The men and women pulling ropes are the people who have jobs.  They are each taking a slice of a pie home.  This pie represents the total amount of wages paid to all people within this economy.

This is what the US looked like when I was a kid.  Divorce existed, but it was rare.  When it happened, the fathers paid the mothers alimony.  Fathers went to work and most of the mothers stayed home and took care of the kids.  People weren't rich, but they usually had enough and one income was enough, most of the time.  When it wasn't, the mother would go to work...but it was much rarer than it is today.

Here's the next poster.  It's what the world looks like today.

What do you see?  How are these two posters similar?

Both posters have four families with two children each.  Therefore both economies are the same size.

How are the posters different?

Divorce is now much more common.  In the last poster it is 25%.  In this poster it is 50%.  According to most sociologists, the divorce rate increased because women got jobs.  Because they had jobs, they felt free to leave difficult marriages.

What else do you see?

More jobs are needed in order for this economy to survive.  Because women are working, more jobs are needed.

What else do you see?

The slices of the pie in the center of the poster have to be cut thinner, so that everyone will get a piece.  This makes sense when you consider the law of supply and demand.

The law of supply and demand states that when the supply of a commodity increases, the price for the commodity decreases.  When the demand increases, price increases as well.

For example: If, all of a sudden, a thousand foreigners showed up in Imabari tomorrow and they all started teaching English, I would have to reduce my prices in order to survive.  The supply of English teachers increases, therefore my price has to go down.

If, however, instead of a thousand new teachers, what if the high school entrance exam began to include a section which was verbal?  What if students needed to be able to speak English in order to get into high school?  Demand for English Teachers would increase, and I could raise my prices, if I so chose.  Because the demand increases, I can raise my price.

Before married women entered the workforce they were consumers.  They got money from their husbands and they bought clothes, food, entertainment...etc.  They were in the economy as consumers.  After married women went to work in the sixties and seventies, the supply of workers increased.  Supply increased, but demand didn't.  Because women were consumers before the change and after the change, wages for all workers decreased.

This is why my father one day found that his one single income was no longer enough to support the family.  This is why my mother had to go to work.

My mother spent a lot of time with me when I was young.  I really needed it.  My mother wasn't able to give the same amount of time to my younger siblings.  That's too bad, they needed it too.

There is a lot more to say about these posters.  If you would like to look at them more later, please fell free to.

A young boy walks in sandals in the desert.  It sounds innocent enough.  When the scorpion stung him though, it no longer felt innocent.

A cow wants to eat some wheat.  It sounds innocent enough.  Then, as the wheat begins to make the cow's stomach bloat.  It isn't innocent anymore.

When married women wanted to be able to enjoy the freedom that employment gave them in the sixties and seventies, I'm sure it felt very liberating.  Once the world economy changed though something else happened.

Prices rose.  Families that had two incomes had more money to spend.  As this became more common, businesses increased their prices.  As these prices rose, many mothers who did not wish to, had to go and get jobs.  This is what happened in my family.

The big problem comes when you consider single mothers.  Single mothers do not have a second breadwinner in their family to help them out.  Therefore, poverty levels increased.  And many people have been forced into homelessness.  Divorce rates have also grown.  Employment may still feel free and liberating to some women, but I'm certain it feels much less liberating to others.

God gives us commandments for our protection.  If we obey the commandments we've received, we will enjoy peace and safety...even if it doesn't feel like peace and safety sometimes.

I'm sure the young boy who walked in the desert with sandals on, had he chosen not to walk might have felt very confined by the strict rules his parents had given him.  He was safe and he had peace.  The safety and peace just didn't feel good to him.  But, nonetheless, he was safe and had more peace than when he chose to walk outside in just sandals.

The cow, had she chosen to not eat the wheat, probably would have continued to feel like eating it.  She probably would have looked at that wheat all day long wishing she could go over and try some.  Had she not eaten the wheat, she would not have felt peaceful...but she would have had more peace that if she chose to eat the wheat.

I sometimes think about Laman and Lemuel from the Book of Mormon.  The entire time they travelled with Nephi and Lehi to the promised land, all they really wanted was to go home and enjoy their father's money.  They wanted to go back and go on with the lifestyles they once had.  Their desire for that lifestyle drove them crazy to the point where they tried to kill their brother, several times, in order to go home.

The thing Laman and Lemuel never realized was that the alternative they wanted to pursue did not exist.  There was no way they could return to Jerusalem, get back their father's money, and resume their old lifestyles.  Laban had stolen all of that money from them.  And even if they somehow had managed to get that money back, it would not have mattered.  Jerusalem had been destroyed.  It had been invaded and burned to the ground.  Their friends were all either dead or enslaved.  The shops and restaurants they wanted to go to were certainly no longer in business.

The desire they thought about so heavily all of those years as they travelled was pure fiction.  All their intense desire did was drive them to wickedness.  That's it.  All the desire did was turn their lives into misery.

What do you do?  How do you deal with a strong foolish relentless desire within you that is pushing you to disobey God's laws?  I've been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of decades.  It's not easy.  It's the hardest thing in the world sometimes.

Really, the only solution is faith.  You need to have enough faith in God's decisions and God's love to know, without a doubt, that what you are currently going through is what God knows you currently need to go through...for the sake of your own spiritual and perhaps even temporal welfare.  You need to have enough faith to push aside your own desires and lean on God's will.

Your desire may never fully disappear.  But, you can certainly find ways to live with it until the day comes when you can see exactly why God has asked you to do the things you have done.  Then, when you can see why, your own desires should drop off of you naturally.

Obey God's law.  Especially when you don't understand why you need to.  Pray for God's witness that obedience is needed and then once you have it, obey...even when you don't understand why.  Your obedience, in the end, will be much more important to you than you could ever realize.

I say these things in Jesus' name, Amen.