On the safe side

When the Savior ministered among the Nephites, He taught them this important lesson:

"Verily, verily I saw unto you, yet must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation, for Satan desireth to have you that he may sift you as wheat." (3 Ne. 18:18).

And when Paul wrote to the Thessalonians concerning the great apostasy and the reign of wickedness on the earth, he said that the evil one will oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God or is worshipped. He said the devil will work with "all power, and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness."

The result will be that many will revel in sin, and will be led by a "strong delusion that they should believe a lie," and that all who find pleasure in unrighteousness, will be damned. (2 Thess. 2:1-12).

We have been told in the scripture that in the last days, preceding Christ's return, conditions will be as they were in the days of Noah, and hence at His appearance, destruction will come upon the wicked as in Noah's day, but not this time by water, rather by fire. (Matt. 24 and Isa. 24).

The earth will be defiled by widespread sin. . "therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left," as Isaiah said.

It was also predicted that there will be a complete separation between the wicked and the righteous, and that the righteous will be protected, even with fire from heaven if that becomes necessary. (D & C 63:54; 1 Ne. 22).

The separation of the righteous from the wicked must of course be a voluntary act on the part of the righteous, who must not and will not take part in the sins of mankind. They must live their religion, worshipping the Christ, despite all the pressures of the world. In other words, we must not be of the world, although we live in the world.

Worldliness increases by the day, by the hour. It is beyond even the imagination of the righteous. The increase of crime, the avalanche of deceit and dishonesty, the vast spread of immorality, all reveal the advance of wickedness.

Who, for example, would have thought that, as the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee says, one in every six people in San Francisco is homosexual? It is estimated by that newspaper (Dec. 4, 1977) that in that one city alone there are about 150,000 such people that there are 18 million of them in America.

The righteous must recognize that there is to be a separation of the followers of the Lord from the wicked. They cannot—and must not—partake of the sins of Babylon, let they also partake of her plagues.

They must recognize too that only they themselves can bring about this separation. The Lord will not take away their free agency. The believers must exercise it—and choose the right.

AS PRESIDENT George Albert Smith used to say so often: Stay on the Lord's side of the line! That becomes the point of separation.