So much of the insecurity felt in life is due to how decisions are made. It is possible to make decisions in such a way as to free you from doubt.
You can know what is right and what is wrong with absolute surety. The key is to understand how you should decide and when to reconsider what you’ve already decided.
Good and evil
Good, in a scriptural sense, means that which improves you. Nothing more, and nothing less. What is evil? Evil, in a scriptural sense, means that which degrades you. Nothing more, and nothing less.
While these definitions are simple, they are powerful, and their implications are tremendous in impact and eternal significance. To know whether something is good is quite simple, as long as you know these definitions.
How do you tell good from evil? You use “the Spirit of Christ [which] is given to every man, that he may know good from evil.” (Moroni 7:16) This is your conscience, your individual repository of light. It is your sincere understanding of what improves and what degrades.
The difference between good and bad is a matter of information . The more information you have, or the greater your awareness of reality, the better the decisions you can make. While anyone can make the proper decisions within the scope of information they possess, not everyone has the same degree of information. To obtain a life of abundant joy, you must learn everything you can about reality. An abundant life requires abundant information. While the two great commandments (love God and love your neighbor) are simple, the degree to which you can apply them depends on the depth of your understanding of reality. What it means to live these commandments will differ for all people depending on their degree of awareness.
As you wend through life, your awareness will increase to the degree that you seek for more understanding and live true to what you already know. At every stage, you must be careful in how you judge between good and evil.
Find the things that bring you more joy than you have. Choose actions that optimize improvement. For every action, consider:
- What are the consequences of this action? Though the accuracy and expanse of your understanding of consequences can (and should) grow over the course of your life, and though they will enable you to affect much greater good, the question itself does not change. Your capacity can grow or diminish, but the question remains the same.
- Will this action benefit? Your understanding of benefit can and should grow as you learn and apply more truth. From day one, however, you can and should adopt this as your criteria of choice in all things. Another growth area is to learn to measure benefit globally: to truly value the benefit of others as you do benefit to yourself.
You should record and remember your reasons so that when challenges come you can resist them. Make a list of the pros and cons when you made the decision. Write it down on paper. Write a pro and a con column, and write out everything you can think of, then make your decision, considering only what is written on the list.
By focusing on defined pros and cons, you may be shocked to realize just how influential your desires are. You see, as humans we are very apt at coming up with reasons for why we do what we do after the fact. In other words, we are very good at pretending to be rational, but this is almost never our means of deciding. Remember that human nature doesn’t produce good desires. Our natural desires will always lead to something less than what God could provide. Our rational capability is the tool God has provided for us to overcome our natural desire on the one hand, all the while increasing our knowledge for future decisions. Confining yourself to what is on the written list will help you detect and overcome your natural desires.
Even when overcome in the moment of decision, desires have a way of growing back over time. The typical way of dealing with this is to change our minds and invent reasons why we did. The list will provide a record of why you chose what you did. When the doubts come, you can check your list. If there is no new information, you can throw out those doubts. If there is new information, you can consider it in conjunction with everything on your list. If you go by that method, and you pick what benefits the most, you will never be led astray.
If you are making decisions properly, you should be able to provide material reasons for exactly how they benefit. Under this framework, there need be no doubt that you are making the best decision you can. Under this framework, the best choice will be clear, you will be able to identify the rare circumstances where all options are equally beneficial, and you will also have a ready way to address any new information that may appear.
Pain and sorrow aren’t always bad
Many people act as if pain and sorrow were universally bad. They do so selectively, of course, as pain and sorrow tend to be ignored when the decision that generates them aligns with natural desires. Regardless, the idea that bad is what hurts and good is what feels good is supremely foolish. Those who adopt it will choose to interact with the world in a way that permanently and severely reduces the joy, happiness, and material blessings they can obtain in life.
Even the briefest consideration would show that the meaning of good and bad is not as simple as what feels good and what hurts.
Sorrow is not universally bad. Many painful things are considered good and are not only endured with joy, but sought for: childbirth; training for a successful vocation; weeding a garden. No one chides a mourner at a funeral, and almost every worthwhile thing in life requires toil.
Pleasure is likewise not always good. Many pleasurable things are considered bad, such as taking addictive drugs. Happiness, when based on something false, always ends up causing more pain in the long run than joy in the short term.
Pain and sorrow are not always bad, and pleasure and happiness are not always good. How do we determine when they are good and when they are bad?
The Lord taught that the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, those who are merciful, those who are peacemakers, and those who are persecuted are all in a blessed state:
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. (Matthew 5)
In providing these sayings, Jesus is inviting us to reframe our experience.
How can it be that states of suffering can be referred to by Jesus as states of blessing? Because of the outcomes they provide. These particular ways of suffering yield the kingdom of heaven, comfort, inheritance of the earth, fulfillment, mercy, etc. These are blessings, indeed.
Jesus charges us to consider ourselves benefitted from God when we experience these conditions and qualities. He’s charging us to have joy and happiness that derives solely from our adherence to him and our application of his teachings in our actions, thoughts, and desires, no matter what our external circumstances may be.
In the scriptures, focusing on improvement is called living after the manner of happiness (see 2 Nephi 5:27). It is synonymous with being spiritually-minded (see 2 Nephi 9:39). It is opposite to wickedness (intentionally acting against your sincere understanding of what is right) and being carnally-minded (seeking immediate pleasure for yourself vs. long-term benefit for all):
5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (Romans 8)
Notice how what improves is typically not what feels good in the moment. You shouldn’t conflate happiness and pleasure. “He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.” (Proverbs 21:17) Pleasure is fleeting. It is often short-sighted and selfish. It is inherently fixed on the here and now.
Pain and sorrow are only bad when they result from the consequences of ignorance of God or disobedience to him. Pleasure and happiness are good so long as they occur as a result of adhering to God.
No decision should be final
Information is infinite. Your ability to obtain and process it is finite. The more serious the decision, the less likely it is that you will have all the related information, even when you apply all effort possible to obtain it. However, by listing pros and cons, you can guarantee that the decisions you make are the best you can make, and this is what is required to feel confidence, peace, and contentment in spite of your imperfect knowledge.
Given your imperfect knowledge, you should anticipate situations where new information presents itself. This means that no decision should be final. This is a scary proposition for most people because most people derive fleeting security from illusory things such as past decisions. For example, people get married in part because of the security they find in someone saying “I do.” The problem is that some 75% of marriages end in divorce. By mere statistics, marriage is most likely not going to last, yet people pretend it will.
Jesus taught that we should not make oaths, but rather let our “communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” (Matthew 5:37) Why? Because our understanding of what benefits is guaranteed to change if we seek God, who will teach us a more accurate understanding of reality. This is why James said:
But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. (James 5:12)
Security does not come from human promises, no matter how sacred and inviolable they seem. God provides the one and only form of surety: strength of character. If you find someone who is trustworthy, their entire lives will provide an integral testament that they, like God, always do only those things that are for the benefit of the world (see 2 Nephi 26:24). While you won’t find a person who has the same amount of knowledge as God, it is possible to find a person who consistently makes decisions the same way, and anyone who does less than this is as unreliable as anyone else you come across, no matter how sure their promises seem. Jesus knew this during his mortal ministry, and it is why he would not lean on even his apparently most devoted disciples even during their most zealous display of worship (see John 2:25).
Understand that nothing is final. While no one says they think they know everything there is to know, almost everyone acts as if they do. If you believe that the decisions you’ve made are final and should never be reconsidered, you must also believe that you know all there is to know. If you don’t know all there is to know, you must also consider that there may exist sufficient information currently unknown to you that would change your mind.
There is always something more to know, and knowing more will always change how you see things. If you are learning and growing, it will not be infrequent for you to see something as good that you used to see as bad and vice versa. If you haven’t recently reconsidered your previous perspective on a major topic, chances are you have a lot to gain by becoming more open-minded and less sure of what you think you know.
New information changes things
When you get new information, there are two typical responses.
The first is to ignore the new information, acting as if it doesn’t affect what you already decided. If your decision was rational—that is, based on facts and intelligence—then it necessarily was both based on information and subject to new information. If you don’t incorporate the new information into your previous decision, your decision—whether rational at first or not—is now necessarily irrational . You now have no guarantee that your course of action is the best way for you to obtain more joy and happiness.
The second typical way people respond to new information is by ignoring all previous information. In this case, the typical situation is that the new information comes as a surprise and in the context of intense emotion. Intense emotion has the effect of dimming the strength of the mind. In this case, people who are surprised with new information tend to forget the thought process they went through when they made the original decision. New information must be evaluated with prior information in order to make a rational choice.
There is a better way. When you get new information, find your list that you used when you made your decision. Add the information to the list. Try to be as impartial as possible when integrating your expanded view of things.
Be willing both to make a completely different decision and to hold fast to what you previously decided. Both choices are attached to powerful psychological forces that have to be intentionally resisted. When we have made a difficult decision and face opposition, we will be tempted to overweigh any new information that detracts from our decision, because it would be easier (but not better) for us to decide differently than we have.
Challenges
Challenges will come with every important decision you make. The challenges will be as difficult as the decision is important, every time. Here is a sampling of what you can expect:
Confusion . You will forget the reasons for your decision. You will feel anxious or guilty because you have to recreate the reasons you had for the decision, and they won’t be as good as the original reasons which you’ve forgotten. This is why it is essential to write down your reasons.
People. When people disagree with your decision, they will judge you and persecute you. You might start losing confidence in your actions. You can minimize their effect by treating them as a source of new information. If they have reasons for how they feel, you can incorporate those reasons into your list. If they are significant, you should change your mind. If they aren’t, then their words, actions, and feelings should not bother you.
Distractions . Life requires you to get busy with other things, which might cause you to forget how massively important these things are. You have to keep your priorities sorted. Left to normal life, even matters of life and death become secondary to less important things: here and now takes precedence over clear, long-term benefit; spiritual progression takes a back seat to what others will think of us, and so on. When you make your decision, also write out why your decision matters and the outcomes you expect because of it. This is something that can provide you great strength against the tendency of life to distract you, as well as a safety valve to get out of a bad decision. When new information suggests that your decision will lead to an outcome significantly worse than what you expected, it is a likely sign that you are now able to replace your previous choice with a better one.
Light reveals darkness
Every time we take a step towards something better, we learn more than we knew before. The revelation of this knowledge will always include increased awareness of what is incomplete or incorrect in ourselves, because we are not yet perfect.
When you turn a light on in a dark room, you see things you didn't see before. The light does not make things good or bad. Rather, it reveals details that were not previously known, and these details reveal what is good and what is bad.
In scriptural vernacular, every time light is dispensed, it reveals darkness. You get to decide how you react to that revelation.
It is very unusual for humans to react with joy to the opportunity to know more about the darkness inside themselves:
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3)
If you truly want to improve—if you truly want greater joy and happiness—you must also develop a love of correction. The path to greater joy and happiness will always include a greater understanding of what you lack.
Unfortunately, almost all people will turn away from opportunities to learn more about themselves. They do not want to be good, which requires change. Instead, they want to feel good, which is all about avoiding evidence that they aren’t actually good.
No one would proclaim that they hate improvement. Instead, the way this attitude manifests itself is through one’s feelings and actions. People tend to hate having their choices, actions, beliefs, and words questioned. They hate when others point out something better than what they do. They want to fit in. They want to please others. They don’t want to be different. They don’t want to fight conventional wisdom. They don’t want to deny their base desires.
When you make good decisions, you are choosing to fight against human nature. When you decide to improve, you should be prepared for the opposition that will come. Before, during, and after good decisions, you will be subjected to powerful forces within and without that will challenge your decision.
Most do not want to know more than they do. They prefer to remain in their previous blindness. They respond to the gift of light by squinting their eyes shut. They decide against the light because they do not like the evil it reveals in them. After this rejection in their hearts, they create reasons in their minds to justify their decision. These reasons rarely make sense. In fact, they typically are so inconsistent and illogical that even a child could pull them apart. But they don't see it themselves, because in their embrace of darkness they have inadvertently lost a portion of the light they previously possessed.
Some few love the light. They love when they are shown how they can be better. Some of them react this way for a while, perhaps for a few iterations of greater light. Very, very few will endure everything God shows them, step by step, until there is no darkness left. When there is no darkness left, you have eradicated all the barriers to receiving God's light in you. It is only at this point that your eye is single to the glory of God. It is only at this point that you have withheld nothing from God. It is only in this state that you can overcome all things and receive all things that God offers. It is only through this path that you can encounter what we all seek deep down inside: eternal happiness.
We can choose how we act, think, feel, and believe. We can't choose where those choices lead us. Where those choices lead us is predetermined and fixed by eternal law declared before this world was created. Almost everyone will receive far less than what they desire, because they are unwilling to walk the path that leads to the fulfillment of those desires.
There is no fault in not knowing the way. However, everything needed has been provided in and through Christ who said he was the way. The fault comes in turning away from the way when it is offered to you because you think you know better than God. You think that it isn't really necessary to submit to his wisdom, mercy, and love:
O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. (2 Nephi 9:28)
Perhaps you reject the gift because it comes in a wrapper that doesn't fit your preconceived notions. Regardless, for the vast majority of humankind, the judgment will contain the phrase: “you received what you were willing to receive, though far greater things were offered you. This is the situation you have chosen.”
It is upon this hinge that all of salvation rests: how will you respond when the light shows the darkness that remains in you?
As long as someone is living according to the light they previously received, there is no way of knowing ahead of time how someone will react to greater light. The only way is to give it. This is part of the price paid by those with greater light. They continuously reach out knowing that almost all of the time their efforts will be rewarded with pain, hatred, and persecution from those they love. They do it anyway.
Turning away from a correct decision
We think we are quite clever. We come up with sophisticated plays to turn away from truth in such a way as to hide what we are really doing and why we are doing it from ourselves and others, as we suppose. It turns out that these clever ideas are anything but. In fact, they are so common that the patterns can be described specifically.
Preferring emotional arguments to rational arguments. When we prefer emotional arguments to rational arguments, we say “I will disregard your valid argument that proves my position incorrect but will favor how I feel instead.” Turning away from rational arguments is turning away from the light within us and turning away from God.
God is a god of reason. Nothing he asks us to do is arbitrary. There is always a reason, and usually multiple reasons.
Feelings should not play as important a role in your decision making as they do for most people. Feelings are not trustworthy. Feelings can be dead wrong. You can feel very bad about a good decision, and feel very good about a bad decision. This is so well known in psychology that they even have a name for when you feel bad about good things. “Cognitive dissonance” describes the painful state you encounter when you have learned something true that disproves something you previously believed.
Feelings can be useful, but they are always subordinate to reason. Your feelings are subordinate to your mind, not the other way around.
In rational decision making, you have to learn to isolate your feelings and realize that you are much more than your feelings. Put another way, while we should not ignore our feelings, we should see them only as just another information source instead of the overwhelming, consummate source of information. As a practical example, instead of considering your feelings as all encompassing, consider them as you would some data point you got out of reading an article on a topic relevant to your decision.
If you can’t explain your actions with rational argument, you should not be confident in your choice. Any feeling—no matter how strong—ought to be subject to reason.
One key to seeing when you are actuated by feelings instead of rational reasons is that you start to believe you will magically receive outcomes that have no logical expectation of being realized. You will not be able to describe a coherent path from where you are now to what you expect to receive.
Any reasons ought to take precedence over any feelings. God never asks us to act based on a feeling, unless the intended action is to search for reasons. If you don’t have any reasons, find some or refuse to take a position.
Some without reasons will say something like “I just need to listen to my heart.” Remember that a person’s heart by default is evil continually (see, for example, Genesis 6:5). Would you bet your life on a compass that you know is regularly wrong when only slight deviations are sufficient to get you completely off course? This is the whole reason we need God—our default understanding is insufficient to lead us to happiness.
It is certainly possible to have accurate feelings that lead to a better place. The problem with feelings is that the bad ones will always be louder than the good ones. Doing what is right is more often painful than blissful, at least at first.
In order to favor emotional argument, one must ignore one or more rational arguments. If you find yourself responding to a rational argument by saying, “yeah but,” chances are you have already made your choice, you’ve made it based on feelings, and you have made your choice contrary to reason and contrary to God.
Turning from what you know. Some people directly ignore what they previously knew. This is what the Lord was describing when he said:
...No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:62)
Turning away from rational argument is no light thing. At this point, critical thinking has ceased. Instead of seeking for what is right, the person begins maneuvering to feel right given the decision they’ve already made. They are looking to rationalize their behavior, not evaluate options for how to behave.
When we turn away from something we know, something changes in us. Enough of our conscience remains that we recognize light, but we have devolved enough to be repulsed by what we know is right. Our decisionmaking ability is in a crisis, and what we do next will be critical. Typically, once the first step is taken, the rest tends to happen without explicit thought. It is never too late to turn back to what is right, but the longer we wait, the harder it will be and the less likely we will be to do what is required, as we already proved ourselves unwilling to do little and now we must do much more than that.
When you turn away from God’s light, you darken your mind. You blind yourself to seeing what ought to be obvious. You cripple your ability to make wise choices. You become “past feeling” because you have closed the channel through which God can instruct you. Being “past feeling” means that things that should be sufficient to persuade you will be insufficient for you. For example, if an angel were to appear, it should be convincing to say the least. Yet those past feeling are blind even to tremendous evidence:
Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words... (1 Nephi 17:45)
What does this look like in practice? Do you know any person like this, a person who has removed themselves from any form of persuasion due to their unbelief? A person who is so stuck in their ways that they absolutely hate all forms of correction? A person who rages at the thought of something they do not agree with? A person who is so prideful that their self-identity is completely coupled to their belief system, and therefore they can't modify any part of it without risking ego death? A person who lashes out against those who clearly love them and would do anything for them? Who punishes and abuses people they previously cared about without any change in the recipient’s behavior?
When we suspend our allegiance to the voice of our conscience, we damage its capacity in every other aspect of our lives. The scriptures use the phrase “dwindle in unbelief” to describe the loss of discernment that happens when someone willingly turns from something they know is true, and it is an accurate descriptor because we become less than what we previously were and we believe in God less than we used to. Turning from the truth makes you a liar. It makes you a hypocrite. It wounds your conscience:
1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; (1 Timothy 4)
Turning away from one thing makes it more likely for you to do something worse, because you are dimming the light inside you making it harder for you to see the right course of action in any given situation. Thus, turning away tends to be cyclical process—a downward spiral—and not a once-off.
Those who turn away from what they know is right will soon after find themselves violating their principles: “...Behold, thou knowest the wickedness of this people; thou knowest that they are without principle, and past feeling...” (Moroni 9:20) They alienate themselves from God:
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. (Ephesians 4)
King David provides an unfortunate example of what happens when we turn from what we know. Upon learning Bathsheba was married, David should have left her alone. But he didn't. He turned away from what his conscience told him. Doing so opened the door to greater sin, because it dimmed the light within him, making it possible for him to do worse than he otherwise would have. David never would have considered arranging for Uriah's death if he hadn't first turned away from what he knew to be right in seeking Bathsheba after learning she was married.
Rejecting just one thing the Lord tells you brings you out of alignment with God until or unless you repent. Jesus atoned for the sins committed in ignorance, and while he also provides the ability for you to be forgiven of every deliberate sin you forsake, he will not save you while you willfully rebel against him.
Normal people struggle to outwardly admit full rebellion from what they know is right, even after they have already internally made the decision to rebel. You can tell you are turning away from the truth when something has sufficient rational arguments to seem good, but you find it repulsive. You will try to create new reasons for what you have already decided. For example, if someone decides to leave their partner but doesn’t have selfless reasons for doing so, they will try to anger them so that they have a reason for what they already decided.
The more they damage their conscience by taking small steps toward what they know is wrong, the easier it will be to surface the ugly motives they have deep down inside. It is a pattern that is so common that you can correctly predict the future when you see the starting steps down the path. You can know how a person feels even before they do.
Keeping your pro and con list will help protect yourself against turning from what you know. You are accountable for acting in complete alignment with your most sincere idea of God's character as applied to your life.
Sorrow for consequences. When we make poor decisions, we encounter poor outcomes. Sometimes people who choose what they know is wrong will retain sufficient light to notice bad things are happening as a result of their choices. This is not the same as regretting what they chose.
Negative consequences suggest you should change, but they don’t make you change. People can regret the consequences of their actions without regretting their actions. Sorrow is not repentance. Laman and Lemuel sorrowed deeply for their sins when severely chastised on multiple occasions. Did they actually change? They did not.
People can choose how they react to an invitation to repent. Most ignore it completely. Some react with sorrow, but not because they love God more than they did previously. Rather, their reaction is driven by their desire to avoid the consequence of sin. They want to feel good, not be good. Any attempt at being good will always make you feel bad , until or unless you change and align your actions and beliefs with what you understand is right.
Surface-level sorrowing is described in the scriptures as the “sorrowing of the damned”:
10 And it came to pass that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity, and began to cry even as had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet; for behold no man could keep that which was his own, for the thieves, and the robbers, and the murderers, and the magic art, and the witchcraft which was in the land.
11 Thus there began to be a mourning and a lamentation in all the land because of these things, and more especially among the people of Nephi.
12 And it came to pass that when I, Mormon, saw their lamentation and their mourning and their sorrow before the Lord, my heart did begin to rejoice within me, knowing the mercies and the long suffering of the Lord, therefore supposing that he would be merciful unto them that they would again become a righteous people.
13 But behold this my joy was vain, for their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin.
14 And they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die. Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives. (Mormon 2)
Those who experience the sorrow of the damned may go through great lengths to feign repentance. When King Saul sinned in disobeying God's direct command to kill all the living things in the kingdom of the Amalekites, Saul tried to defend his disobedience by saying he had spared the best to sacrifice to the Lord:
17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel?
18 And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.
19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?
20 And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal.
22 And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.
25 Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord.
26 And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. (1 Samuel 15)
A person's sacrifice does not matter. It doesn't matter if someone says they are sorry or weeps or does extreme things in response to their realization that they have sinned. What matters is if they are now willing to obey God. This is the only sacrifice that God is interested in: the heart of the person.
You can tell when someone is sorrowing unto repentance when they forsake their sins. They'd rather die than do it again. For example, a group of murderers repented, buried their weapons of war, and chose to die rather than to take up arms again (see Alma 24).
Real repentance is a matter of the heart. When a person really repents, they change their core. If their sin is caused by selfishness, for example, they stop being selfish. They fix the problem, not the symptoms of it.
This manifests in all the outward behaviors that are in any way relevant to the core problem. When someone repents only at the surface level, they may change a specific behavior or two, but you will see that their hearts are not changed because the same core problem will continue to manifest in other behaviors.
If someone's repentant behavior changes back once the external stimulus is removed, then they have not truly repented. If they repeat their sin in any way, they have not truly repented.
Exercise extreme care with those who only surface-repent. Their hearts are not only still capable of the sins they previously committed, but they are now capable of worse sin. They are in the turbulent position of having a worse character while simultaneously thinking their character has improved. These people will continue flailing in the dark towards offenses that were previously unthinkable for them to commit. Make sure you don’t put yourself in their path.
Escalating warnings. All of us have access to the spirit of the Lord, which tells us the difference between right and wrong through our conscience. When we offend this often subtle source, we must rely on signs in this world to help us see where we have been foolish, as we have placed ourselves beyond the ability to notice it for ourselves.
Typically, the signs that we’ve made a mistake include awful afflictions and trials sent to us from a God that loves us enough to carefully expose us to the consequences of our rebellious and foolish actions in hopes that we will repent. Most times, the rebellious will be blind to these afflictions, blaming them on others or pretending that they are just unlucky. This is called "kicking against the pricks."
Sometimes, God sends human messengers to us in obvious and nonobvious ways to snap us out of our rebellion. While the spirit speaks in a still, small, easily-offended voice, God's servants have “faces like flint.” They do not care who they offend. They pay the price, having exercised exceeding mercy beyond what the spirit can in obtaining and delivering God's word in plainness and boldness, in hopes that their intercession— which almost always results in rejection and persecution—will help the person who is persisting in rebellion.
Ripe in iniquity. When a person repeatedly chooses against what they believe is right, they come to a point where not even the intervention of God or his servants can help them. To become “ripe in iniquity” or reach a “fulness of iniquity” means to hate what improves so much that nothing can convince you to accept it. It is to cut oneself off from any teaching, any chastisement, and any improvement. At this point, those in this condition have offended their conscience, God’s spirit, and God’s servants so thoroughly that they can outright reject an invitation for something that is clearly better. People in this stage are devoid of reason. They will say and do things so absurd that it will bring into question their very sanity. They will embrace depravity in equal and opposite quantity to the light they previously had. They will walk away from promising careers, destroy previously stable marriages, embrace addiction, and engage in all manner of sin.
We live in a time where this condition is much more common than it should be. You may think this condition is rare. Consider this: our modern culture has popularized and glamorized the idea that reality is just a social construct. On things large and small, our modern culture insists that whatever vain imagination we have can be just as real as reality itself, and in many cases it is held as more real. Every single step in this direction—every little belief persisted in this spirit—moves a person into greater darkness and cuts them off more fully from any hope of reaching them. No matter how subtle this march may seem, it all has the same outcome. Small doses of poison will still kill a person over time, and the more doses the quicker it comes.
There comes a point where a person constrains God’s means of helping them so thoroughly that the only tool he has left is to turn them over to the full weight of the consequences of their choices, a situation called “the buffetings of Satan” in the scriptures. When does this happen? When mercy ceases to benefit. This happens when, for example:
- The person's prolonged behavior will break God's promises. For instance, the Lamanites who tried to kill Ammon were instead killed because God had promised to preserve his life (see Alma 17).
- When the unpaid debt of justice has built up to a point where postponing it further would make God unjust. This happened, for example, when Abigail’s righteousness so exceeded Nabal's that God killed Nabal to both free her from his oppression and to clear the path for her to have a righteous husband (David, see 1 Samuel 25).
- When the continuous and deepening wickedness of the person has caused them to remove themselves from the channels God could use to reach them, such as when the wicked cast out the righteous from their cities, cutting themselves off from the only source they have to hear God's correcting voice, having long ago offended his spirit to the point of being past feeling it.
Sometimes, the consequences of their choices include an ignominious death, as when Saul was killed in battle, when Korihor was trampled, or when Jezebel was eaten by dogs.
You don’t have forever to figure it out. There is a point where it is too late. Many blessings have an appointed time and place. Sometimes, it is too late to attain what you could have had.
The example of Saul is illustrative of time-constrained consequences. Saul was anointed king over Israel, but because of his disobedience and rebellion, he was deposed and replaced.
1 Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel,
2 Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel...
3 ...And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.
4 And all Israel heard say that Saul had smitten a garrison of the Philistines, and that Israel also was had in abomination with the Philistines. And the people were called together after Saul to Gilgal.
5 And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude....
6 When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.
7 And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.
8 And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him.
9 And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.
10 And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him.
11 And Samuel said, What hast thou done? And Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered themselves together at Michmash;
12 Therefore said I, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication unto the Lord: I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering.
13 And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever.
14 But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee. (1 Samuel 13)
Similarly, Saul sought the life of David, who righteously fled from him and would not fight back. Saul’s murderous intent incurred the penalty of his own death. Saul repeatedly tried to kill David (who was not only innocent, but was also the Lord's anointed and also repeatedly forgave Saul by sparing his life when David had the chance to justifiably kill him). Ironically, David did not kill Saul because Saul was also anointed by the Lord. All of these factors worked together to cause an irreversible decree from heaven: Saul would surely die due to his crimes and David's consistent righteousness. The Lord's justice could no longer be withheld.
No matter how blind you choose to be, there will come a day when you are shown in undeniable plainness how often God reached out for you, and you would not listen. You will see the price that has been paid for you by the Lord Jesus so that you could have a way out of your sins. You will see the price paid by his servants when they tried again and again to put the weight of your sin on their own backs to give you yet another chance to repent. You will be shown in undeniable plainness the blessings that were prepared for and offered you but that you refused to receive. In that day, you will find yourself in a hell you have prepared for yourself, an awful jail cell of your own creation.
Turning away from better things is a behavior that has far reaching consequences. It will suck the joy out of your entire life, far beyond the bounds you suppose the decision is limited to.
Inspect your life for willful disobedience and purge it from yourself. Do not allow yourself to believe the lie that your surface repentance is sufficient. Come to Jesus Christ with all your heart, might, mind, and strength, and be truly healed of your weakness through the things he will teach you. Expose all of your darkness to his light, and rejoice in the cleansing burning it brings.