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.