REPENT NOW!
[Talk was given by Elder John E. Enslen to approximately 400 fellow missionaries in the chapel of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, at a weekly mission devotional of the Family and Church History Mission located in Salt Lake City, Utah, from 8:05 a.m. to 8:25 a.m. on Monday, April 12, 2010. Following an expression of appreciation to the choir for a beautiful rendition of “Jesus, The Very Thought of Thee,” the audience was addressed as follows:]
I am truly thankful to our wonderful mission presidency for this special privilege. I have prayed that my use of your valuable time may be justified, and I readily acknowledge the need for your silent prayers.
I believe this is the very talk I would give, if it were the very last talk I could give. Some of us will feel that my chosen subject has little, if any, personal application. Almost all of us will feel that the subject is mundane, repetitive, worn out, elementary, even boring.
The two-word subject of my address is “Repent Now!” As I speak, I am very mindful of King Benjamin’s words: I do not “think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind....” (Mosiah 2:10). I find myself often identifying with Nephi: “[M]y heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am!” (2 Ne. 4:17)
The Savior instructed the prophet Joseph: “Say nothing but repentance unto this generation....” (D & C 6:9) It is even appropriate at times to refer to the entire gospel of Jesus Christ as “the gospel of repentance.” (D & C 84:27) Why? Because our need to repent comes into play in the keeping of every commandment. There is no commandment that is disconnected from repentance.
The importance of our need to repent is made clear by these sobering words from Alma:
“Behold, now I say unto you that he commandeth you to repent; and except ye repent, ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” ( Alma 9:12)
While on the earth, the Savior’s personal ministry was a ministry of asking individuals to repent. Can we not internalize his merciful words, “Go and sin no more?” (John 8:11) His most challenging commandment to repent came in these words: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) Since we are commanded to be perfect, any thought (Alma 12:14), word, deed (Mosiah 4:30), or non-deed (James 4:17) that is short of perfection constitutes “sin.” (1 John 5:17)
The standard for human conduct we are under covenant to live is the perfection exemplified by our Savior. Our Savior expects us to strive in this life to attain “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the statue of the fulness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) Such is the “manner of men [we] ought to be.” (3Ne. 27:27)
President Hinckley said:
“Our Father in Heaven…does not expect us to live part of the gospel. He expects us to live all of the gospel.” (Aba, Nigeria, member meeting, as reported in Church News, August 5, 2006, page 2)
I do not believe there is a single person in this room who would say that he or she does not sin and come short of the glory of God. (see Romans 3:23) Can there be a more universal category of humans than “sinners?” But, should we be finding complacency in the fact that everyone else is doing it? I fear that there are among us those who have, in the final years of their probation, surrendered to the idea that they will now be content to accommodate just a little sin here and a little sin there, in our minds relegating certain commandments to an optional status.
I will be so bold as to say that there is not one among us here today who does not have a serious need to repent. I use the word “serious” because there is no sin that is so small or so insignificant that it does not require repentance. Alma taught: “Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point.” (Alma 42:30) “Yea, I say unto you,...lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you….” (Alma 7:15) “[O]bey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness.” (Alma 57:21) “[D]o not risk one more offense against your God….” (Alma 41:9)
We offend God when we justify our pet sins that we are unwilling to forsake. The Lord has said: “I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” (D & C 1:31) Unless we exercise our faith unto repentance, as to those sins to which we doggedly cling, it is “as though there had been no redemption made.” (Moro. 7:38; see also Mosiah 16:5; Alma 12:18)
It is a grave mistake when we fail to ask enough of ourselves or when we turn a blind eye to our own disobedience. When Jesus talked with Moroni face-to-face, he said to him: “[B]ecause thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father. (Ether 12:37) Each time we exercise our faith unto repentance and forsake an un-Christlike tendency, it brings us closer to Christ, who has the power to turn our weaknesses into strengths. (Ether 12:27)
Repenting constantly from a lower level of righteousness is an indispensable element of enduring to the end. Indeed, the concept of eternal progression implies that improving ourselves will be an eternal quest. Each of us has been given a lifetime, customized, self-improvement project—a personalized struggle with our own uniquely imperfect personalities. This mortal test is such that we must work attentively at eliminating the mistakes that spontaneously erupt from simply being our natural selves.
A correct attitude toward repenting was reflected in the words of King Lamoni’s father when he expressed this proper priority: “I will give away all of my sins to know thee.” (Alma 22:18) It is not easy to give away all of our sins. Doing so requires a total absence of pride, rebellion, defiance, arrogance, vanity, haughtiness, hypocrisy, rationalization, self-righteousness, egotism, and self-justification. Although repenting is never easy, the peace we receive is always worth whatever price we must pay.
Procrastinating our repentance makes repentance more difficult and less likely. Scriptures inform us that “this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God.” (Alma 34:32; Alma 12:24) At our advanced age, procrastinating our repentance is fraught with peril. The same spirit of disobedience which doth possess our body at the time we go out of this life will have power to possess our body in the eternal world. (See Alma 3:3)
“Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble?...Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not, ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold, ye must prepare quickly, for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life.” (Alma 5:27-28) The Lord has thus far patiently prolonged our days so that we may fully repent while in the flesh. (2 Nephi 2:21; Helaman 15:4)
Despite some original reluctance, I have decided to close on a purely personal note. I am going to read to you my very first written expression of a testimony of the restored gospel. I handwrote my testimony in the form of a letter in 1973, one week before I was baptized into the Church. I want to preface my reading of the letter with the attendant circumstances.
I was religiously active as a youth. I lived within 15 miles of the Alabama Baptist Headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama. I attended primary, training union, Sunday worship services, and summer youth camps. At the age of 12, I won the state-wide Bible Sword Drill Contest.
At the time I wrote the following letter, no Mormon lived within the jurisdiction of our city, the county seat of a prominent Alabama county. The mission office was situated hundreds of miles away in Tallahassee, Florida.
I was a 26-year-old selfish husband of an angel wife, and the incompetent father of two precious little ones. I had a perverted, highly inflated sense of self-worth that only a native Alabamian or native Texan can fully understand. I had quarterbacked two consecutive undefeated high school football teams.
Within the same month (October 1972), I had completed my military obligation, passed the state bar exam, and hung out my shingle to commence the practice of law. My father was in his first of four six-year terms as Probate Judge and Chairman of the County Commission in our home county of seven generations.
The good example of a fellow officer in the Army, the only Mormon I had ever known, had aroused just enough curiosity that I was willing to let two young men, six years my junior, into our new home. Over a period of a few weeks, their unconditional love had softened me to the point that I had become teachable. The pure doctrines of Christ they taught had provided me with answers to questions that had always bothered me. I had put Moroni’s promise to the test, and the Holy Ghost had confirmed to me the reality of the restoration. Thus, my promising future on the world’s stage had been transformed into a state of life-changing upheaval.
At my mother’s insistence, the preacher had visited Sister Enslen and me, but he could not turn us. My sister checked out of the library two anti-Mormon books, put them in a large envelope, and mailed them to me. I found them laughable, and I did something of which I am terribly ashamed but console myself with the thought that I was technically still a Baptist. I burned the two books, put their ashes into the same envelope, and re-mailed the books in their altered state to my sister, who, of course, had to pay the library for the cost of the two books.
As her last resort, my sweet mama propositioned me with the only enticement that could have possibly diverted me from baptism, and that was not disinheritance. “John,” she said, “if you won’t get baptized just yet, I will sit down and listen to all of the lessons that these young boys have taught you.” The Spirit immediately warned me that she would not listen with real intent and that procrastinating my baptism was the ploy of Satan.
With that prologue, I read my letter.
“To the members of The First Baptist Church of Wetumpka:
The purpose of this letter is to advise you that I wish to humbly withdraw my name from the roster at The First Baptist Church of Wetumpka. I address this to you because I feel I owe you an explanation for my forthcoming absences. I have given countless hours of consideration to my decision to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it is a direct result of intense praying and studying.
Everything earthly has pulled at me to remain with your church. It is the church in which I was reared. It is the church in which I attended Bible school and Royal Ambassadors, and the church in which I first came to know Jesus Christ. It is the church in which I have found sincere fellowship and loyal friendships. It is the church in which I could most easily maintain my social and economic security within the community. But I am now free from those earthly pressures which would prevent my following truth as I have found it.
Were I to remain I could only use your church as a personal forum to express the belief in doctrines which are fundamentally new and different from those taught by your denomination, and I would not do such.
I challenge each of you to embark upon a diligent search for answers to these three questions: (1) Where did I come from? (2) What is the purpose for my being on this earth? (3) Where am I going?
If the answers I have found are true, then you will witness a change in my life. If the answers I have found are a hoax, then I will return to your church without shame, for I am convinced at present with all of my heart, mind, and soul that new dimensions of truth have been revealed to me of which you have not yet heard, and God calls me to grow in it.
If you be truly secure in your religious beliefs, then fear not the teachings of another. Listen and search with an open mind for the truth shall prevail. And hear the whole, for half a truth is no truth at all. ‘He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him’ (Proverbs 18:13).
I remain the friend of each of you. In Christian witness, John E. Enslen”
There is a scripture in Alma that I treasure: “Who could have supposed that [my] God would have been so merciful as to have snatched [me] from [my] awful, sinful, and polluted state?” (Alma 26:17)
The opportunity to repent and receive forgiveness is a special gift from the Savior. His invitation to come unto Him remains an open invitation, despite repeated mistakes. “Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.” (Alma 5:33; see also Mosiah 16:12) “Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.” (Mosiah 26:30)
Brother and sisters, some of us will walk out of this meeting and be the same exact person we were when we walked into the meeting. Some of us will completely miss the message. One or two of you may even walk up to me after the meeting and say that you wish your spouse could have been here.
The most fortunate of us will leave this meeting with an internal, unfailing resolve to do a little better because we see ourselves more like the way God sees us.
I bear solemn witness to the truthfulness of these basic principles relating to repentance, in the sacred name of Him who has made the privilege of repentance possible through His boundless mercy, and His perfect love for each of us, even Jesus Christ. Amen.
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