Hi Melissa, I just blogged about your cool blog! I think it's a great idea! When I'm done teaching early morning seminary I want to use this cool system of scripture study. Here is a link. http://purposedrivenmotherhood.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-super-cool-way-to-read-book-of-mormon.html
This scripture alone is a great testimony to the divinity of the scriptures. The fact that a prophet from thousands of years ago, Isaiah, could see our day and describe it so perfectly strengthens my testimony.
If you look around the world, you can see so many examples of good being called evil and evil being called good: Prop. 8, abortion, the New England Patriots....... :)
For me... This verse is simple. It's basically talking about the world we live in now. The backwards thinking. How everything righteous and good is consider wrong and selfish. How sin is glorified and look at as normal and should be accepted. How marriage and family values are consider to be outdated and sometimes wrong or boring. How having morals and standing up for what you believe is wrong. How the world idolizes people, money, and things. How the world twists and confuses people and pretty much makes up their mind for them if they are not strong enough to stand for something on their own. I feel that our tolerance for evil is quickly turning into acceptance of evil. And it's happening fast.
I like how President James E. Faust described the importance of clearly seeing and choosing right from wrong: “The gap between what is popular and what is righteous is widening. As prophesied by Isaiah, many today ‘call evil good, and good evil’ [Isaiah 5:20]. Revelations from the prophets of God are not like offerings at the cafeteria, some to be selected and others disregarded." I really like that quote and think this is so true of our day.
I was talking to someone the other day just about how we are in a war and we need to know our opponent and how he works so that we can fight against him. I think this scripture verse and the talk you posted go along with that. Satan has been around a long time and he knows what entices us and he knows how to make good things look evil and evil things look good. I think we have to be prepared every day to fight this battle... we have to arm ourselves with prayer and scriptures and immerse ourselves in good things so that we can recognize Satan's traps when they come and call them for what they are. This is a great reminder!
vs. 20 Satan knows that he can not tempt righteous people with obvious bad or evil, initially, so he is very clever. He begins by taking something good and tainting it just a little, so subtly, (making evil appear good) that at first good people don't realize he has set a trap for them. To teach our YW this principle, we passed around a beautiful crystal candy dish full of fresh colorful sugar coated gumdrops and told the girls they were welcome to take one if they would like but to be very careful of the trap that was hidden there also. In the bottom of the beautiful see thru crystal dish was a brand new mousetrap,slightly visable thru the clear dish and the colorful gum drops. Each girl giggled and thought it great fun and a challenge to carefully choose their favorite colored gum drop without getting snapped by the trap. We made it all the way around the room with no one getting snapped. The YW were boasting of their cleverness and asked if they could now eat their gumdrops. We said sure if they wanted to or we would take them back. Every girl popped their gum drop in their mouth and immediately spit them back out. The gum drops had been "tainted", rolled in invisible nasty nasty allum. This is how the evil one coerces good people to do evil. He knows we are not tempted initially by the blatant evil or wrong doing. The obvious "trap" is a deversion. He "taints" good things to slowly lure us in! (Example: There is much good to be found on our electronic devices but there is also much evil. Good people don't usually go seeking bad web sites but are lured in one pop up at a time. Another example good people: We recognize the holy sabbath but do we always keep the sabbath day holy. "I would never normally play soccer on Sunday but it's the tournament and I can't let the team down." .... Remember the evil one is clever and devious and he knows us and our weaknesses. To trap us he will entice us by making evil appear OK maybe even good (remember to use the good better best rule) until we are caught in his trap!
I really like v17 here. It is referring to judgement. We will feed in our "like manner" but what will that be? It will be whatever it has been before we die. We won't all the sudden become good after we die, we will be the same person based on our choices hear. I think of it like food storage. If you put away a lot of thing you never eat, when it comes time to use it you might as well go hungry because you won't want to eat it anyways! It is just like the great BYU devotional talk we read last week, we will be saying " get me out of here" about heaven if we haven't lived worthy of it while we are here...
Hi Melissa, I just blogged about your cool blog! I think it's a great idea! When I'm done teaching early morning seminary I want to use this cool system of scripture study. Here is a link. http://purposedrivenmotherhood.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-super-cool-way-to-read-book-of-mormon.html
ReplyDeleteThis scripture alone is a great testimony to the divinity of the scriptures. The fact that a prophet from thousands of years ago, Isaiah, could see our day and describe it so perfectly strengthens my testimony.
ReplyDeleteIf you look around the world, you can see so many examples of good being called evil and evil being called good: Prop. 8, abortion, the New England Patriots....... :)
P.S. Go Broncos!
DeleteFor me... This verse is simple. It's basically talking about the world we live in now. The backwards thinking. How everything righteous and good is consider wrong and selfish. How sin is glorified and look at as normal and should be accepted. How marriage and family values are consider to be outdated and sometimes wrong or boring. How having morals and standing up for what you believe is wrong. How the world idolizes people, money, and things. How the world twists and confuses people and pretty much makes up their mind for them if they are not strong enough to stand for something on their own. I feel that our tolerance for evil is quickly turning into acceptance of evil. And it's happening fast.
ReplyDeleteI like how President James E. Faust described the importance of clearly seeing and choosing right from wrong: “The gap between what is popular and what is righteous is widening. As prophesied by Isaiah, many today ‘call evil good, and good evil’ [Isaiah 5:20]. Revelations from the prophets of God are not like offerings at the cafeteria, some to be selected and others disregarded." I really like that quote and think this is so true of our day.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to someone the other day just about how we are in a war and we need to know our opponent and how he works so that we can fight against him. I think this scripture verse and the talk you posted go along with that. Satan has been around a long time and he knows what entices us and he knows how to make good things look evil and evil things look good. I think we have to be prepared every day to fight this battle... we have to arm ourselves with prayer and scriptures and immerse ourselves in good things so that we can recognize Satan's traps when they come and call them for what they are. This is a great reminder!
ReplyDeleteLove this!!!
Deletevs. 20 Satan knows that he can not tempt righteous people with obvious bad or evil, initially, so he is very clever. He begins by taking something good and tainting it just a little, so subtly, (making evil appear good) that at first good people don't realize he has set a trap for them. To teach our YW this principle, we passed around a beautiful crystal candy dish full of fresh colorful sugar coated gumdrops and told the girls they were welcome to take one if they would like but to be very careful of the trap that was hidden there also. In the bottom of the beautiful see thru crystal dish was a brand new mousetrap,slightly visable thru the clear dish and the colorful gum drops. Each girl giggled and thought it great fun and a challenge to carefully choose their favorite colored gum drop without getting snapped by the trap. We made it all the way around the room with no one getting snapped. The YW were boasting of their cleverness and asked if they could now eat their gumdrops. We said sure if they wanted to or we would take them back. Every girl popped their gum drop in their mouth and immediately spit them back out. The gum drops had been "tainted", rolled in invisible nasty nasty allum. This is how the evil one coerces good people to do evil. He knows we are not tempted initially by the blatant evil or wrong doing. The obvious "trap" is a deversion. He "taints" good things to slowly lure us in! (Example: There is much good to be found on our electronic devices but there is also much evil. Good people don't usually go seeking bad web sites but are lured in one pop up at a time. Another example good people: We recognize the holy sabbath but do we always keep the sabbath day holy. "I would never normally play soccer on Sunday but it's the tournament and I can't let the team down." .... Remember the evil one is clever and devious and he knows us and our weaknesses. To trap us he will entice us by making evil appear OK maybe even good (remember to use the good better best rule) until we are caught in his trap!
ReplyDeleteI really like v17 here. It is referring to judgement. We will feed in our "like manner" but what will that be? It will be whatever it has been before we die. We won't all the sudden become good after we die, we will be the same person based on our choices hear. I think of it like food storage. If you put away a lot of thing you never eat, when it comes time to use it you might as well go hungry because you won't want to eat it anyways! It is just like the great BYU devotional talk we read last week, we will be saying " get me out of here" about heaven if we haven't lived worthy of it while we are here...
ReplyDeleteGreat insight!
Delete✔️
ReplyDelete