1 And now
it came to pass that Zeniff conferred the kingdom upon Noah, one of his sons;
therefore Noah began to reign in his stead; and he did not walk in the ways of
his father.
2 For
behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the
desires of his own heart. And he had many wives and concubines. And he did
cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight
of the Lord. Yea, and they did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness.
(Mosiah 11:1-2)
King Noah started lots of
bad stuff, but I want to highlight one part of v2 that shows the relatively
simple beginning of it, a beginning that looks so benign.
..he did not keep the
commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his own heart..
King Noah’s wickedness started with
following the desires of his own heart.
That’s kind of startling, especially since our culture makes “doing what
you want” into a big virtue and a goal and a privilege. It should cause us to
realize that it isn’t good for us to go after everything we want all the
time. And it makes us consider
whether what we want is good or not.
As Noah went after what he wanted, he
undoubtedly came into conflict with the commandments of God, and he chose to
break those commandments rather than sacrifice what he wanted. And we learn
from reading the rest of his story that doing that ultimately led to his
destruction.
So what we can learn is that the
commandments of God are meant to be
an obstacle to doing whatever we want.
(That’s the whole point of the “thou shalt nots”) God put them there for that purpose to
help us learn to regulate our desires, appetites, and passions so they wouldn’t
destroy us. When the commandments
get in the way of our doing what we want, it is because they are protecting us
from ourselves when doing what we
want would be self-destructive.
They are even more helpful when effects of breaking them seem invisible
or when the consequences are a very long time in coming and affect whole
societies.
I’m grateful that the Atonement of
Christ and being born again makes it possible to have my desires educated and
changed and sanctified over time.
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