The Evil Gift

About 420, probably 421 of our present era, as we reckon the years, Moroni, an ancient Nephite prophet, the last of a long line, ¶

closed the record of his people, and left the seal of his testimony upon all that had been inscribed upon the metallic plates which were made to receive the account of the Lord's dealings with that people, from the time they had been led from Jerusalem, across the deep, to this American continent. I pray you heed these words of his : ¶

"And again, I exhort you, my brethren, that ye deny not the gifts of God, for they are many ; and they come from the same God. And there are different ways that these gifts are administered ; but it is the same God who worketh all in all; and they are given by the manifestations of the Spirit of God unto men, to profit them. ¶

"For behold, to one is given by the Spirit of God, that he may teach the word of wisdom ; ¶

"And to another, that he may teach the word of knowledge by the same Spirit ; ¶

"And to another, exceeding great faith; and to another, the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; ¶

"And again, to another, that he may work mighty miracles ; "And again, to another, that he may prophesy concerning all things ; "And again, to another, the beholding of angels and ministering spirits; "And again, to another, all kinds of tongues ; ¶

"And again, to another, the interpretation of languages and of divers kinds of tongues. ¶

"And all these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man severally, according as he will. ¶

"And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that every good gift cometh of Christ. ¶

"And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that all these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of men." ¶

The Evil Gift

And now I pass over several paragraphs of comment upon what has gone before, and read you another admonition from this ancient revelator : ¶

"And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch hot the evil gift, nor the unclean thing." ¶

A very strong contrast is here drawn. The principal gifts of the Spirit are listed in other scriptures, in the Bible, in the volume of latter-day revelation, the Doctrine and Covenants ; but the enumeration I have read to you is perhaps as comprehensive as any. The prophet plainly proclaims the fact that these are characteristic of the Church of Christ. Miracles, as the manifestations of such gifts are sometimes called, will not be done away as long as men are receptive to the operations of the Spirit of the Lord, as long as men are willing to receive and to heed. ¶

But the admonishment is : "Touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing." What is meant by that ? Satan from the first has been a great imitator ; he is an experienced strategist. Never has the Lord set his hand to do a specific thing for the good of his people upon the earth, of outstanding feature, but that Satan has attempted to imitate it in some degree. ¶

From God or from Satan?

The Lord manifested himself to Moses, and talked to the man face to face. Moses records the fact, and adds that he could not have looked upon the Lord with his physical eyes, but that the glory of the Lord was upon him, and he was able to see with his spiritual eyes. ¶

Then came Satan, the audacious, the father of lies, and represented himself as being the son of God in the distinctive sense. Moses was able to discern and perceive. ¶

"And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said : Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee? ¶

"For behold, I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me, and I were strengthened before him. But I can look upon thee in the natural man. Is it not so surely?" ¶

Oh, that we all had such power of discernment. That is a gift of the Spirit, to which we are entitled and we will have it as we live for it. With that gift we shall be free, to a great extent, from the deception that otherwise might lead us astray. ¶

As the Lord gives revelations, so does Satan, each in his way. 'As the Lord has Irevelators upon the earth, so has Satan, and he is operating upon those men by his power, and they are receiving revelations, manifestations, that are just as truly of the devil as was his manifestation to Moses, to which I have referred. ¶

Beware of Deception

We need the power of discernment. We need the inspiration of the Lord, that we may know the spirits with whom we have to deal, and recognize those who are speaking and acting under the influence of heaven, and those who are the emissaries of hell. Many have been led away in this Church. Go back to 1830. In September of that year, a few months only after the Church had been organized, Satan was at work, and men were receiving revelations which were put forth to offset those that were given to the Church through the Lord's chosen revelator, the Prophet Joseph Smith. He had been instrumental in translating the ancient records, and he had been given the aid of the Urim and Thummim. Hiram Page found a peculiar stone, and used that, as the devil seems to have influenced him, until the Lord had to speak and declare that that which Hiram Page had given unto the people was not of him, and that when he had revelations to give to the Church he would give them through the man who was sustained as the revelator at the head of the Church, and not through somebody else. Read Doctrine and (Covenants, section 28. ¶

Nevertheless the Lord makes plain in the scriptures of these days that his wondrous gifts, the gifts of the Spirit, can be possessed by those who live for them and they will be given severally, according as the Lord will, and he wills to give them unto those who will use them rightly, and not unto those who would dishonor them. ¶

False Prophets

The Lord does not work miracles to satisfy idle curiosity or to gratify the lust of the evildoer. When you hear, if hear you should, of men who are receiving revelations concerning the conduct of this Church, and those men are not such as you have sustained by the uplifted hand before the Lord as your representatives with the Lord, and as his prophets and revelators unto you, you may know that those men are not speaking by the power of God. ¶

Now, do not be deceived. If men come to you and tell you that they have received manifestations and revelations telling of great developments that are to come, beware! So live that you may have the power of discernment. When they tell you that it has been made known to them that great wealth is to be taken out of the hills, under their direction ; that they are to bring it forth with the prime purpose of using that wealth for the building up of the Church, for the erection of a great temple, toward which eventuality the eyes of the Latter-day Saints are turned, you may know that they are not of God. No temple will ever be built as the result of the gifts of a rich man, or of a few rich men. In building temples the Lord requires a specific kind of money. It must be sanctified money. It must be the money of sacrifice, and he needs the pennies of the faithful poor as much as the .gold pieces of the rich. ¶

We may all have part in building the great temple to which reference 'is often made, as we have all had the privilege of taking part in building the temples that have already been erected. ¶

Spurious Imitations

Satan has tried to appear as an angel of light in earlier dispensations. He is doing so today. John the Revelator warned the people of this very day in which we live. He wrote for our warning of what would take place. |He saw evil powers, and he calls them the spirits of devils, working miracles and deceiving the people. It was so in olden time. While the Lord was speaking through Isaiah and the other great prophets of pre-meridian time, Satan "Was at work with his witches and wizards, with his soothsayers, giving spurious messages and trying to lead the people astray. ¶

When the Christ came in person manifesting his inherent power over men and evil spirits, [when he cast out unclean spirits that were afflicting men, there arose many who undertook to exorcise the demons, and to imitate the work of Christ so far as was possible. 'And (when the Gospel was again brought to earth, and the Priesthood restored in (this, the last dispensation, there was a great revival and increase in the manifestations called spiritualistic phenomena, in the effort to put something forth that looked like the original and the genuine, and so lead people astray. ¶

Oh, ye Latter-day Saints, ye men of mighty testimony, ye women of wondrous assurance, shall you, shall we, forget what the Lord has given us by way of certain knowledge, and be led away by false ¶

lights, by those who are receiving spurious revelations, as they call them, for guidance? ¶

Satan a Living Personage

Now, I know that it is not quite in accord with the advanced thought of the day, according to certain cults, to believe that there is a devil, a personage, a reality. Many who pose as super-thinkers seek to dismiss, with the old ideas, the old stories, fables they call them, that form the bulk of the very word of God recorded as sacred writ, the fact of Satan's existence. ¶

But there is a personage known as Satan. Before he was cast out from heaven he was called Lucifer. He is just as truly a personage as are you or am f, though he is not embodied. )He js in that unembodied state in which we existed prior to our birth into the flesh. And we read, as the Revelator tells us, and as Jude attests, that he was cast out from heaven because of his rebellion, and all his angels or followers were cast out with him ; numbering a third of the spirit-hosts of that particular class in heaven. So they were many, and they are many. ¶

In the land of the Gergesenes Christ freed a man who was grievously afflicted by evil powers ; but first he called upon the demon to give his name, and the spirit answered, through the mouth of the man: "My name is Legion, for we are many." If we could form any estimate of the number of a third of the hosts of heaven at the time spoken of by the Revelator, and compare such with the number of people living upon the earth at any one time, we would see that the great general (in command of them all, Satan, can assign a legion to every one of us, and to every human being on the face of the earth, to deceive and lead the soul astray, if it be possible. ¶

Satan foresaw what would come to pass, and the prophet Nephi realized fully the claims that would be set up in the last days, these days. Read what goes before in the twenty-eighth chapter of Second Nephi, before that which I shall read to you, and you will see that the prophet is referring to the time in which we Jive. He tells us that it will be necessary in this day that the kingdom of the devil shall shake, and he foretells that the devil will "rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good." ¶

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say : All is well in Zion ; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well — and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. ¶

"And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell ; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none — and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance." ¶

Latter-Day Warning

In the present dispensation the Lord has warned his people against the doctrines of devils voiced by men in the service of Satan. Read Doctrine and Covenants, section 46, especially verses 7 to 9. ¶

I trust that we may have the power of discrimination, the gift of discernment, that we may know the spirits with whom we have to deal, that we may not |forget the voice of the Shepherd but that we may know him, and follow him, and be true to our profession, looking to those whom we sustain as being our representatives (before the Lord, for through them will come whatever is necessary that this people, as a people, that this Church, as his Church, shall receive. I hope that none of us shall be defiled through dallying with the evil gift, the devil's gift, the unclean thing, which is abominable in the sight of the . Lord. I so pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶