We Are Not The Remnant
We are not the Remnant, just as the LDS church is not Zion.
We chose the title of this blog purosefully. It is mean to convey to ourselves and others that we are not inhabitants of Zion. We are striving for Zion, we hope to one day be able to dwell in the presence of the Lord, but we are not there yet.
It's important that we steadfastly remember where we are currently situated, because if an incorrectly applied vocabulary convinces us that we've achieved something that we haven't, then we're in no better position then we were before and Satan is already lulling us to sleep.
In reference to a fearful dream I said, "We have a thin opportunity to repent." We are in the same position as the saints of Nauvoo commanded to build the Nauvoo Temple. Shall we likewise follow after them and their works and receive their reward?
If there are only two churches, what church are we a part of? Can we say yet that we are part of the Church of the Firstborn and have come into an innumerable company of angels?1 If I am not, I have more repenting to do. I have need of more humbling, I am not part of the remnant.
I write this because I fear my own failure, Not because I condemn anyone else and their usage of terms of which I understand but imperfectly. I need to be careful, I need to check my pride.
I find myself naturally falling back into a lifetime of old learned patterns of unbelief. And I have to shake myself and remember. "That is what I used to believe." How easy will it be for us, because we have a tiny amount of knowledge, to mimic the pride of the institutions we came from without realizing it.
2 Nephi 28:10-12 is not just a warning to that church we used to follow, it is a warning to us. False teachers and false doctrine flatter us, puff us up, tell us we are something apart, tell us we are Zion or the Remnant, or the covenant people of the Lord. These things caused the early saints in Missouri to boast that they were Zion and that the others non-believers would be cast off their land. They were nothing of the sort, but they, in many cases, were trying.
When the Zion community of 4 Nephi failed, they immediately separated and formed chuches.2 What folly! What religion that you create from your pride will succeed in bringing a soul to Christ? They utterly failed in their generation to be humble, yet they created churches to comfort themselves that they are in the right way.3 Satan deceived them until they believed that they knew the Christ, they were chosen, even though they had dumbed down the doctrine, while proclaiming his name,4 and bearing their testimony that they "knew Jesus was the Christ," and they "knew their church was true" and that they "were lead by a true prophet" though they knew nothing concerning his goodness and mercy. They became again churches of the Zoramites who while proclaiming Christ, actually are denying Him.
As Nephi said, we have all become corrupted, we have polluted the holy church of God.5 There is no need to gather together, to repeat the same mistakes, if we do not view ourselves as ever unworthy, less than the dust of the earth. If we are ever numbered among Lehi's seed, let us fall to the ground, throw down our crowns6 and weep that we are unworthy of the blessings bestowed, because we certainly are.
Cross yourselves, look into yourself, your desires and motivations. See if there is not some pride of which you need to repent. Set your face as a flint and determine that ye will yield to no temptation to esteem yourself above any brother and that you will not let any doctrine into your heart that will lead to failure. When you stumble, let it be another reason to view yourself as less than the dust, as an unworthy creature.
O, Lord, pierce the blackness of my soul with thy holy Spirit, that I may hear thy voice, thy pure voice. Let holiness touch me, and clear away the garbage with which I have encumbered and filthed myself. O Lord, if it is even possible, give unto me grace.
Look at this picture. All last night and all this morning has been a gray day; rainy depressing. Yet look at the blue in the small opening in the clouds. Is it not reason to rejoice that beyond this overcast, this darkness there is a bright, beautiful and sunny day? Even if it is gray for weeks, which it is forecast to be, just beyond and above this depression, is magnificent beauty. And I can see it. I know that it is there.
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Notes
1. D&C 76:67
3. See Brigham Young's Telestial Kingdom.
4. "Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power. And I want you to know that God, in the last days, while certain individuals are proclaiming His name, is not trifling with you or me." (Joseph Smith, HC 6:14)
5. "O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?" (Mormon 8:38)
6. "The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." (Revelation 4:10-11)