A Determination to Serve Him to the End

One famous quote from Joseph Smith comes from an account by Daniel Tyler who recorded these words of the Prophet to a member of the Church: “Before you joined this Church you stood on neutral ground. When the gospel was preached good and evil were set before you. You could choose either or neither. There were two opposite masters inviting you to serve them. When you joined this Church you enlisted to serve God. When you did that you left the neutral ground, and you never can get back on to it. Should you forsake the Master you enlisted to serve it will be by the instigation of the evil one, and you will follow his dictation and be his servant.”  The scriptures confirm the seriousness of our covenants with the Lord and the consequences of breaking them.  The Lord told us, “For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation” (D&C 82:3).  Once we have received a witness of the Spirit and have a knowledge of the things of God, if we do not follow that “greater light” we have received then our condemnation is worse than if we had not ever known it.

                Other scriptures make this fact even clearer.  Peter wrote this about the Saints in a day when there were many who apostatized from the truth: “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning” (2 Peter 2:20).  Nephi warned us in similar language about those who receive baptism but then turned back: “After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me” (2 Nephi 31:14).  Returning to the “pollutions of the world” and denying the Savior after having received Him is no inconsequential action: it would be better to never have committed to Him in the first place.  The Lord gave similar warnings about those making another covenant in receiving the Priesthood: “But whoso breaketh this covenant after he hath received it, and altogether turneth therefrom, shall not have forgiveness of sins in this world nor in the world to come” (D&C 84:41).  Turning from the Priesthood after we have covenanted to receive it brings serious consequences.

                This of course does not mean that it is better to never enter into a covenant with the Lord (the next verse in D&C 84, for example, makes it clear that not coming to the Priesthood also has its consequences).  What it does mean, though, is that when we side with the Lord it needs to be for the long haul.  We must have “a determination to serve him to the end” and “stay on the Old Ship Zion” wherever she goes (D&C 20:37).  We are “not of them who draw back” but must continue to “believe in the saving of the soul” (D&C 10:39).  We must never forsake the Master who will never forsake us.