Be Not Moved

After describing some of the terrible calamities of the last days, the Savior said to the Prophet Joseph, “But my disciples shall stand in holy places, and shall not be moved” (D&C 45:32).  He repeated this counsel again in another revelation describing the terrible wars that would come upon the world, starting with the Civil War: “Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come” (D&C 87:7).  Then when the Saints in Missouri were suffering from persecution there, He said again, “Behold, it is my will, that all they who call on my name, and worship me according to mine everlasting gospel, should gather together, and stand in holy places” (D&C 101:22).  The message is clear: we must stand in holy places for protection against the terrible things that will happen in the last days.  This idea of standing in holy places was first given in the book of Psalms in the form of a question: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully” (Psalm 24:3-4).  This helps us see what it means to stand in holy places: by having clean hands and a pure heart.  Of course, the ultimate “holy place” is the Lord’s temple, and indeed one must be seeking to have clean hands and a pure heart to be there.  There is no better holy place in which we can stand in the last days than the temple.     

               The Savior also mentioned standing in a holy place when He warned His disciples in the Olivet Discourse of the impending destruction of Jerusalem.  He said to them, “When you, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, then you shall stand in the holy place; whoso readeth let him understand.”  He was referring to the great destruction that would come upon Jerusalem around 70 A.D.  And what was the holy place where they were to stand?  He seems to have answered that in the next verse: “Let them who are in Judea flee into the mountains” (JSM 1:12-13).  To stand in the holy place was not to stay in Jerusalem—which would be sieged by the Romans—but to flee from it and go into the mountains, the great natural symbol of the temple as seen in the numerous scriptural accounts of prophets communing with the Lord in the mountains.  The mountains of Judea literally saved the lives of the Christians at this time when over one million Jews were killed in Jerusalem.  In a parallel today the temple provides us with protection from the wickedness around us.  This is what the Prophet Joseph prayed for in the dedication of the Kirtland Temple: “That no combination of wickedness shall have power to rise up and prevail over thy people upon whom thy name shall be put in this house” (D&C 109:26).  Isaiah similarly wrote about the protective powers of the temple in this symbolic language: “And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and a covert from storm and from rain” (2 Nephi 14:6).  The temple is our mountain to which we must flee for spiritual protection “when the storms descend, and the winds blow, and the rains descend, and beat upon [our] house” (D&C 90:5). 

            The story of Lehonti in the Book of Mormon is one that teaches us that we must stand in holy places and be not moved.  Lehonti and his Lamanite followers had fled when Amalickiah was trying to force them to take up arms against the Nephites—to do wickedly—and they “gathered themselves together upon the top of the mount which was called Antipas” (Alma 47:7).  While they were there, Amlickiah and his army could have no power over them—they had a defensive position that could not be overcome.  Three times Amalickiah sent messengers to Lehonti, telling him to “come down to the foot of the mount” so he could speak to him, and three times Lehonti refused to come down.  But on the fourth time Amalickiah convinced him to come down by telling him he could “bring his guards with him” (Alma 47:12).  Lehonti gave in, and that was the beginning of the end for him: he followed Amalickiah’s instructions exactly and was promptly poisoned to death by him.  He should not have come done from the mountain; he should not have been moved out of his holy place.  The lesson for our day is clear—we must not come down from our spiritual mountain, no matter how many times we are invited to do so.  We must not be moved when the world asks us to violate the standards that allow us to literally stand in the holy place, the Lord’s house.  As wickedness increases around us, we must stand in holy places and “continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel” (Colossians 1:23).