The Work of Righteousness Shall Be Peace

In the most recent general conference, Elder Uchtdorf retold the story of the prodigal son. Describing the young man’s new life at first away from his home, he said, “Arriving in a faraway country, he quickly made new friends and began living the life he had always dreamed of. He must have been a favorite of many, for he spent money freely. His new friends—beneficiaries of his prodigality—did not judge him. They celebrated, applauded, and championed his choices. Had there been social media in that time, surely he would have filled pages with animated photos of laughing friends: #Livingmybestlife! #Neverhappier! #Shouldhavedonethislongago!” But, as Elder Uchtdorf confirmed, “The party did not last—it rarely does.” The party that the world tempts us to enjoy forever brings with it only fleeting fulfillment. As it was for the prodigal, the money and food and friends always run out. As the world calls to us incessantly from the allure and excitement of the great and spacious building, the Book of Mormon emphatically declares and warns us: “Wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).

Some of the most powerful teachings in the scriptures contrasting the fleeting happiness of the world with the enduring peace of God are found in Isaiah. He wrote, “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isaiah 57:20-21). He urged us in these words to leave the things of the world: “Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.” He continued with this repeated warning, “There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” Lamenting, perhaps to those that had chosen wickedness and a rejection of the commandments of the Lord, Isaiah called out: “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:18, 20, 22). If we want continual and long-lasting peace, it will only come through a quiet determination to keep the commandments of God; we will not find it in wickedness, just as Isaiah also declared elsewhere: “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him” (Isaiah 3:10-11). Isaiah also warned in another passage, “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace” (Isaiah 59:7-8). I love this separate declaration affirming the path we should take, “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever” (Isaiah 32:17). That is the promise of the gospel for committing ourselves to a life of righteousness as Jesus prescribed, a reward that the adversary can never offer or produce: peace and assurance. The prodigal son found indeed that the world could not offer him this; the fun and glory and money and friends associated with a life of wickedness always run out and always come up short. Isaiah described it powerfully this way in another passage: “It shall even be as when an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite” (Isaiah 29:8). Instead of this emptiness, we seek after “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,” and as Elder Uchtdorf encouraged us who seek to walk the covenant path, “Together we will ‘press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all [people].’ Together we will ‘rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory,’ for Jesus Christ is our strength!” (Philippians 4:7)