Good and Ill Have Not Changed

I have been reading The Lord of the Rings series to my son, and in the second book we recently read this exchange between a character named Eomer and one of the main protagonists, Aragorn. When some bizarre things had been happening, Eomer commented, “It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange…. How shall a man judge what to do in such times?” I was impressed by Aragorn’s response: “As he ever has judged. Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own home” (page 543). This sounds a lot like the teachings we find in the Book of Mormon: the truths of God and what constitutes good and evil are not relative. For example, Lehi declared, “The Spirit is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. And the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free. And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil” (2 Nephi 2:4-5). Mormon taught how we judge right and wrong with these words: “For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night. For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God” (Moroni 7:15-16). This is the same for all of us—we must use the Spirit of Christ that God has given to each of us and which confirms to our souls what is right and wrong. And even if the world around us seems to be changing rapidly, good and evil have not changed.

            President Nelson taught, “Contrary to the doubts of some, there really is such a thing as right and wrong. There really is absolute truth—eternal truth.” Jacob in the Book of Mormon put it this way: “Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old” (Jacob 4:13). Again, we see here that the key to understanding truth and right and wrong is the Spirit. In modern revelation we read this: “Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth; And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; And whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning. The Spirit of truth is of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:23-26). Once more this passage emphasizes that to understand truth and how things really are, we must have the Spirit of truth. The key to knowing right from wrong is not popular opinion or expert advice or our best judgment; it is to hear and understand the voice of the Spirit. Moroni put it this way in the final chapter of the Book of Mormon: “And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is. And ye may know that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” To fully understand truth and what is good, we need the Holy Ghost to enlighten and teach us. That is the same for all of us—Elves, Dwarves, and Men, as Aragorn put it—because God “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Moroni 10:5-7, 19).