What if ...

~
▪ history repeats itself?

▪ at the Second Coming (as at the First), HE does not meet expectations?

▪ we imagine He’s going to be enamored by our pomp and circumstance?

▪ we, like sheep, have gone astray in pursuit of the Three Temptations?

▪ the “chosen” repeatedly mistake/forget what they were chosen for?

▪ we are no different than the house of Israel, the Nephites, the Jaredites, the house of Judah, etc., etc.?

▪ the Right (and increasingly, the Left) are just PR and pitch(wo)men for Babylon?

▪ seeing, we keep refusing to see; and hearing, we keep refusing to hear?

▪ ALL OF US, (including Frank, Grover, JamesO, Karl, Newt, Ralph, Rupert, et al., et al., et al.) were to daily read and apply: Romans 12:17,21; 1 Peter 3:9; 1 Thess. 5:15; and maybe, most explicitly, Doctrine & Covenants 10:25-6, 28?*

▪ history repeats itself?

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* For your convenience, here is Doctrine & Covenants Section 10:25-26,28.

25 Yea, he [the adversary] saith unto them: Deceive and lie in wait to catch, that ye may destroy; behold, this is no harm. And thus he flattereth them, and telleth them that it is no sin to lie that they may catch a man in a lie, that they may destroy him. 26 And thus he flattereth them, ...; and thus he causeth them to catch themselves in their own snare.
... 28 Verily, verily, I [the Lord] say unto you, wo be unto him that lieth to deceive because he supposeth that another lieth to deceive, for such are not exempt from the justice of God.

For the New Testament quotes: I leave those to your curiosity.

Pressure Points

(To the man with the trembling voice; et al)

WHAT IF:

▫ you were invited into a quorum?
▫ you were a soul of sensitivity and insight?
▫ your first press-court felt contrary to your nature; scripted by expectation and briefing?
▫ you became enmeshed in conformism and unrelenting contradiction?
▫ you felt compelled against conscience and agency?
▫ you were elevated to staunch your questions?
▫ obligatory loyalty sapped your soul?
▫ perks seemed unseemly?
▫ you could not speak of what you saw, felt, heard?
▫ you yearned to escape but had no precedent, no courage, no adequate “sin,” no place to go?

Has the agony surpassed the ecstasy?
How long the days, nights, years of weeping and wandering?
Can the inner man became more precious than the outer?
What might one finally do with the dissonance to save oneself, et al.?

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See also: http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/07/to-loyalists-everywhere.html

Déjà Vu of the Ages?

~As I see it~
Witnessing the increasingly extreme disparity between rich and poor and the pervasive tyranny of money in these latter days, one is reminded how omnipresent the “natural man”¹ remains—unable, in millennia of “spiritual” evolution, to control his instincts of oppression, excess, and celebrity—the sad tale of every age. An even sadder tale is how susceptible we so-called “believers” are to the persuasions of mammon—to selling our souls for a mess of pottage. Just look at our malls and mansions. Our storage- and tax-shelters. Our celebrities and seekers. Our investments and speculations. Our distractions and laissez-faire dogmas. (Dogmas that counter almost every essential tenet of every faith.)

WHY are we so enamored by the rich and famous? WHY so desirous to become (or be friends of) the rich and famous? If we believe in God’s word, why do we seem so focused on “deserved”² prosperity and so discounting of admonitions to meekness, justice, and moderation? So willfully blind to forewarnings?

Here again, are two from two millennia ago;

And again I [Jesus] say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. (New Testament | Matthew 19:24)

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; … (New Testament | James 5:2-6)

Too many of us seem to have fallen into a “mine”-field (“It’s all mine and I deserve it;” or “It’s all theirs and they deserve it.”) that will inevitably maim us unless we awaken from the grip and rapture of Babylon and all her pretensions.

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1. For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Book of Mormon | Mosiah 3:19)
2. What is so “deserved” or earned about usury and dividends? Might this fit within “Moral Hazard”? Just asking!