The Will of God Though Opposed, Yet Eventually Supreme

Though Opposed, Yet Eventually Supreme

By Dr. James E. Talmage, of the Council of the Twelve

Do you believe that "Whatever is is right"? I do not; I

cannot believe it. If right means accordance with the will of

God surely there is much wrong in the world.

But, it is argued, God is omnipotent, and therefore has

power to direct all things as He wills. Granted. Nevertheless

both scriptural and secular history, as also the turbulent course

of current events combine to show that transgression of Divine

law is as old as the race, and as persistent.

God has given to man agency and liberty of action. It is

the will of God that this birthright of human freedom shall be

inviolate; but it is contrary to the Divine intent that man shall

abuse his agency, and misconstrue his liberty as license for

wrongdoing. And as with the individual, so with communities

and nations.

In the days of Samuel the Israelites clamored for a king.

They were tired of the theo-democracy under which they had

prospered, and wanted to be "like all nations," a monarchy, with

a king wearing a crown, swaying a scepter, and sitting enthroned

in state. Read 1 Samuel, chapter 8. This condition had been

foreseen and foretold; nevertheless the people erred in their

demand, and the Lord yielded under protest. There is real

pathos in His words to the prophet: "They have not rejected

thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over

them." They had their king, and a long succession of mon-

archs, many of whom proved to be veritable tyrants, and the

people groaned under the oppression against which they had

been forewarned.

In the course of Israel's troubled journey from Egypt, where

they had dwelt as in a "house of bondage," to Canaan, the land

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of their promised inheritance, the Lord gave them many laws

and established ordinances for their government in both tem-

poral and spiritual affairs. He portrayed for their encourage-

ment promised blessings of inestimable worth, predicated upon

their obedience to the laws of righteousness, and their allegiance

to Himself as God and King. In contrast He described in har-

rowing detail the state of abject misfortune and blighting suf-

fering into which they would fall if they departed from the path

of rectitude and followed the sinful practices of the heathen. As

the sacred record progresses, the fact is made plain that Israel

had chosen the evil alternative, forfeiting the blessings and reap-

ing the curses.

Was it the will of God, think you, that Israel should sin?

Can it be the Divine will that any man or nation shall come

under the thrall of iniquity? Is it the will of God that man

shall make of himself a drunken sot, with reason dethroned, and

naught but his brutish passions alert? Or that man shall op-

press his fellows by unrighteous dominion, robbing them of the

rights upon which God Himself refuses to infringe, even though

those rights be grossly misused? Is it the will of God that

woman's virtue shall be bartered for gold, and that vice shall

stalk unchallenged through the world?

To hold that these abominations accord with the Divine will

is to make God responsible for them, and therefore the author

of sin. The very thought is blasphemous.

God's omnipotence is manifest in the over-ruling by which

eventual good results from immediate evil. The crime of the

ages, consummated on the slopes of Calvary, has proved to be the

means of salvation to the world ; but the awful guilt of the be-

trayal, of the false testimony and the crucifixion is no whit

diminished by the glorious outcome.

Through the successive captivities and the general disper-

sion of Israel, which came as the consequence of infidelity to

Jehovah, a knowledge of the true and living God has been dif-

fused among even benighted and idolatrous peoples. And thus

the nation's calamity has been made to serve Divine purposes.

I cannot look upon the frightful carnage and inhuman

atrocities of the world war as a manifestation of the direct will

of God. This dreadful conflict was brought on through lust of

power and greed of gain. It sprang from an unholy determina-

tion to rob mankind of God-given rights, and to subject the race

to autocratic domination. It is a repetition of the issue at stake

in the primeval struggle, when Michael, the champion of free

agency, led his hosts against Lucifer's myrmidons, who sought

to rule by might (See Rev. 12:7-9). Read the record given to

the world through modern revelation:

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"And, I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom

thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which

was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying — Behold, here am

I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul

shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.

But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the

beginning, said unto me — Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine

forever. Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to

destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also,

that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only

Begotten I caused that he should be cast down; And he became Satan, yea,

even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to

lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my

voice" (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4:14).

In the free exercise of agency and the right of decision our

nation has deliberately and solemnly entered the present conflict

in the interests of righteousness. Out of the seething carnage

shall crystalize the lustrous gems of peace and the liberties of

men; and thus enriched the world shall be the more prepared

to receive the Christ, whose coming is near, and whose dominion

shall be holy, whereby the rights of all men shall be respected

and assured.

God's power and glory shall be manifest in eventual victory

for the right, and in the good that shall spring from present

evil. But in the eternal accounting, responsibility for the crime

whereby this war was precipitated shall weigh upon the man,

men, nation or nations, who did the devil's bidding in the at-

tempt to enthrall mankind.

Thus the hand of God is potent in the furtherance of right;

and though His will be violated and His commandments trans-

gressed, evil shall be followed by good. Divine displeasure is

directed against all "who confess not His hand in all things, and

obey not His commandments" (Doctrine and Covenants 59:21).