--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Talmage, James Edward collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 4 published: 1918-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "James E. Talmage, “The Will of God Though Opposed, Yet Eventually Supreme,” *Improvement Era* 21, no. 4 (February 1918): 285–287." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2104unse start_page: 285 end_page: 287 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2104unse publication_year: 1918 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # 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 286 IMPROVEMENT ERA 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: THE WILL OF GOD 287 "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).