Ignorance

Many prefer ignorance to light. They will not draw toward the light when it is revealed to them, and, therefore, cannot comprehend what the Lord is teaching. It makes no sense to them, for light is required in order to comprehend light; a person must be willing to increase in light, or he will be left in darkness and unable to apprehend any of what saves him. It remains a mystery. The way to darkness is broad and easy. It requires no effort. It welcomes one. It tempts mankind with its ease. It is popular, as there are many who go in thereat. Truth challenges. It requires change. It informs all of their faults and mistakes. It is difficult — man is called to rise above what the world is doing, what the world is saying, and what the world accepts as good and true. This tendency to want to be popular can twist a person away from truth quicker than any other corrupting influence here. “This is why Nephi cautioned about the latter-day churches that crave popularity and acceptance (1 Nephi 7:5). There will only be a few who find it. Even in the day in which we live, the measure will always be few. Not in a relative sense, but in an absolute sense. Few. Period. Only a small number.”¹

Another person’s ignorance can never define one’s own faith. Some people are unwilling to study their faith, even though they claim to practice it. If the restoration is truly of God, then it is important enough to warrant the closest of study. When any matter is studied with great care, issues will surface. Quandaries will arise. There will be gaps, problems, and failings. Human weaknesses will be exposed. Some things will get quite messy. The underlying truth, however, deserves a fair and full hearing. Study of the restoration which goes only far enough to discover the quandaries has not proceeded far enough. One should search into it deeply enough, prayerfully enough, and searchingly enough to find the answers. When one person has sought deeply and another has not, there is a gap between the understanding of the two which makes it problematic to have a common understanding. The one in possession of less is really not in a position to correctly judge the one in possession of more. Oddly, however, the one who has less is altogether more likely to judge the one with more, while the one with more is equipped to look more kindly upon the other. After all, the one with more has struggled from the lesser position.

Only fools judge a matter before they hear it. Such souls warrant one’s kindly efforts to persuade, not their censure or condemnation. All carry foolishness, learning year by year, struggling to overcome the many things they’ve neglected in their study, prayers, and contemplation. God does not grade on a curve. Therefore, when anyone begins to think he’s outshone his fellow man, he should reflect again on Moses’ reaction to seeing the Man of Holiness: Now for this cause I know man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed (Genesis 1:2). No one has anything to boast of, even if he knows more than his fellow man. All know less than He who is more intelligent than them all (Abraham 5:4). “Whenever I contemplate the gulf between He who is Holiness and myself, and the great charity required from Him to condescend for me, I can hardly bear the thought of feeling triumph because of the ignorance of my fellow saints. How unkind. How foolish. How uncharitable. More than that, how very unlike the Lord whom we all claim to serve.”²See also STIFFNECKEDNESS.