Applying the scriptures: Surviving spiritually in deteriorating world
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"Years ago, I wondered over the scriptural imagery of angels waiting `day and night' for `the great command' to come down and reap the tares in a wicked and suffering world; it seemed rather eager to me," Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve said during the April 1993 general conference.
The apostle then added, "Given such massive, needless human suffering, I don't wonder anymore!"While the righteous wait for the "final reaping," Elder Maxwell explained, the "challenge is surviving spiritually in a deteriorating `wheat and tares' world.
"Today, lust openly parades as love, license cleverly poses as liberty, and raucous sounds mockingly masquerade as music. Evil even calls itself good and often gets away with it!"
Historian Will Durant offered these relevant words, as quoted by Elder Maxwell: " `If the hunger for liberty destroys order, the hunger for order will destroy liberty.'
"In this connection, how can there possibly be a disturbing loss of individual impulse control without a corresponding loss of collective freedom?"
