18 And the large and spacious building, which thy father saw, is vain imaginations and the pride of the children of men. And a great and a terrible gulf divideth them; yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God, and the Messiah who is the Lamb of God, of whom the Holy Ghost beareth record, from the beginning of the world until this time, and from this time henceforth and forever.
Pride is such a key ingredient in the recipe of a fallen people or person. Satan uses it to lead men away from God in so many different ways. In this verse we read about “vain imaginations and the pride of the children of men.” This combination is a deadly combination, and trying to decide which comes first and leads to the other is kind of circular and takes you nowhere. When I think about vain imaginations, I think about some of the philosophies of men that make no sense to me. During my days in graduate school, several of my classes tried to put these ideas in my head. I argued many times with people who I considered to be more intelligent than I about things like whether truth exists or not, whether we really exist or not, if when we touch something do we really come into contact with it, etc. I couldn’t believe that I was seeing first hand such a display of the vain imaginations of men. It drives home to me the importance of knowing who we are.
- 1 Nephi 11:35 (35–36)
- Helaman 16:22 (15–22)
No comments:
Post a Comment