2 Nephi 28

I’ve got this passion welling up in me that makes me talk this way. And that passion convinces me that I’m right. And that book I was talking about will make a huge difference to our descendants, who are, of course, part of Israel.

In those days, every church will say it’s God’s church. Preachers will fight, which is a bad business for preachers to be in. And academics will fight, which is what they get paid for. But no church will really be God’s ideal.

Some will even dare to say that God is a thing of the past and that you have to go to books to find out about him. No living power for their times. No miracles. No new information via direct experience.

Understandably, some people will swear off religion altogether.

They’ll get materialistic, hedonistic, and pragmatic. For some, those traits will turn to atheism. For others, those traits will attach to their religion itself: go to church and pray, but lie, cheat, and abuse, counting on God’s grace to overlook their behavior. Maybe a little punishment, but nothing too serious. And then we all go to heaven.

That kind of thinking will dominate some circles. But it’s cheap, proud religion for show-offs and overly private characters. The blood of real saints will scream at such church-goers. Which makes sense, because that’s not God’s religion. It’s darkness wearing a robe. It’s foolishness hard-wired into chapels.

They rob the poor instead of their rich friends or instead of not robbing at all. They dump on gentle people.

They wouldn’t know how to bow their heads if they had an instruction manual. They can’t stay out of one another’s pants, let alone pockets. They offer academic degrees in everything but the soul.

This sort of behavior will be so common even good-hearted folks will be schooled in it. But God has utter contempt for it. He also hates it when people call good things worthless. He’ll leave them on his tree like fruit that ripens till it falls off and gets squishy.

If people change, of course, he won’t throw them in the garbage. He’s always been that way. On the other hand, he will throw the devil’s church in the dumpster. That institution has got to go. And when it hits the bottom of the dumpster it will make a big clang, wake up the neighborhood, including people who were slaves to the institution and its Ceo, guess who.

That blackhearted executive’s blood will pulse in the veins of all those who get angry at good things and good people. Or drift like a sedative through their veins, numbing them to what’s really going on. Our church is great, they’ll say. All is well. But that’s a dangerous incantation. It opens the gates of hell and drives you into it.

Others’ hearts will pulse with the idea that all values are equal. Justice is not only blind, it’s a figment of the collective imagination. This is the sort of self-flattery the devil admires. He’s wrapping you in chains and you preen.

But as for justice, God can never escape it and you can never escape it and in the end everyone will end up in the cell or mansion that they have prepared for themselves.

So you’re in for some cold water in the face, if you’re one of those who says “all is well,” The same for those who listen to human advice but avoid spiritual tempering. The same for those who stop spiritually aspiring. And the same for those who get angry at, or about, truth. Anyone who builds his life on a stone foundation understands what I’m saying. Anyone who builds on sand—or worse, quicksand—doesn’t. I hope that latter group will learn, if nothing else, to be afraid.

If you think you’ve got enough wisdom from heaven, you’re more wiseguys than wise. Because God layers truth on people’s minds. A little here, a little there. A whispered thought here, a loud rebuke there. Whatever it takes. But usually gradual. Never say, “That’s it. I’ve got it.” Because the moment you do, you don’t.

Don’t trust anyone fully but your Maker. And certainly don’t trust your own body. Because it’s full of traps and ugly defaults and it breaks or wears out or shuts down on timetables you’ll never be able to predict.

One final (negative) shout-out from God to the Gentiles: “I’ve breached my ‘chosen people’ mantra a thousand times for you. And you still ignore me. Still, I’m Yahweh and my arms remain open day and night. If you don’t know that about me, you don’t know much.”

Getting back to my forecast: