One of the greatest gifts that our Heavenly Father gave us is the
opportunity to repent for our sins and transgressions. It is a vital
part of our Lord’s plan that without it, no person could even hope to
make it into heaven. As stated in the fourth Article of Faith,
repentance is second only to having faith in Jesus Christ. This makes
it a very important factor in our eternal salvation and thus something
that every single human being on this planet should come to know and
love. For it is known, “All men, everywhere, must repent” (Moses 6:57)
I
shall quickly touch on what it means to sin. Sometimes there are
confusions between a transgression and sin, sometimes there is for some
too much guilt placed in a harmless transgression. James describes sin,
“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it
is sin.” (James 4:17). So, as we can see if someone knows the law and
still openly rebels, then they have sinned, and thus they are not
striving to be like God. We should feel ashamed by this, but know that
no person can avoid sin. John made this clear, “if we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, [Jesus Christ] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8–9). He shows
that all sin and there is no escape from it, but there is a silver
lining, for he mentions that we can be forgiven of these sins.
The
reason behind the importance of repentance is we are a fallen and
sinful people can not fulfill our potential without a tool like
repentance. The Prophet Amulek taught us that “And I say unto you again
that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and
he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven;
therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven?
Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins.” (Alma 11:37). It is clear
that without this gift, we could never make it back into heaven for we
are certainly unclean. This point also made clear in the writings of
Nephi, “no unclean thing can dwell with God” (1 Nephi 10:21) Showing
this importance, Elder Bernard P. Brockbank quoted David O. McKay
saying, “Every principle and ordinance of the gospel of Jesus Christ is
significant and important in contributing to the progress, happiness,
and eternal life of man, but there is none more essential to the
salvation of the human family than the divine and eternally operative
principle, repentance. Without it, no one can be saved. Without it, no
one can … progress.”(Bernard P. Brockbank, Fall 1974 General Conference)
Another
reason it is important to repent is sin can bring us low and “slow” us
in our dealing in the world and especially with the spiritual things.
President Monson explained this in a talk where he compared sins to the
barnacles that grow on the under side of a ship. These are not good for
shipping boats since it creates drag and can slow their progression,
much like sins slow our spiritual progression. So, once in a while the
boats will go far up river to the city Portland, where the freshwater
will kill off all the barnacles. I believe its best to have the Prophet
take the story from here, “Periodically, the ship must go into dry
dock, where with great effort the barnacles are chiseled or scraped off.
It’s a difficult, expensive process that ties up the ship for days. But
not if the captain can get his ship to Portland. Barnacles can’t live
in fresh water. There, in the sweet, fresh waters of the Willamette or
Columbia, the barnacles loosen and fall away, and the ship returns to
its task lightened and renewed. Sins are like those barnacles. Hardly
anyone goes through life without picking up some. They increase the
drag, slow our progress, decrease our efficiency. Unrepented, building
up one on another, they can eventually sink us.” (Thomas S. Monson,
April 2000 General Conference) From this we can see that an un-repented
life will begin to make the individual drag in life and lose their
luster from the extreme weight of sin, but all of it can easily be taken
away.
One of the saddest things I see is people procrastinating
repentance. I have been told many times over by friends, “I am young, I
don’t want to change, and I have plenty of time in my life to repent”.
This cuts deep since it is not true. Putting off repentance is
extremely dangerous, for it grows the possibility that they will never
repent. The Prophet Amluek knew this and taught many years ago the
great dangers. “For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your
repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the
spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of
the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the
devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the
wicked.” (Alma 34:35) The more one puts of repentance the more weight
they will feel from sin, and they will slowly become more and more a
servant of the adversary with out even realizing it. The Spirit will
not waste his time on one who will not repent and sadly this leaves
people open to Satan’s growing influence on them. I know this on a very
personal level. On the topic of not repenting President Monson related
another story about how long un-repented sins can destroy us later.
“The ice storm [that winter] wasn’t generally destructive. True, a few
wires came down, and there was a sudden jump in accidents along the
highway. … Normally, the big walnut tree could easily have borne the
weight that formed on its spreading limbs. It was the iron wedge in its
heart that caused the damage. The story of the iron wedge began years
ago when the white-haired farmer [who now inhabited the property on
which it stood] was a lad on his father’s homestead. The sawmill had
then only recently been moved from the valley, and the settlers were
still finding tools and odd pieces of equipment scattered about. … On
this particular day, it was a faller’s wedge—wide, flat, and heavy, a
foot or more long, and splayed from mighty poundings [—which the lad
found] … in the south pasture. [A faller’s wedge, used to help fell a
tree, is inserted in a cut made by a saw and then struck with a sledge
hammer to widen the cut.] … Because he was already late for dinner, the
lad laid the wedge … between the limbs of the young walnut tree his
father had planted near the front gate. He would take the wedge to the
shed right after dinner, or sometime when he was going that way. He
truly meant to, but he never did. [The wedge] was there between the
limbs, a little tight, when he attained his manhood. It was there, now
firmly gripped, when he married and took over his father’s farm. It was
half grown over on the day the threshing crew ate dinner under the tree.
… Grown in and healed over, the wedge was still in the tree the winter
the ice storm came.
In the chill silence of that wintry night …
one of the three major limbs split away from the trunk and crashed to
the ground. This so unbalanced the remainder of the top that it, too,
split apart and went down. When the storm was over, not a twig of the
once-proud tree remained. Early the next morning, the farmer went out
to mourn his loss. …
Then, his eyes caught sight of something in
the splintered ruin. ‘The wedge,’ he muttered reproachfully. ‘The wedge I
found in the south pasture.’ A glance told him why the tree had fallen.
Growing, edge-up in the trunk, the wedge had prevented the limb fibers
from knitting together as they should.” (Thomas S Monson, Ensign, May
2002, 18) Like this hidden wedge, un-repented sins can bury deep in us
and weaken us to a point where we will not be able to withstand a storm
that we would normally be strong enough to stand against. Through the
Lord and his gift, we can erase those wedges and be as if it had never
happen.
While repentance is a gift, to some it is very scary and
daunting. Once a person recognizes sin in their lives, it hurts, and to
repent is going to hurt, but it should. Many adopt the idea of
“premeditate repentance” which is lie from Satan. “And there shall also
be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear
God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take
the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor;
there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die;
and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes,
and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God.” (2 Nephi 28:8)
This is nothing less than a slap in the face to our Savior. To think
that we can sin a little, plan to repent afterwards, and only get a
minor punishment is ludicrous. “For those who have strayed, the Savior
has provided a way back. But it is not without pain. Repentance is not
easy; it takes time—painful time! You deceive yourself if you believe
you can break the promises you have made with Heavenly Father and suffer
no consequence.” (M. Russell Ballard, Ensign, May 1993, 6) Also,
President Kimball stated something similar, “There is no royal road to
repentance, no privileged path to forgiveness” (Teachings of the
President of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball) True repentance is a
changing of heart, and is extremely painful. Yet the end result is
amazing. And everyone is strong enough to go through repentance, for
the Lord will never give us more than we can handle.
As mentioned
earlier, repentance usually is much more than just seeking forgiveness
for sins; it is the conscious decision to follow Christ and try to turn
away from the sinning. While of course in our fallen state it is
impossible to completely turn away from sin, we must still try since if
we don’t, we will be judged for it. The greatest gift, in my eyes, is
repentance that leads to conversion.
“The fruits of repentance are
sweet. Repentant converts find that the truths of the restored gospel
govern their thoughts and deeds, shape their habits, and forge their
character. They are more resilient and able to deny themselves of all
ungodliness” (Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, May 2007, 102–5) As a convert
this statement is close to me, of course he didn’t just mean converts to
the Church for there are many LDS who need to or have been converted to
Christ. If there is anything that is clearer to me, it is the
greatness that comes out of true repentance and a conversion to Christ.
This topic is of such importance to me. Before I became a member, I
truly say fit in my eyes to destroy God’s influence over the earth. I
was down the road of a ‘son of perdition” and could care less. I would
rather not go into to much detail on my near spiritual suicide which
much I have always kept to myself. However, I know that I have been
forgiven and if I could be, I know anyone can be. Does my past still
hurt, yes, but I understand that it comes with what I did and the
important thing is that my Heavenly Father has manifested unto me that
he no longer sees those sins; this is a greater gift to me than my own
life. Yet, if I could go back, I would not change a thing, since out of
everything I did, I ultimately learned much about the un-restraining
love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for all of us, and I
grew to understand the atonement infinitely more than I would ever been
taught in church.
For many the path to repentance is unclear. As
members of the Lord’s church we are blessed with the knowledge of the
path, yet we also have the responsibility to go forth and share this
with others. We know from the Book of Mormon and the Bible that Christ
is the way to repentance. “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ,
we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to
our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look
for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:26) Christ is the way, the
truth and light and only through him can repentance come. To learn more
we must search the scriptures for they are what teach us the wonders of
Christ and the gift of repentance. We have many examples of those who
have been changed from repentance. Whether it is Alma the younger, who
sought to destroy the church with words, or Saul, one who was much more
violent in his dealings. These and many others have seen the glory of
Christ and his eternal gift. If the person is a member of the LDS
church or of other church, if they look to Christ, they will find
repentance and forgiveness.
It is true, there is a thing called
the “unforgivable sin” that is taught most notably by the Apostle John.
However, to commit such a thing one must have a perfect knowledge of
Christ and the Holy Ghost, a thing I doubt any man could ever have since
we can’t achieve perfection in this life. Also, the idea is that if
one has perfect knowledge then they will never want to come back even
after they committed the sin. But that is not the point, since I feel
conformable in saying that there is not a sin that we as humans can
commit that the Lord will not forgive.
This topic is such a dear
gift and that is something I can not stress enough. I may sound like a
broken record on that point, but for some things that needs to be the
case. I have seen my life completely change, in every aspect; socially,
culturally, religiously, politically, even down to my likes and
dislikes, all because I have repented and came to Christ. If I could
give all my knowledge just to have a perfect knowledge of repentance and
how incredibly forgiving our Lord is, I would. I still can’t
comprehend it sometimes, how by an act sins can be washed away. I have a
firm testimony in this, which lead to the testimony I have for
everything else in the Church. This is a direct result of a greater
gift, the atonement of Christ. I know personally of his forgiveness and
love, I have been blessed to have seen it. Understanding repentance,
brought back my faith in Christ, and showed me the truth of this Church
and the Holy scriptures. One could have all the knowledge in the world,
but yet if he does not know about repentance, then, I believe, he knows
nothing.