Wealth
In an address to the students at Brigham Young University, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley quoted Brigham Young:
It is our duty to preach the gospel, gather Israel, pay our tithing, and build temples. The worst fear that I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty and all manner of persecution, and be true. It my greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they will become the richest people on this earth. [Nibley, Brigham Young, p. 128]
To which I can hear many of you say, Hasten the day.
I believe that day, spoken of by Brigham Young with a voice of prophecy that rose above the voices of defeat and criticism, has come. We have been blessed with the bounties of heaven and the bounties of earth. Oh, how magnificently and munificently we have been blessed!" (October 29, 1974; BYU Devotional; Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled; Gordon B. Hinckley)
We indeed are at that day. The Latter-day Saints are among the wealthiest and best-educated of people on Earth. We are respected; an LDS man was a real contender for the White House! The Perpetual Education Fund is helping Saints all over the world to get educated and rise out of poverty. In all walks of life and in every country of the world the people of the Covenant are being tried with riches. Some pass, while others fail.
As long as we are in some distress, we remember to turn to Him and seek His counsel and blessings, but when we are filled with our own wealth our need for God, and His blessings, dissipates.
When we hear about how hard the test of wealth is, but, as Elder Hinckley noted, we say, "Bring it!" as though we were ready for this test. Let's evaluate and see that we may already be there, and don't know it.
Food
We are given plenty to eat every day. We never starve. I ask hundreds of people in my work as a physician if they have ever gone a whole day without eating and no one has answered in the negative, unless they deliberately fast.
"We are killing ourselves with our forks."
Let me list a few of the diseases that are caused by overeating:
Cancer
Heart disease
Diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2)
Peripheral Vascular Disease
Hypertension
High Cholesterol
Gout
Arthritis
Prostate enlargement (BPH)
Migraine headaches
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)
Infertility
Inflammation
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Crohn's disease
Ulcerative Colitis
Allergic Rhinitis
Celiac Disease
Alzheimer's Disease
Parkinson's Disease
Asthma
Obesity
Urticaria
Eczema
Psoriasis
Depression
Anxiety
Alcoholism
Drug use/abuse
Back Pain
Congestive Heart Failure
If you have any of these conditions, you may have already failed the test of wealth. You can't handle having too much available to you. When you are given power over your own eating habits, to be able to eat anything you want, any time you want, you choose to poison yourself with gluttony. You need to be in a place of poverty where they have to grow all their own food and have "bad years" with no food at times. This would force you to be healthy.
Beauty
"Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise." (Maya Angelou)
When a person is undesirable, it's easy to remain virtuous, however, when we have beauty we may find it very flattering to be the object of the lusts of others. Fame and fortune rear their ugly heads, and we believe we can get all we want without having to put in any effort, except to look good.
Isaiah spoke of the Covenant people of God being proud of their looks:
"Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:" (Isaiah 3:16)
Their salvation is in their own looks, instead of in the Lord. We have the wealth to buy pretty clothes, get our hair done, and use all sorts of cosmetics and surgical procedures to look good. We don't need God. Another failure of the test of wealth!
Lands, houses, and "stuff"
Last night I spoke with someone I have known a long time. He is in his 70's and healthy, but is close to bankruptcy. He has already had his motor home repossessed and still owes a great deal on it. Ten years ago, as he was ready to retire, his house was paid-off, and he had a modest retirement income. Now, however, he has taken a large loan on his house, such that it's "upside-down" (the debt is more than the value of the house), and he has other investments that went down when the Stock Market crashed. His income is down, and his debts are up.
Years ago when he retired, I talked with him about going on a mission, as he had the resources at the time. He indicated that he was going to make some investments, make lots of money, and when he was very wealthy, he would then serve a mission. It is now clear that this will never materialize.
Susa Young Gates, the daughter of President Brigham Young (1801-1877), once asked her father how it would ever be possible to accomplish the great amount of temple work that must be done, if all are given a full opportunity for exaltation. He told her there would be many inventions of labor-saving devices, so that our daily duties could be performed in a short time, leaving us more and more time for temple work" (Archibald F. Bennett, Put on Thy Strength, O Zion! Improvement Era, Oct. 1952, 720). As predicted, all of these labor-saving devices have been invented, freeing-up lots of time for work outside of the home. However, instead of going to the Temple and doing the Lord's work, the Lord's people left the home and sought employment for money to increase their lifestyle!
In the Church, we cannot find enough people to do all the work of Zion. Everyone is so busy with their own things of the world, land, work, and toys, that they don't have time to serve the Lord. We chase the "American Dream" and get deep into debt, having to work long hours to maintain our lifestyle. The financial house of cards collapses periodically, leaving us in bondage to the world, and unable to serve the Lord with the only commodity we possess: TIME! Another failure of the test of wealth!
The Honors of Men
We are wealthy enough to be able to spend our time in selfish pursuits, gaining honor and glory in business or politics. We are able to be "professional students" or even professors, "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3:7)
I was discussing the Gospel with an uncle who is a graduate of Cal in Berkeley and continues to pursue intellectual and political interests. He never married, has one child that he doesn't support, and rarely sees, and feels "the government" should pay him to pursue his intellectual interests. He said he didn't have time to study about God because there was so much in the world that he wanted to know first.
One aspect of wealth is not that we have a lot of goods, money, and toys, but also that we have the time to do what we want, and are not forced to care for others, or even ourselves. The work of the world helps us to come to know God as we submit our will to doing what must be done for our own survival by serving others, and trusting in Him to help us. When a government is invoked as the primary source of these blessings, we forget God. Another failure of the test of wealth!
Leisure
Another characteristic of excess wealth is "leisure time." Slaves, or those in poverty must work constantly for their own support. Now, anyone can have sufficient food, shelter, and clothing to meet their needs, and have plenty of time to do what they want. The test of wealth is met by what we do with that time.
Today we can be filled with entertainment of all sorts: movies, television, books, plays, games, music, sports, video games, electronic media, and so forth, that do not build us up or help others, they simply pass the time idly. The average American spends over 5 hours per day sitting in front of a TV screen. At the same time, we have trouble getting our work done. Members of the Lord's Church are not able to help a neighbor, do genealogy, or serve one another because "there is no time." Another failure of the test of wealth!
Power
We think we want the test of wealth, but don't realize that we already have it. It's power! -- the power to do what we want, to see what we will choose.
What Isaiah said of the Lord might just as well be applied to all people: "Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good." (Isaiah 7:15) If you have no choice, you don't really have a test. Jesus was given the choice. He passed the test of being able to choose anything. After fasting for 40 days, Satan came tempting him with all these things, wealth, honor, glory, power, but he refused and chose to serve God, walking among men and healing them, suffering with them, and for them.
We are in the midst of abundance, and we are failing this test. We are given so much, but use all we have for our own purposes, instead of God's. The benefit of poverty is that we cannot have expensive clothing, time to vegetate, enough food to get fat, or money to appear better than others. This is indeed the hardest test on the planet. Who has the character to pass the test of power?!
Power is the ability to get what we want. Whether this is by having enough money to buy what we want, or some political power to command others to do what we want. It's so easy to forget God when we have all our needs filled. We need to see the hand of the Lord in our lives. We need to need Him. We need to have nothing, except what He gives us to prevent us from thinking we are powerful. The most basic way of connecting with God is when we ask him to fill our needs. It's so hard to come to know Him if we miss this step. If we already have what we want, there is no need to ask God. Thus, Abraham Lincoln was spot-on when he said that the real test of character is not adversity, but power!
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