"Split-Second Decisions"
Elder H. Bryan Richards
May 11, 2004
To you wonderful young people, on the way over from where we had lunch, one of your fellow students said to me, “Elder Richards, what is the real success in raising righteous children?” I said, “To marry somebody way above yourself.” I’ve done that, and if there is any success in my life or with our family, it’s because of Sister Richards, and I am grateful to have her here today.
As I look into your faces, it’s hard for me to really believe that I’m here. I remember many, many years ago attending devotionals like this at Brigham Young University when it was even smaller than BYU-Idaho is today. I still remember many of the talks that were given, or at least parts, because they blessed my life in the ensuing years. My great desire today, young people, is to say something that will touch someone’s life here today and help you to make a change or a resolve to be better than you are. I know of the great potential that you have. The other day Elder Ballard, in a Missionary Executive Council, speaking of the missionaries that are out serving, and you’ve heard this expression, that they are the greatest generation of missionaries. He put a new light on that for me when he said “They have to be today because of the chaos and confusion that is in the world today.” To you young people, you need to step up to the great responsibility that will be yours in the years to come in building and defending that kingdom of God. There is no greater cause on the face of this earth, than that in which we are engaged. May I just share some thoughts and feelings with you today regarding your lives and hopefully that will bless and benefit you.
One of the greatest gifts that we enjoy in the church today, and I loved the scripture that this young man read to us, is that we are built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets. I testify of that to you today. One of the great blessings that we receive through them for us as individuals is the spirit of prophecy and revelation. The Lord, since Adam’s time, has warned and forewarned us and all the peoples that have come through the centuries. He has never left us in the dark as to what we must do. He has given us commandments, and he continues to enlighten us through the spirit of prophecy and revelation. And so, young people, as you face the future, you don’t need to face it with fear or trepidation because with the revelations that we have received and that we will yet receive through the prophets, we will know what the Lord expects of us. Our time is no different from in the times past. In November of 1831, the Lord gave us the preface to His Doctrine and Covenants. May I just read parts of some of the verses from that very first section and invite you to study it on your own? The Lord says,
Hearken O ye people of my church . . . The voice of warning shall be unto all people. Prepare ye, prepare ye for that which is to come . . . Wherefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which shall come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith Jr. and spake unto him from heaven and gave unto him commandments (Doctrine and Covenants 1).
So in the very beginning of this dispensation the Lord began to reveal His will and commandments. And then His counsel to each of us is this:
Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful. And the prophecies and promises which are in them shall all be fulfilled (Doctrine and Covenants 1:37).
I want to share and experience Sister Richards and I had in Hong Kong and then relate it, hopefully, to you great young people today. We had an assignment to go to Bangkok, Thailand, and we were to leave Hong Kong around 4:00 in the afternoon. I don’t know if any of you have ever flown in or out of the new Hong Kong airport, but it’s been rated number one in the world the last several years. It’s just a marvelous place. There are two main runways that are separated by large grass strips. We were in a large aircraft with over 300 passengers aboard, and were actually in the process of taking off, and the plane was accelerating. I always love that feeling. All of a sudden the pilot just slammed on the brakes of this huge aircraft and we came to a screeching halt. Almost instantly you could begin to smell the smoke from those mighty brakes. We were sitting on the right side of the aircraft and as I looked out the window, all of a sudden I realized there were nine fire trucks heading our way. Now that gets your attention, young people. And they weren’t going around the suggested route, they were coming down the grass between the runways, headed directly for us. In fact, one came up right under the wing and went to the front of the aircraft. And then we noticed that four security trucks were also headed our direction. The pilot came in over the intercom and said “Ladies and gentlemen, don’t be alarmed.” That got our attention, seeing all this activity. And he said, “We have experienced a minor malfunction and we’ll see if they can correct it on the runway. If not, we’ll have to return to the terminal.” So, after a few minutes of smelling the smoke and watching these fire trucks and all the security around us, he finally came back and said, “We will have to return to the terminal and change aircrafts and then we’ll proceed on our way.”
While we were waiting to taxi back the airport, one of the crew, came out and began to apologize to us. We were sitting near the front of the aircraft and had we not had our seat belts on we would have ended up ten rows in front. I mean he stopped that huge aircraft that quickly. He began to apologize saying “We recognized that in the process of taking off, one of the gauges was indicating a malfunction, and we had to make a split second decision whether to continue or to abort the take off.” And then he said that “one of the gauges was telling us that the amount of fuel going into one of the engines far exceeded what was normal, and so we made the decision to abort the take off.” We were sitting right up front, and I couldn’t help but say to him, “You don’t need to apologize to me. I’d rather be on the ground with this problem that at 30-40, 000 feet in the air.”
Young people, why do I tell you that story? Sister Richards and I were grateful at that moment that those two pilots had been so well trained. If you ever look in one of the cockpits of one of those large aircraft, there are just, to me, thousands of gauges. They were trained so well, that when they recognized the malfunction, they knew exactly what to do, and even though we were in the middle of a takeoff, they hit those brakes, and we came to a screeching halt. Later we were able to get on another aircraft and finish our journey to Thailand. Each of us and each of you must know what the gauges are in the Lord’s kingdom, and you must understand them to some degree and you must monitor them regularly so that as you need to make a course correction or slam on the brakes, or even just do a fine tune, you know how and what’s required and what the Lord expects.
One of the great blessings that each of us have is the gift of choice, or agency. It truly is a remarkable and powerful gift. Sometimes we don’t understand it as we should. For instance, if I were to ask all of you today that in your teen years, when your parents suggested that you do something, you responded something like this: “Well I can do what I want. I have my freedom of choice.” Have any of you ever said that to your parents? If you haven’t, I will meet with you after and we will have a personal interview. There’s something about agency that each of us must understand, though, and I want to share that with you from For the Strength of Youth. How many of you have this little pamphlet called For the Strength of Youth that you should have received in your Young Man/Young Woman years still in your possession today? Just out of curiosity. That’s great! How many of you have read it in the last week? How many of you have read it in the last six months? Good! Can I ask you to put it right with your scriptures because if you want to know what the Lord expects or counsels us to do now, particularly you great young people of the church, this is the message. Let me just share from that the chapter called Agency and Accountability and then make some observations regarding the gauges that the Lord would have us monitor. “Wherefore, men . . . are free choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all man or to choose captivity and death” (2 Nephi 2:27). When you boil agency right down, it leads to one or the other in the choices that we make. Now, from the First Presidency: “While you are here on earth, you are being proven” (For the Strength of Youth 4). Young people, will you remember every day that this life is a time to prove yourself worthy to enter back into the presence of God? That was one of the conditions that we fought for and that we made commitments to do as we watched this earth life begin to unfold. “You are being proven to see if you will use your agency to show your love for God by keeping His commandments.” Now, listen carefully: “While you are free to choose for yourself, you are not free to choose the consequences of your actions.” That’s a point that I think a lot of us don’t totally understand - “While you are free to choose for yourself, you are not free to choose the consequences of your actions. When you make a choice, you will receive the consequences of that choice.” Now listen carefully - “The consequences may not be immediate, but they will always follow, for good or bad” (4).
Now let me add a footnote to that, taken from a commentary written by Smith and Sodal many years ago: “Deviation from the narrow path always brings with it some consequences which remain after the sin after the sin has been pardoned.” Can I invite each of you to get For the Strength of Youth out and read that chapter or section on Agency and Accountability, and understand as you’ve never understood before, the right of choice which we love and appreciate, remembering that with those choices we cannot choose the consequence which may follow? Even though we may have been forgiven and we sense that deeply in our hearts, sometimes the consequence of that which we do inappropriately or which goes against the will of God may linger long after that forgiveness has come. Again listen carefully: “You are responsible for the choices you make. You should not blame your circumstances, your family, or your friends if you choose to disobey God’s commandments.” That’s the accountability part of this wonderful gift that we each enjoy. “You are also responsible for developing the abilities and talents Heavenly Father has given you. You are accountable to Him for what you do with your abilities and how you spend your time” (5).
Can I liken that and three or four other things to those gauges that those two pilots were reading and who needed to make a split second decision and for which perhaps, hundreds of lives were saved? One of the gauges, young people, that you should be monitoring right now is this opportunity you have of attending BYU-Idaho and receiving an excellent education. Each day you will make choices which will make that education either powerful or not as powerful as it could be by what you do and the way you accept this great opportunity and responsibility. There are some perhaps, on campus, who have not yet had the opportunity to serve a mission, and I’m speaking primarily now to the young men. The Lord invited every young man who holds the Aaronic priesthood or who may yet join the church before age 19 to serve a full time mission. It’s true the bar has been raised, and we are seeing remarkable results as a result of that. But to you young men who have not yet made that choice, or may be struggling with it, if you will think in terms of not what you will be giving up, but what you can give to the world, it should just add to the dimension of the significance of that decision. Oh, how we need missionaries in the world today. We need them desperately. We need them to teach the gospel message. That’s the only hope the world has, really, in its long term run: it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I look into your faces and I think of the words of Elder Holland as he expressed it to about 200 missionaries in England one Saturday morning when he looked into their faces (and you are all familiar with the hymn Hope of Israel). He pointed and he said, and I wish I could say it like he does: “You are the hope of Israel.” And young people, without you and your righteous decisions, Israel may not have the great hope that it could or should.
One of the other gauges, and if you were to go back over the last ten years and have before you the sermons of our prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, there’s a subject he has continually and continues to address which has become one of the great concerns in the church today and that’s the evil of pornography. I just can’t tell you the effects of that evil in the lives of people in the world, in the church, and it’s devastating affect on individuals and families. Again, For the Strength of Young, may I just read what the Brethren have to say about that evil: “Pornography in all its forms is especially dangerous and addictive” (17). And it is. I think back when I was a young missionary the Word of Wisdom and tithing were the two major concerns we addressed. Well, times have changed, but pornography, at least to me, is much, much, much more addictive than cigarettes or alcohol. It’s that calamitous. What may begin as a curious indulgence can become a destructive habit that takes control of your life. It can lead you to sexual transgression, even criminal behavior. Pornography is a poison that weakens your self control, changes the way you see others, causes you to lose the guidance of the spirit, and can even affect your ability to have a normal relationship with your future spouse. If you encounter pornography, turn away from it immediately. Can I just plead with you young people, you monitor that gauge very carefully, and if you need to slam on the brakes then you slam the brakes on right now, and you make sure that you keep that gauge fine tuned, the way it should be. May I also read from For the Strength of youth just a couple of things from the section Sexual Purity:
The sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife. [That comes from the Proclamation on the Family.] Physical intimacy between husband and wife is beautiful and sacred. It is ordained of God for the creation of children and for the expression of love between husband and wife. God has commanded that sexual intimacy be reserved for marriage (26).
You protect yourself from the emotional damage that always comes from sharing physical intimacies with someone outside of marriage. Do not have sexual relations before marriage and be completely faithful to your spouse after marriage. The prophet Alma taught that sexual sins are more serious than any other sins, except murder or denying the Holy Ghost. Young people, that’s another gauge that you must keep, we all must keep focused and monitored and read and understand, and the world is going just the opposite way, as you well know.
Can I just say something quickly about dress and appearance, particularly to you returned missionaries? I remember an experience I had after I’d been home about three weeks. I was going to priesthood meeting, and my sister, who is here today, had bought me a brand-new sport shirt, and I really liked it, and a pair of slacks. I was just going out the door to priesthood meeting when my father was coming from one of his stake meetings and he asked me, “Son, where are you going?” And I said “Dad, you know where I’m going; I am going to priesthood meeting.” And he said, “Like that?” And I thought, I’ve got a new pair of slacks and a new sports shirt. He sat me down in the living room, put his arm around me and taught me a great lesson. He said, “The Lord expects more out of returned missionaries.” And you know, young people, that was 1956. When I’ve been tempted on a hot summer night to go to a sacrament meeting in a white shirt and just a tie; I remember that moment.
When we go to church, we go to worship the Lord. We should go dressed in the very best that we have. I think of the wonderful sister missionaries who serve in Indonesia. It’s not required, but because of their love for the church, the sisters there wear gray skirts and blue blazers. I said to their mission president when we first visited there, “Why do they do that?” And he quickly said, “President Richards, this work is so important that we want everybody to know and understand that Christ lives and that we have his message.” Young people, when you go to church, or to the temple, go dressed as if you were going to meet the Lord, for surely the chapels and the temples are His house.
May I just share something about tithing, because you are at a critical point in your life where tithing will become something that will just be meaningful to you the rest of your life, or a time that you may begin to struggle with it, because I remember my student days, and funds don’t come easy. But young people, it does not require money to pay tithing, but it does require faith. I heard President Hinckley about a year ago say, “The church doesn’t need the money. The saints need the blessings of faith that come from paying tithing.” It doesn’t matter if you pay a penny a month, if that is an honest tithe, or if you pay a thousand dollars a month or whatever it is. It’s the principle, and young people it will bless and protect you for the rest of your lives as you continue faithful.
Well, we could spend a lot more time on those gauges. My message is, you take those gauges that perhaps you struggle with the most, and keep them in front of you and monitor them regularly. And if you need to slam on the brakes, then you slam the brakes on and you make that course correction. If it’s just fine tuning, then fine tune them, but always keep them working properly. If you want the real joy and the real happiness that comes in this life, it comes from keeping God’s commandments and doing the things that he would have you do. The decisions you make now, at this young age, will greatly affect the rest of your life, or they could. My prayer would be that you would always choose the right.
Now, may I just, in closing, leave a thought or two with you. If you were to again reread the general conference talks of the brethren over the last ten years, you would find a common theme of things that will help us in this life. One is individual and family prayers. I hope, young people, that you find time each day, on your own, and those of you that are married, as a family, to have prayer. To you future parents, you can say things in prayers to your children that you can’t say in other ways.
Scripture study. I was so pleased to see most of you have your scriptures here today. If you will regularly read from the scriptures and particularly the Book of Mormon, you will be a better student, a better mother, a better father, a better missionary, you name it. That’s the power and spirit of that sacred record.
Well, there are some others - the payment of your tithes and offerings, family home evenings, service to others, temple attendance. Those are things each of us can do, and the promises are amazing and the happiness that comes will be yours.
Now finally, let me just assure you that revelation is real and alive in this church. We struggle today in the world with some very serious issues that are pointed directly at the doctrines of this church. I heard Elder Maxwell say not too long ago, “Satan’s not interested in our athletic program. But he is interested in destroying families and the works done in the temples of the Lord.” You think of the timing, young people, of the Family: A Proclamation to the World, given in 1995. Given at a time when we didn’t face the issues that we face today, but the answers are there. The spirit of prophecy and revelation is apparent. We were visiting with some of the students at Lunch before this meeting, and part of Europe now is not considered Christian because of what’s crept in. I think of the remarkable witness of the 15 living Prophets and Apostles dated January 1, 2000 as we entered this new millennium, about the Living Christ. The timing is perfect, and in the years and perhaps decades ahead, revelation will always come as needed for us. It will come at the appropriate time. We will be warned and forewarned, and it’s our responsibility, young people, to see that we are prepared and understand and monitor those gauges.
This is a remarkable time that you live in. People since Adam’s time have looked to your time today. This is the dispensation of the fullness of times. This kingdom, this church, will never be given to anyone else, nor will it ever be taken from the face of the earth. It’s here to stay, and we are blessed to have all the keys and authority and revelation that we have in not only how to direct the Lord’s work upon the earth at this time, but to bless us individually through the keeping of those commandments. I hope each of you will take time to read the talk of our prophet at the conclusion of the Sunday morning session of conference this last month. Let me just share a couple of thoughts and conclude.
Perilous times? Yes. These are perilous times. But the human race has lived in peril from the time before the earth was created. Somehow, through all the darkness, there has been a faint but beautiful light. And now with added luster it shines upon the world. It carries with it God’s plan of happiness for His children. It carries with it the great and unfathomable wonders of the Atonement of the Redeemer . . .
The Almighty is with his people. We shall have all the revelation that we will need, if we do our duty and obey the commandments of God . . .
Do we really comprehend, do we understand the tremendous significance of that which we have? This is the summation of the generations of man, the concluding chapter in the entire panorama of the human experience.
And think about it. You are going to be part of that; you are already. But what an exciting time the future holds.
We of this generation are the end harvest of all that has gone before. It is not enough to simply be known as a member of this church. A solemn obligation rests upon us. Let us face it and work at it.
Somehow, among all that have walked the earth, we have been brought forth in this unique and remarkable season.
Be grateful, and above all be faithful (President Gordon B. Hinckley, The Dawning of a Brighter Day, General Conference April 2004).
Brothers and sisters, I conclude with part of the words of the Standard of Truth: “No unhallowed hand can stop this work,” speaking of the Kingdom rolling forth upon the earth. And that applies to your individual lives as you monitor those gauges and make the right decisions, and keep them fine-tuned, “no unhallowed hand” can stop you from progressing and reaching the ultimate goal of eternal life. Those truths stand firm and in place and secure for each of you.
Thank you for who you are. Thank you for what you’ve done, thank you for what you are doing, thank you for what you will yet do to build this great kingdom as it rolls forth upon the face of this earth. I want to leave you my witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Young people, I know that He lives. I know that he is our Savior and our Redeemer. He was born of Mary in Bethlehem. We have the witness of the holy scriptures both in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, of the resurrected, Living Christ. It’s Him that we worship. It’s Him who our worship is focused in. It is Him who will come again and rule and reign upon this earth as Lord of lords and King of kings. Oh that we will be worthy to recognize and worship him and be welcome into his presence is my humble prayer for each of you. God bless you, I leave you this witness in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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