1
Opposition In All Things

• www.kevinhinckley.com

2
Gila Academy vs University of Arizona (1912.)

• It is a great occasion. Many people came
  tonight who have never been before. Some
  of the townspeople say basketball is a
  girls game but they came in large numbers
  tonight.
• Our court is not quite regulation. We are used to
  it, our opponents not.
• I have special luck with my shots tonight and the
  ball goes through the hoop again and again and
  the game ends with our High School team the
  victors against the college team.
• I am the smallest one and the youngest on the
  team. I have piled up the most points through the
  efforts of the whole team protecting me and
  feeding the ball to me.
• I am on the shoulders of the big fellows of the
  Academy. They are parading me around the hall to
  my consternation and embarrassment.
• I like basketball. I would rather play this game
  than eat.
• Spencer Kimball, 1912
• Biography, p. 65

3
The importance of words

• Elder Cecil Samuelson once attended a fireside
  meeting with Elder Maxwell in Seoul, Korea. Neal
  was speaking "a hundred miles an hour, as he
  always does." A young interpreter was trying very
  hard to keep up. Neal told a funny story that
  required several sentences. The translator
  paused, said about a half dozen words, and the
  audience roared with laughter.
• When Elder Samuelson afterward asked the
  interpreter how he'd handled that, he replied, "I
  was so far behind and so tired I just said,
  'Brothers and sisters, Elder Maxwell just said
  something very funny. Please laugh.'"

4
Lehis choice of words to Laman and Lemuel

• O that ye would awake awake from a deep sleep,
  yea,
• even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the
  awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the
  chains which bind the children of men, that they
  are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf
  of misery and woe.
• arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be
  determined in one mind and in one heart, united
  in all things, that ye may not come down into
  captivity
• Awake, my sons put on the armor of
  righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye
  are bound,
• and come forth out of obscurity,
• and arise from the dust.

Question How would you describe this sleep of
hell?
5
President Kimball

• "There are Church members who are steeped in
  lethargy. They neither drink nor commit the
  sexual sins. They do not gamble nor rob nor kill.
  They are good citizens and splendid neighbors,
  but spiritually speaking they seem to be in a
  long, deep sleep.
• They are doing nothing seriously wrong except in
  their failures to do the right things... To such
  people as this, the words of Lehi might well
  apply
• (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p149)

Can we being sleeping and not know it?
6
Lehi continues

• And now, Jacob, I speak unto you Thou art my
  first-born in the days of my tribulation in the
  wilderness. And behold, in thy childhood thou
  hast suffered afflictions and much sorrow,
  because of the rudeness of thy brethren.
• Nevertheless, Jacob, my first-born in the
  wilderness, thou knowest the greatness of God
  and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy
  gain.

7
Elder Maxwell

• We can, if we are obedient,
• be gentled by afflictions
• we can be tamed by afflictions
• we can be softened by afflictions
• we can be consoled in the midst of afflictions
• we can be humbled by them.
• Wherefore, Ye Must Press Forward, 57

Might we choose to cope with
Afflictions
Through Spiritual Sleep?
8
Brother Spencer Condie

• Father Lehi explained in great detail how this
  testing is to occur and why it is that Heavenly
  Father created a plan through which our moral
  agency, the freedom to choose, can be maximized.
• Lehi taught his son Jacob "For it must needs be,
  that there is an opposition in all things".
• He did not forewarn his young son that there
  might be opposition, or that there could be
  opposition, or even that there would be
  opposition. Lehi clearly taught that, in
  keeping with the very purpose of the plan,
  there must be opposition. He explained further
  that this opposition was in all things.
• Opposition is an inherent, indispensable
  ingredient in all things. He continued his
  explanation by teaching that if this were not
  so, "righteousness could not be brought to
  pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor
  misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all
  things must be a compound in one.
• In Perfect Balance, 1

9
Leo Tolstoy

• In 1900, Thomas J. Yates, a Mormon student
  attending Cornell University in Ithaca, New
  York, had an interesting conversation with the
  cofounder of that institution, Andrew Dixon
  White. Dr. White had served as U.S. foreign
  minister in Russia several years earlier and
  told Brother Yates of a visit he had had with
  the famous Count Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy, as you
  know, is considered by many to be the
  greatest Russian philosopher, social critic, and
  novelist of all time.
• According to Brother Yates' recollection of
  what Dr. White told him concerning the
  exchange with Tolstoy, the great Russian scholar
  asked Dr. White to tell him about the
  American religion. Puzzled, Dr. White explained
  that we don't have an American religion, "that
  each person is free to belong to the particular
  church in which he is interested." Tolstoy is
  reported to have shown a little impatience in
  replying
• "I know all of this. . . . But the Church to
  which I refer originated in America, and is
  commonly known as the Mormon Church. What can you
  tell me of the teachings of the Mormons?"
• "Well," said Dr. White, "I know very little
  concerning them. They have an unsavory
  reputation, they practice polygamy, and are very
  superstitious."
• Then Count Leo Tolstoi . . . rebuked the
  ambassador. "Dr. White, I am greatly surprised
  and disappointed that a man of your great
  learning and position should be so ignorant on
  this important subject. . . . If the people
  follow the teachings of this Church, nothing can
  stop their progress--it will be limitless. There
  have been great movements started in the past but
  they have died or been modified before they
  reached maturity."
• "If Mormonism is able to endure, unmodified,
  until it reaches the third and fourth generation,
  it is destined to become the greatest power the
  world has ever known."
• Thomas J. Yates, "Count Tolstoi and the
  'American Religion,''' Improvement Era, February
  1939, p. 94

10
Sister Vilate C. Raile, speaking of our pioneer
ancestors

• They cut desire into short lengths
• And fed it to the hungry fires of tribulation.
• Long after when the fires had died,
• Molten gold gleamed in the ashes.
• They gathered it in bruised palms
• And handed it to their children
• And their children's children forever.
• Quoted in Lawrence Flakes BYU Address, July
  1995