Inspired men and women have flooded the earth with products and materials that are resistant to all sorts of harmful things.  We have materials that are water-resistant, heat-resistant, ultraviolet light-resistant, disease-resistant, corrosion-resistant, and rust-resistant.  Some materials are shatter-proof, scratch-proof, color-fast, or germ-free.

I am impressed with the efforts of men like Luther Burbank and other plant breeders who have developed cultivars of plants and crops that are more productive and resistant to the diseases that devastate and destroy other cultivars of the same species.

These things have greatly improved our lives; but what the world needs most of all is to develop what President Russell M. Nelson calls a “sin-resistant generation.”  (Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, Nov. 2015, 97).

And we’re doing it!  President Nelson points out that “children of the covenant become a strain of sin-resistant souls.”  (Ensign, May 1995, 33).

The rising generation of youth in our Church are better and stronger than anything the world has ever before seen.  It’s a phenomenon.  Throughout history the world has produced individuals like Daniel, Nephi, Samuel, and John.  Once there was even an army of 2,060 faith-filled and sin-resistant young men who successfully reversed the fate of a nation.  But never before has there been a whole generation of such sin-resistant young people as there is today.  They’re stronger, smarter, and far ahead of their parents.  My own children are evidence of that, and they’re raising children who will be even better than them.

They’re not isolated individuals as in the past.  They’re an army—and they’re changing the world.  Elder Quentin L. Cook has pointed out that “we have approximately 230,000 young people who are currently serving as missionaries or who have returned from missionary service in the last five years.”  (Ensign, Nov. 2015, 41).  Think of the impact that such an army has.  The results of what these young people have done, and which they will continue to do, far exceeds what Helaman’s stripling warriors accomplished.  They and their children will revolutionize the world.  They and their children will usher in a thousand years of righteousness.

Because they are sin-resistant, they will clean up the world.  Thanks to their strength, efforts, and influence their posterity will live in a Garden of Eden and will enjoy paradisaical conditions that the world has never known.

This is all according to plan.  These sin-resistant spirits were the same individuals who stood in the front lines in a war that preceded the peopling of the earth.  They successfully resisted evil then, and led their peers under the command of their Leader, Jesus Christ.  Because of their valiance there it was decreed that they would be reserved to come to earth in the winding up scene when things would be most difficult, when temptations would be greatest, and when the adversary would be most active, cunning, and desperate.  His reign is coming to an end.  He knows it.  And it will be this sin-resistant generation that brings about his defeat.

These young people are far ahead of their elders.  My own children are light years ahead of where I was when I was their age.  Because of the careful training that each of my children are giving my 50 grandchildren, those grandchildren will be even stronger and more sin-resistant than their parents.

I didn’t know a thing about religion when I was a young boy.  I didn’t have a Book of Mormon.  My parents never once sat me down to teach me anything.  We never, ever prayed.  I didn’t even know how to pray.

My wife says that even in her own LDS family she never remembers her parents ever reading to her.  Family prayer never happened until her older brother came home after his marriage and asked if they could have family prayer.  Their father asked the prayer.  Thereafter, on special occasions, they had family prayer.

Back then few people had read the Book of Mormon.  The Church didn’t emphasize it.  The book was considered to be above the understanding of children, so children were never encouraged to read it.

My wife and I improved upon our parents’ practices.  We were reasonably faithful about family prayer with our children.  We sometimes had Family Home Evening.  We inaugurated a morning family devotional.

When we go to our children’s homes today we’re thrilled to see these practices happening regularly.  Every one of our children has adopted and magnified every good quality and practice that we struggled to start.  With each improving generation, the quality of sin-resistance is strengthening.

I teach a class of 11-year-old boys in Primary.  There are five of them.  Our course of study is the Book of Mormon.  We began the year together.  On the first Sunday of the year I challenged them to read one chapter of the Book of Mormon per day.  We’re now two months into the year.  Every boy is reading his Book of Mormon.  I don’t even have to ask.  When they see me in the chapel they come up to me and enthusiastically volunteer the information that “I read 8 chapters this week!” or “I read 17 chapters!”

I told the boys in that first lesson that I was teaching several future bishops and stake presidents and maybe even a general authority.  They asked who it was.

I replied that I didn’t know, but that I was certain it was so.

I also teach the Young Single Adults of the Baker area in institute class.  It’s not a large group.  The reason that it’s not large is because I can’t hold onto them.  Over the past six months four girls have gone off to serve full-time missions.  Another got married after returning from hers.  Numerous other young men have returned from their missions, stayed briefly, and have then gone off to get their educations.  Three others are poised to submit their missionary applications.

These young people are the sin-resistant strain that the world has been waiting for, and for which prophets and mission presidents have prayed.  They’re not immune to sin, but they know how to repent.  They’re smarter than the previous generations and quickly learn from their mistakes.  They’re capable of enduring trials and temptations that other generations couldn’t have managed.

May God bless this sin-resistant generation and those who are helping them into their armor.