We live in a unique period of the world’s history.  In nearly all former times and cultures people were bought and sold.  Slavery and servitude were common practices among nearly all people.  I believe that it has only been in recent times that slavery and human trafficking has largely been abolished.

But each of us is still for sale.  Today we’re not bound in chains and stood up on auction blocks for others to bid upon and buy us, but rather, we’re selling ourselves.  We’re all for sale, and each of us chooses what we’re willing to sell ourselves for.

Nephi was permitted to see his posterity for a thousand years in the future.  The vision nearly overwhelmed him.  He was left in deep consternation and mourning, for he beheld that “they sell themselves for naught.”  (2 Ne. 26:10).

That observation—that phrase—jerked my mind and my reading to a halt.  I’ve been mulling it over ever since.  I find that Nephi was repeating the words of Isaiah (Isa. 52:3), and that the Savior Himself repeated the same words and quoted Isaiah when He visited the Nephites following His resurrection.  (3 Ne. 20:38).  He was speaking to the Nephites, but He was referring to us of the latter-days:  “Ye have sold yourselves for naught.”

Jesus asked a very astute and pointed question to which we should all give a good deal of thought.  He said, “For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”  (Matt. 16:26).

Are you selling yourself for naught?  Am I?  For what are you willing to give your soul?  For what are you giving your time?  If you truthfully answer that question, you’ll know how to answer the question about your soul.

We live in a pretend world.  People spend their valuable time on pretend things.  Many people live in a virtual world—virtual games, virtual relationships, virtual conversation.  It’s all pretend.  They pretend that they’re feeling good; and use such aids as alcohol, drugs, technology, and pornography to give them the illusion of happiness and the feeling that all is well.

Others chase madly through life collecting things—land, bank accounts, dolls, guns, toys.  Often those toys are for recreational pursuits, another means that we employ to help us feel good and to take our minds off the real world and help us pretend.

Collecting possessions and wealth has the effect of making us feel important and smarter than others—another pretend thing.  Wealth often gives one a sense of power, an illusory pursuit.  How many rich men do we see entering politics?

In Fiddler on the Roof Tevya saw through the illusion that wealth and power equate to superior mental ability.  He wished he could have just a small fortune so that he could “build a big, tall house with rooms by the dozen right in the middle of the town…, with one long staircase just going up, and one even longer coming down, and one that could go nowhere just for show.”

I see more and more of those houses everywhere I go.  Whole towns of them have sprung up to cover mountaintops in Utah, of all places.

Tevya concluded his wish for wealth, respect and power by observing that “when you’re rich, they think you really know.”

I wonder.  Instead of seeing a supremely smart, rich man, I more often see one who has sold himself for naught.  How smart is that?

Osama bin Laden had wealth.  He controlled a global network of people.  He had wealth and power beyond belief.  He had a cause which he deeply believed in.  He had everything except the freedom to move about and to show his face in public.  One day he died.  I’m not in a position to be anyone’s judge, but I suspect that he suddenly found himself in an environment where he had nothing—no possessions, no power, no friends, no family, no covenants, no priesthood, no eternal ties, no knowledge of the gospel or of things as they really are, no promises, no future, and no happiness.  All he had left were memories of his faithful pre-earth life, and memories of a mortality spent in service to “false and vain and foolish doctrines.”  (2 Ne. 28:9).

It will matter not how ardently one believes in something if his doctrines turn out to be “false and vain and foolish.”  Someone said, “If (we) have not chosen the Kingdom of God (first), it will make in the end no difference what (we) have chosen instead.”  (Quoted by Sharon G. Larsen, The Ensign, November 1999, pg. 13).

Paul warned that in the latter-days men “shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”  (2 Tim. 4:4).

A popular fable today is that God is an essence, or a spirit, or a power that fills the universe.  His actual Being or Person is almost universally denied.  Many are those around us who have sold themselves to this fable.

As Bruce R. McConkie so aptly observed: “There is no salvation in worshiping a false god.  It does not matter one particle how sincerely someone may believe that God is a golden calf, or that he is an immaterial, uncreated power that is in all things; the worship of such a being or concept has no saving power.  Men may believe with all their souls that images or powers or laws are God, but no amount of devotion to these concepts will ever give the power that leads to immortality and eternal life.

“If a man worships a cow or a crocodile, he can gain any reward that cows and crocodiles happen to be passing out this season.”  (Bruce R. McConkie, The Ensign, December 1971, pg. 129).

“What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”  For what or to whom are you willing to sell yourself?

Herein lies the world’s greatest open secret—yet “few there be that find it.”  (Matt. 7:14).  The great secret is this:  You’re already bought and paid for!

“…The Son of Man came…to give his life a ransom for many.”  (Matt. 20:28).

“…He hath purchased (us) with his own blood.”  (Acts 20:28).

“For ye are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”  (1 Cor. 6:20).

You were never put on an auction block.  You never had to endure such shame and humiliation.  Neither are you now, or will you ever have to be, a slave; but if you are wise you will acknowledge and accept the purchase that was made of your soul.  A terrible price was paid.  It was an acquisition beyond compare.  It was an infinite Atonement

(2 Ne. 9:7) wherein all mankind potentially became Christ’s.  He bought and paid for every man, woman and child.  They all became His if they would agree to the purchase.

The Atonement was made for all.  It was a blanket deal applying to all people, but which can only be activated if each individual ratifies it.  Every person, separately and individually, through solemn covenant, must accept the purchase made of his soul.

It is done through baptism.  Baptism is a solemn, serious, sacred ordinance.  It is our acknowledgement of the payment that Christ made for our sins.  In being baptized we give Him our souls and our pledge that we will follow Him faithfully and serve Him from that point onward.

King Benjamin explained that “because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for…your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.  (Mosiah 5:7).

If one is kidnapped, he is in the power of the kidnapper until a ransom is paid.  He is the property, so to speak, of the kidnapper until he is redeemed.  By virtue of the Fall all mankind has become subject to the adversary, and will remain in that state until the Savior’s Atonement is individually activated.  The key that opens the door to the Atonement is baptism.  It’s up to each individual to turn the key.  The key is within reach of every person; but unless the person willfully turns the key, the Atonement remains closed to him.  The Atonement thus applies only to members of the Church.  Consider the following scriptures:

“…He that persists in his own carnal nature, and goes on in the ways of sin and rebellion against God, remaineth in his fallen state and the devil hath all power over him.  Therefore he is as though there was no redemption made…”  (Mosiah 16:5).

“Therefore the wicked remain as though there had been no redemption made, except it be the loosing of the bands of death…”  (Alma 11:41).

“Then…they shall be as though there had been no redemption made; for they cannot be redeemed according to God’s justice; and they cannot die, seeing there is no more corruption.”  (Alma 12:18).

“And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.”  (Alma 34:16).

It’s a black and white choice.  We can either be encircled in the arms of safety or remain in our fallen state with the devil having all power over us.  “He hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death” (Helaman 14:31), happiness or misery, freedom or slavery.

Put in that context, why would anyone choose death, misery, and slavery over life, happiness and freedom?  It’s insane.  It’s ignorance.  This is not an offer to be ignored.  It’s a choice we have to make.  The consequences are enormous.  The consequences are eternal.

The rewards for choosing to repent, to be baptized, and to endure in faithfulness are beyond comprehension.  When one makes and keeps covenants and gets to the other side, he will find that instead of finding himself with nothing, he can literally have everything.  He’ll have his covenants, power in the priesthood, an eternal family, knowledge of all things, eternal ties, an everlasting dominion (D&C 121:46), and a future of never-ending happiness.  “He that receiveth me,” the Redeemer says, “receiveth my Father.  And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.”  (D&C 84: 37, 38).

What a magnificent offer!  Only an infinite Atonement could have opened such a possibility.  Only an ignorant person could turn this offer down.  All one has to do is to give away his sins—confess them and give them up—, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and covenant to thereafter follow Him and keep His commandments.  It’s not slavery.  It’s the ultimate freedom.  It’s a liberating happiness that goes beyond happiness into eternal joy.  It’s what the Redeemer desires for all men.  “Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.”  (2 Ne. 26:25).

Don’t sell yourselves for naught.