Marjorie and I are dutifully doing the “Come Follow Me” program.  This year it is the Old Testament.  We began at the beginning of the year, and read multiple chapters from the Bible each evening.  We are currently in 2 Kings, which is far ahead of where we're supposed to be.  We not only do the suggested reading, but also many of the chapters that are skipped in the program.  At the end of the year I want to be able to say that I've read the Old Testament again.  That will be so, except for the dull chapters that explain the details of the Mosaic Law and the trappings of the temple.

Marjorie voiced the hope this morning that we'd eventually be done with the Old Testament.  She finds many of the stories “appalling,” and thinks the people “barbaric.”  There is little in the Old Testament that is uplifting.  Fortunately we each have another concurrent study program that feeds our spirits, because the Old Testament does not.  This has been my observation as I've previously tried to read the book.  There have been numerous times when I've had to quit reading the Old Testament when I was halfway through because my spirit wasn't being fed.

Marjorie points out that the people of the Old Testament had many manifestations that were dramatic and breath-taking.  Being eye witness to such events should have cemented them to the Lord forever.  But they, like us, had short memories.

Unlike us, many of them lacked the skill of being able to read and to write.  They couldn't record the experiences or their feelings.  They didn't have the scriptures in their homes.  They could only get the memory of these marvelous events refreshed, and also refresh their feelings, by going to the synagogue and listening to the priest read to them.

And they didn't have the New Testament, or the Book of Mormon, or the Doctrine and Covenants, or the Pearl of Great Price, or prophets and apostles speaking to them on a regular basis.  They only had the five books of Moses and maybe a prophet or a judge who lived a long way away.  And just how inspiring would it be to go to the synagogue each week and hear readings from the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy?

We fault those early Israelites for their faithlessness, and for falling away so rapidly and so repeatedly.  But they didn't have the scriptures to keep them in daily remembrance of their duty.  Instead they lived among people who were devoted to strange gods and to strange and immoral practices.  This was their daily fare.  The Lord's intent was that these people and their practices should be destroyed so that they wouldn't contaminate the righteous society that the Lord wanted to establish.  But the Israelites didn't finish the clean-up job, and the idolatrous practices crept in and overcame them.

Even righteous Solomon was overcome.  He collected wives from these idolatrous people, and in his efforts to please them, they turned his heart away from the Lord.

He wasn't daily reading his scriptures.  He didn't even have much that was uplifting to read.  He was rich, and he was wise, but he didn't have what we have.  Because he didn't have what we have, and didn't use what few scriptures he had, he lost his wisdom and his exaltation.  Noble, wealthy, majestic Solomon, who ruled the richest kingdom on earth, is now no more than just another commoner in what will be the Telestial Kingdom.  He no longer rules.  He has lost his kingdom, his wisdom, his riches, his thousand wives, the admiration of the world, his self esteem, and his exaltation—all because he lost his testimony.

What lesson can we take from Solomon and the Israelites?

It is that we need to daily use the marvelous resources with which the Lord has provided us.  Would it be possible for any of us to fall away if we were daily reading the Book of Mormon?  If we daily read from that book, we give the Holy Ghost a daily opportunity to speak to us, and the Holy Ghost seizes every opportunity that we give it.

Why do we have daily seminary?  It is to give the Holy Ghost a daily opportunity to speak to and to influence our precious youth.  Why do we have Sunday School, and Relief Society and priesthood lessons each week?  It is to give the Holy Ghost a chance to speak to our spirits.  Why do we have Primary every week?  Same reason.

My wife served in Primary during the entire time that the Relief Society and priesthood were using the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church series.  She missed the whole thing.

Last year she discovered those books.  She's thrilled with them.  They feed her spirit just like the Book of Mormon does.  The Holy Ghost is with her as she reads, saying to her, “Look at this!”  “Isn't this amazing?”  “Doesn't this make you feel good inside?”  “And here is my testimony that what you're reading is true.”

She finished the Joseph Smith book , and John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow, and is currently reading the Joseph F. Smith book.  For some reason we don't have Brigham Young's book.  She's desperate to find a copy.  She wants to read them all.  She underlines everything, and reads extracts to me.  The readings she shares, and her insights, frequently set my own mind to working, and end up blessing our whole family.

Unlike Solomon's wives who turned him away from the Lord, my wife has turned me to the Lord.  She is the one who first gave me a Book of Mormon.  She gave me the copy that she was using as the textbook for her religion class at BYU.  It was all underlined, too.

I said, “You can't give me this.  You need it!”

“I can get another one,” she said.

I took it home and stood it upright on the desk in my bedroom.  Because of a previous experience that I had, I knew that when I opened the book something was going to happen.  In the midst of a 4-hour-long prayer of desperation—my first-ever prayer—I heard a voice.  The voice said, “Everything is going to be all right.”

For two weeks I let the book stand upright on my desk.  It was the first thing I saw in the morning, and the last thing I saw at night before I turned out the light.  I had no idea what was in it or what it was about.  I expected it to be an account of Brigham Young crossing the plains with the Saints.

When I began to read, light came flooding into my head.  All I wanted to do was to read that book.  It was a pain to have to put it down and go to work.  I found Jesus Christ.  I found hope and light and purpose to life.  I learned who I was.  I learned that I had a magnificent future.  I learned to love others.  I learned that we are all children of God, brothers and sisters.  The darkness that had filled my mind had no chance against that flood of light.  I actually felt it pushing the darkness out.

I didn't then understand what was happening, but that was the Holy Ghost.  I had provided an opportunity for the Holy Ghost to speak and to testify.  It was what the Holy Ghost had been waiting for.

What if a young man goes to early morning seminary, and chooses to sit in his car in the parking lot?  What if a young woman actually goes to class, but detaches herself by spending the time on her smart phone?  What if I hadn't picked up the book?  Could the Holy Ghost speak?  What if I choose to not go to church this Sunday?  What if I decide that my calling as a clerk is more important than my Sunday School attendance?  What chance does the Holy Ghost have to penetrate my thoughts?  What if I don't make time for the Lord on a daily basis as our prophet has plead with us to do?  What if I'm surrounded by idolatrous and immoral practices like the ancient Israelites were?  Am I immune to having these abhorrent things rub off on me, or will I be like noble Solomon who had it all and ended up with nothing?

The Holy Ghost wants to speak to us.  The Holy Ghost desperately wants to speak to us.  It is probably not going to speak to us in audible words, but it will give us thoughts, and it will fill us with light and with hope.  It will bear testimony.  We will unerringly know right from wrong.  We will be able to correctly identify falsehood wherever and whenever it crops up.  And we'll be happy.

These are all gifts of the Spirit which the Lord is desirous to give us.  They are all to be had by our doing what our prophet has asked us to do:

“I plead with you to make time for the Lord.”

“I plead with you today to counter the lure of the world by making time for the Lord in your life—each and every day.”  (Russell M. Nelson, October 2021 general conference, closing address).

President Nelson has said that “in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”  (Ensign, May 2018, 96).  Other apostles have repeated that warning.  Ronald A. Rasband, for instance, has already quoted it twice in general conference.

If we choose to ignore the prophet's counsel, we're choosing failure.  If we don't provide a daily opportunity for the Holy Ghost to penetrate our thinking, we're wide open to the suggestions of the adversary and of the world to fill the void that's in our minds.

The Israelites lived among people who sacrificed thousands of their babies in the fire to their god, Molech.  We shudder at their ignorance.  Yet we live among people who think it is their right to take the lives of millions of unborn babies, and see nothing wrong with the practice.

The Israelites lived among people who worshiped Ashtoreth and practiced state-sponsored prostitution and sodomy.  We live among people who do the same, but who don't bother to use Ashtoreth as the excuse for their loose morals.  We are labeled as bigoted and as not being progressive-minded if we don't accept these practices and things like same-sex marriage.  Is there any chance that we could every become accepting of these practices?

It happened to Solomon, and he led a whole nation down the same road.

We need light.  We need hope.  We need the Lord.  We need the Holy Ghost to direct us.  We will not go astray if we do as our prophet has asked, and daily make time for the Lord in our lives.

As I was sitting on the couch and writing this talk, I heard something drop in the propane heater behind me.  I asked Marjorie, “What was that?”

“I don't know,” she replied.

Thoughts were coming fast, so I kept writing.  I was also waiting and listening for the heater to come on again.  In my mind I knew that something had broken, and that we'd be without heat until the propane company came to fix it.  And the day was Sunday, so it would be at least a day or more before they'd even get there.

After a bit I got up and went to another room.  The heater still hadn't come back on.  If it was still off when I returned, I'd turn up the heat to see if it was still working.  But as I returned, Marjorie said, “I know what's wrong.  The plug fell out of the electrical outlet.”

I plugged it back in, and the heater came on.  I love easy fixes like that.

There's an easy fix for a lot of the problems that beset you, too.  It's called making time for the Lord each day.  It might be done by reading the Book of Mormon.  It might be done with your family.  It might be the “Come Follow Me” program.  It would certainly include prayer.

If you daily invite the Holy Ghost to be a part of your day, your day and your life will certainly be better.