Who Told You?

After Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, our Heavenly Father visited them in the Garden of Eden. Upon hearing that Adam hid himself because he was naked, God asks, "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" (see Moses 4:12-17)

Adam had transgressed the law and so may have been reminded by this question of his unauthorized actions. The Lord chastises those whom He loves.  Yet, God's inquiry was surely not about catching Adam as much as it was about teaching him. Adam had transgressed because he allowed others-- Eve in some accounts or Lucifer directly in others-- to persuade him to believe and act in a way that violated the commandment he had been given. God's question invited Adam to look to the sources of his beliefs and actions to determine their truth and worthiness.

Virtually every scriptural account is a story of individuals choosing which sources to believe and act upon. Despite Joseph's loyal service, Potipher chose to listen to the lies of his adulterous wife and threw Joseph into prison. Years later, the king of Egypt chose instead to listen to Joseph and so saved his entire nation from a seven-year drought.

Herod's soldiers, Jews that knew God had commanded thou shalt not kill, listened instead to the voice of their political leader and boss when they killed all of the infants and toddlers in and around Bethlehem at the sign of Christ's birth. At the same time, Joseph and Mary fled with their newborn to Egypt despite no evidence of any pending danger because Joseph listened to the voice of God's messenger in a dream.They left all they knew, all that their society would have considered normal, because they recognized the source of a single dream.

Lehi explained that 'the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by one or the other' (2 Nephi 2:16). These enticings come in every aspect of our lives as we choose which sources we will allow to influence our beliefs and actions. They may affect the language we use, how many children we have, what media we choose to consume, our political views, the food we eat, how we manage resources like time and money, and thousands of other choices we will make in our lives.

With each decision, even many of those that may seem small or insignificant, we choose whether we will listen to the voice of the Lord or to some other source. Moroni explained that 'every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.' On the other hand, 'whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God... is of the devil' (Moroni 7:16-17).

As we reflect on our own motivations and the sources we choose to believe, it is helpful to put ourselves in a figurative Eden where the Lord inquires, 'Who told you that was important?', 'Who told you that was good?' or 'Who told you to act and believe in that way?' Are the gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of his modern prophets informing our thoughts and actions or are we listening to some other voice?


In our daily lives, there are many other voices vying for our attention. Deceptive messages are wrapped in the rhetoric of love, a powerful consensus or trend, an animated 'family movie', peer-reviewed science, glamorous endorsements, laws, workplace mandates, incredible special effects or seemingly small habits that don't seem so bad.

We keep our baptismal covenants when we evaluate the sources of what we choose to believe by Moroni's standard: 'Does this persuade me to believe in Christ?' As we remain willing at all times to listen to the voice of God and his prophets, the Lord will guide our lives through the deceptions and droughts that surround us.

Choosing to Hearken and Receive

In Alma we read one of the greatest missionary stories of all time as the sons of Mosiah, princes among Nephites, forsake wealth and power to teach the enemy Lamanites about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Their extraordinary success is matched by extraordinary trials as they overcome imprisonment, starvation, disbelief and persecution to teach the gospel. In a moment of joy as they realized together their incredible missionary success, the oldest of these sons, Ammon, declares, "our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold...thousands of them do rejoice, and have been brought into the fold of God" (Alma 26: 3-4).

Four hundred years later, the prophet Mormon walked among the descendants of Ammon and his brethren, their converts and their once-righteous Nephite nation. Christ had visited the people and they had enjoyed the presence, teachings and miracles of Christ's authorized disciples for nearly three hundred years. Now a wicked people, Mormon writes that he tried to preach to them, "but my mouth was shut, and I was forbidden that I should preach unto them; for behold they had wilfully rebelled against their God" (Mormon 1:16).

In these two examples we see two wicked peoples, with identical family histories, yield two very different responses from the Lord. Ammon and his brethren rejoiced that they had, "been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work" (Alma 26:3). And when "our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back," Ammon records, "behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success" (Alma 26:27). Yet Mormon, "was forbidden to preach unto them, because of the hardness of their hearts; and because of the hardness of their hearts the land was cursed for their sake" (Mormon 1:17).

If God loves all of His children, we may wonder why He would bless one people with faith and conversion and curse another and forbid the prophets to preach to them. It may seem unfair or like His love is conditional. Yet the difference between these two societies is not the way they were treated by a God who loves them both, but the way they used their agency to respond to that love.

Both of these peoples had been taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. The wickedness of the Lamanites taught by Ammon was the result of generations of false teachings and disbelief on the part of their ancestors. They were taught the gospel and responded with conversion so pure and so true they were willing to die in a massacre to hold true to their covenants and to their God. The Nephites of Mormon's day were raised in the gospel; their ancestors had beheld Christ with their very own eyes, yet they chose abandon their family legacies for the pleasures of greed, immorality, self-indulgence and rebellion.

So we see the wisdom of God as He teaches us the principles of eternity: "And the mysteries of the kingdom ye shall keep within yourselves; for it is not meet to give that which is holy unto the dogs; neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet. For the world cannot receive that which ye, yourselves, are not able to bear; wherefore ye shall not give your pearls unto them, lest they turn again and rend you" (JST Matthew 7:10-11).

And again, "he that receiveth my gospel receiveth me; and he that receiveth not my gospel receiveth not me. And this is my gospel-- repentance and baptism by water, and then cometh the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost... The days of thy deliverance are come, if thou wilt hearken to my voice, which saith unto thee: Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on my name, and you shall receive my Spirit, and a blessing so great as you have never known" (D&C 39:5-10).

Fourth Century Nephites had already trampled sacred covenants to become the wicked people they were. They were taught the gospel in their homes and they chose to not to receive it, but to discard it and regard it as slop for the pigs. Not many years from the time of Mormon's writing, they even turned against the Church to tear it into pieces and destroy it.

The people of Ammon's time, the self-declared Anti-Nephi-Lehis, hearkened unto the voice of the Lord and were baptized. They wanted nothing more than to be free of their sins and diligent in their faith.

Like the Ammonites and the Nephites of Mormon's time, each of us must decide each day whether we will receive Christ. We must decide whether we will build the foundations of our testimonies on the rock of Jesus Christ and his gospel, or whether we will be overrun and washed away by the world and her philosophies like the wicked Nephites. We must decide if we will be true to our family's legacy of faith, however long or short, or if we will abandon our opportunity and advantage for the excitement of popularity or the world's esteem. We must decide who we will serve: God or mammon.

The decisions the move us closer to Christ or the slippery slope of apostasy come by the dozen every day. The movies we watch, the conversations we have, the offenses we choose, the love we give and the way we use our time are just a few of the daily, if not constant, decisions that pull us one way or the other. If we expect ourselves and our families to be like the people of Ammon, we must learn to hearken to the voice of the Lord as the Ammonites did. As we do so, we will arise to the level of the covenants we have made, our sins will be washed away, we will call upon the name of the Lord, and we shall receive the Spirit of God and blessing so great as we have never known.

Therefore, blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved. Helaman 12:23