Feb 13, 2016
Honesty
Tom
Have you JJ never told a lie in your 71 years on Earth?
JJ
I think I was born believing in being honest. I can’t remember anyone teaching me about it as my parents were not religious when I was young but I have always been committed to telling the truth, even as a kid. I have slipped up several times on small things that were kind of a knee jerk response and of course I have made my share of mistakes, but an honest mistake is not a lie. Of course, writing fiction and telling jokes are not lies because the receiver knows the ground rules.
Telling the truth has gotten me in trouble a number of times, but overall it has kept me out of a lot more trouble than it caused.
***
Ruth:
Well, if I was brutally honest at work, in all my jobs, I would get the sack.
JJ
You can be honest without being brutally honest. Let us suppose a female spouse asks, “Do you think I am fat?”
The brutally honest answer could be, “You’re fat as a pig and I find you repulsive.”
A diplomatic but honest answer is, “What is your weight now compared to ten years ago?”
Answer: “I’ve put on 20 pounds.”
“Looks like you are wearing it well and I love you more today than the lighter you, but if you lost a few of those pounds it would be terrific!”
I’ve met people who are brutally honest to the point of being rude and find them very annoying. It is better to say nothing or change the course of the conversation than to insult someone.
***
lwk writes:
I am curious what specific scriptures you are thinking of that “indicate that this earth is hell..”?
JJ
This scripture implies it but he Book of Mormon clarifies it:
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
This is from my book Eternal Lives:
When Nephi was interpreting the filthy water in his vision he said it was “hell”. His brothers then asked: “Doth this thing mean the torment of the body in the days of probation, or doth it mean the final state of the soul after the death of the temporal body, or doth it speak of the things which are temporal? And it came to pass that I said unto them that it was a representation of things BOTH TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL.” I Nephi 15:31-32 Here we have it in plain English. Hell is both temporal and spiritual. Men can suffer for their sins both in and out of the body, and since this temporal existence is part of “hell” how are men going to be sent there after they die if they are not born again?
“There cannot any unclean thing enter into the kingdom of God; wherefore there must needs be a place of filthiness prepared for that which is filthy.” I Nephi 15:34. Nephi tells us that that place which is prepared is hell, of which the filthy water in the vision was a symbol of, and such symbol “was a representation of things both temporal and spiritual”. Therefore those who suffer the temporal hell are sent back to the “temporal” earth.
Let us examine the meaning for further light: “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.” What is the sea? The scripture explains: “The waters (the sea) which thou sawest where the whore sitteth are the peoples, and multitudes, and nations and tongues.” Rev 17:15. We are told that “Death (Physical death II Nephi 9:11) and Hell (the spiritually dead in hell. II Nephi 9:12) delivered up the dead which were in them.” Thus we see that on the last day ALL the spiritually dead including those still living on the earth (The sea) and all the Spirit world (Death and Hell) will be judged, and those who cannot abide the judgment must suffer a “second death” and be cast into the lake of fire (or another round of numerous lives of sorrow).
Copyright 2016 by J J Dewey