Talking Out Of Turn

It’s that time of year again.

She told us how, once Joseph Smith had visited the Hill Cumorah at Moroni’s prompting and dug up the golden plates on which the Book of Mormon was written, he had hidden them from the greedy people of Palmyra in various spots around the house. He had listened to the feelings of his heart in choosing the plate’s hiding spots, she said, and she enjoined us to do the same, for that was how we would know that what she was saying was true.

Yeah. Listen to your heart.

A plump young woman whose smile covered her whole face, she said that it was within these walls that Joseph Smith first spoke with the angel Moroni. “I know these things are true,” she said before ushering us out, smiling beatifically. “I’ve asked the Heavenly Father, and I encourage you to do the same.”

Because the best way to determine whether things are true is to see whether you feel like things are true, after asking God to confirm it that way.

A friend of mine once described to me a drug trip he’d experienced long ago, in which he was sure he was being stalked by a gigantic spider. He tried to run, but his arm melted to the car door. I wonder if, in his heart, he felt like he was in danger of playing Frodo to the convenience store parking lot Shelob.

Dude could have started his own religion. It probably would have been more exciting than Mormonism. Lower life expectancy, though.

What, exactly, is the difference between this, and “trust your feelings, Luke,” and Roxette encouraging us to “listen to your heart,” and “I feel the Lord telling me x” or “I have a ‘check in my spirit’ regarding y“?

Here’s what the Lord says:

Jeremiah 17:9

9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it? (ESV)

Acts 17:11 Listen

11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. (ESV)

2 Timothy 3:13-17 Listen

13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (ESV)

Footnotes

[1] 3:14 The Greek for whom is plural

[2] 3:17 That is, a messenger of God (the phrase echoes a common Old Testament expression)

I think that, if you ever find that you have a check in your spirit, you ought to try to cash that check, and see what happens. I think you’ll find it’s not worth the paper it’s not printed on.