There are a lot of voices in today’s world. I would hazard a guess and say more than ever before in the history of the earth. We can stay on social media and news sites all day and night, continually bombarded with more and more information in a way that none of our ancestors could. The noise comes from all across the globe, sometimes peaceful and beautiful, all too often angry and divisive. Yes, there are voices that seek our wellbeing, but many more do harm.

A popular scripture passage in LDS-world is from 1 Kings. Elijah is having a really hard time of it – so hard in fact that he asks the Lord to take his life from him. This remarkable prophet thinks he is no better than his wicked ancestors. He wants to die. (1 Kings 19:4)

I can relate.

In this tender passage, the Lord takes care of Elijah with food, and drink, and shade. And then we read:

‘And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.’ (1 Kings 19:11-12)

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard this passage quoted in sermons and lessons about how the Holy Spirit speaks to us in the quiet and peaceful. And yes there is truth in that of course.

But Job (who also wanted to die) had quite a different experience: ‘Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind…’ (Job 38:1, see also Job 40:6)

I find it comforting to know that God doesn’t only speak to us when we can get ourselves feeling peaceful. When life is one long continuous whirlwind, He will also communicate with us. Feeling peaceful about something could just be our subconscious mind deciding to ignore the Spirit in favour of sticking with the status quo – that’s the All is well in Zion  (2 Nephi 28:21) mindset.

As I’ve said previously, the fruits of the Spirit are peace, love and tranquility (see Galatians 5:22). But the Holy Spirit also convicts us of our sins and of our need for a Saviour (see John 16:8). You might find yourself suddenly aware of something in your life – whether a behaviour or a belief – that is wrong in the Lord’s eyes, and you’ll feel a desperate yearning to make it right with Him. Yes, God loves you, but whom the Lord loves He also chastens (Hebrews 12:6), and you’ll feel that chastening often by the Holy Spirit. 

With the cacophony of noise around us – all with convincing arguments about their point of view – it can be difficult to know what is right. That’s why I wrote the recent series about learning to discern between truth and falsehood. If you want to be right before God, discernment is essential. 

A couple of years ago, I had a really profound spiritual experience. Because of my physical and mental health limitations, I was later asking the Lord how I could serve Him and others. At the time I had been rapidly reading through numerous scriptures, and a series of scriptures from the Doctrine and Covenants hit me really hard.

‘If ye have desires to serve God, ye are called to the work … And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work.’ (D&C 4:3, 5)

Okay, so I didn’t need to wait to receive any kind of official calling which I probably wouldn’t be able to fulfil anyway. I wanted to serve, and so God would call me – just in a bespoke calling direct from Him rather than one of the cookie-cutter ones from the handbook.

‘Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word … But now hold your peace; study my word which hath gone forth among the children of men…’ (D&C 11:21-22)

I’d been doing a lot of study, but when this verse hit me, I realised that the Lord wanted me to continue studying for a bit before doing anything. There was more I needed to learn. I trusted that He would let me know when I was ready.

‘And it shall come to pass, that if you shall ask the Father in my name, in faith believing, you shall receive the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance, that you may stand as a witness of the things of which you shall both hear and see, and also that you may declare repentance unto this generation.’ (D&C 14:8)

‘And now, behold, I say unto you, that the thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people…’ (D&C 15:6)

‘And of tenets thou shalt not talk, but thou shalt declare repentance and faith on the Savior, and remission of sins by baptism, and by fire, yea, even the Holy Ghost.’ (D&C 19:31)

Again, and again, and again the Lord was saying that what the world needed more than anything was the message of repentance. I want to emphasise that this wasn’t an intellectual exercise. I felt the way it is described in Joseph Smith History, when he read that passage from James, ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…’ (James 1:5).

‘Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart.’ (JS-H 1:12)

I couldn’t reliably hold any Church calling. I couldn’t reliably go and visit people. But what I could do, was write what I had learned. And what I was learning, repeatedly, was the need for repentance for me and for the world. Indeed, I was losing track of the number of times the scriptures were saying that what needed to be preached was nothing but faith and repentance – the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants especially. While the same language wasn’t used, the same message was clearly repeated again and again in the Bible.

And as I continued my study, what I further was learning was that nowhere was this message more critically needed than for those who believed they already had the gospel of Christ. Pretty much every post on this blog since late 2024 has been focused on this in one way or another¹.

For Latter-day Saints, I beg you to read Doctrine and Covenants 112:23-26, 2 Nephi 28, Mormon 8, and Helaman 13. These passages of scripture are written to us. We are the ones who are reading this – not the masses of people who don’t believe – and Mormon and Moroni are writing to those who would be reading their words. Every church has gone  astray. We have transfigured God’s word. We have polluted His gospel. These are Moroni’s words to us when he says he has seen our day. He couldn’t possibly be any clearer.

When visiting the Nephites, Christ commanded the people to study Isaiah and ‘the prophets’². Mormon couldn’t even include a hundredth part of what Christ taught, so the fact that he included this commandment for us tells us that this is specifically for us too – because what Isaiah prophesied, ‘…has been and shall be.’ (3 Nephi 23:3)

Reading the first chapter of Isaiah alone should wake us up and alert us to the awful state in which we are. (1 Nephi 13:32; Alma 12:14; Ether 4:15; Helaman 6:40)

‘Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.’ (Isaiah 1:4)

Children, meaning the Lord’s children. The children of the covenant. That’s us. We have become a seed of evildoers and corrupters. We have forsaken the Lord.

‘To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? … Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.’ (Isaiah 1:11, 13)

We love our temples. But the Lord is asking us why? They are achieving nothing. Our General Conferences, our Testimony meetings. They are iniquity. This isn’t what I’m saying – it’s what Isaiah is saying. This condemnation from Isaiah sounds remarkably similar to that of Amos:

‘I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.’ (Amos 5:21-23)

Why was the Lord so angry with Israel anciently, and feels the same about us today?

‘…they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.’ (Isaiah 1:23)

‘Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat … and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.’ (Amos 5:11-12)

‘Hear this word …which oppress the poor, which crush the needy…’ (Amos 4:1)

‘I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek … And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar.’ (Amos 2:6-8)

In Isaiah 1: 9-10 we’re described as being like Sodom, and Ezekiel explains, ‘Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.’ (Ezekiel 16:49)

These aren’t the only condemnations that come Israel’s (and our) way, but they are remarkably consistent and are repeated time and time again through the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament prophets. The Lord really doesn’t care much for our temples and worship if we’re leaving the poor and vulnerable to their difficulties. 

If the definition of Zion is a people having one heart, and one mind, and there being no poor among them (Moses 7:18), then what we see today in our society with divisiveness; with untold poverty amongst us and the divide between those who ‘have’ and those who ‘have not’ growing ever larger, is surely the very opposite. Can the Lord be pleased if we spend two billion dollars on a temple renovation and simply relocate all the homeless so they don’t spoil the view?

Yes, I fear we – even those who consider ourselves to be the Lord’s own people – are the opposite of Zion. That is truly blaspheming his name (D&C 112:16). If we don’t repent, we will be worthy of the destruction coming our way.

Not everyone, of course. There is wheat amongst the tares. There are those who belong to the true church of the Lamb of God, even though their numbers are few. (1 Nephi 14:12)

But Isaiah and the others of the prophets all say only a remnant of the Lord’s people will remain. Only a small number are truly His.

The good news is that destruction hasn’t yet come. That means there remains time to repent. I hope and pray that we can all do so.

© Copyright Jeffrey Collyer 2026

1. I want to emphasise something I’ve said before, though. Just because I feel the Lord has directed me to write some blog posts, doesn’t make me anything special. I’m no prophet – I never have been!
2. The Prophets are the so-called prophetic books of what today we call the Old Testament