Ezra Taft Benson (President)
Every generation has its tests and its chance to stand and prove itself. Would you like to know of one of our toughest tests? Hear the warning words of President Brigham Young, “The worst fear I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and His people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution and be true. But my greatest fear is that they cannot stand wealth.”
Ours then seems to be the toughest test of all for the evils are more subtle, more clever. It all seems less menacing and it is harder to detect. While every test of righteousness represents a struggle, this particular test seems like no test at all, no struggle and so could be the most deceiving of all tests.
Do you know what peace and prosperity can do to a people—It can put them to sleep. The Book of Mormon warned us of how [Satan], in the last days, would lead us away carefully down to hell. The Lord has on the earth some potential spiritual giants whom He saved for some six thousand years to help bear off the Kingdom triumphantly, and the devil is trying to put them to sleep. The [adversary] knows that he probably won’t be too successful in getting them to commit many great and malignant sins of commission. So he puts them into a deep sleep, like Gulliver, while he strands them with little sins of omission. And what good is a sleepy, neutralized, lukewarm giant as a leader?
We have too many potential spiritual giants who should be more vigorously lifting their homes, the kingdom, and the country. We have many who feel they are good men [and women], but they need to be good for something—stronger patriarchs, courageous missionaries, valiant [family history and] temple workers, dedicated patriots, devoted quorum members. In short, we must be shaken and awakened from a spiritual snooze. (“Our Obligation and Challenge” [address delivered at regional representatives seminar] Sept. 30, 1977, 2-3; quoted by Elder David A. Bednar in BYU-Idaho Education Week Devotional, July 30, 2010)
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