by Jeffrey R. Holland

This responsibility to speak to you never gets any easier for me. I think it gets more difficult as the years go by. I grow a little older, the world and its litany of problems get a little more complex, and your hopes and dreams become evermore important to me the longer I am at BYU. Indeed, your growth and happiness and development in the life you are now living and in the life you will be living in the days and decades ahead are the central and most compelling motivation in my daily professional life. I care very much about you now and forever. Everything I know to do at BYU is being done with an eye toward who and what you are, and who and what you can become. The future of this world's history will be quite fully in your hands very soon--at least your portion of it will be--and an education at an institution sponsored and guided by THE CHURCH of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints is the greatest academic advantage I can imagine in preparation for such a serious and significant responsibility.

But that future, at least any qualitative aspect of it, must be vigorously fought for. It won't "just happen" to your advantage. Someone said once that the future is waiting to be seized, and if we do not grasp it firmly, then other hands, more determined and bloody than our own, will wrench it from us and follow a different course.

It is with an eye to that future--your future--and an awareness of this immense sense of responsibility I feel for you, that I approach this annual midyear devotional message. I always need the help and sustaining Spirit of the Lord to succeed at such times, but I especially feel the need for that spiritual help today.

Human Intimacy

1)  My topic is that of human intimacy, a topic as sacred as any I know and more sacred than anything I have ever addressed from this podium. If I am not careful and you are not supportive, this subject can slide quickly from the sacred into the merely sensational, and I would be devastated if that happened. It would be better not to address the topic at all than to damage it with casualness or carelessness. Indeed, it is against such casualness and carelessness that I wish to speak. So I ask for your faith and your prayers and your respect.

1)  You may feel this is a topic you hear addressed too frequently at this time in your life, but given the world in which we live, you may not be hearing it enough. All of the prophets, past and present, have spoken on it, and President Benson himself addressed this very subject in his annual message to this student body last fall.

I am thrilled that most of you are doing wonderfully well in the matter of personal purity. There isn't as worthy and faithful a group of university students anywhere else on the face of the earth. You are an inspiration to me. I acknowledge your devotion to the gospel and applaud it. Like Jacob of old, I would prefer for the sake of the innocent not to need to discuss such topics. But a few of you are not doing so well, and much of the world around us is not doing well at all.

The national press recently noted,

In America 3,000 adolescents become pregnant each day. A million a year. Four out of five are unmarried. More than half get abortions. "Babies having babies."[Babies] killing [babies]. ["What's Gone Wrong with Teen Sex," People,13 April 1987, p. 111]

That same national poll indicated nearly 60 percent of high school students in "mainstream" America had lost their virginity, and 80 percent of college students had. The Wall Street Journal (hardly in a class with the National Enquirer) recently wrote,

AIDS [appears to be reaching] plague[like] proportions. Even now it is claiming innocent victims: newborn babies and recipients of blood transfusions. It is only a matter of time before it becomes widespread among heterosexuals. . . .

AIDS should remind us that ours is a hostile world. . . . The more we pass ourselves around, the larger the likelihood of our picking something up. . . .

Whether on clinical or moral grounds, it seems clear that promiscuity has its price. [Wall Street Journal, 21 May 1987, p. 28]

Of course, more widespread in our society than the indulgence of personal sexual activity are the printed and photographed descriptions of those who do. Of that lustful environment a contemporary observer says,

We live in an age in which voyeurism is no longer the side line of the solitary deviate, but rather a national pastime, fully institutionalized and [circularized] in the mass media. [William F. May, quoted by Henry Fairlie, The Seven Deadly Sins Today (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), p. 178]

In fact, the rise of civilization seems, ironically enough, to have made actual or fantasized promiscuity a greater, not a lesser, problem. Edward Gibbon, the distinguished British historian of the eighteenth century who wrote one of the most intimidating works of history in our language (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), said simply,

Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity. . . . The refinements of life [seem to] corrupt, [even as] they polish the [relationship] of the sexes. [Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 40 of Great Books of the Western World, 1952, p. 92]

I do not wish us to spend this hour documenting social problems nor wringing our hands over the dangers that such outside influences may hold for us. As serious as such contemporary realities are, I wish to discuss this topic in quite a different way, discuss it specifically for Latter-day Saints--primarily young, unmarried Latter-day Saints, even those attending Brigham Young University. So I conspicuously set aside the horrors of AIDS and national statistics on illegitimate pregnancies and speak rather to a gospel-based view of personal purity.

2)  Indeed, I wish to do something even a bit more difficult than listing the do's and don'ts of personal purity. I wish to speak, to the best of my ability, on why we should be clean, on why moral discipline is such a significant matter in God's eyes. I know that may sound presumptuous, but a philosopher once said, tell me sufficiently why a thing should be done, and I will move heaven and earth to do it.

Hoping you will feel the same way as he and fully recognizing my limitations, I wish to try to give at least a partial answer to "Why be morally clean?" I will need first to pose briefly what I see as the doctrinal seriousness of the matter before then offering just three reasons for such seriousness.

The Significance and Sanctity

May I begin with half of a nine-line poem by Robert Frost. (The other half is worth a sermon also, but it will have to wait for another day.) Here are the first four lines of Frost's "Fire and Ice."

A second, less poetic but more specific opinion is offered by the writer of Proverbs:

3) Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? . . .

But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.

A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. [Proverbs 6:27-33]

In getting at the doctrinal seriousness, why is this matter of sexual relationships so severe that fire is almost always the metaphor, with passion pictured vividly in flames? What is there in the potentially hurtful heat of this that leaves one's soul--or perhaps the whole world, according to Frost--destroyed, if that flame is left unchecked and those passions unrestrained? What is there in all of this that prompts Alma to warn his son Corianton that sexual transgression is "an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost" (Alma 39:5; emphasis added)?

Setting aside sins against the Holy Ghost for a moment as a special category unto themselves, it is LDS doctrine that sexual transgression is second only to murder in the Lord's list of life's most serious sins. By assigning such rank to a physical appetite so conspicuously evident in all of us, what is God trying to tell us about its place in his plan for all men and women in mortality? I submit to you he is doing precisely that--commenting about the very plan of life itself. 4)  Clearly God's greatest concerns regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of it. These two most important issues in our very personal and carefully supervised progress are the two issues that he as our Creator and Father and Guide wishes most to reserve to himself. These are the two matters that he has repeatedly told us he wants us never to take illegally, illicitly, unfaithfully, without sanction.

As for the taking of life, we are generally quite responsible. Most people, it seems to me, readily sense the sanctity of life and as a rule do not run up to friends, put a loaded revolver to their heads, and cavalierly pull the trigger. Furthermore, when there is a click of the hammer rather than an explosion of lead, and a possible tragedy seems to have been averted, no one in such a circumstance would be so stupid as to sigh, "Oh, good. I didn't go all the way."

No, "all the way" or not, the insanity of such action with fatal powder and steel is obvious on the face of it. Such a person running about this campus with an arsenal of loaded handguns or military weaponry aimed at fellow students would be apprehended, prosecuted, and institutionalized if in fact such a lunatic would not himself have been killed in all the pandemonium. After such a fictitious moment of horror on this campus (and you are too young to remember my college years when the sniper wasn't fictitious, killing twelve of his fellow students at the University of Texas), we would undoubtedly sit in our dorms or classrooms with terror on our minds for many months to come, wondering how such a thing could possibly happen--especially here at BYU.

5) No, fortunately, in the case of how life is taken, I think we seem to be quite responsible. The seriousness of that does not often have to be spelled out, and not many sermons need to be devoted to it.

But in the significance and sanctity of giving life, some of us are not so responsible, and in the larger world swirling around us we find near criminal irresponsibility. What would in the case of taking life bring absolute horror and demand grim justice, in the case of giving life brings dirty jokes and four-letter lyrics and crass carnality on the silver screen, home-owned or downtown.

Is such moral turpitude so wrong? That question has always been asked, usually by the guilty. "Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness" (Proverbs 30:20). No murder here. Well, maybe not. But sexual transgression? "He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul." Sounds near fatal to me.

So much for the doctrinal seriousness. Now, with a desire to prevent such painful moments, to avoid what Alma called the "inexpressible horror" of standing in the presence of God unworthily, and to permit the intimacy it is your right and privilege and delight to enjoy in marriage to be untainted by such crushing remorse and guilt--I wish to give those three reasons I mentioned earlier as to why I believe this is an issue of such magnitude and consequence.

The Doctrine of the Soul

First, we simply must understand the revealed, restored Latter-day Saint doctrine of the soul, and the high and inextricable part the body plays in that doctrine. 6) One of the "plain and precious" truths restored to this dispensation is that "the spirit and the body are the soul of man" (D&C88:15; emphasis added) and that when the spirit and body are separated, men and women "cannot receive a fulness of joy" (D&C93:34). Certainly that suggests something of the reason why obtaining a body is so fundamentally important to the plan of salvation in the first place, why sin of any kind is such a serious matter (namely because its automatic consequence is death, the separation of the spirit from the body and the separation of the spirit and the body from God), and why the resurrection of the body is so central to the great abiding and eternal triumph of Christ's atonement. 6) We do not have to be a herd of demonically possessed swine charging down the Gadarene slopes toward the sea to understand that a body is the great prize of mortal life, and that even a pig's will do for those frenzied spirits that rebelled, and to this day remain dispossessed, in their first, unembodied estate.

May I quote a 1913 sermon by Elder James E. Talmage on this doctrinal point:

“We have been taught . . . to look upon these bodies of ours as gifts from God. We Latter-day Saints do not regard the body as something to be condemned, something to be abhorred. . . . We regard [the body] as the sign of our royal birthright. . . . We recognize . . . that those who kept not their first estate . . . were denied that inestimable blessing. . . . We believe that these bodies . . . may be made, in very truth, the temple of the Holy Ghost. . . .”

It is peculiar to the theology of the Latter-day Saints that we regard the body as an essential part of the soul. Read your dictionaries, the lexicons, and encyclopedias, and you will find that nowhere [in Christianity], outside of the Church of Jesus Christ, is the solemn and eternal truth taught that the soul of man is the body and the spirit combined. [CR, October 1913, p. 117]

7) So partly in answer to why such seriousness, we answer that one toying with the God-given--and satanically coveted--body of another, toys with the very soul of that individual, toys with the central purpose and product of life, "the very key" to life, as Elder Boyd K. Packer once called it. In trivializing the soul of another (please include the word body there), we trivialize the Atonement that saved that soul and guaranteed its continued existence. And when one toys with the Son of Righteousness, the Day Star himself, one toys with white heat and a flame hotter and holier than the noonday sun. You cannot do so and not be burned. You cannot with impunity "crucify Christ afresh" (see Hebrews 6:6). Exploitation of the body (please include the word soul there) is, in the last analysis, an exploitation of him who is the Light and the Life of the world. Perhaps here Paul's warning to the Corinthians takes on newer, higher meaning:

8) “Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. . . . Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. . . . Flee fornication. . . . He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. . . . . Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” [1 Corinthians 6:13-20; emphasis added]

Our soul is what's at stake here--our spirit and our body. Paul understood that doctrine of the soul every bit as well as James E. Talmage did, because it is gospel truth. The purchase price for our fullness of joy--body and spirit eternally united--is the pure and innocent blood of the Savior of this world. 9) We cannot then say in ignorance or defiance, "Well, it's my life," or worse yet, "It's my body." It is not. "Ye are not your own," Paul said. "Ye are bought with a price." So in answer to the question, "Why does God care so much about sexual transgression?" it is partly because of the precious gift offered by and through his Only Begotten Son to redeem the souls--bodies and spirits--we too often share and abuse in cheap and tawdry ways. Christ restored the very seeds of eternal lives (see D&C132:19, 24), and we desecrate them at our peril. The first key reason for personal purity? Our very souls are involved and at stake.

A Symbol of Total Union

10) Second, may I suggest that human intimacy, that sacred, physical union ordained of God for a married couple, deals with a symbol that demands special sanctity. Such an act of love between a man and a woman is--or certainly was ordained to be--a symbol of total union: union of their hearts, their hopes, their lives, their love, their family, their future, their everything. It is a symbol that we try to suggest in the temple with a word like seal. The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps ought to render such a sacred bond as "welding"--that those united in matrimony and eternal families are "welded" together, inseparable if you will, to withstand the temptations of the adversary and the afflictions of mortality. (See D&C 128:18.)

But such a total, virtually unbreakable union, such an unyielding commitment between a man and a woman, can only come with the proximity and permanence afforded in a marriage covenant, with the union of all that they possess--their very hearts and minds, all their days and all their dreams. They work together, they cry together, they enjoy Brahms and Beethoven and breakfast together, they sacrifice and save and live together for all the abundance that such a totally intimate life provides such a couple. And the external symbol of that union, the physical manifestation of what is a far deeper spiritual and metaphysical bonding, is the physical blending that is part of--indeed, a most beautiful and gratifying expression of--that larger, more complete union of eternal purpose and promise.

As delicate as it is to mention in such a setting, I nevertheless trust your maturity to understand that physiologically we are created as men and women to fit together in such a union. In this ultimate physical expression of one man and one woman they are as nearly and as literally "one" as two separate physical bodies can ever be. It is in that act of ultimate physical intimacy we most nearly fulfill the commandment of the Lord given to Adam and Eve, living symbols for all married couples, when he invited them to cleave unto one another only, and thus become "one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).

Obviously, such a commandment to these two, the first husband and wife of the human family, has unlimited implications--social, cultural, and religious as well as physical--but that is exactly my point. As all couples come to that moment of bonding in mortality, it is to be just such a complete union. That commandment cannot be fulfilled, and that symbolism of "one flesh" cannot be preserved, if we hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously share intimacy in a darkened corner of a darkened hour, then just as hastily and guiltily and surreptitiously retreat to our separate worlds--not to eat or live or cry or laugh together, not to do the laundry and the dishes and the homework, not to manage a budget and pay the bills and tend the children and plan together for the future. No, we cannot do that until we are truly one--united, bound, linked, tied, welded, sealed, married.

Can you see then the moral schizophrenia that comes from pretending we are one, sharing the physical symbols and physical intimacy of our union, but then fleeing, retreating, severing all such other aspects--and symbols--of what was meant to be a total obligation, only to unite again furtively some other night or, worse yet, furtively unite (and you can tell how cynically I use that word) with some other partner who is no more bound to us, no more one with us than the last was or than the one that will come next week or next month or next year or anytime before the binding commitments of marriage?

11) You must wait--you must wait until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you are at least legally and, for Latter-day Saint purposes, eternally pronounced as one. To give illicitly that which is not yours to give (remember--"you are not your own") and to give only part of that which cannot be followed with the gift of your whole heart and your whole life and your whole self is its own form of emotional Russian roulette. If you persist in sharing part without the whole, in pursuing satisfaction devoid of symbolism, in giving parts and pieces and inflamed fragments only, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your physical intimacy and your wholehearted devotion to a truer, later love. You may come to that moment of real love, of total union, only to discover to your horror that what you should have saved has been spent, and--mark my words--only God's grace can recover that piecemeal dissipation of your virtue.

A good Latter-day Saint friend, Dr. Victor L. Brown, Jr., has written of this issue:

Fragmentation enables its users to counterfeit intimacy. . . .

If we relate to each other in fragments, at best we miss full relationships. At worst, we manipulate and exploit others for our gratification. Sexual fragmentation can be particularly harmful because it gives powerful physiological rewards which, though illusory, can temporarily persuade us to overlook the serious deficits in the overall relationship. Two people may marry for physical gratification and then discover that the illusion of union collapses under the weight of intellectual, social, and spiritual incompatibilities. . . .

Sexual fragmentation is particularly harmful because it is particularly deceptive. The intense human intimacy that should be enjoyed in and symbolized by sexual union is counterfeited by sensual episodes which suggest--but cannot deliver--acceptance, understanding, and love. Such encounters mistake the end for the means as lonely, desperate people seek a common denominator which will permit the easiest, quickest gratification. [Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy: Illusion and Reality (Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1981), pp. 5-6]

Listen to a far more biting observation by a non-Latter-day Saint regarding such acts devoid of both the soul and symbolism we have been discussing. He writes:

Our sexuality has been animalized, stripped of the intricacy of feeling with which human beings have endowed it, leaving us to contemplate only the act, and to fear our impotence in it. It is this animalization from which the sexual manuals cannot escape, even when they try to do so, because they are reflections of it. They might [as well] be textbooks for veterinarians. [Fairlie, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 182]

In this matter of counterfeit intimacy and deceptive gratification, I express particular caution to the men who hear this message. I have heard all my life that it is the young woman who has to assume the responsibility for controlling the limits of intimacy in courtship because a young man cannot. What an unacceptable response to such a serious issue! What kind of man is he, what priesthood or power or strength or self-control does this man have that lets him develop in society, grow to the age of mature accountability, perhaps even pursue a university education and prepare to affect the future of colleagues and kingdoms and the course of the world, but yet does not have the mental capacity or the moral will to say, "I will not do that thing"? No, this sorry drugstore psychology would have us say, "He just can't help himself. His glands have complete control over his life--his mind, his will, his entire future."

To say that a young woman in such a relationship has to bear her responsibility and that of the young man's too is the least fair assertion I can imagine. In most instances if there is sexual transgression, I lay the burden squarely on the shoulders of the young man--for our purposes probably a priesthood bearer--and that's where I believe God intended responsibility to be. In saying that I do not excuse young women who exercise no restraint and have not the character or conviction to demand intimacy only in its rightful role. I have had enough experience in Church callings to know that women as well as men can be predatory. But I refuse to buy some young man's feigned innocence who wants to sin and call it psychology.

Indeed, most tragically, it is the young woman who is most often the victim, it is the young woman who most often suffers the greater pain, it is the young woman who most often feels used and abused and terribly unclean. And for that imposed uncleanliness a man will pay, as surely as the sun sets and rivers run to the sea.

Note the prophet Jacob's straightforward language on this account in the Book of Mormon. After a bold confrontation on the subject of sexual transgression among the Nephites, he quotes Jehovah:

For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land. . . . And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people . . . shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts. For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction. [Jacob 2:31-33; emphasis added]

Don't be deceived and don't be destroyed. Unless such fire is controlled, your clothes and your future will be burned. And your world, short of painful and perfect repentance, will go up in flames. I give that to you on good word--I give it to you on God's word.

A Holy Sacrament

That leads me to my last reason, a third effort to say why. After soul and symbol, the word is sacrament, a term closely related to the other two. Sexual intimacy is not only a symbolic union between a man and a woman--the uniting of their very souls--but it is also symbolic of a union between mortals and deity, between otherwise ordinary and fallible humans uniting for a rare and special moment with God himself and all the powers by which he gives life in this wide universe of ours.

In this latter sense, human intimacy is a sacrament, a very special kind of symbol. For our purpose here today, a sacrament could be any one of a number of gestures or acts or ordinances that unite us with God and his limitless powers. We are imperfect and mortal; he is perfect and immortal. But from time to time--indeed, as often as is possible and appropriate--we find ways and go to places and create circumstances where we can unite symbolically with him, and in so doing gain access to his power. Those special moments of union with God are sacramental moments--such as kneeling at a marriage altar, or blessing a newborn baby, or partaking of the emblems of the Lord's supper. This latter ordinance is the one we in the Church have come to associate most traditionally with the word sacrament, though it is technically only one of many such moments when we formally take the hand of God and feel his divine power.

These are moments when we quite literally unite our will with God's will, our spirit with his spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real. At such moments we not only acknowledge his divinity, but we quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves. Such are the holy sacraments.

Now, once again, I know of no one who would, for example, rush into the middle of a sacramental service, grab the linen from the tables, throw the bread the full length of the room, tip the water trays onto the floor, and laughingly retreat from the building to await an opportunity to do the same thing at another worship service the next Sunday. No one within the sound of my voice would do that during one of the truly sacred moments of our religious worship. Nor would anyone here violate any of the other sacramental moments in our lives, those times when we consciously claim God's power and by invitation stand with him in privilege and principality.

12) But I wish to stress with you this morning, as my third of three reasons to be clean, that sexual union is also, in its own profound way, a very real sacrament of the highest order, a union not only of a man and a woman but very much the union of that man and woman with God. Indeed, if our definition of sacrament is that act of claiming and sharing and exercising God's own inestimable power, then I know of virtually no other divine privilege so routinely given to us all--women or men, ordained or unordained, Latter-day Saint or non-Latter-day Saint--than the miraculous and majestic power of transmitting life, the unspeakable, unfathomable, unbroken power of procreation. There are those special moments in your lives when the other, more formal ordinances of the gospel--the sacraments, if you will--allow you to feel the grace and grandeur of God's power. Many are one-time experiences (such as our own confirmation or our own marriage), and some are repeatable (such as administering to the sick or doing ordinance work for others in the temple). But I know of nothing so earth-shatteringly powerful and yet so universally and unstintingly given to us as the God-given power available in every one of us from our early teen years on to create a human body, that wonder of all wonders, a genetically and spiritually unique being never seen before in the history of the world and never to be duplicated again in all the ages of eternity--a child, your child--with eyes and ears and fingers and toes and a future of unspeakable grandeur.

13) Imagine that, if you will. Veritable teenagers--and all of us for many decades thereafter--carrying daily, hourly, minute-to-minute, virtually every waking and sleeping moment of our lives, the power and the chemistry and the eternally transmitted seeds of life to grant someone else her second estate, someone else his next level of development in the divine plan of salvation. I submit to you that no power, priesthood or otherwise, is given by God so universally to so many with virtually no control over its use except self-control. And I submit to you that you will never be more like God at any other time in this life than when you are expressing that particular power. Of all the titles he has chosen for himself, Father is the one he declares, and Creation is his watchword--especially human creation, creation in his image. His glory isn't a mountain, as stunning as mountains are. It isn't in sea or sky or snow or sunrise, as beautiful as they all are. It isn't in art or technology, be that a concerto or computer. No, his glory--and his grief--is in his children. You and I, we are his prized possessions, and we are the earthly evidence, however inadequate, of what he truly is. 14) Human life--that is the greatest of God's powers, the most mysterious and magnificent chemistry of it all--and you and I have been given it, but under the most serious and sacred of restrictions. You and I who can make neither mountain nor moonlight, not one raindrop nor a single rose--yet we have this greater gift in an absolutely unlimited way. And the only control placed on us is self-control--self-control born of respect for the divine sacramental power it is.

Surely God's trust in us to respect this future-forming gift is awesomely staggering. We who may not be able to repair a bicycle nor assemble an average jigsaw puzzle--yet with all our weaknesses and imperfections, we carry this procreative power that makes us very much like God in at least one grand and majestic way.

A Serious Matter

Souls. Symbols. Sacraments. Does any of this help you understand why human intimacy is such a serious matter? 15) Why it is so right and rewarding and stunningly beautiful when it is within marriage and approved of God (not just "good" but "very good," he declared to Adam and Eve), and so blasphemously wrong--like unto murder--when it is outside such a covenant? It is my understanding that we park and pet and sleep over and sleep with at the peril of our very lives. Our penalty may not come on the precise day of our transgression, but it comes surely and certainly enough, and were it not for a merciful God and the treasured privilege of personal repentance, far too many would even now be feeling that hellish pain, which (like the passion we have been discussing) is also always described in the metaphor of fire. Someday, somewhere, sometime the morally unclean will, until they repent, pray like the rich man, wishing Lazarus to "dip . . . his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:24).

In closing, consider this from two students of civilization's long, instructive story:

No one man [or woman], however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life [or hers] before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group. [Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35-36]

Or, in the more ecclesiastical words of James E. Talmage:

It has been declared in the solemn word of revelation, that the spirit and the body constitute the soul of man; and, therefore, we should look upon this body as something that shall endure in the resurrected state, beyond the grave, something to be kept pure and holy. Be not afraid of soiling its hands; be not afraid of scars that may come to it if won in earnest effort, or [won] in honest fight, but beware of scars that disfigure, that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone, that have befallen you in unworthy undertakings [pursued where you ought not have been]; beware of the wounds of battles in which you have been fighting on the wrong side. [Talmage, CR, October 1913, p. 117]

I love you for wanting to be on the right side of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I express my pride in and appreciation for your faithfulness. As I said earlier, you are an absolute inspiration to me. I consider it the greatest of all professional privileges to be associated with you at this university at a time in your lives when you are finalizing what you believe and forging what your future will be.

If some few of you are feeling the "scars . . . that have come to you in places where you ought not have gone," I wish to extend to you the special peace and promise available through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. I testify of his love and of the restored gospel principles and ordinances which make that love available to us with all their cleansing and healing power. I testify of the power of these principles and ordinances, including complete and redeeming repentance, which are only fully realized in this the true and living church of the true and living God. That we may "come unto Christ" for the fullness of soul and symbol and sacrament he offers us, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

You Can’t Pet a Rattlesnake

Elder David E. Sorensen
Of the Presidency of the Seventy

David E. Sorensen, “You Can’t Pet a Rattlesnake,” Ensign, May 2001, 41

Pornography, though billed by Satan as entertainment, is a deeply poisonous, deceptive snake that lies coiled up in magazines, the Internet, and the television.

Some years ago, Sister Sorensen and I had the privilege of visiting India. At one airport I remember walking across the landing strip and seeing some men sitting in front of wicker baskets, playing flutes. As they started to play the music, they would take the top off the basket and a cobra would appear! As the music continued, the snake would rise higher and higher, nearly reaching its full length until the cobra would collapse back into the basket. Once I noticed a cobra fall outside the basket. The man playing the flute reached over, petted the cobra, and carefully put it back into the basket. I was amazed that a man could handle such a dangerous creature apparently without being harmed. But our guide quickly told me that this was very risky and told us that a major cause of death in this province was indeed poisonous snakebite.

My mind raced back to the days of my youth on the farm. In the summertime one of our responsibilities was to haul hay from the fields into the barn for winter storage. My dad would pitch the hay onto a flatbed wagon. I would then tromp down the hay to get as much as possible on the wagon. One day, in one of the loose bundles pitched onto the wagon was a rattlesnake! When I looked at it, I was concerned, excited, and afraid. The snake was lying in the nice, cool hay. The sun was glistening on its diamond back. After a few moments the snake stopped rattling, became still, and I became very curious. I started to get closer and leaned over for a better look, when suddenly I heard a call from my father: “David, my boy, you can’t pet a rattlesnake!”

Tonight I would like to talk to you about the dangers of petting poisonous snakes. The ones I refer to do not have long, slithering bodies but come in many other forms. Often the world makes these dangers look harmless—even exciting and interesting. But petting such snakes fills the mind with poison—poison that drives away the Holy Spirit. 1

Brethren, today’s popular entertainment often makes what is evil and wrong look enjoyable and right. Let us remember the Lord’s counsel: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.” 2

Pornography, though billed by Satan as entertainment, is a deeply poisonous, deceptive snake that lies coiled up in magazines, the Internet, and the television. Pornography destroys self-esteem and weakens self-discipline. It is far more deadly to the spirit than the rattlesnake my father warned me not to pet. The Bible records that King David was gifted spiritually, but he stood where he should not have stood. He watched what he should not have watched. Those obsessions became his downfall. 3

Resisting the temptations of today’s electronic media is not easy. It takes focused courage and effort. In the small town where I grew up, one had to drive at least an hour to find trouble. But today on the Internet, trouble is just a few mouse clicks away. To avoid such temptations, be like Captain Moroni of old; set up “fortifications” to strengthen your places of weakness. Instead of building walls of “timbers and dirt” to protect a vulnerable city, build “fortifications” in the form of personal ground rules to protect your priceless virtue. 4 When you’re on a date, plan to be in groups and avoid being alone. I know men, young and old, who have simply determined not to turn on the TV or surf the Internet anytime when they are alone. Fathers, it is wise to keep computers and televisions in the family room or other high-traffic areas in your home—not in children’s bedrooms. I also know of fathers who, while on business trips, wisely choose not to turn on the hotel television.

Remember, such “fortifications” are not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, they show strength. The scriptures tell us Captain Moroni was so strong that if all men would be like him, “the very powers of hell would [be] shaken forever.” 5 Remember Moroni’s “strongholds” 6 were the key to his success. Creating your own “strongholds” will be the key to yours.

One key fortification you can build is to decide now, before you face a challenge, where to draw the line. Our prophet teaches that if we decide now not to watch inappropriate media but instead to walk away, “the challenge is behind us.” 7

Recently my granddaughter Jennifer was invited to go with several of her school friends to a dinner and a movie. The girls all agreed on the movie they were going to see, and Jennifer was comfortable attending. However, the girl who left dinner to buy the movie tickets for the group returned with tickets to a different movie than was planned! She said, “It is a great show, and it’s R-rated.”

Jennifer, caught by surprise, couldn’t believe the situation had changed so quickly. But fortunately she had made up her mind before she ever found herself in this position that she would not watch R-rated movies. She was able to stand firm and say to her friends, “I can’t go see an R-rated movie. My parents would not approve.” To which the girls replied, “Oh, come on! Your parents will never know!” Confronted with this, Jennifer went on to say, “Well, actually it doesn’t matter whether my parents will know. I just don’t go to R-rated movies!”

Her friends were upset and tried to get her to relent. They told her she “was ruining everything.” When she would not give in, they threw the ticket and change in her face and deserted her for the R-rated movie. It wound up being a lonely night full of rejection from her friends. But it was a great moment for Jennifer and our family. 8 She gained confidence, self-worth, and spiritual power. 9

Knowingly petting a poisonous spiritual snake is doubly dangerous. 10 Those who do remind me of the little boy who was overheard praying, “Heavenly Father, if you can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a real good time like I am.”

Don’t be like that shortsighted boy. Those who plan to sin, thinking they can repent before they receive the sacred covenants and ordinances of the temple, risk losing their spiritual health. They find it is a painful process to come back to the right path.

For those who suffer from a poisonous snakebite, there is a painful cleansing process. Where the bite was inflicted, a cut with a sharp knife is required. Then, someone must cleanse the infected blood from the wound. Often a stay in the hospital is required. My plea to you tonight, brethren, is to avoid petting that rattlesnake. It is much better not to commit the sin. 11

Some young men, as they advance in the priesthood, plan for a mission, or prepare to go to the temple, realize they suffer from a snakebite that has spiritually poisoned them. Sexual sins are among the most poisonous.

If you or someone you know has been poisoned spiritually, there is a spiritual snakebite kit. It’s called repentance. 12 And like the remedy for temporal snakebite, it is most effective if applied quickly and early. It can combat even the most venomous spiritual poisons. “For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him.” 13 The miracle of forgiveness is real. 14 Your repentance is honored of the Lord. 15

An important step in obtaining the cure for spiritual poison is to get on your knees and ask Heavenly Father to forgive you. 16 Pray for the desire to do what is right. Pray for the courage to talk to your parents and the bishop if necessary. 17 Regardless of your fears, they will continue to love you. You don’t have to do this alone. The path of repentance, though difficult, need not be traveled alone. Parents and leaders can provide valuable encouragement and support.

The power and freedom of forgiveness is real. The Savior taught, “The truth shall make you free.” 18 Joy comes from living the way the Savior lived. 19 He has asked us to keep our thoughts pure. 20 He has asked us to maintain our self-respect. He has asked us to become a good influence on our family and our friends. We are to love them and to lift them toward the light. He said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 21 He has promised He will help us live His standards. He has said: “Take my yoke upon you. … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 22

Brethren of the priesthood, can you join me right here, right now, once again to commit and to take upon you the name of Christ? With this priesthood which you hold, can you rise up and wield the power of God to defend righteousness? Can you stand in holy places? 23

We have all accepted the responsibility to pattern our life after the Master. He has committed the keys of the priesthood and of divine revelation to our living prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley. He counsels, “Stay away from pornography.” 24 “I plead with you to get it out of your life.” 25

Don’t allow the poison to touch your souls, brethren. Remember, “He that is righteous is favored of God.” 26 I testify of this in the name of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, amen.

Notes

1. See D&C 1:33; Moses 8:17.

2. Isa. 5:20.

3. See 2 Sam. 11; D&C 132:39.

4. See Alma 53:4, 7.

5. Alma 48:17.

6. See Alma 53:4–5.

7. “A Prophet’s Counsel and Prayer for Youth,” Ensign, Jan. 2001, 4.

8. See Gal. 5:16–21.

9. See D&C 121:45–46.

10. See Mosiah 27:10–11; Alma 1:15.

11. See Luke 15:21.

12. See Isa. 1:18.

13. D&C 18:11.

14. See Mosiah 26:29.

15. See 2 Ne. 9:23; 2 Ne. 26:27.

16. See Alma 34; 3 Ne. 18:29–32.

17. See D&C 64:7.

18. John 8:32.

19. See 2 Ne. 2:25; 2 Ne. 9:18; Mosiah 2:41; Mosiah 4:3.

20. See A of F 1:13.

21. John 13:35.

22. Matt. 11:29–30.

23. See D&C 101:22.

24. “Why We Do Some of the Things We Do,” Ensign, Nov. 1999, 54.

25. “ ‘Great Shall Be the Peace of Thy Children,’ ” Ensign, Nov. 2000, 51.

26. 1 Ne. 17:35.

As women of the latter days, we believe firmly in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, and virtuous. As women who have made sacred covenants with the Lord, we seek only after those things which are virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy. We, as spirit daughters of heavenly parents and as women of Christ, know that it is only through such persistent seeking that we will be able to endure the days ahead. And we, who are daughters of Eve, know that personal purity is the only way for us to bring life into this world—and to bring forth life and love in all our relationships.

I believe in the power of beliefs—to focus our thoughts, to generate our feelings, and to influence our behaviors (Wright, Watson, and Bell, Beliefs: The Heart of Healing in Families and Illness, 1996). I believe that if the words of bedrock belief from the thirteenth Article of Faith were embroidered on sweatshirts, silk-screened on tote bags, cross-stitched on pillows, and most importantly, engraven upon our hearts—so that we were increasingly honest, true, chaste, benevolent, and virtuous—we would have enough and to spare of intimacy in our lives.

We need intimacy. Our souls are enlarged when we experience deep-core caring—interpersonal connections which are heart-, mind-, and strength-sustaining. All relationships—parent-child, husband-wife, grandparent-grandchild, sibling, friend—all have the potential to be intimate, in developing mutual feelings of trust, emotional closeness, and the sharing of thoughts and feelings. Exclusively, those in marriage relationships have the privilege of enjoying an additional kind of intimacy, that of physical intimacy. I want to begin by speaking about the incredible intimacy that can be part of all friendships and family relationships. Later, I will address physical intimacy—that unique and grand intimacy which is sanctioned only in marriage.

We, as women of faith, need true intimacy. No illusions of intimacy will do. And I believe that true intimacy is impossible to achieve in the absence of personal purity. In fact, through my more than twenty-five years of working with individuals, couples, and families in counseling—many of whom have been affected by the devastations of impurity—I am more and more convinced that decreased personal purity leads to decreased intimacy. And conversely, I am more and more impressed that increased personal purity leads to increased intimacy.

What else have I come to believe?

That love is brought to us by the Spirit.

That lies about love are brought to us by Satan.

That love can be present only if the Spirit is present.

That love and the Spirit coexist. You cannot have one without the other.

I believe that personal purity increases intimacy. And it is clear that keeping the Lord's commandments with ever-increasing precision increases our personal purity. Thus it follows that keeping the Lord's commandments increases intimacy. What a marvelous and sure connection. We can do this! We can increase the experiences of intimacy in our lives, by doing what the Lord has asked us to do. It really is just that simple!

One major issue that affects relationships is the ability to show love to the other person in a way that means love to him or to her. The Savior has asked us to show love to Him by keeping His commandments (see John 14:15). And as we are faithful and diligent in keeping His commandments, He promises to encircle us in the arms of His love (see D&C 6:20).

His showing His love to us in such an affectionate way—encircling us in the arms of His love—increases our desire to keep His commandments and our ability to show our love to Him in the way that He has asked. And thus this virtuous cycle gyroscopically spins—drawing us, lifting us upward in our thoughts and feelings and actions, increasing our personal purity, and bringing us closer to the Savior. Our closeness to the Savior fills us with love, increasing our ability to love others and to feel love from others. Truman Madsen, in his Four Essays on Love, has said it so well: "You cannot love until you are loved. You cannot be loved until you are Beloved, Beloved of God" (Four Essays on Love [Provo, Utah: Communications Workshop, 1971], 29).

Not long ago, in my office a woman of great faith closed her eyes and described to her husband her feelings as she pictured herself being held by the Savior. "Brilliance!" she said. "More love than I've ever experienced in my life!" She instantly knew the feelings. Perhaps her soul was remembering.

Those light-filled, love-expanded feelings stood in stark contrast to those she had experienced for so many years in her relationship with her husband. She found his touch to be lustful. She felt like a thing, not a companion. Those feelings had been planted in her heart and mind when earlier in their marriage her husband had not kept the Lord's commandments and had broken sacred covenants. They were now facing the daunting, though not impossible, task of trying to achieve intimacy after significant exposures to impurity. The wife's closeness to the Savior fills her with love and a great desire to join with her husband in overcoming their past.

If you want to be filled with the love of the Lord, keep His commandments.

If you want to feel loved, keep the Lord's commandments.

If you truly love someone, keep the Lord's commandments.

If you truly want to experience intimacy, increase your personal purity—by keeping the Lord's commandments.

I believe our ability to experience true intimacy of any kind in any relationship is directly related to how intimate our interactions are with the Lord. The First Presidency message given at the commencement of this year was a plea from President James E. Faust to "not just . . . know about the Master, but to strive . . . to be one with Him" (see John 17:21) and to seek to "have a daily, personal relationship with [Him]" (Ensign, January 1999, 2, 4).

I believe that a personal relationship with the Savior is the only way to achieve true intimacy in our relationships with others. Without close and very personal interactions with our Savior Jesus Christ, any and all of our interactions with others are found wanting. Without the Savior's influence, our relationships lack, and always will lack, the power to truly sustain our hearts and minds. Without the Savior's touch, there is no staying power to loving words and actions. Without the Savior's tutoring, there is no ability to see beyond the obvious, to look deeper into the soul of another and to see the lovable, the redeemable, the possible.

Without the love of the Savior in our lives, no other love can fill the void of being out of His presence. We lived with Him and with our heavenly parents before coming to this earth. What a gift it is to know that! What a heart-comforting thought it is to remember. No wonder we long for that feeling of deep-core love, of true intimacy.

We hunger to feel understood. We thirst for someone to really trust. We yearn to really commune. We long for an interweaving of our life with another's—mentally, emotionally, socially, physically, and spiritually.

As women who increasingly strive to honor covenants we've made, we will never find intimacy in relationships that do not honor these covenants. When we find ourselves in relationships that neither remember nor honor our covenants, we are left bereft—and we wonder what is wrong with us. Why can't we communicate better? Why doesn't he understand what I'm trying to say? Why doesn't she really care? Why do all our best relationship efforts, even those the world would applaud, not provide us with the palpable feelings we long for—of really being known by another, of being connected with another, of really mattering, of really being loved, even adored? Why? Because true intimacy of any kind in any relationship must involve the Savior.

As faithful Latter-day Saint women we will never find intimacy—not the true intimacy that sustains a spirit daughter of heavenly parents—within marital, family, or friend relationships that don't involve the Savior. We will have loving and kind feelings for others. We will have our hearts drawn out to them. We will find great joy in sharing activities with them. We will experience episodic happiness because of their kindness to us. Yet the yearnings will always be there for more—more emotional connection, more trust, deeper sharing of thoughts and feelings.

A deep and abiding relationship with the Savior is indeed the only way to achieve true intimacy in our relationships with others. And because intimacy requires the involvement of both parties, each person in a truly intimate relationship must have a connection with the Savior, a connection that is strong and vibrant and growing. True intimacy requires that both parties' offerings of love are embedded within an intimate relationship with Him. All else will feel like a sorry substitute.

If you find yourself slipping into dark blue feelings as you reflect upon the present state of your relationships, that could be a very good sign—a sign that you are a seeker. If you are a seeker of everything that is virtuous, lovely, and of good report and praiseworthy, it means that you will be able to seek for—and find—everything that may be praiseworthy, lovely, virtuous, and of good report in those with whom you want to build a more intimate relationship, a relationship in which the Spirit is present.

As you strive and work with your loved ones for an increasingly intimate relationship that is blessed by the presence of the Spirit, the distinction between the Lord's truth about intimacy and the adversary's lies will become increasingly clear. For truly, if there is anything impure, defiling, of an illicit nature, or obscene, the adversary seeks to generate these things and seeks to convince us that these things are normal, good, and part of intimacy. They are not!

Scholarly literature and research conclude that intimacy requires three things: reciprocal feelings of trust, emotional closeness, and the ability to openly communicate thoughts and feelings with another (Timmerman, 1991). I believe that true intimacy also involves at least one more vital ingredient—vision. And when we approach the topic of physical intimacy, vision is even more crucial.

The story is told of a famous ethologist, Konrad Lorenz. One day in his backyard he experimented with imprinting baby ducklings—that is, getting them to respond to him as though he were their mother. To do so he walked in the pattern of a figure eight as he crouched over, quacking without interruption while he glanced constantly over his shoulder. He was an older man with a long white beard. Dr. Lorenz was congratulating himself on his spectacular feat of getting these baby ducklings to follow him and attach themselves to him. At this moment of self-congratulation, he looked up—right into the faces of a group of tourists passing by! They looked horrified! And then Konrad Lorenz realized that from the tourists' vantage point the baby ducklings could not be seen because at that very moment they were hidden in the grass. Consequently, what the onlookers saw was a crazy old man making circles and quacking. Without the fuller picture—that is, the ducklings and the intent behind Konrad's behavior—a brilliant ethologist's imprinting experiment looked only like craziness (Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson, Pragmatics of Human Communication, 1967, 20).

It is true that something can never really be understood until the frame within which we are looking at it is enlarged to include all the elements that are relevant to that one thing.When we are seeking increased understanding about physical intimacy, which is so sacred, so powerful, we need wide-angle eternal vision and Spirit-enhanced depth perception. If our understanding of physical intimacy is presently based on a picture that is taken, developed, and framed by none other than the father of all lies himself, our experiences with physical intimacy will be deadly. We must mediate our understanding by the death-defying power in the Savior's atonement.

Satan's vision of physical intimacy is cunning, counterfeiting, and contorting. Lucifer offers his skewed view of physical intimacy through movies, magazines, and music—actually through any and all publications and productions known to humankind—from stage plays to Internet chat rooms. When our vision clears and our frame is enlarged, we see the adversary's ploys for what they really are: elaborate and extensive maneuverings to capture our very souls. Lucifer covets your body and your spirit and those of your loved ones, and he is relentless in his sinister pursuit.

And now, if you wonder how really old the adversary's craftiness is, and therefore how really good he is at his craft, just read Romans 1: 24–31 and 2 Timothy 3:1–6. There, in black and white, is what is available for you to see in living color in your own home, with the assistance of your television, VCR, and computer. Paul's accounting of what the people were involved in—who once knew God, yet turned away—sounds just like one night's worth of prime-time sitcoms (better said, "sick coms").

Here is Paul's report: "[And they were] filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity . . . backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful" (Romans 1:29–31).

And now, listen to Paul's description as he writes to Timothy describing the last days—our days. As you listen, think about where you may have seen these things before: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Timothy 3:1–4).

And then the most chilling message of all. It's not bad enough that those horrible things are happening out there in the world. The worst part is that they come sneaking, creeping into our homes and influencing us.

Listen to verse 6: "For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women, laden with sins, led away with divers lusts" (2 Timothy 3:6).

Could Paul possibly be talking about afternoon soap operas and talk shows—and how through them, all these offenses creep into our homes? And could he be describing those of us who watch them? Are we silly when we watch them? And is watching them leading us away into divers lusts?

Could Isaiah possibly be speaking to us, the Lord's women of the latter days when he says: "Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters" (Isaiah 32:9).

Have we been careless? Have we drifted far too much in the direction of the world's view, which is so saturated with Lucifer's lies about physical intimacy?

It is indeed time to rise up and be careful! Careful about everything that comes into our hearts, minds, and homes which pertains to physical intimacy. Could the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith apply to how in times past we have carelessly thought about, and talked about, physical intimacy? Joseph said: "How vain and trifling have been our spirits, our conferences, our councils, our meetings, our private as well as public conversations—too low, too mean, too vulgar, too condescending" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938], 137). We must be very careful with our language and our conversations about everything related to this sacred physical endowment.

On the other hand we need to be bold in exposing Lucifer and his lies. We need to rise up, and with ever increasing clarity point out his counterfeits, his deceptions, his trickery. I believe that all satanically influenced presentations about physical intimacy should be stamped "More Lies!"

To protect our minds and hearts, our homes and families from the intrusions of the devil's devices, perhaps we need big, bold warning signs on every book, magazine, videotape, audiotape, TV sitcom, movie, play, and so forth, which is coproduced by the adversary himself. Warning signs that would reveal his works for what they really are: angry protests against God and persistent, power-hungry efforts to obliterate the truth.

When I think about all the individuals I have had the privilege to assist, whose lives in one way or another were shattered and shackled because of the effects of moral transgressions, I want to post a forewarning on each and every satanically coproduced product about physical intimacy. The forewarning I would post is simple. It would read:

"If you choose to open this, you will be giving the adversary more power over you."

I have also thought of six other warnings that could be displayed on all of Lucifer's contaminated and contaminating material. As you read, note which warnings might form a protective barrier, encircling our families and shutting the adversary out.

Warning 1. To be stamped on the cover of his magazines: "Contents highly addictive. Extremely corrosive-to-the-soul materials enclosed. Be prepared to have your mind twisted, your views of love ravaged, your spirit shrunk. Be aware that the Spirit of the Lord will not be with you during or after viewing. Be prepared that after an initial rush, you will experience feelings of depression, loneliness, despair, and guilt. Nevertheless, with repeated exposures over time, you can numb those feelings and enter into an almost total amnesia about who you really are and about truth itself."

Warning 2. For the beginning of Satan's coproduced movies: "The following scenes are brought to you in the hope that you will think of yourself as being an animal. Actually the dung from an animal is more pure and would harm you less when taken into your system. Extreme caution needed. This movie will make you believe that lust is really love and that all love really is—is lust. This movie will have its greatest effect if observed when you are feeling misunderstood, alone, blue, or just that you don't fit in. If you are not in any of these moods, viewing the movie will actually assist in getting you there. If you are in one of these moods, your spirit will be more vulnerable, and thus your ability to distinguish good from evil will be even more quickly extinguished.

Warning 3. For the devil's Internet connections: "Share the following with someone whose soul you would like to destroy. Complete success is ensured if you can offer it in the spirit of friendship and under the guise of love. By thinking and talking together about the content, all sweet pure feelings will be distorted into grand perversions. Pick a perversion, any perversion. That may be one of the very last choices you will get to make.

In fact, if you are tired of making choices just view the following several times—or keep immersing yourself in similar material—and your degree of freedom will be increasingly limited with each successive viewing. The irony is that you will be provided with a personalized illusion that your freedom is actually increasing. We've taken this way beyond the old smoke and mirrors tricks—and the illusions that will influence your heart and mind will be stunning. Virtual reality is here to replace virtuous living.

Warning 4. To announce the adversary's influence on prime-time viewing: "How many lies can you find in the following sitcom? If you can't find any . . . Gotcha! In the following, we are going to offer you ideas that you have never before entertained. But with repetition and humor we will slowly dilute the initial recoiling of your spirit, and you will begin to forget that there was ever a time when you didn't believe these lies to be true.

Warning 5. A lie-busting warning for rented videos: "Fantasy only allowed here. Only erotic illusions contained. No empathic love depicted. No consequences noted. No impact on your body, spirit, relationships with God, family and friends addressed. Please note that interactions will appear much more splendid than they really are. This is not real life. But it is a really great lie. We have left out the gory details that would only ruin the subtle appeal this movie will have for you.

Warning 6. For videos purchased: "Congratulations! You bought the movie this time instead of just renting it. In fact, you are buying this whole scheme—hook, line, and sinker. Let's just have this be our little secret. No one needs to know. No one will ever be able to tell. When people tell you that you are looking different, darker, or talking differently, or that you are more difficult to get along with, just get angry at them and go buy another movie or magazine with similar contents. Actually, you will soon be ready to advance to our total-destruction-of-the-senses line. You, too, will soon be past feeling.

And the effect, if those six warnings are not heeded? Well, that brings us to an intermission announcement, which is "We will soon be taking a commercial break. You, on the other hand, who are now a bit more dull in your thinking, a little more under the spell of adversary-induced-amnesia—you are now primed for a different kind of break. How about breaking your covenants? Breaking your husband's heart? Breaking apart your marriage? Breaking your children's and parents' and siblings' and friends' hearts? All of these breaks that you never thought possible are now just a little more within your reach."

One client told me that it was after watching a certain popular movie that she first started thinking about having an affair with the man who was building her family's new home. She had the affair. Her home was built. Her marriage was destroyed. Those involved now live in three separate homes: the builder (it seems strange to call him that) with his wife in one home, the woman with some of her children in another, and her former husband and the rest of the children in yet another. No one lives in the home the affair destroyed. Now, this is a good woman. She was not a woman with no sense of right or wrong or of gospel principles. She served as a Relief Society president before this very difficult time in her life.

Lucifer loves good women and is poised and ready to intrude his lies into good women's lives. He's swift. He's very effective. He knows if he can take down a good woman, he can take down a whole family in one fell swoop. Talk about the economy of Lucifer. The devil's domino effect in action!

Sisters, it's time to make certain that Satan does not have a grip on our hearts, minds, homes, and families. If we find any evidence of his blatantly obvious or even his covertly subtle presence, we need to cast him out. We need to do more than just loosen his grip; we need to cast him out so that we can be taught by the Spirit the grand eternal truths about physical intimacy and teach them to our families.

The Lord has not left us alone. He has provided His truth about intimacy through His scriptures and His prophets. And as you prayerfully seek His guidance, you will come to know what you can do right now to determine if the adversary's impure influence is in your life—and to know how to remove it, if found. It may just be time for some very serious spring cleaning. Only when our hearts and homes are cleansed from the adversary's filthy falsehoods can the Lord's words about physical intimacy lodge deep in our hearts and bring the sweet peace that truth always brings.

The Proclamation on the Family addresses physical intimacy and declares "that God has commanded that the[se] sacred powers . . . are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife" (Ensign, November 1995, 102).

Could it be any clearer than that? This declaration means that any and all other physical intimacies are outside of God's law. They're wrong. So when I speak of physical intimacy, I am speaking about it only in the context in which it is sanctioned by God—within the marriage relationship. God intended physical intimacy for only husbands and wives to share. Doesn't that one truth speak volumes about its sacred importance?

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland presented three eternal truths about physical intimacy years ago at a BYU devotional in his landmark address "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments" (On Earth As It Is in Heaven [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989], 182-97). He reaffirmed those same truths as an apostle of the Lord in October 1998 general conference (Ensign, November 1998, 75-78).

Truth about physical intimacy often invites a paradigm shift. I love to watch clients when they experience paradigm shifts about physical intimacy after they read Elder Holland's talk. Those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts and minds to understand almost immediately take several giant steps forward in co-creating love, often for the very first time.

The three grand truths about marital intimacy offered by Elder Holland are, first, that physical intimacy is a soulful experience, involving the body and the spirit. The body is indeed the "great prize of mortal life" (Holland, On Earth As It Is in Heaven, 187). And we, as members of the Lord's Church, are doctrinally distinct in understanding that the body and the spirit are the soul of man (James E. Talmage, Conference Report, October 1913, 117). Physical intimacy should involve your soul—your body and your spirit, not just your body.

One righteous and articulate woman who is a wife, mother, and grandmother expressed it beautifully when she said: "I believe that physical union is a completion of the temple sealing. It is the completion of the temple covenants—truly consummating the love that brought you to the temple. Physical love is like a seal upon a seal."

What would need to be different for you and your husband to experience physical intimacy as a more soulful experience?

The second grand truth offered by Elder Holland is that physical intimacy is a symbol of the total commitment and union a husband and wife should have for each other in all areas of their lives. If the only time a husband and wife unite is during physical union, they are probably experiencing "counterfeit intimacy," as Victor L. Brown Jr. describes it. "Counterfeit intimacy" occurs when we relate to each other in fragments—a fragment of a wife here connecting with a fragment of her husband there (Human Intimacy: Illusion and Reality [Salt Lake City: Parliament Publishers, 1981], 5-6).

So how do you and your husband unite in ways other than physical union? What needs to change in your life, in your relationship with your spouse, so that there is more uniting, more intertwining of your lives, more demonstration of commitment to each other in many ways—talking with each other, working on problems together, learning to enjoy small moments and the joy of just being together. And how about learning to laugh—together, not at one another. One woman said pure laughter unites her heart with her husband's. In fact, she said, "I've learned that while anger kills my desire for physical intimacy, laughter gives life to it."

How united are you in your daily activities, such as teaching and loving your children, paying your bills? How united are you in your thoughts and feelings? I remember one couple who rarely overlapped in their activities or shared their thoughts or feelings. There was continual conflict and disagreement about everything. In fact, the only thing they could agree on was how very disagreeable their spouse was.

Could your physical uniting be enhanced as you and your husband do more things together? Your physical uniting is meant to be a symbol of your total union, not the total and only occurrence of union.

The third grand eternal truth is that physical intimacy is a sacrament, a time to draw close to God, a time "when we quite literally unite our will with God's will, our spirit with His spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real" (Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign, November 1998, 77).

That is a profound truth. Sadly, however, it is the exact opposite, the antithesis, of what far too many have believed. Influenced by the adversary's lying lens, they have supposed that they were never further away from the Lord than when joining together in physical union. Nothing could be further from the truth. So now, think of the real truth: Physical intimacy is a sacrament.

Elder Holland states that at sacramental moments "we not only acknowledge [God's] divinity but we quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves" (Ensign, November 1998, 77). I wonder if the Lord's counsel for us not to partake of the sacrament of the Lord's supper unworthily (3 Nephi 18: 28–29) because His blessings will not be there (in fact, damnation will be there) applies to partaking unworthily of the sacrament of physical intimacy.

In my clinical practice, I have worked with couples who have broken covenants of marital fidelity and couples in which one spouse has approached this marital sacrament with unclean hands and an impure heart. The outcomes are tragic and sadly predictable. I salute the husband who, following disfellowshipment, chose on his own to wait for physical intimacy with his wife until he was more pure. Following this self-imposed-self-restraint he read to his wife one evening from Doctrine and Covenants Section 46. Her heart was irresistibly drawn towards his. She experienced that moment as the most wonderfully effective prelude to physical intimacy they had ever shared in twenty-five years of marriage. Feeling spiritually more connected with her husband enhanced her desire to be connected with him physically.

On the other hand a woman spoke of times when her husband, ravaged by self-doubts and collisions with the brutal world, felt unworthy in almost every way. She then said tenderly, almost reverently, "In those moments, physical intimacy was the only way I could really help him feel loved—worthy of love, worthy to love." Perhaps there are many reasons why spouses can feel closer to the Lord as they unite in the marital sacrament.

When marital intimacy is embedded in personal purity, love is co-created—pure love, the kind of love Parley P. Pratt describes. Listen to Elder Pratt's words:

"I had loved before, but I knew not why. But now I loved—with a pureness—an intensity of elevated, exalted feeling, which would lift my soul from the transitory things of this grovelling sphere and expand it as the ocean. I felt that God was my heavenly Father indeed; that Jesus was my brother, and that the wife of my bosom was an immortal, eternal companion. . . . "In short, I could now love with the spirit and with the understanding also (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979], 260).

I believe that the Lord blesses spouses who love each other purely. I believe He blesses spouses whose passions and appetites have been influenced by the Holy Ghost. We were given the gift of the Holy Ghost for exactly such a time as this. Is it difficult to believe that the Holy Ghost will help you express your love physically? He will. Pray for it.

Listen to what the Holy Ghost will do for you, as written by the hand of Elder Parley P. Pratt: "The gift of the Holy Ghost . . . quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use" (Key to the Science of Theology, Classics in Mormon Literature Series [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978], 61).

Isn't that wonderful? Let's talk about the first blessing: The Holy Ghost will make you smarter! That's a really good thing for lots of us!

I don't care what your IQ is, when we embrace sin—in the slightest way, the Holy Ghost departs, and our intellectual faculties are not as sharp. We are just not as bright as we could be. And we behave in increasingly stupid ways. We start acting as if we are the center of the universe, and we calculate everyone's mistreatment and cruelty to us. I don't know about you, but I believe sin makes me even more than selfish. I believe that sin makes me stupid! Conversely and happily, as we seek to become increasingly pure, and therefore are increasingly open to the influence of the Holy Ghost, we can become brighter in every way and more benevolent, more empathic—all great things for spouses and spouses-to-be.

Now, back to Elder Pratt's words: "The Holy Ghost . . . increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use." As we increase our understandings of these truths, we will never worry that increased purity might decrease our God-given passions. Those natural passions (and the operative word is natural) will be increased, purified, and adapted to their lawful use. Spirit-magnified and -purified passion will always be greater than lust. The ability to have our passions magnified, purified, and adapted seems to be something very worthy of prayer or even of fasting.

Whether married or unmarried, we need our natural passions and affections to be purified, and we need the wisdom to use them lawfully. And just think of the healing that could come to so many who struggle with the effects of their own moral sins or those of others. Think of the healing that is available as they seek to receive this blessing, this gift from the Holy Ghost.

As we seek the increased influence of the Holy Ghost in our lives, we need to do all we can do to overcome the temptations that so easily beset us. Elder Holland's address is filled with truths that can catch our attention and change our thinking and thus our behavior. I have offered clients the opportunity to reflect on some of those truths:

A woman who was perpetually tempted to behave in an illicit manner rehearsed in her mind a question when she felt herself weakening. The question that helped her was "If I were to remember that by acting on these illicit impulses I am actually toying with that person's very soul—the body and the spirit, both of which are sacred—how would I quickly manage this situation?"

A man who struggled with many financial problems and with loosening the bands of pornography from his heart and mind was assisted by the following question: "If I were to believe that by sinning morally, trivializing my own body and that of another's, and trivializing the Savior's atonement, I was also setting myself up for financial ruin, how would I manage these illicit impulses?"

Life is filled with unexpected events. "But if [we] are prepared [we] shall not fear" (D&C 38:30). And if we are prepared we will not be caught off guard and we will not succumb to temptation. How would you respond if someone you like and admire approached you to engage in something illicit? Perhaps we need to be prepared to say something such as "I am so sorry that you don't know that this is wrong. I am so sorry that you believe that this is a loving request. It is not. It will ruin both our souls, and it trivializes all that the Savior did for us through the Atonement."

And what if the person asking you to engage in something defiling is your husband, whom you love? President Boyd K. Packer anticipated this attack on personal purity from within marriage. He counseled: "A married couple may be tempted to introduce things into their relationship which are unworthy. Do not, as the scriptures warn, 'change the natural use into that which is against nature' (Romans 1:26). If you do, the tempter will drive a wedge between you" (The Things of the Soul [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996], 113).

Anything that offends the Spirit or either spouse's spirit will allow the tempter to drive a wedge between husbands and wives.

"I was talked out of my feelings." Those are the haunting words of a woman whose husband on their wedding night had introduced her to the consummation of their love in a manner that offended her spirit. For years they carried on the illusion of a marriage. That was the best they could do, for a woman who felt numb and a man who felt rejected.

One last word about Elder Holland's address. I believe our responses to truth are a reflection of our present spiritual state. Thus, "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments" can serve as a Rorschach test of our present spiritual growth and development. These truths, like the truths in the scriptures, speak to us differently at different times, even changing on a day-to-day basis, depending on the light within us. Changes between how we respond to Elder Holland's apostolic offering today versus how we respond when we read it later could measure changes in our personal purity. As we increase the light in our lives, more and more is illuminated about these three grand truths: physical intimacy is a soulful experience, a symbol of total commitment and union, and a sacrament. The more pure our hearts, minds, and hands, the clearer will be our understanding of these truths.

The Prophet Joseph Smith spoke of this process. He said, "We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 51).

Sisters, we need to be women who increase in our understanding of these three grand truths about physical intimacy. We need to live by them. These are lifesaving, eternal truths for each of us and our families. As women of the latter days, we need to seek diligently to increase the purity in our lives by keeping the Lord's commandments with ever increasing impeccability. As women who have made sacred covenants with the Lord, we need to draw closer to Him and invite others to come unto Him. We, as spirit daughters of heavenly parents, need to ensure that Satan is continually cast out of our hearts, minds, homes, and families. We, as women of Christ, need to forge intimate relationships with others that involve Him. We, as daughters of Eve, need to distinguish good from evil and partake of physical intimacy only within the sacred ordinance of marriage. And as we do we will co-create intimate relationships that are truly out of this world!

Sisters, when our faith is tried, when we become weary and discouraged about our ability to do all we have been charged to do, perhaps remembering the sacred vision of Elder Melvin J. Ballard will help us never to waver. Elder Ballard records: "I was taken into the most splendid room. . . . Seated on a raised platform was one of the most beautiful and exalted beings I had ever beheld, and I was informed that I might be introduced to him, and I came forward, and as I did so he arose and descended to meet me, and the smile he extended towards me I shall never forget through all the ages that are to come, and as he took me in his arms and kissed me and hugged me to his bosom and gave me a blessing that made the marrow in my bones to melt, and as I kissed his feet I saw the prints of the nails. The feeling that came to me then was one that I cannot describe other than to say that I felt unworthy of that privilege. I felt, oh, how little I have done to receive such distinguished privileges as these. If the day will ever come that I may have that privilege I would be willing to give all that I ever may and ever hope to be. If I can only obtain that which I have felt and know as the joy and the privilege of faithful Latter-day Saints. It is no myth. I know it as I live, and it is worth giving everything for. These days when your faith may be tried, waver not, be true and faithful towards the word of the Lord. I testify to you that it is true, and every promise and blessing that has been sealed upon your heads you will realize. When you do, it will be beyond anything you have contemplated in this life" (Conference Report, October 1917, 112).

"Wherefore, my beloved [sisters], pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the [daughters] of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure" (Moroni 7:48).