…Destruction, we should naturally assume, means the unmaking, or cessation, of the destroyed.  And people often talk as if the ‘annihilation’ of a soul were intrinsically possible.  In all our experience, however, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else.  Burn a log, and you have gases, heat and ash.  To have been a log means now being those three things.  If souls can be destroyed, must there not be a state of having been a human soul?  And is not that, perhaps, the state which is equally well described as torment, destruction, and privation?   (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, pg. 127)

…how can a few brief years spent here, born to trouble as we are, have a significant impact on [our] eternal existence?…This life, Lehi tells us, is only a probation, only a test (1 Nephi 10:21; 2 Nephi 2:21; Alma 34:32).  A test, to be searching and definitive, need last only a few seconds…The test for this life is not for knowledge; it is not for intelligence, or for courage, or for anything like that…As Alma said, we are only to be tested on one thing — the desires of our heart (Alma 43:3); that is what we are really after. (Hugh Nibley, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol. 9, Ch. 10, p. 300)

Like Jesus, a lot of prophets were put to death for testifying of the truth. What is it about the truth that so provokes a society that it starts killing people? My answer is that a particular truth caused this violent reaction — for Jesus and the prophets alike. It wasn’t just the everyday little truths that teach you to be good. Rather, the truth which Jesus and the prophets testified ran completely counter to the teachings of the day — religious teachings, that is.

People get fanatical over religion. When evils in society cause the lights to go out, religion inevitably changes into a superficial version of the truth once it is promoted. Its perception of God becomes virtually that of a false god, and people, unaware of this mutation, are offended by the real thing….

…It is no wonder, then, that tensions should arise between….those who may be living side by side in the same world but who have completely different philosophies of life. Babylon deals with this tension by tormenting and persecuting those higher than itself, attempting to justify itself in the face of its own inherent failings. In that way, it momentarily alleviates feelings of guilt and paranoia… (Avraham Gileadi, Isaiah Decoded, pp. 1, 71-72)

Now let us suppose a modern-day case. Suppose we have the scriptures, the gospel, the priesthood, the Church, the ordinances, the organization, even the keys of the kingdom — everything that now is down to the last jot and tittle — and yet there is no atonement of Christ. What then? Can we be saved? Will all our good works save us? Will we be rewarded for all our righteousness?

Most assuredly we will not. We are not saved by works alone, no matter how good; we are saved because God sent his Son to shed his blood in Gethsemane and on Calvary that all through him might ransomed be. We are saved by the blood of Christ.

To paraphrase Abinadi: “Salvation doth not come by the Church alone: and were it not for the atonement, given by the grace of God as a free gift, all men must unavoidably perish, and this notwithstanding the Church and all that pertains to it.” (Bruce R. McConkie, Promised Messiah, p. 416)

Water baptism is only a preparatory cleansing of the believing penitent…whereas, the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost cleanses more thoroughly, by renewing the inner man, and by purifying the affectations, desires, and thoughts which have long been habituated in the impure ways of sin.  Without the aid of the Holy Ghost, a person would have but little power to change his mind, at once, from its habituated course, and to walk in newness of life…So great is the force of habit, that he would, without being renewed by the Holy Ghost, be easily overcome, and contaminated again with sin.  Hence, it is infinitely important that the affections and desires should be, in a measure, changed and renewed, so as to cause him to hate that which he before loved, and to love that which he before hated.  To thus renew the mind of man is the work of the Holy Ghost.  (Orson Pratt, “The Holy Spirit,” in Writings of an Apostle, pp. 56-57

Being converted…and having a testimony are not necessarily the same thing…A testimony comes when the Holy Ghost gives the earnest seeker a witness of the truth.  A moving testimony vitalizes faith; that is, it induces repentance and obedience to the commandments.  Conversion, on the other hand, is the fruit of, or the reward for, repentance and obedience…Conversion is effected by divine forgiveness, which remits sins…Thus he is converted to a newness of life.  His spirit is healed.  (Marion G. Romney, in Conference report, October 1963, p. 24)

…Sin is untruth, and the misuse of truth. It decries freedom and fosters tyranny. It deceives and lies. It destroys, but never builds up except for more destruction. It slinks away from light and lurks in darkness. It is in deliberate opposition to the Lord’s plan for human progress. Sin is the mark of Satan.

The wide spectrum of sin, laid against a background of selfishness, is everywhere evil. It extends from wilful ignorance to the use of knowledge for unholy purposes: from dishonesty in speech, to deliberate murder: from family and neighborhood contentions, to warfare among nations. Every part of it corrodes, annihilates, is death-dealing. Every part of it, if uncovered, is hideous and found to beckon from slimy, poisonous depths.

Sin cannot be shown love or mercy, however meek and beguiling it may present itself. It cannot be condoned. Were that done the structure of truth would collapse. The battle of the Church is against sin, of every kind: it must be conquered, or the plan of salvation will be defeated: it must be fought to the bitter end. Tolerance of sin is itself sin. (John A. Widstoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, pg. 220)

The conditions which enable man to win eternal life are included in the plan of salvation. In fact, the plan is but a series of invariable, unalterable laws, obedience to each of which increases man’s power to triumph over evil. That means that there is knowledge to be acquired (Teachings of the Prophet Jopseph Smith, p. 297): principles of action to be accepted: ordinances to be received (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 12, 331): duties to be performed through life: and the complete acceptance of Jesus, the Christ (John 17:3): that is, full health of body mind and spirit to be won. All this that man “might be raised in immortality unto eternal life” (D&C 29:43). (John A. Widstoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, pg. 190)

It is a paradox that men will gladly devote time every day for many years to learn a science or an art; yet will expect to win a knowledge of the gospel, which comprehends all sciences and arts, through perfunctory glances at books or occasional listening to sermons.  The gospel should be studied more intensively than any school or college subject.  They who pass opinion on the gospel without having given it intimate and careful study are not lovers of truth, and their opinions are worthless.  (John A. Widstoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, page 17)

Important in the record of the dispensations is that when men to depart from God’s way and substitute their own ways in its place they usually do not admit that that is what they are doing; often they do not deliberately or even consciously substitute their ways for God’s ways; on the contrary, they easily and largely convinced themselves that their way is God’s way. “The apostasy described in the New Testament is not a desertion of the cause, but a perversion of it, a process by which the ‘righteous are removed and none perceives it.’” The wedding of the Christian Church and the Roman state was a venture in political dialectics, a restatement of the age-old political exercise of demonstrating that our way is God’s way….the Lord told the Apostles that in time “whosoever kills you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2). The horrible fiasco of the Crusades went forward under the mandate of the Deus Vult — God wills it: it is His idea; the Inquisition was carried out by selfless men “for the greater glory of God.” In every age we find the worldly powers hypnotized by the image of the world as a maidan, a great battleground, on which the forces of good and evil are locked in mortal combat. True, there is a contest, but it is within the individual, not between ignorant armies; that solution is all too easy. Recall the statement of Joseph Smith that “every candid man [must] draw [the] conclusion in his own mind whether this [any political system] is the order of heaven or not.” Banners, trumpets, and dungeons were early devised to help men make up their minds. But God does not fight Satan: a word from Him and Satan is silenced and banished. There is no contest there; in fact we are especially told that all the power which Satan enjoys here on earth is granted him by God. “We will allow Satan, our common enemy, to try Man and to tempt him.” It is man’s strength that is being tested–not God’s. Nay, even in putting us to the test, “the devil,” to quote Joseph Smith, “has no power over us only as we permit him.’” Since, then, “God would not exert any compulsory means, and the devil could not,” it is up to us to decide how much power Satan shall have on this earth, but only in respect to ourselves; the fight is all within us. That is the whole battle. But how much easier to shift the battle to another arena, and externalize the cause of all our misfortune.

It is easy enough to see how a world willingly beguiled by the devil’s dialectic is bound to reject God’s way and continue with its own. Even the Saints are guilty: “Repent, repent, is the voice of God to Zion; and strange as it may appear, yet it is true, mankind will persist in self-justification until all their iniquity is exposed, and their character past being redeemed.” As in every other dispensation, the world will continue to go its way, which is one of progressive deterioration:….After all is said, there is nothing for it but to accept God’s way–nothing else will work. (Hugh Nibley, on the Timely and Timeless, Beyond Politics, pages 310-311)