Chapter 7—Digging the Pit and Laying Snares
Digging the Pit. The wicked have not separated from the world. Spiritual blindness causes them to spurn God’s word and His servants who declare it. Delusion, pride, and apathy toward eternal things keep many from recognizing their error. “Leave them alone because the blind are leading the blind; and if a blind man leads another who is blind, both will fall into a pit.”
We dig the pit as we climb the world’s ladder instead of ascending to God. Aspiring men, devoid of conscience, “dig a pit for [a] friend” (Job 6:27) but they cannot be exalted because they have “not the substance of godliness about them.” Joseph calls them “great big elders” who “caused him much trouble.” Believing we have salvation while taking advantage of others will cause us to “be thrust down to hell!”
Those who ensnare others not only dig the pit, they are caught in it themselves. The deceptive, the deceived, and all who love the world are part of the pit, which represents both the battleground and the battle between good and evil. The pit’s works and ideologies are always present in a telestial world but its greatest power is realized in what Enoch calls the ‘age of unrighteousness,’ or ‘times of the corrupted way.’
The pit is the work of “that great whore who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord” (1 Nephi 22:14). “She utters folly . . . her foundations [are] of darkness. Many sins are in her . . . She is the beginning of all the ways of iniquity.” She rules “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” with such power as to utterly “corrupt the earth” (Revelation 17:15, 19:2).
Behold there are save two churches only: the one is the church of the Lamb of God and the other is the church of the devil. Wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth . . . and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.
I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters. Nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. (1 Nephi 14:10–12)Those who align with the great and abominable church “fighteth against Zion . . . [They] are the whore of all the earth; for they who are not for me are against me, saith our God” (2 Nephi 10:16). This includes teachers of error and priests who falsely believe they have priesthood.
Truth must be preserved to avoid apostasy. Apostasy voids covenants and skews understanding. And it takes place among covenant makers who, with hearts hardened to His word, are “led by many priests and false prophets to build up many churches and to do all manner of iniquity.” Deceived, they “teach their children that they should not believe” exactly what He revealed (4 Nephi 1:38).
Christ said if we do not “build up my church on the foundation of my gospel and my rock” (D&C 18:5), we are in Babylon’s power. The pit deceives us into thinking we are built on a solid foundation, but our foolishness will bring a great fall. “Woe to those who build iniquity and violence and lay deceit as a foundation, for quickly they will be overthrown and they shall have no peace” (1 Enoch 94:6).
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become ‘fools’ so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. (1 Corinthians 3:18–19, NIV)Apostasy begins almost immediately once “the power of God begins to fall upon the nations, and the light of the latter-day glory begins to break forth through the dark atmosphere of sectarian wickedness and their iniquity rolls up into view.” God must withdraw His spirit when “not only the churches are dwindling away, but there are no [spiritual] conversions, or but very few.”
Dwindling causes us to “fall into the works of darkness, and lasciviousness, and all manner of iniquities” (Alma 45:12). Light dwindles in unbelief and wickedness—making a “dark, loathsome, and filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations” (1 Nephi 12:23). Dark refers to loss of light. Loathsome describes those in iniquity, and the filthy have yet to be cleansed by His power.
To dig means to dwindle, diminish, fall away, or scatter. Unholy ideologies dig the pit while luring us into false security. The reason God “ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust” (Mormon 9:20). Unbelief is not believing God’s word as revealed, a prevalent sin that causes even a covenant people to trust in man or reject truth and spiritual gifts. They dig the pit and dwindle “because of the traditions” (Helaman 15:15) and “iniquity of their fathers” (D&C 3:18). Digging the pit and dwindling in unbelief are the same.
Holy prophets who witnessed the demise of their people were concerned that these sins would repeat in latter days. If God’s word was not preserved, they “would have dwindled in unbelief” and been “like unto our brethren the Lamanites who know nothing concerning these things, or even do not believe them when they are taught them because of the traditions of their fathers which are not correct” (Mosiah 1:5). The sin of unbelief is so serious that when Nephites began living in the manner of the world, God said they were as “exceedingly wicked” as the Lamanites, who did “wilfully rebel against the gospel of Christ” (4 Nephi 1:45, 38).
Because of their iniquity the church had begun to dwindle . . . and the judgments of God did stare them in the face. (Helaman 4:23)Laying Snares. We are led to believe the pit is down in the earth. Instead, it masquerades as the great and spacious building that appears to be exalted, standing without foundation, “as it were in the air, high above the earth” (1 Nephi 8:26). Many paths lead to the spacious building, but only one path leads to eternal life. The pit tries “to ensnare the people of the Lord” and “fight against Zion” (1 Nephi 22:14). Its people are “in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers . . . [and] scoffing” at the faithful (1 Nephi 8:27–28).
“Many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken, be snared, and taken” (Isaiah 8:14–15). Snares—manifested as frauds, deceits, inventions, false worship, obstacles, distractions, nets, traps, and “cares and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:14)—seduce us into the pit. They are “the way of the froward: he that doth keep his soul shall be far from them” (Proverbs 22:5). Mischief and error destroy souls.
At times God permits the righteous to be cast into a pit because such trials can endow us with power if we prove true and faithful to God. Seekers of righteousness expect trials, recognizing them as opportunities to obtain eternal life. Joseph of Egypt was cast into a pit because of his righteousness. “I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit” (Genesis 40:15, ESV), he declared.
I did not go astray in the truth of the Lord. These my brothers hated me, and the Lord loved me. They wished to kill me, and the God of my fathers guarded me. They let me down into a pit, and the Most High brought me up again . . . In all places [God] is at hand, and in different ways does he comfort, though departing for a short time to try the inclination of the soul. (Testament of Joseph 1:3–4, 2:6)In difficult moments, “the Lord was with Joseph” (Genesis 39:21) as He is all the faithful. Joseph Smith too was cast into a pit by enemies who ultimately could not prevail. The wise know it is an honor to have men revile against us for His sake because “all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7).
We are measured in relation to “the testimony of Jesus.” “Know assuredly, dear brethren, that it is for the testimony of Jesus that we are in bonds and in prison.” Paul said, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory . . . I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 4:17, 12:10).
Snares strike at our feet to stop us from walking up to our covenants and back into God’s presence. Joseph of Egypt described evil’s desire “to trip me up” by temptation and deceit (Testament of Joseph 4:1). “They have digged a pit for my soul . . . and hid snares for my feet” (Jeremiah 18:20, 22). But in the end, “the heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made; in the net which they hid is their own foot taken” (Psalm 9:15). “He who diggeth a pit for them shall fall into the same himself” (D&C 109:25).
And that great pit, which hath been digged for [the faithful] by that great and abominable church, which was founded by the devil and his children that he might lead away the souls of men down to hell . . . shall be filled by those who digged it, unto their utter destruction, saith the Lamb of God. (1 Nephi 14:3)Satan has power to bruise our heel and hinder our walk on the path, but it is not a fatal blow unless we submit to his temptations. “The devil has no power over us, only as we permit him.” Satan has no power over Christ’s redeeming blood, which “will deliver my soul from the Pit and will direct my steps to the way.”
David said God “drew me out” and “brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock” (Psalm 18:16, 40:2). To lift us out of the pit onto solid ground is Christ’s work. He “gave me a firm place to stand” (NIV), “making my steps secure” (ESV).
Remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil . . . shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. (Helaman 5:12)
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