Because as a church, Latter-day Saints are still “under condemnation” for having “treated lightly the things you have received”—our minds still “darkened because of unbelief” (Doctrine & Covenants 84:54–55)—how shall we ever “rend that veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind” and be shown “the greater things, the knowledge which is hid up because of unbelief” (Ether 4:13, 15).
We might ask, What unbelief? Don’t we believe in all the essential elements of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Don’t we heed the counsel of the prophet and church authorities, attend sacrament meetings and the temple, and fulfill church callings? What do we lack that can be called unbelief, so that we are still ignorant of greater things? What greater things? Well, by definition, “great and marvelous things which have been hid up from the foundation of the world” (Ether 4:15).
And how do the scriptures define “unbelief”? Answer, as a hardening of the heart (Mosiah 26:3; Doctrine & Covenants 20:15); as one with “iniquity” and “idolatry” (Mormon 5:15; 3 Nephi 1:18); as akin to “wickedness” (Helaman 4:25; Mormon 1:14); and as a “dark veil” or “cloud of darkness” (Alma 19:6). Unbelief prevents us from understanding God’s word (Mosiah 26:3). It causes the Lord to withhold his gifts and the Holy Ghost from abiding in us (Mormon 1:14).
Because of unbelief, men “depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust,” causing him to “cease to do miracles among the children of men” (Mormon 9:20; cf. Matthew 13:58; 17:19–20). Because of unbelief, they cannot “enter into his rest”—“which rest is the fulness of his glory” (Hebrews 3:18–19; 4:6; Doctrine & Covenants 84:24). Unbelief begets fear in God’s Day of Judgment and smiting by enemies (2 Nephi 26:19; 3 Nephi 1:18).
Unbelief causes God’s people to “fall into the works of darkness, and lasciviousness, and all manner of iniquities,” to “sin against so great light and knowledge” (Alma 45:12) that the Lord “cease[s] to preserve them by his miraculous and matchless power” (Helaman 4:25). Nephi saw this happen among us because we don’t “search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be” (2 Nephi 32:7).
Said Isaiah of us, “Bring no more worthless offerings; they are as a loathsome incense to me. As for convening meetings at the New Month and on the Sabbath, wickedness with the solemn gathering I cannot approve. Your monthly and regular meetings my soul detests. They have become a burden on me; I am weary of putting up with them. When you spread forth your hands, I will conceal my eyes from you; though you pray at length, I will not hear” (Isaiah 1:13–15)?
So how will some reverse this trend? Says Jesus, they must (1) “Come unto me.” (2) “Repent of their iniquity, and become clean” before him—which included calling upon the name of the Lord for their brethren who are with them as the brother of Jared did. (3) “Exercise faith in me . . . even as the brother of Jared . . .that they may become sanctified in me”; and (4) “Call upon the Father in my name, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (Ether 2:14–15; 4:6–7).
