All Is Well?
B Is What Is Wrong

Dear Editor,

Man, are we asleep!

The people of the Lord are supposed to be ever vigilant, watching constantly and being a light to the world, both in warning the world of pending calamities as well as in setting forth an ensign of the way things should be done.

Instead, we are tripping over ourselves striving vigorously to become acceptable in the eyes of the world, preparing for the 2002 Olympics when the eyes of the world will be fastened here. We want to look pleasing to them, to impress them with how exceptionally normal we are.

In contrast, we should be repenting, putting on strength in the Lord, come what may, and be scrambling to ready ourselves and the world against the disasters that await us because of the folly of placing our trust in the arm of flesh, which we have helped to perpetuate.

Because of threats like the millennial bug (Y2K), tens of thousands of nuclear warhead in the hands of volatile tyrannical nations, biological and chemical weapons, ecologically-driven natural disasters, racial unrest, third-world unrest, etc., there may not even be a 2002 olympic venue.

Never, no never, not even once in my entire life have I had even one lesson in a Mormon-sponsored setting on the "mark of the beast," and yet every single bar code on virtually every single product being bought and sold today has 666 engraved in it B an ominous precursor to a more violent day when those who do not participate will be put to death. The penalty for taking the mark in one's hand or in ones forehead will be to "drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone." (Rev. 14:10.) That is serious stuff.

Instead, what are the Mormons teaching one another? "All is well!"

What spurred my writing this letter was a full-page ZCMI add in Sunday's paper. (e.g. Daily Herald, Sept. 20, 1998; p. A-11.) I imagine it showed up in all of the Major Utah papers. It was advertising a special "Conference Book Sale." Front and center was the all-popular The Work and the Glory installment number nine and last in the series by Gerald N. Lund, the prime Church Education mogul and luminary of the LDS Church Office Building. In this volume, the early history of the Saints comes to a close as they become established in these valleys. What subtitle does Brother Lund choose to capture the essence of this final saga, which brings us to the present day? ALL IS WELL!

That should make anyone familiar with prophecy shudder to their toes, for they know all too well the prophecy of Nephi in which the Lord says, "And others will [the devil] pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well--and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell." (2 Nephi 28:21. See also Isaiah 28:7; 56:10-12.)

All is not well. Isn't it about time you folks in these valleys woke up? You are a bunch of sleeping giants. Get with it already, before it is too late!

Sterling D. Allan; Mapleton, Utah; September 20, 1998