Be a Man - Part 2 — Ken Graves

Knowing God Through Deeper Revelation

You can be actually sure that you know Him and then go through some things where God has the opportunity to reveal more of who He is to you in such a way that will cause you to wonder, did I actually even know Him at all before this?

Maybe you've experienced that. His disciples did, you remember on the boat crossing the lake, Galilee. The lake is 7 miles by 12 miles wide, long. Now whichever way they were going, that night, they were going nowhere in the storm, a storm of wind.

It was powerful, it terrified these men, experienced on that lake. They were pretty sure if this is it, we're going to die. And as a testimony to just how human He, Lord Jesus, was, He was sleeping. No doubt exhausted, having spent Himself, a degree of fatigue that allowed Him to sleep through the storm.

Finally somebody got desperate enough to go and find Him, wake Him, you know, and probably may have offended already the artists among us. Just so you know, I am one of you, I do sketch, I do write songs, and an occasional poem.

They're all very manly, I'll let you know. Close your eyes for just a second, would you guys just close your eyes, please, and see it, let your ears be turned into eyes, for just a minute. We really thought we knew Him.

We answered His call and we followed. A mismatched band of men we were, sailing off into tomorrow, I never knew a man to work so hard, and spend themself like Him, and at last I saw Him finally lay down as all light was growing dim, and darkness came, as did the wind, and that lake became a beast that howled and roared and reached for us, thirteen mortals for its feast.

All I believed now seemed a lie, and nothing made any sense. Waves of terror washed over my soul, each one even more intense, and I felt my way to the back of the boat, to where I saw Him lay. So human was He, that in His fatigue, despite those pounding waves, He slept.

Like a man unaware that there was any reason for fear, like one who knew just where he was going, and what he was doing here, then one angry thought broke through my fear, as my panic reached its peak, it erupted out as a hostile question I could not help but speak.

We're going to die, I cried out loud to the one who led us there. You said let's go over, but we're going under, and how is it that you don't care? And at first he said nothing, but seemed to be struggling, with a mind not fully awakened.

Straight from his dream into our nightmare, still he wasn't the least bit shaken. He stood up suddenly and steadied himself, with one hand he held to the ropes, like holding the reins of a stallion he rode that rising and falling boat, one hand on the ropes, one hand in the air as we cowered along the sides.

He confronted that beast that caused us to cower, so frightened and terrified, and the words that he spoke were not a request, and they were not a victim's plea. His words were not louder than the howl of the wind or the roar of the Galilee, but his words carried power, undeniable power, even the force of the wind had to flee.

Mightier than the thunder of great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea, he spoke to that wind like it was a dog. His command muzzled its jaw, and it fled with its tail tucked between its legs.

As we huddled in silence and awe, everything was quiet. Upon hearing those words, the water, the earth, and the sky, nothing was more silent or speechless than we who just witnessed this with our eyes.

This man who took lordship over nature, for whom nature immediately complied, now turned his gaze upon us little men, just beginning to slowly rise. Why were you afraid, he asked us. How is it that you have no faith?

We had no answer to give him then, looking back we can only say that we were afraid of what was against us because we did not realize what manner of man it was that we followed and trusted with our very lives.

We had no answer for his question of us, but we had many more questions of our own, and someone finally spoke those words that still echo in my soul. What manner of man indeed is he, still more than I can know.

Okay, poem's over, you can open your eyes. You may have gone through things like that in your life, where you discovered that he is greater than you thought, greater than you realized, and that should be a way of life.

That you and I should be living our lives in, I think what Joe Foch calls a perpetual state of blown mindedness, where we are continually more and more in awe of the greatness of the God man, our Lord Jesus.

The Mystery of Christ's Humanity and Deity

So the real central question is who is he? And to deal with that, really to answer that question, and to give that question real justice in an answer, there are some other questions that we've got to ask first.

Because you see, this one that all of Jerusalem was moved by, asking who is he? This one, he's not just a man. He's not just Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, of Galilee, no, he's more. He is God, in human form.

He is absolutely a man, 100 human, and yet at the same time 100 God. Oh, he's mysterious. There is mystery, much mystery, surrounding who he is, and how he does it, what it is that he does. How can he be human?

How can he be human? How can he be tempted, and yet, he's God, and God cannot be tempted with evil. Was temptation real for him? Well, it was real enough that he bled over it, that he sweat blood over it.

But did evil have any pull on him? No. Oh, so much mystery. And I'll tell you this brothers, it is a mistake for a person to always be trying to explain away mystery. There's a lot of people that do that, a lot of theologians do that, a lot of people content to explain away mystery, mystery that cannot be explained, can't be understood.

God's Revelation Through Creation and Conscience

Who is God? Let's ask that question. Who is God? In order for us to say, who is this God, man, let's ask, who is God? Who is he? Wow, that's a big question. We could spend eternity on the subject. Who is God?

Who does God reveal himself to be, and how does he reveal himself? Well, you guys know, he testifies to us through creation. God testifies of himself through creation. In what is visible, we can get some of the attributes of the one who is invisible.

But there's only so much you can know about God through the testimony of nature, right? You can know that he is huge. For the universe as we've come to know it is vast. Its creator must be greater. You can know that he's huge, you can certainly know that he's genius.

Spend any time studying creation, you will have to. You know something, by the way, if you live in an urban area, you really find you're surrounded so much with the stuff of man. You've got to get out of it every now and then.

You've got to get out into the wilderness. You've got to go do something more than just watch the Discovery Channel. You got to go and be with God out where there is a whole lot less of what man has made.

And just take the time. I'm not one of those guys, I'm necessarily saying you need to stop and smell the roses, but you need to stop and check out the bugs. You need to stop and look at these little creatures, look and study these things and see the variety, the genius behind it all, the wonder of it.

And for me as a little kid and man who just a social reject kid, you know, spending all my times out in the woods, out in the forest, it was there that the forest itself testified to me that there's a maker, that there's a creator, there was genius behind it all, there's order to it.

But that's really about all you can, well, you can also know that he is also an artist because he designed beauty. There's no way to explain beauty by chance random processes. You've seen the sunsets, you've seen the color of the sky at night, even in the snow in the winter.

Where I live, you know, I'd be out in the woods just hanging out with the Lord and to see the color of that white, pure white snow as it weighed down those dark green boughs of the spruce trees. And then as the sun was setting, the various shades of color, and I like that time of the day when the sky itself is now darker than the earth beneath because the snow is white, but there on the snow is cast this blue, sort of purplish blue hue.

I love that time when the stars first appear on the eastern side of the horizon. I used to be out there in that and go, this is beautiful. Why is there beauty? Why isn't it all just black and white? Why is it at all?

Why does it exist? Because an artist brought it into being. But that's all you can know about God through the testimony of nature. That's it really, nothing more. God also testifies to us of his existence and who he is through our conscience.

He's written some things on our heart that we innately know. We are innately aware that there is a God and every single atheist is nothing but a liar. Every atheist is a liar. Actually, every atheist is an arrogant liar.

If you are an atheist, you are presuming omniscience. If you're an atheist, you are saying, I know everything. In order for you to say there is no God, you've got to say, I've been everywhere. I've been all over the universe looking for him and there's no God to be found.

An atheist is about the most arrogant, stupid man that exists. I'm an atheist, there's no God. Think of it. The things you've got to convince yourself. You were not a little kid coming to that conclusion, no little kid does.

You were born, you knew some things when you were a little boy. That you talked yourself out of later and why? Usually for moral reasons. You know what a fool is, biblically, the fool that has said in his heart there is no God?

You know what a fool is according to God? He's not someone who's intellectually deficient. The fool is someone who's morally deficient. That's the root cause. Immorality is the root of all stupidity. Immorality is the root of all atheism.

People convince themselves that there is no God because they don't want to even entertain the thought that they're going to have to answer to him someday. But your conscience testifies to you that there is a God.

Now I can handle somebody saying to me, you know, I'm an agnostic. What is an agnostic? Someone, which is really incredible, when you see arrogance combined with agnosticism. That's absolutely absurd.

Because what is an agnostic actually saying? Agnostic is saying ultimately, I don't know. And how can you be arrogant and go, I don't know. How can you be boastful about it and yet there are those guys.

I'm an agnostic. That's like going, I am very uncertain. You know, how do you brag about something like that? If you've been an agnostic, well you can cure that real easy. You can get cured of that real easy.

Just acknowledge the truth that your heart has testified to you about all your whole life. There's a God and this you can know about him through the testimony of your conscience. You're going to have to answer to him someday.

You'll stand before him. There is a God who made you and he will be your judge. There's right and wrong in your heart written there and you knew it. I don't care where you were born. I don't care if you were born in the deepest, darkest jungle of the Amazon where people are eating each other.

Born into a cannibal family. You still know you don't want nobody eating you. You know right from wrong. It doesn't matter where you were born. I wasn't born into some religious family. But the testimony of my conscience combined with the testimony of nature.

Told me there's a genius behind it all and I'm going to have to answer to him. There's right and there is wrong. But really there isn't much more that you can know about God through the testimony of your conscience.

Scripture as God's Self-Revelation

God has revealed himself to us in the pages of Holy Scripture. Man, I love that. Don't you love it when some unbeliever goes, well how do you know you can trust that? Well I'm glad you asked. You want to stick around for the answer?

Usually just spouting off questions to express themselves. Usually not actually looking for an answer to the question. You know what I'm talking about. Two examples of that. Chase this rabbit for a second.

You remember the angel Gabriel was sent by God to deliver two messages to two separate people. Remember? To Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist. And to Mary, a little virgin girl. Zachariah's an old dude.

He's a geezer. Never been a dad. He has certainly prayed. He's prayed many times but now he's long forgotten his prayer and just accepted the fact that God ain't going to answer his prayer. Serving in the temple.

Remember? The angel delivers to him. Gabriel. I'm telling you. This angel wasn't Roma Downey. Or Pearl Bailey. Or some other networked version. The angel. Without exception, every time an angel appears, the first words have to be, Calm down.

Don't be afraid. Fear not. Ain't no flying babes. Flying in and out. Some diaper-wearing little cherub. You know what I mean? You read in the scripture that their voice shakes the doorposts of the temple.

And it's not, Wah! Wah! It's the absurdity of it. But this angel, Gabriel, he gets delivered two messages. Remember that? And the one message is to Zechariah. Guess what? Your prayer's been heard. Gives him this great news.

You're going to be a father! Remember, Zechariah asked a question. Remember that? What do the angels say to him? I can paraphrase it for you. The story's in Luke chapter 1 but I can paraphrase it for you.

The angel goes, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. Shut up. And stay that way for nine months. You want a word fast, buddy. His announcement, I am Gabriel. What do you think this is? Some singing telegram?

Some joke? You know what? You don't get to talk until you see this actually fulfilled. I'm out of here. The next message he delivers to a virgin girl. Who also asks a question. How will this thing be?

See, I know not a man. Obviously the question came from a different part of her heart. A different place. It wasn't because Gabriel doesn't go, Shut up! But instead, He goes, Well, I'm glad you asked.

But don't worry about it. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. You know? He gives her the answer to her question. So the point being, There are those who ask questions only as a way to express their actual doubt.

They don't want an answer. But a sincere question always gets a sincere answer from God. And there are those who always want to ask those stupid questions. Stupid. Just, you know. Or they want to just express themselves.

The agnostic. You know, how could it be? How could this be? And they always wonder, How do you know you can trust the Bible? How do you know all of that? You should have an answer for that, my brothers.

Have an answer for that. You should be able to testify to them, Because this book speaks the truth about the past. It speaks the truth about the future. It speaks the truth about the present. The prophetic aspect of it alone, You ought to have a handle on that.

So you can say, Well, because God says it, it happens. Look at this. And point it out to them. They always ask, Well, didn't men write the Bible? Don't ever say yes. Say no. Holy men wrote. Not just men.

Holy men. They wrote as they were moved on by the Holy Spirit. They were moved upon. And here we have this, What does Missler call it? Integrated message system. This integrated message system. It's genius in the way it does things.

And you know what I love about it? You want to know who God is? He doesn't go, Well, just turn to page 839. There you have a description of God. Like if we were writing some manual on God, Wouldn't we do that?

But that's not how God does things at all. You know, like you turn to this page, And there you find a list of all of his attributes. But now instead he scatters them throughout the whole system. This whole message system.

He scatters all these little pieces, And you've got to go looking for them. You dig. You seek and you find. And you put all of these little pieces together, It comes together like a mosaic. Maybe, man, you have a hard time relating to the concept of mosaic.

A little too artsy for you. Well, let's go with composite sketch. It comes together like a composite sketch, doesn't it? It all comes together. A little piece from here, a little piece from there. And all of this information about God, He reveals himself to us through the pages of scripture.

He reveals not just who he is, but how he is. What he's like. He shows us his heart. The scriptures, guys. We need to be men of the word. You cannot know God at all, Unless you know him as he has revealed himself in the pages of scripture.

Your Bible ought to be with you. You ought to be seen with that thing every single day. It ought to be part of you. It ought to be bound to you. You ought to have it in your heart. You ought to be speaking it continually.

You ought to let it be the thing that comes out of your mouth. The world around you does not need to know any of your philosophy. Everybody's always asking a question. Perhaps it's always on your mind.

What is that one thing? Man, if I only knew that one thing to say to this unbelieving loved one. If I only knew. If I just had the right illustration. If I just had the right argument. What is the seed, according to the Lord Jesus?

The seed is the word of God. What do they need to hear? They need to hear the word of God. I'm telling you guys. All you gotta do. And I believe this is the very responsibility that God has given every single one of us.

To be led by the Holy Spirit, but to continually say, It is written. It is written. That's what the world needs to hear. The world is so full of opinions. The world is one stupid Donahue show. You know, with a roving mic going, You say what?

You say what? Hello, you say what? I don't care what you gotta say, because you're just a descendant of Adam. What does God say? What did he reveal about himself? That is what the world needs to hear.

That is what should be continually coming out of you. And I'll tell you something else. I don't care if they go, I don't care what it's written. You still just planted it in their heart. Just speak it.

You know what it is written. Just over there. I got some goofball in St. Louis airport. Asked me to come over to his little table. He's got his little books on reincarnation. His opening line was, Do you believe in reincarnation, dude?

I said, no, that's stupid. And he said, Well, come on. And I said, well, give me a reason why I should believe it. He started going off, and I go, No, no, no, give me a reason. He starts doing these mental acrobatics.

You know, he's a contortionist. And I'm going, stop, quit that, knock it off. I want to know who tells you. What authority do you have to tell me that I will die and come back as something else? What is the source of your authority?

What authority will you give me for what you believe? You know, I keep coming right back to that. I keep coming back to that. Finally, I go, it is written. It is written. It is the point at which a man wants to die, and then the judgment.

It is written. And I didn't give him any of my arguments. I didn't go trying to follow him through his tangled, contorted mental thought process. I just said, look, dude, it's written. It's written. And I'll tell you one word that kept coming out of him.

You know, you've got to remain flexible. Because you like that word, don't you? Remain flexible. He just said flexible about 20 times. I'm telling you that there is authority in this book. I drew on him.

And I said, listen. God's word has proven to me it's true. I can tell you why I believe what I believe. You've got nothing to offer me, man. And the world needs to hear you say, it is written. That's what the world needs to hear.

It is written. It is not my word, a hammer busting the rocks, God says. It's not my word. It's not my word, a hammer. Oh, if I had a hammer, the guys used to say. Well, dude, you got a hammer. You take up this mighty sword.

It doesn't matter how feeble your little hands are. God will put this sword in our feeble little hands. And it isn't the hand that holds it that makes it powerful. You know what I'm saying? You understand this concept, right?

Man, you use power tools, right? You understand, you don't have to be a mighty man to run the levers. And this thing is more powerful. It is the thing that brought the universe into existence. God spoke, and it is.

Oh, this thing is powerful. What a power tool it is indeed. The most powerful thing that you will ever take up. And it's opening lines are so sweet. The opening lines, Genesis 1 -1. To me, among the coolest words in the Bible.

In the beginning, God. It's like God is just going, you know what? No apology for not explaining to you who I am, where I came from, because you can't handle it. No apology for what's not there. No attempt to explain the unexplainable.

Starts out with a given. Starts out just like that. In the beginning, God. Deal with it. The beginning, God. Oh, man. And we go through this thing, and systematically we go through this, and we put all of the little pieces together.

God's Eternal, Omniscient, and Omnipresent Nature

And we come up with a composite sketch of a being so great, he is beyond all our reference points. We can't even comprehend him. Consider just a few of his attributes that he has clearly revealed to us there in the scripture.

He reveals to us that he is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. Now, I have a hard time with that, because I do begin. I can remember back. It gets sketchy the further back I go toward my beginning.

You ever hear any of those, sorry, I try not to use bad words, but idiots. You ever listen to any of those idiots that have traced their past back through hypnosis and regression therapy and all that junk?

This is stupid, man. I'm sorry, but there's just so many things about this world that are stupid. I must, I don't know any other word that really covers it as well as stupid. But they go back in regression therapy, and there are some of those who actually testify that they're right back to actually remembering their birth.

You can hear them, you know, they're laying on the doctor's little couch. They're under hypnosis, and they're going, the light, the light is so bright. You know, supposedly they're being born. Someone's slapping me.

It's so stupid. And there are people who, and as if that's not stupid enough, then they go back to previous lives. You know what's really cool? All of the Hollywood crowd that ever end up on Leno or some other place testifying, yes, I believe in reincarnation.

You know, I discovered in my previous life I was a princess. And there's always some kind of royalty. Nobody's ever like head janitor of the vomitorium, you know. All of them, without exception, are some kind of royalty.

It's the flattery of Satan. It's the lie from hell. I have a beginning. So do you. Time is linear. This is what time is. You know, the pagan belief systems all have time being cyclical. This big wheel, it just keeps turning.

You go around and you come around. You go around and you come around. That's so foolish. God's word starts out with in the beginning. Because, you see, there's a beginning. Time is linear. And you can write it out on a graph, on a timeline.

That we move in one direction. We move forward toward our future. Toward an end. God has no beginning, no end. He is eternal. That's hard to relate to, isn't it? And yet He is omniscient. That one's hard.

That one attribute. God is omniscient. He knows everything. Knows everything, guys. That is to say, He knows what is to us the past. He knows what is to us the present. And He knows the future. I'm not going to go on about that, because you understand that already, right?

That He is above it all, outside of time. You can see it all, laid before Him, to all that's right now. To Him, it's just all right now. The thing that messes with my mind, my little mind, more than anything.

More than the fact that God knows the end before the beginning. That God foreknows everyone who will ever choose to respond to His love. That doesn't hurt my head as much as the whole concept that God not only knows the future, He even knows the future that could be.

He even knows the potential future. I don't want to chase that one too long, because it hurts my head. But think about it, because it's true. You know, it was David who said, in that one occasion, while fleeing from Saul, Lord, if I stay here, if I stay, he inquired of the Lord through the priest, if I stay here, will the men of this city hand me over to Saul when Saul lays siege to this city?

And the Lord said, yes, if you stay, they will. So David goes, then I won't. I will leave, and thus not be handed over to Saul. And he left, and so he wasn't handed over to Saul. But think of the implication of that.

God knows what would be if you take a right-hand turn instead of a left-hand turn right here. God knows exactly where that will end, and the choices that that will lead to. And every choice, in all of the, into infinity, all of the ramifications of every choice you'll ever make, He knows the potential.

That hurts my little blue-collar noggin, man. Blue-collar is flattering. There's white-collar, blue-collar, then there's no-collar. That's where I live. And that hurts my little mind. Omniscient.

Omnipresent. Omnipresent! The scripture reveals that God is everywhere and once there's nowhere you can go to get away from Him. I am barely in Fort Lauderdale right now. I'm barely here. Let alone being everywhere and once.

That's hard for me to handle. Hard for me to relate to a God that big. That every one of us can be praying to. He knows what every one of us are thinking right now. We could all be praying at the same time.

He can hear every single prayer. What a God is that. What a huge God. He is all-powerful. All-powerful, omnipotent God. I love that one, but I have a hard time relating to it. Because I am so little, so weak, so not omnipotent.

God's Holiness, Justice, Mercy, and Grace

All-powerful. And in that context, I always say this. I'm going to say it again. Does that mean that God can do anything? That's how it's often worded by the agnostic. No, God can't do anything. He can't not love you.

He can't lie. He can't deny himself. There's a lot God can't do. And still be who He is. But is He all-powerful? Yes, He's all-powerful. Almighty. They're always asking the agnostic or the atheist. They always go, hey, can God do anything?

And you say yes. As soon as you say yes, you've made a mistake. Don't say yes. Say, my God is all-powerful. Can He do anything? Well, He's all-powerful. As soon as you say yes, they go, well then, can God make a rock so big that even He can't lift it?

And your answer to that is always, it should be, that's stupid. Next. It's a violation of logic. It's like people saying to you, come on, pick yourself up by your bootstraps. I can't. I'm standing on them.

It's an absurd thought. You can't pick yourself up by your bootstraps and you can't, you know, God can't make a rock so big that even He can't lift it. This is a dumb thought. It's a violation of logic.

He's omnipotent. He's almighty. All-powerful God. You think just those few attributes alone. And then you add to that such things as He is holy. He's absolutely holy. Completely perfect morally. Righteous God.

That's hard to handle when you're as much a lowlife as I am. You are. You are too. You are such a bunch of worms. God is not one bit involved in trying to elevate your self-esteem. Bunch of wiggling little maggots.

Low form of life. Just putrid. You know, I said this the other night to the guys at the Calvary House. I'm going to say it to you guys here. If you have been called by the Lord, you've been chosen and you have.

You have been honored. But you have not been complimented. If you know how God does His choosing, you know you were not complimented. God did not pick you because you were so cool and you had so much to offer.

You were such a high form of life, He just had to have you. Just got to collect them all. You were chosen by the Lord because He uses the foolish things of this world. I was picked for the very reason that God uses the weak things of this world to confound the strong.

He chooses that which is nothing to confound those that are something. I know what I am. I know where I came from. I don't yet know what I'm going to be. But I do know I'm just poor white trash. Spam-sucking trailer trash.

Living on welfare and government cheese. When He found me, He met me. He introduced Himself to me and gave me a reason to live. I will say I'm not living on spam today. God has blessed. We buy beef now.

God is certainly blessed and we're no longer on welfare. Learned to work. God took me through my twenties on the end of a chainsaw. Collecting scar tissue. And I was on the handle end. And I am grateful for all that God has done.

But I know what He found. I know what He called. I know who I was. And I got a little glimpse of what I was going to be if it had not been for His grace. God is so righteous. So loving. And we are so sinful.

I like how Jesus says it. When He says, you being evil. It's like a given. You being all messed up and all. Know how to give good gifts to your children. Nobody went, oh. None of the common people anyway.

It's always those who have been educated beyond their intelligence. Those people that have gone way too far in school. They want to go, I'm not either. But the words He'd say to the multitude, to the common man.

He'd go, you guys, you being evil. Nobody took exception to that. Nobody argued, I'm not evil. Nobody. Nobody knew that was a given. Yep, that's what I am. In comparison to God. In contrast with Him. And yet one attribute of God does not ever cancel out another attribute.

He is absolutely righteous. He's the righteous judge of the universe. He can't be bought. He can't be bribed. He is not the God. The good old boy in the sky that all the old country songs would sing about.

I remember as a kid hearing the Oak Ridge Boys singing a song about Judgment Day. And God going, come on in. You did the best that you could do. Like He is just some stupid Billy Bob in the sky. That just, just, you know, He is.

Many people have made God in their own image. And they think He's going to look at them and go, oh, good enough. Come on. Get on in here. He's not. God is not any of that. God is absolutely righteous.

Righteous. You can't buy Him or bribe Him. And His standards won't lower. He won't change anything that He said about right and wrong. And the wages of sin is death. Absolute death. Listen. This God in the scripture is righteous.

And yet He is loving and merciful. How in the world does that work out? How can He be loving and merciful and slow to anger and be forgiving all that He reveals about Himself here? He is all of that. He is merciful and yet He is just.

Oh, does not my soul, my whole being want justice for this Joseph Smith? Oh, I can tell you. There is a thing in my heart wanting vengeance. God never says vengeance is bad. Just says it's His. Never.

God never says vengeance is a bad. God never says vengeance. He says vengeance. So here is this God who is absolutely loving and absolutely just. How will a loving God deal with the wickedness of a murderer like that?

Same way He has dealt with you and me. Same exact way. He in His genius finds a way, makes a way, that that sin can be paid for in full. Some of us have created this little man-made purgatory. Well, all purgatory is man-made.

There is no purgatory in the Bible. I do not care where you came from or who told you so. Check the book. There is no purgatory. Well, if there is a purgatory, it is for cats. Cats. Cats. Common house cats in the hands of junior high school boys.

That is the closest thing to purgatory you are ever going to find. We have created our own little purgatory when it comes to our sin. And that is where I will go to this place in my mind and I will feel bad about it.

I will punish myself mentally for a while. Just for a while. And then in my own mind I will feel better having punished myself and I will consider the debt paid. It is not justice. It would not be justice for Joseph Smith to stand before the judge, the presence of the family of his victim, and hear the judge say, Do you feel bad about it?

Joseph Smith would say, Yes, I feel really bad about it. I really feel bad about it. Really bad. If I could go back, I would not do it again. I feel bad. How long have you felt bad? Well, ever since I did it, I felt really bad.