Our enmity toward God takes on many labels, such as rebellion, hard-heartedness, stiff-neckedness, unrepentant, puffed up, easily offended, and sign seekers. The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren't interested in changing their opinions to agree with God's.
Interpretation
The quote discusses human pride and the tendency to resist divine influence.
Ezra Taft Benson reflects on humanity's tendency to be at odds with God, labeling various forms of this enmity as rebellion and pride. He highlights the unwillingness of some to change their beliefs in favor of divine truth, indicating a struggle between personal conviction and a higher moral standard.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to illustrate the dangers of pride in one's faith.
Humility responds to God's will-to the fear of His judgments and to the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts. Someone has said, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."
Physical well-being is not only a priceless asset to oneself-it is a heritage to be passed on. With good health, all other activities of life are greatly enhanced. A clean mind in a healthy body enables one to render far more effective service to others. It helps one provide more vigorous leadership. It gives our every experience in life more zest and more meaning. Robust health is a noble and worthwhile attainment.
If you really want to receive joy and happiness, then serve others with all your heart. Lift their burden, and your own burden will be lighter.
Our parents deserve our honor and respect for giving us life itself. Beyond this they almost always made countless sacrifices as they cared for and nurtured us through our infancy and childhood, provided us with the necessities of life, and nursed us through physical illnesses and the emotional stresses of growing up.
We are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth.
Every man eventually is backed up to the wall of faith, and there he must make his stand.
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
As it defines itself, every society defines other societies. That definition almost always takes the form of a condemnation: the 'other' is the barbarian.
Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.
He who lives as children live - who does not struggle for his bread and does not believe that his actions possess any ultimate significance - remains childlike.
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.
The average Christian is so cold and so contented with His wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness.
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