Monday, June 17, 2013

Today's Maxwell Quote

From But For a Small Moment (1986), 13-14 (describing Joseph Smith's experiences in Liberty Jail):
The Prophet may have recalled Judas, too, for he observed that "Mormon dissenters" were being used "against us, because such misguided souls were "thinking thereby to gain the friendship of the world." Ironically, those of the world who used such dissenters would end up, said Joseph to the Church in this epistle, hating "them worse than they do us because they find them to be base traitors and sycophants" (Writings, p. 379). This was a foreshadowing of verses to be received several months later: "those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed [saying] they have sinned when they have not sinned... and those who swear falsely against my servants . . . , they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them" (D&C 121: 16, 18, 20). Judas knew what it was to be used and then despised (see Matthew 27:3-5).