In the last post it was proposed that seeing what God sees as right and wrong followed by doing what is right, is at the core of removing the curse of a plague. This process can be summed up in one word: repentance. As the Bible Dictionary states:
"The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. Since we are born into conditions of mortality, repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God, and a renunciation of sin to which we are naturally inclined" ("Repentance," Bible Dictionary, emphasis added).
'A fresh view' would be a view that departs more and more from human or worldly reasoning and approaches the divine:
"The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:14).
Once one obtains the Spirit, that which was previously foolishness to him becomes apparent truth. Consider that the worldly deride many things that are "virtuous, lovely, and of good report" (A of F 1:13), which constitute revealed Godly principles, including: healing through herbs, or herbalism; opposition to doctorcraft, layercraft, and priestcraft; midwifery; sexual abstinence; heteronormativity; patriarchy; zionism; the Sabbath day of rest; polygyny; and communal living.
Despite scriptural support to show that God is clearly in favor of the above items, there are yet many religionists—including professed saints—who revile against them. These claim the enlightenment of the Spirit yet deny the power thereof, and the Lord predicted that he would one day need to cleanse his church of such "wise and prudent" ones (see Isa. 5:21 and Matt. 11:25):
"Darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people, and all flesh has become corrupt before my face. Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth, saith the Lord. And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord; first among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house, saith the Lord" (D&C 112:23 – 26, emphasis added).
If God sends a plague to call those among his flock to repentance—those who refuse to see things as he does and who instead preach for "friendship with the world" (James 4:4)—then one of two outcomes only are possible: (1) a reformation of viewpoints will occur and all who call themselves God's people will see and do as God expects; or (2) the blasphemers will resist the spirit of the Lord and, in continuing with worldly precepts, the wheat and the tares will be further sifted in the plague:
"In the day of the coming of the Son of Man...there will be foolish virgins among the wise; and at that hour cometh an entire separation of the righteous and the wicked; and in that day will I send mine angels to pluck out the wicked and cast them into unquenchable fire" (D&C 63:53 – 54).
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