No Excuse for Thee

" Alma was greatly disappointed at the failure of his son Corianton to live the standards of a missionary. Corianton forsook his ministry and went to the land of Siron after the harlot Isabel " (Boyd K. Packer)


He said: “This was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldst have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted” (Alma 39:4)
I feel like that's the response we're going to get at judgment if we justify our lives now by the lives of others.

On numerous occasions, I've had friends or girls from my ward ask me about things, especially when it comes to dating. I had a girl ask if "going out" was bad before you were sixteen, and another girl ask me if making out was okay. Sometimes, I think my bluntness startles them when I answer, "No, it is not okay."
There is a lot of justification in the world, and church members often indulge in this behavior.


I remember, when I was first dating, I tried to get straight answers from Young Women leaders about the rules of the church when it came to dating. The answer I would always get was that, "It's different for each person. Just know your limits."
Unsatisfied with that answer, I began to look to my friends and peers for advice. Learning from bad examples, I concluded that "going out" or pairing off before 16 was okay as long as it wasn't an official date. I learned that making out was fine, in fact it was encouraged; as long as you didn't cross the line anything was okay. I learned that telling dirty jokes was fine and also encouraged if it was a quote from a favorite T.V. show. All of these things, of course, were very wrong.


We hear the peer-pressure-everybody-else-is-doing-it lecture all the time, and it's started to lose its meaning. We apply it to smoking, drugs, and alcohol, but forget to apply it to other important things.

"I did alright. I didn't obey all of the commandments, but at least I wasn't as bad as some of the kids at my school," probably isn't going to justify salvation.
"This was no excuse for thee."

We listen and take counsel from the prophets, not from our peers.