On Escaping Penalties – Sunday, October 23, 1949
Sometimes the question is asked: Just how effective is the threat of punishment in keeping men from doing things they shouldn’t do? To this, we must frankly answer that often the mere threat of punishment doesn’t seem to be very effective—perhaps because so many men are apparently willing to gamble on the chance of avoiding punishment for their errors.
In contemplating some misdeed, they often weigh the supposed pleasures against the possible penalties, and then they weigh the chances of escaping the penalties and act accordingly. Especially would it seem that punishments which are postponed to a remote hereafter are often not very effective in causing men to give up the error of their ways. Heaven sometimes seems so far away—and what seems far away may hold little fear for the present. But quite apart from the prospect of remote punishment, it would be well to consider the absolute certainty of immediate punishment.
If we do something we shouldn’t do, even if no one else knows it, the gnawing accusation inside is one form of immediate and unavoidable punishment. The accusation of others is only intermittent, but our own inward accusation can be constant. There may be those who we may think have done some misdeed or participated in some malpractice without punishment, but if we think so, it is only because we don’t know what goes on inside them.
There is no misdeed which does not exact its own penalty. There is no kind of malpractice, the consequences of which are reserved wholly for the hereafter. We may gamble on outsmarting the law; we may gamble on the seeming remoteness of heaven and the hereafter; we may gamble on the leniency of men and the mercy of God—but there is nothing more certain in this world than the certainty that every thought and act of our lives has its impact upon. us, whether it is known to others or not—and anyone who gambles against this fact has already lost his gamble.
Revised
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, October 28, 1949, 11:30 to 12:00 noon, Eastern Time. Copyright 1949
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October 23, 1949
Broadcast Number 1,053