Testimony
The Rats I Never Saw Coming
Why the Worst Attacks Wait Until Your Testimony Bears Fruit
Alma names one threat when he compares the word of God to a seed, and almost every lesson I have ever sat through has focused on that one. The heat of the sun comes and scorches a young plant that has no root yet, and it withers, and somebody plucks it up and casts it out. That is an early attack on something small and new. It is the one we are all taught to watch for, and I have written about it at length using two corn patches in my own neighborhood.
But there is another kind of attack, and it does not come for the seedling. It waits. It comes for a plant that is mature and healthy and finally producing fruit, and it does not care how deep your root is because it is not attacking your root at all. It is coming for the harvest. I learned about that one in a tomato garden and it cost me a season.
Fifty Plants and Fifteen Pints
Last year I planted fifty tomato plants and I did everything right. I watered them properly, fed them, staked them, watched them. The fruit came on heavy and started to color up, and then it began to disappear. I assumed birds and put netting over the entire garden, and the tomatoes kept disappearing anyway. I finally set up a trail camera to see what I was actually dealing with, and it was rats. So I put out traps. I put out poison. I hung aluminum foil spinners. I bought a motion activated owl that shrieked and flapped whenever something moved, and I am reasonably sure the rats found it entertaining. When the season ended I had fifteen pints of spaghetti sauce that does not taste very good, out of a garden that cost me more than a thousand dollars.
Now here is the part I did not understand at the time, and it is the reason I am writing this at all. It did not start with a horde. It started with one rat. One animal found its way into that garden, found the fruit, found that nothing was stopping him, and then went and told every rat he knew. That is how it works. A weakness gets discovered by one, the one broadcasts it, and then they all arrive at once and devour everything in front of them. I went from a curiosity to an infestation in about ten days.
If that does not sound familiar, you have not spent much time on social media. Watch what happens the moment somebody faithful says something in public and gets a word slightly wrong, or gets caught in an inconsistency, or admits a doubt out loud. One person spots it. Within the hour there are two hundred of them, and they did not come to discuss anything. They came because a weakness was found, and weakness gets exploited and devoured. I have watched the mocking emoji do more damage to good people than any argument ever has. The Savior put this scenario in the same sermon as the thorns and the stony ground, and He named who is behind it.
"When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side." (Matthew 13:19)
The seed was good. Something came and took it.
And I want to say the honest thing about my own failure, because it was not laziness. I had gardened for years and had never once had rats. It never happened. I did not know to look, I did not know the early signs, and by the time I understood the problem the crop was mostly gone. Had somebody warned me in April I would have handled it in April and I would have had tomatoes. That is the whole lesson. It was not neglect that cost me that harvest. It was that I had never faced this particular enemy and I was not ready when it arrived.
The Saddest Day of My Mission
I have carried this one for decades. We were teaching a family, a husband and wife and five children. They had taken every discussion, asked every hard question, accepted the answers. They were committed, they had a date, and on the appointed day my companion and I waited at the chapel and they never walked through the door. We drove out to their home afterward to find out what had happened. Somebody had handed them anti-Mormon literature at the last minute. That was all of it. Seven people ready to enter the waters of baptism, and it came apart in an afternoon over a stack of paper. I still do not talk about that day easily.
I want to be careful about where those people were standing, because it matters. They had not tasted the fruit. In Lehi's vision, baptism is where you take hold of the end of the rod, and there is a long distance to travel after that, through the mist, holding on, before anybody arrives at the tree. That family never even got their hands on the rod. And Lehi tells us exactly what happens to people at that spot on the path when the darkness rolls in.
"And it came to pass that there arose a mist of darkness; yea, even an exceedingly great mist of darkness, insomuch that they who had commenced in the path did lose their way, that they wandered off and were lost." (1 Nephi 8:23)
They who had commenced in the path. Not the ones who had eaten. The ones who had started walking. And when Nephi later asked what the mist actually was, he was told the mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blind the eyes and harden the hearts of men. A pamphlet is not an argument. It is weather. If you have wondered why I keep writing about how to test a claim before it tests you, that is why. I watched fog take seven people off the path in a single afternoon.
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But look at what else is in that same vision, because Lehi saw both attacks and he put them in the same chapter.
"And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also; but we heeded them not." (1 Nephi 8:33)
Great was the multitude. Not one mocker. A crowd of them, and they are pointing at the people who are already partaking, which means the fruit is exactly what drew them. Nobody bothers stealing green tomatoes. Those are the rats, and Nephi does not leave us guessing about what that scorn accomplished, because he records two different outcomes and they happen to the same kind of people standing in the same place. Some of them had tasted the fruit already. They had made it through the mist, they had reached the tree, they had eaten, and then a crowd of strangers laughed at them.
"And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost." (1 Nephi 8:28)
Ashamed. That is the word he uses, and it is not doubt and it is not an argument they could not answer. Nobody in that verse got outreasoned. They got embarrassed, in public, by people whose entire purpose in being there was to point, and it moved them off the path they had already walked all the way to the end. And then Lehi tells us what the others did, standing in exactly the same spot, taking exactly the same abuse from exactly the same building. They heeded them not, and they kept eating. That is the whole difference between the two groups. Not better arguments. Not thicker skin. They simply refused to give the mockers a vote. The attacks were never really about the people they land on anyway.
We Have Been Warned, and Most of Us Are Not Listening
Nobody warned me about the rats. Nobody could have. I had no history with them and no neighbor who mentioned it. But that is not the position any of us are in spiritually, because the Lord has never operated that way and He says so plainly through Amos, that He will do nothing without revealing His secret unto His servants the prophets. We have been warned. Repeatedly, from the pulpit, twice a year, for as long as any of us have been alive, about deception and division and about days that will test everything we think we believe. The prophets and apostles are the neighbor leaning over the fence in April, telling you what is about to come at your garden. Most people nod politely and go back inside.
And I will tell you what I expect, and understand that I am giving you my study and my opinion and nothing more, because I hold no office and no keys. I believe this Church is about to be attacked by rats. Not one or two. Not a hostile article every few months and an awkward conversation at work. A mass invasion, arriving all at once, aimed directly at the people who are visibly partaking of the fruit. Everything I have written in my book about the servant God has raised up, and about what happens to this country and to the covenant people in the years just ahead, points to a test that will split families and wards straight down the middle, and I have already said that the falling away comes before the gathering finishes. If you want the framework behind why I read the times this way, start with the case for what Isaiah and John actually described.
The counsel on how to be ready does not come from me. President Russell M. Nelson said that in coming days it will "not be possible to survive spiritually without the ... influence of the Holy Ghost", and he was not speaking in metaphors. He said survive. A prophet of God looked at what is ahead of us and chose that word deliberately. The Lord had already given us the same standard in almost the same language, and He tied it directly to deception.
"For they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived—verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day." (Doctrine and Covenants 45:57)
Taken the Holy Spirit for their guide. That is not a feeling you happen to have on a good Sunday. That is a working relationship, built over years, by people who did the daily thing when nobody was watching. And the verse tells you what it produces. They are not deceived, and they abide the day.
What Actually Stops the Rats
Nothing I bought stopped them, and for a long time I told that story as though nothing could have. That is not true and I want to correct it. Traps set in April stop rats. There are electric fence kits made for this exact problem and they work. The tools were never the issue. The issue was that by the time I understood what I was fighting, most of the crop was gone and I was out buying April's equipment in August. I did not act soon enough. That is the honest version and it is harder to say than blaming bad luck.
But here is what I do not want anybody taking from that. Being late is not the same as being finished. There were still tomatoes on those plants in August, and if I had gone after it then with everything I had, walked the perimeter every morning, closed every gap, stayed on it daily instead of hanging a plastic owl and hoping, I would have saved part of that crop. Prevention is the better road and always will be. But an invading horde you never saw coming still has to be dealt with, and the only difference is that it now costs you far more work than it would have cost you in the spring.
So what does that look like when the rats get into your testimony? You will know the moment when it comes. Somebody hands you something you cannot answer. A person you trusted and looked up to turns on the Church in public. A question that never bothered you before will not leave you alone at two in the morning. And the instinct nearly everybody follows right then is one of two things. Either you withdraw and study the attack alone, in the dark, at the hour you are weakest. Or you walk away from the garden entirely because the swarm is bigger than you are and it feels like there is nothing to be done. Both of those are how you lose the crop. Do the opposite of both. Go the other direction and go hard.
Serve more than you were serving. Pray more than you were praying, and pray out loud and specifically about the thing that is hitting you. Fast about it. Get to the temple more often than your current pattern, because that building was built for exactly this. Get back into the scriptures every day even if all you can manage is a few verses before bed. Talk to somebody who is strong instead of somebody who is angry. And do not quit early. Rats leave a yard when it becomes more trouble than it is worth to them, and the adversary is no different.
You are also not being asked to invent the tools yourself. This may be an enemy you have never faced and never expected to face, but it is not new to God, and He has never once sent anybody into a fight without giving them what they needed for it.
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)
He will make a way. He always has. And that is where root comes back into this, because the reason that corn down the street is still standing twelve feet tall in August wind is a root system that will never appear in any photograph. A plant with root can lose some of its fruit and keep going. A plant without root loses the fruit, then the season, then dies, and from the road all three of those look about the same. Root is what buys you the time to fight back.
"But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life." (Alma 32:41)
Diligence and patience. Read those two words together, because most of us want one without the other. Everything I described about serving and fasting and getting to the temple is diligence, and it is necessary, and it will carry you through the week you are standing in. It will not put a root down for you. You cannot cram for this the way you crammed for a final exam, and you cannot make up four months of neglect in one very sincere weekend. Root goes down slowly, in ordinary daily work nobody sees, during the years before the rats ever arrive. Elder Gary E. Stevenson called your testimony "a most precious possession" and then spent his whole address on the unglamorous work of keeping it alive. There is a reason the apostles keep circling back to that one word, nourish. It is a daily word.
Start Now, Not in August
I lost fifty tomato plants because I met an enemy I had never met before and I met him too late. You are not in that position and neither am I, not anymore, because we have been told. Set the traps in April. Get the Holy Ghost into your life as a constant companion rather than an occasional visitor, because the days ahead are going to require exactly that and a prophet of God told us so plainly. And when the multitude comes out of that building pointing at you, and it is coming, do what Lehi did. Heed them not, and keep eating. If you want an honest look at where we actually are on the prophetic timeline, take the free chapter, because nothing gets a person out into the garden like the calendar.
I know that God lives. I know that Jesus Christ is His Son and the Savior of the world. I have tasted the fruit Alma described, and I will tell you what he told us about it, that it is sweet above all that is sweet, and that once you have tasted it you know. You do not spend the rest of your life wondering whether you imagined it. I have never forgotten it and I never will. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
For Further Study
On the Mist and the Mocking: 1 Nephi 8:23–24, 26–33; 1 Nephi 11:35–36; 1 Nephi 12:17
On the Wicked One Taking the Seed: Matthew 13:3–8, 18–23; Mark 4:14–20
On Being Warned Beforehand: Amos 3:7; D&C 1:12; D&C 88:81; Matthew 24:44
On the Holy Ghost and Surviving Deception: D&C 45:57; 2 Nephi 32:3, 5; Moroni 10:5; D&C 8:2–3
On Help in a Fight You Did Not Choose: 1 Corinthians 10:13; Ephesians 6:11–13; Helaman 5:12; D&C 6:34
On Persecution of the Covenant People: 3 Nephi 18:18; D&C 122:5–9; 2 Timothy 3:12
Keep Reading
- The Marred Servant: Why a Destroyed Reputation Is Part of the Prophecy
- The Problem of Hatred
- No, We Are Not in the Seven Seals Yet. Relax and Get Ready!
Kelly Smith is the author of The First Horseman, Donald Trump and Biblical Prophecy. He is a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has read the Book of Mormon daily for more than forty years. Find the book, the podcast, and the full article library at FirstHorseman.World.
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