Degrees of the moral compass

Talk for First Ward Sacrament Meeting 29 June 2008

Just a few degrees.

Let’s see, degrees are pretty small.

They can’t matter much, can they?

Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain in 1492 without knowing where he was going. When he arrived, he didn’t know where he was. (He was on a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea. He didn’t know from straight up about Caribbean.)

But he had kept detailed written records of all the distances and directions he sailed. He was able to sail back across the trackless “Ocean-Sea” to Spain, right back to the very port where he started.

Furthermore, because he was very careful about each and every degree, Columbus was able to sail those thousands of miles later, again and again, back to that very same tiny island.

President Uchdorf told us in General Conference that in 1979 an airplane headed toward the South Pole for sightseeing was a “mere” two degrees off course. Instead of flying over flat country, it crashed into a mountain that the navigator thought was 28 miles away.

Every single one of the 257 people on board that plane was killed in the wreck.
Two degrees. A mere two degrees.

Fliers might say: “Taking off is OPTIONAL. Landing is MANDATORY.” Attention to degrees will determine WHERE you land – and maybe also whether you live or die.

Elder Uchdorf said a little detail like having your computer right out in the living room instead of in a spare bedroom can steer you right instead of wrong:

You will not be as likely to cave in to the temptation to look at things that you must not look at – if the whole family can see what you see. This detail is very important.

Your moral compass gives you a warning that feels to you like, “Be ready to delete this if anyone turns the doorknob”. It is really saying, “Delete this RIGHT NOW.”

Our Heavenly Father knows what drifts us “a few degrees” off our moral course. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

The Atonement, the Commandments and the Holy Ghost are gifts to us so that we “shall not perish, but have everlasting life”. They not only show us the right course; they ARE the right course. They are the Way, the Truth and the Light.

Our Creator said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” -- but, in addition He said,
“. . . nor do anything like it.” That points our way more precisely.

We might consider that He said, “Thou shalt not steal – nor do anything like it”.

And also, “Thou shalt not bear false witness – nor do anything like it”.

The ancient Mariner’s Compass had only eight degrees, or “points”. Navigators asked for more precision. Directions such as “Southeast by South” were invented.

Then, since there are 365 days in a year, the 360 degree circle was organized, giving us the modern compass.

You outdoor types will have noticed a circle of 6,400 “mils” surrounding the degree scale on your more advanced, more expensive compasses. That is because for certain operations you need more precision.

In the artillery, we need to shoot over the hills and hit targets miles away that we cannot see. We stand two sticks to the left-front of each howitzer. The people who do those calculations read us a “deflection” – and we turn the guns exactly that many mils to the right of those sticks.

That means we could have six cannons in the parking lot here, and they could all fire on the same enemy truck convoy at the same time – on the highway down by the power plant turnoff, or way up past Nelson Rez.

It also means that artillerymen have to believe the tiny voice in their ears – and DO it. (“Deflection: 781. Elevation: 276.”)

YOU also have to listen to the tiny voice in your soul – and believe it -- and OBEY it. (“Don’t DO that. Never mind why. Just DON’T.”)

But your moral compass is not so you can destroy an enemy. It is for your personal uplifting, improvement, protection and education.

Your moral compass just needs enough precision so that you know when you are off course. You might say that The Ten Commandments is a moral compass of ten degrees. Well, sort of.


My late philosopher-uncle, Eliseo Baca, taught us moral direction by pretending to have only a one-point moral compass: “I have faithfully kept one Commandment:
I have never, NEVER, made unto myself a graven image.”

Tattoos may or may not be evil in and of themselves. However, they are a blazing neon sign to the world that the wearer thereof wants everyone to believe he or she recognizes no moral code.

Let’s see: You spend the rent to have an “artist” put into your skin an image of a grinning skull with a knife in one eye and a rattlesnake slithering out of the other.

Then you go to your sweet intended’s father and ask for her hand in marriage, proclaiming your pure and honorable intentions.

N-a-a-a-a-a-a-ah!

Those beautiful pornographic pictures -- BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! You’re going the wrong way! You’re trading away your entire future happiness to fall in love with PICTURES.

Maybe your beliefs are only a few degrees different from the Church, but you’re headed for the fever swamps of heresy, false doctrine and apostasy.

Maybe your cravings are only a few degrees the wrong way, but you’re headed for life-long destructive addictions to tobacco, alcohol, chemicals and narcotics.

Maybe you are only a few degrees off of honesty, but you’re headed for a life of pilferage, theft, embezzlement, dishonesty, shame and guilt – with maybe some prison time thrown in for good measure.

Maybe only a few degrees off chastity, but you’re headed for divorce to live with someone who is headed for divorce in order to live with you.

You know what you get when you get someone who commits adultery with you? You get someone who commits adultery AGAINST you.
With any luck, who knows: You could even get yourself murdered.

Maybe only a few degrees the wrong way, but if you don’t repent, at the Last Judgment you will be among those praying for the rocks and the mountains to fall on you.

And rather than happily going to face your Maker, you will sneak off where you think you can hide from Him. You and your evil buddies will meet as far from God as y’all are able to get.

You will laughingly call your new residence “Hell, Incorporated” -- and stay there forever, of your own free will and choice, congratulating each other on how clever y’all are to be able to hide from God.

You start out making all efforts to be citizens of the Kingdom of God, and you bend your course by just a degree or two – and you end up separated from Him, and even, like Adam, trying to hide from Him.

Ships, planes and hikers correct their courses. You can do that, too. It is called “repentance”. It is made possible by Jesus Christ, and is called the Atonement.

There’s a lot more to this, but believing in Jesus and repenting are the first two course-corrections one can make. They are also the first two principles of the Everlasting Gospel.

Brothers and Sisters, you are saved by the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus accomplished this for all of us at four in the afternoon on Friday, the fourth of April, in the year 34, on a rocky hill just outside the walls of Jerusalem.

It’s a done-deal. The devil cannot “un-save” you.

But he can wreck you. He can ruin you forever.

He can lure you onto the rocks, if you let him drift you off course just a degree or two.

In the Holy Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.