"Take a look at Doctrine and Covenants 93: 36: “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. Light and truth forsake that evil one.” What if, instead of repentance being related to your misdeeds, which are so plentiful and persistent, and will continue; instead it is related to the acquisition of light of truth - that is intelligence? What if repentance requires you to take whatever it is you have that is a foolish error, a vain tradition, or a false notion and replace it with truth?
"My suspicion is, that whatever it is that is troubling you, will trouble you considerably less if you begin to fill yourself with light and truth. Until at last you arrive at a point you look back upon your sins and you say. “I have no more disposition for that. Now I know enough not to do that anymore because I prefer the light. I prefer God's intelligence and glory over that which I used to trade, or substitute for it.” You see repentance may have a whole lot more to do with your own feeble education in the things of God than it has to do with the time you spend wasted, looking at some vile picture or other. We have these Victorian sexual mores that everyone in Wall Street tacks against. Like when you're in a sailboat and there's a head
wind you "tack" against it. By using this cultural background they get instant attention by showing something sexually suggestive to sell you beer, or fast food, shoes, ships, sealing wax and cabbages.
"Quite frankly, I find most of the marketing exploitation of sex to be boring, not titillating. Some of the more graphic use of sex is somewhat medical, but it's not enticing. From a certain perspective, if you will acquire enough light and truth, you're not going to be contaminated by exposure to the things that are degrading.
"The Book of Mormon was abridged by a man who lived in an environment filled with sex and violence. He was untouched by it. He was a man of righteousness. Why is it that he could preserve himself in such an abhorrent environment? Because he was filled with light and truth. He educated himself, and had learned the things that are true. When you minister to someone who is suffering, their sins ought not to shock you. They should cause compassion to well up in you. People struggle with some very difficult, very challenging things. You need to try and overcome that by the light within you. The glory of God is intelligence. Be intelligent.
"At one point Christ talking to Abraham said He was more intelligent than them all. (Abr. 3: 19.) One will be more intelligent than another. These two things exist, that if there be two beings, one will be more intelligent than the other. I am more intelligent than them all! That's what Christ said. And Joseph Smith talking about the Holy Ghost says, “I am learned, and know more than all the world put together. The Holy Ghost does, anyhow, and He is within me, and comprehends more than all the world: and I will associate myself with Him .” (TPJS p. 350.)
"The fact of the matter is that you can fill yourself with the mind of God. If you fill yourself with the mind of God, you are going to find yourself in a position where you, like the scriptures recite, have no more disposition to do evil, but only to do good continually. (Mos. 5: 2.) That kind of repentance is as a consequence of the things of you know. That repentance comes as a consequence of the light and truth within you. That repentance doesn't require you to spend time saying, ‘I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to watch porn on the Internet anymore.’ The temptation just disappears.
"There was a big announcement from Google on April 17, 2013 about the fiber internet upgrade coming to Provo, Utah. They are bringing the Internet upgrade to Provo, Utah to really speed up the access of the Internet. That was based on a lot of statistical studies about consumption of on-line pornography in Utah County. (See Utah is No. 1 –for online pornography consumption, Salt Lake Tribune study Mar 2, 2009.) So it is a great target audience. And we say well, shame on them. Why are they watching so much of that in Provo? Well, it is because there is a bigger population attending Brigham Young University than attending Utah State University here in Logan. So numerically there are more of them down south.
"But the problem is not that God has built within you the desires, appetites and passions which He does not intend to have you filled. He intends for you to eat. He intends for you to sleep. He intends for you to reproduce. He intends for all of the appetites and passions put within you to be intelligently organized and gratified in a sacred manner, in which the purposes of God are advanced; so that you may find within yourself holiness in everything that you do. Love and understanding in everything you do. Repentance is the process of figuring out exactly how and why God made all the things available to you that he made available to you. Each of the things provided to us is to be used with prudence and with skill, including what we eat. (See, e.g., Section 89: 7-11.)" (Denver Snuffer, Repentance, Talk given on 9/29/2013)
