Family Home Evening at the Home of David Thomson, April 6, 1998: Flaxen Cords


[Article by Scott Turton] The topic of David Thomson's family home evening lesson on April 6th was "Flaxen Cords". The first thing he did was take 1 little piece of string and had Dorothy Rutherford tie it around Juli Crane's wrists. Then Juli easily broke it. Next she tied 2 pieces of string around her wrists and Juli again easily broke the 2 pieces. Lastly, Juli had her wrists tied with 6 pieces of string and these she could not break at all.

David taught from this verse of scripture: 2 Nephi 26:22: " And there are also secret combinations, even as in times of old, according to the combinations of the devil, for he is the founder of all these things; yea, the founder of murder, and works of darkness; yea, and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever." He asked us: "What does the word flaxen mean?" It comes from a plant, which they make linen out of. It is soft and not very strong. One flaxen cord is not very strong or powerful at all. Six cords is just over the maximum we can handle. We can break out of one or two cords, but we don't know how many it will take to bind us and keep us from breaking out of them. The trouble is, we don't know what the power of the flaxen cords are until we are bound up by them and then it is too late. We don't know how many will bind us until we can't break out of them any more. And that is the analogy to Satan's flaxen cord in this verse, David taught. Satan is really pretty good at what he does with his flaxen cords and sometimes we can get caught up in following him. As long as it's just a light cord, we can think "it's just a light cord", but in reality it is not and they start added up to become powerful, strong cords which can eventually bind us to sin.

David said he is really intrigued by carnivorous plants. There are all kinds of these plants and some are very expensive. Two of the most common carnivorous plants are the Pitcher Plant and the Venus Fly Trap. A Pitcher Plant traps its prey by letting it a fly eat some food at the top of its round vase-like body. This food actually has a narcotic effect on the fly and lulls it into going deeper into the plant's body, as plant hairs inside make it slippery and help it go in deeper. It then falls down into the bottom of this vase where acid digests it into food for the plant. So the fly doesn't really have any safety in eating on the Pitcher Plant at all. Now, with the Venus Fly Trap, there are two flaps that come together very fast to form the trap around the fly. Around the edges of each flap are little pieces of sweet smelling food that attracts the fly. The fly will eat at this food around the edges, then go into the center to find more, and once it's in the center the two flaps of the trap will close really fast around the fly - then it's caught, to be digested as food for the plant.

Now the analogy of the carnivorous plant to the flaxen cord is this: we are attracted to do things that at first seem fine to do, with no adverse consequences in sight. But eventually, if we keep going around the edges of the flaxen cord type of sins we will get caught up, fall into, and become trapped by these sins. Then they become very powerful and strong, to bind us and keep us in their awful power. We do not want to find ourselves in this kind of situation at all, so we need to be on a constant lookout in our lives for the flaxen cords of sin that at first glance may not seem to be very bad, but will catch and bind us in the end.

David taught us that Satan will put a temptation in our path that is light enough that we can get out of it or we can resist it. And so we think we're safe and once we're there we will keep doing these small, seemingly inconsequential sins that eventually add up to a payday for Satan, which becomes a day of entrapment in sin for us.

We all came up with some flaxen cords that can and will trap and bind us if we are not careful. Please see the list under the first photo below.

 

Here is the list of some Flaxen Cords that can trap and bind us:

 

David feeds a piece of tuna fish to a Venus Fly Trap

 

Here David is teaching us how a fly is attracted to a Pitcher Plant, but then will become stuck and eventually fall into the bottom to be digested as food for the plant.

 

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