Alma 44:4; 46:18; 49:3, 28-30; D&C 71:7-11; refer to Alma 36:1; 1 Ne. 1:20
“I do not believe the greatest threat to our future is from bombs or guided missiles. I do not think our civilization will die that way. I think it will die when we no longer care—when the spiritual forces that make us wish to be right and noble die in the hearts of men.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Annual Boy Scouts Banquet, Commerce, Texas, May 13, 1968)
“Despite the world’s crises … the greater crisis by far is that we might forget the Lord. How much protection would our missiles and nuclear weapons prove to be if we did not take at face value the Lord’s injunction: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself’ (Luke 10:27)? (Ezra Taft Benson, Crossfire: The Eight Years with Eisenhower, p. 441)
“We are a warlike people easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti-enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching: ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven’ (Matt. 5:44-45). We forget that if we are righteous the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us—and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Ne. 1:7)—or he will fight our battles for us (Exodus 14:14; D&C 98:37, to name only two references of many).” (Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, 1976, p. 6)