At the April 1974 general conference, President Spencer W. Kimball said that one of the problems Latter-day Saints face is the world. "Not the high ranges and the wide valleys and the hot deserts and the deep oceans, but the pattern of life to which too many of our people gear their lives," he said.
He quoted 1 John 2:15-16: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
President Kimball said, "The encroachment of the world into our lives is threatening! How hard it seems for many of us to live in the world and yet not of the world.
"Through Isaiah the word of the Lord comes: 'And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.' (Isa. 13:11.)
"When Satan took the Lord into an exceeding high mountain, he promised, 'All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.' (Matt. 4:9.)
" 'These things,' were the dens of vice and areas of sin and physical gratification and lustful temptations," President Kimball said.
