It has been a few weeks since my last post. My lapse in writing can be attributed to a definite malaise that has settled in on my mind. I am reminded this morning that I have been fulfilling the prophecy in D&C 84:54. I had allowed my mind to become darkened because of unbelief and because I had been treating lightly the things I have received.
It started with the memories of Patsy's mother's passing a year ago, then continued as I have observed my own father's slow but steady deterioration as he comes up against his 94th birthday. It's hard to stay positive about the future when you see a visual example of the overall entropy that settles in on the aged ones among us. There is a fatalistic sense of the inevitability of the death of everyone and everything you love that sometimes grips your heart and you forget that life is eternal in those moments of doubt and despair.
Added to that is what's been happening in the world around us - the Paris attacks, and just last week the tragic mass murder in San Bernardino. The latter-day Gadiantons are truly glorying in their bloodbaths around the world, unabated it seems by any who would dare to molest or make afraid. News of death is always in the headlines. It's depressing, isn't it?
We were in the bishop's office last week for tithing settlement. Sadly, the bishop mentioned that some in the Woodland Ward had asked for their names to be removed from the records of the Church because of the Church's recent clarification about the policies for handling cases where same sex couples are raising children in their homes and how those children will be dealt with administratively. His observations were that often members who advocate the "politically correct" social positions are perhaps not (and maybe they were never) truly converted. If they understood true doctrine, he asserted, they would not be caught up in the controversial political winds that swirl around us daily. Politics, it has always seemed to me, is a poor substitute for true doctrine.
Our extended family is not unlike everyone else's we know. There are few families in the Church who will not be touched by the same sex attraction realities that infiltrate the lives of those we love. I have said before, and reiterate here once again that this assault strikes at the very core of the eternal plan for families as laid out specifically and with little or no confusion in the inspired document The Family: A Proclamation To The World. While we continue to nurture, love and patiently teach those we love most who are saddened and confused about the Church position on these matters, we must never weaken our own resolve that God is in His heaven and is the author of the plan of salvation because He loves His children unconditionally. Offering empathy and love to all His children, as He does, is the essence of our attempts to become more like Him.
I know a man who has struggled with all the issues over same sex attraction for a lifetime. He was full of hate. He hated his parents, he hated his wife, he hated practically everyone he knew. I'm certain he must have hated me too at times. His countenance was dark and foreboding. Happiness eluded him. I know all the intimate details of his life because he shared them with me. I have stood by as he has sunk to the depths of despair over this issue, been the subject of Church disciplinary councils through the years, been divorced and remarried, acted out his fantasies and in short "done it all" over the course of his life. In search for happiness outside his temple marriage, however, he never found what he was seeking.
Now retired, he has been reborn after the manner of Alma the younger in answer to the pleas and persistent petitions of his father and those who loved him. I believe him when he tells me based upon his lifetime of "gayness" that homosexuality is a choice. As tortured as he has been, he knows that to be true. I do not know it the way he knows it. I know that is true from a doctrinal perspective. I can only take him at his word as a witness who has lived it. And I love him deeply and honestly for his choice to return, Alma-like, cleansed, purified and wholly committed to living out his remaining days in the bonds of his marriage covenant with his wife and with his God. His countenance has changed. He is full of light and truth. He is reaching for more light every day.
I will not multiply words in this post (as tempting as that is for me), because I have laid out the doctrine repeatedly in these pages.
However, as I thought about my visit with the bishop at tithing settlement and as I have pondered "true conversion" since, I can say without reservation that the antidote for throwing off the malaise of the effects of the things that tend to dampen my enthusiasm for living is the "magic" of daily scripture study.
When I am asked how I came to love the scriptures so much the answer is simple - it was my substitute for pornography. As a young married man, I had to find a "replacement therapy" and for me it was immersing myself in the scriptures on a daily basis.
It began with a fascination about the broad topic of the signs of the times and the prophecies of the last days. The eschatology of other religions also came to bear on my studies. After a trip to the Holy Land many years ago I immersed myself in all things Muslim. I am still deeply saddened over how the radicals of Islam have altered forever what was once a religion of peace, one that valued "the people of the book" (meaning the Bible - Christians and Jews alike), and treated them with respect and tolerance.
Then it shifted to reading the New Testament and the Old Testament in depth as I taught the four-year series in gospel doctrine. I fell in love with the principal author of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul. He became a true hero to me. He helped me understand my Mormonism so much better than any other commentaries I had previously read. And conversely, Joseph Smith's writings helped me understand Paul better too. I have always found a marvelous harmony in Joseph and Paul.
Throughout all my explorations in the scriptures and amassing a library I have now mostly given away except for the treasured volumes I simply had to retain, The Book of Mormon continues to light my path. It is my considered belief that those who struggle most with the Church and with doctrine are not immersing themselves daily in the word of God as found in the standard works published by the Church.
Whatever your challenges may be, try this simple experiment. Take down that dusty volume, The Book of Mormon, from your bookshelf, or ask the Church to send you one for free (scroll down to the bottom of this blog and you will find the link). Then do this: For thirty days set aside a half hour and open the book to any page anywhere inside the covers and read at random. You can always go back later and read it from start to finish, but for the purpose of this exercise just thumb through the pages at random every day for thirty minutes. Don't miss a day. At the end of the thirty days see if your life hasn't been improved in some small way. See if ingesting God's word from those pages doesn't help you with whatever it is that is causing your malaise of spirit.
As I am His witness, I testify that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. It is truly a Second Witness of Jesus Christ. Almost any page will seal that testimony in your heart if you seek to know it in the sincerity of your search for truth. Your conversion will be in direct proportion to the degree of diligence you apply to this simple test. No one I know ever left this Church who was reading The Book of Mormon daily. It's such a simple spiritual antidote.
Dare to get converted, truly converted, and then stay converted. And continue in patience to reach out and love those around you who aren't so sure about that.
Showing posts with label true prophets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label true prophets. Show all posts
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
False Prophets and Christs
Today I stumbled over a stunning statement made in a General Conference sermon by Elder Harold B. Lee in 1950, one that could only be described as "prophetic" when it leaped off the page at me:
"False prophets and Christs (Matthew 24:24), as foretold by the Savior, may come to deceive us not alone in the name of religion, but if we can believe the history of Italy and Germany and Russia, they may come under the label of politicians or of social planners or so-called economists, deceitful in their offerings of a kind of salvation which may come under such guise."
Given the last several years and the results of the current administration, I can only draw one conclusion - he was speaking of our day.
It started me thinking about all the statements of President Harold B. Lee with which I have been familiar through the years in helping us all to discern truth and how to separate the true prophets from all the false voices. I am indebted once again to Clyde Williams, who compiled President Lee's teachings in Teachings of Harold B. Lee (hereafter "THBL"). Here's a sampling:
"When you see one who is tearing down and finding only the bad in men, seeing nothing of their good qualities, there you may see one whose heart is not pure, who finds it easy to criticize. Shall I give you a test to try your own souls? How did you react to the last conference? Did you accept the declarations of the Brethren who spoke as the declarations of the prophets of the living God? Or did you make it a pastime in your private circles or around your family table to find flaws and express your displeasure at the fact that there was something said about politics or about labor and [you] wished the Brethren would keep their mouths shut about this and that? Which was your reaction after the last conference? You Latter-day Saints, the men who preside in this church are only prophets to those who accept them and their teachings as the prophecies from the living God. It's great to live in a day when the prophets are leading us. Moses, Paul, Peter — it was great in those days, but there were just as many critics and just as many who didn't receive them. The Master said a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, and He might have added, in his own day and time (see Mark 6:4). So today, these are prophets who lead us only if we accept them as such and apply their teachings in our lives. (THBL, 516; 50-09).
"Therein lies one of the greatest problems among those who are criticizing and finding fault and wanting exceptions, because they don't trust the Lord. To say it another way, they are not willing to listen to the admonition of the Lord as He gave it as a preface to His revelations in this dispensation. And these are His words: 'And the arm of the Lord shall be revealed; and the day cometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants, neither give heed to the words of the prophets and apostles, shall be cut off from among the people' (D&C 1:14). (THBL, 516; 70-18).
"Oh, you Latter-day Saints, there was never a time when you needed to look so much to the leadership of this church to know the truth. When one comes into your midst claiming revelation, and this one on this side a new interpretation, you have the good sense to remember what Paul said to the Ephesians. The purpose of putting prophets, teachers, pastors, and evangelists in the Church was to keep us from running to and fro as children, tossed about by every wind of doctrine (see Ephesians 4:11-14). If you want to be guided in truth, you follow the light the Lord has given us in the leaders He has set to preside. And the first one to go to is your bishop and your stake president; and if, through them, you need an answer from the Brethren who preside in the Church, it will be forthcoming. That is one of the safeties to keep you in the path by which faith might come." (THBL, 516; 53-01, 354-55)
"The safety there is in this church is in listening to the counsel that comes from the authorities of this church. The Master said something else that we have not listened to very well. He said:
"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
"And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-27).
"What was the Master trying to say? He was trying to present a great truth: that the storms of adversity, trying in difficulty, are going to descend upon every soul. All of us — the good, the bad, the rich, the poor, the humble, the haughty — all are going to have the rains of difficulty, the floods of disaster, the overhanging clouds testing faith, the winds and blasts of slander, of misrepresentation. Everybody is going to have those things. That is a part of life. The only ones whose houses will not fall will be those who have built their houses upon the rock. What is the rock? Listening to the words of God as they come from His own mouth or from the mouths of His prophets." (THBL, 517; 53-06).
"I can imagine the ridicule and scorn that Noah suffered during the months he was building a great ship out in the middle of a comparative desert to house himself and his family and the selected of earth's bounties in preparation for the flood that through his faith in God's prophetic revelation he knew was coming to destroy the earth. Don't you be as the foolish virgins with no oil in your lamps because of your unbelief in God's warning of things to come (see Matthew 25:1-12). Dare to listen to the leaders of the Church, the prophets of God, without a revelation to whom God said He would do nothing (see Amos 3:7), despite the jeers of the worldly and unrighteous who have no faith and who dare not, because of their own sinning, believe that these threatened judgments might be so. Through your faith in the inspired revelations, you will always be given time to build an ark of safety that will eventually land you on a Mount Ararat. (THBL, 517; 45-09, 80).
"The great historian Will Durant once said, "In my youth I wanted freedom. In my mature years I want order." There is nothing so important in the kingdom of God as order; yet the tendency today is to resist law and order, which must be maintained in the kingdom of God if we are to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord. "Be one," the Lord said; "and if ye are not one ye are not mine" (D&C 38:27). The only way we can be one is by following the leadership of the Church as the Lord has directed. (THBL, 518; 71-02, 215).
"A man came in to see me and said that he had heard that some man appeared mysteriously to a group of temple workers and told them, 'You had better hurry up and store for a year, or two, or three, because there will come a season when there won't be any production.' He asked me what I thought about it, and I said, 'Well, were you in the April conference of 1936?' He replied, 'No, I couldn't be there.' And I said, 'Well, you surely read the report of what was said by the Brethren in that conference?' No, he hadn't. 'Well,' I said, 'at that conference the Lord did give a revelation about the storage of food. How in the world is the Lord going to get over to you what He wants you to do if you are not there when He says it, and you do not take the time to read it after it has been said?'
"The Lord is going to keep His people informed, if they will listen. As President J. Reuben Clark Jr. said in a classic talk, 'What we need today is not more prophets. We have the prophets. But what we need is more people with listening ears. That is the great need of our generation.' (In Conference Report, October 1948, 82)." (THBL, 518; 64-04, 159-60).
"When the welfare program was being structured and some of us were trying to assist, President Heber J. Grant made one of the saddest comments a President of the Church could make. I was invited to the office of the First Presidency, and as we presented the outline of the plan that was proposed, President Grant, who had listened in silence for quite some time, said, 'Well, there is just one thing wrong with it. It won't work.' President David O. McKay, his counselor, asked, 'Why won't it work, President Grant?' And he said, 'I am afraid it won't work because we can't trust the membership of this church to follow our leadership. See what they did when I pleaded with them to vote against the repeal of the liquor amendment? Until the Saints learn to follow our counsel, there is not much we can do about it.'" (THBL, 519; 66-01, 16).
"The Master, in His Sermon on the Mount, made another very expressive declaration when He said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God' (Matthew 5:8).
"You will remember that in His lifetime there were some who saw Him only as the son of the carpenter. There were some who said that because of His words He was drunken with strong wine — that He was a winebibber. There were some who even thought Him to be possessed of devils. Only those who were pure in heart saw Him as the Son of God.
"There are some who look upon the leaders of this church and God's anointed as men who are possessed of selfish motives. The words of our leaders are always twisted by them to try to bring a snare to the work of the Lord. Mark well those who speak evil of the Lord's anointed, for they speak from impure hearts. Only the pure in heart see the divine in man and accept our leaders as prophets of the living God." (THBL, 519; 47-05, 223-24).
"I listened to an excerpt of a testimony of a man who was a member of the Twelve and of whom President Grant had said that he never knew a man who had a greater gift of prophecy than did this man. There was put in my hands a quotation from a sermon that he had delivered some fifty years before, which proved to be the last sermon he had ever delivered as a member of the Twelve. Before another conference, he was dropped from the Council of the Twelve and subsequently left the Church. This is what he said, in that last sermon: 'That person is not truly converted unless he sees the power of God resting upon the leaders of this church and it goes down into his heart like fire.' And I repeat that to you here today. The measure of your true conversion and whether or not you hold fast to those ideals is whether or not you are so living that you see the power of God resting upon the leaders of this church and that testimony goes down into your heart like fire." (THBL, 520; 73-29, 90).
"I am reminded of an interview I had with one of you [teachers]. Maybe he is here tonight, and I am not sure but that I may have touched his soul as we talked that day. We came around to the question as to whether or not he felt to follow the leadership of those who presided in the Church today. He said with some hesitancy, 'Well, I didn't agree with President Clark when he gave his talk about 'Our Dwindling Sovereignty' up at the University of Utah.' I repeated, 'I was there and I listened to President Clark. You know, when I go to hear a great thinker on some subject, I don't go to criticize, I go to listen; but I suppose it would be difficult for a pygmy to get the viewpoint of a giant.' And it was then that I seemed to bring him down to my level so that we could talk a little." (THBL, 522; 68-07).
"The trouble with us today [is that] there are too many of us who put question marks instead of periods after what the Lord says. I want you to think about that. We shouldn't try to spend time explaining what the Lord didn't see fit to explain. We spend useless time.
"If you would teach our people to put periods and not question marks after what the Lord has declared, we would say, 'It is enough for me to know that is what the Lord said.'" (THBL, 522; 72-42, 108).
"We have some tight places to go before the Lord is through with this church and the world in this dispensation, which is the last dispensation, which shall usher in the coming of the Lord. The gospel was restored to prepare a people ready to receive Him. The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand. There will be inroads within the Church. There will be, as President [N. Eldon] Tanner has said, 'Hypocrites, those professing, but secretly are full of dead men's bones' (see Matthew 23:27). We will see those who profess membership but secretly are plotting and trying to lead people not to follow the leadership that the Lord has set up to preside in this church.
"Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day when the Church was organized. We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through His prophet, 'as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith' (D&C 21:4-5). There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory' (D&C 21:6)." (THBL, 526; 70-28, 126).
"As I have labored among the Brethren and have studied the history of past dispensations, I have become aware that the Lord has given tests all down through time as to this matter of loyalty to the leadership of the Church.
"I have been in a position since I was called to the Council of the Twelve to observe some things among my brethren, and I want to say to you: Every man who is my junior in the Council of the Twelve I have seen submitted, as though by Providence, to these same tests of loyalty, and I have wondered sometimes whether they were going to pass the tests. The reason they are here today is because they did, and our Father has honored them.
"It is my conviction that every man who will be called to a high place in the Church will have to pass tests not devised by human hands, by which our Father numbers them as a united group of leaders willing to follow the prophets of the living God and be loyal and true as witnesses and exemplars of the truths they teach." (THBL, 522; 50-02, 51-52).
We're going to see the day coming when the only reliable guides who can be trusted will be the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are moving toward the time when all who would presume to be called "leaders" must submit to tests "not devised by human hands" and they will be found wanting. The collapse of trust in the government in the last few weeks has been stunning. I have not seen anything like it since the days of the Sixties, when rebellion against the government was rampant. When the severity of those tests becomes sufficient, all the people of good will who remain will be looking for leaders tried in the crucible of faith and I predict they will find them in the ranks of the leadership of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ.
 |
| President Harold B. Lee |
Given the last several years and the results of the current administration, I can only draw one conclusion - he was speaking of our day.
It started me thinking about all the statements of President Harold B. Lee with which I have been familiar through the years in helping us all to discern truth and how to separate the true prophets from all the false voices. I am indebted once again to Clyde Williams, who compiled President Lee's teachings in Teachings of Harold B. Lee (hereafter "THBL"). Here's a sampling:
"When you see one who is tearing down and finding only the bad in men, seeing nothing of their good qualities, there you may see one whose heart is not pure, who finds it easy to criticize. Shall I give you a test to try your own souls? How did you react to the last conference? Did you accept the declarations of the Brethren who spoke as the declarations of the prophets of the living God? Or did you make it a pastime in your private circles or around your family table to find flaws and express your displeasure at the fact that there was something said about politics or about labor and [you] wished the Brethren would keep their mouths shut about this and that? Which was your reaction after the last conference? You Latter-day Saints, the men who preside in this church are only prophets to those who accept them and their teachings as the prophecies from the living God. It's great to live in a day when the prophets are leading us. Moses, Paul, Peter — it was great in those days, but there were just as many critics and just as many who didn't receive them. The Master said a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, and He might have added, in his own day and time (see Mark 6:4). So today, these are prophets who lead us only if we accept them as such and apply their teachings in our lives. (THBL, 516; 50-09).
"Therein lies one of the greatest problems among those who are criticizing and finding fault and wanting exceptions, because they don't trust the Lord. To say it another way, they are not willing to listen to the admonition of the Lord as He gave it as a preface to His revelations in this dispensation. And these are His words: 'And the arm of the Lord shall be revealed; and the day cometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants, neither give heed to the words of the prophets and apostles, shall be cut off from among the people' (D&C 1:14). (THBL, 516; 70-18).
"Oh, you Latter-day Saints, there was never a time when you needed to look so much to the leadership of this church to know the truth. When one comes into your midst claiming revelation, and this one on this side a new interpretation, you have the good sense to remember what Paul said to the Ephesians. The purpose of putting prophets, teachers, pastors, and evangelists in the Church was to keep us from running to and fro as children, tossed about by every wind of doctrine (see Ephesians 4:11-14). If you want to be guided in truth, you follow the light the Lord has given us in the leaders He has set to preside. And the first one to go to is your bishop and your stake president; and if, through them, you need an answer from the Brethren who preside in the Church, it will be forthcoming. That is one of the safeties to keep you in the path by which faith might come." (THBL, 516; 53-01, 354-55)
"The safety there is in this church is in listening to the counsel that comes from the authorities of this church. The Master said something else that we have not listened to very well. He said:
"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
"And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24-27).
"What was the Master trying to say? He was trying to present a great truth: that the storms of adversity, trying in difficulty, are going to descend upon every soul. All of us — the good, the bad, the rich, the poor, the humble, the haughty — all are going to have the rains of difficulty, the floods of disaster, the overhanging clouds testing faith, the winds and blasts of slander, of misrepresentation. Everybody is going to have those things. That is a part of life. The only ones whose houses will not fall will be those who have built their houses upon the rock. What is the rock? Listening to the words of God as they come from His own mouth or from the mouths of His prophets." (THBL, 517; 53-06).
"I can imagine the ridicule and scorn that Noah suffered during the months he was building a great ship out in the middle of a comparative desert to house himself and his family and the selected of earth's bounties in preparation for the flood that through his faith in God's prophetic revelation he knew was coming to destroy the earth. Don't you be as the foolish virgins with no oil in your lamps because of your unbelief in God's warning of things to come (see Matthew 25:1-12). Dare to listen to the leaders of the Church, the prophets of God, without a revelation to whom God said He would do nothing (see Amos 3:7), despite the jeers of the worldly and unrighteous who have no faith and who dare not, because of their own sinning, believe that these threatened judgments might be so. Through your faith in the inspired revelations, you will always be given time to build an ark of safety that will eventually land you on a Mount Ararat. (THBL, 517; 45-09, 80).
"The great historian Will Durant once said, "In my youth I wanted freedom. In my mature years I want order." There is nothing so important in the kingdom of God as order; yet the tendency today is to resist law and order, which must be maintained in the kingdom of God if we are to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord. "Be one," the Lord said; "and if ye are not one ye are not mine" (D&C 38:27). The only way we can be one is by following the leadership of the Church as the Lord has directed. (THBL, 518; 71-02, 215).
"A man came in to see me and said that he had heard that some man appeared mysteriously to a group of temple workers and told them, 'You had better hurry up and store for a year, or two, or three, because there will come a season when there won't be any production.' He asked me what I thought about it, and I said, 'Well, were you in the April conference of 1936?' He replied, 'No, I couldn't be there.' And I said, 'Well, you surely read the report of what was said by the Brethren in that conference?' No, he hadn't. 'Well,' I said, 'at that conference the Lord did give a revelation about the storage of food. How in the world is the Lord going to get over to you what He wants you to do if you are not there when He says it, and you do not take the time to read it after it has been said?'
"The Lord is going to keep His people informed, if they will listen. As President J. Reuben Clark Jr. said in a classic talk, 'What we need today is not more prophets. We have the prophets. But what we need is more people with listening ears. That is the great need of our generation.' (In Conference Report, October 1948, 82)." (THBL, 518; 64-04, 159-60).
"When the welfare program was being structured and some of us were trying to assist, President Heber J. Grant made one of the saddest comments a President of the Church could make. I was invited to the office of the First Presidency, and as we presented the outline of the plan that was proposed, President Grant, who had listened in silence for quite some time, said, 'Well, there is just one thing wrong with it. It won't work.' President David O. McKay, his counselor, asked, 'Why won't it work, President Grant?' And he said, 'I am afraid it won't work because we can't trust the membership of this church to follow our leadership. See what they did when I pleaded with them to vote against the repeal of the liquor amendment? Until the Saints learn to follow our counsel, there is not much we can do about it.'" (THBL, 519; 66-01, 16).
"The Master, in His Sermon on the Mount, made another very expressive declaration when He said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God' (Matthew 5:8).
"You will remember that in His lifetime there were some who saw Him only as the son of the carpenter. There were some who said that because of His words He was drunken with strong wine — that He was a winebibber. There were some who even thought Him to be possessed of devils. Only those who were pure in heart saw Him as the Son of God.
"There are some who look upon the leaders of this church and God's anointed as men who are possessed of selfish motives. The words of our leaders are always twisted by them to try to bring a snare to the work of the Lord. Mark well those who speak evil of the Lord's anointed, for they speak from impure hearts. Only the pure in heart see the divine in man and accept our leaders as prophets of the living God." (THBL, 519; 47-05, 223-24).
"I listened to an excerpt of a testimony of a man who was a member of the Twelve and of whom President Grant had said that he never knew a man who had a greater gift of prophecy than did this man. There was put in my hands a quotation from a sermon that he had delivered some fifty years before, which proved to be the last sermon he had ever delivered as a member of the Twelve. Before another conference, he was dropped from the Council of the Twelve and subsequently left the Church. This is what he said, in that last sermon: 'That person is not truly converted unless he sees the power of God resting upon the leaders of this church and it goes down into his heart like fire.' And I repeat that to you here today. The measure of your true conversion and whether or not you hold fast to those ideals is whether or not you are so living that you see the power of God resting upon the leaders of this church and that testimony goes down into your heart like fire." (THBL, 520; 73-29, 90).
"I am reminded of an interview I had with one of you [teachers]. Maybe he is here tonight, and I am not sure but that I may have touched his soul as we talked that day. We came around to the question as to whether or not he felt to follow the leadership of those who presided in the Church today. He said with some hesitancy, 'Well, I didn't agree with President Clark when he gave his talk about 'Our Dwindling Sovereignty' up at the University of Utah.' I repeated, 'I was there and I listened to President Clark. You know, when I go to hear a great thinker on some subject, I don't go to criticize, I go to listen; but I suppose it would be difficult for a pygmy to get the viewpoint of a giant.' And it was then that I seemed to bring him down to my level so that we could talk a little." (THBL, 522; 68-07).
"The trouble with us today [is that] there are too many of us who put question marks instead of periods after what the Lord says. I want you to think about that. We shouldn't try to spend time explaining what the Lord didn't see fit to explain. We spend useless time.
"If you would teach our people to put periods and not question marks after what the Lord has declared, we would say, 'It is enough for me to know that is what the Lord said.'" (THBL, 522; 72-42, 108).
"We have some tight places to go before the Lord is through with this church and the world in this dispensation, which is the last dispensation, which shall usher in the coming of the Lord. The gospel was restored to prepare a people ready to receive Him. The power of Satan will increase; we see it in evidence on every hand. There will be inroads within the Church. There will be, as President [N. Eldon] Tanner has said, 'Hypocrites, those professing, but secretly are full of dead men's bones' (see Matthew 23:27). We will see those who profess membership but secretly are plotting and trying to lead people not to follow the leadership that the Lord has set up to preside in this church.
"Now the only safety we have as members of this church is to do exactly what the Lord said to the Church in that day when the Church was organized. We must learn to give heed to the words and commandments that the Lord shall give through His prophet, 'as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me; as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith' (D&C 21:4-5). There will be some things that take patience and faith. You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. But if you listen to these things, as if from the mouth of the Lord Himself, with patience and faith, the promise is that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name's glory' (D&C 21:6)." (THBL, 526; 70-28, 126).
"As I have labored among the Brethren and have studied the history of past dispensations, I have become aware that the Lord has given tests all down through time as to this matter of loyalty to the leadership of the Church.
"I have been in a position since I was called to the Council of the Twelve to observe some things among my brethren, and I want to say to you: Every man who is my junior in the Council of the Twelve I have seen submitted, as though by Providence, to these same tests of loyalty, and I have wondered sometimes whether they were going to pass the tests. The reason they are here today is because they did, and our Father has honored them.
"It is my conviction that every man who will be called to a high place in the Church will have to pass tests not devised by human hands, by which our Father numbers them as a united group of leaders willing to follow the prophets of the living God and be loyal and true as witnesses and exemplars of the truths they teach." (THBL, 522; 50-02, 51-52).
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