A Prophet

LISTEN & OBEY (Part of a talk given by W. Grant Bangerter of the 70, Oct 1979 Gen. Conf., originally entitled, The Voice of the Lord is Unto All People)

The interesting thing about prophets is that most people don’t listen to them. That is why prophets often seem to be impatient or even angry. That is how the Lord feels about us when we don’t listen. That is how you feel when your children won’t listen.

We know some of you say that you do not believe in God. Some of you have even been so unwise as to say there is no God. That kind of statement raises some interesting questions. Do you think your unbelief makes any difference? He won’t go away just because you don’t believe in him. Perhaps you are correct in saying that God is not like you have been told, but how can you know that there is no God? Did he reveal it to you? Have you been there to make sure? All you can really know is that you don’t know there is a God, and that is an admission of ignorance.

Two Russians went around the world in a spacecraft a time or two and declared that they had gone to heaven and God was not there. This is a pretty weak argument for atheism. It isn’t even scientific. It reminds me of the blasphemous remark of a scoffing acquaintance of my brother who said, “I dreamed I saw God and he was a horse.” My brother’s comment was, “Certainly. That is perfectly logical to a jackass.”

All the evidence is on our side. You cannot prove God away from us. To know that there is no God you would have to go everywhere and know everything.

The prophet declares that God lives and that he is speaking to us in these last days. As witnesses we know this. God has been seen, heard, and felt. With the declaration that the gospel has been restored is the promise that the Holy Ghost will also witness the fact to you, and then you will know. If that doesn’t happen after you have earnestly and prayerfully listened, you are free from all obligations to believe.

What about you who believe in God but don’t believe in prophets or revelation? Why not? How can you know about God without revelation? Is it bad to have a prophet? Is there some rule against it? Don’t we need a prophet? Wouldn’t it be comforting, for example, if the president of the United States were a prophet? Wouldn’t it be wonderful for this country if God would just tell us what we ought to be doing? As a matter of fact, he is telling us. The only trouble is that by and large we won’t listen. It is just the same as in ancient times when other prophets spoke. You would rather commit adultery, play on Sunday, drink your whiskey, and let someone else tend to the problems of society and the world. God is trying to straighten all these things out by the words of his prophet. And only when you have enough faith will you be able to hear the message.

 

Now, to the most foolish of all, those of you who belong to the Church and who say you are not interested. You say that you are not religious and you don’t enjoy going to church. Some people who are sick physically don’t like their medicine either, but they take it so they may be well.

Do you remember when your parents urged you to eat your vegetables? Now you are doing the same with your children. Let me tell you about your spiritual vegetables. You have been brought up in light. You know about God. You know about the Savior. You know they appeared to Joseph Smith. You know the angel Moroni gave the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith. You have it in your home. You believe in the Bible. That is a great deal to throw away just so you can go fishing.

I have a friend who one time went on a family outing to Yellowstone Park. While he was faithful to his commitments as a member and leader in the Church, some of his relatives tended to scoff at his “straitlaced” religious nature. They persuaded him, one Sunday morning, to go out in the boat fishing with them. Suddenly a strong wind arose, and they found themselves in such danger that they feared for their lives. The taunting and skepticism were suddenly gone.

In plaintive unison they looked to my friend, saying, “Please, can’t you pray for us?” They evidently had little confidence in their own petitions or perhaps sensed their unworthiness to call for divine aid. The irony of the situation is that my friend, having been tempted against his better judgment to do something of which he felt the Lord would not approve, says of his predicament: “I had no prayer to offer. All I could think of was the headline in the newspaper saying, ‘Stake President Drowns While Fishing on Sunday.’”

Clever Clips

"You can’t repent too soon because you don’t know how soon it will be too late." ELRay Christiansen, Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve

Even if you could take it with you, it would probably melt...Sterling W. Sill  

Thrift is a great quality, especially in an ancestor...Sterling W. Sill

“Prophesy is history in reverse.”  Ezra Taft Benson

"When a teacher ends the class, he should leave his students with something to do before they return."...Former Stake President

"God is never surprised."  Neal A. Maxwell

"An egotist will never get anywhere in this world because he thinks he is already there."  And  "Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity."  Elder Marvin J. Ashton

"A man or woman with God is always in the majority." Knox, Christian Reformer

Three quotes from an unknown author: "Grandmas have sticky fingers, dirty ovens and happy kids."  "Men seldom remember and women seldom forget."  "You say I'm cute when I'm mad, so now I'm about to get gorgeous."

"The brain is a muscle. Exercise it and it grows." Unknown

"No one ever lost his shirt with his sleeves rolled up."  Spencer W. Kimball

"We should be more concerned with the long life after this than with the short life now."  Cicero

"What would we know if we did not have the scriptures?  We'd be like a boat on the water without a rudder to steer it.  We'd stay afloat but never come in to port."  Elder LeGrand Richards

"A man who lives for himself is likely to be corrupted by the company he keeps."  James E. Faust

"You can't tell me that worry doesn't work.  The things I worry about never happen."  Boyd K. Packer

"What?  Me contentious?  I'm not and I'll fight anyone who says I am!"  Marvin J. Ashton

"Poetry is language dressed up in its best clothes."  Sterling W. Sill

"The harder you fight for something, the harder it is to surrender." Vince Lombardi

The Seer

Contributions of Joseph Smith

Gordon B. Hinckley has said, “An acquaintance said to me one day: “I admire your church very much. I think I could accept everything about it—except Joseph Smith.” To which I responded: ‘That statement is a contradiction. If you accept the revelation, you must accept the revelator.’

It is a constantly recurring mystery to me how some people speak with admiration for the Church and its work, while at the same time disdaining him through whom, as a servant of the Lord, came the framework of all that the Church is, of all that it teaches, and of all that it stands for. They would pluck the fruit from the tree while cutting off the root from which it grows…”

Still quoting Elder Hinckley:  “Not long ago, while riding in a plane, I engaged in conversation with a young man who was seated beside me. We moved from one subject to another, and then came to the matter of religion. He said that he had read considerably about the Mormons, that he had found much to admire in their practices, but that he had a definite prejudice concerning the story of the origin of the Church and particularly Joseph Smith. He was an active member of another organization, and when I asked where he had acquired his information, he indicated that it had come from publications of his church. I asked what company he worked for. He proudly replied that he was a sales representative for IBM. I then asked whether he would think it fair for his customers to learn of the qualities of IBM products from a Xerox representative. He replied with a smile, “I think I get the point of what you’re trying to say…”

(Concerning the assassination of Joseph Smith & again quoting Elder Hinckley) “It would amaze Governor Thomas Ford of the state of Illinois, who had pledged to protect the Prophet and then had left him to the mercy of the merciless mob. It was this same Thomas Ford who concluded in his History that Joseph Smith “never could succeed in establishing a system of policy which looked to permanent success in the future.” (Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois … , quoted in B. H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, 2:347.)

“It is this same Thomas Ford who today lies buried in a secluded section of the cemetery in Peoria, Illinois, largely forgotten, while the man he had judged a failure is remembered with gratitude over the earth.”

 

From Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, by McConkie & Millet, Volume 3, page 382, we read:  “As the Book of Mormon was given as a sign or wonder attesting to all honest truth-seekers the authenticity of the Restoration, so Joseph Smith, in harmony with the scriptural pattern, was given a sign to confirm the verity of all that Moroni told him.  The sign was that when it became known that the Lord had entrusted him with this ancient record, the workers of iniquity would seek his overthrow. ‘They will circulate falsehoods to destroy your reputation,’ Moroni said, ‘and also will seek to take your life; but remember this, if you are faithful and shall hereafter continue to keep the commandments of the Lord, you shall be preserved to bring these things forth; for in due time he will again give you a commandment to come and take them.

When they are interpreted the Lord will give the holy priesthood to some and they shall begin to proclaim this gospel and baptize by water and after that they shall have power to give the Holy Ghost by the laying on of their hands.  Then will persecution rage more and more; for the iniquities of men shall be revealed and those who are not built upon the Rock will seek to overthrow this Church; but it will increase the more opposed and spread farther and farther, increasing in knowledge till they shall be sanctified and receive an inheritance where the glory of God will rest upon them.’ (Messenger and Advocate 2:199, italics added).

All revelation is itself a miracle, for revelation is not the child of natural causes.  It is an eternal verity that God can be known only by revelation and thus it naturally follows that all we know about our Eternal Father comes to us, as did the Book of Mormon, in the form of a sign or wonder.  So it is with the establishment of all dispensations and the call of all prophets…”

Elder Hinckley further noted, “We do not worship the Prophet. We worship God our Eternal Father, and the risen Lord Jesus Christ. But we acknowledge him, we proclaim him, we respect him, we reverence him as an instrument in the hands of the Almighty in restoring to the earth the ancient truths of the divine gospel…

(Again from the words of McConkie & Millet above) “Excessive religious zeal is as dangerous to the salvation of men as stubborn unbelief.  Any virtue overdone becomes a vice.  To honor and reverence the Lord’s anointed is a requisite of salvation; to deify them is to falsify their nature and to pervert the message with which they are entrusted.”

God's Laws

1) The Word of Wisdom  

By Theodore M. Burton, April 1976 General Conference

 

“Scientific confirmation of the Word of Wisdom has not kept our youth from experimenting with tobacco, marijuana, alcoholic beverages, or any other drug. Every package of cigarettes and every advertisement thereof carries a prominent label:

 

WARNING: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health.

But this warning from a scientist does not keep people from smoking. The 50,000 killed and 800,000 injured annually in the United States as a result of drinking drivers would cause a wave of protest marches if the United States were engaged in military action and had such casualties. Yet very little word of protest is raised about the continued, even increasing, use of alcohol among drivers of motor-driven vehicles. Neither of these confirmations of the Word of Wisdom deters people from smoking and drinking. Both are on the increase in spite of scientific evidence and experience which demonstrate how injurious these practices are. 

If a warning label such as is found on every package of cigarettes were placed on every can or package of dog or cat food, the purchase and use of such pet foods would come to a screeching halt. People would never even think of feeding such material to their pets. People think too much of their dog or their cat to so carelessly endanger its life. Yet they ignore those very same warnings when they are given to human beings. One must draw the conclusion that people have a higher regard for their pets than they have for themselves or for their own children. It is a sobering thought.”

2) Are You Taking Your Priesthood for Granted? 

By N. Eldon Tanner April 1976 Gen. Conf.

 

We should all realize that great works of righteousness can be and are performed by the Aaronic Priesthood. President Wilford Woodruff relates an experience that he had. He said:

 

“I was strongly impressed three times to go up and warn Father Hakeman [an early apostate]. At last I did so, according to the commandment of God to me. The third time I met with him, his house seemed to be full of evil spirits, and I was troubled in spirit at the manifestation. When I finished my warning, I left him.

He followed me from his house with the intention of killing me. I have no doubt about his intention, for it was shown to me in vision. When he came to where I was, he fell dead at my feet, as if he had been struck with a thunderbolt from heaven. I was then a Priest, but God defended me and preserved my life. I speak of this because it is a principle that has been manifest in the Church of God in this generation as well as in others. I had the administration of angels while holding the office of a Priest. I had visions and revelations. I traveled thousands of miles. I baptized men, though I could not confirm them because I had not the authority to do it.” (Millennial Star, 1891, 53:641–42.)