Sabbathought: Defenders of the faith

Thank you for your comments and e-mailed insights and questions on testimonies. Some of you now wonder, What is a testimony? Along with our question, What is the gospel? All of this so that you can be more purposeful and show integrity that will please the Lord. It has caused me some deep reflecting this past week.

I have come to feel strongly that a testimony is what you know because of how you feel because of what you do. Simply stated, a "thin" testimony shows that we do not know much, and that we are still some distance from knowing Him, and from eternal life, which is to know "the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom" God has sent (John 17:3).

It was plain in last week's thought that such knowledge starts in the scriptures---that is why we urge investigators to study the Book of Mormon---and requires serious daily and sustained attention. All so that we can be competent witnesses in bearing testimony of Him.

Is this important?

In a court of law, if we are called upon to be witnesses, just as the Twelve are "special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world" (see D&C 107:23, 26), we are under obligation to testify of what we know, of "the truth, . . . so help me God." Of what, or of Whom are we to testify? And are we witnesses for the prosecution or for the defense?

It is clear to me that we are called as witnesses for the defense (forgive the American spelling, you in the UK). Elder Harold B. Lee taught that the word "elder" means "defender of the faith." He also taught, in 1971, "When I was a missionary [in the 1920s], our greatest responsibility was to defend the great truth that the Prophet Joseph Smith was divinely called and inspired and that the Book of Mormon was indeed the word of God. But even at that time there were the unmistakable evidences that there was coming into the religious world actually a question about the Bible and about the divine calling of the Master himself.

"Now, fifty years later, our greatest responsibility and anxiety is to defend the divine mission of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, for all about us, even among those who claim to be professors of the Christian faith, are those not willing to stand squarely in defense of the great truth that our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, was indeed the Son of God" (quoted in Selected Writings of Robert J. Matthews [1999], p. 32). . . . A false idea of Christ is a false Christ (see Joseph Smith---Matthew 1:22--23, 37).

Today there are obvious sounds of battle in society between the forces of error and evil and the side of right and truth. The enemy is subtle, to the extent that even "the humble followers of Christ . . . are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men" (2 Nephi 28:14). Often those precepts of men are mingled with scripture and are very well received among this people.

Unless "this people" adhere to their covenants, and repent and become familiar with "the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon" (see D&C 84:54--57), their witness of the Truth will be thin and found wanting.

Is such a firm witness necessary only by our missionaries to the world? Or is it needful among the Saints, in our classes and meetings and public testimonies? The ethics found in secular humanism, the ideas of the world like the "unconditional love of God" are not the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. They are the precepts of men.

Twenty-eight years ago next month (how time flies!) Elder Boyd K. Packer spoke in general conference of the new scriptures that had recently come forth in the Church. He said: "The older generation has been raised without them, but there is another generation growing up. The revelations will be opened to them as to no other in the history of the world. Into their hands now are placed the sticks of Joseph and of Judah. They will develop a gospel scholarship beyond that which their forebears could achieve. They will have the testimony that Jesus is the Christ and be competent to proclaim Him and to defend Him" (Oct. 1982 general conference emphasis added).

What would you have said if called upon to bear witness at the sham trials of Jesus before Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate? Would you have been a competent witness for the defense of the Lord? "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, . . . that our children may know . . . ." (2 Nephi 25:26).

We are involved in the greatest work in history. May God grant us the clear vision to see our way to bear off our part of the work triumphant.

God bless us all to this end.

Steve