“We
Sustain Our Leaders”
Compared
to the Bible by Connie Raddon
Color Key:
Quotes from the
Ensign in blue.
Quotes from the
Bible in red.
All my own words
are black.
One
of the monthly sections of the Ensign is called “What We Believe”. In the March 2012 issue, this article is
entitled “We Sustain Our Leaders”. It is
found on page 8-9.
The
article begins, “Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus
Christ Himself is the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. He calls, through inspiration,
prophets and apostles to lead His Church.”
Growing up LDS,
I was taught to follow the prophet’s councel at virtually all costs if I wanted
to be worthy of … well, everything I
needed to be worthy of: taking the
sacrament each Sunday, holding a calling, attending the temple, having the Holy
Ghost with me, and ultimately earning my eternal salvation.
Following a
prophet’s councel is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says that God used prophets to speak
to His people only up until John. After that, Jesus came.
Hebrews
1:1-2 “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets… in these
last days has spoken to us in His Son…”
We have the
direct words from Jesus in the Bible to lead us now. And Jesus said we can trust it because it will
not pass away.
Matthew
24:35 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.” This was Jesus
speaking.
When Jesus died,
the veil in the temple was torn in half from the top to the bottom – in other
words, it was torn by God. That veil is
what separated the inner temple from the Holy of Holies, where only the high
priest could go to intercede between the people and God. With that veil gone, the Holy of Holies is
open for everyone. Now believers can all
have one on one direct contact with God.
So we have no more need of a prophet to speak to us for God.
The Ensign
article explains five ways to follow the LDS leaders:
1.
We
sustain the General Authorities of the Church
2.
We can show, by raising our hands, that
we will sustain our local leaders and others who are called to serve us. (In Church meetings, the congregation is
sometimes asked to sustain the leaders by raising the right hand to show that
they are in agreement.)
3.
We sustain our leaders by following their
counsel.
4.
We sustain our leaders by accepting
callings, for callings are extended to us “by those who are in authority”
(Articles of Faith 1:5)
5.
We sustain our leaders by praying for
them.
A different
article in this same Ensign demonstrates a couple’s dedication to the LDS
Church leaders. The name of this article
is “Follow the Prophet” written by Randall K. Bennett, Of the Seventy.
In the weeks leading up to our engagement, Shelley and
I had spent significant time talking about how we wanted to raise our family
and what we wanted our marriage to be like.
One of the things at the center of that discussion was our determination
to always follow the prophet.
Two months before we were engaged, we listened to lots
of talks at the October 1976 general conference reinforcing the principles of
self-reliance.
…After our engagement, as Shelley and I contemplated
the beginning of our marriage and family life, these messages were ringing in
our ears. Unbeknownst to each other,
both of us were thinking about how to start home storage for our family. To obey the counsel of that time, we needed
to start acquiring a year’s supply of food.
They decided to
sell her engagement ring to start their one year supply of food storage. The article goes on to explain how good they
feel about their decision.
In the years since, we have been blessed in many other
ways by heeding the prophetic word. We
have learned not to question the validity of what the prophets and apostles
teach or to wonder if it makes sense.
The Bible
teaches that we SHOULD question the validity of what anyone calling themselves
a prophet says. The Bible says we SHOULD
wonder if it makes sense. Paul, an
apostle called directly by Jesus Christ, was teaching the Bereans about
Jesus. He taught them that the Messiah
had come, had died, and was now resurrected.
They didn’t take him at his own word, nor did they pray about it to get
a burning in the bosom to know if it was true.
They studied their scriptures to see if what Paul was saying lined up
with the Word of God. Paul praised their
study and called them noble-minded.
Acts
17:11 “Now these [the
Bereans] were more noble-minded than those in
Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the
Scriptures daily to see whether these
things were so.”
Bennett
continues, “Some might call
our actions blind obedience. But we have
the Lord’s personal promise that the prophets will never lead us astray.”
Mr. Bennett, I
challenge you and all LDS people to be like the Bereans, and study the Bible to
see whether these things are so.
The
teachings in the March 2012 issue of the Ensign
are
NOT Biblical, and therefore,
NOT
consistent with Christian beliefs.
Brigham Young issued a challenge on
May 18, 1873 (as recorded in the Journal of Discourses, Vol. 16 p. 46): “Take up the Bible, compare the religion of
the Latter Day Saints with it, and see if it will stand the test.”
I have accepted that challenge from
Brigham Young.
In the March 2012 issue of the
Ensign, the LDS religion FAILS
this test.
Resources
used for this article:
The Word of God
(The Bible
The LDS
magazine, “The Ensign”
My research partner,
Art Haglund.
Thank you also
to my husband, Ken, who sacrifices time with me while I study and write, and
provides proofreading and editing services!
