A Very Simple Question

For me, the question is very simple: is Thomas S. Monson the prophet or not?  If he is the Lord’s prophet, then I choose to follow the word of the Lord as spoken through Thomas S. Monson.  The discussion is over for me.  It’s not complicated.

This is not blind obedience: I have prayed and received a witness through the power of the Holy Ghost.  I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  I know that He lives.  I know that He suffered for my sins.  I know that He gave His life so that we will all be resurrected.  I know that through the atonement of Christ, I can be redeemed. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.  I know that The Book of Mormon is the word of God.  I know that The Bible is the word of God.  I know that Thomas S. Monson is the Lord’s prophet today.

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I’m not perfect.  I’m not better than anyone else.  I’m not more righteous or more holy than anyone else.  Like so many others, I’m doing my best to follow the commandments of God.  I have sinned many, many times.  I will continue to make mistakes and commit sins as long as I’m on this earth.  But I’m trying to do better.  I rely on the mercy of Jesus Christ.  I know that through the atoning sacrifice of my Lord and Savior, I will be saved.

I also know that I don’t know everything.  Many times in my life, the Lord has commanded me to do things when I didn’t understand WHY I was being asked to do them.  However, without exception, when I have obeyed the word of the Lord, I have been blessed.

Many years ago, I was serving as a young missionary in Seoul, South Korea.  The Lord called me to serve there through his prophet at the time, Spencer W. Kimball.  I loved serving in Korea.  It was hard, but I loved the Korean people and I was blessed to have great success in being an instrument in the Savior’s hands to help precious souls to find Christ.  I had been in the country for nearly eleven months when I was called into the mission president’s office.  He handed me a letter.  The letter informed me that I was called to serve the remainder of my mission in Los Angeles, California as a Korean-speaking missionary.  I was stunned.  I did not want to go to Los Angeles.  I wanted to finish my mission in Korea.  However, I looked at the signature at the bottom of the letter:  Spencer W. Kimball.

The mission president informed me that, if I chose to do so, I could remain in Korea for the final eleven months of my missionary service.  He said that I could refuse this new assignment.  How I wanted to refuse!  But again, I looked at the signature.  President Kimball, the prophet of the Lord, had called me to serve in Korea.  Now he was calling me to serve the Korean people in California.  No, President Kimball wasn’t the One calling me; he was only the messenger.  The Lord had issued the call.

For me, the question was simple: was Spencer W. Kimball the Lord’s prophet or not?  If he wasn’t, why was I in Korea in the first place?  If he was, then I would choose to follow the Lord.

I left for Los Angeles two weeks later.  (The final baptism I was privileged to perform was less than two hours before I departed for the airport.)

Within the first week of my arrival in Los Angeles, I met a Korean family on the streets of Torrance, CA.  I didn’t recognize them, not at first, but they sure recognized me.  They remembered my name.  (Well, they remembered my Korean name: Beh Un-Teh.)  I had only met them once before: it was on my second day in Korea, the day of their baptism.  They, Brother and Sister Kim, were in desperate straits.  They had emigrated to the U.S., only to be cut off and abandoned by their sponsor.  They had no English and no jobs.  They shared a one-room (that’s one room, not one bedroom) apartment with another Korean family who were in the same difficult position.  Well, not exactly the same.  You see, Sister Kim was eight months pregnant.  She had no doctor and no way to find a doctor.

Well, my companion and I went to work.  We contacted the Cerritos Korean Branch president and got the Kims connected with the Church again.  We got the children of both families enrolled in the local elementary school.  We found Brother Kim a job.  (By the way, the other family was also named Kim.  We found the other Brother Kim a job as well.  The other Brother Kim was not a member of the Church.)  We volunteered to teach English to the children at the school (as well as to other non-Korean non-English-speaking children).  And we found a doctor for Sister Kim.  In fact, I translated for her during the delivery of her baby.  (I can tell you that there was a TON of words I had to look up in my Korean-English dictionary that day!)

In the course of time, we helped the other Brother Kim to quit smoking.  I had the privilege of baptizing him when he was ready for baptism.

Oh, and the school where we taught English?  I had the honor of teaching and baptizing the woman who was the head of the English-as-a-Second-Language program.

And those were just a few of the miraculous blessings I received because I obeyed the call to go to Los Angeles.  I thank my Father in Heaven that I was humble enough to obey, even when I didn’t want to obey and when I didn’t understand WHY.

In the Lord’s own due time, He revealed the WHY.

Abraham didn’t understand WHY he was asked to sacrifice his only remaining son.  It went against all that Abraham knew and understood.  Abraham, himself, had once faced the horror of being forced onto an altar to be offered as a human sacrifice.  The angel of the Lord delivered him from that abominable situation.  And yet, when the Lord asked him to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham was willing to obey, even though he didn’t know WHY.  In the Lord’s own time, He revealed His purposes, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were blessed beyond measure.

Adam offered sacrifices, even when he didn’t know WHY, save that the Lord commanded it.  What sense could he possibly make of killing a lamb and burning it on the altar?  What purpose could that possibly serve?  In God’s own due time, the reason was revealed to Adam: it was done in similitude of the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the only begotten of the Father, even the Lord Jesus Christ.  It was done to teach men and prepare them to accept the Messiah.

And no, I’m not comparing myself to Adam and Abraham.  I’m not in the same league as those great prophets and servants of the Lord.

The principle, however, remains the same: the Lord commands.  We obey.  He knows all things.  We do not.  If we obey, He will reveal the WHY in His own time.  If we think that we are “wise in our own eyes,” we are foolish.

The WHY is revealed when we are humble enough to obey, not before.  It never works the other way around.

Job was afflicted.  He suffered greatly.  Yet he remained faithful.  He asked WHY, but he trusted in the Lord, even when the answers weren’t yet revealed.  He did not seek to counsel the Lord.  And in the end, he was blessed with twice as much as he had before everything was taken away from him.  He was blessed with twice as much cattle and riches as he had before.  He was NOT given twice as many children afterward, but rather an equal number, because his other children, though dead, would not be lost to him in the eternities.

If you don’t know the WHY, trust that the Lord will reveal it in His own time and in His own way.

Today, there are many within the Church who declare that the prophet must change his position on “same-sex marriage.”  They urge President Monson to listen to “the voice of reason”, to be “compassionate”, to recognize that the world has changed.  They proclaim that, even though the scriptures condemn homosexual acts, we are more enlightened now.  They argue, “Even though I might not choose to indulge, who am I to judge others?”  They ask, “What would Jesus do?”  They say that what the prophet has declared to be the word of the Lord is “hateful, hurtful, and un-Christian.”

So, as I said at the beginning, the question is very simple:  is Thomas S. Monson the prophet or not?

If you do NOT believe that he is the prophet of the Lord, why in the world would you be a member of the Church?  I mean, the lifestyle is TOUGH!  So MUCH is asked of you!  So much is FORBIDDEN to you!  If you think President Monson is a fraud, why would you stay?  It’s not as if he’s simply a nice, but misguided old man.  He, himself, testifies humbly that he is the prophet of the Lord.  So, either he’s what he says he is or he’s a fraud (or, at best, deluded). So, if you think he’s a fraud or delusional, once again I ask: why in the world would you be a member of such a Church?  Why would you be a party to such a grand falsehood or delusion?

On the other hand, IF Thomas S. Monson IS the prophet of the Lord, why on earth would you think that ANY amount of social or political or economic pressure could EVER get the prophet to alter what he has proclaimed that the Lord, Himself, has spoken?  And IF the protests, the painted signs, cute and trendy slogans, vilifications, accusations of hatred and bigotry, and the arguments and “enlightened” philosophies of men ever DID get the prophet to change his mind, wouldn’t that prove that he wasn’t the prophet in the first place?  Do you think that the Church can be or needs to be “reformed from within”, because it needs to “get with the times” or because today we are more “enlightened” than Moses or Paul or Joseph Smith or the great Jehovah, Himself?

You can’t have it both ways: either President Monson is the Lord’s anointed or he is not.

I testify that he is.

I, personally, don’t struggle with homosexual attraction.  That is not a challenge that I face.  I have my own challenges and struggles that I wrestle with every day.  And as I strive to obey the Lord, I rely on the tender mercy and redeeming strength of Jesus Christ to help me overcome my challenges and trials.  I am weak so that I may grow and become strong through faith in my Savior.  That doesn’t make me better than anyone else.  I have my temptations, and you have yours.  Christ has promised that we can resist any temptation.  He will prepare a way for us to overcome.  Being tempted is not a sin.

And if same-sex attraction is your challenge or the challenge of someone you love, I encourage you to turn to the Lord.  He is mighty to save.  He will never forsake you.  He has not forsaken me, flawed and weak as I am.

As did Job, we must endure our trials and neither seek to counsel the Lord our God nor excuse our disobedience and failings.

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  (Joshua 24:15)  I’m not perfect at it—far from it, actually—but that is what I’m striving to do.