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So this next talk I have listened to 5 times. It makes me fall
asleep. MGR has the most boring, old, tenor voice. But his scripture
treatise are wonderful. Do you remember what my favorite thing is to
hear in general conference? It is pre-existence. I love hearing about
the premortal existence! They can tell me about it over and over
again. MGR brings it up later in his talk. See if reading it to
yourself is not less boring than listening to it?@@OCTOBER 1979 |
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ\Marion G. Romney\Brethren, I have
decided to talk to you and to myself tonight about “faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ” which the Prophet Joseph Smith named as “the
first principle … of the Gospel” (A of F 1:4).\The scriptures
leave no doubt about the importance of such faith. In the very
beginning, an angel sent by the Lord instructed Adam that the
sacrifice he was offering was “a similitude of the sacrifice of the
Only Begotten of the Father, …\“Wherefore,” he (the angel)
added, “thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son,
and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son
forevermore” (Moses 5:7–8).\Nephi thus instructed his
people:\“Behold I say unto you, that … as the Lord … liveth,
there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus
Christ, … whereby man can be saved” (2 Ne. 25:20).\Some four
hundred years later, King Benjamin declared:“I say unto you, …
there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means
whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and
through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent” (Mosiah
3:17).\When Peter and John were asked by the Sadducees “By what
power, or by what name” they had healed the lame man, “Peter,
filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people,
and elders of Israel,“If we this day be examined of the good deed
done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole;“Be it
known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from
the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
…“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”
(Acts 4:7–10, 12).\Jesus himself declared to the Pharisees: “If
ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John
8:24).\And in these latter days the Lord declared to Joseph Smith the
Prophet, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer:\“Take upon you the name
of Christ, and speak the truth in soberness.\“And as many as repent
and are baptized in my name, which is Jesus Christ, and endure to the
end, the same shall be saved.\“Behold, Jesus Christ is the name
which is given of the Father, and there is none other name given
whereby man can be saved;“Wherefore, all men must take upon them
the name which is given of the Father, for in that name shall they be
called at the last day;“Wherefore, if they know not the name by
which they are called, they cannot have place in the kingdom of my
Father” (D&C 18:21–25).\I suppose that the foregoing
declarations are sufficient to establish the fact that the scriptures
teach that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is indispensable to the
attainment of salvation.\This is so because Jesus, by means of his
atonement and victory over the grave, made it possible for men to be
forgiven of their sins and raised from the grave.\On this point, the
resurrected Jesus said to the Nephites:“Behold I have given unto
you my gospel, and this is the gospel which I have given unto
you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because
my Father sent me.\“And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up
upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross,
that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by
men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before
me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they
be evil—\“And for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore,
according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me,
that they may be judged according to their works.\“And it shall
come to pass, that whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall
be filled; and if he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold
guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge
the world.\“And he that endureth not unto the end, the same is he
that is also hewn down and cast into the fire, from whence they can
no more return, because of the justice of the Father.\“And no
unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth
into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my
blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins,
and their faithfulness unto the end.\“Now this is the commandment
[this is the resurrected Jesus talking]: Repent, all ye ends of the
earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be
sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand
spotless before me at the last day.\“Verily, verily, I say unto
you, this is my gospel” (3 Ne. 27:13–17, 19–21).\This, of
course, is the perfect definition of the gospel. It was, however,
spoken by way of summary and conclusion after the risen Jesus had
spent days—perhaps weeks—explaining the principles and ordinances
of the gospel to the Nephites. They, therefore, were able to
understand his summary.\The gospel is the plan and program adopted by
God, our Eternal Father, for accomplishing his “work and …
glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”
(Moses 1:39).\This program the Lord presented to his spirit children
in the great pre-earth council, of which Abraham gives us this brief
account:“Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences
that were organized before the world was; and among all these there
were many of the noble and great ones;“And God saw these souls that
they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These
I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits,
…“And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he
said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is
space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an
earth whereon these may dwell;“And we will prove them herewith, to
see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall
command them;“And they who keep their first estate shall be added
upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory
in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they
who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads
for ever and ever.“And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one
answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another
answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send
the first.“And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate;
and, at that day, many followed after him” (Abr. 3:22–28).The
gospel plan or program, presented to and approved by a two-thirds
majority of the then assembled hosts of God’s spirit children,
anticipated everything that has occurred or that will occur in heaven
or on earth concerning those spirits.\It provided for them to receive
physical bodies in a mortal experience where, endowed with free
agency and being acted upon by good and evil, they would prove
themselves worthy or unworthy to return to the society of God and go
on in eternal progress to perfection.\It anticipated the banishment
from heaven of Satan and his followers, the creation of this earth,
the placing of Adam and Eve upon it, their partaking of the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their banishment from the
Garden, and the peopling of the earth by their posterity.\It
anticipated Satan’s diabolical work among men, man’s wickedness,
and his death, both temporal and spiritual.\It anticipated the need
for a Savior to win the victory over death, atone for the sin of
Adam, which brought death, and provide the means whereby men, through
repentance, may receive forgiveness for personal sins and be
readmitted into the presence of God.\All these things and more were
anticipated by the gospel plan.\To us the plan is known as the gospel
of Jesus Christ because he sponsored it in the heavenly council and
implemented it through the atonement which he in the great council
voluntarily undertook to make and did come to the earth and make.\The
Father’s plan was based on the principle of free agency. Lucifer
countered with a proposal to substitute force for free agency, and
sought honor for himself.\Jesus, of course, was chosen to be the
Redeemer. He led the fight for the Father’s plan in the War in
Heaven. He created this earth. He has watched over it ever since. His
role in God’s program for bringing to pass “the immortality and
eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39) has been revealed to men in all
dispensations. It was revealed to Adam in the beginning. It was
revealed to Enoch, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Some 2200
years B.C., Jesus appeared to the brother of Jared and said:“Behold,
I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem
my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. … In me shall all mankind
have light, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my
name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters” (Ether
3:14).\In the meridian of time, Jesus, begotten of God our Eternal
Father, came to earth as the babe of Bethlehem, the son of Mary.\Born
of woman, he was subject to temptation and the weaknesses of the
flesh. Begotten Son of the Father, he inherited the power to live on
indefinitely.\Being tempted but never yielding to sin enabled him, by
giving his life, to atone for the transgression of Adam, which
introduced death into the world. This he did, and thereby won victory
over the grave and brought about resurrection for himself and for all
men.\Not only did he win victory over the grave, but being sinless
himself and being the Son of God in the flesh and having been
foreordained in the heavens to be the Redeemer, he, in some way which
we do not fully understand, “took upon Himself the burdensome onus
of the sins of mankind. The means may be, to our finite minds, a
mystery, yet the results are our salvation.\“Something of the
Savior’s agony as He groaned under this load of guilt … He has
[thus revealed to us] in this day:“‘For behold, I, God,’” he
said, “‘have suffered these things for all, that they might not
suffer if they would repent;“‘But if they would not repent they
must suffer even as I;“‘Which suffering caused myself, even God,
the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at
every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I
might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—“‘Nevertheless,
glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations
unto the children of men’ [D&C 19:16–19]” (James E.
Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 12th ed., Salt Lake City: The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1924, p. 78).\Jacob, the
brother of Nephi, thus describes the predicament we would be in
without the benefit of Christ’s atonement. He said:“O the wisdom
of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no
more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from
before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise
no more.\“O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way
for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; …\“And
because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel,
this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall
deliver up its dead; which death is the grave.\“And this death of
which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up
its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell
must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive
spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the
bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and
it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel”
(2 Ne. 9:8, 10–12).\Without the services of Jesus Christ, which he
proffered in the great heavenly council and which he has since
performed, there would have been no hope for us to receive the
blessings provided by the gospel. And we have no prospect of
receiving them now unless we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
because, as he said to the Pharisees, “If ye believe not that I am
he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). This is according to
the gospel, which Paul said “is the power of God unto salvation”
(Rom. 1:16).\These are some of the reasons why “Faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ” is the first principle of the gospel. To the truth of
these teachings I bear solemn witness, and in the words of King
Benjamin, I add my own witness that I know “there shall be no other
name [than Jesus Christ] given nor any other … means whereby
salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the
name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent” (Mosiah 3:17). This is my
testimony to you, my brethren, and I bear it in the name of Jesus
Christ, our Redeemer, amen. @@ Is your testimony stronger? Bps, you
can't help but have your faith strengthened when you carefully listen
to the words of the apostles and scriptures! That talk was 20 minutes
long. I did not fall asleep as I listened to it this Monday, 7/10,
morning. :) @@ I communicate, reach out with words, so much! I would
feel so stifled in prison. More power to you Brandon. I don't know
how you endure it. As you can see my thoughts and words are with you
and my prayers are with you. @
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