We share a consuming concern. Night and day we
ask ourselves: What can I do better to strengthen the faith of
young people? Some of us are teachers. Most of us are parents or
hope to be soon. Some of us are grandparents or want to be
someday. And all of us are concerned by the signs of the rapidly
increasing and spreading wickedness in the world surrounding
those young people we love and will love. Terrible evil we
hardly knew existed when we were young is being presented every
day on screens in almost every home, in what we used to think of
as the safe “family hours” when little children could watch in
safety. And because of the marvelous spread of technology, even
those of us who live in places once largely shielded from the
messages and images of evil now face what parents fought against
in Sodom and Gomorrah. Now there seems to be no safe place and
no safe time. And the tide of evil never seems to ebb, only to
rise, and to rise rapidly. Now, we are not surprised by all
this, since God for thousands of years has shown prophets the
things that we now see.
Our concern is deepened by what we know it will
take to be a missionary and a parent in the days ahead. It will
take deep conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It will take
the companionship of the Holy Ghost. And wickedness is the tool
of the enemy against that conversion and that companionship.
True conversion, where the gospel of Jesus Christ goes deep into
the heart and changes it, brings the companionship of the Holy
Ghost. One of the dangers of the times we are passing into is
that we might be tempted to lower our expectations for ourselves
and for those young people we serve. As the world darkens, even
a partial conversion and a few spiritual experiences may seem
more and more remarkable, compared to the world. We might be
tempted to expect less.
The Lord has given another signal, clear and
powerful. It is that we can expect more, not less, of youth. One
example is the raising of the bar for the qualification to serve
in the mission field. And another is the change in what is
expected of the missionaries in teaching. No longer will they
depend on memorizing words of a discussion. They will write
their own lessons, and even those they will adapt to the needs
of each person they teach. And that is only an example and just
a beginning of the Lord’s rising expectations for spiritual
power.
The prophets saw this part of our day, too.
That gives us hope and direction. One scripture best captures
for me a wonderful outcome which is sure. And from that prophecy
we can see what to do. You have read it and heard it many times.
But you may not have recognized that it is for us and in these
times and that it is a call to courage. As you hear the words
again, think of someone you love, someone you worry may not be
able to weather the trials ahead, let alone rise to higher
expectations. Think of them as you hear the description of the
times we are in and those just ahead of us. These are words from
Joel. It is a promise of an outpouring of the Spirit. It was
quoted by Peter and by Moroni. And these words and this prophecy
are for every young person you love. And they are for you and
for me.
“And ye shall know that I am in the midst of
Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my
people shall never be ashamed.
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I
will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, [and] your old men shall dream dreams,
[and] your young men shall see visions:
“And also upon the servants and upon the
handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
“And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in
the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the
moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the
Lord come.
“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in
mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord
hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call” (Joel
2:27–32).
This is not poetry, nor is it allegory; it is
description of reality as it will be. Some of it will happen so
gradually that you may not notice it. Some has already begun
across the Church and we may not have seen the blessing
developing, or at least we may not have done what we must to
help the Lord with these miracles.
That scripture does not say that your sons and
your daughters may claim the gift of prophecy by the
Spirit. It says that they will. It doesn’t say that your young
men may see visions. It says that they will. And it will
come because the Lord will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh.
Not only will the youth you love and serve have the Spirit
poured out on them, but so will the people around them and those
who lead them.
The Spirit will be poured out, but it will wash
over some and fall to the ground and fail to make a difference.
The Spirit will be poured out, but choices must be made in faith
to receive spiritual power. That is how we can and must make a
difference. Whether or not that outpouring of the Spirit on all
flesh brings prophecies and visions and safety to the young
people we love will depend upon their choices. And you know the
choices they must make that matter most. So you can make it far
more likely that they will choose what will let them claim a
constant companionship of the Spirit. That is what they can
have. That is what they must have.
It begins with expectations, yours and theirs.
If you expect little, they will feel your lack of faith in them
and in the Lord’s promised outpouring of the Spirit. If you
communicate, by word or action or even by your tone of voice,
that you doubt their spiritual capacity, they will doubt it. If
you see in them the potential Joel describes, they will at least
have the chance to see it in themselves. Your choices of what
you expect will have powerful effect on their choices of what to
expect of themselves. Here are four choices they will make where
you can make a difference by the expectations you raise in them.
The first choice they must make is to pray with
faith that the gift of the Spirit will come beyond their human
capacities. You will have opportunities, many opportunities, to
show them you have not just the hope but the expectation that
they can and will pray with that faith and that revelation will
come. You will give a child or a student the chance to choose to
pray in faith for that inspiration. You will find many
opportunities to do that if you try and if you really believe
they can do it.
I appreciate now how people did that for me
long ago. I had a father who more than once treated me as if the
words in the book of Joel were a reality which had already
arrived.
I was not even 20, a college student. He was a
mature and gifted scientist. As a lay member of the Church, he
had been asked by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
to give him a brief summary of the scientific evidence about the
age of the earth. Dad did not know the purpose of the request.
But he did know that there were strong and sometimes differing
opinions about how old the earth is. He did what he was asked to
do. He always did what his leaders in the Church asked of him.
He wrote the paper and had it typed.
I can still remember the afternoon when he came
to me in our kitchen at home, this great scientist and high
priest, who seemed to me so much wiser than I was. I do not
remember his exact words, but he told me about the request and
what the paper was he was handing me. When I had it in my hands,
he said, “Hal, you will know better than I will whether this is
what the Lord wants. You read it, and you will know what changes
to make to get it right. I trust you will get an answer.”
He was treating me then, as he did other times,
the way Jared treated his brother. You remember the words Jared
said to his brother: “Go and inquire of the Lord whether he will
drive us out of the land” (Ether 1:38). He expected with perfect
confidence that his brother would do it and that God would
answer.
A father was kind and wise enough to have that
expectation for his immature son. He made me feel that he knew I
would get the revelation that he needed about something that
really mattered and was beyond human power. I don’t remember
whether I made many suggestions, or if I made any. But I prayed
in faith because I was treated as if that faith would surely be
honored by God. I also don’t know much about the outcome either,
except that a few weeks later I answered the phone at home and
heard a voice, a soft voice, say: “This is David McKay. Is your
father home? May I speak to him?” I learned later that President
McKay had asked Dad to represent the Church at a conference held
at a major university in the southern part of the United States
on science and religion. I remember the sweetness of the
prophet’s voice. And I can still feel what it meant to be
trusted to be able to hear the voice of the Spirit.
I can’t imagine all the ways you will have the
opportunity to treat a young person as if you were sure they had
a right to the gift of prophecy. Those choices to trust will
appear most often in your family setting. They may also come
when you work with students. The Lord is doing it now in the
mission field. He trusts 19-year-olds to teach by the Spirit. He
expects it of them. And so they do it, and they will do it.
Some, the lucky and the blessed ones, have felt that sweet
expectation long before the mission field. More must. And more
will. We will choose to show our confidence that they will
choose to pray for revelation and that the revelation will come.
There is a second choice we can help them make
which will move them along the path to the companionship of the
Spirit. It is to choose to trust the scriptures which speak of
spiritual gifts with the simple faith of a child. When we do it,
it will set an unspoken expectation that they will read
scripture that way, too. If we, on the other hand, qualify and
shade the meaning of the words, we will miss the chance to help
them.
The scripture from Joel we’ve shared today is
an example. Such a sweeping promise needs to be left as it
stands, not hedged. The scriptural stories of the prayers and
personal experiences of the brother of Jared with the Lord is
another. Yet another is the almost casual comment in Mormon
about the three Nephites:
“And whether they be upon the face of the land
no man knoweth.
“But behold, my father and I have seen them,
and they have ministered unto us.
“And whoso receiveth this record, and shall not
condemn it because of the imperfections which are in it, the
same shall know of greater things than these” (Mormon 8:10–12).
The accounts of remarkable spiritual gifts in
the scriptures are almost endless. We can choose to speak of
them and teach about them as simple facts, always expressing
gratitude, never surprise, and never the need to qualify them.
That will communicate to them your expectation that such
spiritual experiences are expected when we qualify for them. And
that will lift their expectations for themselves.
The third choice we can help them make is to be
obedient to the impressions of the Spirit when they come. When
the Spirit confirms eternal truth, there is always something to
be done about it. We can show that we always act upon
revelation. And they will see that when we go and do, the
revelation comes more often and more clearly. And when they see
that in us, they will be more likely to be obedient to the
inspiration when it comes to them.
Many of us have been blessed by such examples.
Most of us have been shaped, perhaps more than we know, by
obedient parents, spouses, bishops, mission presidents, and even
missionary companions. I heard a story from young men returned
from their missions to England long ago. The example of their
mission president, conveyed to me in my youth, lifted my own
determination and confidence to follow the inspiration of the
Spirit whenever it came.
The incident they recounted was a simple one. A
new mission president they did not know arrived in London.
Without speaking with anyone who knew about the missionaries, he
looked at the mission pictures on the wall. Then he got on a
train on his first day in the mission, rode north to a city,
went to the flat of two missionaries, found them still in bed in
the middle of the day, and called them to repentance, and went
back to London. The word spread across the mission. “Be careful.
You can’t fool this man. He gets revelation from God and he
acts.”
At least according to the elders who told the
story to me, it did wonders for obedience in the mission. But
the missionaries I met still chose to be obedient to the Spirit
because they had seen from their president’s example that
obedience invites the Spirit back again. What that mission
president did set an expectation for me as well. To this day I
try to rise to the expectation he set just by his example. You
can set that example, too. And you must.
The fourth and perhaps most important choice
anyone can make to invite the Spirit is to testify of the Savior
and His Restoration of His true Church through His prophet
Joseph Smith. When we set that example we set an expectation
that others will be blessed by.
This is how it works. One of the offices of the
Holy Ghost is to testify of the Savior and His work. There are
many true things you can choose to say to your child or to your
student. The Spirit testifies of all truth. And yet the surest
way I know to have the Spirit come to verify what you say is to
testify of the Savior. So, when the person you love and serve
feels the Spirit as you testify of the Savior, it strengthens
their faith. They then are more likely to choose to testify of
their growing faith in Him and His works. And when they do, the
Spirit will confirm what they say to those who hear them. And it
will reinforce their own faith.
When you testify of the Savior you will often
find yourself led to testify at the same time of the Restoration
of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the priesthood through the
Prophet Joseph Smith. I will tell you why that is so for me. I
have read many accounts and descriptions of the Savior in
scripture. Yet for me, there is nothing which so warms my heart
as to know that the Creator, the resurrected Savior of the
world, our Redeemer, was introduced to a young boy by our loving
Heavenly Father. The Lord taught the boy. The boy was trusted
with spiritual duties beyond anything asked of any prophet
before him. He was to be the human instrument, this young boy,
through whom there would be a restoration of all things from all
previous dispensations.
There is something else in the way the Savior
trusted and treated Joseph that sets an expectation for young
people. It is to realize that revelation comes at a price, a
high price. It takes faith to go through tribulation and make
sacrifices of all things. And disobedience to revelation from
the Lord causes it to be withdrawn. Joseph learned that by hard
experience. When we testify of Joseph’s mission and of what we
owe him, we at the same time set a high expectation that paying
the price for the revelation we need is always worth it.
Many of our youth are already familiar with
that price. There are tens of thousands who have followed
examples of young disciples of Christ centuries before them:
They have read scriptures in the Book of Mormon which you have
read. And they have believed like children in the price which
must be paid for the gifts of prophecy and revelation.
“Now these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the
time the angel first appeared unto him; . . . for they were men
of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures
diligently, that they might know the word of God.
“But this is not all; they had given themselves
to much prayer, and fasting; therefore they had the spirit of
prophecy, and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught,
they taught with power and authority [from] God” (Alma 17:2–3).
I am confident that the words from Joel are
true. In the days ahead, the Lord will raise the spiritual bar
again and again. And our youth will rise higher and higher to
more than clear that rising expectation. They will make the
choices to receive the promised spiritual outpouring deep in
their hearts. Our sons and daughters will prophesy, and our
young men shall see visions. The questions for us are these:
Will those young people feel by what we have said and done that
we expected it? And will the Lord say that we rose to the best
we could be and that He expected of us to show them how?
I have an assurance that we will rise to that expectation.
I leave you my love, to you and your families.
I have felt the Lord’s love for you and for them. I know that
God the Father hears our prayers, every one. I know that because
of our faith in His Beloved Son, the Father can and will grant
to us every righteous desire of our hearts. I testify that
Joseph had his humble prayer to find the true Church of Jesus
Christ answered. The Father and the Son appeared to him. And I
know that he rose to their high expectations. And because of
that, we and all the children of our Heavenly Father can have
the full fruit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to live in eternal
life in families forever. I so testify, in gratitude, and in the
sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.
