3.136 Put Prophets to the Test

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

What events have you had in your life that help you testify of a living prophet of God today? I want to share one of those with you today as we dive into our readings inside the book of Deuteronomy. At the tail end of chapter 18 here, Moses gives us an interesting Interesting, I'll call it litmus test on whether prophets are truly prophets of the Lord or not.

It's interesting because I've heard today, you know, and it's been common throughout my life, people that will reject the idea that living prophets can exist. They'll simply say that the Lord doesn't speak through prophets anymore. The Bible is a book of the Bible It may show us a little bit of a different side of things and worth digging into Our verse for today is Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 22 and this is what it says When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.

The Bible says, Thou shalt not be afraid of him. Now this is interesting because this is kind of giving us a bit of a test here to test the words of anyone claiming to speak in the name of the Lord. And that took me down several personal reflections of prophets speaking from the pulpit, mostly at General Conference times and the words that they've given us throughout the years and throughout my life.

And I landed on a conference talk from a who would become a prophet and president of the church. That's President Ezra Taft Benson, one of my earliest memories as prophet. And President Benson gave a talk in October of 1981 called "Joseph Smith, Prophet to Our Generation." And in that talk, he referenced this verse and he gives some really great indicators on ways to tell if prophets are real, if they're true, and how to tell if they're truly prophets of God.

And I encourage you to dive into that one. He gives some great examples of knowing Joseph Smith both practiced this verse here in his time and of other times as well But I want to I want to just let that one there. You have the link inside this podcast episode, but I want to share one I think I may have shared once before over the years here with Savory Salt.

That's my own personal experience specific to this idea of a prophet speaking in the name of the Lord and prophesying of sorts. I remember coming home from my mission and being able to go to a priesthood session of General Conference at the time. My dad and I always used to go to the priesthood sessions together.

And so he and I had gone over to this priesthood session. I had been in Mongolia. For a couple of years, right, pretty much out of the world in all the ways, not just in the missionary ways, right?

And was coming back and trying to figure out what life looked like here in the United States for me going forward. And I remember President Hinckley standing up and giving a conference talk and talking about all of these things in the world that he saw. And I had the strongest impression that here was President Oaks is our prophet and president of the church and I hear and listen to his words and seek to see them carried out, to see those words come to fruition because I believe that as they teach and preach in the name of the Lord, those are truly prophecies that will come to pass according to the will of the Lord.

I am grateful for that testimony I have of living prophets and for the Spirit giving me that testimony as I hear them speak and give us counsel in the name of the Lord. That's all for today my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith and let's be Savory Salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.