The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsTalmage, James E. (James Edward)
Religion
The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Talmage, James E. (James Edward)
Latter Day Saint churches; Latter Day Saints
The recreant and unbelieving Jews rejected their Lord because He came
to them with a new revelation. Had they not Moses and the prophets?
What more could they need? They openly boasted "We are Moses'
disciples," and added "We know that God spake unto Moses; as for this
fellow, we know not from whence he is." (John 9:28-29). Those who deny
the possibility of present day revelation are not distinguished by
originality; they follow a beaten path, hard trodden by ignoble feet.
The Apostles ministered under the guiding influence of revelation. Paul
writing to the Corinthians said: "But God hath revealed them [Divine
truths] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man,
save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God
knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." (1 Cor. 2:10-12).
The imperative need of continued revelation appears in the fact that
new conditions and unprecedented combinations of circumstances arise
with the passage of time, and Divine direction alone can meet the new
issues.
The Apostle John knew that in the last days, these present days, the
voice of God would be heard calling His people from the Babylon of sin
to the Zion of safety: "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying,
Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and
that ye receive not of her plagues." (Rev. 18:4; see also 14:6).
Nephi, an ancient prophet whose record appears in the Book of Mormon,
addressed himself to the unbelievers of the last days, and thus
predicted the bringing forth of additional Scriptures: "And it shall
come to pass, that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of
a book, and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered. And
behold the book shall be sealed: and in the book shall be a revelation
from God." (2 Nephi, 27: 6-7).
Through the Hebrew prophet Malachi the Lord promised additional
revelation in the last days, by the coming of Elijah with a special
and particular commission. (Mal. 4: 5-6). These prophecies have been
fulfilled to the letter in modern time, the first by the bringing forth
of the Book of Mormon and its publication to the world: the latter by
the inauguration of vicarious work for the dead through the personal
visitation of Elijah, a work now in vigorous prosecution in the Temples
erected and maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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