Two weeks ago I accompanied Elder Jeffrey R. Holland on a visit to the Federal Parliament of Australia, where he met with political leaders. It so happens that eighty-one of our young single adults from across Australia were also in Parliament House that day. They were there as part of our public affairs outreach efforts; they were meeting political leaders, attending Question Time; they even participated in a mock debate chaired by The Speaker.
As we met with those eighty-one young adults I was filled with a sense of hope and optimism. Forty-one of them had already served as full-time missionaries, from Italy to Indonesia, Africa to Japan, Spain to Singapore, and across the nations of the Pacific. As a result, twenty-six are fluent in at least one other language. Seventy-one of them, all but ten, had completed or are currently undertaking tertiary education.
They were sharp, bright, enthusiastic; they looked terrific. There was a goodness about them which did not just spring from their outward appearance, but which flowed from inner conviction and personal purity. I thought, "Here is the Hope of Israel."
The same sentiment was echoed as we met with over three thousand other young adults in fireside meetings in Sydney, in Brisbane and in Melbourne. I sense it here today as I have watched each of our young adult students come in to this meeting. We love you so very much; we love you for who you are and for who you will become. We love you for what you already do and all that you will yet do.
In a clarion call, set as a hymn some one hundred and thirty years ago, Joseph Townsend wrote of the rising generation of the Church; it’s the hymn we have just sung:
Hope of Israel, Zion’s army, Children of the promised day, See, the Chieftain signals onward, And the battle’s in array! Hope of Israel, rise in might With the sword of truth and right; Sound the war-cry, ‘Watch and pray!’ Vanquish every foe today.1
The militaristic imagery of the hymn is of course merely a metaphor, it is symbolic; but we should be in no doubt that we do live in an age when a battle is raging. There is a war between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong, between good and evil. It is the great deception of our age to suggest that these are simply relative concepts.
They are not; they are absolutes. As today’s rising generation the call comes to you, as it has to those who have gone before, “Hope of Israel, rise in might!”
As we look to the future of families, you are the ‘Hope of Israel.’ To you will come the sacred, wonderful, noble privilege of establishing homes of your own. Homes which must be havens of love, and peace and goodness. Homes where there is a complete absence of harshness, abuse or neglect. Homes in which the gospel is lived and its effects felt. Homes where children are cherished, nurtured, respected and cared for; with parents who are selfless. Homes which are places of learning and growth, where books are read, where entertainment is wholesome, where talents are encouraged and developed. Homes where self-worth is enhanced, where praise has replaced ridicule. Homes where there is safety and freedom from the evils of the world.
There can be no greater ambition, no loftier goal, no more righteous endeavor, no worthier aim, no more fulfilling pursuit, than to create families that are, in every respect, eternal; homes that are but a reflection of Heaven.
President David O. McKay advised,
Would you have a strong and virile nation? – then keep your homes pure. Would you reduce delinquency and crime? – then lessen the number of broken homes. It is time that civilized peoples realized that the home largely determines whether children shall be of high or low character. Home-building, therefore, should be the paramount purpose of parents and of the nation.2
We hear much, in our day, of threats to the planet – the ozone layer, the rainforests, global warming. We see poverty in divers places. There is current economic angst in the midst of global recession.
Yet, the greatest threat to our world is not the rise of CO2 emissions, but the increased fragmentation of families. The greatest deprivation visited upon children is not just when they go hungry for food, but when they are starved of affection; when there is a total famine of love, security, protection and care. The greatest poverty a society or nation faces is found not in reduced bank balances or falling stock markets, but in the loss of a moral compass and the abandonment of virtue. The real ‘inconvenient truth’ is that what was once sacred is now mocked and ridiculed; and, what was once abhorred is now accepted and adopted.
Over two centuries ago Edmund Burke wrote,
It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of not man, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.3
As Alexander Pope, with great insight, suggested:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.4
Elder David A. Bednar has taught,
The Father’s plan is designed to provide direction for His children, to help them become happy, and to bring them safely home to Him. Lucifer’s attacks on the plan are intended to make the sons and daughters of God confused and unhappy and to halt their eternal progression. The overarching intent of the father of lies is that all of us would become ‘miserable like unto himself’ (2 Nephi 2:27), and he works to warp the elements of the Father’s plan he hates the most. Satan does not have a body, he cannot marry, and he will not have a family. And he persistently strives to confuse the divinely appointed purposes of gender, marriage and family. Throughout the world we see growing evidence of the effectiveness of Satan’s efforts.5
Young adults who are here today, if you want to fix the world, fix families. If you want to save the planet, save our future homes. If you want to protect the future, protect the moral certainties and values that make nations strong. If you want to fight for justice, fight for children; for their right to life, and for their entitlement to “birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.”6
As we look to the future of nations, you are the ‘Hope of Israel.’ From the ranks of this rising generation, including those here today, will come the men and women of integrity who will provide political leadership, corporate ethics, scientific progress, social stability, academic excellence, community capacity, medical advancement, economic growth, humanitarian development.
It has been said that, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men [and women] do nothing.”7 We know that you will not be content to sit idly by when there is so much good to be done, that you will not waste your days in idleness but instead find ways to be productive, that you will not be amongst those who only think of how much they can get, but will be in the forefront of those who are anxious to create and then to give.
We hope that in each of you there will be found a smouldering passion to become economically independent; to be self-reliant; to stand on your own two feet; to provide for yourselves and for your immediate family; to break free from the shackles of dependency. To work and to grow, and then to lift and to bless those around you.
Elder M. Russell Ballard has counselled,
Members of the Church need to influence more than we are influenced. We should work to stem the tide of sin and evil instead of passively being swept along by it…. The Lord does not need a society that hides and isolates itself from the world. Rather, he needs stalwart individuals and families who live exemplary lives in the world and demonstrate that joy and fulfilment come not of the world but through the spirit and doctrine of Jesus Christ. 8
We have every confidence that the world will be a better place because you are in it. You will make a contribution; you will find ways to serve; you will lift the condition of those around you; you will rise up to the very best that is in you.
As we look to the future of the Church, you are the ‘Hope of Israel.’ The baton of Church leadership will pass to you. We know that it will be in the safest of hands.
It is just over thirty-five years since I entered university in Great Britain to begin undergraduate life as a poor economics student, just a few months before Spencer W. Kimball became the President of the Church. At that time we had just three million members of the Church. Today, we are approaching fourteen million. Back then we only had about 7,000 congregations spread so very thinly across the world, and just 600 stakes. Today, we have more than 28,000 congregations and over 2,800 stakes, and this weekend, Elder Callister [Elder Tad Callister, Second Counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency] and I will be in the Marshall Islands to create the first stake there. We had about 15,000 missionaries organized in 108 missions twenty-five years ago. Today, we have over 52,000 missionaries, in 348 missions. When I was eighteen there were only fifteen operating temples. Now, we are about to have one hundred and thirty.
The last quarter of a century has seen unprecedented and miraculous growth as the Church has spread across the nations of the earth. We are now a church of multi- generational members, the majority of whom live outside of North America. As the Church continues to expand throughout the world we have become an increasingly diverse community of saints, and we do good wherever we are. Stake conferences in cities large and small, from London to Los Angeles, Amsterdam to Auckland, often resemble meetings of the United Nations. We can no longer simply be categorized by our critics as “an American church.” In truth, of course, we never were. Our global Church belongs to all nations and to none. This is not an American, Tongan, Samoan, Spanish, Asian, African or even a Scottish church. It is the Lord’s Church. It will not be hemmed into artificial borders. We continue to work for the day when there will be no geographic, political or cultural barriers to the spread of the gospel. Wherever the Church takes root that nation is blessed.
The growth that I have witnessed in my lifetime is as nothing when compared to the growth you will see in your lifetime. There is much of the world we have still to reach, vast populations yet to hear the message of the restored gospel. From a Church perspective the years that lie ahead of you will be the most exciting, the most far- reaching, the most exhilarating of any age in the history of the world.
You must rise to the challenge that all of that will bring.
If you are to successfully carry the baton of Church leadership, you must know the doctrines of the gospel for yourself and have, deep in your hearts and souls, your own witness of its truthfulness and power.
Elder John A. Widtsoe commented,
It is a paradox that men will gladly devote time every day for many years to learn a science or an art; yet will expect to win a knowledge of the gospel, which comprehends all science and arts, through perfunctory glances at books or occasional listening to sermons. The gospel should be studied more intensively than any school or college subject. They who pass opinion on the gospel without having given it intimate and careful study are not lovers of truth…8
You may have lived for a time on the borrowed light of the testimony of others – parents, leaders, friends – but the time has come for you to gain a testimony of your own if it is not already there; and, it needs to be burning bright and true. There should be a light shining from your eyes because of the fire that is burning in your soul. It will come, or be deepened further, as you immerse yourself in the scriptures so that they become intimately familiar to you, as you study the words of apostles and prophets, as you fall to your knees in prayer and supplication, as you strip yourself of pride and seek the inspiration of Heaven, as you strive to do good and be good. You cannot lead others to Christ unless you, yourself, have already found him.
If you are to successfully carry the baton of Church leadership, you must obey the commandments of the gospel, all of them, so that you can be entitled to the companionship and direction of the Holy Ghost.
President Joseph Fielding Smith taught:
The Holy Ghost will not dwell in unclean tabernacles or disobedient tabernacles. The Holy Ghost will not dwell with that person who is unwilling to obey and keep the commandments of God or who violates those commandments willfully. In such a soul the spirit of the Holy Ghost cannot enter. That great gift comes to us only through humility and faith and obedience. Therefore a great many members of the Church do not have that guidance. Then some cunning crafty individual will come along teaching that which is not true, and without the guidance which is promised to us through our faithfulness, people are unable to discern and are led astray. It depends on our faithfulness and our obedience to the commandments of the Lord if we have the teachings, the enlightening instruction, that comes from the Holy Ghost.9
The Lord’s command to each of us is “to let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly.” ‘Virtue’ means purity; it means valor; it means merit and chastity and goodness, and honor and dignity and integrity, and decency and moral perfection. ‘Garnish’ in this setting does not mean light decoration, or casual adornment, as if we were trying to make a lousy meal look appetizing. In this context its true origin is in the old French word ‘garnir,’ meaning to ‘equip’ or ‘arm.’ The Lord invites us to arm, equip, or defend ourselves with virtue, and as we do so He promises, “then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine [or the power] of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion….”10
If you are to successfully carry the baton of Church leadership, you must rise up and defend the faith.
In the early days of the Church, the first decades of the Restoration, converts found that they not only had to embrace a new faith, they also had to defend that faith against vociferous critics and opponents. We have entered such a period of time again.
I think of the sacrifices made by some of the early British converts:
Elizabeth Welch, who joined the Church in 1841. On her way home from her work as a lace maker she heard the testimony of a young missionary, Alfred Cardon, who was standing on a soap box preaching in the street. She was immediately touched by the Spirit, invited Elder Cardon to her home and announced to her surprised husband Nick, “I’ve heard the gospel; it’s the only gospel and it’s true; and I have invited this young elder to visit us to tell us more about it.” They were baptized one week later. Elizabeth’s instant yet deep witness of the truth was to prove so vitally sustaining as she endured the loss of Nick and two sons who were to die in Nauvoo, then crossing the Plains, and losing two more husbands before her own death in Utah in 1867.
Mary Ann Weston, joined the Church at age 23 in Gloucestershire, England, having heard Wilford Woodruff sing, ‘Shall I for fear of feeble man, the Spirit’s course in me restrain?’ Shortly afterwards she married John Davis, but was made a widow within four months when John was kicked and beaten to death by an angry mob. Later, Mary married a widower with five children, and in 1856, eight months pregnant, she drove the first wagon into Utah’s Cache Valley.
Priscilla Staines, was born to Episcopalian parents in 1823. When she was nineteen she heard the gospel and decided to be baptized, knowing she would be ‘cut off’ from family, from friends, from society. She was baptized in mid-winter, at midnight to avoid mobs; walking four miles to be immersed in a hole chopped through ice, and then returning the four miles in freezing garments. She later left for Nauvoo, stating, “I was willing to make every sacrifice in order to gain my salvation and prove myself not unworthy of the saints reward.”11
In the face of ridicule, bigotry, prejudice, false charges, rejection and persecution, these early members, the faithful few, the humble followers of Christ, had to stand tall and true. They had to withstand the cries of the crowd – and so must you.
We have come a long way since those early beginnings, but we still face opposition and prejudice from those who seek to thwart the work of God, those described in scripture as “the servants of sin.”12 They spread misinformation, distortion, lies and prejudice. It has always been that way, from the councils in Heaven, to the Garden of Eden, to the persecutions which plagued prophets of old, to the rejection and crucifixion of the Saviour himself, to the isolation and death of the original apostles, and from the
very start of the latter-day Restoration, even at the very moment when Joseph Smith was attempting to utter the words of prayer that were to invite the First Vision.
Well, like others who have gone before, you must withstand it all and be bold in the defence of truth. As one of our recent prophets [President Harold B. Lee] said, “Remember, it is no longer 1830, and we are more than six people.” Like Paul, be “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth…”13 So, stand up, rise up, make your voice heard, bear your witness, be courageous, let the light of the gospel shine from you, defend the faith.
If you are to successfully carry the baton of Church leadership, you must follow the Master. Your membership in the Church has to be transformed into discipleship. The invitation of the ages is to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength…”14
President David O. McKay advocated,
Members of the Church of Christ are under obligation to make the sinless Son of Man their ideal – the one perfect being who ever walked the earth. Sublimest example of nobility; God-like in nature; Perfect in His love; Our Redeemer; Our Saviour; The immaculate Son of our Eternal Father; The Light, The Life, The Way….God bless us all that we may hold Him as our ideal and pray for power to be like Him.15
It is the privilege of our lives to be disciples of Jesus Christ, to follow the pattern He has set, to strive to become like Him, to ask ourselves each day, ‘What would Jesus do? What would He have me do?’—and then to do it. This is the commitment we make in the waters of baptism and when we were confirmed; it is central to the oath and covenant of the priesthood; it is fundamental to the sacred ordinances of the temple; it is the obligation we happily renew each week when we partake of the sacrament.
You are, in every respect, the Hope of Israel – the hope for families, the hope for the nations from which you come, the hope for the future of the Church. Of course, we each know that our ultimate hope, the real Hope of Israel, is found in the life, the teachings and the atoning mission of Jesus Christ. As you embrace the doctrines of the gospel, as you live in obedience to the commandments, as you defend the faith, and as you follow the Saviour, living the life of discipleship, so you will find peace, purpose and direction, hope and fulfillment. The Lord will perform miracles with you and through you. As you honor Him, He will honor you all the days of your lives.
I testify of the Father and the Son, of the restoration of truth and authority through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and of this divine work, and invoke heaven’s blessings on each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
References
- Hymns, 259
- CR, Apr 1967, p135
- ‘Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents’ (1770), from Wikipedia, Wikiquote: Edmund Burke
- ‘Essay on Man’ epistle 11, lines 217, Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, London, OUP 1966, p383
- 5. ‘The Doctrinal idea of Marriage,’ Worldwide Leadership training Broadcast, Feb 2006
- ‘The Family: A Proclamation To The World,’ September 23, 1995
- Cited as a probable misattribution to Edmund Burke, perhaps as an adaptation of his statement, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” (‘Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents’ 1770), from Wikipedia: Wikiquote: Edmund Burke
- ‘Evidences and Reconciliations,’ p8
- ‘Take Heed To Yourselves’, Deseret Book, 1971, p364
- D&C 121: 45,46
- Unknown sources of these accounts
- See D&C 121:16-22
- Romans 1:16
- Moroni 10:32
- CR, Apr 1951