I was scheduled to give a talk on March 15. Usually my talk preparation drags out, and I revise and revise until right up until I give it. But this time I pounded out a talk early in the week, read it through, and then couldn't think of anything else and set it aside. Of course that was the first week that our regular church gatherings were cancelled, so this talk wasn't meant to be given. But I am sure I was meant to study and write it. So I'll post it here like I usually do with the talks I write.
The Ongoing
Restoration
When he was getting ready to plan speakers for this month,
John decided to go through the old programs and lists of who has spoken in the
last year or so to make sure he didn’t ask people who had just recently spoken.
He came downstairs after compiling his spreadsheet and asked, “You know who I
noticed hasn’t spoken in quite a while?”
You can guess the answer, and here I am, packing in all of
my Sacrament Meeting participation before I have this baby next month and
become a hermit for a while. (This is funny in retrospect; we all became hermits a lot sooner than I had anticipated.)
Today I’m going to talk about the ongoing nature of the restoration
and what it means for us to live now, in the dispensation of the fullness of
times. I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to reflect on it this month as
we are preparing for General Conference and the bicentennial of the First
Vision.
Elder John A. Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve told of a
time when he was with a group of stake officers and someone asked him how long
it had been since the Church had received a revelation. Elder Widtsoe rubbed his
chin thoughtfully and replied, “Oh, probably since last Thursday.”
In his talk, “Are you Sleeping Through the Restoration?”
Elder Uchtdorf said, “Sometimes we think of the Restoration of the gospel as
something that is complete, already behind us—Joseph Smith translated the Book
of Mormon, he received priesthood keys, the Church was organized. In reality,
the Restoration is an ongoing process; we are living in it right now. It
includes “all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal,” and the “many
great and important things” that “He will yet reveal.” Brethren, the exciting
developments of today are part of that long-foretold period of preparation that
will culminate in the glorious Second Coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
A huge part of what makes us different as a church is our
belief that revelation is ongoing; that “[God] will yet reveal many great and
important things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” I love this doctrine, and I
love that we have a living prophet on the earth today to guide us. But there
has always been a little question or tension in my mind, which I have summed up
this way: How is it that we say that the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of
the Gospel, or that the Prophet Joseph Smith restored the fullness of the Gospel,
if there are still great and important things yet to be revealed?
When I think logically about this, two answers come to mind:
- There must be a difference between what we call
“having a fullness” and “having everything.”
- Having a fullness doesn’t mean that we understand
and apply it fully.
I think both of these apply to us in these last days; we are
seeking to understand the fulness we have been given and to increase to
perfection through Jesus Christ.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained what it means to live in
the dispensation of the fulness of times:
“Whenever the Lord reveals the
plan of salvation anew so that men do not have to rely solely upon prior
dispensings from heaven of the same glories and wonders, it is called a
dispensation of the gospel. This may or may not involve a restoration of keys
and powers and priesthoods.
…
“We live in the dispensation of
the fulness of times. That is to say, we live in the dispensation of the
fulness of dispensations. We have received all of the ‘keys, powers, and glories,’
possessed by them of old. Angelic ministrants have come from these Biblical
dispensations which had distinctive keys and powers—‘all declaring their
dispensation, their rights, their keys, their honors, their majesty and glory,
and the power of their priesthood.
“In the dispensation of the
fulness of times,’ as Paul promised, the Lord will ‘gather together in one all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth.’ All of the
rivers of the past have or will flow into the ocean of the present; already all
of the keys and powers have fallen to our lot; in due course all of the
doctrines and truths will be manifest to us.”
My translation of all of this is this: we have all of the
Priesthood keys and powers, all of the principles and ordinances of the Gospel
necessary for our salvation and exaltation, and because of that, we have the
ability to receive every doctrine and truth as we are prepared to do so
individually and as a church.
President Spencer W. Kimball said, “Of all things, that
for which we should be most grateful today is that the heavens are indeed open
and that the restored church of Jesus Christ is founded upon the rock of
revelation. Continuous revelation is indeed the very lifeblood of the gospel of
the living Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
We are all a covenant part of this dispensation and of this
process of ongoing revelation and restoration. It will not be completed “until we come to the fullness of
the body of Christ,” and it requires something of all of us. President
Kimball continued:
“it is the sad truth that if prophets and people are
unreachable, the Lord generally does nothing for them. Having given them free
agency, their Heavenly Father calls, persuades, and directs aright his
children, but waits for their upreaching hands, their solemn prayers, their
sincere, dedicated approach to him. If they are heedless, they are left
floundering in midnight’s darkness when they could have the noonday sun.”
I think if any one of us examines our own hearts, our own
understanding, and our own commitment to the Gospel, we will find places where
we are lacking the investment of time or study or obedience that would be
required to really understand and apply the principles of the Gospel in our
lives. These things come, as Nephi put it, “line up one line, precept upon
precept, here a little and there a little.” It is the work of a lifetime and
then some to grow and be converted unto the measure of the fullness of Christ.
The more we learn and obey, the more the Lord can add to our understanding.
The same is true for us collectively as a Church. Sometimes
we expect perfection out of the church organization and leadership, and become
upset when teachings or policies change over time, but we forget that the
Church is no more than the sum of a whole lot of imperfect people striving to
become perfect through Christ and trying to follow Him. The only perfect thing
about it is the person leading it—Jesus Christ—and the authority that He has
delegated. The process of growth and revelation that this authority enables
works just as it does for each of us as individuals: we are taught line upon
line as we are ready to receive, and our understanding as a church will grow
and be perfected over time. This means that we should not only accept when the
prophet asks us to stretch or grow or even change our minds, we should expect
him to do so.
It also means that as we look back on the great unfolding of
this dispensation so far, we shouldn’t be surprised to see that there were
imperfections and blind spots among our predecessors, even among the greatest
of them, any more than we should be surprised to find them in ourselves. They,
like us, were learning line upon line, and could only be taught as much as they
were prepared to ask. In response to their questions about how the Church
should be established, many really hard things were required of them, and I am
constantly inspired by the bravery and faith with which they responded. But I
know that as great as they were, they didn’t respond perfectly. They didn’t
understand perfectly. No one from Joseph Smith until now has attained
perfection or managed to live the fullness of the Gospel without taint from the
philosophies of their time, their own weaknesses, and their own intentional or
unintentional biases. And I feel to say, thank goodness. Thank goodness that kind
of perfection isn’t expected of me and of you in this life, and thank goodness
that the Lord is able to bring about His work in spite of what poor agents we
can be on His errands. As Elder Holland famously said, Except in the case of
His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to
work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So
should we.
Elder Holland also said:
Brothers and sisters, this is a divine work in process,
with the manifestations and blessings of it abounding in every direction, so
please don’t hyperventilate if from time to time issues arise that need to be
examined, understood, and resolved. They do and they will. In this Church, what
we know will always trump what we do not know. And remember, in this world,
everyone is to walk by faith.
…
And when you see imperfection, remember that the
limitation is not in the divinity of the work. As one gifted writer has suggested,
when the infinite fulness is poured forth, it is not the oil’s fault if there
is some loss because finite vessels can’t quite contain it all. Those finite
vessels include you and me, so be patient and kind and forgiving.
I love the way that Clayton Christensen described the
process of modern revelation in his book The Power of Everyday Missinoaries:
Revelation is a lot like a detective movie. The
protagonist (the prophet) starts out with limited understanding of a
complicated problem. As he asks question after question, the truth becomes
clearer, but not without dead ends and wrong hypotheses based on limited
information along the way.
These movies end with the message on the screen, To
be continued . . . (as in, “. . . we believe that He will yet reveal many
great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God,” stated in our
ninth Article of Faith). There are many of these ‘movies’ in the process of
revelation. The ‘stars’ of these other movies include Moses, Peter, Thomas,
Joseph Smith, and others—prophets whose understanding of God came from
iterating processes of questions, answers, and teaching; questions, answers,
and teaching.
Perspective matters a lot. From God’s perspective, the
doctrine of Christ is complete and unchangeable. Some current or former members
of our church pray that our prophets will change our doctrines or policies to
conform to emerging societal norms. God does not invent the rules and doctrines
on the fly to keep pace with society, however. From God’s perspective, doctrine
is unchangeable. But from our perspective, we must always expect that
the doctrine that we understand will always evolve and improve. We
should expect that the Prophet might change things, on occasion. But we must
also believe that we, as members, might be wrong too—and we might need to be
willing to change our position on a policy or belief as we learn more about the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. We simply must pray that we might ask the right
questions, questions that will lead to our knowing more of what God knows.
I suppose what I have taken from all of this is summed up in
that last sentence. I hope that we will seek and pray to ask the right
questions. To ask the questions that will lead us to repent. To ask the
questions that will stretch us and lead us to grow. To ask the questions that
will help us to increase in understanding line upon line, precept upon precept,
and to be patient in that process. I know that Christ lives and that we are
part of His latter-day work. I know that Joseph Smith was called to be a
prophet of God, to restore the Gospel fulness and to launch this ongoing
dispensation of light and knowledge that we get to be a part of. That doesn’t
mean that we or our leaders are necessarily more perfect than anyone else, but
it does mean that we have covenanted to be on His side. As my primary class
discussed a few weeks back, we are free agents, but through covenant we have committed
to be on the Lord’s team, to act on His behalf, and to keep trying when we fall
short. As we do so I know that He is anxious to give us knowledge and blessings
according as we are prepared to receive them.
President Nelson has recently taught: “These are exciting
days. The Lord is hastening His work right before our eyes. It is thrilling. It
is rigorous. More is required from each of us—more than ever before. And more
is being given. … My dear brothers and sisters, the ‘veil o’er the earth
is continuing to burst, and one of the deep desires of my heart is for you to
receive all that the Lord is ready to reveal to you.”
That this desire sinks deep into my heart and yours is my
prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
