Mormons Believe That Prophets Are God’s Messengers
Many believe in God, or at least a higher power of some kind, and want to please Him. But how could these millions or billions of people come to any agreement on what God wants?
Prophets are men who have been given authority from God to speak on His behalf.
He chooses a few men to be prophets and asks them to be His messengers to the rest of us. (This does not mean we cannot pray directly to God and receive answers to these prayers. It’s a beautiful truth that we can.) He tells these messengers specific laws that we should obey in order to please Him. He shows them the big picture, including why we are here on this earth, how to be truly happy, and how to reach “heaven” after we die. Prophets then share this information with us, and we are asked to follow these things without being able to see the entire “big picture.” It requires faith and humility to follow even when we don’t fully understand.
We can be confident that when we find a true prophet, following his teachings will mean following God’s will. One of our greatest desires in life should be to find out who God has called to be prophets.
God doesn’t ask us to trust men blindly. The Bible explains two ways to know whether a prophet is true: 1) “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16) and 2) “If any of ye lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally.” (James 1:5) In other words, we can judge by what they do or what kind of impact they have on the world whether they are good men who could be called of God. And if any man claims to be a prophet, we can ask God to tell us in our minds and hearts whether it is true.
One bit of caution: even though they are great men, prophets are human beings with weaknesses just like the rest of us. For example, Moses felt inadequate to be a prophet because he said he was “slow of speech” (Exodus 4:10). Prophets can also be guilty of mistakes and sins. But that doesn’t make their messages any less important. Part of the challenge of having faith is to accept perfect messages delivered by imperfect men.
For more information:
- Heavenly Father reveals His gospel to all
- Jesus Christ established His church
- The great apostasy
- How can I know this is true?
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