The Prophet of the Lord
“The
Prophet of the Lord”—the title brings to mind all sorts of images, from
bewhiskered men of the desert, with long flowing robes, to modern-day
presidents of the Church.
It
calls to mind such revered patriarchs as Adam and Abraham; such
sensitive souls as Enoch, John the Beloved, and Lorenzo Snow; such
dynamic, rugged leaders as Moses and Brigham Young; such crusaders as
Paul and Alma; and men who spanned the ages in prophetic vision like
Isaiah and Joseph Smith.
All
of the prophets are different; each adds his own special uniqueness.
Yet all of them are similar in one important aspect, and that is in
relationship to the central focus of their life—their faith, trust, and
confidence in one individual, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The term prophet may
have several connotations, but no definition is more apt than that of
“one who is possessed of the spirit of prophecy.” And, according to John
the Beloved, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev. 19:10.)
Because
of this focal point, we might suspect that prophets would reflect some
facets of the personality that is Christ’s; others may reflect another.
But taken as a totality they present an inspiring and intensely
motivating study of life and varying life-styles.
In
our day, numerous men have been prophets—those who serve in the First
Presidency and the Council of the Twelve, as well as the patriarch to
the Church are all sustained as such—but few men have been the prophet.
President Joseph Fielding Smith has written:
“Each
of the Apostles when he is ordained has conferred upon him all the keys
and authorities which were given by Joseph Smith to the Apostles before
his death. These brethren, however, cannot exercise those authorities
except when the occasion arises that they come to the Presidency. Before
that time the powers lie dormant. This is the reason why they are
sustained as prophets, seers and revelators in the Church, but there can
be but one revelator for the Church at a time (the President of the
Church). All keys of the priesthood reside in his person and are
delegated by his direction.”
Obviously,
such a man must have special qualifications and must be a man who has
found favor with the Lord. Such is truly the case because this is a
calling that rests in a special way with the Lord. The prophet’s life
must be preserved by our Father in heaven so that he may become the
senior apostle and, consequently, president of the Church.
When
the president of the Church passes away, the First Presidency is
dissolved and the Council of the Twelve automatically becomes the
presiding body in the Church. The president of the Council of the Twelve
then becomes the president of the Church. Brigham Young presided over
the Church as president of the Council of the Twelve for over three
years before a new First Presidency was organized. John Taylor also
presided over the Church for three years in the same capacity, as did
Wilford Woodruff for two years. In this calling, they were just as much
prophet and spokesman for the Lord as they were when they presided with
two counselors as a First Presidency. We are told that a special
revelation to the president of the Council of the Twelve would be
required for any other than himself to become president of the Church.
As President Woodruff noted in a letter to Heber J. Grant (Mar. 28,
1887):
“As
far as I am concerned it would require … a revelation from the same God
who had organized the church and guided it by inspiration in the
channel in which it has travelled for 57 years, before I could give my
vote or influence to depart from the paths followed by the Apostles
since the organization of the Church …”
Thus
the passing of the mantle from prophet to prophet is an orderly affair,
“by a procedure unique and by an ordained plan that avoids … the
possibility of using political devices or revolutionary methods that
could cause much confusion and frustration in the work of the Lord.”
The
ten men who have presided over the Church in this dispensation have
been men of great stature in differing ways. Each has made a special
contribution; each has been a rare individual; each has been called and
prepared early in life for his unique role. Each has endeared himself to
the youth of his own generation, and each has something to say to youth
of all generations.
For this reason this issue of the New Era has
been dedicated to the memory of the ten prophets of this dispensation,
with a focus on those aspects of their own lives that parallel most
closely the lives of youth today, for none of these men was “reared in a
vacuum.” They met life in all of its total intensity, grappling with
its problems and struggling with its challenges. And in many ways their
lives were more difficult than ours today because all were products, in a
sense, of the American frontier, even President Joseph Fielding Smith
who was born during the administration of President Brigham Young!
They
knew hardship, they knew poverty and struggle, they knew temptation,
even as we know it, but they were each a special type of man, and God
signaled their importance to them while they were still in youth. He
knew their hearts and their aspirations—and what is more important,
perhaps, they knew him. His son Jesus Christ became the focus of their
lives, and because of this and their desire always to remember him and
to keep his commandments, they qualified themselves eventually to become
his spokesmen on earth.
When
Joseph Smith was just past his fourteenth year, during that most
difficult time when one begins to pass into adulthood and many
subsequent problems arise, the Father and the Son appeared to him,
apprising him of his standing before them and counseling him to remain
faithful.
He
was instructed to join no church, was given other instructions, and was
told whatever else may come under the description “many other things …
which I cannot write at this time.” Because of this event early in his
life, Joseph is sometimes called “the boy prophet,” but one would need
to be cautious in pushing the designation too far. Joseph was
twenty-four years of age when he was given the priesthood—the age of a
returned missionary or college graduate. In short, he was called early
in life to prepare, but only time and experience can really bring the
type of maturity that is needful to preside in the councils of the
Church.
Even
at that, Joseph was amazingly young for such a calling. He was in his
twenty-fifth year when he became the first elder of the Church and less
than three months past his twenty-eighth birthday when the initial First
Presidency was formed. Brigham Young was forty-three when he became the
Lord’s spokesman. From the time of John Taylor to David O. McKay the
president became president at ages ranging from sixty-two to eighty-four
and died at ages from seventy-nine to ninety-six. The average age of
the living prophet has been about seventy-nine years of age. Thus, as
President Spencer W. Kimball has noted:
“We
may expect the Church President will always be an older man; young men
have action, vigor, initiative; older men, stability and strength and
wisdom through experience and long communion with God.”
Joseph
Smith was a rare exception to that rule because of the unique position
he held in being the prophet chosen of God to begin this dispensation.
Brigham
Young was also identified for leadership early in life. As a young
convert to the Church, thirty-one years of age, he came to visit the
Prophet Joseph Smith in Kirtland, Ohio. Brigham met Joseph initially in
the woods near Kirtland, when Joseph was chopping and hauling wood. That
evening a special meeting of these famous men of history took place.
Brigham Young later recounted:
“In
the evening a few of the brethren came in, and we conversed together
upon the things of the kingdom. He (the Prophet) called upon me to pray;
in my prayer I spoke in tongues. As soon as we arose from our knees the
brethren flocked around him, and asked his opinion concerning the gift
of tongues that was upon me. He told them it was the pure Adamic language. Some said to him they expected he would condemn the gift Brother Brigham had, but he said, ‘No, it is of God, and the time will come when brother Brigham Young will preside over this Church.’ The latter part of this conversation was in my absence.”
Thus
the Lord had shown his hand twelve years before the event, and his eyes
were already upon Brigham, watching and guiding him in his life. But
Brigham Young had many lessons to learn, and the following twelve years
were filled with trials and difficult decisions, all of which led to a
purposeful end.
John
Taylor was also chosen early in life, and although he was a full ocean
apart from the other Church leaders, the Lord was quietly working on him
in such a way that he would eventually be brought into contact with the
other apostles of the Church. When he was only sixteen years of age,
John Taylor was moved upon in such a way that he spent many hours
searching after the Lord, and the nearness of the Lord was often
manifest to him. He wrote: “Often when alone, and sometimes in company, I
heard sweet, soft, melodious music, as if performed by angelic or
supernatural beings.” He saw, while still a small boy, an angel in the
heavens with a trumpet to its mouth, sounding a message to the nations.
(The significance of this vision should be evident to all members of the
Church.) At seventeen he became a local preacher in the Methodist
Church and one day, while traveling with a friend to a Methodist
meeting, received a very strong impression that he was to go to America
to preach. Nearly seven years later at age twenty-four, President Taylor
embraced the Church at the hands of Parley P. Pratt, who had been
called by special revelation to take the gospel to Toronto, Canada,
where John Taylor was residing.
Wilford
Woodruff’s warning came from a man who was not even a member of the
Church, a close friend by the name of Robert Mason. Before the
restoration of the gospel, several individuals received manifestations
informing them of the impending restoration. Robert Mason was one such
individual, and he informed Wilford Woodruff that he would be a
“conspicuous actor in the new kingdom,” although Mr. Mason himself would
never live to meet those who held the priesthood and partake of its
ordinances. This occurred when Wilford Woodruff was only twenty-three.
In less than four years, Wilford Woodruff was in the waters of baptism
and from that point forward was the recipient of countless other
spiritual confirmations preparing him for his future.
In
the case of Lorenzo Snow, the Lord spoke first in the form of a
patriarchal blessing pronounced upon his head by the patriarch to the
Church, Joseph Smith, Sr., when Lorenzo was twenty-two. The blessing is
significant and powerfully simple:
“Thou
has a great work to perform in thy day and generation. God has called
thee to the ministry. Thou must preach the gospel of thy Savior to the
inhabitants of the earth. Thou shalt have faith even like that of the
brother of Jared [which in light of that man’s experience is
significant] … There shall not be a mightier man on earth than thou …
The diseased shall send to thee their aprons and handkerchiefs and by
thy touch their owners shall be made whole. Thou shalt have power over
unclean spirits—at thy command the powers of darkness shall stand back
and devils shall flee away. If expedient the dead shall rise and come
forth at thy bidding … Thou shalt have long life. The vigor of thy mind
shall not be abated and the vigor of thy body shall be preserved.”
The
life of President Snow was preserved on more than one occasion. He did
live a long life, coming to the presidency when he was eighty-four, but
the Lord spoke to him through the patriarch early in his life, and his
preparation was equal to the task of his later years.
President
Snow was one of the first to prophesy directly of the future prophetic
calling of Joseph F. Smith, but the hand of God in the life of Joseph F.
Smith was evident long before President Snow’s prophecy. Young Joseph
F. had perhaps the most intensive training of any of the prophets before
his time, with the possible exception of Joseph Smith, his uncle.
While
only fifteen years of age, he was called to serve a mission in the
Hawaiian islands. Nine years after his return from Hawaii, he was sent
back with Lorenzo Snow and others by the leadership of the Church on an
important mission. On the way to the island’s shore, the boat that was
carrying President Snow capsized, and he appeared to have drowned. But
he was revived with the help of the priesthood and thereafter declared
that the Lord had revealed to him that Joseph F. Smith would someday be
the prophet of the Lord—this was thirty-seven years before the actual
event! Joseph F. Smith was twenty-six years of age at the time, and the
Lord was aware of his future.
The
future of none of the prophets, however, was signaled more clearly than
that of Heber J. Grant. While he was a small boy, he often attended
Relief Society with his mother. On one such occasion, after the regular
meeting had concluded, Eliza R. Snow, the sister of President Lorenzo
Snow, gave blessings to all present by the gift of tongues, with Zina D.
Young interpreting. In tongues Sister Snow also prophesied that Heber
J. Grant would someday be an apostle of the Lord. On another occasion
President Heber C. Kimball, a close friend of President Grant’s father,
took the young boy up, sat him on a chair, and talked with him.
According to the story later told President Grant by his mother:
“He
prophesied in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you [Heber] should
become an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and become a greater man in
the Church than your own father; and your father, as you know, became
one of the counselors to Brigham Young.”
However,
none of these prophecies were quite so impressive to President Grant as
the vision that he had shortly after being called to the apostleship in
1883. In this vision he saw his father, Jedediah Grant, the Prophet
Joseph Smith, and the Savior, and he also saw the decision made to send
the revelation for his call to the Council of the Twelve—this when he
was twenty-six years of age.
A
patriarchal blessing was once again the device used by the Lord in
warning George Albert Smith. President Smith was only fourteen years of
age when the patriarch placed his hands upon the young man’s head and
pronounced this blessing:
“…
thou shalt become a mighty prophet in the midst of the sons of Zion.
And the angels of the Lord shall administer unto you, and the choice
blessings of the heavens shall rest upon you …
“And
thou shalt be wrapt in the visions of the heavens and thou shalt be
clothed with salvation as with a garment, for thou are destined to
become a mighty man before the Lord, for thou shalt become a mighty
Apostle in the Church and kingdom of God upon the earth, for none of thy
father’s family shall have more power with God than thou shalt have,
for none shall exceed thee … and thou shalt become a man of mighty faith
before the Lord, even like unto that of the brother of Jared [note the
similarity to the promise made to Lorenzo Snow], and thou shall remain
upon the earth until thou art satisfied with life, and shall be numbered
with the Lord’s anointed and shall become a king and a priest unto the
Most High. …”
This
blessing takes on an added dimension when one is aware of President
Smith’s ancestry. His father, John Henry Smith, was an apostle and
counselor in the First Presidency to Joseph F. Smith; his grandfather,
George A. Smith, was also an apostle and served in the First Presidency
with President Brigham Young. His great-grandfather, John Smith, who was
the brother of Joseph Smith, Sr., was the patriarch to the Church for
several years until Hyrum Smith’s son grew to manhood. With this in
mind, one part of the blessing becomes especially interesting: “… none
of thy father’s family shall have more power with God than thou shalt
have, for none shall exceed thee.” And note that this warning came to
George Albert Smith when he was fourteen—the same age as Joseph Smith
was when he received the First Vision.
David
O. McKay was also warned in youth of his future responsibilities. As a
young missionary he had been homesick and dejected. Discouragement was
about to overcome him when he reached a turning point in his own life.
During one missionary meeting, an especially rich outpouring of the
Spirit of the Lord had been evidenced. The presence of angels had been
detected in the room by the mission president, and by the spirit of
prophecy he testified to young Elder McKay, “Brother David, Satan hath
desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but God is mindful of
you.” Then he added, “If you will keep the faith, you will yet sit in the leading councils of the Church.”
This
was all, but it came at the end of a long and vital search on the part
of young David, and it was enough of a warning to the missionary in his
early twenties that it was sufficient to buoy him up and help him during
periods of discouragement in his life. Eventually, like the others, he
was chosen as spokesman for the Lord.
And
lastly, President Joseph Fielding Smith was the recipient of a powerful
patriarchal blessing given him by the Church patriarch, John Smith, the
son of Hyrum Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith’s grandfather:
“Thou
art numbered among the sons of Zion, of whom much is expected. Thy name
is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and shall be registered in the
chronicles of thy fathers with thy brethren. It is thy privilege to live
to a good old age and the will of the Lord that you should become a
mighty man in Israel … If thou shalt gain wisdom by the experience of
the past, thou shalt realize that the hand of the Lord has been and is
over thee for good, and that thy life has been preserved for a wise
purpose. Thou shalt realize also that thou hast much to do in order to
complete thy mission upon the earth. It shall be thy duty to sit in
counsel with thy brethren and to preside among the people. It shall be
thy duty also to travel much at home and abroad, by land and water,
laboring in the ministry.”
For
sixty years our remarkable president has served faithfully as a member
of the Council of the Twelve, sustaining and upholding the prophets
until his turn came, and then he took his position as president of the
high priesthood and prophet of the Lord.
Each of these men is different in many ways from the others, and this is as it should be Elder Orson Whitney once noted:
“…
Each succeeding President of the Church ought to vary in some respects
from all other incumbents of that high and holy position. For this
reason: The work of the Lord is always progressing and consequently
always changing—not its principles, not its aims; but its plans, its
instruments, and its methods of procedure. These are changing, in order
to meet new conditions and profit by them. Today is not Yesterday, nor
will Tomorrow be Today. The Lord provides the men and the means whereby
he can best work, at any given time, for the carrying out of his wise
and sublime purposes. The man for the Hour will be ready whenever the
Hour strikes.”
Each
has added his own particular type of strength to the growth and
development of the Church. During the administration of each the Church
has made significant steps forward. To suggest that all changes can be
attributed to the prophet would be to discount all the capable
individuals who lend their aid to the work of the Lord, but in a very
real way, each of the prophets can easily be associated with the
progress of the Church during his administration, since the Lord has
chosen each for a special purpose.
During
the administration of the Prophet Joseph, the foundation and the
superstructure for the kingdom of God on earth was laid. Joseph directed
the attention of the Church membership toward the Savior and pointed to
his return as the most important future event in history. Through
Joseph, the Master instructed his people in what they could do to
establish a nucleus of people prepared for his return. In the fourteen
years of his administration, Joseph laid a foundation for the
establishment of this kingdom, culminating in the building of Nauvoo,
Illinois, a city-state based on celestial principles.
Brigham
Young brought the Church to the western United States and extended the
boundaries of Zion, doing all in his power to encourage the Saints to
make the kingdom of Christ the foremost thought in their minds.
During
John Taylor’s administration, the organization of the priesthood was
refined. Stakes were organized on a better basis, with more
responsibility resting upon the head of each individual stake president.
President Taylor, with his indomitable spirit, was an ideal person to
preside over the Church during the most trying times of the history of
the Church, when the United States government directed political warfare
against Utah and the practice of plural marriage.
With
the manifesto and the cessation of plural marriage, peace again
returned to the mountains. The Salt Lake Temple, forty years under
construction, was completed, and a time of spiritual rededication
ensued. Wilford Woodruff, who had spent much time in temple work and
genealogical work, was ideal for presiding over this period of time.
Lorenzo
Snow presided for only three years, but these were important years at
the turn of the century. Court litigation and nationwide depression had
seriously affected the finances of the Church. All through his life,
Lorenzo Snow had been at the center of many of the financial solutions
of the Church. At Mount Pisgah he had surprised Brigham Young by putting
that small community on its feet financially. Later in Brigham City, he
had again drawn the attention of President Young in response to his
excellence as a community builder. Finally, his last noticeable
achievement was the tithing revival depicted in the Church film “Windows
of Heaven.” But President Snow was more than an excellent community
builder. He was a man of infinite foresight, an educated gentleman of
the highest order. Standing at the beginning of a new century, he
focused the eyes of the Church on the future potential of the
twentieth-century man guided by a pattern of life established by Christ.
Joseph
F. Smith’s era should be remembered as one of exploration and
experimentation. In a very real sense, it represents the first pulsation
of the correlation program of our own day. Family home evenings,
priesthood responsibility, and refining of the auxiliaries of the Church
are all part of his era from 1901 to the end of World War I in 1918.
The
years after World War I were difficult years. Prohibition and its
resulting conflicts, depression and another World War were all part of
the national scene in America, where the Church was located in greatest
numbers. With his unyielding will to succeed, Heber J. Grant was an
excellent leader for the church of Christ in those days. The welfare
program and its associated programs sprang from that era in the Church.
With
the ending of World War II, the chances for the Church to move out into
the world became greater. Again, one had been prepared to represent the
stance of the Church during that time in the person of George Albert
Smith, a man possessed of love for “all of God’s children” wherever they
might be throughout the earth. President Smith very nicely drew
together the past in the sense of his great feeling for our heritage and
his development of Church history sites, and he broke into the future
in his pointing our way out into the world.
President
McKay, the first apostle to be sent on a worldwide tour of nations, was
an ideal man to preside over the Church when it began its inroads into
the world. This man of culture and gentility mixed easily with heads of
state and bestowed a feeling of well-being and dignity on members of the
Church everywhere. In pointing to the beginnings of the Church
correlation committee and its great work with priesthood programs, one
also comes to the administration of David O. McKay, a man concerned with
scholarship and progress in a Christlike spirit.
Now
President Smith stands at the head of the Church in one of its most
dramatic periods. New programs emerge weekly as new stakes literally
begin to dot the earth. We happily see many thousands enter into the
Church and enjoy the blessings of the gospel. But in all of our growth
our goal is to bring people to a one-to-one relationship with our
Savior. This is done only by individual effort—much prayer, much
fasting, and much study. President Smith stands at the forefront of all
of us as a student of the Savior. He serves as a constant reminder of
the need for effort on our part.
In
short, each of the presidents has brought his own special type of
training to his calling. President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., noted on one
occasion: “God … has fashioned every man whom He has ever called to head
His people, even from Moses of old till now. No man ever comes to lead
God’s people whom He has not trained for his task.”
This issue of the New Era has
been dedicated to the memory of these men, with a special emphasis on
their youth and their preparation, their confrontations with the
problems that plague us all.
And like all of these presidents who passed through their periods of preparation, each of us is now doing
the same. There is not a single reader of these words who has not been
appointed a mission on earth. You are parents to be, Sunday School
teachers and MIA officers to be, home teachers and bishops to be, Relief
Society presidents and Primary teachers to be, scholars and business
leaders and scientists and many unknown things.
In
our patriarchal blessings and in many other ways, the Lord guides each
of us to be what we can be, should be, are blessed to be.
May
all of us strive to prepare and do as well as these ten presidents did
in fulfilling their appointed missions. We have much to learn from them.
[illustration] John and Peter Going to the Sepulchre by Bernand
[photo] Joseph Smith, Jr., by Mahonri Young
[illustrations] Abraham by Rembrandt; Isaiah by Alex Ross
[illustration] Paul by Rembrandt
[photo] Brigham Young by Mahonri Young
[illustration] David O. McKay by Alvin Gittins
[illustrations] Joseph F. Smith by Lewis A. Ramsey; Wilford Woodruff; Lorenzo Snow by John Clawson; John Taylor by John Clawson; George Albert Smith by Lee Greene Richards
[illustrations] Heber J. Grant by C. J. Fox; Joseph Fielding Smith by Lee Greene Richards
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