Elder Holland: “The Church is not a fairy tale. Joseph didn’t die for a cunningly devised fable”

Elder Holland: The Church is not a fairy tale. Joseph didn’t die for a cunningly devised fable. – powered by Happy Scribe

Look, brother Jeb and Sister Cordin and Bishop Kosei and I did not we did not get up this morning and say, let’s go play a big trick, let’s go play a big joke on these young single adults, you know?

Well, let’s go tell them a fairy tale. Look, I. I’m leaning out here in my chair. Give us the credit to believe that we know this is not what Peter said.

Would that are that our opponents would say that opponents of the truth would say opponents of the savior would say that this was a cunningly devised fable. Peter said even in their time, even in New Testament times, they were facing opposition where people said, oh, this can’t be true. This must be a joke. This must be a fairy tale. This isn’t a fairy tale. This is God’s very truth. And we did get up this morning to say, how can we convey that to these young single adults?

How can we help them know what we know?

And if you know it, then you’ll be as committed and as determined and perfect as Bishop Kosei and Sister Gordon and Brother Weber and a lot of other people, they’re not perfect, but they’re magnificent.

And so are you.

I have a testimony that when Joseph and Hiram were finally taken to Carthage jail and they knew their lives were over, they knew they were going to their death and said so and said it to each other. And in that jail, Hiram opens The Book of Mormon, as he did the night before when they rode to Carthage. Both times he opened the scriptures. And the indication would seem to be, at least in one of those readings, that what he read to the Prophet Joseph was a passage from the 12th chapter of Arthur, where he said, Joseph, in effect, what what Moroni had been writing in that book, that the gospel is true.

And if other people don’t have charity, nevertheless, you’ve had charity and your soul is safe and your future is safe. Now, there’s Hyrum within hours of being executed and Joseph within hours of being executed. You don’t tell funny stories, then you don’t tell jokes or cunningly devised fables. Then he reads to a book that he knew was God’s very word.

And he looked at a young prophet, his little brother, who he knew to be a prophet of God, and they talked from their soul the way we want to talk to you and I’ve tried to talk to you, and it just makes the realization of this so very true for me when I was a young single adult and letting my testimony grow the way yours is.

I know in my own way, as certainly as Hiram Smith knew when he read that passage to Joseph, I know that this is God’s truth. That the gospel has been restored and that The Book of Mormon is true, and that not only is Joseph Smith a prophet, but so is Russell Nelson, blessed, beloved man that he is and so were his successors and so will his successors continue to be. And so it is until the end comes. I love the Lord and I know he is victorious in this challenge.

I know he has won the victory and I want to be on his side. I want to be on the winning team. And I know that he will stand in these last days as king of Kings and Lord of Lords, and that this will be his true church in that hour, the same way it is now. We’ll just have to be better and more worthy of his arrival. I have to be better and more worthy of his leadership.

We need to be more like him. When we say we’re his church, he’ll help us. His father, our father in heaven will help us. The Holy Spirit will help us. And magnificent people like Chad Webb and Bonnie Cordin and Gerald to say we’ll help you. Because they help me every day when I express that love for them and for you and say thank you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Amen.