Testimony

    By Elder Orson F. Whitney - 1925

We Stand For An Individual testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Such testimony can come but in one way --- God's way, not man's. Books cannot give it. Schools cannot bestow it. No human power can impart it. It comes, if it comes at all, as a gift of God, by direct and immediate revelation from on high.

Said Jesus to His chief Apostle: "Whom say ye that I am?" Peter answered: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then said Jesus: "Blessed art though, Simon Var-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven" (Matt 16:15-16)

The greatest and most convincing of all testimonies is the soul's illumination under the kindling and enlightening power of the Holy Ghost --- the comforter, promised by the Savior to His disciples, to abide with them after He had departed, to bring things past to their remembrance and show them things to come, making manifest the things of God, past, present, and future.

By the Spirit and by that alone can men know God and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent --- to know Them, and to act consistently with that knowledge, is to lay hold upon eternal life. No greater thing can come to man while in the flesh than the knowledge of how to secure that greatest of all heavenly gifts.

To know God, man must know himself, must know whence he came, why he is here, what is expected of him by the One who sent him here, where he is going when he leaves this mortal life, and what awaits him in the great hereafter. The Holy Spirit is the fountain from which flows this knowledge, the most precious that men can possess. By means of it comes the testimony that Jesus Christ was and is divine.

By the light of God's candle --- the gift of the Holy Ghost --- I saw what till then I had never seen, I learned what till then I had never known, I loved the Lord as I had never loved Him before. My soul was satisfied, my joy was full, for I had a testimony of the truth, and it has remained with me to this day.

The greatest and most convincing of all testimonies is the soul's illumination under the kindling and enlightening power of the Holy Ghost --- the Comforter, promised by the Savior to His disciples, to abide with them after He had departed.