I Appreciate The Honor Of This Position...

I appreciate the honor of this position, but as other speakers have said, it does not become easier. I see so many in the audience who could do much better than I, yet inasmuch as I am called to take this position, I pray the Lord's blessings will be with me. ¶

We have heard considerable about having faith in the gospel, living the teachings of the gospel. In the School of the Elders in Kirtland, Ohio, the Prophet Joseph Smith stated that there are certain fundamental principles necessary for us to understand respecting Deity and our relation to him. In order that we may exercise faith in him for life and salvation, we must have correct ideas of his character, his perfection and attributes. The Prophet listed such attributes as knowledge, power, justice, judgment, mercy, and truth. ¶

These attributes are necessary to enable any rational being to exercise faith in God, for without the idea of the existence of these attributes in the Deity, men could not exercise faith in him for life and salvation. Without the knowledge of all things, God would not be able to save any part of his creatures; for it is by reason of the knowledge of all things from the beginning to the end that enables him to give that understanding to his creatures by which they are made partakers of eternal life. ¶

If it were not for the idea existing in the minds of men that God has all knowledge, it would be impossible for them to exercise faith in him. ¶

Whom do you worship? Do you worship a Living God or an unknown God, as the Athenians did? ¶

On Mars' hill, Paul said to the Athenians: ". . . Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. ¶

"For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. ¶

Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. ¶

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; "Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; "That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: ¶

"For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. ¶

"Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art, and man's device." (Acts 17:22-29.) Paul tells us here that we are the offspring of God. Later in his epistle to the Hebrews he tells us, "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Heb. 12:9.) So we are the spirit children of God. ¶

In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord tells us: ¶

"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also." (D&C 130:22.) Now John says, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24.) Man is also a spirit clothed with flesh and bones, so, too, is God. Again the Lord has said in modern revelation, "For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy."' (D&C 93:33.) Birth is the uniting of this spirit and elements of physical bodies. Death is the separation. The resurrection is the reuniting of the spirit and the physical body, which the Lord says, "inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy." ¶

So Moses recorded in Genesis: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Gen. ¶

1:27.) I ask — whom do you worship? Whom do I worship? I worship my God who is my Father in heaven, the Father of my spirit, a resurrected, glorified, perfected man, not resurrected from this earth, no, but from some previous earth in the long distant past. ¶

How do I know he is a resurrected man? If he is not, I have no hope in the resurrection. Neither then is Christ resurrected, nor others. Then, too, are all the scriptures false which are replete with references to resurrected beings who have appeared to man? ¶

For example, as recorded in Matthew: ¶

"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, "And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matt. ¶

27:52-53.) As sure as Jesus Christ is resurrected, so may I have a hope in a resurrection. ¶

If men may be resurrected and God is not, then man will have accomplished what God has not and thus become greater than God. This we know is impossible. Hence what men may accomplish, God has accomplished ahead of him. ¶

Then the fact that you are now a mortal on this earth is proof that God, too, at one time in the far distant past, has gone through a life of mortality ahead of you. Hence God is a resurrected, glorified man. ¶

Whom do you worship? I worship the Living God, my Father in heaven, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of this world. I invite all honest in heart everywhere to join with the faithful Latter-day Saints in worshipping our Father in heaven. I know that God lives and Jesus Christ is his Son, begotten of the Father in the flesh. It is he who stands at the head of this Church, with President David O. McKay as his prophet here today. ¶

May God bless him and his associates in this great work and bless all you good people who endeavor to keep the commandments of God, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶