Raise the Voice of Testimony

por el Elder Mark E. Petersen
Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles

President McKay is always so gracious and so wonderful. I love him with all my heart, as you do, and with all my soul I sustain him as our great prophet leader. I am grateful for his courtesy at this time.

I have been greatly stirred by this conference. I have been stirred more than normally, I suppose, because of the experiences my wife and I have had in the last eight or nine months. I now see the Church in a new perspective. I am a different man from what I was a year ago. I am a different kind of Latter-day Saint. I have come to realize that the great mission of this Church is that which President McKay has taught us so often in our council meetings—that we must bear testimony to the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It has taken me eight months now to realize how far the world has drifted away from belief in the Savior. It has taken newspaper articles and books and sermons, all from clergymen of various faiths, in which they deny the existence of God, in which they declare they no longer believe in the divinity of the Savior, in which they say they do not believe the Bible is the word of God any more A of F 1:8

It has taken newspaper articles telling of the iniquities of the world, the sins, the diseases from the sins that have come upon the people of the world, to make me realize how far the world has drifted away. And it has taken all of this to make me realize that there is only one cure for the world. It is not in political parties. It is not in the philosophies of men. There is only one cure for the evils of this world, and for the broken hearts of men and women, and that is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the living of that faith by obedience to the commandments of the Lord our God. There is nothing that can compare with it. There is no other answer. It is obedience to Christ, or it is dissolution.

Now, as I have been stirred by these remarkable addresses that we have listened to, and as I have looked about over this great audience. I have come to realize more and more that there is only one voice in all the world that can bear testimony to these groping nations that Jesus is the Christ. I mean only one voice of authority, and that is the voice of the Latter-day Saints. We are the only authoritative voice declaring to the world that Jesus is the Christ.

We know that God lives because our prophets have seen him and talked with him. We know that Jesus is the Christ because our prophets have communed with him, and we know that he lives because of the testimony of the Holy Ghost that burns within us.

We, therefore, as a united people must declare to all mankind that he lives and that he is a power in the world and that he is our only salvation from the destruction that is sure to come upon this evil world unless they repent. We must raise the voice of testimony. We must raise the voice of repentance.

But how strong a voice can you raise? How strong a testimony can you bear? Your testimony is no stronger than your obedience. I wonder how much your testimony has been watered down by your disobedience even in little things here or there. But God expects that you will bear a mighty testimony to the world that he lives, that he has spoken in our day, that Jesus is the Christ, and that destruction will come upon the world unless we obey him and keep his commandments.

How strong is your testimony? I would have you know that your words alone are not enough. I would have you know that it is only your word supported by your righteous lives that can give testimony to the world in such sincere tones that men and women will pay attention to you.

Oh, how I admire your sons and your daughters who are traveling through the countries of Europe as well as the rest of the world, humbly bearing testimony of this great truth. How sincere they are! How many of our converts say, “The thing that impressed me was the sincerity of the missionaries,” and that is the thing that is going to impress all the world from you.

So my brief message here today is, brothers and sisters, let us live the gospel so that our living will give meaning to our words, and that when we bear testimony that we know that he lives, that they will feel it by the sincerity of our words and our lives.

I bear you testimony that I know he lives, and I am raising my voice as loudly and as strongly as I know how to declare it to everyone who is willing to listen. Jesus lives. He is the Christ. He is the Son of God. He is the Divine Redeemer. He is the Creator of the worlds, and if we will but follow him, great will be our joy—salvation in this life and eternal life in the world to come.

This testimony I bear to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.