I am grateful to be with you at the start
of this Education Week.
All those who have made the arrangements and
those who will teach and perform deserve our
praise and thanks.
I am grateful for your attendance, which for
many required substantial sacrifice.
And I offer my thanks and admiration to those
who have taken time to participate at a distance
through what seems to be an unending stream
of the miracles of electronic communication.
We welcome you warmly.
One glance at the newspaper or at the television
tells us that we live in stormy times.
One thought of our families grips our hearts
with concern for the forces of error that
beat upon them.
All of us know that we must build our lives
on a solid foundation of truth to be safe.
And we are under covenant to be witnesses
of truth to others as long as we may live.
It won’t protect them just to have our witness
of truth unless they build their lives on
it.
So there are few questions as important as
this one: “How does a person build a life
founded on truth?”
It won’t surprise you that the answer is
simple enough for a child to understand, but
that applying it is easy only for a person
who has the heart of a child.
Jesus Christ answered the question of how
to build on a foundation of truth with a story.
You not only can remember it, but you can
visualize it—especially if you’ve ever
lived in a floodplain or in tornado country:
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him
unto a wise man, which built his house upon
a rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house;
and it fell not: for it was founded upon a
rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened
unto a foolish man, which built his house
upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house;
and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
Obedience to commandments is the way we build
a foundation of truth.
Here is the way that works, in words that
are so simple a child could understand.
The truth of most worth is to know God our
Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and
Their plan for us to have eternal life with
them in families.
When God communicates that priceless truth
to us, He does it by the Spirit of Truth.
We have to ask for it in prayer.
Then He sends us a small part of that truth
by the Spirit.
It comes to our hearts and minds.
It feels good, like the light from the sun
shining through the clouds on a dark day.
He sends truth line upon line, like the lines
on the page of a book.
Each time a line of truth comes to us, we
get to choose what we will do about the light
and truth God has sent to us.
If we try hard to do what that truth requires
of us, God will send more light and more truth.
It will go on, line after line, as long as
we choose to obey the truth.
That is why the Savior said that the man who
obeyed His commandments built on a rock so
solid that no storm or flood could hurt his
house.
In another place in the scriptures, the Lord
described in a beautiful way how that foundation
could be built so that we could finally come
to know all He knows and become like Him and
our Heavenly Father.
Listen to His words.
His words are truth.
And listen to see if something comes into
your mind that you should do, because these
words are true.
I give unto you these sayings that you may
understand and know how to worship, and know
what you worship, that you may come unto the
Father in my name, and in due time receive
of his fulness.
For if you keep my commandments you shall
receive of his fulness, and be glorified in
me as I am in the Father; therefore, I say
unto you, you shall receive grace for grace.
And then a few verses later the Lord says:
And truth is knowledge of things as they are,
and as they were, and as they are to come;
And whatsoever is more or less than this is
the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar
from the beginning.
The Spirit of truth is of God.
I am the Spirit of truth, and John bore record
of me, saying: He received a fulness of truth,
yea, even of all truth;
And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth
his commandments.
He that keepeth his commandments receiveth
truth and light, until he is glorified in
truth and knoweth all things.
Now you can understand why President Joseph
F. Smith made building on a foundation of
truth sound like a long list of things to
do.
He seems to be describing work rather than
the exciting adventure that it is.
I remember President Benson saying with a
smile about his service, “I love this work.
And it is work.”
Here is President Smith’s description of
the work it takes to build an imperishable
foundation of truth.
You will notice that the work is simple obedience.
It is not complicated things—it is not fancy
things or getting great spiritual manifestations.
This is work within the abilities of the most
humble and the least educated.
Here is his list:
But the men and the women who are honest before
God, who humbly plod along, doing their duty,
paying their tithing, and exercising that
pure religion and undefiled before God and
the Father, which is to visit the fatherless
and the widows in their afflictions and to
keep oneself unspotted from the world, and
who help look after the poor; and who honor
the holy Priesthood, who do not run into excesses,
who are prayerful in their families, and who
acknowledge the Lord in their hearts, they
will build up a foundation that the gates
of hell cannot prevail against; and if the
floods come and the storms beat upon their
house, it shall not fall, for it will be built
upon the rock of eternal truth.
It sounds so simple to build on a foundation
of truth that you may wonder why everyone
doesn’t succeed.
For one thing, it takes great humility.
It is hard to repent, to admit you are wrong
on faith alone, before the coming of the evidence
of a feeling of being forgiven and the appearance
of light.
But that is the way it has to be.
First comes obedience, and then come the confirming
assurances, the revelation of truth, and the
blessing of light.
That is so because God gave us agency—not
just as a right, but as a necessity.
We must choose with our agency to obey in
faith that the promised blessing will come,
that the promise is true because it comes
from God.
You remember the words of the scripture in
Ether 12 that tell us both why that is hard
and why it is necessary:
Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with
surety hope for a better world, yea, even
a place at the right hand of God, which hope
cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls
of men, which would make them sure and steadfast,
always abounding in good works, being led
to glorify God.
And it came to pass that Ether did prophesy
great and marvelous things unto the people,
which they did not believe, because they saw
them not.
And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning
these things; I would show unto the world
that faith is things which are hoped for and
not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye
see not, for ye receive no witness until after
the trial of your faith.
There is another reason why it is not easy
for the proud to build on a foundation of
truth.
It is because the enemy of righteousness also
works in little steps—steps so small that
they are hard to notice if you are thinking
only about yourself and how great you are.
Just as truth is given to us line upon line
and the light brightens slowly as we obey,
even so, as we disobey, our testimony of truth
lessens almost imperceptibly, little by little,
and darkness descends so slowly that the proud
may easily deny that anything is changing.
I have heard the boast of a man who walked
away from the Church slowly.
At first he just stopped teaching his Sunday
School class, then he stayed away from Church,
and then he forgot to pay tithing now and
then.
Along the way he would say to me: “I feel
just as spiritual as I did before I stopped
those things and just as much at peace.
Besides, I enjoy Sundays more than I did.
It’s more a day of rest.”
Or, “I think I’ve been blessed temporally
as
much or more as I was when I was paying tithing.”
He could not sense the difference, but I could.
The light in his eyes and even the shine in
his countenance was dimming.
He could not tell, since one of the effects
of disobeying God seems to be the creation
of just enough spiritual anesthetic to block
any sensation as the ties to God are being
cut.
Not only did the testimony of the truth slowly
erode, but even the memories of what it was
like to be in the light began to seem to him
like a delusion.
More than a few of those slides down the path
of disobedience come in the years of transition
from childhood to maturity.
How often have you heard a parent describe
a child’s tragic journey into years of sin
and sorrow by saying, “It began when he
was 16” or “It began when she was 14.”
And yet in those same years the young man
or the young woman who chooses obedience can
build a foundation of truth to last in the
years ahead, and many do.
It is not by accident that seminary across
the world is offered to young Latter-day Saints
in those years.
They are at risk in that time of transition,
yet the very source of that risk creates an
opportunity for them and for us who serve
them.
Agency is the source of the risk.
It is so priceless a gift from our Heavenly
Father that the War in Heaven was fought to
defend it.
Lucifer sought to take it from us and with
it take for himself the honor and glory of
our Father.
The teenager you love may well have been one
of the valiant warriors on the side of agency
and truth.
Satan seems to feel he can win a double victory
by drawing that teenager into sin.
He can destroy one of his antagonists and
in the process try to prove the Father wrong,
prove that the risk of agency was too great.
We can help by seeing clearly the opportunity.
The teenager who begins to say, “It’s
my life to live, my choices to make,” is
speaking the truth, a wonderful truth.
The choice to do good is the only way to build
a life on the foundation of truth and light.
Yet those words can strike fear into a parent
or a bishop or a Young Women leader who loves
the teenager.
That outburst of independence usually comes
when a rule is announced or something is forbidden.
It may come with the mere appearance of authority,
with anyone telling them what they must do,
or even with just a look at a hemline.
Our opportunity lies in their seeing a simple
truth.
And their seeing this is their opportunity,
too.
It is their life to live, and yet they live
it with two powerful opposing forces pulling
on them in different ways.
One is God, who loves and will not compel
and who offers eternal life through the plan
of salvation.
That plan depends on the Atonement made by
the Savior, Jesus Christ, and the teenager’s
choice to follow Him.
The other, a terrible power, will use deception,
force, and hatred to bring someone into bondage
and misery.
And the teenager is free to choose.
The opportunity is in their seeing that reality,
but that is also the problem.
It takes the revelation of truth from God
to the teenager for those opposing forces
to be seen as real.
Once seen, the choice will be obvious.
But many young people have little experience
with persisting in obedience when the truth
must be taken on faith alone until it is revealed
to them.
The opportunity lies in their sensing what
they once knew, that the power to choose is
a gift from God to bring them happiness in
life and in the life to come with Him.
We can help in the way we react to their determination
to choose for themselves.
They will sense whether we see them as if
they could well have been one of the faithful
warriors from the premortal existence, committed
still to the defense of moral agency and aware
of its great value to bring them happiness.
If we can see them as faithful warriors from
the premortal existence, we may also see their
claims of independence as a sign of their
potential, a sign that they are testing the
power of agency that will bring them happiness.
That is hard, because we know the risk should
they choose sin.
But when fear for them comes, as it does,
it helps for us to remember and take comfort
that there are opposing pulls.
There is an influence of evil in the world,
but there is also in the world, and across
all creation, the powerful Light of Christ.
They were born with access to the Light of
Christ.
Because of that, they have in them the power
to apply for themselves the test given in
the book of Moroni—if they believe they
can and if they choose to do it.
Unless they have gone so far as to make that
light imperceptible, it is not beyond them
to apply this sure promise:
Wherefore, all things which are good cometh
of God; and that which is evil cometh of the
devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God,
and fighteth against him continually, and
inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that
which is evil continually.
But behold, that which is of God inviteth
and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore,
every thing which inviteth and enticeth to
do good, and to love God, and to serve him,
is inspired of God.
Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren,
that ye do not judge that which is evil to
be of God, or that which is good and of God
to be of the devil.
And then a few verses later:
But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do
evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny
him, and serve not God, then ye may know with
a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for
after this manner doth the devil work, for
he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one;
neither do his angels; neither do they who
subject themselves unto him.
And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know
the light by which ye may judge, which light
is the light of Christ, see that ye do not
judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment
which ye judge ye shall also be judged.
The warning not to judge what is of God as
evil nor what is from the devil to be good
is a helpful caution to those of us who would
help the young learn to choose the right.
They will see some choices as good, or at
least neutral, that we may see at first as
evil.
Before we begin to force a choice with what
authority we may have, it will be wise to
apply the test in Moroni ourselves.
More than once I have been restrained and
more than once I have been energized to action
by those practical rules.
What I at first thought was evil came clear
to me as being neutral.
And what I had thought was neutral was revealed
to me as inviting to do evil.
And by the teenager knowing that I would apply
the test myself in humility, I could make
it more likely that they would try the test
for themselves.
Our best hope is that they will follow our
example of humbly seeking to know if the choice
they are considering will draw them nearer
to God or away from Him.
If they do what we have done and pray in faith,
light and truth will come to them.
And if they obey, not only will more truth
come, but they will have learned how to build
their lives on a foundation of truth.
The teenager most likely to have that happy
experience will have been given earlier, in
childhood, the chance to gain self-discipline
enough to persist in obedience even when at
first no good result seems to come.
I know now why my mother had me weeding on
my knees for what seemed like hours in a wet
garden with rows that seemed to stretch to
the horizon while the weeds broke off in my
hand with roots still in the ground.
I know now why she smiled so happily when
she saw me trying to dig those roots out with
my fingers in tearful frustration.
She knew something about teenage years that
were coming and what it would take in dogged
persistence to build a foundation on light
and truth.
I don’t necessarily recommend weeding or
hard labor for little children, but I offer
the thanks to my mother now that I was not
wise enough to give when I was in the garden.
It would be wrong to suggest that it is easy
to help young people obey long enough to qualify
for the revelation of truth.
Nor can I possibly suggest all that you may
be led by the Spirit to do to help them.
But I can give this counsel: Above all, you
can love them.
You can believe and follow the truth in the
encouraging view of President Gordon B. Hinckley:
I love the youth of the Church.
I have said again and again that I think we
have never had a better generation than this.
How grateful I am for your integrity, for
your ambition to train your minds and your
hands to do good work, for your love for the
word of the Lord.
I have tremendous respect for fathers and
mothers who are nurturing their children in
light and truth, who have prayer in their
homes, who spare the rod and govern with love,
who look upon their little ones as their most
valued assets to be protected, trained, and
blessed.
There is a connection between nurturing people
in light and truth and the way we teach obedience.
Wise mission presidents learn that early.
Obedience is essential in a mission—for
the safety of the missionaries if for no other
reason.
There are rules for staying with a companion.
There are rules about where you can go.
There are rules about driving cars.
There are rules about when to be out of the
place the missionary lives and when to be
back at night and when to go to bed.
The great opportunity in teaching obedience
to missionaries is to help them see the connection
between the Savior, the companionship of the
Spirit, and love.
It is to teach them that obedience to the
commands of the Father and His Son out of
love for Them brings the Spirit.
The companionship of the Spirit will bring
light and truth, the foundation of successful
missionary work and of a happy life.
It can be taught in simple matters.
A missionary can put on a seat belt because
he or she remembers the safety video from
the last zone conference.
Or they can do it 
because they love the mission president and
he told them to do it.
It is a completely different experience to
do it because they think of the Savior’s
love and that He cares so much for their service
and that He loves them so much that He wants
them safe.
The truth is that He needs us.
He loves us.
When a missionary feels that love of the Savior
as he buckles up, he is more than safer in
the car.
He will be safe against the power of evil
in his ministry and he will be safe in his
life against more dangers than traffic accidents.
He will have learned obedience to the Lord.
He will encounter other rules and there will
be other presidents, but the loving Savior
will not change and He will always be there.
You can test what we have talked about today.
What you do in the classes you attend, and
even what you do in this devotional, can build
your foundation more solidly on truth.
Just try two things: listen for the whisperings
of the Spirit and then commit to obey.
You’ve noticed in this meeting that from
time to time your mind wandered away from
what I was saying.
God will take advantage of that wandering
if you let Him.
When the Spirit is invited into a meeting
by those in it, truth is communicated beyond
what is said aloud.
Write down impressions or thoughts that you
feel came from God.
And, remembering what we have said about building
a foundation, think carefully about whether
the truth you received requires action.
It is by obedience to commandments that we
qualify for further revelation of truth and
light.
In this hour you may have committed to act
on something you felt was true.
Then more truth came to you.
That process may slow or stop, if as you go
out into daily life you fail to keep the silent
commitments you made with God.
God not only loves the obedient, He enlightens
them.
I fear that more people make promises to God
than keep them, so you will please Him when
you are the exception and you keep your promise
to obey.
You should test those impressions of what
you should do against a simple standard: Is
it what the Master has commanded in the accepted
revelations?
Is it clearly within my calling in His kingdom?
Keeping some commandments gives you greater
power to build your foundation on truth and
light.
You could think of those as enabling commandments,
because they build your power to keep other
commandments.
Whatever invites the Holy Ghost as your companion
will bring you the greater wisdom and the
greater ability to obey God.
For instance, you are promised that if you
always remember the Savior you will have His
Spirit to be with you.
You are commanded to pray that you may have
the Holy Ghost.
You are commanded to pray that you might not
be overcome by temptation and so be clean
and worthy of the Holy Spirit.
You are commanded to study the word of God
that you may have His Spirit.
I would not set one commandment above another,
but I might put some earlier in my efforts
if they carry with them the promise of the
companionship of the Holy Ghost.
The Comforter will lead us to truth and light
and will help us obey our Father in Heaven
and His Beloved Son.
We will come to love Them and those around
us as we serve, and thus we will keep the
great commandments.
Life will have its storms.
We can and must have confidence.
God our Heavenly Father has given us the right
to know the truth.
He has shown that the way to receive that
truth is simple—so simple a child can follow
it.
Once it is followed, more light comes from
God to enlighten the understanding of His
faithful spirit child.
That light will become brighter even as the
world darkens.
The light that comes to us with truth will
be brighter than the darkness that comes from
sin and error around us.
A foundation built on truth and illuminated
by the light of God will free us from the
fear that we might be overcome.
I leave you my witness as an Apostle of the
Lord Jesus Christ that God the Father lives.
He knows us.
He knows you.
He knows me.
We are His beloved children.
His Son, Jesus Christ, is the Savior of the
world.
He came down into mortality, where we would
become forever lost without Him, to give us
the incomprehensible gift of the Atonement
that we might someday be with Him and with
our Father.
He went below all things so that we might
be exalted if we choose to follow Him.
I testify that I know He lives.
I know that we will all be resurrected and
stand before Him.
I know that we can be washed clean if we repent
and do what we are commanded to claim the
precious gift of forgiveness.
I know that the keys of the holy priesthood
are on the earth, that Gordon B. Hinckley
is the Lord’s prophet and exercises those
keys.
Joseph Smith was and is a true prophet.
As an Apostle and witness of the Lord Jesus
Christ, I promise you that as you obey the
commandments you will know the truth and be
strengthened and warmed by light and love,
which will come from God.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
