"The Holy Spirit testified to my heart that he was a prophet."

That quote came from a LDS missionary with whom I had a conversation last evening just as it was getting dark. I saw the two missionaries across the street when I drove into my driveway. Then as I was taking the trash cans out to the street, they saw me and came across the street to talk with me. They were both nice, clean-cut young men ala Donny and Marie. One was the talker and the other was a listener (probably in training, I suppose).

He (the talker) started out by asking me if I had a church that I attended. I told them that I attended one every Sunday and it was a Lutheran Church. He told me how much he respected the Reformers like Luther and Calvin and Knox. Then he asked me if I knew that none of them ever claimed to be prophets. I told him that I did know that because they were people who listened to what God said in the Bible, not what they thought God said to their minds. They taught what the divinely inspired prophets taught but never claimed divine inspiration themselves. He then told me that there was and still is a prophet on earth -- Joseph Smith and the current "prophet" or head of the LDS. I said that claiming to be a prophet doesn't make a man a prophet. Then I quoted the above passage from 2 Peter: "And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." 

 

He asked me why I considered the Bible to be divine prophecy but wouldn't consider Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon or the current "prophet" who headed the LDS to be prophets or prophecy. I told him that the answer was easy. Everything that the Bible says is true and changeless and all the promises and prophecies have come true while the various prophets of Mormonism have conveniently had "new revelations" from God changing the old dogmas of previous prophets. He gave me a "such as" look so I continued, "such as polygamy, the status of non-Anglos in the church." The young man then asked me, "Isn't the gospel of the Old Testament different from the Gospel of the New Testament? Joseph Smith and the contemporary prophets are simply setting forth another revelation of Jesus Christ." I told him that I disagreed. I explained that the Gospel of the Old Testament and the Gospel of the New Testament were exactly the same--pointing to Jesus Christ the Savior. One pointed ahead to the Savior who would come. The other pointed back at the Savior who came and reminded us that he would come again.

Finally he ended with "I know there is a prophet because the Holy Spirit has testified to my heart that Joseph Smith was a prophet." My final comment before they left -- because he said that they had to be somewhere -- was "So your entire belief system is based on how you feel, an emotion, that you consider to be the Holy Spirit?"

Christianity is based not on how I feel at any given time about God's Word but on what is written in Word of God. There are times when that Word is something I don't feel good about because it states openly what I already know, that I am a sinner. The Word in the Bible always points me to Jesus, not to myself, my works or my feelings. And what the Word says would happen has happened and what the Word states as God's truth has never changed.

There have been times that I have heard Christians say similar things-- that "I believe because I feel..."  I believe because God says it in the Bible. On the WELS website there is a Q & A page and so often those who write with questions preface their questions with words like "What does the WELS think" or "How does the WELS feel" about this or that subject. Quite honestly, who cares? The real question is "what does God say in the Bible?" In a few weeks it will be Easter Sunday and my emotions and feelings will run high. They always do at Easter. I will feel my faith. This year August 17 falls on a Sunday. I can pretty much be sure that Sunday, August 17 will not have the same gush of feeling as Easter. Our feelings are poor gauges of the truth but the changeless Word of God is always true.