“Seek Not to Counsel the Lord”

Bryan Richards

A very common tendency among self-righteous Mormons is to question the way the Church handles its affairs. This insubordination, when expressed, is effectively seeking to counsel the Lord.

Boyd K. Packer

"Some among us would rather criticize the Lord and His church than concentrate on the problems. That is a symptom of impenitence.
“Follow the Brethren.… If you don’t understand a problem or a position of the Church, restrain your tongue. Check the mote in your own eye before you criticize.… There is nothing in your lives that will destroy you if you will follow the Brethren. Enough evil doesn’t exist in the world, even if it were brought together and focused on you, to destroy you except you consent to it.” (Lucille C. Tate, Boyd K. Packer: A Watchman on the Tower, p. 158)

Harold B. Lee

"Mark well those who speak evil of the Lord’s anointed, for they speak from impure hearts. Only the ‘pure in heart’ see the ‘God’ or the divine in man and accept our leaders and accept them as prophets of the Living God…
“I want to bear you my testimony that the experience I have had has taught me that those who criticize the leaders of this Church are showing signs of a spiritual sickness which, unless curbed, will bring about eventually spiritual death. I want to bear my testimony as well that those who in public seek by their criticism to belittle our leaders or bring them into disrepute, will bring upon themselves more hurt than upon those whom they seek thus to malign. I have watched over the years, and I have read of the history of many of those who fell away from this Church, and I want to bear testimony that no apostate who ever left this Church ever prospered as an influence in his community thereafter. (In Conference Report, October 1947, p. 67.)” (Brent L. Top, Larry E. Dahl, and Walter D. Bowen, Follow the Living Prophets, p. 167-8)

Neal A. Maxwell

“Church members will live in this wheat-and-tares situation until the Millennium. Some real tares even masquerade as wheat, including the few eager individuals who lecture the rest of us about Church doctrines in which they no longer believe. They criticize the use of Church resources to which they no longer contribute. They condescendingly seek to counsel the Brethren whom they no longer sustain. Confrontive, except of themselves of course, they leave the Church but they cannot leave the Church alone. (Ensign, May 1996, p. 68.)” (Cory Maxwell, The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book, p. 68)

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