“That They Might Be an Instrument in the Hands of God”

Bryan Richards

Heber J. Grant

“I know of no joy on earth that can compare with that which comes to the heart of the man who is an instrument in the hands of God of saving some soul and turning it from that broad way that leadeth to destruction, into that straight and narrow path that leadeth to life eternal.”
"As I stand here today, I remember what to me was the greatest of all the great incidents in my life, in this tabernacle. I saw for the first time, in the audience, my brother who had been careless, indifferent and wayward, who had evinced no interest in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and, as I saw him for the first time in this building, and as I realized that he was seeking God for light and knowledge regarding the divinity of this work, I bowed my head and I prayed God that if I were requested to address the audience, that the Lord would inspire me by the revelations of his Spirit, by that Holy Spirit in whom every true Latter-day Saint believes, that my brother would have to acknowledge to me that I had spoken beyond my natural ability, that I had been inspired of the Lord…
"I devoted the thirty minutes of my speech almost exclusively to a testimony of my knowledge that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and to the wonderful and marvelous labors of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and bearing witness to the knowledge God had given me that Joseph was in very deed a prophet of the true and living God.
"The next morning my brother came into my office and said, ’Heber, I was at meeting yesterday and heard you preach…But you never spoke as you did yesterday. You spoke beyond your natural ability. You were inspired of the Lord.’ The identical words I had uttered the day before, in my prayer to the Lord…
“…I answered, ’And I was inspired beyond my natural ability; and I never spoke before -- at any time you have heard me, as I spoke yesterday. Do you expect the Lord to get a club and knock you down? What more testimony do you want of the gospel of Jesus Christ than that a man speaks beyond his natural ability and under the inspiration of God, when he testifies of the divine mission of the prophet Joseph?’ The next Sabbath he applied to me for baptism.” (Conference Report, Oct. 1922, pp. 188-90)

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