“Rejecting the Living Prophets by Following Future Prophets”

This short essay, written just over four years ago, strikes me as very insightful:

Rejecting the Living Prophets by Following Future Prophets

Of course, there are those out there — not a few of them, alas — who simply, flatly, reject the leaders of the Church because of ideological differences.  Commonly, these days, it’s over political disagreement.  And, very specifically, it’s very often about matters related to sexual morality or attendant issues.  A believer might say that the god of this world for many today is sexual freedom or sexual fulfillment.

14 And the arm of the Lord shall be revealed; and the daycometh that they who will not hear the voice of the Lord, neither the voice of his servants, neither give heed to the words of the prophets and apostles, shall be cut off from among the people;

15 For they have strayed from mine ordinances, and have broken mine everlasting covenant;

16 They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall.  (Doctrine and Covenants 1:14-16)

Those words were given in 1831.  They seem to me eerily prophetic.