“Do Not Leave the Savior,” Liahona, September 2018

We live in tumultuous times. But the question is not how the Church will fare; rather, how will you and I fare?

Illustrations by J. Beth Jepson

Several years ago, I met a friend for lunch. We hadn’t seen each other for many years. During my high school and early college days, he had been one of my closest friends. He was one of the strongest and most committed young men I knew.

We attended seminary together, played sports together, attended the university together, prepared for missions together, and left for missions a few months apart. After our missions, he married a talented and wonderful woman from my stake.

As the years passed, our lives took different courses. We moved to different cities and eventually lost touch with one another. I still remember how stunned I was to hear that he and his wife had left the Church. Of all those I knew in my youth, he was the last one I would ever have thought would leave the Church.

At lunch we reminisced over the friendship that had meant so much to both of us. We laughed again at some of the crazy experiences of our earlier days. We talked about our families and tried to close the gap of time.

Finally, I asked the obvious question: “Tim, what happened? You were so deeply converted and committed! Why did you leave the Church? What caused you to walk away from your temple covenants? Have you also left the Savior? We promised one another that we would be true and faithful to the end of our lives!”

“Kevin,” he replied, “I simply see things differently now. My view of the Church and its teachings has changed. I don’t hate the Church﻿—I just don’t need it anymore.”

As we concluded our visit, I expressed my love and gratitude for a friendship I still value. Then, with deep feeling, I expressed my testimony: “Tim, I know these things are true. And you know they’re true too. You have always known. You’ve simply lost the clarity you once had. But you can regain the light and understanding of the Holy Ghost you once had. Please come back.”

We embraced as we said goodbye, and he whispered, “I admire your conviction and passion. But how can you be so sure?”

As I walked away, I reflected deeply on the choices we had made and on their impact on our lives and on the lives of our children and grandchildren.

My young friends, please don’t let what happened to my friend Tim happen to you. Are you as steadfast, immovable, and converted as you think you are? When you encounter the inevitable and necessary challenges of life, where will you turn for peace and understanding? When your life gets dark and dreary, will you still instinctively and consistently think to pray?1

As criticism of the Church, its history, its leaders, and its teachings increases, where will you stand? As the beliefs and practices of an ever-darkening world collide with the principles of the restored gospel, what will you do?

“Will Ye Also Go Away?” Some of Satan’s most effective weapons are distraction, deception, and spiritual desensitization. Each erodes faith, obscures vision, and skews perspective. Together they constitute the great challenge of our time. Satan uses them not simply to undermine Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, Church doctrine, and Church leaders but also to attack the Savior and the Father’s plan. It has always been so. When the inevitable fury of temptations and tribulations approach Category 5 spiritual storm conditions, will you still trust God and cling to truth? The penetrating question of the Savior unto the Twelve is still in force today: “Will ye also go away? “Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. “And we believe and are sure that thou are that Christ, the Son of the living God” (John 6:67–69). I am reminded of a powerful statement by President Heber C. Kimball (1801–68), First Counselor in the First Presidency. The Saints had safely arrived in the Salt Lake Valley and were quite pleased with themselves. Having overcome and endured so much, they were a bit prideful and overconfident. President Kimball stated: “Let me say to you, that many of you will see the time when you will have all the trouble, trial and persecution that you can stand, and plenty of opportunities to show that you are true to God and his work. … To meet the difficulties that are coming, it will be necessary for you to have a knowledge of the truth of this work for yourselves. … If you have not got the testimony, live right and call upon the Lord and cease not till you obtain it. If you do not you will not stand. “… The time will come when no man nor woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within himself. If you do not have it, how can you stand?”2 We live in tumultuous times. But the question is not how the Church will fare; rather, how will you and I fare? “The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing.”3 Whether you and I progress with it is the only unknown.