Teach
Repentance and Baptize Converts
Missionary
Broadcast, January 20, 2016
Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles
Watch Missionary Broadcast:
- Missionary Purpose and the Doctrine of Christ
- The Role of the Holy Ghost in Conversion
- We invite, They Commit, We Follow Up
- Teach People, Not Lessons
- Working with Members, Retention, and Activation
- Teaching Repentance and Baptizing Converts
Last month our Missionary
Executive Council posted a two-hour broadcast to all mission presidents and
there companions. Now we have this
unique opportunity to speak to all of our 75,000 missionaries in the
world. We love you as servants of
the Lord and welcome this opportunity to help you in the great work you are
doing.
Today we have been taught
fundamentals from Preach My Gospel. Elder Neil L. Andersen taught our
purpose as full-time missionaries, which is to teach the doctrine of
Christ. As he taught, always keep
your testimony of the Savior and His gospel as the most important part of your
work. Elder David A. Bednar
described how conversion comes through the Holy Ghost as you and your companion
do what is necessary to assure that the Holy Ghost testifies to those you teach.
Bishop W. ChristopherWaddell taught that investigators must act in order for the Holy Ghost to teach
them and that missionaries must invite investigators to act and then follow up
to be sure they are moving forward on the road to conversion. Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson reminded us
that we teach people, not lessons.
We always prepare and we are constantly “treasuring up,”1 but as we teach, we carefully listen to the Spirit,
which will lead us to teach what each investigator needs.
Finally, we cannot teach if
we don’t have investigators. A
major part of your work is to find.
President L. Whitney Clayton and Elder Brent H. Nielsen taught that we
should always find when we teach.
All missionaries must develop the faith and skill to find. The best finding is done when we work
with members. As President Thomas
S. Monson taught us, “Now is the time for members and missionaries to come
together.”2 Your best success
will come as you work with ward councils and ward mission leaders and as you
are seeking to retain and to activate.
Behind each reactivated contact are family members and friends who are
golden prospects. The more people
we find and teach, the more we will baptize.
2. The Doctrine of Christ
Now that we are past the
large expenditures of time necessary to adjust to big variations in the numbers
of missionaries, especially sister missionaries, we can now teach an improved
focus on the doctrinal purpose of missionary work, which is to teach repentance
and baptize converts to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what our Savior commanded us to do: “Teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost.3
During his message to the
new mission presidents last June, President Russell M. Nelson said, “More than
anything else, we want our missionaries… to have the doctrine of Christ
engraved in their hearts—rooted deeply in the marrow of their bones."4 Truly, all missionary work is founded on the
doctrine of Christ. It is the
polestar of our precious handbook Preach
My Gospel, which we want you to study daily.
The doctrine of Christ was
described by the Savior Himself:
“And this is my doctrine,
and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me; and I bear record
of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy ghost beareth
record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all
men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me.”
“And whoso believeth in me,
and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit
the kingdom of God.”5
Later the Savior repeated
His doctrine in these words:
“Now this is the
commandment: Repent, all ye ends
of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be
sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that [if ye then endure to the
end] ye may stand spotless before me at the last day.”6
And thus we see that the
doctrine of Christ is that we must repent and be baptized and receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost and endure to the end on order to be saved in the celestial
kingdom of God. Missionaries are
called to teach that doctrine.
3. Your Calling as a Missionary
In this unique worldwide
gathering, it is most important to remind you missionaries who you are and what
you are called to do. If you
understand these two things, you have the big picture and the basis to
understand everything else about being a missionary.
Who are you? You are sons and daughters of God! Everything else we are subordinate to
that. Think of it! We are royalty—the sons and daughters
of God!
What are you called to
do? President John Taylor—himself
a great missionary—taught that missionaries should not lose themselves in
little things and thus lose sight of the great purpose of their calling. He continued:
“We forget that this kingdom
was established upon the earth for the purpose of introducing righteousness and
the laws of heaven upon the earth, and of blessing mankind and of saving the
living and the dead. We forget
what we are here for, and what the kingdom of God is established for. It is not for you or for me or anybody
else alone; it is for the interests of the world and the salvation of mankind.”7
That is what the Lord has
called you, His sons and daughters, to do! You are not called to preach what is politically correct or
personally comfortable. You are
not called to invite people to join a social club whose rules are made by its
members. You are called to testify
of Jesus Christ and to invite people to do what He has required to come unto
Him and walk the path He has defined by His doctrines to reach exaltation in the
celestial kingdom.
Can you imagine what it
would mean for the world in which we live—what it would mean for each family
and each person in the world—if everyone understood God’s plan for His children
and if even a small fraction tried to keep His commandments and assist Him in
this great work? If you and I can
only understand what that would mean for the world, we will understand that
being a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, called to proclaim His gospel, called
to bring people to Him and to establish His Church, is the most important work
anyone can do in mortality.
Young missionaries, in time
to come you will understand your unique opportunity and responsibility better
than you do now. You will come to
realize how important this period of full-time missionary service is for the
work of the Lord and for your own personal life. I urge you to pray to understand and to have strength to act
upon that understanding so that in time to come you will not look back on your
missionary service with regret that comes from dishonor or even from
opportunities lost and blessings postponed. Pray that with the help of our Savior, you will act so that
you can look back on your missionary service with the sweet recollections that
come from being faithful and true.
4. Teach Repentance
As servants of the Lord
Jesus Christ, it is critical that we understand the role of His Atonement in
our lives and in the lives of those whom we teach. This is an essential part of the doctrine of Christ.
The Book of Mormon teaches
that the Savior does not redeem men “in their sins.”8 The
Savior came to redeem men “from their
sins” upon the “conditions of repentance.”9
One of those conditions of
repentance is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, including faith in and reliance
upon His atoning sacrifice. As
Amulek taught, “He that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the
whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith
unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.”10 The
Savior’s atoning sacrifice was for “all those who have a broken heart and a
contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.”11
When a person has gone
through the repentance process, the Savior does more than cleanse that person
from sin. He also gives him or her
new strength. That strengthening
is essential for us to realize the purpose of the cleansing, which is to return
to our Heavenly Father. To be
admitted to His presence, we must be more than clean. We must also be changed from a morally weak person who has
sinned into a strong person with the strength to resist sin and the spiritual
stature to dwell in the presence of God.
That is what it means to be saved.
You will understand from
what I have just said why it is so important for missionaries to teach
repentance. In our day the Lord
has commanded missionaries to “say nothing but repentance unto this
generation.”12 The Lord explained further:
“Verily, verily, I say unto
you, they who believe not on your words, and are not baptized in water in my
name, for the remission of sins, that they may receive the Holy Ghost, shall be
damned, and shall not come into my Father’s kingdom where my father and I am.”13
We do not preach and teach
in order to “bring people into the Church” or to increase our membership. We do not find and teach just to
persuade people to live better lives.
We honor and appreciate the many ministers and others involved if
efforts that make bad men good and good men better. That is important, but we offer something more. From modern revelation we know that
children of God can qualify for a significant heaven or degree of glory without
the ordinances of His Church. As
missionaries called by Him and preaching the fullness of His doctrine, we are
concerned with something more that a lesser kingdom of glory.
The fundamental purpose of
our missionary work is to teach the word of God that men and women cannot be
saved in the highest degree of glory, the celestial kingdom, without faith in
the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Further, we teach that the only way to lay claim to the ultimate merits
of His Atonement is to follow His commands; repent and be baptized and receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost and the ordinances of the temple and endure to the
end. Those who do so can be
exalted in the celestial kingdom instead of being damned in a lesser status or
kingdom.
No one else can do
this. Other churches cannot do
it. Good Christian living cannot
do it. Good faith, good desires, and
good reasoning cannot do it. Only
a man or woman teaching the fullness of the gospel with priesthood authority
can teach this, and only a man exercising the priesthood of God can administer
a baptism that will satisfy the divine decree: “Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”14
5. Establish the Church
You missionaries, who are on
the front line in this great effort, need to remember that the baptism we seek
is the baptism that follows sincere repentance—the baptism that is part of a
conscious change and coming unto Christ with a deliberate decision “to come
into the fold of God, and to be called his people.”15 In the 18th chapter of Mosiah, Alma
concludes his teaching about the burdens we covenant to bear by characterizing
baptism “as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him,
that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his
Spirit more abundantly upon you.”16
Six months after the Church
was established, when some of the first missionaries were being called and sent
from New York State, the Lord told them to go and teach the gospel and “cause
my church to be established among them.”17 Establishing the Church is a vital direction in the work to which you
have been called. You are not just
called to proclaim the gospel. You
are called to establish the Church.
As President Gordon B. Hinckley often taught, we should all seek to
“grow the ward.”18 That is part of
your missionary activities. Think
of that as you seek to find persons to add to your teaching pool, teach the
gospel to investigators, and retain them in activity after their baptisms. Reactivation is also an important part
of establishing the Church. So are
the assignments you may receive to labor in individual wards or branches. But never lose sight of your paramount
responsibility, which is to teach repentance and baptize converts.
In this great effort, don’t
fail to teach the basic principles outlined in chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel. And don’t fail to teach from the Book
of Mormon. As stated in chapter 5
of Preach My Gospel about the role of
the Book of Mormon:
“The Book of Mormon is
powerful evidence of the divinity of Christ. It is also proof of the Restoration through the Prophet Joseph
Smith. An essential part of
conversion is receiving a witness from the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon
is true….It teaches the doctrine of Christ plainly, especially in the lessons
you teach investigators. Use it as
your main source for teaching the restored gospel.”19
When you connect your
investigators to the Book of Mormon, you will give them a secure resource to
grow and go forward, with families, to qualify for all of the blessings of the
restored gospel.
The conversion we seek is
not just an event that precedes baptism, but a process that follows baptism and
continues throughout our lives.
You should therefore teach your investigators to study so they can be
nourished by the good word of God.
Teach them to pray so they can be inspired by the Holy Ghost. Teach them to pay their tithing so they
can enjoy the blessings promised for obedience to that important principle of
the gospel. Teach them to attend
church each Sabbath so they can partake of the sacrament and be renewed in the
cleansing effect of their baptism and enjoy the fulfillment of the Savior’s
promise that the Spirit of the Lord will always be with the.
My dear fellow missionaries,
we salute you and love you as choice servants of the Lord spending this portion
of your lives in His service. And
you are in His service, carrying the fullness of the everlasting gospel to
every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. As His servant, I testify of Jesus Christ, our Savior and
Redeemer. I testify of the truth
of the things taught in this worldwide broadcast. And as His servant, I invoke His blessings upon you in all
of your efforts in His service, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
NOTES
- Doctrine and Covenants 84:85.
- “Welcome to Conference,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2013, 4.
- Mathew 28:19.
- In Marianne Holman Prescott, “Epistles of the Lord,” Church News, July 5, 2015, 6.
- 3 Nephi 11:32-33.
- 3 Nephi 27:20; see also verse 16.
- The Gospel Kingdom, Sel. G. Homer Durham (1943), 154.
- Alma 11:34, 36, 37; Helaman 5:10.
- Helaman 5:11; emphasis added.
- Alma 34:16.
- 2 Nephi 2:7.
- Doctrine and Covenants 6:9; 11:9; see also Doctrine and Covenants 14:8; 19:21.
- Doctrine and Covenants 84:74.
- John 3:5.
- Mosiah 18:8.
- Mosiah 18:10.
- Doctrine and Covenants 28:8.
- “Find the Lambs, Feed the Sheep,” Ensign, May 1999, 106.
- Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Services (2004), 103-4.
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