Prophets Tell the World God's Plan

You know what my problem has been? When I hear the title The Lord has a Plan for Us!, I immediately assume we're talking about His individual plans for each of us. Of course, the talk by that name gives some evidence for that - talking about a specific family and one man's Patriarchal Blessing, but God also has a plan for all of us collectively - a universal plan that He wants all of His children to follow, a plan of salvation. Naturally, His ultimate plan is part of each person's individual plan, but there may be some steps in God's individual path for me that may not be the right steps for everyone to follow. However, the universal plan is for everyone, so He tells everyone about it - through His prophets.

Sure, we technically, theoretically don't need prophets to tell us what God wants us to do. God can tell us Himself, if only we would listen. The promptings of the Spirit are often very faint, and require intentional listening, whereas the words of the prophets are plain to hear and understand, so even a casual listener can get the message. Additionally, the words of the prophets are written down so they can be remembered and quoted, while individual promptings are often not recorded and quickly forgotten.

Also, the words of the prophets can settle disputes of doctrine. Imagine, for example, that God inspired one of His followers to do some specific work or learn a certain trade, as part of their individual plan. That doesn't mean that God wants everyone to do that kind of work or learn that trade. On the other hand, God could inspire a person to avoid a particular sin, but another person, thinking that that counsel must have only applied to that person, may fall into the same vice. Yet God wants Everyone to avoid all sins, so He warns us against universal sins through the voice of His prophets.

So, God may use personal revelation to give us individualized guidance, but God uses prophets to get His messages out to all the world. And it's important to remember that what God tells us individually almost never supersedes what He tells us all collectively, so even though we may be good at receiving and following personal revelation, we still need to listen to the prophet's too.

I think that this lesson has already been good for me. Until now, I think I was straying into the territory of thinking that personal revelation made the existence of prophets superfluous, at least to members of the church. How wrong that is! Even though we have personal scripture study, Patriarchal Blessings, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, we still need to hear God's word directly from His living prophets. It's foolish to shut ourselves off from any source of communication from God, even if it seems redundant. The words of the prophets are meant for all the world, and that includes members of the church, even if they also get access to God's word by other means.