Prophets

Because God is our loving Heavenly Father, He wants to communicate with us. His guidance, direction, and comfort are invaluable. For individual questions and trials, He invites us to receive personal revelation through prayer, scripture study, and temple worship. However, when His direction is for the entire world—as with commandments or doctrinal principles—he speaks through His mouthpiece, the prophets.

God has called prophets since the beginning of time. Adam, Noah, Moses, and Isaiah are just a few of the prophets He called in the Old Testament. Amos wrote, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, save He revealeth His secrets unto His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). After Christ’s mortal ministry, in which He established His Church and doctrine, the Apostles were given the gift of prophecy to lead the Church and testify of the Savior’s divinity. Each was divinely called and appointed, because “no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron” (Hebrews 5:4).

As the Apostles were rejected and killed, the Earth was thrown into many years of Apostasy. Though many individuals were still given inspiration during this time, the world lost its properly appointed prophetic voice and leadership. In the early nineteenth century, Joseph Smith was called as a prophet to restore the doctrine and church of Jesus Christ. Since that time, there has been an unbroken prophetic line who offer guidance, warning, and counsel and who lead The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The prophets and apostles make up a large portion of the Board of Trustees for Brigham Young University, and their prophetic voices are an important guiding influence for this school as it strives to “assist individuals in their quest for eternal life.” All of the Latter-day prophets since at least 1950 have spoken at BYU, and their addresses are archived here.

These speeches from prophets, apostles, faculty members, and others offer testimony of the divine calling of the prophets past and present. They also testify, generally and personally, that following prophetic counsel invites the blessings of God into our lives.