The Prophet Receives “Oracles” for the Entire Church
Doctrine and Covenants 90:4–5
4 Nevertheless, through you shall the oracles be given to another, yea, even unto the church.
5 And all they who receive the oracles of God, let them beware how they hold them lest they are accounted as a light thing, and are brought under condemnation thereby, and stumble and fall when the storms descend, and the winds blow, and the rains descend, and beat upon their house.
President James E. Faust said:
“Through the ages, God’s messages to His children generally have been revealed through prophets. Amos tells us, ‘Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.’ (Amos 3:7.) These are the prophetic oracles who have tuned in over the centuries to the ‘celestial transmitting station,’ with a responsibility to relay the Lord’s word to others. The principal qualifications of a prophet in any age are not wealth, title, position, physical stature, scholarship, or intellectual attainment. The two qualifications are that a prophet must be called as such by God, by open prophecy, and ordained by one known to have legal and spiritual authority, and he must receive and declare revelation from God. (See D&C 42:11.) No man knows the ways of God except they be revealed unto him. (See Jacob 4:8.). . . .
“This Church constantly needs the guidance of its head, the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This was well taught by President George Q. Cannon: ‘We have the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants; but all these books, without the living oracles and a constant stream of revelation from the Lord, would not lead any people into the Celestial Kingdom’ [Gospel Truth: Discourses and Writings of George Q. Cannon, comp. Jerreld L. Newquist (1987), 252].”
(“Continuous Revelation,” Ensign, Nov. 1989, 8–10.)
