Follow the Prophet by Elder Spencer J. Condie
In January of 1975, on a dark, rainy night in Tasmania, a
7,300-ton barge smashed into two piers of the Tasman Bridge, which connects
Hobart, Tasmania, with its eastern suburbs across the bay. Three spans of the
bridge collapsed. An Australian family by the name of Ling were driving across
the bridge when suddenly the bridge lights went out. Just then a speeding car
passed them and disappeared before their very eyes. Murray Ling “slammed on his
brakes and skidded to a stop, one yard from the edge of a black void” (Stephen
Johnson, “Over the Edge!” Reader’s Digest, Nov. 1977, p. 128).
Murray got his family out of the car and then began warning
oncoming traffic of the disaster ahead. As he frantically waved his arms, to
his horror, a car “swerved around him and plummeted into the abyss” (ibid.). A
second car barely stopped in time, but a third car showed no sign of slowing
down and crashed into the Lings’ car at the edge of the bridge.
Suddenly a loaded bus headed toward Murray, ignoring his
waving arms. In desperation, risking his very life, he “ran alongside the
driver’s window. ‘There’s a span missing,’ he yelled” (ibid., p. 129). The bus
swerved just in time and came to a halt against the railing. Dozens of lives
had been saved.
I am grateful for these Brethren whom we sustain as
prophets, seers, and revelators who forewarn us of bridges not to be crossed.
These great men whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators preach “not
with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of
power” (1 Cor. 2:4). Their motives are pure as they strive to build the kingdom
of God and to uplift and edify the Saints of God. In the words of the Apostle
Paul, they have become “prisoners of Christ” (see Eph. 3:1; Eph. 4:1; Philem.
1:1, 9; 2 Tim. 1:8), whose only desire is to do the Lord’s will. Nothing more.
Nothing less. And nothing else. These are men of God! May we heed their warning
voices, I humbly pray..." (Ensign, Nov. 1993,
15).
