Faith is not to have Perfect Knowledge – Sunday, December 14, 1941

Faith is not to have Perfect Knowledge – Sunday, December 14, 1941

We hear many these days urging the necessity for faith—faith in the future, faith in God, faith in the ultimate triumph of right, faith in the unknown—but what is this faith that is so freely talked of, but too little understood.  Faith is that quality, a gift of God, that enables men to believe things they cannot see or touch—to trust for things that have not yet happened—to live with confidence that the future will bring that which, in the wisdom of our Father in Heaven, should come to pass.

Faith is that quality which enables a man to rise above the misfortune that does not seem justified, to live above the sorrow he cannot understand.  Faith is that quality which sets apart a man of great and humble wisdom from the shallow cynic, and when we lose faith we are soon numbered among the cynics.  Usually even men who deny the existence of faith have within them some vestige of it that helps them to keep their balance.

In reality, we must all live by faith, because no one knows what tomorrow will bring.  Without faith despair would be complete.  It is faith that keeps us going where we cannot see, and trusting where experience fails us.  There is no man within the sound of my voice who knows whether he will be alive or dead at this time tomorrow, but we have faith that we shall be alive, and we have faith that if we are not, we shall be in yet a better place wherever our Father in Heaven wishes to take us.  And we have faith that we shall be happy there, if we have lived in accordance with the best knowledge that is available to our generation.  Concerning faith it is written:  “Yea, there are many who say:  If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety.  Then we shall believe.  Now I ask, is this faith?  Behold I say unto you, Nay.  For if a man knoweth a thing he has no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.  Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore, if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”  (Book of Mormon, Alma, Chapter 32)

Faith is that quality of divine trust within us which prevents the uncertainty of the future from destroying the present—which brings peace in the midst of confusion, and sweet sleep while the tempest is raging.  It is not certain knowledge.  It is trust, belief, a conviction of all that God has revealed, all that He does reveal, and all that He will yet reveal.  It is a force in the lives of all good men, and it leaves unendurable emptiness when it dies or departs.  Blessed are ye if ye have faith.


December 14, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,643