Faith

This page summarizes the topic sentences of the talk's major paragraphs, organized by theme, followed by key doctrinal quotations and scripture citations. Bracketed commentary and asides from the original talk have been condensed and paraphrased throughout; quoted passages are kept short and attributed.

A "come as you are" invitation

• Using the parables of the wedding feast and the prodigal son, Denver argues the Lord's invitation is extended before anyone is clean, because cleansing is something Christ does for a person, not a prerequisite they must arrange themselves.
• The Lord's purpose toward those who come is redemption, not judgment; the "wedding garment" is supplied by the Master, not manufactured by the guest.

The Lectures on Faith as canonized doctrine

• Denver documents that the Lectures on Faith were vouched for by Joseph Smith, examined and unanimously sustained by the whole Church in August 1835, and removed from the scriptures in 1921 by a committee without any vote of the membership — a removal he regards as illegitimate.
• He quotes both Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie affirming, decades after the removal, that the Lectures remain "of extreme value" and constitute "eternal scripture," treating this as evidence the church's own leaders never actually disavowed the content.
• Faith, per Lecture 1, is "the moving cause of all action," both temporal and spiritual — everything a person does, including simply trusting their unseen home still exists, is already an act of faith.
• D&C 97:3-6 is cited as later revelation that specifically approved the School of the Prophets setting in which the Lectures were first delivered, tying their origin directly to a commandment of the Lord.

A correct idea of God's character is required for faith

• Lecture 3 sets three conditions for faith unto salvation: that God exists, that one has a correct idea of His character and attributes, and an actual (not merely hoped-for) knowledge that one's course conforms to His will.
• Denver argues the church's move to make the Holy Ghost a separate "personage" in 1921 directly contradicts Lecture 5's description of the Godhead, and that this doctrinal disagreement forces a choice about which side had a correct idea of God — Joseph Smith, who stood in God's presence, or a later committee that had not.
• God is described as "no respecter of persons": every person, not only ancient prophets, is authorized to exercise faith in Him unto salvation and to converse with Him.
• D&C 121:27-32 is read as describing an eternal council and "agenda" set before this world existed, an agenda that is to be completed by "the finishing and the end thereof" — meaning individual faith is exercised inside a larger, already-established divine plan, not a private improvisation.

Faith is obtained only through sacrifice

• Lecture 6 states plainly that a religion which does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce faith unto life and salvation.
• Only through actually sacrificing — not through a covenant merely to sacrifice someday — does a person gain the assurance that their course is well pleasing to God; without that assurance, faith cannot exist, because doubt and faith cannot occupy the same mind at once.
• This sacrifice-produced testimony is also the safeguard against deception: the discerning power to distinguish God's messengers from imitators (false angels of light) comes from having already paid the price of a clean life, not from cleverness.
• The gathering of the 144,000 described in D&C 77:11 — "high priests, ordained unto the holy order of God" who administer the everlasting gospel — is cited as a gathering accomplished by angels holding keys of responsibility, not by human institutions, reinforcing that ultimate outcomes rest with God's timing, not organizational effort.