If you and I are going to live up to the glorious promises of the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants, I think we will have to learn how to have the everyday faith of my friend with the notebook. You remember verses 20 through 22 of that first section: "But that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world; that faith also might increase in the earth; that mine everlasting covenant might be established."

And you have often heard verse 38 quoted. It is the next to the last verse in the section. It is the way the Lord chooses to end his preface to his Doctrine and Covenants. He says, "What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."

Clearly, my problem and your problem is to hear the word of God from and through imperfect teachers and leaders. That is your test and mine. And it is our opportunity. All of us—today, next week, and for the rest of our lives—are going to be sitting somewhere while someone leads us or teaches us who will seem weak and simple because he is human, like us. God has said that if we are going to make it home again, we must not only hear his voice privately by our own effort, but also through the voice of his servants who, when they speak by the power of the Spirit, speak as if it were his voice.