⚔️🔥 The Attorney Historian: When the Church Calls Noise What the Lord Calls Warning 🔥⚔️

A couple of years ago I was asked to give the closing prayer at a Saturday night stake conference. Sitting on the stand was a man I had just learned about — Elder Kyle S. McKay, the new Church Historian and Recorder.

After my prayer, he was right behind me. I turned to him, and I told him the story of my oldest son.

My son was the best of the best — branch president in Japan, elders quorum president as a freshman at BYU, faithful on his mission, strong as they come. And yet he left. Why? Because of church history. Because of cover-ups. Because he discovered what was hidden.

I told Elder McKay, with pleading in my voice, that we are losing the very best because of this. That the church has left them. It’s not a “faith crisis.” It’s a church crisis.

And do you know what his answer was?

👉 “Well, I gave a talk at BYU-Idaho last month. Why don’t you just have your son read that talk?”

That was it. That was the counsel. That was the compassion.

Not the voice of a shepherd. The voice of an attorney.

And that’s exactly what he is — an attorney, not a prophet, not a seer, not even a historian.

🏛️ Spinning the Story

Now he stands before conferences and says: “We need to put Jesus Christ in the center of our history. If we do, the mistakes of Joseph, Brigham, and others become just noise on the periphery.”

Noise? NO. 🚫

Those aren’t noise. Those are the very warnings of God.

1. Joseph denounced polygamy as an abomination. Brigham enshrined it.
2. The Lord commanded Nauvoo to finish a temple or be rejected. They failed. (D&C 124:32)
3. The Book of Mormon warned the Gentiles would reject the fulness. (3 Nephi 16:10)
4. The Nemenhah testified that the very people who received the restoration would fall away. (Tsihohnayah Ahkehkthihm 14)

That’s not periphery. That’s prophecy.

📖 The Witness of Scripture

📖 “If it be not built upon my gospel … it is not my church.” (3 Nephi 27:11)

➡️ A billion-dollar mall is not His gospel.

📖 “They wear stiff necks and high heads … save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ.” (2 Nephi 28:14)

➡️ Prophecy fulfilled.

📖 “Zion shall not be built up by kings, nor by great men, nor by the striving of the mighty. But by a small flock, even the remnant.” (Mohrhohnahyah 4:35–38, Nemenhah)

➡️ Salt Lake is not Zion.

📖 “His church is they who hear His voice and do His word. They need no ruler, for He reigns in them.” (Tsihmlayi 5:13, Nemenhah)

➡️ His true church is not a corporation.

📖 “The temple of the Lord is the heart of the humble, and Zion is in every home that sanctifies itself unto Him.”(Ohuhgohuh 1:24, Nemenhah)

➡️ His dwelling is in people, not in granite halls.

💥 Authority Without Christ

This whole problem goes deeper than McKay. It’s the culture of authority itself.

Take Elder Holland’s story. Fifty missionaries had gone home early, so he came to the mission to “fix” the rest. We stood waiting 45 minutes for him to arrive. Just standing there, because the man of authority was late.

I can’t see Jesus making His disciples stand like that. Can you?

Then Holland preached fear and damnation for two hours straight. When he finally sat down, the mission president’s wife stood up and said the only words of Christ spoken that night: “Elders, we still love you.”

Or Elder Stevenson in Africa. A video circulated showing him walking through chapel doors again and again so the local saints could be trained to stand when he entered. They hadn’t known that “protocol.” The video spread, and the outside world mocked it as staged reverence.

I can’t see Jesus orchestrating applause for Himself, can you?

These are not the ways of Christ. This is the culture of men demanding honor.

📊 The Christensen Witness

And I’m not the only one saying it. Years ago, my friend Clayton Christensen — faithful Latter-day Saint, world-renowned professor at Harvard — was asked to study why people are leaving the Church.

He didn’t call it “weak testimonies.” He didn’t blame laziness. His report showed the truth: people are leaving because the Church is hiding history, because leaders are spinning, because the institution is betraying the very values it claims to defend.

Clayton wrote what the data showed. And like my son, like thousands of others, it points to the same root: the Church left them.

⚠️ The Test of the Church

The Savior Himself warned: “In the last days, if it were possible, even the very elect shall be deceived.” (Matthew 24:24, JST)

Who are the “very elect”?

👉 They are the ones who boast: “We don’t need more scripture.” (2 Nephi 28:29)

👉 They are the ones who build endless sanctuaries of stone and call it Zion.

👉 They are the ones who rob the poor to heap up treasures in vaults. (2 Nephi 28:13)

This is the test of the Church.

The Gentiles were warned in the Book of Mormon: “If they reject the fulness, it shall be taken from them.” (3 Nephi 16:10)

The Nemenhah said plainly: “The people who received the restoration fell away, though the Lord used them for their industry.” (Tsihohnayah Ahkehkthihm 14)

And the clock is almost run out. The test is nearly over. The Church is at the edge.

📡 The Watchman on the Tower

In Section 101, the Lord gave the parable of the watchman on the tower. The servants disputed, delayed, and slumbered — and while they argued, the enemy came and destroyed the vineyard.

Traditionally, we are told the “watchmen” are prophets, apostles, seers. But the parable itself warns: the watchmen can fail through sloth, internal conflict, and fear of criticism.

Isaiah saw it:

📖 “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.” (Isaiah 56:10)

Ezekiel was commanded:

📖 “When the watchman seeth the sword come, and bloweth not the trumpet … his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.” (Ezekiel 33:6)

This is the heavy accountability of true watchmen: if they see the danger and remain silent, judgment falls not only on the people, but on the watchmen themselves.

And what of our day?

1. When the world locked down in fear, did our watchmen defend freedom, or did they bow to Caesar?
2. When secret combinations tightened their grip, did our watchmen warn, or did they keep the peace?
3. When family and gender and truth itself came under assault, did our watchmen cry repentance, or did they issue sanitized press releases?

The parable is alive in 2025. The tower was never finished. The vineyard is breached.

And so, as Elder Bednar himself once admitted, every disciple has stewardship: fathers, mothers, families — we must be watchmen in our own towers. If the institutional watchmen are blind, then it falls to us to warn our children, our neighbors, our friends.

This is not rebellion. This is obedience to Christ.

📜 The Stolen Section 101

There’s another layer to this parable that most Saints don’t even know.

In the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, Section 101 was not about watchmen. It was the Lord’s revealed law on marriage:

📖 “We believe that one man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband.” (D&C 101, 1835 edition)

That section was scripture. It was binding. It condemned the very abominations Brigham later enshrined.

And what did Brigham and his followers do after Joseph’s death?

They removed Section 101 — erased the commandment of monogamy — and in its place they put the parable of the watchman on the tower.

They hid the true law of God and substituted their own words.

And here’s the irony: the parable itself condemns them. The watchmen slumbered. The vineyard was left unguarded. The enemy came and destroyed.

The very counterfeit they put in Joseph’s book of scripture now testifies against them.

When the Saints wake up to this — when they see that Joseph’s Section 101 was replaced with Brigham’s Section 101 — the heads of the false watchmen will roll.  

📯 The Samuel Witness

Samuel the Lamanite stood on the wall and cried repentance to the Nephites:

📖 “Ye do not remember the Lord your God … but ye do always remember your riches, not to thank the Lord your God for them.” (Helaman 13:22)

📖 “Behold, the sword of justice hangeth over this people.” (Helaman 13:5)

The Nemenhah records confirm it through Samuel’s descendants:

📜 “Did not our father Samuel stand upon the wall and prophesy destruction because of the pride of the people? And were not his words fulfilled in every whit? So shall the words of the prophets in our day be fulfilled if we turn aside.”(First Book of Tsi Muhayl)

His warning echoes now: pride, riches, and corrupted ordinances bring down nations. And it will bring down churches that walk the same path.

⚡ The Abinadi Rebuke

Like Abinadi before Noah’s priests, the Lord has a word for this generation of leaders:

“Because ye have hardened your hearts, ye shall not prosper. And ye shall be smitten for your iniquities. For ye have perverted the ways of the Lord.” (Mosiah 12:1–2)

You whitewash history, then tell us to “put Christ in the middle” as if that makes it all disappear. You offer parents with broken hearts nothing more than a link to your own talks. You make missionaries stand in fear, you stage entrances for applause, you call the Lord’s warnings “noise.”

Repent. Repent now. Or the candlestick will be taken from you entirely, and the Lord will raise up His Zion without you.

💖 The Savior Still Calls

And yet… even here, even now, His arms are stretched out still. 🕊️

To the lawyer in a suit. To the prophet’s son-in-law. To the missionary who walked away. To my wandering son. To me. To you.

The Savior who was in the midst at Kirtland, at Nauvoo, and in humble Nemenhah villages — He is still in the midst of any soul who will hear His voice today.

🕊️ “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

This is not noise. This is not spin. This is love.

💖 A Chiasm of Mercy

A. Repent, for the Lord has spoken.

Return from broken cisterns that hold no water.

Turn from prophets of stone and lawyers in robes.

The Voice still cries in the wilderness: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

B. His voice cuts like fire against pride.

It strips away pretense and hidden things.

It thunders against marble sanctuaries

And shakes the towers built by men.

C. Yet His arms are stretched out still.

Through every storm, every failure, every wandering son.

Through the tears of grieving parents.

Through every soul who whispers, “The Church left me.”

The Shepherd walks into the wilderness

And lifts the one onto His shoulders.

B’. His mercy burns hotter than His rebuke.

The same fire that consumes pride,

Cleanses the humble.

It is flame that purifies,

A coal pressed to the lips,

A baptism not of water only, but of Spirit and truth.

A’. Return, for the Lord is waiting.

He waits at the door and knocks.

He waits in the quiet chamber of your heart.

He waits not in stone temples,

But in homes sanctified unto Him.

Repent, return, rejoice — for His love has not departed.

⚔️🔥 This is the mercy of Christ:

Fire to rebuke,

Arms to gather,

Love to restore. 🔥⚔️