The reason we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us, is because we do not keep them but reveal them; we do not keep our own secrets, but reveal our difficulties to the world, even to our enemies, then how would we keep the secrets of the Lord? I can keep a secret till Doomsday. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 195)Brigham Young:
Should you receive a vision or revelation from the Almighty, one that the Lord gave you concerning yourselves, or this people, but which you are not to reveal on account of your not being the proper person or because it ought not to be known by the people at present, you should shut it up and seal it as close, and lock it as tight as heaven is to you, and make it as secret as the grave. The Lord has no confidence in those who reveal secrets, for he cannot safely reveal himself to such persons. (Discourses of Brigham Young, 40-41)Brigham Young:
The man who cannot know things without telling any other living being upon the earth, who cannot keep his secrets and those that God reveals to him never can receive the voice of his Lord to dictate him. (Discourses of Brigham Young, 41)Boyd K. Packer:
I have come to believe also that it is not wise to continually talk of unusual spiritual experiences. They are to be guarded with care and shared only when the Spirit itself prompts us to use them to the blessing of others. I am ever mindful of Alma's words: “It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.” (Alma 12:9.) I heard President Romney once counsel mission presidents and their wives in Geneva, "I do not tell all I know. I have never told my wife all I know, for I found out that if I talked too lightly of sacred things, thereafter the Lord would not trust me." We are, I believe, to keep these things and ponder them in our hearts, as Luke said Mary did of the supernal events that surrounded the birth of Jesus. (See Luke 2:19.) (The Candle of the Lord, Ensign January 1983)Boyd K. Packer:
There are some things just too sacred to discuss. . . . . It is not that they are secret, but they are sacred; not to be discussed, but to be harbored and to be protected and regarded with the deepest of reverence.” (Conference Report, April 1971, Tuesday Morning)Harold B. Lee:
I bear you that sacred testimony, that I know with a witness that is more powerful than sight. Sometime, if the spirit prompts me, I may feel free to tell you more, but may I say to you that I know as though I had seen, that He lives, that He is real, that God the Father and his Son are living realities, personalities with bodies, parts, and passions—glorified beings. (“Be Loyal to the Royal Within You,” Speeches of the Year, 1973 [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1973])Neal A. Maxwell:
Dear Robbie: You asked whether God gives signs only to those who do not need them. I would put it otherwise. God gives signs only to those who will not misuse or misread them. Brigham Young cautioned about the need for confidentiality in such sacred matters, noting that, if we prove trustworthy, "there is an eternity of them to bestow upon you." But we should learn "to have integrity . . . and know when to speak and what to speak, what to reveal."On another occasion he waxed introspective on this very topic: “And I will say, as I have before said, if guilt before my God and my brethren rests upon me in the least it is in this one thing that I have revealed too much concerning God and his kingdom, and the designs of our Father in heaven. If my skirts are stained in the least with wrong, it is because I have been too free in telling what God is, how he lives, the nature of his providences and designs in creating the world, in bringing forth the human family on the earth, his designs concerning them, &c.”
Having apparently heard someone who seemed to delight in telling of his, you also asked about spiritual experiences. President Marion G. Romney observed that we would have more spiritual experiences if we did not talk about them so much!
As if having them were more important than benefitting from them, some lust after spiritual experiences rather than desiring the substance of such experiences: "Ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, . . . but that ye will serve the true and living God" (Mormon 9:28).
Perhaps, in recounting their spiritual experiences, some may unconsciously wish to demonstrate their ascendancy; just as some academics, in a sort of intellectual imperialism, enjoy the knowing more than they enjoy utilizing what is known. This illustrates the old problem of the desire for preeminence, which can take many forms.
Brigham Young urged us to keep spiritual confidences, saying: "Just as fast as you will prove before your God that you are worthy to receive the mysteries, if you please to call them so, of the kingdom of heaven that you are full of confidence in God that you will never betray a thing that God tells you that you will never reveal to your neighbor that which ought not be revealed, as quick as you prepare to be entrusted with the things of God, there is an eternity of them to bestow upon you.”
President John Taylor observed that prophets often know more than they are free to say. He noted that Joseph Smith said that "he felt himself shut up in a nutshell . . . it was difficult for him to reveal and communicate the things of God, because there was no place to receive them. What he had to communicate was so much more comprehensive, enlightened, and dignified than that which the people generally knew and comprehended, it was difficult for him to speak; he felt lettered and bound, so to speak, in every move he made, and so it is to the present time.”
Our readiness to receive is gauged by God, but sometimes we are pushy. President Young wisely counseled: "We are like children who want the looking glass to play with, and who cry for the sharp razor and for the moon they see reflected in the water, desiring them for play things. Let us take such a course that God will have confidence in us, and then we shall receive all we need, all we desire and ask for.”
Eternal love,
Grandfather
(That Ye May Believe, 70-72)
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