We each must have our own witness

Anciently, before the Hebrew people had perfected their calendar, they would send two of their wisest men out to witness the “New Moon”. The two witnesses would work independently then come back and report to their Hebrew brotheren. All activities including Holy Feasts and worships and even war battles were planned around this system of determining the first day of the month.

But, there was a problem. Their enemies, the Samaritans just loved to confound and confuse the Hebrews, especially before a major battle. Just imagine telling all of your soldiers to meet on the 8th day of the month only to have half of them arrive on the 9th, being even one day off could cost you the battle. The Samaritans were successful in completely fooling the Hebrews until the Hebrews adopted one simply rule – always have TWO independent witnesses, not one. You see, the Samaritans were good at lying, but they couldn’t precisely coordinate two independent witnesses so they would always use just ONE witness.

The moral of this story is that in the Latterdays, the Lord promised that He would always give us to independent witnesses. We were commanded to considered the testimony of just one as false, but the testimony of two was to be considered true. But, this is NOT all. Any person who deeply desired to know the truth could go out at night and witness the new moon for themselves – thats right, be their own witness!

One night in July I just suddenly woke up. For some reason, I tossed and turned and just couldn’t go back to sleep. Something prompted me to walk out onto my porch steps. It was quiet and everyone else was fast asleep. I gazed up at the sky and there was the new moon, the first sliver of light that one can perceive. Centuries of men before me have seen it, knew it and now I was a witness.