Do the people you surround yourself with tell you what you want to hear or what you need to hear?

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Hans Christian Andersen’s short story “The Emperor’s New Clothes” has always amused me.

It goes something like this: A vain Emperor cares about little besides wearing and displaying fine clothes. Two swindlers promise to make him the finest suit imaginable, woven from a fabric supposedly invisible to anyone unfit for his position.

The Emperor’s ministers cannot see the clothing, but they pretend they can for fear of appearing unfit. The Emperor also cannot see the clothing and does the same.

Eventually, the swindlers mime dressing him in his magnificent new clothes, and the Emperor marches in a procession before his subjects. The townspeople play along with the pretense, unwilling to admit that they cannot see anything either.

Then a child, too young to understand the reason to not say anything, blurts out the obvious:

The Emperor isn’t wearing anything at all.

Others begin to acknowledge the truth. The Emperor cringes, suspecting they are right.

But he continues the procession.

The Emperor surrounded himself with people who told him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear.

King Noah’s New Clothes

King Noah surrounded himself with people who did much the same thing. He was also surrounded by people who fed him lies instead of the truth.

After Abinadi returned to call the people to repentance, they are angry with him and take him to King Noah:

“And now, O king, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged of this man?

“And now, O king, behold, we are guiltless, and thou, O king, hast not sinned; therefore, this man has lied concerning you, and he has prophesied in vain.

“And behold, we are strong, we shall not come into bondage, or be taken captive by our enemies; yea, and thou hast prospered in the land, and thou shalt also prosper” (Mosiah 12:13-15).

You can almost hear what King Noah wanted to hear in every sentence.

You haven’t done anything wrong.

You haven’t sinned.

The person criticizing you is lying.

You are strong.

You are prosperous.

Everything is going to be fine.

It all appealed to King Noah’s vanity. Abinadi, on the other hand, told him what he needed to hear.

When the Priests Lifted Their Voices

It gets even worse in Chapter 17 where Abinadi is to be put to death.

King Noah seems to have been impacted somewhat by Abinadi’s words. “And now king Noah was about to release him, for he feared his word; for he feared that the judgments of God would come upon him” (Mosiah 17:11).

“But the priests lifted up their voices . . . ” (Mosiah 17:12)

And King Noah’s spine really did vanish.

He had heard what he needed to hear from Abinadi. Then the voices around him told him what he wanted to hear, and he chose those voices instead.

What We Need to Hear

There is one person we can count on always telling us what we need to hear: the prophet of God. 

President Benson, when he was President of the Quorum of the Twelve, gave a talk called “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet”.¹ Here is what he said about the seventh fundamental:

“Seventh: The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.”

President Benson pointed to Nephi’s brothers, who complained:

“Thou has declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear.”

Nephi responded:

“The guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center” (1 Ne. 16:1–2).

President Benson then quoted President Harold B. Lee:

“You may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may conflict with your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life … Your safety and ours depends upon whether or not we follow … Let’s keep our eye on the President of the Church.”

President Benson observed that believing in prophets of the past is often easier than listening to a prophet speaking to us now. He quoted President Marion G. Romney, who said:

“It is an easy thing to believe in the dead prophets, but it is a greater thing to believe in the living prophets.”

President Romney illustrated the point with the story of a man who had immigrated to America because Wilford Woodruff, whom he accepted as a prophet, had counseled him to come. Yet when asked whether he believed Heber J. Grant was also a prophet, the man responded:

“I think he ought to keep his mouth shut about old-age assistance.”

It is easy to follow a prophet when he confirms what we already believe.

The harder test comes when his words challenge us.

Listening When Truth Is Hard

that is one of the lessons King Noah teaches us.

We can surround ourselves with voices that reassure us that we are right, that nothing needs to change, that the person challenging us is wrong, and that everything will continue just fine.

Or we can make room for an Abinadi.

Someone willing to tell us the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable.

Someone willing to tell us what we need to hear instead of what we want to hear.

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1. Ezra Taft Benson, Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet, BYU Devotional, 26 February 1980