Prophets are vital to our Heavenly Father's plan for us. (
Amos 3:7) They tell us the things that Heavenly Father would say to us if he were here. (
D&C 1:38) Prophets teach us the way to return to our Heavenly Father. (
Mosiah 15:11) We call a period of time that the lord has a prophet on the earth a
dispensation. Sometimes though people rejected the Lord's prophets and would not listen to their teachings. (
Hebrews 11:37) When this happens Heavenly Father has to take away the prophets for a time, resulting in a period of time known as an apostasy. Heavenly Father always send another prophet though to begin a new dispensation.
Another missionary once gave me a pretty cool example of why Heavenly Father does this:
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| Look at that high roller. |
You wouldn't let a baby play with money would you? Of course you wouldn't and why not? Because a baby does not understand the true value of it. A baby would just rip up the the dollar bills or swallow the quarters. The same applies to why Heavenly Father doesn't let wicked people have prophets. They don't understand the true value of a prophet, so they just end up stoning them or sawing them asunder.
Babies eventually grow older though and then their parents eventually trust them with money.
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| Well most of the time at least. |
Again just as with the babies and their parents, wicked generations of people give way to a more mature group of people and our Heavenly Father trusts them enough to send them a prophet again.
