To those who wonder or doubt or want to know if God is real, “The evidence exists. God lives. Jesus is our Savior, and the scriptures are true. The witnesses are many, and each of us can know for ourselves that those witnesses are true,” testified Brother Luke J. Nichols, a member of the Young Men general advisory council and the host of the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel, during a BYU–Hawaii devotional on Tuesday, Sept. 29.
Drawing on his time as a full-time missionary in Japan and as a criminal defense attorney, Brother Nichols shared personal experiences that make him “a witness to the truth.”
What is a witness?
Brother Nichols related how he once represented a young man who was accused of stealing a car.
The young man was adamant he was innocent, and after some investigation, Brother Nichols discovered his client had been in another state, playing in a football tournament at the time of the crime.
Brother Nichols compiled a list of reliable witnesses — the coach, other players, spectators and teammates — who all said his client was helping to score touchdowns at the time of the crime.
But when Brother Nichols brought the information to the detective and asked for the charges to be dropped, the detective still responded, “Why would I drop the charges? You don’t have any evidence.”
But there was evidence. A week later, the charges were dropped. “Now, occasionally, I run into people who will say that there is no evidence that God lives. I have run into believers and non-believers who think that religion is purely a matter of faith. Every time I hear this, I think of that detective,” said Brother Nichols.
The scriptures are full of witnesses who can testify that God lives, noted Brother Nichols, including the firsthand account of Saul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the Beloved as well as Joseph Smith, who saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
In the justice system, a witness is not supposed to testify to what they think or believe, Brother Nichols explained, but to what they saw, what they heard and what they did.
With that in mind, Brother Nichols then shared experiences that have led him to believe that God lives.
A God of miracles
As a full-time missionary in Fukuoka, Japan, Brother Nichols recalled serving in a ward that had a membership directory that “was a bit of a hot mess.”
Over the course of three months, Brother Nichols and his companion were able to contact all but 15 on a list of 540 ward members and update their information. “And I was proud of that,” said Brother Nichols.
But just as he was ready to move on and focus on other missionary tasks, he woke up to a voice that told him to go to the city of Ozu, go to the city hall building, and ask for Yamada Taro, one of the names on the ward directory they had failed to find.
So he and his companion bought train tickets to Ozu and walked to the city hall building. Through a door on the second floor, they asked for Yamada Taro, and a man stood up from a cubicle. He told the missionaries how he had been baptized as a teenager but lost contact with the Church when he went away to college.
Brother Yamada gave the missionaries his address and phone number and agreed to meet with the bishop. “After 20 years, Brother Yamada was not lost anymore,” Brother Nichols related. “That is a miracle.”
The Lord performed other miracles to help him and his companion find two more unknown names on the list. “I may not understand everything about the gospel,” Brother Nichols said, “but I understand that God lives and God is a God of miracles.”
To know the truth
Brother Nichols shared how he was raised by good parents who taught him the gospel, but there came a time when he needed to know for himself if what they had taught him was true.
“Thankfully, I had been taught about Moroni’s promise in the last chapter of the Book of Mormon — a promise from God that says that any of us can know for ourselves that the Book of Mormon is true if we pray with a sincere heart and real intent,” said Brother Nichols.
He got down on his knees and prayed, asking, “Are You there? Are the things my parents are teaching me real?”
He prayed night after night. At first, his motivations were idle curiosity. Eventually, “I knew that I would commit my life to whatever answer I received. And then, and only then, once my motivations were sincere, my intentions real, God answered my prayers. He answered them exactly as the Book of Mormon promised He would answer them,” said Brother Nichols.
Anyone who wants to know if God lives or whether the scriptures are true “can pray for themselves with sincere hearts and know for themselves that those things are true, and then you too will be a witness to the truth.”
