Light and Truth

This talk was delivered by Denver Snuffer on September 9th 2026, at a Men’s Retreat held in Morgan, UT.

I wondered at the venue until I realized it’s a room full of horny animals.

…with some taxidermy, also. 

There’s a Lecture on Faith thing that we read—we pass over—and I want to look at it a little more carefully. This is from Lecture on Faith number six, and it’s paragraphs five and six: 

For a man to lay down his all, his character and reputation, his honor and applause, his good name among men, his houses, his lands, his brothers and sisters, his wife and children, and even his own life also, counting all things but filth and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, requires more than mere belief, or supposition that he is doing the will of God, but actual knowledge, realizing that when these sufferings are ended he will enter into Eternal rest and be a partaker of the glory of God. 

For unless a person does know that he is walking according to the will of God, it would be offering an insult to the dignity of the Creator were he to say that he would be a partaker of his glory when he should be done with [all] things of this life. But when he has this knowledge, and most assuredly knows that he is doing the will of God, his confidence can be equally strong that he will be a partaker of the glory of God.

See, I think there is this enormous desire to suppose that we’re doing something, and what we’re doing is good, and what we’re doing is justified in God’s eyes, and that He’s going to—at the end—dispense for us some grandiose and wholly disproportionate reward for the trivialities that we have accomplished or done or said while we were here. But the solemnity of the last talk you just heard and the literal meaning of the words I just read from Lectures on Faith do not brook permissive, sloppy, casual following of the Almighty. It’s imposing upon us something that is beyond supposition and beyond hope: it’s knowledge. 

So how do you obtain the ability to know—to actually know—that God is giving to you a message or giving to you an assignment or requesting some action be taken by you, not based upon your vague impression, not based upon your hope, not because you think it might be a good thing if you were to do this, but knowledge? How do you obtain that? 

So let me read to you from the letter that was written in/from Liberty Jail when Joseph had been held prisoner. This was long into the imprisonment; he wouldn’t be freed until after the lessons were learned that resulted in this letter. And when this letter got written and sent out, it was almost a matter of “the work has been accomplished, the reflection has been obtained; the achievement of penetrating into the minds of Joseph and those that were fellow prisoners: what needed to be learned”—and now he could be released. So what did he learn? Well, listen to some of what he put into the letter. This is from T&C 138. I’m going to read from part of paragraph 17 and then all of 18: 

…we would suggest the propriety of being aware of an aspiring spirit, which spirit has oftentimes urged men forward to make foul speeches, and influence the church to reject milder counsels, and has eventually been the means of bringing much death and sorrow upon the church. We would say, Be aware of pride also, for well and truly has the wise man said that pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall…

He’s saying this reflection about people who had been influential within the church and had held actual offices—including members of the Twelve, members of the local presidency, members of the high council in the area—that had betrayed and sent the church into the Missouri War and subsequently the surrender of Joseph Smith and others into captivity. “The propriety of being aware of an aspiring spirit…urg[ing] men forward to make…[bad] influence.” He goes on to say in the next paragraph, 

A fanciful and flowery and heated imagination be aware of, because the things of God are of deep import, and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Your mind, O man, if you will lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost Heavens, and search into and contemplate the lowest considerations of the darkest abyss, and expand upon the broad considerations of eternal expanse. You must commune with God. How much more dignified and noble are the thoughts of God than the vain imagination of the human heart? None but fools will trifle with the souls of men. (Emphasis added)

You know, we think about Joseph Smith’s remarkable achievements, but take one step back and think for a moment that Joseph had an encounter when he was (depending upon which dating you put to it) either 14 or maybe as much as 17 years old (but let’s say 14) when he encountered the First Vision. And then it was years later; he wouldn’t actually write the account that we have in Scripture (both LDS and our Scripture, because we have a couple of versions) that the visitation included many other things…which I cannot write at this time (JSH 2:5). So he has this experience, and in every account that he has ever given to us, the account is incomplete. 

Nevertheless, he’d been reflecting upon it, and it was years before he then prayed to try and find out about his “state and standing before God” because he—due to his native cheery temperament—often engaged in the kind of cheerful behavior that was unbecoming what he viewed as a “dignified character representing God.” So he—years of reflection—then he prays, and after he prays, the room suddenly begins to get lighter and brighter, and finally a personage shows up whose countenance was above the noonday sun and who taught him for some time, reasoning from Scripture, not about Joseph’s state and standing (because I think that becomes self-evident when the ministering angel showed up), but to tell him about the work of God and what God wanted—not what Joseph wanted; what God wanted. And then he goes on, after opening the Scriptures to him, to withdrawing and leaving Joseph alone. 

Now, Joseph is somewhat thunderstruck and reflecting when the thing repeats itself again. And after repeating the first part of the lesson, he then elaborates and expands and adds yet more information and then withdraws, and Joseph’s again left to himself. And then, yet a third time, the angel returns and rehearses what he has said before, and adds yet more information, and tells him there’s a hill nearby where there are some records. And he sends Joseph on a mission to find that—not at that moment, but by commission, by obligation. 

So Joseph finds it’s occupied the whole night, and in the morning returns to labor with his father; only he finds himself so drained that he can’t perform the work. And he goes—his father sends him home—he goes to leave, and he collapses on his way. The angel returns and again teaches him, tells him to go tell his father, which he does, and then he goes to find the plates. 

All of this—all of this—had some profound effect on the understanding, the reflection, and the grasp that Joseph had that something was about to happen, that he would be involved, but that the thing that was to happen was far more important—and the message was far more important—than telling Joseph, “You’re an important little lad, and you occupy the admiration of Heaven.” In fact, Joseph’s condition is almost incidental. Heaven’s got something to be achieved; Joseph is going to be involved; he needs to know something in order to equip him to be able to do what it is that Heaven needs to have done.

And so Joseph goes, and he locates, and he finds the plates; and he’s about to grab them, and he’s not only forbidden, he’s struck down. He’s not allowed to touch. The thing that will occupy a principal part of the mission that Joseph will occupy that first year, he’s not allowed to touch, and he’s dismissed—with a commission to come back the next year. 

And so he returns again, and he receives further instruction; but he doesn’t get the plates, and he’s dismissed, and he’s sent away again. And he comes back the next year, and he receives further instruction; he meets the same messenger. And he is again dismissed without possession of the plates, each year given some responsibility of something to take care of in the interim. 

And then finally, after four years of this, with his wife in tow, Joseph returns and is given the plates—only because he had fulfilled a requirement that he return in the image of God, male and female. And so Joseph and Emma are entrusted with possession of the plates.

All of this—all of this—occurs before he ever attempts to begin the translation process. He’d even been given possession of the Urim and Thummim; he had looked into it (based upon command), he had seen things; all of this before he was entrusted with the translation of the Book of Mormon. The things of God are of deep import, and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out (supra, emphasis added).

Well, we have this interesting statement about Jesus Christ given to us in what is T&C 93. (You should be able to remember this one because it was also once Doctrine and Covenants 93.) This is concerning John’s testimony about Jesus Christ, so this is him speaking about Jesus Christ:

I, John, saw that he [meaning Christ] received not…the fullness at the first, but received grace for grace. And he received not…the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace until he received a fullness, and thus he was called, the Son of God, because he received not of the fullness at first…

Then there’s this really curious statement about Jesus Christ and the description we’ve been given:

I give…you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fullness.  (T&C 93:4,7)

So we are supposed to learn from the example of Jesus Christ to know who we worship, what we worship, and how we should worship. 

I want to read to you another description of what Jesus Christ did and was and accomplished. Oh, this is the Book of Mormon version instead of the Covenant of Christ. I’ll read it, too, in a moment:

…after working many mighty miracles among the children of men, he shall be led…even as Isaiah said, As a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Yea, even so shall he be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject unto death, the will [the WILL] of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father. (Mosiah 8:7, emphasis added)

In the Covenant of Christ: …the Son’s will submitting entirely to the Father’s will. So when we read the New Testament, Jesus tells us repeatedly what it meant for Him to obey the Father. He’s describing, in prophecy, about His death and then about what comes after His death, and about judgment, and so on; and concerning the resurrection, first, and then what He says about Himself: 

…they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just, …they who have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust; and shall…be judged of the Son of Man. For…

 …and this is the description:

…for as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just. [But] I can of my own self do nothing, because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father who has sent me. (John 5:5, emphasis added)

Well, Jesus also said, I have many things to say and to judge of you, but he that sent me is true and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. …I do nothing of myself. But as my Father has taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me; the Father has not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him (John 6:13, emphasis added). Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but [of] the Father that dwells in me. He does the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me (John 9:7, emphasis added). Then, when Jesus appeared to the Nephites, this is how Jesus introduced Himself as a resurrected being to the Nephites that He had appeared in a miraculous appearance to the group that gathered at the temple in Bountiful: 

Behold, I am Jesus Christ, of whom the prophets testified should come into the world. And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drank out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning. (3 Nephi 5:4, emphasis added)

So Jesus Christ clarifies that He of His own self was nothing. It was only the Father. It was the Father who did the works. It was the Father who gave the commandments. It was the Father that told Him what to say. It was the Father’s words that He was speaking. It was not Christ taking upon Himself the prerogative to do what it was that He did in His mission and ministry here.

So if we move from Christ and what Christ did to the earlier (perhaps second most respected) character in all of Scripture, Enoch, and we look at Enoch, we read this about him: 

And the Lord said unto Enoch, Go forth and do as I have commanded you and no man shall pierce you. Open your mouth and it shall be filled; I will give you utterance. For all flesh is in my hands, and I will do as seems me good. Say unto this people, Choose this day to serve the Lord God who made you. Behold, my spirit is upon you; wherefore, all your words will I justify. And the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course, and you shall abide in me, and I in you. Therefore, walk with me. (Genesis 4:2, emphasis added)

So the secret behind his astonishing accomplishments is not that Enoch was “all that.” It’s that God was “all that” and told Enoch exactly what to do, exactly what to say, just as He would later tell Jesus Christ exactly what to do, exactly what to say, so that God the Father could accomplish the work of redeeming souls through Jesus Christ and of saving those from the upcoming flood in the days of Enoch. 

So then we have this about Enoch: …he spoke the word of the Lord [he spoke the word of the Lord!], and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled — even according to his command… 

Okay, I’m going to put names here instead of pronouns:

…and [Enoch] spoke the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled — even according to [the Lord’s] command—

…not Enoch. The Lord’s command. 

…and the rivers of water were turned out of their course, and the roar of lions was heard out of the wilderness. And all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of…language which God had given him. (Genesis 4:13, emphasis added)

There’s power in the words of God. There’s no power in the words of any man at any time in any generation—and Jesus Himself made it clear it was the Father’s work.

Now, this is a description in the context of Melchizedek’s life, but this is a description of a covenant God had made earlier with Enoch, but it appears in the context of a description of Melchizedek in the Book of Genesis, and so it’s referring back to Enoch as an earlier event: 

For God, having sworn unto Enoch and unto his seed with an oath by himself that everyone being ordained after this Order and calling should have power, by faith, to break mountains, to divide the seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course, to put at defiance the armies of nations, to divide the earth, to break every band, to stand in the presence of God, to do all things according to [God’s] will, according to his [God’s] command subdue principalities and powers; and this by the will of the Son of God which was from before the foundation of the world. (Genesis 7:19) 

So in the case of perhaps the two greatest characters, we have a clear statement that Jesus did what Jesus did because He was meticulously, scrupulously following what the Father told Him to do, and He spoke the words the Father gave to Him. And Enoch likewise did exactly the same thing. Understand, when Enoch was first approached by the Lord, he said, “I’m but a lad and slow of speech.” He didn’t feel himself to be the ideal character to be accomplishing anything, much less stand in the presence of God. And yet, the Lord used Enoch to accomplish that. 

And if you’re making a hierarchy (and some would substitute the next character for Enoch, but certainly within the same ambit), you put Moses up there because look: What did Moses achieve? Moses tore down the greatest empire that existed on Earth by going and visiting them with plagues. But if you read carefully the account, there wasn’t a single thing that Moses did that the Lord didn’t require him to go and to do and to say what was sent and what was done. In fact, Moses (in the account) makes it pretty darn clear that he didn’t even view himself as a suitable candidate for any of this. So what do we get in the Book of Numbers as a description of Moses the great, the lawgiver—the guy whose statue appears not only in Rome, but in Washington, D.C. and in London as the great lawgiver—Moses, the imposing father of multiple religions: Now the man Moses was very meek above all the men who were upon the face of the earth (Numbers 7:22). It almost seems completely incongruent that you would have a man that brings the world’s strongest empire to its knees, and yet he’s the meekest man upon the face of the Earth.

There’s an account in… I want to use the Covenant of Christ. There’s an account (in Helaman) of Nephi, son of Helaman, who was entrusted by the Lord with the sealing power to be able to command the elements; and this is what the Lord said to him when he is called and given the commission: 

You are blessed, Nephi, because of the things you’ve done. I’ve seen how you’ve tirelessly declared the word I gave…to this people. You haven’t been afraid of them and haven’t tried to save your own life, but have tried to learn My will and to keep My commandments. Now because you’ve done this so tirelessly, I’ll bless you forever. And I’ll make you powerful in word and deed, in faith and works, so that all things will happen to you as you ask, since you won’t ask anything contrary to My will. (Helaman 3:19 CE, emphasis added)

And he goes, and he causes a drought, which results in a war that was then underway being incapable of being perpetuated because of the word of the Lord. 

So what about us? This was a revelation that was given in 1831, pretty early on. It’s in the T&C section 36: 

And again, truly I say unto you, …I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you. For he that is ordained of God and sent forth, the same is appointed to be the greatest, [nevertheless] he’s [the] least and the servant of all. Wherefore, he is possessor of all things, for all things are subject unto him both…Heaven and on…earth: the life and the light, the spirit and the power, sent forth by the will of the Father through Jesus Christ, his Son. But no man is possessor of all things except he be purified and cleansed from all sin. And if you are purified and cleansed from all sin, you shall ask whatever you will in the name of Jesus [Christ], and it shall be done. But know this, it shall be given you what you shall ask. (T&C 36:5, emphasis added)

So you can ask for anything, and God will do it—but God will tell you what you’re to ask for. We tend to think that great empowered characters in Scripture were given the kind of authority that the Gentiles long to exercise over one another; that you get to heal promiscuously whomever you would want to heal; that you get to cause whatever you would like to see happen; you get to have your prayers answered and your vain ambition gratified; and you get to have wealth and power and influence and notoriety. You don’t get any of that stuff! You don’t even get to keep your own life. You don’t get to say anything you want to say. You don’t get to teach anything you want to teach—even if it is given unto you to know the mysteries of God, you’re laid under a strict command that [you] shall not impart — only according to the heed and diligence [that others] give (Alma 9:3, emphasis added). Everything when it comes to the things of God are more serious, are more confined, are more regulated than I suppose most now living could ever imagine. 

It was God the Father that accomplished, through Jesus Christ, the Atonement; it was Jesus Christ who begged at the end for the cup to be taken from Him—nevertheless, not His will but the Father’s will be done; how hard to bear, you know not. He submitted. The only way for a godly man—which was what I was asked to address—the only way a godly man can exist is in subordination to the will of the Father. Period. You may be able to keep your sense of humor, and you may be able to be irreverent on occasion; you just can’t piss Him off.

Thirty-two… I’m gonna read that. Yeah. See, there’s… It is given to some to have [miracles] to be healed, …[it is given to others] to have faith to heal. …given the working of miracles, …others…given to prophecy, …others [to] discerning of spirits. …some to speak with tongues (T&C 32:5), but all these things are done according to the will of God. So on occasion we get to be present when a miracle happens, and on occasion we get to be a participant—but by voicing the will of God. And in voicing the will of God, a miracle occurs, but the miracle does not happen because we have power; it happens because the power of God was employed to accomplish God’s will, and we were permitted to be present at the moment when it happened.

Well, there are some things that were forbidden from teaching, but there are also some things in which people cannot be taught: They can’t be taught because they can’t hear, and they can’t hear because they have their own agenda. They’re more troubled and interested by vain and foolish questions than they are interested in being taught about something that would matter. 

The moment we live in is really serious, and in the moment, we have challenges that we’re facing which combine throughout the world in order to try and prevent the overthrow of the kingdom that has been established here by “the God of this world.” He enjoys such overwhelming influence and cultural power and wealth that everywhere you look, there is very little hope of salvation; there is very little sober-minded appreciation of the things of God; there’s very little understanding. We’re called upon to break against that and establish something which, in the history of the world, has been achieved only on two occasions— and the second one was directly related to and derivative from the covenant that existed before the flood, which allowed Shem (on the other side of the flood) to finish the work and hand it off to Abraham and then lay hold upon the promise that he deferred from being able to join Enoch and avoid the flood. So really, when you get right down to it, it happened once, and it happened once in two stages. 

And so now here we are again, getting ready to accomplish it again with us/with this group—with this group that includes such insufferable stupidity that there’s some kind of vandalism going on in a bathroom here, during a men’s retreat. What do you think the odds are that you’re not going to ignite like a match-head if you’re that sort of character when the Lord appears in His glory? What makes you think that your light-mindedness and your foolishness and your evil speaking of the Lord (and evil speaking of others that He has, on occasion, asked tasks to be performed by), what makes you think that the Lord will look lightly upon any of that? How sober and how serious ought we to be? In saying that, I’m not saying we need to be humorless, because a lot of the things that are most difficult to bear are born with a sense of humor. Christ was not just affable; He had a sense of humor. We read Him as this, you know, Baptist minister instead of the character that He really was. That incident—you’ve probably seen it portrayed in The Chosen—but in that, they turned it into some gripping moment. When He was shown the coin, you know: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” And He asked for a coin, and He looks at the image, you know: “Whose name and image is on this?” That comment was actually a wry joke; the people who were present laughed. It was funny. “Well, give him back his stuff!” That was light-hearted, and we turn it into—particularly in The Chosen—we turn it into something other than it was.

Look, accomplishing the will of God is not to be done haphazardly, insincerely, and without deliberate, careful, solemn thought. I don’t blame people for their light-heartedness, which I believe to be a good thing. But I think light-mindedness is another thing. It really does take focused attention and hard pursuit to accomplish the things that God has accomplished, on occasion, through others. There’s never been a great man. There have been a number of great servants who have faithfully done what the Lord has asked; and the Lord, through faithful servants, has accomplished remarkable things. 

So now, here’s the rub: He’s going to accomplish really remarkable things before the Second Coming. You can be part of that if you’ll just measure up, if you’ll just submit to His will, if you’ll just carefully, solemnly—not perfunctorily, not rapidly, not quickly—if you’ll just soberly and carefully approach learning the will of God (because you can’t do anything that conforms to God’s will if you don’t understand what the will of God to be). 

We have a set of the greatest Scriptures that have ever been entrusted into any generation since Father Adam’s Book of Remembrance—but we got ‘em. How much time do you spend searching and parsing them? You know, I think it was a profound and inspiring event when the bishop and the Sunday School president came over to my house in Pleasant Grove on the first day of the ninth year, following a commission that a ministry would begin, and so, “[I] must prepare.” And I became then a gospel doctrine teacher, and I taught the four standard works through, over and over and over again, in Pleasant Grove and Alpine and Sandy, Utah, in multiple wards. I never escaped the role of the gospel doctrine teacher; it just hung over me like, uh, like flies on a cow, now that I think about it. It just was persistent. It required me, and… And I get easily bored; I would not teach the same lesson twice. It’s like, I hate the idea of giving the same talk twice; if I don’t change the talk, if I don’t change the lesson, it bores me. And so I searched deeper and deeper into the material every time I went through the standard works until when they asked me to become a graduate institute teacher for the law students at the University of Utah, and they said, “For graduate institute, there is no curriculum; the teacher gets to teach whatever they want.” I picked up the Book of Mormon, and for two-and-a-half years—they asked me to teach for a year; at the end of the year, they asked me to stay on another year; at the end of that year, they asked me to keep going, and I agreed, at that point, to keep going until they called a new teacher, and they never did, so I quit after two-and-a-half years of that, and they had to call someone—but for two-and-a-half years I taught the Book of Mormon. I think we got into the start of Second Nephi after two-and-a-half years of studying the Book of Mormon, beginning in the first verse, because what I have learned is: For the Book of Mormon/ Covenant of Christ, for that book, the more you bring to read the text, the more that text is going to tell you. You can find shocking material inside the Covenant of Christ if you’ll bring enough with you to employ when you read the text. It is a fountain to be drunk from; it’s a Urim and Thummim; it’s an ongoing revelation. But it requires careful and solemn and ponderous thought to find it out.

I believe every one of you is capable of it, particularly the younger people who still, at this point in life, have an opportunity to set a course that is more sober-minded than the course that many of the fathers here have set for themselves. I think there is remarkable things to be accomplished, frightening things to be done, extraordinary enemies to be defeated. But I can tell you (based upon a recent flood in Nepal), I can tell you that the forces of nature can overwhelm anything that any military on Earth can throw at it, if the forces of nature are employed by the Almighty to accomplish His protection. I think in the revelation to us, the Lord has referred to what He intends to do to protect the people of Zion: I think He calls it a “pavilion,” which, you know, sounds as if it might be somewhat flimsy. But if the pavilion is just a safe space over which God’s hand looks, and if outside the pavilion what you have looks like what happened in Nepal, it’s okay to just be protected by a mere pavilion provided by God. 

My, um, all the women in my family—my daughters, my daughters-in-law, my wife—all the women have a book club where they read some oftentimes scandalous material, and then they have a meeting once a month (on Zoom). And they were holding a book club meeting, and I interrupted onto the screen of the Zoom where they were holding it in the family room, I interrupted and said hi to all the ladies out there in the family, and someone asked how I was doing. I said, “Oh, just having a horrible week. I just got back from kayaking in Nepal.” There wasn’t a single chuckle, and I thought, “Oh, it’s too early; it’s just…” 

Anyway, look: We’ve got an unachievable, absolutely impossible assignment that we’re supposed to fulfill, and it is utterly, completely hopeless to think we can. The only reason that it is going to be accomplished is because the Scriptures tell us with God all things are possible; we just need to have God’s will fulfilled by us. With that, it’ll happen, can be done. It’s not only possible (because of what the Lord has told us), it is inevitable. So the question is: Will you or won’t you submit to the will of God and participate? Or will you instead choose to be swept away, because sweeping away is certainly also prophesied and on the agenda.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

TRANSCRIPT

The post The Will of God appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

Presented here is the second half of a talk by Denver Snuffer that was delivered at a general conference held in Grand Junction, Colorado, at the Avalon Theater on 12 July 2026.

There are a few reasonable historical and theological conclusions we can reach from the tattered history of adoption. First, in the earliest generations of mankind, there was a clear genealogical line of faithful patriarchs who transmitted a tradition of faith from father to son, son to grandson, grandson to great-grandson, and so on, for eleven generations. Those first faithful fathers began with Adam and continued through the fathers until Shem, who was called Melchizedek—or “king and priest,” as explained in the Glossary of Gospel Terms: 

Melchizedek is not a name but a title. It is a compound of two words. The first is Malki (מַלְכִּי), meaning “king,” and Zadok (צֶדֶֿק), meaning “righteous;” Malki Tzedek or Malki Zedek (מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶֿק) [means] “righteous king” or “king of righteousness.” As a comparison, the Dead Sea Scrolls portray their “Teacher of Righteousness” as Moreh Zedek.

If not for apostasy, the pattern established at the beginning would have continued in an unbroken line until the final generation. However, the pattern was not followed, the line was broken, and something new was required in order to restore the original pattern. That new thing enabling the restoration of the original pattern happened with Abraham. He became the new “Adam” and the “father of the righteous” to rescue a fallen world. The new thing enabling this was adoption. The unfaithful generations between Melchizedek and Abraham were dropped from the order, and Abraham assumed the next position as the father following Melchizedek.

Second, because of the extraordinary plan to rescue mankind from apostasy established through Abraham, it became possible in subsequent generations to mend the breaches in the line of patriarchs by following the precedent set with Abraham. Joseph Smith made this issue clear enough that, whatever else Brigham Young and the Twelve did not understand, they were clear on the basic concept that a line connecting any person to be saved back to Adam needed to be established for salvation in the Kingdom of God. That connecting line was to be provided in some way through adoption. As he put it, “I will extend the chain of the priesthood back through apostolic dispensation to Father Adam just as soon as I can get a Temple built” (CDBY, 1:180). Through adoption, it is possible for all believers who live after Father Abraham’s day to repair the breach and be reconnected to the family of Father Adam.

Third, it is clear that this required an ordinance or rite to be performed. Abraham was reconnected through the decree of Heaven, given to him in a revelation in which God promised him directly that “as many as receive this gospel shall be called after your name and shall be accounted your seed, and shall rise up and bless you, as unto their Father.” But this promise alone did not complete the task. To complete the link, Abraham had to go to Melchizedek and receive the necessary initiation. Because Melchizedek was an authorized officiator and Abraham had to go to him to receive the rites, the initiation or ordination of Abraham came from Melchizedek. The Scriptures state: Abraham received the Priesthood from Melchizedek, who received it through the lineage of [the] fathers, even till Noah, and from Noah till Enoch, through the lineage of their fathers (T&C 82:10). It would have been contrary to the conduct of the Holy Order for Abraham to receive it from anyone other than a legal officiator. When there was (or is) a living member, it must come through him and not even from Heaven. God established the Holy Order at the beginning, and therefore, invariably respects the Order He established. 

When God established the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God at the beginning with Adam, it was an eternal appointment. That appointment has continued with Adam through the present. As our Scriptures explain:

Commencing with Adam, who was the first man, who is spoken of in Daniel as being the Ancient of Days, or in other words, the first and oldest of all, the great grand progenitor, of whom it is said in another place, He is Michael, because he was the first and father of all, not only by progeny, but he was the first to hold the spiritual blessings, to whom was made known the plan of ordinances for the salvation of his posterity unto the end, and to whom Christ was first revealed, and through whom Christ has been revealed from Heaven and will continue to be revealed from now on. Adam holds the keys of the dispensation of the fullness of times; i.e., the dispensation of all the times [that] have been and will be revealed through him, from the beginning to Christ, and from Christ to the end…all the dispensations that are to be revealed. (T&C 140:3)

There was an unbroken line from Adam to Melchizedek. As long as Melchizedek remained on the Earth, he was the only one who could perform the required ordinance. Therefore, although the promises given to Abraham by God designated him as the one all mankind would look to as their father, if Abraham had not gone to Melchizedek and been initiated, Abraham could not have fulfilled that role. It is therefore clear that no matter what promises God makes to a man, without the required ordinance performed by a legal officiator, the promises remain unfulfilled.

One clarification is needed: Abraham received a promise from the Lord. Melchizedek was not required to act on Abraham’s word. As the head of the Holy Order, Melchizedek would also have needed to be told by the Lord to administer the rites to Abraham. An initiation required revelation from God, and the “Timeline of the Fathers and the Holy Order” shows that initiations were not based on birth order but on when God revealed the candidate to the head and authorized the induction. For example, Enoch was made a member of the Holy Order before his grandfather Mahalalel was added. Abraham added Isaac to the Order, although he had made hundreds of converts. Isaac added only one (Jacob), and Jacob in turn added only Joseph, to whom he also provided the records and garment going back to Adam. It is not permitted for anyone to decide that God has chosen them for the Holy Order and then impose their ambition upon the head of the Order.

Those who inherit the obligations, promises, and initiation through the necessary ordinance are described in the Teachings and Commandments 69 (which in the LDS Scriptures is Doctrine and Covenants 76). They are described as those:

This list of qualifications requires the recipient to have a much deeper understanding than the publicly discussed principles and ordinances of the Gospel. It follows that they, like the Lord’s mother Mary, will keep these things from public. It is written: Mary kept all those things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:3 RE). Many great truths can become a double-edged sword, cutting the one wielding it. Those who qualify are those whom God and Christ have judged. The Son of God has accepted them, forgiven their sins, and, as a result, they have become clean before God. Of course, that can only happen when the Lord has faith in and trust in them. The person must be tried and proven beforehand. As Joseph Smith put it:

After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost, which is the first comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other comforter, which the Lord has promised the Saints. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.150)

While this has and does happen, it is not a common experience because mankind is so easily distracted and so often tempted by pride, vanity, and foolishness that they miss the mark. This is why adoption as a rite is so often lost through apostasy. Mankind generally wants far more than they are willing to endure. We want Christmas morning: the opportunity to unwrap gifts we have not paid to acquire.

This adoption discussion began by referring to the prophecy of Malachi. Throughout the history of practicing some form of adoption, the reason consistently used to justify its need was the sealing or turning of hearts of children to fathers. It is also apparent from the study of adoption that it is directly and intimately connected with the Scriptures telling us that the hearts of the children must be sealed to the fathers, and that is to be reciprocated by the fathers likewise having their hearts sealed to the children. 

The first father was Adam. His role as the father of the faithful was later fulfilled or restored by Abraham. It should not be overlooked that the difficulties and disappointments experienced by Adam were repeated in the difficulties and disappointments suffered by Abraham.

The overwhelming majority of Adam’s children rejected his religion and followed Satan. The Scriptures explain: And Satan came among them, saying, I [also am] a Son of God. And he commanded them, saying, Believe not. And they believed not, and loved Satan more than God. And men began from that time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish (Genesis 3:5 RE). Adam and Eve were grandparents before they received their first candidate who would follow their parents’ religion. When Cain was born, his mother reacted with joy: And Adam knew [his wife, Eve], and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord, wherefore he may not reject his words (❡6). In time, Cain proved to be an equally disappointing child: But behold, also Cain listened not, saying, Who is the Lord that I should know him? (❡6).

After generations of rebellious children, Eve was at last rewarded with a faithful son. We read: And she again conceived, and bore his brother Abel. And Abel listened unto the voice of the Lord (❡6). But the joy of having two faithful children was cut short by the first murder. And Cain went into the field and Cain talked with Abel his brother. And it came to pass that while they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And Cain gloried in that which he had done, saying, I am free; surely the flocks of my brother fall into my hands (❡9). This left Adam and Eve without a faithful heir. Their house had become desolate, and the first father had no consolation, experiencing only the bitterness of rejection.

We do not know how long the first parents waited before finally receiving a believing heir. But some length of time later, we are told:

And Adam listened unto the voice of God and called upon his sons to repent. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and [s]he called his name Seth. And Adam glorified the name of God, [and] said, God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew. (❡14)

These tragic events shaped our first parents. Adam and Eve were acquainted with grief, tempered by failure and disappointment, and suffered heartache over their children. For them, parenthood implicitly involved repeated disappointment, long-suffering, humility, and patience. They were tried in the furnace of affliction and made to mourn for their offspring. 

Father Abraham and mother Sarah restored the broken line to the first fathers. They replaced Adam and Eve as parents. Abraham explained what he understood beforehand that it would entail:

I sought for the blessings of the Fathers and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same. Having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a Father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a high priest, holding the right belonging to the Fathers. It was conferred upon me from the Fathers: it came down from the Fathers, from the beginning of time, yea, even from the beginning (or before the foundations of the earth) to the present time, even the right of the firstborn (or the first man —who is Adam— or [the] first Father) through the Fathers unto me. (Abraham 1:1 RE)

While Abraham did obtain his desire, it came at a parental price not unlike that paid by Adam and Eve in the beginning. Adam was a grandfather before a likely heir was born, whereas the elderly Abraham had no heir, despite God’s promise. Abraham and Sarah were old, having waited nearly a lifetime before a son was born. But that first son, Ishmael, like Cain, was driven away. Adam’s son Cain said: I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth (Genesis 3:10 RE). In a parallel event, Ishmael and his mother were sent away: …he sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness …And he grew, and dwelled in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelled in the wilderness… (Genesis 8:3 RE). 

Adam lost his faithful son, Abel, when his brother murdered him. Abraham would also lose a son, Isaac, as a burnt sacrifice commanded by God as an offering to Him. Our Scriptures, in their present form, tell us in Genesis that Isaac’s sacrificial death was averted when a ram caught in the thicket replaced Isaac on the altar. There is an older story that remains in the account in the Book of Mormon and in the New Testament Book of Hebrews. The older account from the Book of Mormon tells it this way: …it is sanctified unto us for righteousness, even as it was accounted unto Abraham in the wilderness to be obedient unto the commands of God in offering up his son Isaac, which was a similitude of God and his only begotten Son (Jacob 3:2 RE).

In the New Testament, we get this account from the Book of Hebrews: By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said…in Isaac [that your seed shall] be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up — even from the dead — from where he also received him in a figure (Hebrews 1:43 RE).

If we accept the older account at face value, Abraham lost his heir when he killed his remaining faithful son. But unlike Adam’s loss, Abraham’s was all the more terrible because Abraham had been tied to an altar by the priest of Pharaoh who lifted a knife to kill him as a human sacrifice: And as they lifted up their hands upon me that they might offer me up and take away my life, behold, I lifted up my voice unto the Lord, my God (Abraham 1:5 RE). Abraham’s life was spared by the intervention of an angel of the Lord. It’s almost incomprehensible to consider the horror, trauma, and conflict Abraham experienced in the account told in the older version. In it, Abraham was asked by God to re-enact the earlier human sacrifice practiced by idolatrous priests that God had both condemned and interrupted to spare Abraham. Now the same God was asking for the opposite. 

Adam was an innocent bystander who lost his son through fratricide. Abraham, however, was placed in the very position of God the Father, offering His Only Begotten Son. The founding and restoring patriarchs of the Holy Order both shed tears, experienced terrible grief, and suffered horrible disappointment over their immediate children while they lived. 

It makes us wonder whether Abraham had any idea of the cost he would pay to become one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a Father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions and to keep the commandments of God… (Abraham 1:1 RE). Both Adam and Abraham were tried by tragic, heart-wrenching experiences with their immediate offspring before they were trusted with the stewardship of the family of the faithful as their inheritance. Had Abraham known beforehand what God would require of him, would he have proceeded? When the hearts of the children are sealed or adopted to both Adam and Eve and Abraham and Sarah, will they understand the price paid by these earlier parents? Although the Scriptures tell us that hearts are to turn, there is something poignant and humbling about adoption to such ancestors as these. Then, too, the idea imposes an obligation to act more soberly, solemnly, and carefully if given such a heritage. As the Psalm states: You have given me the heritage of those that fear your name (Psalms 61:1 RE). That heritage is a gift that began with patriarchs and matriarchs who suffered over their posterity, including us. They paid a price while they were mortal for the posterity they would be called to watch over through the end of time. Their role is rarely understood and, therefore, hardly appreciated. When the children turn their hearts to them, it should include grateful remembrance of their earlier earthly sacrifices. 

The idea of Abraham participating in human sacrifice of his son, Isaac, after his earlier experience may seem curious, but there is a backstory that helps explain it. At the beginning, Adam prophesied about all his posterity: And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation, and, notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the holy ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation (T&C 154:20). This would have included the promise of a savior who would be the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Enoch added to this book, as it states: These things were all written in the Book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time (ibid.)

Enoch learned from this prophecy of Adam’s and inquired about the future event:

When shall the day of the Lord come? When shall the blood of The Righteous be shed, that all they that mourn may be sanctified and have eternal life? And the Lord said, It shall be in the meridian of time, in the days of wickedness and vengeance. And behold, Enoch saw the day of the coming of the Son of Man, even in the flesh, and his soul rejoiced, saying, The Righteous is lifted up and the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world. And through faith I am in the bosom of the Father, and behold, Zion is with me. (Genesis 4:19 RE)

Prophecies from Adam and Enoch foretold of a future sacrificial Redeemer who would repair the Fall and restore life from the grave. Other Patriarchal Fathers also contributed to the record. We read: And a book of remembrance was kept, in [the] which was recorded in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration (Genesis 3:14 RE).

These records that foretold of a man dying to redeem mankind came into Abraham’s possession. Abraham wrote: But I shall endeavor hereafter to delineate the chronology running back from myself to the beginning of the creation, for the records have come into my hands, which I hold unto this present time (Abraham 2:3 RE). He added: …the records of the Fathers, even the Patriarchs, concerning the right of Priesthood, the Lord, my God, preserved in my own hands (❡4).

All mankind initially learned about the existence and role of God in the creation of this world from Adam. Therefore, all of mankind would have likewise learned of the coming sacrifice of a man whose death would free us from the grave and undo the Fall of Adam. Apostasy from the faith taught by Adam led to many ancient religions practicing human sacrifices. This was the state of the Chaldean false religion that attempted to slay Abraham on an altar.

Isaac was a promised son whose birth fulfilled prophecy and the promise from God: And God said, Sarah, your wife, shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. And I will establish my covenant with him also, for an everlasting covenant with his seed after him (Genesis 7:33 RE). Therefore, Isaac was a gift from God, provided to vindicate a promise, and his birth was miraculous given the age of Abraham and Sarah at the time of his birth. 

This background reveals a conflict: On the one hand, human sacrifice was repugnant to Abraham and evidence of a false religion. On the other hand, God gave Abraham a promised son and commanded his sacrifice. Did that suggest Isaac was to be the promised lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Did Abraham believe this would vindicate Adam’s and Enoch’s prophecies? Underlying this terrible command to sacrifice Isaac was the uncertain question of how God intended to fulfill His commitment to redeem mankind. If it were to be Isaac, then despite his death, Abraham knew from the records of the Fathers that Isaac was to rise again. Our Scriptures do not let us decide the question but do contain two versions of Isaac’s sacrifice: In the one, he is spared by the ram caught in the thicket; in the other, he was slain and brought back to life. This would not have been a “resurrection” comparable to Jesus Christ. It would have raised him from the dead like the son of the widow of Zarephath brought back to life by Elijah, or Lazarus called back from the grave. Both of them died. Christ broke the bonds of death.

This brings us back to the discussion of separating sealing into two types; when the sealing ordinance of adoption is separated from marriage, the term “sealing” should not be used without clarifying whether a marriage is involved or whether it instead connects parties in a parent-child relationship. When a lawsuit raised the question of whether the LDS or RLDS Church was the legitimate successor to Joseph Smith’s original church, the LDS leadership needed to prove that their practice of polygamy began with Joseph Smith. LDS apostle Joseph F. Smith was assigned the responsibility of gathering affidavits to prove Joseph Smith started the practice. Whether it was artful and deliberate or simply confusion and sloppiness, the affidavits do not resolve Joseph Smith’s involvement with plural wives. They may, instead, be evidence of adoption. 

Here are two examples of how the affidavits were worded. This one was signed over two-and-a-half decades after Joseph Smith’s death:

Be it remembered that on this twenty-sixth day of June…1869 personally appeared before me James Jack, a notary-Public in and for said county, Joseph Bates Noble, who was by me sworn in due form…, and upon his oath saith, that, on the fifth day of April…1841, At the City of Nauvoo, [and the] County of Hancock, State of Illinois, he married or sealed… 

He “married or sealed…”

…Louisa Beaman, to Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday [sic] Saints… (Taken from Affidavits on Celestial Marriage, 1869-1870, p.3, emphasis added)

The second one is another one signed more than two-and-a-half decades after Joseph Smith’s death, and like the first one, was prepared by Joseph F. Smith and used to support the claim that Joseph Smith began the practice:

Be it remembered that on th[e] first day of May…eighteen sixty nine before me Elias Smith Probate Judge…appeared [before me], Zina Diantha Huntington ^Young^ who was by me Sworn in due form of law, and upon her oath Saith, that on the twenty-Seventh day of October…1841, …City of Nauvoo, County of Hancock…, She was married or Sealed to Joseph Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints… (Ibid., p.5, emphasis added)

Both of these, like almost all of the other affidavits gathered in the late 1800s, decades after Joseph Smith’s death, use the ambiguous phrase “married or sealed” as if the two had identical meaning. This does not mean what most people assume it means. Sealing through adoption would serve to tie the one adopted to Joseph, so as to belong to his family in the afterlife. That relationship was intended to secure for the adoptee a position with Joseph in the Celestial Kingdom of God. “When a seal is put upon the father and mother it secures their posterity so…they cannot be lost but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father” (WJS, pp.241-242).

This is directly related to what Helen Mar Kimball would later recall Joseph Smith explaining: “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation and that of your father’s household and all of your kindred” (Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, Autobiography, 30 March 1881). That statement would be a correct description of an adoption sealing to Joseph Smith, based on his qualification to stand as a father to those adopted as his children/heirs. One passing remark by Joseph Smith is pregnant with meaning: There are many teachers, but perhaps not many fathers (T&C 139:12). If Helen Mar Kimball’s memory from 1881 (nearly four decades following the event) concerned “adoption” sealing rather than “marriage” sealing, the promise would make more sense and would very well fit Joseph Smith’s salvific theology better. Keep in mind, Joseph may not have clarified he intended adoption when first performing sealings.

Of all the rites and teachings restored through Joseph Smith, adoption is potentially the most dangerous if corrupted. At the dawn of history, the secret oaths introduced by Cain so corrupted mankind that the Earth was cursed, and mankind was ultimately destroyed in a flood. The secret oaths were based on a corruption of the adoption sealing rites, which were meant to bind individuals together. One produces a family clan; the other produces a criminal cabal. Satan does not invent, but corrupts. Heaven is creative; hell is not. Hell’s purpose is to damage and destroy.

Adam was to be a “husbandman” to serve and develop everything on Earth. He was to guide, not compel. He was to persuade, not force. But his status as the father/grandfather/ great-grandfather, and so on, made him the repository of central and original authority. He had respect. His word mattered. Accordingly, inheriting the same position as father Adam would likewise place the descendant in a similar position of guiding, persuading, and exercising authority. It was because Cain aspired to replace Adam and become venerated and respected that he killed his rival, Abel. Cain was nothing like Adam, and his ambition was self-serving, without regard to the damage he could and would inflict on others. Cain corrupted and abused the idea of gaining regard from others. He was never able to occupy the role of husbandman, because he intended to exert compulsion and control over others. He would subjugate, dwarf, and injure his subordinates, making them unfit for God’s kingdom. Adoption was intended to unite mankind through belonging into a loving family. Cain’s (and Lucifer’s) secret oaths bound together through fear and punishment.

Joseph Smith restored life to the Christian Gospel. He returned long-lost principles, teachings, rites, and ordinances. Although poorly preserved by the LDS Church, that institution has nevertheless been able to create a multi-billion-dollar enterprise and attract millions of followers using only the original energy invested by Joseph Smith. If they had preserved yet more of Joseph’s original work, their dominion and control would have been (and still be) even greater. It’s always unwise to trust something potentially dangerous to anyone who would abuse that trust. Children, you know, are fond of tools, while they are not yet able to use them (ibid.). It is clear to me that the Lord never intended for the LDS Church to inherit the rites of adoption. Had that happened, the control, compulsion, and gratification of pride apparent in that organization’s history would have expanded further. The authority to accomplish this necessary work must never fall into the hands of the proud and ambitious. It should belong only to the meek, obedient, and humble. Anyone boasting of having that authority is unfit to possess it. It should be entrusted only to a servant, never to a ruler. In this perilous world, it should be used quietly, humbly, reverently, not loudly, and not publicly. Whenever the Holy Order is restored, it must never become the means to gain and become popular.

If there were a single word to describe this part of the Lord’s plan for the saving of souls of mankind, it would be “dangerous.” It invites the ambitious and aspiring to pursue their interests in the eternal afterlife. Foolish and evil men consider this subject as a means to acquire power and influence. Almost without exception, the language used to describe adoption by Brigham Young and other members of the Twelve after Joseph and Hyrum were killed involved self-interest and power. They were establishing their own “kingdom” over which they would rule and reign. They wanted to be able to dictate to subordinates in their vision of the afterlife. It was ugly, self-serving, greedy, and very un-Christlike. Their language was the opposite of Christ’s: 

Neither be called masters, for one is your Master, even he whom your Heavenly Father sent, who is Christ; for he has sent him among you that you might have life. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whoever shall exalt himself shall be abased of him, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted of him. (Matthew 10:26 RE)

It is almost always the case that as soon as men understand God’s plan, they immediately begin to reinterpret it in pursuit of self-interest. We are not worthy of any blessing, benefit, or gift given to us by God. That is why it is always a “gift”—we are receiving unmerited blessings from the Lord. As it is written: And in nothing does man offend God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not his hand in all things, and obey not his commandments (T&C 46:5). It is indeed God’s hand that blesses us. We are all unprofitable servants. 

When I was told to teach about adoption, I recoiled at the thought of the vanity, ambition, and aspiring spirit unleashed in the LDS community in Nauvoo. The things of God cannot be maintained except in obedience to Heaven. Nothing can or should be expected to be under our selfish control when the souls of mankind and the eternities are involved. I worried that this talk would probably unleash the same foul spirit that infected Nauvoo. Our salvation comes only through fear and trembling before God.

From all that the Scriptures tell us, it is safe to conclude that the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God had few members even during the era of the Patriarchs. But salvation through faith was secured for all the faithful, even if they were not directly included in the Holy Order. The Lord explains it this way: He who receives you, receives me. …he who receives me, receives him who sent me. He that receives a prophet, in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he that receives a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man’s reward (Matthew 5:8 RE). Also in the Testimony of St. John, Jesus Christ explained: In the name of Father Ahman I declare to you, He that accepts my word spoken by whomever I send with my word receives me, and he that receives me receives him that sent me, even my Father (TSJ 10:4, emphasis added).

Or to restate the matter and clarify the benefit of having the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God among us: When there are any believing, faithful men and women on the Earth, so long as they are willing to accept the teachings provided through the Holy Order, they are recognized by God as beneficiaries and recognized in the same way as if they were part of that Order. The Scriptures identified such faithful people as a “residue of the righteous,” as in this passage: 

Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing. And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the Prince, the Archangel. (T&C 154:19)

The term “residue” is also used in the Book of Mormon, referring to believing and benefited followers of the Lord:

…neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men. For behold, they are subject unto him, to minister according to the word of his command, shewing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness. And the office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfill and to do the work of the covenants of the Father which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him; and by so doing, the Lord…prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the holy ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men. (Moroni 7:6 RE)

This explanation is restated in the Covenant of Christ using the word “remainder” to identify them:

…neither have angels stopped ministering to mankind. They are obedient to Him, to minister according to His commands, revealing themselves to those of strong faith and…a firm mind in every form of godliness. The responsibility of their ministry is to call people to repentance, and to fulfill and do the work of the Father’s covenants that He’s made to mankind, to prepare the way among people by declaring Christ’s word to the Lord’s chosen vessels, so they can bear testimony of Him. And by doing this, the Lord…prepares the way for the remainder of mankind to have faith in Christ, so the Holy Ghost can have a place in their hearts according to the power of the Holy Ghost. This is how the Father vindicates the covenants He’s made to mankind. (Moroni 7:6 CE)

The necessary step to avoid being “utterly wasted” at the Lord’s return does not require every person to be initiated into the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God. What is needed to preserve people from the destruction at the Lord’s return is for the Holy Order to return and for some holder, even a single couple, to preach repentance. That needs to be done before the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth (T&C 54:4) happens, and then for some people to hear the message of repentance taught through the Holy Order and to repent. For all those who receive that message and respond, they will be spared at the Lord’s return. 

At the great and dreadful day of the Lord’s return, there will be two categories of people: those who have responded to the invitation to repent, described by Malachi as those who seal the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to [the] Fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Malachi 1:12 RE). And for those who do not respond and repent, the day comes that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble. And the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of Hosts, …it shall leave them neither root nor branch (❡10).

When we build a House of God, a Holy Temple, and the Lord receives it/visits it, rites of adoption will be performed there. That will be one of its many restored rites. But because it will return, guarding the Temple against corruption and compromise will be essential. As what was here at the beginning returns before the end, we must learn from the example of Cain and Abel. We must guard against another terrible repetition of ungodly apostasy. That first ruinous apostasy led to generations of such depravity and violence that the Lord destroyed mankind in a flood. Not only will that same Holy Order which was in the beginning return before the end, but the world will also descend into wickedness akin to the days of Noah. If guarding the Holy Order cannot prevent the coming judgment, it can at least make it possible for some to be spared from utter destruction. If we are wise, we will give heed to what God is doing today, and what is offered to us, and work out our salvation with fear and trembling before God.

Bear in mind also this clarification: Joseph Smith explained that, “All priesthood is Melchizedek, but there are different portions or degrees of it. That portion which brought Moses to speak with God face to face was taken away, but that which brought the ministry of angels remained. All the prophets had the Melchizedek priesthood and were ordained by God himself” (TPJS, pp.180-181).

I’ve explained that since “all priesthood is Melchizedek” and the original name for the Melchizedek Priesthood was the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God, it follows that all priesthood is part of the Holy Order, but there are different portions or degrees of it. When Keith Henderson was set apart to hold authority to provide Patriarchal Blessings just prior to the last conference, he was set apart and given authority necessary to accomplish that specific task. Do not read more into that than what has been explained here and at the prior conference. 

I’ve discussed the two prior fathers who formed the root from which the Holy Order family grew into a family tree. But the “fathers in heaven” are not only those two but also a host of other fathers who have both preserved and spread the family line. Restoring the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God is not merely an authorization to accomplish work for the Lord. It also involves reconnecting prior dispensations through ordinances and initiations. The first patriarch who held the right was Adam, who still retains that position in the Holy Order. Before his death, he established a pattern that would be followed in later dispensations. He delivered, in one setting, the entire burden of prophecy that would be followed by all subsequent prophets:

Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, …who were all high priests, …into the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and…bestowed upon them his last blessing. …the Lord [ministered to him]…

And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation, and, notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the holy ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation. (T&C 154:19-20)

Seven prophet-patriarchs were present when this happened. They possessed foreknowledge provided by Adam’s great outpouring of revelation as he was full of the holy ghost. Later, the holy ghost would inspire others to reiterate portions of that original message. The same light animated those subsequent prophets, delivering the same intelligence as Father Adam. In a literal sense, these others were also turning the hearts of children back to the earlier fathers.

When a new dispensation begins, the process of reconnecting includes the restoration of the earlier body of information. Rights, honors, truths, and intelligence from earlier dispensations have been handed down from one dispensation to the next. As I’ve taught before, Moses and John the Baptist appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration because Moses began and John ended the prior dispensation. But like Adam’s earlier prophecy about all that would befall his posterity through the last generation, the initiation on the Mount of Transfiguration included a similar view of the future for the Earth. Joseph Smith likewise was a dispensation head who was visited by the prophet who was at the beginning (Nephi) and the end (Moroni) of the prior dispensation. This is a continual pattern and an established requirement for every dispensation of the Gospel. They are welded together to accomplish the required continuity. This requires Adam to supervise the process, as he acquired the keys to accomplish this work when he first foretold everything that would befall his posterity until the final generation: 

Therefore, he set the ordinances to be the same for ever and ever, and set Adam to watch over them, to reveal them from Heaven to man or to send angels to reveal them. …Are they not all ministering [angels], sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation? These angels are under the direction of Michael, or Adam, who acts under the direction of Christ. (T&C 140:6)

There must be a reliable, consistent continuation for the Holy Order to accomplish the mission of saving the souls of men. This is why, for Joseph Smith, it was necessary for prior dispensation holders to visit and provide the required information to ensure the continuity of dispensations. Joseph wrote about it:

What do we hear? …The voice of Michael the archangel, the voice of Gabriel, and of Raphael, and of diverse angels from Michael, or Adam, down to the present time, all declaring each one:

Their dispensation, their rights, their keys, their honors, their majesty and glory, and the power of their Priesthood.

Going line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, giving us consolation by holding forth that which is to come and confirming our hope. (T&C 151:15-17)

Whenever a dispensation of the Gospel includes a return of the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God, there is an accompanying link between the holder and the fathers in Heaven. That link requires the holder to be adopted into the line of those who went before. This, in turn, equips the holder to bring others with him, just as Joseph Smith described it to those who he sealed to himself:

“[It would] ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household. & all your kindred.” A father who gave his daughter to the Prophet as a [sealed daughter] was assured…the [sealing] “shall be crowned upon your heads with honor and immortality and eternal life to all your house both old and young.” (Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, p.439)

In Joseph Smith’s practice, he went through a formal adoption ceremony for each individual he intended to adopt. However, if you examine the explanation he provided, it allowed others to be brought along with the adopted son or daughter. All of their household, “both old and young,” would be crowned with honor, immortality, and eternal life. 

As I previously explained, it is one thing to receive a revelation, another thing to take it in and comprehend it, and an altogether greater challenge to teach it. Joseph was working out the system, rite, ordinance, and method to establish adoption on a firm footing so it could continue indefinitely. He was killed before it was established. It could not be perpetuated once Joseph, Hyrum, and their associated authority they held were extinguished.

Mankind cannot adopt ordinances nor establish covenants. Mankind either receives them from God, or they are unavailable. God will not acknowledge that which he has not called, ordained, and chosen (T&C 140:7). As the Lord establishes a new dispensation, and Adam commissions and qualifies the agent to do the work, the Holy Order returns, along with the rights, duties, and privileges to ordain a formal ordinance to accomplish God’s purpose. But the ordinances must be kept in the very way God has appointed, otherwise their Priesthood will prove a cursing instead of a blessing (❡12). Isaiah explained that changing the ordinance will break the covenant: The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance[s], broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore has the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate; therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left (Isaiah 7:1 RE). This obligation to preserve, protect, and defend what comes from God has been one of the constant themes of prophecy.

From the book of Deuteronomy: You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you (Deuteronomy 2:1 RE).

And from the book of Revelation: For I testify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; …if any man shall take away from the words of the book…, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and [out of] the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 9:4 RE)

The Lord stated His doctrine and then warned: And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establisheth it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil and is not built upon my rock, but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell standeth open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them. (3 Nephi 5:9 RE)

There are others, but this is sufficient to make the point. The Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God can and does restore covenants and ordinances. But when they are set, they are not to be trifled with, changed, nor can they be improved by meddling men. We lost the authority God conferred on Joseph and Hyrum when they were killed. We lost any chance of perpetuating temple ordinances, including adoption, when they died without the ordinances having been set in final form. We know the temple rites had not been put into a final form because Brigham Young admitted it. In a talk he gave in 1877, he said:

Joseph divided up the room … we marked it [he] Gave us…instructions …

…after we had got through [he] said “Bro. Brigham this is not arranged right but we have done the best we could under the circumstances in which we are placed, and I wish you to take this matter in hand and organize and systematize [it].” I did so, …each time I got something more, …when we went through the temple at Nauvoo I understood [pretty well] knew how to place them there. We had our ceremonies pretty correct. (CDBY, 5:3104)

Brigham Young was not a dispensation head, did not possess the Holy Order, lacked the authority to establish a binding ordinance. Therefore, this explanation clarifies that the LDS Church, like the ancient pharaohs, were merely seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by Joseph Smith (see Abraham 2:3 RE).

Joseph Smith was all that he claimed to be, and much more. Only fools have and do hold him in derision. He presented the world an opportunity that was squandered. Yet without the foundation he laid to commence the Restoration, it would be impossible for us to complete it now. The closer you examine Joseph’s work, the clearer God’s hand becomes. The fathers who received the Holy Order, from Adam to Moroni, taught him so he could accomplish his assignment. But finishing that will be left to us if we prove faithful—or to a future generation if we do not. As it returns, there are ten things to keep in mind:

This third talk concludes the requirement to address the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God. Anything further will necessarily be confined to the temple, when we are commanded and permitted to build it. We have no right to begin building a temple until commanded to do so. And the fact that we have not yet been commanded, even though the Lord has told us we will be required to do so, is perhaps an indication that we are not yet worthy and prepared to have it with us. If that is so, we are still not taking God seriously enough. 

May we learn to be humble and penitent, and set aside our pride, ambition, and self-will. 

—————

Now, I am not going to read either of the two Appendices to this talk, but I’m gonna put the talk up, including both Appendix 1 and Appendix 2, on my website, and the Restoration Archives will no doubt make it available as well. And I have not read any of the 241 footnotes that went into this talk as part of this, but you’ll have all those available to you too, as long as you’re willing to read the smaller print on the bottom of the page. 

It really is a dangerous subject, and when I look carefully at the history that occurred while Joseph and Hyrum were still here, and the excitement… I mean, there’s nothing more appealing, delicious, enticing, wonderful, exciting, mind-expanding, heart-expanding… There’s nothing more powerful than the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness. It is beyond any of the flights of fancy that we have in science fiction; it’s beyond anything Tolkien composed in The Lord of the Rings; it’s better than any of the fiction that has been composed, any of the Star Wars movies that have been made. 

Because it is truth, and because of the content of it—and the fact that it involves YOU and an antiquity that is separated from you by a veil—whenever that curtain lifts just a little and we’re given a peek, you begin to understand that you are infinite; you come from a holy place; you are destined to go TO a holy place, a place of glory. But you can’t realize the greatness of what God intends to give to you if you are disobedient to the things He ASKS of you. He is asking of you to be like Him so that you can ultimately join Him in exactly the same position as what He occupies.

And I’m using “He” throughout in the same way as the Hebraic sense: When there is a male present, it was “he,” even if there were other women present. Adam and Eve were called “Adam.” When I refer to Adam, I’m referring to the couple. 

I very much liked what Whitney said earlier today. 

God’s commands are intended to make you better, to separate you from the world, to spare you from injuries that this world will inflict upon you if you choose to disregard His commands. They’re meant to improve you. They’re meant to inform you. When you take upon yourself obedience to God, Christ promised, “If any man will do the will, he will know the doctrine.” You are spared from having the light shine brighter when you choose darkness by disobedience. When you change that, and you choose obedience and following Him, you will have impressions; the light will shine brighter; things that you haven’t noticed before now become comprehensible—not because you’re so much smarter; it’s only because the light has shone in the darkness, and now what you could not perceive before, you are able to perceive. That’s what obedience allows and permits you to do.

We’re dealing with the culmination; we’re getting right up against some of the most fearful, terrible, risky things. It excited people so much in Joseph’s day that they just couldn’t stand letting it unfold without their interference, without their ambition, without their vanity, without their jealousies, without their personal gratification consuming them. And so we lost both Joseph and Hyrum. And the people that supplanted them were so far inferior in understanding that they were groping in the dark, even as they attempted to imitate what they thought Joseph was doing. There was a discontinuity. 

God has set His hand again. We have a chance. It’s a serious opportunity; it’s legitimately offered. The question is: Can we do any better than they did then? Because I’m telling you, we do not fear God (meaning, “respect God”) sufficiently to really allow Him to complete His work based upon everything that has gone on to this point. I’m shocked at how much He continues to push things down the field further when we receive it so foolishly and so unworthily. And we fight, and we fuss, and we quarrel among one another, and we behave wretchedly.

While Whitney Horning was speaking… She didn’t say this, but it’s going in my journal: “Wisdom is as difficult and elusive in women as knowledge is in men.” 

We’ve not conducted ourselves heroically. We can, and we should do better. I can only behave for myself. I can be embarrassed for other people, but I can’t make them change. But YOU control YOU. You can decide how you conduct your life. You decide whether you choose to gossip and whether you choose to berate and whether you choose to judge narrowly; or whether you choose, instead, generosity, greatness of heart, forgiving nature, willingness to live in peace, willingness to let the bad news end with you and not be spread further, willingness to bite your tongue when a sharp remark or a quick retort that insults and opens a wound would serve your ego better. 

We don’t need to run around correcting one another. We need to go around loving, appreciating, helping, supporting, and enjoying one another. At the end of the day, this ought (and can be) FUN! And I’m hoping that we figure out how to do that. One of the things that happened here was that dance… 

I’m gonna go ahead and say this: I’ve been trying for awhile to get something done without talking about it, but when I got together with the kids last month, I went ahead and said, “Okay, I can’t get the adults to do what I’ve been asking for three years, so why don’t you kids take it on yourselves to do a roadshow.” And then I explained what used to happen in the LDS community with roadshows, where you did a parody of something, and you used, you know, popular music, but you rewrote the lyrics, and you invented a funny story to make fun of something that’s contemporary. Roadshows used to be a real unifying thing within the community. 

When we get together and we do conferences, I think it would be wonderful if, independently, on a Friday evening before the main conference, some groups decided they were gonna put together roadshows, and we spent an evening watching parodies with music. I think it would be great if we had poetry competition. I think it would be great if we had short-story competition. I think it would be great if we had art competition. And as part of any conference, everyone is invited to come and to bring their poetry, come and bring your artwork. 

Let the creativity that God has endowed us with, that urging to connect with something bigger than yourself, concepts of love and light and truth and wonder, things that create music and create poetry and create artwork, General Conferences ought to include this kind of a contribution so that instead of bitching and moaning about something the women did to some guy somewhere who did something to some other guy somewhere that offends the crap out of me, and “Don’tcha know, I can name you names and tell you dates and…!!!” Why don’t we focus on poetry and art? And roadshows? Why don’t you create something on your own, something… And bring it, and suggest it. 

Whoever organizes the next conference, if you get contact from someone saying, “Hey, we wanna put on a roadshow,” make time for that on a Friday evening. If someone says, “I brought some art,” figure out how we can put it on display as part of the conference get-together. Display them in the lobby. It might even be fun to have an evening, maybe on Saturday, where we listen to poetry that people have written. 

There are some wonderfully talented people. I mean, we’re gonna have to disqualify Vern Horning from art; we can make him write music or something he can’t do. And then, the cowboy poetry guy… Oh, that’s Alan VanLeer. Alan probably can’t participate in the poetry thing if we’re competing, but he could certainly participate as someone who would amuse the crap out of anyone willing to listen to his cowboy poetry. 

I think… 

You can take the Gospel and God seriously without taking yourself seriously. All of the pomposity that we tend to assume for ourselves is nonsense. God is worthy of worship; we are little more than amusement 

That struts and frets [its] hour upon the stage, 

And then is heard no more. It’s a tale 

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing.

(“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” by William Shakespeare)

You know, Shakespeare nailed us pretty well. I mean… But here’s the deal: We ought to find our group to be a refuge, our group to be fun and relieving. We shouldn’t come together and feel the heavy weight of “Oh, my gosh, SHE’S here…” 

“Okay, did he notice me?? ‘Cuz I… Let’s go sit in the back!”

Those kinds of things… We should look at one another as a gift from God and enjoy the Gospel and enjoy our time together. The serious things that are underway are just gonna take care of themselves. In the meantime, we oughta joyfully go along, helping where we can, doing what we can, lifting one another’s burdens where we can, and making this whole process fun! 

Those kids—when I met with them in July (and I met with them last month too)—those kids like to have fun! But, I mean, it’s like this foreboding. Hey, we love one another as kids, we’re having fun as kids, this is all great. And we look at the adults, and we realize that one day we’re gonna have to become somber and colorless and dull and… 

What the hell kind of example are you setting for the kids? If I was a kid growing up and watching some of/most of/almost all of what I see going on among the adults, I’d get a garlic necklace and a big crucifix. 

This process should be joyful. So next time we get together, let’s see if at least we can have the beginnings of a little bit of joy on the fringe. And I liked the dancing, and I liked the music. And I liked everything that I heard from any of the speakers that had been given. 

I thought… We’ve accomplished absolutely remarkable things. That talk that was given by Adrian about the work that has gone on and the discoveries that have been made in the Hebrew translation and the effort—there were times, literally there were times… We met every week on a Zoom conference; there were times when the entire meeting was spent explaining theological matters (to the translators) that come from the Restoration through Joseph Smith so that they could choose the appropriate Hebrew word to be able to capture the underlying theology that needed to be embedded into the material. It was a wonderful process, and I enjoyed every minute of my participation in it. 

We’ve accomplished remarkable things. They’ve been done with a lot of hard work by a lot of hard people, and these are seriously wonderful achievements. But we shouldn’t allow the seriousness of the work that we’re accomplishing detract one iota from the fun that we can have along the way.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

TRANSCRIPT

The post The Holy Order, Part 3: Adoption – Pt. 2 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

Presented here is the first half of a talk by Denver Snuffer that was delivered at a general conference held in Grand Junction, Colorado, at the Avalon Theater on 12 July 2026.

I don’t have a clock. I don’t have a phone. I don’t have any idea if I’m supposed to start. I don’t know if someone’s supposed to introduce me. “Our next speaker will be me.” [laughter] 

I know a lot of people who haven’t taken a seat yet. Oh well. Hugh Nibley used to say that the best protection of the mysteries is the general disinterest, so I’m assuming I can proceed with the protection of the mysteries by all those in the lobby. [laughter]

And I saw someone looking like they wanted to do an introduction. Sorry. I’m…

Okay. Mankind began as a family. Adam and Eve were the first mortal parents, intended as the patriarch and matriarch over all who would live in the world. They were also the priest and priestess of a religion given to them by Heaven. That starting point was quickly disrupted, and the first generations of their children rejected their religion, separated from their parents, and followed Satan in rebellion.

A son named Cain was born when Adam and Eve were grandparents (or perhaps great-grandparents) and at a time when the family had become disorganized and chaotic. His birth gave Eve hope that she finally had a faithful son. As she put it, I have gotten a man from the Lord, wherefore he may not reject his words (Genesis 3:6 RE). Her hope was shattered when Cain killed another son, Abel. 

From the dawn of mankind, the family of Adam and Eve descended into apostasy and disorder. The Scriptures compel us to admit that, apart from Abel, the second generation of mankind was entirely lost until the birth of Seth. From him, a line of faithful descendants was established.

This resulted in two clear conditions for the first generations: There was a larger, predominant population of apostate men and women who: 

…kept not the commandments of God, and it displeased God, and he ministered not unto them. And their works were abominations and began to spread among all the sons of men. …And thus the works of darkness began to prevail among…the sons of men.

And God cursed the earth with a severe curse and was angry with the wicked, with all the sons of men whom he had made, for they would not listen unto his voice nor believe on his Only Begotten Son, even him who he declared should come in the meridian of time, who was prepared from before the foundation of the world. (Genesis 3:12-13 RE)

Ultimately, within ten generations, mankind had so few who were righteous and so many who were inordinately violent and wicked that God destroyed His creation with a flood. A few gathered into a city and with Enoch were translated. Noah (and his family) was guided by the Lord to survive the cataclysm. This gave mankind an opportunity to start over. But the generations following Noah fared no better in preserving the religion God taught to the first parents. Apostasy returned, and the opportunity for the family of mankind to return to a unified order—a singular family practicing a singular religion, with all members knowing they belonged to a united whole—was again quickly forfeited.

Our Scriptures confirm that mankind has descended into disorder from the beginning. Instead of a unified family, we are separated, with little or no genealogical connection to one another. Recent DNA science reveals something about the distant past and the far-flung regions from which we descend. Knowing that you have some Irish ancestors does not, however, reconnect you to them. Even if you think of yourself as Irish, your ancestors are not likely to be limited to the Irish. In a recent study of Americans: 

Of course, this is only a generalization and grouping based on overall reporting of the various ethnic categories. It helps show that our ancestry is diverse and includes a widely spread geographic and cultural heritage reflecting the scattered family of Adam and Eve.

Because mankind is splintered, the original religion of Adam was modified, and an innovation was offered as a substitute to reconnect and reunify us. God wants the atonement of Jesus Christ to save as many souls as possible. The substitute way God has used to expand salvation was to provide a covenant. God offers the terms, and mankind accepts His offer. Through covenant-making, God is able to incorporate multiple people, even whole families, into salvation. Covenants have been used to greatly expand salvation for Adam’s descendants. After a covenant has been offered and accepted, others are permitted to opt in to the covenantal group by accepting the same covenant terms. God’s conditions always require the covenanter/the convert to change their course and to be baptized before their inclusion into the community. This innovation has allowed for the widespread recovery of believers, despite the loss of the original plan for mankind’s salvation. 

The Book of Mormon describes the disorganized condition of mankind as alone, without God in the world (Alma 19:10 RE). Once a person is converted, they are then “numbered among” the faithful followers of the Lord. 

Any covenant can be broken and lost. By breaking the covenant, mankind loses their saved status, even if they were “born into the covenant.” The Book of Mormon teaches this: For behold, I say unto you, as many of the Gentiles as will repent are the covenant people of the Lord, and as many of the Jews as will not repent shall be cast off (2 Nephi 12:11 RE).

Despite innovating an accommodation to save souls, it has always been God’s promise that Adam’s family would return to their original status. Adam prophesied of this before his death: Now this same Priesthood which was in the beginning shall be in the end of the world also (now this prophecy Adam spoke as he was moved upon by the holy ghost)… (Genesis 3:14 RE).

In addition to the substitute, covenant-making innovation for saving souls, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has always included the plan for individuals to ultimately reconnect with the original family order. Time and the many generations separating us from Adam and Eve are to be repaired through the return of the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God. This talk follows three earlier talks about God’s plan to restore and recover mankind before the Second Coming of the Lord. The earlier talks have been Lecture 5 on “Priesthood,” “The Holy Order,” and “The Holy Order, Part 2.” We have not yet adequately discussed the topic of adoption in the earlier talks, although it’s been mentioned. It is now the topic addressed in this talk. 

The restoration of an ancient religion started by Joseph Smith was quite unlike what has developed into modern Mormonism. The primary group associated with Mormonism is, of course, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its historians and apologists admit there have been changes. In a 2013 BYU Studies article, Samuel M. Brown wrote: 

During my study of the contexts, connotations, and currents of early LDS adoption theology, I experienced what a famed scholar of late antiquity has called “salutary vertigo.” The more I investigated, the more I realized that the earliest Latter-day Saints saw the world differently than I do. (“Believing Adoption,” BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2)

Because Joseph’s vision differs from what is believed and practiced today, we still need to return to Joseph’s work and then continue to restore what was once here. More accurately: We need to repent.

Understanding how the practice of “adoption” fits into the Restoration is a model example of “dwindling in unbelief.” In the Glossary of Gospel Terms, this is the definition of the phrase “dwindling in unbelief”: 

Unbelief is often used in connection with losing truth, forsaking doctrine, and therefore, “dwindling.” The phrase “dwindling in unbelief” is the Book of Mormon’s way to describe moving from a state of belief, with true and complete doctrine, to a state of unbelief, where the truth has been discarded. Miracles end because men dwindle in unbelief.

Adoption was introduced as a means to avoid destruction at the Lord’s return in glory. The deaths of Joseph and Hyrum interrupted efforts to establish it. This talk will trace how it began and how subsequent events led to its decline and eventual abandonment. 

Our restored Scriptures (in the Testimony of St. John) mention becoming part of God’s family, for example, in the passage: …to become like Him, begotten children in the family of the Most High God (TSJ 1:3). Paul refers to “adoption” as part of conversion to follow Jesus Christ. Accordingly, the idea of “adoption” is part of Historic Christianity and Mormonism. For Christians, it is a vague notion used to refer to belief in, acceptance of, and conversion to Jesus Christ. For Mormonism, it once had a specific meaning, but that original meaning has drifted away until Mormon adoption is now akin to the Christian understanding. 

The concept of “adoption” was generally recognized as part of Christianity as a whole when the Restoration began. The term was used loosely to mean a person believed in Christ and recognized Him as their Savior. The language of Paul is often cited to support the Christian claim that believers are automatically adopted by faith into God’s family with nothing further required: 

For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if it so be that we suffer with him that we may [also be] glorified together. (Romans 1:34 RE)

Because the LDS Church went adrift, language in the Book of Mormon has also become used to support a loose understanding of the term “adoption.” For example: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women — all nations, kindreds, tongues and people — must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters (Mosiah 11:28 RE). Joseph Smith held a very different view, as I will explain.

Because Mormonism failed to preserve the original idea, the meaning and mechanism of “adoption” in the Mormon religion have become a Gordian knot. It should be (but it is not) understood as a separate doctrine requiring a separate rite. Over time, it has instead become entwined with plural marriage and baptism for the dead. By entangling plural marriage, baptism for the dead, and adoption, our ability to understand Joseph Smith’s message has been degraded. Obscuring adoption is one of the greatest losses in the dwindling Restoration. It must again be understood as a separate, important, and eternally significant religious rite. 

As adoption began to take shape in Joseph Smith’s work, Parley P. Pratt offered an early glimpse of what was underway. In his pamphlet “A Voice of Warning,” Pratt describes the process soon to be offered by Mormon officials, who were “prepared to unlock the door of the kingdom, and to adopt strangers and foreigners into it as legal citizens, by administering certain laws and ordinances which were invariably the laws of adoption…” (“A Voice of Warning and Instruction to All People,” p.95). This early reference to laws and ordinances would later lead to greater clarity as adoption became a separate rite. 

Although adoption would eventually stand on its own with Joseph Smith, the early LDS leaders blended it with plural marriage. This has led, in turn, to an inaccurate and misguided history of Joseph Smith. When the LDS apostles attributed plural marriage to Joseph Smith, it led to the editing, revision, and publication of altered historical documents. The resulting inaccurate history has been used, accepted, and perpetuated. One example of conflating what deserves to be treated separately appears in Samuel Brown’s article in The Journal of Mormon History. He explained his understanding this way:

The vast scope of adoption theology, generally stretched vertically through the generations of time, in polygamy stretched horizontally through the contemporary world. Though the first steps dated to…1830s, by the early 1840s Smith had begun to expound a marital/sexual system scholars have termed proto-polygamy and which early Latter-day Saints denominated “plural” or “celestial” marriage. In several important respects, polygamy is the marital amplification and application of adoption theology… 

It’s hard for me to just read that without degenerating into a series of obscenities to describe what I’m thinking about Samuel Brown’s conclusion here. But let me continue without that.

…“Plural” not only indicated that there would be multiple wives for each man but that such ritual marriages would unite worshippers as part of the celestial plurality of Smith’s heaven family. In the words of a revelation, the righteous “shall be crowned upon your heads with honor and immortality and eternal life to all your house both old and young because of the lineage of my Preasthood saith the Lord it shall be upon you and upon your Children after you from generation to generation By virtue of the Holy promise which I now make unto you.” (Samuel M. Brown, “Early Mormon Adoption Theology and the Mechanics of Salvation,” Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 37, No. 2, p.38, footnotes omitted, spellings as in original)

From Brown’s viewpoint, everything involving “sealing” was marital. Similarly, Richard L. Bushman failed to separate or acknowledge that adoption could (and should) be parsed separately from plural marriage. Consider below what he wrote, which, instead of being an accurate explanation of Joseph Smith’s practice, is a conflation of two different subjects as if they were one:

The only answer seems to be the explanation Joseph gave when he asked a woman for her consent: that they and their families would benefit spiritually from a close tie to the Prophet. Joseph told a prospective wife that submitting to plural marriage would “ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household. & all your kindred.” A father who gave his daughter to the Prophet as a plural wife was assured that the marriage “shall be crowned upon your heads with honor and immortality and eternal life to all your house[hold] both old and young.” The relationship would bear fruit in the afterlife. There is no certain evidence that Joseph had sexual relations with any of the wives who were married to other men. They married because Joseph’s kingdom grew with the size of his family, [to] those bonded to that family would be exalted with him. (Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, p.439, footnotes omitted)

If sealing could mean “adoption” into Joseph’s family rather than “marriage” to him, how differently might Bushman’s conclusion be understood? Let me rewrite that paragraph with this alternative view in mind:

The only answer seems to be the explanation Joseph gave when he asked a woman for her consent: that they and their families would benefit spiritually from a close tie to the Prophet. Joseph told a prospective [daughter] that submitting to [adoption] would “ensure your eternal salvation & exaltation and that of your father’s household. & all your kindred.” A father who gave his daughter to the Prophet as a [sealed daughter] was assured that the [sealing] “shall be crowned upon your heads with honor and immortality and eternal life to all your house[hold] both old and young.” The relationship would bear fruit in the afterlife. …They [were sealed] because Joseph’s kingdom grew with the size of his family, and those [adopted into] that family would be exalted with him.

Given the ongoing debate about whether Joseph Smith actually introduced plural marriage, approaching adoption as a separate, divisible sealing rite makes it part of that debate. I’m gonna set aside questions about polygamy’s origin. I want to focus on adoption as something completely apart from plural wives or any form of marriage. That is necessary if adoption is ever to be understood.

Here is another historian’s account describing the effect of an adoption sealing on the afterlife:

Among these [early Mormon] rituals were those binding, or sealing, families together. According to Mormon belief, family units must be sealed together by the authority of the priesthood (restored through Joseph Smith) to have validity after death. One ordinance seals parents and children to each other. Because most early Mormons were children of unbaptized members, however, many were “adopted to” prominent men in the church. Isaac Morley, for example, was adopted as a son to Brigham Young, although fifteen years his senior. These family ties carried with them all the moral obligations that inhere in family relationships, strengthening the bonds of loyalty among the leading families. (Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System 1840-1910, p.25, footnote omitted)

If family life continues after death, then both marriage and adoption have implications for the form the family will take. Therefore, adoption is just as important as marriage for the afterlife. As Joseph Smith practiced adoption, sealing in adoption was not tied to earthly alliances but was instead to be understood as creating a relationship with “the fathers in heaven.” Joseph Smith’s adoption secured promises for the afterlife. This talk will parse adoption as a distinct form of sealing, unrelated to marriage and without any connection to plural wives.

It is possible that when Joseph Smith began “sealing” others to himself that he made no distinction. He may have just “sealed” others to himself without clarifying the resulting status, other than that they would be together in the afterlife. That possibility occurs to me because Joseph’s clearest reference to “adoption” as a ritual (from all that I’ve been able to find in the available record) was in October 1843. If Joseph did not make a distinction before then, historians have worked with an inadequate record from which to reconstruct the events. 

Even with all the vagaries of history, adoption was once understood in Mormonism as the means of preserving mankind from being utterly wasted at the Lord’s return. Two events help justify the link between adoption and surviving the burning at the Lord’s return. The first sealing adoption in history occurred generations after the first apostasy, when Abraham became the “father of the righteous.” Scripture records that important event in the Book of Abraham:

My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning. Therefore, my hand shall be over you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you above measure, and make your name great among all nations. And you shall be a blessing unto your seed after you, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations. And I will bless them through your name; for as many as receive this gospel shall be called after your name and shall be accounted your seed, and shall rise up and bless you, as unto their Father. And I will bless them that bless you and curse them that curse you. And in you (that is, in your Priesthood) and in your seed, (that is, [in] your Priesthood) — for I give unto you a promise that this right shall continue in you and in your seed after you (that is to say, the literal seed or the seed of the body) — shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of [eternal life]. (Abraham 3:1 RE)

Here, God distinguished between the “literal seed of the body,” on the one hand, and the “seed” obtained through “Priesthood” given to Abraham. Abraham’s new status as the father of many nations was not to be merely through his lineal descendants. It would extend to include those who, through priestly ordinances, would become his descendants through adoption. This passage from the Book of Abraham is where God authorized the first adoption and confirmed its efficacy for all subsequent generations. 

From that adoption, every generation that “receive[d] this gospel shall be called after [Abraham’s] name and shall be accounted [his] seed.” In other words, Abraham’s adoption set the precedent for every subsequent generation to be reconnected through adoption to the first fathers. Abraham was the first to be adopted into a broken family line of Adam. Before Abraham, the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God was transmitted from patriarch (father) to heir (son) in an unbroken line. Abraham was the prototype for curing apostasy through adoption after the original Holy Order Priesthood link was broken.

The second scriptural clarification showing the necessity of adoption is foretold by Malachi and repeated in every volume of Scripture: Old Covenants, New Covenants, and Modern Covenants. That event is described in these words in the Old Covenants: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall seal the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their Fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Malachi 1:12 RE).

When the angel Nephi quoted this passage, he rendered it differently. He also included earlier words from Malachi’s prophecy, making the connection between them. Here is how Nephi put it:

…he quoted also the fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy…, though with a little variation from the way it reads in our Bibles. Instead of quoting the first verse as reads in our books, he quoted it thus: “For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea …all that do wickedly, shall burn as stubble; for they that cometh shall burn them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” And again he quoted the fifth verse thus: “Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” He also quoted the next verse differently: “And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers; if it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.” (Joseph Smith History 3:4 RE)

The words “root” and “branch” are genealogical or familial. They indicate ancestors and posterity. When the “root” and “branch” are destroyed in that coming day, the surviving “children” will be genealogically connected to the “fathers.” Correctly understood, the prophecy of Malachi is about adoption. This talk will clarify and reaffirm the need of adoption as an actual ordinance or rite that must return to connect some few back to Abraham before the coming great and dreadful day of the Lord’s return.

A great deal of what Joseph Smith taught has been lost, limited, or rejected. It is not an overstatement to say that the loss of adoption may be the most serious of all that was left behind. It is so important that the world will be cursed and utterly wasted at the return of Christ if it is not restored. Joseph was first alerted to this on September 22, 1823, when Nephi repeated the prophecy that the failure to reconnect to the fathers would result in: the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming (ibid.). Christ also quoted this warning to the Nephites and required them to add it to their Scripture. 

 Joseph originally explained the prophecy was about connecting the living faithful to the “fathers” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The connection was through Priesthood, not genealogy. Joseph gave us reasons to understand that he had become connected to the fathers through priesthood. While he never mentioned Elijah’s return as anything other than a future event, he did mention numerous fathers as having ministered to him. He also clearly involved himself with adoption rites. In turn, Joseph became the “father” of all who were sealed to him.

When he began adoptions, families were put under Joseph as the father of the righteous in his dispensation. Accordingly, women and men were sealed to Joseph Smith as their father, and they as his daughters and sons. This was priestly, according to the law of God; not biological. This changed slightly when, in January 1841, his older brother, Hyrum, was appointed and ordained to stand at the head of the priesthood because he was Joseph’s older brother:

I now give unto you the offices belonging to my Priesthood, that you may hold the keys thereof, even the Priesthood which is after the Order of Melchizedek, which is after the Order of my Only Begotten Son. First, I give unto you Hyrum Smith to be a patriarch unto you, to hold the sealing blessings of my church, even the Holy Spirit of Promise whereby you are sealed up unto the day of redemption, that you may not fall… (T&C 141:41)

As the Holy Order after the Order of the Only Begotten Son was arranged for Joseph’s dispensation, the one who was appointed “first” was Hyrum. He was to be “a patriarch unto [Joseph]” as well as the church. As a result of that appointment, Hyrum would stand at the head and become the one adoption should recognize as the father. That change, which made Hyrum the father, was a clarification now lost to the LDS (and other Restoration denominations).

As soon as Hyrum and Joseph died, the doctrine began to erode, ultimately being replaced by the substitute practice of sealing genealogical lines together, with no connection to anyone holding the Holy Order. There also does not seem to have been any effort to recognize that Hyrum was appointed as the “patriarch unto [Joseph],” which made him the relevant priestly father. Brigham Young and the Twelve continued to point to Joseph alone and to disregard any relevance to Hyrum’s 1841 appointment.

The history of “adoption” in Mormonism cannot be understood apart from Joseph Smith’s theology, which requires such a sealing. Both history and theology are necessarily intertwined. Unfortunately, history both testifies to the critical importance of adoption and to how quickly that understanding can and did dwindle. Despite its apparent centrality to salvation and to surviving the Second Coming of Christ, adoption was never established on a firm enough foundation at the outset to allow it to endure. If it is ever to form a part of our theology again, it requires restoration. Although Joseph was given the pattern and held the authority, the people of that day were engaged in abominable mischief.

The January 1841 revelation gave the people (who had been under condemnation since 1832) one more chance. But they were given this candid appraisal of their condition: …instead of blessings, you, by your own works, bring cursings, wrath, indignation, and judgments upon your own heads, by your follies and by all your abominations which you practice before me, says the Lord (T&C 141:14). As a result, the Lord would not allow them to continue without repentance. If they repented and returned, the 1841 revelation promised that Christ would come and restore again that which was lost unto you, or [that] which he has taken away, even the fullness of the Priesthood (T&C 141:10). That, of course, is necessary before the Lord’s return, as He vindicates and fulfills every prophecy, promise, and covenant He’s made. It is not a one-way street. People need to respond with obedience.

The Scriptures—from the Old Covenants through the Modern Covenants—show the repeated failure of God’s chosen people. The Lord has explained the problem: I, the Lord, am bound when you do what I say, but when you do not what I say you have no promise (T&C 78:2). Men fail, then blame God: I command and men obey not, I revoke and they receive not the blessing, [and] then they say in their hearts, This is not the work of the Lord, for his promises are not fulfilled. But woe unto such, for their reward lurks beneath, and not from above (T&C 45:7). Worse for mankind is the tendency to claim they are God’s chosen after they, like the Latter-day Saints in 1844, were rejected because of their disobedience. The sad reality is that although God has repeatedly offered to gather and protect His people, they walk away from Him. The Lord spoke to the Nephites after their cataclysmic destruction, explaining His rejected offers:

…how often I’ve tried to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings! You people of the house of Israel who have fallen, O house of Israel who live at Jerusalem as well as you that have fallen: how often I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you refused! You people of the house of Israel whom I’ve spared, how often I will gather you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, if you repent and return to Me with all your heart! But if not, O house of Israel, your dwelling places will become desolate… (3 Nephi 4:9 CE)

Mankind has proven difficult for the Lord to guide, putting any attempt to restore the Holy Order and its related rites at risk. Nauvoo was filled with secret acts, including adultery, counterfeiting, and murder. Joseph Smith sounded the alarm in the newspaper (and I’m gonna read what he put in the newspaper, but it has exclamation points behind these sentences; it should probably be shouted): 

Your liberty is in danger! Thieves are in your midst! By day and by night [they are] prowling through your streets! Your property is in peril, and life, and limb, in jeopardy! Your love of justice, your personal honor, your attachment to your country, and your holy religion, all, all, loudly call upon you to assist in bringing the culprits to condign punishment. (Times and Seasons Vol. 2, pp.221–22)

Under the circumstances of the time, it was impossible for the Lord to return and restore what was lost to an undeserving and wicked people. Adultery and secret adulterous marriages to “spiritual” or plural wives in Nauvoo were denounced in a letter to the entire church written by Hyrum Smith, the Church’s Patriarch and member of the First Presidency, on June 12, 1842, which stated in part:

Behold, this is a wicked generation, full of lyings, and deceit, and craftiness, and the children of the wicked are wiser than the children of light, i.e., they are more crafty, and it seems that it has been the case in all ages of the world. And the man, when he leaves his wife and travels to a foreign nation, while on his way, darkness overpowers his mind, and Satan deceives him and flatters him with the graces of the harlot, and before he is aware, he is disgraced for ever. And greater is the danger for [a] woman that leaves her husband. And there are several instances where women have left their husbands and come to this place, and in a few weeks or months they have found themselves new husbands and they are living in adultery, and we are obliged to cut them off from the church. There are men also that are guilty of the same crime, as we are credibly informed, we are knowing to their having taken wives here, and are credibly informed that they have wives in England. (T&C 149:4)

God offered in exchange for repentance and obedience, that they shall not be moved out of their place (T&C 141:13). IF they failed to repent, He warned them: I will not perform the oath which I ma[de] unto you, neither fulfill the promises which you expect at my hands …[because] you, by your own works, bring cursings, wrath, indignation, and judgments upon your own heads… (T&C 141:14). They were driven out of Nauvoo and fled to a desolate wilderness, suffering hardships, hunger, and poverty along the way.

There were two alternatives: Obey and have the fullness restored, or disobey and be rejected and driven out of Nauvoo. As a result, adoption into the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God hung in the balance between 1841 and June 27, 1844. That was a period of probation. Adoption was clearly something Joseph wanted to develop into a formal religious ordinance, rite, or practice that could be continued. When he performed an adoption as a Gospel rite, he could do so with authority. After January 1841, Hyrum Smith could also perform an adoption ceremony authoritatively. The revelation explaining Hyrum’s authority states:

…my servant Hyrum may take the office of Priesthood and Patriarch, … that from here on out he shall hold the keys of the Patriarchal blessings upon the heads of all my people, that who[m]ever he blesses shall be blessed and who[m]ever he curses shall be cursed, that whatever he shall bind on…earth shall be bound in Heaven, and that whatever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.

…I now give unto you the offices belonging to my Priesthood, that you may hold the keys thereof, even the Priesthood which is after the Order of Melchizedek, which is after the Order of m[ine] Only Begotten Son. First, I give unto you Hyrum Smith to be a patriarch unto you, to hold the sealing blessings of my church, even the Holy Spirit of Promise whereby you are sealed up unto the day of redemption… (T&C 141:32,41)

For that brief time, two could effect an adoption. After Joseph and Hyrum were killed, the authority was lost. To perpetuate an authoritative adoption would have required a standardized, authorized ordinance to be established while the authority was present and, thereafter, to be followed. A standardized and authorized ordinance established by God at the beginning of a dispensation can remain effective after the dispensation head dies. But that is true only if the ordinance is standardized and then perpetuated without change. That did not happen. LDS scholars have struggled to deal with the rough transition following the killing of the Smith brothers. For an LDS apologist, it is unthinkable to acknowledge there was a tragic and significant loss. 

Two LDS scholars have explained the change (without acknowledging the loss) in these words:

Brigham Young and the other apostles amplified, redirected, and codified ritual adoption in the period immediately after Smith’s death, integrating it into temple liturgy and employing it in part as a response to the contrary claims of Smith’s biological family. The various stages of early adoption contain the themes, paradoxes, and tensions surrounding Joseph Smith’s afterlife vision of a vast, sacerdotal family.

…Adoption theology is a reminder that the idea world of early Mormons was in some ways strikingly different from that of the early twenty-first century. Understanding this aspect of early Mormonism on its own terms may be useful to our era’s engagement of questions of human relationships and identity. (Samuel Brown and Jonathan Stapley, “Mormonism’s Adoption Theology: An Introductory Statement,” Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp.1-2)

Although active Latter-day Saints trust their church has retained and perpetuated restoration through Joseph Smith, history leads us to a contrary conclusion. When Joseph and Hyrum died, Brigham Young and his associates were in no position to “amplify, redirect, and codify” ritual adoption as an authoritative ordinance binding on Earth and in Heaven, nor were they pursuing God’s work when they made claims to compete with the Smith biological family for leadership of the church. And to the extent that the first days of the Restoration (when Joseph and Hyrum were involved) were “strikingly different” from later twenty-first century Mormonism, that only confirms that something was lost and something else replaced it.

From the history of the Restoration, we know the loose scriptural references to “adoption connections to God” found in the New Testament passages were clearly understood differently by Joseph Smith. He took formal steps, ritual requirements, and invoked sealing authority. It was not an effect of mere conversion and baptism. It required an ordinance. Although he administered such rites, the actual wording, method, and particulars involved were not recorded and, therefore, could not be continued following his death. 

Gordon Irving wrote an article in BYU Studies Magazine explaining his understanding of “adoption.” He believed the idea began as something essentially the same as traditional Christianity understood it: “…the process of adoption…could be accomplished through baptism preceded by faith and repentance and accompanied by the holy ghost” (“The Law of Adoption: One Phase of the Development of the Mormon Concept of Salvation, 1830- 1900,” BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 14: Iss. 3, Article 2, p.292).

The next step in early Mormonism, according to Irving, was adoption of the dead through baptism of the dead. He recognized that once sealing in marriages began in the 1840s, adoption was, in some undefined way, intended to link believers back to Adam: 

God, according to Mormon belief, had joined Adam and Eve for eternity as husband and wife and placed them at the head of the human family since their union was effected by the authority of God [and] their children were natural heirs of the priesthood and were born in the covenant and recognized by God as legitimate members of his family and legal heirs to his kingdom. As each new family came into being it became another link in the chain of families stretching back to Adam who was linked to God thus the family of God became more than metaphor. Exaltation depended on being part of that chain. (Ibid., 294)

Irving then makes this observation about the state of things: 

…but while sealing was accepted doctrine by 1844 the Saints in general had little chance to become practically acquainted with the sealing doctrine prior to the death of Joseph Smith. Experience with the practice as well as [the] clarification of doctrine and procedure came only in the post Joseph Smith period of Mormon history. (Ibid., 295)

One moment clarifying Joseph’s divergence from traditional Christian, loose understanding of “adoption” occurred around October 1843, when Joseph Smith mentioned his use of sealing authority. Prior to then, sealings were nonspecific but are regarded by LDS scholars as marriages, although that conclusion is not altogether justified by the record. Because there was nothing in the records to distinguish between “sealing” to effect an adoption to Joseph Smith and “sealing” that was for marriage, it is impossible at this point to reconstruct a clear line of demarcation. LDS historians are carelessly inexact in their dogmatic assertions about Joseph Smith sealing plural marriages. The record does not require that conclusion. The LDS confusion about adoption has led them to rule out “sealing adoptions” to explain early events.

By October 1843, the records clearly show that Joseph was performing man-to-man sealings through adoption. The last eight months of his life, the records (poor as they are) let us conclude that Joseph “sealed or adopted” other individuals to himself. There was no settled, formal ordinance preserved, and the proof of Joseph’s practice is mostly post-mortem, as those who were exposed to the practice only vaguely recalled what he had done. Despite this, it is safe to conclude Joseph intended for there to be an ordinance and for it to have eternal effect. As he remarked: “If you have power to seal on earth & in heaven then we should be Crafty, [and] the first thing you do is you go & seal on earth your sons and daughters unto yourself, & yourself unto your fathers in eternal glory” (Words of Joseph Smith, p.331). This remark on 10 March 1844—six months after the first time he mentioned “adoption”—is clearly based on the idea of sealing “sons” and “daughters” and “fathers.” His comment illustrates how he viewed sealing is not only including marriage but also adoption.

However, after Joseph’s death, that first generation did not understand what was to be done or how to implement adoption. They knew about it, intended to practice it, but had no clear idea of what to do or how. As historians have examined the topic, the historical lacunae have been backfilled with more speculation than fact, and adoption remains conjectural rather than understood. Some question whether it was practiced at all.

Unfortunately, there is some reason to believe adoption was one of the more critical ordinances of the Restoration. Jonathan Stapley has written “Adoption Sealing Ritual in Mormonism” to review what is understood about the subject. His account confesses: 

It is unclear what Joseph Smith ultimately envisioned when he referred to the station of priest and king in his cosmology as the “fulness of the Melchizedek Priesthood.” He died before the completion of the Nauvoo Temple, and consequently it was left to the Quorum of the Twelve to transmit these concepts to the broader church. (Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 37, No. 3 [hereafter JMH-Stapley], p.58; footnotes omitted, spelling as in original)

Subsequent events showed how little the Quorum of the Twelve understood the subject, and ultimately, whatever Joseph Smith intended was abandoned. The Quorum President, shortly after Joseph Smith’s death, stated at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, on February 16, 1847: 

The Lord introduced the law of adoption for the benefit of the children of men as a school master to bring them back into the covenant of the Priesthood. This Principle I am aware is not clearly understood by many of the Elders in th[e] Church at the present time as it will Hereafter be: And I confess that I have had only a smattering of those things but when it is necessary I will attain to more knowledge on the subject and consequently will be enabled to teach and practice more and will in the mean time glorify God the bountiful giver. (The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Vol. 1, 1832-1852, p.186 [hereafter CDBY])

Keep in mind: Brigham Young said this in February 1847. All—ALL— of the Nauvoo Temple rites performed by Latter-day Saints took place between November 1845 and February 1846, concluding more than a year before this talk by Brigham Young. This raises the question of exactly what ceremonial rite or ordinance was performed for adopting temple initiates during those three months. From the Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions and Anointings record, we know of the adoptions that were performed in those months. I have provided a complete list in “Appendix 1: Names and Dates of Nauvoo Adoptions,” which appears at the end of this talk. I’m not going to read them. The list includes those done in the Nauvoo Temple, but one writer explained that even more were done at Winter Quarters. 

Because they were done, this raises the question of what, exactly, did adoption rites include when performed by the Twelve in 1845-46 after Joseph and Hyrum’s death? A late account from the memory of George Laub preserves this description:

This order of Adoption will Link the chain of the Priesthood in such a way that cannot be separated by covananting before god, Angels and the Present witnesses we covenant together for him to be a father unto those who are sealed to him to doo unto them as he would in his own children and to councell them in rituousness and to teach them all the Principles of Salvation and to share unto them of all the Blessings to confert these and all that are calculated to make them happy Both in time and in Eternity. Now we also did covenant on our side to do all the good for his upbuilding and happyness Both in time & Eternity [and] this was done in the hous of the Lord across the alter as was Preparted for this Purpos of ordinances. (George Laub, “Reminiscences and Journal, February 5, 1846,” JMH-Stapley, p.73, all as in original)

What I just read you has a massive amount of misspellings, but that’s exactly how it was written in the journal. So I didn’t touch it; “all as in original.”

This account summarizes the rite but only paraphrases and does not attempt to quote the language used. The best information I have been able to locate so far on the wording of how adoption ceremony was conducted in the Nauvoo Temple comes from a record of sealings and adoptions maintained by the Utah Family History Library. From that record, we have the following transcript of a ceremony for the adoption of John Bernhisel:

This day came to the sacred Altar, in the upper room of the “House of the Lord,” founded by Prest. Joseph Smith (martyred) the Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Church, and thereupon gave himself to President Joseph Smith (martyred) to become his son by the Law of Adoption, and to become a legal heir to all the blessings bestowed upon Joseph Smith pertaining to exaltations, even to the eternal Godhead, with a solemn covenant to observe all the rights and ordinances pertaining to the new and everlasting covenant, as far as now is or shall hereafter be made know[n] unto him. Done in the presence of Patriarch John Smith, President Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Amasa Lyman, Orson Hyde, …George A. Smith, Franklin D. Richards, Clerk. (“SEALINGS AND ADOPTIONS, 1846-1857,” Utah Family History Library Special Collections, pp.145-146, all as in original)

Another historian reconstructed the rite used in Nauvoo as follows:

Bernhisel’s family continued to expand in Nauvoo. On February 3, 1846, Bernhisel “came to the sacred Alt[a]r in the upper room of the ‘House of the Lord’ . . . and there upon gave himself to Prest. Joseph Smith (martyred) to become his son by the law of adoption and to become a legal heir to all the blessings bestowed upon Joseph Smith pertaining to exaltations even unto the eternal Godhead.” In this rite, the now-dead Prophet became Bernhisel’s sacerdotal father. The final phrase in this ritual adoption ceremony—one that would involve scores of Latter-day Saints through the nineteenth century—made clear that the ultimate destination of these familial connections was “exaltations” that would extend all the way to the “eternal Godhead” through “legal heir[ship].” (Samuel M. Brown, “Early Mormon Adoption Theology and the Mechanics of Salvation,” Journal of Mormon History, Vol. 37, No. 3, p.4)

Essentially, this form of the “ordinance” attempts to link the candidate to whatever God “bestowed upon Joseph Smith pertaining to exaltations, even to the eternal Godhead.” It also includes a loophole in case that language proves to be insufficient. The loophole includes a precaution against insufficient language in the rite by adding: “as far as now is or shall hereafter be made known,” in an attempt to leave the door open for perhaps further light and knowledge at an undetermined future date. Apparently, this would allow for the later “backdating” of an ordinance using priestly fiat to fix any earlier omissions or mistakes.

These are two examples of our best remaining descriptions of the form of the ordinance language took after the death of Joseph Smith, based on the available LDS records. Assuming these are accurate, it is little wonder Brigham Young would acknowledge that adoption “is not clearly understood by many of the Elders in th[e] Church at the present time as it will Hereafter be: And I confess that I have [only had] a smattering of those things…” Not only were the words for adoption poorly preserved, we also lack clear language for marriage sealing from Joseph Smith.

It is understandable, given the uncertainty surrounding this adoption language, that Brigham Young, a year after the Nauvoo Temple rites had concluded, said that the leaders did not know how to practice adoption rites. They may have been in doubt about the matter but had proceeded, despite that uncertainty, to make gestures in that direction. It is safe to say their actions affirm that Joseph Smith did indeed intend for adoptions to be part of the restored Gospel.

In February 1847 at Winter Quarters, what was understood about adoption was connected to tying mankind back to Adam. A link had been broken and needed to be restored. Brigham Young explained his understanding at that time:

I have gathered a number of families around me through the law of adoption and seal of the covenant according to the order of the priesthood and others have done likewise, it being the means of salvation left to bring us back to God. But had the keys of the priesthood been retained and handed down from father to son throughout all generations up to the present time then there could have been no necessity of the law of adoption, for we would all been included in the covenant without it and would have been legal heirs instead of being heirs according to promise. …man through apostasy (which is entire disobedience) has lost or suffered the keys and privileges of the priesthood to be taken away from them and they left to wander in darkness and practice all manner of wickedness until thousands [have] bec[o]me the vessels of wrath and were doomed to destruction… I will extend the chain of…priesthood back through apostolic dispensation to Father Adam just as soon as I can get a Temple built. (CDBY, 1:179-180)

Given this recognition of the importance of adoption, it is curious that Brigham Young would leave it an unresolved matter through the end of his life. He clearly expected to gain more understanding at a later time. However, the hoped-for knowledge Brigham Young anticipated might be given to him to clear up the confusion did not come, at least insofar as he disclosed. He did report a week later, in February 1847, that he had a dream in which Joseph Smith visited him, but instead of providing guidance, Joseph said, “Tell the people to be humble and faithful, and be sure to keep the spirit of the Lord, and it will lead them right.” Although no instruction was given about how to perform the needed rites, Brigham Young said that the concluding words of Joseph in that dream were:

Be sure to tell the people to keep the Spirit of the Lord; and if they will, they will find themselves just as they were organized by our Father in Heaven before they came into the world… Our Father in Heaven organized the human family, but they are all disorganized and in great confusion. (CDBY, 1:188)

Because adoption is shrouded in mystery for leaders of the LDS Church and its historians, that institution has been unable to implement Joseph Smith’s adoption sealing practice or even provide a proper context. Their account of history does not explain what it was or how it fit into the religion Joseph was at one time restoring. Therefore, they are also unable to provide the required ordinance, and for over a century, their only practice in temple adoption is to seal children born outside of a temple marriage to their parents. As for adoption to the family of God, the LDS Church now follows the traditional Christian understanding.

Stapley correctly notes in his article that the practice of the original adoption rite in Nauvoo endured a 31-year hiatus between the abandonment of the Nauvoo Temple and the 1877 dedication of the St. George Temple. When adoptions did resume, the practice differed from what had been done earlier in Nauvoo. What was done in the Nauvoo Temple before the exodus from Illinois began at the end of November 1845 (17 months after Joseph Smith was slain) and was dependent on recollections of Joseph’s earlier conduct that could be gathered by the Twelve. The more time passed, the less clear the adoption practice became, until ultimately the original attempt was essentially abandoned in 1894.

The LDS Church was more candid in the 1800s than it is today. From early candor to → more modest circumspection to → outright concealment of the failure, LDS history shows that as time passes from Joseph Smith to the present, LDS leaders are increasingly willing to publicly reassure followers that they know what they are doing. I accept as candid and truthful Brigham Young’s 1847 confession that he did not understand it. I question the current LDS claims to have all the keys and knowledge to be able to save families.

Nearly a decade after Joseph’s death, when temple ceremonial work resumed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake, Brigham Young declared adoption the crowning ordinance. It was more important than other temple rites, including washing, anointing, endowment, and marriage sealing:

This Chain must not [be] broken for mankind Cannot be saved [in] any other way. This Priesthood must be linked together so that all the Children may be linked to Father Adam. …we will seal men to men by the keys of the Holy Priesthood. This is the highest ordinance. It is the last ordinance of the kingdom of God on…earth and above all the endowments that can be given you. It is a final sealing an Eternal Principle and when once made cannot be broken by the Devil. (CDBY, 2:1033-1034)

Seventeen years later, Brigham Young explained that while other ordinances could be without a temple, adoption was confined to temples alone: “…when we come to other sealing ordinances…they cannot be done without a Temple… We can seal women to men, but not men to men” (CDBY, 5:1873). There was clearly some qualitative difference between sealing marriages and sealing adoptions in Young’s understanding. It was apparently a different order of magnitude in meaning and effect. Yet marriage sealings continue today in LDS temples, while men-to-men sealings have disappeared. 

In his January 1856 talk, Brigham Young taught that the “turning of [the] hearts [of] the fathers” foretold by Malachi could be fulfilled only through adoption. He also taught that God’s promise to Abraham regarding “his seed” would be fulfilled only through the temple ordinance of adoption. Despite repeated attempts, LDS Church leaders were unable to sort out how to practice adoption. 

In January 1857, Wilford Woodruff recorded Heber C. Kimball’s uncertainty about attempting adoptions:

I spent the day in the office. …H.C. Kimball Cam… & read a letter to his Brother Solomon. Then He set down & taught us good doctrin. He said that He did not Believe in this custom of Adoption/\ that had been practiced in this Church. No man should give his Birthright to another but should keep his birthright in the linage of his Fathers & go to…unite the link through the whole linage of [the] fathers untill they come up to a man in the Linage who held the priesthood. (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 1833-1898, Vol. 5, p.3)

Despite misgivings, adoptions continued. For decades, despite uncertainty about what to do, how to do it, and why it ought to be done, adoptions still continued to be performed. 

At a meeting of the reorganized School of the Prophets in January of 1868, attended by Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, Daniel Wells, along with Elders John Taylor, Orson Hyde, George Smith, Erastus Snow, George Q. Cannon, Phineas Young, and Joseph Young, adoption was discussed. President Wells conjectured: “On Adoption he supposed it had reference to the linking together of the Priesthood…that it might reach back to the link that had long since been broken, that it might present one unbroken chain” (Salt Lake School of the Prophets: 1867-1883, pp.11-12; quoted as in original). In response, Orson Hyde said, “The Doctrine of Adoption he knew but little about and should decline touching it until the line is chalked out” (ibid., p.12).

Scholars struggle to make sense of what Joseph was doing. The attempts to reconstruct Joseph’s adoption have been insufficient to provide any firm understanding of what took place, how, or why. Thirty years before he would become the church president, Wilford Woodruff concluded that adoptions would be a project for the resurrected Joseph Smith to sort out during the Millennium. “Man also will have to be sealed to man until the chain is united from Father Adam down to the last Saint. This will be the work of the Millennium, and Joseph Smith will be the man to attend to it or dictate it” (ibid., p.42).

A half-century after Joseph’s death, the LDS apostles struggled to determine how it ought to work, who should be sealed to whom, how, and even what effect it would have in the afterlife. In a meeting on June 1, 1893, attended by Lorenzo Snow, Franklin D. Richards, Francis Lyman, John W. Taylor, Marriner Merrill, Abraham Cannon, George F. Gibbs, John McAllister, Nephi Cannon [Clayton], and James Jack, they “had some talk about the ordinance of adoption in the temple. Joseph F. Smith said Pres. [Brigham] Young had told him to follow in ordinance work for the dead the rules which will [originally] ordinarily govern similar work for the living” (Candid Insights of a Mormon Apostle: The Diaries of Abraham H. Cannon, 1889-1895, p.388).

The practice was to seal faithful children to their parents, and faithful parents to Joseph Smith. Woodruff explained, “I was sealed to my father, and then had him sealed to the Prophet Joseph” (ibid., p.488). 

The concept of adoption affected how people understood the afterlife. This led some people to view adoption as a means to pursue self-interest. People began to aspire to improve their post-mortality by recruiting and acquiring descendants through adoption. John D. Lee had begun recruiting others to be his adopted descendants before the migration west and continued recruiting during the migration west. He had adopted a number of others in the Nauvoo Temple rites:

Law of Adaption tended on…5th of February 1846 I and my wife Mary Jane with many others was Adopted into John D Lee’s family. this I took upon myself [in] the Name of Lee in th[e] manner George Laub Lee & my wifes Name Mary Jane Laub Lee this order of Adaption will like the chain of…Prieshood in such a way that it cannot be seperated by covenanting before god Angels and the Present witnesses we covanant together for him to be as father unto those who are sealed to him [and] to doo unto them as he would unto his own children and to councell them in rituousness and to teach them all the Principles of Salvation…to share unto them…all the Blessings [and] comfort…that [they] are calculated to make them happy…im time and in Eternity. (George Laub Journal, 5 Feb. 1846, pp.165-166, all as in original)

In the attached Appendix 1, there are twenty-three names of individuals sealed in adoptions on 5 February 1846 by Amasa Lyman. The list of names includes George and Mary Jane Laub.

George Laub was recruited by John D. Lee to become his adoption son, as his journal recounts: “…now in this time I agreed to goe in to John D. Lee’s family as to the Law of Adoption through his persuation [sic] according to the celestial law” (ibid., p.164).

John D. Lee was not alone in recruiting others to be adopted. Aspiring men believed it could be turned to their personal advantage in the next life. It got very ugly. As Gordon Irving described it:

…some were more interested in being fathers and exercising authority over others then they were in being sons of God. Kingdom-building, or the gathering together of a large number of people over whom one could rule in eternity, enjoyed a good deal of popularity. Brigham Young complained: “were I to say to the elders you now have the liberty to build up your [own] kingdoms, one half of them would lie, swear, steal…fight like the very devil to get men and women sealed to them. They would even try to pass right by me and go to Jos[eph].” (Law of Adoption, p.302, citations omitted)

The Logan Temple president was told to end his practice of recruiting adoptees. Eventually, President Wilford Woodruff announced a final adoption practice on April 8, 1894: “Pres. Woodruff announced the doctrine of the sealing of children to parents as far back as it is possible to trace the genealogy, and then [to] seal the last member to the Prophet Joseph [Smith]” (George Laub Journal, p.496).

Family relationships were determined by sealing, not by biology. For example, Heber J. Grant was the biological son of Jedediah Grant, but because his mother was sealed to Joseph Smith, he was regarded as Joseph Smith’s son.

So it is apparent that what Joseph Smith understood about adoption was not clearly communicated to subsequent church leaders. They could not preserve the practice intact. In September 1887, two months after John Taylor died, his son-in-law, John M. Whitaker, wrote in his diary:

President Taylor said he knew nothing about [adoption]. And also just lately when asked by Brother Snow, President Wilford Woodruff knew nothing about it. [“]It hadn’t been revealed to him.” I know this at this time to say [or show] a prevailing feeling among the Twelve that they don’t understand it. George…Cannon also said he didn’t understand it. (John M. Whitaker, Diary, Book No. 4, November 16, 1887, pp.101-102)

As John Taylor’s health declined in the last month of his life, Wilford Woodruff recorded in his journal on June 8, 1887: “I wrote 4 Letters to Jaques Emma Clara & Roskelly. I did not rest well. To [sic] much deep thinking to Sleep” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journals, Vol. 8: 1 January 1881 to 31 December 1888, p.441).

Roskelly was employed as the recorder in the Logan, Utah temple. That letter included the following mention of adoption:

So in relation to Adoptions, most, if not all, of the Presidency and Twelve, have had men adopted to them, and all these Sealings and Adoptions are for the Salvation of the living and the dead. I have never asked any man to be adopted into my family that I can recollect of; but I have had a number of families of friends adopted into my family, as have other men, without any regard to whether it will, in the future, cost me one dollar or a million. What we have done in this matter has been for the salvation of man. It may possibly be a correct doctrine that a man’s Kingdom will consist [only of] the fruit of his own loins. Yet Jesus Christ died to save the whole world, and if we, as Apostles and Elders, do nothing for the human family only for the fruit of our own loins, we shall not do much towards magnifying the Holy Priesthood God has given us for saving the souls of men—either the living or the dead… I have adopted this rule in Sealing and Adoptions: to take such as the Lord has given me, and leave the result[s] in His [hand] …Paul talked a good deal about Adoptions, but we did not understand much about it, until the Lord revealed it to Joseph Smith, and we may not, perhaps, understand it now as fully as we should. Still the Sealings and Adoptions are true principles, or our Prophets have been badly deceived. (JMH-Stapely p.103)

Because of uncertainty, adoption became increasingly controversial over time. Since the idea was not well understood by LDS Church leaders, they could provide no answers to questions on the subject. Bishop Edward Bunker denounced the idea altogether, resulting in an 1892 church court that the LDS Church President Woodruff and one of his counselors attended. The former bishop was charged with teaching false doctrine and, in his defense, wrote a letter to the high council stating:

The adoption of one man to another out of the lineage, I do not understand and for that reason I would not enter into it. And adopting the dead to the living is as adopting the father to the son. I don’t believe there is a man on earth that thoroughly understands the principle. If there is, I have never heard it taught as I could understand it. I believe it is permmited [sic] more to satisfy the minds of…people for the present until the Lord reveals more fully the principle. (Edward Bunker Autobiography)

In his summary of the court, Wilford Woodruff relegated adoption to one of the “mysteries” that church members ought to avoid discussing because they cause difficulties. He wrote: “June 11, 1892 We Met in the Tabernacle at 10 oclock on the trial of Bishop Bunker on Doctrin. We talked to them Plainly of the impropriety of indulging in Misteries to Create difficulties among the Saints. They professed to be Satisfied” (Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 9:203, all as in original). 

Although John Taylor perpetuated the practice, it gradually diminished and then disappeared, beginning with Wilford Woodruff’s presidency. Woodruff changed the policy in April 1894 to seal within biological families as far back as known, then to seal/adopt the last parents to Joseph Smith. This made adoption less of an issue and the genealogical search for ancestors of greater concern. By 1922, the de-emphasis on adoption allowed it to be ignored altogether. The practice Woodruff announced in 1894 was then deleted from the account published by the Utah Genealogical Society and from James Clark’s Messages of The First Presidency. Today, adoption has vanished from the LDS Church, and it was never practiced by the RLDS or other branches of the Restoration. It is nevertheless a part of the Gospel, and an ordinance is required.

Nearly a half-century later, the LDS president remained in no better position to understand or practice it. Wilford Woodruff was among the first generations of converts, an early apostle, and the fourth church president. Despite his background and personal proximity to the events, he could not provide any clarity on adoption. In his April 1894 General Conference talk titled “The Law of Adoption,” he made this candid acknowledgment:

But he [Brigham Young] did not receive all the revelations that belong to this work; neither did President Taylor, nor has Wilford Woodruff. There will be no end to this work until it is perfected.

…We have not fully carried out those principles in fulfillment of the revelations of God to us, in sealing the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. I have not felt satisfied, neither did President Taylor, neither has any man since the Prophet Joseph who has attended to the ordinance of adoption in the temples of our God. We have felt…there was more to be revealed upon this subject than we had received. 

In contrast to earlier candor, the LDS Church today claims it can and does seal families through the broad authority termed “priesthood keys.” Although the term “keys” was not clearly defined by Joseph Smith, nevertheless, the LDS Church describes keys as follows: 

Priesthood keys held by the Lord’s servants authorize them to direct how priesthood authority and power are used in the work of salvation and exaltation.

Jesus Christ holds all the keys of the priesthood pertaining to His Church. He has conferred upon each of His Apostles all the keys that pertain to the kingdom of God on earth. The President of the Church is the only person authorized to exercise all those priesthood keys.

Temple presidents, mission presidents, stake presidents, bishops, and quorum presidents also hold priesthood keys that allow them to preside over and direct the work they have been commissioned to do. Because of the keys of the priesthood, we can have access to the ordinances, covenants, blessings, and powers we need in order to return to live with our Heavenly Father and our Savior and become like Them. 

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/priesthood-keys-study-guide?lang=eng) 

(Yeah, but you’re gonna go off like a match-head.) [laughter] Oh, I’m sorry. Did I just say that out loud? [more laughter]

Taken at face value, this seems good enough. But there is nothing in LDS teachings today that practices or even allows us to understand exactly how adoption into the lineage of Abraham could happen. That sort of linking back to the patriarchal fathers and Adam is not part of their current faith. The prophecy of Malachi has been interpreted to mean sealing marriages. The only adoption sealings now taking place are for children sealed to parents when born into marriages celebrated outside an LDS temple.

Between the original Nauvoo adoptive sealing to Joseph Smith and the current LDS practice of tracking genealogical/biological lines, there was that intermediate step when families were tracked back as far as research permitted, and then the line was sealed to Joseph Smith. That intermediate practice is now forgotten and, certainly, no longer practiced. The growing uncertainty, redefinition, and abandonment of the practice of “adoption” are traced by Jonathan Stapley in his Journal of Mormon History article. His article demonstrates how quickly the topic became confused. He writes Lorenzo Snow, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, George Cannon, and Eliza R. Snow did not understand adoption.

His article observes, “the idea of linking to Joseph Smith was eventually dismissed or forgotten” (JMH-Stapley pp.113-114). He cites the deliberate decision in 1922 to remove reference to Woodruff’s instruction to seal genealogical lines to Joseph Smith. Today, Mormons know nothing about the practice, nor the importance of the earlier Joseph Smith doctrine of adoption.

The alarming oddity of this modern innovation becomes most apparent when the original reason for adoption is remembered. It was intended to avoid the whole earth [being] utterly wasted (JSH 1:39 LE) at the Lord’s return. That is, the Second Coming of Christ will destroy the wicked on th[at] great and dreadful day (v.38). For behold, the day cometh that shall burn [them] as an oven, …all the proud, …all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch (v.37). Joseph taught that the connection allowing living men and women to endure the day of burning was intimately connected with a priestly tie between the living children and the coming “fathers” who will return in consuming glory. Joseph explained that unless the living who greet them are recognized as “children” through adoption as a component of their priesthood, they will burn as stubble. It goes back to Abraham, whose posterity would include any and all who received the same Gospel and priesthood given Abraham. Everyone who receives the Gospel after his day would be accounted [his] seed, and shall rise up and bless [him], as their father (Abraham 2:10 LE). It will be through Abraham’s seed (that is [his] Priesthood)…(v.11) that the world will be preserved. Only in this manner would the families of the Earth be preserved.

Therefore, when knowledge about adoption was lost, so was the chance to avoid destruction on the coming day when those who return will burn them up. On that day, only those whose “hearts are turned to the fathers” (who are regarded as their children and held in remembrance by the “fathers”) will be able to endure the glory that would otherwise “burn them as stubble, leaving neither root nor branch.” 

Brigham Young admitted he did not understand the doctrine. Inexplicably, he taught that these matters would be attended to and sorted out after the Lord’s return in glory and during the Millennium. He knew it needed to be done, didn’t know how to do it, and concluded that when Joseph returned through the resurrection, it would all be sorted out. Brigham Young seemed oblivious to the problem of the timing. If it would be sorted out after Joseph’s resurrection, it would be too late for those who were reduced to ashes by the Lord’s return. Young taught:

After Joseph comes to us in his resurrected body He will more fully instruct us concerning the Baptism for the dead and the sealing ordinances. He will say be baptized for this man and that man and that man be sealed to that man and such a man to such a man, and connect the Priesthood together.

I tell you their will not be much of this done until Joseph comes. He is our spiritual Father. Our hearts are already turned to him and his to us. This [is] the order of the…Priesthood and we shall continue to administer in the ordinances of the kingdom of God here on earth. (CDBY, 2:1034)

The obvious defect in Young’s understanding is the pre-Millennial return of Christ, and the return of the “fathers” to a group that has not prepared for their return in advance. The preparation must precede the return. In other words, if they are not prepared and not recognized as descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through sealing to the “fathers,” they’ll be burned. The Gospel was restored primarily to prepare a people for the Lord’s return. To say the preparation will happen sometime after the return, during the Millennium, suggests the coming day which will “burn them up” is inconsequential or can be ignored with impunity.

In today’s LDS faith, Joseph’s “adoption” theology has been transformed into something altogether different. It is biological and genealogical, not priestly and dispensational. The church now markets itself as an institution that will “strengthen families.” It does not inform its members or prospective converts that the day will come when they will be burned up unless they have connected to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob through Hyrum Smith as the head of the Holy Order in a necessary priestly ordinance. This teaching is one example that shows how distant today’s Mormonism is from Joseph’s original vision.

If adoption is, as Brigham Young thought in 1856, the highest ordinance, above all the endowments that can be given, and if it is needed for the Gospel as taught by Abraham to be restored, then the loss of adoption rites is indeed a sign of apostasy. Brigham Young taught that adoption would bind a person beyond the devil’s power to break. But adoption was abandoned before the end of the 1800s. Adoption needed to be restored as a rite with an accompanying authoritative ordinance and sealing in order for the things Joseph Smith alone understood and taught to be renewed.

There is still more restoration needed than adoption alone. The LDS Church has attempted to preserve other ordinances Joseph Smith established. Unfortunately, those ordinances have also been poorly preserved, changed, and compromised. 

Joseph did not live to complete the Nauvoo temple, nor did he complete the temple ceremonies. Thirty-three years after Joseph died, Brigham Young explained that he was the one who completed the ceremony using what he could recall from Joseph’s initiation:

…when we got our washings and anointings under the hands of the Prophet Joseph at Nauvoo, we had only one room to work in with the exception of a little side room, or office, where we were washed and anointed, had our garments placed upon us, and received our new name. And after he had performed th[o]se ceremonies, he gave the key words, signs, tokens and penalties. Then, after we went into the large room over the store in Nauvoo, Joseph divided up the room [as] best…he could, hung up the veil, marked it. Gave us our instructions as we passed along from one department to another, giving us signs, tokens, penalties, with the key words pertaining to those signs.

After we had got through Bro. Joseph turned to me (Pres. Young) and said, “Bro. Brigham this is not arranged right but we have done the best we could under the circumstances in which we are placed, and I wish you to take this matter in hand and organize and systematize all these ceremonies with the signs, tokens, penalties and key words.” I did so, and each time I got something more, so that when we went through the temple at Nauvoo I understood and knew how to place them there. We had our ceremonies pretty correct. (CDBY, 5:3104)

Nah, he probably said, “PRETTY CORRECT!!!” I think it should be read [noting uncertainty], “…priiiittty correct…”

Joseph had not fully completed the required ordinances, and Brigham Young never had the ability to accomplish what was needed! 

Okay, to illustrate the catastrophe, I wanna use the three Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham. Before doing so, let me explain that the Egyptian religion was apostate from the first dynasty. Although it “sought earnestly to imitate” the religion of the first fathers, it was unable to do so because the founder was excluded from the Holy Order. Therefore, Egypt preserved echoes, and those help us identify some of the characteristics from the beginning. But we cannot reconstruct the original using the remnants that remained in Egypt. The original imitative effort then became progressively less accurate and authentic over the generations. 

The first Facsimile illustrates the idea of obedience, sacrifice, rejecting false gods, calling upon God, and deliverance. It is the first stage to be accomplished in mortality and was the focus of the “endowment” Joseph was restoring in the red brick store. 

The second Facsimile is referred to as a hypocephalus. It was a funerary addition—perhaps beginning around 400 B.C.—and a guide adopted as part of the Book of Breathings (at least in the Book of Breathings era). It was a layout to help the dead navigate through the afterlife. “It has been designated by various scholars as serving various but related purposes—as a passport, certificate, travel guide, road map, ticket, and so forth” (Hugh Nibley and Michael Rhodes, One Eternal Round, p.139). Facsimile 2 depicts an underworld in the lower third, along with the heavenly barque showing movement through the six divisions, the seventh being the underworld shown in the lower third. Hugh Nibley described it as,

…a crowded representation of the cosmic drama, containing with[in] its circular rim the “designs of deep significance” that indicate the starry heavens in their times and seasons, and showing by cunning, half-abstract figures the circle of the universe and what is in it—or so at least Joseph Smith explained it, though there are no conventional indications of heavenly bodies in the drawing[s], as there are in other hypocephali. Most conspicuous is the division into two antithetical halves, the one the reverse or mirror image of the other. The top two-thirds are solar in nature, showing the great orbs of light in the upper heavens and their times and degrees, amidst symbols of patriarchal creativity and governance, as is explained by the captions. The lower third of the circle is the reverse or mirror image of the other. There [are] earth forces, the female powers of creation, are in evidence, as represented “in the lower [region]…” (Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt)

The central figure of Facsimile 2 is the throne of God, the center place to which association and ascension was directed. The Facsimile has seven panels, which correspond to the ceremonial ascension that prepares the initiate for the journey in the afterlife. “The seven panels are consistent with the seven heavens of the ascension texts, the seven chambers of the Hekaloth, etc.” (ibid., p.599). Joseph never completed that portion of the temple instruction or rites, although he did have a “throne theophany” and had the commission to accomplish it. Nor was Joseph Smith able to provide the final stage of the temple rites as depicted in Facsimile 3. 

That facsimile depicts the final destination of the ascension, the Throne Room of God. The scene shows Abraham as having accomplished the journey, and therefore, he is able to [reason] upon the principles of astronomy in the king’s court (Facsimile 3, comment below Fig. 6 describing the entire scene). Although Joseph did not have time to complete the temple rites, he was able to point in the right direction using the Book of Abraham Facsimiles.

Also, although Joseph Smith did not complete the ritual ascent in a formalized ceremonial process, he clearly understood it was to involve kingship. He took concrete steps toward formal kingship by organizing the Council of Fifty. But he never had the opportunity to complete what he began. It is not an easy thing to restore again all that needs to be returned, and Joseph was exposed to things in Heaven that required time and experience to be able to understand and teach. Establishing “kingship” was never completed or adequately taught.

Joseph planned for the Council of Fifty as the means for establishing the Kingdom of God on Earth. That effort began in March 1844, but Joseph and Hyrum were killed less than three months after the first meeting of the Council of Fifty. All of the records of the Council of the Fifty were supposed to have been destroyed, but apparently William Clayton retained a copy. 

It is important to understand the Council of Fifty was distinct from the church. The “Kingdom of God” was to be developed through the Council, and the church was separate from the “Kingdom.”

On April 11, 1844, that Council’s meeting included remarks from Joseph Smith: 

The design was to form a Theocracy according to the will of Heaven, planted without any intention to interfere with any government of the world. We wish to have nothing to do with them. We have no violence to offer to governments, no rights to infringe. The object is to live so far above their laws that they cannot interfere with us, unless by violence. We will hunt a spot somewhere on…earth where no other government has jurisdiction and cannot interfere with us and there plant our standard. (The Joseph Smith Papers: Administrative Records, p.88, footnotes omitted)

Later in that same meeting, Joseph Smith explained:

Theocracy as [Joseph] understands it is, for the people to get the voice of God and then [to] acknowledge it, and see it executed. It is necessary for the council to exhaust their wisdom and except they do [that] they will never know but they are as wise as God himself, and ambitious men will, like Lucifer think they are as wise as God and…try to lift themselves up and put their foot on the necks of others. There has always been some man to put himself forward and say I am the great [one]… (Ibid., p.92, minutes of April 11, 1844)

After further discussion in the Council, Elder Erastus Snow stood up and made a motion. The minutes state: “He concluded by offering a motion that this honorable assembly receive from this time henceforth and forever, Joseph Smith, as our Prophet, Priest & King, and uphold him in that capacity in which God has anointed him. The motion was seconded and accepted unanimously” (ibid., pp.95-96). 

Within the Council of Fifty, Joseph Smith was thereafter recognized as the “King” over the incipient Kingdom of God. Had Joseph lived long enough to fully develop the concept of God’s kingdom, it seems likely to me that a different approach would have prevailed in time. He was clearly willing to patiently and cautiously begin something, even if it would require rethinking and revising over time. 

Prest. Joseph Smith arose to give some instructions to the council & especially to the committee. He commenced by showing, that the reason why men always failed to establish important measures was, because in their organization they [could never] agree to disagree long enough to select the pure gold from the dross by the process of investigation. (Ibid., p.79, minutes of April 4, 1844)

Had he lived long enough, I doubt there would have been any earthly “kingship” or earthly “kingdom” made permanent.

I say that with some confidence because of the Lord’s discussion about His status with Pilate:

Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus and said unto him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Do you say this thing of yourself? Or did others tell it to you of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and…chief priests have delivered you unto me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from here. Pilate therefore said unto him, Are you a king then? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king; to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world — that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice. (John 10:7 RE)

If the Lord did not intend to establish a kingdom in this world during His lifetime, I do not believe His followers ought to now make any attempt to do so. Of course, He will return and assume His role as King of kings and Lord of lords after He returns in the clouds of glory. But until then we should be more circumspect than Joseph was in mid-April 1844. At least I intend to do so.

By saying this, I do not intend to criticize Joseph. He was only 38 years old when killed and deprived of an opportunity to carefully develop the idea of kingship that is embedded within the Holy Order.

Additionally, we have the absolute proscription of establishing a king upon this land. The Covenant of Christ forbids it. The passage there says:

This land will be a land of liberty for the Gentiles, …there won’t be any kings on the land who will oppress the Gentiles. I’ll fortify this land against all other nations. God has said: Those who fight against Zion will be destroyed. Those who try to establish a king in place of Me will perish, because I the Lord, the King of Heaven, will be their king; …I’ll be a light [un]to those who hear My words forever. (2 Nephi 7:2 CE)

The Book of Mormon, in that same passage in the original (I just read you the Modern English version) says:

And this land shall be a land of liberty [to] the gentiles, …there shall be no kings upon the land who shall raise up unto the gentiles, …I will fortify this land against all other nations. …he that fighteth against Zion shall perish, saith God, for he that raiseth up a king against me shall perish. …I the Lord, the King of Heaven, will be their king, and I will be a light unto them for ever that hear my words. (2 Nephi 7:2 RE)

Eventually, had those involved taken time to disagree long enough to find the pure gold, I believe there would have been no “Kingdom of God” attempted. Instead, I think the order that would have been followed would have been familial and resembling the first generations.

Remember, about a year and a half after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum, Brigham began introducing the endowment to the general church membership. This was done using canvas partitions in the attic of the unfinished Nauvoo Temple. As these endowments proceeded, Brigham continued to make additions, changes, and alterations to the ceremony Joseph had introduced. By the time of the exodus from Nauvoo, over 5,000 members had been endowed. Endowment ordinances did not resume until 1852 in the Council House in Nauvoo [Utah] and then in the Endowment House, which was completed in 1855. However, nothing was done to revive adoptions until the St. George Temple was completed in 1877, thirty-one years after the last earlier Nauvoo adoption.

And so, we’re gonna take a break, and I’m gonna finish the talk—now that we’ve covered the background and the history and what went on before—and maybe talk a little about what’s coming. So, as I understand it, we’ve got a 20-minute break. Is that the…?

TRANSCRIPT

The post The Holy Order, Part 3: Adoption – Pt. 1 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following interview of Denver Snuffer was conducted by Steven Pynnaker on April 14, 2026 and was originally posted to the MBR YouTube channel.

Steven Pynnaker: Welcome to Mormon Book Reviews: “Where an Evangelical Encounters the Restoration.” I’m your host, Steven Pynnaker, and I’m very excited about this guest of mine that has returned to the channel. His name is Denver Snuffer, and I’ve gotten to, I feel, become friends with him over the course of the last few years. 

The interview that we did with him—still—people still bring up to me. When I was at the Journal of Mormon Polygamy Conference last month, I had quite a few people come up to me, tell me how much they enjoyed that interview. So years later, that conversation still resonates in a lot of spaces, and I’m really honored and privileged to have Denver coming back on the program. 

Before we get started in the interview, I just want to let people know this is my very first interview in our new temporary studios. Our home has been torn down as of last week, and we are expecting for the new home to be delivered later this month. So we, Mom and I, want to ask/thank you for all your thoughts and prayers during this stressful time, but we’re grateful to be at our neighbor’s house, and we’re grateful to have a place that we can record some further important episodes here on MBR. 

Denver Snuffer, welcome back to the program. 

Denver Snuffer: Well, it’s good to see you again. I never like or enjoy being interviewed, but, you know, I’m willing to do it, and I’m grateful to talk to you again. 

I was glad to meet your mom. 

SP: Yes, Denver got to meet my mom, and that was great. She was really enjoying meeting him, as well, and hopefully, if he gets his way out to Florida, or we get back out there to Utah, we’ll have dinner sometime. 

I did want to say, too, that we’re, interestingly enough, we were supposed to tape this morning, and some things came up on Denver’s end, but actually, I think it was a blessing in disguise. Because shortly after, when we were supposed to tape our episode, Dr. Benjamin Park, he posted a video about Denver Snuffer and his “movement,” and I asked Denver to review it, and he is going to, but we’re gonna do that at the end of the interview. 

The main reason: at Thursday, I was having dinner with a friend, and he shared with me some new Scriptures that have been produced by this Covenant Christians movement. And I want to share with everybody this website real quick, just so people can see this, so they can… And I will have a link to this.

It’s a… “What is a Covenant Christian?” is the question that’s asked, and this tells you everything about it. And there’s some really interesting things that you can… Lots of resources that you can use to find things, as well as a place that you can actually purchase these Scriptures that we’re gonna talk about. But before we get into that (we will revisit this site), but we actually wanted to talk about these Scriptures. 

So I was having dinner Thursday night with a friend. He shares with me these Scriptures. I text Denver. I’m like, Oh my gosh, like as I’m reading, going through it, it’s some of the most beautiful Scriptures I’ve ever seen and handled, and I was thoroughly impressed with them. And Denver was so kind to come on to talk about it. And I know you’re busy with the conference you just did this weekend. 

So, Denver, tell us, just share these Scriptures, because they’re astonishing, and tell us why you think these are so important. 

DS: Well, I’m actually holding the three-volume set up. I think you can see it on camera. There’s three volumes. Volume one is called the Old Covenants. Volume number two is called the New Covenants, and volume number three is called the Modern Covenants. 

The Scriptures that have been put together in the past (our leather, three-volume set of Scriptures) needed to be reprinted because material has expanded. There’s more to be included now. And the project included originally (when we were looking to put a set of Scriptures into print), we were looking for certain specifications to be made. The specifications were provided by a book reconstructionist who looked at the Royal Jongbloed Press out of the Netherlands and the quality of the work that they did, and he provided a list of specifications for the first set of leather-bound Scriptures. And a printer in India who really wanted to get into the Bible-binding business agreed to match all of the specifications, and the first set was printed in India. And because he was trying to get into the market and because we were very price-sensitive, the first set was printed by a startup (not a startup printer, but a startup Bible publisher) in India. 

Then enough demand was created over the years since that first printing that we needed to do a second printing, and the decision was made on the second print to go ahead and go to Jongbloed in the Netherlands and see what they could do for us in terms of the best printer in the world at binding Bibles. Could they do our project for us, and what would it cost? Now, it’s probably five times as much money for the three volumes in the second print than it was for the first print. However, they literally are some of the best-bound, highest quality materials that you can get from any place in the world. 

They are printed on 100% cotton and linen paper that’s provided out of France. The leather coverings come from England. The printing is done in the Netherlands, and they are meticulous. 

The copies all get gilded on the edge, but in addition to gilding, they also spray the edges so that on top of the gilding, there’s also paint. The gilding is intended to be a barrier against insects eating the paper. 

SP: Okay.

DS: The gilding will wear off. (It’s actually metal; it’s gold. It will wear off by repeated use.) So Jongbloed puts ink on/over the top of that so that if the gilding wears off, there’s still a barrier for the insect through the ink. 

SP: Okay, so as I was paging through it the other day, I noticed that at one angle you look at it, it’s gold. I don’t know if you can pick it up on the camera, but at another angle, it actually turns red. Is that the paint? 

DS: It does turn red on every single leather-bound volume that is not blue, but in the blue volumes (and I’ve got blue leather coverings), they are the only ones that get a blue paint on top of the gilding. So mine has blue ribbons, blue leather, and then the blue overspray. All of the rest of them have red ribbons, have red overspray on top of the gilding; and it doesn’t matter if you get black, if you get brown/tan, or if you get red, it’s still gonna be red overspray and red ribbons. Blue is the only one that’s an exception. 

SP: Well, that’s the one I want to get because my favorite color is blue. 

So, Denver, why did they decide to… I mean, because again, these are not inexpensive, and you’re not making a profit off of these, so there’s none of that going on. What made you decide to go to that level of Scriptures at that price point? Because it’s not inexpensive. But the quality is astonishing at the same time. So how do you balance those two? 

DS: Yeah, there’s probably a little bit of history that informed my agreement with the people that were putting it into print, and that comes from Galileo, who wrote a text that got him in trouble with the Vatican. The Vatican gathered up and destroyed… I think there are only three copies of the book that remained after the censorship and the book-burning that was done, but I think two of those are in the Vatican archives; but one of them managed to get over the Alps and survived, and as a consequence, the book remains in print through today in various languages because a copy survived. 

These are intended—by the materials that got used and by the binding and the effort that got put together—these are intended to be able to go into daily use and survive daily use for five centuries. We wanted a durable product so that some amount of what it is that we do will survive on into future generations. And so I was persuaded that we make a run of books that are survivable, durable, everyday usable, and still be something that would be around for generations. I expect my grandkids and great-grandkids will use these very same volumes that I’m using (and marking up, by the way). And so it was durability, it was survivability, it was permanency that persuaded me. 

There were other people who just fell in love with the quality of the book that was being put out by… I mean, Jongbloed prints Bibles. Their primary forte is the production and sale of Bibles in various languages for various denominations; and just the quality of the book… If you pick up one of their Bibles, you have the same reaction that you have when you look at one of these sets, that is, that it feels like a very important, durable book. 

The other thing that… The pitch size on the first set was, I believe, 9.2. These are 11 pitch size, so they’re much larger print. They’re easier to read. There are some people who strain their eyes to read the first edition. These were made larger in part because that was the model that Jongbloed used in other Biblical print jobs that they had done with other versions of the Bible to make it readable, to make it like an actual text that you’re going to use and let it inform you. 

SP: That’s so interesting to me. Before we get actually into the content of these Scriptures, Denver, was there anything else about the production that you wanted to go into? 

By the way, what I’m also interested in is the fact that this is a company that publishes Bibles. Was there any pushback to publishing other Scriptures that were not part of the (if you will) “mainstream” Christian canon? 

DS: We’ve run into that issue with other printers. We did not run into that issue with Jongbloed. We’ve had people outright say they’re not interested, and it’s for religious reasons.

Jongbloed did not take that attitude, and they are the best. I just think that it’s foolish for someone who is in the business of printing and publishing to allow a religious bias to prevent them from practicing their craft. Jongbloed didn’t do that.

SP: Okay, so that’s good to know. There’s other people out there, other groups, of course, that are producing scripture within the Restoration. And just to make you aware of it, this is a company that apparently does not discriminate against the Restoration, so that’s good on them that they understand the importance. And also sounds like, to me, they’re a good company probably to work with. 

DS: Very good. The one thing that they did require, however, was a minimum order because it takes so much to set up and do a run of a print and a binding of a book. There’s a minimum order, and we had to have multiple thousands of volumes printed. However, they were willing to count the total run of volume 3, volume 2, and volume 1 as meeting their minimum order quantity. So we didn’t have to get that quantity for each one of the three volumes; we just had to get that for the total of all of them combined. 

And because they are expensive and because it did present a financial challenge, one of the things that was done is before any contract was let, a pre-order was done. People who were interested could put their name in that they were willing to buy. They had to make a deposit. They either had to pay for it in full or they had to pay for at least half before and half upon delivery. And so the funds were gathered. Jongbloed required 50% of the print job to be paid upon placing the order and 50% at delivery. And so we had to gather the funds. There had to be enough interest. 

The number of people that were willing to pre-order and pay didn’t allow for a whole lot of excess copies to be made. A few people stepped up and agreed to fund additional copies to be printed that were unsold, and as a consequence of that, there are still some available sets for purchase. There aren’t a lot of extra; there are some. But also, you know Benchmark Books: They bought 10 copies, and they are selling their 10 copies. They ordered in advance when they heard it was becoming available. So there are still a handful that are available. But at that conference yesterday, I think they sold another dozen or so copies of the sets. So, you know, day by day the number diminishes. 

I assume we will have yet another printing at some point in the future. And I assume that the future printing will run like this one. That is, the demand will have to be there. People have to pre-order, and people will have to make a deposit. But I don’t know how long it’ll be between the two. It’s been years after the first run of leatherbound Scriptures before these got printed. But I’m sure there will be more editions printed at some point in the future. 

It’s also available as print-on-demand. But when you’re dealing with these kinds of texts, this volume is going to be substantially bigger in a print-on-demand, because they’re using cellulose paper. And so the size of the volumes are gonna be significantly bigger and far less portable than they are in the leather-bound edition. But you can get them through Amazon as a print-on-demand set if what you want is just the information. 

SP: Just the actual text itself; you can get print-on-demand that way. Okay, that’s good to know for people. So we’ll have a link in the description to that Amazon link. So for those of you who just want the content, you’ll be able to do that. 

Now, question I have is, I have your previous set that one of your friends graciously sent to me, and I’ve had the opportunity to go through those Scriptures. And those are actually, I thought that those volumes were pretty impressive as well. If somebody were to have this, the previous set, and now what would be the reasoning you would… What’s the difference between that set, and have there been changes made, additions? 

DS: Yes.

SP: Maybe talk a little bit about some of the… Compare and contrast the two, the previous edition and this new one. 

DS: Well, yeah, there have been additions made. But in addition to it including more material, when the first edition of the Scriptures were printed… 

The Book of Mormon, for example, when it was originally put out as a volume didn’t have chapters; it didn’t have verses, but it did have paragraphs—actually, it did have chapters—but it had paragraphs. The numbering and the versification of that didn’t happen until several editions later. And I think it was Orson Pratt who was responsible for adding the chapters and verses. And when he did that, he more or less mirrored what the King James writers had done with staccato verses. You know, they’re short; they’re almost concepts or phrases, as opposed to sentences. And so, when you become familiar with the Scriptures, and you’ve bought them from Deseret Book, and you’re using King James Bibles and LDS chapters and versification, you would see the Scriptures laid out in one format. 

We laid out that first edition in paragraphs, mirroring the original Book of Mormon paragraph identification, and we numbered the paragraphs. That created a difficulty for anyone that had spent a lot of time studying the Scriptures. If you’ve got a verse and a chapter in mind/in your memory, to translate that from chapters into verses, paragraphs into verses, it becomes difficult. 

So, one of the things that has been done in this new leather set… I’m gonna see if I can get it close enough to the camera to see it, but on the one side of the page, there is red traditional numbering that you would find in any King James version of the Bible. On the same page, but opposite when you open it up, is the RE (the Restoration Edition) chapter and paragraph identification. In the column, the paragraphs appear and the numbering for the paragraphs are there, but inside each of the paragraphs, the verses appear. And for example, on this page, there is a paragraph, or excuse me, a new chapter nine. I don’t know if you can see that. 

SP: Yeah, I see there’s a new chapter nine. Yep. 

DS: Yeah, and all of the traditional numbering (verses and chapters), all of them are included in this new edition.

They’re in red, and the verses are superscripts, and the chapters begin with a large number in red that tells you what chapter you’re looking at, but we also include our own identification by chapter and paragraph number.

SP: Just to clarify, so basically you’re using your chapter, your breakdowns of the paragraphs, but then you’re including the versification of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints edition of the Book of Mormon (just keep in mind, of course, the RLDS has their own thing going on when it comes to those as well). 

But so basically, if you are a person who uses The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints versification, you’ll be able to use this and cross-reference it. 

DS: Yeah, the navigation tools that you would be familiar with in a King James Bible or in an LDS Book of Mormon are all included in this edition in the red lettering inside the text, with the chapter orientation on the top left-hand side, the RE new numbering orientation [on the] top right-hand side, but all of the paragraph numbers are included. 

So you can find a citation. If someone is trying to get you to look at 1 Corinthians 6:13, you can find that easily using the red superscripts and the red chapter identification. But you’ll also find, since the letters were written with ideas in mind, all of the letters are a single chapter in the RE edition. But if you still want to go to King James versification, it’s all included. 

And so in terms of navigation, these are a lot easier than the first edition. And if you’re talking to someone who has a traditional Bible or who is acquainted with LDS chapters and verses, it’s far easier to give them a cite. “Well, where do you find that in the Scriptures?” Now we have an easy way to say you can find it here.

Before, you just had to pick up both books and look at them carefully in order to find the wording where the one and the other is duplicated, because the citations were not replicated. We did our own chapters and paragraphs. 

SP: Okay, interesting. So I guess for me, the question would be, and for a lot of people in the audiences who maybe have their own version of the Book of Mormon and Doctrines and Covenants (maybe their triple combo or their quad, whatever you want to call it), what would you say, what makes this series that your movement has created that’s highly informed by your work and your translations and stuff, what would you say, what makes this a better translation, maybe gives a better, fuller understanding of the Restoration? Is this something that’s not only for people that are part of your movement, but this can be used for anybody who believes in restoration of Scriptures? How would this help inform them? 

DS: Yeah, I think there are a number of things that distinguish this set from anything that has gone on before. The first point I would make is that on the 7th of December 1830, Joseph Smith (and this is a revelation that appears both in the Doctrine and Covenants as section 35, but it’s section 18 of our Teachings and Commandments—but it’s D&C 35), in this revelation, in December of 1830, Joseph Smith was getting a revelation that was received, addressed to Sidney Rigdon and mentioning Joseph Smith, and it states this, And a commandment I given unto you [that’s Sidney Rigdon] that you [Rigdon] shall write for him [that’s Joseph Smith], and the scriptures shall be given, even as they are in [mine] own bosom, to the salvation of [mine] own elect (T&C 18:6). 

That commences a process that has become known as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, but that is mentioned in over 15 revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, and I’ve marked all of them as I’ve gone through. The effort that Joseph and Sidney Rigdon made to get through the Bible and to write it as it appears in God’s own bosom resulted in a number of things that… 

LDS members would identify the Pearl of Great Price Book of Moses as a separate set of Scripture; that’s part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. The Pearl of Great Price includes Matthew chapter 24; that was part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. There was a revelation about the three degrees of glory that is known as Doctrine and Covenants section 76. That was not part, but was inspired by the translation of the book of John and an inquiry being made about the afterlife (because it appeared that there couldn’t be just a single division of heaven and hell). And so Doctrine and Covenants section 76 came as revelation, not as part of the translation of the Bible, but as an independent revelation inspired by the translation of the Bible. 

There’s another revelation that comes. This one is in February of 1831, so we’re now a few months after that. This is in Doctrine and Covenants 42, but it’s section [26] in ours. It includes this as part of that revelation, You shall ask, and my scripture shall be given as I have appointed (T&C 26:15) and so on. So it’s being mentioned again in a revelation in both LDS Scriptures and in ours. 

There’s another one, which is section 45 of the Doctrine and Covenants, section 31 of our Teachings and Commandments: …it shall not be given unto you to know any further than this, until the New Testament be translated, and in it all these things shall be made known. Wherefore, I give unto you that you may now translate it, that you may be prepared for things to come, [and] truly I say unto you that great[er] things await you. (T&C 31:13). And it goes on from there. 

Well, the effort that Joseph Smith had made to produce this resulted also in Joseph Smith warning that if the fullness of the Scriptures (and that’s what he called his Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, together with the Book of Mormon; they together comprised it—not the Bible, [but] the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, together with the Book of Mormon), he said, “If the fullness of the Scriptures are not received by the Church, then it would yet fall.” 

When Brigham Young led the Mormon refugees out of Illinois, the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible remained in the possession of Emma Smith. She would later gift it to the church her son Joseph Smith III led. Joseph Smith III would let the (then the) Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints put into print the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, and that’s the one that most people have become acquainted with. 

However, it has been in recent times that the actual Joseph Smith translation material (in fact, I’ve got a set of that in the other room here) became actually available. So we can see what Joseph did. We can also see that some of what he did got left out. And we know that the committee of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, when they put the JST into print, the committee made changes: they deleted some of what he had done; they added some things that they believed belonged in there. So when the actual original material Joseph had left us became available, the effort was made to gather the actual work that Joseph Smith had done on the Bible as the text to be used in these Scriptures. 

In addition, while putting the Joseph Smith translation into the text, it was also… Everyone who’s acquainted with Joseph’s Nauvoo-era talks knows that Joseph just spontaneously, while giving a talk in Nauvoo, would say, “Here’s a quote…” and he would say, “I could give a cleaner translation or meaning of this.” He corrected some things in Ezekiel; he corrected some things in the New Testament—and he just did this spontaneously. 

Well, the conclusion that we made was “In for a penny, in for a dollar”: If we’re gonna get what Joseph Smith did to clarify the Scriptures as they appear in the Lord’s own bosom, we put in also all of the Nauvoo-era additions, corrections, or restatements that Joseph provided to Bible passages. So the most complete and the most inclusive—including the Nauvoo-era talks—version of the Joseph Smith translation of the Old and New Testaments are what are the source material for the Old Covenants and the New Testament portion of the New Covenants.

SP: Okay, so that’s really interesting. So that’s a very fascinating approach that you took. So in one sense, what you’re saying is Joseph Smith’s final word on a particular verse is what you put in your edition. Is that correct? 

DS: Yes. Yeah. And as far as I know, no one’s ever done this. 

SP: No.

DS: Therefore, this is—to the extent that you want to honor Joseph Smith and respect the work that he had done—this is the most correct and the most inclusive of anything that has ever been put into print. 

SP: Okay. So, and again, I also want to talk a little bit about… Because obviously, people think, “Well, Denver Snuffer, Denver Snuffer!” But this is a group effort that’s being done here. 

DS: Yeah.

SP: So maybe talk about that as well, that this is not Denver Snuffer coming up from Sinai with pure Scriptures, but you’re… This is a collaboration that you’re doing, and you’re seeking consensus on this as well. 

DS: This is a massive effort, a research project that involved dozens and dozens of people on each part of the book, and a division of labor and proofreading; and all of the versification was done by volunteers that went through meticulously to cross-compare and to make sure that the text that was going to go into the printer was correctly aligned with the correct verses and the correct chapters, both for the RE version and the KJV LDS chapters and versification. 

The research project included consultation with volumes of research. The Book of Mormon text, which we haven’t talked about yet, required an enormous amount of effort by multiple parties consulting with numerous source materials, much of which became available both through Royal Skousen’s set of research books, as well as The Joseph Smith Papers publication of manuscripts and revelation texts—and all of those materials became available while we’re doing this project. 

In addition, the first effort… When a preliminary Joseph Smith translation of the Bible effort rolled out at a conference in St. George, Utah (preliminary to getting the Scriptures adopted and approved at a conference), the first publication of that resulted in a fellow stepping forward who essentially had made it his life’s work for over a decade to meticulously go through the Joseph Smith translation. He looked at what had been done in that first St. George conference publication, and he said, “We’ve relied way too much on what the RLDS Church published as the Joseph Smith translation, and we have not picked up on the fact that they were not faithful/their fidelity wasn’t to the Joseph Smith effort, it was to their own sensibilities.” And so he had (and he then provided) numerous corrections, and that led in turn to fixing what had been done as an initial proposal, and then re-looking at everything and re-examining it, at which point the Nauvoo-era corrections were also concluded as an appropriate addition. 

And so it got put out, it was put into the hands of hundreds and hundreds, thousands of people who had access to it to evaluate it before any vote would be taken to adopt it, and in that process, more improvements and more study was made. 

The Book of Mormon is a whole different subject than the Bible, because the Bible is the Joseph Smith translation. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand: Royal Skousen has spent half a century looking at every single edition of the different versions of the Book of Mormon. The entire printer’s manuscript… Joseph Smith dictated a translation, but that copy of the translation was not trusted in E. B. Grandin’s hands. Everything that was in that translation was hand-copied to the printer’s manuscript. We had 100% of the printer’s manuscript available, and it’s in The Joseph Smith Papers, it’s in the Skousen seven-volume effort; you can see every word of that printer’s manuscript. The original translation got put into the cornerstone of, I think it was the Nauvoo House, and then it was left there in the cornerstone to rot, and only about 22% of that survived. But from the 22% of that that did survive, you can look at that, and you can look at the printer’s manuscript, and we know that the copyist for the printer’s manuscript made a mistake about every page and a half. 

SP: Okay.

DS: Then the printer’s manuscript got typeset, and since we’ve got 100% of the printer’s manuscript, and we still have facsimile copies of the first edition, we know that the print shop: 

#1: Supplied 100% of the punctuation. That was done by John Gilbert, who was employed at E. B. Grandin’s shop. None of the punctuation was done by Joseph Smith or by anyone who was affiliated with the Restoration. It was done by a guy that worked as a printer. 

And so one of the things, when we did the Book of Mormon, we looked carefully at the punctuation. We eliminated all of the punctuation we could get away with eliminating.  We tried not to superimpose an interpretation through the punctuation. 

For example, there have been scholarly debates that have raged for a century and a half about Joseph Smith’s shifting viewpoint of the Trinity, that the Book of Mormon was originally a Trinitarian text, and that Joseph progressed in his understanding/his theology until he became something other than Trinitarian by the time you arrive at Nauvoo. I look at Lectures on Faith, where Joseph Smith is not a Trinitarian and is consistent with what he would later say in Nauvoo, and using Lectures on Faith as the guide, I repunctuated all of the Trinitarian… I call them “Trinitarian commas.” I got it repunctuated so that it was consistent to read it in the new punctuation, consistent with what’s in Lectures on Faith. And as a consequence, my suggestion is that since John Gilbert was a traditional Christian and a Trinitarian, John Gilbert is responsible for that debate, not Joseph Smith; and that I fixed the debate simply by changing punctuation.

SP: Okay, can you give an example of that? Because I think that’s really an important thing that you’re bringing out here, because of course, many people describe the Book of Mormon as being pretty orthodox in its Christian beliefs, and very Protestant, and also arguably, I’ve actually argued that the Book of Mormon is arguably more Trinitarian than the New Testament. I want to get… Give me an example here, because I find this really intriguing. 

DS: Well, here’s the problem. If I’d known you were gonna ask that question, I’d have the verse at my hand. But I can tell you this. You will find it if you read Abinadi and his explanation and his doctrinal description given by Abinadi as he’s being tried for his life in the text of the Book of Mormon. Compare what you’ve got in a traditional Book of Mormon with Abinadi’s defense to the version of the Book of Mormon that we print in Volume 2, the New Covenants, and you will see that the Trinitarianism is resolved simply by replacing punctuation.

SP: Okay, that’s… I think that’s important. I’m really glad you brought that out because I think that’s a different approach that I would like to share this with other Book of Mormon scholars. Honestly, I would… Denver, if I were you, I would consider maybe even submitting a paper to the Book of Mormon Studies Association about your finding because I think that’d be a really interesting approach that you’re taking to the Book of Mormon and looking at it through a different lens. 

DS: Well, I might do that, but it… The only reason I would consider doing that is if I thought it would be helpful to someone else. I’m not really interested in notoriety.

SP: I get it. But I think that’s an important contribution you’re making to the Book of Mormon scholarship, too. 

DS: Well, I’ll give some thought to that. 

Now, having said that about the Book of Mormon, it was always Joseph Smith’s intent to publish the New Testament and the Book of Mormon together. You saw that in our first edition of the Scriptures. That is true in this one as well.

The first thing you encounter in Volume 2 is the New Testament that appears as the start, and the second thing that you’ll find in Volume 2 is the Book of Mormon in the form that we have—insofar as it is possible to do so—corrected, repunctuated, and included. And then in Volume 2, there is also what is called A Glossary of Gospel Terms. All three of these are in Volume 2. The Glossary of Gospel Terms is an explanation of language or meanings that you find in Scripture as an effort to help clarify how to understand something and how the word usage is appeared. 

It’s actually quite a theological exposition, and I think, for example, if someone were to do nothing more than to take the Glossary of Gospel Terms and read it from front to back, you would get a better theological education than you get from some divinity schools. Just reading from the index, these are the words that get defined in the context… And I’ll just… the Glossary. I’ll just read you a handful: 

…and that’s the beginning of the A’s. I’ll skip to K’s: 

Skipping to S’s: 

So each of those has an entry. Some of those entries are a page or two or more. Some are short and brief, but all of them are intended to help someone understand what the Scriptures mean. 

So Volume 1: Joseph Smith Translation, Old Testament. Volume 2: New Testament Joseph Smith Translation, Book of Mormon, and Glossary of Gospel Terms. Now, one other thing I’m gonna pause and point out, Volume 2 ends on a signature. So that’s the last page of Volume 2. Volume 1 doesn’t end on a signature. There’s over 20 pages in the back that don’t have anything on it but lined pages to allow you to make notes. So if you want to write notes into your Scriptures, you have over 20 pages in Volume 1 that you can use to add or write down or memorialize anything that you want to put into the Scriptures, including, if you choose, a genealogy of you and your family. 

Volume 3, which we haven’t gotten to yet but we will get to in a moment, ends much earlier on a signature. So there’s about 40 pages in the back of Volume 3 that are nothing more than lined pages that you can use to write your own entries and make whatever things you think suitable for preservation in the back of your Scriptures. So you have notes available in Volume 1 and Volume 3, and 2 ends on a signature so that there is no lined paper there.

SP: Well, let’s get to Volume 3, because what I find so interesting is I was caught off guard when I was going through these Scriptures, and I was like, “Wait, we have two sets of Book of Mormon in this set?” So explain to us the third volume, what this is all about. 

DS: Okay, first, it’s called the Teachings and Commandments, which is in contrast to Doctrine and Covenants. You know that the doctrine in the Doctrine and Covenants was Lectures on Faith. 

SP: Yes, yes. Absolutely.

DS: So theLectures on Faith have gone back into Teachings and Commandments. They were removed from the D&C, I think in 1928 [1921], without a vote of the people. They were canonized in 1835. They were never de-canonized, they were just deleted. I think Bruce R. McConkie made a point of that at one point and said that “they were adopted as scripture, and they are scripture.” Although they aren’t in any LDS Scripture, they are in our Teachings and Commandments. 

So the first thing you’ll find in the T&C (the Teachings and Commandments) is that the Joseph Smith History has been greatly expanded. We’ve taken what he was doing to recreate the early history of the Church—after John Whitmer stole the history he had been keeping, and therefore, after Whitmer, and Cowdery, and Harris, and John Whitmer (David Whitmer’s brother) had left in rebellion against Joseph in Missouri—Joseph set about in 1838 to rewrite a history for the Church. That is what we’ve come to know as the Joseph Smith History, because it is a rewriting and a recreation in 1838 of what had gone on but had been kept by John Whitmer. He still had copies of his earlier revelations; they were separate, but he wove the narrative to put into the Joseph Smith History his earlier revelations. 

So the Joseph Smith History in the Teachings and Commandments, Volume 3, is greatly expanded. And you’ll find that within the Joseph Smith History in the Teachings and Commandments—which is T&C section 1—it also includes what has been, by the LDS, put into the Joseph Smith History: Doctrine and Covenants sections 2, 3, 10, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 19, 21, 22, and 23. All of those are now part of the Joseph Smith History, woven in as he wove it in when he was writing his history. So that’s the first thing you’ll encounter: greatly expanded history by Joseph Smith. 

Then you’ll find that Joseph Smith’s revelations are included; however, they do not take the form that they take in the LDS version. Joseph Smith got a revelation; Oliver Cowdery went out to Missouri and took those with him. He would typeset (at a press that they had bought) a compilation of those revelations that he called the Book of Commandments. When he was compiling the Book of Commandments, Oliver Cowdery thought it was his prerogative to exercise some editorial control and to add his contributions. And so the Book of Commandments took the revelations by Joseph and expanded them to include material Oliver Cowdery thought wise to be included within them. 

The press got destroyed. The Book of Commandments, while it had been gathered together, didn’t survive to be in print. However, bootleg copies were smuggled out, and the bootleg copies made their way back to Kirtland where they had a press. And in 1835, the material that had been edited by Oliver as the revelations then were turned over to a committee headed by Sidney Rigdon—and Rigdon felt a similar liberty. And so he and a committee that put together the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835 made further editorial changes to Joseph Smith’s revelations as they rolled out the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. 

In the meantime, separate from the committee working on the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith took personal responsibility for and exercised complete editorial control over Lectures on Faith, so that when it went to the press, it went to the press with the Lectures on Faith being the very first part of the book (first part, larger print—and it was the “doctrine”), followed by smaller print—editorially-revised from Oliver and Sidney and a committee—the revelations given to Joseph Smith. Then that compilation was presented to and approved by a vote of a conference in Kirtland, Ohio and became the Doctrine and Covenants, a volume of Scripture that was accepted by the church. And it has been in that form that it has come down through the LDS Church, and we inherited that as the Doctrine and Covenants, minus the Lectures on Faith after 1928 [1921]. 

We went back and re-looked—because the original revelations are now available—we went back and looked and eliminated everything that had been added to the original Joseph Smith revelation by Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, or the committee, so that the revelation that gets blown up in the Doctrine and Covenants gets cut down in the T&C. And one example that I can point out pretty quickly is what becomes section 27 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Well, section 27 of the Doctrine and Covenants is section 8 in the Teachings and Commandments, and (as you can see) it’s two paragraphs. And you can go online and find this stuff. 

If you want to see the difference between what Joseph received as a revelation and what the LDS Church publishes after Oliver, Sidney, and the committee puts out, just compare section 8 of the T&C with section 27 of the Doctrine and Covenants, and you’ll find that the original revelation there (like many of the others, if you do a cross comparison) is significantly reduced in volume and more modest in content, with less grandiose reference to Peter, James, and John, and others that were added by folks who wanted to improve, I guess, the psychological effect upon the reader. We’ve gone back to the original. We’ve gone back and looked at the minimum of what Joseph Smith had actually received as his revelation. 

SP: So, I’m curious because, you know, why would you do that? If Joseph was okay with these expanded revelationsm why shouldn’t everybody else be okay with it? What’s your process of doing this? 

DS: For the same reason that Joseph was okay with giving 116 pages of the original manuscript to Martin Harris: Joseph was persuadable, and Joseph… He was told, “You’re no good at reading what’s in the hearts of men.” (He was told that after he had had the failure with the 116 pages.) Joseph was persuadable, and as a consequence of that…

You know, look at the office of high priest, for example. The office of high priest (if you examine it in a biblical setting) is an Aaronic priesthood office held by Aaron and the oldest son/ grandson/great-grandson of Aaron to function in the Aaronic priesthood, performing the rites of the law of Moses. That’s what the high priest was. The idea of a high priest really fascinated Sidney Rigdon, and Rigdon really, really, really wanted a high priest office, which becomes—in the LDS Church—it becomes a Melchizedek priesthood office that is elevated above everything, excepting only an apostle or a president of the high priesthood. 

But technically, Joseph should never have been persuaded by Sidney. And I view a lot of what has happened within the Restoration as an accommodation that Joseph Smith was willing to make for the benefit of the people he was called upon to lead.

So why would we go back and look only at the original statement in the revelation God presumably gave to Joseph Smith? In part, it is a way of saying we respect everything that Joseph did as a prophet, and we respect everything that God said to him directly. But the fact that Joseph Smith entertained other people’s notions—including Martin Harris’ insistence on taking the 116 pages—suggests to me that the prudent course is to look at what God said to Joseph and confine ourselves to that, and to let the persuasions that may have informed other things go, even if Joseph Smith was okay with it. 

SP: Interesting. Now, the question then, some people would say, well, Joseph was a fallen prophet. Are you saying that Joseph was a flawed man? But still, I mean, it’s just, he’s a human being, right? So you’re saying that Joseph was—at the same time—was operating in the prophetic, but also could make mistakes, maybe with the selling of the copyright in Canada, the lost 116 pages. It seems to indicate that you’re willing to say that Joseph was more fallible than maybe a lot of people are willing to accept.

DS: He was human, and therefore, any of us who are human are necessarily, therefore, fallible. There is no such thing as an infallible mortal. And I believe, when Joseph vouched for the doctrine in the Doctrine and Covenants, and when Joseph in… He was lamenting this, about how much of the criticism against him was unjustified, but some of the things that he had done or said could be criticized, but there’s no flaw, there’s no error in the revelations. I take that statement by Joseph—and it’s in one of his Nauvoo-era talks: “there’s no mistake in the revelations; they’re trustworthy”—I take that to mean that he’s counseling us, through the years between then and now, to stay focused on the revelations and to allow him… 

I mean, why did he leave and cross the Mississippi River headed west in 1844 in June? Why did he turn around and return? I mean, was his instinct to depart, and to go and to try and make the restoration continue in another venue (perhaps among the Native Americans, to whom one of the groups to whom the Book of Mormon was addressed)? Was that the right instinct? Was returning to Nauvoo the wrong one? Was his observation that if his life is no use to his friends, it’s no use to himself? What do we make of that? I mean, Joseph clearly hoped not to be going to his death but resigned himself that that’s perhaps the outcome. And it was the outcome.

I don’t think Joseph vouched for all of the editorial additions that were made in the 1835. If you read the sequence of sustaining votes and the vouching, Joseph Smith vouched for the Lectures on Faith—the doctrine. Other people vouched for the Book of Commandments/ Doctrine and Covenants content. And so our effort is to try and find exactly what did God say to Joseph in the revelations? And can we isolate that enough to feel confident it actually came from God, is reliable, is what was said to him originally? And if we have to deal with the clutter of what someone else threw in, we would just as soon not do so. 

Therefore, we did the research to find what was the original text, and we preserved the original text. Nothing else. 

SP: Okay, so I’m really curious here. So, did you take the same approach, applying modern biblical scholarship to, for instance, the New Testament? Like, in your New Testament, is the long ending of Mark in there, or do you take that out? Like, what kind of approaches are you taking? Because we know that there were things that were added to the English versions that weren’t in the original manuscripts. How did you approach those verses? 

DS: From our perspective, those issues—while they may be legitimate, and while they may be worth looking into—we were relieved of any responsibility for that when Joseph Smith went through the Joseph Smith translation. Therefore, if what we regard to be a prophet is revising the canonical text and saying, “This is what is in the Lord’s own bosom, in His own heart,” that’s the text that we want to rely upon. 

There are a lot of things about the biblical text… I mean, Bart Ehrman’s work on the Christological debates in the second and third century, resulting in the alteration to support one viewpoint about Christ versus another viewpoint actually corrupting the Scripture, I mean, those are really interesting ideas that, you know, you want to pause and give some attention to. 

But we feel Scripture entrusted into the hands of a prophet becomes an independently reliable source of material that we can trust, much like Moses reconstructed the original narrative of the Creation going back to Adam in the Pentateuch, and much like Ezra reconstructed the Bible after the Babylonian exile. The Bible has been reconstructed, rewritten, reclaimed multiple times, and Joseph Smith was given the assignment to do the same thing. And therefore, we can look at all of the debates. We can look at the German school and the various sources—the priestly source, the Jehovistic source, the Elohistic source, the Deuteronomist source—and entertain all of the analysis that people have done on textual criticism or higher criticism, and let that inform us in one way or another. But in terms of our Scripture, we’re gonna trust the prophet.

SP: Well, that’s really interesting because, of course, Joseph was the one that even said that the German translations were very accurate. So that has to inform the conversation a little bit too. 

And so you have all this data and information, and here is Denver Snuffer, and here are people in the community, you know, collaborating on this process. Did you guys have, like, debates about some of this stuff? I mean, how do these conversations look? And also, I’m curious too, Denver, you know, with the King James Translation of the Bible, all the names of the people that participated in the translation were listed. Do you guys have a similar thing with your Scriptures as well? Two questions.

DS: No, the people who participated, participated voluntarily, and some of them insisted on their anonymity, and some of them were indifferent about whether their names were attached or not. And so the effort that was made, it was really a research project. 

And yeah, there was a lot of spirited discussions during the process. And there were times when—because the research had disclosed a lacuna in the record, which had been filled in by what we considered as a group to be an unreliable source—the debate was, do you leave the lacuna? Do you adopt what may be unreliable? Or do you supply a replacement? Or how do you deal with that? And so, yeah, there was a lively discussion. The net result was: We take the minimalist view; we want as reliable a source of material as is possible. And that means, if anything appears to have been potentially an inappropriate insertion or an inappropriate elaboration, then leave it out. 

And ultimately, after years of effort and years of review, ultimately, it was presented to the Lord in a prayer that I offered on behalf of the committee. And we got an answer from the Lord to that prayer about the content of the Scriptures, including corrections that were made by the Lord, removing some of the material that we had tried to make work, and replacing it with something different. And both the prayer that was offered at the end of the project and the answer that we received at the end of the project are in the Teachings Commandments, Volume 3, explaining what we were allowed, instructed, commanded, or required to add and required to delete. That’s all in the Teachings and Commandments. 

In addition, we had, in the original version that we put out… Some of the uncertainties resulted in us putting a bracket and inserting words that were our cumulative and ultimately unanimous decision of the solution. So, there were brackets, and inside the brackets, there was the solution that we had come to—and it required unanimity; it would not go in if it wasn’t unanimous. Nevertheless, we recognized that despite unanimity, it belonged in a bracket. 

One of the things we were told in the answer was that we could remove the brackets. Another thing that we were told is that the work of coming up with modern English was accepted, and we were allowed to go on with that effort to make a modern English explanation, but we were cautioned: “You cannot change the content. If you’re going to adopt a modern English version, you must be certain about the content, and if you remain uncertain about a modern English version, then leave it or come back to me, and I’ll tell you how to fix it.” So, the Scriptures got done, got published, got approved, got voted on, but after that, there was still an effort on the Book of Mormon to convert the text into a modern English version. That took years further. 

The work of Royal Skousen included consultation with an early modern English scholar: “Elizabethan Shakespearean early modern English.” He was a scholar that was acquainted with how the word usages during the translation of the Book of Mormon related to an earlier era and not to the time (the modern English being spoken at the time of Joseph Smith). Therefore, some of the word usages, phrases, colloquialisms that got incorporated into the Book of Mormon text in 1830 had a different meaning from what the words mean to us in modern English, and that fellow who was a consultant with Royal Skousen was hired to assist with a number of issues in the modern English version to help convert it into modern English.

After four years of effort to make the Book of Mormon read in modern English, the project was turned over to me. When it was turned over to me, it was still (in my view) a long way from what it needed to be if we were gonna accomplish the task. And so I set about looking at it, praying about it, and trying to have it make sense. One of the things, for example, that was still in the modern English version when it was turned over to me was, And it came to pass… 

SP: Mm-hmm.

DS: And it came to pass, depending upon the context of the paragraph that it precedes, could best be put, “Later,” or different context, it could better be put, “As a consequence.” 

SP: Okay.

DS: Or it could be, “And so we see.” It depends on the context of what is going to follow after and it came to pass. In some places, all it means is “later,” and sometimes the later is like “much later,” like, And it came to pass: that could be a month later, it could be a year later, it could be some time span in between. But what they’re signaling in the text (And it came to pass) is something that the next paragraph will help you understand. 

So, I went through the entire thing, cover to cover, and in my view, in my understanding (I suppose I could say, “in my experience” or “in my testimony”), I got a lot of help from inspired readings that allowed me to understand the text in a way that I could not attain to without that assistance. At times, the ideas were flowing so quickly that it would be a cryptic restatement and then highlighting because it needed to be clarified. And I got through the entirety of the text, went back, started with the highlights, then I realized that I really ought to look at the highlighted text in context of what was going on; ultimately went all the way back, and went all the way through trying to expand and contextualize. 

My first… I got it in a Microsoft Word format. My first pass-through reduced the Microsoft Word format (the number of pages) by about 45 pages. Then I went through it again, and it was restating exactly the same thing, just in simpler, clearer, more terse language that a modern reader would understand much more readily. 

By the time I had gone through it and gone through it and gone through it, it got to the point where there were changes that needed to be made to update some specific things, and I sent it back to the people who were doing that who had turned it over to me, with instructions that I asked them to follow because I was getting text blind. I was seeing things that I thought were there because I’d read it, and read it, and re-read it, and re-edited it, and re-edited it. I sent it back to them with instructions about making a handful of specific changes that I wanted them to make, including getting rid of “Messiah” and “Messianic,” and going back to “Christ” and “Jesus” in places because this is an English-language version that will largely be read by English-language people. 

There are some places where Messiah ought to remain, but for an English reader, generally, it should be otherwise. And so I had them do some changes or some corrections that could be done largely by “search and change,” but there were details they needed to pay attention to. They did that and turned it back to me. 

I went through it two more times, and then I believed it was done. And at that point, I was presenting it for approval by the Lord. I got told that it was not approved, that I needed to go through it again one more time, cover to cover; and then I went through it a final time, and during that final—I don’t remember what these were—but during that final read-through, there were about a dozen things that still needed to be and were rendered differently and more clearly, and that became what we call the Covenant of Christ. 

The Covenant of Christ is a modern English version of the Book of Mormon. It appears in Volume 3 because it’s modern. It appears in Volume 3 as part of the Modern Covenants. And this allows you to open up anywhere you want to in the Book of Mormon: Alma chapter 12. You can go to the Covenant of Christ, and you can go to Alma chapter 12, and you can read at the same time Alma chapter 12, verse 9:

So, if you want to double-check the translation into modern English: in Volume 2, you can leave it open, and you can read Book of Mormon; and in Volume 3, you can leave it open, and you can compare phrase by phrase, word by word (Volume 2 and Volume 3 of the Book of Mormon versus the Covenant of Christ), and you can get as granular as you want in examining it. 

So, the Teachings and Commandments, Volume 3, include original Joseph Smith material; in addition, Lectures on Faith; in addition, when the LDS Church went through the Scriptures and published their new copyrighted version with the improved footnotes in 1980, the head of the committee, as I understand it (certainly one of the members of the committee, in any event) was Bruce R. McConkie, who wrote many of the chapter headings. Bruce R. McConkie wanted… 

It got leaked out; I don’t know if there’s any official statement of this, but it was a buzz at the time. I was still down at BYU, so you know, there were insider leaks. (For goodness’ sake, President Kimball’s son was on the faculty.) 

Bruce R. McConkie, on that committee, wanted to include the entire letter that was written from Liberty Jail. Instead, the Doctrine and Covenants had excerpted Doctrine and Covenants section 121, Doctrine and Covenants section 122, and Doctrine and Covenants section 123, which were clips from the letter from Liberty Jail; and Bruce R. McConkie lost the argument, I think in part because they did not want to re-number Doctrine and Covenants sections. So the D&C still includes only excerpts from the Liberty Jail letter. 

The Teachings and Commandments have the entire letter Joseph wrote from Liberty Jail, including everything that you see in the Doctrine and Covenants 121, [12]2, and [12]3. All of it is in there. It’s embedded inside the letter. 

So in that sense, we’ve expanded what Joseph did by adding Lectures on Faith, expanded by the entire letter from Liberty Jail, and Joseph Smith had revelations that were not included in the Doctrine and Covenants that we could see were authentic and could see what was originally written; those were added. And in addition, Joseph Smith… One of the very few talks Joseph ever wrote that was delivered during the Nauvoo era, and on the occasion of the talk being given, I believe he was ill or his throat was sore, so the talk was actually read by one of his clerks. But the content: We have 100% of that talk that Joseph prepared. 

That talk is also included as a section of the Teachings and Commandments. In addition, we’ve grabbed a few of Joseph’s… We call them “proverbs,” but it’s really quotable quotes, little witticisms that Joseph Smith delivered. We’ve gathered those in, and we’ve made them the Proverbs of Joseph Smith. And then there’s a group of sayings that I put into some… I don’t know which book it was in, but it was a group of sayings. Those got put in also as a group of Proverbs of Denver Snuffer. 

And then revelations that had been received during the effort we made to get the Scripture Project done; a prayer that was offered to try and secure for us a covenant; a covenant language that was given to us by the Lord; and then going right up to and including revelations received about the Covenant of Christ; and then, ultimately, the Covenant of Christ; and the delivery to us of a new name that was received by revelation is, I think, the last one of the revelations in the Modern Covenants, just before the Covenant of Christ. Let me see if I can tree that real quick. 

This is 21 December 2024, and it’s included as section 185 of the T&C: 

This is what you shall say to the people:

I give to you a name to distinguish you from others, and you shall call one another by this name: COVENANT CHRISTIANS because you…hold a covenant with me that make you my followers deserving of my protection. But my protection does not only defend, but also corrects, reproves, disciplines and guides you along that you may be mine indeed. 

So that’s the final revelation in the T&C. It’s section 125 [185]. Following it is the Covenant of Christ. 

So that’s volume 1, 2, and 3. 

SP: Well, that’s phenomenal, and I’m so glad you’re able to get really deep in the weeds. And I have a few questions for you, because I think it’s important for people to understand the process. And what I find so fascinating is, on one hand, you’re kind of taking the scholarly approach—where you have a committee, and you’re going through the text, and you’re having conversations—but then there’s the revelatory aspect of this too. 

Some people would just go and say, well, why not just ask for the revelation? Why even go through all the process of going through a committee? Why can’t you just have all this revealed to you? And then others would be like, Well, why don’t you just do the scholarship and not have any revelation? 

DS: Hold on. It’s precisely what the Lord told Oliver Cowdery when he tried and failed to translate the Book of Mormon plates: “You took no thought except to ask. You’re supposed to study it out in your own mind first, and then ask” (see JSH 13:26). What I have found is that to get revelation requires that you do the hard work first. 

I have spent, on some subjects, years of study before I felt that I was entitled to take it to the Lord. And after years of study and taking it to the Lord, what I have found is that He will respond, and He will correct me when I’m wrong, and He will confirm it when I’m right. But some of the most important things that I have learned have been as a result of an honest, diligent, lengthy effort to study it out, reach a conclusion, only to find out that I am in fact wrong, and that then something follows that comes from God. But it doesn’t come gratuitously, and it doesn’t come easy. 

So we took seriously the revelation to Oliver, and we studied it out as thoroughly, as completely… We deserved to get an answer from God because we had paid the price beforehand to approach the Almighty and ask, “Did we get it right? And if not, will you correct us?” So that’s why. 

SP: Okay. And does these volumes, does it include the Book of Abraham? 

DS: Yes. 

SP: Okay. So what was your approach to, like, that Scripture? Because that’s so interesting, is because you actually have kind of the translation process where we have, like, the individual characters and then a translation that would later then be part of the Book of Abraham. How did you approach the Book of Abraham? 

DS: Okay. I gave a talk (I believe the talk is now a book). The title of the talk… I gave this one at a conference in Aravada, Nevada (Aravada, Nevada—which is a combination of Arizona and Nevada. It was way down south. Steph and I took a hike, and we walked out of Nevada, into Arizona, and then turned around and came back again. A lot of cactus down there.) The talk, “Religion of the Fathers,” explains… It’s a long talk. I think it was over three hours of talking and explaining. And so I would commend to you (if you’re really interested in how we approached the Book of Abraham) that talk, which took a great deal of study and a great deal of effort. 

Briefly—and without really covering what’s in that talk—when you go through Genesis (the Joseph Smith Genesis text), there is this expansion of material about Adam. There is this expansion of material about Enoch. There is an expansion of material about Melchizedek. And there is an expansion of material about Moses. 

But there’s nothing that materially adds to Abraham. And yet, Abraham is the Father of the righteous—which is another subject I intend to address, at length, in July of this year at a conference that’s set in Colorado. And I think that one is gonna push back the understanding about Abraham and Abraham’s role further. But I think the Book of Abraham is really something that… What Joseph Smith should have done is to just take it and stick it into the Genesis account as an elaboration on the life of Abraham, and not to have left it as a dangling, separate matter; because I think it belongs within the Genesis narrative. 

So what we have done in the Old Covenants in Genesis (when we get to Abraham) is there’s a note stuck into the text in red. 

SP: Oh, yeah. 

DS: Yeah. This is… It would be in the King James Version: Genesis chapter 12, about verse 16. We stick in a red little note. I don’t know if you can see that. Let me see if I can… Oh, right there. Where am I?

SP: Okay. Yeah, I see it. Yeah. Oh, by the Book of Abraham. Oh, okay. And then…

DS: Yeah, that’s where the narrative of the Book of Abraham belongs. The Book of Abraham—you should read the talk, “The Religion of [our] Fathers”—the Book of Abraham was actually not written in Egypt. 

It was written before he enters into Egypt. And the criticisms of the Book of Abraham about what was going on and how he’s describing the lay of the land and the human sacrifice, all of that took place in Mesopotamia on a trip through territory occupied by Egyptophiles who were imitating what was going on in Egypt; but they’re not in Egypt, and Abraham is not in Egypt. 

And one of the things that the Egyptian scholars have missed is the fact that this is completely preliminary to Abraham’s entry into Egypt. Read “The Religion of the Fathers.” It’s available through… Well, you don’t have to pay anyone; you can go to my website, www.denversnuffer.com,  look at downloadables, “The Religion of the Fathers” is… You can download a PDF and read it there. 

SP: Okay.

DS: We’ve done a… I’ve done a whole lot more with the Book of Abraham than people probably have imagined. 

But it’s in our Scriptures, and it’s there for a reason; and I believe it belongs in Genesis. And it fills in a missing component of Old Testament narrative that Joseph Smith omitted—I believe by inspiration, as he was going through the Genesis account—but it gets added at a later time, I think through inspiration and revelation, and I think it belongs in Genesis and not as a separate text. But we took… There was a meeting, there was a conference, there was a vote; the vote was collected, and while the book of Abraham was approved for inclusion, the vote did not agree to put it into Genesis. And so it’s in the Scriptures, it’s referenced in Genesis as belonging at that spot, but the vote did not put it there, so it’s not in Genesis.

SP: Okay, well thank you for sharing that process. That’s really fascinating to me to hear this, and hear it from you. Was there anything else, because I wanted to… I did want to ask you about Benjamin Park and the video he put out today. But before we do that, was there anything else about these Scriptures that you wanted to highlight or talk about? 

DS: I have been going through and transcribing notes. I taught gospel doctrine for like three decades in the LDS Church, and as a consequence of that, I made a lot of marks in a LDS quad combination (large print, by the way). And I’ve gone through, and I’ve been in the process of transcribing notes and cross references from earlier versions of the LDS Scriptures into these new ones that we have. And in the process, the cross-referencing has taken me everywhere, back and forth, and in and out. And I’m not saying this as some sort of prideful boast; I’m just saying that this is my observation: 

These Scriptures are better than anything I have ever had access to. They are more complete. They are more valuable. They are more understandable. They really are… If you’re talking about any branch of the Restoration, of what they’ve done with the Scriptures, these are the respectful, the most complete, the most usable with all of the cross-referencing that is made that allows you to get into both; and as I’ve transcribed the notes, I’ve just been in awe of all of the effort that all of the people have made in order to make this stuff possible. I mean, I accept accountability for the revelations that got put in here, or the Covenant of Christ that got put in here, the Testimony of St. John that got added; and anyone want to throw rocks at that, they can throw ‘em at me. But the rest of the effort and the meticulous work that has been done, the research that has been done, it deserved to get the attention of the Lord and to get Him to respond—because the saints got condemned when they weren’t paying respectful attention to the Scriptures. They got condemned in September of 1832: 

…your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief… 

By the way, “unbelief” is a term that we define in the glossary. It’s a specific word with a specific meaning. 

…and because you have treated lightly the things [which] you have received, which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation. And this condemnation rests upon the children of Zion, even all, and they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon, and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say but to do according to that which I have written, that they may bring forth fruit meet for their Father’s kingdom. (T&C 82:20)

We took seriously the condemnation. We took seriously the idea that something needed to be done to reciprocate and to say, “Yeah, we’re under condemnation, but is there anything we can do to emerge from out/from under that condemnation? Is there any way that you would allow a group to escape that condemnation by showing the deference?” And that deference isn’t acquired simply by sitting back and saying, “Tell us, Jesus, what you want us to write.” It requires the kind of sacrifice, the kind of applied effort, the kind of studious, long-suffering that was required of the committees that work on this stuff and all of the people that contributed to the process.

And at the end of that very difficult journey, I tried to estimate the amount of time: It was about a century of man-time spent working directly to get this done. I believe we qualified to receive the voice of the Lord, and I believe we got it. 

And therefore, I have no hesitation about saying that this is the best set of Scriptures that I believe have ever been produced. And among other things, one of the things the Lord has said about this. These specific Scriptures: 

These scriptures are sent forth to be my warning to the world, my comfort to the faithful, my counsel to the meek, my reproof to the proud, my rebuke to the contentious, and my condemnation of the wicked. They are my invitation to all mankind to flee from corruption, repent, and be baptized in my name, and prepare for the coming judgment. (T&C 177:3) 

I think the only reason we have those words given to us by the Lord is because of the effort that went into making these. This was no small effort, and this isn’t Denver Snuffer acting like he’s a big man. I’m a small part of an effort that the Lord respected, and I was instrumental only in helping put it together and guide it. 

The effort and the price and the legitimacy of all of this is dependent upon dozens and dozens of people spending years of effort, with numerous hours every week, repeated meetings, numerous conferences, efforts to get it out and to get it criticized and to get feedback from the people that would ultimately be adopting it. It was not a small effort. It’s taken a decade and a half, and it’s taken a century of man-hours to get it done. 

So when I say they’re the best I believe I have ever laid my hands on, I’m saying that because they’re the best that I have ever laid my hands on. 

SP: I love it, and I can vouch for this, folks. I’ve had the opportunity to befriend some of the people who’ve been part of these projects, and their attention to detail and how seriously they’re taking this, is… I can vouch for that. 

I’ve had/spent hours off the record, on phone calls, and had taped interviews with various people. I want to commend the great work that they do. And I think, obviously, Denver—a lot of people like to put this all on you, but obviously—you’re a person, much like Joseph, who needed good people around him to help with this work, and it sounds… 

DS: I couldn’t do it. Yeah.

SP: Couldn’t do it on your own, and I think Joseph recognized that as well. 

I thank you again for discussing this. I think this is really important. You know, I tell people that part of the purpose of this channel is for scholars to be able to watch it 50 years from now, knowing that we don’t have an agenda. We’re just trying to get information out, and I think this was a very insightful conversation. 

Before I let you go, I did send you that Benjamin Park video, and I think it’s actually, honestly, Denver, I think it’s a God thing. I think originally we were supposed to tape this morning, and it didn’t work out, and next thing you know, Benjamin puts this video out, and I thought, this must be the reason why. 

So Denver, I’d like for you to just talk a little bit about it. I want to pull it up here real quick too, just so that people can see, and I’ll have a link to it, as well. But yeah, if you go on to Benjamin Park’s YouTube channel, he just posted this video earlier today about Denver: “The Denver Snuffer Movement Explained in 20 Minutes.” Denver, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. 

DS: Well, I don’t take offense at people’s honest efforts to try and restate or explain something, and I mean, if I were grading him on the spirit with which he approached it, I’d give him an A. I’d give him an A! If I were grading him on the accuracy of the material, I would say it’s a C. It’s dated; he’s not up-to-date. He hasn’t stayed with it, and he’s borrowed an idea; and this is a problem with Mormon history, generally. I’ll illustrate it with a little story that I have told before: 

Brigham Young and the saints are leaving Nauvoo, Illinois, and they’re heading parts unknown in the West. And the likelihood is that the original target was Oregon; it is possible that the original target was California, but it was certainly not the Great Basin. 

And they struggle, and they suffer, and they’re hungry. And finally, with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever afoot, and with exhaustion of materials, and with the planting year fast expiring—I mean, you’re now July 24th in 1847—you’re struggling into a barren, salted desert with a very sick Brigham Young, and at that point, “Oh hell; this is the place,” stick the cane in the ground, and then we’ll start celebrating. In fact, they didn’t have the ability to get any farther. 

So, here you’ve got someone that is aiming in that direction to try and get an objective achieved, who winds up over here instead. And what the historians now do is they take the story of winding up here, and they tell it in reverse back to where they started from; and “faith in every step” and “this is the place” is the crossroads; it is Zion. It is “beneath the shadows of the everlasting hills.” And so we hear that week after week, and we celebrate—not as the ridiculous, pathetic, tragic end of a journey… I mean, at least it was Mexico. At least you’d escape those scoundrels back east that were so opposed to you. It was liberation, except the Treaty of (oh, what is it?) Guadalajara? The treaty that ceded it to the United States happens almost immediately after they arrive at a godforsaken salt flat desert. 

And so in reverse, what the historians try to do is to turn that into a narrative, and that narrative appears to be purposeful from the outset. And it’s not disappointment; it’s triumph. It’s not, you know, stumbling through illness into a tragic end; it’s revelation and God. And the narrative is completely recast. 

The point of that story is to say, if you were to ask those directly participating at the moment, they would never tell you the story that the historians tell you about the migration from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City and the settling in Salt Lake City. That was, in short, a spontaneous blunder that resulted in, “Now we’ve got to write a history about it, so let’s make it seem purposeful!” It wasn’t at all. 

The thing I would criticize Benjamin about is that he’s reading into me purposes that have never existed, okay? I didn’t set about to put together a set of Scriptures. Those ideas to do something to try and repent, came from two completely—it was actually three; so let me say, “two,” and then I’ll describe the third—two completely different groups of people who were looking at the Scriptures and saying, “Look what’s rolling out. We’re getting The Joseph Smith Papers. We’ve got something that Royal Skousen is producing. We’ve got a source of material that we really ought to take a careful look at.” 

And so one group was going through all of the Scriptures trying to get it right, and another group spontaneously and independent of them was going through and trying to get the Scriptures right. At the same time, there was a third individual who was himself trying to get it right, and that third individual learned about one of the groups, and he joined that group, so his independent work then got subsumed within one of the two groups. These people were working on this for several years, independent of me. I had no intent to participate in any of this. I had no idea it needed to be done. This was people inspired, they believe, by the Spirit of God to lead them to try and fix a problem and to emerge out of condemnation. 

So, I hear a rumor that some of the people who have been meeting with our group of folks are working on trying to fix the Scriptures. I hear a rumor, and I’m kind of satisfied that someone’s doing something, and I’m at least curious—we may not ever publish it, or we may publish it as a commentary; we may just make it available as a PDF—but I commend the effort. 

So, I hear about it, and then it’s in a December timeframe (I don’t remember which year this was). One of the two groups approaches me, and they deliver to me what they believe to be a reconstruction that’s more accurate of the Scriptures, and I was pleased to see that. Then, within one week, the other group that had been working on the Scriptures (completely separate from them) comes to me and says, “We have an improved version, a more accurate version of the Scriptures.” And sure enough, they’re two completely independent, different efforts. 

So, I’m not going to take the time to soldier through two different editions. I schedule a meeting, and it was during the Christmas holidays of that year. I got both groups to meet together at my law office and to bring their two different versions, and we sat down, and we looked at it, and I said, “I want this effort to be combined if we’re gonna do something with this. Let’s combine the efforts together.” And so these two independent groups began to work together, and what they discovered is they… Some had isolated one problem, some problems had been identified by both groups, and some had been identified only by the other group—but all of them were issues that required further effort, at which point, a united effort began for the very first time to go through and to solve all of this. And having heard about it, we had more people join in the effort. 

I got people to work together. I got them to adopt a “unanimous” mandate. The “majority” wouldn’t work; we’re talking about Scripture! I got them to agree that if we could not unanimously agree on something, that we would either eliminate it or we would leave it alone. I managed to get what was potentially a contentious, argumentative, divisive effort to be united, collegial, and a group effort that led to an outcome. I didn’t drive the boat. I didn’t drive the effort. 

For any historian to impute a motive, a desire, an ambition to me is actually quite opposite to the truth. I have one and only one interest and that is to obey the Lord insofar as I can understand what it is that the Lord wants from me or expects from me. But past that, I have no goal, I have no ambition, and there are numerous things that I had been asked to do and that I have done that I don’t find enjoyable or preferred. 

To me, this entire effort is an unwanted sacrifice that I’m making out of devotion to God and not out of any hopes that I’m of any significance at all. I’m interested in pleasing the Almighty with the choices I make and the things that I do, but I’m allowing Him to be the one that controls. I don’t have any ambition.

The structure that… I have looked at all of the churches—and it doesn’t matter which one it is or how small it is; I’ve looked at all of them—as soon as you introduce a profit motive, you’re inviting corruption, ambition; you’re inviting people to want to get ahead and to put other people beneath them. We don’t have a structure, we don’t have a hierarchy, and I don’t consider myself above any single member of what we are doing as Covenant Christians.

If we get a revelation, I’m just as bound to it as someone else is; and the content of a revelation may be better understood by someone else than it is understood by me. I’ve had people explain revelations that have come through me to have meanings that I didn’t understand when I received it, but readily see the wisdom, the understanding, the light, and the truth in what they have pointed out by it. I am not a big, ambitious, religious leader. 

I was content to remain a Latter-day Saint until they kicked me out, and I’m content to associate with the good people that are trying to follow God that have gone to the trouble of helping to put this set of Scriptures together. So, the one criticism that I would level at him and at everyone else that has, you know, commented on it is that they have badly, badly misunderstood me. They do not understand at all what I’m about.

I’m a follower of the Lord, trying hard to please Him by the choices I make and the tasks I undertake; and many of them come at a price of my time, my effort, my resources, my energy that—left to my own—I’d never undertake. 

So, having said that, he made the… Okay, I shouldn’t be that emotionally connected to it. He made, in passing, a comment about the Passing the Heavenly Gift and “published for a profit” motive. 

That book wasn’t advertised. It doesn’t make money. The purpose of publishing it was to try and reclaim the testimony in the Restoration of a son who had strayed from belief in the validity of the Restoration into, essentially, agnosticism. And the book was written to try and help him and others similarly situated. It was not done… I mean, if he knew… I don’t make money on books. I’m a… I’m working for a living, and I spend money to get things done. 

I wouldn’t allow any of the books to be advertised. I don’t do book signings. I don’t do book promotions. And even the content of the earlier books were written while I was an active Latter-day Saint. They were done to try and promote faith in the church and in the validity of what the church was teaching—only to find out that after The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil had been out and in print for some time, they had the “Boise Rescue,” with Richard Turley and Dallin Oaks going up and denouncing the Second… They’ve actually changed the footnote in the LDS Scriptures to eliminate the reference to the Second Comforter as Jesus Christ, and they denounce the Second Comforter as a heresy. 

The book remains exactly like it was written when I was an orthodox, faithful member, as an archaeological preservation of an earlier theology that has subsequently been rejected by the LDS Church and denounced by them as another heresy. So, I guess I was doomed. Anything that I adopted, it was doomed to become heretical because the brethren insist that the brethren alone… It’s just the brethren that matter. 

And that’s sad, as well. I hate to see the LDS Church in the decline that it is in presently: doctrinally, historically, numerically. I hate to see the decline. I think that their preservation benefits Utah, Idaho, Arizona, even California, Nevada. I think a strong LDS Church is good for social order and good families and good life. And they’re pissing all that away, unfortunately. 

Anyway, that’s… I don’t like him imputing a motive. There is no profit to be made. His history is a little dated. And beyond that, I would have to get really granular, and we’d have to go through it one by one. But that’s just the overall bird’s-eye-view. 

SP: Yeah, I appreciate it. And by the way, if Benjamin wanted to get in touch with you, would I be able to get your…

DS: Of course!

SP: …contact information to him? Okay. So, Benjamin, I just want to let you know, I can facilitate a conversation if you’d kind of like to get to know Denver. I’ve spent hours with him off camera and on camera. 

And to me, it’s really important, you know, as people who are documenting history, that if we have the opportunity to speak to the person we’re writing about or doing work on, I think it’s always great to take advantage of that opportunity to kind of get a fuller picture. And that’s what we try to do here at MBR. So, hopefully we can facilitate a conversation with you and Benjamin. 

I just have one quick question, and then we’re gonna wrap this up. I just, you know, I’m really intrigued because your movement, I’ve been following for a very, very long time, way before I ever thought about doing a podcast or anything. I’ve always found you to be an interesting person. I’ve always found our interactions to be delightful. 

I see behind you, you have a picture of the Nauvoo Temple, and you have a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. 

DS: Yeah!

SP: And I just wanted to ask you what your thoughts are with your movement in relation to temples. 

DS: I expect we will build one. One of the things that we learned in a passing comment from the Lord in a revelation is that His people are always commanded to build a temple. We believe that we will ultimately need to construct a temple, and I don’t think we’ll build more than one ever. I don’t think it’s appropriate to build more than one ever. And that the content of the temple really does need to be a house of the Lord; and for it to have legitimacy, I believe the Lord needs to come and to visit it. It is His house, after all, and I’m anticipating that we will receive a command to do so. 

A group of women have, on their own, begun to collect contributions, and there is a fund that is set up to which people can contribute, but they are doing that independent of me. But if a command is given, I expect to be involved in getting the project completed. 

And I do think that there was something… I don’t think that Joseph got to the point of completing what needed to be restored when he was working in Nauvoo. I think there was work left yet in his day, but some of it did get put on the ground in Nauvoo, and the LDS Church has perpetuated (although they’ve really reduced, and they’ve really edited, and they’ve really condensed, and they’ve really discarded what was there at the beginning). 

In fact, Steve, you ought to come over to the Colorado talk—Grand Junction, Colorado—where I’m gonna pick up and talk about this, about stuff related to this very subject. The fact is that a temple needed to be restored, and in that 1841 revelation where the Lord talks about “restoring again that which has been taken from you, even the fullness,” it required a temple to be built—which is another thing about Benjamin’s comments: 

I didn’t think the LDS Church was going to be put under condemnation because of me, and I didn’t think I was all that significant. And what he uses as a little highlight to quote from me is actually what I was told by the Lord. He had planned something that I was unaware of. I learned about it after the fact, and that statement by the Lord after the fact was intended… 

By way of background, I wrote The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil for my family. I did not intend that book to ever get into print. When I finished with the manuscript and I put it away, I felt condemned because it was now hidden in a drawer. As a result of prayer, I reluctantly took the manuscript and gave it to a fellow. He was the head of publication at Deseret Book. He had previously been the president of Bookcraft, and he was the head of publication, son of an apostle, someone I knew from law school. I took the manuscript to him because he was the head of publication, and he told me that it would take about 30 days to let me know—because they have readers, and the readers will get through it quickly, and they’ll either decide “yea” or “nay.” 

30 days came and went, I heard nothing. About day 45, I called him, and I asked him, “What’s up?” 

And he said, “Yeah, can we have a little longer?” 

And I said, “Well, yeah. Sure.” I didn’t know how quickly they turned around most people’s books, except I was told that. And so, it appeared to me from what I was told that this was now an exception, and maybe that was something that would result in print. I was sort of half thinking, “I hope it doesn’t get into print because there’s some personal stuff in that book, and I don’t really look forward to having my space invaded.” 

I got a call at about the two-month mark. We talked again about the three-month mark, about the four-month mark, about the five-month mark. It took seven months before Deseret Book declined to publish The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil because they believed the content to be too sensitive to be put out on the market. But they encouraged me to go ahead and to try and find someone to put it in print; they just didn’t want to deal with something that they considered that sensitive.

Ultimately, it was turned down by a second publisher down in American Fork. They’ve since been acquired by Deseret Book—like all the publishers are because they don’t want competing publication of LDS material to go on. And it wasn’t until a law school classmate of mine who had founded his own publishing company said, “Oh, I’ll publish it for you.” 

And I said, “Well, I don’t want it advertised. I don’t want to do book signings. I don’t want it really becoming a commercial product.” 

He said, “So what you’re talking about is really a vanity press.” 

And I said, “Well, it’s really for my family. I’d like to get it into print and give it to my kids.”

So, he persuaded me that he could get it into print, and we could do it anonymously—well, not “anonymously,” but without attracting attention. So it took a while. It’s a lot more work to put a book into print than to write a book. It took quite a while to be able to get it into a format, but he told me, “You have to pay for the cost of publication. You have to pay for the cover art. You have to pay for a review by a book editor. And you have to do all of that before we’ll put it out.” 

And so, I sunk a whole lot of cost into getting the thing into print before it ever saw a conclusion and made its way into print. And so, from my perspective, this was an enormous financial hole to print a vanity piece for my kids and my grandkids. 

So we submit the manuscript to this print-on-demand company out in North Carolina called BookSurge. And while it is in the hands of the BookSurge folks, Amazon—the world’s largest bookseller—purchases BookSurge so they can do print-on-demand books. And it rolls out The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil as a phrase or a word or a title that will show up on any search on anyone’s computer anywhere in the damn world because Amazon has put it in their inventory of stuff. And so dozens, dozens, hundreds of people searching “the Second Comforter” stumbled across a book titled, The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil. 

I mean, Amazon’s acquisition of the print-on-demand thing changed this quiet little vanity piece into something… 

SP: Interesting.

DS: Yeah, I mean, it… I don’t know, I haven’t looked for years. Last time I looked, there were over 20,000 copies that had sold in an LDS book… “Bestseller” today is like 4,000.

I was actually horrified by the turn of events. And I felt then (I still feel now) like my space got invaded. I think people who, from a distance, look at what I’m involved with and make a complete misreading of me. They have no idea who I am or what I’m about. They have no idea that I’m far more inconvenienced and put upon, and left to my own, I would be far more private than any of this stuff allows me to be. And I have a lot of discomfort. 

And I do it not because I expect to be understood; I don’t. But I can tell you, my kids read nonsense about me on the Internet that is so belittling, demeaning, misreading that because my kids know who I am, understand who I am, they just laugh about it. I don’t defend myself, because the people that I care about know what nonsense they’re putting out about me. And, you know, I let it be. Just it’ll “out” eventually. 

SP: Interesting.

DS: I’ve enjoyed time that we’ve spent together…

SP: Absolutely.

DS: …but I feel like you have been more open, less prejudging, more curious, less presuming that you can, you know, impose a stereotype on someone and willing to say, “Hey, define yourself.”

SP: Yep!

DS: And that’s kind of refreshing in this area of religion. Because in religion, strongly held opinions are gospel truth, even when they’re nonsense. 

SP: Absolutely. No, I agree with you entirely, Denver. First of all, thank you so much for coming on the show today. And I would like to get out to Colorado for your conference. I think that would be… I’ve always been wanting to get out to some….

DS: It’s in July.

SP: …you know, and of course, I really enjoy the people of your movement, Covenant Christians. And let’s just pull up that website one more time for everybody real quick, so they know where to go. Yeah.

And so you guys have been using the term “Covenant Christian” for over a year now, from my understanding, and it was done at one of your conferences last year. And so it’s not, you know… They were referred to in the past as the Remnant, or as Snufferites, or whatever. But actually, these are Covenant Christians. That’s their name. And so I think people, we need to respect them and use the name that they have been given. 

And this is their website with all their different resources on here, including where you can actually order these Scriptures that we talked about. So Denver, anything else about this website that we need to be aware of, or any other links that you would like for me to put in the description as well? 

DS: Well, there’s www.denversnuffer.com where you can…

SP:  I’ll put that in there. 

DS: Yeah, you can access for free all of the papers. A great deal of the material is available as a PDF downloadable there. 

SP: Wonderful. And of course, folks, you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars for these Scriptures either. They’re actually available for you to read today. And so check that out, because not everybody has that extra money. But for those of you who do, there will be links in the description for the few remaining copies that do exist. 

And just remember the most important thing is this: All the voices of the Restoration will be heard here on Mormon Book Reviews.

The post Mormon Book Reviews – An Interview With Denver Snuffer appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following talk by Stephanie Snuffer was given in St. George, Utah at a conference held on 12 April 2026 at the Dixie Convention Center.

Good morning. I didn’t actually plan to start ‘til 10, so maybe I’ll do those jazz hands that Annette wanted. Woo hoo. [Jazz hands.] 

Okay! As… oh, down way lower? [moving the microphone]. Okay. I’m gonna correct something. I am not speaking until noon. I will speak ‘til 11, and there will be a break, and then Denver will speak. So… Okay. 

Oh, I… In talking about culture, I think I have to explain something. The name of my talk, apparently, is pretty cool. “Dwindling in Unbelief: How Stupidity is its Own Punishment.” Now, that makes perfect sense to me, because part of our family culture is the phrase, “Stupidity is its own punishment.” And so, if you live in my house, you would have heard that over and over and over again as something that your parents would have told you when you were making choices that are going to result in a consequence, and that consequence may or may not be, you know, in your best interest. 

We have a lot of them. “The more you wear, the less you carry.” Make sense? Take a handful, a passel of kids skiing, and if they’re not wearing their hats or their coats or their gloves, they’re asking you to carry them for you. So the more you wear, the less you carry.

So these are just some of our family cultural phrases. I’m sure you have your own. I will end there, but that’s the explanation of why my talk is called “Dwindling in Unbelief: How Stupidity is its Own Punishment.” Having said that: 

When one prizes his or her errors…holds them as true (when they are not), one dwindles in unbelief. Unbelief is often used in connection with losing truth, forsaking doctrine, and therefore “dwindling.” The phrase “dwindling in unbelief” is the Book of Mormon’s way to describe moving from a state of belief, with true and complete doctrine, to a state of unbelief, where the truth has been discarded. Miracles end because men dwindle in unbelief. (“Dwindle in Unbelief,” Glossary of Gospel Terms)

And that’s from the glossary. 

So I have a working theory, and my working theory is that, well, let’s start here: Scriptures give powerful teachings about how to live, but how do we actually put those teachings into practice when we are hurting, when we are anxious, when we are depressed, or when we are stuck? People have been reading scriptures for more than 2,000 years. That’s a long time. That’s a lot of scripture. And what is the fruit? Wars are fought over scripture. What is the fruit of scripture in your life? 

I don’t know… Shahram has 57—57!—weaknesses, which is… I wish I only had 57 weaknesses. And I read my Scriptures, and I’m not sure how to make this all come together, because truthfully, we are still a very, very long way from any realistic hope of being a Zion community—because we don’t do a good job of implementing what we learn in the Scriptures. And that’s okay. It’s not easy. It’s actually quite hard.

And so my working theory is that modern psychology and therapy provide the practical tools that help us implement scriptural principles. So imagine my delight to listen to Dr. Otteson yesterday. Imagine my delight to hear the things that have been talked about this weekend and how, in my brain, it’s all about the implementation of tools and skills and interventions to help marry those things together. 

Our Scriptures frequently speak about our inner lives, our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, forgiveness, humility, renewal; and modern therapies study those same domains and teach methods to affect them in a positive way. The overlap is not a coincidence, because both of these things—scriptures and psychology & mental health principles—aim at human flourishing. God wants us to thrive in this life, not just strive our way through it.  And if you can learn how to implement scriptural principles into your life, you will thrive the way your God wants you to. 

So I have three separate parallels I’m gonna make. 

And the first one is the concept of:

RENEWING THE MIND, WHICH IS COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY 

In Romans 1:59 RE, And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God is. 

Philippians 1:15 RE, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are a good report — if there is any virtue and if there is any praise — think on these things. Those things which you have both learned and received, and heard and seen in me, do, and the God of peace shall be with you. 

Mosiah 2:6 CE, However, I can warn you that if you don’t remain vigilant and play close attention to your thoughts, words, and actions, and if you don’t follow God’s commandments and maintain your faith in the Lord until the end of your life, you will perish. 

Alma 9:4 CE, Our words will condemn us, our works will condemn us, our thoughts will condemn us, and we can’t be found spotless. In that awful condition, we won’t dare to look up to God.

Cognitive behavioral therapy helps people notice and reframe their distressing thoughts that lead to harmful feelings and behaviors. 

So what is the spiritual experience of a young lady who struggles with self-worth, self-harm, and self-loathing? Her religious life might be filled with grief and guilt and shame because she knows what she’s supposed to do, but she struggles with all of these other things. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps identify those thoughts, test their evidence, and practice alternative statements and strategies, enabling this young woman to engage in the spiritual practices that require self-regard, self-respect, empathy, and hope—the things that she hears week after week that she’s supposed to be doing, but she can’t. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help that. 

All right, the second one:

FORGIVENESS AND RELATIONAL REPAIR 

Colossians 1:13 RE, Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, hearts of mercies, kindness, humility of mind, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do you; and above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. 

Ephesians 1:16 RE, And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you. 

(Oh, I forgot to tell you, my scripture references will be some Covenant of Christ, some Book of Mormon, some you’ll have to figure it out.) 

[T&C] 51:3, Wherefore, I say unto you that you ought to forgive one another, for he that forgives not his brother his trespasses stands condemned before the Lord, for there remains in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men. 

Mosiah 9:7 CE, Are you willing to help carry each other’s burdens, to lighten them for one another? Are you willing to mourn with those who mourn, and comfort those who need comforting? 

And there are plenty of others. Scriptures mandate forgiveness, reconciliation, bearing one another’s burdens. 

Attachment theory/relational therapies describe how early relationships shape our expectations and our reactivity as adults in relationships. What is the religious experience of a person who has been abused by a trusted adult, or whose relational wounds by parents/siblings/church leaders make it hard to trust or forgive? They can read scriptures all day and still struggle to implement the principles. These individuals can benefit from attachment-informed therapy, which helps regulate their fear responses and build safe relational patterns so forgiveness and trust that is mandated in the Scriptures actually becomes possible. 

I meet with people who can’t do this stuff, no matter how much they want to. My job is to offer them tools so they can live the spiritual life they want to. 

Third one:

EMOTIONAL REGULATION AND SELF-CONTROL

This is a DBT and mindfulness practice.

Proverbs [16:32 KJV], He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. (See also Proverbs 2:216 RE.)

Galatians 1:22 RE, But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against…there is no such law. 

Alma 18:4 RE, Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love. See that you refrain from idleness. 

Mosiah 2:6 RE, And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order, for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize. Therefore, all things must be done in order. 

Many scriptures call for self-control, patience, and being calm in the face of provocation. Dialectical behavioral therapies teach concrete emotional regulation skills, distress tolerance, and mindfulness, which make the virtues you are aspiring to possible. 

What is the religious experience of someone who grew up in a house where emotions were ignored or suppressed? This individual might have big emotions, and they might express them in very unhealthy ways. They might not understand what they’re experiencing. Often, they show up volatile and intense. This person apologizes and repents over and over for this behavior, but is loath to change it. Learning distress tolerance and mindfulness allows this person to pause and choose the responses that are aligned with the scriptures that they believe in. 

Why does this matter? Why is this important? Because scriptures give the ideals, and therapy gives the method. Scripture very often states what we are to be. 

Therapy shows us how to do those things. Mental health principles show us how to do those things. Psychology shows us how to do those things, especially if we are traumatized, habituated, or somehow neurobiologically have some kind of interference. 

We have our ideals, and we must have actual implementation. I am weary of scriptural ideals void of implementation. I am exhausted of scriptural ideas void of implementation. Scriptural imperatives are necessary, but they are not always sufficient for people whose brains and bodies are patterned by trauma, depression, anxiety, or other entrenched behaviors. 

Therapy, good mental health principles, those… (psychology) …provide the rehearsed practices, skill acquisition, and structured change processes, like behavioral activation, exposure therapy, skills training, so that people can live according to the ideals they sincerely endorse and want to live by. 

There are numerous studies that show the therapies of CBT and DBT and trauma therapies reduce symptoms, improve functioning, provide people with healthier mental states, which increases capacity for spiritual activities like prayer, service, and forgiveness. This empirical effectiveness, the fact that I stand up here and tell you that there are studies that do this, does not replace faith. It doesn’t replace the work of engaging in God’s word, but it does show that God’s creation responds to skillful interventions and community support. 

SO WHAT OF THIS HORRIBLE THING WE CALL THE ARM OF FLESH? 

Oh, my goodness. Psychology: the arm of flesh. This is a legitimate worry. It is okay to be concerned that you are relying too heavily on something that is not godly. Let’s talk about that. 

2 Chronicles 16:31 RE, With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles. 

Okay, some of these will sound very much cherry-picked, and that’s okay. You are welcome to go find your own supplemental scriptures to bolster this idea I have, but I want to break this down into these small pieces so that you understand. 

In this particular scripture, I think the key is the arm of flesh, being human strength alone. Okay? I think we would all agree that human strength alone is nothing. We have heard repeatedly this weekend that with God, all things are possible. Absolutely. God must be part of this. But in this particular scripture, when it goes on to say, “…but with us is the Lord our God,” we are utilizing divine help beyond human ability. Human effort will never be sufficient. 

So in 2 Nephi 3:8 CE, O Lord, I’ve trusted in You and will trust in You forever. I won’t put my trust in the scholarly arrogance of man, because I know those who trust in arrogant fools are cursed. Indeed, those who put their trust in the vain teachings of a man and trust them as if they were truth are cursed. 

There are some very strong words there: “arrogant,” “vain.” I agree. We should not trust arrogant, vain men who don’t also trust the Lord. But that doesn’t mean that everything outside of our three volumes of Scripture is arrogant or vain or foolish.

The arm of flesh—the phrase “arm of flesh”—is an admonition not to make human means ultimate. But our scripture traditions and our Scriptures also teach the use of additional means (like medicine, study, service) alongside dependence on God. So how do we use means (medicine, study) alongside faith to make us more comfortable that we are not relying on the arm of flesh? 

James 1 talks about faith. What profit is it, my brethren, for a man to say he has faith, and has not works? Can faith save him? Yea, a man may say, I will show you I have faith without works. But I say, show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by my works. For if a brother or sister are naked and destitute, and one of you say, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled — notwithstanding he give not those things which are needful to the body — what profit is your faith unto such? Even so faith, if it has not works…is dead, being alone. Therefore will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead and cannot save you. (James 1:11 RE)

“Even so faith, if it ha[th] not works…is dead, being alone.” 

“Yea, a man may say, thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me my faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” 

Okay, long scripture, basically to talk about “talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.” But if you don’t actually do something about your “talk, talk, talk, talk, talk,” your faith is pretty vacuous and empty. 

The work of self-awareness, the work of therapy, the work of reading books about mental health principles is an act of faith. It is an act of faith. 

In 1 Timothy 1:15 RE, it says, Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your often infirmities. 

All right, well, that’s a pretty simple scriptural statement saying, “Hey, take a little bit of wine here and see if you can make yourself feel better.” Okay? Well, that’s an “outside means.” 

T&C 26:11, And whoever among you that is sick and has not faith to be healed, but believes, shall be nourished in all tenderness with herbs and mild foods, and that, not of the world. 

Again, a temporal intervention. Using temporal means is an approved part of God’s plan for healing—all temporal means. That’s why Shahram had a doctor’s appointment, because he was using temporal means. 

Article of Faith 13, We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed…if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things (T&C 146:33).

Psychology used as a tool for good, therapy used as a tool for good, mental health principles used as a tool for good, fits this mandate.

There is plenty of historical precedent in religious communities and traditions, where multiple disciplines—fasting, confession, pastoral counseling, secular tools, medicine, education—are all part of faithful living. So how do we integrate these things? How do we integrate these things if we have been afraid of them? How do we integrate them if we have had bad experiences with them? Because I’m certain some people have. I don’t doubt that.

Philippians 1:15 RE, Be afflicted for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through [Jesus Christ]. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are a good report — if there is any virtue and if there is any praise — think on these things. 

This is prayer and action. Prayer should be part of any kind of integrating new truth, new ideas. Pray; ask for guidance and inspiration and discernment. You don’t have to believe everything you read. 

Proverbs 2:46 RE, Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety. 

Seeking wise counsel—including therapeutic counsel, including therapeutic resources—is prudent. God expects us to use the brains He gave us and the discernment that we have access to, to figure out how to implement all truth. 

2 Nephi 14:3 CE, Because if you are willing to listen to the Spirit that teaches a person to pray, you would know you must pray. Because the evil spirit doesn’t teach a person to pray; on the contrary, it teaches a person they must not pray. But I tell you that you must always pray and not be discouraged, and you must not begin to work on anything for the Lord unless you first pray to the Father in the name of Christ that He’ll consecrate your performance to you, so your performance can be for your soul’s well-being. 

Again, pray. Prayer is the constant, as other tools can be used. 

T&C 86:29, …seek diligently and teach one another words of wisdom, yea, seek out of the best books words of wisdom. Seek learning, even by study and also by faith. 

I don’t even have to say anything about this one. Therapists, psychology texts can be sources of wisdom. Any kind of material that teaches you truth is advocated. 

I have mentioned this before: scripture reading, all my life, all the things. And I went back to school (and I don’t remember what year it was), but I learned more about gospel principles in my textbooks than I had learned in my entire life of reading scripture. I don’t know if I’m acknowledging something I should be condemned for. You might start shooting arrows and darts and say, “Okay, that’s your problem.” But I also believe wholeheartedly, God opened my eyes and showed me truth so that, today, my scripture reading informs my work, informs my scripture reading, informs how I seek for wisdom in the best books. If I had given up my textbooks during that time period to read my scriptures as a priority, I would have missed out on all that God was teaching me. 

The other thing you can do is choose good resources. You can choose good therapists. You can choose good books. Using mental health skills and principles as part of a holistic plan—that includes prayer, scripture study, fellowship, rituals, all the things that you do—you never have to reduce your reliance on God while you practice these other means. 

Pray and act. And learning the skills is how you act after you have done all of the other things. It is not an either-or. It is a “both and…” It will always be a “both and.” 

OKAY, SO I HAVE SOME SCENARIOS FOR YOU:

So I imagine some of you have people in your life who you maybe know are depressed. And if you know a depressed person, there are some characteristics that depressed people have that are fairly universal, okay? 

How does a depressed person implement scriptural mandates if they can hardly get out of bed in the morning? That’s kind of hard. And so they’re filled with shame and guilt and self-loathing because the community they’re in has some expectations. Oh, “Just read your Scriptures; you’ll feel better,” okay? 

An intervention—a behavioral activation intervention—which includes really, really tiny things, tiny achievable activities, okay? 

Matthew 11:17 RE,  Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

Behavioral activation is about being faithful over a few things. A cognitive behavioral intervention for depression would be: 

Alma 17:8 CE, But I tell you, great things are accomplished by ordinary, simple things. And simple methods, in many instances, prove the wise are wrong. The Lord…can use anything to accomplish His great and eternal purposes.

Again, admonition to do small things. Scheduling one small, achievable activity is a small and simple thing. I have many clients for whom that intervention would make so much sense. And they would love the reference to the Scriptures about small and simple things. It would make them feel like their scripture understands them, gets them, knows that their life needs to be improved by these tiny, little things. The more you do, the more capacity you have, the more connection you have. 

Okay, case two, trauma or the inability to forgive or trust. 

Perhaps the problem includes flashbacks, hypervigilance, avoidance, relational rupture, okay? Lots of interventions: attachment work, paced exposure therapy, building relational trust, perhaps mentor support or, you know (we don’t have “clergy” specifically, but, you know), fellowship support.

The Scriptures call for healing and reconciliation. Trauma work removes the barriers that make reconciliation impossible. If you are hypervigilant because of abuse or trauma, you cannot forgive or trust. And it’s not your fault. 

This scripture… So this scripture is related to that: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound… (Isaiah 23:1 RE) 

Now, I just had an emotional reaction to that because I have read this talk and this scripture, I don’t know, a dozen times. I just realized that’s me. I am providing a resource to people to help bind up their broken hearts, to help them proclaim liberty to the captives, and help them open the prisons that bind them so they can open up to trust and forgiveness. 

3 Nephi 10:3 CE, O you afflicted, storm-tossed, and suffering one, know that I will provide a foundation as sturdy as rock and beautiful as sapphire. I’ll make your towers more valuable than rubies, doors that are precious, surrounded by heavenly designs upon the walls. 

God promises to rebuild the afflicted, and therapy can be a tool to help support that divine rebuilding process. 

2 Corinthians 1:18 RE, Therefore, if any man live in Christ, he is a new creature (old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new), and receives all the things of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation — namely that God is, in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them — and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 

The goal is reconciliation. And therapy, mental help, all of those things can be part of that ministry by healing the wounds that prevent it. 

T&C 4:7, Wherefore, learn of me and listen to my words, walk in the meekness of my spirit, and ye shall have peace in me, Jesus Christ, by the will of the Father. 

Trauma therapies can help people clear away the noise of hypervigilance and fear and mistrust to finally be able to listen and walk in peace. 

All right, chronic anger and reactive behavior. 

So you’ve got a problem: repeated hurtful responses. Maybe somebody is really volatile, really aggressive. Interventions: dialectical behavioral therapy, emotion regulation, distress tolerance. 

The Scriptures teach us that we should turn the other cheek. We should show meekness, self-mastery. Skills give us the capacity to live those teachings.

3 Nephi 5:[30] CE: Accept life’s injustices gracefully, and when someone hits your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone sues you under the law to get your coat, let them have your overcoat too. And whoever orders you to go a mile, go two. Give to any that ask of you, and if someone wants to borrow from you, never turn them down. 

This teaching requires immense emotional regulation, which is a skill taught in DBT. And if you don’t have it, you don’t have it, and that’s okay—but you can learn it. 

Proverbs 4:23 RE, He that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls. 

Anybody know anybody who’s emotionally reactive (poor emotional skills, poor emotional regulation) and the need for walls? Okay? Therapeutic interventions can help provide the walls so that the emotionally dysregulated have confined containment. 

Mosiah 1:16 RE, For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be for ever and ever but if he yields to the enticings of the holy spirit, and putteth off the natural man, and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child: submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. 

The spiritual goal here is to be submissive, to put off the natural man. Therapy, mental health principles, psychology provide the practical skills to put off the reactive natural man. 

T&C 139:6, No power or influence can or ought…be maintained by virtue of the priesthood; only by persuasion, …long-suffering, …gentleness …meekness, …by love unfeigned, …kindness …pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul; without hypocrisy…without guile; reproving betimes with sharpness when moved upon by the holy ghost, and then showing forth afterward an increase of love toward him you have reproved (lest he esteem you to be his enemy), that he may know that your faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death; your bowels also being full of charity toward all men, and to the household of faith; and virtue garnish your thoughts unceasingly. 

This is the ideal of interpersonal conduct. My, what a daydream, what a fantasy to see this kind of behavior in interpersonal conduct among ourselves, our families. Ah! Give me a minute. Mmm. Therapy teaches concrete skills of persuasion, gentleness, and effective communication to replace reactive anger. 

So those are three scenarios, fairly common scenarios. I, you know… If you know people at all, you know someone who falls into one of those categories. 

So we need to bridge the gap and figure out: 

HOW SPIRITUAL PRACTICES AND THERAPY COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER. 

Prayer plus therapy homework, scripture plus cognitive reframing: How do we make these concepts work? Well, there’s two ways: I’m gonna focus on the individual; we can bring in congregations and community too, but I’m gonna focus on the individual for now. 

So individuals can use scriptures, prayer, discernment to seek out wisdom, counsel, and stewardship. So you would start by reflecting on your needs, honestly, before God. So that would mean everybody would have to take an inventory of what their weaknesses are, where they are struggling. 

…which reminded me of a little side note—because I watched a video several years ago by a woman who talked about self-awareness, and she wrote a whole book on this. And so she did a lot of research, and part of her research findings were… She was trying to test for self-awareness. So the part of her test was: You had to claim you were self-aware, and then you had to have three other people in your life confirm that you were self-aware. Okay, her research showed that 85% of her study subjects believed that they were self-aware, and only 15% actually were, which means that the rest of us are lying—are walking around lying to ourselves—about what we know about ourselves. 

So in order to really utilize scripture, discernment, prayer, you have to start by figuring out, more or less, what’s wrong with you. And that can be really hard. 

I was watching Dr. Otteson’s presentation yesterday, and I realized that there were a handful of things wrong with me that I didn’t know were wrong with me. So every opportunity you can find to figure out what’s wrong with you, I suggest you do so.

And then Psalms 139:4 RE says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 

A prayer honestly asking God, “What lack I yet?” is the first step of implementation.

Alma 16:35 CE, Therefore, may God grant you, my friends, that you begin to exercise faith followed by repentance, so you begin to call on His holy name so He can give mercy to you. Pray to Him for mercy, because He is powerful to save. Humble yourselves and continue praying to Him. Pray out loud to Him when you’re in your fields, over all your flocks. Pray out loud to Him in your houses, over all your household — morning, midday, and evening. Pray aloud to Him against the power of your enemies. Pray aloud to Him against Satan, who’s an enemy of all the righteousness. Pray [out loud] to Him over the crops of your fields, that they thrive for you. Pray aloud over the flocks of your fields, so they can increase. But this isn’t everything. You must pour out your souls in…private rooms and secret places and in…secluded retreats. And when you don’t pray aloud to the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in silent prayer to Him continually for your well-being as well as the well-being of those around you. 

Prayer is where we take our most vulnerable, raw, unfiltered struggles, including all of our mental health challenges or struggles. He is there to help guide you.

I have a lot… I worked for an agency who had a profoundly LDS clientele, just a lot of LDS, some very active, some sort of coming and going, some having faith crisis. All of the therapists that I worked with in that place honored and respected and valued and revered their clients and their clients’ faith. I had a lot of conversations, a lot of consultation, a lot of meetings with these therapists, and—whether they were in the church, out of the church; members, not members—these people were stellar therapists who valued people’s spiritual journeys. That—in my world—that doesn’t seem like a rare find because of where I worked. I suppose it could be a rare find. 

But you can find therapists and resources and materials that do not challenge or undermine your beliefs. There is a lot of crappy information out there. There are a lot of crappy therapists out there. There are crappy doctors and accountants and lawyers and all kinds of things. You can find the good ones. But you must seek for them. 

Proverbs [19:20 KJV], Hear counsel and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. (See also Proverbs 2:289 RE.) Okay?

Seek a therapist as an act of wisdom for your future, for your children’s future, for your children’s children’s future. There’s a lot of stuff we have to get rid of. There’s a lot of stuff we have to get rid of in our lives that, I’m sure, individually we’re aware of. There’s a lot of stuff in our lives that we have to get rid of, we haven’t even… We’re not even aware of it. 

Proverbs 2:46 RE, Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

A mentor, a religious leader, a best friend, a spouse, a sibling, a therapist, a book: There’s lots of ways to find help and support and increase safety in understanding that we are all broken and in need of wise counselors. 

T&C 90:5, Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if you walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith you have covenanted one with another. 

So again, search for help, find good people, find a good therapist, find good resources.

This stuff that I’m putting together—I mean, other than finding the scriptures and putting it together with the scriptures—this is nothing new. I am using resources from people and therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists, Christian, non-Christian, who are already doing this work, who are already putting this stuff together. I have just felt very strongly that it needs to be put together with our Scriptures and our understanding so that we don’t have to be so afraid of this. 

You can easily combine therapy with spiritual disciplines—easily. I do it all the time.

1 Thessalonians 1:13 RE, Wherefore, comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also you do. 

I can assure you, my work is edifying. Having a trusted friend you can talk to about your difficulties is edifying. Going to lunch with someone that you can be vulnerable and honest with and share your struggles is edifying. Do not hide and avoid and suffer in isolation; you’re not helping yourselves, you’re not helping your family, and you are not helping a community you want to belong to. 

2 Timothy 1:9 RE, And all scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable — for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Again, scripture provides the instruction, and therapy can provide the furnishing of the skills to live it out. 

I’ve been in the neighborhood that we live in and the ward that we go to occasionally, we’ve been there 30 years; some new, some old, whatever. But as of late, a lot of the women in Relief Society are being a lot more open about their struggles (and this is a little side note), but I have been amazed at how many women are now willing and open about acknowledging their anxiety, or their depression, or how hard it is to come to church, or how they haven’t felt God’s love in decades because of their anxiety or their struggles. And to see these women (who are easily in their 60s and early 70s) acknowledging this for the first time both fills me with immense joy and breaks my heart. I heard one woman talk to another woman and say, “I knew God loved you, but I had no idea He loved me.” And I don’t know, it just feels crazy to me. 

Mosiah 9:7 CE, Are you willing to help carry each other’s burdens, to lighten them for one another? Are you willing to mourn with those who mourn, and comfort those who need comforting? 

These women are in their 70s before they are willing to look to their church community for comfort and support. 

A spiritual mentor, a congregation, a fellowship: These are support systems we should be using. We shouldn’t feel ashamed, or embarrassed, or guilty for our struggles. We should not shame others for their struggles. We need to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and all men (2 Nephi 13:4 RE), regardless of their weaknesses. Therapy, mental health, psychology, Scriptures, prayer: These are the ways we press forward when we feel spiritually and emotionally stuck. 

So let’s again talk about small beginnings. What else can we do? 

Zechariah 1:10 RE, For who has despised the day of small things? 

Okay, cherry-picking scripture: a powerful reminder not to despise small things. 

There is a small step that always needs to be taken first. It could be practicing a new skill. It could be taking your medication. It could be calling and making an appointment. It could be reaching out to a friend. Small things make a big difference. 

Matthew 11:18 RE, You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. 

Celebrating our small acts, faithful acts—like praying twice a day, completing your therapy homework—these are divinely approved behaviors and activities. God wants us to thrive. 

Alma [17]:8 CE, But I tell you great things are accomplished by ordinary, simple things. And simple methods, in many instances, prove the wise are wrong. 

Okay, second scripture for the same thing:

T&C 51.8, Wherefore, be not weary in well doing, for you are laying the foundation of great work, and out of small things proceeds that which is great. 

This is a perfect scripture for encouraging a therapeutic process or reaching out into new areas of wisdom. A small thing—like a weekly appointment, a chapter in a book, a podcast—is the foundation for a great work of healing. 

So those are the kinds of things that individuals can do. I’m gonna lump the congregational stuff or the fellowship stuff just in one thing. First of all, educate yourselves. 

Do not believe because you have one person who tells you that their experience with therapy or psychology was a disaster, that that will be everybody’s experience. Okay? Feel free to think for yourselves. Feel free to pick up a book, read a chapter. If you don’t like it, put it down. Feel free to test the spirit, determine through discernment, whether this is something that God wants you to pursue or learn or read. But take a step. 

Talk to other people. Find people who’ve had positive experiences with these things. Find out how they ended up with positive experiences.

Use your resources in your fellowships and in your families and in your neighborhoods to learn some things. Encourage a culture where seeking help is seen as a stewardship, not a weakness. Help people help themselves. 

And sometimes the last thing a person needs to hear is for someone to tell them to pray more and read their Scriptures. Sometimes that’s actually not helpful! It CAN be, as you bring in more tools; it WILL be, as you bring in more tools. 

Provide resources that have been vetted. Okay, if you’ve read a great book and you’re like, “This was great!”, recommend it to someone. If you’ve got a good podcast you love, recommend that to someone. If you got halfway through a book and you didn’t really like it, maybe don’t recommend it. But use each other as resources. 

Denver put a resource list up on his blog a few days ago, and you know what I heard? I heard a lot of, “That wasn’t him; that had to have been Stephanie.” Well, maybe. Gotcha. 

Create support structures. Okay? We’re all in this together. A lot of it you have to do alone. Zion is internal before it is external. So a lot of it you have to do on your own. But a lot of it you have to do in community. Okay? There is no Buddhist monk who lives on the top of a hill who will ever understand conflict resolution or emotional regulation because he has the pleasure and the virtue—pleasure and the, I don’t know, resources—to stay away from the people who bug him! 

This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in relationships. Sitting home reading your Scriptures and then writing blog posts or talking about them in fellowships or patting yourself on the back for how much scripture you read will never get us to Zion. Doing that and being in relationship and working out your conflict? That will. 

Scriptures give us our ideals. I love the Scriptures. I love the ideals that the Scriptures give. I love reading my Scriptures with all I have learned because I see so much of God in the work I do. Every day I see it. Mental health principles—which can include therapy, medication, books, resources—can be (IS) a faithful means when used with discernment and integrated with our spiritual practices.

Psychology is not a replacement; it is a supplement. Dwindling in belief is not just one thing. 

When one prizes his or her errors and holds them as true (when they are not), one dwindles in unbelief. Unbelief is often used in connection with losing truth, forsaking doctrine, and therefore “dwindling.” The phrase “dwindling in unbelief” is the Book of Mormon’s way to describe moving from a state of belief, with true and complete doctrine, to a state of unbelief, where the truth has been discarded. Miracles end because men dwindle in unbelief. (Supra.) 

Don’t for one minute kid yourselves into thinking that disregarding the principles of good mental health and psychology—which are true principles of all who claim to follow God, as found throughout all the Scriptures—isn’t its own version of dwindling in unbelief. And the stupidity of rejecting those principles will certainly be its own punishment.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The post Dwindling in Unbelief: How Stupidity is its Own Punishment appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following talk by Denver Snuffer was given in St. George, Utah at a conference on 12 April 2026.

I want to thank the organizers for putting this conference together. Unless you have organized a conference, you don’t realize just how much work is involved in getting something like this put together, organized, the facilities rendered. This is only done by volunteers. And so anyone that decides that they’re going to volunteer and arrange for a conference is shouldering a fairly significant burden in order to get it up and done. And so it’s really an achievement. And there will be a group of people who have helped out on this that will sleep better tonight than they did for the last several months. But I want to thank them. 

There’s a matter of business I want to conduct. And before getting to the culmination of that, I want to start with an explanation about a tradition that began at the time of Adam. Following the Fall and three years previous to his death, he gave a patriarchal blessing, and that set a precedent that has been followed a number of times throughout history, whenever there has been a dispensation of the gospel underway. 

The original organization of the entire world was familial. There was no church, and there was no State. It was just a family. 

There was ten generations that were alive at the same time when Adam gave his patriarchal blessing. (I’m gonna look that up real quick since I have a new set of Scriptures, and I want to make some use of them.) This is from paragraph 19 of the Teachings and Commandments [section 154]:

Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cain[an], Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing. And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the Prince, the Archangel. And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam, and said unto him, I have set you to be at the head; a multitude of nations shall come of you, …you are a prince over them forever.

And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation, and, notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the holy ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation. (T&C 154:19-20)

In this instance, the blessing that was given was prophecy, and the prophecy was fulsome, reaching down to the latest generations that would live on the Earth. Much of the subsequent prophecy that we get from other prophets in later dispensations are a reiteration of something that had originally been pronounced by Father Adam three years previous to his death. 

In paragraph 21, it says, 

Now this same Priesthood, which was in the beginning, shall be in the end of the world also — [and] in other words, at the end of the world, the final dispensation will restore again the pattern of the first, or Adam’s, dispensation. (Ibid. ❡21, emphasis in original)

You can also see that same prophecy in Genesis chapter 3, paragraph 14. I’m going to talk more about that in July in a conference in Colorado, but part of what needs to be addressed today needs to have reference generally to this topic. 

Apostasy ended the first line of the patriarchs and, therefore, terminated the government of God. Later, after there had been a restoration, there was another example of a patriarchal blessing that we find at the end of Genesis (the book of Genesis—in traditional numbering, it is Genesis chapter 49, the entirety of that chapter; and in the RE edition that we have, it’s in Genesis chapter 12, beginning at paragraph 19). And there, Jacob goes through each of the 12 sons and gives to them blessings about what would befall them and what would befall their posterity. The other example that we can read is in the example of Lehi giving blessings to all of his sons that you can find in 2 Nephi chapters 1 and 2 (it’s also in the LDS numbering in 2 Nephi 1:1 – 3:25). 

Blessings are given by the oldest father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on. And it’s because it’s the traditional role of that eldest father that they’re called patriarchal blessings. It’s the role of the mother to choose what blessings someone would receive or what appointment they would get, but it’s the role of the father to provide the blessing. And patriarchal blessings have generally included instruction; they’ve included advice, they’ve included a call to repent; prophecy; revelation; and they’ve included warning. 

The father in the family should be the one to give it, but among us, it is sometimes the case that there is no father or grandfathers who are part of the faith, believing, and in a position to provide a patriarchal blessing. And there are some fathers who just outright refuse—but they shouldn’t. It’s a responsibility, and it belongs to them. But there are circumstances in which there are people who deserve to have the opportunity to receive a blessing from, in effect, a surrogate (or a replacement to provide the blessing) when they cannot, within their own family, go to a believing father or a believing grandfather to secure a blessing that would properly come within the family unit.

It is not appropriate for us to have a patriarch that supplants a believing father or grandfather. That role belongs to and should be required to be occupied by the father or the grandfather. 

But we have a requirement that when anyone is baptized, part of the responsibility has been to gather the names of the people who have been baptized and those names kept in a book, and the names belong to the Lord. The book is our responsibility to maintain, and therefore, after baptism, the name of someone who has been baptized needs to be submitted so it can be added to the book. 

The book is not electronic. It is handwritten. It is only a name. It doesn’t have contact information, because the requirement imposed upon us by the Lord is to keep the names. He hasn’t asked us to keep any personal data, and He has not required of us to prepare something that could be hacked. There’s only one copy. It is handwritten, and it is maintained by what’s called the Recorder’s Clearinghouse, which is essentially a place you can send [it] in [to], but you can also telephone, or you can send a letter to the recorder of the entire movement—and that is Keith Henderson. If someone’s name has not been submitted and they have been baptized, then they need to get their name into the book. But the book is closed out annually in terms of the list. So if you got baptized years ago and you did not submit your name, you really need to go get re-baptized and submit your name now in order for it to be kept annually with a turning of the page. 

If the name is not recorded at the Recorder’s Clearinghouse, then the requirement at the time of the baptism to submit the name has not been met; and if there is no name in the Recorder’s Clearinghouse, then it isn’t appropriate for the patriarchal blessing to be provided. We do not expect any blessing to be given to someone whose name isn’t in the book or who doesn’t come personally to present themselves in order to receive the blessing; it’s not something that ought to be done over the phone or by Zoom or remotely. 

So, I’ve had a number of people for a number of years asking me if I would give a patriarchal blessing, and I’ve consistently refused to do so, but I’ve known that this is an issue that at some point needed to be addressed. Consequently, it began to weigh on my mind a great deal lately, and as a matter of prayer and as a matter of inquiring of the Lord about the matter, we had someone last month identified to me by the Lord as the man to whom we should send those who qualify to receive a patriarchal blessing. And Thursday, I set him apart to perform that role. But that role is not one that is appropriate for the community without first taking a vote. And in consulting with and being guided by the Lord, it is not a matter that is to be accomplished by common consent (that is, by a majority vote). It’s something that needs to happen by a unanimous mutual agreement, and therefore, I need to take a vote at this point to find out if we do have mutual agreement. 

The individual who was identified by the Lord to me earlier this week is our recorder, Keith Henderson, who I asked to be here today. 

[Speaking to Keith] And you told me you didn’t want to stand up, but would you stand up so those who don’t know what you look like can admire your visage? Yeah. [Laughter as Keith removes his hat.] It’s one of those things where hair and brains don’t stick together. 

So with that, I would like everyone who can approve the assignment that has been given to him to fulfill the role of providing a patriarchal blessing to indicate… I’d like you to do two things: I’d like you to raise the hand when you vote, and I’d like you to be audible and to say, “Yes,” if you’re voting in favor of this.

So, all of those who can approve the assignment that has been given by the Lord to Keith Henderson, would you please raise your hand and say, “Yes”? [Numerous “yes” votes.] 

Okay. Those who are opposed to this, would you similarly raise your hand and say, “No”? Any “no’s”? [Silence from the audience.] Well, I’ll be damned. [Laughter, cheering, and clapping.] I don’t think we’ve ever been able to attain mutual agreement on whether it’s daylight or nighttime!

Okay. So since… I mean, “This, That, and the Other Thing.” I’m done with “This.” We’re moving on to “That.”

Since “The Perfect Mousetrap,” some have assumed that that talk gave them permission to insult and berate others, improperly focus on others, and refuse to look inward, disclose just how to project onto others what is within themselves, oblivious to their identical conduct. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he wrote, 

Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are, that thus judges; for wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself — for you who judges does the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them who commit such things. And do you think this, O man who judges them who do such things and does the same: that you shall escape the judgment of God?

That’s a description given by Paul of something that is called ‘projecting’; that is, you see on someone else what is really in you, and it bugs you because you’re unwilling to acknowledge it within yourself. But you see it in them clearly because it’s part of you, and therefore, you project onto them, and that results in accusing. And one of the sayings that I really like is that “accusing is admitting.” And if you think about that and you contemplate the things that you have accused others of, you might have some reason for reflection.

I believe that most have instead chosen to reflect in private upon their own shortcomings. Upon realizing their own failings, they’ve chosen to repent; and obtaining forgiveness from God, that they have in turn forgiven others all of their offenses. I trust God will divide the sheep from the goats and gather the sheep peaceably into a society of equals. And I trust the Lord to allow the goats to continue to butt heads. 

I want you to remember that the talk includes this statement, quoting from “The Perfect Mousetrap”: 

I’ve read some of what people believe to be discussing their disagreements. Instead of identifying assumptions and stating needs, people have used insults, demanded apologies for imagined offenses, employed emotional manipulation, and worn their self-justification on their countenances. Conversations go nowhere. No attempt is made to understand the other viewpoint. No questions are asked, and emotional outbursts are hurled at the other side. When things like this happen, progress is impossible. We should all realize that we may well misunderstand the other person, and only they can help us. If we give them a chance, we can learn that they’re not irrational, not our opponent, and not preventing any of us from getting to Zion. The perfect mousetrap being developed for us has begun to catch us in its snare. But if we awake and arise, we can bypass the trap and emerge stronger, more godly, and more unified. It can be an opportunity to advance one heart, one mind, and unify our society. But that requires us to recognize the trap for what it is and what it has succeeded in accomplishing. (“The Perfect Mousetrap,” paper, pg.33)

I think the talk helped us to clarify and identify one another. I think it served a godly purpose. We are not under the control of a hierarchy. We have freedom, and therefore, we are required to make choices; and for those choices, we become accountable. “The Perfect Mousetrap” was intended to direct your attention inwardly. To the extent that it’s failed to do so, re-read the talk. So, there’s “That.”

Now, I want to talk about some background information that might help people understand. Because I believe that what has happened in my life is not atypical of what has happened in the lives of many of the people that identify today as Covenant Christians. 

I was an active Latter-day Saint for 40 years. And it was a very difficult thing to become a Latter-day Saint. I didn’t grow up in Tehran, but I did grow up in Idaho, and everything is polarized in Idaho. I mean, the “damn Mormon legislature” was a phrase that just went together. You didn’t hear about the legislature without hearing damnation for Mormons, because the Idaho legislature was dominated by people of that faith. 

And I was not part of that community. I had friends who were LDS, but they never proselytized. I think the town I grew up in had a huge stake center, and it didn’t have a baptismal font in it, which just goes to show you how insular they were. They built another branch building out at the Mountain Home Air Force Base—just off base—and they put a font into that building. But they didn’t have one in the stake center, which was pessimism on stilts, I suppose. 

It was hard for me to become a Latter-day Saint because my mother had indoctrinated me into the Baptist viewpoint, although I didn’t join the Baptist church. But there was a book called The Kingdom of the Cults that my mom, you know, prominently displayed, and Mormonism was included within The Kingdom of the Cults. And I had listened to Dr. Walter Martin, a notorious anti-Mormon. And I had a lot of anti-Mormon background, even though I was indifferent to the whole thing. 

So, when I was in the military and stumbled upon missionaries in New Hampshire, that was a real novelty to me. I mean, what on earth was a Mormon doing out in the wilds of New Hampshire? I thought they were confined locally to a corridor, starting in Alberta and running down to the colonies in Mexico and occupying, you know, the western corridor. 

When I joined, I left behind friends, family. It took an enormous cost to convert to become a Latter-day Saint, but I felt an obligation to God to do so. And so, joining the LDS Church was an act of profound sacrifice. Essentially, I was giving up everything in my life and hopping into something new. And I really didn’t identify much with the culture and the people and their wholesomeness. I mean, we entertained ourselves in Idaho (growing up) with keggers on the weekend, much of the alcohol procured through the assistance of the local police department in Mountain Home, Idaho. And so, you know, teetotaling… And my friend and I went to one of the discussions in an LDS family’s home, and we brought a six-pack of beer and cigars with us to listen to the missionaries that evening. And so this was an enormous cultural, religious separation that was going to completely alter the course that my life took. 

But I thought God had answered me in prayer, and therefore, I dared not offend God by refusing to be baptized. Whether I could endure to the end was a-whole-nother matter. I was not expecting to be able to achieve that. But I did keenly feel the obligation to be baptized, and I took that sincerely, and I was baptized. And things changed.

My mind being enlightened as a consequence of the baptism, I read the Scriptures, and they came alive to me. I comprehended things that had been hollow and superficial and not comprehensible until after baptism. And then it appeared to me, for all the world, that whatever was going on in the New Testament text in the days of Paul and James and Peter, it was going on again now in the form of a religion founded by a martyred prophet, Joseph Smith, and breathing life and intelligence, light and understanding. 

And as it turned out, instead of it being problematic, difficult, and alien, I fit immediately and comfortably into the community that I had joined by baptism. I spent 40 years as a member of the LDS Church, and in all candor, I loved every minute of it. I liked the people. I liked the meetings, the social gatherings. I liked everything about it. 

I did, however, immediately upon being baptized, begin to study the faith that I had now adopted. I bought a history (Documentary History of the Church) that was attributed to Joseph Smith (it was gathered by B.H. Roberts). And then I read the Comprehensive History of the Church by B.H. Roberts, six and seven volumes each. I bought and read the biographies of every single one of that first generation, insofar as they had biographies available.

There was a sister in the ward who had back—what was called back then—a 70’s Mission Bookstore. And I went to her house and bought, as soon as I read one and finished it, I went and I bought another. And I began to aggregate a library about the history and the content of the doctrine of the church that I had now joined (first church; the only one that I’d ever belonged to) and began to plumb the depths. 

They asked me to become a gospel doctrine teacher, and I got stuck in the role of being a gospel doctrine teacher and taught classes in wards in Pleasant Grove, Utah; Alpine, Utah; multiple locations in Sandy, Utah. 

Got called to be on the Stake High Council. I was the one on the High Council who gathered all of the materials for the rest of the High Council to be able to give a talk on High Council Sunday. And I went to BYU Education Week as an instructor on multiple years and taught in BYU Education Week. 

They had a failing graduate institute program at the law school at the University of Utah. And the second in charge of the institute program was a member of a ward where I had taught gospel doctrine, and he asked me if I’d be willing to go teach institute at the University of Utah Law School. And I did that for a little over two years. I agreed to do it for a year, and we got such a good response. By the end, we had 100 kids coming every week to hear an institute class. 

But I continued to examine the faith. I never lost track of the purpose behind the conversion. I wanted to know, study, embrace, and expand my understanding of truth. As I increased in understanding, it became increasingly apparent to me that the institution was not candid, honest, and forthright in the claims that it was making, in the history that it was presenting, and in the authority claims that they make. That was something I was perfectly willing to live with as a matter of internal awareness and the contradiction between what the church was saying and what the truth was. I could live with that. 

I used to look at anti-Mormon stuff as a lark (primarily to see what new foolishness the devil was offering in opposition to truth), but some of the anti-Mormon stuff actually… They actually landed on a point or two worth keeping. 

I went to the open house for the Nauvoo Temple when it was rebuilt: rented a motorhome; learned that you really do need to fully insure the motorhome if I’m going to drive it. I think we had part of the rooftop air conditioner left; the awning was dysfunctional; and I turned the rear bumper into a pretzel. So if you insure it, then you can happily go to Nauvoo and back with your family. (And I won’t tell you about offloading the black stuff in the… I made a mess of Missouri.) 

Anyway, the visit to the Nauvoo Temple, we parked the motorhome right in front of a store that had been rented out by a group of anti-Mormon zealots, and I sent two of my sons into the anti-Mormon literature place to gather any pamphlet against Mormonism that they could find to bring it back out in the motorhome. They did that; they brought them out. I said, “Okay, now you figure out what’s wrong with these, and if you can’t figure it out, ask me.” And so they poured over the anti-Mormon stuff, and we had a great discussion. There were only a handful of things they couldn’t figure out on their own. 

I was an apologist for the church, and I knew where the soft spots were. Increasingly, it became apparent that there were very big problems with the LDS narrative. However, it didn’t alienate me. I was still paying tithing. I was still holding a temple recommend. I was still, you know, on their team. 

I had a son who (my only son that went on a mission) came back, lost his testimony, asked for his name to be removed. He didn’t tell me about it for years because he was worried about what my reaction would be. And when I finally found out that he had drifted off into disbelief and had lost any affiliation either with the church or the Restoration, I sat down, and I wrote a book to reclaim and re-instill faith in that son and other friends who had departed from the faith. That book was called Passing the Heavenly Gift.

Now, Passing the Heavenly Gift is not easy history if you are unacquainted with the problems of the church’s narrative. In fact, there’s a great deal in there that anti-Mormons had not yet stumbled upon, but I went ahead and included it because I wanted people to know that I’ve taken a careful look. That book was intended to preserve faith, to keep people affiliated with the LDS Church. However, if you’ve never stumbled across problems in LDS history, you’d probably be shocked. 

Now, the book was not advertised. It wasn’t promoted. I didn’t go asking anyone to read it. I gave it to people that I thought would be interested in solving problems of faith in a circumstance in which your institution is faithless and has abandoned significant parts of what they should have been preserving. I wanted to preserve faith. 

I had a law partner at that time. He had been on a high council. He had been through church courts (just like I had been through church courts), and he had realized that the proceedings and the treatment was somewhat un-Christian. And he had left the LDS Church, and he became a Catholic lay-deacon and still held on to religion, but it just wasn’t the LDS Church. I gave to him a copy of Passing the Heavenly Gift and asked him to read it. He read the book, and he said, “If I had read this before I departed from the church, it would have kept me in the church. But I am not going back.” 

My son’s faith was restored.

However, a bunch of LDS priesthood men (probably should be called ‘ladies-in-waiting’ because they behave like effeminate men incapable of confronting a dilemma head-on and dealing with hard issues that this world presents to you), these ladies-in-waiting—and it came down from the very ‘top’—sent out Russell Nelson (then president of the Quorum of the Twelve) to release the former stake president who defended me and to call a new stake president, at which time, in the hallway, Russell Nelson of their Twelve handed my records (my church records) to the newly-called stake president and said, “The committee has decided that this man needs to be dealt with,” whereupon a year and a half of dialogue took place between me and the new stake president, with him presenting the problems that they had funneled to him, and me responding to the complaints that had been handed off.

He would not proceed, because he got adequate answers from me. It got to the point where he was getting pressure from downtown, but he was getting answers from me, and he felt that I had overcome the problem. So he called his two counselors in, and so the entire stake presidency met with me, in which they were going to interrogate me in order to build a case to justify the excommunication.

I sat and answered their questions for 20 minutes, maybe, I don’t know, and I finally said, “We’re not getting anywhere. You don’t know what you’re looking at. You just don’t understand what the hell is going on here. OK? Let’s go in the high council room.” We went in the high council room. I took the board—it was a large white board—and I walked them through issue after issue that I thought that they needed to address, and they needed to understand. One of the stake presidency afterwards came up and hugged me, and he said, “We cannot lose someone like you,” and all of them were content; all of them were satisfied.

And so I got called by the stake president to then visit with a returned missionary attending Brigham Young University who had lost his testimony, and he wanted me to see if I could help this now faithless young man attending BYU. I left the stake president’s office and stopped at that kid’s house on my way home, and we made an appointment. And he came with his list of problems, and he had a list. And I said, “Well, let’s start with your first on the top of the list. Let’s deal with that one.” And we started with polygamy. 

So we dealt with polygamy for about a month, at the end of which he said, “Okay, I’m satisfied,” and then we moved on to a second problem. By the time we had addressed the first two problems, over a two-month period, he threw all the rest of his complaints away, and he returned to activity and happily went back to BYU and got his temple recommend, and he was on his way.

In the meantime, the stake president was called in for training. [Imitating Church Leadership:] He was reminded “by those in authority” of The Church Handbook of Instructions, which not only strays from the gospel of Jesus Christ but imposes a new edict of control over those who would want to be members. And so, having been instructed, he called me in and said, “Here’s the problem: This is the definition… [in the church handbook] …this is the definition of apostasy. You were denigrating the church authority, Heber J. Grant.” 

And I said, “Well, okay, wait. Heber J. Grant’s mother told him that he was too much concerned with worldly things and that he was not a spiritual enough man to occupy his role. She said that to him (her son); he wrote that in his journal about himself that his mom had said. I quoted Heber J. Grant’s journal. So if you’ve got an ax to grind with someone, you’ve got to go to Heber Grant’s mom or Heber Grant. All I’m doing is telling you what he put in his own journal.” Well, it wasn’t sufficient. So they proceeded to hold a court to kick out a person who would never have left if they’d left me alone.

I’m telling you this because, in my view, the LDS Church liberated me from obligations that I respected and honored, and once they liberated me from that obligation, I no longer felt the necessity of pulling punches, of being cautious. 

Don’t get me wrong; I do not cheer on the current decline in the LDS Church. I believe that that institution helps a community. Very often, when people depart from the LDS Church, they depart into agnosticism or atheism, and I wish it were not so. But the LDS Church is its own worst enemy. They inflict upon themselves wounds that are unnecessary to suffer. More and more people are realizing that there’s a lack of candor about the history that they tell, about the teachings that they offer, about the consistency that they hold with what Joseph Smith had originally restored. And the gulf is widening, and not only widening, it’s alienating progressively more year after year.

The book, ultimately, the edict came down that I must either withdraw the book from publication or my membership would be revoked. And I knew that the book had helped people retain faith in the Restoration. It may have diminished (somewhat) people’s view of the people who are leading the church, but that’s inconsequential. Faith needs to be in God, in the Restoration, in the Scriptures, in a relationship with the Almighty—the kind of relationship that had brought me aboard in the first place. 

I felt like there were things that needed to be said and things that needed to be taught. And the Lord was imposing upon me to do and say some things that, in my view, as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it would be disloyal for me to do so. And so I prayed and told the Lord, “If I do what you’re asking that I do, I believe I will violate agreements that I have made between myself and this institution. And if I do that, I’m compromising ME. And if I compromise me, you can’t use me, because I’m not solid. I’m not consistent.” And I told the Lord if what he wants is a broken man, that that seems ill-fitted for anything that He could ever thereafter use. And the Lord said to me, “I’ll take care of it.”

And so, 12 members of a high council and three members of a stake presidency—on the date that I had been a Latter-day Saint for 40 years—unanimously had agreed upon and then announced to me that I was no longer a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whereupon I continued driving to Boise, Idaho, and delivered the first of the ten talks, because that was the anniversary date of having been 40 years in Mormonism. 

But I didn’t leave because I was faithless. And I didn’t leave because I disbelieved in the Restoration or in the things that had brought me aboard in the first place. They did not even ask that I return my temple recommend (and this was long enough ago that they couldn’t deactivate it by, you know, pushing a button; there was no bar[code]; there was nothing other than all the signatures). Heavens, the whole time they were interrogating me, I had an active temple recommend and could (and often did) go to attend a temple session.

While this storm is brewing, my son reconverted. I believe that almost all of the members of the High Council who were involved in that, along with several of the members of the stake presidency, the reports I get is that (overwhelmingly) the children of those men have departed from the faith. I believe if they had defended me and given that book to their children, that many of their children would have been preserved in the faith. Admittedly, it’s tough history. It’s unpleasant material. But it gives you a reason for faith. And it’s no more disturbing than the Old Testament.

I believe many who have, are, and will leave the LDS Church would have remained if they had read Passing the Heavenly Gift. Instead of suppressing that book, they should have put it into the Deseret Bookstores and recommended it as reading for people interested in the faith. 

I’m here to tell you that, in my view, the LDS Church has forsaken the Restoration! Your LDS Scriptures are corrupt. In the LDS Scriptures’ Doctrine and Covenants 84 (or the Teachings and Commandments 82)—this is about a year and a half after that; this is September of 1832—a revelation came to the Church of Jesus Christ (I don’t think they had added “Latter-day Saints” yet: 

And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received, which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation. And this condemnation rests upon the children of Zion, even all, and they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon, and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say but to do according to that which I have written, that they may bring forth fruit meet for their Father’s kingdom. Otherwise, there remains a scourge and a judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion, for shall the children of the kingdom pollute my holy land? …truly I say unto you, Nay. (T&C 82:20, emphasis added)

So this condemnation happens in September of 1832. Also in September of 1832, there is a project that the Lord gives as a commandment:

And a commandment I give unto you…

This is the Lord speaking to Sidney Rigdon. 

…a commandment I give unto you …you shall write for him [that is, for Joseph Smith], and the scriptures shall be given, even as they are in [mine] own bosom, to the salvation of [mine] own elect. (T&C 18:6)

So a project then began in what is now called the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. That was commanded in eight revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, and it would be addressed in another seven revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. And that project that Joseph Smith was commanded to undertake is called the “fullness of the scriptures.” In October of 1831, at a conference, Joseph Smith warned, “…except the Church receive the fullness of the scriptures, they would yet fall.” That’s preserved in The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 2, on page 85.

The fullness of the scriptures was a project that Joseph Smith undertook, but which never got published during his lifetime. It was left in Nauvoo in the possession of Emma Smith, who would later turn it over to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And then the Reorganized Church would later, through a committee, eliminate some of what Joseph Smith had done, and then the committee added some things of their own, and they would publish that as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.

Right now, the only publication of the Joseph Smith Translation—the fullness of the scriptures, that set of Scriptures without which “the Church will fall”—is only in our possession. We are the only ones that have ever: 

So if you believe in the ministry and the divine calling of Joseph Smith and the revelations that were given through him about the importance of having the correct Scriptures in order to know the mind of the Lord (or the Scriptures as they exist “in mine own heart,” according to the Lord), then you need the Scriptures that we alone put into print. We have the fullness of the scriptures. Only us. Period.

The “Old Covenants” (which is volume 1 of our Scriptures) is the Joseph Smith Translation of the Old Testament. Because it does not end on a signature, to finish out the signature at the back of the book, we have lined pages for people to write notes in. But that is the Joseph Smith Translation of the Old Testament.

The New Testament is in volume 2: the Joseph Smith Translation of the New Testament. But in addition, volume 2 includes the Book of Mormon—not the version that is published by the LDS Church, which descends from an (essentially) bootleg copy that got reprinted and retyped/set in England while the Twelve were over there as missionaries, and then they brought those to Salt Lake. And that’s what they handed down and gets printed through the Deseret Book auspices.

We went to the trouble of going back, insofar as the original translation survived (and only about 22% of that survived) and the printer’s manuscript (which is entirely available), and it allowed us to look at what Joseph Smith was doing in 1840 when he was going through and making corrections to the book: He was trying to bring what was in print back into conformity to the original translation. But we only have 22% of that. We have 100% of the printer’s manuscript. But we know from what we’ve got of both that they made about one mistake every page and a half in copying errors. We also know (and everyone knows this) when the printer’s manuscript was handed off to E.B. Grandin’s print shop, the entire thing was typeset by John Gilbert, and it was one long sentence that Gilbert punctuated. And so all of the punctuation in today’s LDS-published Book of Mormon is punctuation supplied by John Gilbert, an employee of E.B. Grandin. 

We eliminated a lot of the punctuation. One of the things that we did—and I did this in a talk (one of the ten talks)—I pointed out that the Trinitarian mischief that you see in the Book of Mormon comes from John Gilbert’s placement of commas and periods and semicolons. And if you eliminate or allow me to repunctuate it, I can make it read consistent with Lectures on Faith. So our version of the Book of Mormon eliminates a lot of the punctuation to give the reader more material to deal with in their own choice of punctuation. You can put whatever commas or periods or semicolons you want to in there. The version that we have printed of the Book of Mormon in our Scriptures is the most correct version that you will find.

Volume 2 includes not only the New Testament (Joseph Smith) and the Book of Mormon in its most correct form, but it also includes what’s called a “Glossary of Gospel Terms,” which is a gathering of material that will give you a better theological education than many schools of divinity would give you. If you read through the “Glossary of Gospel Terms,” it helps you understand the vocabulary that gets used in scripture. And that’s volume 2. 

Volume 3 includes… Called “Modern Covenants,” volume 3 includes revelations that were given to Joseph Smith in the form that Joseph Smith provided. When the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants were being put together for publication, Oliver Cowdery had gone over to Missouri and they’d established a press there (one that got broken up, by the way, by a mob), and he had put together a Book of Commandments. He felt it was within his stewardship to be able to revise and to be able to editorialize, and so he made a number of changes in the Book of Commandments to the things that Joseph Smith had received.

Those were taken back to Kirtland (where the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants was being put together), and the Book of Commandments got incorporated, and it was put together by a committee who also felt like it was their prerogative to do some editorial enhancement of the revelations that Joseph had received. In the meantime, Joseph Smith had spent months working on the doctrine that would be added to the Book of Commandments. The doctrine was a series of lectures that had been given in the School of the Prophets in Nauvoo. So doctrine is put first, and covenants is put second (and the covenants reflect Oliver Cowdery’s mischief in Missouri and the committee’s mischief in Kirtland, Ohio, before it went into print). And Joseph Smith, so far as the historical record tells us, didn’t look over there; he trusted them.  He spent his time revising, correcting, improving, and making clear the doctrine, or the Lectures on Faith. So the Lectures on Faith went in first; it’s the first part of the book (Doctrine and Covenants in the first edition). It’s not only the first part, it’s printed in larger type. It’s first in the book, it’s larger in print, and the revelations appear after that. 

What we did was restore the Lectures on Faith back into the modern revelations. It was canonized by a vote that was taken in 1835, but it was never removed by a vote of the people. We put it back in, but we put it back in with a vote of the people. 

We also went through the revelations that Joseph Smith had received, and we pared it down to what he actually got as a revelation. Consequently, many of the things that appear both in the Doctrine and Covenants, on the one hand, and the Teachings and Commandments, on the other hand, are significantly shorter in the Teachings and Commandments because what’s in the Doctrine and Covenants is editorially expanded. It’s inflated. It’s suffered from ‘revelation creep.’

The volume 3 of the book also includes a project that took years to complete that is a modern English version of the Book of Mormon called the Covenant of Christ. And all of that is intended by us to be the statement of our faith. 

Scriptures anchor God’s Word. Without them, changing leaders provide changing messages. Leaders always sound an unsteady note if they are not controlled by, subordinate to, and respectful of scripture. The problem that institutions that allow men to speak, propound, and declare is that once you unanchor it from scripture, you’re tossed by every wind of doctrine.

These Scriptures—and we know they’re not perfect; we know that there are weaknesses in men, and there are weaknesses in everything that we do here on this side of the veil—but these Scriptures, and these alone, are endorsed by the Lord. “These scriptures…” and I’m quoting the Lord, 

These scriptures are sent forth to be my warning to the world, my comfort to the faithful, my counsel to the meek, my reproof to the proud, my rebuke to the contentious, and my condemnation of the wicked. They are my invitation to all mankind to flee from corruption, repent, and be baptized in my name, and prepare for the coming judgment. (T&C 177:3)

After years of effort… I tried to do the math; it was only based upon estimates, based upon all those that were involved. A century of effort, of combined effort by the people, went into producing these. 

After years of effort, I’m now in a position to tell the world, you have been warned!

First, the Joseph Smith fullness of the scriptures is now available. 

Second, if you don’t understand the scriptures, we’ve provided you a glossary of terms that will help you comprehend their content. 

Third, if you don’t understand the history of the Restoration following Joseph and Hyrum Smith’s murders, Teachings and Commandments section 156 is an inspired prayer on 9 July 2017 that recounts the history. That prayer was given by God to us as the prayer we offered, and that prayer is the Lord’s retelling of the history of the Restoration. You want to know what went on? Read Teachings and Commandments section 156. 

Fourth, if you don’t understand the Book of Mormon language because it’s turgid and early modern English, our Scriptures include the Covenant of Christ written in modern English.

Access to the Scriptures is available free to anyone, anywhere in the world, at the website www.scriptures.info. You can purchase print-on-demand copies of the Scriptures through Amazon. There is a body of materials available through the Restoration Archives at www.restorationarchives.com. They preserve numerous talks, including the ones that will be given… well, the ones that are ending today. So, I can say with absolute confidence to anyone, anywhere in the world, you have been warned!

Now, it doesn’t matter that you don’t care, that you’ve ignored it, or that it didn’t come to your attention. The Lord’s obligation is to sound the warning. Then the burden shifts.

If you were really interested in Him and what He’s up to, you would have paid attention. You would have done something to inform yourself. Failing to do that, it is not His fault that He is going to proceed with exactly what He has foretold He intended to do. So, you are now accountable. 

Before I move on to another thing, I want to take just a moment and tell you about a little gal, a pretty little blonde-haired girl sporting a ponytail in the back of the room, who came to her parents as a gift from God and who is profoundly handicapped. And I took a few minutes yesterday talking with her father.

Her parents would love to contribute more to the ongoing effort, but little Sophia requires a lot of care, a lot of time, a lot of attention, and that prevents them from doing more of what they would like to do because of the amount of care required on her behalf. I told the father that, really, he ought not worry about making a greater contribution, because Sophia is a gift that was given not only to them but the entire community. And if we really understood what God was up to, Sophia would not be the burden that she is upon her parents. She would be a gift for the entire community, and the care that she needs would be shared by others who likewise view her with charity and with love and with kindness. 

And so, we have once again an opportunity presented to us—this time in the form of Sophia—to give us a chance to exhibit the very things that my wife read from King Mosiah this morning about bearing one another’s burdens; because a child with such profound needs should attract the concern, the care, the attention, the support, the love of an entire community if that community actually be Christian. 

So, going back, I want to be clear that I believe Joseph Smith was, first of all, a good man, not responsible for introducing polygamy—in fact, was opposed to it—that he brought disciplinary proceedings to excommunicate those that he found to be involved, and that I believe that part of the record that says he intended to bring Brigham Young before the high council when Brigham returned from his mission because of the allegations that Brigham Young was involved in this wrongful conduct.

Second, I believe that Joseph Smith was called by God to do a work. I believe he translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. I believe he received revelations and authority from God. I believe he restored scripture, expanding greatly what we know about pre-Earth eternities in the creation; Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses; the scattering of Israel; and events that will happen before the Lord’s return. 

As a group, we have taken seriously and are working to bring the Restoration to two groups identified in the Book of Mormon as targets for the Restoration: the Jews and the Native Americans. The modern English version of the Book of Mormon is called the Covenant of Christ.

We are a body of believers, but are non-denominational. We would accept anyone of any faith to be baptized. We intend to build a temple. We meet informally; we meet in houses or in borrowed/rented facilities like this one. We don’t spend money on structures. Our fellowships are voluntary, gathered in houses or in public places. 

Tithes that we gather are dispersed to those in need, and 100% goes to help people. No one is paid; everything is voluntary and not compensated. For conferences, some contribute to help, and the organizers are not paid.

We reject polygamy as a principle. That being said, if a polygamist wants to join us, we would allow them to do so and would baptize them. But the purpose of the Restoration is to gather all truth. I have found that the Restoration is invigorating, joyful, exciting. It’s fun! This thing—this gathering of truth—there’s nothing more exciting or nothing more edifying than the Restoration. We invite everyone to be baptized. We plan to welcome the Lord’s return in glory. 

Now, look, I want to talk about another subject, which is prophecy. The Lord comes right out and tells Isaiah the purpose behind prophecy: The purpose behind prophecy is not to tell you something before it happens in order for you to play the right stock market choice, or you to buy property in the right location, or you to invest in a prudent scheme that will further the Lord’s purposes and make you rich! Prophecy is not intended to tell you beforehand the details.

No matter how much detail you may think that there’s there, it’s not enough. The purpose of prophecy is not to tell you beforehand what you need to prepare for or do, or where you should buy your food storage, or how much medical stuff you want, or ammo. (You need ammo. I mean, we all know that, ok?) That’s not the purpose! The purpose is, after it has happened, for you to be able to say, “While man didn’t know it, God certainly did,” because He told us it was going to happen. We didn’t recognize it when it happened. 

So, I want you to think about the primary objectives of all scripture. Primarily, it focuses upon two events, the first coming of Jesus Christ and the second coming of Jesus Christ. There are a lot of little intermediate prophecies that take place. Primarily, it is those two things. 

So, how good a job did the scriptorians, the scribes, the Pharisees, the lawyers, how good a job did those people do with their study, their intensive fidelity to the Scriptures? How well did that help them recognize Jesus Christ when He came? I mean, they killed Him. Clearly, their Scriptures didn’t do… I was going to say it didn’t do a damn thing for them, but it did damn them. So, their Scriptures did a damnation for them. So, it probably worked just like it should have. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get on board with it. They didn’t recognize the Lord. They opposed Him. They criticized Him. They rejected Him. He was too much this, and He was too little that. And He clearly couldn’t be [sigh], “A carpenter from Galilee? Now, what good thing comes out of Galilee?” 

So, the Scriptures did not help. In order for the Scriptures to help, it would have required an absolutely dramatic vantage point change. 

There was a Pharisee. That Pharisee’s name was Saul. He came from Tarsus. He was well-read; he not only opposed, based on scripture, everything that Jesus stood for and did, he also wanted to assist in the process of eradicating Christians. And so he stood by, holding the coat at the time of the stoning of Stephen, consenting to his death because Saul of Tarsus was absolutely secure in his scriptural viewpoint and his scriptural understanding. Then he encountered the Lord on the road to Damascus, got a new name—Paul. And that same Pharisee who was befuddled, misled, enraged, and opposed became a suffering convert who sacrificed to preserve, perpetuate, and spread the Christianity that had come to him only by conversion on the road to Damascus. 

So, think about all of the rather grandiose, lofty, impressive descriptions that were given in the prophecies about the coming of the Lord the first time, when He came as a sacrifice. And then think about how modest and how de minimis (it’s a phrase you learn in law school; it means “the minimum”), how almost undetectable the entry of Jesus Christ into the world, His life and teaching, and His death was to the contemporaries. Now, a very small band of the contemporaries preserved and testified of it, and the resurrection of the Lord helped spread it, and Christianity became a dominant—absolutely dominant—cultural, religious, and social juggernaut. But that took centuries and a couple of millennia.

That single generation to whom Christ came and personally ministered, He was hardly a ripple on the surface of the pond, because so few were believing; and those who believed in the same religion as Him did not believe the form the religion took in Him. They wanted nothing of it. 

So now, think about what is the absolute minimum. What is the most modest? What is the least that could happen to fulfill the prophecies leading up to the second coming of the Lord? Now, His return, all mankind will behold it; but the overwhelming majority will become ashes under the feet of those who are prepared for His coming. The prophecies require that the overwhelming majority never figure out what is happening right now under their noses—because I’m telling you, if you want to see what it is that fulfills the prophecies leading up to the return of the Lord, you had better pay attention to what we’ve been doing, because prophecy after prophecy, promise after promise, foretold event after foretold event has been occurring. 

And once again, I repeat to all the world, it doesn’t matter if you notice or you don’t. You have been warned. And it won’t be any more dramatic than what we’re doing now and what I’m saying today. We still have things to do. We can use help, and we can use assistance. But if we don’t get it, we’re going to soldier on, and we’re going to get it done because the Lord is backing us. 

So now here’s another thing. I want to talk to the young people. The adults can eavesdrop. I want to talk to the young folk, the people who have not yet solidified in their hard hearts like these cursed adults have become and are still looking forward to a future, the level of uncertainty about which increases daily because of events happening in Washington, D.C., and in the Persian Gulf, and in the laboratories of the artificial intelligence people. 

I think to prepare for life, you ought to consider practical skills. There are still going to be enormous needs that will never be displaced by automation or by artificial intelligence. Practical skills. I heard someone talking the other day that the wealthiest people from their high school were either plumbers or anesthesiologists. The electricians, the practical skills that are necessary to keep a community functioning, those things ought to be looked at. They’re not only going to be solid and enduring for, still, your lifetime, but they will be necessary if we’re going to create a survivable community. 

Artificial intelligence is programmed to give you an answer. And so when you engage with artificial intelligence and you pose a problem to it, you’re going to get an answer. But artificial intelligence does not concern itself with truth. It will give you an answer, but the answer that you get may not be true. 

Therefore, separate and apart, you can use artificial intelligence to give you suggestions. Never trust it with an answer that you haven’t also studied out in your own mind and gone to the trouble of understanding. Studying and developing the ability to think critically is absolutely necessary, because all around you, in the generation that you’re growing up in, all around you, the kids that are growing up today are not developing the ability to think critically, to understand, to evaluate.

Just driving here this morning, my wife went in and bought a couple of cups of tea, one for her, one for me, on our way here this morning. And she paid the guy with a $20 bill. Now, it was an older guy, okay? And he was kind of amused that money would be used to make a payment because he thinks that’s going to, he said, “That’s gonna go away.” But he counted out the change. 

Then he told my wife a story that he had gone into a store, and he had bought something, and he had given more dollars in bills than the bill required, but the change he had given separately. So let’s assume it’s $15.33. He gave a $10 bill, a $5 bill, and 50 cents. And the gal at the register handed it all back to him and said, “Tell me how much change I need to give you if that’s your bill.” And she could not do the arithmetic. Arithmetic! This is what schools are producing! 

You need to be able to read and write cursive. You need to be able to read and understand. You need to be able to think. You need to be able to challenge the result or the answer on AI and evaluate it independent of the computer to determine whether or not you agree or you disagree. 

There are lawyers who have been disbarred because they used artificial intelligence to write briefs, and artificial intelligence insists on giving you an answer. The answer cites to a fictional case with a fictional ruling and a fictional outcome that the lawyer is offering up to the judge. And the judge checks: There’s no such case in the library; there’s no such holding; there’s no such rule of law. And he wound up in serious trouble, and his license got revoked.

Comprehending is far more important and far more valuable than answers. You need to be able to comprehend. You should make it an absolute rule in your life that you are going to compose your own letters, your own papers, your own essays, and your own documents. You compose them! You can turn them over to AI after you’ve done the work, and you can let AI edit it (don’t turn it loose, even with editing, without critically looking at what edits were made and whether you agree with or disagree with them). Because AI is going to make cripples of your peers. Cripples. There’s no reason for you to join them in that problem.

Oh, here’s something for you young people. And I want to be obvious and blunt. They are called “reproductive” organs because they are intended to produce offspring. That purpose should only be accomplished within the confines of a marriage. You will only get offspring with a male and a female. You can write down the equation: male + female = offspring (…and you’ve done a little bit of arithmetic right there). 

Don’t be confused about the things that are in this world. Family is more valuable than anything that can be bought with money. Family will frustrate you, challenge you. It will make you, well, eventually you’ll look like Keith Henderson if you’ve got a family, because it’s just gonna use you up, chew you up, and spit you out. But you know what? You’re gonna recover from that, and you’re gonna get older, and you’re gonna get grandkids. And holy crap, is that better than kids! 

Your role, young people, is to revolutionize the world. You are supposed to establish a new order of things. To overthrow the existing order is absolutely necessary. But it’s going to fail on its own. We don’t need to go try and bring it down. The consumption decreed is going to make a full end of all nations. That’s gonna happen. Your job is to be prepared to stand in the gap after it fails and to form a new society that is based upon faith, hope, and charity; one that really will endure for a thousand years. 

So with that, here’s a few other miscellaneous thoughts as I wrap up. 

[phone dinging] They need to hold my texts while I’m here. I’m going to turn that over so I don’t… If you have my number and you’re texting me, pox on you. 

So when the early days of the Restoration were underway and they were trying to get the Book of Mormon into print, Martin Harris had agreed to ante up, to pay E.B. Grandin, and to get the book into print; and then they were gonna sell the copies of the Book of Mormon, and they were gonna repay the obligation that had been incurred: the pledge by Martin Harris. And in a revelation to him, the Lord told Martin Harris this: …you shall not covet your own property, but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon (T&C 17:7). I thought that was an interesting way for the Lord to put it, to put it in terms of “covet[ing] your own property.”

There are plenty of opportunities to sacrifice on behalf of the Lord, on behalf of the work that is underway; don’t ever deprive your family in the process of doing so. But when you have means to do so, keep it in mind that we can covet our own property. 

Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail had the voice of the Lord come to him and say (among other things) this to him, while in Liberty Jail: 

…fools shall have you in derision, and hell shall rage against you, while the pure in heart, and the wise, and the noble, and the virtuous shall seek counsel, and authority, and blessings constantly from under your hand. And [the] people shall never be turned against you by the testimony of traitors, and although their influence shall cast you into trouble, and into bars and walls, you shall be had in honor. …your God shall stand by you for ever and ever. (T&C 139:7)

Joseph Smith right now is being held in derision by the LDS Church. If you read their essays about justification for the obscenity, the abomination of polygamy, you will find that they accuse the prophet Joseph Smith of sexual coercion of minors. It is rubbish. It is nonsense. It is bad history. It is untrue. And there is no reason for the Lord to say that the wise and the noble and the virtuous are going to constantly seek blessings from under his hand—that is, under the things that were composed: his revelations—they’re gonna constantly do so? Why would anyone ever seek blessings under the hand of someone who is as the LDS Church defames and portrays him? 

They hold him in derision. They will be held to account for that. It is a lie, and I’m telling you that the Lord has said, “…your God shall stand by you for ever and ever” to Joseph Smith while making no such similar promise to ‘the brethren.’ 

Well, that’s this, that, and the other thing, and I want to thank all of those who have talked before me. I thought that the talk that was given by Ianthius had some really great material in there, and I think if you didn’t hear what he had to say, it’s been recorded. It’s gonna go up. You ought to listen to it. I thought Dr. Otteson did a good job of introducing my wife. And I thought Micah Spicer did some great things. And I’ll talk to Shahram in due course about his mischief. (You know, there are people that were not vetted that got in from Iran, and we’ve now got you on video here; so it was a great talk, but he still has family back there too, so you should guard you and your family). 

Let me end by just taking a moment to say that it really is true that the Lord is behind what we are doing. He is the author of what’s currently underway. It may seem modest and underwhelming, but I’m telling you, what was happening when Jesus was here appeared modest and underwhelming. Rumors were flying about, and the typical attitude that was held by the religious establishment was that He was some kind of a sorcerer employing the devil’s power to render cheap magic tricks, and that He certainly wasn’t the Messiah.

Well, I’m telling you, God is behind this work. He is the author of the things that have and are going on. The production of our new volume of Scriptures is in itself only made possible by the Lord’s direct help. Many volunteers assisted, but the Lord was directly involved. It is miraculous that we have gotten as far as we have in as little time as it has taken. And we know we are going to soldier on, fully expecting that we’re going to receive a command to build a temple, with every intent of doing so.

One of the strides that we have made was taken today. It’s not just in making possible a substitute for those who have no father or grandfather to give them a patriarch’s blessing. It’s not just that. It’s that we have, by mutual agreement, agreed to accept that. 

Now, you might think that I shouldn’t spring such things on you when something as serious as that is going to take place in a conference. It ought to be advertised. It ought to be told beforehand. You were all invited to this conference. We might do stuff like that again without announcing it in advance. So maybe instead of sitting home and watching it on the YouTube, you ought to show up, make your voice be heard, and participate in the ongoing movement of the Restoration forward. 

There’s going to be a talk (I have worked on for some time) given in July, on a subject that has suffered collapse in the Restoration—but it’s returning in due course. But before it returns in fact, you need to understand what it is, and why it is, and where it once was, and why it’s coming back again.

Between now and the next conference that we have, some of what I said today was intended not just for your ears to hear, but as material that you can use—you can show the recording of this conference if you like—but something you can use so that those who are fleeing from the LDS institution have a place to land, rather than winding up atheist or agnostic, and faithless and unrooted. 

I believe that from Alberta, Canada, through Idaho, Utah, Arizona, into northern Mexico, and over to Nevada and Colorado, that whole communities are benefited by activity in the LDS Church and having a religion. I believe that the decay of the LDS Church, which is taking place at an accelerating rate, injures all of those communities. Anything that the LDS Church can do to slow that, I welcome. I encourage people, if they can, to remain a part of an organized faith.

We aren’t trying to co-opt or steal members of any church from any other denomination. We just believe in accepting the truth, in being baptized to follow Christ, and then to pursue the course of truth wherever it takes us. If that allows you to fellowship with a Presbyterian or a Catholic, do so, but be unmistakable about where the truth lies. The truth is HERE, and God’s work has commenced among us. And while there are many corners of the earth on which God is engaged in activities, the fulfillment of the promises and the prophecies are going to happen in a very modest way among this people. 

When I was finishing law school at Brigham Young University, they offered to make a class ring for you if you were willing to ante up the money to do so. I didn’t have the money to do so, but I had an old class ring from high school, and I wondered if they would exchange, and they agreed to exchange it. So I traded a high school class ring for a law school class ring; and I don’t always wear it, but it’s from the J. Reuben Clark Law School. Because law school had made everything arguable—I mean, you might be representing the plaintiff, or you might be representing the defendant, so everything was arguable—the entire world was reduced to gray. So when I ordered the class ring, I got white gold and black onyx, so I had something still black-and-white left in my life after law school.

What I have found is that there still are places of black and white. There still is truth and error. If your tolerance for error is increasingly creating a gag reflex for you in the LDS Church, don’t throw the Restoration away. Look over here. See if you can preserve your faith—because we still respect, honor, believe, and trust in the restoration of the gospel that came through Joseph Smith. And I testify, I proclaim, I affirm, I declare unequivocally, God is talking to us!

We have His word, and it is ongoing. He does not forsake us. The events that happened today are as current as the moment we’re living in right now. The Lord’s work is afoot. Whatever mistakes, whatever shortcomings, whatever difficulties we have, the Lord says He owns it. He stands by it.

It’s His word. It’s His warning. It’s His counsel. It’s His guidance. It’s His comfort. He has sent that to us, and He intends that we be the grateful recipients of that.

None of us are ever going to achieve perfection in this life. Unfortunately, all of us are expected to achieve perfection “by and by.” But that’s like Homer Simpson eating mayonnaise with a large spoon out of a jar, being told, “That’s gonna ruin your health,” and him saying, “That’s a problem for future Homer. Boy, I feel sorry for that guy.” 

The game afoot right now does not require us to do anything more than to repent, have faith, be faithful to His purpose, and support His work. We may do that poorly, haltingly. We may do it with regrets every time we lay down at night thinking of what might we have done better that day. Bear on, carry on, soldier on—because the ultimate end of this is a victory, not for us, but a victory for the Lord. Our victory merely consists in being able to survive the burning!

Let me close by bearing testimony that Jesus Christ lives, speaks, is engaged, has His eyes upon all the earth, and many of the details that you think are happenstance in your life are not so. The Lord is involved everywhere, and He is involved in every life. 

I bear testimony of that in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The post This, That, and the Other Thing appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

Part two of this message by Denver was originally recorded on February 8, 2020 in Sandy, Utah.

There’s a concept that runs throughout the true religion. (There actually is a true religion, although it has been badly preserved and, at times, decimated and, at times, truncated.) But Adam, in the beginning, was taught a true religion. The record of that, which Adam preserved in his own hand, was passed down. Ultimately, the last person to have possession of the records of the fathers (that go all the way back to the time of Adam) was Abraham. There’s an interesting story about how that came about.

Abraham’s father was an idolater, and he had little interest in the records that had come down through the fathers to him—but he had them, nonetheless. He regarded them like a talisman. They were simply a lucky charm. And while he had possession of them, he thought he enjoyed good luck. 

At one point, the father of Abraham repented—briefly. At the time that he happened to be repenting, Abraham was told by God to “get thee out” of this land to another land (see Genesis 12:1 KJV). And so he packed up to leave, and as they were packing up, the father (Terah) found the records kept in a box. And because, at the time, he was reconciled with his son, because at the time he had repented, because at the time he was trying to follow the true God, he gave the records in the box to Abraham. And Abraham will record in a record that’s been restored to us that the records of the fathers from the beginning have come down into his possession (see Abraham 1:28 LE). And he had the records.

One of the incidents of the true religion, always, is that God establishes a covenant. It may be a covenant designed to last for generations, or it may be a covenant designed to last for all time, or it may be a covenant designed to last for one generation. But God is a God of covenants. And in the beginning, the first covenant was made with Adam. Always, covenants with God involve promises, one of which is the promise of land. In the case of Father Adam, the covenant given him by God was that he would have dominion over the whole earth. Everything in the earth was given to the man Adam, and that covenant applied not only to Adam, but to all generations after him—which means that this earth belongs to man by a covenant from God. 

Well, as you get down through the generations and the abuses that took place, and the apostasies that took place, and the forgettings, the rebellions, you get down to the days of Father Abraham, one of the components of the covenant that was made with Father Abraham was the promise of a land. And the land that Abraham could see—as far to the north, as far to the sea, as far to the east, as far to the south as he could see—all that land was given to Father Abraham as his inheritance. And that inheritance was renewed again with Isaac. And that inheritance was renewed again with Jacob. And so that land was given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their land. 

As people were led away from Israel under the direction of God, God would appoint to the people He led away other lands as “lands of inheritance.” When the prophet Lehi and his family was led away, one of the things they were told before the departure from the land of Israel was that they would receive a promised land—which is exactly what took place. They arrived on a new continent, and that land on which they settled was given to them by covenant. 

Well, in the Allegory of Zenos, involving likening the people of Israel (who are covenant people) to an olive tree, they are taken, and they are grafted into wild olive trees and branches throughout the vineyard. The quality of the land in which they are grafted is commented on in the allegory.

One of the lands in which the grafting takes place is called “choice above all other lands.” In that segment of the land, there was a grafting that took place in which both good and bitter fruit was born. The allegory of the activity of the transplanted olive branch in the choicest land is an allegory that is told in the history of The Stick of Joseph. It talks about the conduct of those people and their descendants in a way that makes it clear that the land that is called “choice above all others” is the land on which the descendants of Lehi inherited, or the Americas. That land is also appointed to one of the branches of Israel as a land of their inheritance—The Stick of Joseph, Ya’akov chapter 3, is the place where the allegory is set out. But the fact that Lehi, belonging to the tribe of Joseph, would inherit this land is foretold by Israel in his blessing given to Joseph in the record of the blessings given in Genesis chapter 49. In Genesis chapter 49, Father Israel said to his son Joseph: 

Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: 

The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: 

But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) 

Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: 

The blessings of thy fathers have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors and to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren. (Genesis 49:22-26 KJV)

Joseph was separated from his brethren in Egypt. Joseph was separated from his brethren in a new land. Joseph has a promised land in the Americas. Joseph, whose “prophesied reconciliation with Judah” Isaiah foretold, is something yet to occur. And Ezekiel talks about the stick of Joseph and the stick of Judah and of them coming together in one volume. Well, no one makes claim to having fulfilled that promise, to having met the description of that prophetic, covenantal obligation God took upon Himself to fulfill other than the people who claim the God of Abraham speaks yet to them again today.

The people who are taking The Stick of Joseph to their brothers, their cousins, their members of the house of Abraham to try and reunite and to try and eliminate the jealousy, the envy, the fighting that has gone on for far too long—there’s a prophecy that there will yet be a temple built in Jerusalem. Well, there are prophecies also about a temple to be built in another land. 

We’ve received word from the God of Abraham instructing us that we are to build a temple. We intend to do so. And when we have done so, we intend to make that a welcome place for those of the house of Judah, those who have kept the memory alive—the Jews—to be as equally welcome in that house as any of those who are believers in the God of Abraham among us today. When we have the means and the ability to do so, we will build that temple on the covenant land that was given to Joseph in the Americas. There will be a place of Zion. There will be a place of Jerusalem. There will be a New Jerusalem. And there will be an old Jerusalem. And the God of Abraham will respect them both because He has sent messages through prophets promising that both will happen. And the God of Abraham is good to His word. He intends to vindicate every word He has caused to be spoken through any prophet in any age at any time. The God of Abraham will vindicate His word.

So when God covenanted with Father Adam, He taught Father Adam a religion. We know that before he departed from the garden, Adam was clothed in skins from an animal to cover his shame. Everything about that incident was part of teaching Adam a religion. The sacrifice of an animal and the shedding of blood before the departure of Adam from the garden would have been like killing the family pet, because God had brought all the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. And Adam named all of the animals that were with him there in the garden. And one of those, in order to teach the lesson that needed to be taught, one of those (likely to be the one most valued by Adam among the entire menagerie in the garden) was slain, and its skin was taken, and a coat to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve was given them.

All of this is symbolic. All of this is to teach a lesson. All of this is about having a covering so that you do not need to stand before God in your shame and in your humiliation, because God, by His grace and by His kindness, has given to you something that allows you to stand forth on your feet in the face of the God of Adam and not cower and try to cover yourself with a fig leaf for your shame.

This was the promise given in the beginning to Adam in the garden, that there would come a sacrifice who would die to cover the sins and the shame of mankind to provide something which, to look upon, would save you from the torment—symbolized once again in the wilderness with Moses when the serpent made of brass was raised up on a staff, which to look upon would heal you. That garment that was given to Adam was a symbol of the covenant, and the blood that was shed to provide the covering for Adam foretold, foreshadowed, symbolized, and was a type of the Messiah who was to come, who would save not only Israel but all people from the fall and from death having entered the world.

And so the death of the animal and the covering with the skin of the animal upon Adam symbolized a new skin, a new life, a redemption through the blood of a Messiah who would save, who would redeem and protect mankind from the judgments that would befall mankind, including the inevitability of the grave. For when the Messiah came, He did shed His blood on the Passover, like the Paschal lamb; He did die for the sake of sealing the covenant, for the sake of providing the atonement that would satisfy the ends of justice, for the sake of making mercy possible—all of which was foreshadowed in the garment that was given to Adam (which garment was handed down through the generations and, ultimately, became the property of Joseph, which was destroyed by the jealousy of his brothers). And so the pattern that was given in the beginning through our own jealousy, our own foolishness, our own pride, our own envy was destroyed at the time that Joseph was thrown in the well, and his brothers tore the garment, and they put blood upon it, and they took it back as evidence of Joseph having been slain by a wild animal.

We do so much harm to one another. We envy, and we fight, and we turn those things that are sacred into things about which we dispute, and we treat one another with such disrespect when, at the beginning and throughout, it was the purpose of God to make us brothers and to make us prize one another and to love one another. And He sent a Messiah, calling Him “His Son,” into the world. And so, like Abraham putting Isaac on the altar to make him an offering because God commanded that it be so, the God of Heaven put His own son upon an altar, to be sacrificed in order to save, redeem, and restore us back so that we can stand without shame in the presence of the God of Heaven, in whom there is no sin, in whom there is nothing but light. 

Isaiah said the work of this Messiah would remove your sins; though they be like scarlet, yet shall they be as the driven snow (see Isaiah 1:18 KJV). The driven snow in the bright daylight can be blinding; you can go snow-blind. Imagine yourself covered in scarlet blood for shame, and a Messiah who can take that and turn that into something blindingly white and pure.

That was what God covenanted to do with Father Adam, a promise that was renewed, and renewed again, generation after generation. And the remnants, the echoes of that promise animated the poetry of Isaiah, who wrote about these promises in the prophecies of Isaiah. 

The promises that were given and the prophecies that were spoken foretell of the Jews being scattered and of the Jews being gathered again. The God of Heaven committed to having the people that would descend from Father Adam (through Isaac, through Jacob, and through the 12 sons of Jacob) to be regathered again in the last days on a land that had been promised originally to Father Abraham. In 1948, when the nation of Israel came into being, the vindication of that promise began. And when the capital of Israel, as Jerusalem, was recognized (just a few short years ago), that too fulfills promises.

There must yet be a temple built in Jerusalem. But these things are not interesting, modern-day occurrences; these were foretold in the records that came down from the beginning and in the prophecies given to the prophets of Israel throughout their history. The regathering again in the last days and the making of Israel into a fruitful bough in which there is fruit that is good and suitable to be gathered again against the harvest is all foretold 800 years BCE. It goes back to the allegory that got preserved in The Stick of Joseph. It’s in the third chapter of Ya’akov. It’s there, and it tells the story. 

We look at our history as something that occurs because of the will of strong men fighting as they lead nations into battle, and lessons being learned, and new lands being discovered. It’s all unfolding according to a prophetic pattern that the God of Israel willed from the beginning.

In the days of Adam, three years previous to the death of Adam, he gathered together all of his righteous posterity in a valley. The name of the valley was named after the event, Adam-ondi-Ahman, which in the language of Adam means “Adam before the son of Father Ahman”—the God of Adam, the God of Abraham—where a meeting took place. And in that meeting, Father Adam was blessed. But he was filled with the spirit of God in the meeting. And despite the fact that he was 960+ years old at the time, he stood up, and being filled with the spirit of God, he prophesied what would befall his descendants to the latest generation. That prophecy under the influence of the spirit in that meeting at that time set the pattern which all the prophets thereafter would repeat in one form or another with one piece or another of that original promise, that original covenant. 

It was the destiny that a Redeemer would come through Judah. It was the destiny that all Israel would be scattered, and much of Israel would lose their identity. It was the destiny of a remnant calling themselves Jews to return again to that land promised to Father Abraham and to occupy that before Messiah comes to take possession of the world. 

All of this from the beginning is leading to a restoration of the original pattern that started at the beginning. Just as man was given dominion over the earth at the beginning through Father Adam, the prophecies foretell that at the last day, someone on the earth (mortal) will again possess dominion in the same form as originally given to Father Adam, and that dominion will be returned to that God from whom it came in yet another meeting that will be called Adam-ondi-Ahman because father Adam will be there (as will the patriarchs, as will Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all those who were given dominion) to return back that right, so that the Messiah can claim that right when He returns to judge the world.

All these things are foretold. All these things have been foreshadowed. All these things have been placed in motion. And the Jews are occupying the land at present in Palestine by the will of God, and they will be there still when the Messiah comes to judge the world.

Likewise, the tribe of Joseph has a land on which they have obligations and where they will fulfill prophecies, including the erection of a house of God where He will take up His abode, as once He took His abode up in a temple built by Solomon. And so the time will come when the land of Judah will have a temple, and the land of Joseph will have a temple, and the sun will never set upon the houses of God. For as darkness overtakes one, the light will shine upon the other. Day and night, the light of the sun will shine upon the houses of God in the two lands of Judah and of Joseph.

This is a huge family! When you think about the numbers that aggregate in Egypt before the exodus that departs, this is only one small part of the family of Abraham that Moses is leading out of captivity. I mean, the entire region is filled with this blood of Abraham. And it has migrated out of there as the Allegory of Zenos has told us. And they are bearing fruit—predominantly wild fruit, but bearing fruit nonetheless—throughout the vineyard, which is the world.

The covenant that God made with Father Abraham involved all of his posterity, including a promise of priesthood. The covenant with Israel was initially an attempt to pass along all that Father Abraham had in a fullness, because as soon as Abraham departs this world, the one with the memory is Isaac. And when Isaac departs this world, the one with memory is Jacob. Now, all the sons had some of the information, but forgetfulness sets in almost immediately. 

The promise that was given to Father Abraham concerning priesthood gives a right to receive priesthood to all of the descendants of all of the sons of Abraham—all eight of the sons, including Midian. By the time you get down to Israel, Israel will wind up in a state in which they were offered a fullness of the covenant through Moses at the mount, but they rejected what God initially offered at the mount. And so a different law was offered thereafter as a substitute, because they were unwilling to receive what was first offered. And that law restricted the priesthood to the tribe of Levi. And so Israel, following Moses, left with enough ritual, ordinance, commandments, teachings to preserve alive the knowledge concerning the God that created this world. But it was not the covenant that was originally given to Father Abraham, nor did it preserve intact fully what was first offered through Moses. 

Keeping covenants involved two things: God must offer, and man must accept.

We cannot make covenants with God. God offers covenants to us. Our obligation is to accept what is offered and to accept and then perform what is offered. And if God offers us a covenant and we refuse to accept that covenant, He can make another covenant, and He can dial back what was first offered into something else. The purpose of God is always to teach us; it’s always to make us understand better: truth and error, light and darkness, right and wrong. So the law given through Moses was designed to instruct us. 

An eye for an eye was not a law of retaliation. It was a law of limitation. You don’t kill someone because they took your eye. In fact, the way in which the law of Moses was enforced, it allowed for the giving of satisfaction. If you took my eye, I have the right to take your eye—and so, how much should be paid to me that you may keep the eye? That’s called satisfaction. It’s really a law that involved compensation for injuries. It was not brutal; it was merciful. It was intended to help us understand when we hurt our brother, we should help our brother; we should restore again our brother. 

But the law that was given the first time and offered through Moses is really what Yeshua tried to teach in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount removes the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” by replacing it with, “You’re supposed to love. You’re supposed to care. You’re supposed to regard your brother as yourself. You’re supposed to do unto your brother as you would have him do unto you. Don’t be angry with your brother. Reconcile yourself with your brother if you be angry with him. Don’t go make an offering at the altar.” 

The law of Moses was designed to point forward to the law of mercy. Yeshua came to teach the law of mercy. The ordinances and the performances under the law of Moses pointed forward to the great sacrifice of Yeshua. When Yeshua came and fulfilled the promise, there was no longer any need for a continuation of the animal sacrifices that were being offered under the law of Moses. And so the sacrifices came to an end.

The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was not done because Rome got mad at the Jews. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was done because the law of Moses was brought to an end by the complete fulfillment of the requirements of that law and the promises of that law through the sacrifice of Yeshua. And so there was no more a need for the shedding of blood.

The shedding of the blood of the Son of God was sufficient to fulfill what was required under the law of Moses. And so, although we still have the Torah, we do not have animal sacrifice. And why do we not have animal sacrifice? Because it was the will of Yeshua—the will of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—that those sacrifices come to an end when the great and last and final blood sacrifice was offered.

And yet, it is foretold that there will yet be animal sacrifices offered again. The conditions for those (when they begin, and how they’re observed, and what their purposes are) are things to be taught in the temple to be built by Joseph in the land of Joseph for purposes that God understands and will teach again. 

What I took from being reminded, as I thought about all this of that section of modern scripture, what I took from all this is the Jews are not picking a fight. They will counterpunch, but they will not punch you. The Jews would rather be left alone. But this message will help clarify for them who it is that they’re fighting with. They really need to turn them back into their cousins and brothers. And that has to come from information given to the other side. I think the Jews are predisposed to peace right now.

None of us will ever feel threatened, visiting Israel, by a Jew. Jews want to be left alone if they can achieve it. I mean, they’re not pacifists because they’ve been taught that pacifism leads to enslavement; it leads to death. The Jews are not picking a fight. But this message is to all of the house of the family of Abraham. How do you make up with your brother who’s so angry with you that he wants to kill you? I mean, he’s angry, and he wants to kill you. He’s not gonna change his attitude. You have to teach him something better. 

The record that Ishmael needs to pay closer attention to is the record of the Jews. Ishmael is killing Ishmael. Ishmael was busy killing Ishmael when there were no Jews around to hate. Their land has been drenched in the blood of Father Abraham by the sons of Abraham, generation after generation. When will the killing stop? When will they recognize one another’s possessing and shedding the blood of Abraham by one another? It’s clearly on the mind of the God of Abraham.

That’s a powerful piece of scripture, given to us, I think, for this very purpose. 

For more information, visit the website www.stickofjoseph.info. No money will be solicited from you, and a free copy of The Stick of Joseph in the Hands of Ephraim is available at that website: www.stickofjoseph.info. 

The post Blood of Abraham, Part 2 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

Part one of this message from Denver was originally recorded on February 8, 2020 in Sandy, Utah.

The man Abraham is a pivot point in history. He represents the complete change from the patriarchal era that went before to a new patriarchal era that would follow after. The Jewish people oftentimes point to Abraham as being a Jew. Abraham was something significantly, historically, and religiously greater than the Jewish nation. He was the father of many nations. One of the things in looking at and understanding the Jewish people requires us to go back to Abraham and begin to sort through to find out to whom are they related, and how they came about to be the nation that has been preserved in the form we know them today.

Abraham was promised by the Lord that the Lord would make of him a great nation:

…and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:2-3 KJV)

That blessing in the 12th chapter of the book of Genesis applies to Abraham and all of his descendants. Abraham—being promised a son by the Lord, but not having received a son through Sarah—was petitioned by Sarah: 

And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; It may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.

And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. (Genesis 16:2-3 KJV)

And then she conceived, bore a son, and the son was named Ishmael. Thereafter, Sarah conceived and bore a son, and his name was Isaac; thereafter, Sarai died (having received the new name of Sarah), and Keturah bore Jokshan, Zimran, Medan, Ishbak, Shuah, and Midian.

In total, Abraham had eight sons. The promise given to Abraham applied to all his sons. The one with whom the covenant would be renewed and restored by the Almighty in the next generation was Isaac, but all sons of Abraham inherited the covenant and the blessing given to Abraham.

Now, there may be those who doubt that proposition. There may be those who say, “Wait, it is the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, which means the covenant got renewed (that was made) in the next generation with Isaac and in the generation after that with Jacob.” But the covenant with Abram—turning his new name into Abraham—applied to all sons. Stay with this story long enough, and you will see where they intersect. The record that we have in the Torah confirms that the blessings of Abraham rested upon all sons. They’ll intersect again generations later. 

And so Ishmael, the eldest son of Abraham, had 12 sons. Those 12 sons, in turn, bore children. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau had 15 sons, and Jacob had 12 sons.

The birth order of the sons of Jacob are: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin; those 12 sons, born in that order. But one wife was loved above the others, and the one wife bore him two sons, Joseph and Benjamin; and it was to Joseph that Jacob (named Israel) passed along a coat that had been handed down generation after generation as one of the signs of inheriting the birthright, as one of the signs of receiving the continuity of patriarchal rule that began in the days of Adam and passed down through Abram: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. 

And yet, throughout the record that we have, the tribe of Joseph accomplished very little. The tribe of Joseph’s destiny with that birthright relates to a latter-day work, not to the work that would take place during the time that the promises of a Redeemer, of a Savior, of a Messiah would be fulfilled. For that fulfillment, the tribe through whom the Messiah would descend was Judah. 

Now, this family of Abraham—a total of eight sons in the first generation, 14 sons in the second generation, over a hundred sons in the third generation—all became the fathers of tribes and nations. When the promise was originally given to Abraham that he would make nations—that God would make nations of him, and that all families of the earth would be blessed through him—that had a much more expansive application than just a promise about the descendancy through Isaac, Jacob, Judah; through the generations until there came a Messiah to redeem and save Israel. It had application to all of these people. It had application to all of these nations.

But the one through whom the promise was made, Abraham, was renewed again through Isaac and renewed again through Jacob (who was given a new name of Israel), and his family—because of Joseph receiving favor from the Pharaoh—his entire family moved into Egypt at a time when Joseph was counselor to the Pharaoh in the land of Egypt. And there they resided as sojourners in a land that was not given to them, but they were exiled from the land that was given to their forebearer, Abraham.

And so they stayed there for hundreds of years, ultimately resulting in servitude, enslavement, and a life from which they needed redemption. We all know the story of how Moses, who descended from the tribe of Levi, was raised in the courts of Pharaoh, fortuitously. It took the most profound series of coincidences in order for Moses to be raised in the courts of Pharaoh, evidence that there are no happenstance, there are no curiosities. The pattern that God follows in the redemption of mankind, in the deliverance of his people, always involves circumstances that seem so very unlikely. Moses’ survival seems unlikely. Moses, having been raised in the courts of Pharaoh, seems yet even more unlikely, and yet it was so. How comes Moses to live in the courts of Pharaoh? Because God willed it, because Moses had a mission, and because the ability of a deliverer to redeem the people and to save them required that he have some knowledge of the workings of the court of the Pharaoh. And so it was that he was planted there by the will of God, putting him in a position so that the will of God could work through him. 

He did not leave Egypt willingly. He left Egypt under threat of his own death. And so Moses, in his generation, goes into the wilderness, and he happens upon a family (Jethro) in the wilderness—a priest of Midian (Midian being a descendant of one of the sons of Abraham)—who was a priest in the wilderness who would ordain Moses to priestly authority, proving that the blessings that were given to Abraham existed outside of Isaac, outside of Jacob, outside of Ishmael, and included the sons that Abraham bore in his old age, because it was a descendant of Midian (Jethro) who supplied the wife for Moses and who ordained Moses, showing that the blessings that were given to Abraham in the beginning persisted and existed in all his posterity. And so it was that the priest of Midian (Jethro) perhaps helped Moses to understand who the Lord Almighty (the great Yahweh, the one whose name is unpronounceable) was, disclosed to Moses through Jethro.

Later, after Moses had succeeded in returning to the courts of the Pharaoh and bringing them into the wilderness, he returned with his people to Jethro, the priest of Midian, in the wilderness, and we have this record: 

When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father in law, heard…all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt; 

Then Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back, 

And her two sons; of which the name of…one was Gershom; [and] for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land:

And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh: 

And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God:

And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro, am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her. 

And Moses went out to meet his father in law, and did obeisance, and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare; and they came into the tent. 

And Moses told his father in law all the LORD had done unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the LORD delivered them.

And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which the LORD had done to Israel, whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. 

And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of the Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. 

Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them.

And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father in law before God. (Genesis 18:1-12 KJV)

Jethro worshiped the true God of Israel. Jethro offered acceptable sacrifice to the true God of Israel. Jethro: a descendant of Abraham but not a descendant of Isaac, not a descendant of Jacob, not a descendant of any of the family of Abraham other than Midian. 

So, that God of Abraham, with whom God established a covenant, whose covenant got renewed in Isaac; and through Isaac, the covenant of Isaac was inherited not just by Jacob, but by his brother Esau as well. The covenant blessings follow the covenant recipient. 

Well, in our day, that same God of Abraham—who called him and restored him to truth, who renewed His covenant with Isaac, who renewed His covenant with Jacob, who preserved and saved Joseph, who redeemed Israel out of imprisonment in Egypt through the man Moses—that same God of Israel has spoken to us in this day and has told us a message that goes to all the children of Abraham. The message the Lord has delivered today is this:

Did not Ishmael and Isaac mourn together and bury their father Abraham? Was not their father’s blood precious unto them both? Does not the blood of Abraham run in both Isaac and Ishmael? Does not the blood of Abraham run in both Esau and Jacob? 

Let Ishmael today find the blood of his father, Abraham, precious still. Let Isaac likewise today find the blood of his father, Abraham, precious again. For Abraham’s sake, let all the brothers who descend from Abraham now mourn when Abraham’s blood is spilled by any of his descendants.

If Abraham’s sons do not find his blood to be precious still, there remains nothing between them but the shedding of Abraham’s blood. For all his sons who fail to find Abraham’s blood to be precious will be held to account by God, who will judge between the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael, the sons of Esau and the sons of Jacob, for father Abraham’s sake, with whom God covenanted. 

The sons of Abraham will not be permitted to continue this disregard of their common father’s blood without provoking God, who will soon judge between Abraham’s sons. (T&C 165:2-5)

For reasons that intervene between the days of Abraham and the days of Moses, all the sons of Abraham lose sight of their kindred people. The tribes of Israel, when they were finally led into the promised land, were divided into 12 different tribal lands: 

Throughout the time of the kingdom of both David and Solomon, all of the tribes were united in the land of Israel under one king: King David at first; King Solomon thereafter. But upon the death of Solomon, the tribes developed a rivalry that could not be reconciled. Ephraim, one of Joseph’s sons, was always jealous of the tribe of Judah’s right to occupy the land in which the temple had been built and where the center or capital of the nation had been founded, and Ephraim’s jealousy and envy of Judah was something Isaiah spoke about.

He predicted that that envy between Ephraim and Judah would not depart until the last days. But he looked forward to a time when that envy and jealousy that separated and divided Judah from Ephraim and Ephraim from Judah would dissipate, would go away, and they would be reconciled in peace, and they would recognize one another as brothers indeed—not something that has yet occurred, but something Isaiah promised would happen as “the word of the Lord” to the people.

Well, after the death of Solomon, there arose two kings (Jeroboam, Rehoboam), leading two nations separated from one another: the north ultimately having 10 of the 12 tribes; the south having two, Judah and Benjamin (though Benjamin was small). So the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom—sons of Abraham, all—fought with one another until the Northern Kingdom was taken away captive into Assyria. It probably came as a great relief to the Southern Kingdom.

It was at the division of the north and the south that the name of the country or the ten tribes in the north came to be known as “Israel” or as “Ephraim” or as the “ten tribes,” and the south (the Southern Kingdom) became known as “Judah” or, eventually, as the Jews. The Southern Kingdom, the Jews, were comprised of: 

When the ten tribes were taken captive and removed from the north, and Israel (or Ephraim) was lost, they did not return. They did not cease to exist, but they did not return. Many of those that were taken captive into Assyria left as an organized body, and there is a record of that. (That record is not in everyone’s… It’s not in the King James version of the Bible. It is in the Catholic Bible. Josephus wrote about it.) But when the ten tribes were able to depart from Assyria, the record says that instead of returning back to the land occupied by Judah, they instead turned, and they went north.

And so the ten tribes of Israel (the people of Ephraim) were lost to the north. There’s a lot of speculation. There are a lot of conjecture. There’s a lot of pseudo-histories. There’s a lot of claims that are made by people about who those ten tribes are and where those ten tribes are to be found. But they went to the north. They did not return. And so the record of the Bible, as we have it, fails to include within it any information about what would happen to the ten tribes of Israel. 

Like all of the descendants of Abraham (all seven sons’ descendants), like the many sons of Ishmael (he had 12), like the sons of Esau, the record that was kept by the Jews mentions them from time to time, but does not perform the labor of preserving the record of where all these cousins went. But one thing we know for certain is that when the ten tribes went into Assyria, not all of them left. Some of them remained, and when they remained, they intermarried. Ultimately, their identity was lost. Their association with the ten tribes of the north was lost, and they intermarried. But some of their blood remained in the Assyrian area where cousins also existed. 

At about 587 BC, the Southern Kingdom of Judah was taken captive by Babylon. Immediately before the captivity of the Southern Kingdom, there was a prophet who was warned by that same God of Abraham about the impending destruction of Jerusalem, and he was led out of Jerusalem with his family to become refugees, fleeing the destruction that was soon to be upon Jerusalem. Before departing, he sent his sons back to Jerusalem to find a man who had the same daughters in number as he had sons in number, so that his sons could have wives. And so, the sons returned to Jerusalem, and they persuaded the father to come with them into the wilderness and to bring his daughters so that they might have wives. Now, this record of these events was written beginning at 600 years BC. 

It’s important. Details are important. Names are important. It’s important that when they returned to Jerusalem to secure this man’s daughters for wives that the name of the man who lived there in Jerusalem was Ishmael. The name Ishmael was not held in disrepute. The name of Ishmael—the “rival to Isaac” in our eyes, but not the rival to Isaac in the eyes of the God of Abraham—that name was held in honorable mention and borne by the father who came to join the prophet in the wilderness, who was a refugee to escape the destruction that Babylon was about to bring upon Jerusalem.

In the history of the Jews and the history of the Christians, we have both Jews wishing that they were more distinct from Christians, and Christians wishing to be more distinct from Jews, and so history becomes skewed, and memories are selective. And so the reconstruction from the limited records that we have of “how it was before the Babylonian captivity” has been done in such a fashion as to try to show that when Christianity arrives on the scene, it is altogether unique from the Jewish tradition. And likewise, the Jewish tradition seeks to make itself distinct from what the Christians would later claim. 

But the prophet who was led out of Jerusalem at 587 BC, and the record of the man/the prophet/the-one-to-whom-the-God-of-Abraham-spoke-to-take-him-out-of-the-land tells a story that does not make the Christians feel comfortable. It does not make the Jews feel altogether comfortable. Because what we find within that is a form of worship and practice that suggests they looked forward to a coming Messiah, a Redeemer. He would come to Jerusalem, the place they were leaving. But they kept the memory that this Redeemer, this Savior, this Messiah promised long ago would indeed come, and He would come among the Jews. He would not come among these refugees. They would be exiled—and they were. 

They left the land of Jerusalem: sons with wives; Ishmael, the father; Lehi, the father of the sons. They went into the wilderness. They were commanded to build a boat. They were given instructions on how to do so. They did so, and they migrated, and they left the land.

They only knew by revelation that Jerusalem had been destroyed, but they never saw it, though they knew it had taken place. And they became refugees, foreigners, sojourners in a foreign land, a land that was already occupied by others, but a land in which they were able to establish their own people, and they kept alive (for a thousand years on the American continent) the religion that they had received and inherited before they departed from the land of Jerusalem into the wilderness under the direction of the God of Abraham. 

These people are descendants of Abraham. These people intermarried with others on this other land. These people include, within the promise given to Abraham, all of their nations because they intermarried, and they had sons, and they had daughters, and they continued through their generations. 

The record that was given through these refugees-led-by-a-prophet confirms that they were not alone and that the God of Abraham has, from time to time throughout history, led away different groups that descend from Abraham and from Isaac and from Jacob into various parts of the world.

A prophet wrote about it in some considerable detail in a lengthy allegory. It’s a prophet who was among the northern ten tribes, and it’s a prophet whose record is not in any Old Testament that we have, but many, many of his words are quoted in this other scriptural record. This man—this prophet to the Northern Kingdom—this prophet was so well quoted/understood/respected that in the record (that we have from this group that descend from Joseph who kept their record), he is called THE prophet.

His name was Zenos. He was THE prophet, and he likens the house of Israel to an olive tree, in which the olive tree has a root that fails to bring forth good olives. And so branches of the olive tree are taken, and they are placed in other trees—spliced into other trees—all around the vineyard. The allegory is teaching about how Israel has been scattered: Abraham has been scattered; Isaac has been scattered; Jacob has been scattered. 

Shortly after the ten tribes were taken captive (roughly 710 BC), at 587 BC, likewise, the Southern Kingdom was taken captive into Babylon, and the records testify that (from Babylon) only a remnant returned, which means that a great deal of the blood of Levi, Judah, and Benjamin remained behind in Babylon. They would intermarry. They would have descendants. They would spread the blood not only of Abraham, but the blood of “Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob” into those other lands. And so, a small remnant returns, and that small remnant that returns—when they reoccupy the land—became the Jews that we identify as “the Jews” today.

They are a fraction (and a small one at that) of the blood of Abraham. They are a very local, very tiny, almost the “least part” of the blood of Abraham; and yet the Jews alone have been able to preserve, to defend, to protect not only the identity, but the significance of the bloodline of the entire family of Abraham. The persistence/the tenacity of the Jewish people in retaining that identity puts to shame Jokshan and Ishmael, Midian and Zebulon. It puts to shame Esau. It puts to shame all the other sons of Abraham because the Jews alone have fought and have suffered. And as the bloodlines have lost their identity with Father Abraham, they have moved to the other side, and they have regarded with disfavor and with contempt their cousins the Jews.

And so through the loss of identity, the loss of memory—and perhaps also through the jealousy of the Jewish preservation of the identity, of the Jewish persistence in claiming the nobility of that birth descendancy—all have been stirred up to animosity. But if you go to the nation of Israel today and if you look to the north, and you look to the east, and you look to the south, on all sides the nation of Israel is surrounded by their cousins. The nation of Israel is surrounded by people with whom they share descendancy from Father Abraham.

That does not mean that the cousins welcome them. In fact, in many ways, the cousins resent them. The God of Abraham understands that, which is why the God of Abraham, speaking to us in this day, said, 

Let Ishmael today find the blood of his father, Abraham, precious still. Let Isaac likewise today find the blood of his father, Abraham, precious again. For Abraham’s sake, let all the brothers who descend from Abraham now mourn when Abraham’s blood is spilled by any of his descendants. (emphasis added)

We cannot fight in that part of the world without killing some of the blood of Father Abraham. The message needs to be told not to those who would make peace willingly, as the Jews have so often done. The message needs to be taught to the cousins who likewise need to awaken and arise and to realize they share a common father. They share common fathers. They dishonor—all of them—their fathers by their persistence in this inter-family fighting. No one fights harder than brothers. They need to awake and arise and realize they are, in fact, brothers.

And the God of Heaven—the God of Abraham—speaking in our day has made it a priority to give to us that message, which message we take (in our weakness, in our few numbers) and offer to all the brothers, to all of the blood of Israel. Because when the promise was given to Abraham in the beginning, it was not limited; it was not small: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee [Abraham, in thee] shall all families of the earth be blessed (emphasis added).“All families of the earth” include everywhere throughout the Middle East; it includes all the nations of the world. And yet those that seem to respect the idea of Father Abraham the most are the peoples of the Middle East, the descendants that come through Isaac and Ishmael, through Jacob and Esau. So that was the first thing that I wanted to say.

The post Blood of Abraham, Part 1 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

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The following talk by Denver Snuffer was given live, via remote video broadcast, at the Philippines Covenant Christians Conference held in Laguna, Philippines on 27 September 2025.

The post Early Christianity and Christianity’s Stumbling Blocks appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.