Light and Truth

This lecture was presented at the Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City, July 29, 2017.

Transcript

Paper

Denver Snuffer: I can’t remember a Sunstone Symposium I have participated in that had so overtly religious a theme as this year. This year’s topic is:

The Least of These: Embracing All

With such a theme I feel inspired to wax scriptural, and do a little preaching as part of my contribution this year.

Mormonism announced in its founding book of scripture that it is an incomplete, markedly unfinished religion searching for more truth to achieve its destiny. The completion is to be accomplished primarily by two means: restoring lost scripture and continuing revelation. But even the concept of “continuing revelation” has been institutionally curtailed. The only institutionally authorized source for revelation is a single leader.

Of all faiths, Mormonism has the greatest canonical incentive to search for and embrace truth known to others. The “keystone” of Mormonism is the Book of Mormon. That book alerts its readers that there are many others from vastly different places with vastly different scriptures who are nonetheless Christ’s sheep. Book of Mormon readers are expected to search for, welcome and learn from them. In contrast, institutional Mormonism of all stripes confine trustworthy new religious ideas to their authorized leaders. Early in the text we learn that our faith, like our scriptures, is unfinished, and to anticipate a flood of additional sacred texts to help remove our ignorance. The portion of the Book of Mormon translated by Joseph Smith is carefully censored, with its greater content withheld.

2 Nephi 29:11-12 states: For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them; … Obviously the Gods of Mormonism view Their role as all-inclusive. The entire world and all mankind belong to Them. Their global audience has received and recorded sacred words directly from the Gods’ “one” mouth. We have no way to define the extent to which that has happened. Nor do we have any concept of the number of sacred records that exist somewhere among unknown others, nor any idea what truths they were given that we lack. 

Mormonism cannot, or at least should not, consider itself the exclusive possessor of THE sacred canon or that there is only one canon containing the Gods’ teachings. There are words from heaven spread throughout our world by deliberate planting of the Gods.

Continuing, for out of the books which shall be written I will judge the world, every man according to their works, according to that which is written. These “books” hold terrible importance for Mormons because we are going to be judged by the Gods based on a comparison between our “works” and “that which is written.” With such a warning we Mormons ought to be humble about our claims to know more than other faiths. We should be modest in thinking we are especially graced by the Gods’ words and should be anxious to scour the globe to discover the sacred texts of other cultures. In humility, we should invite them to share the truths they value most with us because we have shown that we will respect what they regard as sacred.

To clarify this further the record continues, For behold, I shall speak unto the Jews and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the Nephites and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; … So far this describes a welcome Judeo-Christian boundary because the ancient Israelites are the backbone of the Gods’ dealings with mankind. The Lost Ten Tribes continued to compose scripture, and their records will in time be recovered.

This passage continues by including yet others who are disconnected from any disclosed connection to Israel: and I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it.

Who? When? What was said?

“All nations of the earth” is broad enough to raise the troubling possibility that the Gods have spoken to others in India, Japan and China – to the peoples of Persia, Africa, and Native peoples of the Americas, Hawaii, Polynesia, and Australia. The Jaredite prophet, identified as “the brother of Jared,” had some of the greatest revelations in all history. He lived many centuries before Abraham, and therefore before there were Israelites. We know Egypt was founded “seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the first fathers in the first generation, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam[.]”

If we take the Book of Mormon seriously, the ecumenicalism of the Gods may have no recognizable or comprehensible limits. The Gods of Mormonism are far more pantheistic than Trinitarian. What a cruel embarrassment that proves to be for any sect that proselytizes primarily among other Christian denominations. Imagining Gods who speak to everyone is troubling enough, but for the Gods to expect Mormons to give high regard, even canonical credibility to the records of these truly “others” begins to buckle the knees and mangle the mantras of today’s Mormons.

An unfortunate Mormon truism is the mistaken idea that we have a better and more complete religion than all others. ‘WE have the most recent revelation, because the Gods spoke last to us’ (…uh, well, so far as we know). Therefore, we can be prone to think of “the least of these” as all others who have failed to embrace Mormonism. This paper explores the possibility that we have vastly overrated the scope of our religion, and underrated our ignorance. Perhaps we have no reason to ever consider those outside of Mormonism as “less than” Mormons, or “the least” worthy before our Gods.

This humbling revelation of the Gods’ universal attention to all mankind is reinforced by Christ’s words to the Nephites at Bountiful. He declared to them in 3 Ne. 16:1-4: I have other sheep, which are not of this land, neither of the land of Jerusalem, neither in any parts of that land round about whither I have been to minister. His declaration was every bit as disorienting to the Nephites as was His mention of “other sheep” to the Jews. Both the Bible and Book of Mormon make it clear that bodies of sheep who have the Great Shepherd standing before them are perplexed at the idea that He has yet others He loves as much as them. Are there no favorites? The sheep probably considered, at least passingly, “You MUST love us best because you’re here visiting us, right?” But any thought that audience was special is dashed by the Lord’s next sentence:

For they of whom I speak are they who have not as yet heard my voice; neither have I at any time manifested myself unto them. But I have received a commandment of the Father that I shall go unto them, and that they shall hear my voice, and shall be numbered among my sheep, that there may be one fold and one shepherd; therefore I go to show myself unto them. Christ was interested in unifying His sheep. He sought for “one” fold that followed only Him. There is no “Number One” fold among them. No upper class, or special distinct body towering above others.

Our gentile culture is stratified. We divide into haves and have-nots, upper class and lower class, winners and losers. Everything is ranked, from sports teams to television shows, mileage to price-per-ounce. We WANT to have comparisons made: to be more and have more. That is one of the most persistent character flaws of ‘gentileness.’

Gentile Mormons were not at Bountiful when the Lord appeared and taught the Nephites. But we would like to have at least a derivative advantage by assuming the Nephites were more special than all the other sheep. We hunger for prominence, and our ambitions extend into all things, even the Gods’ regard for us. We reason that the Nephites were apparently visited first after the Jews. And the Jews killed Him, so really the Nephites were the first worthy audience and therefore more special. And this matters because we gentiles are the ones to whom the Book of Mormon was given. So we are sort of first and therefore more better, or Mormon. And, ipso facto, all others are less to the Gods.

That line of reasoning comes to naught when we realize Christ’s visit to the Nephites was over eleven months after His crucifixion. He ministered for 40 days around Jerusalem after His resurrection, but He had nearly eleven months to visit undisclosed other sheep before the people of the Book of Mormon. We have no basis for thinking we have the record of those the Lord visited first, after His resurrection. For all we know we have the record of those He visited tenth, maybe eleventh. If He took as long with each group as He took with the Nephites, He had time to visit with dozens of other unidentified flocks of His sheep.

Following His resurrection, as Christ visited with the Jews and Nephites, none of them had enough curiosity about “other sheep” to inquire about them. The account continues, And I command you that ye shall write these sayings after I am gone, that if it so be that my people at Jerusalem, they who have seen me and been with me in my ministry, do not ask the Father in my name, that they may receive a knowledge of you by the Holy Ghost, and also of the other tribes whom they know not of, that these sayings which ye shall write shall be kept and shall be manifested unto the Gentiles, … It is perhaps a good thing Christ commanded them to “write these sayings” so we have a record clarifying that “other sheep” are indeed people completely out of view from any scripture in our possession. They exist. They were visited by Christ. They were taught by Him. They recorded what He taught. And we know nothing about any of it, apart from Christ confirming that He did visit and minister to scattered bodies of other sheep post-resurrection. He wanted them to become “one” and understand “plain and precious things” that have been lost from our present, limited version of scripture.

What if they are also all gods to whom the word of God has been given? What if the Gods intend to spread knowledge of how to attain divinity among all peoples? That would indeed be a task worthy of the Gods!

Consider that for a moment. Have we gentile Mormons been told of Gods’ other sheep for some important reason? If so, is it to alert us that we are no more special, nor in any greater possession of Gods’ words, than many others who have been scattered around the world and are known to the Gods, but unidentified to us? Is it to make us more careful about how we regard strangers? Ought it to suggest there are other religious equals in the world? May it suggest there are perhaps religious superiors in the world? In other words, have we received news of other sheep to help keep Mormons humble?

If these words from Christ are not enough to make us cautious about dismissing others, in the Book of Alma there is another reminder of how the Gods deal equally with all mankind. Alma 29:8 states, For behold, the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have; … The Lord is concerned about “all nations” and not merely Israelites in their scattered condition. Each nation, in its own tongue, has been given a portion of His teachings. It is measured according to what He “seeth fit that they should have.” I do not believe this means that ‘while God gives everyone something, we have the most.’ I think it instead means, ‘everyone is remembered by God, and when you close down revelation, you get less—humble people get more.’ This more probable meaning is suggested by Alma 12:10 which explains, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God, until he know them in full. It is abundantly clear that Mormons do not know the mysteries of God in full. The farther back we look in human history the more appears to have been lost. Earlier stages, including the patriarchal era, knew God and therefore understood His path better. How else would Enoch and Melchizedek have achieved their heavenly breakthroughs? Like mankind, institutional Mormonism continually atrophies, knowing less and less, year by year. However significantly this may impact the truth-claims and arrogance of Mormonism, we must at least allow for the possibility that there are “other sheep” who are much better informed than are any of us Mormons.

The Alma 12 material helps clarify the remaining statement in Alma 29:8: therefore we see that the Lord doth counsel in wisdom, according to that which is just and true. The Gods’ wise counsel does not regulate dispensing truth on things external to us, but on what is internal to us. We determine whether we have hard hearts or open hearts. One of the ways to determine if our hearts are open and not hard is the degree to which we regard those who are “other,” not only with respect and charity, but also curiosity.

Mormon revelation helpfully defines knowledge of the Gods’ mysteries as “riches.”21 That definition helps explain a prophecy about the coming return of other sheep. Newly awakened dormant prophets in the north countries will lead scattered flocks to the boundaries of the everlasting hills. They will bring with them “rich treasures unto the children of Ephraim” who will welcome them. This will not merely be a reunion, but an exchange of treasured wisdom, or in other words revelation, between those who have preserved sacred knowledge. That reunion, however, will depend on a body of believing Ephraimites established in the everlasting hills that will welcome such riches. These prophetically described people must be humble enough to be taught, and willing to appreciate sacred information from outside.

Think of Mormonism more expansively and you may begin to share its founder’s vision for the faith. Joseph Smith explained to the editor of the Chicago Democrat that Mormons “believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous and in doing good to all men.” Joseph’s list compares favorably with the five traditional Buddhist vows of non-harm to others, truthfulness, non-theft from others, sexual propriety and avoiding intoxicants. Buddha confronted the issues of life by segregating our challenges into “the truth of suffering.” Life is filled with suffering from birth until death. Struggling vainly to relieve ourselves from suffering causes us yet more suffering.

To understand our suffering we need to recognize the true “cause of suffering.” The cause is found in our desires, appetites and passions. We cause our suffering by what we seek.

This leads to the way to “cease suffering” by forsaking our desires. Or, in a rather Buddhist mantra found in the Mormon temple ceremony, our “desires, appetites and passions are to be kept within the bounds the Lord has prescribed.” Buddha would welcome the Mormon temple mantra as part of the third great truth.

Buddha offers us a final solution found in the noble path: the right view, right thought, right speech, right behavior, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Or, if you are a Mormon, the 13th Article of Faith. Apparently all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole.

So are the Buddhists in possession of truths Mormons ought to consider acquiring? Do they have sacred texts they have guarded for generations that will be brought to the attention of Mormons only if we show enough respect and restraint so that their owners share their pearls with us? Does our swine-like arrogance and conceit prevent them from casting their most valuable pearls our way?

Why aren’t people from around the world eager to teach Mormons? What would it be like if Mormons sent out missionaries to inquire if others had any great truths to share with us? We cannot learn anything new when the only sound in the conversation is our own voice. Mormons are a very hard audience, hard of both head and heart. Most Mormons “know the church is true” and so what else could possibly matter to them? It calls to mind Hugh Nibley’s observations about BYU’s students. This is Nibley:

Our search for knowledge should be ceaseless, which means that it is open-ended, never resting on laurels, degrees, or past achievements. “If we get puffed up by thinking that we have much knowledge, we are apt to get a contentious spirit,” and what is the cure? “Correct knowledge is necessary to cast out that spirit.” The cure for inadequate knowledge is “ever more light and knowledge.” But who is going to listen patiently to correct knowledge if he thinks he has the answers already? “There are a great many wise men and women too in our midst who are too wise to be taught; therefore they must die in their ignorance.” “I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the Saints prepared to receive the things of God; but we frequently see some of them . . . [that] will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions: they cannot stand the fire at all . . . . [If I] go into an investigation into anything, that is not contained in the Bible . . . I think there are so many over-wise men here, that they would cry ‘treason’ and put me to death.” (That is Hugh Nibley quoting Joseph Smith.) But, he asks, “why be so certain that you comprehend the things of God, when all things with you are so uncertain?” True knowledge never shuts the door on more knowledge, but zeal often does. One thinks of the dictum: “We are not seeking for truth at the BYU; we have the truth!” So did Adam and Abraham have the truth, far greater and more truth than what we have, and yet the particular genius of each was that he was constantly “seeking for greater light and knowledge.”

Think about the impression we have made upon the Native Americans with our traditional Christian rivalries and contentions. It was Christian behavior that provoked Nez Perce Chief Joseph to declare: “We do not want schools: They will teach us to have churches. We do not want churches: They will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that.” Mormons have not distinguished themselves as being any more tolerant or interested in learning Native American wisdom than the contentious general rank of Christians out of which Mormonism emerged.

I have been greatly impressed with Hinduism. There is a significant overlap in beliefs shared by Mormons and Hindus. But it would be almost impossible to have the average Mormon-in-the-pew acknowledge such overlapping beliefs. Many Mormons won’t investigate to discover truth if it isn’t correlated and approved by the top leaders. Institutional Mormons trust leaders to tell them everything worthy of notice. Their leaders, however, demonstrate every six months just how utterly incomplete and superficial their command of the restoration gospel remains.

Hinduism teaches, The knowing Self is not born; It does not die. It has not sprung from anything; nothing has sprung from It. Birthless, eternal, everlasting, and ancient, It is not killed when the body is killed. This compares interestingly with Joseph Smith’s statement found in D&C 93:29: Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth was not created or made, neither indeed can be. There may be important potential Hindu contributions on the topic of the eternal nature of man’s existence that could be of worth to Mormons—if we did not regard them as deluded pagans. Rather than invite a Hindu over to listen to our family home evening lesson, we may obtain greater benefit by asking them over to teach us a lesson.

Long before the Sermon on the Mount taught us to bless those who curse us, and do good for those who hate us, The Dhammapada taught, Let us live in joy, never hating those who hate us. And when Christ said in that same Sermon on the Mount: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Several centuries earlier the writings of Buddha put it this way: Do not give your attention to what others do or fail to do; give it to what you do or fail to do. What higher light illuminated Buddha when he spoke these words? Was it the same light that illuminated our Lord? Well, our Mormon scripture puts all light and truth into one, singular source for this world. That source is God the Son. 

Consider the very ecumenical nature of the following revelation given to Joseph Smith: For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God. For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit. Notice this is without any restriction on who can receive the light of the Spirit. “Every man that cometh into the world” receives equally. There is no individual, in any corner of the world, who does not have equal access to obtain “truth” and “light” from that same source, who is Jesus Christ. If any soul in any age hearkens, or listens and follows the “voice of the Spirit,” they are in communication with Jesus Christ. To them He bestows light.

Compare the following sample of Biblical Proverbs with corresponding quotes from Buddha:

Proverbs 23:7 – For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

The Dhammapada – We become what we think.

Proverbs 15:1– A soft answer turneth away wrath.

The Dhammapada – Speak quietly to everyone, and they too will be gentle in their speech.

Proverbs 16:32 – He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

The Dhammapada – One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand men on the battlefield.

The Gods of Mormonism literally mean it when they proclaim, he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile. 

I’m going to deviate from the paper and just add this thought: I think he’s giving a descending order. I think when you get into scripture there are always orders when you get lists. I think he is giving a descending order in which he clarifies what seems superficially to be the most justified, and as he goes on in the list, what becomes truly petty. So let me read the list again: 

• Black and white. Easy, divisive. 
• Bond and free. Of course, you look down on those that are bond, if you happen to be free.
• Male and female. Now we’re descending into the petty. 

All, even those swarthy heathens, are included within the ambit of the Mormon Gods’ concern. They speak through the Spirit the same truths to all mankind and have done so since the beginning of creation. To Mormons the Gods declare: I am no respecter of persons. To the Hindus the Gods declare: none are less dear to me and none are more dear. Both the Mormon and Hindu Gods respect all mankind equally. 

At one time the account in Genesis read: This is my work, to my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. The Gods of Mormonism take seriously their commitment to the eternal advancement of mankind. That means ALL mankind, including the heathen, and none are above others.

This raises the question of “chosenness” of the Gods’ special people. Israel, after all, was at one point “chosen” by the Gods as Their special people. But that does not mean what we think it means. Being “chosen” means we are put on display as either the faithful servant, elevating others, or the unwise steward who is condemned, beaten with a rod, and made the display of Divine ire.

Christ explained He was sent to serve, not to be served. Taoism makes the same observation about how “chosen” ones are to demonstrate their “chosenness” in words that parallel the Lord’s.

The Lord:– If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.

Tao Te Ching: – If the sage wants to be above the people, in his words, he must put himself below them; If he wishes to be before the people, in his person, he must stand behind them.

(I gave a bunch of other quotes but I’m not going to read them. You can read the paper.)

Interesting comparisons can be made between the Hindu belief in “karma” and the Mormon teaching of “pre-existence.” Karma includes the belief that what was done (or not done) both in this and previous states of existence will determine a person’s condition now and in the future existence. Whatever blessings or burdens you encounter are of your own creation by your deeds. Your suffering is merited and deserved. But by doing well, acting justly, and showing kindness you can deserve to inherit a better existence in the next state.

Mormonism includes the declaration that what we experience now and in the future is based on our heed and diligence to the Gods’ pathway. While the Hindu karma has a robust body of teaching, Mormonism’s explanation of pre-earth events is spartan: The spirits of all mankind lived as separate personalities before birth. This world was planned before it was created and people were assigned roles to fulfill in this creation. Some souls were more noble and great than others. Prophets were chosen to have a role to “rule” or to teach in this lifetime. Christ was chosen to be the Savior of mankind in the expected event they fell from grace and required saving. Lucifer rebelled and others followed him. All souls were free to make choices before coming to this stage of creation. 

We can infer from these few, settled Mormon ideas that all our choices made before this creation mattered and affect us here and now. Likewise, all choices we make now will follow us into the hereafter and affect things there. 

Both the Hindu teaching of karma and the Mormon teaching of “judgment” make us, not God, responsible for the outcome of eternity. Joseph Smith said plainly, “A man is his own tormenter and his own condemner. …The torment of disappointment in the mind of man is as exquisite as a lake burning with fire and brimstone.” In the most expressive description of God’s judgment in Mormon scripture, God is doing nothing to cause the man’s suffering. Man is feeling the “torment of disappointment” Joseph described. Similarly, karma puts all responsibility for all consequences on the choices freely made by mankind. God is immune from responsibility for our self-inflicted fate. The Shawnee tribe also believed, Each person is his own judge. Egyptians conceived of a death interview, wherein the individual’s heart was weighed to determine where they would go next.

How much might Mormons yet discover if we are open to learn! The truth is or should be our goal. 

We fear what we do not understand. Mormons derive security from knowing we are better informed about the Gods than others. No one likes the idea of being surprised by failure because we were too ignorant to avoid a cataclysm, particularly if our failure is because we thought we understood what was on the test, but in fact never studied what we were being tested on. 

John the Beloved explained the relationship between two opposing forces: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. The opposite of faith and love is fear. Fear lies at the root of our hatred, our revulsion, and our unkindness to one another. We fear the “other” because we do not understand them. They are different and we fear they might even be toxic. It is foolish to assume we can be righteous when we allow fear to inform how we react to others. 

(Talk, talk, talk. Read, read, read. I’m going to put it up on the website. There’s some interesting… this is interesting stuff.)

We are here to learn. We should rejoice at any chance the Gods give to us to become better informed about Their mysteries. But it is easy to become trapped by what we know to be familiar and to allow our fears to keep us imprisoned. The beliefs keeping us bound are like the old story of how the trainers control the elephant. A large, adult elephant can be controlled by nothing more than a small rope tied to its front leg. No chains or cages are needed. It is obvious that adult elephants trained this way could at any time break away from their bonds, but they do not. When they are very young, and much smaller, the same rope is used to tie them. At that early age it is enough to hold them. As they grow, they are conditioned to believe that they cannot break away. They believe the small rope is still enough to hold them, and so they never try to break free. The adult has the strength to be free at any moment, but their belief in their captivity keeps them under control.

One of Islam’s great thinkers taught: We ought not be embarrassed of appreciating the truth and of obtaining it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us. Nothing should be dearer to the seeker of truth than the truth itself, and there is no deterioration of the truth, nor belittling either of one who speaks it or conveys it. This beautiful sentiment is the opposite of institutional Mormonism. Rather than truthful content, Mormonism has been led to believe the focus must be upon authorized sources. Mormon authorities, many of whom are devoid of understanding, vacuous in teaching, and unacquainted with God are trusted. And if truth dares speak up, the contrast it provides is condemned as a counterfeit.

I envision a future for Mormonism where some few believers are willing to seek diligently to recover the truth. That search begins by mining the lost truths of Mormonism itself, of which there are a surprising number of unrecovered teachings. When the effort to recover a lost and compromised “restoration” has advanced far enough, the search for the “other sheep” can begin in earnest. Eventually if those believers are true to Christ’s teachings, and open to welcoming all truths, wherever found, the truth will search out those Mormons. It will draw into it from every nation, kindred and people, and all nations will come up to the house of the God of Jacob. The truth, or “rich treasures” from around the world will come to those who will welcome it.

The seed for that new, more open body of believers is being planted. But until it has an opportunity to grow and take form, it is doubtful the larger body of Mormonism, much less the world will recognize it. But great things often have a small beginning. Like a stone broken out of a mountain that seems obscure and unimportant, until it triggers a greater landslide that eventually fills and alters the whole landscape.

There is a Cherokee prayer: Oh Great Spirit, help me always to speak the truth quietly, to listen with an open mind when others speak, and to remember the peace that may be found in silence.

We speak too much and too loudly and we listen too little. The restoration has filled Mormonism with factions holding unstable and shifting beliefs that are loudly declared in words of certainty. But fractious Mormonism has anything but a stable form. Today, every form of institutional Mormonism is hardly related to the faith practiced by Joseph Smith. These deformities and unhealthy mutations are explained as “continuing revelation.” While they do reveal a great truth about the instability of Mormonism, instability is no evidence of revelation. We can hope that somewhere in the bizarre assortment of mutated Mormon offspring there can be found a healthy descendant. However recessive that gene may prove, that hope ought not to be abandoned. 

I have been laboring for years to attempt to reinvigorate the original. Thankfully institutional Mormonism is so well informed by their conceit that they doubt such a thing can be accomplished. Today’s Mormon intellectual cabals are bemused that the idea an original Mormonism has virtue. They assume wife sharing and bed hopping was a fundamental part of Joseph Smith’s legacy, ignoring all he did to denounce and oppose such things. Polygamy is Mormonism’s most revealing ‘inkblot test’.

The search for authentic, original Mormonism is the quest to find a belief system that confidently searches for truth, wherever found. It does not claim to possess all truth, only to be searching openly to find it. 

The response of an authentic believer in Mormonism to the discovery of some new truth should be excited gratitude. There is too much fear in the world, and Mormonism has taken that spirit with gusto. A new revelation is greeted with suspicion and dread because the source from which new revelation springs is invariably considered heterodox. Those in control of the most successful brands of the faith are content to count their money. If the road from Jerusalem to Nicea was calamitous, the downward trek from Nauvoo to Salt Lake is typified by the barren landscape itself: from a watered paradise beside the largest river in North America to a desolate salt flat. That descent into desolation has been as much theological as environmental.

Institutional forms of Mormonism want to claim that God has finished His work for our day and given His authority to a select group of professional clergy. Their jealousy and envy keep them out of the kingdom, and those under their control are prevented from entering in. What an odd outcome this is for institutional Mormonism when the religion was founded on the relentless search for truth, anywhere it may be found.

What then ought we do? Can we still embrace an original once the original has been so deformed and disfigured? Can Mormonism, whose visage has been so marred by its adherents, yet bring Jacob again to God? Can Mormonism provide a covenant of the people for a light of the gentiles? Can it again be a marvelous work among the gentiles of great worth to both them and the House of Israel? Are there any with the inclination or desire to deal prudently with the marred visage of Mormonism so that some believers will yet see and consider the depth and breadth of the religion hidden from them? Will Mormonism ever arise from the dust and become evidence that the work of the Father has begun to prepare mankind for the glorious return of His Son? It cannot be done unless those who accept the challenge of Mormonism become as a little child. We must return to the innocent, child-like quest for the truth where “others” are not dreaded but welcomed with curiosity. We should attract, not repel others by the interest we have for discovering whatever truth they have to offer. Plato observed, We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light. How can Mormonism ever achieve its destiny if it fears both the dark and the light, insisting that it knows only it can be true? 

There are indeed other sheep who belong to God; they should be welcomed, not scorned. If we do our part, we can awaken and arise and seek for a covenant from God, and then receive in turn from them “rich treasures” of knowledge.

In their present form, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Taoism have not preserved a Christ-centered tradition. Perhaps if we were to recover earlier writings from these faiths in an unaltered form we would find Christological centers were once part of them all. The post-resurrection visit to the Nephites suggests that possibility.

Avicenna said, The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.

Mormonism is only a “starter” religion based on an incipient planting by the Gods. We Mormons should be people of wit and religion, willing to consider and value all truth from whatever source it springs. The greatness of Mormonism has not been realized in any of its past, and those who have managed to profit from organizing institutions based on its mere beginning are threatened by the idea that there is yet much more to be added.

Mormonism has been a dismal underachiever. Its most wealthy sect is riddled with errors, controlled by an oligarchy of priestcraft, jealous of their power, wealth and influence. It has a criminal past, an unstable present, and an insecure future. That empire is diversifying its portfolio into land development, banking and business enterprises to replace the now diminishing tithe cash stream upon which the empire was built.

The second largest sect has so watered down its teachings and principles that it can hardly be distinguished from any of the weak and diminishing liberal Christian sects. It barely gives lip service to Joseph or the Book of Mormon.

The scatterling polygamist sects are hardly Mormon at all, practicing what the Book of Mormon identifies as an abomination that has broken the hearts of wives and lost the confidence of their children. All forms of institutional Mormonism are easily compromised because they have adopted a structure engineered by Brigham Young. Joseph established at least four bodies equal in authority, making it impossible for one to rule and reign with blood and horror over others. Brigham destroyed that balance and promptly began to reign with blood and horror. He even succeeded in persuading Mormons to openly practice an abominable form of plural marriage as a sacrament in his deformed vision of the faith. With Brigham Young at the helm, the twelve traveling ministers assumed authority over organized stakes for the first time. It was only a matter of time before their ambition overtook their righteousness. Emboldened by isolation and under the leadership of Brigham Young, Mormons engaged in such excesses, abuses, whoredoms, murders and criminality that the heavens have stared aghast at the wretched spectacle Mormonism made of itself! Marred visage indeed!

The greatness of Mormonism has been hijacked. It is time for devoted believers to find the virtue, glory and aspirations of the original. The disillusioned critics do have a point. But their point is aimed in the wrong direction. Mormonism’s institutional factions, critics, apostates, and activists all seem too distracted by what is now Mormonism to contemplate what Mormonism promises ultimately to become. It is that unrealized destiny that ought to fire our imaginations and thrill our hearts. Because of its self-declared lack, the original version of Mormonism, with its confidence and curiosity, remains the only faith with any potential to unite within it all truth; therefore, by extension, the unrealized potential to also unite all people. Thank you. 

Q&A

[0:50:53] Micah: Thank you very much, Denver. We will now take eight [or] nine minutes to take questions from our audience. 

Q: Admitting my ignorance up front with this question. In the effort to be more broad-minded, the rumor has it that you have spoken to Jesus, and by asking this question I’m not saying, have you spoken to Jesus in a vision or dream. Have you spoken to Jesus verbally or in his presence? Secondary question: How can I get it? 

Denver: Yes. And, read the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is more or less a handbook on reconnecting to God. It tells history with one purpose in mind, and that one purpose in mind is to track the path that was walked by those who repeatedly wind up encountering the Lord. His original faith included a promise that He will not leave us comfortless but that He would come and ultimately take up His abode with us. That’s as true today as it has been at any time. 

Q: What’s your stance on multiple mortal probations or reincarnation? 

Denver: Dude… Multiple mortal probations is probably… Let me put it this way–even if true, a distraction from the test that is presently underway. There are living today, that I’ve encountered, at least a dozen Peter’s, like New Testament Peter, back here again doing his thing. None of them fish, though. I’ve met a handful of John’s. I’ve met four or five Mary Magdalene’s. I’ve met at least three Mother Mary’s. Assuming one of them actually nailed it and they are that, what’s that got to do with the price of cheese in Wisconsin? How is that going to help you? Are you honest, are you kind, are you charitable? No dude, I’m Peter! Once, long ago and far away, I walked on water briefly and I sank. But dude, I did it and you haven’t. So okay, watch me sprint into a pool and I’ll accomplish kind of the same thing. I’ll stay up for a little…What’s that got to do with anything? Yes, maybe there’s something to it, probably not in the form in which most people who believe in it, believe in it. 

What’s the definition of a creation? How often in a creation does one appear? If you look carefully at the scriptures, the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, talking with Christ, are given a fulsome vision of everything that is now going to unfold on into the future. And these are the disciples; this is Peter, James, and John standing there on the Mount. They look at this, they look upon the long absence of their spirit from their bodies and they regard it as a form of prison, and so they figure out an escape route. It’s in the scriptures. John says, “Don’t send me there, let me stay in this arena and do battle here.” Peter and James–it’s actually Jacob–James say, “Let us come speedily into your kingdom,” meaning, don’t leave us there, resurrect us. They will miss the resurrection because the first resurrection was when Christ came out of the grave and they were going to die after that. Therefore, they were left there. They said no, don’t leave us there, and so they secured an early resurrection, they’re not in the spirit world. If a long time in the spirit world is not part of the agenda then they had no reason to take that up as an issue and have that discussion with the Lord and make the choices they did. Therefore, if multiple mortalities is like, on Wednesday I die and on Monday I’ll be resurrected or reborn as someone else, then there is no long absence of the spirit from the body, there is a continual return. But then you get into the definition of creation, and how many creations have there been for this world, and topics about which even Joseph kept his mouth shut, and so I’ll put a cork in it. 

Q: Thanks for your talk. Curious about priesthood, either currently your views on that, and then if that ties in with the other sheep? I don’t know if you’ve thought about that. Just curious about your thoughts on that. 

Denver: At the time that John the Baptist visited Joseph and Oliver and conferred the priesthood, the form in which he conferred it was limited but it was durable, and he prophesied that it would not be taken again from the earth until–it depends on whether you read Oliver’s words or Joseph’s words–that they may yet, or until they do, the impression is still the same. There is some future sacrifice that’s expected by the sons of Levi and that the priesthood will endure to then. There’s a form of priesthood upon the earth that is remarkably durable. Even the Jews that killed Christ held it. Pretty durable stuff. There is also, in scripture, a teaching that says that all priesthood is one, the original name for which was the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God. It’s all that, but there are different degrees or portions of that one unified priesthood. Therefore, if you have anything, if you have any priesthood at all, you have some portion of the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God, however limited that may be. 

I gave a talk in Orem in which I explained that the best way to regard priesthood is as a fellowship. You can have priesthoods among all kinds of people. Women can have priesthoods is a fellowship of women but fellowship determines priesthood. If you have a fellowship with men you have a priesthood of men. If you have a fellowship with angels you have a priesthood that involves something called the “keys of the Aaronic priesthood” because your fellowship with angels has extended into the angelic realm. If you have fellowship with the Son of God you have priesthood that is associated with that. And if you’ve been in the presence of the Father you have an association with Him, and you hold priesthood that is a Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God. The degree to which a priesthood conferral upon a person takes effect is dependent upon the heed and diligence that they pursue the things of God and the degree to which they acquire fellowship with such heavenly things. 

(I think we’re out of time. Do we have time for one more?)

Micah: Yes, I was going to say, let’s do one more question. Sorry. If you have any other questions for Denver there’s plenty of time after lunch, and you guys can linger longer in this room as well. 

Q: You talked about finding truth in other cultures, other religions. You also touched on the idea that there may be truth but there is also error in all other religions. What keys of knowledge, what tools do you use to help discern between truth and error? 

Denver: The most correct measuring stick, in my view, is the Book of Mormon. As long as you have the Book of Mormon you have the ability to make a comparison, and if something reaffirms something I find there then I regard that as having passed the test. If it contradicts that then I regard that as having failed the test. And if it harmonizes with it but it extends it beyond anything known to me then I’ve got something to pray about, because the ultimate arbiter of truth is God. 

Thank you. 

The post Other Sheep Indeed appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This discussion along with a question and answer session occurred at a youth conference held June 10, 2017.

Transcript

There are more of you here than I was told would be coming. So that’s probably a good thing. I had prepared a short talk, your questions might be more interesting than a short talk. So think of questions and I’m going to see if I can say something while you’re composing your questions that will be of use to you.

I think there’s a difference between resisting temptation and avoiding temptation. And I think if you’re going to choose in life to fight battles where you resist temptation, you’re probably going to lose that battle a lot. But if instead you choose to avoid temptation, that’s a battle you can win.

It’s like confronting a giant that is stronger than you, faster than you, meaner than you, more cruel than you ever thought of being, and taking that fight on. The outcome is probably not going to be in your favor. But if you can sneak around that giant and never take him on, then he doesn’t matter.

You kids probably do not yet know what your weaknesses are. You have to be older when you confront that. But everyone’s got weakness. The scriptures say—and this is the Lord talking to Moroni while Moroni is working on translating the book of Ether. He’s not very happy with the job he’s doing translating the Book of Ether and he complains to the Lord saying: 

“the gentiles when they read this they’re going to mock. (They’re going to be amused by what I’m doing here).”  (Ether 12:23-25)

And the Lord says 

“Fools mock but they’ll mourn. I give to men weakness that they may be humble and if they’ll come to Me I will make weak things strong.” (Ether 12:27)

How God makes weak things strong is not necessarily making you able to resist your weakness. It might be by making you smart enough to know what your weaknesses are.

I have friends with weaknesses that I do not even understand because they are not mine. I have friends who have literally ruined their lives with gambling. And I don’t understand gambling. I can walk through a casino and laugh at what I see going on there because it does not appeal to me. When I’m in a casino and I’m going to gamble, I’m trying to get rid of the change in my pocket and I’m putting them into the one arm bandits to try and get rid of the change and if I  win something that’s an enormous setback because now I have more change than what I started with. Gambling doesn’t appeal to me. But there are people whose lives are caught up and destroyed by that.

When it comes to the greatest example of how you avoid temptation, like everything else that’s good it’s Christ who sets the example. In the Book of Hebrews we find out that Christ was in all things tempted like we were. What if instead of Jesus Christ being the strongest man in terms of his self-will that ever lived, what if Jesus was in fact the weakest, the most vulnerable, the most tempted of all men?

The Book of Hebrews says that he was tempted in all things like us. Thankfully some of us only have one or two or three weaknesses that they have to deal with in life. What if the Savior had to deal with them all? What if he had to deal with everything that you will find tempting throughout your life and more even the things you find non-tempting?

The Savior’s ability to resist temptation did not come from a head-on fight. After he was baptized, He went into the wilderness for 40 days and He fasted for 40 days and at the end of 40 days when He was hungry the adversary came to Him and suggested that He use the power that he had, use the influence he had with Heavenly Father, to turn stones into bread. It’s pretty clear that Jesus did not start thinking about bread and which bread would taste better right now—whether unleavened bread or flat bread or sourdough bread or leavened bread or German Schwarzbrot, which may not have been invented yet, but He’s the Lord. I mean He could foresee it.

He didn’t do that. He dismissed it. Man does not live by bread alone. He just put an end to it. He did not entertain the thought because certainly at that moment it would have been a temptation to him. But the thought was simply dismissed. He avoided the temptation and by avoiding it He overcame it.

When the adversary was desperate because the Savior had rebuffed two attempts, he asked   the Savior to do something that the public would notice and acknowledge that this was miraculous, that this was the Lord. Do a publicity stunt. Christ was unwilling to do that. Then he offered Him everything there was in the world because Lucifer has control over that as you’ll find out. And He resisted that.

We learn the secret to what the Savior did in a short statement about the Savior: 

           “He suffered temptations but gave no heed unto them.” (D&C 20:22)

I know friends whose lives have been compromised by any number of terrible failings. But if they had given no heed to them and had gone on with life as the Savior’s example said, some of their lives would have turned out remarkably different. When you recognize what your weaknesses are, don’t choose to fight the battle on those grounds. Go somewhere else. Do something else. Get out of there. Don’t fight it. Choose instead a different route. You can fight   all day long with weaknesses or bad habits, but if you simply replace them with a good habit, if you go do something right or productive or good you won’t have to fight that battle.

Don’t try to fight a battle that you can’t win. The weaknesses that you have been given are unique to you and given to you to help you be humble. And every man, every woman that has or ever will live has weaknesses that come from God. They’re part of the human condition.

Avoid the battle. Go elsewhere and do something. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Question & Answer Session

Q: Am I going to write another book?

A: Probably for Christians, not Latter-day Saints, but for Christians. Christianity is in terrible disarray, but because there is widespread agreement on a few principles, Christianity thinks it has survived since the time of the New Testament until today pretty much intact. The truth of the matter is that Christianity in the form that you have today whether it’s Catholic, or Protestant or Eastern Orthodox really had no agreement about even the most important principles until 324 AD. Between the close of the New Testament in 324 AD, Christians were so divided about so many issues that they were actually killing one another. They were fighting battles—pitched battles about the fundamentals of Christianity. It took a Roman Emperor to impose what the Christian world now believes about the Trinity and that is why they regard Mormons as non-Christian because we don’t accept the creeds.

In 324 AD and then again about two decades after that, two creeds were adopted and they included within both of them the statement that you must believe these things or else you are not Christian. So today it doesn’t matter if you are Lutheran, or if you are Catholic or if you are Methodist or if you are Presbyterian. It does not matter. Those creeds that were adopted back in the fourth century are what you must believe or else not be Christian. And we do not believe those creeds. In fact, when Christ appeared to Joseph Smith he said, “their creeds are an abomination.” And so, Christianity at its core is abominable and I may be trying to persuade them to take another look at Joseph Smith, take another look at the restoration, take a look at the Book of Mormon and see if some of what the Christian world thinks is true is not better explained and better understood through the Book of Mormon and through the preaching of Joseph Smith

If the Christian world would take Joseph seriously, it would fix a lot of problems, a lot of confusion, and the inability of the Christian world to get the kind of faith that would improve their communities. I mean if you think that we exhibit weaknesses—the Christian world does not even know how to lay hold on some of the gifts and blessings that you are able to lay hold of because you understand God and who He is a little better. So I may be addressing that. I am going to go give some talks, see if I can get any of them persuaded to consider the restoration, and consider Joseph Smith.

Q: She is asking about the parents that are raising many of these children and are doing what they can and teaching what they can about the restoration and about what is going on. The kids, on the other hand, have school and other responsibilities growing up. What can they do to help move themselves along in the process?

A: You have extraordinary advantages because of what your parents are doing. School is important. In fact, everything that you learn as a skill, as a talent— everything that you learn can be used to help you understand the scriptures more. It does not matter if it is music or mathematics. It does not matter if it is geology or political science. Every skill you acquire through your education can be used to help you understand and interpret the scriptures better.

There are things that because I went to law school and I learned how to be a lawyer, that I can see in the record of the Old Testament that explains the legal system that they had back in those days.

Abraham’s wife Sarah died, and Abraham wanted to bury his wife. But he was in a land at that time in which he owned no land, so he needed to acquire a burial site for his wife. Their system in that day required that whatever the bargain was that was struck between the people that were negotiating, it had to be witnessed by at least two people. And in order for that agreement to be binding, something had to be given in exchange. If you did not give something in exchange, then whatever you got could be taken back.

Abraham wanted Sarah buried in a place where it could not be taken back. It would be hers as her burial spot forever. So, he goes to the people of the city to try and find out who owns the field that has the cave that he would like to bury Sarah in. The field has a crop in it. He wants the land, but he does not necessarily want the crop. He wants the land because of the cave and that is where he wants to bury Sarah. (Genesis 23:1-20)

So he approaches the fellow who owns the cave in the presence of others and says “I would like to purchase this because of the burial spot.” and the first response is: “Oh you don’t need to buy that from me. I’ll give it to you. Go ahead and use it as the burial spot.” Which meant that he was really going to retain ownership and he could in fact disturb the gravesite of Sarah because nothing was being exchanged. And Abraham said “No, no you can’t give it to me. I want to purchase that” because he wants his wife’s’ remains undisturbed.

So now that he knows he cannot give it to him and therefore take it back, Efron, that was the name of the fellow that owned the fields, says: “Well what is it to me to give to you something that is worth (and I think it was) 200 shekels of silver (I think that was the price he named)?” Said “that’s a small sum between you and I, and it’s no problem.” So now Abraham knows the price that is being asked for the property. He was overcharging. It was an unfair amount. But he had a crop on it so maybe he valued the crop. and Abraham in the presence of the witnesses paid the 200 shekels, secured the ground and he acquired for himself the burial place for Sarah that could not now be taken back. There are a lot of little legal things that are going on in the process of getting an enforceable agreement so that Abraham owns the ground and Sarah’s body will not be disturbed. I learned about those things by going to law school.

But if you go and study mathematics, or geology or you study music—there are a lot of things in the Old Testament that are based upon music. There are incidents in the Book of Mormon in which they’re singing and dancing going on in a private place among only the daughters and then the wicked priests of Noah come and abduct them and the story goes on from there. It doesn’t matter what you study in school. Everything you learn can help you better understand what’s in the scriptures. So don’t think that education does not matter. And do not think that you are wasting time in getting an education because it’s not focused in upon directly understanding better the volume of scriptures. That’ll come. And everything should be done in its season, in its time.

In fact there is an opening set of words in the Book of Ecclesiastes which Bob Dylan turned into a folk song which the Birds then fixed because Bob Dylan has a horrible voice. The name of the song is Turn Turn Turn and it talks about: “to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die. A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.”

(Ecclesiastes 3)

In your life there will be time for everything. As you go through phases of life, at each interval take advantage of that. Learn when it is time to learn. Play when it is time to play. And if you get a chance to get over there in the frog pond make sure that you spend some time there. I mean if you don’t have questions I could tell you stories about the frog ponds in Mountain Home Idaho that would well, probably keep you from eating for a while.

Q: What was the number one thing that you did personally that helped you cast off the scales of unbelief to be able that helped you be able to come to Christ?

A: My greatest asset was stupidity. Because I actually thought when they [well it wasn’t the book it was the pamphlet] that they gave me of the Joseph Smith story, I read the Joseph Smith’s story and I actually thought that’s the kind of stuff that happened all the time among people that had become Mormons and rediscovered God’s work in the last days. I knew that was the kind of stuff that happened in the New Testament because we can read all about that. And I had some confidence that you didn’t have to be necessarily really well-integrated into the right course of conduct as long as you had faith in God because the apostle Paul was going around persecuting the believers and Christ came to the apostle Paul. Now admittedly once Christ came to him, he changed his life and he set about and he changed the course of history. In fact, it was the apostle Paul who inspired the Protestant reformation more than anything else that was written in the NT.

So if the apostle Paul who was so ill-fitted to Christianity that he is going about trying to kill Christians can qualify for God’s miraculous intervention in His life, then a person of faith as long as they are headed in the right direction should be able to get the attention of God and angels. So I thought, wrongly (I mean I didn’t discover through years later), I thought that angels ministering to Mormon believers was a regular occurrence.

So it did not surprise me at all when Joseph went out to pray in the grove and as he began that search he got attacked by the adversary and then calling upon God with all His strength he got delivered. It did not surprise me when I got attacked by a malevolent source before I encountered an angel. And it didn’t put me off the trail. In fact, I was again stupid enough to say this is kind of like what happened when Joseph was trying to approach God. He encountered opposition. So to me the opposition suggested the presence of God and God’s reality and God’s bonafide existence and work. Because if the enemy is there, there has to be the opposite of the enemy also. It was sometime later that I encountered an angel. I haven’t talked much about the miraculous things that have gone on because I do not think it is particularly helpful to put a lot of details out about any of that stuff. But I want you to know that it does happen. And it happens as much today in people of faith as it happens in the course of the scriptures.

I do not believe for one moment that God carefully limits and cautiously apportions the things that come from Him to a select few. I think that God’s abundance is meant for everyone. And the regulator, the inhibitor, the limiter isn’t up there. It’s within us. I think the farther up you look the more vast- at a glance if you look up into heaven you can see distances that are so great that they are measured in the distance light will travel in a year. In fact, you can see if you look upward, distances that take billions of years for light to cross them. Those are the distant stars you’re seeing up there. Heaven is vast and filled. It’s us that limits that. The farther out you go, the more you see up there, and the more you should realize that the vastness of God is beyond anything that we can contain. So let a little of that in. Every one of you has some direct linkage to God. It’s called a gift.  Every one of you has some unique gift as a way that God talks to you. Let it in. Be sensitive to it.

I was mentioning at dinner last night- Monarch butterflies migrate. Do you see a monarch butterfly up here? Oh look right there! They migrate! That butterfly has probably flown from here to somewhere in Central America. They cover thousands of miles. They do it annually – those little things. The last time we had a snowstorm (it was a lot of snow down where we live in Sandy), my wife and I went hiking the next day. It was cold the day before, lots of snow came down, but when we went out hiking a lot of it had melted off because it was so warm the next day. On that hike, the next day,  I saw a monarch butterfly flying along the trail. A monarch butterfly will be killed by snowfall. When I saw the monarch butterfly on that hike I told my wife “It’s not going to snow again. That was the last snow of the season. It’s over with.” Because the monarch butterfly has a life that is dependent upon arriving when it’s safe to arrive.

God talks to us through all kinds of things. When you see the geese moving, flying south, their lives depend upon knowing when to go. There’s so many things in nature if you’ll just observe it. If you’ll just let it in. God is speaking to all of us. More or less all of the time. And we determine how much of that we are willing to let in.

Q: Mother is trying to talk to other family members who are not willing to listen. Any advice for how you deal with that?

A: What I have learned by sad experience is that the best way to approach someone is by your example and not by your mouth. They can really hate what they are hearing you say, but if what they see you do is admirable, eventually they will reach the conclusion that what you are doing is the result of what you are believing. If what you are believing is on display in what you do, that will touch them in ways that can’t be opposed—can’t be argued against.

But if all you are going to do is try to argue someone into agreement with you. Well heavens! There are people that make a living arguing against Mormonism. Well, They have had to spend a lifetime studying it in order to come up with the arguments against it. If information alone is going to persuade, some of our biggest critics would now be converted. But they are not because their hearts are hard. The way to get through to them is with kindness, is with the example. Christ in the Sermon on the Mount said:

 “Blessed are you when men shall say all manner of evil falsely against you for my name’s sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for so persecuted they the prophets beforehand”.  (Matt: 5:11)

Most people have encountered “religious” folk (and I put religious in quotes) who talk a good fight, but who will not sacrifice to benefit others. If instead you stay  the course and you live the example, they are going to at first assume that you are just another religious hypocrite, because that is what we have all encountered. When, however, that example persists, and it persists against mocking, against ridicule, against criticism—when that example persists-

I mean one of the questions that it was a vision, it was a dream and therefore we did not finish the story—but fill that great and spacious building with a bunch of real people who are mocking and ridiculing and laughing at the people that are at the tree of life and let them see the great example of the people who are at the tree of life. Before long there will be some who leave the building and go and join the people at the tree of life because that’s what persuades, that’s what convinces, that’s what touches the heart.

So I would say less preaching and more self-sacrifice and example and even hard-hearted people will find themselves touched by what they see being done.

Q: If we enter into a covenant what does that mean for the youth?

A: There’s more about that subject in the Book of Mormon than anyone has ever bothered to talk about. When the people of Jared were brought to the Americas, they were brought to the Americas by an act and direction of God in order for them to inherit a land of promise. When they inherited the land it was theirs, but they wore out their welcome by their rebellion, their forgetfulness, their failure to honor the God of this land. It is within the Book of Ether that we find out that this land comes with a restriction on it that those that possess it have to worship the God of this land or they will be swept away.

Now the sweeping away sometimes takes generations before it happens. But it happens. It happened to the Jaredites and then the Nephites were brought over—the party of Lehi—and they were also given the land to possess as a covenant. Throughout the time, though, that the Nephites inherited this land as their covenant land of promise, there was a constant reference to a future moment, a future time, a time in which the Nephites themselves would be destroyed. They’d be destroyed by the Lamanites and then the Lamanites would inherit the land and they would in turn be displaced because they forgot the God of this land. A new group would be brought over and the new group would eventually likewise enter into a covenant and receive the land of promise. Now very often in order for the Lord to achieve his end you have to have three attempts. You have to have two attempts that fail before you finally have one that succeeds.

The purpose behind establishing a covenant with the gentles in the last days is not so that the gentles get to inhabit the land as a place for them to celebrate and rejoice. It is to bring about the Lord’s purposes in creating Zion. If the youth enter into the covenant and then keep the covenant it has one and only one purpose and that is to bring about Zion. We have had persistent failures of humanity to create Zion, but it has happened once in the time of Enoch, it happened again in the time of Melchizedek, and it is going to happen a third time at some point on this land. The existence of Zion in this land will precede the redemption in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem will also become one of the places where for a thousand years our Lord is going to have a jurisdiction.

What the youth can and should do is enter into a covenant and then abide by it. The Lord’s requests of us are achievable—faith, repentance, baptism, accepting the doctrine of Christ, living consistent with the standards. Christ may have come to fulfil the Law of Moses, and he did so, but in the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon at Bountiful he explained how you don’t need the Law of Moses. You will not take an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth and you will not slay your brother if you’ll show kindness and love to one another. If instead of being angry with your brother, you kill that anger within you—

You will never get to the point that there is some violent outbreak if you police what’s going on in your heart. The Sermon on the Mount is the way to make the Law of Moses obsolete, irrelevant, because instead of lust in your heart you are checking that beforehand. You will never have a King David fall with Bathsheba from grace because he never gets to the point of saying: “Well the only thing I have to stop short of is adultery.” Instead, he’s saying: “I have to check in my heart lust.”

The Sermon on the Mount is a way of evading the temptation by not going there. And so enter into the covenant and keep the terms and God will keep His promises. And His promises include- it is not just prospering in the land. Let me see if I can put this in a way that will get through.

If you go to the Book of Enoch (the Enoch vision chapters of the Book of Moses which will be in Genesis when the new scriptures are out). Enoch is in heaven and he’s looking down at the mess that is going on, on the earth and while he is beholding the earth there is a voice that comes out of the earth itself. So this is the voice of the earth and it is a female. It is a she. Our earth is a feminine creature—creation. The earth says “Wo is me the mother of men.” And she laments the wickedness that is upon her by what men are doing. The earth would rather rejoice at our presence and yield her abundance to us.

One of the reasons why there is no paradise on earth as there was in the Garden of Eden is because the earth herself knows the wickedness of men—the destructiveness of men. So she withholds her abundance because of our wickedness. She asks in that Enoch account: “When shall righteousness return to my face?” If a group of people give the earth reason to rejoice that they are there on her surface, the earth can reward those people; indeed, the earth can protect those people. And if need be the earth can destroy whatever comes against the people she decides to protect. Rivers can turn out of their course as happened with Enoch’s Zion. Mountains can be moved out of their place.

This is just an exercise for those of you that are willing to entertain the exercise. Go sometime onto YouTube and do a search for videos of landslides. Watch a few videos of landslides and ask yourself: “What army could come up against that?” If mountains are moved out of their course, there is no weapon formed against that that can prosper. It will obliterate anything. The earth has an incentive to protect Zion because the earth wants righteousness to return again upon

her face. It is one of the reasons why I think Zion necessarily has to be built in the mountains because it is built in a place that the earth herself can protect the residents of Zion.

Q: You said that Enoch would be in the Book of Genesis in the new scriptures. What new scriptures are you talking about?

A: There’s a project underway right now to put together a new set of scriptures in which the Joseph Smith Translation is not just footnotes and parts of the Pearl of Great Price. Matthew chapter 24 is in the Pearl of Great Price right now, but it was in the Joseph Smith Translation of the bible—it was the 24th chapter of Matthew at one time. The Book of Moses chapters one through seven or eight,  however long it is, in the Pearl of Great Price was part of the Book of Genesis in the Joseph Smith Translation.

So we have never had a published version of scriptures that take the entirety of the Joseph Smith Translation  and put it in as a single record as a bible. In fact, even what the RLDS church has published does not include all of the Joseph Smith Translation. What is happening right now is effort is being made to gather all of the Joseph Smith Translation, Old Testament and New Testament and put it together as the bible in a new set of scriptures and also to get the most accurate account or record of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon that is printed by the LDS church is a descendent of the version that got printed in London 1841 which is based upon a version of the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith revised in 1837 from the original one printed in 1830. But Joseph Smith revised the Book of Mormon in 1840. The LDS church’s volumes have been based upon the 1837 revision, not on the 1840 revision, and so an effort is being made to take the last version that Joseph Smith made revisions to and to publish that as the Book of Mormon.

And to pick up some of the material when Oliver Cowdery copied the manuscript, Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon. Emma Smith wrote part of it. Martin Harris wrote part of it. Oliver Cowdery wrote part of it. That original version was not what got put into print by EB Grandin in the 1830 version. Oliver Cowdery took that original version and he hand-copied every word of that on another one and they took that printers copy to EB Grandin to put it in print. On average, when Oliver Cowdery copied the original one into the printer’s manuscript, he made about two mistakes on every page of his copying. Then when EB Grandin took over, he made some mistakes when he put it in print and the 1830 version of the Book Of Mormon has some copy mistakes in it and then it has some printer’s mistakes in it.

Joseph tried to fix some of that in 1837 and he fixed more of it in 1840. But in 1842, Joseph’s journal records that he was still going to make more corrections to it because it still had not been completely fixed. Work is being done right now to try and get the Book of Mormon as accurate and as complete, and to include everything that was intended to be part of the Book of Mormon when it first got produced. The original one and the copy that Oliver Cowdery made that he took to the printer does not have any punctuation. It is just one long group of words with no periods, no commas, no semicolons. The guy that provided most of the punctuation to the Book of Mormon was an employee in EB Grandin’s shop named John Gilbert. There’s a picture of John Gilbert in the Joseph Smith papers. He’s got kind of a fuzzy head. He’s a little slight tiny guy and he looks like a dandelion kind-a-like because his hair is kind of wild. You look at him and you kind of have immediate like for the guy just because of his appearance. I mean at least sympathy if not like.

Well he punctuated your Book of Mormon and most of what he did is still in what’s in print now. So Joseph did some correcting in 1837s, some correcting in 1840, but there were issues that never got addressed. Part of the punctuation that John Gilbert supplied to the Book of Mormon put commas in places that actually changed the meaning of the text. I have referred to part of what Gilbert did in his punctuation as “Trinitarian commas” because in descriptions of Christ he put commas in that made the description of Christ appear to be the trinity. And if you just move some of those commas around, then the text reads like Lectures on Faith, which was what Joseph provided to us. Well John Gilbert never studied Joseph’s works. He never listened to Joseph preach a sermon and he wouldn’t know how to punctuate in any way other than as a Trinitarian Christian believer in the creeds that Christ called an abomination.

We are adding to the bible the Joseph Smith additions that have never been included and it is not just additions. Joseph eliminated some things. For example, James 1:5: “If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God that giveth unto all liberally.” The word men, Joseph crossed out. So what God gives liberally is not to men, it is to all. And it is a pretty important little deduction, because there are literally women who read “giveth to all men liberally” who assume that means that a man is entitled to receive from God, but not a woman. And so Joseph fixed that by crossing out the word men—“Who giveth unto all, including you, liberally.” Small change. There are lots of those. And so it is not just trying to fix the text and adding in what Joseph did that ought to be added. Joseph deducted some things. Admittedly, they are small words, but they make a big difference. And so that is going on and when it is done the text will be an account of what Joseph did on an assignment from the Lord to fix the text of the bible. And there are some surprises in it. There are some interesting things in it. The more carefully you examine it, the more you find that—

Q: What is your view on the solar eclipse happening?

A: 2 months—It’s on August 21st. Well it is part of a pair, you know. There is one August 21st of this year and then there is a following one. And they essentially, yeah, they make an X across the United States. Well, I mean it is a fairly dramatic celestial event that suggests possible meanings like the times of the gentles are coming to an end and they are about to be swept away and replaced as the possessors and the rightful owners of the land which I’ve heard some people loudly proclaim.

I am of the view that how we act matters, a lot. I think Nineveh got saved because they repented. And if God will spare Nineveh because they repented, then he ought to be willing to spare other people because they are willing to repent. So the focus of action in what God has been doing shifted from the old world to the new world as a matter of prophecy, as a matter of covenant, as a matter of burden. The focus will be here on this land primarily until the Lord’s return and then Jerusalem will reacquire significance that they once had as well. But Zion is going to be on this the American continent.

Since Zion must precede the Lord’s return, and since this land is a land that has a restriction on it that requires those who are going to occupy it to serve the God of the land who is Jesus Christ, I would say that the sign of the eclipse is a rather ominous suggestion that we could be crossed out and we could be replaced—unless of course we choose to repent.

There are two great symbols that are identical in size and identical in the position they occupy    in the heaven above us. One is the sun and one is the moon. From the surface of the earth, they are exactly the same size. Now admittedly, the moon is one fourth the size of the earth and the sun is hundreds of thousands of times bigger, but they were placed in the heavens at the relevant distances so that when you are looking at them, they are identical in the area that they occupy in the heaven above.

The sun is a symbol of Heavenly Father. The moon is a symbol of Heavenly Mother. And they occupy exactly the same position on the ecliptic. They move in the same position across the heavens. The movement of the mother as a symbol is far more complex than the movement of the sun across the sky, because the dance that the symbol of our Heavenly Mother is performing is both progressive and recessive. She moves constantly across the sky from the east to the west (once she comes into sight), but every night she moves farther east. So she begins farther to the east every night and then moves across the night sky to the west. Her dance is far more complex than is the Father’s. His is stable and relatively stationary, and relatively predictable.

The symbol of the mother blotting out the light of the sun in the eclipse, which is what you were asking about, is ominous indeed because when a mother loses hope for her children that is a lot more frightening than the father’s ire that happens just about every time there is a football game on TV. When a Mother gets worked up enough to send a symbol across the land that suggests the blotting out the light of the Father, it is something that maybe we ought to sit up and take note about.

By the way, all these things were once part of the gospel. All of this. Everything. In fact, the Doctrine and Covenants  says everything that is above, everything that is on and everything that is beneath the earth— and beneath the earth means from the surface of the earth. It means those heavenly bodies that fall below the horizon and then reemerge like the planet Venus reemerges. It goes under. It is the evening star and then it is the morning star. It changes sides that you see the symbol on. All of these things were once part of the gospel and all of these things will eventually again become part of the gospel once more.

There is a message up there. It was part of the gospel. It will be restored again, but right now faith, repentance, baptism and treating one another kindly and preparing to be the kind of people that are worthy of preservation is far more important than all of that. But I mentioned school and study and I’m telling you, astronomy also has some interesting things that are gospel based. Genesis chapter one verse 14 says all that stuff up there was given us for signs. And they are talking to us. The only way you can obliterate the testimony that is up there is by our apostasy when we lose light and we are ignorant and we can’t read it anymore. Because we can’t touch that. We can’t make copy mistakes and we can’t give a poor transcription or make printing errors with that. It is fixed and it is not going to change. But we can lose light and knowledge such that we can no longer understand that testimony.

Q: What do you think about Revelations…

A: I think that anytime there is something going on in the heavens that God means something by it, even if we are oblivious to it. And the challenge is to not be oblivious to it, but to take it in and then assign it its proper weight. What is going to happen is more affected by your repentance and your faith than anything else. And that is really where the hard work gets done

—in the hearts, in our own hearts, in our own lives, in how we treat each other.

Let me end by bearing testimony to you that when this whole process was set in motion by God on the first day of creation, He had in His heart a plan that was going to unfold through every generation until the end. Three years previous to the death of Adam, in the valley of Adam- Ondi-Ahman, Adam gathered his posterity together essentially to tell them goodbye. In the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, Christ came and appeared to those that had gathered there.

Adam, despite the fact that he was bowed down with great age, rose up animated by the Spirit he was taking in from the presence of our Lord, and he prophesied whatsoever should befall his descendants to the last generation. So he was talking about, among others, you.

That same plan that was ordained in the heavens before the foundation of the world was revealed through Adam in prophecy in the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman. And we are on schedule to keep the appointments. Whether we are going to be on one side of the divide or on the other side of the divide, we are keeping the appointment. The times have been fixed, and the seasons unfold and the signs that show up from time to time remind us that despite how hectic and disorganized and how ill-fitted the world may be for the fulfillment of all the prophecies, it is simply going to happen. Hopefully more will repent and return and be faithful, but it really will not matter because there is always enough with the Lord. He has a way of making whoever will come aboard be sufficient for his purposes.

So I hope that as life throws its challenges at each of you, that you remember that some battles can’t be won, they ought to be avoided. And that the coming days are really going to be some of the most important of all days and you are going to have a ringside seat to them. Now whether you participate in the way that you will look back on with joy and rejoicing or you will participate by lamenting what you failed to do, you are going to participate. That is not an  option. It is unavoidable. But if you live according to the light that God gives you, you can live joyfully and no matter what it is you see happening, you can still know that you have favor with God. And I hope all of you are determined to do that.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

The post A Day of Faith and Connection appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This question and answer session followed the talk given at the St. George conference on March 19, 2017.

Transcript

This is based upon both email and written questions I have received.

“Please explain Brigham Young.” (Well, there is the period there.)

Answer: No.

“Why would Brigham Young be seen in the Celestial Kingdom with Joseph Smith by Joseph F. Smith?”

Answer: D&C section 138, which is the vision of the Redemption of the Dead, was received by Joseph F. Smith in the waning days of his life. The church he led at the time was facing enormous challenges and problems at that moment. He had declining health and he was contemplating his own imminent death and concerned about what would come next for him. The vision of the Redemption of the Dead has nothing to do with the problems confronted by the LDS institution he led at the time. It is not an institutional answer. It is a personal revelation to a dying man addressing his individual concerns.

It was important enough to him, that he returned to the meeting of the First Presidency in Quorum of the Twelve and said that he had recently received a series of revelations and that he would write them up.

The visions were received in the late September-early October time frame, then written up, read in the October general conference, and he was dead in November. So, his apprehension about death that the revelation he received addressed, was more than justified. He was dead the next month.

When the document got written up, it was channeled through the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, before it was released. And as a consequence of it getting approved, the language had to be satisfactory to the church’s leaders.

The language about Brigham Young in the middle of that revelation does not hold any reassuring value to Joseph F. Smith about his imminent death, but it is a great comfort to the church and to the members of the church who had followed Brigham Young and his successors.

We do not have a Joseph F. Smith papers project. We also do not have access to the minutes of the First Presidency and the Quorum of The Twelve, those are guarded and only allowed to be inspected very selectively. Therefore what we don’t know is if the reference to Brigham Young was in the original write up by Joseph F., or if it was added by someone, and if so, when?

We know a great deal of how many of Joseph Smith Jr.’s revelations were edited and altered. What was revealed to Joseph was oftentimes recorded at the moment it was received. Many of the originals were not kept, and we have copies of the original. In some cases we have multiple copies of copies, and have the ability to compare different versions. Even some recorded versions that are original and contemporaneous have been changed by later editing; but we have the handwriting to compare with other handwriting samples and therefore can determine who made a change. Sometimes we can also determine when they made a change. That kind of information is available for Joseph Smith, Jr. We have nothing like that for Joseph F. Smith.

Joseph F. Smith testified under oath, as church president, before the US Senate in the Smoot senate confirmation hearings. He was asked point blank if he had ever had a revelation. He denied that he had ever had a revelation. You can read his testimony in Michael Paulos’ book, The Mormon Church on Trial: Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings.

I believe he testified honestly before the US Senate and commend him for his honesty. That was approximately 13 years before his death. But then a month before his death, as he worried about dying, and was perhaps more contrite, humble and reflective than he had ever been in his life, he did receive a revelation and I don’t think he lied then either. Something happened and he did receive several remarkable revelations.

What I don’t know is how trustworthy the manuscript is for the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead (Section 138). Because through the Joseph Smith Papers project we know the LDS church makes changes and edits to historical materials, including revelations of Joseph Smith Jr. What the church has later published in many important documents was not the original content, but altered documents to support later church priorities.

So, if you want to know what Brigham Young was doing in the Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, which is not a document that appears in this new set of scriptures as Chris Hamill explained, then you will need to ask Joseph F. Smith. It is not one of the questions I put to him, because frankly I was not interested in that during my visit with him.

“Is it better to sacrifice individual truth-seeking for the sake of marital unity?”

Answer: One of the documents that is in the new set of scriptures is the letter that Hyrum Smith wrote, his general epistle to the church giving advice. I put a copy of that up on my website, you can read it there, but it gives marital advice and the relationship between the man and the woman is given high priority, above religious obligations, including even baptism. And so get the new scriptures, read Hyrum Smith’s advice, then you reach your own conclusion.

“Did the event involving the woman taken in adultery happen? It is not in the Testimony of John.”

Answer: Here’s my understanding: the incident involving the Lord and the woman taken in adultery really did happen. It was a well-known story that had been handed down all the way back from New Testament times, but it was never in the record of John. As it turns out, the only place that we have it is in the version of the Gospel of John that’s been handed down to us. But that got added by a monk who, like everyone else, believed the story to be authentic, everyone believed the story to be trustworthy, but it wasn’t in any of the gospel accounts. Therefore a copyist put it into John’s gospel but John didn’t put it in there. Accordingly, I did not put it into the Testimony of John. But I don’t doubt the incident happened and I don’t doubt that the Lord handled it in the way in which it’s told. It’s just not John’s story.

“Will you comment on the Testimony of John and explain how it was received?”

Answer: I don’t assert or claim interpretive authority over the text. I will testify to you that the text is a revelation, that it came from God, that it is a gift given to us, and it’s His.

Ultimately everything that is part of the Gospel narrative belongs to the Lord and therefore I believe it would be a mistake for me to begin to announce interpretations related to a document when I don’t believe that I own that right. If I do so, I run the risk of cutting off other people’s insight or inspired reading of a text that may bless and benefit me if I were to hear it. If I close their mind, if I shut their mouths, if I get out ahead of them when they have the right to do so, then I’m the poorer for that and you’re the poorer for that.

Joseph Smith once said that he may have made a lot of mistakes but there’s no mistakes in the revelations. That was his way of saying they are not his property. And I think careful and solemn and ponderous thought about what failed before and the list of the stuff I read that said, ‘this is the criteria of the churches that God intends to destroy’ should make all of us look at the life of Joseph Smith, not merely as a marvelous work by a prophet called of God who accomplish great things, but it should make us ask ourselves:

1. Why did it result in what we see now? 

2. Why did it not result in Zion? 

3. Why did it not result in a temple to which Christ came to restore the fullness or that which has been lost unto you? (D&C 124:28) 

4. Why did it not work? 

5. Why is there a multi-billion-dollar institution and a number of extraordinarily wealthy splinter cults, all of which have absolutely no interest in turning everything back over to the Lord? 

6. What if we don’t have anything to give Him? 

7. What if you don’t have an office to bestow upon Him? 

8. What if we don’t have anything other than the one thing He requests? A temple.

9. What if that’s the only thing we have to give to Him? We don’t have a synagogue. We don’t have a chapel. We don’t have a cathedral. We don’t have an executive office building. We don’t have a Zions Bank. We don’t have real estate developments. We don’t have anything to give to the Lord because we gave it to the poor. 

10. What if the only thing we give Him is the only thing He’s ever asked of us and that is a house, where He can come? 

11. How much different would all of the whore and her daughter’s belongings look? 

12. How much different would the people that belong to the faith, how much different would their lives be lived? 

13. How much more equal would we be with one another?

It is like a quip from one of my friends, ‘it’s a terrible thing to find out your mother is a whore.’ And yet that is where Mormonism has gone. In all its iterations it has become part of the Great Whore. So, let’s not build ourselves another whore. I pose these questions for you to consider, but I’m not going to answer these questions.

Was the wedding at Cana Jesus’ marriage?

Answer: No, in answer to this one. It says on page 3, Jesus and his followers were invited guests at the marriage. That is my understanding, not His wedding. Not that he didn’t have a wedding it’s just that this is not an account of His wedding.

“Could you lay out the Plan of Salvation more exhaustively?”

Answer: Yes, I could. To the extent that it has been necessary or advisable to do so, I have been speaking and writing on the path to follow Christ from the first book I’ve written to the latest talk I have given. Although they may seem disconnected, this has all been one talk, one book, one record. It builds from precept to precept. The most important thing for us in this life is to come to know Christ. A great deal can be learned from studying the accounts in scripture written by those whose lives of devotion and obedience equipped them to know the Lord. Testimony from prophets in ages past give us a standard by which to measure everything in our lives today. Through the language of scripture we grow to know the voice of the Lord.

When we are well enough acquainted with the Lord’s voice from past scriptural records, we can know when His voice is speaking to us today. It will sound the same. It will point in the same direction. It will encourage you to have faith, repent and be baptized, and the voice will grow into a constant companion and you will have a Holy Spirit, a Comforter, a light, the truth of all things, the record of heaven or the Rock of Heaven to abide with you. As that Holy Spirit endows you with greater light, and correspondingly greater faith, you will eventually be brought into the presence of the Lord. Then you can say you know Him. He is in you, and has filled you with life and light, and you will be able to distinguish between voices who testify of themselves, proclaiming a message to divide and dispute, or if they speak the words of our Lord who wants to gather us into unity. He wants us to become one.

We cannot become one when we give heed to divisive voices. Those who do nothing, sacrifice nothing, labor to promote themselves, and idly stand on the sides not providing support and encouragement for us to become unified cannot know the Lord. He does not divide His sheep. He gathers them. He intends to gather us as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, if we will heed His invitation and labor to complete His work under His direction. Disunity does not come from Him. It comes from our adversary, who opposes our unity, our brotherhood, and our peace.

“Is there a tradition we brought over from the LDS church where influential people rely on the authority of their persona instead of putting God’s word as they received it, likely because they haven’t actually received it. Do you think we need to be more careful about this? And is Sidney Rigdon an example of pushing and pulling Joseph to damage the restoration?”

Answer: Well, yeah but I try to be. This one was good.

You can’t just dismiss Sidney Rigdon as an invidious influence. That would be a mistake. Emma Smith was better educated than was Joseph. Emma Smith was a sounding board for Joseph. You don’t need to know much more than one incident in order to grasp what I’m telling you. Joseph Smith was translating the beginning of the Book of Mormon, he found out there was a wall around Jerusalem, and he inquired of Emma, ‘Was there a wall around Jerusalem?’ Emma says, ‘yes’ because she knew it and he didn’t. Emma had a better education than did Joseph and Joseph deferred to her and relied on her.

The Lord called her an ‘elect lady’ and that was not an inappropriate title to have been given to Emma, It’s a title that the Lord’s given to another woman about whom a great deal could be said but I’m going to pass over that. We’re talking about Rigdon.

Rigdon came to Joseph as an accomplished, polished, Campbellite preacher who succeeded in church building, congregation development, ministerial persuasion, he was a polished orator and by contrast Joseph was emerging from a frontier farm cocoon. He was emerging out of an isolated role as a translator. He had not had any requirement to address an audience of any significance. And then came Sidney Rigdon, essentially to the rescue. Here Joseph received a built-in mentor who was capable of providing Joseph with input about the very role to which Joseph was now being transferred. And Rigdon helped him.

Rigdon was so influential that even in his late King Follett discourse, he made an aside to Rigdon. “Mark it Elder Rigdon, I’m going to prove it from the Bible.” and he went on to preach the greatest sermon of his career. This shows the influence, the positive influence that Rigdon had on him.

Rigdon declined over the years. There were reasons for that: The mobbing and the fairly significant head injury that Rigdon suffered, resulted in the inability thereafter to do what he’d been doing to help. His age and infirmities made his confinement in the Liberty Jail more difficult for him because he was older and unable to survive in that environment as others who were younger and more vigorous. There are a lot of reasons why Rigdon may have made some missteps later on.

When Christ established and organized the New Testament dispensation, Christ patterned what he did as a reminiscence, or an homage to the family of Israel. He ministered among the Jews, who prized their family connection to Abraham. The gentiles would not be approached until after His death. But during his immediate ministry, Christ served among the Jews who repeatedly claimed they were the children of Abraham. And as children of Abraham that gave to them the credential that would allow them to pass into heaven. And so, He organized His dispensation with Peter, James, and John, to mimic Abraham Isaac and Jacob, and the twelve apostles to mimic the twelve princes of Israel, and the seventy to mimic the seventy descendants of Jacob that entered Egypt in Exodus 1:5. And so Christ made an homage, a stand up, a mirror, a structure to resonate with the people to whom He was serving to remind them of the family of Abraham.

Sidney Rigdon was caught up in the fire of completing the Protestant Reformation, which had never achieved the potential of a return of the spiritual gifts. Rigdon believed spiritual gifts belonged to the true New Testament religion. The Campbellites did not share that view. Rigdon was a renegade Campbellite by holding that belief. Then Joseph published a book by miraculous means and Rigdon was intrigued by the Book of Mormon, leaves his flock, and his congregational success to travel to Joseph. When he joined Joseph, a lot of fellow Campbellites converted as well.

Rigdon and the Campbellites already believed in a New Testament church. They wanted to fully restore it. They already had faith, repentance, baptism. They already had some expectation of the Holy Ghost. The first principles and ordinances of the gospel did not start with the Wentworth letter’s list (Articles of Faith), they started with Rigdon and the Campbellites and were imported into Mormonism.

When Rigdon came to Mormonism he already had followers, and they all aspired to recover the New Testament church with miraculous gifts included in the bargain. They thought if they could get that, they would then have it all.

Joseph had the dilemma of how to organize the people and Rigdon, who was a trusted confidante, and who had been provided to Joseph for good reasons, helped Joseph in the next phase. Rigdon gave the only kind of counsel one would expect from a restorationist New Testament vantage point. He counseled Joseph to inquire how to structure a New Testament model. Joseph inquired and the Lord answered.

The organization of the restoration through Joseph took the form of a New Testament church. And in the long run it didn’t work. But with time it has managed to aggregate the very list I read you: gain, popularity, influence, etc. It has produced the antithesis of “no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood.” Well, so do you have priesthood? In truth it is nothing to allow you to control others, no administrative right. It is no power over others. It is no influence. How do you then minister? Persuade, pure knowledge, invite and entice exactly as did the three men, Adam, Moses and Christ, who held the greatest dominion in the history of mankind. That must be how we proceed.

When you create a structure, particularly a hierarchical structure, explain how you become of one mind? How does a people become of one mind and one heart when there is no equality? It is the problem that Sister Adolpho raised about the difference between religion and institutionalism on the one hand, and spirituality on the other. If they are distinct, as she said, (and she persuaded me yesterday that they are distinct), then why can we not forget the institutionalism and the religiousness of it all, and simply seek the spirituality of it all? So that we might one day become of one heart and one mind as the excerpt from the email in the announcement of the scriptures project suggested? Hearts unite first, and minds follow after.

If we can knit our hearts together, eventually our minds will follow. And some of you are pretty tough minded, but if you can get your heart united, eventually your mind will come around.

In the draft of the replacement for Section 20, which you’ll find in here, there is a suggestion that one fellowship, if it doesn’t have needs, can assist another fellowship by providing them with sharing resources. I think that should be possible. But it should be by common consent, it should be a one- time only occurrence. If it needs to occur again, it should be again by common consent and likewise a one-time only occurrence. Because when the church at Rome began to aggregate wealth, they used wealth to gain influence and preeminence over other congregations in the Mediterranean world. The influence of wealth led to political influence and over time they obtained universal, hierarchical command, of a vertically integrated church structure. Then all that was needed to corrupt the whole institution was to corrupt the top.

In fellowships, if they are all independent, and all equipped with the same instruction, and they all function independent of one another, it does not matter how corrupt any single fellowship may become. It will be necessary to corrupt every single one of them to kill the whole. You can’t kill the whole by corruption of a single, influential, wealthy entity. Independence and equality provides the truth a better chance to survive.

I think you must be free as fellowships to help one another but if there is a wealthy, regularly financing fellowship, those who receive from it should be just as concerned about the potential for “strings” accompanying the money as the people who are giving should be concerned about the perversity of viewing that as an opportunity to gain power and authority over others. The path of God is razor thin. It may lie in a straight course, but the way in which the Lord walks that straight line He doesn’t even cast a shadow to the left or the right. When you walk that line and begin to see the shadow, you’ve already departed from the path even though you think you’re still on it. You have to question every step of the way; every step you take, and measure every word you speak, because you and I are going to be judged on that basis.

“Can you describe the process involved with The Testimony of St. John?”

Answer: I’m going to talk for a moment about a context. And I’m only talking about context in order to answer the question. The context is this, ‘while the testimony of John has been put together I have the benefit of a word processing program, at times the rate at which the material is being put into the word processing program is so fast that the language is cryptic and I know what it means and I know what it means to say and I’m getting it down but it needs to be… it needs to be dealt with. The entirety of the thing gets finished and as soon as the entirety is concluded I go back to the very first and I work it through… and I work it through from beginning to end in order to make sure that the language, what will be in the paper, accurately reflects what was revealed. So, I work it all the way through and when I’m satisfied that everything is there, with one exception, because I fought to not write a part of the record. I did not care that John said it, I didn’t want to say it as something I recorded. I fought to keep something out also so that I could answer inquiries about whether this was the completed record of John. I could then say, ‘no, it’s not complete.’

I fought to eliminate one part of that story that I did not personally want to see in there, but the project couldn’t be done until it was added. It was the last thing reluctantly added and it is in there. But I went through it another time, this time looking for punctuation and extraneous words. I wanted everything to read like we read, because this is written now. Let’s talk like we talk. I mean thee’s and thou’s and ye’s and all that, that may have had a place back in colonial America and in an age where people were still calling one another “thee” but today that is off-putting. When I went back through it in another review, I was looking for that, and I found two of those, also a couple of words that were in there twice. I don’t remember the words at this point, but there were some words two times. I had to delete one.

When that was all done, then I asked my wife to read it, start to finish. She was not to change it. I asked her to read it to see if there were any errors that she could see in the way the thing was laid out, in the sentence structure, in the paragraph division, in the overall read of the thing. She made several comments that helped me, and some things were turned into staccato sentences instead of run-on sentences. Because short sentences are easier to read than run-on sentences. When that got done, I sent it to the committee and the committee was given free license to do anything with it. I think two people gave to me what they noticed were ambiguous words that could mean this, or could instead mean something else, or could even have a third meaning. And I knew which word meaning it was, so I fixed it. And then, I don’t which guy on the committee did this but the idea was to release it as a downloadable PDF on my website so I could say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s been out there for a while.’ And no one would notice it. But someone alerted the universe, and it came to the attention of Adrian Larsen who has a platform for informing a great number of people. And so, whereas I hoped to disclose here, and to say it had been up for months, instead it has become widely read for months.

I say all that for this reason, as background for this: Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon to scribes, the primary one of which was Oliver Cowdery. Scribes, in longhand, wrote the Book of Mormon. When he ended each night, set the pen down, they started the next day at the place where he ended dictation the day before. No one read the material back to him. They just resumed the work at the same spot. In that way it progressed to the end.

Then Oliver took the whole thing and copied it, and he took it to the printer. Then it was typeset and came out in print. It was at that point Joseph Smith got to read the words of the Book of Mormon in the typeset copy from E.B. Grandin’s shop. So far as I can tell, from the material I have reviewed, between the time Joseph dictated the Book of Mormon and the time Joseph Smith saw it in print, he had almost no opportunity to do anything with the text. It did not matter what he meant, or that he could have clarified something, nor if he would have even punctuated it differently, he did not get that chance. He didn’t have a word processing program. He got one chance to dictate it as he translated it, and then it got written by someone else and it’s off to the printer.

So, when the Book of Mormon was reprinted in the 1837 second edition, Joseph Smith supervised the work and made edit changes. He made further edit corrections in 1840. It was the consensus of everyone, myself included, that we should allow Joseph the right to correct it by editing. I can’t even write a short letter at my law office without rereading it and sometimes correcting punctuation, sometimes rewriting sentences to have them be more clear. Joseph Smith had the right to do that and so the version in this volume is the one that Joseph edited in 1840. The material will all be in the research notes online and available for public view. We do not hide it. But for the published project, the version that he had a chance to work through in the 1840 edition is the one that was the starting point.

“Was Jesus married?”

Answer: Jesus would not have been accepted as a legitimate rabbinical teacher if he had not been thirty years of age and married. If he was thirty years of age and unmarried, he would have been considered illegitimate. He would have been considered irresponsible and not worthy to teach others. As mission presidents say, “a hazard to society.” But He was addressed as Rabbi and accepted as a legitimate teacher. He had to be thirty years of age and He had to be married.

That is no longer part of some factions of Judaism. Some divisions recognize unmarried Rabbis. Some accept women Rabbis. I am not answering about the current practices, but only about how it was dealt with at the time of Christ.

“What is the significance and meaning of the new name David?”

Answer: Okay, the advice I got was to not even mention this subject. I wasn’t going to do it, but Steph and I will discuss me addressing this question on the drive home.

I don’t claim anything from having the name. As far as I can tell there’s only one way in which it matters to me. I do not claim anything of any significance associated with the revelation of a new name, of the giving of a new name.

To me, the only things about it that were noteworthy are: I was first baptized on September 10th, I was also excommunicated forty years later on the same date, September 10th, I was also given a new name on September 10th. The September the 10th on which I received a new name, was 9-10-11 and to me that was an interesting alignment.

The account accurately depicts that I was not happy with the name. To me it was an unwanted, unlovely appellation. Understand, the name David associated with other people is just fine. I know a lot of Davids and I like their name. I have a partner in my law firm whose first name is David. David is a perfectly good name. But the name David when spoken by God suggests to my mind, not my partner or other people I know and respect having that name. When the name is spoken by God, I think of only one individual: That was the ancient king of Israel who, to me, was a moral failure. And so my mind did not run to my partner or to other people I know and love. My mind ran to that man, the king of Israel who murdered Uriah. To me that man and that context is a harbinger of an ill wind, to say the least. So it wasn’t wanted.

The response of the Lord, after I had finished my complaints and I’d worked myself up into an obnoxious and complaining outburst. The Lord’s response was so mild, but cutting, that I thought it reflected so well on Him, that when I was told this has to be included in the scripture project, I thought it reflected great credit on the Lord.

I was willing to go to the grave with no one knowing a thing about the new name. I thought that for the most part the entire way in which that unfolded, reflected credit upon the Lord and showed you how a master teacher can convey, in the mildest of ways, a cutting rebuke to teach. I needed to be taught. His mild rebuke contrasts with my ingratitude, complaining and upset. He was gracious to the inappropriate and ungrateful man He addressed. That contrast shows His brilliance. I think that is the meaning of the event.

Now, I don’t make any claim for anything beyond that.

As far as I can tell the new name has one utility that I have found. When I cannot otherwise get an answer from God to something about which I’m inquiring, I will remind Him of the identity that He gave to me, and state that it is I who makes this inquiry. When I do that He always answers.

If God gives to you a new name, as far as I can tell, its greatest value comes from obtaining an answer to prayer. If you cannot otherwise get a reply, remind the Lord who you are by referring to your new name, that He gave the name to you, and tell Him it is that person inquiring. The answer always comes, in my experience.

We do not have Zion, we do not have the land or even the final location identified as yet. Some of you believe a tradition about its location, but I have written the history involved in identifying Independence, Missouri and will not repeat it again.

We have not built a house and He has not accepted it. Therefore, anyone claiming they are significant to fulfilling prophecy is foolish. Until the work is done, no claims can legitimately be made. Identity of those mentioned in prophecy is only established by accomplishing work on behalf of the Lord. Until they have done the work, none of us are significant. And that will involve work that matters, not such things as writing a vanity blog and barking out your witticisms, or expounding on your vanity, or writing revelations with a lot of personal pronouns referring to themselves. This ought to be obvious to everyone, but apparently it is not obvious because there are a lot of people that are impressed by such vanity.

I hope all of you will feel at liberty to carefully read, mark and to respond to the project that is now underway. I have met with, corresponded with, and spoke with the people who are working on this project. And it goes without saying but it probably shouldn’t be left unsaid: Their wives helped! It is important, I think, that there were women who worked on this project as well. We tend not to say that (but I hope you always just assume that) but given some of the questions that came in, apparently people don’t assume that! Which is another thing, I didn’t get to that question but at some point I do intend to address the man and woman issue. A lot probably should be said. I don’t want to write it up. I want to talk about it. And the next conference in Boise is going to be dealing with the scriptures. It will probably be a year from now, but I intend to deal with this subject. I drag my feet on a lot of things to make sure that the Lord gives me no alternative before I proceed. I am a more cautious man than any of you probably could ever dream.

There’s still an enormous amount to be accomplished and there’s probably going to be departures of many people along the way. That’s a good thing, because if they are clamoring and complaining and are like the children of Israel in the wilderness with Moses, it would be better to leave them with the fleshpots of Egypt. We won’t have contentious people and also Zion. We really do want people to expose their ambition, their pride, arrogance, vanity, lusts and desires. If it is in their heart we want them to let us see their complaining hearts, and to hear their bitter, acrimonious and false accusations. We welcome that, because those are people that ought not be gathered. They should be free to gather into their own collective and do whatever it is they think will bring them joy. But they are not part of God’s people and they cannot be broken by us. Therefore, let God break them. Don’t bring them with us. If people decide to depart and have no further going with us, remember that many people departed from Christ after his “bread of life” talk. So many departed that He turned to the apostles and asked, “are you leaving too?” Peter said, “where are we going to go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” That was not a particularly ringing endorsement, if you think about it. But it was true. There was and still is no other place to go. The Lord alone has the words of eternal life.

I do hope that you understand how weak and vulnerable and easy to be distracted this world is for one of us. I am keenly aware of my weakness. We have one enormous advantage: We know that what Joseph did failed to establish Zion. The people who followed Joseph did not accomplish what the prophecies foretell. That is an enormous advantage if we will take advantage of it. We don’t need to envy anything in any of the various “Mormon” sects, because it didn’t work. Therefore we do not need to try to repeat that. It is a dead end.

I’ve met some of these men for the first time in connection with the scripture project. They are now my friends, brethren to me now, but we were strangers when this project began. I didn’t know who they were or what they were getting me into when I began my participation. And I was gratified to discover that strangers to me were brethren in Christ. Every one of them is valued to me now. Some of the email exchanges that went back and forth thrilled me with the substance and the light and the truth that was commanded by some of these brethren. Clearly, they were called to the task and equal to it, and valued by me, valued by the Lord. And putting it all together and combining everyone into the one group and confronting several imponderable dilemmas gave me an opportunity to prayerfully address some issues that are now incorporated into the text. It is not finished. It needs some corrections. I hope the proposed scriptures are prayerfully considered by people who are going to consider it. It was a privilege to be involved.

Chris Hamill is exactly right, this is not my project. I came late to it and I helped unite the two separate groups into one whole, and I acted as moderator on a couple of occasions as it came to this point of completion. But the labor has been done by volunteers acting on their desire to collect the most accurate restatement of the restoration scriptures.

One of the interesting things about the gathering of Zion is that apparently, even though there may be more revelations and commandments for us, apparently, it will only be in Zion where the “rich treasures” or the records of other scattered tribes are to be added. D&C 133:30-33.These records will allow a great deal of lost information to be recovered. If the revelations and prophecies are correct, the records of the Jews and the records of the Nephites, will be gathered first. 2 Ne. 29:13. But eventually there will be many others that get added as well.

The prophecy of returning Israelites bringing the rich treasures to the children of Ephraim in the everlasting mountains refers to the place that will be built by a covenant people who have the legal right to the land. But we must take care to only do as the Lord leads.

I believe we could choose as a people, a place to build a temple and we would get exactly the same response we see in the Doctrine and Covenants given to Joseph when the Nauvoo Temple began, “ye shall build it on the place where you have contemplated building it…” D&C 124:43. Then we probably would reach exactly the same conclusion and fail to have Zion. I will therefore not choose a site. If God doesn’t choose the site, it will remain unchosen. If God chooses the site it’s His and then He has the responsibility to defend it.

If you read about the approval for a temple in Nauvoo, the Lord said it was acceptable and He would approve it,

“If ye labor with all your might…” v. 44. “And if my people will hearken unto my voice…” v. 45. “But if they will not hearken to my voice…” v. 46. “[P]rove yourselves unto me that ye are faithful in all things whatsoever I command you…” v. 55. Instead of volunteering and asking for God’s permission, we should wait for Him to choose the place of His choosing. Then it is His, not ours. And if it is His there is no condition on His ownership and therefore His protection of His house. It’s His land, it’s His to defend. It’s His choice. It’s His house. It’s His Zion. It will be His New Jerusalem, and therefore, no man is going to ask, “is this acceptable to you Lord?” It must be His, and if it is His, it carries the weight of God having chosen it. He’s known where it is for millennia and He has had prophets describe it. It will be in the everlasting mountains, not on the plains of Missouri. And the people that are going to go there will say, ‘let us go up to the mountain where the Lord has an ensign erected.’ Isa. 2:2-3. That will be His house. He must come and accept it, or we won’t have Zion.

Let me end by bearing testimony to you that however improbable, however unlikely, however even unpleasant it may seem to you that this work by God is happening now, and among this people, and in the way it is happening, it is nevertheless true that God is behind this work. However, off-putting that may seem to you, the test for you is exactly the same test that has been taken from the beginning of time until now. You would not have liked Moses if you do not like this work. You would not have wanted to be with the people of Enoch if you do not like the people whose hearts are softened and who resonate with the message here.

I’m pretty sure in the many mansions to be built for people in the afterlife, there will be plenty of places for folks who hurl groundless invectives at one another, attributing the worst motives to one another. Where they enjoy the company of one another and retire each night saying, “I made a great argument today and I look forward to getting up and bitching up a storm again tomorrow.”

The work of God really is of deep import. We must respect it as a serious matter to contemplate. “Light-mindedness” doesn’t have a single thing to do with a sense of humor or laughter. Light- mindedness has to do with treating lightly things that are really important. Light-mindedness means that you do not assign the correct value to something that comes from God because you treat it lightly. I don’t care how much you laugh, and yes God has a sense of humor. When I’m all dour, and desperate, and pleading, very often the first response of the Lord is a quip about how inappropriately I’m behaving. The first message in the first talk of the ‘ten talks’ was to be of good cheer because our Lord is of good cheer. He takes seriously the things that will save us, but he really does enjoy our company and wishes that we likewise enjoyed one another’s company as we ought to do. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The post St. George Conference Q&A – 3/2017 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This talk was given at a general conference held in St. George, Utah on March 19, 2017.

Transcript

Where are the Adolpho’s sitting? Mahalo!

We face the same test as all others have ever faced from the days of Adam down to the present. Things never change. From the time of Adam, the roles have been filled by different persons in different ages but the conflict is perpetual and the same battle continues from age to age. You can even lift the arguments that are made from one epoch and put them into the next and they fit. It doesn’t change.

Adam taught his posterity the gospel and Satan, imitating an angel of light, declared himself to be a son of God and taught this doctrine, “believe it not.” And most of Adam’s posterity did not believe.

Enoch received a message from God, and the record that Enoch left behind says, “and all men were offended because of him.”

Noah taught the same gospel as was taught “in the beginning” to Adam but his audience claimed “we are the sons of God” and they would not hearken to the message that came through Noah.

Abraham obtained the same rights that were “belonging to the fathers” or to Adam in the beginning, including holding the right of the first born that came down from the first father, Adam. “And those who claim the gospel of Abraham is less than the gospel given to Adam are a false message bourn by a false messenger. Mark it: If they don’t repent for preaching that message in opposition to what the Lord declares both in scripture and by my voice they will regret it.” Unfortunately, Abraham’s own family; that is his fathers, his uncles, utterly refused to hearken to his voice. 

Moses saw God face to face and he talked with him. God gave Moses a work to do. Satan tempted Moses to instead worship him, even declaring to Moses, “I am the only begotten, worship me.” When Moses rejected this demand, his message from God was opposed by sorcerers and magicians who “did in like manner with their enchantments,” duplicating signs shown through Moses over and over again in the record in Exodus. Even after delivering Israel from Egypt, the Israelites wished they had died in Egypt rather than being delivered and freed. And of course, what might have happened – given the qualification of Moses to bring it about – did not happen because the people that he led were unwilling to rise up as they were invited. 

Christ was opposed by Satan who demanded that He worship him, and then He was opposed by religious leaders of the people. The people He went to save conspired to kill Him and ultimately brought that about. 

Joseph Smith was, and is, opposed by those who claimed to follow him, or to belong to a church that was founded by him. If you don’t understand the extent to which the opposition to Joseph Smith arose out of those claiming to be Mormons, take a look at the book A Man Without Doubt and you’ll see that Joseph’s greatest opposition came from those who claim to follow him.

Opposition in scripture seems clear, but when we struggle in our environment, it becomes much more difficult to make decisions about what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, what is of God, what is deception, what is truth, and what is false. That is not a correct understanding because the scriptures may reveal the conflict in sharp contrast but it was no different in that day than it is today. Deciding between opposing sides was not any more clear to those living at the time the scriptures were written than the opposition you encounter every day of your life.

The scriptures were written by or about prophets who took clearly opposing positions from those who were deceived. The clarity you read in scripture is because the views and opinions of prophets were used to tell about the events. But as the events happened, those living at the time had to have faith to distinguish between truth and error, to believe or to ignore a message from the Lord. It is no different for them than it is for the dilemma that we face today. Does the message invite or entice you to believe in Christ and to do His works? Does it get presented in a way that displays patience, long-suffering? Does it use gentleness and persuasion, meekness and love, and consistency with the revelations and commandments found previously in scripture? Or does it appeal to your vanity, to your arrogance? Does it make you proud of yourself, or does it make you instead wish you were a better person?

Humility is absolutely required to progress. The more we think we understand, the less willing we can become to receive more. Joseph said, “It is the constitutional disposition of mankind to set up stakes and bounds to the works and ways of the Almighty.” He also said, “I never heard of a man being damned for believing too much but they are damned for unbelief.” James 4:6 says, “God resisteth the proud but giveth grace unto the humble.” Damnation is limiting progress or stopping progress. Setting up boundaries to what the Lord can do is voluntary damnation. No matter how much you believe you know, if you will be humble you will learn a great deal more. We must continue progression or, if we don’t, we accept damnation and that, too, voluntarily. 

Earlier dispensations have had scripture projects. Adam with Seth composed a book of remembrance written by “the spirit of inspiration.”

Enoch kept a record of the patriarch’s generations, priesthood, and Adam’s prophecy about everything that would befall man till the latest generation of mankind. 

Abraham received the records of the fathers or the first patriarchs which is how he knew about, inquired into, sought for, and ultimately obtained the right of the first born belonging to the first father or to Adam, in a fullness, and thus continued what began in the beginning.

Moses was handicapped by centuries of slavery separating him from Abraham. And so Moses re-wrote an account of the creation, and of Adam, and of the first generations. He established a new body of commandments adapted to the capacity of Israel at that time, and then the people voted in order to accept these as their governing principles. 

Nephi was told recovering the scriptures for his people was essential, otherwise they would dwindle and perish in unbelief. When the record that Nephi was able to obtain on the brass plates was studied, it included an account of the creation, Adam and Eve, and God’s dealings with mankind down to the time of Lehi, including their genealogy and prophecies of Joseph of Egypt. 

When Christ visited with the Nephites, He asked them to bring to Him their scriptural records so that He could review it. He reviewed the things that they brought that constituted their scriptures and He commanded them to fix omissions that had been made in the record. Christ then dictated two chapters of additional scripture to be added to the Nephite record. Only then did He expound all things to them using the scriptures. 

With these predecessor events to inform Joseph Smith, in more recent history, Joseph Smith, like Moses who restored the account beginning with Adam and the first generations, Joseph restored the Book of Mormon as his first assignment. But he was required also to revise the Bible. Joseph referred to the revision of the Bible using the term “the fullness of the scriptures.” The Book of Mormon he called “the Book of Mormon.” The revision to the Bible he called “the fullness of the scriptures.”

In the minutes of an October 1831 conference Joseph made this statement, “God had often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the church. Said the Lord would cut his work short in righteousness and except the church receive the fullness of the scriptures they would yet fall.”

The fullness of the scriptures, or the Bible he was then revising, has never been fully in print. Even the version that has been published by the RLDS Church misses several of the revisions Joseph made. All of them, and in addition a handful of revisions that Joseph made orally during talks that he gave in the Nauvoo era, for the first time are published in the new set of scriptures, in the volume, the Old Testament, and half the volume called the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. The fullness of the scriptures, without which the church would fall, are for the first time now available. 

The people who acknowledged Joseph teachings, also like God’s people before them, accepted the new, and then expanded the scriptures. This is the process by which scripture expansion took place: 

On 17 August 1835, the Doctrine and Covenants, including the Lectures on Faith, were sustained. This is a quote from that event: “It was deemed necessary to call the general assembly of the church to see if the book be approved or not by the authorities of the church that it may if approved become a law of the church and a rule of faith and practice of the same.”

The church published an account explaining how the sustaining of the original Doctrine and Covenants occurred. I am going to read from an article in the Ensign because it contains some important information. This is a fellow who worked on the Joseph Smith Papers Project years before the Joseph Smith Papers Project was underway (and who uncovered dilemmas in the record of the history of the LDS church, including the lack of certitude in the Church’s account about how the sealing power got restored. If you think that the ambiguities about the claims to have the sealing power in the LDS church are glaring, you’re not alone. One of the scholars involved in the Joseph Smith Papers Project concludes the same.) The explanation provided in the LDS Church’s Ensign is as follows: “Since the book was to be presented at the conference of 17 August 1835, several priesthood leaders were apparently given unbound copies to read ahead of time. They were then able to testify at the conference, to the truthfulness of the revelations. After hearing the testimonies, the whole conference voted, first as quorums, then as a congregation to accept the book as arranged. Our present section 134 was also unanimously voted into the publication, as was the section on marriage penned by Oliver Cowdery, which was deleted from the book in 1876 and replaced by Section 132 on the Eternal Marriage covenant. Members who could not attend the conference were informed by the publication of the high counsel minutes of the 17 Aug 1835 in the Doctrine and Covenants itself and in the Latter Day Saints Messenger and Advocate, the Kirtland newspaper.”

I have a real problem, as I hope many of you likewise have a real problem, with the concept that some man or men can vouch for something and say, “Trust me, it’s gonna be GOOD for you to go ahead and take the pill we’re asking you to swallow.” The view that replaces that is the view no one of us is greater than another. No one has the right to dictate. No one has the right to tell you, “trust me.” Instead, everything is being made available in advance for everyone to view so that no one need stand, as was done in the ceremony on the 17th of August when the Doctrine and Covenants was first sustained, when the audience only heard second-hand people telling them, this is a good thing, go ahead and adopt it, without ever having had the opportunity to review it. We ask no such thing. And none of us should expect to be treated that way. We’re all equal, we’re all accountable, and we all should be shown the respect of being allowed the opportunity to review, and that review critically and to comment and to make suggestions, and to advance criticisms and to deliberate, so that when the end of this is reached and people raise their hand to accept it as the basis for governing a body of believers, a body of equal believers, a body of believers who respect one another, they do so knowingly and they do so with the full light of understanding and not trusting some group to tell them, “Trust us — we’re not going to let you read it, but we’re telling you — it’s good stuff.” You’re going to be able to read, to pray, to examine, to criticize, and to determine that for yourself. 

In 1876, Orson Pratt published a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants making numerous changes including adding 22 sections, among which was section 110, for the first time. He altered the text from the third-person to the first-person for section 110. No sustaining vote was taken to approve the changes to that addition. It was simply done and published.

In the October 1880 general conference, President George Q. Cannon held up copies of the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price and said, “’As there have been additions made… by the publishing of revelations which were not contained in the original edition, it has been deemed wise to submit these books with their contents to the Conference, to see whether the Conference will vote to accept the books, and their contents as from God and binding upon us as a people and as a church.’ Then Joseph F. Smith moved that that be done, it was seconded, and the congregation voted affirmatively.” That is published in the Deseret Evening News in October 1880.

In the 1921 edition, which is referred to as the Apostles’ Edition [of the Doctrine and Covenants] – it’s a title that’s given because by 1921 it was abundantly clear to everyone that the apostles had completed their overthrow of the church and that it belonged exclusively to them. In 1921 the Apostle’s Edition of the D&C eliminated Lectures on Faith without a vote by a general assembly. In 1921 the Lectures on Faith were removed, “not because they were called in question, for they are excellent lectures of great value on the principles of faith, but because they were not revelations.” That was the story that was told, and therefore, what had one time been adopted as the rule of faith was eliminated simply by fiat, just like they said trust me in the beginning to get it adopted without people reading it, so likewise it was removed but it was done without a vote. 

In April 1976, N. Eldon Tanner, during a Saturday afternoon session, as part of sustaining Church leaders, got approval for Sections 137 and 138. [Section] 137, in the form that is published in the LDS version of the scriptures, is an excerpt from a larger revelation given to Joseph. The larger version of the same document is provided in its entirety, rather than as an excerpt, in the proposed Doctrine and Covenants.

As we stand here today (or sit, as the case may be) there is not a single church, body, congregation, or assembly anywhere that has published and is claiming as their body of governing scriptural material, a set of scriptures which includes: 1. The Lectures on Faith, 2. Fully print the fullness of the scriptures for every revision Joseph made to the Bible, 3. Faithfully reproduce the original revelations and their original wording, and 4. Adapt punctuation for the Book of Mormon text that avoids imposing doctrinal errors, or which function to govern the existing fellowships among us. But there is a draft, and it’s available for your review, and you’ll have at least half a year to review it. 

Today’s project began more than a year before I was directly involved with it. Chris [Hamill] said that there were two groups that functioned independent of one another, and that’s true enough, but there was one fellow, on his own, who began this project – as daunting as it is, alone – before he discovered that there was a group working and then he joined their group. For the most part the work was done by two different groups. Significantly, they felt themselves called to do this. “If ye have a desire to serve God ye are called to the work” was included over and over again in sections of the current LDS version of the scripture.

These two independent groups, called only by the spirit to do the work, began and completed their work about one week apart without knowing of each other. One of the two groups brought the finished product to me and gave it to me, telling me they wanted me to publish it and they wanted to remain anonymous. They don’t want their names to be included. That group had asked me for permission to include some of the material that I have written and I told them, “Do what you want with it.”

I began the process of reviewing what they had done, and it was markedly different than the current set of LDS scriptures. But I had only had it for about a week, and I had not accomplished much at all in reviewing it when the second group put their preliminary project up somewhere and Adrian Larsen made note of it on his blog. I was surprised to find out there was a whole ‘nother project out there, and I’m sitting here with an electronic version of the whole thing. I contacted Adrian and I said, “Do you know who is doing that project?” I had heard rumors that there was a scripture project, like I’m sure many of you had heard rumors. But I didn’t know who was doing it and I thought the one delivered to me was it. It turns out there was another one altogether different. 

Adrian gave me the contact info for Chris Hamill, who stood up here and is going to take criticism for all this, and he is welcome to it.

I contacted Chris and said, “Have you had anything to do with…?” and he had nothing to do with, and so I said, “Look, this probably ought to be something more than two groups. We probably ought to do something to assemble the parts.” It was still, I think, over the holidays. At my office everyone who was local came to my office and met face to face. Everyone who was in far-flung parts of the world, including across the ocean, who participated in this work joined in on a notebook computer screen and we had a meeting of everyone. 

As it turns out, each group had faced essentially the same group of questions but they had reached slightly different conclusions for good and sufficient reasons to them. But as they reasoned together – one example is both had concluded that Lectures on Faith needed to be put back into the Doctrine and Covenants. One group however, had concluded that the catechisms (the questions and answers) would be eliminated because those were simply pedagogical tools (or teaching tools) used in the School of the Prophets to try and prompt the students in the School of the Prophets to be able to retain the content of the lecture, so that wasn’t necessary. They had eliminated the questions and answers. The other group had included everything, including questions and answers, because at least one person and perhaps more, but one gave voice to the argument [and] said there was some slight ambiguity between the Lectures on Faith and the question-and-answer which allows you to reach a more fulsome interpretation of the meaning of the lecture itself when you consider the question and the answer, and he found value in the catechism. As a consequence of that discussion, everything from the original Lectures on Faith, including the catechism, is now included in the proposed set of scriptures just as it was in 1835.  

In addition, one group was aware (as Chris read to you) that Joseph Smith had announced the intention of publishing both the New Testament and the Book of Mormon in a single volume and the other group was unaware of that. Therefore, they reached agreement that that is the way it ought to be done. Questions about sourcing, questions about what was and what was not to be included, how to authenticate, what steps were taken by one group, what steps were taken by another group, what solutions were reached. They reasoned together. Then there were the difficulties of spelling. It is annoying to spell “vail/veil” two different ways, particularly when veil has a well-known accepted spelling today. There was also the spelling of the name of “Noah”, N-O-E or N-O-A-H.  The decision was made to standardize all spellings and to use modern convention so that to the modern eye it looks familiar. 

Both agreed that they would work together to review again from beginning to end, after they had adopted the same protocols, the entire project. And so more than a year’s worth of work was then redone and re-reviewed by both groups from beginning to end. What you are getting is a chance to review the entire project, gone through carefully twice by teams. Each team reviewed it internally repeatedly while they were doing it. 

When it comes to scripture, corruption happens. Each new dispensation is responsible for fixing the canon of scripture to reclaim truths, to correct errors and to adopt guiding principles applicable to their day. Again, remember the statement Joseph Smith made at the [1831] conference: “God had often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the church, said the Lord would cut his work short in righteousness and except the church receive the fullness of the scriptures that they would yet fall.” 

Sustaining is planned to happen at the next conference after a chance has passed for review of the material. This is necessary for the gentiles to claim they have accepted a covenant and a law. “For behold I say unto you that 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 for the Lord covenanteth with none such save it be with them that repent and believe in His Son who is the Holy One of Israel. …For the time speedily cometh that the Lord will cause a great division among the people and the wicked will he destroy.  And He will spare his people, yea even if it so be that He must destroy the wicked by fire –“ (2 Nephi 30:2, 10, emphasis added). 

Zion will include people who are willing to receive revelations from God and obey commandments. God does this to bless His people. “Blessed are they whose feet stand upon the land of Zion, who have obeyed my Gospel; for they shall receive for their reward the good things of the Earth and it shall bring forth in its strength. And they shall also be crowned with blessings from above, yea, and with commandments not a few and with revelations in their time –they that are faithful and diligent before me.” If you want Zion you necessarily must want commandments and you must necessarily be willing to receive revelations, and you must set aside your covetousness and receive the fulness of the scriptures if you plan to not fall. 

If you take a look around at all those who claim they descend in faith from a tradition which reckons from the prophet Joseph Smith, every one of them is in a state of disrepair. It is like Joseph’s last dream of his farm, overgrown with weeds, with the siding of the barn falling off, which is a vision of Joseph’s not published in any current set of scriptures adopted by anybody but is included among the things that are in the proposal that we would have you make or adopt as a rule of faith. 

If you go to 3 Nephi 21 (which is going to be a different chapter if you adopt a new set of scriptures.) As an aside, I got my set of these. My intent was to read it with a red pen and only mark what I thought needed to be fixed. I didn’t get in it very far before I’m highlighting. There are no cross-references, I’m writing my own cross-references. I’m treating them like I treat scripture. So far I haven’t noticed anything that needs correcting because I’ve been so distracted by the substance of what I’m reading in there. You’re going to have to fix anything. I’m otherwise distracted. When I study the scriptures, and when I read the scriptures or I quote from the scriptures, I’m familiar enough with them so that – in the Book of Alma, if you’re looking at your set of scriptures, it’s on the left hand, it’s on the back side of the turn page: “It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart…” I see where it is in my head because I’m familiar with them. D&C 130, right hand side, far right column, top of the page: “There is a law, irrevocably decreed before the foundation of the earth, upon which all blessings are predicated – “ and so on. I can’t find that in here. I don’t know where any of the material that I know and can quote. For me this is a journey into new terrain. I get more out of looking at these because I cannot read them with anything other than a fresh set of eyes. They are completely different than what I’m so familiar with. I don’t know when the last time the scriptures seemed new to you, surprising to you. These are surprising to me. They are like a gift to have come into existence. I think if you’ll pick them up with an open heart and with a desire to learn something you are going to be taken on an exciting journey into the restoration itself that has become flat, stale, and unprofitable in what is going on around us. 

Christ’s prophecy in the 21st chapter of 3 Nephi of the scriptures that we’re familiar with – I would have no clue how to find or cite it in there. By the way, if these ever get adopted, from then on I intend only to cite from them, and then if you’re reading something I’ve written or said you’re going to have to go in here and figure out how to tie it back into what we’ve got in other publications. I’m not going to do that for you. You’re going to have to pick them up. 

Christ said that it behooveth the Father that it should come forth from the Gentiles. He says, “…the Gentiles, if they will not harden their hearts, that they may repent and be baptized in my name and know the true points of my doctrine, that the Gentiles may be numbered among my people.” 

In the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland temple, Joseph Smith dedicated the temple and identified the Latter-day Saints as “we who are identified with the Gentiles.” If we enter into – as gentiles – a covenant so that we know the true points of Christ’s doctrine, then the gentiles who do so may be numbered among my people. “And when these things come to pass it shall be a sign unto them that the work of the father hath already commenced.  …In that day for my sake shall the Father work a work which shall be a great and marvelous work among them. And there shall be among them those that will not believe it, although a man shall declare it unto them. … It shall come to pass that whosoever will not believe in my words who am Jesus Christ, which the Father shall cause him to bring forth unto the Gentiles, they shall be cut off from among the people who are of the covenant.” 

Joseph Smith brought forth words that have never been preserved or accepted. It’s high time that some people, however few, do so. It is high time that you and I do so. 

“Wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent.  …At that day, whosoever will not repent and come unto my beloved Son, them will I cut off from among my people, Oh House of Israel.” It has been a gift that the people before have failed, because the clock hasn’t been ticking but if a people adopt a covenant and receive what has been restored, the clock will begin to tick. 

“If they will repent and hearken unto my words and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them.”“Church,” not, as sister Adolfo explained, [an] institution. “Church,” as she explained, meaning a spiritual body of believers. “Church” as defined by the Lord in the revelations, not “church” as defined by filings with the corporate Secretary of State identifying an institution that owns property. If you want one of those, go choose, there is an infinite variety. We want that group of believers, that assembly who accept covenants from God and who are spiritually connected, not institutionally connected. 

Many of us suffer from post-traumatic religious stress. We don’t need to go there. We don’t need to repeat their mistakes. We should learn from them. I don’t care who it is among us. I don’t care how soft your heart is, or how inclined you are to follow God. The institutions are such a perfect mouse trap that if I were to call any one of you to be the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve or the new president of the Relief Society, you couldn’t fix it. It cannot be done. The only way is to begin anew and to learn the sad lessons of where it takes you if you go down one route. No matter who it is you trust at the beginning, everything is susceptible to corruption and abuse. Therefore we need to be equal, we need to be on the same footing. 

If we will repent and “hearken unto my word and harden not our hearts, I will establish my church among them and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among THIS remnant.” “This the remnant of Jacob unto whom I have given this land for an inheritance.” It is talking about the gentiles but it’s talking establishing His word, which is a prerequisite to establishing His people. “Numbered among this the remnant of Jacob unto whom I have given his land as an inheritance. And they shall assist my people, the remnant of Jacob and also many of the house of Israel as shall come, that they may build a city which shall be called the New Jerusalem. Then shall they assist my people that they may be gathered in who are scattered over all the face of the land unto the New Jerusalem and the power of heaven shall come down among them and I also will be in their midst. At that day shall the work of the Father commence among all the dispersed of my people, yea even the tribes which have been lost which the Father hath led away out of Jerusalem.”  

Take another look on your own at 3rd Nephi chapter 21, and in particular pay attention to how the words in the covenant play into the fulfillment of the prophecies and the reclaiming of the gentiles to become part of His covenant [people] and then those who likewise inherit, as their possession, this land. 

Recognize that if you want a sign that the work of the Father has commenced, I can think of no more tangible, physical sign to hold up than that the work has commenced and is now available for your review, and if you will receive it can become a covenant that the Lord intends to vindicate. 

Remember that there are more scriptures that are coming. 2 Nephi 29:11-13 tells us that there are records that are out there that have been kept by yet other parts of the ten tribes that are yet to be gathered in. The Book of Mormon itself has significant omissions that are intended to come forth at some future date. But the record that has been given is given to test and to try the people to see if they will accept it. 

As Paul Durham mentioned, no one took seriously the Book of Mormon, really until Hugh Nibley. I wrote about that in Eighteen Verses. When David O. McKay approached Hugh Nibley, he wanted to know if he serious about believing in the Book of Mormon. How can you do that because no one was reading, studying or believing in it. 

With respect to this project, expect there will be opposition. There will be imitation and pretenders. There will be both deceived and deceivers who will be emboldened because there is always a necessary opposition in all things. It doesn’t happen any other way. Therefore, don’t be surprised when, on the one hand, when you take a step in one direction that there isn’t a step taken in the opposite. But at the end of all this, assuming there is some group, however small – as Gideon and his group were reduced from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300; whatever remained was sufficient for the triumph. 

Everyone is free to vote when we have reached the end of the line and they are free to reject it. But if there is some small group who are willing to enter into that covenant, whatever that number is, that will be sufficient. I hope those who remain opposed will allow those willing to enter into a covenant to depart in peace because we’ve allowed the LDS Church, or any of the other various sects to Mormonism, to depart from us in peace. I hope that those willing to vote are likewise given the opportunity to depart in peace. 

Now I’m going to change topics and clarify a few points. 

Sustaining of a priest is only required in order for that priest to function outside a family and as part of a larger fellowship of believers. Inside the family there is no such requirement. I did not go to the trouble of being sustained by anyone until someone outside of my immediate family asked me to perform a priestly function. At that point I told them, while I’m perfectly at liberty inside my family; I have to meet the criteria. So I had to delay what they had asked and I had to go and get sustained because I’m now acting outside of my family. Until that time it wasn’t necessary to do so. Many of you were qualified before I was but God spares no one. I would not dare proceed without meeting the criteria once the criteria had been set.

Seven women must sustain, one of whom is the wife, if the man is married. This ought to be done; we haven’t talked about this but it ought to be done. I’ve talked with people on the scripture group about this. Before sustaining, in any fellowship group, you should first ask if any are opposed. If there are people who are opposed, they should be given the opportunity to explain the reasons before there is any further vote taken, so that they know why there is opposition. Those who vote to sustain should consider the opposing views and the opposition reasons, and deliberate about that before they go forward. But if seven women are still willing to sustain, go forward.

There are three steps. The first is ordination. Any man holding priesthood can ordain another man; anyone can do this. The second, if you’re functioning outside of a family, is sustaining, which requires seven women. Thirdly, and this can be done at any time, confirmation, which must come from heaven. Heaven must ratify. 

All these should precede performing any ordinance in a fellowship. You should keep a record of the line of authority from the one who does the ordination. I would have a written certificate signed by the seven women proving the sustaining vote, and everyone involved should record it in their personal records, particularly when the Lord confirms the authority to the man, he ought to keep that in his personal record. 

I’m changing subjects again: There is an effort to collect funds for a temple project that transcends every group. Other than that one “transcending each group project,” there is no other general fund or aggregation of funds between fellowships. Each fellowship is independent in their own funds. There is no general fund collected even at these conferences. But conference sponsors may ask for donations to help defray the cost of the conference. That’s up to them.

The relief from the donations for “the poor among you” refers to the poor among the individual fellowship. If there are no poor among you, then excess donations should go to the temple, but they can be shared as your fellowship determines by common consent, and that’s up to you, using your common consent.  

When a temple exists, there will be a box in the main courtyard where people can make donations. Donations to the temple will go for two purposes: First is maintenance and repair of the temple. Second, that fund, when that happens in that time and those circumstances, is a general fund for the poor. That fund can be called upon by any fellowship needing assistance with their poor. Anyone who is part of any fellowship is entitled to a request for assistance from that excess temple fund.

There are entirely local and independent fellowshipping groups that are comprised primarily of family and friends. That’s the way that this has and will operate, with only two exceptions. First, conferences can be called that are area-wide, region-wide, or general. Like this one and the one in Boise, and the one coming up this next September in Boise, those are all general and everyone is invited to come to those. Those things operate in addition to local fellowships.   

Secondly, the temple by its nature is general and is the one place that involves all believers, wherever they are located throughout the world. When the temple is functioning, there will be general conferences regularly conducted there. It should be expected also, when the temple is fully organized and operating, that there will be festivals or feasts that will be observed whereas, in the present state of things, such things are not yet expected observances. 

I don’t think the Lord cares whether you want to practice or not, that would be up to you. But the Lord has plans for a temple that go beyond what you might associate typically with a temple from some of your past experiences. 

Funds that are donated to build the temple are going to be fully transparent. At present, the GoFundMe site is public and the funds donated to there are open and public. But in time every cent that is donated will be fully accounted for. The Lord requires a record of donations and expenses. They are supposed to be gathered and ultimately maintained at the temple, and be open for inspection, and I expect will be disclosed at some point online when the full accounting can be made. 

Now I want to refer to a verse, and refer to this verse in the context of the temple. Apply these words solely and exclusively for a moment to the temple. “Do not expect to eat the bread or wear the garment of the laborer in Zion.” If you oppose the work, if you stay your hand, if you refuse and others do the labor, don’t expect to eat the bread or wear the garment.

Now, I want to address the Spirit of Elias, Elijah and Messiah. Or in other words, work to be accomplished by those operating under the mandate of the Aaronic, Melchizedek and Patriarchal division of labor. 

Let me reiterate it again, because there is at least one angry foolish soul out there who persists in redefining the terms when I have defined the terms. So let me be yet again redundant:

Joseph spoke of three divisions of priesthood. He entitled these the Aaronic, the Melchizedek and the Patriarchal. Joseph defined the greatest of these as Melchizedek priesthood because it comprehended all others. I’m not using, and have not used, and have explained before, since Melchizedek has acquired a definition in the heads of Latter-day Saints, I’m not going to try and extract for the bull the line of thought that reckons from that. I’m just leaving that alone and saying, Okay, let me re-define the terms. In my re-definition of the terms, Aaronic refers to the least of these, Melchizedek refers to the next level of these, and Patriarchal refers to the greatest of these, in my nomenclature, not Joseph’s.

I do this, as I have explained, because in the beginning, there was a unitary priesthood. It was the Holy Order After the Order of the Son of God. But in order to prevent the too frequent repetition of the name of the Son of God it got renamed, first after Enoch and then later after Melchizedek. But it is referring to one original, unitary priesthood which is the Holy Order After the Order of the Son of God. Yet Joseph spoke about three great divisions. In the beginning, because the first patriarchs had that original unitary fullness of the priesthood after the Order of the Son of God, and because Abraham acquired the rights of the fathers or the first father, Adam, and therefore like Adam held the Holy Order After the Order of the Son of God, I use the term “Patriarchal” priesthood to refer to that original fullness, and to nothing else. I divide them up into three categories and three nomenclatures using those terms. 

There is the Spirit of Elias, there is the Spirit of Elijah and there is the Spirit of Messiah. These three great spirits unfolded in the work of God in the generations of man in a steady descent. They will be likewise inverted like a chiasm and return in an ascent so that at the end it will be as it was in the beginning. “Now this same Priesthood, which was in the beginning, shall in the end of the [earth] also,” was the prophecy that Father Adam gave, Enoch quoting Adam, and Moses quoting Enoch, the prophecy being contained in the Book of Moses or soon, in the Book of Genesis.

The first spirit was the spirit of Messiah. Adam dwelt in the presence of God. Adam represents that original fullness. Adam was the first man. Adam received instructions and spoke to God face to face. He dwelt in a temple, from which he was cast out, but he dwelt in a temple. Therefore, Adam represents the Spirit of Messiah.

The Spirit of Elijah is represented by Enoch who, when the Earth was threatened with violence and men were to be destroyed because of the wickedness upon the face of the Earth, was able to gather a people into a city of peace, and to have the Lord come to their city of peace and remove them from the coming violence and destruction. He is a type of the Spirit of Elijah because Elijah would likewise later ascend in the fiery chariot into heaven. He is a type of the Spirit of Elijah, because it is the Spirit of Elijah in that ascent into heaven that must prefigure the return of the Spirit of Messiah in the last days in order to gather a people to a place that God will acknowledge, will visit and will shield from the coming violence that will involve the destruction of the world. And so Enoch becomes the great type of the Spirit of Elijah, although the name “Elijah” is associated with a man who lived later still but who duplicated, among a hardened people in a fallen world, the same achievement as Enoch had accomplished, albeit Enoch did so with a city, and Elijah did it as a solitary ascending figure, yet it will be Elijah and his spirit which, in the last days, will likewise prepare a city for salvation and preservation. 

Then there is the Spirit of Elias which is represented by Noah, in which everything that had gone on before was lost. Things begin anew and Noah begins a ministry of attempting to preserve what was before by preaching repentance. And so Noah as the messenger, or the Elias, bears testimony of what once was.

In the end, before the Lord’s return, these same three spirits need to have been brought into the world, in order for the completion of the plan that Adam prophesied about and that was in the heart of the Lord from before the foundation of the world. The Spirit of Elias declaring the gospel has to come again into the world, and it did in the person of Joseph Smith, and in the message that he brought, and in the scriptures that he restored, and in the message and the practices that he was able to bring about, however short-lived that success may have been. Elias and the Spirit of Elias came through Joseph Smith into the world.

We have yet to take the Spirit of Elias seriously enough to move on to receive something further. But we are now facing a crossroads in which it may be possible to restore again and continue the work and move forward. Moving forward successfully however, will require the Spirit of Elijah. This time the Spirit of Elijah is not to prepare a people so that they might ascend into heaven but instead to prepare a people so that those who come will not utterly destroy them. There must be a people prepared to endure the burning that is to come. Just as Enoch’s people were prepared, shielded and brought worthy to ascend so as not to be destroyed by the flood, the Spirit of Elijah must prepare people in order for them to endure the day that is coming that shall burn the wicked as stubble. That will be people living in a place of peace and they will be the only people who are not at war one with another. They will be people who accept a body of teachings and allow them to govern their daily walk; both with each other and with God, so that they receive “commandments, not a few” and “revelations in their day” because that is what the people of Zion must necessarily be willing to do. 

We are promised that one will come who will be part of Jesse and part of Ephraim who will set in order, whose identity will be established by the work accomplished and not by the foolishness and prideful claims made by someone who has done nothing. If the work is done, once it’s completed, you might be able to guess. But any fool can run around claiming themselves to be whatever their peculiar schizophrenia allows them to claim. 

The third spirit that is to return is that spirit which was in the beginning. It is the Spirit of Messiah, this time the Messiah Himself. This time He will come to His house. He will dwell there. Everything must be prepared in order for Messiah to return. And so in the end, as it was in the beginning. Adam being a type who represents dwelling in the presence of God, or the Spirit of Messiah. In the end it will be Messiah Himself who returns to dwell among a people who are prepared. This is a chiasm. It is returning to the beginning as the work of the last days walks backward in time to the point where it all began.

Elias goes before to prepare for a greater work that is coming after, just as the Aaronic ordinances go before. Joseph Smith said the Spirit of Elias was revealed to him, but “the Spirit of Elijah holds something more. It holds the revelations, ordinances, endowments and sealings necessary to accomplish turning the hearts of the fathers to the children by securing an unbroken thread between the living and the fathers in heaven. This can only be done in a temple prepared for that purpose.” I’m reading Joseph. Without sealing of living children to the fathers in heaven, who dwell in glory and who sit upon thrones, the return of the Lord with Enoch and the other thousands who will accompany him would result in none escaping the judgments to come.

I do not like the gentile reaction to the word or understanding of “not lawful” or the term “forbidden.” I think those words convey an idea that today can be easily misunderstood. I think I would prefer those words to be understood that: it is not wise to tell gentiles because they will abuse it when they learn it. It is because of that potential for abuse why man is not capable of making it known but is only to be understood by the spirit. When it comes to a person by the power of the spirit, it comes to them in a way that helps them understand who our Lord is and what He is about. 

Likewise, the word “dominion” in the understanding of the gentile can convey the impression of a prison warden who is exercising control over captives. I think the word “dominion” should be understood instead to convey the idea of a gardener who is responsible for making the garden thrive and grow and bear fruit. To be clear, the three greatest examples of wielding “dominion” in the correct manner that we should understand it are, first: Christ, who is probably without any peer, unquestionably the greatest example of one holding the greatest dominion, and who also likewise showed the greatest example of how to wield dominion. He beseeched people to believe. He pled with them for their own good. He knelt to serve them. He denied that He had a kingdom of this world. He tried to prepare people for a better one. But He was more intelligent than they all and He was the greatest of them all, unquestionably holding the greatest dominion and He wore it as a light thing. His yoke was easy.

Adam likewise, after Christ in this world, held the greatest dominion. But Adam taught and pled and instructed but did not abridge the agency of his children, even when one of his sons killed another of his sons. Adam did not execute Cain. Cain was sent away. Adam held dominion, but he exercised that like our Lord, pleading for the best interest of others, inviting and enticing them, hoping for their best interests.

Then there is Moses, who is called in scripture “the meekest of all men,” and gentiles depict him as a bully and a strongman. Yet Moses saw no reason to be jealous when others were out prophesying; would that all men would do that. Moses, like Adam, like Christ, is an example of how the word “dominion” should be understood.

All three were gardeners responsible for trying to make their garden thrive, grow and bear fruit. In reality, those who have held the greatest dominion given by God have all lived lives of meekness and service. They were the opposite of what gentiles regard as a strongman, the opposite. 

To be clear on what we are trying not to do, which implies what we are trying to do, I want to use a verse from The Book of Mormon. We have to avoid what is explained in Church then in scripture:

“The time speedily shall come that all churches which”…and now here’s a list of the “whiches” that must be avoided because it’s going to end with “need fear and tremble and quake.” They are going to be brought low in the dust. They are going to be consumed as stubble, and this is according to the words of the prophet. That’s where it’s going. This is the list of the stuff that identifies those churches which will be burned up. We can’t do this:

~“built up to get gain.”  The people who put on this conference sacrificed, and lost money to do so.  The people who put this project together volunteered their time to do so. I helped contribute in order to make 25 complete sets of these available for any of those of you who cannot afford to purchase them online. My assumption is that there are young marring couples with children, or perhaps single mothers, who can better use the money than spending it on getting a set of scriptures. And for at least 25 of those, money has been gathered, books have been purchased and they are out in the lobby. I think not all of them were taken yesterday. If there is anyone with a financial need they are free and available online as an electronic version. But in my view, particularly in households with children, these are important to have as objects in the household for the children to see. They are going to assume a form that is less hefty than this. You may as well have the gold plates with this stuff. Eventually we are going to have onionskin, and the size is going to shrink, and they will be a lot easier to carry around. You won’t look like a pharisee if you happen to have your scriptures with you, and you won’t need to work out in order to be able to take them places. But for now, and until they get sustained and they get printed in a more portable and carrier-friendly version, we want to make sure that anyone that can’t afford it gets a copy. If there are still some left, someone reading about the proceedings of this conference online and identifies, through the website that will be available, the need, they will send them to fellowships anywhere in the world. They are only in English at the moment. I’m sure there are volunteers who are willing to do that in the future. “Built up to get gain” is the one thing we don’t do. If you participate in a fellowship you’re probably losing money. If you’re conducting a conference you’re probably losing money. If you are giving talks as I do, or you are writing as I do, or you are assisting in projects as I do, you are probably losing money. I think you’d be surprised at how much money I’ve lost trying to do some good in the world. I won’t tell you the number because I think that ought to remain between me and the Lord. Far from being supported, I work hard to produce a living so I can afford to do some preaching. 

There are churches that are built up to get gain. We can’t do that. We shouldn’t even tempt one another to do that. Realize that every one of us is required to sacrifice and that is a good thing. That is a godly thing. It is a reflection of the sincerity of your heart. If you are losing money because of this, then you are probably pleasing the Lord. And if you are building something up to get gain well, I read you the punch line; you are going to be burnt like stubble, so enjoy the gain.

~”And all those who are built up to get power over the flesh….” Now, having power or influence is as deceitful a thing as riches. I married me a critic and she don’t let me to get proud. We spent two hours hiking. I have joked (she has heard this, a lot of people heard me say this) that my wife “can bitch the varnish off wood” and that’s a really good thing. She has trolled for criticism of me, doesn’t matter how unfair, doesn’t matter how untrue. But she will use that to question, to explore, to require a response to. Some of the most interesting stuff I’ve ever been involved with are private conversations between me and my wife in which I am on the defense! Since I have no influence with her apart from being able to persuade, and since it is my constant requirement to persuade, to explain, it doesn’t matter that there are some people out there who think I have some kind of big whammy influence. The truth of the matter is I believe it is absolutely required of me, every time, to persuade, to use gentleness and meekness, to demonstrate knowledge, and I do not cut myself any slack in requiring of me what I would expect of any man who advances a proposition and declares it to be true. One of the things my wife is constantly on the patrol for is: “Is this your opinion? Is this your best guess? Is this based on evidence that you’ve got, or does this come from the Lord? Because if it’s any of those first things then shut up! But if it is that last thing, then help me understand, because that becomes touchy proposition and we want to be sure on that.” 

I do my best not to get any power over the flesh or, in other words, to put myself to the burden of persuasion. I’ve been trying to expound scriptures in everything that I’ve done, and I’ve been backed into a corner by the Lord on occasion and forced to say something that isn’t just expounding scripture, and I hate that. I hate it when I’m put in that proposition. Because I would much rather tell you what is in the mind of the Lord using the body of scripture to persuade you so that, as one question asked over there: “Who are you?” that won’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. There is only one thing that matters: what does the Lord expect of us? What does the Lord expect of you? What does the Lord expect of me? Let’s figure that out and then do that. 

I don’t care if a group of people get together and accomplish the work. As the work was winding down there were several imponderables that weren’t known how to solve the problem. One of them involved about a two hour long discussion between me and Mike Hamill. He wrote up something following that and that’s in here. Mike Hamill’s name is on that because after I had spent two hours explaining the proposition to him, I didn’t want to write it up and he was willing to do so. He wrote it up; he sent it to me as an email. I made very small edit changes because he really got the gist of it, he really got it correct, then I sent it back to him. He wrote it; therefore his name is on it. There was another about an hour and forty-five minute discussion between me and Jeff Savage on a point that had come up. Fascinating point, and we spent time doing that. Once again, Jeff Savage… I didn’t want to write it. I’m a busy guy and I didn’t want to take that time. It was clear in his mind. He wrote it and he actually wrote it up in a way that was better than the way in which I would have written it. My wife would have edited it. She cuts out words all of the time. But his name is on it because he wrote it but it wasn’t done just freelance, it was done with a lot of discussion and understanding preceding it. Just knowing the right question requires a lot of thought. 

~”Built up to become popular in the eyes of the world…”  As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t matter whether we have 10 people, 300 people, 10,000 or 32,000, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we get it right. If we get it right, God will provide the increase. So “built up to become popular in the eyes of the world” is an irrelevancy and it may sap you of the kind of redemptive power necessary for your religion to matter. 

~”Those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world…” We can’t do that. 

~”And to do all manner of iniquity. Yea in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need fear and tremble and quake. They are those who must be brought low in the dust. They are those who must be consumed as stubble. And this according to the words of the prophets.” 

So let me read the list again of what we are not to be. (I’ve got just another moment and then we’re going to take a break, and then I’m going to sit down and we’re going to answer some questions that have been given, for the last bit of this.) The list of what we are to avoid: We cannot be built up to get gain, we cannot be built up to get power over the flesh, we cannot be built up to become popular, we cannot seek the lusts of the flesh or the things of the world, and we cannot do all manner of iniquity. Those are the things that must be avoided and those who avoid it, however few, however small, that is who the Lord is looking for. That is the group who will be inclined to gather, receive commandments and obey them.

And then finally, this is leftover from Boise. I didn’t have enough time there. When it comes to signs, faith does not get produced by signs. You can’t do that. That is why Pharaoh never got impressed. Signs are inconsequential. Whatever the sign is – it was like brother Pratt was explaining. So what, bad weather happens all the time. The plagues are still going on in Egypt. The remarkable nature of the sign is that it happened on cue, not that the sign happened. I’m having a conversation with a fellow. It involves a true gospel principle. We’re standing in the back parking lot of my office while we are finishing the conversation. I say, “Do you see the dove sitting atop the pole in the distance?” And when he saw the dove it took off. It flew clockwise one circle around us and it landed back on the pole. To him it was a sign. To me it was a sign. If it was a crow and it went counterclockwise, I would say, “Hey, there’s something wrong with you. The Lord told me I’d be okay but I’m pretty sure…” Signs are not controlled by men but are God’s to give as God determines. Signs are not supposed to be the subject of boasting. Some of the most remarkable signs that have been given to me are silently recorded in my journal but are astonishing. Signs exist. Many of the signs recorded in the lives of believers may be unknown to you, but nevertheless there are signs in rich abundance among believers today. The adulterous are the ones who seek signs, according to our Lord, and He said it twice. We know he said it twice because Matthew’s account includes him saying that to two different audiences on two different occasions. Adulterers are sign seekers.

I would include within the definition of the adulterous, as did the Lord, those who commit adultery in their heart; hence the need to reject polygamy by men. It is adultery in your heart to continue to entertain the possibility that you will one day have 72 virgins, or whatever the hell it is that you have going in your skull. Just get rid of that crap. It does not belong in the life of a meek and a humble man, it doesn’t belong there. 

It is supposed to be a 15 minute break. Let’s start again at quarter to twelve. I plan to get out of here by 12:30 so be forewarned. If you can get the books now do it but if not this place is still going to be available for a few hours thereafter. 

The post Things to Keep Us Awake at Night appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This talk was given in Meridian, Idaho on September 11, 2016 at a general conference held in Kleiner Memorial Park.

Transcript

The Doctrine of Christ requires that we repent and be baptized. This is the sign He asks to demonstrate faith in Him. Faith requires action or it dwindles and is lost. The importance to the Lord that we act on His Doctrine cannot be overstated.

Repentance and baptism are directly related to salvation and cannot be left undone. Christ declared His Doctrine in Third Nephi 11:32-40. His Doctrine came from His Father and mentions “baptism” four times. Only the first is positive, the three subsequent times it is negative:

The First time: “…whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God.” (3 Nephi 11:33)

The Second time: “And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned.” (3 Nephi 11:34)

The Third time: “And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things.” (3 Nephi 11:37)

And the Fourth time: “And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” (3 Nephi 11:38)

This is a three to one ratio of negative warning to positive promise. I do not believe the Lord or His Father are negative. This approach is more a reflection on us than on Them. God is extraordinarily positive. But we need the clarity of being told the downside, and to be warned, because, unfortunately, a positive promise does not adequately motivate us.

Immediately following His Doctrine, Christ warns against rejecting, changing, adding to, or altering His Doctrine:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them. And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish 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 stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them.” (3 Nephi 11:40)

His Doctrine also includes this commandment:

“Therefore, go forth unto this people, and declare the words which I have spoken, unto the ends of the earth.” (3 Nephi 11:41)

This is what He commanded to be declared unto the ends of the earth before the Sermon that we got at Bountiful that mirrored the Sermon on the Mount. 

If you believe this Doctrine of Christ, you are required to be baptized and then declare Christ’s Doctrine to others.

The first time I was visited by the Lord, He showed me just how significant baptism is to abide the day of His return. He showed me baptism is of central importance to preparing for His return.

What He revealed did not seem to involve the baptism offered by the LDS Church. At the time I was a devout Latter-day Saint and did not understand how that could be possible. He revealed future events, and therefore for me to understand, more time needed to pass. The things I saw did not appear to give any greater meaning to baptism offered by the LDS church than baptism by any other denomination.

I have since come to understand that the form of baptism in the LDS church has been changed, and no longer conforms to the Doctrine of Christ. Like all other churches, that institution declares both more and less than Christ’s doctrine, and claims to establish it as His.

In the intervening years I have come to see that the baptism offered by you, this people, appears to be the only one offered on earth that meets the requirements of what I was shown by the Lord years ago. For this reason, it is important for us to baptize as many as will accept the Doctrine of Christ.

Since we do not ask others to become part of a new institution, nor demand they accept anything other than the Doctrine of Christ, we can and should baptize anyone willing.

I accepted the invitation to speak here, because the time has come to testify of the things shown me by the Lord in His first appearance on the night of February 12-13, 2003. I saw His return in glory, and recorded what He revealed:

I was lying at home in my bed when the Lord spoke to me, calling me by name, when it ended I was commanded to write an account. As I wrote, the words were given to me, and I recorded the following: On the 13th of February 2003 I saw the Lord coming in His glory. At first a sign appeared in the heavens; a light emanating from a single point, and turning first this way and that, All the world saw it. And men debated over its meaning. At length the light turned upon us, and within it was the Lord, showing His glory, with concourses of angels and the hosts of heaven following in His wake.

And when we saw that it was the Lord, we rejoiced and were filled with joy. I turned to my wife and said, “Look, it is Christ!” and she said, “Yes, it is!” And we were filled with joy and peace of mind, for the long-awaited day of the Lord had come.

But others were filled with dread. They feared and lamented and wanted the mountains to cover them and hide them from His presence, For He was clothed in red and came in judgment. And Christian ministers knew they had taught falsely and that their faith could not save—and they begged for relief from the Saints.

This caused me to marvel at how this could be. It was given unto me to understand that without the ordinances of salvation through the authorized ministers of the gospel, it was not possible for men to shed their sins. And they could not look upon a just and Holy Being without being racked with torment and guilt for their sins. And they pled with the Saints to minister to them, but we could not, for we were constrained by the Spirit, and were forbidden to do so. For this was the day of judgment which the Lord had in His heart, and He was now come to preach His own sermon, clothed in red, and to deliver those who waited on Him and to convict and condemn those who had not.

I write this with my own hand, and bear solemn testimony that it is true, Amen.

When I had finished recording the foregoing account, I replied to the Lord that it was not complete and that I could give a much fuller account. The Lord replied, “When the time comes to bear testimony of this, these are the words you shall use.” And many other things were told me that cannot be written.

These are the words I can use to testify of that event. Therefore, this is my testimony of that visit in early 2003.

The first appearance of the Lord was in the 50th year of my life—an age considered suitable for more than a thousand years for a man to qualify for service in the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God.

The Lord has visited with and taught me on many occasions since then, but never at my insistence. I have never controlled His appearing. My experience is that He cannot be conjured nor controlled. I can petition, but He comes when He decides. The Lord has never appeared to me in a dream. I have always been awake, fully aware of my surroundings, and with my senses unimpeded. When awakened during the night, sleep has always fled, and following such an encounter I was always unable to return to sleep.

The Lord does everything according to His higher way of teaching. By beginning with a vision of His return, He set out the foundation for understanding His course, which is one eternal round. Since His first appearance He has sent divers angels from Adam or Michael to Hyrum and Joseph Smith, giving line upon line, to confirm my hope in Christ. The most important thing for us is to repent, be baptized, and let virtue and righteousness guide our thoughts, deeds and words. We ought to deal fairly with one another, and to be kind. You may remember abuses from priesthood “leaders” in your last church. Do not bring that with you. Leave behind all the sins and errors found in other organizations and show Christ-like patience and charity to one another.

We follow Christ to become more like Him. He requires faith, repentance and baptism, and bestows the Holy Ghost to bring all things back to our remembrance. 

When we hear Christ’s message to repent and be baptized, it is our duty to respond, and then warn others so they can escape the coming judgment. The whole world struggles under a burden of sin that we are powerless to remove without Christ. He suffered and overcame the sins of the world so we can avoid the consequences of sin, on condition of repentance and baptism. As He explained in a revelation in 1829:   “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink [in that context the word shrink means cower- Christ cowered]. Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power;” (D&C 19:16-20.)

When the Lord spoke to Joseph in 1829 about the atonement, He mentioned only suffering in Gethsemane, not His death on the cross, because it was in Gethsemane His greatest work was accomplished. I was shown it, and have given an account in the book Come, Let Us Adore Him. 

In order for His work to be completed, He had to die. Death allowed Him to attain the resurrection and break the bonds of death.

As the Lord approached death on the cross, one of the last things He spoke came from a prophetic hymn or psalm. He chose that hymn to testify that His suffering at Golgotha had been foretold in scripture. He sang only the Hymn’s first line: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The hymn says much more, as those present would have understood. It continues:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? …  Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.  But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,  He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. … They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.  I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me. … All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the LORD’s: and he is the governor among the nations. …  A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this (Psalm 22:1, 4-8, 13-19, 27-28, 30-31).

He was the chosen Messiah, and He fulfilled that role exactly as it needed to be done. We should follow Him and do what is asked of us—exactly what is asked: nothing more, and nothing less.

When His life ended, He shouted His triumph: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Mark and Luke record that He did this “with a loud voice” (Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46).

For His atonement and sacrifice to have the greatest effect, we must preach the Doctrine of Christ.

The scriptures do not foretell any great numbers will repent. Christ said, “I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion” (Jer. 3:14). 

Too few, perhaps, to impress the world: But the Lord does not view things as do men. The Lord describes those who respond to His invitation as “His elect.” He explained, “mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts (D&C 29:7).

Nephi foresaw how few believers there would be in the last days; he… 

…beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw (1 Ne. 14:12).

The Lord requires us to invite the world to repent, but not to expect large numbers to do so. Numbers matter to man, but the hearts of men matter to the Lord. It is the quality of conversion, not the quantity. He always spoke of having “few” sheep. Of the likely billions living at the time of Enoch, only some few thousand were saved (see Jude 1:14), and only eight by Noah (see 1 Peter 3:20; D&C 138:9). The end times will be like those days (see Matt 24:37; Luke 17:26).

The Lord charges us as He did Ezekiel:

I have made you who have received these tidings to be watchmen unto the scattered house of Israel; therefore you shall hear the words of my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul (Eze. 33:7-9).

The Lord said in 1832, and again now, “Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor. Therefore, they are left without excuse, and their sins are upon their own heads” (D&C 88:81-82).

We are to warn and invite, but not expect many to respond. We have no obligation to dispute, contend and debate with others to overcome their resistance. The Lord warned us about using “contention” to advance the truth about His Gospel:

And according as I have commanded you [and by the way these words were spoken by the Lord immediately preceding the Doctrine of Christ] and according as I have commanded you thus shall ye baptize. And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been. For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away (3 Ne. 11:28-30).

We mustn’t argue about our faith but declare it and leave it for the Lord to confirm our testimony.

If by force of argument, or attractive personality, we bring others to accept baptism, it’ll do little good. Such people are not converted to the Lord, and remain vulnerable to persuasion by the next argument, or the next attractive personality that, when they encounter, they depart from the faith. It would be better if they were not brought in than for them to accept baptism and then turn from forgiveness to wander off into darkness, rejecting the light. Often it is the failed convert that later becomes an opponent. Only let the words of Christ convert, as they call out to His sheep.

In the tenth talk, given in Phoenix two years ago, you were warned about false spirits, as happened in Kirtland, which you were warned would come among us. That warning has proven true. False spirits have misled some into foolish errors. I am astonished at vain, foolish and prideful ideas that are anti-Christ, degrading and dark, but have been welcomed by some. Remember Pharaoh’s magicians also enchanted their rods to become snakes (see Exo. 7:11-12), and conjured frogs to mimic the sign given by God through Moses and Aaron (see Exo. 8:7.) Pharaoh’s heart was hardened by these imitations. Do not let yours become so likewise.

For two years I have watched, attended some of your meetings, gathered reports, and tried to let you stand and display your strength and understanding. Even God left Adam and Eve in the Garden and allowed Lucifer the common enemy to tempt and try them, promising to return again to visit them. They transgressed His commandment, and He provided the means to cover their shame, repent and return. He also promised to later send messengers. But God did not “babysit” Adam and Eve, informing them that it was given unto them to choose, even when He forbids something. God is the same now as in the beginning. We are all required to display our understanding, obedience and prove our understanding. 

People have come among you preaching falsehoods and inviting others to follow false spirits: Adulterers and adulteresses who justify sins and mock the commandment “thou shalt not commit adultery.” (Exo. 20:14.) False claimants are pretending to seal others up to eternal life, changing the ordinances and introducing foolish and vain ideas borrowed from pagans and heathen, who do not know Christ nor His righteousness. I do not oppose them directly by debate or counterargument. I declare the truth and leave it for everyone to decide between clearly opposing teachings. If people cannot discern, then they will need to learn from sad experience to choose between good and evil, perhaps only coming to understand after their destruction in this world.

There are those who use well-reasoned arguments to expound their understanding of scripture who have declared with certainty it is impossible for what I say to be true. These voices come from both the fearful anonymous and proud academics. I do not respond to either.

In a letter on August 24, 1834, Joseph Smith described the only way falsehoods could be avoided.  He wrote:

If the Saints are very humble, very watchful and very prayerful, that few will be deceived by those who have not authority to teach, or who have not the Spirit to teach according to the power of the Holy Ghost, in the scriptures (JS Papers, Documents Vol. 4, p. 117).

Only the truth is at issue. Individuals other than Christ do not matter. The message I have and do preach is from the Lord. His sheep hear His voice. If they accept it as His, then deceivers, false spirits and men’s learning are powerless to destroy faith in Him. He promised He “will take care of our flocks” (D&C 88:72) and therefore it will be Him, and not me, who will keep His flock shepherded.

Following Christ’s death, He was buried and rose on the third day. I know He lives for I have seen Him. He showed me the morning of His resurrection. I testify as a witness that He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, as the Gospels declare. Like those who wrote the New Testament, I am also a living witness the Lord rose from the dead:

When I saw His resurrection, I was surprised to see it was still dark. I had always thought it occurred at sunup, as the return of daylight symbolized the return of life. But it was dark. The Gospel of John is the only one that mentions the darkness of that morning. Even so, it never registered to me that Christ rose in the darkness of that early morning. … He did rise from the dead. We rejoice because it is true. As so many others have done before, I can add my own witness that He rose from the dead. I was shown it. It happened. He who died on the cross rose from the dead and He lives still. (Snuffer Jr., Denver C., 2010-12-24. Come, Let Us Adore Him, pp. 249, 257).

All four Gospels give accounts of Christ’s resurrection:

• Matthew: tells of two women, both named Mary, who were first to come to the grave, where an angel informed them of the resurrection, and told them to go tell others.

• Mark: states it was also two women, both named Mary, who arrived first to the grave where an angel informed them Christ was resurrected. Other disciples did not believe their testimony.

• Luke: tells of several women who saw the empty grave, were told He had risen by two angels, and then went to testify to the apostles. But the apostles thought the testimony “seemed as idle tales, and they believed them not.”

• John: wrote that Mary Magdalene saw, even embraced the risen Lord, and related to the others her testimony of having seen Him returned to life, resurrected from the dead! 

[These] accounts differ in the details. [They have] similarities and differences. They are universal in the fact that Christ was seen by the women (or [a] woman) first, and not by His Apostles. [John’s account] records that Christ told Mary: ‘Touch me not.’ In the Joseph Smith Translation the words are changed to read: ‘Hold me not.’ (JST-John 20: 17.) Joseph’s change of the text was warranted. [I tell you that] when Mary realized it was Jesus, she embraced Him joyfully. She did not timidly reach out her hand, but she readily greeted Him with open arms, and He, in turn, embraced her.  It is difficult to describe what I saw of the incident, apart from saying [that] the Lord was triumphant, exultant, overjoyed at His return from the grave! She shared His joy. I was shown the scene and do not have words to adequately communicate how complete the feelings of joy and gratitude were which were felt by our Lord that morning. As dark and terrible [as] were the sufferings through which He passed, the magnitude of which is impossible for man to put into words, these feelings of triumph were, on the other hand, of equal magnitude in their joy and gratitude. [He had attained to the resurrection of the dead! Just as He had seen His Father do, He likewise held the keys of death and hell!] I do not think it possible for a mortal to feel a fullness of either. And, having felt some of what He shares with His witnesses, I know words are inadequate to capture His feelings on the morning of His resurrection. He had the deep satisfaction of having accomplished the most difficult assignment [to be] given by the Father, knowing it was a benefit to all of His Father’s children, and it had been done perfectly. Mary and Christ embraced. There was nothing timid about the warm encounter she had with Him. Then He said to her, ‘Hold me not’ because He had to ascend, return and report to His Father. Joseph Smith was correct when he [changed] this language. I then saw Him ascend to heaven. I saw the golden heavenly light glowing down upon Mary as she watched His ascent. All this happened while it was yet dark on the morning He rose from the dead. He has shown this to me and I can testify to it as a witness. (ibid, pp. 256-7.)

The Lord’s public execution was designed to humiliate Him. Onlookers were expected to have contempt for anyone executed that way. He foretold that “the world shall rejoice” (John 16:20) at His disciples’ sorrow.

In contrast, His triumphant resurrection was private. He appeared only to a few and initially only to women. He endured public shaming, reserving His greatest triumph to quiet privacy between confidants. Our Lord is meek, and although greater (see D&C 19:18) and more intelligent than us all (see Abr. 3:19), yet He condescends to speak with us in plain humility (see Ether 12:39.).

He is the only means for salvation: “there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.” (Mosiah 3:17.) Anyone who claims otherwise is deceived or dishonest.

I testify of Him in a day when most people do not believe it possible for my testimony to be true. I ask nothing of you. But I do testify truthfully. 

The Lord has taught me a great deal more than I can discuss. This talk can only be given because there are some few here who will believe, and the Lord respects your faith. 

If Zion is ever founded, its residents will fulfill the prophecy of Habakuk: “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14.)

It shall be as Jeremiah prophesied: And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.” (Jer. 31:34.)

But the knowledge in Zion will be of and with Him. Zion will be like Him, without envy, strife, jealousy, ambition, pride and covetousness.

Until that day the Lord will send witnesses to testify of Him. The world is filled with deceit, and some men make claims to have authority from Christ as their basis to ask for obedience, support, trust and property. I ask for none of those things. If you want to donate money to the Lord, then do it as part of a community of believers and use the donations to relieve the needs of the poor among you. If you have no poor among you, donate to build a temple.

In a letter written August 16, 1834, Joseph Smith expected Zion could be established very soon. He wrote, “we have a great work to do,  but little time to do it in and if we don’t exert ourselves to the utmost in gathering up the strength of the Lords house …there remaineth a sco[u]rge” (JS Papers, Documents Vol. 4, p. 106.) In the same letter he reminded people in his day that, “so long as unrighteousness acts are suffered in the church it cannot [be] sanctified neither Zion be redeemed.” (Id., p. 107.) At the time, he considered the church to be “in a languid cold disconsolate state.” (Id.) It was the opposite of the lively, confident and happy state accompanying righteousness, even when worldly circumstances are direful and the wicked seem to triumph. When doing what the Lord asks, we can be lively because He will accompany our efforts and add His strength to our labor. If we have a hope in Christ, we can be confident. If our sins have been forgiven, we have every reason to be happy.

Virtue and patience are required of us every bit as much as it has been required in every age. We cannot wallow in sin, nor be prideful, and expect to do any better than those who have already failed. The best guard against our failure is humility, meekness, longsuffering and patience. We must not charge ahead when the Lord has not prepared the way for us to proceed safely. There’s much still to be done. But it must be done when, where and how the Lord directs; and that also not in haste—because haste brings confusion, resulting in pestilence, including violence and jarring contentions (See D&C 63:24).

From emails and phone calls I have received since my talk in Moab, it is clear there are those who want to move now, in haste. There are ambitious men who offer to lead others hastily into new paths, claiming to be so mighty and strong that they can offer great rewards in the afterlife in exchange for following them here. I offer you no such thing. You must look to Christ for forgiveness of your sins, and follow His example of self-sacrifice, patience, obedience and virtue. I can only urge you to patiently allow the True Shepherd to guide us all into His pastures—showing Him the respect due to a Redeemer.

I mentioned the idea of “Kingship” in Moab. Remember the Great King, Christ, came not to be served but to serve. He did not “lord it over” others, but He knelt to elevate them. He came as a meek and lowly servant and went about doing good. He died to save the lives of others. When He arose from the dead, He went to the Father and advocated forgiveness for those who despised and abused Him.

What kind of “king” would God send? Even if his bowels are a fountain of light and truth, and even if he were to hold the scepter of power in his hand (see D&C 85:7), I doubt a king sent by the Lord would be markedly different than our True King. He would endure the abuse of misunderstanding, criticism and mockery from those who refuse to understand. He would serve patiently, never asserting any claim to greatness. Joseph said in this world “the more a man is exalted, the more humble he will be, if actuated by the Spirit of the Lord.” (JS Papers, Documents, Vol. 4, p. 198.)

When such a king dies, and returns to God to report, he will have only kindness for those who opposed him as he served God. WE should ALL be like that. We should all be like our Lord.

Christ’s greatest commandments were simple and given to every one of us: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy [might] mind.” (Matt. 22:37.) “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matt. 22:39) “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 7:12.) If we do these things there’s no time to proclaim our greatness, to assert the right to be a leader, or to command others. Servants do not strut but behave meekly. They only take such acts as the True Master commands.

I recently had a vision that began as a dream. In it I was traveling in a small car up a mountain road. The road was steep, but straight, and it grew steeper as it climbed upwards. On the left side of the road there was a railroad track running parallel. As we drove the small car upward, I noticed a sharp bend in the railroad tracks ahead that interrupted the otherwise straight course of the line. I saw a train approaching from uphill in the distance coming downhill rapidly, and it seemed to be going far too fast to safely negotiate the sharp bend in the tracks. The small car we drove was not quite to the bend when the rushing train hit the bend, leapt from the tracks and violently crashed in front of us. Our little car narrowly escaped a collision, as the train’s wreckage spread about. As the small car continued upward, the train crash worsened, at first beside the car, and then as we accelerated, closely behind us. The little car got ahead of the continuing wreck of the moving train, and I could see the train was full of passengers who, uphill from the wreckage, were enjoying themselves. They were paying no attention to the disaster already befalling their train. We began to shout out the windows of our car, trying to warn the occupants in the doomed train, but they gave no heed. They laughed and partied aboard the train with no concern for their impending destruction.

I could see the wreckage behind me in the mirror as the violence of the wreck threw shattered railroad cars about, some onto the road behind us, making the road now impassable. We were powerless to save those aboard the train because they would not hear the warnings we shouted to them.

As we reached the top of the mountain, the last of the train went by, and I stopped the little car. We got out and stood in the roadway looking down the mountain and watched as the last of the train was destroyed. While mourning over the many lives that had been lost, I awoke from the dream and sat up on my bed, but the vision continued.

I next saw in the distance, beyond the train wreckage, an overpowering flood, as if it was a great fire, consuming and destroying all the country coming from the east. Although we had survived the train wreck, it appeared certain we would all be killed in the coming flood. I looked about for any sign of hope we might survive and noticed beside the roadway a great rock with an opening. I led the small party to the rock and discovered the opening was for a cavern that went upward within the shelter of the rock. We entered the cave and climbed upward. Inside the cavity of the rock, our small group waited as the flood approached, unsure whether we would live or die. The noise of the destruction outside was deafening as the flood approached, and then the opening of the cavern went black and we were left in complete silence and darkness. We waited. In a few moments the light returned but silence remained. After a few more moments our small group emerged from the rock’s cavern to see what had transpired with the world.

The scene of destruction was astounding. The entire landscape was transformed. It was destroyed. The wrecked train, the tracks and the road had all been consumed. Everything appeared barren. Then suddenly new life began to spring forth in the widespread desolation. Barren trunks brought out new limbs, blossoms and leaves. Flowers sprang from the earth. As we watched, the earth was quickly transformed, and in a short time the denuded desolation was full of life, beauty and fertility much beyond what had gone on before the flood of fire had destroyed the landscape. At this point the vision ended and I was given the interpretation:

The train is the false religions of the world. The occupants of the small car are those who repent and accept baptism. The protective rock with the cavern is Christ.

We must invite others to join us in baptism. However great or little our success, others must be invited.

You must each decide whether I am sent by Him and acting as a true witness, or whether I am just another of the many deceivers who use God’s name in vain, having no authority. I claim to testify to the truth and do not deceive you; and I claim that He has sent me to preach deliverance from sin by obedience to Him. It is His Doctrine that all mankind should repent and be baptized in His name for the remission of sins. If you do so He will be faithful and forgive.

Repentance means to turn from whatever else is distracting you and face God. Heed Him, follow Him and obey His will. Repentance substitutes virtue for sin, trades weakness for strength, and remakes us heart, mind and spirit into a new creature—a son or daughter of God.

I know I am no better than any other man. My weaknesses and foolishness have provoked the Lord to sternly rebuke me on several occasions. My many shortcomings cause me to mourn and wish someone else were responsible for the things entrusted into my hands.

But I will not refuse the Lord. He warned long ago that once we begin, we cannot look back—therefore I dare not depart from the course, no matter how difficult. Like you, I hope to do what the Lord asks, when He asks it, in the way He requires it to be done; and I leave everything else to the Lord.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

_____________

Now, I was asked by the organizers of this to deal with some questions that people had and that will be what we turn to next:

There was a debate over how best that might be done, and at one point we thought about putting a microphone up and ultimately the decision was made to just solicit questions, get them in, let me look at ‘em, organize it and just respond. And last night in going over them, there …, the way in which I am gonna proceed now is the way that we ultimately came to a conclusion on how to proceed, I’m simply gonna talk to address the topics that were raised, and first of all I wanna be clear that — questions that had been asked about Elijah and the appearance of Elijah to Joseph, and that stuff — in the book, Passing the Heavenly Gift, there is a beginning discussion about Elijah and the incident in the Kirtland temple that is in D&C Section 110 that introduces the subject. Then there is an elaboration, because all it does is talk about the historical issues, questions, and dilemma. Then there is a fulsome discussion called The Mission of Elijah Reconsideredthat is a PDF. You can go to the website, download it, print it out (I think it’s 40 pages or so), and it discusses that topic. 

And that’s an example, if I have already written, talked, spoken, or addressed a question that got raised — I understand that there are people who haven’t had time, they may have been recently aware of this group of people or these issues, and you may have just begun the process of trying to get your hands around topics. But the best use of time is not to go over what is already available in writing and already out there. The best use of time would be to go and to talk about something new or different. And so, I wanna encourage you to look at the site and the material that’s there, because it’s all publicly available and intended to address such matters.

I have to say that I have been extremely impressed by the conference, the Boise believers group that has organized this has done a remarkable job, not just with arranging things but with — I guess the best thing they’ve done so far is to invite those two women to speak. Annett yesterday and Lisa today. I mean I can see why the Lord first came and visited with the women; it just makes a lot of sense. I thought they were the highlight. And of course, the next highlight is that right now I get to stand in the shade and you poor people are out…, I used to be out there; it’s hot, but I’m cool. 

But the women reminds me of something that I wanna point out. There’s all of this competitiveness in the institutional world of Mormonism that has grown out of a profound misapprehension of priesthood, and there’s this envy of priesthood. And part of the problem that has been created is because of the correlation process that has sucked all government in the church, all budgets in the church, all right to publish in the church, into the presiding authority through correlation that now runs everything.

The Relief Society used to publish independently their own magazine. The Relief Society used to independently have a budget. They used to collect their own money. They used to administer their own funds. They used to decide for themselves. They had their own granaries. They ran the relief program. The women did — independent of everyone else. Correlation robbed them of all that, took it all over, raked it in a pile, and said “it’s all mine,” and now it’s under the thumb of one guy who sits at the top of that.

Don’t be misled by a false model that you look out and you see somewhere else. Look, we admire a man — we — believers and followers of the Lord — admire a man so much so that the priesthood was renamed after him, because he was the last one to really accomplish Zion, that is Melchizedek, priesthood was named after him. You go and you look carefully at why Melchizedek qualified to obtain the priesthood, and it was because he, by faith, quenched the violence of fire, he subdued lions, by faith he achieved all these things — not by priesthood; By faith.

If you wanna know what one can accomplish without faith but with an ordination to the priesthood, there’s a whole discussion of that in A Man without Doubt about the first attempt to distribute the highest order of priesthood in Joseph’s day. There’s a description of what an utter failure that was. In fact, it was so great a failure that what Joseph did was he backed up, and he started over again with trying to solve the problem. And The problem did not consist of priesthood — it consisted of the lack of faith. The lectures on Faith are an attempt to create faith that will have power which is separate from Priesthood.  

Men, women, and children can have faith. There was a time when the Mary Fielding story had her anointing her oxen and healing them. In the world of the correlated LDS model, she’s now calling for the equivalent of Home Teachers to come anoint her oxen. Mary Fielding’s faith was what healed the oxen.

Would you rather have priesthood without faith, or faith without priesthood? If you have faith, everything else is possible. Faith is what is lacking. It is the more important. And not this priesthood envy. 

Oh, the trouble I could get into, going too far. Look, at the end of the day, Peter did not hold any greater or different authority when he came back from a mission and said, “we couldn’t cast out any devils, we’re bringing this person to you, Lord. I mean, whatever it was you gave us, whatever that ordination thing was, it’s just not working.” And then Christ said, “well this kind come not out except by fasting and prayer.” (Matt. 17:16-21.) Meaning that there is a work to be done to subordinate the body in order to give the strength to your faith necessary to achieve something.

Peter had absolutely no different ordination than when he entered the temple following the Lord’s resurrection and said, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto you. In the name of Jesus Christ, arise, take up your bed and walk” (See Acts 3:1-7).

What Peter had that was different was faith. His ordination amounted to no power, but his faith in Christ healed the sick. And that is not controlled by Institutions. That is not controlled by ordination. If you want to know how it’s controlled, study the Lectures on Faith and then listen to what Lisa had to say this morning, because she was right on the money.

So briefly then, to cover the topics that were raised: A temple is the Lord’s House. It’s not actually a temple unless He comes to, visits and accepts it. And then it is His house until it has been profaned. Therefore, when it is the Lord’s, the timing of when it is to be built, where it is to be built, how it is to be built, and exactly what it is that He wants to be built, are entirely within His control.

We don’t have the right to select a spot. I mean If you read carefully the word of the Lord in D&C section 124, he does say to the people in Nauvoo, “the site that you have chosen for the building of the temple is acceptable” (D&C 124:43). But remember that the Lord has everything in front of Him, and therefore it’s acceptable. In other words, yeah that site will do, just like any other site you wanna choose will do, given where I know you’re headed! Given the end result of this massively stupid experiment that you’ve got under way at present, build the temple there, build it anywhere. It’s acceptable to me, go for it.

Now, I want you to know something. The Lord goes on to say, “if you will do it and if you’ll follow me, if you do, if you meet the conditions, I will come there and I will not only make it my house, I will protect you. You will not be moved out of your place. I will be the one who establishes you in this spot, and I will protect and defend you, and this will become the corner of Zion” (see D&C 124:44-45).

And He meant it when He made the promise. But again, He knew what was about to happen. He knew the hearts of the people that were involved. It doesn’t matter how eager or earnest Joseph or Hyrum were; it doesn’t matter. You don’t have a temple without a people, and we did not have the required people at the time.

Now, I have been contacted by a group of women. Again, just like the best speakers, I think, have been the women, a group of women are currently organizing a mechanism. Our first obligation in donating and paying tithes is to take care of the poor. But there are fellowships I know that have accumulated money beyond their needs, and there are a group of women that are organizing and making the means available for gathering excess for the construction of the temple. And I assume that eventually the means will be provided from among ourselves for the accomplishment of that work. I have to say that I do believe that when the command is given, that the command to build the temple is not going to give us decades to respond. I think that when the command is given, we’re expected to act with some dispatch to accomplish what has been requested of Him. And so, I am personally grateful that there is no command out there at present to do so, ‘cause I don’t know how we would accomplish it. We’re not supposed to do it in haste, but we’re supposed to prepare every needful thing. And preparing every needful thing, we might be in a time when it’s far more convenient to accomplish it now than it will be later under more pressing circumstances.

I was asked a question about my comments concerning astronomy. We’ve got…, there’s a fellow…, he looks rather vagrant, wandering around here, John Pratt. John…. 

Oh yeah, there you are. Please stand up. Keep your hat off so they know just how unkempt you really look.

John has an entire website where he has been dealing…. His primary work has been in looking at the calendars and trying to sort through the relationship between events and the Lord’s dealing with men and the calendars that have been established.  And if you’re interested in looking further, John has done some terrific work, and I believe his life has been spared and prolonged, in part, in order for him to have been of some assistance in dealing with some questions that he and I have spent talking about from time to time. And I would refer you there if you’re interested. 

The answer to a question about “Can I tell everything I know about heavenly mother?” is “no, I can’t tell you everything I know about Heavenly Mother.” But I can comment about a couple of things. When we get to the creation, the creation says that “in the image of God created He, him, male and female created He them” (Gen. 1:27). Meaning that the image of God, I mean, as they look down upon the man Adam after the creation of Adam, in the story that we have in Genesis and in Abraham and in the temple endowment, the conclusion is always the same: When you look at Adam, you’re looking at part. Is it good for this? No. This is not good for him to be alone! Are you kidding me? The first thing he’s gonna do is to smelt iron, make a pocketknife and carve his initials all over the damn garden! I mean, we have to do something to get this to be good. And how do we get this to be good? Well let’s make a companion and a helpmeet for him. Helpmeet…, helpmeet means getting him there. Helpmeet means he’s broken and in a disabled condition and she’s going to be the solution to the problem. 

Yesterday, as we were navigating our way around, my wife said that our worst thing, her and I, our absolutely worst thing is dealing with the navigator, the British voice lady on the…, telling us where to go. 

And I said, “What? Is it the blinding rage that you get out of me when I’m trying to follow her?” 

And she said, “No, no, that’s not it.” 

“Is it the string of obscenities that come out?” 

And she said, “no, that’s not it. You’re just such an ass when we’re trying to get some…” 

Well, look, she’s my helpmeet, and so she calms me down and puts me back in place.

There is a lady who has, she labors under remarkable handicaps because her only text is really the biblical text, the pseudepigrapha, the available material that’s out there. But she also has a clarity of thought that is remarkable for a Methodist minister. I mean, Joseph was right when he said that he was somewhat inclined to the Methodists. Methodists really are…, John Wesley was a remarkable, remarkable soul. But Margaret Barker, is a Methodist minister and a scholar and she has written about the divine feminine. And while she’s not perfect, and she doesn’t have everything right, and she is laboring with a limited library from which to draw, if you’re interested in those kinds of topics, I would commend to you taking a look at what Margaret Barker has done, including her last book that’s now available.

And just so someone has asked a question, I want then to be clear: I have never said that Christ always appearing in red apparel. Christ doesn’t appear in red apparel, He appears in white. But, at the second coming when He comes in judgment, He will come clothed in red, which is a sign of the judgement that He is bringing. So, His red apparel is related to the second coming.

Of course, a false spirit can project love. Of course. False spirits imitate. The great imitator, who is a liar from the beginning, begins by assuming the role that is designed to be a counterfeit. The only way that a counterfeit works is if it has the look and feel, and sentiment and everything that the real thing has. If you’re going to imitate, of course love can be one of those things that are imitated. The question if you want to try to dial in yea/nay, good/bad, true/false, is whether or not the love that is being shown to you leads, in turn to pride, to haughtiness, to thinking I’m great, I’m wonderful. If it has as its objective creating pride and haughtiness in the individual, then you have to question the content of the message, not the means by which it gets delivered. Because if the means by which it is delivered is a counterfeit, it’s gonna seem like the ‘coin of the realm’— Therefore, you have to question if the objective is prideful or if the objective is ultimately destructive.

I was asked about all the destruction associated with the end time and how do I cope with that. Look, I saw a sequence of events that will take place. After I was shown that, I went to the Doctrine and Covenants and it was really remarkable because the sequence of events appear, in what I saw, happened in exactly the same order as they are listed in the Doctrine and Covenants. And it struck me well heavens Joseph may have seen exactly the same thing, because it happened in a sequence of events. The destruction may seem random, but from what I saw it was extraordinarily targeted, extraordinarily aimed to accomplish the destruction of the wicked and the preservation of the righteous. When you get to 3rd Nephi and read the account of the destruction there it tells you it was the more wicked who were destroyed.

On June 6th of 1944, there was an invasion launched on D-Day. Two men who were significantly older than the average G.I. that hit the beach on that day were my father, who landed on Omaha Beach, and Hugh Nibley, that landed on Utah Beach. Utah Beach was a cakewalk compared to what happened on Omaha. My father’s job was as a combat engineer to blow up the tank traps so that they could clear the beach where the tanks were to come in and assist in over taking the pill boxes. There wasn’t a single tank that made it to Omaha Beach that day, because the tide was so weather was so rough that the tanks sank and they didn’t make it there. The tank traps were literally the only thing that were blocking the incoming fire. So, if you’re going to blow up the tank traps, you’re going to blow up your fellow GI’s. They were grateful for my fathers’ job being available on Omaha beach and they hid behind them and My father instead used the Bangalore mines to blow up some obstructions so they could get up the hills, so they could take over what were killing them. My father didn’t suffer any injury on Omaha Beach. Everyone in his company was a casualty, but he on June seventh of 1844 formed up with a new company and went on – Ultimately fought in the Battle of the Bulge as well.

On Utah Beach, Hugh Nibley, who was a well-educated man at the time and was an intelligence officer, didn’t have to come in with a gun. He came in riding on a Jeep with a bunch of books. His purpose was to interrogate and he was as an intelligence officer. And as he came onto the beach in a jeep, a round fell on the beach in front of him, blew a hole in the beach and his Jeep went down and up and bounced through the crater.  And he writes Reflecting that the one thing that came through his mind at the time was, “the Book of Mormon is true.” In the midst of all this violence, you can see how wars and the way that men treat one another, really does result in -Later on in the war, he noted that one of the villages he had visited as a missionary which was very hard-hearted and very unwilling to receive anything, and treated them poorly, was a place where there was a lot of destruction. He reflected upon how the more wicked element were killed, just like the Book of Mormon talks.

The coming destruction is no different. I mean you want to be protected? It’s in the cavern of the rock, which is Christ.  Because Literally, a hand grenade can land in the middle of the crowd and if the Lord has a righteous man among them, he can save that person. The things that I have seen suggest that it’s not destruction that we should fear, it’s not violence we should fear, it is our own unworthiness. And that Our greatest fear should be our sins.

What are estates and how many are there? A lot, and they are phases of development.  And The talk in Ephraim, which is more supported by material in Preserving the Restoration talking about Christ, (the seventh  chapter, it was the seventh talk): Look at that real carefully with the question of estates in mind and you’ll notice there, the work of the Lord is practically endless.

Now I need to address the subject of “What is appropriate to be explained and what is appropriate not to be explained?” Why does the Book of Mormon draw lines and say, “at this point in the record it’s not permitted for me to cover this? I was about to write this but I’m forbidden from doing so.” (Ether 13:13.) Or Nephi saying, “I was about to give you the rest of this story, but the Lord said you can’t do that.” (1 Ne. 14:24-25.) There is a very good reason why information gets withheld. There’s actually more than one, but there’s one that ought to be front and center: The more information that becomes available that ought to be held in sacred solitude, the more you equip the pretenders and the deceivers to improve their false act— the more equipment you hand to them with which to develop an illusion and a mirage that will deceive and take people from the Lord. But more importantly, when you get to the end of the actual process what the Lord was teaching to the Nephites, there is power in the government of God. that When it got hijacked in the beginning, by the time you get down to the time of Noah, the Earth was so corrupted that Lucifer or Satan has a great chain on the Earth. (Moses 7:26.) He had chained the earth and looking up at heaven (in the book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price) he’s got the whole earth bound down in a great chain?  He did so by imitating the government of Adam. He did so by binding together, in a false way, things that God would put together in a Godly way.

Right now, the struggle- the struggle on this Earth is over the agency of man. I don’t care if you’re looking at economic difficulties, governmental difficulties, business, religion, society, entertainment, it’s all about destroying the agency of man. In order to prevent Zion, the adversary knows he has now but a little time. The only way to make sure that it doesn’t spill out and accomplish the objective that God wants it to accomplish is by curtailing the ability of people to choose. Take away the right to say, the right to speak, the right to preach. Take away and categorize or if you can, criminalize and if you can’t do that, then simply murder in order to prevent the agency of man. Because men must, women must, come willingly to the Lord. have to voluntarily accept the invitation from Him. Compulsory means cannot be used. Everywhere you look right now, the struggle is over the agency of men. Some things are absolutely essential and needful, more than the mysteries of God. Right now, what is most important is to preach the Doctrine of Christ and baptize people so that we at least have someone living at the Lord’s return.

Why Christians need to hear about Joseph Smith? because Joseph Smith began the restoration. The Christian world has no clue that there is a restrictive deed on this land. The Christians have no clue that the God of this land must be served or they will be destroyed from and swept away from off of this land. They possess it and they think they’re free to mock the God who owns this land and they’re not free to do so. You come to that understanding only through the Book of Mormon. You come to the Book of Mormon only through Joseph Smith. Joseph taught about Zion in a way that the Christian world does not comprehend.

Let me cover one more matter and that is this idea of prophecy and interpreting prophecy. Cause I know that there are elaborate efforts made to parse the scriptures and come up with the meaning, the interpretation, even the timing of certain things that the Lord has now begun or that He intends to accomplish in short order. In Isaiah chapter 48, the description is given of how prophecy works.

“I’ve declared the former things from the beginning; and they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them; I did them suddenly, and they came to pass.” The word “suddenly” can be rendered surprisingly. Suddenly can be in an unexpected way. Suddenly can be, ‘you got caught off guard.’ I declared what I was going to do, I did it, and you got caught off guard. “Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass; I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I showed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them. Thou hast heard, see all this; and wilt not ye declare it? I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them.”

You didn’t know them. I declared them. I accomplished them, and I told you about them beforehand, and it happened suddenly, and you didn’t expect it to happen. Why is that? Because the way in which the Lord intends to accomplish what He is going to accomplish is not going to be in the way that will permit you to say, “I and my idol have been hard at work to accomplish this great thing.” No man gets to take credit for that. It’s got to be surprising and unexpected in order for the Lord, once it happens, to say “this was what I had in my heart and I have done it.” If we knew how the Lord and when the Lord was going to accomplish, how and what He was going to accomplish, we would stand a chance of preventing it. Or, we might make commerce out of it by profiting from it. Therefore, the way in which He will accomplish it will be according to His will, at His timing, for His purposes, without the control of man and with man always saying, “that was sudden, that was surprising, that was unanticipated.”  And so He can send that Galilean accent speaking carpenter’s son into the world and have the world take no note of Him. Or, a farm boy from upstate New York to declare the Lord has opened the heavens. And have Everyone can react to that in bemused humor or with insults and scorn, ultimately fearing Him enough to kill him and those that would follow him. 

Well, I’m out of time, but let me end by thanking again the Boise fellowship for accomplishing this. It’s the third anniversary of the weekend in which we began this series of events. I am absolutely more encouraged, from what I heard here, than I have ever been about where we are at. I hear all the complaints. I hear all the criticism. I’m just very heartened by the things that I heard here and in particular from the talks of the women.

Thank you all and let me end by saying, may the Lord accompany all of you in the work that you do. Do not feel shy about speaking up. Do not be ashamed of the Lord and leave it to Him whether someone takes seriously the message that you have. Your obligation is to speak it. If the Lord has a sheep and you speak the warning to them, they’ll listen. And it won’t do you any good to herd goats. They’re still going to be goats.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The post The Doctrine of Christ appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This presentation of a paper entitled “Was There An Original” at the Sunstone Symposium by Denver Snuffer was originally recorded in Salt Lake City, UT on July 29, 2016, in front of a live audience.

Transcript

Full Paper

Facilitator: Many of you are familiar with Denver Snuffer, his contributions and his work in recent years. He is a graduate of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, a practicing attorney for 36 years, father of nine children, and a faithful Latter-day Saint until his recent excommunication for apostasy in 2013 for writing a volume on LDS history. Denver, we’ll go ahead and turn the time over to you now and listen to what you have to share. 

Denver Snuffer: This talk is an abridgement of a paper by the same title. The paper is 55 pages and it has 213 footnotes. It’s going to be released on my website this evening. I mention that so that you understand that this talk is just an abridgement of that. If you have any issue with the content, the sources that I rely upon of historical, scriptural, and doctrinal material are available in the paper and you can look at that to determine the source I rely upon. 

Mormonism is compelling. It’s a very big religion, at least when it began. Since its beginning it has diminished considerably. Joseph Smith asserted:

The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds…

Everything that’s true, lovely or of good report was intended to be part of original Mormonism. 

Joseph’s original Mormonism was inclusive, not exclusive. All truth belonged to Mormonism but it never pretended to have it all. Mormonism was the search for truth. It was originally the search to discover “truth” without fear of finding something new. 

To Joseph, Mormonism did not possess all truth. His religion was not based on conceit, but on humility—the willingness to continue to search, pray, study and hope for newly revealed additions. It was understood there was a great deal more yet to be discovered. The claim that Mormonism was the “only true and living church” presumed the willingness to hear God’s voice and receive new truth; it was not because it already had all truth. It was “living” during Joseph’s life because it continued to grow and expand. Living organisms grow, dead ones decay.

Boyd K. Packer may have had a point in asserting, “Some things that are true are not very useful.” Packer did not clarify to what end truth needed to be “useful,” because the original end of Mormonism was not about institutional loyalty but it was to teach mankind to converse with the Lord through the veil preliminary to entering into His presence; then to enter into His presence, and thereby be redeemed from the fall. We must all concede that Packer is quite right that truth which destroys idolatry is never “useful” to the idol.

The present fracturing of Mormonism is because it lost sight of the original inclusiveness. The opposite of the Packer standard is the one suggested by J. Reuben Clark, “If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” Between J. Reuben Clark and Boyd K. Packer, the LDS version of Mormonism departed from an inclusive truth to an exclusive truth, becoming in the process, intolerant, arrogant, and consequently much smaller. That intolerance makes the claim to have all truth all the more amusing to anyone who compares the vacuous content of correlated Mormonism to the interesting liveliness of the original. 

Mormonism revived the original relevance of religion because mankind wants big picture answers from the God who created us. Because all of us hope to hear answers from God, we remain interested still today. No matter how much our predecessors have tampered with and discarded from the original, the power of the ideals of that original still haunt all who have been exposed to it. 

Even if the present-day interest for some is thought to be a postmortem of a stillborn cult, critics must acknowledge the power of the original ideas of Joseph Smith. Critics continue to complain because they remain interested, even if disaffected. They linger over the corpse as if they fear another resurrection.

Critics are justified to fear a Mormon revival. If God really did talk to Joseph, Mormonism may again assume the role of God’s soapbox to address mankind. If all truth belongs to Mormonism, everyone looking for truth will want to take part.

At one time Mormonism claimed the true and only God of heaven, who sent His Son Jesus Christ to save mankind, still cared enough to talk to us. By participating WE can become as important as the people who produced the Bible. The rest of Judaism and Christianity may have dead prophets and a silent God, but in Mormonism, God’s voice originally spoke anew.

The presence of God’s active voice is the foundation of original Mormonism. If Mormons can hear God’s voice, it renders all other religions inferior. By implication, it also renders every other Judeo-Christian religion “an abomination” because it’s obviously wrong to reject the voice of God calling you to come unto Him by becoming a Mormon.

Because God spoke, everything changed continually. It was an expanding changeling, never taking a final form. 

David Whitmer was dissatisfied because everything continually changed. His Address to All Believers in Christ started with the issue of Mormonism-in-motion:

They have departed in a great measure from the faith of the Church of Christ as it was first established, by heeding revelations given through Joseph Smith, who, after being called of God to translate his sacred word — the Book of Mormon — drifted into many errors and gave many revelations to introduce doctrines, ordinances and offices in the church, which are in conflict with Christ’s teachings.

They also changed the name of the church.

He thought the Bible and Book of Mormon were the only faithful canon, and all else was vanity and foolishness. 

I am only going to refer to a handful of examples to illustrate the shifting contours of Mormonism during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Many others could be added.

Mormonism forces us to confront the choice: Mormonism, or the false Judeo-Christian religions that are “other than Mormonism.” We have a choice between only two churches. The Book of Mormon explains, “Behold, there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil.” This claim alone made original Mormonism relevant. 

If “there are save two churches only,” and only one is the church of the Lamb of God, splintered Mormonism cannot be the “one true church.” It is now anything but monolithic. Which version is “true” (because it is impossible for squabbling and disagreeing versions to all be the “only true church”) particularly when the various factions have gone to the trouble of excommunicating one another. 

Mormonism has or does include over 84 sects. It’s an interesting list of names. If there is only one true Mormon church it ought to be “true and living” and “righteous” and “united”—so those words in the names of some of these congregations of the various splinters are both apt and attention-getting.

Mormonism rose only briefly above the religious squabbling of its time. Following Joseph’s and Hyrum’s murders, Mormonism has subsequently degenerated and splintered. It now can be described in the same terms Joseph Smith used to explain the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians of 1820:

The whole of Mormonism is affected by an unusual excitement, and multitudes unite themselves to the different Mormon parties, which creates no small stir and division amongst the people, some crying, “Lo, here!” and some, “Lo, there!” Some are contending for the LDS faith, some for the RLDS, and some for the FLDS. But, notwithstanding the great love the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifest by the respective advocates, who are active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they are pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased; yet when the converts begin to file off, some to one party and some to another, it is seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts are more pretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensues—prophets, seers and revelators contending against presidents, prophets, kings and revelators, and pseudo-saint against pseudo-saint; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, are entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions.

This Sunstone conference is the result of the divisions now found in Mormonism. The conference topic is: “Many Mormonisms and the Mormon Movement.” The divergences all reckon from a common starting point, and it is that point of beginning that I hope to address. I am concerned with whether there was an original Mormonism. To accept “Many Mormonisms” as a welcome outcome is contrary to the first premise of “one true church,” all others being the devil’s whores. If Mormonism has any eternal value it will be found by identifying the original—the one God called “true and living” and was the “only one with which [He was] well pleased.” What was that?

If there is any hope of successfully separating the many Mormonisms into more or less like what began with Joseph Smith, we have to answer the question: how do we define the original? And that is not a simple task. 

Today’s Mormonism is separated from the martyrdom by 172 years. It’s a landscape filled with proprietary Mormon orthodoxies attempting to stifle the spontaneous and unruly springs of revelation, inspiration, and ‘conversing with the Lord through the veil.’ Every splinter has an hierarchy whose right alone it is to hear and announce God’s voice. If any should come from outside the hierarchies claiming revelation, dutiful followers believe they should test them, by asking that they cut off an arm or some other member of the body, and then restore it again, so that we can know they come with power. (You needed to go through the temple before 1990.) It does not matter the institutions fail to provide such miraculous signs. If the sheep donate enough, the power of constructing monuments with brick and mortar using the widow’s mite is enough of a sign to show God approves the leadership. After all, if they build a great temple (or a tower to heaven), isn’t that sign enough?

So what was original Mormonism? How would you describe it with certitude? During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, Mormonism had the ill-defined visage of a kaleidoscope. As soon as one indispensable characteristic is identified for the original, we find discontinuity. The voice that Joseph heard never stopped tampering, adjusting, modifying, adding and improving—unless of course you didn’t like what he did. And if you disliked it, he fell from grace, did not improve but damaged the original before he died, leaving something others would need to reorganize and reclaim.

While Joseph was alive, there was no approved creed or necessary body of beliefs. Joseph was opposed to constricting the beliefs of saints. On April 8, 1843, while preaching, he referred to an audience member, Pelatiah Brown, who had been summoned before the High Council for preaching false doctrine. Joseph explained his views:

I did not like the old man being called up for erring in doctrine. It looks too much like the Methodist, and not like the Latter Day Saints. Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be asked out of their church. I want the liberty of thinking and believing as I please. It feels so good not to be trammeled. It does not prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine.

Joseph Smith’s tolerant broadmindedness does not mean his silence about ideas circulating among the Mormons was an endorsement. Mormons at the time were all first generation converts. They brought with them many ideas from their prior religious traditions. Joseph made little attempt to compel uniformity, choosing instead to “preach, teach, expound, and exhort” a developing religion with increasingly nuanced broad features.

David Whitmer believed Rigdon exerted a powerfully negative influence on Joseph. In David Whitmer’s retrospective Address to All Believers in Christ, Chapter 4, he explained, “Sydney Rigdon was the cause of almost all the errors which were introduced while he was in the church. I believe Rigdon to have been the instigator of the secret organization known as the ‘Danites’ which was formed in Far West Missouri in June, 1838. In Kirtland, Ohio, in 1831, Rigdon would expound the Old Testament scriptures of the Bible and Book of Mormon (in his way) to Joseph, concerning the priesthood, high priests, etc., and would persuade Brother Joseph to inquire of the Lord about this doctrine and that doctrine, and of course a revelation would always come just as they desired it. Rigdon finally persuaded Brother Joseph to believe that the high priests which had such great power in ancient times, should be in the Church of Christ to-day. He had Brother Joseph inquire of the Lord about it, and they received an answer according to their erring desires.”

While Whitmer’s retrospective account was written decades after the events, he was directly involved and his recollection is worth considering, because Joseph believed Mormons should be free to believe anything they wanted, unconstrained by creed, the contours of Mormonism during Joseph’s life were left poorly defined. The contributions from Pratt, Rigdon and others complicate, rather than contribute, to clarifying the original. 

Mormonism’s mercurial form during Joseph’s lifetime can be seen by considering the most stable practice: baptism. 

Baptism began before 1830. While the mode of baptism (by immersion) remained constant, both the language and the purposes changed. The original baptismal prayer set out in the Church Articles and Covenants used the identical prayer found in the Book of Mormon. The words of the prayer, after calling the initiate by name, included “having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you” and so on. Those words were changed in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants to “having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you,” and so on. Once altered, the words were never changed back. The Book of Mormon commends one baptismal prayer (given by Jesus Christ), and the Doctrine and Covenants commends a different prayer.

Proxy baptism of the living for the dead was added in 1840. Originally proxies of either sex could be baptized for both men and women. That later changed, and vicarious proxy work could be done on behalf of the same sex only, which would not prove a harbinger of later same-sex approval. 

The purpose of baptism grew from remitting sins and joining the church, to include rebaptism as a means for rededication and purification, and rebaptism for the healing of the sick.

Emma Smith was rebaptized in October 1842 for her health. In April 1842, another additional clarification limited baptism and rebaptism for rededication for the living, to be performed in living waters like a lake, stream or river. Baptism for the dead or for the healing of the sick, were only to be performed in a temple font. So we see the practice of baptism expanded while Joseph was alive, even though it was perhaps the most stable feature of the original.

There is no single organized entity founded in 1830 that has remained intact. Every one of the organized corporate forms of Mormonism has morphed, been superseded, or rolled into new legal entity, and changed from whatever existed in New York on April 6, 1830. 

There was never a single corporate form for an original. In January 1841, an Illinois corporation was formed and Joseph Smith elected the Trustee in Trust for that entity. This was likely the first legal organization of the church, as no formal corporate documentation from New York has ever been discovered. But Illinois law limited the corporation to owning no more than 5 acres. Upon Joseph’s death, the church Trustee was lost and disputes over property followed. Property held in Joseph’s name may have belonged to the church—or not, if you were Emma Smith. Hopefully no one believed that salvation was tied in any way to which corporate entity owned what property upon the death of Joseph Smith.

Each one of the proprietary, corporate forms of Mormonism are very pushy about insisting that they are “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.” But even if there were such a thing as continuity of a corporate entity from Joseph Smith until today, would that really be the original without doing, teaching, conducting and delivering what originally was done, taught, conducted and delivered? Can institutional identity decide religious authority apart from conduct? The LDS version of scriptures rejects that idea.

There was never a single name used to identify an original Mormon church. Originally, the “Church of Christ” had changed names several times from the 1830s to 1841. In addition to different names, a series of entities, many of which were not legally separate from the individuals involved, were formed to hold property belonging to the “Church of Christ.” The first name didn’t last and was occasionally replaced by the “Church of Jesus Christ.” The third iteration was the “Church of the Latter Day Saints,” and still later the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” On April 26, 1838, a revelation settled the question of name as “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,” but the revealed name was not used until years later.

Today, the Doctrine and Covenants has changed the original revealed name, substituting a different name. There is no entity that uses the original name. 

“Original” Mormonism must reckon from some form of continuity, but continuity of exactly what? Practices changed markedly during Joseph’s life and never acquired a settled form. It took six years from founding of the church before washings and anointings were introduced. Once introduced, they were changed. Originally they were done with whisky scented with cinnamon, followed by perfumed olive oil. Feet and face washing were added after the Kirtland Temple dedication on March 27, 1836. The rites were revised in Nauvoo and tubs were added as a practical accommodation in the Nauvoo Temple. Joseph died before the completion of the Nauvoo Temple and therefore neither a building design for the upper floors, nor a ceremony for the endowment, were completed by Joseph Smith before his death. Brigham Young completed the unfinished ceremony and claimed Joseph Smith told him to. 

According to L. John Nuttall’s diary, Brigham Young stated he received the endowment from Joseph before the temple was available and “after we got through Bro Joseph turned to me 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…” How confident are you that they were completed in the way Heaven wanted? 

The remark giving Brigham permission to complete the temple rites were made in private. In public, Joseph declared, “Ordinances instituted in the heavens before the foundation of the world, in the priesthood, for the salvation of men, are not to be altered or changed. All must be saved on the same principles.” The first question this raises is whether Joseph contradicted himself by changing things. The only way to reconcile the many changes he instituted is to take note that he made only additive expansions, finishing and recovering the ordinances instituted in the heavens. He was transmitting what came from above to believers, and it came incrementally. Joseph’s changes never took away from the ordinances, but frequently expanded on what was here before. 

Joseph never did anything with “the ordinances instituted in the heavens” like the LDS Church has done. The elimination of the Christian minister from the endowment in 1990, along with the abandonment of the penalties from the ceremony at the same time, were purely deductive. Joseph never did anything like that. Likewise, LDS washings and anointings were changed in 2011 to eliminate actual washing and actual anointing, replacing them with “simply symbolic” references. That was yet another deductive deviation from “the ordinances instituted in the heavens.” It violated Joseph’s principal that they “are not to be altered or changed.” The original Mormonism may have added, but it respected what was previously revealed. All later forms of corporate Mormonism have been deductive. 

The RLDS Church made even greater deductions. They abandoned baptisms for the dead, washings, anointings, eternal marriage, and the temple rites altogether. Subtraction from the ordinances is one clear way to confirm the original form of Mormonism no longer exists. If there is to be an original, it will require adding back what has been lost.

The First Vision is a clear illustration of Joseph’s practice of adding to the religion. Originally, the event was not part of the Mormon narrative at all. Once it was added, it changed over multiple retellings. The 1832 account focused on Joseph’s personal salvation. The 1835 account is the first to mention a struggle with the devil. The account evolved in the 1838 retelling to have cosmic implications for the salvation of all mankind. Both the Father and the Son appeared, and the purpose was not to forgive Joseph’s sins, but to confirm the entire Christian world “were all corrupt” and taught “the commandments of men” “having a form of godliness but they deny the power thereof.” It is the 1838 version that is canonized in the Pearl of Great Price. Like everything else for so long as Joseph Smith was involved, the First Vision expanded, both in details and meaning, until it was no longer about Joseph the individual, but the salvation of all mankind.

The description of the Godhead, which was settled during Joseph’s lifetime, became unsettled after his death. When Lectures on Faith was adopted as scripture by a conference in 1835, the Godhead consisted of two personages: the Father and the Son. The Holy Ghost was not a person but “the mind” of the Father and Son. It is described similarly in Moses 6:61, as a “record” or the “truth of all things” and not an individually embodied spirit being.

A different definition gradually crept into LDS scripture, assuming final form in 1921. The ‘Holy Ghost creep’ stemmed from a talk Joseph delivered on April 2, 1843. The note-takers who were present during that talk bequeathed an altered definition of the Holy Ghost. Their notes reflected what they believed they heard from Joseph. However, Brigham Young and Jedediah Grant approved a change from the notes in 1854, which then underwent a round of punctuation changes in 1858. A final version of the embodied Holy Ghost doctrine was approved by Heber J. Grant and a committee of six members of the twelve in 1921 (the same time they deleted the Lectures on Faith from scripture). The addition of the embodied Holy Ghost to LDS scripture created a doctrinal conflict with Lecture Fifth, and something had to give. So theLectures were deleted. Whatever else this process illustrates, it confirms there was confusion stemming from Joseph’s comments in April 1843, and therefore Mormon beliefs remained unstable while Joseph was alive. 

Mormonism’s canon of scripture was still unsettled when Joseph died in 1844. Different Mormon sects rely on different canons as their sacred texts. Joseph retranslated the Bible, which is commonly referred to as the Joseph Smith Translation. He called this endeavor “the fullness of the scriptures” and it was only the Joseph Smith Translation that was used throughout Lectures on Faith. Joseph prophesied that the church would fail if the fullness of the scriptures was not completed. Though finished, Joseph never published the text. Upon his death, it became the property of Emma Smith. She bequeathed it to the RLDS Church, and they subsequently published it. Excerpts are now in the LDS Bible in footnotes and an appendix but not the entirety of the fullness that Joseph said was critical. 

This canonical disparity between Mormonisms is only possible because a completed authoritative canon was still expanding during Joseph’s life. Ironically, the canonical exposition Joseph personally edited and vouched for, Lectures on Faith, has been discarded by every Mormon sect.

Originally, like the Book of Mormon, the church had elders, priests and teachers. The term “apostle” began to be used. But the term “apostle” did not mean the same thing then that it does today. A quorum of twelve apostles did not exist in Mormonism until February 1835. Prior to that, many individuals were identified as “apostles.” The term meant someone sent with a message from God. The term was originally used to identify all the missionaries sent to preach the Book of Mormon. The revelations given through Joseph Smith specifically identified the following men as “apostles” in the following dates:

-Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer in June 1829

-Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in April 1830

-Sidney Rigdon, Parley Pratt and Leman Copley in March 1831 — in fact, if you go to the D&C and check the heading date of everything that refers to an “apostle” if it comes before February 1835 then it has no relevance to or limitation of the term “apostle” to a quorum of twelve. It simply meant, “those sent with a message.”

A series of revelations referred to “apostles” and included admonitions, instructions, and commandments to different audiences composed of “apostles” before the organization of a quorum of twelve in 1835. Even after that the Seventy were regarded as “apostles.” It was not until 1835 that the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, were asked by Joseph Smith to choose the first twelve members of the newly announced quorum of the twelve. The Three Witnesses made their choices at a meeting on February 14, 1835. And while they didn’t preserve the order in which they were ordained, assuming that they were ordained in the same order as the Three Witnesses are listed, it was Martin Harris who would have ordained Brigham Young. 

Joseph Smith took an inconsistent path identifying the center of power and influence in Mormonism. On the day the church was organized, a revelation identified Joseph as the church’s “prophet, seer and revelator.” Five months later in September 1830, another revelation limited all revelations and commandments for the church to those coming through Joseph Smith. David Whitmer thought Joseph Smith was led into error by pride when he assumed the role of “prophet, seer and revelator.”

Despite the revelations making Joseph the primary revelator of commandments for the church, he never presumed to be the exclusive revelator. To the contrary, others were expected to receive them, and he was pleased when others received visions, he believed them to be authentic, and he recorded them. The year after a revelation conferred status on Joseph as the primary revelator, another revelation empowered everyone holding priesthood with the authority to reveal the mind of God: “they shall speak as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost & whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be Scripture shall be the will of the Lord shall be the mind of the Lord shall be the voice of the Lord & shall be the power of God unto Salvation[.]”

From October, 1838 to April, 1839, Joseph spent 173 days jailed in Missouri. Just prior to his release he penned a letter to the saints. The most remarkable part of the letter addresses abuse of the priesthood. It is noteworthy; this occupied his thoughts while in prison, instead of state and political abuse. He wrote: 

…Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson–that the rights of the Priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handed only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exorcise control, or dominion, or compulsion, upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the Priesthood, or the authority of that man. Behold! ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks; to persecute the Saints, and to fight against God.

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen.

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the Priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness, and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile…

Early in the restoration, power and influence had been consolidated into Joseph’s hands alone. He began to erode that power by the following year. But in the meditative confines of Liberty Jail, Joseph saw the wisdom of destroying all power and influence by virtue of the priesthood alone.

Two months following Joseph’s release from the Liberty Jail, Joseph condemned the highest levels of church leadership, warning them against self-sufficiency, self righteousness and self-importance. He was alarmed by the idea leaders would think themselves better than church members, and would rise up in judgment, calling themselves more righteous than those they led. His warning to leaders included the following. This is an audience composed of the Twelve and the Seventy, not of any common members:

I will give you one of the Keys of the mysteries of the Kingdom. It is an eternal principle, that has existed with God from all eternity: That man who rises up to condemn others, finding fault with the Church, saying that they are out of the way, while he himself is righteous, then know assuredly, that that man is in the high road to apostasy, and if he does not repent, will apostatize, as god lives.

This caution has been turned on its head by the many Mormonisms of today. Hierarchies uniformly regard themselves as “righteous” even claiming that they cannot lead their churches astray. They presume to condemn and find fault with the church’s members, saying the members are out of the way while the leaders are righteous. In short, the fears that began to arise in Joseph’s heart in the mid-1830s crystallized in the Liberty Jail, and in the July 1839 sermon he denounced the very conditions that have now come to pass. 

In 1842 he lamented the Saints were depending too much on the prophet, darkened in their minds and neglecting the duties devolving on themselves. 

Whatever authority may have been claimed early on, by the end, Mormonism’s priestly domination was diminished, if not altogether gone. It is impossible to reconcile the most virulent form of priestly power found in correlated LDS Mormonism with the Liberty Jail edict that “no power or influence can, or ought, to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood.” Joseph Smith’s meditations on learning from sad experience that men abused even “supposed” power has been forgotten in modern Mormonisms. Fortunately, anyone can be a servant, kneeling to wash others’ feet as the Master showed in His example, whether they are ordained or not. So too can anyone persuade using gentleness and pure knowledge, women and men, young and old, black and white, rich or poor. 

In 1836, sacred rites were introduced in the Kirtland Temple. In 1843 different rites were contemplated, even partially celebrated. The new and improved temple rites were to be completed and housed in a new temple then under construction. A partial “endowment” was added to the already existing washings and anointings. The expanded rites also contemplated sealing marriages and adoption, or man-to-man sealings, all of which remained ill defined at the time of Joseph’s death.

Joseph’s original instruction about sealing dealt with connecting the living faithful to the “fathers” in heaven, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The connection was to be accomplished through adoption sealings, not genealogy. Joseph was connected to the “fathers” through his priesthood. He and his brother Hyrum were to become ‘fathers’ of all who would live after them. Just read Abraham chapter 1 verse 2. Families were originally organized under Joseph as the father of the righteous in this dispensation. Accordingly, men were sealed to Joseph Smith as their father, and they as his sons. This was referred to as ‘adoption’ because the family organization was not biological, but priestly, according to the law of God. As soon as Joseph died, the doctrine began to erode, ultimately replaced by the substitute practice of sealing genealogical lines together. In between the original adoptive sealing to Joseph and the current practice of tracking genealogical or biological lines, there was an intermediate step when families were tracked back as far as research permitted, then the line was sealed to Joseph Smith. That practice is now forgotten, and is certainly no longer practiced by any denomination within Mormonism.

When Joseph died, any understanding of the practice of “adoption” was quickly lost. Confusion over this subject once again confirms both the ever-changing nature of Mormonism and its failure to become complete during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. 

In developing man’s role in the cosmos, things began rather Protestant-like. Joseph eventually taught plainly that men could become gods. Further, he asserted that God was once a man that had progressed to godhood. LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley commenting on this topic said, “I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourses. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.” President Hinckley was right, of course. The idea crept into Mormonism late in Joseph’s life, and never had an opportunity to be fully developed. So Mormons do not know a lot about it.

Joseph Smith’s ‘Magnum Opus,’ the King Follett Discourse, seems more like an introduction to something new than an established, fully developed theology, though the idea that man could progress to be like God had been disclosed earlier. The idea that God was once a man and also learned His salvation was clearly something new, that was first revealed in this talk. Joseph’s April 1844 sermon finally closed an idea opened nine years earlier in the 1835 Lectures on Faith. 

We ask then where is the prototype, or where is the saved being? We conclude as to the answer of this question, … that it is Christ: all will agree in this, that he is the prototype or standard of salvation; or, in other words, that he is a saved being.

He goes on to explain that any saved being must be precisely what Christ is or else not be saved. 

The 1835 Lectures was just a prelude, left un-clarified and unexplained. The implications of this teaching escaped believers. Mormons were surprised to learn Christ did what His Father did when He offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin. Like God the Father, Christ “laid down His life and took it up again” or, in other words, attained to the resurrection of the dead. These ideas were consistent with earlier revelations, translations and writings, but King Follett signaled a whole new level of harmonizing ideas and adding upon the restoration.

Because Joseph was killed less than three months later, the talk was left as the introduction of something much grander to follow. But like the Nauvoo Temple and the temple rites, this fresh teaching was left undeveloped; a reminder of how great a loss one encounters when God takes an authentic prophet out of the community.

Mormonism failed to reach a finish line while Joseph was alive. God seems quite willing to give people what they want, even if it displeases Him. The first missionaries were sent among the Lamanites but never arrived. Along the path westward they stopped in Kirtland, Ohio and converted over 200 Campbellites, including Sidney Rigdon. The early eager Campbellite converts steered Joseph’s inquiries, and over the following decade the restoration focused on organizing a restored, New Testament, Primitive Christian church with all the original offices, teachings and practices. In the background of this preoccupation with New Testament Christianity, however, God pointed Joseph, and in turn us, toward something more ancient. God was attempting to return to the earth the original faith taught to Adam in the beginning.

The religion of Adam was the objective of Mormonism. Joseph Smith was unable to fully restore that first religion of man. Joseph predicted the religion would include a future gathering in the “everlasting hills,” (in all probability the Rocky Mountains) where returning tribes would be “crowned” with glory in a New Jerusalem to be God’s last [days] Zion. The returning tribes did not gather in Kirtland, Jackson County, Far West, or Nauvoo, and Joseph was dead before the trip westward to Salt Lake. Even the most ardent defender of the LDS version of Mormonism must concede that things expected, even promised and prophesied to happen, that were left unrealized when Joseph died.

The LDS and RLDS organizations disagree on many subjects, but four in particular separate them: Polygamy, succession in the presidency, plurality of Gods, and secret temple rites including baptism for the dead. Depending on which part of the history was considered most important the outcome favors one over the other. One writer explained the disagreements this way, “I realized that as long as the focus was on Kirtland, the prairie Mormons [RLDS] held the advantage, but whenever the debate turned to Nauvoo, the mountain Mormons [LDS] would win.” The morphing faith under Joseph Smith was responsible for allowing this outcome. Anywhere along the timeline of his life as church leader, if there was a line drawn, what followed was different from before. Nothing was abandoned, but expansions sometimes so transformed the earlier ideas, rites or practices that the new developments seemed to revolutionize the religion.

Because of the instability of Mormonism during Joseph’s life, it is reasonable to conclude if there was an original, it cannot be defined by searching the teachings, practices, features, rites, or organization of the period from 1820 to 1844. One must look elsewhere to define an “original.” Perhaps the best and only, way to identify an “original” Mormonism is to look at the aspirations for a religion that embraces all truth. If the goal of the original is considered, one can get much closer to defining it than by reassembling bits from its beginning. It is Mormonism’s destiny that best tells us what Mormonism was, is, and is to come. Anything else fails to meet the scriptural definition of truth. 

If the original Mormonism needed to recover the fullness that was lost, then to revive an original, it will require a recovery of what was lost, and more. If recovered, believers will be able to receive a holy spot, accepted and defended by God. In that place the religion of Adam will be taught. The promised original religion includes the revelation of everything, “nothing shall be withheld.” Today’s Mormonism has a great deal withheld, but the religion of Abraham (and therefore the religion of Adam) included “a knowledge of the beginning of the creation, and also of the planets, and of the stars, as they were made known unto the fathers.” The original Mormonism must grow in ancient knowledge and understanding until their understanding reaches into heaven. Not just spiritual understanding, but also physical understanding of the layout of the universe. The placement of the lights in the firmament was for “signs” to man, and therefore were deliberately placed and contain information originally understood by Adam.

Because of prophecies made to the patriarchal fathers, the right to found this future city of peace descends from a specific ancient line. There will be an heir descended from both Jesse and Joseph who will accomplish it. Occupants of the community will likewise have lineal qualification. The last-day’s Zion is an accomplishment promised earlier to the patriarchal fathers and it is through their descendants God intends to vindicate the promises. The result of this alignment will be a priestly city of Zion that will “return to that power which she had lost.”

The original iteration of Mormonism was apocalyptic. But it was oddly practical about the apocalypse, assuming there were things that could be done to prepare. Not in haste, which was condemned, but it was a physical and spiritual enterprise to be accomplished by the hard effort of those interested in welcoming the Lord’s return.

(Okay, read the paper. I find that topic relentlessly boring. My guess is that a male in puberty could keep his attention focused on that topic for a decade. Just read the paper.)

Joseph was the only one who could appoint a successor. He first designated David Whitmer. In 1835 Joseph organized the complementary presidency in Zion. The president was David Whitmer, with counselors W.W. Phelps and John Whitmer. This made David Whitmer the backup church president if Joseph died. Four days after organizing the Missouri Zion presidency, Joseph explained, “if he should now be taken away that he had accomplished the great work which the Lord had laid before him[.]”

He wrote in his journal the following year, 1835, that the church’s permanent foundation was assured because of the Missouri president, who would take over if he, Joseph, were taken. Unfortunately, in 1838 Whitmer resigned as president in Zion, joined the dissenters and contributed to the agitation that resulted in the Mormon War. Whitmer later organized his own competing church. Presumably an active dissenter who refused to participate in the church for six years was disqualified as Joseph’s successor when Joseph was killed.

A second successor was appointed in 1841. Hyrum Smith was given the same status as Joseph by revelation. Although Hyrum was faithful, he died moments before Joseph and that left the “successor” unidentified. This was all the more unfortunate because Joseph alone had the power to appoint a successor.

If there was an original Mormonism it had an inclusiveness to it that welcomed all truth. Diverse, even opposing views held in good faith, were welcomed and expected. The original would have welcomed Paul Toscano and Boyd Packer (and it is doubtful Packer would have had authority to forcibly exclude Toscano). The original would have welcomed the insights of both Kate Kelly and Dallin Oaks, and allowed their opposing views to be resolved only by persuasion and long suffering. The original would have allowed D. Michael Quinn to have continued access to the Historical Department archives to mine and publish the sins and excesses of the past. Confessing sins is good for the individual, but it is even better for an institution. An original would not have leaders seeking to hide their sins or gratify their pride, or whose vain ambitions attempt through control, dominion and compulsion to reign with intimidation over a flock that is only kept from the truth because they are not allowed to find it.

The general conferences of an original would look a lot more like a Sunstone Symposium than the uniform and predictable April and October meetings. (While in law school we dubbed the droning cadence of General Conference “General Authoritic Pentameter.” It’s produced by using a screened read without any sonorous meter. [Any cadence] would qualify as long as it kept attention away from the jarring and discordant words that separate us now from what Joseph was doing.)

We have lost the original. But we do not need to abandon it forever. After all, repentance means to turn to face God again. He is quite willing to speak still.

If James 1:5 were true for Joseph Smith, it should be true for us. We can ask God with real intent, and obtain a like measure of wisdom from on high. Mormonism may have been a briefly lit candle whose flame expired on June 27, 1844. But it left behind a smoldering spark that only needs another generation to breathe enough of the breath of life to reignite the flame. The breath of the spirit gave life to man originally. It can still restore life, even to a religion that has somehow departed its way. 

Mormonism is (or ought to be) a very big religion. Such a faith as that always attracts adherents. We won’t get there unless our attitude returns to something like Joseph’s in the original Mormonism. Here is what he wrote in a letter from Liberty Jail about how broadly tolerant we ought to be in our religious views:

[W]e ought always to be aware of those prejudices which sometimes so strangely present themselves, and are so congenial to human nature, against our friends, neighbors, and brethren of the world, who choose to differ from us in opinion and in matters of faith. Our religion is between us and our God. Their religion is between them and their God.

Joseph died with a clear conscience. Few Mormons since him have done likewise. Somehow Mormonism has tolerated marital misconduct, adultery, concealing criminal misconduct by “lying for the Lord” to evade Federal investigations, aggregating wealth while neglecting the poor, exercising control to abrogate follower’s consciences under the claim it is the right of church leaders to do so. It has abandoned adoptions, denounced eternal progression, de-canonized Lectures on Faith (without a vote of its members), and concealed church finances. It recently has stretched LDS “sustaining” into an oath-like obligation binding on us. LDS Mormonism has determined that truth can be sometimes “unhelpful” to it. These deviations have happened as modern Mormonism yet claims Joseph as its founder. Modern Mormonism isn’t. It is something far deviant from the original, and as this Sunstone Conference shows, its deviations are metastasizing.

Joseph dreamt while in Carthage Jail, the night before his murder, the following: 

I was back in Kirtland, Ohio, and thought I would take a walk out by myself, and view my old farm, which I found grown up with weeds and brambles, and altogether bearing evidence of neglect and want of culture. I went into the barn, which I found without floor or doors, with the weather-boarding off, and was altogether in keeping with the farm.

While I viewed the desolation around me, and was contemplating how it might be recovered from the curse upon it, there came rushing into the barn a company of furious men, who commenced to pick a quarrel with me.

The leader of the party ordered me to leave the barn and farm, stating it was none of mine, and that I must give up all hope of ever possessing it.

I told him the farm was given me, and although I had not had any use of it for some time back, still I had not sold it, and according to the righteous principles it belonged to me.

He then grew furious and began to rail upon me, and threaten me, and said it never did belong to me.

I then told him that I did not think it worth contending about, that I had no desire to live upon it in its present state, and if thought he had a better right I would not quarrel with him about it but leave; but my assurance that I would not trouble him at present did not seem to satisfy him, and he seemed determined to quarrel with me, and threatened me with the destruction of my body.

While he was thus engaged, pouring out his bitter words upon me, a rabble rushed in and nearly filled the barn, drew out their knives, and began to quarrel among themselves for the premises, and for a moment forgot me, at which time I took the opportunity to walk out of the barn about up to my ankles in mud.

While I was a little distance from the barn, I heard them screeching and screaming in a very distressed manner, as it appeared they had engaged in a general fight with their knives. While they were thus engaged, the vision ended.

Of course we now can see the fulfillment of Joseph’s vision about his “farm.” The original is lost and can only be recovered in the same way it began: By God’s direct involvement. If an “original” returns, it will add elements that recover, finish, fulfill—not just add upon, but greatly expand, and yet remain entirely consistent with, the original.

In the current environment of “Many Mormonisms,” an original will likely be unnoticed, or dismissed as merely another schismatic breakaway from the party of angry men now occupying “Joseph’s farm.” But if the original Mormonism was founded on God’s voice, then God’s voice is abundant enough to recreate what is yet to be fully created. That is, of course, assuming there will ever again someone foolish enough to hear and heed His voice.

The paper upon which this talk was based is available as a PDF on my website but I printed about thirty copies of it and I’m going to leave them up front and at least thirty of you can pick up a copy there. I intentionally reserved enough time for questions and wondered if anyone had a question that they wanted to come up to the mike and voice.

Facilitator: Come on up here to the mike if you would, in the center aisle up front.

Question 1A: I’m formulating this question as I’m standing here talking already. My opinion is that the church under Joseph Smith never would have survived as long as it did doing what he did, unless he were a charismatic and he were open-minded enough to accept all walks of life into the church. If you were much more hard line till like Brigham Young was, let’s say, more of a business man, I don’t think the church would have had its metamorphosis that we see…

Denver Snuffer: But remember, Brigham Young had the advantage of isolation in the wilderness where it was difficult to flee.

Question 1B: Very important. That’s what happens when you cultivate a desert wasteland. My point would be, from a skeptical perspective, it seems like almost the wrong question to say, “Was there an original church,” because it was constantly morphing and changing. Trying to nail down a point, you can say April 6, 1830 but that was divorced from what he and Oliver Cowdery were doing in 1829 together. My question would be, would it be better to ask, what can be gleaned when we compare what we see as maybe an original, to today’s? Would it be better to examine the differences and say, what can we understand about it as a whole, instead of saying, we should try and follow whatever the original was? 

Denver Snuffer: I guess the way that you approach it: was Mormonism originally something, and if something, what was that thing? The closer you look at the issue of what it was the less it appears to be an organization, an institution, a body, and the more it appears to be a window into heaven in which individuals encounter it and are transformed by it. As the ordinance development went along, one of the things that distracted people – it’s the perniciousness of the vocabulary that substitutes one for the other. It’s when you introduce the idea of being sealed up and you introduce the idea of an ordinance in which something cosmic occurs, that people become distracted from the fact that Mormonism was trying to get you… At the end of this long ceremonial thing, you come and you encounter at the veil a symbolic presence of the Lord with whom you communicate through the veil preliminary to entering into His presence, at which point you render an accounting. It’s a mechanical process of keys, signs, and tokens. People think, “oh well if I got them then I can give all the passwords and I can get by the angels that stand as sentry, because that’s the way that Brigham described the endowment. If that’s the case then let’s all go to Gerald and Sandra Tanner’s website, let’s get those keys, signs, and tokens and go get drunk and have a frickin’ orgy and enjoy ourselves cuz we can get past the sentinels. We got em!” Unless of course they are purely symbolic, intending to communicate to the heart and mind the idea that you must represent by the life, the tangible life you lived, you must represent a life that has been devoted to obedience and sacrifice. 

The Lord will come into contact with you to confirm that your life has been so, because He is the keeper of the gate and He employeth no servant there. He can tell at a glance if you have lived your life in accordance with the gospel, consecration, fidelity. He can tell that, and then allow you to enter into His presence and thereby be redeemed from the fall. All of that mystical journey was a process of substituting symbols for truth. The testimony to the truth being… 

I do think that when Joseph Smith had the First Vision he pretty well describes the initial reaction that he had to it. He went home, he leans against the fireplace and he tells Mother Smith, “I’ve learned for myself that Presbyterianism isn’t true.” That’s about as far as it went. But as the religion began to roll out it assumed a cosmic significance precisely because it began to dawn on Joseph that the religion was intended for all men, all mankind to be redeemed from the fall. At the end of the whole thing, when you get all the way to the end, you can take Mormonism and go all the way back to James 1:5 and say, all Joseph is doing is saying that James 1:5 is true and it works. Therefore, you ought to attempt it. Take all the ordinances, take all of the promises, take everything that has been delivered and realize that all of that is simply God cheerleading you to reconnect with Him, and have an authentic experience. When that happens then the religion is alive. Then it matters. But it’s living in you, it’s not living in some chapel, it’s not living in some temple, it’s living in you. That’s the objective of the original. 

Question 2A: Passing the Heavenly Gift was a primary catalyst to my own paradigm shift and faith transition a few years ago, so thank you for that journey. 

Denver Snuffer: Don’t thank me.

Question 2B: So much of what you have written since then has really resonated with me but something that I come up against, that is a stumbling block for me – and I’m not a 12–year-old boy and I will read the paper – is the insistence that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy despite all of the even contemporaneous evidence to the contrary. How would it harm your argument to say that he did? Why couldn’t he have been the prophet of the restoration and have made this huge mistake with polygamy? 

Denver Snuffer: That’s a fair question and it’s a great question, actually. I understand why people of good faith believe all of the propaganda that began upon Joseph’s death and are confident that there is truth there. In fact, in D&C 132 we know something got read to the Nauvoo High Council and that something that got read dealt with the topic that the current iteration of D&C 132 contains. I’m not denying any of that. 

Here’s the problem: If you start with the beginning, and I take the position that whatever was revealed was first revealed in 1829. I think that it came during the translation of Jacob chapter 2. Just like reading about baptism in the Book of Mormon, they pray about baptism and John the Baptist appeared. I believe it was Jacob chapter 2 and not the Old Testament translation. In fact, there’s plenty of reason to suspect that. Start with 1829 and look at everything that exists up until June 27, 1844 and end your inquiry there. Just stop it at that moment and ask yourself, is there any proof that Joseph was involved in the way that people characterize his involvement? 

If you have an ordinance identified, and D&C 132 identifies an ordinance. It’s only one. It’s the old cliché, to a man with a hammer the whole world looks like a nail. If the only ordinance you have is marriage, and that’s the mechanism by which you are going to preserve families into eternity, and you want to preserve another family into eternity, how are you going to accomplish that? The only way in which it is possible to do so is through marriage. 

Some time – and understand, it was so late, we’re talking a period of a few months, it’s some time very late in the process – Joseph Smith began to do adoptions. We don’t even have language for what it was that Joseph was doing. Brigham Young attempted to mimic that. In fact, that section that Brigham Young wrote in the D&C about captains of tens and captains of fifties, substitute the word “father” because he organized the companies according to adoption principles. 

When Brigham Young got through in the valley and he was migrating back, and he was going to Winter Quarters and he encountered John Taylor and Parley Pratt and their company, the reason he blew a gasket, the reason why he went back and he wanted to become the president, was because he had organized that company according to the priesthood. He went back and was ranting and raving. When you read that it makes no sense at all unless you substitute in their the fact that he had organized them in an adopted family, and he viewed what Parley Pratt and John Taylor had done as an offence against the priesthood itself, and that’s why he wanted to be elected president. He got himself elected president, and one of the first things he said was, he can hardly wait to get back to the Salt Lake Valley and have Parley Pratt and John Taylor confess that they aren’t Brigham Young, because he’s the big dog now, and no one can seal anyone to anything without him and his word alone because he substituted. 

Joseph was up to something. But as soon as you get to 1852 the well of history is poisoned and everyone who advocates the continuity of polygamy dating back to Brigham Young, every one of them necessarily argues that fraud, deceit, lying, false testifying is an integral part of the religion in order to conceal the “sacred principle” of what they were up to. 

You look at Joseph Smith. The way that they have parsed the language to try and make it appear that Joseph was dishonest, is to distinguish between celestial marriage or the principle, and polygamy or plural wives or whatever else language got used. I see no such fine tuning in the talks that Joseph gave, in the conduct that he manifest. Your choice is that Joseph Smith was a calculated two-faced deceiver, or he said what he meant, he meant what he said, and that the subsequent amalgamation of historical proofs are insufficient. 

I dealt with that Fanny Alger thing, and the incident in the barn. We have two sources. We have only two sources for that, and they are decades after the fact. And when you put them both together the incident in the barn was Levi Hancock reciting the ceremony that Joseph gave to him in order to perform it, and that’s what Emma saw through the barn. There was even a conference in Provo. I think FAIR sponsored the conference. It was a woman that gave the talk. She got up and said the reason that Emma Smith was upset about Fanny Alger, [it] didn’t have anything to do with leaving sexual conduct with her husband, it was because she regarded the sealing as being more important than Fanny Alger did, and Emma actually believed in the eternity of the covenant. 

Look, there is too much post 1852 retrospective accounts to ever say it is impossible for the story to be cleaned up. There’s too much that is contrary. The way in which I have tried to get a handle on it is to stop the inquiry on June 27, 1844 and look at what happened before. 

Unfortunately, in the Joseph Smith Papers there are letters that are exchanged between Joseph and Emma, and the way I read the relationship is very different from the way in which others read it. She was the stronger personality. Her personality was stronger than Joseph and he needed her, he depended on her, and he had enormous respect for her, and he loved her and she loved him. Their relationship was not some… They did some practical planning in light of what was going on, in light of what happened. I think Joseph Smith’s reliance upon, affection for, and respect, for Emma Smith as his wife was far greater than most people have fathomed. Read their letters to one another. If they were unequally yoked, Emma had the advantage. She was better educated than him and he valued her opinion. This idea that he was some… Well, it’s like Rough Stone Rolling pointed out, if he was a lothario, where the crap are the children? There aren’t any. In fact, Joseph Smith’s statements, teachings, letters, communications with women seem very respectful. I would suggest that he was more of a shy nerd as to women than he was some predatory guy in a smoking jacket with a gold chain on his chest. 

Question 3: Could you please tell us, are you or are you not the reincarnation of B.H. Roberts? If you would like to table that, I could also ask if you give much credence to the theory that Brigham Young and his cousin, Willard Richards, orchestrated the death of both Hyrum, Joseph, and then their younger brother, Samuel Smith, shortly after Carthage? 

Denver Snuffer: The records don’t let us rule it in and something that dramatic probably ought not be ruled in without proof. It’s like, on some matters the burden of proof ought to be high enough that we have to reach a conclusion. When the historical record is a jumble… Brigham Young and Willard Richards were definitely propagandists willing to change the historical record in order to accomplish something. Brigham Young’s ambition to run Mormonism knew no bounds. He had an agenda, and his agenda could not be served by cooperating with others. He needed to have control. He saw Joseph had it and he wanted it. Aspiring men have always been a problem in Mormonism and they continue to be a problem today. 

Question 4: If you compare the first few years of Mormonism to the first few years of Moses it seems that Moses received more. It was as if God wanted this to happen more because of snakes and fire from heaven, getting rid of competition, the evil people. Why do you think that didn’t happen in Mormonism? It seemed that whether it was the Kirtland Safety Society or the Mormon War, or John C. Bennett, or William Law, whoever it was, prevented it. It was as if God didn’t want Mormonism to reach Zion in the 1840s but that he wanted it to be pushed out into the wilderness and receive what we have today.

Denver Snuffer: It’s an interesting thought and I would agree with the idea that Mormonism was never intended to reach the finish line while Joseph was here, but I don’t know that that was a line drawn by God because He refused to permit it. I would think it would rather be a line drawn by that generation because they were unprepared to permit it. I also think that if it had not been for the establishment of what was done in Joseph’s lifetime, you can’t make it to the finish line in any generation. It had to be done in stages. It had to be done incrementally. The first increment or the first installment necessarily involved preparing the ground, much like Martin Luther prepared ground that ultimately lead to religious refugees coming to this country and founding a nation that has religious freedom. 

Martin Luther was a necessary prerequisite to Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. Joseph Smith was a necessary prerequisite. All of the shortcomings and ills that you see in Kirtland, and in Independence and in Far West and Nauvoo and Salt Lake, all of them should inform us. That would make us better adept. We ought to be able to make our own new and different mistakes rather than repeating the same old ones. If you are going to do the same thing that was done before you should expect the outcome to eventually be the same thing: the aggregation of a lot of political and economic and social capital in the hands of a hierarchy who will abuse you and abuse the privileges. The best way is to have someone that believes the religion, strip themselves of power exactly as Christ, the prototype of the saved man did. 

Question 5: The inclusiveness you were talking about, when you were talking about revelation, that revelation from God can come from any source, and I guess our responsibility would be to be able to identify that. Which would make us have to think a lot more and ponder, I guess. How would you, any keys you would give, not to bring up that, keys have a loaded… Any suggestions? That inclusiveness is quite broad because wherever we look we would have to be able to consider whoever we’re talking to, could have something from God for us, right? 

Denver Snuffer: That’s true. Some people who absolutely despise me say some very intelligent things that make me think. Some of what they have to say is true and ought to be respected and help make you a better person. 

The way to recognize the truth is to live your life consistent with whatever truth it is that you have. If you’re faithful to what you know to be the truth, none of us will have all of the truth initially but it will grow brighter and brighter as you show respect to the truth. In fact, the more consistently you show respect to the truth you already have, the more your life becomes in conflict with everything that there is down here that pulls in an opposite direction. Hence, the saying that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things cannot produce the faith necessary for salvation, which means that if you’re remaining loyal to the truth and an entire church stands up to condemn you. 

I don’t think it was easy for Martin Luther. I don’t think it was easy for Joseph Smith. The adversaries that Joseph Smith confronted initially were ministers of other faiths but later were ministers of Mormonism. 

Imagine – the gal that asked the question, I guess it’s now politically correct from a Democrat – the girl that asked the question about polygamy. Imagine if you will that Joseph Smith didn’t practice it and was opposed to it, and put him back in his historical setting with that problem, with that attitude, and he’s opposed to it. There’s nothing he could have done other than what he did do in the steps that he took that ultimately lead to arrest, imprisonment, and death. Which is why, given the vagaries of the historical record I am not eager to reach a conclusion. I know that people think that I have ruled it out altogether. All I’ve done is said, wait a minute, there’s a whole lot in the historical record that ought to create doubt in your minds. I’m saying that if there’s enough doubt in your mind then stop short of reaching the conclusion that Joseph Smith did and taught and was what the histories say he was. It is possible that he was a man of virtue, a man of innocence, and a man who lived his life consistent with the truth as he understood it. If you do the same the light within you will grow and you’ll be able to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is error, and what is of God and what is not.

Thank you all very much. We are out of time. 

The post Was There An Original? appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.