Light and Truth

The following thoughts and ideas were shared be Denver where he participated in the online conference Unity in Humanity Interfaith Celebration 2022 on Saturday, October 22, 2022.

Jill Van Haren: All right, so our last speaker, I’d like to welcome Denver.

Denver C. Snuffer, Jr. He lives in Sandy, Utah. He was admitted to practice law in 1980 in Utah and remains a practicing attorney. He was a convert to the LDS faith in 1973 when he was 19 years old, and he was excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints exactly 40 years later for writing a book called Passing the Heavenly Gift. During those 40 years, he served on the Stake High Council [and] taught Gospel Doctrine and priesthood classes for 21 years. He’s the author of many books, including The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil. Welcome, Denver.

Denver Snuffer: How are you doing, Jill? 

I’ve been listening to everyone’s talk before now, and while I would use a different vocabulary, much of what got said would be something that could be said in my faith, just using a different vocabulary. 

There are only a handful of predominant religions in the world. But to a believer, I don’t think the numbers matter. The truth—if someone’s got what they believe to be truth—is something that people like to hold on, even if there are “few who find it,” to quote Christ. The numbers in various predominant religions run something like this: 

• There’s a total of 2.38 billion Catholics in the world, or excuse me, Christians in the world, of which 1.3 billion are Catholic, and 1 billion are Protestant
• There are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, but surprisingly, 1.5 billion out of that are Sunni, and only 270 million are estimated to be Shia
• 1.2 billion Hindus
• 506 million Buddhists
• 26.4 million Sikhs
• Mormons slightly outnumber the number of Jews in the world at 16.6 million Mormons (nominally Mormon) and 15.8 million Jews
• Daoists there are 8.7 million

I belong to a small group of people that believe in Mormonism (and Mormonism is expansive in the sense that anyone that believes in the Book of Mormon is regarded as Mormon). But I don’t belong to the largest sect of that, which is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (I did once; Jill mentioned I was excommunicated.) I’m part of a small group—maybe a few thousand people—trying to recapture the original, dramatic, living religion that Joseph Smith taught at the time that Joseph Smith was alive and restoring what’s regarded as the “original religion that goes back to the time of Adam.” Part of that religion is belief in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has a verse in it that says this: 

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. Therefore, we see that the Lord doth counsel in his wisdom, according to that which is just and true. 

From that verse, I take it that no matter where you go, what nation you’re involved with, what tongue is spoken, what vocabulary gets applied that all the religions that there are in the world have some relation to God and that God intended for these diverse belief systems to be out there, and that if you, as part of your belief system, have something that is true and you have an opportunity to offer that to me, that I ought to be willing to accept it, that truth belongs in one aggregated hole and not splintered as it is, but it’s up to us to undertake the effort to do that gathering. 

There’s pressure on every religion to change, and that pressure begins immediately. Before Mohammed was dead, the religion was under pressure to change; after he was dead, there was pressure to change it before it was reduced to writing. By the time it was reduced to writing, there were multiple forms of the Quran. The, umm… Wars were fought, and books were burned in order to bring Islam into a unified, single text. That mirrors what happened in Christianity with the fights that occurred in the second and third century of Christianity in trying to settle on what was the correct bundle of beliefs, and warring factions, fighting one another, until finally there became one universal or Catholic Christian faith, and it predominated. 

Forces and arguments that apply to religions today suggest that religious beliefs are outdated. There are arguments that they’re harmful to the individual, or they’re harmful to society, or they’re an impediment to the progress of science or humanity. And in recent decades, there’s been a precipitous decline in the West of biblical moral values, and that’s been mirrored by similar declines in the East. This decline has paralleled the rapid escalation of culture shifts, such as relativism, and materialism, individualism, and secularism. These have caused all religions in general to become increasingly marginalized throughout the world. 

Since the Industrial Revolution, social change has been initiated increasingly by the youth. Economic [Economy] changed the opportunities that children were afforded because of the Industrial Revolution, and that separated children from their parents’ professions. Before then, a butcher’s children grew up to be a butcher; a carpenter’s children grew up to be carpenters; brick masons produced brick masons; and so on. But the revolution allowed new opportunities for the children. And they separated not only from their parents physically but also, increasingly, culturally and religiously. 

But it’s a biblical curse to be led by children, and since World War II, children have been at the leading edge of social change and religious change. And an observer of the upheaval wrote a song about what was underway in 1963. He wrote it because of what he perceived to be the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times that was then underway. It was written in September and October of 1963: 

Come gather ’round people

Wherever you roam, 

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown, 

And accept it that soon

You’ll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to you is worth savin’ 

Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, 

For the times they are a-changin’. 

And more directly a verse later:

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout all the land,

And don’t criticize

What you can’t understand. 

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command,

For your old road is rapidly agin’.

Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand,

For the times they are a-changin’. 

…As the present now 

Will later be passed,

The order is rapidly fadin’. 

And the first one now will later be last,

For the times they are a-changin’. 

(“The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan)

That was true in the post-World War II baby boom generation. But modern social media and modern communications and social networks have increasingly skewed the development of social change into the hands of the youth. And not to be left on the side, there are a lot of deliberate forces who have studied social change who interject themselves directly into the process of leading that social change from behind nameless, faceless walls where they interject into the stream ideas that are increasingly amoral, increasingly selfish, self-centered, sexually deviant, destructive of the family, destructive of religious traditions and religious histories that we want to hold on to. As Kevin talked about his return to an earlier form of religion because of his discouragement from what he saw in Christianity, so likewise, the social media change is encouraging everyone to abandon the mores and the anchor that the religious values they were raised with provided to them.

John Lennon wrote a song that was based upon a book that was written by Timothy Leary who paraphrased from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. And so, ideas from Buddhism crept into the social change underway in the 1960s in the form of the Buddhist ideas that infected the lyrics of John Lennon. Later, all of the Beatles attended a lecture in August of 1967 by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the Hilton Hotel in London. Afterwards, they met with him privately; they were favorably impressed, and they went up to Bangor in north Wales for a weekend seminar. While the Beatles were in Wales at the seminar of the Maharaja, Brian Epstein (the one who had managed the Beatles) died, and the death of the Beatles’ manager (coinciding with the transcendental meditation instruction) no doubt had a great deal to do with the Beatles’ decision to move to India in February of 1987 for several months of training. While there, it was one of the most productive songwriting periods of the band, but it ended badly when the Maharishi was accused of inappropriate sexual misconduct. Cultural currents of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and (in John Lennon’s case) Atheism all merged into the music of the Beatles. And an onslaught of cultural drift from social media giants today is also spreading a new wave of innovation, confusion, irreligion, mixed religion, and we find ourselves in the midst of materialism, hedonism, sexual confusion, and intolerance predominating in the new values that are attempting to replace the old ones that are based on the traditional religions. 

Well, this conference is supposed to be comparing notes, so to speak, across religious faiths. All lives are temporary; we learn from the past what the dead leave us in writing, song, architecture, and social structure. But we will soon be joining our dead ancestors. And the question arises: What are we going to leave to benefit our posterity who will have arrived after us when we’ve departed from this temporary place? Why would we choose to leave something? What could possibly be the most important thing we can bequeath? I’d suggest that words of truth resonate across every culture, across every religion, across every language. They’re not only the most valuable thing that we can leave behind, but they’re also the most enduring. Truth outlasts brick and mortar. It endures beyond empires, it moves nations, it gives meaning to life, and it raises our eyesight above the ground and lets us peer into eternity. 

Kevin mentioned the star theology of the Blackfeet. Star theology is very much a part of a true religion. Ultimately, we hope to build a temple, and in the temple, I expect there will be a great deal that memorializes in architecture a true star theology. 

I want to thank everyone who’s participated from their vantage point in giving us what they have given us. I believe that God is knowable. I believe that it’s part of the quest of meaning in this life for us to seek to know God and to obtain understanding directly from Him and not derivatively simply from books or from the past—but to let a religion live in us, in which God’s presence through us is manifest in the earth by the things we say, the things we do, the things we think. 

Now, I was told to leave time for questions. And so I want to do that. But I also want to point out that there’s a point in the Old Testament where the patriarchal father of the twelve tribes of Israel is in the process of giving blessings to prophesy what is going to befall his posterity on to the end of time. And his oldest son, Reuben, was given a blessing, which says, Reuben, you, my first born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellence of dignity, and the excellence of power. Unstable as water, you shall not [prosper] (Genesis 12:20 RE). Now, the way I have read that most often in the past is that he’s telling him that Reuben and his posterity is gonna be too unstable in their convictions and their way of life to prosper. But recently, I’ve had a change of mind. And I think what he’s saying is, if you are unstable as water, you will not prosper. And I think that admonition/that warning/that counsel to the son, Reuben, is applicable to all of us. And that when we allow our religious convictions to become unstable, unanchored in the solidity of what is enduring and eternal, then we become incapable of prospering. And so I would end by saying, be true and believing to your faiths, to the traditions you’ve held that are true; be solid as a rock in resisting the winds of compromise and doubt, because they surely are upon us. 

Oh, there’s one question I see here (I’ve called up the questions), asking about what song it was. It’s “Tomorrow Never Knows,” a song that got its title not from the book but from one of Ringo Starr’s malapropisms: “a hard day’s night,” “eight days a week”… These are just things that Ringo Starr would say. And the title of John Lennon’s song was “Tomorrow Never Knows,” because Ringo would utter that. And it’s one of the most innovative songs that The Beatles introduced—the last song on the Revolver album—and it would point the way to where that band was headed. 

Okay, so here’s a question says, If Joseph Smith was oriented to the religion of Adam, will it not require us to grow in understanding of what Adam understood? Yes, absolutely. Without any doubt, it will take a great deal to make the leap across from where we are now, into a religion that is far more comprehensive and far more oriented towards nature and eternity. The stars… When you look at the stars, for example, you’re literally looking back billions of years, just to the naked eye. And so, being quiet and going out at night and looking up at the star fields is one way to project yourself back into eternity, billions and billions of years visually, because they are… What you’re seeing now is something from the long-distant past. And it’s right there available for you to behold and for you to meditate upon. And it’s a way to connect you up by being still with a much greater consciousness that fills the immensity of space and originates from God Himself. 

So another question: How do you suggest someone moves from connecting with God through scripture to connecting with God directly through experience or spirit? Every bit of Scripture that you read, every profound idea that you encounter has an affect on you. And if you slow down and you allow it to sink deeply into your heart and your mind, and if you consider it carefully, the idea will eventually occur to you that you’re not separated in time and space from that which is timeless and eternal, but that you, too, are part of that. 

There’s a sermon given by King Benjamin (in the book of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon) in which he points out that God is sustaining you, by His power, from moment to moment, by lending you breath so that you might live and move and do according to your own will. What that statement by King Benjamin tells you is that the very breath that you breathe connects you to God because He’s lending it to you. Without that connection directly and immediately with God, you wouldn’t be able to breathe. Therefore, there’s an immediacy and a familiarity between you and God that exists innately. How you connect is to begin to pay attention to that. 

And then there’s this question, what is one of the most important truths you ponder throughout the day? Where do you spend your time thinking and pondering? Well, there’s a lot of things that have to be done. There’s a lot of things that are currently underway or that will shortly be underway that require careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts. I contemplate about the potential for failure. I contemplate the potential for my own weakness and my own inability. I contemplate about how odd the responses are by those who are both opposed to and those that are over-eager with what God is up to and doing today—and about how hard it is to cut the middle line and to keep everything in balance so that it proceeds in an orderly and steady and careful fashion. I worry about my own inadequacies and abilities, and I worry about the people around me. I’ve pondered about all the illnesses that I have seen, the deaths of friends, the temporary nature of our existence here, and about how we really do need to take care and use the time carefully. Because it is extraordinarily valuable, the time we have here in mortality. Thank you.

Jill Van Haren: Thank you so much, Denver. Along those same lines, I had a question. Thinking about mortality—and with Gail referencing, you know, in terms of her understanding of reincarnation and then taking upon body until we get it right, and then she expounded on what that meant—but I just wonder if you can tell us what your thoughts are on the purpose of coming here into these physical bodies and what we’re to be doing with our time that you were just mentioning that’s so precious.

Denver Snuffer: Everyone here is to be added upon as a result of what happens to us in mortality. And it doesn’t matter if your life is short and brutal or if your life is long. Everyone who comes into a mortal body in this sphere gets added upon. We will depart here, and we will go to a place where there aren’t bodies in this form, where we’ll be given a chance to think back upon what we experienced. And if it was harsh and brutal and short and mean, that will give us a chance to meditate upon the meaning of those things and why they are negative and why there ought to be something better. If your life is long and successful, you’ll have a chance to reflect back upon what good you did, if any. And what more good you could have done, but you failed to do if you were self-indulgent. We are in the process of gaining understanding, light and truth, and sometimes that comes at the expense of hurting others. And sometimes that comes at the value of helping others. But everything that goes on here will not be forfeited; it will be kept. And we will move from, as the Scriptures put it, “worlds without end,” from sphere to sphere, experience to experience, over whatever time it takes, however many lives it may take, in order to be added on so that we can become like what our Scriptures define as “the prototype of the saved man.” That prototype of the saved man is Jesus Christ because death could not hold Him in the grave. The grave took Him, and He reclaimed His body, and He ascended into Heaven because he is the prototype of the saved man. And eventually, we are to arrive at that same end—but it may take worlds without end. We’re here along a long, long path and eternal path to gain experience, while we are here temporarily and to learn. Thank you.

Jill Van Haren: Thank you so much for that last question, Denver. Thank you so much for coming.

TRANSCRIPT

The post Unity in Humanity Interfaith Celebration – 2022 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following thoughts and comments were shared at the “Stand Independent Conference” in Layton, Utah on September 25th, 2022.

Aloha! To quote a friend from earlier this morning, Ke Akua Ho’omaika’i Oe, which is a Hawaiian blessing of God upon you. 

I want to welcome, in particular, those who have been recently baptized and are attending this get-together for the first time. You may have noticed that we tend to have disagreements among one another and hold differing opinions. And that’s welcomed. It produces discussions. Discussions can lead to kind of healthy healing and understanding. And one of the reasons why (when the opportunity to speak was presented) I thought it best to have my wife speak first and to speak about the subject that she talked about was because we are an unruly, uncontrolled, free group of people. We have no structure; we have no organization; we have no one in authority—because what ought to control the way in which we treat one another and the way in which we conduct ourselves is obedience to God and God alone. 

One of the problems with institutional churches or organizations is that once you have established a mechanism for determining control, then it doesn’t matter if the person who obtains the position of control is a good man or a bad man, a wise man or a fool. Once they occupy the position, it is the position that commands the respect. It is the position itself that has the ability to say yes or no and to move things forward in a wise or in a foolish way (which is one of the reasons why institutions that can be corrupted are always corrupted— period). The adversary has learned long ago that there’s a limited number of tricks that you pull in order to bring about the corruption of institutions. And so when you ordain a new institution… And it doesn’t matter what it is! It can be founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, and it will turn, over time, into Catholicism, in which wealthy and perverse and corrupt men cover their sins and gratify their pride and satisfy their vain ambition because they have the position in which to do it, and they can point back to the founder who is Jesus Christ who gave authority to Peter, and they hold the keys of Peter, and therefore, what they do ought to sway you, ought to control you. Wars get fought; people get executed. And so the adversary rules with blood and horror, all the while the dialogue focuses upon the position of authority and the legitimacy at the beginning of both Jesus Christ and Peter, his apostle. And so, whenever you stray from your obedience and adherence to the rule, you are reminded, “Wait a minute! There is authority, and that authority ought to command respect.”

Aren’t these things annoying? [referring to the mic]

Look, we have a restoration that commenced with Joseph Smith, and I doubt anyone would be here today if they didn’t think that there was an authentic event that occurred in the life of Joseph Smith, in which the Heavens were opened and a new message was delivered, and through him—by the gift and power of God—came forth a new volume of Scripture, the Book of Mormon. And we all accept that. But so do millions of other people who are not among us. There are those who have determined that the institution ordained by the Lord through Joseph Smith ought to command your fidelity and your loyalty—no matter what course it takes or how it may stray from or pervert the original teachings that were established—because of the legitimacy of Joseph Smith and the institution that he founded. And so today, the “most successful” of the groups controls over a trillion dollars in resources because people accept the narrative that “once an institution is legitimately founded, it doesn’t get corrupted.” 

Every institution gets corrupted. We lack an institution. And insofar as I hold any influence, I will oppose the establishment of an institution which legitimizes any person to occupy a role of authority and to exert (by their demand or command or insistence) the obedience of others. It is true that there have been revelations given by the Lord and that I’ve received some of them, and they’ve been published. I don’t consider myself above any of them. Nor do I consider myself to have a greater understanding than any of you who can read the same document as I can. Once it’s been received, I have to study it to understand its contents. I don’t come with a ready-made ability to dictate anything to anyone. I am just as subordinate to and dictated to by God as any of you. I hold no position of authority. And among us, any voice that can speak up and testify to truth is welcomed. And anyone that has a truth that they can defend and explain—particularly in expounding the Scriptures and bringing new truth to light—is on an equal footing with every other one of us. It has to be so. You have to be individually responsible for understanding and preserving the truth. It has to be part of you—because if it is part of you (and only you), then you stand independent, and the apostasy or the corruption of another man or woman has no effect upon the persistence and the preservation of the truth—because it is in you. In order to create an apostasy, it requires that every single person must individually become corrupted when we all stand on equal footing before God, accountable for our faith, accountable for the truths that we welcome. 

If we establish institutional controls, the adversary knows exactly how to compromise that—because it always happens. The Constitution of the United States was established by enlightened men whom God raised up for the very purpose. There was a system of checks and balances because evil, corrupt, and aspiring men always gravitate to positions of control and authority. It’s like that light that draws the mosquitoes at night and then electrocutes them. It draws them in; they can’t help themselves. And once there, the corruption that attaches destroys the men and the women. 

One of the important checks and balances that got established (and I’ve given a talk about this down in Utah County years ago called “Constitutional Apostasy”) was a system in which the senators of the various states were not elected directly by the people; they were chosen by the legislatures of the respective states. You didn’t get to vote for a senator; you got to vote for the state legislature, and then the state legislature selected and sent someone to the Senate. Can you imagine how differently the migration of power, taxes, and authority would have happened in the United States if the United States Senate was subordinate to the legislators of the various states? None of what you see going on in the aggregation of federal authority would have been approved in a United States Senate that was subordinate to the various legislatures. And so as soon as you changed (by an amendment to the Constitution) one of the checks and balances that had been set up by the founding fathers, you immediately launched the United States into a different direction, and you have subtracted a terribly meaningful check and balance on federal power and authority. 

Small thing, grave consequences, and we’re suffering under that even today. These are the kinds of small means that get employed by the adversary to corrupt institutions, to detract from our freedoms, from giving us the opportunity to preserve faith intact, and for being able to preserve truth—small things. 

At the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his co-president, Hyrum Smith (whom Joseph had identified as THE possessor of Priesthood and Patriarch, upon whom the keys of the ability to ask and get answers had been conferred) upon their death, immediately a change was made. Whereas before there was never any occasion in which a member of the Quorum of the Twelve got asked to be a member of the First Presidency, upon the death of those two, the only ones that ever thereafter occupied a position in the First Presidency had to also occupy a position in the Quorum of the Twelve. And so the check and the balance of having quorums “equal in authority” got corrupted immediately, and we see the legacy of what happens thereafter. 

It’s very easy to corrupt men. Vain and ambitious desires, lustful and covetous attitudes, they’re resident in every person in embryo, and the adversary knows how to excite that into corruption. When Joseph Smith was confined to Liberty Jail and he had nearly half a year, finally, to be out of the frenzy of the daily life, Joseph Smith wrote from Liberty Jail about destroying the ability of priesthood to claim it occupied positions of authority when he wrote, …no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood (T&C 139:6).

In the Joseph Smith translation of the book of Genesis describing the power in the gifts that were exercised by Enoch, they were exercised by faith in advance of the time in which he got ordained. All of the powers and the gifts of faith are available to every one of you—men and women—without regard to whether or not you hold priesthood or authority. You want to demonstrate the gifts of the Spirit? You don’t have to have ordination in order to do so. 

Well, from time to time I look into and read the nonsense that gets written about us. And one of the great curiosities that people have (and it’s a matter of conjecture and speculation on—what is that?—Wiki and MormonWiki online when they’re trying to describe what it is we’re up to and who it is that we are) is conjecture about our numbers. Well, I got news for you: I don’t have any idea how many people there are that have been baptized. I’ve heard that there are a number of people who were recently baptized and some of them will be here today. I understand that baptisms take place with some regularity in very far-flung places. I understand there’s a website through which people can request baptism and that there are those who travel in order to perform the ordinance in far-flung places where there isn’t someone already present able to perform the ordinance. But I don’t know what the numbers are. Probably the only one who does is Keith Henderson—and I’ve never asked him, and I don’t ask, and he doesn’t tell—because he conducts the Recorder’s Clearinghouse. 

But I happen to know from fairly good authority that there are many people who have been baptized and who are awaiting turning in their paperwork to the Recorder’s Clearinghouse until after their retirement from employment by the LDS Church or one of its various institutions—because they’re afraid if that were to become an issue for them, they’d lose their employment. And much of the employment that happens in the LDS Church is based upon the possession of a temple recommend, and if they knew that someone had been rebaptized, they would deny him the temple recommend, and that would be that. 

So even the Recorder’s Clearinghouse numbers, however many that may show, there are others in addition. And I’m just not interested in that because the numbers don’t matter. People who are interested in aggregation and numbers and quantities and… They miss the point. They miss the point entirely of what it is that is happening and its importance. The numbers do not matter. It isn’t about how many there are. It’s about how closely even a few can become to what it is the Lord wants us to become. 

Look, there’s an incident—it’s referred to in the Teachings and Commandments 54, or excuse me, 154 where this incident is reported:

Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing… 

So Adam called them together to give them his last blessing. 

And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the Prince, the Archangel. And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam, and [he] said unto him, I have set you to be at the head; a multitude of nations shall come of you, and you are a prince over them for ever. 

And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation, and notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the holy ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation. These things were all written in the Book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time. 

Now this same priesthood, which was in the beginning, shall be in the end of the world also — or in other words, at the end of the world, the final dispensation will restore again the pattern of the first, or Adam’s, dispensation. (T&C 154:19-21, emphasis as in original)

That promise is also something that we find in Genesis chapter three. Let me go to [paragraph] 13: 

Thus the gospel began to be preached from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the holy ghost. And thus all things were confirmed unto Adam by a holy ordinance, and the gospel preached, and a decree sent forth that it should be in the world until the end thereof. And thus it was. Amen. 

And Adam listened [un]to the voice of God and called upon his sons to repent. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and he called his name Seth. And Adam glorified the name of God, for he said, God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew. And God revealed himself unto Seth, and he rebelled not, but offered an acceptable sacrifice like unto his brother Abel. And to him also was born a son, and he called his name Enos. And then began these men to call upon the name of the Lord, …the Lord blessed them. And a book of remembrance was kept, in which was recorded in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration. And by them their children were taught to read and write, having a language which was pure and undefiled. Now this same priesthood which was in the beginning shall be in the end of the world also. (Genesis 3:13-14 RE)

So what is it about that priesthood that from these verses we can count on? Well, for one, there is a list of seven high priests who are named (who gathered with Adam in the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman) to whom the Lord appeared. 

If you go through the chronology in Genesis, what you realize is that the children of Adam and Eve fell almost immediately into apostasy. There were generations born, none of whom accepted the gospel being taught by Father Adam and Mother Eve—generations!—until at last, Eve’s optimism was raised because of Cain. And she thought, “Now, at last, finally, we’ve got someone who will follow and obey the Lord.” After generations! And yet, the one whom she had hope in murdered his brother, and so there had to be born yet another descendant to Adam and Eve: Seth, whose name we just encountered. 

And so Father Adam and Mother Eve are bearing children for generations. And their posterity are marrying (we’re told in Genesis) two-by-two; they marry, and they duplicate the family unit, and they have children. And so generations exist now. (And they lived a long time, and they bore children for generation after generation.) And now we get three years previous to Adam’s death (something over 960 years), and you have seven high priests and then a handful that are called “the residue.” 

This same priesthood, which was in the beginning, is going to return in the end. What the world fails to recognize is that you don’t need 16½ million people to accomplish and fulfill the promises and the prophecies. When Jesus Christ came in the meridian of time and He taught people, the biggest number that is ever mentioned in the New Testament is mentioned in an epistle by the apostle Paul at the time that the Lord ascended into Heaven from the Mount of Olives: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here looking up? That same Lord shall in like manner return” (see Acts 1:3 RE). Two angels came by and spoke to them that were watching, and Paul enumerates, “How many were there?” Maybe five hundred is what Paul says the Lord Jesus Christ was able to convince to have faith after His resurrection and after He had spent some 40 days as a resurrected personage appearing in and around Jerusalem and ministering to disciples. Five hundred. What difference do the estimates of the numbers of people make? If that same priesthood which was in the beginning shall in the end of the world be also and if our Lord managed only with proof of His resurrection to get 500, what difference do the numbers make? It’s not the numbers that matter.

I’ll tell you what matters: 

And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying, It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless, they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart — only according to the portion of his word which he do[th] grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him… 

Okay, heed and diligence unto the Lord—that matters. 

…therefore, 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 they know them in full. And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the Devil and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant by the chains of hell. (Alma 9:3 RE)

The Restoration through the Prophet Joseph Smith right now is bound firmly in the chains of hell everywhere, excepting among this group (and including this group, to the extent that we fail to give heed and diligence to the Lord)! The only thing that matters isn’t the numbers. What matters is the heed and the diligence given by some few unto the Lord, so that the mysteries of God may increase in them until they know the mysteries of God in full. 

Take a look around at what you see in the various claimants to be inspired leaders of the various denominations that reckoned from Joseph Smith as a founder, and you will see such profound ignorance, such darkness, that the only way to describe it is as the chains of hell. They know nothing concerning the mysteries of God. “We don’t know about that. I don’t know that we teach that,” to quote Gordon B. Hinckley. They reject and they march away in their pride and their arrogance, all the while claiming that they’re possessors of keys—and because they have keys, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better be good, and I’m telling you why. Nelson, the Destroyer. 

Therefore, he [and this is talking about God—he] sent angels to converse with them, who caused men to behold…his glory. And they began from that time forth to call on his name; therefore, God conversed with men and made known unto them the plan of redemption which had been prepared from the foundation of the world. And this he made known unto them according to their faith, and repentance, and their holy works. (Ibid. ¶7)

That’s what matters: faith, repentance, and holy works. Those are the things that bring about the results that God is trying to achieve in restoring things in the last days so that that which was here in the beginning may return again in the last days to the earth. Angels come, and they converse with men. That results in teachings that are inspired and true. That allows people to comprehend a plan for their salvation, which in turn results in them repenting and being able to accomplish holy works. 

There are holy works that are being accomplished and have been accomplished among the people that we are part of, that we’re privileged to participate in. Among other things, the Scriptures have been recovered in a way that they have not been available to mankind for… Well, ever since the time that the Lord was here in the New Testament (which itself got corrupted shortly thereafter by a great and abominable church). We’ve recovered Scriptures; we’ve presented them to the Lord; we’ve asked that He accept them. The Lord has made some changes to the Scriptures and told us to alter or add things or eliminate things from the text, and then having done so, all of what He said was gathered together and printed in a bound volume of Scriptures. That involved the efforts of many people over several years with a great deal of effort (primarily a research effort). But in the end, it was something that required God’s own voice in order to finish the task up. And God determined that He would speak unto us, and we heard and recorded His voice. And we have Scriptures as a consequence of that. 

Right now, there is an ongoing effort: I’m privileged to meet with the effort/those involved every week over Zoom, with people from all over the world—scholars and people of unquestioned capacity and ability to take the Book of Mormon and to translate it back into the language that would have been used about 600 years before Christ in the Hebrew tongue of that day. It’s an extraordinarily arduous task. And the words that get used have to be attested to by existing Old Testament Hebrew texts. There are several translations of the Book of Mormon (either in whole or in part) into Hebrew, but they use modern-Hebrew language. And there isn’t a rabbi who’s serious about understanding the words of God who would respect those forms of the translation of the Book of Mormon as something that is authoritative and attested to. That effort has been going on for several years, and it’s now in its final editing process. But it will eventually result in the rolling forth of yet another holy work (not being accomplished through institutions that prize their riches and who’ve entered into treaties in order to secure the ability to build part of a BYU campus extension on the Mount of Olives in Israel; they’ve signed a treaty with the nation of Israel guaranteeing that they will not proselytize—in absolute contradiction to the obligation imposed upon us in the Book of Mormon to take the message of the Book of Mormon to the remnant of the Jews—because they value their presence in Israel). And so the work is left to us. And so we’ve undertaken yet another holy work. 

There are other things afoot that will, in due time, roll forth in order to fulfill the promises and the commitments made by God. Because it doesn’t matter how few of us there are. What matters is the holiness of the work that we are accomplishing. 

There’s a scripture that I read a while ago, that is a little more directly related to the subject of this conference than what I’ve been saying so far. But all things matter. So… It’s from Ezekiel; in the Restoration Edition, it’s Ezekiel 18:10. 

Thus says the Lord God: In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be built. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities have become fortified and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places and plant that which was desolate. I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. 

There’s a lot of excitement about the idea that there’s global warming going on and that we need to take some fairly dramatic steps to cure a problem. A problem may exist, but all of the solutions only make the problem worse and have nothing to do with actually fixing what’s wrong. It’s so extraordinarily wrongheaded. It’s like, oh, someone has leprosy at a time when we have no cure or treatment for it and telling him, “Quick, quick, go bathe in the city’s drinking water, so that, you know, we can solve your leprosy problem.” It’s a nonsensical solution there. 

I would commend you to just go to YouTube, and search videos on YouTube about reclaiming desert land in some of the absolute worst places/most arid places on Earth. They have gone and done things to get nature to respond to cultivation and to plant life. In some cases, it’s by running herd animals over the ground, like nature used to do in the Great Plains of the United States, where the grasslands of the United States were far and wide because the grazing herds would come through. They would graze; they wouldn’t necessarily digest all of the seeds; it would come out in the waste product of the animals, and their hooves would penetrate the ground to plant the seeds. And the next time it rained, the grass would regrow, and the roots would shoot down, and anytime moisture came through, the plants would attract it and hold it and invest it back into the earth. And extraordinarily arid places have been reclaimed simply by mimicking what nature wants to do. 

There’s a fellow—he’s a religious fellow, and he’s created a camp in Texas. He bought a completely arid, dry piece of ground on which he intended to develop a camp, and there was nothing out there but weeds and dirt and, I think, a mesquite tree or two. And he thought, “Well, the way to solve my problem is to drill a well.” They began drilling the well, and as it got to the underground caverns in the limestone, the drilling rig would drop 40 feet in an empty cavern because there was nothing down there. And they drilled on and on, and the solution to the problem never came from drilling wells. The solution to his problem came from planting weeds that grew grasses (what we would consider weeds), grasses that grew high that captured and invested into the soil, and he refilled the aquifer—he refilled those limestone caverns—with water. And on the surface of his property today, he has a lake and a stream that runs off of his property and trees and vegetation, and it looks like Ezekiel described: whereas before it was desolate and barren, afterwards there are literally pools of living water that broke forth on the ground. 

Which reminds me of something we have in the Teachings and Commandments in 58, beginning at paragraph three, about the middle:

And he shall utter his voice out of Zion and he shall speak from Jerusalem, and his voice shall be heard among all people…it should be a voice as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder which shall break down the mountains, and the valleys shall not be found. He shall command the great deep, …it shall be driven back into the north countries and the islands shall become one land, and the land of Jerusalem and the land of Zion shall be turned back into their own place, and the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided. And the Lord, even the Savior, shall stand in the midst of his people… [He] shall reign over all flesh. And they who are in the north countries shall come in remembrance before the Lord, and their prophets shall hear His voice and shall no longer stay themselves, and they shall smite the rocks, and…ice shall flow down at their presence, and a highway shall be cast up in the midst of the great deep. Their enemies shall become a prey unto them, and in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land. And they shall bring forth their rich treasures unto the children of Ephraim, my servants, …the boundaries of the everlasting hills shall tremble at their presence. 

Well, those things occur as a consequence of natural events. And the Earth longs to be able to have those events begin to take place. Look at the words of the covenant that the Lord offered to us: 

I, the Lord your God, will be with you and never forsake you, and I will lead you in the path which will bring peace to you in the troubling season now fast approaching. 

I will raise you up and protect you, abide with you, and gather you in due time, and this shall be a land of promise to you as your inheritance from me. 

The Earth will yield its increase, and you will flourish upon the mountains and upon the hills, and the wicked will not come against you because [of] the fear of the Lord will be with you. 

I will visit my house, which the remnant of my people shall build, and I will dwell therein, to be among you, and no one will need to say, Know ye the Lord, for you all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. 

I will teach you things that have been hidden from the foundation of the world and your understanding will reach unto Heaven. 

…You should be called the children of the Most High God, and I will preserve you against the harvest. (T&C 158:12-17)

Well, the Earth wants to yield her increase. There’s a lamentation recorded by Enoch, right before the flood, where the Earth herself spoke up and lamented the wickedness of men upon her face and wanted to know when the season would finally come that she could rest and that righteousness would return to her face. 

There’s a saying about how sensitive horses are that they can feel when a fly lands on them. And they can make their skin shake, and they can shoo the fly with their tail because they can feel something as light as the presence of a fly that lands on them. Do you think from the account that is given by Enoch of the Earth’s lamentation that the Earth itself is any less sensitive about the wickedness that exists upon her face than a horse is sensitive to the presence of a fly upon her skin? If the Earth senses the presence of righteousness again upon her face, do you think it matters that there’s only seven of them? That there’s only 500 of them? That there’s only a diminutive number? I mean, how many people heard the Lord in any given sermon that He taught, even the Sermon on the Mount? Were there as many people that heard Him on that occasion as are here today? Perhaps not. I mean, they didn’t have folding chairs; they didn’t have fixed chairs. How many people can you gather without a microphone? Without the ability to project a sound? How many people heard the sound of the Lord? It is perhaps the largest number of people that ever heard Christ speak at the gathering in Bountiful, when approximately 2500 people saw the risen Lord and had Him minister to them. Can you imagine that? That the Lord spent His entire ministry preaching and teaching to a comparatively small group of people that was dwarfed by the number of people he was able to address in the resurrection when He visited in Bountiful? 

Well, I would not be troubled about the numbers. I would be troubled about the degree to which we progress and regress. The reason why my wife stood up first to talk to you is because there’s a great deal in the Answer to the Prayer for Covenant and in the most recent instruction that we got that refers us back to the Answer to Prayer for Covenant and the Covenant itself that suggests that we need to figure out how to deal with one another in a meaningful way, how to deal with the fact that we have differences—because we do and we will, and there is always going to be some reason why the particular group of irritants coming from that man or woman is just setting your teeth on edge. It’s just always gonna be the case. So why not ask (as Stephanie had suggested) in response to that, not what’s up with them? But instead, what’s up with ME? Why does that person set me off? Very often, the reason why that person sets you off is because you project onto them the very, very irritating things that you possess or do or exhibit. 

We’re not supposed to talk about politics, according to my wife, but I’m gonna talk about politics. Right now there’s a group/there’s a political party in possession of the Presidency, the Senate, the House (everything, probably, except the Supreme Court at the moment). And constantly, there’s the drumbeat that says their politically-weak, out-of-office, minority political opponents are fascists! “They’re fascists! They’re trying to destroy democracy! They’re fascists!” And yet, under the umbrella of that particular political view, someone with a gun went to the congressional softball game and shot Congressman Scalise precisely because he opposed his political views. Billions of dollars of damage were done in the name of that political party’s desire to see certain political changes take place all across the country. And recently, someone was run over in North Dakota by someone who says that he feared an 18-year-old potential fascist. 

Now, I’m not saying that Republicans are good and that Democrats are evil. They’re all evil. They’re all corrupt. There was a time when the other political party that’s currently out of office had the Presidency, had the Senate, had the House of Representatives, and I think they, at that time, even had the Supreme Court. And they didn’t solve any of the political problems that existed then because they still exist now—because we’re all so stupid that, as long as the political issue gets preserved, they can say, “We stand for this,” and you’ll donate money to them and say, “Oh, good. I agree with that. They don’t want ‘this,’” whatever “this”  is! I don’t care if it’s illegal immigration. I don’t care if it’s women’s rights. I don’t care if it’s abortion. I don’t care if it’s strong military. I don’t care if it’s intervening in foreign wars. It doesn’t matter what the political issue is. They feed on exciting you into upset and anger so that you’ll part with your pocketbook and give them money. Do you really think that what the Republicans have to offer or what the Democrats have to offer are going to make your life better? Do you really think that electing an egomaniacal strongman will fix electing a doubting, doddering old fool? Do you think we fix problems that way? 

We fix our own problems by giving heed and diligence to God and by gaining in light and truth and in comprehending the mysteries of God. Like the horse can shrug off the fly, the Earth herself can shrug off the unrighteous in order to protect even a small group of those who are God’s (God’s=possessive, apostrophe “s,” belonging to Him). We need to live our lives individually so that the Earth recognizes us as someone whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains and who are welcomed upon the Earth because we delight her by serving that same God who organized her, who—in response to His voice—organized herself into the planet, and when He spoke, it caused the dry land to appear. She responded to Him. She was created and organized by Him. She was populated with vegetation and animal life…largely by His consort. But this Earth knows the difference between righteousness and wickedness—and it doesn’t matter how many or how few. It only matters how much light and truth we have among us. 

Don’t be hasty to think that you know more than you do. Don’t be hasty to reach a conclusion and defend a proposition when… I can’t tell you how often I’ve studied a matter through at some considerable length, carefully parsing the Scriptures to come up with what I believe to be the right answer, and then, having prepared myself to understand the answer, taking my conclusion before the Lord, only to be corrected because I did not see and I did not understand. We have to be willing to be corrected—not because we stick our nose into one another’s business but because we hear light and truth, and we accept it as such. It tastes good; it feels good. But even then, it’s possible that what we’re tasting, feeling, hearing, and comprehending is only an introduction to the greater truths that come thereafter. 

It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God…until they know them in full (Alma 9:3 RE). Well, that “until” process can take some time. I would imagine that even if the Heavens were opened to you and you could behold, as Joseph said, for five minutes the opening of the Heavens, that it would yet be many years before what was revealed to you would be comprehended. 

When Nephi recorded his initial impressions upon the revelation that he received when he was trying to understand what his father was teaching him, he would later, then, etch those into the large plates of Nephi. And then, decades later, he got the command to create the small plates of Nephi. It’s at least three decades—it could be four decades—between when the events occurred with the revelation that Nephi received before they migrated across the Arabian Peninsula and when he etched them into the small plates of Nephi. And when he does that, he says, …my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard (2 Nephi 3:6 RE). “Pondereth continually.” Four decades! And what tumbles out of that effort are the small plates of Nephi, which were never abridged by Mormon; we get them in an unabridged, unreformed, unprocessed form, directly from the translation of the small plates of Nephi, in order to replace the lost 116 pages. And these are what Nephi says are the sacred teachings. These are the lessons he wants you to learn. 

A few days ago when meeting with the translation team (the Hebrew translation team), I explained to them that what Nephi did in his book was to take and substitute Isaiah text as his—Nephi’s—testimony about what he—Nephi—saw because he was commanded by the Lord that he shall not write it. But as soon as he’s commanded not to write it, he’s given the big hint that others have seen and written it. So Nephi, then, given the restriction that he’s not supposed to write it, takes and substitutes the language of Isaiah, but it is his—Nephi’s—testimony. And as he progresses through his testimony, he then gives a transition chapter and then an interpretive key. In the transition chapter, he stops quoting Isaiah and begins to paraphrase him, and then he gives you an interpretive key saying, “This is what all of that stuff I just gave you means,” because it’s a decidedly American-oriented prophecy about Nephi’s vision for the Americas. And then he wraps his plates up (his testimony up), and he hands it to his brother, Jacob, who does exactly the same thing as his brother had done. He tells the people, “Come to the temple tomorrow, and I’m gonna give to you a prophecy.” And the people come to the temple tomorrow, and he reads an allegory for Zenos. And after reading it, he says to the people, “I told you I was going to prophesy to you today. And so, here’s my prophecy: What I just read you from Zenos, it’s all true.” So, you’ve got Nephi using Isaiah to bear his testimony about the things he’s seen and heard. You’ve got Jacob, who’s been in the presence of the Lord, bearing testimony and prophecy by quoting the words of Zenos.

What we don’t have available to us are the brass plates on which a more extensive version of the Old Testament had been recorded. We have Mormon abridging content and putting it together through the rest of the Book of Mormon. I would suggest that the pattern that was established by Nephi and followed by Jacob is the pattern that got followed in all of the Book of Mormon and that what we’re getting throughout the remainder of the Book of Mormon are extensive passages from the brass plates incorporated into the account, the teachings, and the testimony that has been preserved as the Book of Mormon. I think if we had a copy of the brass plates and we could compare them with the text that Mormon abridged, that we would all be shocked by the amount of content that reckons from the brass plates. I think there is so much of that into the balance of the record that we have in the Book of Mormon that there’s practically nothing of value left in those plates that we haven’t already got in the Book of Mormon itself. 

So why would someone who gazed into Heaven for five minutes spend time teaching using Isaiah or teaching using Zenos or teaching using quotes from Scripture in order to get the message across? Well, if it’s been said by someone else in a way that is sufficient to teach the precept, it’s rather like what Christ taught about the rich man who dies and goes to Sheol who, lifting up his eyes, being in torment, sees Lazarus, and asks him, “Hey, go deliver a message to my brothers. Warn them about this.” And the parable the Lord taught was, “Hey, they’ve got Moses and the prophets. If they don’t believe Moses and the prophets, they wouldn’t believe, though one should return from the dead,” making a prophetic comment about those that were rejecting Himself. 

The Scriptures are in front of us. But just like civil violence is described in current political vocabulary as “reasonable dissent” and just like competing viewpoints are denounced and censored on college campuses today because words are called “violence,” it is possible for us to take the words of Scripture and to use the words of Scripture in order to justify our own pride and vanity and insecurity, vain ambition, and desire to control and subjugate. 

It isn’t the words of Scripture that are gonna get us where we need to get. It’s gonna require something more and maybe a lot more of what my wife talked about before I got up here than what I’m talking about now that I’m up here. Because we really do need to listen to one another and to hear and to put ourselves into someone else’s shoes. And instead of being triggered, ask ourselves, “Why? Why do I want to react in that way? Why do I want to behave in that unbecoming way? Why do I want to attribute ill-motive? Maybe the problem lies within myself, as opposed to within what I’m finding to be so irritating that I can’t keep silent anymore! I must speak up…” with little regard to how ugly our reactions are, with little regard to how unbecoming we can be in our self-righteousness. 

You know, we do have an obligation to take care of the children. We do have an obligation—like that latest comment from the Lord suggests—to be careful about taking vulnerable people and exposing them to things that are unbecoming. I don’t know if you’ve seen the pictures of that high school shop teacher with the prosthetic boobs that look like he’s gonna lose them in a table saw if he’s… I don’t know how you can be a shop teacher and be doing that. There’s some behavior that is so outrageous and so sexually deviant that, just a little while ago, it would have landed the person in jail. And today it’s being defended as an expression of freedom and a desire to overcome the patriarchy. It’s just nonsense. There’s so much abuse of children going on in the communities of the United States right now that parades itself as a virtue and gets clothed in the language of virtue, that we ought to look at that and think for ourselves that sometimes we too use the language of virtue to describe and conceal what’s really going on inside ourselves. 

None of us are that good. None of us. But the Lord is forgiving and kind, willing to correct, willing to forgive, and eager for us to catch on to what happens when we give heed and diligence. We can’t make someone else give heed. We can’t browbeat someone else into diligence. That can’t happen! The heed that must be given and the diligence that must be shown is internal to yourself and internal to myself. And I know there are times when I’m anything but giving the kind of heed and diligence that ought to be given, even to a kindly and forgiving Lord. 

Well, I’m gonna close, because we’re destined to get out of here by two o’clock, and I think there’s something like a closing “something or other.” And at my wife’s insistence, I’m not gonna take questions. She thinks more often than not, I do something foolish when responding spontaneously. 

But I don’t want to end without saying that the thoughts that have been gathered today I consider to be as important as anything I’ve ever said and worthy of saying in the name of Jesus Christ, Mahalo.

TRANSCRIPT

The post What to Worry About appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following remarks by Stephanie Snuffer were made at the “Stand Independent Conference” in Layton, Utah on September 25th, 2022.

Okay, good afternoon! I’m gonna read a few scriptures. And I didn’t make… I don’t think I made the transfer from King James to the RE edition. So, For…

Galatians 6:3—For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself (see also Galatians 1:23 RE). 

2 Corinthians 13:5—Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (see also 2 Corinthians 1:48 RE).

1 Corinthians 13:12—For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known (see also 1 Corinthians 1:53 RE).

Psalms 26:2—Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart (see also Psalms 26:1 RE). 

Proverbs 14:8—The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit (see also Proverbs 2:124 RE).

Now, what all of these scriptures have in common is this element of awareness and the importance of knowing yourself. So I’m gonna spend a few minutes and talk about self-awareness. And I’m gonna start by telling you what self-awareness is not. Self-awareness is not self-absorption. It is not any kind of conceit. It is not any kind of excess investment in yourself to elevate yourself or make yourself better than other people. Self-awareness, in its truest form, is an understanding of who you are: your strengths, your weaknesses, your characteristics, the qualities that you have, your emotional states, the things that trigger you or upset you. And it is an understanding of that, and it’s an understanding of how you came to be this way. Your history, your family, your context, your experiences in life all impact how you see yourself (or alternatively, how you don’t see yourself). 

The other part of self-awareness is how your being impacts and influences the people around you. For example, you might be a school teacher who is really, really in tune with how his or her students see you or take you in or understand you. You might be a manager, and you might be really, really conscientious of how you are perceived by your team. You might be a coach, and you might care a lot about how your players see you, whether they respect you, how they respond to you. Those are a little bit easier to invest in because they’re not as close relationships as our families and our partners and our spouses. It’s harder to be a mother and to care or really want to know how you are perceived by your children—because there’s this power structure, and I want to maintain my power structure, and so it’s hard for me to be vulnerable and be willing to ask my kids, maybe, what their opinion is of me. And that’s a really important thing to begin to understand. I might be a wife, and I might have a really hard time wanting to know how I am perceived by my husband. How do I fight? How do I communicate? How do How well do I listen? That’s hard, because someone’s gonna tell me the truth. And then I’m gonna have to do something about it.

The hallmark of a self-aware person… I’ll give you this information, and then we’ll talk about some other things. Self-aware people recognize that there is a difference between their emotions and their feelings. Emotions are your instinctive reactions to experiences and situations. Your feelings are how you mentally portray that representation of that emotion. The key difference between these two things is that you cannot ex… You can’t control your reactions to things, but you can choose how you feel about it. I’m gonna say that again: You can’t control your instinctive reaction, but you can control how you feel about it. So most of our difficulties in our contentions or our problems in life is not the issue itself but how we think and feel about the issue. So we have the opportunity to choose how we’re gonna feel, and then we choose how we’re going to behave based on how we feel. So that’s the hallmark of a self-aware person. 

Okay… 

So, I’ve done a little bit of research on self-awareness. And there are some funny things. So the research that I was reading, the researcher—her name is Tasha Eurich—she went out, and she found what she thought were self-aware people. And the way she did it was she found someone she found people who thought they were self-aware, and then they had to have someone in their life who could corroborate the truthfulness of that statement. So someone had to agree that they were self-aware. This same person had to believe that they had improved in their self-awareness, and then someone had to agree that they had improved in their self-awareness. If you go out and ask people if they’re self-aware (or if they think they’re self-aware), 95% of people will tell you they are self-aware. Only about 10-15% of the people actually are. So we live in a world where 85% of the time and 85% of the people: we are lying to ourselves about whether we “get ourselves” and how we are interpreted by the people around us. This is not a small thing. This is a very, very big thing. 

Three components of self-awareness include your emotional self-awareness—this means you know what you’re feeling and why you are feeling it. So think, for a minute, the last time you were upset about something: could have been at a kid, could have been at a co-worker, whatever. When was the last time you were upset? When was the last time you remember thinking about why you were upset? And I’m certain it was because somebody made you upset, right? Of course, somebody made you upset—or maybe not. If you are emotionally self-aware, you understand the connections between your feelings and then what you say and then how you behave because of that. Again, when we get feeling unpleasant emotions—anger, sadness, frustration—we generally behave from an emotionally dysregulated place. And so we tend to be mean; we tend to be sarcastic; we tend to be defensive; we tend to push people away instead of bring them closer. If you are emotionally self-aware, you recognize how your feelings impact your success in life or your lack of success in life. You know how to experience your emotions. 

Another component is an accurate self-assessment. If you’re a self-aware person, you understand pretty clearly your strengths and your limitations. You may know where you are good in relationships; you also know where you struggle. If you have an accurate self-assessment, you tend to learn from your experiences. Everything is an opportunity to change, do something different, stop doing something that was not serving you and start doing something that will make your life better and the life of the people around you better. If you are a good at self-assessment, you are open to feedback. Feedback means someone tells you something about yourself, and you take it in, internalize it, and use it to improve yourself. Feedback is a very, very difficult thing for people to take. We don’t like feedback, and we certainly don’t like asking for feedback. And you cannot be a self-aware person or understand yourself without feedback. 

A self-aware person is pretty self-confident. They believe that they are a good person and that they can do good things. They believe that they have value and can add to the world. If you are a self-aware person, you believe you’re capable and have many opportunities to be successful. A self-confident, self-aware person has goals, and they want to accomplish things. 

This These are qualities and characteristics of a person who is self-aware. And unless you are practicing self-awareness, you are not self-aware, because it is not a natural state of the human condition. It is a trait and a skill that needs to be understood, and it needs to be practiced. 

We grow up, and we learn all kinds of things: we start as toddlers, learning how to dress ourselves, share, play with play nice with others. We grow up; we learn how to drive. We might balance a checkbook or learn how to log into our Wells Fargo or our America First bank account so that we know how much money we have. We learn to get jobs, go to college—but we very rarely learn how to be good people in a relationship. We just think that we can do and say and be exactly how we are, and the people around us will just tolerate it—because that’s what we’re supposed to do. And unless someone is willing to look at you and tell you that you are lacking in a skillset or that you have a difficult time with this particular issue, we don’t learn these things. 

The benefits of self-awareness are pretty far-reaching:

We need this skill. Christ has this skill. We need to be more Christ-like, and we need to learn this. 

So I’m gonna go through a list pretty quickly. But I want you to listen carefully because these are signs that you are self-aware:

Signs that you are not self-aware:

Now, those are pretty general statements about self-awareness, but given the last few years of my life, I can attest that they’re pretty accurate, and they’re pretty important to pay attention to. 

Okay, so that leaves us (briefly) to: How do we do something better? How do we cultivate self-awareness? And what are the barriers that we come across when we are trying to do this?

The first and most important thing you need to do is slow down, stop moving, and be quiet. Your best connection to understanding your self-awareness is through mindful practices, prayer, meditation, and just slowing everything down. Take time to connect with yourself every single day in some sort of quiet, non-active space. Avoid digital distractions (which includes Scriptures, podcasts, any other good thing that you’re investing in). Take some time to literally do nothing. Carve out some solitude. Practicing mindfulness, pay attention to your inner state as it arises. Try being mindful when you’re walking, when you’re eating, when you’re listening—just do something that shuts all of the distractions out. 

Journal some of your newfound awareness; process your thoughts through writing. Write down how you’re feeling. After a terrible argument with a child or a spouse, write down what that was like for you. What did you feel? When did you feel that way? Why did you react that way? What about your own personal experiences or history made you say that to that other person? 

Practice listening. We do not listen well in our society. I have had so many experiences… The other day, I asked a direct question to one of my kids, didn’t listen to a single thing she said when she answered me—literally immediately—after I asked the question. And I’m like, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even hear you.” So, pay attention to the speaker; observe the emotions and the body language of the speaker. Do not listen with the intent of solving, changing, or offering up your own viewpoint—for the most part, nobody cares; if they do care, they’ll ask you. So, no judgment or evaluation. 

Gain a different perspective. You can only gain a different perspective if you ask. Ask the people around you to give honest feedback. How do you communicate? How are you when you are upset? How do you react when you’re hungry and tired and have had a bad day at work? Ask those people who love and care about you to tell you these things so that you can increase in this awareness. 

Some of the barriers we have to self-awareness are: 

So the reason this is an important topic and the reason this is important to know is because this is a community of people who are engaged in a lot of good work: a lot of good work trying to do a lot of good things, a lot of conversations going about going around about a lot of really difficult subjects. And I’m… My observation—to the extent that I have observed the powers of observation—is that we are lacking in empathy and charity and self-awareness. And we fill ourselves with our Scripture study and our podcast listening and our things, and we go out, and we talk, and we communicate, and we blurt out things—and we are deaf, dumb, and stupid to the fact that if you do not understand yourself or why you react certain ways or why you think certain things, you’re going to continue to spin your wheels and spin your wheels in contention and arguments and disagreements, all while patting yourselves on the back because you think because you read your Scriptures that morning, that everything’s gonna be fine. And it’s not. 

To deconstruct the self and to deconstruct the “natural man that is an enemy to God” requires you to do the work of understanding why you are like you are. 

These are important things to understand, and they’re important things to take the time it will take to deconstruct all of the mess and all of the angst you’ve got going around it. 

I started out with the Scriptures because this is in the Scriptures. The whole idea of understanding your emotions and your feelings and the way you act in the world is actually part of deconstructing the natural man. If human beings are one of the only mammals (or God’s creation) that has feelings that have such a tremendous impact on our ability to be in the world with people, we better pay attention to ‘em. And it doesn’t matter how old you are; doesn’t matter how young you are. There is no time when this is not gonna benefit you. No time. And I think the time to start is now.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

TRANSCRIPT

The post Self-Awareness appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This talk was given live in Hildale, UT, Saturday, August 20th, 2022, at the Holm Heritage Center.

I’ve got this talk to give [placing a large pile of papers on the podium].

You’ve been sitting awhile. Why don’t you stand up and stretch before I inflict another long-seated session on you? These are better chairs than some that have been used in talks I’ve given. And I assume if there’s a chiropractor present, that they’ll make themselves known as the afternoon wears on. 

I don’t care how long you stay standing; stretch until you feel able to sit again. I’m gonna go ahead and start.

I haven’t come here to ask anything from you. I don’t want any donation, nor for you to join anything. I just want to talk and hope to say something of interest to you.

For too long those who practice plural marriage have been looked upon as deceived enemies to be shunned. Shunning and excommunicating are how various church institutions prevent discourse and exchanging ideas. It’s rooted in fear. And fear is the opposite of faith.

I have faith in Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Lord, and I don’t fear having a dialogue with those who practice plural marriage. I’ve studied the subject that divides us from one another. I think I have reached a correct conclusion about it.

Whether you believe it was originally begun by Joseph Smith (perhaps as early as the 1830s) or was introduced by Brigham Young in 1852, it began in secret, protected from the expected opposition by lying to the public and denying the truth of it.

Like its beginning, it ended with lying to the public again. The 1890 “Manifesto” was a lie, intended to facilitate statehood for Utah. LDS plural marriages did not really end until April of 1904. The plan was to obtain statehood, become self-governing, and then adopt laws that permitted plural marriage. If pledges were made along the way to obtain statehood that were lies, it was worth the temporary difficulties and compromises. All would be fixed by statehood. The federal government, however, was aware of this intent and would not permit it. Before being granted statehood, the church would need to do more than compromise. They would need to utterly repudiate the practice, hence Official Declaration 1. They would need to “put it behind them.” But it was a long time AFTER issuing Official Declaration #1 that the church (the LDS Church) came to the realization that it had to be abandoned.

There are libraries of material written about the beginning, spread, discontinuance, and opposition to this practice by the LDS Church. And there are libraries of material used to justify continuing the practice by various splinter groups after the LDS Church abandoned it. It requires a great deal of study—for me it took decades—to become informed enough to make what I think to be a correct decision about the events.

When I joined the LDS Church in 1973, the missionary who baptized me told me about the LDS General Conference that happened every October and April. I was baptized on September 10, 1973, and I was able to travel from New Hampshire and attend the October 1973 Semi-Annual General Conference of the Church a month after I was baptized. I stayed in Centerville [at] the home of the missionary who baptized me (because he managed to get his mother to invite me to come). Each morning during the conference, we got up for breakfast (which his mother prepared for the family), and when we entered the kitchen, the chairs were all turned away from the table so we could kneel, using the chair for a seat for our folded arms, to pray over both the meal and the coming day. The missionary had a lovely family, and I brought good tidings from them back to him when I returned following the conference.

Years later when I was a student at BYU and the returned missionary was working in Salt Lake City, we would go to lunch together. During one of those lunch discussions, I learned that his mother had become a plural wife while he was on his mission. He was opposed to her doing that but shared with me a selection of materials his mother had studied that led her to accept the principle of plural wives. This began my search into the subject.

At first, I was persuaded that it was a true teaching, restored through Joseph Smith, and would be part of our eternal families. Like many members of the LDS Church, I accepted section 132 as authentic, although the church and the law prohibited its practice. I thought it was important, and my study of it has continued ever since (now nearly five decades later). As recently as 2011, I still thought the practice originated with Joseph Smith and was authentic.

In the last few years, a great deal of new historical material has become publicly available. As a result, I’ve changed my mind. I no longer believe it to be attributable to Joseph Smith, nor to be an authentic part of the Restoration, nor approved by God. But I assure you, I do understand that Fundamentalists sincerely believe otherwise. I don’t question that conviction, and I don’t question that you believe it to have come from God through Joseph Smith. I just don’t share that conviction. I think you’ve inherited a tradition from your misled fathers and have, no doubt, entered into the relationship relying on that tradition. But in the Book of Mormon, “traditions” were almost always “false” or wicked.

I doubt you’ll change your mind without a great deal of study and effort. That, however, will be up to you. It would be foolish for me to think this talk will accomplish that, and I’m not attempting to do that today. I only hope you’ll take advantage of the recently available historical documentation to investigate carefully this issue.

If you reach the same conclusion as I have, then I want to caution you about abandoning your current family. The Scriptures tell us: …women have claim on their husbands until they are taken, …All children have claim upon their parents until they are of age… (T&C 79:1; see also D&C 83:2,4). And again, But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, [he’s] denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 1:13 RE; see also 1 Timothy 5:8 LE). Therefore, you cannot abandon the obligation you have toward your wives, nor can you parents neglect your duty to your children.

If you become convinced the practice of plural wives is not of God, then keep your family intact, and teach your children against it. Do not let your posterity continue to believe in a false tradition. It was required for the believing Nephites to teach the Lamanites of the errors of their traditions and to bring them to understand the truth. If you awaken to the error of practicing plural marriage, teach your children against that false tradition while you stay loyal to the obligation you have to your family.

As I studied the issue, it was apparent the chronology of section 132 was not and is not known, other than it was purportedly put into a lost writing for the first time on July 12, 1843. Then, once written, the original was destroyed and only a copy in the handwriting of Joseph Kingsbury (who was not present when the revelation was received) survives as a copy of whatever was first revealed. The first portion of section 132 may have been written as early as 1829 (under the church’s theory) and inspired by the material in Jacob chapter 2 in the Book of Mormon. That seems more likely than by the later translation of the Old Testament, as LDS tradition holds. Because the text is very inconsistent in places, I speculated there were potentially five separate portions from different dates, later consolidated into one final document. Based on that assumption, I tried to make sense of the document.

However, because of its internal inconsistencies, I suspected it had been altered between the July 1843 date and the 1852 date when it was published. I assumed the contradictions meant that one or the other—but not both—could be trusted. In an effort to sort out what could be trusted and what was an alteration, I published my attempt to salvage a corrected version. A copy of that failed attempt to edit the text of section 132 is going to be attached to this talk when it’s published. (And by the way, I have printed about 25 copies of this talk with the Appendix that I refer to, and I’m gonna leave them here today for anyone that wants a copy. It’ll also be made available as a downloadable PDF from my website after today.) Ultimately, it seemed to me that the document could not be fixed; at least not by me.

From 2014 to 2017, a committee worked on restoring the Restoration Scriptures and eliminating errors and improper additions that had crept in. As the effort to restore the Scriptures into the form Joseph Smith intended for them to read, God commanded us to discard section 132, and we received a replacement text by revelation. That replacement text is now in our Scriptures as part of the Teaching and Commandments [in] section 157. (T&C 157:34-43). (These are a copy of the Scriptures I brought with me today.) A copy of that section is in the Appendix of this talk.

I have not been casual about evaluating the marriage practice that the Fundamentalists have embraced. This is a subject I’ve treated with seriousness and respect. I don’t condemn you for believing what I too once believed about this matter. To be clear, however, I do not believe it originated with either God or Joseph Smith. It was a later-introduced error.

Joseph Smith was comforted by the Lord in Liberty Jail by these words: 

The ends of the earth shall inquire after your name, and fools shall [hold] you in derision, and hell shall rage against you, while the pure in heart, and the wise, and the noble, and the virtuous shall seek counsel, and authority, and blessings constantly from under your hand. And your people shall never be turned against you by the testimony of traitors. (T&C 139:7; see also D&C 122:1-3)

I believe Joseph Smith was pure in heart, wise, noble, and virtuous, and that’s why the Lord could commend his counsel and blessings to those who are similarly pure in heart, wise, noble, and virtuous. It is important, I think, to recognize that part of being wise, noble, and virtuous is to be truthful and honest.

The Book of Mormon warns us about a number of un-virtuous characteristics that define the damned: 

…woe unto the deaf that will not hear, for they shall perish. Woe unto the blind that will not see, for they shall perish also. Woe unto the uncircumcised of heart, for a knowledge of their iniquities shall smite them at the last day. Woe unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell. (2 Nephi 6:10 RE, emphasis added; see also 2 Nephi 9:31-34 LE)

Churches ask their members to not listen to anyone but them. This is the “deafness” of those who will not hear. Mormon factions ask their members to look away, and refuse to see anything that challenges their teachings. This is the “blindness” the Book of Mormon warns against. I ask you to hear, as I’ve been willing to hear. I ask you to see, as I’ve been willing to see. Hearing and seeing have cost me my membership in the LDS Church. If it costs you your membership in your chosen organization, then take comfort in knowing that you’re in company with Lehi, Nephi, Abinadi, Alma, Mormon, and Moroni, among many others. You join company with those who acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah when He lived in Jerusalem.

Churches use fear to make you deaf, blind, and uncircumcised of heart. They claim to have authority from God, and if you depart from their umbrella of authority, you risk God’s anger. They claim you cannot be saved apart from their authority. So, they say, “Be afraid! Be very afraid!” But as Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Fear not,” because what He offers is much greater than what churches and institutions offer. He intends to save those whose ears hear or, in other words, who are humble enough to allow Him to teach. He intends to save those who open their eyes to see or, in other words, those who are not blinded by the craftiness of religious pretenders. He will save those who can recognize when a witness has been sent by Him, as I have been.

Following Joseph Smith’s death, Mormonism splintered into several groups, the most successful branch being led by Brigham Young. Brigham Young’s branch is most distinguished from the others by their public adoption of plural wives in 1852. It was by abandoning that practice that resulted in further splintering Mormonism.

When Wilford Woodruff adopted Official Declaration 1, it was to mislead the public. It was not to actually end the practice. The LDS Church just moved plural marriages underground. After the Manifesto, marriages were performed clandestinely (or in Mexico—where they were legal—or on the water between California and Catalina Island, in one instance).

As a consequence of the Reed Smoot Senate Confirmation Hearings and President Joseph F. Smith being called to testify under oath in that proceeding, the underground practice finally had to end. Because he was cornered by questions from the Senators, Joseph F. Smith had to either admit the truth or end the practice. He chose to end it. In March of 1904, he denied under oath such marriages continued. Then in April, he ended it. His letter of April 6, 1904 states:

Inasmuch as there are numerous reports in circulation that plural marriages have been entered into contrary to the official declaration of President Woodruff, of September 26, 1890, commonly called the Manifesto, which was issued by President Woodruff and adopted by the Church at its general conference, October 6, 1890, which forbade any marriage violative of the law of the land; I, Joseph F. Smith, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, hereby affirm and declare that no such marriages have been solemnized with the sanction, consent or knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and…

That’s very artful language. It’s kind of true ‘cuz he would send them off without permission stated verbally. It was artful. 

…and I hereby announce that all such marriages are prohibited, and if any officer or member of the Church shall assume to solemnize or enter into any such marriage he will be deemed in transgression against the Church and will be liable to be dealt with, according to the rules and regulations thereof, and excommunicated therefrom.

Then Francis Lyman presented a resolution, and the resolution was adopted by unanimous vote of the conference, and so it ended.

It was this “Second Manifesto” that caused the resignation in 1905 of LDS apostle Matthias F. Cowley and the excommunication of apostle John W. Taylor in 1911. Between the first and second Manifestos, LDS authorities sealed plural marriages in secret, while church leaders lied about the continuation of the practice. The official version of LDS events, therefore, establishes that plural marriages began with nine years of church leaders lying about the practice and ended with fourteen years of lying by the church’s leadership. It’s no wonder that you, like me a few years ago, believe it should continue. So many years of LDS Church lying makes it difficult to find the truth.

The wording of a revelation from God often requires careful, ponderous, and solemn thought to discover its meaning. God’s word should not be given only a perfunctory reading. Or as Joseph’s letter from Liberty Jail explained it:

…because the things of God are of deep import, and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Your mind, O man, if you will lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost Heavens, and search into and contemplate the lowest considerations of the darkest abyss, and expand upon the broad considerations of eternal expanse. You must commune with God. How much more dignified and noble are the thoughts of God than the vain imagination of the human heart? None but fools will trifle with the souls of men. (T&C 138:18)

From prison, Joseph wrote about how much more might have been accomplished if believers in the Restoration had taken salvation more seriously. He wrote about the Saints of that day (and composed words that are relevant if not altogether applicable to us today):

How vain and trifling have been our spirits, our conferences, our councils, our meetings, our private as well as public conversations: too low, too mean, too vulgar, too condescending for the dignified characters of the called and chosen of God, according to the purposes of his will from before the foundation of the world, to hold the keys of the mysteries of those things [which] have been kept hid from the foundation until now, of which some have tasted a little, and which many of them are to be poured down from Heaven upon the heads of babes, …the weak, [the] obscure, [the] despis[ed] ones of this earth. (Ibid. ¶19)

I hope that you are willing to be careful, solemn, and ponderous about the truth. We’ve all wasted enough time already. I know I have. Please take seriously the words given to you today.

In the years Joseph Smith led the church, he established the offices of elder, priest, teacher, deacon, apostle, high priest, president, seventy, and patriarch. These were organizational offices and not priesthood. There were, in the church during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, two forms of priesthood. As the LDS Scriptures explain: There are, in the church, two priesthoods, namely, the Melchizedek and Aaronic, including the Levitical… (D&C 107:1).

There are only two priesthoods in the LDS Church, or at least there were at the time that Joseph Smith stated that. What their condition may be today is another matter that I’m not gonna talk about. But there were only two priesthoods! There weren’t 10 or 16! This is a list of church offices: 

• elder
• priest
• teacher
• deacon
• apostle
• bishop
• high priest
• president
• seventy
• patriarch
• Relief Society President
• Sunday School President 
• Elder’s Quorum President
• Gospel Doctrine Teacher
• Young Men’s President
• Young Women’s President 
• …and so on

The LDS Church, like your various Fundamentalist factions, are merely organizations and not the priesthood.

Joseph Smith organized offices and gave them authority to preside. However, church leaders in 1838 turned on Joseph. Their positions of authority gave them credibility. When they signed affidavits falsely claiming Joseph was a threat to Missouri non-Mormons, he was imprisoned on charges of treason. Before his imprisonment, Joseph insisted on the church authorities being obeyed. But after reflecting on the abuse of church authority that led to his imprisonment, Joseph removed all authority of the priesthood to control or impose upon others. Here’s the new standard to keep in mind when someone claiming authority demands your submission:

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 handled, only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it[‘s] true, but when we undertake to cover our sins or…gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise 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 has withdrawn, Amen to the Priesthood or the authority of that man. Behold, ere he is aware he is left…to kick against the pricks, to persecute the Saints, and to fight against God. We[’ve] learned by sad experience that it[‘s] 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, …by love unfeigned, by kindness, by pure knowledge which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy and without guile. (T&C 139:5-6, emphasis added; see also D&C 121:34-42)

I’ve given several talks about priesthood and authority claims made by others. Rather than make any claims myself, I only teach truths to allow you to decide the matter unencumbered by any demand that you respect authority or “keys.” Gentiles are prone to following claims of authority. As the Lord explained to His apostles, 

You know that the princes of the gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you. But who[so]ever will be great among you, let him be your minister. And who[so]ever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life, a ransom for many. (Matthew 10:3 RE, emphasis added; Matthew 20:23-28 LE)

If this was good enough for our Lord, then I cannot in good conscience claim more. I am here to be His servant and to minister teachings that come from Him. I do not demand your respect, but I hope to persuade you by the things I know and are able to say. Those who claim to have “keys” are largely ignorant of even the meaning of the term.

The word keys is horribly misunderstood. I have made it a practice to not use the word because of all the foolish and vain ideas that have accumulated around it. Joseph used the term in a variety of ways: for example, to mean authority, or opportunity, and in others it refers to a correct idea. This is the most important meaning [to have a correct idea, as a key concept]. The term in the context of priesthood is completely absent from the Book of Mormon, and that book is the keystone of our religion, containing the fullness of the gospel. The only time the word keys is referenced in the Book of Mormon, it refers to a physical set of keys to unlock a door to the treasury controlled by Laban (1 Nephi 1:18). Although Joseph used the term often and meant many things by it, the challenge is to understand priesthood without being distracted by a poorly defined, and often used term. Mormon institutions now use the term most often to connote their exclusive right, license or control. The LDS Handbook of Instructions states the following, “Priesthood keys are the authority God has given to priesthood leaders to direct, control, and govern the use of His priesthood on Earth.” This definition is the opposite of the way that scripture directs priesthood be used (see T&C 139:5–7). The LDS Handbook approach turns this scripture upside down and backwards: by virtue of priesthood keys they have the right to direct, control [or] exercise influence over others. Mormon institutions in general all use their preferred meaning of the term keys to denounce anything or anyone they view as a rival. That’s nonsense, and I avoid using the term because of [the] widespread abusive practice. (The Holy Order, Oct. 29, 2017, paper p. 1) 

A “key” unlocks information or opens your understanding. It is tied to gaining an insight. Today men claiming to hold keys almost always take away light and truth and spread darkness.

The continuation of plural wives is related to claims about “keys” or “holding keys to seal” marriages. No matter which fundamentalist group is involved, the claim to have keys is tied to an incident that purportedly took place the night of September 26-27 of 1886. The incident was reported to Arnold Boss by Lorin C. Woolley 43 years later on September 22, 1929. An extended explanation of why I do not believe the incident happened was published on my website in a series of posts titled: “Sorting Things Out,” which has parts 1 through 5 (published from July 23rd through July 27th of 2012), which are all included in a chapter of the same name in Volume 5, Remembering the Covenant (pp. 1907-1927). I’ve also included those as an appendix to the talk that’s available, and you can read (if you download it or if you get a copy today).

As to the history of plural wives, the libraries of material I referred to earlier deserve very careful inspection. One key to understanding (and I use that word correctly in this context) is to look at what existed as proof on or before June 27th of 1844. If you do that, you have a great deal of evidence that Joseph Smith did not practice, condone, or introduce plural wives. Instead, you have a great deal of public and private declarations that denounce and oppose it.

The only proof that ties Joseph Smith to the introduction of plural wives into the Restoration is a single document. That document was a copy, not an original; and that copy was hidden—if you trust the official story—for at least nine years, eight of those years after the murder of Joseph and Hyrum.

Brian C. Hales is the one who has most researched and written about the record in our day. He published a three-volume discussion of his findings. And he’s sympathetic to plural wives and believes Joseph Smith introduced it. Here’s what Brian Hales found from his extensive research into the subject, after identifying section 132:

Beyond this revelation, no other document exists in which Joseph Smith specifically discusses the principle.

…Establishing the Prophet’s precise instructions is difficult due to a lack of contempora[neous] accounts recording Joseph Smith’s specific teachings on these lofty topics. Furthermore, a challenge arises regarding what sources should be considered as authoritative for defining his theology…

And he says (in a lamentation):

…Unfortunately, no accounts of a public discourse discussing plural marriage have been found. (Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Volume 3: Theology, Brian C. Hales, Greg Koford Books, (Salt Lake City 2013) pp. 3, 69, 70)

That last statement by Hales is absolutely false! Joseph said a lot! Numerous firsthand accounts exist of letters, of publications in the Times and Seasons, of notes from discourses, of letters… Numerous documents exist! It is extraordinarily well-documented! Except they ALL denounce plural wives! And so Hales’s blindspot in what he has written is because he’s rooting for a certain outcome, that is, to vindicate what he believes to be true, namely, having plural wives. If he were being honest about it, he would say, “There’s an enormous record of information dealing with the subject of plural wives coming out of the mouth of Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Emma Smith. Unfortunately, they all denounce it. They all repudiate it. They all look for who is practicing it.” Joseph Smith brought case after case before the high council in Nauvoo to have tried for their membership those people who were practicing plural wives if he could discover their identities. And when they held a trial and when they found out who had been participating, then they brought in the next participant and so tried to root it out.

These are quotes from the Joseph Smith Papers:

October 5, 1843, Joseph Smith journal entry: “…eve[ning] at home walked up and down st. with scribe.—and gave inst[r]uction to try those who were preaching teaching or preaching the doctrin of plurality of wives. on this Law. Joseph forbids it. and the practice ther[e]of— No man shall have but one wife.”

October 15th, Joseph Smith journal entry: Joseph preaching says, “…stop this spinning street yarn and talking about spiritual wives… I proclaim in the name of the Lord…that I will have nothing but virtue and integrity and uprightness…”

February 1st of 1844 in the Times and Seasons, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, designating themselves as “Presidents of [the] Church” put the following NOTICE in the paper:

As we lately have been credibly informed, that an Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints, by the name of Hiram Brown, has been preaching Polygamy, and other false and corrupt doctrines, in the county of La[n]peer, State of Michigan. This is to inform him and the Church in general, that [he’s] been cut off from the church, for his iniquity; and [he’s] further notified to appear at the Special Conference, on the 6th of April next, to make answer to these charges. (Times & Seasons, Photo Reprint of the Original, (Salt Lake City: 2008), Volume 5, p. 423)

February 15th of 1844 in an article “WHO SHALL BE OUR NEXT PRESIDENT”: After recommending Joseph Smith to be elected, the article states, “Joseph Smith will not ‘marry spiritual wives;’ nor commit any other outrageous act this election to help any party with, you must get some other persons to perform these kind of offences for you…” (ibid p. 441).

March 15th of 1844, Times and Seasons…

Joseph Smith… I’m skipping a bunch. 

Joseph Smith advocated for and persuaded the Nauvoo City Council to adopt an ordinance on May 14, 1842, punishing adultery with six months imprisonment: “…for every Act of Adultery, or Fornication, which can be proved, the Parties shall be imprisoned Six Months, and fined, each, …the Sum of five hundred to fifty thousand Dollars…”  Three days after the ordinance passed, John Bennett resigned as Mayor of Nauvoo under the accusations of adultery and fornication.

When John Bennett resigned his membership in the church, he publicly testified, 

“I publicly avow that any one who has said that I have stated that…Joseph Smith has given me authority to hold illicit intercourse with women is a Liar in the face of God. Those who have said it are damned Liars: they are infernal Liars. He never (either) in public or private gave men any such authority or license, & any who states it is a scoundrel & a Liar.” (The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, John S. Dinger, ed., Signature Books, [Salt Lake, 2001], p. 84)

Joseph Smith confronted John Bennett in front of the City Council and asked, “Will you please state definitely whether you know anything against my character either in public or private?” To which Bennett responded, “I do not; in all my intercourse with Gen. Smith, in public and in private, he has been entirely virtuous” (Times and Seasons, Vol. 3, p. 841).

In the aftermath of John Bennett’s misconduct, Joseph pursued an effort to track down what had happened in Nauvoo. By May of 1842, the high council met, and: 

[A] charge [was] [preferred] against Chauncey L. Higbee by George Miller for unchaste and un-virtuous conduct with the widow [Sarah] Miller, and others…

In the trial, 

Three witness[es] testified that he had seduced [several women] and at different times [had] been guilty of unchaste and unvirtuous conduct with them and taught the doctrine that it was right to have free intercourse with women if it was kept secret &c and also taught that Joseph Smith authorised him to practice these things… (The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, pp. 414-415, all as in original)

On May 25th, the charge was preferred “against Ms. Catherine Warren by George Miller for unchaste and unvirtuous conduct with John C. Bennett and others.”

(And it’s… You can read this. It’s gonna be in the talk.)

At the April 1844 General Conference, Hyrum Smith gave an anti-polygamy talk.

Joseph Smith (in May of 1844) gave a discourse. One of the things that he said in the discourse, which provides you again with a key to know what was going on, Joseph said:

For the last three years I have a record of all my acts and proceedings, for I have kept several good, faithful, and efficient clerks in constant employ: they have accompanied me everywhere, and carefully kept my history, …they have written down what I have done, where I have been, and what I have said; therefore my enemies cannot charge me with any day, time, or place, but what I have written testimony to prove my actions; and my enemies cannot prove anything against me. …Matters of fact are as profitable as the Gospel, …which I can prove. You will then know who are liars, and who speak the truth I want to retain your friendship on holy grounds.

Another indictment has been got up against me. It appears a holy prophet has [risen] up, and [he’s] testified against me: the reason is, he is so holy. The Lord knows I do not care how many churches are in the world. As many as believe me, may. If the doctrine that I preach is true, the tree must be good. I have prophesied things that have come to pass, and can still.

…I had not been married scarcely five minutes, and made one proclamation of the Gospel, before it was reported…I had seven wives. I mean to live and proclaim the truth as long as I can.

This new holy prophet has gone to Carthage and swore that I had told him that I was guilty of adultery. This spiritual wifeism! Why, a man dares not speak or wink, for fear of being accused of this.

William Law testified before forty policemen, and the assembly room full of witnesses, that he testified under oath that he never had heard or seen or knew anything immoral or criminal against me. He testified under oath that he was my friend, and not the ‘Brutus.’ (Taken from The Words of Joseph Smith, Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook editors, [BYU Press 1980])

And so on.

April 7, 1842.

April 10th of 1842 (This is from April 10th): “I preached in the grove, and pronounced a curse upon all Adulterers and Fornicators, and unvirtuous persons and those who have made use of my name to carry on their iniquitous designs” (taken from the journal of Wilford Woodruff).

On March 7th through the 20th of 1844 in successive meetings, Joseph Smith read A Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo, which was presented to/adopted by the Relief Society and then presented to and adopted by the conference. And I’ve got a copy in the Appendix to the talk of A Voice of Innocence.

Emma Smith denied plural wives was taught by Joseph:

At one time my husband [Joseph] came to me and asked me if I had heard certain rumors about spiritual marriages, or anything of the kind; and assured me that if I had, that they were without foundation; [and] there was no such doctrine, and never should be with his knowledge [and] consent. I know that he had no other wife or wives than myself, in any sense, either spiritual or otherwise. (“Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” The Saints Herald, October 1, 1879)

Joseph Smith was asked on the 8th of May, 1838: “Do…Mormons believe in having more wives than one?” And his answer was, “No, not at the same time. But they believe, that if their companion dies, they have a right to marry again” (Joseph Smith, TPJS 119, 8 May 1838).

To the extent Joseph exposed his thoughts about sex, they were dominated by sexual purity and self-control. His public and private statements point to a man who prized chastity, fidelity, and condemned promiscuity. His letters are consistent with his statements. 

And there’s a series of scriptures that I quote in that.

If you search for a contemporaneous private document or public declaration from Joseph, Hyrum, or Emma Smith supporting plural wives, you’ll find none. All of them were consistently publicly opposing the practice. And remember the Book of Mormon warns, Woe unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell. Someone was lying. Therefore, someone will be thrust down to hell.

So we face a decision: We must choose to condemn Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma to hell, or we must condemn those who denounced them as liars. As part of making that choice, recall the words earlier that I quoted, spoken to the imprisoned Joseph Smith: 

…fools shall have you in derision, and hell shall rage against you, while the pure in heart, and the wise, and the noble, and the virtuous shall seek counsel, and authority, and blessings constantly from under your hand. And your people shall never be turned against you by the testimony of traitors…

None of us should want to attribute to Joseph Smith lying and serious sexual sins if it is not true. I do not want to call him a liar without sufficient reason. He should be entitled to only be convicted on the same standard we would convict a person of a serious crime. As a lawyer, I know to convict someone of criminality, the burden of proof is “beyond any reasonable doubt.” If you have any reasonable doubt, you must not convict. I think a prophet of God is entitled to the same standard of proof. Therefore, if there is reason to doubt, I say we ought to doubt. We should say, “I cannot in good conscience conclude Joseph Smith was an adulterer and a liar”—unless we have proof that removes all reasonable doubts on the subject. If the record is confused enough to tell two opposing stories, leaving us to write what is in our own heart, then I choose to write “innocence” for Joseph on my page.

Both the apologists and critics almost universally today agree with the anti-Mormons about Joseph Smith. They claim Joseph Smith was a liar and deceiver. This judgment has become nearly universal. But the contemporary accounts do not require that conclusion. Quite the contrary, the contemporary records vindicate Joseph as truthful, honest, and moral. One of the things that frustrates me the most are the many accounts from those who claim to be faithful, believing Latter-Day Saints who accept Joseph Smith as the prophet of the Restoration but require Joseph to be dishonest and immoral. They insist Joseph Smith said one thing in public and another thing in private. Because they believe that a prophet of God can do that and get away with it, it has created a malignancy on the LDS version of Mormonism. Even today the leaders of the LDS Church believe God allows them to practice deceit because their version of Joseph Smith justifies it. This hypocrisy is embedded within the Fundamentalist off-shoots from the LDS Church. As one who has come to know God, I do not believe it possible to be a hypocritical liar, deceiving even your own wife (as it is claimed about Joseph), and have God’s approval.

As we struggle with making the choice, it becomes clear that the reliability and authenticity of the single document that ties Joseph Smith to introducing plural marriage (Doctrine and Covenants 132) matters a great deal. We do not have an original. The first time the document was made public was in 1852. The text was made public in the handwriting of a practicing polygamist, Joseph Kingsbury. He was never a scribe of Joseph’s. He was not trusted to maintain Joseph’s journals or history. The original was lost or destroyed, and Kingsbury claimed that he copied it shortly after the original was written.

Kingsbury was one of the witnesses called to testify in the Temple Lot case. Upon taking the stand, he “refused to take the ordinary oath to ‘tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’” When later questioned about why he wouldn’t take the oath:

I do not swear to that; I affirm to it. To my mind there is a difference between swearing to anything and affirming to it…I generally affirm, and I suppose it is because my understanding is that a man cannot be convicted of perjury on …affirmation, and he can when he is sworn. (Abstract of Evidence Temple Lot Case U.S.C.C., p. 333)

When asked if Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, he said: “I presume…he did.”

James Whitehead was one of Joseph Smith’s scribes during the last 2 years of his life [and] was also required to testify under oath. His testimony includes this:

I had a good opportunity of knowing if any such a thing [plural marriage] had been taught by the prophet or anyone else because I was there in his office and with him continually. …I was well acquainted with his family and with his wife Emma and I never saw anything or heard of any such a thing being taught there in Nauvoo. …When I lived at Nauvoo, I resided maybe three hundred yards from where Joseph[‘s]…house was. I saw him there frequently, perhaps not every day but almost every day. …Joseph Smith had one wife and her name was Emma; I do not know of any other woman who claimed to be the wife of the prophet, there at Nauvoo, nor at any other place. (Abstract of Evidence Temple Lot Case U.S.C.C.)

Wilford Woodruff testified in that same trial. He said testified:

I never saw a copy of it [section 132] or the original during the lifetime of Joseph Smith. I do not think [that] I saw the one that came here to Utah and purported to be a copy of the original.

I do not know whether the church of which I am the President has the purported copy or not. (Abstract of Evidence Temple Lot Case U.S.C.C., p. 308)

Although it was written as part of a humorous account during his travels in the West, Mark Twain made this assertion after his visit to Salt Lake City: “Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and was added by Brigham Young after Joseph Smith’s death. Before that, it was regarded as an ‘abomination.’”

I assume that if Joseph Smith opposed and denounced plural wives and Brigham Young introduced it, that that would matter to you. It certainly matters to me. Joseph Smith was not merely a prophet, but a dispensation head who laid a foundation upon which the rest of God’s dealings with mankind will be predicated.

What you decide to be true about history is completely dependent upon the sources of information you trust. Almost all of the historical evidence for Joseph Smith introducing plural wives are not only created following Joseph and Hyrum’s death but more than a decade after they died.

The seven-volume set written by Arnold Boss, The History of Plural Marriage Among the Mormon People, is an attempt to gather comprehensive evidence to support the practice of plural wives. It relies, as it must, on sources that did not exist on or before June 27, 1844. His sources in his extensive investigation are years—sometimes decades—later reflections by those who had begun to practice plural marriage publicly in 1852. Many of those sources did so privately before the public announcement in 1852. Once the practice was publicly taught and defended under Brigham Young, LDS historians have interpreted a great deal about Joseph by relying on Brigham Young and other defenders of plural marriage. To be fair, Joseph should be isolated from this subsequent development when trying to understand what Joseph believed, said, and did.

Here is the problem in the clearest way that I can put it: IF you accept the proof that existed on or before June 27, 1844, there is a single document which may have existed (or may have been created between then and 1852) to tie Joseph Smith to plural wives, but there is an overwhelming number of documents, public talks, scriptures, newspaper articles, church disciplinary proceedings, affidavits, and public acts that clearly show Joseph Smith was opposed to and denounced plural wives. In this version, Joseph was virtuous and truthful.

BUT IF you accept the record of those who practiced plural wivery and accounts they wrote after Joseph and Hyrum’s murder, then there is an overwhelming number of documents, talks, remembrances, affidavits, and books that attribute the practice of secretly having plural wives by Joseph Smith while misleading the public with false denials. In this version, Joseph was dishonest with his closest companions (including his wife), a public liar, a criminal under Illinois law, and therefore un-virtuous.

You get to choose. I suggest you choose carefully and consider the Lord’s teaching: Judge not unrighteously, that you be not judged, but judge righteous judgment; for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again (Matthew 3:40 RE; see also Matthew 7:1-2 LE).

I assume from what I’ve learned about our Lord’s plans, that there will be some living the practice of plural wives who are gathered to Zion. That presents a potential problem between those who are monogamous and those who are polygamous. It will be necessary for those who have plural wives to commit to: 

• First, abandoning any effort to add another wife. 
• Second, agree to teach your children that it must end with you and not be continued in the next generation. 

I tell you this in advance so you have no doubts about our expectations of you.

Historically, when plural wives have been permitted, it is as if the women were married and the men were perpetually single. Because a man could add another wife, the men retained a “roving eye” to look out for any other woman who aroused his interest. The best example of the unmarried polygamist man was Parley P. Pratt. He took Eleanor McLean as his twelfth plural wife, although she was already married to Hector McLean. Hector was a drunken wife-beater, and Parley was, well, willing to continue to add wives. Hector caught Parley riding alone, shot him, took a knife to him, and left him bleeding on a farm in Kansas [Arkansas]. The farmer reported that after two and a half hours following Hector’s handiwork, Parley died from loss of blood. Brigham Young believed Parley deserved to die for adultery.

There are always going to be tensions that will arise, and people will need to adapt across this barrier. I assume there will be some plural wives who envy women who are monogamous. I assume there will be some men who envy men who have multiple wives. I assume some children will envy those with fewer siblings, and others who envy those with many siblings. And I assume there will be tension between these very different kinds of families. Everyone will have to make some adjustments to peacefully coexist in a community.

I do not belong to any organized church. I am part of a community bound together only by beliefs. To this point, we only practice ordaining to priesthood, baptism by immersion, the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, and laying on hands for blessing and healing. Only men hold priesthood, however, we believe Gifts of the Spirit are not confined to those who are ordained, but that anyone—male and female—can have all the various gifts given to people of faith.

Men are not sustained by men to the priesthood, but instead must be sustained by seven women—and if married, one of those women must be his wife—in order to act as a priest outside his home. If a man holding the priesthood engages in inappropriate behavior, then it is a council of women who conduct discipline. The women’s council is empowered to remove a man’s certificate, which does not remove priesthood; it only prevents the man from ministering outside his home during a period of suspension. This is for the protection of the community of believers so that no harm is done to the community by trusting in a man’s status as priest to drop their guard and become vulnerable to mischief.

We collect tithes, but only on the amount remaining after all your family’s obligations have first been paid. Then what remains—following payment of your obligations—is tithed on 1/10 of what is left. However, tithes are then distributed among the various fellowships based on the needs of the individuals and the families for food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, transportation, and education. No one is paid; no one profits. Only the needs of the poor among us are addressed with tithes.

We plan to build a temple when the Lord commands. A fund for that purpose has been set up, and a group of women control that fund. Anyone can donate to that fund if they choose to do so.

We have an obligation to the descendants of Lehi and have called and set apart individuals for that purpose. We have an obligation to the remnant of the Jews and have been working for more than two years to have the Book of Mormon translated into Old Testament Hebrew. Although there are at least two modern-Hebrew translations, they are not of a quality that reflects the seriousness of the obligation imposed on us. We have some of the best Old Testament Hebrew scholars in the world working with us on the translation, and the project is now entering the final editing stage. It will be expensive to complete and publish, and those who have been supervising the effort wanted me to mention that anyone who is willing to do so can contribute to that effort. Following publication of the Hebrew language version, we have those called by God and set apart to take the message to the remnant of the Jews. There’s a website that just got active called hebrewbookofmormon.com that explains the project.

We are not waiting for someone else to do the work required by the Lord. We have and are working to accomplish the work the Lord’s given us. As part of that, we’ve recovered and published a more correct version of the Book of Mormon than has been available before now. We have recovered and corrected revelations given to Joseph Smith. We’ve recovered and corrected the interpolations made in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments. Additions made by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were removed, and many corrections Joseph made that had been omitted were added.

The Scripture project was presented to and accepted by the Lord. It was then presented to and accepted by a conference of believers in 2017. They are now available in a high quality, leather-bound version. I brought my copy with me today.

We invite all who are interested to labor alongside us. But we’re more concerned with getting work accomplished than in building a hierarchy, or gaining authority over one another. Whatever influence I have in the group of believers I associate with is solely because of my efforts to persuade people. I claim no office and have made no claim to have authority. If what I teach is true, then it should stand on its own.

We’re busy, and if you want to labor alongside us, you’re welcome to do so. I do not have the time—with all the work left to accomplish—to engage in debate. I try to teach enough to let people decide. I claim to be the Lord’s servant and to teach what He directs. You need to decide whether that’s true or not.

I can also warn you that all the churches of Mormonism—from the LDS to the Community of Christ to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and all the offshoots, including the pretenders who now seek to get a following by their pretended enlightenment—all of them are working at cross purposes to what the Lord is doing. If they or you want to please the Lord, you’ll assist the labor we’re performing. None else—and no one else—are doing the Lord’s work, vindicating His covenants, fulfilling His promises, and laboring alongside Him. We have a covenant given from Him in 2017 that promises us His protecting hand. If you follow Christ as Lord, then you will support our work: for it is His work.

I believe the Restoration has begun anew, and the heavens are open and communicating with us. There are resources available to investigate our claims. If you’re interested and want to investigate this further, the following resources are available free online:

• restorationarchives.com
• scriptures.info
• thetemplefund.net
• denversnuffer.com
• bornofwater.org
• learnofchrist.org
• recordersclearinghouse.com
• thetentalks.com
• hebrewbookofmormon.com

There are books I’ve written available through amazon.com, however, essentially all of the content is available for free through the website restorationarchives.com. Most of the talks I have given are or will be available on Youtube, including this one.

Following my ex-communication from the LDS Church, I delivered a series of ten talks across five states. Those were recorded and can be heard at the thetentalks.com, restorationarchives.com, or on YouTube.

We will build a temple when the Lord commands. We are and will continue to reach out to the remnant of the Lamanites. We will send authorized messengers to the remnant of the Jews. We hope to welcome the Lord at His return.

And I tell you these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Now, I have a few moments. They’ve set up a microphone. They said there’d be a Q&A. I’m actually changing their agenda. My father-in-law is in the hospital in Salt Lake, and my wife did not accompany me ‘cuz she’s up at the hospital. And I need to get back North. So, if anyone has any questions… (And they need to be good questions. I mean, don’t ask something inane. We get a lot of that.) But if you’ve got a good question… Oh! There’s a microphone over there! Hey, let’s not make Bonnie walk. Just take the… It’s a wireless microphone.

Question 1: Thanks. My question goes back to where the council of women… 

Denver Snuffer: Yeah, yeah.

Q1: Do those have to be the same women that signed his certificate?

DS: No.

Q1: OK. Thank you.

DS: Don’t have to be. They might WANT to be.

I know… “Do you always obey the speed limit?” Oh, no—I rarely do. It’s inadvertent. I will follow the speed limit going through and coming down from…

Question 2: I actually don’t have a question.

DS: Yeah?

Q2: I was prompted to say this: “In the beginning, the practice of plural wives came into existence by the seed of the disobedient Cain. Could we be under a gross darkness passed down from the beginning? Could we be in an awful state of blindness in many different ways? Who are we to the Lord? Could the adversary have led us all into strange paths, like Father Lehi’s vision in the Book of Mormon warned us about? Are these messengers sent to us today sent by the will and power of God to bring about His righteous purposes and lead a people to build his kingdom on Earth again? How are we to know if these things spoken to us today are true? Perhaps we are to do as Joseph did all those years ago. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.”

Question 3: Hello. I’ve always been curious why Joseph Smith didn’t have children from other wives that we can prove. And so your theory today would support answer that if your theory is correct. But how do you do… You know, like you said, there’s libraries about this. I mean, I read a book that was just testimony after testimony of Joseph Smith’s plural marriage. And Brian C. Hales [Todd Compton’s]… I read a book of his, In Sacred Loneliness, that each chapter is a history of each wife of Joseph Smith’s. Some of that is the wife’s own language. It just seems like there’s some really good proof that he lived plural marriage.

DS: Once the, umm…

Q3: Oh, there’s really good proof that Jesus Christ lived plural marriage, too.

DS: Yeah, that once the practice became public, understand that all of those people who migrated following Brigham Young from Nauvoo into the West were isolated from the main body of the United States in a place that became really quite dark. I mean, the idea (and part of the brag) that Satan announces in the LDS temple endowment is that he intended to reign with blood and horror on the Earth. If you study what happened during the period of the Mormon Reformation, they come out West, and things went really bad when they came out West. It is as if, once they got driven out of Nauvoo and a lush, well-watered countryside, that they were driven into a salt-flat cursed land, in which they suffered privation and, essentially, starvation. Lorenzo Snow writes a story about how he was out digging up Sego lily bulbs to take them back to give to his starving family, and he was so hungry that the first bulb he dug up he ate himself, and it caused him shame that he’d taken care of his own hunger when he was out there digging this stuff up for to feed his family. They took the cattle herd that the church owned (which was the foodstuffs that they were lying up) up to winter in Cache valley, and the herd froze to death from an unusually harsh winter, which only made the problems even worse. 

And Brigham Young, in response to all of the privation/all of the suffering/all of the terrible consequences that were going on, blamed the PEOPLE! The Mormon Reformation and all of the re-baptisms that occurred during the Mormon Reformation were done because Brigham Young thought the people were insufficiently attentive and obedient to what the priesthood leaders were telling them to do. Well, it was the priesthood leaders that decided to send the cattle where they would all be killed. It wasn’t the… The followers were doing what they were told. Brigham Young did a number of things, backfired, and then he blamed the people for their own errors. So they launched the Mormon Reformation. Everyone’s gotta be baptized! And they initiated what’s called the “Home Missionary Program.” The Home Missionary Program had a list of questions that the Home Missionaries came to ask of the members to determine whether or not they had done something that was worthy of being “blood atoned,” meaning you’ve committed a sin for which God can’t forgive you through the atonement of Jesus Christ; your own blood had to be shed in order for you to make it into the kingdom of God. And Brigham Young taught this, as did Jebediah [Jedediah] Grant—the sermon about raining pitchforks’ tines down upon the people in order to stir them up to repentance, and the Mormon Reformation included actual invoking of the blood atonement act: killing people to save their souls, according to the doctrine that Brigham Young was propounding.

Utah (Deseret) descended into a very, very dark state. When Johnson’s Army came out to the valley and put an end to Brigham Young’s control over the people and installed a new governor, more than 3,000 people fled from Utah headed East because they were now safe to leave. They wouldn’t be hunted down by hitmen or by some of the others that were sent out by Brigham Young to kill. We don’t have a good count on the numbers of those who fled to go West because by that time—with the forty-niners and the gold rush that happened, Sutter’s Mill, and all of the California activity—it was safe to go West. And quite a number went West, but we don’t have a count on that. How many people were murdered in the name of the religion between the period that they migrated out and the period when Johnson’s Army arrived and people fled, we don’t know. I mean, they disappeared, they… The stories weren’t told. The situation at Mountain Meadows where people were slain for the oath’s sake to get to avenge the blood of the martyrs was expanded so that the martyrs weren’t Joseph and Hyrum, but it included Parley Pratt. There’s irony in that because Brigham Young had denounced Parley as an adulterer who deserved to be killed! But Brigham wasn’t one to let irony stop him from launching into a diatribe.

If you think you know Brigham Young, you really need to look at what rolled out about 2008 with the Complete Discourses of Brigham Young because about 3-5% of what Brigham Young said was available before then. And they were able to decipher the shorthand, and now we have a five-volume set, large (8 ½ x11 size) volumes, double columns… So when you open it up, it’s like four columns across the open book of smaller print. They were prepared, primarily, for library use. I bought a copy. (I don’t think there are any available. There might be; someone might be re-selling. But you can get ‘em on a CD-ROM.) You should read the materials.

So, when you say there are libraries of material and affidavits and these sincere, you know, reminiscences by people that were in a position to know, they… The Temple Lot case didn’t happen until the end of that century. These people had lived through the terrorism of the territorial Deseret years and Brigham Young’s “raining pitchforks’ tines down” preaching, and the actual slaying of people, and the practice of plural marriage being announced from the pulpit. And while he doesn’t identify who it was—he says it’s a “U.S. Senator”—it’s pretty obvious that the one who would’ve been in communication with him would’ve been Stephen Douglas, who became a U.S. Senator and who had been in the Illinois Legislature at the time that the Nauvoo Charter was passed and who was a friend to the Mormons who had actually presided over one of the trials back in Illinois, became a U.S. Senator. But an unnamed senator, probably Stephen Douglas, gave to Brigham Young the advice that “if plural wives is a fundamental part of your religion, then it will be constitutionally protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution as a religious practice that Congress can make no law respecting or curtailing that religious practice. And so, once it rolled out into the public, it was essential (in order to win the lawsuit) to protect it under the First Amendment that it become a fundamental part of the religion. And so the dialogue that goes on from the 1852 public time period until after the death of Brigham Young in 1877/78, all of that dialogue was ginned up in order to create a historical record that could be taken to and shown to the United States Supreme Court in order to justify the preservation as “constitutionally- protected plural wivery.”  That didn’t work! The Supreme Court in their final decision on the question analogized that to the practice in India of the widow throwing herself onto the funeral-pyre-burning-of-her-dead-husband to kill herself! It… There’s some acts of religion that can’t be defended under the law, no matter how sincere your belief may be. And so, if it were a fundamental part of the religion, then, if it were truly, really, honestly, sincerely, devoutly a fundamental part of the religion, then there’s an easy answer: Pack your crap up and go south to Mexico because it was NOT prohibited there! Or march up to Canada, “Eh, become a Canuck, eh? And so you’d all be talkin’ a little strange now, eh?” You’d sound like you’re from Fargo.

But look, they didn’t do that! They turned on a dime, and then not only did they turn on a dime, but they excommunicated people—including members of the Quorum of the Twelve—for the practice. It’s NOT a fundamental part of the religion. And when the chance for the courts to weigh in on the issue of whether it was originally part of what Joseph Smith taught, the court reached pretty much the same conclusion that Brigham Young, (or excuse me) Mark Twain reached, which was that before Brigham Young did that, it was an abomination. 

Look, you’re going to face an absolutely contradictory story. One of them has to be true, and one of them has to be false. One of them has to be based upon a correct preservation of what was really going on, and one of them has to be based upon a host of lies and liars who had motivations that ranged anywhere from fear born out of the necessity to support the system because there are few people that are in a more vulnerable state, a more desperate state, than a plural wife of a Mormon polygamist in territorial Utah. You think they’re going to contradict the official story when they know what’s been going on, and they know that lives have been lost for apostasy? I mean, the behavior was extraordinarily analogous to what happens in Islam if you depart from the faith.

Anyway, do you have a question? Oh, you want me to stop?

Question 4: Nope. We want you to just answer… One came in online: “Do all the wives of a man with plural wives have to sign his certificate for him to use his priesthood publicly?”

DS: Since under the law there’s only one wife, no—his WIFE, singular. Let’s say a man today has plural wives. The law will recognize one (and only one) wife. That’s the person who needs to sign the certificate. If the other’s object… He has a wife, and the Lord will recognize A wife. 

Yeah?

Question 5: I, too, was really taken by Todd Compton’s book back in the day. There was 32 wives that came forward with their stories, etc. etc. And yet, I think it’s important to talk about the fact that under oath, and when they were brought into court (not all of them), but when that time came (you talk about this fear), only one… Only one held up and actually claimed to have any connubial relations with Joseph, and that was Eliza Partridge—and there were many reasons that have been uncovered that she had that. Could you comment on that?

DS: Yeah, that… Her story fell apart. She told it… She told multiple versions of the story, and it not only fell apart… In an earlier account, she was far less graphic and dramatic. She became more graphic and dramatic as time went on. And much of the testimony she… 

She’s worthy of an individual study. She really is. Much of her story becomes less and less believable the more you know and the more you study about her.

Now, I’ve gotta get back up to Salt Lake, but I’ve brought—I don’t know—maybe 25 copies of this. It has some typos in it that I will fix before I put it online, but I’m gonna leave it over there on the counter, and anyone that wants a copy right now can get one. It includes more than I covered today, but I didn’t want to talk until six tonight.

Yeah?

Question 6: Just some observations about Sarah Pratt, wife of..

DS: Oh, yeah. She’s another story.

Q6: Would you care to comment about her situation, because the way that I see Sarah Pratt’s situation is that as the person who founded the Utah Anti-Polygamist Organization, she did not turn on Joseph, to my knowledge. Whereas, she went after Brigham and all of the rest.

DS: I think it… The question is about Sarah Pratt. I think a fair reading of the events is that while Orson was on a mission, she was seduced by John Bennett. When he returned and found out that his wife had been unfaithful to him, Joseph spent a lot of time counseling him, talking with him, dealing with him, and reconciling Sarah and him together. She DID in fact get seduced while her husband was on a mission, but the culprit wasn’t Joseph; it was John Bennett. The reconciliation was facilitated by Joseph. That got flipped in the wake of the John Bennett revelations and John Bennett touring the country, giving anti-Mormon lectures and attacking Joseph Smith. The story flipped. And by the time you get to 1852 and the public acknowledgment, it was really convenient at that point and somewhat believable for Brigham Young and the people out in Utah to say, “Yeah, yeah, it DID originate with Joseph Smith,” because John Bennett had already plowed that field, had already laid the ground for that.

Well, Sarah Pratt had always been treated well. She was the priority wife. He may have gone out and impregnated the other women, but he came home to her. But what tipped everything was the 18-year-old that he married and the announcement that now he was gonna spend evenings at home with her. She put up with a lot; she’d suffered a lot—all of the wives had; the private diaries of the wives, to the extent they’ve been made public, make it really clear that there was a public voice that said, “Yes, it’s good. We support.” And there were private journals that talk about the heartbreak and the heartache and the misery of the arrangement. And what tipped the scale for her was the decision that he made to go spend nights, when all was said and done, with the young wife.

Maybe I’ll write something about that at some point. But I think it’s a fair reading to conclude she was one of John Bennett’s…

Q5: The observation was that if anybody were to throw Joseph under the bus, in her position as the anti-polygamy crusader in Utah in the later part of the 1800’s, she did not, to the best of my ability, [indeciphrable] that Joseph didn’t do it.

DS: Yeah.. At least not with her. I don’t think he did it with anyone but Emma. I think she was his singular wife.

Thank you

TRANSCRIPT

The post To the Wise, Noble, Virtuous and Pure in Heart appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

Denver sat down and shared his story with Steven Pnyakker. The discussion took place on July 8, 2022.

Steven Pynnaker: Welcome to Mormon Book Reviews: “Where an Evangelical Encounters the Restoration.” I’m your host, Steven Pynakker, and I’m very excited to have this guest on. I tell you, folks, I was, uhh… You know, I’ve relayed the story to people how/when I was having lunch with John Dehlin, I… He had already invited me onto the program, and I said, you know, “The Lord showed me that I was gonna be on your program, John.” And John Dehlin goes to me, and he says, “Well if Heavenly Father said you’re comin’ on my program, you’re definitely comin’ on my program!” Well, I’ll tell you, folks, the Lord also showed me that Denver Snuffer was gonna be on my program, so I am very excited about having Denver. 

Denver, welcome to the program.

Denver Snuffer: Well, thanks. Good to be here. 

SP: Thank you, sir.

DS: Well, I’m not sure it’s “good” to be here. It’s tolerable to be here. 

SP: That works for me. 

DS: I don’t like to do interviews. Yeah.

SP: I know, and I appreciate you coming on—because it is a real privilege for you to come on. 

One quick thing, folks, the merch store is open: mormonbookreviews.com. You can buy phone cases, you can buy hats, you can buy buttons, you name it. It’s on… We’re constantly adding stuff to the store, so I want to appreciate the… Hoodies, you name it. So go to mormonbookreviews.com. 

I also want to thank my supporters on both Patreon and PayPal. If you wish to financially support the channel, there will be a link in the description. 

So Denver, “Where an Evangelical Encounters the Restoration” is my tagline, and of course, you have an evangelical background (if you consider Baptist “evangelical,” which I do). And I thought we would start with “Before you encounter the Restoration.” I want you to tell a little bit about your childhood and your engagement being raised in a Baptist church. And just talk a little bit about that, and I’ll ask you some questions about that, as well.

DS: Yeah, my mother was fairly devout as a Baptist, invited the minister over for Sunday dinners, and you know, took us to church every Sunday. It was rare that we weren’t in church every Sunday. She had this box of New Testament verses called “Our Daily Bread,” and every morning at breakfast, she would pull out the front card and read us a verse from the New Testament and then put it in the back so that you circulated through the box of New Testament quotes over the course of a year. And I never was offended at that. I was intrigued by it. I kind of enjoyed it. There was a… You know, the Billy Graham revivals that were on the TV, we watched. There was a revival, as I recollect (I was pretty young), but there was a revival somewhere near the place I was growing up at the time. And we attended one of those. There was always this… I think it’s referred to as the “altar call”…

SP: Yup.

DS: …where you can come up and make some confession and be baptized. When I was nine years old, we were living in Germany; my father was in the military. And I remember, at age nine, wanting to actually respond to that altar call. And the minister did not think I was old enough yet to be baptized (which is kind of ironic because, in the LDS tradition, people are baptized at age eight). Well, being turned down at age nine, thereafter I had a conviction about the authenticity of the New Testament/the legitimacy of Christ as a Savior, but I had a DECREASING confidence that the Baptists had it right. My father was a believer in God and an active Mason, but he did not go to church with us on Sunday (except maybe Easter, maybe Christmas). But he had a belief in God, and he was aloof from denominationalism. And it may be that some of my skepticism about the Baptists having it right was due to my father’s neglect of attending church. But the ministers came over, ate dinner; they were welcome. My dad was always cordial with them. And he was someone that did read the Bible. But I never did join a church or get baptized until…when I was 19, and I joined the LDS Church.

SP: So I’m just really curious, did you ever recite the Sinner’s Prayer within the context of becoming a Born-again Christian as a child?

DS: Yes. That was done on more than one occasion. And, you know, the Billy Graham revivals asked not that you recited, but that you essentially agree with the content. And you know, to myself—listening and watching and observing—internally, I was “Christian” in the sense of having a conviction about the legitimacy of Christ as Savior. It just was not enough to provoke me to join in some institutional confession or public institutional confession. 

When I was a teenager, some of my buddies went up and answered the altar call. But, you know, I was acquainted with how they lived their lives. And so it didn’t persuade me that that had the desired effect of transforming my teenage buddies from what they were BEFORE answering the altar call to what they were after, because I could detect no discernible difference in behavior. And that, too, probably added to my doubts about the utility or value of the institutional commitment. 

SP: Okay! Now, this is the ’70s, and this is, of course, at the height of the Jesus Movement, the born-again stuff. I mean, even back then, people didn’t even know what a Born-again Christian was until, like, Jimmy Carter became President. Then people started talking about it. But you had this born-again movement that was a lot of revivals taking place. My father was involved with the Full Gospel Business Men’s Association, which basically took Pentecostalism into the mainstream of all the Protestant denominations, including Catholicism. So it was really an exciting time to be a Christian at this time. It sounds to me like you primarily got Baptist stuff; were you also influenced by any of the charismatic and Pentecostal stuff that was going on during this time, as well?

DS: Well, yeah, there were… It was hard not to encounter that sort of stuff because you’re right: Culturally, the excesses of the 1960s led to a kind of Christian reactionary-ism in the 1970s. And then as… 

I was in the military, myself. I… My father was in the Army, and then later in the Army Air Corps, and then later in the Air Force (when they separated it). And I became a member of the Air Force, as well. The Air Force had educational opportunities on base—and I got residency, matriculated into a college while I was on active duty, and I satisfied everything that I needed (except for one semester of credit) while I was still there in Texas at a private Methodist college. And the Methodist college required that you have both an Old Testament and a New Testament course as part of their undergraduate general education requirements. 

Well, I’d left Texas before I had finished the religion training, and I went to Provo, where I was hoping to go to law school at the new J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. And I finished that last semester at BYU and mailed the transcript back to McMurry University in Texas. I asked them if I could take an Old Testament and a New Testament class from Brigham Young University to satisfy the religion requirement. And they said not “No,” but “Hell no” (although I don’t think they used the word “hell”). But they made it abundantly clear that whatever theological nonsense they were teaching as New and Old Testament curriculum at Brigham Young University, it would certainly not pass muster at a Methodist school. So I had to take their Old and New Testament courses, but I did it by correspondence. So I had the material, and I had to go through the material, and I had to pass it off and complete it. 

And I… It was surprising to me, particularly the Old Testament material, where they essentially bought into… I wouldn’t have known how to describe it at the time, but now I do understand: They had bought into the German School of Textual Criticism. They described the convergence over time in the Jewish community of the J source, the P source, the E source, the D source—and how there were all these competing sources of material that got amalgamated into a single text, but that by careful study, you could parse it apart. You could find the Jehovistic [Yahwist] source. You could find the Elohistic source. You could find the Priestly source and the Deuteronomist sources and tie them all together. You know, I understand the this German school, the Higher Criticism approach, but the more I reflect on that as a scholarly method for parsing apart the Bible, the more unreasonable it seems to me because… I understand the possibility of losing parts of the text. But a wholesale adaptation or change or alteration, I don’t think would be possible. 

Back before there was widespread competency and literacy, the way that people preserved a tradition was orally. And we think that oral preservation of biblical texts would be well nigh impossible. But right now, today, I would guess that if I played for you the entire library of Beatles’ songs, that you could sing along, word for word, with dozens (perhaps hundreds) of their lyrics. And whoever your band was when you were growing up—you know, Led Zeppelin or Creedence Clearwater or Jefferson Airplane (or Jefferson Starship, later still)—if their song comes on, you have at your command a vast library of lyrics. And all that is, is just your recreational time, usually driving around in a car listening to music. Well, their television/their movies/their entertainment was based upon these texts that they would recite. To be able to come along and introduce into memorized texts a whole new verse in “Here Comes the Sun” or a whole new set of lyrics for “Come Together” would be glaring; it would just stand out. You would know that someone was altering what Lennon and McCartney or what George Harrison wrote. And those are things we don’t take particularly seriously. They’re simply recreational. 

So, I do think that there was more integrity and continuity and difficulty in making the kind of approach that Higher Criticism suggests was “the manner in which the text got assembled” than what Higher Criticism would urge as their scholarly endeavor. I think it’s useful to try and detect where some traditions derive from. But I think the traditions follow; they didn’t lead. I think the parsing apart was done because people have certain preferences. I mean, their… Evangelicals love the text in the letter to the Romans by Paul because it was that text that allowed Martin Luther to see—you know, clearance to allow him to depart from—the priestly control and to obtain salvation by the confession of faith, divorced from a magisterium of priestly authority, and doing something by grace that you’re saved. And so Evangelicals seize upon that. 

But you know, much of what I have come to understand about religion generally (and Christianity specifically) has been a moving target/a motion picture in which, over time, things look different. Today’s Evangelical community, for example, would not even be regarded as Christian for the first 950 years of Christianity. And if you go back to the first century of Christianity, it was a cacophony of Matthean Christians and Johannine Christians and Petrine Christians who disagreed. And then you’ve got your Gnostics that came along and urged something that was later regarded as heretical. 

As Christians, if we’re being candid, if we’re being honest with one another, the reason why Christianity took on a stable form in the era of Constantine was because the Roman emperor had the ability by force of arms to stabilize both the canon of Scripture and the form that Christianity would take. And it’s not because an argument got won; it’s because by force of arms and by burning texts that differed from the official canon…

SP: Right.

DS: …much like the criticism that Christians today level at Islam and the way in which the Koran became a singular text, as opposed to having multiple versions by burning and by killing. Christianity shares that same kind of tortured history—which is one of the reasons why, in my view, Christians should study Mormon history. 

SP: Yes. 

DS: Mormon history is—in real-time—undergoing those same schismatic, breaking-apart, conflicts, accusations. And in much of what the largest denomination of Mormonism (which is the one that I joined—the LDS version), it was established, in part, by violence—the same kind of violence we see in the early Christian/in the early Islam era—by Brigham Young while they were in isolation in the territory of Deseret (which became the territory of Utah, which became later still the state of Utah) in which the Home Missionary Program and the questions that they asked were designed to ferret out heresy and to determine who was a candidate for blood atonement (or killing) to “save their souls!” And it was another attempt to—by force of arms—establish an orthodoxy. So, the study of Christianity, the study of Evangelical movement, the study of Catholicism, and the study of Mormonism, it’s a fascinating endeavor. And nothing is ever as simple as this is right; this is wrong; this is truly what happened. Because there are a lot more moving parts to the whole of this than…

SP: …than people realize. Yes.

DS: Yeah. 

SP: And I agree with that. As a matter of fact, when I was on Mormon Stories, I made a similar parallel that the early… You can almost parallel, just have a parallel between early Christian history and early Mormon history. I say the first decade of Mormonism is like the first century and vice… You know, so from 1820 to 1830, and then 18… You know, you can almost divvy it up. But a decade… The first decade is like the first century and henceforth. 

I want to get back a little bit to your time as engaging Evangelicalism in Christianity in the ’70s. And that is, there were a couple of things that were happening in the 1970s. First of all, the all-time selling book during the 1970s was Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth—sold more books than any other book in the ’70s. And there were two groups that were making claims that in 1975 the world was gonna come to an end: the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Worldwide Church of God. So, at this time in the 1970s, it was also a very apocalyptic end-time things. As a matter of fact, I remember seeing my mom/my parents had food storage, like, you know, like ready to go, you know, from the ’70s, because they thought the end was coming. I just want you to maybe comment on that period, the apocalyptic period that was the ’70s, how it was felt like, “These are the end days!” and a lot of major groups thought this, and most evangelical Christians were just buying a TON of The Late Great Planet Earth (and as a matter of fact, there were a lot of non-Christians that were buying that book).

DS: Right, right. That was the predecessor really to the Left Behind series. I mean, Left Behind was an expansion on Late Great Planet Earth. And yeah, I did read that. And… 

Apocalypticism is useful because it motivates—and nothing gets people to donate more, attend church more, clean their act up more, and take seriously the choices that they make in life more than Apocalypticism. However, one of the things that I notice is that when that becomes the overwhelming concern, there is a tendency to sell short your preparation for the future, your education, your career, your buying a home, your saving. If it’s all gonna go up in ashes here within the next year or two, then why do you need anything more than a travel trailer and a pickup truck—because you’re gonna have to move to get away from the firestorm anyway. 

You know, the Apocalypticism affected me. It… You know, I read the book! I considered that a peril! And clearly, if you accept the statements that Christ makes in the 24th chapter of Matthew and much of the Book of Revelation’s imagery, you know, there is going to come a time of some considerable distress. But that time of considerable distress appears to be broken up into a single generation and (even further still) into periods of three-and-a-half and three-and-a-half years (or a total of seven). And when that clock starts counting and when that generation is born is dependent upon the accomplishment of a number of signs that God is in charge of. And I think we are better off living our lives as if we’re going to die in an old folk’s home somewhere at the end of a fully well-lived life, rather than relying upon the Lord to come and interrupt everything to give us the chance to get out of here and escape before life reaches its full measure. 

Understand, too, that in the ’70s, we still had the threat of East/West thermonuclear war, the threats from the Pentagon and from Russia (and the Kremlin). The Vietnam War had just wrapped up. There were tensions in the Middle East; we had the Yom Kippur War. We had tensions in Israel (and of course, many of the prophecies talk about how the “valley of decision” is located right there), and with the tensions building up and with the division of interest between the East and the West (the East favoring the Muslim/Arab communities; the West supporting Israel more fully back then), it looked like a conflagration was imminent. And into that, you know, The Late Great Planet Earth comes and tells its tale. And it got all of us concerned! It got ME concerned—but I noted the reaction of people in their lives to that. And I was still intent on finishing an undergraduate degree, finishing a law degree, preparing for life; I was still intent on trying to prepare for life. And so, the emotional enthusiasm that those kinds of focuses drained from you, in my view at the time, didn’t have a positive effect. 

I think it’s useful to prepare to die. I think it’s useful to prepare to face the Maker. But I don’t think it’s useful to give up your life in exchange for a hurried preparation for God to come wipe the slate clean and, you know, catch you up into the clouds of glory and then wipe the Earth clean and come plant you in a place of peace for a thousand years. I think those kinds of thoughts and imagery: you know, useful to be hopeful about someday but very inhibiting in terms of living and preparing and going about your daily life. It doesn’t help your children prepare for life; it doesn’t help you be a better father. It doesn’t help you be a better husband to look forward to God destroying everything next week—because sometimes you need to undertake a home repair job that’ll take more than the next week. And you’re better off living your life that way. But yeah, it influenced me.

SP: That’s very interesting. And this is where I kind of want to get to maybe your some of the spiritual stuff that you’ve engaged in. And it’s really interesting, ‘cuz you were baptized in the fall of 1973, and a few months later, in 1974, you had your first encounter with an angel. You describe that you were caught up and came to a transparent walled room, from which you could see the blue curvature of the Earth below. And you met a man who was old, as tall as you were are, with a beard, a full head of hair that was long but not quite to his shoulders, and who spoke to you non-vocally. After receiving a brief message about the timing of your upcoming ministry, you asked nothing further and were compelled to depart, and you left the scene (see “BFHG, Part 3,” www.denversnuffer.com, August 22, 2012). You tell this to downplay your own preparedness and show how foolish you were to not asking a follow-up question. But why did you get the privilege of entertaining an angel not even one year from your baptism, while the recent converts and most longtime members are, by and large, limited to receiving barely discernible promptings from the Holy Spirit? In other words, what made you so unique that, I mean, to be a recent convert and have this encounter? I mean, does it…? Just tell me what do you feel wasprepared you? I mean, in one sense, you had this divine encounter. What… How did this happen?

DS: You know, the Mormon missionaries brought that pamphlet, the Joseph Smith story. (I think they still print that.) It’s by and large the Joseph Smith History portion of the Pearl of Great Price that the LDS Church publishes. The story that the missionaries told me was about Joseph Smith going out and praying and encountering the Father and the Son in a vision. And then some years later, after he felt that he didn’t know what his standing and state was before God, he prayed, and then an angel comes and visits him. (And then the gold plates and all the rest of what happens proceeds from there.) That introduction suggested to me that if Joseph Smith was encountering God and if the missionaries were coming and bearing their testimony that this stuff was true, that it was the—I thought—it was the common experience of people who accepted God moving anew and visiting with and calling a prophet and giving us new Scripture, that if you were Mormon, one of the things that Mormonism represented was this opening of the heavens. And I assumed—wrongly, as it turns out—but I assumed that if you were Mormon, that you ought to expect…

SP: Okay.

DS: …angels. And so, to me, the encounter with an angel… It wasn’t surprising; it was ratifying. It wasn’t unexpected; it was confirmatory that, in fact, God is now moving and that these things have and do and will take place. I… 

In the Scriptures, there are passages where, in describing the event, it says that “I was caught up to an exceedingly high mountain.” That language is actually a euphemism, because the encounter that I had, if I were going to describe that original encounter, the words I would use is, “I was caught up to an exceedingly high mountain,” not because I was on a mountain (because it was somewhere a bit higher than that), but because that is the recitation/the scriptural descriptor that gets used in order to talk about how such an encounter takes place. And to be caught up and to be in the presence of, you know, a man dressed in white who had a very specific message… I mean, I can quote it still! It was not audible, but it was clearly communicated and in language I understand. “On the first day of the third month in nine years, your ministry will begin. And so you must prepare.” That seemed like… I mean, this person was as somber and as serious and grave a personage as you would ever encounter on the Federal Bench. It was a person who was clearly entrusted to deliver a message, and the message was spoken with some considerable sobriety and clarity. And you know, I don’t think that I felt intimidated. But what I did feel was a sense of the legitimacy of this person and the inadequacy of myself, the bonafides of this personage and the ill-preparedness of myself. And it puzzled me at the moment, but it puzzled me a great deal more as I thought about it. I mean, that just sounded like something that was not to be questioned but to be accepted. So I accepted it. But the whole of the incident to me at the time seemed like, “That’s normal!” I mean, if you’re Mormon, that’s the way that this religion… This is how the New Testament began. This is what was encountered when Zachariah went into the temple, and he prayed on behalf of Israel, and Gabriel emerges from the veil on the right side of the altar, and announces that he’s Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God (Luke 1:4 RE). It was a source of truth and light and unquestionable authority. And so, I accepted it. 

SP: Wow!

DS: But the more time went on them, the more questions it raised. 

SP: Sure! It was a very peculiar thing, and you would soon realize it because it wasn’t something that was normal. 

Just a few things: Would you describe it as a dream? An out-of-body experience? When you say “caught up,” where were you before and after it happened? And if, like, somebody was with you… You said “Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell,” if somebody was with you (like a roommate or someone next to you), would they see you get caught up? 

DS: I doubt it. It was extraordinarily physical, tangible. But I doubt that they would have observed anything had they been there. I was…

SP: So it was physical, but you would… Could you say it was kind of an out-of-body experience?

DS: I… Yes, I can say that if I had to guess, it was likely that I was out of the body, but it did not at all seem so. I had the same tangibility: The thing on which I stood was as solid as a tile floor in a military barracks; the walls (although they were transparent) were as physical as a sheetrock wall. Everything about it was tangible and physical in that sense, but whether in the body or out of the body, I’m… I absolutely could not tell. But I believe it was out of the body. And when the incident ended and I was dismissed, I returned. 

SP: Wow.

DS: I recall a return. And then I was still awake and still as tangible as I had been before, but I didn’t feel any, like, transition out of the body I occupy and transition back into the body I occupy. It felt exactly the same throughout. And afterwards… I was in a military barracks at the time that this occurred. I was still in the military barracks when it ended. And I was left, you know, puzzling over it and assuming that this was normal. 

SP: So were you praying at the time? Were you looking for this? Were you expecting it? Or did it just all of a sudden happen?

DS: It happened without me trying to provoke it. It happened as if it were on someone else’s scheduled timetable and not on my own. But I have to admit, I had been… When I joined the LDS Church and I got baptized, I had been very serious about the religion. I got the conviction that what the missionaries were telling me was true and that I ought to respond to it, but I was somewhat skeptical of my capacity to be a good Mormon. I did go ahead, I did get baptized, and I did get an outpouring of the Spirit that occurred subsequent to the baptism—and I did find within myself a spiritual strength that I didn’t feel like I had before entering the waters of baptism and accepting and [indecipherable]…

SP: I’m just curious: Did you speak in tongues, by chance?

DS: I was able to prophesy…

SP: Okay.

DS: …but I don’t… No, not tongues, but I was… I did prophesy. 

SP: Okay. Okay, interesting. 

DS: So yeah, it was a whole different life from the one I’d had before. It was as if someone had turned a light switch on. And now I understood things that I couldn’t have… And the Scriptures, which had been relatively boring before then, came alive. There were things in the biblical texts that I found understandable for the first time—and fascinating, wonderful, encouraging. And before that, the Scriptures had been, you know, Our Daily Bread—if you can get through one verse and think about it, you’ve done a good thing. Now I was reading multiple chapters and enjoying them.

SP: Okay, so you started feasting on the word; you started devouring it and loving it and getting better understanding. That’s really interesting to me, and that… Those kind of things resonate with me. You know, I come from a charismatic background. And I… There’s a… One of the things I find interesting about you and your movement (you know, I know it’s “loosely based”) is that you speak a lot of the same language that a Born-again Christian charismatic would resonate with. And so I feel like when I talk to people from your group, I feel like I’m…that we speak the same language. 

DS: Yeah.

SP: And I guess… I wanna be respectful of your time. So, I kind of want us… First of all, I wanted to kind of establish the early days of you/your ministry/your experiences with Evangelicals; it’s very fascinating to me. I kind of… I just want… 

So, of course, you go to law school, you have your law practice, and you’re basically living a conventional LDS life—you would probably say, right? Okay. And then around the 2000s, you start publishing stuff—and it’s really some interesting books that you start publishing—and then you start with lectures. Maybe just talk about what caused you to start engaging the Restoration differently than you had before and really, really starting to put stuff out and put yourself out there.

DS: Umm, the… There’s a backdrop that you probably need to understand…

SP: Sure.

DS: …in order to see what happened and why. When I became a Latter-day Saint, the top of the Latter-day Saint hierarchy was populated by scriptorians and preachers whose focus was upon parsing Scripture and parsing LDS history—and I mean: 

• Boyd Packer had been a seminary instructor before he became a general authority and an apostle; 
• Bruce R. McConkie had been a lawyer, but he had also undertaken to write multiple volumes of New Testament commentary, an ambitious book called Mormon Doctrine, multiple volumes preserving his father-in-law’s ministerial content (much of which was parsing Scripture); 
• Marion G. Romney, who was the scriptorian who rarely gave a sermon that wasn’t Scripture-based; 
• Mark E. Peterson, who wrote a series of books on the Patriarchal Fathers and explaining them. 

DOCTRINE was the substance of general authority talks, general conference talks, books that were coming out. Over time that changed. One of the things that radically… And many people (even Latter-day Saints) wouldn’t necessarily understand what I’m about to say, but it’s nevertheless the case: 

A man got called into the general authority ranks—Gordon B. Hinckley—who started the Public Relations Office of the LDS Church (who eventually rose to become the President of the LDS Church) who implemented a different way of approaching things. He, as a public relations official, had kept up on what businesses had discovered were useful in managing a multi-national corporate entity, including “opinion poll” taking, “focus group” testing, and using the tools of advertising in order to shape the message of what it was that you’re going to deliver. And so, Mormonism shifted from being doctrinally-based to being, essentially, sales-based and advertising-based and public relations-based—and the transition necessitated a different kind of leader to be called. And so the ranks that the highest level of the hierarchy in the LDS Church today reflects that different set of priorities. You have business instructors that college business instructors that are members, bankers, car salesmen who are engaged in marketing. You’ve got… When Gordon B. Hinckley died and Thomas S. Monson took over, at the press conference (when he was being interviewed as the newly-called President of the LDS Church), Thomas Monson made the remark that “You should not expect any big changes; it’ll be steady as you go,” which was, in reality, it was his way of saying, “We have an infrastructure. The infrastructure got built by Gordon B. Hinckley. He did it from the 1930s until the year 2000, working in the hierarchy of the LDS Church. And that infrastructure’s there, and I’m gonna rely on it, and so it’s going to be steady as you go. Don’t expect any big changes. I’m gonna continue this process.” 

For me, individually, I could not have explained it to you in the way that I just did, but I FELT it. I could sense that the church was drifting.

SP: Okay, and roughly, what year was this?

DS: Late ’70s/early ’80s and into the ’90s. 

SP: Okay. 

DS: And one of the things that had most appealed to me as a convert to this religious movement (the Restoration, Mormonism, the Latter-day Saint Church) was the… The encounter of Joseph Smith in the grove with a visionary encounter with the Father and the Son is the commencement of the whole of it. And that was based upon some verses that you find in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John, and it’s where Christ, preliminary to going to be crucified… Now, He’s telling His apostles about what’s going to happen. And the record of that gospel says that the apostles couldn’t get their hands around this. He’s telling them things, they’re going to record it in their gospel (John, in particular), but they weren’t understanding it as Christ is conveying this to them. But he says, “I’m gonna go away, but don’t worry. I won’t leave you comfortless. I will send the Comforter, AND..…” He goes on to say that “…I will come to you.” So there’s a Comforter (the Holy Ghost) that He’s going to send. And then He says that He—the Lord—will also come to them (this will be post-crucifixion). And then He goes on to say that when He comes to them, He’s going to prepare them so that He—Christ—and the Father can take up their abode with them. So John records that. (By the time he records his gospel, he does have his hands around all this, and he is explaining something that is a fundamental part of his gospel and, I think, the message of Christianity.) 

But that promise and that message largely lay fallow in the Christian community but was realized in the experience of Joseph Smith. And to me, that was bedrock; that was foundational; that was the message of the gospel. And I could seethat message everywhere in the Book of Mormon where, in the first book, you begin with Nephi in a struggle to try and get his hands around and believe what his father is testifying to after his father had had this heavenly encounter. And then Nephi, similarly, walks that path and has an encounter with the divine, and then he becomes a prophet. And then the next writer in the Book of Mormon, Jacob, does exactly the same thing. And I’m seeing that it is embedded not only into the story of Joseph Smith but into the text of the Book of Mormon itself. And so I believed this stuff, I wanted this stuff, and I prayed for this stuff. 

But I have to candidly admit that I had been a member of the LDS movement for decades and I had sought for and asked for these things, and while I had had profound spiritual experiences and encounters beyond the veil, I had not encountered the Lord coming to comfort me; I had certainly not encountered the Lord and His Father taking up their abode with me. And as a consequence of that, I knew my journey had not completed; so I asked for that. 

You’ve had people on… I listened to one interview where a fellow was talking about Masonry and Mormonism and some of the similarities, and he talked about some of the list of things that you can find in an LDS temple endowment and what you find in the Masonic tradition. So without elaborating where it would be inappropriate to do so, I took that “true order of prayer” idea, I dressed in the robes, I gave the signs and the tokens, I made the recitation for the true order of prayer, and I prayed (in my house, alone, with a makeshift altar using an ottoman), and literally asked, you know, that I’d be able to converse with the Lord and enter into His presence, just as the temple ceremony suggests, and you know, wrapped that up and waited expectantly. And after some period of tiring on my knees, I got up and put all my temple clothing away and put them back in the closet, went on with life. Puzzled over that for some time and ultimately concluded that, for whatever reason, that just was not in the cards. And so I began to reflect upon all that I HAD received. And I realized that I was really kind of ungrateful. I was one of those people that was wanting more instead of being thankful for what I’d been given.

SP: Okay.

DS: And I HAD been given much. And so my attitude changed from disappointment and frustration to gratitude and acknowledgment that if nothing else ever happened, that I had been given enough and that I had an assurance that the Lord knew who I was and that He had committed to me an opportunity that was phenomenal. I had taught gospel doctrine and priesthood for nearly three decades. I had learned and studied and grown and been faithful. And I just gave up on that and instead focused on my gratitude to God for all that had been given. And unexpectedly and without me doing (as far as I could tell)… 

SP: So now, this is February 13, 2003?

DS: Yes. 

SP: Okay. So do you…

DS: Without doing anything to provoke it…

SP: Well, can I just… I want to ask you, and I want you to talk about it, it says (in the 2006 book you wrote, The Second Comforter), you wrote that “when your faith [is] in His ordinances is secure enough that seeing Him will produce no further conviction of His word, no greater confidence in Him and no additional confirmation than what you have already, you are prepared to receive Him” (The Second Comforter, Chapter 12: In the Ordinances Thereof, p. 266). And that’s… You feel that was what was preparatory to having your face-to-face encounter with Jesus.

DS: Yes, I think that is exactly what’s required. Because if what you’re doing is trying to find the Lord to have faith in Him, I think you’ve got a struggle ahead of you before you’re ever gonna get there. I had within me a conviction of the truthfulness of the whole of this, that the Scriptures coming alive had done something within me; the effort to obey the Lord had done something within me. I had had personal difficulties in life; I’d had tragedies in life—none of them had made me doubt and all of them had made me draw closer to and rely upon the Lord more. And I had the conviction that, without any question, He is real, His work is real, He is actually doing something to prepare the Earth for His return. That isn’t limited to a handful of really faithful Mormons. That stirring is going on everywhere in the world, and people are feeling it. It’s an awakening that touches many people AND agitates many people; the tares and the wheat are separating from one another. And wheat—whether you find them in the Evangelical community or in Catholicism or in Islam—there are wheat growing everywhere, and there are tares everywhere, and the tares are becoming more militant and less caring and less godly. So, I knew that God existed, and I knew that He had taken note of me, and I did not need to feel the prints in His hands (like Thomas did) in order to say, “Our Lord has risen.”

SP: Oh! Okay, so I just have to ask you, so would you describe this as a visitation or a visionary experience? When you say that you didn’t HAVE to touch his palms, DID you? Did you… Were you afforded the opportunity to actually touch and feel the Savior like He would have had done in Third Nephi?

DS: Yeah, yes. And the answer is the initial encounter had as its very specific purpose… Umm, again, this is probably somewhat at odds with what I was saying before—but it was apocalyptic. The first encounter was what I would call right squarely in the tradition of Apocalypticism. And its purpose was to orient me for purposes that would later unfold. But it was abundantly clear to me… (And the encounter is now, actually, it’s been canonized in a set of Scripture we call the Teachings and Commandments.) It has… That was the first encounter, but there have been others, and the others have been tutorial. The purpose has not been to reassure me; the purpose has been to educate me.

SP: Okay, so I’m really curious—because it’s almost like you have a reverse encounter that people don’t normally have with Jesus. In other words, you almost had like an encounter with Jesus of the book of Revelation—right?… 

DS: Yes.

SP: …at the first encounter, and then your further encounters are almost like you’re being taught by the Savior, like He would have been doiing His earthly ministry. 

DS: Right. 

SP: And so, you have this opportunity to engage in conversation with Him. Do you… Are there times when He gives you a hug? Do you hug Him? Do you embrace Him? Do you feel Him? Have you had a chance to feel the prints, His handprints? And how tangential of an experience is this?

DS: Okay. I’ve told this to a few people; I guess there’s no reason not to just tell it and have it out there. Well, the answer is, “Yes” to your questions. But let me talk to you about a singular intimate moment, okay?

Almost everything… While the Lord doesn’t convey in communication in a way that vibrates the air, it’s a higher form of communication that is abundantly more clear. It conveys thought itself, clarity itself, understanding itself, and it’s left to you… You comprehend it, but it’s left to you—if you want to—to convert it into English; it’s left to you to explain it in words. It is bigger than and more inclusive than the words themselves. And so, it’s not necessarily accurate to say, “Okay, He said this to me.” He conveyed this to me, and I’m telling you what it was that got conveyed. So, understand that. And then second of all, there came this moment where, in a series of what I would call educational encounters—I had been tutored; I had been taught; I had been shown; I had experienced; I had witnessed things that helped me get my hands around things—there came this moment when, in the presence of the Lord, He reached out His hand, and He touched my eyes. 

SP: Okay! 

DS: And when He touched my eyes… There are phrases in the Scriptures that… For example, Lehi says, “He saw and heard much.” In the Pearl of Great Price, book of Moses, Moses encounters the Lord, and he describes it as having seen “the ends of the Earth and all the things that went on from the beginning to the end.” And it’s just a summary statement. Paul describes it as “seeing and hearing unspeakable things.” And so, understand that Scriptures bear testimony of such things being shown. They don’t give you, necessarily,  an adequate preparation so that in encountering it, you can say, “Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly what happened!” 

What happened: He touches my eyes, and everything (past, present, future) in a—the only word I can think of is—a cacophony. It’s just vast, without beginning and end. It is a vast assortment. And it is not arranged chronologically. It is… 

The prophecies of Isaiah, as he’s parsing through, he will grab an event that occurred before his time, he will prophesy about things occurring in his time, and he will mix in things that will happen in the future in the same verse/in the same paragraph/in the same thought. And so, what Isaiah did—and Nephi copied the Isaiah prophecy and adopted it as his own—what Isaiah and Nephi did was to organize (what they got their hands around) thematically, so that the chronology is not anchored… We live in a linear world; it is unanchored from that. It is past, present, and future amalgamated into a singular statement. And so, the Lord, touching my eyes, this is happening, and to me… I mean, I live the kind of life that every other human lives—it’s linear. I used to be 9 years old, and then I was 10; and I used to be 30, and then I’m 31; my life happens chronologically. And when I think about my life, I look back upon my life, and it’s always organized linearly and chronologically—and this stuff is not. And I mean, I, literally, I… This sounds so stupid, I literally said to the Lord, “I can’t take this in. You have to use words.” 

SP: Okay. 

DS: I mean, it’s like I’m talking to a child: “You have to use your words,” you know? “I can’t take it in.” I mean, I’m protesting. “This is too much for a human to try and organize. I cannot take this in. You really have to TALK to me; you have to TELL me. This needs to be, like, the way you’ve communicated… It needs to go back to that.” And the Lord responded to that. I mean, I’m in the midst of having this all unfold, but He still responded to that. And understand: I’m going to take and put into English words the reaction of the Lord to my protest. And if I were putting them into English words—the nearest I can come to what His response was—was, “Yeah, I get that a lot…” 

SP: [laughter]

DS: …like, “You’re not the first one…” 

SP: Okay… 

DS: “You’re not the first one to complain about that!” 

SP: This is truly fascinating!

DS: Here is what that led me, then, to understand—and I believe this to be very, very important. I believe that when the Lord invests that into someone and exposes them to that, that the person to whom that has been given can either walk away, leave it alone, and say, “That’s extraordinary! Someday on the other side of the veil, when I’m not confined to this body of dust, it’ll be neat to live in an environment where that is possible.” And that’s it. But my read of the Scriptures tells me that there HAVE been those—and among them are Isaiah, on the one hand, as a clear example; Ezekiel, John the Revelator, Nephi—there are those who have prayerfully gone back to draw upon that and to try to parse it apart and to try to comprehend and to prayerfully take what had been bestowed and to turn it into something other than a cacophony and to turn it into comprehension. And I believe that when Joseph Smith wrote his letter (when he was in exile in that September 1843 time period)… 

[responding to noise in the background] That’s my…

SP: [indecipherable]

DS: …ring-necked parrot whistling in the background. 

I believe that when Joseph wrote that letter and described the events of the Restoration and all of the visitations that he had received, he was attempting to convey to us his way of parsing it out and trying to dispense it in a way that allowed others to try and get their hands around [indecipherable]…

SP: Well, this is the thing. I mean, you know, these historical figures that have had these encounters with the divine, and in your kind of relaying what their experiences would be… The difference is I had the opportunity to interview somebody who has had these experiences. I can’t go—and maybe YOU can—but I can’t talk to them. And I want to know just a few things about this, ‘cuz this is one of the top questions people have had is that they want to know a few things. 

Well, first of all, I want to know, is this a visitation? Or is this a visionary experience? If I were in the room with you, would I see Jesus? What does Jesus look like? And, you know, those are some basic questions people have that they really want to know.

DS: We haven’t talked about the Gethsemane account…

SP: And that’s key. That’s key.

DS: Yeah, we haven’t talked about that. But let me tell you… 

Sometimes I think details are better left out than included because, you know, fools mock, but they’ll mourn. So I’m still not gonna give altogether a complete…

SP: And you don’t have to, but I think it’s important that, you know, you’ve had this privilege to encounter the Savior. 

DS: Sure, sure. 

SP: And there are so many people out there who love Jesus, and they want to have that encounter with Him. And I just thought this could be an opportunity for it to be an encouraging, edifying word that you give the audience about the Savior. So when I’m asking you questions, it’s really genuine because I know a lot of people just want to know. And I know that you have this… If you don’t want to just talk about too many details, that’s fine. But give us something that the people can kind of, like, “Okay, I get it now!” I… Maybe something you haven’t said before, a descript… Some kind of description that you could share with the audience. 

DS: Yeah, let me do that because it’s probably useful to hear some of this. There was a morning when I woke up at a usual hour (it was a work day for me because I know that later I went to the office, and I worked), and almost always when I have a workday, my kids had a school day. And so, I got up at the usual hour, and it was odd because no one else in the house was awake. And you know, I have nine kids, and at any given moment, most of them are home. I got up. I took a shower. I was alone, despite the fact that the house was occupied. Everyone was asleep. And after I had taken a shower and I was preparing for the day, I encountered the Lord. Everyone in the house was in a deep sleep that was unusual. My belief is that had they been awake, they would have known what was going on. 

SP: Okay! 

DS: Therefore, they were in a deep sleep. And in that moment, there were things that were unfolded about the Lord and the Lord’s sacrifice that literally brought me to tears. I was emotionally drained from the encounter. After it ended and after I had no more presence going on than an empty house with a bunch of people asleep in bed, when it ended, everyone woke up! 

SP: Oh!

DS: And everyone went about their daily business. And I could not speak—not because I was deaf or mute; it was because I was so emotional that I had a very hard time saying anything. I was rather thunderstruck by it all. And so while everyone was getting ready and my wife was… I just bid people farewell, and I got in my vehicle and went to the office—and I cried on the way to the office because it had been so troubling. And when I tried to work that day, I didn’t… I couldn’t get anywhere. Fortunately, it was one of those paperwork days where I could punt, and I came home early. And when I came home, I sat on the fireplace in the far end of this room, and I just wept for a while. And, you know, my wife thought there was something really, really wrong. And when I could compose myself enough, I tried to explain to her some of it. But it was literally DAYS before I could talk about it in a way that was coherent for her, because it was draining, it was troubling, and it allowed me to understand that what the Lord has done in order to redeem us is… The enormity of that sacrifice defies our ability to even articulate it. And the debt of gratitude that we owe to Him for what He has done is something that, you know, we talk about, we celebrate, and we are grateful for, but when it becomes deeply personal and in the way that He can convey, it’s a troubling, troubling thing to us.

SP: Interesting.

DS: We don’t deserve what He went through… 

SP: Okay. 

DS: …to redeem us, and it’s practically incomprehensible for us to get there. 

Now, I do want to say something that you haven’t asked… 

SP: Okay. 

DS: …but thematically it fits right within the line of inquiry that you’re asking about. And I assume that this would be very useful for the pure in heart. 

I do think that every time I talk about something that is spiritual or that is otherworldly, that there are craven individuals out there who are imitative, who are looking to get attention, and all that they do with it is invent a better bunch of misrepresentations. But I’m gonna go ahead and risk that because, mostly, they’re out for their own gain. I think I’ve made it clear that I get nothing out of anything I’m doing and that everything I do requires me to sacrifice. I don’t get compensated, I pay to attend, I pay to transport, I bear my own way in life, and no one… I never solicit for myself. (I do for other causes that help people.) But for myself, if I can’t sacrifice, then I won’t do it. I don’t get gain. 

So, having said that, there was an encounter with the Lord… You can find examples of this in Scripture, too. And these are real. You find it with the twelve apostles in the New Testament, you find it with the disciples that Christ called in the Book of Mormon (Third Nephi), where the Lord essentially says (and this is a paraphrase of Scripture to a person who arrives at this specific point in the progress of the Lord’s plan of redemption; you arrive at a point where the Lord says, to paraphrase), “Ask of me what you will, and it shall be granted to you.” And we have the responses of various apostles. 

Now, I got an encounter with the Lord in which that opportunity presented itself, “Ask of me what you will, and it shall be granted to you.” And whether this was the best answer or the right answer, it was truly, at that moment, authentically, genuinely MY answer. I said, “I have not come thus far by doing my own will. I ask nothing of you.” And I meant it; I felt it. In my heart, that was the most genuine, heartfelt response I’d ever given to any question posed to me at any time. 

That was a moment when something very, very startling occurred—because I am standing in the presence of the Lord, the Lord is addressing me, and the two of us are in this conversation. And I’ve just told Him, “I want nothing. I haven’t come thus far by doing my own will. I’m content.” And I meant it. I was genuinely content. 

At that moment, it was as if a veil lifted, and now there were numerous others who were there who apparently had been there all along… 

SP: Okay. 

DS: …and who had been listening, watching, eavesdropping, participating. And at that moment, it was as if a veil that had been there disappeared. And now there are a number of others who are present. And the reaction… Again, these are communications that come that I have to convert into English. So I’m gonna use English words, that…

SP: I’m just really curious, was Joseph Smith there? 

DS: There were a host of others there. 

SP: “A host of others.” Could you identify them?

DS: I could for you if I needed to. But let’s stay with what I’m about to say. 

SP: Sure, understood.

DS: Because the reaction that came was genuine approval: 

• “This is what we’ve been looking for.” 
• “At last.”
• “We can use this.” 
• “Now we have found it.” 
• “This will do.”
• “We approve.” 

If… I did not understand, first of all, why they were there; second of all, why they had any say in this matter; and thirdly, why they were reacting the way they were. But the overall impression that I had, as I reflect upon it, is that the Lord had one view of what He thought He could achieve using me—despite all my limitations, despite all my inadequacies, He for some reason had some level of confidence in me—but that there were numerous others who were behind the veil who have a stake in their posterity or maybe in the future (I don’t know what their investment was or is), but they were there skeptical, and at that moment, the skepticism was at last resolved.

SP: Okay. And this was like a Heavenly Council, wouldn’t you say?

DS: That’s exactly what it was. 

SP: It was a Heavenly Council, wow. 

DS: And the reaction was one of approval or… I mean, “This is what we’ve been looking for. This will work. We can use this. This…” The overall reaction was like minds just got changed…

SP: Okay. 

DS: …like attitudes just got altered; like whereas before, “not so much,” now it’s “this is something with which the work that we need to have accomplished can now move forward…” 

SP: Now this sounds SO significant, I need to know, what date did this happen?

DS: Uhh, I… Honestly, I haven’t talked about it in public, and I haven’t written… I… It’s all in my journal; I would have to go back and read and research…

SP: I’m just really curious to see, like, was anything else happening in the world events, signs (maybe) that maybe other people were seeing? Yeah, I’d be curious.

DS: That’s a great question! Because there are—as it turns out—there are a lot of correlations between things in the world… 

SP: Right. 

DS: …and things that I’ve encountered. But I haven’t gone back and tracked that. And now that you’ve raised that up, I probably will… 

SP: Yeah. 

DS: …and I’m probably gonna regret having talked about it.

SP: Oh, no, this is okay. Hey, I just… One thing I wanted to ask you…

[crosstalk]

DS: The answer to one question leads to ten more, and sometimes… There are many, many things that… People who are sincere and attentive and who are familiar with their Bible—I mean, even if all they’re familiar with is the Old Testament—if they’re familiar with their Bible, if they’re familiar with both the Old and the New Testament, and in particular, if they’re attentive to the Restoration Scriptures, much of what is sacred and is holy and is found in Scripture is delicious to them, and they prize it, and they value it. They don’t mock it. They don’t take, you know, “wheels within wheels” of Ezekiel and turn it into a carnival ride and mock and ridicule. The problem with discussing things that are sacred with those for whom little or nothing is sacred… 

SP: Yeah. 

DS: …is that they then mock at their own peril. 

SP: Right. 

DS: You know, Nephi ended his record by saying, “Look, I’m gonna seal up this record with my testimony, and you’re gonna be held to account in the day of judgment for how you respond to what I’m writing here because I do this with God’s approval.” So when you do or convey information that has as its source God Himself, then the burden shifts from the one who is reporting the news to the one who hears the news, and they become accountable for responding to it. 

I know that there are a number of people who are very serious about their evangelical faith and who live good lives who, being warned with a message that is current and modern and being spoken by someone who can say, “I have been in the presence of the Lord,” is off-putting to them. And what arises first is both skepticism and the suspicion that the person is in this and telling this story somehow to aggrandize themselves. 

SP: Yeah.

DS: I can tell you that I have never had an encounter with the Lord that did not leave me feeling foolish, feeling inadequate, feeling ill-fitted for the Lord’s purposes. I do not think I’m much of anything. In fact, at times I am completely puzzled by why I would be asked to engage in accomplishing anything that is sacred or on the Lord’s errand because I am as ordinary… I have said in multiple meetings to multiple audiences that people in the audience have lived better lives than I had. And I meant it. And if I were guessing right now, I would say to YOU that your life is probably lived in as a better example of the Christian ideal than has my life been lived as an example of the Christian ideal. But I take into account (when I say that), the things that I did before I was baptized, the things that I did before I felt myself “born again,” the things that I did when I was, you know, struggling to just be an onlooker in the Baptist faith, trying to do what my mom taught me that I ought to do. Since being baptized, I’ve tried to live the Christian ideal. But again, there are people whose lives—if you are looking at them top-to-bottom, day in/day out—you would say, “They live a better life than does Denver.” And I readily admit that. I don’t think I’m much of anything. But I do think that the encounters I’ve had are real…

SP: Okay.

DS: …the Lord is real, and that your confidence ought to be in Him. And even if you think that He makes a bad choice in me, for whatever reason, maybe He does that deliberately because, in His view, we do tend to want more from one another than we’re able to give. So look to Him, because He’s the giver of every good gift. We aren’t much more than the receiver and abuser and unappreciative recipient of the good gifts that He does give. And so, I hesitate in talking about things that are sacred and holy.

SP: Sure. Well, I wanted to ask you this, because I think maybe… A lot of people have had visionary experiences with the Savior. Many artists, under inspiration, have created paintings and artworks. So the question I have for you is: Is there a particular art piece of artwork or a painting of the Savior that you look at and say, “They got it right!”?

DS: Yes, there is one, but I don’t want to go there! 

SP: Okay.

DS: But you mentioned a lot of people who get inspiration and who have had wonderful encounters. There’s a verse in the Book of Mormon that I want to read. And I… This ought to make Mormons more broad-minded than they are. But unfortunately, Mormons aren’t.

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; therefore, we see that the Lord doth counsel in his wisdom, according to that which is just and true. (Alma 15:13 RE) 

That verse in the Book of Mormon suggests that there are people who are having authentically profound, religiously valid, true encounters across Evangelical/Catholic/ Islam/Buddhist/Hindu lines that originate from the Father of Lights, the Giver of good gifts, and they are REAL—and that we should not assume that because we have received some portion of His word that we can chauvinistically say, “Yeah, we own salvation, but others do not.” Everything is going to be brought together in one, at some point. And if you were going to be fair about things, you would say the Western/Christian mind is task-oriented and thing-oriented; and the Eastern/Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist mind is virtue-minded and conceptual, and it’s the things of the heart and the spirit and the feeling. And that the coarseness of the West and the spiritualism of the East are really fragments of ONE; they’re not whole until you unify them all together in Christ. And that there is a… There was a Savior. He did come. He did sacrifice Himself to fulfill the law that requires justice. He allowed Himself in innocence to be slain as if He were a sinner. That offended the law of justice, and it made possible mercy. And a merciful God (who paid a price that is incomprehensibly large to us) is not going to waste that sacrifice by bestowing it in a stingy way. It’s going to be spread as far and as wide—as mercifully—as it is possible for Him to do. And if you get some portion of His word that tells you virtue consists in treating your fellow man as you would like yourself to be treated (which is one of the principles He articulated in the Sermon on the Mount and in the sermon at Bountiful), then you’ve lived a precept that is high and noble and virtuous. 

And one thing that the Apostle Paul mentions in his letter to the Corinthians is being baptized for the dead. And one thing that Joseph Smith taught (and the LDS Church practices in their temples) is being baptized for the dead. If it is true that you live a virtue that reflects Christ’s teaching of doing unto others as you would be done by, and you’ve lived that, and you find that the author of mercy is Jesus Christ and you’re willing to accept baptism, then the letter to the Corinthians and the practice of the Mormons allows someone to tie into the baptismal requirement. And so, how broad and how wide and how merciful will a Lord who sacrificed Himself as a lamb without blemish be willing to apply His Atonement in order to save as many as possible? And I think we tend to narrow our focus and to say, “As long as the door to salvation is wide enough for ME to squeeze through, even if it’s a tight fit, then I’m perfectly content to squeeze through that door and then shut it behind me and say, ‘Let all the Muslims and let all the Hindus and let all the Catholics and let all… You know, those Evangelicals even bother me because I’m Mormon. Let them all stay out and go to hell!’” But the Lord, I think, has a contrary view and that…

SP:  Okay.

DS: …verse in the Book of Mormon suggests to me that God’s Spirit out-pouring and His light is extended as far and as wide as He can reach to every nation, and everyone gets SOME of it.

SP: Okay, this is great. Now, I want to be respectful of your time, and I just want to ask cover a couple of things and then I people have been asking about. And basically, one of the things is that while you have gone out of your way to emphasize the decentralized nature of your movement (“it’s not a church”), you offer three elements that effectively define the church: [one,] authority to perform ordinances; [two,] maintenance and distribution of Scripture; and three, community in which to affiliate with other adherents. Can you concede that although your movement is not a church, it does quack like a church?

DS: Not in the sense of any denomination that exists… 

SP: Okay. 

DS: …because every organization has boundaries that require you to acknowledge your status “in” or “out” of, to the exclusion of others. 

SP: Okay.

DS: And I have said, if a Catholic priest wants to be baptized by us, I would baptize the Catholic priest, and I would be content to allow him to continue…

[crosstalk]

SP: …as a Catholic priest—but they would need to be baptized into your movement, though.

DS: Yes, they would need to be baptized in order to accept an ordinance. You can be a Methodist and accept baptism. You can be a Baptist. You can be whatever you want to be in addition to accepting this message. It’s not jealous in the sense of a church being jealous. 

SP: Okay. 

DS: It’s not structural; there is no hierarchy. The purpose is to lead people to a point of spiritual maturity so that we’re not teams divided against one another… 

SP: Okay. 

DS: …but we come with open arms, willing to accept any who are willing to acknowledge the Lord and be received by Him.

SP: So this is not an incorporated church. This is not a physical church. This doesn’t have the hierarchy. But could you argue that it’s spiritually a church?

DS: As the Lord defines a church in the revelation of Joseph Smith, it would fit that definition… 

SP: Okay. 

DS: …but as the world defines a church, it doesn’t work. 

SP: Right.

DS: We gather in fellowships that are informal, and people pay tithes into the fellowship. But the money that gets paid in as tithing then gets turned around and distributed to people who are in need, first of all within that fellowship, and then… I know that there was one particular fellowship that didn’t have any needs with the group that they were gathering tithes [with], and they had accumulated a lot of money in the fellowship, and they had learned about someone that who was handicapped and had a pretty significant transportation need and an inability to get anywhere; they used the aggregated tithe money to go out and buy a handicap van to relieve this handicapped person of the inability to get transportation from place to place. And the purpose of the tithing isn’t to support a ministry. In fact, if you’re gonna be a minister, you’re gonna have to sacrifice in order to accomplish it. There’s a website, I think it’s called bornofwater.com or bornofwater.org. In any way In any event, that website allows people, wherever they are in the world, to request baptism, and someone will—on their own nickel—travel wherever they need to travel to perform the ordinance and then to return. And no one needs to compensate them for the cost of the sacrifice. 

SP: Well, it sounds to me like you’re a New Testament church.

DS: Pretty much! It’s pretty much modeled on the New Testament system in the sense that they were really divergent groups that… I mean… 

SP: Yeah… 

DS: They were… 

SP: …and they were decentralized. 

DS: Yes, yes! And not only decentralized, but they were markedly different from congregation to congregation and place to place. And the twelve apostles were sent out in twelve different directions with twelve different messages that were based upon their experience with the Lord, and they created systems of worship that were reflective. And I say, “twelve,” because I include Paul within that and not Judas. 

SP: Got it.

So I guess I want to… Again, I don’t want to take too much more of your time. But I want to talk a little bit about “end times.” On the 10th of September, 2011, the Lord told you that Your name shall be called David (T&C 162:1). Are you the long-prophesied end-time Davidic servant?

DS: I don’t… First of all, I don’t know. Second of all, I don’t claim that. And thirdly, to me, the name wasn’t welcome. I didn’t view that as a positive. I viewed that as… I was thinking of King David, the adulterer who killed Uriah. I had taught the Old Testament as a gospel doctrine teacher, and one of my heroes in the Old Testament was Joab. Between Joab (who literally was the only person that scared David; he threatened him if he didn’t stop mourning over Absalon, you know, “Clean yourself up! You’ve got men out there who fought for you and your kingdom. Stop mourning the death of this rebellious son!” Joab, against the orders of David, ran Absalon through with the sword. He was a hero to me, Joab) and then Nathan, the prophet (I named a son of mine “Nathan.” Nathan the prophet went into David and told him the story of the poor man with the one ewe lamb and the rich man with his flocks who came and stole his lamb and slew it to make a feast, and David said, “That man shall surely die.” And Nathan the prophet says, “Thou art the man. That’s you, David.” This is a king who has murdered one of the captains of his army being confronted by Nathan the prophet)… David, to me, was the far end of the spectrum. He was not the ideal. 

Joab? Gimme that name. 

SP: I see. 

DS: Nathan? Gimme that name.

David? David, the loathsome, indulgent king who betrayed the trust of his general, who killed to cover his adultery? Not a good name. 

So, I have said this, and I mean this, and I think this is the right answer: 

Someone is going to accomplish some things on the Lord’s errand. The accomplishment of the things that the Lord seeks to have done IS the identifier. Sitting back and claiming that you are something, having accomplished nothing, is not only vain and arrogant and foolish, it’s completely unjustified. There’s not a person breathing—you and me included—who cannot fail the Lord, who cannot turn in their weakness and in their depravity to doing something that makes them utterly unfit for the work. 

I haven’t accomplished anything that would justify calling me much more than someone who can testify that the Lord lives, He’s gracious, and that He is trustworthy and faithful. If I get some things done someday and it proves to be of value to the Lord and for the salvation of our fellow man, then you can say the Lord used a fool to accomplish some good things. 

SP: Okay. 

DS: But I haven’t done that yet, and someone is going to…

SP: I see.

DS: …and when they do, it could be anyone. And I will salute whoever gets it done.

SP:  So we are… Many people believe we are living in the last days. Within the context of your movement, there is apparently going to possibly, one day, a temple be built. If that happens, does that mean the return of the Savior is imminent?

DS: Assuming that the temple built is populated by men and women of faith, virtue, and cleanliness before the Lord, yes! 

SP: Okay. So as an Evangelical, I just want to ask, so should… If that temple gets built, should we be paying close attention to what’s happening in the world?

DS: I would say yes. I would say that, all along, there have been some milestones that have been achieved all along the way. And while the Earth has paid very little notice to some of them (and it’s clearly not understood, many of them), I’ve taken note of them, and I’ve tried to keep a faithful record in a journal. And there have been signs all along the way. Things have corresponded. And yes, I believe if a temple gets built and gets accepted by the Lord (and it has to be accepted by Him in order to be His house), then I would say, “Pay attention to goings-on.”

SP: And should we pay attention to the physical, like, location of where it’s built?

DS: Probably. 

SP: Okay. 

DS: Yeah.

SP: I mean, like, would there be significance in the particular place where the Lord would choose, right?

DS: Yeah, I think there’s significance to everything the Lord does, yeah, every single thing. I think the exile from the Mississippi river banks out to a barren, salty desert (that is now becoming increasingly more toxic), all of that stuff is deliberate…

SP:  Okay.

DS: …planned, and the Lord speaks… He speaks in everything. All things bear testimony of Him. If you want, perhaps, the most perfect sermon about Jesus Christ, just look at the life of a monarch butterfly.

SP: Okay. 

DS: The whole thing, from beginning to end is an allegory of our Lord.

SP: That’s really cool. Monarch butterfly…

DS: The pupa… 

SP: The King! 

DS: …the chrysalis, to the monarch, to the migration across continents. A butterfly! And I know when it will not snow here when the monarch butterflies return.

SP: Okay, so if you build a temple, do you think you will have an image of a monarch butterfly on the temple? 

DS: Boy, I should, shouldn’t I?

SP: I think it would be a good idea!

DS: That might be a great idea!

SP: Well, Denver, you know, I had a blast talking with you today. Now, I know you don’t normally do interviews, but thank you so much for honoring me and this program for coming on today.

DS: Well, I listened to a few of your interviews and enjoyed them before committing. You talked to a fellow about Mormonism and Masonry. I have a lot I could say about that interview…

SP: Come back on!

DS: …which I enjoyed, by the way.

SP: What’s that?

DS: I thought it was very good. And someday I might just plunge into that area and articulate what it is that I think those similarities might truly mean. But that’s another day, another interview…

SP: Yeah!

DS: …a bigger subject. Anyway, I enjoyed it; relatively painless! But I am gonna go to work now.

SP: All right, sir. Hey, thank you so much again!

Folks, I just want to remind you to: Don’t forget to like and subscribe and hit the notification button when a new video comes out. We are available in all the major podcast formats; make sure you give us good ratings there. Mormonbookreviews.com is our merch store. Support us on PayPal and Patreon. 

Denver, you have an open invitation to come on the program anytime you want to talk about whatever you want. Thanks for coming on today.

DS: Well, you’re welcome. And I do want to point out that I’ve talked to you about some serious and spiritual things that I have not spoken with some other interviewers about, and that is because of the spirit you bring with you and the propriety and the decorum that you deal with sacred things, which some others are not capable of.

SP:  Thank you, Denver. I appreciate that. I appreciate that very much.

Folks, thanks for sharing your time with us today.

TRANSCRIPT

The post An Interview with an Evangelical appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following comments by Denver were given at an end of year Seminary gathering in Centerville, UT on May 15, 2022

I was thinking about MY parenting: A voice comes from the kitchen that says, “Reagan’s trying to kill me,” and I yell, “Reagan, don’t kill Carson.” It’s pretty charitable. It’s pretty good. That’s kind of the way that whole thing works, with me anyway. 

Nature is full of symbols with meaning. 

(Yeah, yeah, okay. It’s like you have to eat a snowcone in order to use this microphone. Hello, hello.)

[crosstalk about the microphone] 

(Yeah, okah. Just yell. You see what you can pick up because I’m gonna abandon you… No use for you.)

Nature is full of symbols. The most obvious, frequent, and repetitive symbol that you can find everywhere is the difference between the light and the darkness. When the sun is up, you can see stuff. When the sun is not up and the moon is not up, you can’t see stuff. If you go into a room and there’s no outside window, or it’s dark at nighttime and there’s no light, you can hurt yourself in the dark. Light and darkness are everywhere—testifying to you about the difference between truth and error, comprehension and confusion, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s true and what’s error; it’s just THE biggest symbol of all in nature. 

Right now, it doesn’t matter where you go or what you look at, every single institution in this world is in the process of losing light, losing grip on true principles, and sliding into increasing error, confusion, disorder, disorganization—and it doesn’t matter if the institution you’re looking at happens to be businesses or governments or churches or civic organizations. It doesn’t matter what it is. Right now there are unrelenting voices advocating the cause of confusion, unrelenting voices advocating for destruction, decay, and overthrow—everywhere. 

One of the places that should have been safe from this nonsense—this crusade to overthrow everything—has penetrated into the public school system, advocating sexual confusion so that: You might be a boy, or you might not be a boy; you might be a girl, or you might not be a girl. But for heaven’s sakes, the one thing they want to advocate now is the overthrow of the family—because the one thing which sexual confusion will result in is the destruction of a happy relationship that produces a stable family inside of which children are produced and raised with an understanding of the difference between godliness and ungodliness, truth and error. Don’t let yourself get sucked into that effort that is deliberately aimed to try and achieve a specific result. The specific result is the destruction of the family. And you have been targeted in order to achieve that result. It exists everywhere. You’re either a boy, or you’re a girl—and your ultimate destiny is to be either a father or a mother. Don’t ever lose sight of that. That is what God ordained in the beginning. 

One of the things that has puzzled me and caused me to study long and hard in the Scriptures is the question of: 

• WHY…when God says, “How oft would I have gathered you, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not,”
• WHY…with God trying to gather people together and protect them (like a hen would protect her chicks), 
• WHY…when the purpose behind the gospel is Zion—and there have been multiple opportunities in which God has interjected Himself into contact with us to try and bring that result about, 
• WHY have we only seen Zion on two occasions? One was at the time of Enoch, and Melchizedek brought a city about that was also taken up into Heaven. (However, in truth, Melchizedek secured that covenant before the flood, and so he’s really a subset of the city of Enoch—because rather than get caught up into Heaven before the flood, with a covenant He remained behind. But he gathered a city, and the city included those that were not antediluvians. And so you can say that it was twice.)

But God intended to establish Zion every time He interferes with, speaks to, interrupts, and creates a new dispensation of the gospel. Why doesn’t it happen? Why is it that Zion fails? (Zion “flees,” but more often than not, Zion fails.) Why didn’t we have Zion at the time of Jesus Christ? Why didn’t we see Zion at the time of Joseph Smith? 

Well, one of the things that struck me about that first group of generations in which they did have Zion was the account of how things were organized.

(Boy, there’s some important things in this material that I don’t want to just gloss over in pursuit of the point that I want to make.) Here’s an interesting little thing about the record: 

Adam does not record his own baptism. Adam is focused on something altogether more cosmic than that, so he passes over the events that involve his baptism. It’s actually generations later (when Enoch is speaking in vision and recounting things that had happened generations earlier) that Enoch records the account of Father Adam’s baptism—which tells you that sometimes as you go through the record, things are non-chronological. You have… If you… If chronology really matters to you, you’ve got to go back and straighten all that out—because the record is gonna preserve the important data points in the experiences of the people involved but not necessarily preserve them in exactly the way in which they unfolded. Okay? 

So, going back to the time of Adam and Adam’s record:

The gospel began to be preached from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice… 

Okay, those two things go hand-in-hand: angels get sent forth to prepare people, and then after they are adequately prepared, God’s own voice begins to speak to them. Angels do a preliminary work. This is discussed in Alma later about how the work of the angels is to prepare people in order to receive something further. But the first step, in order to have faith, is to have the ministering of angels (which occurred in the case of Adam in the record that Adam is giving us). “…and by his own voice,” meaning that then God comes into contact with him, 

…and by the gift of the holy ghost. And thus all things were confirmed unto Adam by a holy ordinance, and the gospel preached, and a decree sent forth that it should be in [all] the world until the end thereof. And thus it was. Amen…

So at the time of Adam, he gets preached to him the gospel, which at the time that this is taking place, Adam’s mind (in making this record) is so caught up with other things, he doesn’t even bother mentioning that he got baptized; Enoch will fill that in later. But I guarantee you that at this point, with this ministration taking place at the time of Adam, that he was baptized. But what he got was confirmed unto him by an holy ordinance, which is just mentioned lightly and skipped over. I’ve connected that holy ordinance in Genesis 3:13 with a line that I’ve drawn down into the next thing, which is verse 14. And I’ve drawn a line between “by a holy ordinance” and “this same priesthood”—because there’s something going on here. 

By them [and] their children were taught to read and write, having a language which was pure and undefiled. Now this same Priesthood which was in the beginning shall be in the end of the world also. (Genesis 3:13-14 RE) 

Something went on to confirm upon Adam, through a holy ordinance, something that will later be referred to as “this holy priesthood,” which is going to show up again at the end of the world. Okay? So the very first Zion begins with Adam, and then I write down the list of the names: Adam, and then Seth, and then Enos, and then Cainan, and then Mahalaleel, then Jared, then Enoch, Methuselah, and then it’ll go to Noah. But those names are mentioned in Genesis chapter three. And what you have in that list of names is a series of father, son, grandson, great-grandson—and you’ve got one in each generation. 

So the original organization of the very first Zion was familial, meaning it was a family. It was patriarchal, meaning it descended from father to son to grandson. And it was dynastic, meaning that it stayed inside one family (father-son) line. That’s how the original worked. There are a lot of advantages to that because in that setting, what you’ve got is an intimate connection between the people. You’ve got a family unit, which can be one of the greatest sources of solidarity and connection—but it can also be one of the worst sources of contention and animosity. So you’ve got your pluses, and you got your minuses. 

So, when you read about the very first one, one of the first things that comes to mind is, “Oh, what we might need if we’re ever gonna achieve Zion is a holy family.” What we need is, like, how about if the Lord establishes a name to be held in faithful remembrance from generation to generation upon whom a patriarchal position is conferred, and we know the identity of that fellow—and we learn in January of 1841, the Lord attempted to do something like that by conferring upon Hyrum the office of Priesthood and Patriarch to be held in faithful remembrance, which kinda sorta happened until the conflict between Spencer W. Kimball and Eldred G. Smith resulted in the elimination of the office of Presiding Patriarch to the Church, and Eldred G. Smith was made Emeritus, and then (as David Christenson interviewed Eldred G. Smith), he did not confer anything upon his son. And the LDS Church altogether abandoned the office and the ordination that had begun with Hyrum and had been passed down to LDS Church Patriarchs until the time of Eldred G. Smith. And with his death…2014? With his death in 2014 came an end to that abortive effort to try and create an orderly manner in which it would be possible to establish Zion—’cuz the one thing that’s apparent is the only time we’ve ever had it, we had it as a consequence of this kind of a relationship. 

So, you guys have been studying Ether, the book of Ether. I go to the book of Ether, and I say, Aha, here we have, at the very beginning of the book of Ether, you got the brother of Jared; you’ve got the Lord coming to appear to the brother of Jared; and you’ve got, once again, an opportunity in which the Lord is saying, “How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings.” And so, we now have—potentially—a new dynasty in which we can achieve Zion. But if you’ve read the book of Ether…

Well, let me just read a little bit of how that dynastic, patriarchal establishment worked. You can go to Ether chapter 3, beginning at verse 11. And this is some of the goings-on between the potential patriarchal leaders that could take them into Zion. 

And it came to pass that Noah rebelled against Shule the king, and…his father Corihor, and drew away Corihor his brother, and also all his brethren, and many of the people. And he gave battle unto Shule the king, in which he did obtain the land of their first inheritance; and he became…king over that part of the land. And it came to pass that he gave battle again unto Shule the king; and he took Shule the king, and carried him away captive into Moron. And it came to pass [that] as he was about to put him to death, the sons of Shule crept into the house of Noah by night and slew him, and broke down the door of the prison, and brought out their father, and placed him upon his throne in his own kingdom. (Emphasis added)

And that didn’t sound like Zion. It’s patriarchal. It’s dynastic. It’s familial. It’s treacherous. It’s ugly. It involves continual killing and violence, ambition. And as you read the account in Ether, generation after generation, until finally, they arrive at the point that they completely destroy themselves in a genocidal warfare. And that ain’t Zion.

Section 139 of the Teachings and Commandments is a part of the letter that Joseph wrote while he was captive in Liberty Jail, and he’s talking about, at this point, the abuses—not the abuses that the government was imposing on him, not the imprisonment and the guards and all the rest of that, the governor disobeying the Constitution, the outrages of what was going on in the society at large—he’s writing about the church. It would be the fault of aspiring men inside the church that put him into prison, that even surrendered him into custody. When he got taken into custody, he was surprised and didn’t know; that was why he walked out of Far West unarmed. He thought he was going out to negotiate, but treacherous men inside the church conspired to deceive him and lead him out to be surrendered. And he was taken captive, and he was put in prison. And all of that stuff that was going on both inside the government of the state of Missouri and, more importantly, inside the church, weighed on the mind of Joseph when he wrote these words, and they are only about religious abuse. They’re only about betrayal and treachery by your fellow believer. Look at section 139, beginning with paragraph 5. 

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…the Powers of Heaven cannot be controlled nor handled, only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, [it’s] true, but when we undertake to cover our sins or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control, or dominion, or compulsion, upon the souls of the children of man 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. …ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, …to fight against God. We have learned by sad experience that [it’s] 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. (T&C 139:5-6, emphasis added) 

Joseph was not concerned about the government and the soldiers and the court system that unjustly held him in prison. He was concerned about the fact that the religion that was being restored was being corrupted. The religion that he was trying to establish—that would bring about Zion—had turned into a bunch of aspiring, manipulative, dangerous men who thought they had a little authority, and therefore, with that authority, they could abuse, exercise control, compulsion, and dominion, and get other people to follow what they insisted be done, abrogating the agency which men are all too eager to surrender to the hands of those that want to abuse them. They willingly permit the abuse. 

So, “Joseph, the Lord was willing to gather them like a hen would gather the chicks under their wings, and they would not. And Joseph, you’re sitting in Liberty Jail. You know they won’t. You’ve got a church that’s been corrupted. When you get out, you can go to Nauvoo and try to elevate the people and preach—but it’s gonna repeat itself. And ultimately, in Nauvoo, you’re gonna get killed by the same inside conspirators occupying positions of authority inside the organization. The same thing is gonna happen again.”

But Joseph did something really interesting towards the end. It didn’t get preserved much—except as a kind of confused footnote that only lingered until the time of Wilford Woodruff, and then it just got thrown on the trash heap. And today, it’s occasionally visited by Mormon scholars in BYU Studies and other places—Mormon Dialogue—usually dealt with in a way that makes kind of fun of the whole thing, like, “How weird was this?” You can even find an allusion to it in Rough Stone Rolling, where Bushman talked about how Joseph’s ambition was “familial plentitude in the eternities.” That was how Bushman described it. Joseph was doing things not because he was a (as Bushman would put it) some kind of lothario (meaning a womanizer, someone that was always looking to seduce women). Bushman said that wasn’t what Joseph was doing there at the end. He wasn’t a lothario; he was looking to try to achieve familial plentitude in the eternities by sealings, which later in the vernacular that got adopted by the Brigham Young-led group in Utah meant marriage, which meant polygamy, which meant all kinds of corrupt teachings based upon that. And that’s another day and another story. 

Joseph was trying to use the authority that had been given to him at the end not to reinforce the church. He essentially walked away from the church. He rode across the Mississippi River on June 23rd in a skiff, sent for his horse so that he could just leave. He was headed west; he was gonna go somewhere else and start over. And he was gonna do that in a whole different capacity. The new capacity (and one which he began mentioning for the first time in October of 1843) was to create a family by adoption. Okay? 

In the first generations that brought us Zion, it was familial, patriarchal, and dynastic. And it worked because of the righteousness of the men involved. But in the hands of the unrighteous, a familial, patriarchal, dynastic system for organizing people can create hell on earth and ultimately end in genocide. But with the cautions that are given to us by Joseph and the experience that he had (first, in Missouri, and later, soberly assessing the people around him in Nauvoo), he created something that potentially allows for the organization of a righteous society that is familial, that is patriarchal, but that is non-dynastic—not confined to a single line of men but encompasses any righteous man by adoption and by sealing into an imitation of that order that existed in the beginning. 

Now, I have used, for convenience sake, the word “man” and “patriarchal” and “he.” But if you go back and read the talk that I gave about our Divine Parents, there is no such thing as a patriarch without an associated matriarch. And if you study that further, what you will learn is it’s not the man who even chooses the next in authority, the next one upon whom status is conferred. That’s entrusted exclusively into the hands of the matriarch. It is the Mother who ordains that succession. 

Well, in that T&C 139, there’s a comment that Joseph makes in passing. This is in paragraph 12 of 139: There are many teachers, but perhaps not many fathers. He doesn’t elaborate on that. Take the comments that I’ve given today, go to that paragraph 12 of 139, and look at that aside comment that there are many teachers, but perhaps not many fathers, and let that sink deep in your mind to consider what that might include.

Then there’s a…about the only talk that Joseph Smith ever had written out in advance, which oughta tell you how important this talk is—there’s a talk that Joseph gave that appears as section 140 of the Teachings and Commandments that I want to read from beginning in paragraph 5, and then I’ll conclude. 

Now, the purpose in himself, in the winding up scene of the last dispensation, is that all things pertaining to that dispensation should be conducted precisely in accordance with the preceding dispensations. And again, God purposed in himself that there should not be an Eternal fullness until every dispensation should be fulfilled and gathered together in one, and that all things whatever that should be gathered together in one, in those dispensations, unto the same fullness and Eternal glory, should be in Christ Jesus. 

Therefore, he set the ordinances to be the same for ever and ever, and set Adam to watch over them, to reveal them from Heaven to man or to send angels to reveal them. Hebrews 1st chapter, 14th verse: Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall be [the] heirs of salvation? These angels are under the direction of Michael, or Adam, who acts under the direction of Christ. 

From the above quotation we learn that Paul perfectly understood the purpose of God in relation to his connection with man and that glorious and perfect Order which he established in himself, whereby he sent forth power, revelations, and glory. God will not acknowledge that which He has not called, ordained, and chosen. 

…This then is the nature of the Priesthood: every man holding the presidency of his dispensation and one man holding the presidency of them all, even Adam. 

…The ordinances must be kept in the very [same] way God has appointed, otherwise their Priesthood will prove a cursing instead of a blessing. (T&C 140:5-12, emphasis added) 

You see, in the beginning, all things were confirmed unto Adam by an holy ordinance, and the gospel preached. Adam had to receive that fullness of understanding before he went out to preach the gospel because there were things about the pattern which don’t emerge into clarity until Adam understood all things. And that same priesthood which was in the beginning is to return again at the end of the world, also. And that same clarity that was entrusted into the hands of Adam will again be restored upon the earth with the same clarity to allow for a connection—by Adam’s permission, it will be restored, under the direction of Christ who presides over it all, for the purpose of having the end agree with and fit together with the beginning, in which all things get combined together. 

And so, at the very moment when the greatest effort to bring darkness and confusion into the lives of all men and children, there will break forth a light—clearer, brighter, comprehending more, revealing more, and establishing again that same gospel and priesthood which was in the beginning. It is going to return. The world is not worthy of it. Therefore, it necessarily must be housed inside sacred space belonging to God in the form of a temple, which is the reason why (in the Answer to the Prayer for Covenant) the Lord makes mention of a coming command to build a temple. 

God’s purposes will not fail. His effort is equally relenting with the effort of the adversary to bring about darkness. And I don’t care if it appears as though darkness covers the whole face of the earth, and there’s but one spotlight in one small corner. That will be enough to begin the overthrow of the kingdom of this world and the powers of darkness that rule here. It will be the beachhead from which our Lord will launch a victory that will be total, that will encompass the whole Earth. And from that tiny beginning, it will spread until Zion fills the whole of North and South America, as Joseph Smith described it. He didn’t live to get there. He didn’t have the right people listening and giving heed and diligence to the things that were taught. How oft will God gather together people like a hen gathering chicks under her wings? Apparently, He will keep doing it and keep doing it until, finally, some group of people decide that they will rise up. Hopefully, that will include some of you. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

TRANSCRIPT

The post Choose Light appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following comments by Stephanie were given at an end of year Seminary gathering in Centerville, UT on May 15, 2022.

Stephanie Snuffer: Good morning. Okay, I’m working on the assumption that you will participate. Okay, so when I stand here and expect answers, I’ll just stand here till I get some answers. All right? So I’m gonna start with a couple of ideas. 

I have come to my own personal conclusion through prayer/meditation/answers that the highest form of godliness on the earth is our experience in relationships and our experience in working those relationships out. Because as I try and envision what the promised blessings are in the Hereafter, I have a really hard time doing that because I’m here, and I’m pretty dang happy here. I have a pretty good life. I like my family; we work hard to be, you know, good to one another. That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of crap going on, but I’m pretty dang happy here. So when I read scriptural promises of something “better,” I cannot conceive of what that is because my tiny human brain is incapable of conceiving what that is. 

So as I’m trying to figure this out through prayer (and whatever), I’m thinking, “Okay, it’s probably…”  And I feel like I got an answer, but I’ll leave it all up to you—doesn’t matter to me—I feel like the answer that I got was relationships and the work of relationships (okay?), which is pretty dang hard. 

Okay, so, family being the first and most important relationship, which includes your intimate family and then your extended family. And then it goes out into society, community, friends, whatever, however you identify relationships is fine. But let’s say the pinnacle relationship is family. All right, so being in a family is great. But that doesn’t mean your family relationships are great. That does not mean your relationships with your parents are great. That doesn’t mean your relationships with your siblings are great. (It doesn’t mean they’re not, but it doesn’t mean they are.) 

So I have two… I work with a couple of different family dynamics. I have one client who is part of a intact family: siblings, parents, you know, whatever. And this particular person feels like in order to get love from his family, he has to be dissatisfied with himself—okay?—because if he’s satisfied with himself, then his parents are worried about him because they’re not sharing the same values and stuff. So does that sound like a particularly godly family relationship? No, not really; not really. Okay, I work with another sort of dynamic where four people come in every week, and they pretty much fight themselves silly. Okay, like, I help moderate; I quiet this person down, I let this person talk. I, you know… We talk, we work out… I teach them skills, they learn new family rules, you know? Does that sound like an ideal family relationship? No. The difference is one family relationship is working on the family relationship together. One experience is working just as an individual trying to manage their own personal experiences in this family. Okay? Lots of work to still be done if our highest the highest connection we can have to godliness is within our relationships. There’s a lot of work to be done in both of these cases. Okay? 

So, a few things that people really hate. Mortal human beings really hate vulnerability. They hate self-reflection. They hate accountability. They hate introspection and self-awareness. And we want… We would rather ask ourselves, “Why?” than “What?”—meaning, “Why is this happening to me?” “Why is she mean to me?” “Why do they not like me?” “Why am I so miserable?” instead of saying, “What am I doing to create the circumstances where I feel like crap?” “What am I doing that I cannot get along with my mother?” “What am I doing that I am constantly fighting with my brother?” …friends, aunts, uncles (I don’t care—we all have people). Okay? Human beings hate vulnerability. They hate self-reflection. They hate accountability. They hate introspection and self-awareness. And we REALLY hate agency. We HATE having to choose for ourselves how to be. We would rather someone tell us—’cuz that’s so much easier! Okay? 

So, with that in mind, I’m gonna read a couple Scriptures. Well, I’m not gonna read the Scripture specifically, but I’m gonna talk about the concepts. So, in Moroni 7:9, he talks about… Ahhhhh, what does he talk about, everybody? Charity! Moroni 7:9 (put on my silly glasses because I cannot read), and it says, 

And if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the holy ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must need have charity. For if he have not charity, he is nothing; wherefore, he must need have charity. And charity suffereth long, and [it] is kind, and [it] envieth not, and [it] is not puffed up, [it] seeketh not her own, [it] is not easily provoked, [it] think[s] no evil, and [it does not rejoice] in iniquity…[it] rejoice[s] in the truth, [it] bear[s] all things, [and believes] all things, [it] hope[s] all things, [and it] endureth all things. [So] wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, [because] charity never faileth… 

Obviously, I’m not reading this word for word; I’m dramatizing it. Pretty good, huh? 

Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all. For all things must fail, but charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endure[s] for ever. And whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with them. (Moroni 7:9, emphasis added)

Okay, so I’m gonna leave that there, and then I’m gonna go to First Corinthians. I believe it’s 1:53; I took my marker out, so… First Corinthians—and yes, I’m driving in the car on the way up here, picking apart my stuck-together Scripture pages, because I’m LISTENING to them; I’m not reading them. So all of my pages are still stuck together. 52; let’s start with 52; oh, no—let’s start with 51. First Corinthians 1:51. 

Though I speak with the tongues of men and…angels, and have not charity, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing. 

Charity suffers long and is kind. [It] envies not. [It] vaunts not itself, [it] is not puffed up, [it] does not behave itself unseemly, [it] seeks not her own, [it] is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity but rejoices in the truth, [it] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, [and] endures all things. 

And then the very first sentence in First Corinthians 1:53 is: 

Charity never fails. (1 Corinthians 1:51-53)

Okay, let’s just put all that aside. Just leave it there for a minute. 

Okay, so how much time do you all spend studying the gospel or your Scriptures in any given week? 

Speaker 1: Ten minutes a day.

SS: “Ten minutes a day.” Okay. Ten minutes a day. So ten minutes a day, 70 minutes a week, maybe? Is that…? Did I do my math correctly? Okay. Anybody else? The answer can be none. I don’t care. A lot. Not a lot. [audience answer] “30 minutes a week?” Okay. [audience answer] “40 minutes a week?” Okay. Well, I’m not asking… These aren’t guesses—these are literally how much time do you guys spend in your Scriptures or the gospel each week? 

Speaker 2: Ten to twenty minutes in the morning.

SS: “Ten to twenty minutes every morning.” Okay, so that’s like 140 minutes a week. Okay. Roughly two hours. All right. Cool. Like, for me, like, none—like however long it takes me to drive to work and listen to my Scriptures. I don’t know. 

Okay, how much time… Okay, so when you’re doing that, how do you believe your investment in the gospel or the Scriptures impacts your daily life?

Speaker 3: When I start out reading the Scriptures, the whole entire day just feels lighter and easier. 

SS: Okay, so it doesn’t really matter how much time you do it, just if you’ve started your day with that settled-down space of gospel study, you feel like your day is better. Great.

Speaker 3: Start or end.

SS: Okay, either one. All right. Okay, start or end was that you? Okay? Go ahead. 

Speaker 2: I feel closer to God whenever I read.

SS: Okay, “closer to God whenever you read.” Can you tell me why? 

Speaker 2: Just because I’m in the Scriptures reading His words.

SS: Okay, “in the Scriptures reading His words.” Doesn’t really matter what the words are, just feels…? Okay, great. Anybody else?

Speaker 5: I’m reading the Bible right now, and so I have a lot of questions… why would that happen? [indecipherable] …talking to God about it. I’m just very confused.

SS: Okay, so your investment in the Scriptures and gospel creates lots of questions, and you go to God to get those questions answered. Perfect, great. Anybody else?

Speaker 6:  I read at night so it gives me something to look forward to.

SS: Nice. Okay, all right. So kind of the gift you give to yourself at the end of the day. Great. Fantastic. Okay. 

All right. How much time do you all spend with people who disagree with you? Or who you don’t get along with? In a day. 

Speaker 3: Eight hours a day. 

SS: “Eight hours a day” when you’re at work—people who don’t like you, don’t agree with you, you don’t like them, whatever. Great, fantastic. Anybody else? 

Unknown: Three to five hours every day…

SS: A day? Fantastic! This is awesome! 

Unknown: All day every day.

SS: Nice! “All day every day.” Is it the gentleman you’re clinging to or is that someone else? Okay, great. Okay, all right. Come on, keep going. This is… [audience answer] “Two to three hours a day?” Okay. With someone who doesn’t…who you don’t really like, doesn’t agree with you? Okay. 

How much actual conflict is there? Or is there just this underlying, “Hey, you know, we’re on different…” you know? 

Speaker 5: I avoid it.

SS: What? “You avoid it.” Good. Good. Yeah. Perfect. 

Unknown: None.

SS: No conflict. Just an understanding. Okay. All right. Come on, guys. Throw out the conflict. 

Speaker 3: 50/50. 

SS: “50/50,” okay. Yeah? 

Unknown: Whenever we’re at home together.

SS: “Whenever you’re at home together,” yes. 

Speaker 3: Light debates. 

SS: Okay, you like debates? 

Speaker 3: LIGHT debates.

SS: Oh, light debates. Okay.

Speaker 3: When it gets too deep in doctrine, it kinda breaks apart.

SS: Okay. Okay, great. All right. Your answers are changing (sort of) my approach, but I mean, that’s fine. It’s just it’s gonna go a little bit a different direction. Okay. All right. So how many of you… Okay, so I may have made… 

How relevant do you feel like the Scriptures are to your everyday life? Like legitimately relevant? 

Unknown: Very close.

SS: You think the Scriptures are very closely relevant to your daily life. Do tell.

Unknown: Uh, I guess… I’m in Mosiah [indecipherable] …kingdom, trying to teach people. It’s like, I go to work every morning, “Oh, I’m Mormon.” I was going on my mission. “Do you want to talk about Scriptures?” And he was like, “No.” [indecipherable]

SS: Okay, yeah. Perfect. Anybody else? 

Speaker 4: I try to read it like you’re the character, like you’re in that situation. You can see a lot of similarities. I feel like it’s very relevant, especially when you put yourself into their situation.

SS: Okay, give me an example. (Hang on; just hold that thought.) Give me an example. Because I am NOT Lehi’s wife, Sariah. I’m just not. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 4: I don’t know, like Jared and the brother of Jared, when he didn’t know he was a prophet, he still did stuff. 

SS: Okay. 

Speaker 4: Yeah, we’re doing stuff and we don’t see that, or we don’t…

SS: Perfect, great.

Speaker 3: When I feel like when I read the Scriptures, I start noticing the things that I read in my everyday life a lot more. Such as like when you read about the dove, you start noticing doves. When you start reading about charity, then you start noticing charity in your everyday life.

SS: Okay, great.

Speaker 5: Sometimes I find it hard to relate it because we live in such a different time that the struggles are different, but I think the themes are similar, but it’s kind of hard to relate when we’re driving to work, and they spent six weeks traveling to a different city, you know?

SS: Yeah, right. Or you know, however long in boats with no light or whatever. Exactly. Okay, anybody else? I feel like I’m in school, like, the good kids… Like there are like four kids who have all the answers. Speak up! I’m a mean teacher. I call on people who keep their eyes down and their heads… You know that no eye contact thing? That doesn’t work for me. So everybody stare, so I don’t choose you. Okay? All right. 

Um, well, since you guys aren’t providing me with exactly what I need, I’m gonna have to offer it up myself. I find… Okay, I’ve spent the last several years sort of pursuing education in a different path. What… And I’ve mentioned this before, but everything that I have read, everything that I’ve learned, all of my textbooks, everything that I’ve invested in SCREAMS gospel principles to me, okay? But it doesn’t scream them by, like, in reading the Scriptures. It’s just totally… It’s a total different… It’s a completely different language. 

In my world, the only thing I can say is mental health or the pursuit of mental wellness (which includes relationships and personal accountability and motivation and all of those kinds of things) is just another language that the gospel is spoken in. Okay? But it’s useful for people who don’t believe in a God or to who don’t believe in church or religion or something like that. It’s just a secular language to teach people gospel principles. And for the most part, they really get down to the nitty-gritty of your daily life. Okay? So, we are gonna… I’m gonna take a minute… I probably jumped ahead. I’m gonna take a minute, and we’re gonna talk just briefly about… Was it tzedakah, (as in “Neil”)?

Denver Snuffer:  Yes. 

SS: Okay. So, the Hebrew word for charity is tzedakah. And it has… Okay, I have this… Oh, go ahead… 

[Audience member asking how to spell tzedakah]

Oh, T-Z-E-D-A-K-A-H.

DS: That spelling is the phonetic way of rendering a Hebrew word. There’s actually a Hebrew letter that is that TZ.

SS: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I mean, I could of… I just chose… I’m gonna do charity and love both in the Hebrew, okay? So, and it came off a… You know, I mean, it just… I just Googled it. It just came off a “Judaism 101” board. Okay? So, I’m not trying to be particularly… This is just… I want to throw something out there. Yeah.

Unknown: I heard you really well for the first time when you spelled the Hebrew word.

SS: Oh, okay. You want me to do this? Oh, fantastic. That’s okay. Okay. 

So, all right. The idea of charity being something that you, you know, like giving your excess to somebody else, you know, helping, giving, whatever—I want to just sort of not flip it, but I want to add to it. 

So, traditional Jews give at least 10% of their income to charity. And the… Okay, hang on. I want to find a… Tzedakah is the Hebrew word for the acts that we call “charity” in English: giving aid, assistance, and money to the poor and needy or to other worthy causes. However, the nature of tzedakah is very different from the idea of charity. The word “charity” suggests benevolence and generosity; a magnanimous act by somebody who has more to somebody who has less. It is derived from the Hebrew root word Tzadei-Dalet-Qof (you could probably do that better than I could, Denver), meaning righteousness, justice, or fairness. So in the Jewish tradition, giving to the poor is not viewed as generous, magnanimous, or something that you’re doing to be benevolent; it is an act of justice and righteousness. Therefore, it is a duty. It is a duty. You are doing it because it is your godly obligation. Okay? Now, if you want to talk about giving stuff away, that’s fine. That’s, you know, it’s like give 10% of tithing, etc. But take it out of stuff and think about it in terms of relationships and what you give in relationships—and it is your duty. (I can’t control this [the mic], the way this thing works.) It is your duty to give to someone who needs from you, okay? 

All right, then I’m gonna go to love. (Same… It’s a different website, but it’s the same idea. It’s just a Jewish…) Understanding the concepts of love… Understanding the concepts that are invested in words helps us in our lives. As an interesting example, the word “love,” which is thrown about so freely in English, has a special meaning in Hebrew: ahava, which is made up of three basic letters. The three letters are broken down into two parts (which is written here in front of me). The meaning of the two-letter base is “to give.” Love, to give. The letter “aleph,” which precedes these two letters, comes to modify the meaning of the base word give: I give. So if we just settle right there with charity and love—okay?—how much of your day (Scripture, engagement with people, gospel study, whatever it is you do) do you feel like you are actively participating in charity and love? Intentionally participating, making it an act or acts or investment that you set aside time for?

Speaker 6: Sometimes. Not like every day, but when I remember to, like, actively think about it, like what can I do for someone else, like everyone else (even if they don’t know it) for God? 

SS: Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else?

Speaker 7: I remember a lot better the times that I don’t feel charity or love or that I don’t show it. I don’t know, that’s what I remember to [indecipherable], I guess. 

SS: Yeah. So tell me about that.

Speaker 7: Umm, I don’t know. Experience is, like, it works. Sometimes I’ll think something about somebody; they act in a certain way, and I react in a way that isn’t necessarily [indecipherable], I’m not showing that, and I think, “Crap.” Again, I just got to rewire that brain because I screwed up again. And so, I don’t know, it’s hard.

SS: Yeah, I’m gonna… “Screwed up”—no, not so much; just acted very human, right? Yeah. Okay. So when you want to go out and learn about a gospel topic, where do you go? [audience answer] The Scriptures. All right. When you want to learn about a relationship topic, where do you go? 

Unknown: The Scriptures. 

SS: Really? Yeah, that’s great. What do you learn about relationships in the Scriptures?

Unknown: You can see in the Scriptures that parts that there’s love and chastity. 

SS: Yeah. Yeah. Anybody else? 

Unknown: I go to my parents.

SS: You go to your parents, okay. 

Unknown: Friends.

SS: Friends. And how… What are we learning from parents and friends about relationships? 

Speaker 1: What not to do. 

SS: “What not to do.” Here’s the thing. You can’t… (You can, but you can’t.) You can’t just sit around and say, “It’ll all work out.” You can’t. Because if you pray and get a confirmation that I am right (that the highest way to connect with Heaven on Earth is in the work of relationships), then you have to work on relationships. And you can’t just say, “Oh, it’s okay. I don’t need to do anything different because it’s not BAD.” Well, not being bad is very different than being good. Not being bad and complacency within that relationship tells me that we’re scared; we don’t want to be vulnerable; we don’t want to ask for our needs to be met; we don’t want to meet someone halfway; we feel like we don’t we feel like we’re not good enough; we feel like it’s too hard. 

You know, I have this, I just kind of have this thing at my house: One of my kids will come, and they’ll tell me something that one of their siblings did to upset them, and I say, “Did you talk to them?” And they say, “It’s not that big a deal.” And I say, “You told ME. It’s got to be a big enough deal that you told me.” Because there’s something going on there that is making the relationship less than ideal. 

So I would contend that there are principles in the Scriptures that are fantastic—okay?— universal, certainly the basis upon which we want to live our lives. And I think studying the Scriptures and the gospel is an absolute imperative. It is a necessity. It is how we… It’s starting out our day; it brings us closer to God; it increases opportunity for question because you’re reading, and you’re, like, “I totally don’t get this. This doesn’t make any sense to me.” And I would suggest that to the extent that it is possible, you go directly to God instead of to somebody else who might be able to give you an answer—but it will be their answer. And even if it is a right answer, it will still be their answer. Okay? And I think that is absolutely important. 

But I don’t think there’s anything in the Scriptures that tells us how Lehi and Sarah managed their little conflict when she was crabbing up a storm about him sending out the boys to go find the plates, and he’s going, “Sweetheart, I have to do this,” and she’s going, “You are crazy! They are gonna get killed,” you know, and there’s this relationship conflict that never gets addressed. Because what? We think: “They’re scriptural,” so somehow they don’t have problems? Nephi and his brothers HATED one another. They were murderous, fratricidal… Joseph’s brothers threw him in a pit (to be charitable!!), then decided that it was better if they just sell him to the passing caravan. Okay? These people have horrible relationships. I know there’s context. I know there’s things I don’t understand. I get it. I can’t know all of the pieces. But my brain works from a relational standpoint. Okay?

What kind of gods and goddesses, priests and priestesses, Mothers and Fathers in Heaven do we attain unto if we’re not willing to do the work of relationships down here? How do you picture your heavenly parents? Are they like your parents? Wait, what? Are you kidding me? If my kids hold ME up as their model as what their heavenly parents are, that’s kind of scary.

[audience comment about the microphone]

Oh, my gosh. Okay. 

Any answers? What… I mean, do we think about that? Do we have any idea what it takes to be the kind of person in a relationship who attains unto godhood? It doesn’t just happen, people. There has to be some work. And the work is in your relationships. To the extent that the Scriptures help you help inform you of how to become a better person, they are of immeasurable value. To the extent that the Scriptures are a way that you avoid being in relationships, to the extent that you use the gospel and study of the gospel as a way to tell yourself that “you’re doing okay” but your relationships suck—not so good. There has to be work done here. 

When was the last time anybody learned anything about motivation from the Scriptures? (Oh, you should all raise your hand. There’s plenty of motivation in the Scriptures—plenty of it.) Okay? When was the last time you learned about accountability in the Scriptures? Again, plenty of it. Okay? When was the last time you learned about empathy in the Scriptures? Again. Perspective-taking? Yeah, it’s all in there. But it’s all in there as a story and words on the page. It’s not necessarily being applied to your daily life. Okay? 

So I would suggest that the fact that you go to the Scriptures to find answers to the gospel questions is a model you should follow to go somewhere else—and it can be an Internet search; it can be a book; it can be a magazine—to find out how to communicate better with the people in your life. You know there’s actual real ways to communicate, and it’s not okay just to say, “Oh, it’ll be fine.” You know there are actual ways to listen—right?—that actually improve the way you communicate and, therefore, improve your relationships. All of this stuff is available, but it’s not available in its best applicable form in the Scriptures—those are “big picture” ideas; they need to be brought out, and then you need to say, “Hmm, how do I apply charity?” 

Okay, that’s the question I want an answer to, “How do you apply charity in your real-world life—separate and apart from giving stuff to people.” I can tell you how I do it. I have multiple bags of DI stuff sitting in my hallway upstairs. That’s how I do it. I carry money around with me so I can give it to strangers on the street. Easy peasy. Super easy. That does not challenge me one bit.

Unknown: Like, not snapping back at people, like, at work or like, don’t turn around and walk away, mumbling [indecipherable], like, get angry at him and stuff.

SS: Exactly. Exactly.

Unknown: Taking the time to understand their perspective…

SS: “Taking the time to understand their perspective.”

Speaker 3: Even if it’s just the time that I spend with someone because you can give time just as much as you can give anything else.

SS: Yes, exactly.

Speaker 7: Measuring your words, and thinking about what you’re saying before…

SS: Yeah. Yeah. What else? 

Unknown: I even think if you’re just thinking about someone and you reach out to them and let them know that, like, you care.

SS: Yeah, exactly. Okay, I’m gonna wind down. 

• How many in here fight with your parents? [hands go up] (I don’t think that’s enough, but okay. That’s fine.) 
• How many in here fight with your siblings? Oh, more! Wowzers! 
• How many in here have actual unresolved issues with people you actually love? Whoa. Yeah, we do! 
• How many of you are avoiding unresolved issues with people you love? Whoo! Yeah. Okay? 

Yeah, that’s what we do. Do you know why we do that? Because we hate vulnerability. We hate self-reflection. We hate authenticity. We hate being accountable. We hate it. It hurts. It’s so painful.

(What are you doing??!) 

Things have to be balanced. There are multiple ways to attain… 

(What are you doing?? [laughing] I’m done.)

DS: I’m sitting behind you. 

SS: There… We have a… There’s a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of work to do in understanding gospel principles. There’s a lot of work to do in studying your Scriptures. If studying Scriptures is not your jam, no big deal—there’s a lot of work in relationships; there’s a lot of work in just trying to come to a place where you can say, “Who am I? And how am I in relationships? And how can I use the gospel? How can I use the Scriptures? How can I use other resources? How can I use other people to fill in the gaps that the Scriptures do not provide me?” 

We have an ongoing conversation where all the gospel knowledge in the world (this is not me; this is Paul)… I don’t care if you can move mountains. I don’t care if you can speak with tongues. I don’t care. God doesn’t care. Paul didn’t care. If you don’t have charity and love—which is WORK—you are nothing. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

TRANSCRIPT

The post The Power of Godliness appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

These comments by Denver and Stephanie Snuffer were delivered on Sunday, April 3, 2022 from Sandy, UT to a live online audience.

Denver Snuffer: …I had just turned 12 at the start of the month, and… 

Three out of four of my grandparents had died before I was born. The only living grandparent that I had when I was born was still around when I was 12. And she wouldn’t die for many years.

I had not seen or heard of anyone in my family or in my immediate circle of friends who died. The only real death that had intruded into my awareness was President John Kennedy, and that seemed fabulously theatrical, distant, and more like theater than reality. But in August of 1965, we moved from elementary schools to the junior high school; there were East Elementary (where I went to school), and there was North Elementary, and there was West Elementary. And there were kids in the town that (and the surrounding area) that you never met, because if they didn’t go to your elementary school, you wouldn’t cross their paths. But when they combined into the junior high school, kids from all over came. And there was one kid in particular that I became pretty good friends with in fairly short order. Among other things, we shared a study hall, and he was an absolute cut-up. He was capable of extraordinarily effective mischief. He knew how to make a pencil stick to the ceiling of the study hall. And he knew how to time things when the teacher’s back was turned. And he and I became really quite good friends for as short a time period as we had from August ’til October. I think I liked him more than anyone else that was in my immediate circle of friends. 

And on Friday, September 29th, all the buses lined up; this kid lived way out of town in a little place called Bruneau. He was bused in from Bruneau so he had a long bus ride to get home. And as he was getting ready to get on the buses, I was hanging out with them until the buses were to depart. My last words to him (which were intended to be funny) was, “Don’t go and get yourself killed this weekend.” And so my buddy, Waldo—Waldo Shetler—got on the bus and took off. 

On Saturday, he was killed. And on Monday, we heard the story that down in Bruneau, he was riding his bike, and a hay truck hit him and killed him. That was the first time that death entered into my consciousness. And I don’t recall at that moment being as sad as I was shocked, surprised, troubled, trying to figure out what this new reality meant. But because Waldo Shetler was the first person in my life who died, the first person of any proximity, I’ve thought about him every time death gets close again. 

I’ve known a few people who were resigned to dying—they were in hospice; they had a terminal illness; they had a terminal problem that they knew they were not going to survive. And I’ve told quite a number of people in that position, “Hey, when you get to the other side, will you let Waldo Shetler know his buddy Denver still remembers him and thinks about him? And someday I’ll come look him up personally, but you tell him I said hello.” So I don’t know how many messages Waldo’s received over the years since he died. He was about seven months older than me, and he turned 12 much earlier in the school… Well, actually, he turned 12 before the school year began. But he’s buried in Bruneau at the Bruneau Cemetery. And I’ve never made it back there to visit the grave of Waldo, but I think I’d like to do that—because what he represents in my consciousness is the introduction of death into this life, awareness of it at a personal level.

Well, Easter’s coming up on Sunday the 17th of this month. And when Steve asked us to talk, one of the things that came first in the conversation was we oughta talk about Easter, say something about Easter, so that it doesn’t come and go without notice. There’s a passage—it’s early in the Book of Mormon; in our Scriptures, it’s Second Nephi chapter 11, verse 8—where, recording about their religion and how they practiced it, they write, We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies that our children may know to what source they may look for the remission of their sins. 

You know, if you’re talking, and you’re rejoicing, and you’re preaching, and you’re prophesying…  For those who are living, the remission of sins is the great thing that we can experience and long to have and want to receive an inheritance of. But in the bigger picture, it’s the resurrection on Easter morning that is the great triumph because it breaks that enemy that God introduced at the time of the fall that will ultimately cost every one of us our lives. John’s prophecy about the judgment and the end of times (when we finally get down to the very end) reflects this. He writes this in Revelation chapter 8, verse 8: And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. “Wipe away all [the] tears from their eyes…there shall be no more death.” I mean, death has taken quite a number of people; in fact, of late, it’s taken a number of people that I know and have been friends with, and I’m sorry to see them part. And the first great thing that gets wiped away is death—and then our sorrows and our crying and our pain. But that loss of life—that ending that cuts off your association for a temporary time—always leaves us, I think, in a position of thinking back about losses and of our own death—because it’s inevitable; it’s coming; it’s unavoidable; and in some respects, depending upon the condition that you wind up in, it’s a release (and a welcome one at that). 

Well, Christ’s accomplishment, His great achievement, began in Gethsemane and culminated with the resurrection. What I find interesting is that when the Lord has taken the time to talk about His experience, what He talks about is not the experience on the cross, and He doesn’t talk about the crucifixion. When He spoke (in modern revelation) about what it was that He had accomplished, the place where He goes to is Gethsemane. 

In the T&C (T&C 1—it’s the Joseph Smith History) in Joseph Smith History 17, at paragraph 5, he says, 

Repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger that your sufferings be sore. 

What I find interesting is that the way in which He’s going to smite us, He defines as by “the rod of my mouth,” meaning that the words He speaks are what will cause us this pain and the suffering. 

Your sufferings be sore, how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. 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. Nevertheless, glory be to the Father and I partook, and finished my preparations unto the children of man. Wherefore I command you again to repent, lest I humble you by my almighty power, and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree, you’ve tasted, at the time I withdrew my spirit. 

See, the place in which He suffered body and spirit and would that He “might not drink the bitter cup and shrink” was in the garden. And so, He doesn’t mention the crucifixion; He focuses upon the suffering that went on in Gethsemane—which also was covered, yet again, in the revelations that have come in this continuance of the Restoration, and that’s in T&C section 161, which starts out describing: 

…a view of the Lord kneeling in prayer…in a dark place. The air was heavy and overcast with [shadow]. The man beheld the Lord praying in Gethsemene on the night of His betrayal and before His crucifixion. 

All the Lord had previously done in His mortal ministry by healing the sick, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, restoring hearing to the deaf, curing the leper, and ministering relief to others as he taught was but a prelude to what the Lord was now to do on this dark, oppressive night. (T&C 161:1-2)

And then it describes how the Lord, in prayer, began vicariously suffering. And He goes through these waves of torment, which was the Lord kneeling in prayer, exposed to the guilt, the shame, the recriminations, the difficulties, the pains of both offending God and your fellow man AND being offended by your fellow man, and the torment of the mind and the spirit and the soul in trying to overcome and reconcile yourself back into the presence of God the Father; shedding all of what you feel when you are smitten by the rod of the mouth of that pure being who is God the Father, and the recognition that you are out of adjustment/you are out of sync with the Almighty; you are not good and pure and holy, and you are in the presence of a good and a just and a Holy Being. 

The Gospel reflects that an angel came strengthening Him—which is not altogether an accurate description of what went on. He… The Father’s presence never left the Son throughout all His sufferings. And indeed, part of the Son’s sufferings was caused by the necessity to reconcile peacefully His experience of this unclean, unworthy state (with the feelings of shame and guilt that are caused by not being reconciled with God), and then overcoming that and being able to reconcile Himself again with the Father and coming to a place of peace and harmony and at-one-ness with the Father that this awful experience had disrupted. It shattered the harmony that existed between the Father and the Son that had existed throughout His entire ministry, and it put the Son into the same position as the worst of the sinners who had jarringly disassociated themselves unworthily with the Father. And now here He is—feeling all of that—but being in the presence of the Father, as if He were advanced to the moment of the final judgment and coming before the bar of a perfect and pure God—but doing so unprepared, unworthy, unreconciled, unrepentant, and filled with guilt and shame. And all of that was put upon Him so that He could reconcile Himself to the Father, reconcile Himself and overcome the feelings of guilt and remorse of sin. 

The Lord is ever willing to forgive us. But once we are forgiven, then the obligation is imposed upon us to forsake our sins and then go on as worthy as we would be had we not sinned in the first place. We have to leave that behind us. He readily forgives. But once forgiven, we’re supposed to not only confess but to forsake our sins. And the forsaking of the sin and the leaving of the temptation behind becomes an enormous challenge for us—and it was the challenge that He faced in Gethsemane. And it’s the place He goes to—now that He’s gotten through the entirety of this Atonement, and He’s worked it all through. He doesn’t go to the cross; He doesn’t go to somewhere else. He goes to this moment—this profound, jarring disassociation that existed between Him and the Father that He had to find a way to overcome and to reconcile in order to be, once again, in harmony with Him—and He facilitates our ability to do exactly the same thing by taking upon Him (vicariously, through that suffering/through that price that He paid) the ownership and forgiveness for everything so that He can forgive. 

But forgiving is the limit of what He can do. He can’t make us better. He finished His preparations. And then, having finished His preparations, He says, “Therefore I command you to repent. I don’t want you to go through what I went through. I’ll forgive you, but I command you: Repent, confess them, forsake them, leave them behind you, and become something bigger, better, more reconciled to God through the love that you ought to have in your heart,” for the fact that He has been willing to re-accept you, He has been willing to comfort you, take you in and embrace you as a member of His family, able to stand clean before Him because you’ve abandoned what it was that separated you. 

If you read through that section 161 material (which I’m not going to do; I’ve done it just recently, reading an excerpt in one of the conferences recently), you’ll find that the Lord overcame the separation that drove Him away from the presence of the Father—because of guilt and because of shame, because of this intense feeling of unworthy betrayal—He overcomes that through love. He overcomes that through finding His way back to the harmony that preceded all of this. So, I’m not gonna read 161 any further, but I would commend it to you. 

What I find interesting is that we have discussions that brush up against what the Lord had done (in Alma and in Isaiah and other places) that talk about how He goes through what He went through in order to understand and gain the knowledge necessary in order to succor us and to reconcile us. So, He’s not coming to minister as the forgiving Savior, ignorant of what it takes in order to overcome sin. He comes fully understanding the nature of what it is that makes us recoil from the presence of God. He gets it. He’s been there. He’s been through that. And when He looks upon us, He can look upon us with compassion and understanding because by His knowledge, He can justify us by leading us from this state of disharmony (and this state of opposition, shame, and guilt) back into a state of cleanliness and the feeling of reconciliation with God. 

So, as we approach the Easter season, it all begins after He has implemented the sacrament, and He’s gone up to Gethsemane, and He’s gone through this experience. He then gets arrested in the garden, and the incident gets described, perhaps most interestingly and most revealingly, in John’s account:

They come. They’re armed. They have spears. They have their armed people ready to inflict violence should the necessity present itself. And Christ asks them whom they seek? And they tell him that they’re looking for this Jesus. And He says, “I am He.” And the account is that they stumbled backwards and fell down. It’s almost a comic moment in the account because here you have a personage who is unarmed and subject to arrest, and people with both the authority to come and take and arrest Him and the arms with which to accomplish it even if He should oppose them. And He identifies Himself as the one they come… “I am He,” and they step back on one another’s feet and trip and fall backwards. That little moment right there tells you something. Our Lord, after having gone through what He went/engaged in what He suffered was so intimidating a presence that it made the men who came to arrest Him cower in His presence. They were physically intimidated by what it was that His countenance portrayed. (That countenance would be one of the reasons why, once they’d subdued Him, they took some delight in abusing Him.) It’s… 

It really hearkens back to an analogous, earlier circumstance when there was a messianic (semi-messianic) figure in the form of Samson, who the Philistines could never defeat. He crushed them; he killed them; he subjected them; he defeated them; he alone… I mean, “heaps upon heaps with the jawbone of an ass, I’ve killed a thousand.” He was able to overcome them. But when they finally got him to break the last thread of the covenant that he had been strengthened by (and not until he had broken the last thread of the Nazarite Covenant by allowing the secret out and the hair to be cut) and they took him prisoner was he finally defeated. And what did they do? I mean, they took great delight in doing to this clearly superior individual the kinds of things that humiliate him to make them feel better about the crushing defeats he had administered to them over time. They blinded him. They tied him to a millstone. They drove him like a dumb ass. They mocked him. They spit at him. They did all they could. But they made the mistake of allowing the hair to grow out and for him, in his penitent state, to draw upon the covenantal status that had put him in that position at the beginning. And one of his last acts was then to bring down the temple that they brought him to (to mock him) by pulling down the main support beams and crushing them. 

Well, that vengeance, that fury, that desire to abuse—to take what is clearly the superior and to subject him to the inferior—was what, after the surrender, the Lord was put through for some period of time, and then he was lashed, and then he was presented, after having been sufficiently humiliated, as one of two candidates for release. But they said, “Give us Barabbas, the other one who claims to be the son of God. Give us [indecipherable]; give us the scapegoat, and let’s kill the other one.” And so, once again, the ceremonies under the Law of Moses come back to reflect the reality of the end of what the Lord was going to be put through.

There are prophecies about what He would endure. There are descriptions that are given of what He went through and why. But when we finally get to the point that He’s about to surrender His life, we get one of the most extensive and remarkable prophecies in all of Scripture in the 22nd Psalm, which the Lord (after all He had been through while still alive) began to sing while He was on the cross: 

My God, [my God,] why have you forsaken me? My God, hear the words of my roaring. You are far from helping me. Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but you answer not, and in the night season, [am I] not silent. But you are holy that inhabit the Heavens. You are worthy of the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted and you did deliver them. They cried unto you and were delivered. They trusted in you and were not confounded. 

But I am a worm, and loved of no man, a reproach of man 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 [that] he delighted in him.

But you are he that took me out of the womb. You did make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon you from the womb. You were my God from my mother’s breasts. 

Be not far from me — for trouble is near — for there is none to help. …They gaped upon me with their mouths like a ravening and 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 inward parts. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, my tongue cleaves to my jaws, and you have brought me into the dust of death. For dogs…encompassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tally all my bones. They look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture. …be not far from me, O Lord. O my strength, hasten to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword. 

…I will declare your name unto [the] brethren. In the midst of the congregation will I praise you. You that fear the Lord, praise him; all you, the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all you, the seed of Israel. For he is not [departed] nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. Neither has he hidden his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard. My praise shall be of you in the great congregation. I will pay my vows before them that fear him. (Psalms 22:1-5 RE)

…and so on. This is the hymn that the Lord went to in the final moments of the last breaths that He was able to take on the cross. And then, having achieved exactly what He intended to achieve and reaffirming that what He was going through was, indeed, exactly what needed to be accomplished in order to fulfill the purposes of God, He then announced with a loud voice (some of the Gospel writers say He shouted with a loud voice), and then He gave up the ghost. But one of the Gospel writers tells us what it was He shouted, and it was, “It is finished!” which was a shout of triumph, not of defeat. And so, He sings a psalm that tells everyone exactly what is going on is what the Messiah was expected to go through, and then He shouts out a triumph call, and He gives up the ghost. 

Those that were there on that day, looking upon the scene… First of all, if you understood the words of the psalm, if you’ve memorized the words of the hymn (which most Jews would have done), would know that He was confronting their rejection of Him as the Messiah right up to the very end. And those that heard Him shout out the victory and give up the ghost would have undoubtedly wondered, “How is it? How is this possible? How was that a triumph?” What was it that He was achieving in the moment that He ends the life here and moves on to whatever it is that comes next—some of them thinking that is nothing, and some of them thinking that is Elysian Fields, and some of them thinking that’s just a slumber that will await later resurrection. But whatever it was, the Lord (in the minds of those that heard) was announcing His triumph, that He was moving on there. 

And we have other news from other sources—including Peter’s Epistles where he talks about the Lord then going into the world of spirits to declare a message among the dead—about the possibility now of changing their lot and improving their condition. And He spent (as they reconcile time, according to the Jews in that day) three days and three nights in the tomb. And then on the first day of the week as it was then reckoned—it was actually the seventh day, but we were off by a day ever since the fall of Adam because the day of rest was disrupted by the fall—but on the first day of the week according to what they reckoned at that point (the actual intended day of rest according to the creation that was disrupted by the fall), the Lord came forth out of the tomb and was resurrected while it was still dark. We have an account of that also in that section 161 about how once He had come out of the grave… 

When I saw His resurrection, I was surprised to see it was still dark. 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 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 [on] that morning. As dark and terrible 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. I do not think it possible for a mortal to feel the 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 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. (T&C 161:29-30)

…and so on. You really don’t get Easter and understand what Easter represents until we have begun in Gethsemane and ended at the resurrection and the joy that was experienced there. It’s as if the Atonement takes the scale of negativity and the scale of positivity and it drives the needle as far down as it is possible to drive the needle down to one extremity at the end of the worst, most awful, most dreadful possibility that exists in the entire universe—and then takes that same needle and drives it on the scale upward to the point that it exceeds joy so great that when men are exposed to a little of it, they are overcome, and their physical body faints from the exultation of what it was that the Lord experienced. 

Easter represents all of that. Easter represents the great and the dreadful, the magnificent and the awful, the most terrible, the most wonderful; it represents it all. And our Lord—after having gone through all of that—continues to bear testimony to us in the Restoration Scriptures to say, “Here’s, now, what I’ve done. I’ve accomplished all my preparations, and I’ve made it possible now for you.” 

I command you to repent — repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore — how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. 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, …to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit — and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink — Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. (JSH 17:5, emphasis added)

That’s all He could do. That’s all He has done. That’s the great accomplishment that He has obtained for us. He finished His preparations unto the children of men; it’s all been prepared. So now that it’s all been prepared and He’s told us, I’ve given you… It’s all ready to go. Wherefore, now—as a result of this preparation, as a consequence of everything I just told you:

Wherefore, I command you again to repent lest I humble you by my almighty power, and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken. (Ibid.)

See, He wants us to be freed from the valley of the shadow of death through which we will pass. And He promises us that no matter how bitter death may be, He’s gonna wipe away every tear, and He’s gonna defeat the grave. But that can’t make us individually worthy. The only way that we can become individually worthy is if we do as He instructs us to do, acknowledge our own many shortcomings, and then turn around to face God and leave behind us all the things that are unworthy, unacceptable, disobedient; all of our jarrings; all of our contentions; all of our pride; all of our efforts to raise ourselves at the expense of others; all of our ambition, our desire for control and compulsion and dominion, our desire to be profiting at the expense of others. In many respects, it requires Zion for us to fully repent, and yet Zion requires us to be something very different than what we are because we don’t treat one another the way that equality imposes upon us. We do cheer against one another and look to get ahead and then to leave others behind. We do falsely assume ourselves to be something bigger and greater and more holy than we are when, in fact, if we are serviceable to the Lord and we’re able to move something along in His era and it turns out to be something great, that isn’t us. We don’t have anything of which to boast. None of us ever have; none of us ever will—no matter how great a thing the Lord may cause to happen through the service that He asks you to provide. In the end, you probably don’t do as good a job of doing what He’s commanded as He could do it Himself. And yet, if it’s serviceable, and it works, and it accomplishes something good, then the gratitude and the praise and the rejoicing of all that belongs to God, not to us. I think we’ve accomplished many, many remarkable, wonderful things. But that’s not us. We’ve been led along by a merciful, kind, guiding light that has made the task doable by the light that He has provided to us, and we have nothing of which to boast for ourselves. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

(I took my half, and now it’s your half.)

———

Stephanie Snuffer: Okay, I am gonna take the same topic and just go a little different direction, and I should probably be brief. 

I have the opportunity to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how and why people operate the way they do in the world and with each other and in relationships with each other. And I can consume a lot of information that gives a lot of different perspective. And what that does is sometimes it just confuses, and sometimes the stuff aligns, and sometimes it overlaps. And sometimes it just leaves me still pondering. 

But in light of Easter coming and in light of… It’s not really even Easter-related, for me; it’s just been application-related. And that is the Atonement. So without belaboring the Scriptures or how the Atonement is described or explained in the Scriptures, I’m gonna leave that all to you. And you can go back and read different things and engage in that however you want to. 

But the fact of the matter is that there were Heavenly Parents who sacrificed their Son so that He could come down here and take on all of those burdens. And if you read the account in T&C 1 and if you read the account in T&C 161, it’s a monumental endeavor that is designed for application and use in this world by us. So, if you look around today (turn the news on; don’t turn the news on), you’re probably pretty aware there’s some horrible things happening around the world, and they’re being done to people by people, which is easy to ignore if you just stand back and say, “Oh, that’s what’s going on.” If you engage in those thoughts for any length of time, it is almost paralyzing to believe that human beings can behave this way to and against and with other human beings. 

And I would suggest that the worst atrocities that you can conceive of (as you observe what is going on in this world) started with somebody having a thought: one thought, and then more thoughts, and then (potentially) conversations, and then behaviors. The dictators of the world do not get there at birth. They don’t… They’re not born that way. So my thought is that, as human beings, we need to tend to our thoughts because our thoughts become our words, and our words become our actions. And I can’t think of a single day in the last six months that I probably haven’t had a thought that resulted in a behavior or a word or an action that did not offend or hurt somebody I care about—because I’m just weak. We’re weak. We’re down here in our humanity, and we are fallen beings, and we make these kinds of mistakes every day. And I would suggest that the Atonement is or should be more activated in people’s lives at the very basic of our interactions. 

So when you read in T&C 1 about Christ’s words being what condemns you, then your interactions with other people… When you have negative interactions with someone you care about (or someone you don’t care about), what you should draw on in order to control your thoughts so your thoughts don’t become behaviors that turn into atrocities… I don’t believe that’s where we’re headed, but we can commit all kinds of harm when we get defensive, when we feel compelled to justify our position, when we are hurt, when we are afraid, when somebody challenges us, when our insecurities come flaring up—and we behave badly. And sometimes we can repair that quickly, where there is “no harm, no foul.” Other times we have hurt or offended to the extent that repair seems almost impossible. 

I would like to suggest that the voice and the feeling that pierce us in those moments is that voice in T&C 1 that condemns us with His words—and that we don’t spend much time being angry at the person who offended us, and we don’t spend much time berating ourselves for the mistakes that we’ve made; but we let Christ, through the Atonement, correct us, chastise us, and move us forward to better interactions so that we don’t ultimately create something unfit for a Zion. 

Christ did all the work. T&C 161 is pretty explicit in the many horrible, horrific experiences that He went through in order to take on our sins. And I have to believe that there is something that is universally available to all mankind—regardless of culture, ethnicity, or gender—which can elevate us to the point of being in relationships that are not toxic, that are not prideful, that are not defensive or punitive or patronizing, that are not superior or inferior, but that are unified by the gift of the Atonement that has been given to all mankind, if they would but utilize in prayer and humility…and that’s all. 

Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

———

DS: Okay, well there’s one thing I want to look at real quick. [indecipherable] There they are. Okay… [chuckling] Huh. Okay, well, I’ve looked at the messages and don’t see anything there to comment on. We said that we weren’t going to answer any questions, but if someone has an interesting question they want to type into that comments board, it’s eight o’clock; we could take a few minutes and do that since we do have time. Does anyone have anything that they want to type into the messages and see if we can make…

Oh, “What’d you refer to in T&C 1?”

SS: I don’t know. Whatever Denver was reading… 

DS: That was 17… Here, I’ll find it real quick.

SS: T&C 1. 17— Joseph Smith History…

DS: 17, verse or paragraph 5.

SS: Paragraph 5. Will you read it?

DS: Oh, it’s that statement about “…how hard to bear you know not. I’ve suffered these things for all of you that you might not suffer if you would repent. If they will not repent, you must suffer even as I, which suffering caused myself, the greatest of all, to suffer and to bleed at every pore and would that I might not partake. Nevertheless, glory be to the Father.”

[reading from the comment board] Uhhh… “Confession robs the accusers, power to accuse…” Yeah, that’s a good point. Wow, that went by fast but… [indecipherable]

Yeah, I don’t think details on confession are necessary. I think the character flaw is really what we need to confront.

Yeah. [reading] Yeah. 

SS: Okay. Try and make ‘em relevant to the actual topic we’re discussing ‘cuz these others are just big and not gonna be answered.

DS: There are a lot of things about which… There are a lot of things that are interesting and curious but don’t… They don’t make us better people. Our biggest problem is that, as people, we’re not what we ought to be in order to live in peace with one another. 

SS: Maybe I won’t answer that. I can’t tell…

DS: “Speaking of your comments of what Christ did in the garden, would it be accurate to say that by descending below all things, there was a dissolution of Himself as He infused Himself into all things, thus connecting Himself to all things to enable thus to draw all things to Him, like a quantum entanglement of cosmic proportions?”

Well, that’s an interesting way to put it, and I don’t see anything wrong with any description that will give you an understanding that the Lord comprehended it all. He says in the book of Abraham, “I am more intelligent than they all.” The reason He is more intelligent is because His experience has exposed Him to a greater variety of contradictions (as Joseph Smith put it) than the contradictions that you and I have to face. We get to face them within a limited range; He experienced them off the scale to both ends, and therefore, He did descend below it all in order to ascend above it all and to comprehend it all. And therefore, in Him is the fullness of understanding of all things. We don’t come to Him with shame and embarrassment or weaknesses and He look at us and say, “Wow, I’ve never heard of that before” or “Ooh, you’re icky.” He’s been there; He’s done that. There is nothing about the trouble that we face that He hasn’t also previously faced in a way that comprehends it.

[reading] …are we still… 

Oh, yeah, we’re better than we were. We’re… We ARE better than we were.

SS: Okay. Alright, the question is a personal question. The question is not an objective question to a group: “Are we still absolutely failing in our relationships with each other? Or is some time and experience allowing even small changes to take place?” 

The answer: Yes—he’s right. There are small changes taking place. But to ask that question to somebody else who is not YOU… I mean, if everybody attended to their own relationships and their own interactions with different people and their own experiences in communities and fellowships and could answer that question positively of themselves, then you would know. So asking an overarching question is fine, but that’s for you all to decide in your own relationships and own experiences. 

DS: [reading] Yeah… 

SS: If it’s not on topic, don’t answer it.

DS: Yeah, but I want… I think it might fit in here—not directly, but sideways—and fit in in a way that will help solve a number of the issues. 

I want to be clear about what I’m going to refer to as “spiritual ambition” or the desire to excel and achieve something spiritually. I learned about the concept of the Second Comforter many, many, many years before anything like that was experienced. And I sought for that blessing in prayer, in study, in petitions; I wanted to achieve that. And it never happened for over two and a half decades. It didn’t happen. And I finally came to the point that I realized that it just may never happen. Maybe I was just not the right person. Maybe this was something that would happen in the last moments of my life if it happened at all. Maybe this is not the way to go about living my life. 

And so, I rethought what I was doing, what the religion meant to me, what the faith meant, and I began to—instead of seeking to get more (gimme, gimme)—instead, I turned my focus otherwise and began to think about all of the great things that I HAD received, all of the wonderful things that I DID understand, all of the grace that God had shown me that had taken me from being, essentially, a rudderless young man who had no direction in life, drinking and indulging in fairly pitiful ways of wasting my time. The gospel had taken and changed me into someone that had direction, that I had the Scriptures, that they meant a lot to me—I had studied them; I had taught them; I had gained profound insight—and my attitude changed. 

And over time, instead of demanding for more, I simply became content and grateful for what I had. And the more gratitude I showed to God for what it was that I had been given, the more grateful I became and the more aware I became of the fact that I had received extraordinary, great blessings from God. And I had had an angel minister to me on more than one occasion. I mean, is that not enough? Is knowing that my standing before God is consistent with obedience to His commandments not enough? 

I came to the point that I became deeply and abidingly grateful, and I did not seek for more. Instead, I rejoiced in what I had—and it was sincere; it was authentic. I was a grateful soul. And if nothing ever more had come to me, I would still—right this day—be rejoicing and grateful and happy and CONTENT with what it was the Lord had given me. 

I had not asked the Lord or imposed upon the Lord for some great blessing for years—many years—when the Lord came to me. He didn’t come because I was pressing for it. In fact, when I pressed for it, it didn’t happen. But when I became content, when I became grateful, when I began to acknowledge the goodness of God to me in my state and my standing and my station, when I was content with that and grateful, then the Lord interrupted things and changed things completely. 

And so, if I were to commend one thought to people, it would be: Set aside all of your desires to control Heaven, set aside all your ambition to get God to surrender to your will, and willingly accept God’s will for you, and be grateful for it—because of all people, we have more to rejoice and be grateful for than most people who have ever lived on this planet.

SS: That’s a good point because there’s a lot of… I don’t think the word would be “ingratitude,” but there is a lot of want. 

DS: Yeah.

SS: And it seems like there’s a lot that just should settle down and distill. 

DS: Well, we’ve now been here long enough that I think we’ve taken enough people’s time away from things. Thank you for inviting us. And thank those who have listened. And we’ll turn the time back over to Steve and Linda.

———

Linda VanLeer: Thank you, Denver, and Stephanie, very much. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us and those… Both of your words. Thank you. 

Again, all these are recorded and can be viewed on standindependent.com. So those who know of people who were not able to get in, let them know that they can listen to the recording. 

Is there anyone who would like to volunteer for a closing prayer? (I don’t know, how do you do that with them muted, hon?)

Steve VanLeer: If you’d like to volunteer, just unmute yourself, and pray for us, if you would. Let’s not have an uncomfortable long lag.

Brian Bowler: I can if you want. 

Dearest Father, we’re so grateful for this time to gather together and to listen and to be able to ponder again the resurrection, both the Gethsemane and the ultimate victory. We pray for understanding of this, and pray that we can individually seek you and come to know you and hear your voice and trust your voice. 

We pray that, also, for to be able to understand how to let things be, to be content, and to look at our own ambitions and to trust in you and your grace and your plan—as you said, to wait upon you and to trust in you. And we pray that we can have that in greater proportions, individually, and to, again, to trust this plan that you have for us. We pray for this gratitude, too, that we need and simply to, again, wait upon you. 

We ask a blessing upon all the efforts, individually, and those that are striving to repent and to work on their own character and to be peaceful one with another and to hold each other precious in our hearts, that we value each other; and even when we disagree, that we can learn to peacefully disagree and to honor each other’s place in their path in this life. 

We love you and thank you and pray that we can keep our eyes on you and work on our own patience. 

And we say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

TRANSCRIPT

The post Easter Thoughts and Reflections appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following extemporaneous remarks were shared in Lexington, KY on Saturday March 26, 2022, as part of the “Hear and Trust the Lord in the Storm” general conference.

I have to do in two trips what I once could do in one because I broke my right arm, ironically, by slipping and falling on a handicap ramp. It was covered with ice, and I couldn’t tell that in the dark. And when I landed, my feet went out from under. When I landed, it sounded like someone broke a carrot; it just snapped. And I thought, “Well, maybe I’ve just dislocated something. Maybe we can shove it back in place.” But a more calm-headed nurse practitioner son-in-law of mine said, “Nah, we might want to get that x-rayed before we decide how we’re gonna manipulate that thing.” As for my part, there was a president of the LDS Church whose name was Spencer Kimball who said swearing was “an attempt of a weak mind to express itself forcefully,” and I broke out all my old golfing language and distributed it liberally to the ramp and the parking lot and the…anyone within earshot.

I really appreciate the music that’s gone on here. When Joe Alexander informed me that he’d made arrangements to bring those sisters aboard to provide music for this, I have to confess I looked them up on the Internet, and I listened a little. And they’re actually better in person, I think—because there’s something that distances you from the performer when all you have is the sound that they make. And we’ve got their presence; there’s something about that.

I hope that some of you who are here today are Christians. If not, then I hope that those that listen to the talk that’s given today are among those who are Christian.

A friend of mine (scholar, member of the faculty at Brigham Young University) attended a theological convention attended primarily by the ministers of Christian faiths. And he was invited to present a paper. He presented a paper, and one of those who was there at the time said to him (in kind of incredulous tone), “You talk as if you believe this stuff really happened!”—meaning the events of the New Testament. And he was surprised. And in the convention, the question was put to those in attendance: How many of them believed, literally, in the New Testament description of events? And somewhere between 10 and 20% raised their hands. And then it was turned on its side to make sure: How many of you think that these events did not literally occur? And over 80% of the audience raised their hand. And these are ministers! These are people who preach and serve. For them, the ministerial position is an occupation that they earn a living through. But faith and belief may belong to the congregants but does not necessarily belong to the minister.

One of the fellows who I’ve read and have some respect for is a scholar teaching a New Testament studies. He’s a theologian, and he’s an agnostic. He’s written a book; one of his books, the first part of the title is: The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, and then colon, and then there’s a lengthy secondary title which I don’t recall. It’s something like: “How the Christological Debates of the Second and Third Century Resulted in Alteration of the New Testament Text” [The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament], in which he shows that the text was to the New Testament was changed in order to support one side of the argument that was being made (over the nature of who Jesus Christ was) during the debates that went on in the second and third century after Christ had died.

What Christ left behind were apostles with messages that went out and that taught about their experience in having been with Jesus during His lifetime, witnessing His ministry, seeing Him crucified, and then being taught by Him in the resurrection and getting commissioned by Him to go unto all the world and to preach about this—which they did. But they didn’t have social media, and they didn’t have the Internet, and they didn’t have phone lines. And as a consequence of that, how Thomas taught (in isolation on his mission) and how Matthew taught (in isolation in his mission) and how Peter taught gave rise to a variety of Christian forms that survived the deaths of the various apostles. But they were non-homogenous; they weren’t the same thing. There was an extraordinary amount of variety in that first generation of Christianity, which is one of the reasons why a New Testament scholar can turn into an agnostic.

We want to impose upon Christ and upon the Father an obligation for the kind of perfect symmetry that we expect TRUTH to have. And yet, God has gone to the trouble of making every maple leaf on every maple tree unique. Every snowflake is individualized and unique. There isn’t one person in this room whose fingerprints match the fingerprints of someone else. And your eyes are so differentiated from one another that I can get through the security screening at the airport by letting him scan one of my eyes. That’s how unique you are.

God catches Ezekiel up into Heaven. And Ezekiel comes and gives a report, and he says, “Wheels within wheels; it was all in motion.” The majesty of the creation that he beheld defied his ability to put it into words, and so he uses analogy. The testimonies that are given by those who have seen beyond the veil reflect their limited ability/limited vocabulary/limited capacity to take what is vast and beyond human understanding and try to put it into words. I don’t talk much about what it is that goes on on the other side of the veil. But believe me, there is so much more to the truths that God has yet to make public, that every one of us ought to be humble about what little we are able to share and how limited our capacities are.

Christianity was diverse, divergent—and it came to a single focus in the recognition that Jesus Christ came as the Son of God and paid a terrible price in order to make grace possible. All Christians believe that they are going to be saved—somehow and in some way—as a consequence of what Jesus Christ did. If you were to ask a Catholic to give you a theological explanation of how that would happen, they would point to the tradition that the keys of the kingdom were given to Peter, and that those keys have been passed down, and that they have the ability to open or shut the gate of Heaven, and therefore, if you attend confession, the priest (vicariously—going all the way back to Peter) has the capacity to open that gate and to let you in. So it’s important that you keep your fidelity to the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church separated from the Eastern Orthodox Church at about 1000 AD. And in the eastern half of the Christian world, they wouldn’t tell you that you can go to the Catholics and be saved. They have their own tradition; they have their own set of beliefs. And they preserve some things that the Catholics let go of. One of the things that the Eastern Orthodox Church kept on is the belief in the deification of man—that man may eventually become God. That’s not believed in the Catholic side.

Now, all of you who are Protestant or Evangelical, your form of Christianity did not even exist AT ALL until about 500 years ago. If we transport you back in time to some time before Martin Luther’s era you’d be killed as a heretic because preaching and believing what you preach and believe today was not only not considered Christian, it was considered heretical and dangerous. So, Christians ought to approach their Christian faith with a modicum of humility about what it is they think they have in their belief system that can secure for them salvation into eternity.

Here’s a problem for all of you Christians: If you are an Evangelical, you proclaim loudly, By grace you are saved, …not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 1:5) (All citations in this talk are to the Restoration Edition of Scripture.) Now, there’s a statement from Paul that includes both grace and works. So, you’re saved by grace. Then Paul poses the question in the book of Romans, “What shall we say then? Shall we let sin abound” (see Romans 1) meaning, should you now be licentious? And his answer to that question is, “God forbid; you may be saved or rescued by grace, but by your works, you shall be judged” (ibid.). When you get to the book of Revelation and you read the criteria upon which the final judgment is gonna be executed, your judgment will be based upon your works. Well, there’s a dilemma for you. So you’re saved by grace. Okay. The Lord can erase all those mistakes. Now, what do you have to show for yourself? Why, I got a blank slate. The board’s been erased. See, there’s the grace; see that whiteboard over there? That’s my saved Christian friends. Well, how the hell are we gonna judge you by your works if that’s what you’ve got? (And I use the word “hell” advisedly because that’s pretty much what we’re left with.) We have NOTHING we can do for you. You merit NOTHING. Jesus’ grace is intended to make it possible for you to free yourself from the slavery of sin. Now, what are you gonna do that you are freed from the slavery of sin? Christ tells you in the Sermon on the Mount what you ought to do:

Then we have something upon which to judge you. Doesn’t mean you’re gonna live an error-free life, but the grace of God will help remove those errors. Just go on, and do something good.

Well, I hope all of you who have been here today have listened with the kind of precision that the talks have been given earlier today. Matt’s talk, Whitney’s talk, “Whitney’s husband’s” talk [laughter]. (We’re not used to saying “Vern.” We’re used to saying, “Whitney’s husband.”) They were all delivered with precision about the subject. Now, some of you are probably, in hindsight, thinking, “This sounds like there’s a lot of luggage being toted around as a consequence of Mormon history.” And that’s true enough. There’s a lot of stuff that got said today that is only necessary to be said in order to distinguish people who believe in the Lord’s Restoration of Truth from those that claim institutionally to OWN the truth.

The LDS Church is the best known—the Mormon church, headquartered in Salt Lake—is the best-known group of those who claim that they become established by Joseph Smith. But there are literally over a hundred different formal organizations that claim that they were founded by Joseph Smith. And part of what’s necessary in talking about the truth is to say “what we’re not.” And there’s been a whole lot of “what we’re not” that got said today. And that’s good and well. But the fact is that something happened in the spring of 1820, in which a long prelude led to the heavens opening again.

If it hadn’t been for Martin Luther and his rebellion against Catholicism, there could not have been Protestant churches. But the initial Protestant churches were just as beset with problems as was the Catholic mother from which their births came. Martin Luther participated in killing those who rejected Lutheranism and who defended papalism. John Knox was called the apostle of murder because of the violence and the killing that he engaged in. Enforcing religion at the edge of a sword was considered to be necessary as part of the early Protestant Christian movement, just as the Catholic religion had been plagued by the violence that it inflicted on people. It took the Protestant Reformation and it took hundreds of years of working through that before both the Protestants and the Catholics became more benign and more tolerant of one another—and THAT required the founding of a new nation that conceived of religious liberty as a venue in which religious pluralism was allowed to flourish, so that God could, in fact, call and start something new, under the Son, that resembles what went on before.

The reason why theologians become agnostic and faithless is because they study the minutiae of what the texts say without ever permitting the experiment of what the texts TEACH to become how they live their lives. We hear the idea that you have faith in something. But the idea of faith did not really get defined until Joseph Smith sought, through the heavens, to ordain on Earth a form of priestly authority that hadn’t been here since Old Testament times and with Christ and His apostles. And he got a revelation that allowed him to confer that authority upon a limited group of people. He was rejoicing and celebrating the accomplishment—and to a man, every one of those who had been ordained failed to accomplish anything, apostatized, rebelled, wrote a series of letters denouncing Joseph. And everything that he had hoped that this achievement would reflect turned into nothing but a mess. I wrote about this in A Man Without Doubt.

What Joseph Smith did in response to that was to set about trying to fix the problem. Out of that came what’s called the Lectures on Faith. One of the Lectures on Faith was quoted earlier today in one of the talks. Well, Lectures on Faith defines faith as a principle of action. You can believe all you want to believe, but you do not have faith unless you act.

We don’t pay, hire, or support ministers. If you don’t sacrifice to minister to others, you cannot acquire faith. When Joe invited me to come and speak at this conference, and I agreed to do it, I understood we had to buy our own plane tickets for my wife and I to travel here, we had to rent our own car, we had to pay for our own hotel room. I didn’t expect and I would be insulted if they offered to compensate me for anything that gets done—because faith is a principle of action that requires that you engage in sacrifice.

When I got the opportunity to come here, I sat about writing a talk (despite the fact that we’re told to “take no thought beforehand”). And so, I had a great talk prepared to give, but I broke my arm, and I can’t hold the Scriptures with one hand, and I can’t turn the pages with one hand, and I can’t prepare a talk to read with one hand. And so, I was rather forced into the corner of just coming and talking spontaneously. And so, all the great thoughts that I had are sitting at home on a computer that are still unfinished. Sometimes we’re required to take things out of our own hands and to trust in what the Lord wants.

We don’t believe in an organization, because organizations can be compromised simply by capturing the control center. You are witnessing a concerted effort being made everywhere you look—churches, the military, the government, businesses, Disney… Everywhere you look, there is a concerted effort to acquire control over the control center of the organizations in order, then, to corrupt the entirety of the organization by gaining control of the center/of the top. If you never consolidate power into a single place but every person must stand on their own—and every person has their own volume of Scriptures, and everyone has the ability to get access to the heavens through prayer—then it doesn’t matter who you corrupt, you cannot corrupt the whole. And when she [Kathy Alexander] said (just before the last song and me getting up here) that she takes no one’s word for anything but she has to pray for and have her own assurance of the truth, what that means is no person’s corruption, no matter who they may be, stands in the way of her ability to discern and be faithful to the truth. There’s a resilience to a lack of hierarchy, a lack of position, a lack of control. There’s a vulnerability to any organization that, right now, is being exploited relentlessly no matter where you turn. The Disney organization is going to be getting into the adult-film business, probably using a different label—but they are clearly moving away from the “family-friendly” fare that Walt Disney founded it to become.

If you are a Christian, you should study what happened in the last 222 [202] years since the heavens opened in 1820 and God spoke to Joseph Smith. If you are a Mormon and you want to try to understand what happened to Christianity, you should look at your own last 222 [202] years and the marvelous transformation that your own religion has undergone to try and understand what happened in the early days of Christianity.

Christianity was such a divergent group that when Constantine decided to make Christianity the state religion of Rome, he thought he was getting a religious organization that he could subordinate to the interests of the Roman state, and it would be unifying and gratifying. What he found out was that Christians believe things so differently from one another that Christians were killing Christians over debates about Christianity and how it ought to be practiced. And so, in hindsight, it is now called (it’s a rather flattering sort of BS term, but nevertheless) it is called the “First GREAT Ecumenical Council,” the Council of Nicea, out of which comes the Nicene Creed, which was the attempt to standardize (under the direction of the Emperor) a definition for what the Christian faith minimally consisted of so that we could get our story straight! And they held votes, and they were literally sequestered by the Emperor until they came up with a definition—and even then, they still had a couple of holdouts who got exiled out of the Roman Empire. But voila, from the great ecumenical First Great Ecumenical Council, now we have a definition of Christianity that we can use.

And so, Christianity assumed a stable form. But that was at 324 AD, and the battle had been going on since the death of the apostles, and Scriptures were being revised. And Christian scholars who look into these things deeply enough wind up saying, “I don’t know how much of any of this stuff is reliable.” So if you go to the Mormon history and you check out what happened in the Mormon history, you will find out that there are extraordinary numbers of parallels that go on. Joseph Smith was not the character he was represented to be by Brigham Young and the cabal of interests that followed Brigham Young to the west.

The telling of Mormon history, just like the telling of Christian history, can be analogized to this: You set off from Europe in a wooden sailboat. And the winds are pushing you in one direction, and the current is pulling you in another direction, and you’re headed to India because you want to get cinnamon and pepper and spices to bring back and become a wealthy person. And en route, you manage, at some point, promiscuously sailing first one way and then another, with the winds blowing you in every which direction, but you’re trying to hold your course west at San Salvador. And you say, “We made it to India.” And no one’s speaking Punjabi (it’s a real problem). So, the story over time turns into something a little different and a little more heroic. And it’s the contention that the possibility exists that there’s another trade route on a globe, and “I’m inspired by God, and we’re headed in the right direction, and God’s leading us all about,” and we get the story—the heroic story—of Columbus and his persistence, and the sailors getting ready to rebel the night before, and him saying, “Just one more day,” and sure enough, they find the land—and we’ve turned it into something heroic.

Mormonism has taken mess after mess. mistake after mistake, wicked purveyor after wicked purveyor, and they’ve dressed it up into something that is a great story of triumph. Brigham Young could not conceive that God wouldn’t vindicate him ‘cuz he had the keys and the kingdom was with him. So when he sent all the cattle up to Cache county (and the winter in Cache county is ever so much worse than it would have been if he’d kept them down in the Salt Lake valley), and the entire herd of cattle dies from the winter, Brigham Young doesn’t blame his own stupidity; he blames the Mormons for not being sufficiently faithful to the leadership. And so, he launches the Mormon Reformation.

There’s something… Well, it doesn’t exist anymore. But there’s something called the Home Teaching program—where members visited one another to encourage them in faith every month. The predecessor to that was the Home Missionary program. The missionary program came to members’ houses and asked you a series of questions. The series of questions were designed to determine whether or not you should be “blood atoned,” because Brigham Young believed in a principle which was that “some of your sins are so bad that Jesus won’t suffer for them; your own blood has to be shed for that particular sin.” So, if you committed a blood atonement sin and the home missionaries visiting discerned that, then you needed to shed your blood in order to atone for your own shortcoming so you could be saved. (And by the way, the person who got killed in this manner would later thank you because you made it possible for them to enter into the kingdom.) This is the kind of nonsense that went on when the Mormons were isolated from the larger American community.

Johnson’s Army came out and dispossessed Brigham Young of the governorship. The railroad came through and made it possible for transportation. The year after Johnson’s Army arrived in Salt Lake to dispossess Brigham Young of the governorship, over 3,200 families fled out of Utah going east to get away from Brigham Young because they were afraid of him. We have good numbers on those that went east. We do not have numbers for those that went west. By that time, the forty-niners had been out there, Sutter’s Mill and the gold had been found, and there was plenty of land—valuable, useful land—in California to go to. And so it’s thought that multiples of the number that when east fled to the west, out of Utah, to escape from Brigham Young’s reign of terror.

He believed (when Johnson’s Army was coming to Utah) that the Indians would rise up and defend his claim to be governor and that (he called the Indians “the battle-ax of the Lord”), he believed that that would secure for him his continued governance, and he could declare his independence from the nation, and he could found this theological institution that he would reign over as king. It didn’t happen—and the talks that Brigham Young gave (that are now available—they weren’t for a long time, but they got published about 2005), the talks that Brigham Young gave during that time period of emotional crisis lead me to believe that the man literally lost his mind. There’s an example that’s drawn out of Mormon history from the LDS perspective to discredit Joseph Smith’s counselor, Sidney Rigdon, who claimed that he should be the custodian over the church after Joseph was dead. He gave a talk that is pointed to as evidence that he was a nutcase. Brigham Young (after Johnson’s Army arrived) sounds very much like Sidney Rigdon in his campaign to be the church president after Joseph’s death. They’re BOTH nutty.

Mormon history is fraught with embarrassing, outrageous, violent, unfortunate events. If your faith requires that you have a church that doesn’t bear any of the mars or failures, then it becomes intolerable for you to hear anyone reciting the events that occurred in your church. Mormons’ faith is largely predicated upon the notion that the Mormon church has survived intact. Christians’ faith is predicated upon the notion that Christianity has survived sufficiently intact so that you can secure for yourself salvation in the kingdom of God in the afterlife if you follow the form of Christianity you believe to have saving power today.

I have good news for everyone, and I have bad news for everyone. But first, the bad news: None of your churches are gonna save you. None of your current Christian forms are gonna save you. None of your Mormon forms are going to save you. If you intend to secure for yourself hope in Christ, then it is requisite, it is mandatory, it is absolutely essential that you hear the voice of God when it speaks to you in YOUR generation. It is necessary that someone be sent with a message from Him—just like Joseph Smith was sent with a message from God to tell you about how you can extract yourself from sin and error. And Joseph secured (for those who were willing) the possibility of their own salvation by obedience to the ordinances of the gospel which he could authoritatively declare. Paul says, “How can you believe if you don’t have someone who is sent, and how can you be sent if not being sent by God?” Joseph met the criteria: He was sent. He did bring a message. It did have the power of salvation. It IS possible to secure salvation once Joseph’s voice gets raised. And that voice and those ordinances remained authoritative until they get broken.

Study Christian history and you’ll begin to realize that the Christian message got broken, certainly by 324 AD. Study the Mormon church. I mean, she [Kathy Alexander] joked that I got baptized in 1973, and it’s true enough. But I gotta tell you, the church that I got baptized into in 1973 has nothing in common with the church that exists calling itself… Well, it doesn’t even acknowledge itself as “the Mormons”; they were kind of proud of that back then. Now, it’s “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” because “the devil is happy every time you use the word ‘Mormon.'” Ohmmmm…

I’m not sure how that worked. Which is another thing, I don’t have a clock, so… [ooking at the time]. Okay, I can keep going.

So we have to have—it’s an essential ingredient of Christianity; it’s an essential ingredient of salvation—we have to have God talk to us in our generation. The words of an old book—which is how Joseph Smith described the Bible—the words of an old book and the salvation that took place in their day does not do anything for us! We can come along and pick up the old book and imitate what it’s saying there, but unless that religion lives in you, their religion belonged to them. Their feats, their acts, their sacrifices secured for them salvation in their day. What does God want of you now in your day? I mean, pick up the book, read it, and imitate it, but the LDS Church is largely left in the same position as the Christians were after 222 [202] years: They pick up an old book, and they imitate it. Where’s God’s voice to them today?

Well, something got alluded to in passing, and I don’t know how many picked up on it. But in 2017, again at a time when there were alignments in the heavens (because the heavens often testify to what the Lord is doing on Earth, just as the heavens testified when Christ was born—and there was an alignment in the heavens, and wise men came to the east in order to find who it was that had been born “the King of the Jews”)… Well, in 2017, God spoke again and offered to this generation/those living today/you people who are within the sound of my voice (whether you’re here in this hall today or you listen to the recording) offered to you—today—the possibility of salvation through a new covenant. (See T&C 156, 157, and 158. See also www.receivethecovenant.com.) And part of what He’s telling you in that new covenant is that He has some things that He expects to accomplish before He returns in glory to judge the world. You think Christ is coming again, and that is true enough; He’s coming to judge the world. But before that time, He expects to establish a covenant people so that the religion that was once here at the time of Adam is here again. Paul wrote about how the gospel had been fore declared unto Abraham, and Paul’s exactly right: Abraham knew the gospel. But so did Adam. So did Enoch. So did Noah. And so now can we too, not as part of the words of an old book, but as part of a living community of people that believe, have accepted a covenant today, and have sacrificed in order to bring forth the works of salvation today.

We believe in paying tithes. But we don’t use them to buy buildings, and we don’t use them to pay clergy. We use them to help the poor among us. The tithes that are gathered among the people who believe this message are used in fellowship meetings to help their neighbors or anyone within their community who are in need. Money doesn’t go to invest. Money doesn’t go to compensate people whose sacrifice in serving the Lord is required as part of their faith. Money goes to help those who stand in need: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, medical care, dental care. These are the things that the tithes are supposed to be used for. These are the things that we DO use tithes for. A conference gets organized, as this one has, and it requires the people who are going to organize it to rent the facilities, to gather the funds necessary in order to take care of everything that goes on during the course of the conference. And since housing isn’t always free, if they can arrange to get someone to provide housing and make that available for people to purchase, they do that. But everything about our faith is intended to be sustained at every moment by acts of faith so that unless our faith remains vibrant, ongoing, active, and producing sacrifice, it will disappear from the earth. Because the last thing we want to do is to leave behind another hollow shell to become corrupted and to be used by evil and designing men to achieve their ends instead of God’s ends.

It was mentioned that there are periods of restoration and periods of apostasy; those two things are intertwined. As soon as restoration ends, apostasy begins; you cannot sustain it. It MUST have a life of its own. Blow out the candle, and then enjoy its light—because that’s how it works: You’ve got to keep the flame alive. There are people who have written me emails and letters saying I’ve got to institutionalize this or it’s going to die out. Well, may it die out if the candle ever gets extinguished. IF it is to continue, it must continue solely on the basis of the sustaining light that comes from Heaven and not because we’ve created an institution that can be co-opted and turned into something like the rest of the world.

I have spent—I was gonna say “hours,” but it would be much more accurate to say “many days” conversing with…well, it’s not just the Lord; it’s the Heavenly Council—about the management of a dispensation of the gospel. Past dispensations have failed. A dispensation of the gospel is very vulnerable, delicate thing. It’s as delicate as gossamer or a cobweb, and it can be torn by inadvertence and neglect. It has to be attended to with care. The resilience of the dispensation of Moses consisted in a bunch of rites and practices and observances that could make people slavishly repetitious in what they did, and so it could go on generation after generation very durably.

The Christian dispensation went into, rather, freefall but stabilized at about 324 AD and assumed a form with enough resilience that Catholicism today has more than a billion adherents, and as long as Catholicism is around to remind us of Jesus and the apostles and the keys of the kingdom, then at least we know THAT much about Christianity.

Joseph Smith organized a church with a series of co-equal groups: a First Presidency (3), a Quorum of Twelve Apostles (12), a Quorum of Seventy (70), and then Stake High Councils (that were 12 members in as many stakes as existed geographically throughout Mormonism). Every one of those was equal to one another until Brigham Young got his hands on the reign of authority. And then Brigham Young used a verse that says, “Where the Twelve can’t go, they can call upon the Seventy to go fulfill an assignment.” And he said, “No longer are they equal in authority. I get to boss the Seventy; I’m the head of the Twelve,” and they became subordinate, and ultimately, he got tired of power-sharing with the other members of the Twelve, and within three years, he wants to be the First Presidency again. And today, in the LDS form of governance, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consists literally—absolutely literally—of one person. The president of the corporation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns every building, every university, every business venture, all of the acreage that consists of over 2% of the landmass of the state of Florida, all of the Hawaiian farms, all of the radio and television networks, all the motion picture production stuff, all the newspapers—ONE Mormon, and he owns it all. And that one Mormon is a “corporation sole.” And when he dies, then the senior-most member of the Quorum of the Twelve becomes the member of the corporation sole, and then HE owns it all. That’s what Mormonism has turned into today. It is a vast financial empire, so much so that the religion that Mormons claim to believe in is really one of the smaller “side projects” of the Corporation of the President. There is a lot of money in religion. It’s one of the two oldest professions in the world. And it’s slightly more profitable than the other but not at all dissimilar.

That’s the problem with religion. And so, when people hopeful of salvation and anxious about their eternal state come to the ministers of the various denominations and they hear the good news in Jesus, they’re hearing something that grossly misstates the obligations that devolve upon you. An adulterer cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven. A penitent adulterer can enter into the kingdom of Heaven so long as they confess and forsake their sins. You don’t get there by continuing to entertain the vile lusts which the Apostle Paul said need to come to an end once that grace has been bestowed upon you. Look at Paul’s example:

He’s holding the coat of those that are throwing the stones that kill Steven. And Paul was probably responsible for having gotten Stephen into that predicament in the first place. He went about persecuting the Christians. He was a strict Pharisee. I mean, under his religious definition of righteousness at the time that he was practicing these things, he (the Apostle Paul) was a righteous Pharisee, vindicated by all that he knew, believing himself in good standing before God. And yet, when he awakened to his awful circumstance, he realized that he was a vile sinner. So what did the Apostle Paul do once that he recognized the ENORMITY of what it was that he had done that was wrong? He spent the rest of his days pursuing the exact opposite. He went on mission after mission proclaiming the righteousness to be found in living a life according to Jesus’ sermons, Jesus’ principles, the gospel of Christ.

Mormons have no hope in Christ because they belong to a church that gave them “authoritative ordinances.” Without faith in Christ and a change to your heart and a willingness to obey the teachings that come from Christ (the latest of which is the covenant that instructs us what we are to do), then it doesn’t matter what organization you do or don’t belong to. Salvation is to be found by following the words of a living God—and that God is not only living, He is speaking. And what He has to say is remarkably profound. We’ve brushed up only against a small part of it in the talks that have been given today. But a lot of what has been said presumes that you know something in the background of Mormonism and the Restoration in Joseph Smith.

I’m here to tell you that the tattered history of early Christianity and the tattered history of Mormonism over the last 222 [202] years are directly analogous. You will understand your Christian faith better by understanding what has happened to Mormonism than you will by listening to preachers in the pulpit. And you Mormons will better come to reconcile an understanding of what’s happened to your Restoration when you candidly look at how Christianity conducted itself over the first two and a quarter centuries.

It is HARD to hold onto the truth. It is HARD to have the Lord walk with you. But that’s only because this world wears on you and asks that you compromise a little here and that you give up a little there and that you indulge a little here. And everywhere you turn in our society today—entertainment, the news, the political voices—they’re all urging you to sin. And the bad news is we become victimized by that. We become inoculated to it. I mean, you only wade through and sit in raw sewage so long before you lose the scent, and you don’t realize the mess that you’re living in. This world intends to drag you down. And at the same time in that same covenant, the Lord says, The tares are ripening. …What of the wheat? (T&C 157:64). We have to become wheat, something worthy of being laid up in-store by the Lord for preservation into eternity.

Now, I need to let you know one other thing before I finish, and that is: We made our reservations to come out here at the time Joe invited us (months ago), and we bought our tickets—and just a few days ago, in going through and confirming and locking everything down, we found out that we didn’t have the rental car after all; they knew we’d expressed interest; we had to take care of that again. We found out that Southwest—on their own—decided they were changing our return flight, as a consequence of which we are gonna have to leave to get back to Louisville early enough that I’m not gonna be here and talk tomorrow. And so, I told Joe, “Don’t you announce that. I’ll just tell ’em as part of my talk,” and then you can throw your shoes at me instead of at him. I’ve got to be out of here. And so, in the Q&A, it’s the last you’ll hear of me in this conference.

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This presentation is continued in the “Hear and Trust the Lord Q&A.”

TRANSCRIPT

This is a continuation of the “Hear and Trust the Lord” talk that Denver gave at the “Hear and Trust the Lord in the Storm” Conference.

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So, having said that, I’ve already gotten one question that the answer’s, “No, I would not advocate using marijuana to get close to Jesus.” Nor peyote, nor… Gah, we got off the plane in Louisville, and like the first 50 signs—I didn’t realize there were even this many varieties—the first 50 signs were different kinds of bourbon. I mean, I finally saw these bourbon signs enough that I asked my wife, “Who do we know I could buy some bourbon for? ‘Cuz clearly it’s a thing down here.” And it’s a big thing, and it must be great. I’m not a bourbon drinker, but wow.

Okay, so do the Thomas Sisters have any questions? ‘Cuz they’ve been here listening to all this weird stuff. And it just occurs to me you’re kind of favoring us by showing up. You’ve been listening in on this stuff. Do you guys have any questions?

Thomas Sisters: We’re good.
Denver Snuffer: You’re good? Okay. Are there any CHRISTIANS who have questions? (‘Cuz

your Mormon questions are just…) Do we have a Christian who’s got a…? Okay, we can go! Oh, what? Okay. Yeah.

Question #1: First of all, your shirt, where did you get it?

DS: Oh, I saw this, and I went online, and I said, “I gotta wear that!” So we bought it. Yeah. “Normal isn’t coming back. Jesus is.” I think we got it on Amazon. Yeah, on Amazon. And I think if you just search for “T-shirt normal isn’t coming back,” I think you’ll find it.

Question #2: Can I ask another one? I had a whole page of ‘em, but the Vern and…

DS: Yeah, they answered them all. So…

[Question #2 regarding cremation]

Cremation? Well, cremation will not prevent a resurrection, because if you read the account that John gives in the book of Revelation about the dead coming forth, one of the places that will surrender their dead is the sea/the ocean. Once you drop a body into the ocean, it’s pretty well gone in fairly short order (even if you don’t drop it in a crab field in the Deadliest Catch terrain). And the bones will dissolve, everything will resolve back. So it doesn’t present an impediment to resurrection.

However, you’ve also got the example of the Lord who, upon being resurrected, they rolled the stone away from the tomb where He had been laid, and He literally came forth, and He was in the garden; He was still there at the site that morning when Mary and others came to the tomb. And when He appeared later, He asked them to handle His hands and His side and His feet and to see that, you know, He bore the same wounds and the same physical body. And so, the argument is that if the body has not decomposed into nothing, that then the very same body that you lay down will rise again from the grave.

One of the ambitions that Joseph Smith failed to achieve in his lifetime was to build a mausoleum in Nauvoo, in which his parents and his wife and his children could all be buried so that in the resurrection, they would come out of the grave at the same location and then be able to, you know, hug and embrace and kiss one another upon coming out of the grave—which suggests his belief in the literal coming forth of the actual physical body that you lay down in the grave. And if that be the case, then, of course, burning it up and turning it into ash is kind of a desecration of something that is the image of God. And there’s that theological argument.

I’ve learned of one fellow who intends to have his body cremated and then to send the ash off to have it crushed into a diamond—and then to have the diamond be the property of his widow after his passing, which is, you know, kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, in the end, I think no matter what you do, you… Everyone’s gonna come forth out of the grave. And some may want to create as many impediments to that as possible ‘cuz they’re not proud of how they lived, and so they’d like to delay the coming forth. But I don’t think it’s gonna stop things.

It was an early teaching of both, well, of Christianity, generally. It was an early teaching that you did not suddenly flare into existence as a spirit and a body at the time of your conception in the womb of your mother but that your spirit preceded your coming into this world—that you have a long history before you ever got here. Okay? That idea is very comfortable inside the Restoration because of the book of Abraham and the book of Moses (the revision of Genesis) makes it clear that we have a long, long history before we ever enter into this world as having been YOU, having been a separate sentient spirit-being. And from the book of Abraham, it becomes clear that some of the people who are here now (in the flesh) lived and had a physical body in another cycle of creation in an earlier round and that they didn’t just exist as spirits before they ever got here. So you have to ask yourself if it is possible to have a body, resurrect the body, and then have that body somehow get integrated—more as spirit than body—into another body and another cycle of creation, what exactly is the resurrection? And what exactly happens with the body? Okay?

We view ourselves as incredibly solid because we can’t put ourselves through walls; can’t do that because the atoms and the movement of the molecules and the charge between the electrons is such that it has a form of solidity that makes it impossible to pass through. AND YET, Jesus came forth out of the grave with the very same body, and He entered into the room with the door locked. (How’d He get through that wall?) And He ate! He ate fish that He cooked with coals on the… I mean, He’s moving physical matter. He’s consuming physical stuff. He’s walking into physical rooms, and yet He also has the ability to do something which physically we are unable to do, which ought to tell you something about the resurrection. All spirit is matter, but it is more refined and pure. So if all spirit is matter but more refined and pure, can you not take that spirit and reduce it to a more solid form?

Right now we have temperatures that exist in our neck of the Milky Way that go up to 20 million degrees. The difference between cold matter and hot matter is the vibrational speed at which it is moving. If it is at 20 million degrees, it is almost impossible to describe it as anything other than a gas. Okay? But we also have temperatures that go all the way down to absolute zero. And when you get down, you know (what is it? It’s less than 400 degrees below zero in Fahrenheit), the it just stops moving altogether; you freeze even the molecules. Everything’s slowed down. So it’s possible that “quickening” (it’s the word used in Scripture) is not just quickening meaning “turning something cool, neat; it’s quickened; it’s like Nestle’s Quik, except better.” Quickening might actually be a description of the physical state of the being, that it is sped up/it exists at an energetic level that is far above the energetic level at which we are functioning here. And therefore, it assumes a form that is, you know, “spirit” matter, which is quickened and refined and lacks the kind of solidity that your physical body exists in here and now. And my conjecture is based on limited observation, but I think that’s what I saw.

So I think there’s something to… You know, read your Scriptures, and look into that, and study a little bit of physics, and see if you don’t see it converging at some point in something that kind of makes that view look…

So I wouldn’t burn something that’s gonna dwell in everlasting burnings. I would wait for that to arrive on its own. Yeah, you gotta…

Question #3: As a child, was Christ tutored by the brass plates?

DS: See, now there’s a bit of interesting speculation because now you’re gonna have to have converging social interaction that so far the Scriptures have not let us comment on. So, it’s a great question! Great question. Okay. Anyone else? Yeah?

Question #4: I’m trying to figure out how to phrase the question, but in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in Heaven,” and we know from Scripture that He’s known as the Father and the Son. And we also know that He becomes our Father as we become a child of Christ. So when I pray or when we pray, “Dear Heavenly Father,” also keeping in mind that in Third Nephi that the people were praying to Him, and He said, “It’s okay.” But when WE pray, we pray, “Our Heavenly Father.” Are we supposed to be praying to our Heavenly Father or to Christ as our new Father as we become His children? That’s my question. I hope that made sense.

DS: Yeah, okay. First, the idea of the Father and the Son as a theological issue has created a marriage between scriptural language and philosophy that turns God into an unknowable, incomprehensible being in which He is three-in-one—and yet, He’s not three, He’s one—without dividing the substance. “The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, the Holy Ghost uncreate; and yet, there is not three uncreates, there is one uncreate. The Father incomprehensible…” (see Athanasian Creed vs. 8-12). This… I’m reciting a Christian creed, by the way. All of you believe this if you’re a Christian or a Catholic or a Protestant, “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible, and yet, there are not three incomprehensibles. There is one.” (This is Athanasian Creed? Which one is that? No, no it’s not Nicene; it’s a later… Athanasius, yeah, okay, yeah.

Okay, so the point is you touch up against the oneness of God, you touch up against the Father and the Son, you wind up in the middle of a theological mess. Jesus (in the New Testament, King James Version or New Revised Standard Version or whatever) offering the intercessory prayer (in the chapter 17 of the gospel of John) prays that the apostles and His disciples “may be one, as thou Father and I are one, that they may be one in us” (see John 9:21). See, He’s not talking about turning Matthew and Peter and the others into one and then, you know, morphing like something out of Matrix into single “whatever.” He’s talking about this unity that exists in the conviction, the belief, the purpose, the understanding, sharing in the same mind, okay? That’s what He’s talking about. So when you say, “Christ taught us in the Sermon on the Mount to pray, ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ and Jesus is becoming the Father, are we praying to Jesus or are we praying to the Father?” And the answer is yes. Because there is no difference between…

I mean, I could tell you things about how prayers get answered, and it’s not what we sometimes think it is. There’s a lot going on on the other side of the veil that is left out of the story—and for good reason, because it isn’t necessary. But there is no prayer that gets answered, at any level at which the prayer does get answered, in which the information that’s conveyed/the message that is granted is not approved, ultimately, all the way to the Father. But the Father resides in a place in which ALL THINGS past, present, and future are manifest before Him continuously so that there isn’t a past and a present and a future; it’s all one in His presence. Okay?

(I don’t know if I should even be telling people this, but…) In order for those who reside in the presence of God to come and actually connect to this physical creation, just like we have to undergo some profound transfiguration in order to be caught up into Heaven, there is a similar process that’s required in order to descend from Heaven. And it is not pleasant for those who are used to a higher order of things to condescend here. And therefore, there’s actually… I mean, one of the phrases that gets used is that there are sentinels who guard the path. There’s a Cherubim and a flaming sword sent to guard the way to the Tree of Life. And, you know, analogy though that may be, it’s referring to actual things. There are those who…

Well, if you look at the vision of the Three Degrees of Glory, an angel who was in a position of authority in the presence of God fell and became Lucifer. So we know that turned out badly, and he’s a ne’er-do-well, and we don’t like him, and he doesn’t like us, and he’s aiming to disrupt the purposes of God. But the phrase that you ought to pick out of that is that he was “in a position of authority in the presence of God,” which as a description ought to suggest that if that was the case in the instance of an angel who fell, it only makes sense that it would be true also of angels who have not fallen. And if there be angels who are not fallen who are in a position of authority in the presence of God, then meditate on that idea for a notion of, you know, prayers and answers and who we’re praying to, which is always… EVERYTHING is always done in the name of the Father. Everything is always ordained at the outset by the authority of the Father, and the glory and the praise and the honor be the Father’s. But there are those who are moving along in a process that if they’re “trusted” are trusted and if they’re “true and faithful,” they’re true and faithful—and if they’re given a position of authority in the presence of God and you lost your keys and you’re praying to find your keys, do you really need God the Father? Can a local angel who’s looking around saying, “This guy’s an idiot. ‘Look behind the sofa there!'” There, I used my angel voice: “They’re behind the sofa.” Actually, that’s more like the king in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. “Joseph!”

Yeah?

Question #5: I have a question. In the Testimony of St. John (in chapter one and throughout the Testimony of St. John), it refers to the “cosmos,” such as, “the creation of the cosmos was organized by a messenger,” by Christ. Does this refer, that use of the word cosmos, can you comment on whether that refers to a galaxy, this creation specifically, or the entire universe?

DS: Oh. Christ created more than this world. The testimony of the afterlife says that the worlds are…and were created [by him], and the inhabitants thereof are the…sons and daughters of God (T&C 69:5). Okay? (I didn’t bring my Scriptures, but I remember some of them.) That tells you that Jesus, personally, was responsible for more than the creation of this world. That tells you that when a creation is made of a world on which there is a divine purpose involved, that it is inhabited by people that are children of God. And if they be children of God, then they’re gonna be redeemed.

I just think… There is something in the additions to the Scriptures that describe a vision of the Lord returning in His glory, the language for which was prescribed specifically, and those are the words that have to be used and the only words that can be used. But there’s stuff in the new Scriptures—if you look at them and you ask yourself that question—that will really help you get your hands around some of that. But I don’t think it’s right when you’re told to “color within the lines” to color outside the lines. So, just look carefully at the Scriptures with that question in mind. You might be surprised how much stuff there is in there about that.

Yeah?

Question 6: Yeah, the theme of the conference is “Hear and Trust in the Lord in the Storm,” so when you’re lying at the bottom of an icy ramp, and your life has just changed, what do you do to stay in tune with that voice and to trust in what’s coming next?

DS: I don’t, I don’t…
Audience Member: Can you repeat the question? DS: Oh, yeah. He said, When I fall and I’m laying at the bottom of an icy ramp with a broken arm, what do I do in that circumstance to, you know, stay in tune? And there really is an answer, except I don’t… I hate being emotional… 22nd Psalm.

The 22nd Psalm has a phrase in it. Well, let me see if I can do this better. Okay. When Christ was being crucified on the cross, one of His final acts was to recite, My God, My God, why [hast thou] forsaken me? (Matthew 12:28). Everyone who was present knew He was reciting the opening words of a psalm. He was not asking God why He was forsaking Him; He was testifying that He was the Messiah—and a messianic psalm that had been composed about the VERY scene that was then unfolding was His testimony that all those that look at him “shoot the lip out and mock Him,” that He was “surrounded by dogs,” that “his garments were parted,” and that “they cast lots.” He’s reciting the messianic psalm about the very moment that all of those people who were skeptical about Him were living when He began to sing, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He apparently, at that point, was so near death that He couldn’t do more than the first line. But if you read that psalm, it will slap you up in the face.

Okay, there’s a line in there about how His bones stare at Him because everything is disjointed. And this [the broken arm] hurt. And it hurt, you know, right up there with the greatest amount of agony I’ve encountered. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was… I went into shock: I was shivering and blacking out and all that from pain. And what I was thinking at the time is, “I don’t know how the Lord did it. I don’t know how He endured what He endured.” If you read that psalm and you realize… I mean, first of all, I COULDN’T do it. I would have blacked out, and they’d have been hauling around a limp body, nailing it up, and you know, it would have been sort of anti-climatic. You know, “Don’t stick a spear in him; you’ll wake him up!” It’s pathetic. But He hung right in there, and I… I just marveled at Him.

Anyway, there was another… Oh, way back there. Yeah?

Question #7: I was wondering… You probably never deal with this at all, but if you notice pride within yourself, what is something you do, or what do you think of, or how do you kind of…?

DS: Well, I’m… I came up here, and I was looking at his drums, and I was thinking, “If I just had my right hand, I could do something!” I got a set of drums in my basement, and I’m a little proud of some of the stuff I can do there.

But pride—when it comes to the things of God—makes no sense at all. I don’t think I’ve ever done an adequate job with anything that’s been entrusted to me, but somehow people are good enough to compensate for my own shortcomings. There have been phenomenal things/miraculous things that have been achieved as a consequence of the faith of people. I may have been able to facilitate a few things getting done, but GREAT things have been and are getting done—not by my efforts but by the efforts of other people. I rented and paid for and went to ten venues to begin things in the Ten Talks that got given, and after that, the conferences have been organized by people of faith. The facilities that have been arranged have been done by people of faith. The recording that’s been done… I wasn’t even responsible for recording any of the ten talks; a fellow volunteered, and you know, it was a good idea that he do that. But I just went to give talks; I didn’t give any thought at all to preserving them. And he began a practice of doing that and then making them available on CD—which, in turn, led (ultimately) to the Restoration Archives, in which a vast library of recorded material has been preserved. Well, I look at everything that has been done, and I admire a lot of the people, and I’m in awe of some of the successes that have been achieved. I don’t personally take any pride in that. I think what I’ve done, I’ve done inadequately, haltingly. But I’ve learned a lot! I’ve learned a lot. I have a better understanding…

When the Scripture project was approaching its completion and the idea was that we would take it to the Lord in prayer, my first thought was, “Something like that deserves the dignity, it has the solemnity, and it has the importance that the prayer ought to be written down.” Because when the Kirtland Temple was dedicated, the dedicatory prayer was written down, and then it was read. And so, while it’s really unusual in my life (it may be the only one I’ve ever written down), I sat down to write a prayer because I believed—I had this conviction—that that’s what needed to happen.

I sat down to write the prayer, and the prayer was given by revelation; the conviction was all that I brought to the party. That prayer more succinctly deals with the entire sweep of the history of the Restoration in just very few words—I mean, I’ve written volumes of history trying to explain things, and that prayer does it more clearly, more accurately, more succinctly than I ever did. So if I compare that prayer (which, literally, all I was, was the scribe that wrote it down) with what I’ve written, all that does is make me feel verbose and inadequate—’cuz I take a lot more words to say what the Lord can say in fewer words. Well, when the prayer got answered, the answer came with such clarity that I thought, “Oh, I’d better write this down!” And I was forbidden. “No.” And that just seemed odd. Why would you…? Why would you get so clear an answer if you’re not supposed to write it down? It’s got to be written down.

And then it changed—so that the words that would have been written down wouldn’t were not the same. And I thought, “Oh, that’s why I didn’t write it down, because it was a diff… There was a change; it needed a change to be made. So, now I can write it down. Now I can write that.” No, I was forbidden from writing it down—because the prayer changed again. And what it finally… This happened several times. And what it finally got through to me was: Heaven responds to what happens on Earth immediately, instantly; They see what’s going on. We are turbulent; we are in motion. And how we are in one moment doesn’t reflect the maturity that we acquire in a later moment in the give and take of abusing and misusing and misunderstanding one another and then being humiliated by that and then growing up a little bit and being a little better person. And so, the answer changed because the real world changed until, finally, it got to the… And I held off. I held off because, in my view, this could be different right up until the very end.

It finally stabilized because of the PEOPLE, not because of me. Because of the people, it stabilized, and then the command came, “Write it.” And so now, the whole thing came in one writing. And it wasn’t the same as it would have been a month earlier, a week earlier, or two weeks earlier, because there were still people that had to work some things out “as between one another” that hadn’t stabilized yet. And it was a fabulous education. The Lord’s invested a great deal in getting things done. I’m not the smartest, the best, or (I don’t even think) the most worthy—but I WILL follow direction. And I WILL limit what I say and do to what I’m told to say and do, and go no further. And I do think there’s a great deal of material yet to tumble out from Heaven. But Heaven alone is gonna control that, and I don’t take any pride in any of it. But I do think that I’ve been serviceable, and I’m glad at that. I just wish I had been more so; I wish I could persuade more people. I know there are people with probably legitimate complaints and criticisms of me that find that I create a barrier for them in connecting up with the Lord and what He’s doing now. That’s unfortunate. I wish I were not an impediment to anyone. I wish they would just read the material and forget about me because the material stands on its own. It will lead you to truth. It will lead you to light. You don’t need to say, “Oh, he’s this, or he’s that” or “He’s NOT this, and he’s NOT that.” And I’ll admit, I’m not THAT! But God IS something, and He’s working. And He’s working right now to achieve an end, and it’s going to be glorious.

There was another hand up here I thought. Yeah, yeah? Question #8: What’s the risk we’ll fail?
DS: Oh, man.
Audience Member: What’s the question?

DS: What’s the risk that we will fail? Zion and a city of God that got caught up to Heaven, in the history of the world, has been accomplished two times. There will be a third time, but this Zion will not be caught up; instead, Heaven will come down. It’s prophesied. It’s promised. It WILL happen, but the prior two—literally—one was antediluvian, and one was immediately post-deluge, and look at all the generations of people that have come and gone and have not seen Zion. I mean, the Lord’s lamentation is, “How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not.” That lamentation is found in every volume of Scripture that we’ve got (including our new Scriptures; every volume of those). So the impediment isn’t God’s willingness to bring Zion; the impediment is always our end, not…

How can you have one of the most qualified New Testament scholars that exists in the world today be agnostic? I mean, how is that possible? It’s because “getting the information” doesn’t mean “living the religion.” It’s because “memorizing long passages of scripture” doesn’t mean “living the religion.” You can have all the theology and understanding that any man has ever attained to, but if it’s not alive in you—if that spark of the divine is not part of your experience and your life—then it’s still nothing more than an idea.

When the Mormon missionaries came and taught me (and they taught me the Joseph Smith story), I literally thought all Mormons saw angels. I literally thought that was what the Mormon religion was. I got baptized, and it was some short while after that, that I get caught up to Heaven, and I’m in the presence of an angel—and it didn’t… It didn’t surprise me; it didn’t put me off; it didn’t… I thought, “Yeah, this is that new religion that I joined! This is the way this works! Yeah!” And so, I’m acting more like a tourist than anything else. I’m confident I was a disappointment. I mean, you’ve got all the solemnity of eternity in the countenance of this Being. I can quote him; I’ve done that before: “On the first day of the third month, your ministry will begin, and so, you must prepare”—that was his message. (You’ve heard that; I’ve said that a time or two.) But I didn’t ask anything. I didn’t… I thought, “Hey, I like this new religion! This is kind of nice. But this seems like such a humorless fellow, you know?—dressed in white and looking all like granite practically…” BOO! You know, he probably came back to return and report and said, “What the hell are you thinking with that guy? He’s not all that!” Yeah, there’s another story. I don’t tell that one, but maybe I should.

Yeah? Yeah?
Question #9: I have a question about miracles.

DS: Miracles.

Question #9 (continued): Yes, in Third Nephi, when the disciples were asking about what the church of Christ told them that if it is built upon my gospel then the works of the Father would be manifest in them. You read in Fourth Nephi about healing the sick and the lame walking. What is it that we lack, if we are one on the path of the gospel, to get those words of the Father manifested?

Audience Member: Can you repeat the question?

DS: Yeah, he’s saying that the works of the Father get shown forth in people of faith, and what is it we lack that we don’t have the miracles that they talk about in Fourth Nephi, and the obvious and the simple answer is: faith. I mean… I…

It’s a funny thing about faith and healings and miracles and signs, okay? On the one hand, signs do follow those who believe. And on the other hand, those who seek for a sign lack faith; very often, those who seek for a sign are adulterers because it’s a wicked and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign. I have seen signs and miracles; there’s people in this room that could tell you about miracles that have occurred as a consequence of faith and obedience. And I don’t do that. I don’t talk about that. Because very often the people most interested in that are people that go from one titillating story to another titillating story. Christ would admonish those for whom miracles were performed to tell no one, to keep it quiet. And part of the reason for doing so is because those kinds of incidents inspire and attract a certain type of person—and those people are quick to convert, fickle, they have shallow roots, and they don’t go anywhere. They dry up in the heat of the day. So all it takes is a little opposition, and then those that flock in to that run away.

I have witnessed miracles. I have seen miracles. I don’t talk about them because I believe that, in the end, the more we focus on the search for finding and experiencing those, the less our search is for bending the knee and submitting to the will of the Father. And there may be more on that in the future—because I was pursuing that very specifically and recently learned that God has purposes behind who He heals and who He does not heal and why He does and why He does not. And I’m not sure that it would be of any use at this moment to talk about that, but God knows what He’s doing. And sometimes there’s a much, much bigger set of dynamics that are involved in what’s going on down here: who’s taken, who’s left, why someone is taken, and what purposes are achieved. But God literally is in charge of everything. And miracles do happen. Just because they’re not, you know, turned into a headline doesn’t mean that they haven’t and that they don’t occur. They do.

Yeah?

Question #10: I’ve got a question about baptism.

DS: Baptism.

Question #10 (continued): It says you have to have six or seven women. And I only know two.

DS: Oh.
Question #10 (continued): So where do I get, if somebody wants to get baptized, where do I find six [seven] women that knows my…

DS: Well, you ought to get another four [five] women to talk to the two women that know you, and one of the places where that happens are at conferences, and this is a conference. I mean, some of you ladies need to get to know this fellow. (There—that sounds like an early pioneer Mormon Utah come on if I ever heard one!) No, we should/you should take care of that here at the conference, and if the two women who do know you can talk to other women who are present here and they can/the other women can ask you questions, you should be able to get that taken care of right here during this, before this is up.

Yeah, there’s an arm up back there…?

Question #11: Yeah, in Third Nephi, when the Lord… I’m going off of the Ten Talks when you made mention “their works not their book”, their works not their book with the remnant of Lehi [indecipherable]. Can you talk about that for a second, what he meant by that? I mean, if I understand right, we’re working a mighty change to bring a book to them, but what are the works more specifically that even the Lord said would be that sign?

DS: (Well, apparently my time is up.) Okay, so one of the ways in which John is described after his translation is that he became a ministering angel to “minister to those who are heirs of salvation.” The responsibility to work out salvation is the responsibility of mortals. If…

No generation is going to have an advantage over another generation by having a resurrected, visible, angelic ministrant walking around as the preacher. They minister to people whose responsibility it is to teach. And so, the works that they do behind the scenes are the works that angels do (hey, Steph, can you bring the sling up? I’m gonna put my arm back in), that the works that they do are behind the scene, and the same kind of thing that would be done by an angel (and not publicly), they (the ministers that… the translated three Nephites, John, and others) do, “holy men whom ye know not of” do are designed to fulfill and keep the covenants of the Fathers. But it’s all…

Everything that’s going on has been and is designed to achieve the fulfillment of the covenantal process in which God’s gonna keep faithful to the agenda that began with Father Adam and Mother Eve and is intended to culminate in a wrapping-up scene in which the world is judged, the wicked are destroyed, and there is a season of peace brought on the earth. And between the beginning and the end, there has always been a process in which angelic ministrants behind the veil educate and then send forth mortals to teach mortals so that the work of salvation gets done BY mortals, and the test is the same in every generation.

No generation gets to say, “Yeah, but they had THIS.” I mean, Christ is the closest thing we have to something that’s supernatural that walked on the earth, but look at how few people followed after Him. When He gave His bread of life sermon, practically everyone abandoned Him and went back the other way. And by the time He enters triumphant into Jerusalem—and they’re laying down their coats, and they’re laying down their palm trees, and they’re celebrating: “Hosanna, Hosanna”—well, a few days later, no one interferes when He’s marched up to Golgotha and nailed to the tree! And the few people that, you know, they trusted in Him, and look what a big disappointment He is. It takes the resurrection, and THAT was largely held to a private event of a handful of faithful people. And by the time you get to the book of Acts and you look at the numbers, there’s about 500 people that believed in Christ. That’s about it. So, you know, you can say you would have believed had you been there, but from all the thousands who WERE there, in the end, only about 500 of them believed. And as the sad story of Nauvoo was told today, how many of them believed? How many of those people that were contemporaneous with Joseph Smith ever realized just what an extraordinary blessing he was to have had around in their day? I mean, it was an utter… It was an utter failure.

Let me end ‘cuz I’ve…

(Oh no, I’ll tell that story some other time…)

Thanks for coming. I hope that people beyond this crowd listen to some of the comments that were made here today. I thank the organizers and the Thomas Sisters and everyone that’s participated or will participate, and I’m sorry that I won’t be around tomorrow. Thank you for coming.

Q&A TRANSCRIPT

The post Hear and Trust the Lord appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following remarks were shared in Meridian, Idaho, on February 26, 2022 at the “Rescuing the Restoration Conference”.

Christianity was languishing at the time that Joseph Smith lived, and Joseph Smith took Christianity and changed it (to borrow from Mark Twain) to the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Joseph Smith envisioned a form of Christianity in which the God of Heaven Himself was accessible, living, proximate, nearby to each and every one of us—as opposed to Christianity in a diluted form, in which the philosophies of men (which are considerably far more boring than the declarations of Scripture) were mingled with and diluted Scripture into something that only a philosopher could really appreciate. Joseph Smith’s “living Christianity” promised things that were akin to what Christianity looked like when the New Testament was being composed. 

The culmination of the development of doctrine and teachings by Joseph Smith was a temple ceremony that (in a diluted form) is still reenacted in LDS temples today—in which the journey of Adam and Eve is simply figurative, and those who participate are instructed to envision themselves as if they were, respectively, Adam and Eve. The journey culminates with an experience in which “having been true and faithful,” they’re invited to “converse with the Lord through the veil” and then, having conversed with the Lord through the veil, to “enter into His presence.” That part of the ceremony is rife in the form of Christianity that Joseph Smith restored, from the beginning and throughout. It can be summarized in a single verse that Joseph Smith gave us by revelation which says, Verily thus sa[ith] the Lord: It shall come to pass that every soul who forsakes [his] sins, and comes unto me, and calls on my name, and obeys my voice, and keeps all my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am (T&C 93:1, emphasis added; see also D&C 93:1). 

See, the religion that Joseph restored divides things up into categories that the vocabulary of the Book of Mormon clarifies: 

• You have “belief” if you have a correct understanding of true teachings that are given to you in an authentic way that actually reflect the religion that God would like you to possess.
• You have “unbelief” when you have something other than that. If an error creeps in, you have unbelief. By and large, Christianity today is composed, essentially, of unbelief held by unbelievers because they cannot have belief without true doctrine, and you cannot reject the words of God and claim to be a believer in Him. 
• The word “faith” is applied to those to whom angels have ministered. 
• And the word “knowledge” is applied to those who have entered into the presence of the Lord. Joseph Smith was attempting to restore a form of Christianity designed to give mankind knowledge. So, you “shall see my face and know that I am.” 

In another place (this is language from the Testimony of St. John), the Lord said: 

Remember that I will ask the Father, and he will provide…you another Comforter, that he may be by your side endlessly. You will obtain the record of Heaven, the truth of all things which is denied to the world because the world refuses my Father, and therefore they do not know him. But you know him, for he is with you, and shall provide answers to guide you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will stand at your side also. 

…To those who show love for me, my Father will show love to them, and I love all those, and I will personally minister to them. (TSJ 10:11-12, emphasis added; see also John 14:15-21 KJV)

This is the gospel of Christ. This is the promise that was made. In the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith restored, we have a promise:

It shall come to pass that if the gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day…

…“that day” being the time when the Book of Mormon should come forth, “that day” not being when the Lord was resurrected. At the time of the Lord’s resurrection, what He said was, “They understood me not that I was not gonna go to the Gentiles at that time. They were gonna hear about me through the ministry of my servants, but I will not show myself to the Gentiles in that day.” Here Nephi is writing about the time in which the Book of Mormon would come forth, a much later time period—the difference between approximately 33 AD and 1830 AD, so:

It shall come to pass that if the gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that he shall manifest himself unto them in word and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks, and harden not their hearts against the Lamb of God, they shall be numbered among the seed of thy father. Yea, they shall be numbered among the house of Israel; and they shall be a blessed people upon the promised land for ever. (1 Nephi 3:25 RE, emphasis added; see also 1 Nephi 14:1-2 LE)

…if they will hearken unto the things that the Lord intends for them to receive in that day. 

So, there’s a process that’s described in the Book of Mormon, the religion that Joseph Smith restored. 

He sent angels to converse with them, who caused men to behold of his glory…

See, angels come to visit with and minister to people. Those to whom the angels minister now are able to behold the glory of God. 

And they began from that time forth to call on his name; therefore, God conversed with men… 

The angelic “faith” secures for them “knowledge”—because it’s their ministry to bring them into the presence of God. 

Therefore, God conversed with men and made known unto them the plan of redemption which had been prepared from the foundation of the world. And…he made known unto them according to their faith, and repentance, and their holy works. (Alma 9:7 RE, emphasis added; see also Alma 12:29-30 LE)

This is a religion Joseph Smith was restoring. This is what’s testified to in the Book of Mormon as the manner in which these things unfold. It’s a question that gets posited by Moroni, towards the end of the Book of Mormon:

Hath miracles ceased? Behold, I say unto you, nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men. For behold, they [the angels] are subject unto him [God], to minister according to the word of his [God’s] command, shewing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness. And the office of their ministry [that is, the job that angels are employed by God to perform; this is the office that they occupy; these are their responsibility—the “office of their ministry”] is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfill and to do the work of the covenants of the Father which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels… 

Angels declare things to men; the men to whom it is declared are called “chosen vessels.” Now understand: This is Moroni. In Alma, it’s made clear that angelic ministrants don’t just come to men. They come to men and to women and to children—but we’re not in Alma now, so don’t be hung up on the fact that he is addressing the office and the calling in the masculine. Okay? It’s of no moment. 

…declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him; and by so doing, the Lord…prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the holy ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men. (Moroni 7:6 RE; see also Moroni 7:29-32 LE)

All of this serves the purpose of accomplishing and fulfilling the covenant word God gave previously to those that secured covenants with God in past generations—so that God’s promises are vindicated, and no word that God ever pronounced from the beginning to any of those that have received a covenant from God will fall to the earth unfulfilled. They will all be fulfilled. And the system in which that takes place is: 

• Men who have faith receive the ministering of angels. The purpose of the ministry of the angels is to assist so that the fulfilling of the covenants can take place by declaring it unto the “chosen vessels.”
• They, in turn, have the obligation to disseminate the information to the residue of the people so that they may have faith in and receive ministering by the Holy Ghost so that the work can be done. 

The word “residue” is interesting. It shows up here; it also shows up in another place in which, three years previous to the death of Adam in the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, there were gathered together seven who were direct lineal descendants of Adam who stood within the Holy Order, and the Lord came and ministered to them. And the residue of Adam’s posterity who were righteous were also present on that occasion. So when the word “residue” is used here in Moroni, think about how the word “residue” gets used, likewise, in the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman when Adam, three years previous to his death, is ministered to by Christ, and the residue were also present. So, it’s not belittling anyone. 

Let’s go to that Alma thing that I referred to. It’s in Alma chapter 9[16]. And it says that He sent angels to converse not only to men but also to women and to children also (and I’m using the new set of Scriptures). 

Well, what is the purpose of the Lord in causing all these things to happen, okay? It’s so that we can attain to an understanding of the things that the Lord would like you to comprehend about Him. In the testimonies that we have in the four Gospels, we learn about the sacrifice that Christ made, His passion, His death, His resurrection. But apparently, the four Gospel accounts do not give prominent enough explanation of the Atonement suffering that the Lord had, because in the early days of the Restoration through Joseph Smith, Christ gave a more fulsome explanation of what it was that He went through in atoning for mankind’s sins. This is language from a revelation that was given in 1830: 

I command you by my name, and…my almighty power that you repent, repent lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore — how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. 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. Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.(T&C 4:5; see also D&C 19:15-19)

Not one word of the suffering the Lord describes in this revelation talks about the cross. He’s talking exclusively about the experience that He had in Gethsemane—which is one of the curiosities about the Restoration, with Christendom having crosses everywhere (yeah, that being the result historically of Constantine and the battle on the bridge, in which his troops painted the cross on their shields and won an unlikely victory over the adversary when the leader—the idiotic leader—of the opposition rode out in full armor onto the bridge and fell into the water, and gravity took care of the rest). So, here we have the Lord, after talking about eternal punishment and endless punishment, giving you a description of what it was that He went through and telling us that that was rather exquisite. 

In our day in our Scriptures (meaning the Restoration Scriptures that were approved at a conference in 2017 and adopted as a new set of Scriptures), a revelation in our own day is given by the Lord to describe what He went through so that we can understand and have more faith in Him. And this is from modern Scripture:

I knew a man in Christ about four years ago who, being overshadowed by the spirit on the 26th of February, 2005, had the Lord appear to him again. And the Lord spoke to him face to face in plain humility, as one man speaks to another, calling him by name. As they spoke the Lord put forth His hand and touched the eyes of the man and said, Look! The man had opened before him a view of the Lord kneeling in prayer. It was…a dark place. The air was heavy and overcast with sorrow. The man beheld the Lord praying in Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal and before His crucifixion.

All the Lord had previously done in His mortal ministry by healing the sick, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, restoring hearing to the deaf, curing the leper, and ministering relief to others as he taught was but a prelude to what the Lord was now to do on this dark, oppressive night.

As the Lord knelt in prayer, His vicarious suffering began. He was overcome by pain and anguish. He felt within Him, not just the pains of sin, but also the illnesses men suffer as a result of the Fall and their foolish and evil choices. The suffering was long and the challenge difficult. The Lord suffered the afflictions. He was healed from the sickness. He overcame the pains, and patiently bore the infirmities until, finally, he returned to peace of mind and strength of body. It took an act of will and hope for Him to overcome the affliction which had been poured upon Him. He overcame the separation caused by these afflictions and reconciled with His Father. He was at peace with all mankind.

He thought His sufferings were over, but to His astonishment another wave overcame Him. This one was much greater than the first. The Lord, who had been kneeling, fell forward onto His hands at the impact of the pain that was part of [the second, greater] wave.

This second wave was so much greater than the first that it seemed to entirely overcome the Lord. The Lord was now stricken with physical injuries as well as spiritual affliction. As he suffered anew, His flesh was torn which he healed using the power of the charity within Him. The Lord had such life [force] within Him, such power and virtue within Him, that although he suffered in His flesh, these injuries healed and His flesh restored. His suffering was both body and spirit, and there was anguish of thought, feeling, and soul.

The Lord overcame this second wave of suffering, and again found peace of mind and strength of body; and His heart filled with love despite what he had suffered. Indeed, it was charity or love that allowed Him to overcome. He was at peace with His Father, and with all mankind, but it required another, still greater act of will and charity than the first for Him to do so.

Again, the Lord thought His suffering was over. He stayed on His hands and knees for a moment to collect Himself when another wave of torment burst upon Him. This wave struck Him with such force he fell forward upon His face. He was afflicted by this greater wave. He was then healed, only to then be afflicted again as the waves of torment overflowed. Wave after wave poured out upon Him, with only moments between them. The Lord’s suffering progressed from a lesser to a greater portion of affliction; …as one would be overcome by Him, the next, greater affliction would then be poured out. Each wave of suffering was only preparation for the next, greater wave.

The pains of mortality, disease, injury, and infirmity, together with the sufferings of sin, transgressions, guilt of mind, and unease of soul, the horrors of recognition of the evils men had inflicted upon others, were all poured out upon Him, with confusion and perplexity multiplied upon Him. (T&C 161:1-8)

This goes on to describe what He went through in Gethsemane, in further detail, and then the resurrection and His coming forth out of the grave. 

So, why does the Lord want us to comprehend something about what He endured in Gethsemane? In Isaiah, there’s a passage that says: 

When you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed; he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see…the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 19:3 RE, emphasis added; see also Isaiah 53:10-11 KJV)

What Christ acquired through His suffering was knowledge and understanding of everything you have or will ever go through or suffer. He understands. But He doesn’t understand that in order for you to simply be the passive recipient of a blessing that He confers as a consequence of what He went through. He went through it so He can guide you to the same end. There is no magic fairy dust. You must rise up. You must overcome sin. You must leave behind you the things that bring about guilt and remorse. He has finished His preparations. And now the Righteous (who has knowledge of how to bring you through that) can guide you, can lead you, can succor you in your affliction so that you too can overcome that portion of the world that you have to contend with. 

Listen to the words that the Lord gives us in an answer concerning the covenant that He’s renewed again in our day: 

Although a man may err in understanding concerning many things, yet he can view his brother with charity and come unto me, and through me he can with patience overcome the world. I can bring him to understanding and knowledge. Therefore, if you regard one another with charity, then your brother’s error in understanding will not divide you. I lead to all truth…  

This is Christ talking: “I lead to all truth.” 

I will lead all who come to me to the truth of all things. The fullness is to receive the truth of all things, and this too from me, in power, by my word, and in very deed… 

…the same thing that Nephi had prophesied would happen in this day. Christ is saying He’ll do it; we will get it from Him “in power, by my word, and in very deed.” 

For I will come unto you if you will come unto me. (T&C 157:53, emphasis added)

There’s this passage that we’ve got—it’s probably recitable by all of you who are here. I want to look at that as I conclude and put it in the context of everything that you face and everything that you will face, through and including your own ultimate final disease and death. Okay? 

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not lack. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters… 

You know, the waters are going to be turbulent! That’s just the way it’s gonna be. But if He is by your side, the turbulence is of no moment. He leads you beside the still waters because “Peace, be still” is His message, even when you are in the midst of the hurricane itself. 

He restores my soul. He leads me in the [path] of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil… 

You’re going to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. But if death has no claim on you because of promises He has given to you, what is there to fear? Why not look forward to what comes next? It’s gonna be far more interesting than what you’re going through lying in your final illness or coping with whatever they do to you in the medical industry on your way out. 

I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff… 

Well, what’s the rod, and what’s the staff? They’re things you use to beat or steer or grab or jerk the animal to get the animal back on the right path. These are implements of (frankly) cruelty—not because you’re trying to hurt your sheep; you’re trying to keep them from falling off the cliff; you’re trying to keep them from injury and death. You may have to discipline with a rod or with a staff. But the discipline is designed to correct, improve, and pull them away from an even greater danger or their own destruction. 

Your rod and your staff — they comfort me… 

And why is that? Because you understand the purpose of the Lord behind what it is that He’s doing for you. It’s designed to make you ultimately live. 

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…

You’re gonna have enemies. Well, okay. They can do you no harm. Christ said, “Don’t worry about those who can destroy the body. Worry about those things that can destroy the soul.” He’s literally saying, “Don’t be afraid of death.” There are gonna be enemies. They’re going to conspire. They’re gonna do things purposefully to try and inflict and to injure, to set back, to harm, and ultimately to kill you. And He’s saying, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” It’s of no moment. 

You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. (Psalms 23:1-2 RE; see also Psalms 23:1-6 KJV)

…in the midst of potentially turbulent waters, valley of death, and enemies surrounding you. Why is that? Because Christ overcame the world. He understands anything and everything that we will be put through. And when He says, “Peace, be still,” and counsels and comforts and guides you, He does it from a position in which He understands everything. “Art thou greater than He? The Son of Man hath descended below it all” (see T&C 139:8; see also D&C 122:8). 

Expect turbulent waters. But you can still be at peace because of Him. This is the message that Joseph Smith’s restored gospel is trying to get across to us: an immediate, accessible, proximate Lord and Savior who understands and comprehends what you are going through and what you will go through and has the ability to sucker you in your every need. It doesn’t mean your burdens are gonna go away. It means your burdens are gonna be made understandable to you so that what you experience is acceptable and does not harm your soul. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  

Okay, so we have 11 minutes in which all the people who spoke are still here, and it’s open for questions, and you can ask them anything, including, “Why’d ya ask the people to talk who talked?” There were great, by the way; they were all great (except that last speaker). 

Anyone? Oh, is that wired to the system, and it’s on? Does anyone have a question they want to ask to anyone? 

What? 

Audio/Visual: Yes, you must go up to the microphone.

Audience Member: If there are people who would like to ask questions and not be on tape, can you agree that they won’t be?

Audio/Visual: No video. We can say, “No video.”

Audience Member: We can say no video.

Audio/Visual: But the audio still goes.

Audience Member: But it’s not gonna… Okay.

Denver Snuffer: They’ve already sent the folks to photograph the license plates. They know if you’re here. [laughter] Yeah.

So you wanna…?

Audience Member: Right here’s good.  

Audio/Visual: No, we can’t hear you if you don’t come up. Please, if you’re going to ask a question, nobody can hear you unless you come up to the microphone. Thank you. 

Audience Member: Now my license plate number isn’t gonna be sufficient. 

DS: Yeah. 

Question 1: I was just wondering what’s going on with the work with the Lamanite Nations or the Lamanite people as the fulfillment of the Gentiles is done, and the Lamanite people will be involved in the last days’ (you know) New Jerusalem and so forth. I’m just curious as to what’s going on with that.

DS:  In many respects, the safest way to proceed with finishing some things is to get the work done before rolling it out for public view so that it can roll forward unhindered in getting to a state in which it’s no longer able to be frustrated. And work among the Lamanites has been ongoing for some time now. And there are concrete steps that have been and are being taken. And there will be announcements that reflect the progress that has been made once we have something more to talk about.

But believe me, a lot of work has to go into getting something ready to roll out. And although I know there are a lot of people that would like to volunteer to do a lot of things, the fact of the matter is that sometimes “a lot of people” only get in the way of one another—and it’s better to focus in and try to accomplish some things. 

The Scripture project was undertaken by a committee of people that ultimately required that the work be divided up. It was a research assignment. It wasn’t a composition assignment. It required a lot of plowing through a great deal of old texts in order to try and locate the most accurate material. And it didn’t matter who did it, the result should have been exactly the same. But when you’re dealing with limited resources, you… We can’t buy multiple sets of books costing thousands of dollars in order to give 50 people the opportunity to do something. We have to have it make some economic sense and get the work done. 

There are a lot of things like that, and right now there is an extraordinary effort that has been and is ongoing in focusing on both the Jews and the Lamanites. And in due course, when something has been suitably achieved that is worth holding up and saying, “We got something done,” everyone will know about it. But until then, people are laboring hard behind the scenes to try and get something done with as much focus and as little notice as possible. It’s the only way you get work done, really.

So, is that it? What’s the time? 

Audience Member: I have a question.

DS: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah…  

Question 2: As members of the Church, we’re taught that we receive the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost at confirmation. And I personally don’t believe that that is the case, although I think we can receive many baptisms of fire that can help sanctify us. I think even Elder Bednar mentioned in a 2010 conference talk that (you know) it’s an injunction to receive the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. So my question is, what role do you see the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost playing in receiving the Second Comforter, which is entering into the Lord’s presence?

DS: Yeah. It’s a great question. It’s a big subject; there’s a lot that probably ought to be said in order to set the stage for an answer to make a whole lot of sense. However, briefly and hitting just some high points: 

Within the Book of Mormon text, Christ gave authority to baptize by saying, “You have authority to baptize.” Christ gave authority to go perform a ministry by saying, “You have authority to go perform a ministry.” The priestly conferral of authority was the voice of God speaking to empower the individual to do it. The Holy Ghost, however, when they get to that (and it’s covered—I don’t know if it’s one verse in the LDS version; it’s one paragraph in the new Scriptures) mentions four times Jesus touched them; He touched them all. And He touched them. He touched them, okay? Everyone that got authority to baptize got it by simply the voice of God. Conferring upon someone the gift of the Holy Ghost came by touching the Savior, okay? That was a prerequisite. 

Now, hold that thought for a moment because there’s another line. It… You see it in the history of Joseph Smith in the LDS version [or in] Teachings and Commandments section one of the new Scriptures, in which Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery get authority to be baptized by John the Baptist, and then they go out, and they baptize one another. Upon their baptism, [claps hands] the Holy Ghost… They… It’s clear from the record that Joseph did not yet have authority to lay on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. They baptize, and [clap hands] the Holy Ghost is poured out upon them, so that when Oliver is baptized, Oliver immediately begins to prophesy. And when Joseph gets it, he proclaimed many great and marvelous things are about to unfold. And he talked about… He doesn’t call it prophecy, but he describes that he’s essentially doing exactly the same thing. And then the two of them, “being enlightened by the Holy Ghost,” set about to understand more mysterious passages of Scripture in a way that they could never have previously attained to, which means that they had the Holy Ghost allowing them to comprehend Scripture in a way they couldn’t have ever done. 

That description (which is more fulsome in Joseph Smith’s history or the T&C 1) mirrors the shorter description that’s given in the Book of Mormon. Every single Book of Mormon baptism is accompanied by the receipt of the Holy Ghost with no laying on of hands. Okay? It just happens: baptism and the presence of the Holy Ghost. In the LDS model: “We lay our hands upon your head and confirm you a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and say unto you, Receive the Holy Ghost.” Those are the words. That is… Those are the ordinance words (I know, ‘cuz I’ve done that…many times). They are not conferring upon someone the gift of the Holy Ghost; they are admonishing them to do something and to receive something. 

So, baptism and the presence of the Holy Ghost occurs (within the Book of Mormon model and in the Restoration-through-Joseph model) automatically upon baptism. And Christ describes His gospel, and He describes His doctrine; and in both of them, the way that the Lord describes them is: You go get baptized, in faith, repenting; and upon that, then the Holy Ghost ministers to you. 

The difference between the “gift of the Holy Ghost” and “receiving the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost” and the “presence of the Holy Ghost” and the “ministry of the Holy Ghost” is ofttimes described (if you’re willing to read through a lot of Ensign articles, General Conference talks) it’s conditional, okay? You have to repent of your sins, and you gotta stay in the right way, or the Holy Ghost is going to depart from you. And they tell you that. The Holy Ghost will leave you if you’re not a good little boy. And that means that you’ve got to (oh, I guess it was Boyd Packer): “You gotta leave that little factory alone.”

The Holy Ghost can be offended and withdraw if the presence of the Holy Ghost has come as a consequence of faith, repentance, and baptism. The gift of the Holy Ghost that the disciples were given by coming into direct contact with the Lord was the power to confer upon someone the indelible presence of the Holy Ghost… (Keith, you gotta stop laughing. You’re gonna make me… I move on from these things, and if I stop and think about it, I think, “Oh, you’re such an ass.”) …the indelible presence so that when you offend the spirit, it doesn’t withdraw. In some respects, it gets louder; it convicts you and convinces you that what has been done is an error—which then requires some explanation about what it means to offend or to deny the Holy Ghost, and it’s not… 

Denying the Holy Ghost is not doing something you know to be wrong while the Spirit is counseling you not to do so (because people will do that for a whole host of reasons, some of which may include the desire to try and achieve a good end by doing something that they know to be off the mark in the hopes that it’ll work out). Denying the Holy Ghost means that you come out in outright rebellion against God, that you are committed to a contrary course; you are working at cross purposes to God’s purposes, and you’re doing so deliberately—with the intent that you’re trying to overthrow the kingdom of God. 

In order to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost, if you read the Book of Mormon and you pay attention to what it’s saying, it mandatorily requires that the person who is going to confer the gift have come into contact with the Lord. The Lord confers that directly upon the person. What the LDS Church model suggests is the same thing that the “Oliver Cowdery / Joseph Smith baptism before the higher priesthood was restored” and what the Book of Mormon model suggests, which is faith, repentance, baptism. You’ve got to repent of your sins. You’ve got to witness unto the Lord that you’re leaving those sins behind, and acting no hypocrisy, go in, and receive baptism—at which point, the Holy Ghost is secured. It comes…  It bears witness of the Savior. 

I was baptized into the LDS Church in 1973, and I recall on the beach… We baptized in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Maine, and cold water—and I recall kneeling after the baptism in North Atlantic cold water, the Spirit being poured out upon me and being warm from head to toe. It was odd. I physically felt warm. I mean, I would agree that you call that “fire in the Holy Ghost” because it… I was shivering. And I was so warm that I was absolutely comfortable. And funny things happened after that—I mean, odd things. I did prophesy. And I did read the Scriptures, and they came alive. I’d been read the New Testament by a Baptist mother my whole youth, and they were kind of boring. And now they were astonishing! The Scriptures came alive in a manner that could not have previously been attained to. 

And we’re after six [o’clock], thankfully. Thank you all. (Don’t forget your ring.)

TRANSCRIPT

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