Light and Truth

These comments were shared at a home fireside in West Jordan, UT on Friday, December 17th, 2021.

Transcript

There are a lot of ways to triangulate into the story of Christmas. But I thought one thing that might be interesting to look at would be the significance of women and their role, motherhood, and the coming of children into the world, generally as a theme and then—ultimately—specifically in the case of the Christmas story. But I want to go a long way back before starting and take a look at a child that was born about 1100 years earlier, when Israel as a people had stabilized, had gotten an inheritance in the land, had been observing the law of Moses and the festivals that had been established under the law. They had a known hierarchy. They had locations where the center of worship was located. And everything had settled down into a pattern where you could clearly identify people in authority; you could clearly identify how, where, and when the religious observances ought to take place. And Israel as a people had assumed a very stable form. 

And it was utterly corrupt. The center of the religion housed and was presided over by a family who engaged in drunkenness and immorality and seducing of women in the shadow of the tabernacle. And they were utterly off the mark—completely compliant with a recognized structure, unquestionably knew who was in authority, and everything about them was offensive to God. 

And in the midst of this mess, an Ephraimite’s wife, who was barren and couldn’t have children, went up to the tabernacle on one of the festivals (because they were observing the festivals—the only reason to go up would have been on one of those occasions). She went up to the tabernacle. Don’t know the date; don’t know when; don’t know which observance brought them there. But while there with the rest of her family enclave, she prayed that her barrenness would be removed and she be able to have a child. 

And the wicked priest Eli—who tolerated his whoremonger sons, Hophni and Phineas—saw her moving her lips, but no words were coming out. And he made the normal assumption about the condition of the folks at the tabernacle at that time, and he assumed that she was drunk. And it was in the morning, and he more or less chided her for being drunk so early. (I mean, this is the kind of behavior we expect in the afternoon or the evening, but not in the morning.) 

“You shouldn’t be out here drunk and carrying on this early in the day.” And she corrected him and said, No, she was praying. And he (without knowing what she was praying for) said, “A religious, righteous woman! May the Lord grant your prayer.” The priest was unworthy. There was no reason why God would respect what this priest had to say. But he said to her, [May] God…grant you your petition (1 Samuel 1:5 RE), and this Ephraimite woman conceived and bore a son. 

So, you ought to ask yourself: Why would the blessing of the presiding high priest (descendant of Aaron, sitting in the position of authority) who clearly could not raise sons in righteousness and who tolerated wickedness around the tabernacle, why would his statement to Hannah result in God granting her petition? It’s NOT because Eli’s faith made her whole. It’s because HER faith made her whole. She took the word of Eli, and God vindicated HER faith and gave her a son. 

So really, the greatness of the story of Samu-EL—a name that means “the voice of God”—the reason why the story of Samu-el becomes significant is because of Hannah and her faith. God wasn’t going to give to this woman of faith a son who didn’t match the worthiness of the faith of the mother that sought the blessing of the son to come. 

And so, Samu-el comes and is born. (I mean, the story is in the First Book of Samuel, and I’ve more or less summarized it.) God heard, and Samuel was born. And so, a barren woman conceives because of faith, and Samu-el comes into the world, and it changes the entire trajectory of Israel’s history at that point. In fact, it will be Samu-el who’s entrusted by the Lord to create the kings—first Saul and then David—create the kings that would replace the way in which things had been run. And Samuel found that offensive. But God told him, “Don’t worry about it, Samuel. They’re not rejecting you; they’re rejecting me.” And God’s big enough to absorb that kind of faithlessness from His people and still bear with them. 

Well, Samuel, was taken by Hannah (when he was weaned) and delivered to Eli to serve in the tabernacle—because he was a gift given to her from God, and she was returning the gift back to God after he was weaned by giving him to the high priest to raise. And Samuel grew up under the auspices of the presiding high priest in the tabernacle. And Hannah came up year by year, as the festivals were celebrated—[they] don’t identify the festival, but I’m fairly confident it was the Passover—and brought a new coat to fit her son each year because Mom was not going to abandon the son, though the son had been given back to God as her offering. 

We don’t know the timing of the incident that happens that really changes the whole direction of where this story is going, but at one point, after making the observance that: 

And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision. …when Eli was laid down in his place and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see, and before the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of [the Covenant] was [it was a tabernacle], and Samuel was laid down to sleep — that the Lord called Samuel. (1 Samuel 2:8 RE)

And Samuel went back to Eli (‘cuz he’d been called) and asked him what he wanted, and Eli said, “I haven’t said anything. Go back to sleep.” That repeats itself three times, and Eli finally says, “You’re being called by God. And the next time that voice calls to you, answer, ‘Here I am, Lord.'” 

So, the narrative tells us that Samuel did not yet recognize the voice of God—which is why he kept coming back to Eli. And then the incident happens again; the Voice calls to him, he answers and says, “Here I am, Lord.” And then Samuel encounters the Lord for the first time. The extent of what happens when he encounters the Lord is not explained—it’s just that the Lord spoke to him then. But as the narrative goes on, it confirms that what happened was, in fact, the “open vision” that did not exist in those days. So, you have this apostate Israel—this decadent group of people with a corrupted, central hierarchy—and out of that, because of the faith of a woman, a child of faith is born. And the Lord deals with Hannah’s son.

And from that moment, beginning at Samuel, something changes in the way in which the Lord will deal with Israel for generations. There is continuously a hierarchy and continuously a high priest, and continuously, there are Levites that are serving, and the structure remains intact. Samuel could not be the high priest because he was an Ephraimite. But he could be a prophet. And despite the structure, Samuel functioned as the voice of God to the people in those days. And he would be the one, ultimately, that anointed the king. And he’d be the one that ultimately replaced the king with the anointing of a second king. 

God continued to deal with Israel through prophets throughout the Old Testament period of time. And it was an extraordinary exception if one of them was from the tribe of Levi and qualified to be a priesthood holder. And yet, they functioned as God’s messenger, as God’s spokesman—which presents a problem. Because the question is: How on earth is it that prophets can come along who don’t fit into the hierarchy and match the pattern of governance that was established by Moses and respected throughout the Old Testament period? And Joseph Smith gives us the answer to that question, which is: God Himself ordained them. You had to have Melchizedek priesthood in order to enter into the presence of the Lord. But God cured that by conferring upon them the authority when He made His presence known to them, because God’s a clever fellow, and He knows how to get around whatever rule there is that gets established. 

So, Israel continues on their downward spiral. God peels off ten of the twelve tribes through captivity, and Assyria removes them, takes them over the Euphrates, dispossesses them of their land. They get freed, but they don’t return to Israel. They’re prophet-led after their scourging, after their imprisonment, after their enslavement—but they’re prophet-led after they repented. But they never return. When they cross the Euphrates, upon their return, they turn north, and then they get lost. So those are the lost ten tribes. 

Judah and the Southern Kingdom, they remain behind until—from 725 until about 600—so, for another one and a quarter centuries. And then they’re taken captive by Babylon, and they’re treated similarly. And when they return, Ezra, Nehemiah… They reestablish, and they reestablish a hierarchy (and the hierarchy matched what Moses had established). And it required that you be able to prove genealogically that you were of the house of Aaron or the tribe of Levi in order to be a Levitical priest or in order to be the governing high priest or part of the high priesthood’s family in succession. And some people claimed that, that couldn’t prove that, and they said, Okay, you can’t function until there arise someone with Urim and Thummim that can get revelation to identify your genealogical qualifications to serve. 

And so they divided up the folks that were able to return and prove (or get otherwise established by revelation) to be qualified to serve in the temple. And they divided them up into 24 courses. One of the 24 courses was the “course of Abijah.” And they would come to minister in the temple on a circulating basis; every 24 cycles, you’d get back to your course (except that when there was one of the festivals, everyone showed up—you had to have all of them in order to take care of what went on during the festival season). And so it was that Luke tells us that: 

In the days of Herod the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abijah, and his wife — being of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elizabeth — were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless; …they had no child. Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well-stricken in years. 

And while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his priesthood, according to the law… (Luke 1:2-3 RE) 

So, Zacharias has come to the temple. It cycles through—you have to go outside of the scriptural record in order to put together part of what’s going on. But in order to serve in the capacity that Zacharias will serve (that we’re gonna read about in just a moment), you had to win the lottery (and I mean, literally—they drew lots). And if the service in the temple needed someone and you had not been selected, then you remained in the drawing of the lots. But if you had been through and you had rendered that service in the temple, you weren’t in the lot drawing. And apparently, based upon the record, Zacharias was an old guy, and he’d never won the lottery (kind of like those guys that drive up, you know, to Malad, Idaho to buy the lottery ticket when the number gets high enough, and they come back disappointed year after year). Well, Zachariah had been doing that because it was considered an extraordinary honor to have been allowed to go into the temple and to participate in the service that he was gonna render, in particular.

The way that the service got performed, they kept, outside the temple, they kept the altar of sacrifice burning continuously; it was always on fire. They cleaned it up from the ash from time to time, but the coals remained behind. When the occasion required the incense to be burned in the Holy Place, there were two priests who went in, one of whom got the ashes off of the little golden altar, and the other of whom put a shovelful of coals onto the golden altar (inside, before the veil of the Holy of Holies). One came in to clean, the other came in to deposit the coals, and then they were to depart. They could not turn their back on the Holy of Holies; that would be disrespectful. So they would back out, carrying what they brought with them, and they would leave. And then the priest who was allowed to burn the incense (that’s who we’re gonna read about in a minute), he then put the incense on the coals, and he gave a prayer before the Holy of Holies, outside the veil, while the incense ignited and burned. And the interior (above the altar), a column of smoke would rise up, and it would spread out on the ceiling of the Holy Place, which is where he was located, while he was offering a prayer—the ascending smoke being a symbol of the prayers of Israel going up to Heaven, and then when the column reaches the ceiling, it spreads out as a symbol of the Tree of Life and representation of the salvation that God offered. 

The prayer that Zachariah offered was a set prayer. We can actually find it and read it today because Edersheim, a Jewish convert to Christianity in the 1800s, preserved the prayer. And the prayer, in its relevant part, asks God to “return the light of His countenance” to Israel. So, Zachariah offers the prayer and is petitioning God to let the light of His countenance return. 

(Okay, you can’t tell Troy everything that’s gone on, ‘cuz he’s just arrived. So it’ll be mystifying to him.) Over here. Good to see you, by the way. Yeah, hey, it started at seven. Did you know that? [Audience laughter.] Troy’s a big guy; he can take a ribbing. 

So, when the prayer gets offered, the only one that is inside the Holy Place is Zachariah. He’s won the lottery, he’s had the opportunity, he’s recited the prayer. Everyone knows what he’s praying for. And on the right side of the altar—emerging from what would symbolically be the presence of God in the Holy Place—comes the angel Gabriel, who identifies himself as: I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God (ibid. v.4). Okay? So Zachariah cannot make a mistake about who is talking and the authority represented by the voice of the person who’s just identified himself. So, Gabriel says he “stands in the presence of God,” AND “your prayer is to be answered”—so the light of God’s countenance will return to Israel. “Your prayer’s been answered; your wife is gonna bear a son.” Elizabeth—who is barren and well-stricken in years, who is righteous before God, walking in holiness, observing all of the ordinances—she is going to conceive (the woman who is barren), and she’s going to bear a son. 

So now again, we have a woman who’s going to conceive who cannot bear a child, just like Hannah before. And there’s going to be a son sent into the world who’s going to go before the face of God to prepare the way for the light of God’s countenance to return to Israel. 

And of course, Zachariah—who’s there representing Israel, asking for God to do something for the people of Israel—is a little taken off-guard. “Okay, the light of God’s countenance is going to return, and you’re Zachariah you’re Gabriel—you stand in the presence of God—and this is all great and wonderful, but uhhh… My wife is gonna have a child? I mean, we’re both in ‘assisted living’ now. And this is not really… When I’m not here, we’re in wheelchairs! I mean, she’s got that little motorcycle cub that goes down the sidewalk, but…” It’s the improbability of the mechanism that is being described for the return of God’s countenance to the people of Israel that astonishes Zachariah. “I mean, wonderful, this is a great thing that you’re going to do! And I’m happy for that. I just don’t… I just don’t get that one thing, you know: Elizabeth? And a son? Uhhh, that’s, well, improbable. In fact, I’m calling BS. Okay, I know you’re an angel and all, but I just… I’m… I’m not… I’m not seeing that.” 

And Gabriel says, “Oh, you want a sign, do you? So that you can have faith? Well, let me give you a sign. I mean, we’ve done rainbows; we’ve done floods. We produced leprosy on a hand, and we’ve removed it. We’ve parted waters. Let’s see… Okay, I got it. You’re gonna be dumb, and you’re gonna be deaf. How’s that for a sign? That way we’re not screwing up anyone’s neighborhood. We’re not wrecking the irrigation system in the valley with the water of the Jordan drying up. We’re not gonna do any of that stuff. We’ll just do it with you. How’s that sound?” 

…very calculated maneuver, because everyone knew how long the prayer would take, and Zachariah was in there too long! So everyone perceives that something’s going on that’s a bit irregular here. And one of the traditions—I’m not sure how credible it is—but one of the traditions was that the priest (who remained behind to offer the prayer) came in with a rope tied to one of his legs so that if he died while he was in there, they could pull him out, and they wouldn’t go disrupt the peace of the Holy Place; they just retrieve the guy. And if that tradition be true, I’m pretty sure that Zachariah was… 

“How can this be…? Gah! You know, give me some room here!” He was skeptical! But the people outside knew he was tarrying and something’s going on. And it’s beginning to become awkward. I mean, I can imagine people looking at one another and saying, “I don’t know. What do we do? You know, you don’t turn your back to the Holy Place. But we don’t go in their face first. Do you back in to retrieve the carcass of the old guy? I mean, this guy’s, you know… We all call him ‘a raisin’ behind his back—and that’s being generous. I mean, what do we do? What do we do?” 

He tarries long enough that it’s awkward out there. And when he emerges, Gabriel’s been really clever—because everyone wants to know, “Hey, hey, what gives?” And they perceive that something happened. And it’s a way of saying, “Too sacred for you, at this point. You’re not going to get the story just yet. You, Israel, in your messed-up, wretched, apostate state, you’re not gonna know. I’ve got my priest. I’ve got my righteous mother who’s barren, and I’ve got my miracle coming. But as for you people? You won’t know. And furthermore, when that boy is brought to be circumcised, an angel will ordain him on that day to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews, so that he will come with authority.” 

Samu-el came to try and fix and repair; John would come to overthrow. So in the apostate condition that Israel finds itself when the angel Gabriel is sent, he’s sent to allow another barren, righteous, faithful woman to bring a son into the world that will go before the presence of the Lord Himself, to prepare the way. 

Zacharias said..to the angel, How shall I know this? For I am an old man, …my wife is well-stricken in years. …the angel answer[ed and] said unto him, I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto you, and to show you these glad tidings…

And [so,] in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto the city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. (Ibid. vs. 4-5)

So, now we have a barren woman who is going to bear a child. And in the sixth month of her pregnancy, the angel Gabriel is sent again, this time to another woman—who may not have been barren, but she was also not married—and so her ability to bear a child is going to be equally miraculous with the coming of Samuel into the world, with the coming of John into the world—and this will be the Son of God. It’s in the sixth month. 

Now, we actually can calculate (because they kept pretty good records) when, in the normal rotation of things, the course to which Zachariah belonged would have been serving; it would have been at one of two times during the course of any calendar year. But the problem is, we don’t know whether the incident involving Gabriel appearing to Zachariah occurred on those days or on one of the festival dates in which the priests would be at the temple and would be sacrificing and performing the daily rituals and having lots drawn—because it happened on those dates. 

Well, if it was in a springtime observance, then the birth of John would be in the fall, and Christ’s birth would be exactly half a year opposite one another. Whether you knew it (or recall it), the tradition in the early days of the Restoration with Joseph was that the General Conference held on April 6th was held on April 6th because that was identified as the time when the Lord was born—meaning the Lord came in the spring. And if that’s the case, they then had the fall conference exactly six months later, and that would be on October 6th (so that April 6th would be Christ’s birthday, and October 6th would be exactly six months later—and no one ever pointed it out, but that would have been John the Baptist’s birthday—if you accept the six months and you accept those dates).

There’s a symmetry to that because, in the spring, you have new life breaking forth; you have a period of time in which the fall and the winter (representing death) is overthrown with the spring and the coming of new life—and the April 6th date kind of makes sense. And the October 6th date for John kind of makes sense too because you’re… That’s when you’re wrapping things up; it’s harvest time; it’s when you’re closing up shop. And if you’re talking about judgment, that sort of makes sense that that would be coinciding with the birth of John, who came to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews and bring it to an end. 

So, what the incidents represent in the story, thus far, is that a long-suffering God, who literally has put up with the disbelief, the apostasy, the wickedness, the wretchedness of people that He had called to be His—that long-suffering is not without its limits. But the limits are determined by God. He’s the one that sets it up, and He’s the one who takes it down. And part of the Christmas story is a reminder to us that even people with whom God has a sacred relationship (who He has called and restored the light of His countenance to in the person of Samu-el and other prophets that followed thereafter, including Isaiah, Zenos, Zenock), even people to whom He has extended His hand (stretched out still, despite their faithlessness), have their limits. And it is up to God to decide when the limit has been reached. And it’s up to God to decide when He will overthrow it. And when He chooses to do so, then the only thing that matters, whether anyone respected the boy or not, was that the boy be ordained to do the work. And so John’s mission, once he’s been commissioned by God to do so, could not prevent the overthrow of the kingdom of the Jews. It was God’s will. 

A lot of people thought John a mere curiosity. He may have had a father that served in the temple—but John never did. He was raised in the wilderness; he was sort of a curiosity: “Hey, I know. Grab a bag of new wine and new skins. Let’s go out in the desert and watch the wild man put a tie-one-on and have a good laugh. The guy wears camelhair clothes. I mean, I’m chafing just looking at the guy. He eats freaking locusts, man. And, you know, he eats honey. (We can make mead out of honey, and that’ll do the same trick as the wine—but he eats the honey!) I mean, let’s go see him! Oh, come on, let’s go out. Let’s do this; let’s get a good laugh. Hey, come on.”

John was not someone that was welcome to the inner circle of the kingdom, of the hierarchy, of the priestly establishment. He was not bonafide in the sense that the Jews would accept. People listened, heard, and were converted. But they were largely people who knew they needed to repent, who (for all the problems that Israel had) recognized that they themselves had something wrong with them. And therefore, their hearts were softened enough that they could take in the message that he had to deliver. The priests that came out? They didn’t believe; they had no reason to give up what they considered as their authority, their position, their hierarchy. They were bonafide. 

“There was no beauty in him that we should desire him” is kind of an English translation that’s poetical and non-literal. What the passage (which applies equally to John and to the Lord that he went before) would be better rendered, “He had no credentials that we should respect.” “There was no beauty in him that we should desire him” has created in medieval artwork these caricatures of a butt-ugly Lord. Our Lord was not an unappealing physical specimen in the flesh. But He was an outcast, and He was not someone that got respected. There was no beauty, there was no credential, there was no bona fides, there was no respectability associated with Him that we should give Him automatic respect. The Lord came (just like John came) not entitled to automatic respect. It required the words of His mouth to be heard in order to determine whether or not the man spoke for God. 

To say, “I have authority! You must respect me!” is so hollow and so insipid that no one ought respect those that come with that claim. But to speak words with authority that tell you truth, that bring light, that stir you to understand things that you did not before, that open the veil by letting in more light and truth, that by persuasion and pure knowledge give you an understanding that you did not possess before, that’s what matters. And that’s what Christ came with. And it pierced the hearts of the people who heard. 

And when they came to Christ and said, “Okay, okay, yeah… You’ve got a good schtick here… BUT what authority do you have? I mean, we can’t compete with you when you get up and you deliver a sermon like the Sermon on the Mount! But what we can claim is that we have the position of authority; we run the temple. We possess all of the accouterments—you don’t have any of the stuff that belongs to the temple in your possession. We’ve got it all! So tell us your authority, ‘cuz we can show you ours. We’ve got it all.” And Jesus says, “Hey, I’ll tell you what: You tell me what authority John had. And if you’ll answer me and tell me whose authority John had (‘cuz you didn’t accept him in your ranks; he was an outcast; he was not preferred within your organization), you tell me what authority he had, and then I’ll tell you what authority I have.” They knew that was dangerous. So, “We can’t tell you.” And so Christ, likewise, said He couldn’t tell them what authority He had. 

Everything about this story, thus far and continuing on into the life of the Lord, everything about this story has nothing to do with bonafide authority by people who possess rank and position—nothing to do with that! It has to do with angels. It has to do with women of faith. It has to do with the ability of women in miraculous ways to conceive and bear and bring forth sons commissioned by God to accomplish a work. And when they have that, it’s the only thing that matters. It changes the outcome of the history of Israel. It changes the outcome of the dispensation of Moses. God set it up, and God took it down. And He set it up in a fabulously-obvious public way. And He took it down with an obscure guy who stayed in the desert of Judea until the day that his ministry began. (It was almost like an anti-crescendo; it went out with a whimper, with the authority of God to accomplish the takedown of the kingdom.) 

And the people of that generation—whether they thought John was significant and who may have rejoiced at his beheading, and who thought the Lord was insignificant and who were glad to be rid of Him on the cross, and who resisted the rumors of His resurrection—the people of that generation knew their kingdom was overthrown when, in 70 A.D., the entirety of their construct was destroyed by a Roman army. And they literally, they literally ate the bodies of their young dead children after their children died because of the extremity that the Roman siege put them under. So the overthrow of the kingdom of the Jews was an exclamation point and unmistakable. But the moment at which the Lord caused it to happen was different—and unless you knew what John was up to and you listened and accepted the message, you wouldn’t know it had just happened. But it did. 

So, the story then turns to Mary and the accomplishment of the announcement to her (the angel Gabriel sent to her and announcing it):

And when she saw the angel, she was troubled at his saying, …pondered in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. …the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you shall conceive, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob, for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.

Then said Mary unto the angel, How can this be? And the angel answered, …said unto her, Of the holy ghost and the power of the Highest. Therefore also, that holy child that shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth, she has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren; for with God, nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid[en] of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. (Ibid. vs. 5-6, emphasis added) 

“Behold the handmaid[en] of the Lord,” the word handmaiden (Old English term), but it literally means “God’s spouse.” Behold His Wife. 

So, this kind of intimate knowledge… I mean, Luke is writing this story. And I mean, one obvious question that ought to present itself is: How does Luke know what Mary is “pondering in her heart” when he writes his account? See, the people who are New Testament scholars… Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke, and he wrote the Book of Acts. And in the Book of Acts, he uses the plural pronoun “we” at one point in the travels, and so they claim that Luke was a Gentile convert who got converted by Paul and joined him on one of Paul and Barnabas’ missions (because the “we” plural pronoun suggests that that was when he came on the scene). 

Well, the Scriptures we have in the Joseph Smith version… Joseph renders his Joseph Smith Translation version only in English. So we don’t know what the Greek counterpart necessarily would be. But one of the very first things that Joseph did to change the account in Luke was to change the first sentence. And this is how the book of Luke begins in the Joseph Smith version, As I am a messenger of Jesus Christ… (Luke 1:1 RE), and then he goes on from there. Well, you’ve got “angelos” (or angel), you’ve got “apostolos” (or apostle) for the word that appears here as “messenger.” I mean, we don’t have the Greek text to go consult. And that only appears in English. But what Luke is saying is he’s either an angelic ministrant who is commissioned with a message that was given him by God, or he’s an apostolic messenger who got the information that he’s conveying from the Lord. But neither of the options that you have suggests that Luke was some kind of Gentile convert with Paul and Barnabas going out and finding him in the Mediterranean basin and bringing him aboard. He’s talking about the earliest events that occurred in the coming forth of the Lord with intimate detail.

Luke is one of the two men walking on the road to Emmaus. He identifies by name the other person: Cleopas (Greek name, similar the male counterpart to Cleopatra, the female rendering of the Greek name). But he doesn’t identify the other guy, because that’s him. So, Luke knows things about the Lord before He comes even into conception in the womb of Mary. And the Lord spent the better part of the day of His resurrection walking on the road between Jerusalem and Emmaus and talking with them as they wondered about the events that had occurred of late. So Luke is no small potatoes. And Joseph Smith, I think, rightly changes the narrative to put him in a position to know these things. 

Well, so, the handmaiden…

…and the angel departed from her.

And in those days, Mary went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth. …it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the holy ghost, and she spoke out with a loud voice and said…(Ibid. vs. 6-7, emphasis added) 

Isn’t that interesting that Elizabeth speaks out, but what she has to say is quoted by Luke, and he makes mention that when she speaks these words, she does so in a loud voice. 

You know, the “Hosanna Shout” is is not supposed to be [spoken quietly, rhythmically, and with no enthusiasm]: 

It’s supposed to be a shout. In fact, it’s supposed to be a chaotic shout, with everyone yelling—and not in unison. Everyone knows the words, and they repeat the words. But it’s just a cacophony, a loud outpouring. Elizabeth is pretty much doing just that when Mary comes to meet her. 

Hosanna

Hosanna

To God

And the Lamb

Now, it doesn’t go into any great detail, but it’s pretty apparent that Mary stayed with Elizabeth throughout the time period—and that when Joseph and her encounter one another again, she was “showing.” And of course, Joseph wants to be discreet about it. He has no intention of making her any further humiliated. And the angel Gabriel says to Joseph, “You don’t worry about that. This is something God’s doing. And you take her to wife anyway.” 

His genealogy mattered; Mary’s genealogy mattered—He needed to be brought into that house. If the kingdom of Israel were still functioning, Christ would have been the king of Israel. It was necessary before Christ’s ministry began that Joseph die so that Joseph [Jesus] was indeed the King of the Jews. And so, all the events that happened, happened in a very calculated way. 

(Okay, Troy got here a little later, so I’ll take a few more minutes. But I intended not to impose on people by keeping them beyond one hour, and it is right now one hour—well, we started a few minutes after the hour.) 

Look, we tend to focus on the men when we read the stories. We tend to celebrate the coming of the angel Gabriel, and the guy to whom he spoke, and the status of someone burning incense in the temple, and John coming with authority and making the hierarchy upset, and Jesus, and the priest Eli, and Samu-el. But the fact of the matter is that the miraculous conception and birth of these men were entirely contingent upon the presence of faithful women who conceived and bore these sons into the world through faith. 

It was Hannah’s faith that got us Samuel, and it was Samuel that was the prototype of all of the Old Testament prophets. He was it. And following in his example—in his footsteps—were other prophets throughout the Old Testament era who came similarly called and ordained by God, in order to accomplish the various missions that they were sent. But it began with Hannah and the faith of Hannah. 

When a woman who is “otherwise unlikely to conceive and bear a child” brings a child into the world as a result of the intervention of God (and my supposition is that that’s happened throughout history a number of times), then the course of mankind’s history hinges and changes upon the faith of the woman and the birth of the child. And we tend to read the Christmas story without even noticing the overshadowing presence and role of the women—just like we read the story of Samuel, and we think, yeah, yeah, he ordained Saul to be king of Israel. And then he was the one who was blind when Samuel [Saul] came back from the war, and he brought with him all of the sheep and the cows. And he had told King Saul to destroy everything, including the animals—and Saul’s lying to him and says, “Yeah, we did what you told us. Great day. I mean, we won the game. It was a shut-out. They didn’t score a single shut touchdown; we routed them, and we did everything you told us to do.” And Samuel says, “Then what’s the bleating of the sheep and the moo-ing of the cows that I hear? Can’t see ’em, but I can sure hear ’em.” And so Saul disappoints the mouthpiece of the Lord, and bad things follow. 

Look, God does indeed control the outcome. And it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, what the hierarchy looks like, how much property they possess, whether they have all the accouterments that make them appear to possess priestly authority. All that is ever required to overthrow any establishment that God has ordained is for Him to send one person with authority to accomplish the purpose of overthrowing it. And it doesn’t even matter if those who are overthrown recognize it until 70 years later, when they’re eating the dead carcasses of their own children to keep themselves alive, otherwise dying of hunger and thirst. It doesn’t matter that they recognize or acknowledge it; it only requires that God do it. And if He’s done it, then it’s irresistible. It’ll happen. 

And so it is that the Christmas story includes a whole lot of feminist issues that we tend to overlook. I mean, the Scriptures really are replete with a whole lot more “central role of women” in the bringing of things to pass than we recognize. And the Heavenly Mother has informed us in one of the proverbs (I think it’s eight, but you can look it up; I’ve quoted it in Our Divine Parents). She’s informed us that SHE is the One who appoints kings and princes. She’s the One that makes the determination. Father defers to Her when it comes to the choosing of the sons that are to be elevated. And so you risk a great deal when you fail to acknowledge the presence and the central authority of the Divine Mother. (I’ve been trying to make that point for a while now, and I don’t know how much success that’s had.) 

Anyway, let me close by bearing testimony that miraculous conception/miraculous birth/timing—all of those things are not just done with “mighty men.” The presence; the central role; the importance of the mothers who have done the work of perpetuating the species, bringing to pass the continual presence of man on Earth; the presence of women and their integral role in the whole of it is something in the Christmas story that we ought to take a moment to reflect on, as well, and not forget the vital importance of what women have and are and do and will do. Neither is the man without the woman, [nor] the woman without the man, in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:44 RE) is another way of reminding us—in Paul’s writings—about how the Creation itself was ordained. It was not complete until the two of them were together. The image of God did not appear on Earth until you had the man and the woman together. In the image of God created he him: male and female created he them (Lectures on Faith 2:8; see also Genesis 2:8). There’s not a single man in this room who’s complete. The completion only comes with the presence of the woman. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The post A Christmas Fireside appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This interview was conducted live on November 24, 2021 by Radio Free Mormon and Bill Reel for their live blog cast.

Transcript

Radio Free Mormon (RFM): Good evening, Mr. Reel. Wow, wow, that’s impressive. Thank you, everybody.

Bill Reel: That crowd feels like it gets bigger and bigger, doesn’t it?

RFM: I know that the applause gets longer and longer every week. I don’t understand why that would be.

Bill: Yeah, there are 145 people watching at the moment. There’s already 14 comments up there. And before we jump into the show, you’ve got the topic tonight. We’ve been advertising it everywhere. So I hope people are excited. We’re interested in having this conversation today. And I’ll let you introduce our guest in just a moment. But…

RFM: I took out a full page ad in the New York Times. 

Bill: Yeah, but I did want to introduce our helping hand here, our third teammate. And so, I’m gonna change the little thing here so that’s not kind of irritating. Maven, are you there?

Maven: Yes. Can you hear me?

Bill: I can hear you. Maven is live on Mormonism Live. This is our… This is the third person, the third teammate here of the team Mormonism Live. Maven is in charge of the behind the scenes stuff going forward. And we are so excited to have her, and I just want to introduce her to all of our viewers. This is Maven. And folks, this will be who is helping us behind the scenes, and give us a few weeks to really get into the groove of it. But she’s already saving us a lot of time, energy, and resources and making things easier for me. So big kudos to Maven, and…

Maven: Thanks, though.

RFM: Hey, Maven, in the interest of transparency, Maven is not her real name. And that is not her real picture.

Bill: No, that’s…

Maven: Thank you, RFM.

Bill: She’s not actually a cartoon.

RFM: Because for some reason, she wants to maintain a certain degree of anonymity, even while she’s helping us out behind enemy lines.

Bill: I love it. 

Maven: Yes, I’m still not out to my family. So, at this point, I’m going to try the RFM route. We’ll see if I get doxxed later by anybody.

RFM: It’s a good thing you don’t have a distinctive voice.

Maven: Well, according to you, I do, so we’ll see how it goes. But I’m excited to be here for sure. I did want to just give a quick shout out for my screen name to a commenter on last week’s program. And so, it was Equinox Project. And they asked to give the behind the scenes tech-maven a nom-de-keyboard, maybe some significant Mormon woman from its history. So, I actually really liked Maven. So I picked up on that. But I have been using “Brody” as a last name, which is an obvious call-out to Fawn Brody. So…  

Bill: Oooh, I like it.

Maven: So that is where Maven came from. Thank you very much. I really liked how that sounded. And I’m really excited to be part of the show. I am not a tech-maven, but I am someone that’s interested in this, and I’m dedicated to figuring out and solving the problems. So I certainly hope I’m an add and not a subtraction from the show.

Bill: You are a huge net positive. And so, we’ll let you go back behind the scenes. But thank you so much for all that you are doing and going to continue to do here for the show and all the help you’re going to be.

RFM, I’m turning it over to you, my friend. Tonight’s show is yours.

RFM: Thank you. I am so excited about tonight’s show, because we have a very special guest on tonight’s show—a guest that I have been working on for years now to try and get him on tonight’s show. He finally caved. I think I used the missionary commitment pattern successfully to get him on the show. It’s Denver Snuffer. Do you want to bring him on?

Hello!!

Denver Snuffer: Now, who is this?

RFM: It’s Denver Snuffer, I think! I’m Radio Free Mormon, and that’s Bill Reel.

Denver: I’ve got the name RFM written right on my screen.

RFM: Yes, thank you very much. I appreciate that—because we certainly know each other a little bit more familiarly when we’re talking on the phone, et cetera. You know, we’re… I’m very excited to have you here. I think a lot of people are gonna know who you are. If I could just give a brief introduction, and hopefully I won’t get it too wrong.

You’re an individual who has written a great deal about Mormonism. And you and many similarly-minded people… You found a lot of similarly-minded people who have read your books who, in large measure, I think, agree with your points of view and who have created a rather large number of people who have left the LDS Church in favor of your teachings. I’m trying to avoid calling you a leader because I know that that is something that you eschew vehemently.

Denver: Yeah, I don’t like that. 

RFM: Right.

Denver: But I think one of the problems with religion is when you do have leaders and you have hierarchies, I think you stumble at that point.

RFM: Yes. And very brief: My understanding is that what you seek to do is to restore the church to its charismatic beginnings under Joseph Smith, which you feel got lost after Joseph Smith died and Brigham Young took over the reins, and it hasn’t been recaptured since by the official LDS Church. Is that a good thumbnail sketch?

Denver: Yeah, that’s pretty good. Back in the missionary discussions and in a big plaque on the wall in the Visitor’s Center at Temple Square, there was that quote from Roger Williams about how the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit that was evident in that first primitive church that Christ established had been lost, and that the reason that it was lost is because the Christians had no more of the spirit than the heathens had, and that the only way to get that back would be for God to send new apostles because it wasn’t gonna happen otherwise. That Roger Williams quote got used to paper over the charismatic issue for Mormonism because of the claim that we have, you know, an ongoing set of bonafide apostles, and we have an ongoing set of prophets, seers, and revelators. But as you examine the track record, the prophecy and the seership and the revelation phenomenon really was the whole reason why Joseph drew people to him. And then after his departure, the net results were quite different. 

And so, now looking at it today and examining where the LDS Church is, that sort of presence of the Spirit seems to be wanting. And I’m not trying to lead anything, but I am trying to teach about what it was that Mormonism stood for. Religion ought to be inviting; it ought to be exciting. Assuming that religion (as Joseph defined Mormonism) includes all truths, wherever you find it—it includes and encompasses all truth—assuming that is the case, then the religion ought to be the most exciting, enticing, inviting, interesting thing there is. There isn’t anything bigger than something attempting to gather all truth. And yet, Mormonism (as it has developed under the umbrella of the LDS Church) has turned into something that rather doesn’t want any new “news” intruding in, and the confining nature of how Mormonism in the LDS version is developed has resulted in a lot of people feeling like there’s got to be something more to this religion—because if it is accurately depicted in its correct form in the institution of the LDS Church, then it’s just as hollow and just as spiritless as any Protestant denomination.

RFM: Yes, and perhaps more so. My experience in church during the last couple of decades of my activity was that going to church was as boring as watching paint dry. No, actually, it was worse than that. It was as boring as watching dry paint dry. So I think you’re right. I mean, it advertises itself as the “only true and living church.” I don’t think it’s really living anymore. It may not be completely dead, but it’s definitely on life support.

Denver: Yeah, yeah…

RFM: So I wanted to tell everybody a little story about you and me on the phone the other day because I think it’s significant for what you’ve just said. But this is when I called you up, maybe a month ago. We finally got you scheduled to come on the show. And I call you up, and I say, “Hey, Denver,” and you say, “Hi, Radio Free Mormon.” And I say, “How’s my favorite prophet?”

Denver: [laughter]

RFM: And you did that: You laughed (you laughed MORE ‘cause it was, you know, new to you then; you’re hearing it for the second time now). But I thought (and I think I said, you know), “That is very, very appealing.” Because a person who does not take themselves too seriously is something that I personally gravitate toward. I think it was one of the things that a lot of people found attractive about Joseph Smith, that—in some areas, of course, he took himself seriously—but as he presented himself to the public, usually, he was very down to Earth. When I joined the church in the late 70s, we used to hear the story all the time about how he loved to pull sticks… 

Denver: Yeah. 

RFM: …with people, though I haven’t heard that in decades now. I don’t know if that went by the wayside as we moved on toward more serious-minded or presenting prophets than Joseph Smith. But I can understand why it is that you are very appealing in that way.

Denver: Well, it’s a sincerely-held conviction. I don’t think you get anywhere in the idea of “achieving oneness as people” if you start out from a proposition that there’s a structure and a hierarchy and someone’s bigger and better than someone else. I think if you go back to the New Testament and you look at what Christ did, He didn’t assert that He had authority. And when they asked Him by what authority He was doing things, He deferred on the question by posing a corollary question about the authority of John and, you know, “Tell me what the authority was,” and they could not say after they reasoned, and so their response was, “We can’t tell you where John got his authority from.” And Christ said, “Well, then neither will I tell you what my authority is.” And the matter ended. 

If the Lord… If the Lord elected not to say, “I have authority,” and it comes from whatever source, what value is it to make a bunch of claims about authority? If the Lord didn’t do it, why do we do it? I mean, I think that what the world needs right now is someone to help teach about the religion in a way that invites, entices, interests people, and inspires them to do better, because we really do need people doing better. There’s so much going on that’s depressing, and discouraging about our conversation, our society, our news, our media. Shouldn’t religion be like an oasis in the middle of all that and to make us think more deeply, more clearly, more reflectively and to enjoy life more? And you don’t get there by saying, “I’m bigger than you. My opinion matters more than does yours.”

RFM: Can I break in just to tell you a story, which you may find amusing. It was going on ten years ago, I’d never heard of you before (it probably wasn’t ten, but almost ten years ago, and I’m at church. This, by the way, is a very, very small ward in a small town in western Washington. And I have to go out to the car to get something (maybe it’s an excuse just to get away for a few minutes, you know, take a smoke break outside), but the deal was that there was nobody in the parking lot, but of course, there’s a bunch of cars, and I look over a couple cars down, and the bishop’s wife is seated in the passenger seat of the car. And I go over to her, I say, “Hi, how are you doing?” And she’s got this book that she is just bent over and riveted to. “What are you reading?” and she says, “This is a book by Denver Snuffer.” (And I don’t know which book it was.) But here we have the bishop’s wife in the parking lot during church, reading your book. And in some ways, I wonder if that’s emblematic of a lot of your followers. What do you think?

Denver: Probably so. I’ve told people that, in my view, you can remain an active Latter-day Saint, you can be a Catholic, you can be a Baptist, you can be any religion that you want to be if you find that fellowshipping helps you there. But there are some things that you ought to know, and I’m happy to teach them, and the teachings are largely based upon Scripture and not, you know, some new innovative thing—but primarily trying to point out that there’s a great deal that we already have that is poorly understood, and so let me see if I can teach you and persuade you. And if so, then welcome it if you find it to be true. And I think there are a lot of people who have found, as you pointed out, Mormonism to be stale, flat, and…

RFM: Unprofitable? 

Denver: Unprofitable. 

RFM: …to complete the Shakespearean phrase.

Denver: Yeah. And it has become so. You mentioned you came on board in the 70s. I remember in the 70s, the most interesting hour of the week was the priesthood session, with all the arguments that went on about doctrine and history and speculation about eternities. And the second most interesting hour of the week was Gospel Doctrine, where it was a free-for-all, and everyone was talking. The high priests and the elders (the priesthood group), they were a little more combative; the Gospel Doctrine—because the women were in there, it toned down a bit. But those two hours were just gripping. They were fun. It was interesting to go to church. And if you brought an investigator, they came away saying, “Wow, my church isn’t anything like that.” And I miss those days. Leadership has strained the life out of it. 

RFM: Well, I do, too. And I’ve likened those days (my first days in the church in the late 70s), that there was a new and glorious sun that had burst upon my view as I learned about Mormonism, as I joined the church, as I began as a new member attending the different church meetings. But in retrospect, it wasn’t a sun that was rising. It was a sun that was setting and on the verge of going down below the horizon.

Denver: Yeah, I… Remember—and this may shock people that didn’t live through that era—but there was a moment in time when we actually had Leonard Arrington as the Church Historian, D. Michael Quinn as an assistant in the LDS Church Historian’s Office, and Paul Toscano as an active member of the church (and a vocal member of the church). And that was a condition in which the church actually existed at a moment in time. And, you know, that’s passed.

RFM: I’d like to talk with you about your excommunication, not to reopen old wounds. But that was September 2013, correct? 

Denver: Yes. 

RFM: That was more when I became aware of you through other means, as well. My son, Jonathan (who is in the United States Air Force) was very much involved with your teachings. He liked a lot of what you had to say. He married into a family that was even more involved with your teachings (and is still married into that family). But he gave me a book—and this was actually at the end of 2013—he gave me one of your books. Let me come back to that. Let’s talk about September 2013 and your excommunication. Can you tell our audience in thumbnail form why it was that you were excommunicated? And who was behind it, if you know?

Denver: Yeah, I had a stake president that had defended me for some period of time. He had actually called me to be a member of the High Council. I was on the High Council, and he was getting, apparently, some feedback from downtown. But he defended me, and he vouched for me. And ultimately, there was enough pressure that he released me from the High Council. But he released four people at the same time. So it didn’t draw any attention. 

RFM: Denver, what is it you’re doing that’s causing this attention?

Denver: Oh, I had written the book, Passing the Heavenly Gift, and that had been greeted with some consternation downtown.

RFM: What is the thesis of your book, Passing the Heavenly Gift?

Denver: It’s taking a look at some of the events in church history and saying that perhaps there is a different narrative that would more accurately reflect the events rather than forcing the events to fit into a narrative that says, “All as well in Zion.” Perhaps it would fit better into a narrative that says, “We’re out of sync with the Lord.” One of the major themes of Passing the Heavenly Gift is that in that January 1841 revelation to Joseph Smith (which is Doctrine and Covenants section 124), the Lord tells the saints in Nauvoo that He’s got some objectives in mind that He’s going to assign to them and that He’ll give them sufficient time in order for them to accomplish the objectives. But if they don’t, then at the end of the allotted time, there’s going to be a fork in the road. If they achieve it, they will not be moved out of their place. He will defend them, and they will establish the cornerstone of Zion in Nauvoo. But if they fail in the task, then they WILL be taken and removed, and instead of blessings, there’ll be cursings, and they will be dispossessed of their Nauvoo position, and they’ll go through a whole sequence of disasters. It’s in Doctrine and Covenants section 124.

RFM: Was that…?

Denver: I…

RFM: Oh, I’m sorry, I started to say was that the five-year prophecy on (or deadline on) building the Nauvoo Temple?

Denver: Well, the Nauvoo Temple did not… Section 124 does not set a date. It just says, “I’ll give you sufficient time,” without establishing what the timeline was. What I suggested in Passing the Heavenly Gift is that there’s an objective set of criteria that we can use to try and figure out if they passed muster and accomplished what was required OR if they failed and if they were driven out. And the answer is, obviously… I mean, they didn’t finish the temple, they got driven out of Nauvoo, they suffered a series of cursings rather than blessings. The book details what happens to them after they were expelled, including, you know, the distresses that they suffered in Utah. Famines were not the end of it. They lost all their cattle up in Cache county because of the winter that came in. I mean, the stories about Lorenzo Snow going out and digging up the Sego lily bulbs, and he was so hungry that instead of taking the bulb back to his family, he ate it on the spot because he was starving. The stories about eating shoe leather. I mean, these were objectively verifiable sequence of events that happened after the section 124 promise that you’re gonna either have blessings, on the one hand, or you’re gonna have cursings, on the other hand. And I suggest, “Well, why don’t we at least allow for the possibility that they failed?” And that as a consequence of that they WERE rejected with their kindred dead, as 124 says.

RFM: So, if I understand you correctly, HISTORY demonstrates the fact that they did not build the temple within the sufficient time period allotted by the Lord because they obviously received scatterings and cursings, rather than blessings and staying in Nauvoo.

Denver: Right. And the book goes through/walks through all of that, and it walks through history and hiccups and problems. And the book—ultimately, at the end—suggests that, yeah, it’s kind of a mess, and it’s not all that it claims that it is. However, there’s still some value to it. And there’s nothing wrong with you—individually—YOU going back and saying, “Okay, the church as an institution may not have pleased the Lord with what THEY have done. But there’s no reason why I can’t go back and repeat the process, going all the way back, you know, as Joseph Smith did and approaching God as a penitent inheritor of a flawed, messed-up institution.” I can still individually approach God and say, “Hey, I know it’s a mess. But I would really like to get right with you—myself, individually.”

And so, the book ends on the rather upbeat note of suggesting, “Hey, you can still reclaim it; it’s not dead.” The other day when we were talking, I mentioned to you that the book cover has a candle, and the candle is smoldering—there’s a spark still on the wick and there’s smoke coming up (that are actually Hebrew letters that come up in the pattern of the smoke), but the spark is there. And we all know that if you’ve got a spark left in a candle, you can get it to reignite just by blowing on it. If you blow on the candle, you can stimulate it back to a living flame. And that symbolism on the cover was suggesting, you know, that the breath is a symbol of the Spirit; you can get the Spirit and breathe life, breathe the fire back into the promise of the Restoration—individually, if not institutionally. And institutionally, I think that that ship sailed.

RFM: Right, and I remember I said, “the Ruach Elohim.” 

Denver: Yeah. 

RFM: The breath of God. And then I said, “I have just exhausted my knowledge of Hebrew with that phrase.” 

Okay, so that’s the book. I want to come back to this in a second. But can we just pursue this line for a minute? Because I remember reading the book and recall that you had likened the current state of the LDS Church to the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness under a lesser law. They weren’t cast off from God, but they’d been given a lesser law to try and help them along. And so, my question for you now is: Do you still maintain that view of the LDS Church as having a lesser law that they can rekindle by blowing upon the flame?

Denver: I think individuals can. I don’t think the institution can. I think the institution has trapped itself in its own mousetrap and that there literally is no way out. I could take you and Bill and Paul Toscano and (if he were still around) Hugh Nibley, and I could put you guys in a First Presidency/Quorum of the Twelve, and I don’t think the institution is capable of responding. First of all, you would be junior-most members so that you would be quite elderly before you ever get into the big seat that really matters—the one chair that matters. And by that time, you would have been habituated to a program. There is, in fact, a program.

Bill: We’d have to go to the crappy places in South America.

Denver: Yeah. And you have to sit and wait for other people ahead of you in line to tell you what to do.

RFM: By the way, apologies to all of our listeners in South America, BILL!

Bill: I didn’t say which ones. All I know is that when you’re the “junior-six,” you get told what to do and where to go. And the other guys get the easy tasks.

Denver: Yeah. And you enter, and you leave the room according to seniority.

RFM: Yes, but it’s not a legalistic religion.

Denver: No. Well, I’m not sure it is still a religion.

RFM: So, let me take you back to 2013, if I can…

Denver: Yeah.

RFM: …because you mentioned this book; you’ve gone over the thesis statement. Apparently, the people downtown—and by that, I take it you mean downtown Salt Lake City in the church office building? Is that correct? 

Denver: Right. 

RFM: That they were having heartburn over this. Can you tell us what happened (and this is just a thumbnail version, because we actually have a whole bunch of other stuff to get to), and how it was that you found out who was behind the hit?

Denver: Well, the Stake President that defended me was replaced by a new Stake President. And…

RFM: Had your first Stake President served his entire ten years?

Denver: It was nine years. So, I don’t know how long you would normally sit, but I think nine years is close enough that you might not… 

RFM: Yeah. 

Denver: …you might not think it was an early release. 

RFM: Okay.

Denver: So, after nine years, he was replaced. The fellow who came down to replace the Stake President with a new one was Russell Nelson. I think he, at the time, he was either President of the Quorum of the Twelve… Actually, it may have been… It may have been Boyd Packer. But Russell Nelson was right up there in seniority. He came down, he released the old Stake President, he called the new Stake President, and on the date that he called the new Stake President, he handed my membership records to the new Stake President and said that the committee had decided that this member needed to be dealt with. And so, that was the introduction…

RFM: Denver, this is very important information (I think) to me and to the audience because it was right around this time—maybe a little bit later—that the church sent out a spokesperson named Ally Isom (I-S-O-M, if memory serves) when other excommunications were going on (that you may be aware of) to assure the public-at-large that these were local decisions and that the leadership of the church was in no way involved in any kind of disciplinary proceedings on the members.

Denver: Yeah…that didn’t happen with me…

RFM: So, I’m going for your basis of knowledge on this one. Can you tell us how it is that you know that Russell Nelson was behind this and that he told your Stake President that the committee had made the decision to… What was it you said?

Denver: That this member needed to be dealt with, that there needed to be discipline done for this specific member. And the membership records—my membership records—were handed to the newly-installed Stake President. The reason I know that is because there was… 

It actually took numerous interviews and about a year-and-a-half before the new Stake President decided to pull the plug and actually hold a court and kick me out. During that year-and-a-half, we had a lot of interviews, meetings, discussions, email exchanges, and at one point, he thought everything was going to be copacetic. It was just going to work out. And he told me that the reason this was happening was because of the day he got called, and Russell Nelson handing him the membership records, and all of this other stuff ensuing.

RFM: So, it was your Stake President who told you…

Denver: Yes.

RFM: …that Russell Nelson was the one who told your Stake President, gave him your membership records, and said the committee has decided that you need to be dealt with.

Denver: Right. And in the series of meetings, he was persuaded that I was not the threat that the committee thought that I was.

Look, I was very low-key and very quiet in my ward/in my stake. I wrote things, but you had to BUY them, you had to go FIND them. I didn’t advertise it. There were a lot of people who were neighbors and members of my ward who never knew I’d written a single book! And so, the idea that I’m out proselytizing to try and get people to, “Hey, wake up! This church is a mess!” That’s a false notion. I did my home teaching. I paid my tithing. I had a temple recommend, which is another interesting thing—I was never asked for my temple recommend back throughout the whole ordeal, right up until, well, even after I was excommunicated. They never did ask for my temple recommend back. But I was not a threat. 

At one point, the Stake President wanted the entire Stake Presidency to hear me out. So, we got together one Sunday evening. We were talking… Actually, it’s in my journal; it may not have been a Sunday, but it was an evening, and it was early enough. I was answering questions. And I said, “Look, look, guys—we’re not getting anywhere. You don’t even have the right questions to ask. Let me just walk you through what it is that I think you need to understand in order to grasp where I’m coming from.” And we were in the High Council office; there’s a whiteboard there. I got, you know, a magic marker. And I walked them through on the board for about an hour/hour-and-a-half explaining things to them. 

And when it was done, I mean, one of the members of the Stake Presidency had tears he was so moved. The other one was saying, “We have to keep you in this church.” And my understanding is that after that interview, they sent a letter downtown—all three of them—suggesting that it would be a mistake to give me the boot. And I thought (and I think they thought) that everything would be copacetic at that point. 

However, within a month, the Stake President called me back, and he said that he had been given more training—and he actually had a copy of the Church Handbook of Instructions with highlights on it—he’d been given more training and that “these sections required” that he had to do something. And I asked him if I could, you know, look at the pages. And he said, “I can show them to you, but you can’t have them.” So, I looked at them, and I said, “It doesn’t fit. I’m not doing that. That is not what happened here.” 

One of the accusations was that I was “disparaging a president of the church.” In Passing the Heavenly Gift, I quote from Heber J. Grant’s diary. Heber J. Grant’s diary included entries where his mother told him that he cared too much about money and not enough about things of the Spirit. And then in his diary, he goes on to talk about how he’s never had an inspired dream; he’s never had any kind of spiritual experience. This is the president of the church in his own diary, either quoting his mother or making his own reflection. So the point I made was, “I’m not disparaging Heber J. Grant. I’m quoting him, and he’s quoting his mother. If you’ve got a problem with the language, then you ought to go discipline Heber J. Grant’s deceased mother, or you ought to go do something with Heber J. Grant, but I’m not doing anything more than quoting them.” And…

RFM: I take it all of your arguments were in vain.

Denver: Yeah, yeah. Ultimately, a church court was convened. I cleared it with the Stake President that I could bring my family with me to the church court. The reason I wanted my family there was because all of this had to do with the book, and it did not have anything to do with moral lapses (because excommunication almost invariably has a stigma associated with it—that it’s because you are doing some immoral act). So, I wanted my family to be there so that they understood EXACTLY what the basis was.

When we got there that evening, instead of allowing my family in, we learned that they were not going to be welcomed into the High Council room. One of the excuses they gave was that “there aren’t enough chairs,” and my kids who were present said they’d be happy to sit on the floor. And they said, “No, that won’t work.” And I reiterated, at one point… We went back and forth for about 45 minutes in the hallway of the Stake offices trying to allow me and my family in so that I could deal with the court issues. And they wouldn’t. And at one point, I said, “Look, the reason I want them there is because I want them to fully understand exactly what the accusations are and that they do not involve anything of moral turpitude and that all of this is about a book.” And the Stake President… I had my family—one of my daughters was on the love seat in the hallway, sitting right next to where the Stake President was standing. He said, “I want to assure you that this has nothing to do with any immorality. This has to do with a book.” And my daughter (I won’t name her), bless her heart, my daughter, who was sitting right next to him, looked up to him, and she said (really indignantly), “A book! A book!!” And you could almost see the Stake President shrink from what he had just said and what this teenage daughter’s reaction was. 

Ultimately, they wouldn’t allow me in the room. They went… 

RFM: They allowed you in the room, though, right? 

Denver: They would have allowed only me in the room. 

RFM: Okay. 

Denver: And because my wife and I had struck an arrangement before we got there, we’d agreed that if they can’t all come in, then I wouldn’t go in. And so, they tried me in absentia, and it took a little while, but they finally reached unanimity. And that date, it was September the 10th of 2013. It’s…

RFM: A significant day for you, wasn’t it?

Denver: Exactly… Exactly 40 years (to the day) from the day I was baptized on September 10th in 1973. So there was a symmetry to it all and…

RFM: By the way, Denver, I’ll give you a little observation that may not have occurred to your Stake President: I have never seen an LDS Stake Center that has had a shortage of chairs. 

Denver: Yeah… yeah. Well, they only have a shortage when they need to have a shortage.

RFM: Yeah, I’m getting that impression.

Denver: And I guess they had one.

Bill: Just a quick… Just a quick note. Yeah, no, you’re good. Just a quick note. Having been excommunicated myself, I can also acknowledge, as a second witness, that the Stake… My Stake President also informed me that people higher than him said that he had to have the disciplinary court; it wasn’t up to him. So, when these guys say that that’s all local level decisions…not true.

Denver: Yeah, it’s not. 

RFM: Why do you think they do that, Denver?

Denver: Um, I think they’re… If you look at how the church (the institution of the church) has developed itself and painted itself into a corner, the one thing that they just cannot allow to happen is for people to question keys, continuity of authority, existence of status to rule and govern and preside. And if you diminish the way in which the institution has poorly preserved the original endowment that was given at the time of Joseph Smith, what they have left with today is: We have authority. We are prophets, seers, and revelators in the same sense that…in the same sense that the pope is the Vicar of Christ. The pope’s infallibility does not reckon from the fact that he speaks the WORDS OF God. It reckons from the status that he holds as the regent of God, therefore empowered to bind God in a legal sense. And I listened to a Rasband… It was a Rasband recording, somewhere on the internet… 

RFM: Oh, Elder Rasband! 

Denver: Yeah, Elder Rasband. 

RFM: I thought this was some kind of reggae musical group. 

Yeah, no, it’s Elder Rasband in a recent recording. And essentially he attributed the status of Russell Nelson to being “prophet, seer, and revelator” to office and position. These are honorific titles. They are honorific titles in the same way that the pope is an honorific. They don’t mean that he’s a prophet indeed. They mean that he holds an office titled “prophet”; he holds an office titled “seer.” It’s not that there is the presence of charismatic prophecy. It’s not that there is the presence of seership, in the sense of “seeing beyond the veil.” It is an honorific. 

And they use that as a word of art. And all I’m suggesting is wouldn’t it be nice if, despite all the institutional claims, if you could set the institution aside just for a moment as “it’s a nice place to go and worship and fellowship, and have your kids raised, and participate in meetings, and have your children learn some public-speaking things, and read some Scriptures, and sing some songs”? It’s a nice place to do all that. But your religion, your connection to God, the spark of the divine that exists within you, connecting to the originator of that spark of the divine? Hey, that’s up to you. Why don’t you go do that? And there’s no impediment to you doing that. You’re just as authorized as was Joseph Smith, and you’re probably more authorized than was Brigham Young. So, go do it. Go do it yourself. Worship where you want to. If Joel Osteen turns your gears, hey, go join a mega-church. Listen to Joel. I mean, his gospel of success… I don’t like his delivery, but you know, at times he stumbles on an acorn, but… 

RFM: [laughter]

Denver: Yeah.

RFM: Denver, you said twice that the church has painted itself into a corner. Can you explain what that corner is you feel the church has painted itself into?

Denver: Everything is circulating around the fullness of the keys that are possessed in one individual, exclusively, in its fullness. Bruce R. McConkie had some little phrase that he used: “All authority that God has vouched safe to man is possessed in the fullness by the head of the church.” And so, now that that’s the deal, what happens when, as was the case (I’m not making this up; it was the case), what happens when people learn the true order of prayer in the temple, and they organize their prayer groups, and they gather together in the homes, and they dress in the robes, and they engage in the true order of prayer, and they get revelation? What happens when that happens? And they have a revelation, and the revelation from God to them trumps something that a leader is trying to get people to do—what happens? I mean, the conflict almost instantly suggests that the way you resolve the conflict is, “Obey God.” I mean, obey God because He spoke to you. You don’t obey someone through whom God is filtered if you can go to the source and God can speak to you directly. So, you obey God—now you’ve got a conflict. 

Well, how does the institution deal with that? A letter goes out from Spencer W. Kimball; I put it up on my website, at one point…

RFM: Can you tell our listeners the name of your website so they can find it?

Denver: Oh, it’s just denversnuffer.com, just d-e-n-v-e-r-s-n-u-f-f-e-r.com. And you can go there.

RFM: I apologize for interrupting.

Denver: Yeah, you’d have to search to find it. It’s a PDF, but it’s the letter. It was sent out from… over the signature “Spencer W. Kimball as President of the Church” to all of the stakes and all of the bishops, and it announced, “We are discontinuing prayer circles outside of the temple.”

RFM: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay. Now, I know that you were a member of the church for five years before I was, but you’re blowing my mind, man. Because I would have thought that NEVER would prayer circles outside the temple be countenanced by the leaders. I’m wrong about that?

Denver: They had prayer circles in wards! They had prayer circles in Stakes! 

I don’t know how much of this you’re aware of, but there’s actually an Elder’s Quorum room in the Salt Lake Temple, just like there’s a First Presidency room, and there’s a Quorum of the Twelve room—there’s an Elder’s Quorum room. And the Elder’s Quorums would sign up, and they would rotate the… In the valley, they would rotate their opportunity to go into the Elder’s Quorum room in the temple. And one of the regularly conducted things in the room was to hold prayer circles. So, they would bring their wives and the, you know, the teachers and what have you, and they’d rotate in for their Elder’s Quorum presidency meeting and include a prayer circle. 

They used to hold them in stake centers; they used to hold them in ward buildings. In fact, one of the things that was talked about is, “Who’s in your prayer circle?” “She’s in our prayer circle.” “He’s a member of our prayer circle,” because they would get together, and they would pray, and the way in which you deal with this—when the conflict arises, and it’s hard to govern—is you terminate prayer circles. 

So, a letter went out… I forget the year; I think it was ‘74.

RFM: I’ll bet it was before 1978. 

Denver: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was before ‘78. And it terminated prayer circles. And I remember Bruce R. McConkie came to a stake conference meeting when I was down in Texas (your neck of the woods, RFM). He was down in Texas; we had a stake conference. It was in Odessa. (To give you an idea of how big a stake in Texas was, the stake boundaries were actually larger, geographically, than the state of Utah.) So if you’re going to stake conference (we were over in Abilene), we had to drive hours to get over to Odessa for the stake conference. And on a Saturday evening, there’s a priesthood meeting held at the stake center. Well, in Texas at that time, with those boundaries and that travel, the get-together for the priesthood meeting that evening was the main chapel of the stake center with the missionaries (the full-time missionaries) and me and one or two others. It was like, you know, 14 or 15 people in a hall that could seat a thousand. 

And so, Bruce R. McConkie came down from the podium. He had a whiteboard brought in. My memory is he actually took his coat off, which tells you, you know, he’s going to be approachable. And he opened it up for questions. And there were lots of questions, and the prayer circle issue was something that someone asked about. And one of the comments that he made was that the church determined that it was difficult to govern with the prayer circles going on. And so, the termination of the prayer circle practice was done so as to make it easier to govern the church. 

Well, it’s an illustration of how you drain the Spirit out of the institution. Because the institution literally is built to protect a singular office. There is one and only one Mormon legally, because the Corporation of the President (which is a corporation sole) owns every chapel, every stake center, every temple, every welfare farm, every ancillary business, every mall… Everything that’s out there is the property of one and only one person. And that’s the “whoever happens to be the individual” that occupies the Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Well, when that’s the structure, you… I mean, you’ve now invented the perfect mousetrap, and you’ve caught everyone in it.

Bill: Just a quick note, Denver. I shared a link in all of the places where our stream goes out. It is a website, ldspioneerarchitecture.blogspot.com. They have an article on prayer circle rooms in LDS chapels, and they share pictures of multiple ward buildings that had that. So, just another…essentially to back up what you’re saying and to express that a lot of the LDS wards early on (and some of them still today) have prayer circle rooms.

RFM: And this is one of the fascinating things about Mormonism to me is that as much as I’ve studied over many, many years, there’s still new things I’m learning, like this tonight.

Denver: Oh, hey, let me tell you something. Yeah, I have that experience all the time. You know, I thought… I read it; in fact, Oliver Cowdery said it. Oliver Cowdery (after he’d been excommunicated in that 1838 timeframe) had lamented that he had always hoped that Joseph Smith would make some effort to reproach him and to bring him back and to invite him back. And Joseph wound up killed before that had ever been done. And so, in reading Oliver’s end of things, I had always assumed that Joseph never made any outreach to Oliver, when (to my surprise, and I just learned this in the Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 12) in June of 1843, Joseph Smith directed that a letter be sent to Oliver Cowdery asking Oliver if he’d spent enough time eating the corn husks and if he didn’t want to be welcomed back home (it being, you know, a reference to the prodigal…

RFM: The prodigal son.

Denver: …son). Yeah, and so Joseph did make the effort for the outreach. Now, he directed that the letter be sent and out over his name. But the Documents doesn’t include a letter. So I don’t know if the letter ever got written or sent. I’m still waiting to see. Maybe it’ll show up in Documents, Volume 13 when they release that, which I’m waiting for. But Oliver, I think, would have been really gratified and touched had he known that in June of 1843, Joseph had actually wanted to reach out to him, you know—and I just learned that. The study of the Mormon landscape is ongoing, and you’re always going to find something new.

RFM: I will tell you that even in 2021, which we are in now, there’s no guarantee that if you write a letter and put it in the mail with sufficient postage affixed, that it’s actually going to get where you’re sending it.

Denver: Yeah, I just had a… This is a pleading with the court. I just had an exhibit show up in my mail for a motion that got filed—and I didn’t get the motion; I just got AN exhibit (it was like exhibit G or something). So, everything that had gone before that in exhibits, as well as the motion itself… Even the court system is at times unreliable.

RFM: Denver, this is fascinating. We are already almost, well, an hour into this. There’s one thing I want to talk with you about, and we’re gonna let a lot of it go to the cutting room floor. This has been fascinating talking to you. And I suppose if anybody wants to ask a question about your visions of Jesus or seeing Jesus (however you frame that), I’ll let them call in and ask that, but I wanted to go right now—for the final part of this part—with the June (I think was June) 2015 “Boise Rescue.”

Denver: Oh, yeah. 

RFM: Where now President Oaks (a heartbeat away from the presidency) President Oaks took off to Boise, Idaho, which I understand he perceived of as being a hotbed of Snufferite-ism. And he went there with Richard Turley (Assistant Church Historian) in tow to give a three-stake fireside in which he vehemently denounced false prophets. I’m sure you’re aware of that happening. We actually have a clip here from the news at the time talking about it with a few audio clips from Elder Oaks and Richard Turley (who I cannot help but continue to think sounds just like Barney Fife—Richard Turley does; when you hear it, you’ll see if you agree with me). But I want to get your comments on this after we play it. It’s just about a minute or two long. Do we have that? 

And I cannot hear the audio.

(It might be one of the better ways to listen to Elder Oaks.) But we really need to hear the audio for this clip to work. It does have subtitles, at least.

Bill: Yeah, no biggie. I think it’s just a little glitch when you add the screen that the audio has to be added to so no biggie, she’ll have it back up here in a second.

RFM: Ok. And this ran on the news a few days after it happened. And there’s even a clip of you because they talked to you for comment at the end. Okay, let’s give this another go.

Bill: Oh, still not.

RFM: Still not. So, we’ll continue to work on that.

Bill: And Maven, maybe if you can send me the link on Facebook, I can try to put it up on my screen and see if that makes any difference.

RFM: By the way, everybody, I hope you’ll be patient with us. We are trying to take care of a few kinks in the technology. One of the main reasons that we were doing this was so that hopefully listeners can actually hear me when they call in (that was one of the big things that we’ve been dealing with for about a year now). And hopefully we’ve got that ironed out. But as I’m finding out with technology, when you iron out one wrinkle, it can raise a few more in other places. And sometimes there’s no telling why—unless you’re really smart.

Bill: And I actually might have it here. Let me see if I can get it.

RFM: Alright, and that is Elder Oaks, and I’m not sure if that’s really video of him from Boise. It looks kind of like the stake center, but maybe they have a really nice… Excuse me, from the General Conference Center. Maybe they have a really nice stake center there in Boise with a nice wood and the plants and everything in the background.

Bill: Sorry, I apologize.

RFM: Yeah. Because my understanding is is that this is not something that was supposed to be ready for primetime. It was a multi-stake fireside. People were actually not supposed to record because they give that warning at the beginning, right? “Don’t record, don’t record us.” And somebody, some disobedient soul, actually went ahead and recorded it, and I think they’re playing the recording over some stock footage of Elder Oaks. And let’s see if we’ve got it now.

Bill: All right, I think this should be it. Let me know if you guys have sound.

———BEGIN VIDEO CLIP———

Dallin Oaks: When you follow false prophets, when you start toward apostasy, you are on the wrong side.

Newscaster: LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks with a plea to members of three stakes in Boise.

Dallin Oaks: Stand fast with the leadership of the church.

Newscaster: Oaks, alongside Church Historian Richard Turley, picked Boise as the place to spend time responding to critics. 

Richard Turley: One claim that we sometimes hear is that the church is no longer the church that was restored to the earth by the Prophet Joseph… 

Newscaster: …a claim made by this man, Denver Snuffer, an attorney from Sandy.

Denver Snuffer: It was not the same church in 2013 as the one I was baptized in, in 1973.

Newscaster: Snuffer was excommunicated two years ago for spreading his ideas, including the thought that Mormons should be able to be rebaptized. He lectured about that in Boise.

Denver Snuffer: I know there are a lot of people that have been rebaptized. I know that there are people that are blogging in the Boise area and talking about meetings that are taking place.

Newscaster: But the church denies this meeting came in response to any of that, telling 2News Elder Oaks was not scheduled for an assignment that weekend so decided to use his free time to visit an area with a concentration of members, knowing that some members have questions from time to time that trouble them. Snuffer doesn’t know what role, if any, he played.

Denver Snuffer: I don’t know that I have a following. I know that there is a group of people that is discontent.

———END VIDEO CLIP———

RFM: And there’s the end of the video clip. Oh, and the very interesting…

[crosstalk] 

All right. So, I wanted to say about that, however, that I thought, number one, you were very gracious in how you responded to… Let me back up. It was obvious to anybody with two brain cells to rub together that you’re the reason that Elder Oaks took Elder Turley out to Boise, Idaho—because everything he said was designed to contradict all of your main talking points, even though he never mentioned your name. And it was so obvious that the reporter asks the church if you were the cause (which it obviously was), and Elder Oaks then has the church spokesperson (Elder Oaks doesn’t respond to it because, you know, he’s very busy), and he has a church spokesperson deny it and say, “Oh, he just had some free time in his schedule, so he decided to go out there, you know; it was just one of those things.” I thought that was an obvious, let’s say, well, something that was less than the truth on his part in saying that. But I thought you were gracious in not holding his feet to the fire about that. What were your thoughts about the Boise Rescue, as it’s come to be known?

Denver: Well, the concern that I have is that anytime I try to assert my own relevance and importance, we’re missing the point. The point is not me. The point is: If Mormonism has value, and I can talk about the value that it has, and there are a whole host of people that resonate with that value and say, “Yeah, that’s something that I’ve thought or I’ve believed or I’ve understood, or I now understand, and I believe that to be more correct than what I’m hearing elsewhere…” It’s the content that has some value, not me. But to say, “Hey, hey, look at me,” it seems to me that that is contrary to achieving anything to benefit other people. 

People are best benefited when the religion lives in them, when the fire gets ignited in their own hearts, when they can look around in this world and they can see the fingerprints of God everywhere and the wonder of this creation and to feel like they have a spark of the divine in themselves as well. To say, “There’s a lot that God has done with ME,” distracts more than it contributes. If instead you can say, “There’s a spark of the divine that’s within YOU that is actually connected to God,” and if you can find the peace within you to allow that still small voice to actually be heard, you will find an amazing thing about the value of not only yourself but every individual that’s walking on the planet, and that we are all interconnected with one another through that divine spark. The problem is, we tend…

The whole idea of a prophet status, a seer status, a big guru, a divine cumbah that has somehow the authority to rule and reign from the rivers to the ends of the earth and none dare make afraid, it… That is nonsense. That is contra accomplishing what the Savior did. I mean, the Savior was more or equally concerned with the leper, with the blind, with the maimed, with the halt, with the poor, and He called from the ranks of the blue-class laborer the intimate circle that He had. He was not interested in the recognition from the hierarchy. And the hierarchy certainly had very little use for him. They felt threatened by Him. That’s the problem. The truth and religion itself—when it properly connects a person with God—makes them so resilient that they don’t fear a hierarchy anymore.

RFM: Can I ask you a question? First off, with my observation, and this will probably be the last thing—I’m sorry—before we take callers. There’s so much we could talk about, and I know that you’ve written a great deal. How many books have you written, by the way?

Denver: I think I’ve got 22 in print. There’s a new one that we’re trying to get into print here shortly. I don’t think we’re gonna get it out in time for Christmas, but it’s primarily addressed to Christians…

RFM: Twenty-two books. You’re like the Stephen King of Mormonism.

Denver: That…yeah. Hey, this one [holding up A Man Without Doubt]. 

RFM: Yes?

Denver: This one was written to give Joseph Smith the opportunity to actually defend himself. And it takes the three longest compositions by Joseph Smith—but gives an introduction that sets them within a historical setting so that you can understand what was going on, why he wrote what he wrote. But it’s the three longest compositions, and this is for a Christian audience. I’m trying to get people that distrust Mormons and Mormonism to take a look at it. 

And then this is the latest book, Religion of the Fathers. It’s actually based on a talk that I gave at a conference down in Aravada Springs. And it’s dealing with the whole Book of Abraham controversy. 

Those were the two most recent ones, but a new one is coming out. It’s primarily for a Christian audience. And I’m going out to Kentucky to at a conference there in the spring and hopefully have an opportunity to see some more Christian folks. It’s really hard because the impression that people have been given by the Mormon missionaries is that the LDS Church defines what Mormonism is. And if that’s the definition, Christians really ought to walk away. But if the definition can be expanded to include something more and embrace any truth that they already have, then maybe taking a second look would be a good thing. Yeah. Twenty-two books in print right now.

RFM: I apologize. I wasn’t laughing at you. I… Every now and then I make the mistake of reading the comments that Bill’s putting or that Maven’s putting up. And I saw a comment after my Stephen King reference, saying, “Which apostle is the clown in the sewer?” And that started making me giggle. I apologize. We’re not going to try and answer that question tonight. 

But I did want to continue with my observation that Stephen King scares a lot of people, but what you write, I think, scares the leadership in Salt Lake City more than anything else—because here’s what I see. First off, I see that all of the members of the church, to some degree, I think have a little bit (maybe a lot a bit) of cognitive dissonance. And it’s built into the system because we are baptized into the church that Joseph Smith founded; we learned about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, all the visions, all the charismatic gifts, but then we get baptized into this nearly-dead husk of a church that I think has been resting on the laurels of Joseph Smith for about 180 years now. And they see there’s no “there” there. And we have leaders of the church now finding that many of their best and brightest—seriously—are leaving the church to follow the path that you’re charting. And, dang, if you’re not doing all the things that Joseph Smith did that the leaders of the church are not doing. And by that, I mean, claiming to see Jesus (Joseph Smith did that). They’re still trying to hang on to that sort of fiction in the top echelons of the LDS Church, but I think that people are starting to get wise to that, that they haven’t really seen it. The old joke is that when the Quorum of the 15 get together in a room, each of them sits around wondering if they’re the only one who hasn’t seen Jesus. So… But they certainly haven’t produced new Scripture; you have, and I’m thinking there of the Testimony of John (and probably other things as well). So you have visionary experiences, you’re producing new Scripture, you have charismatic gifts, there’s the whole second comforter and the visitation of Jesus that you have re-instituted into the world because the LDS Church has lost it, thus the title, Passing the Heavenly Gift. I think that you are a real burr in their bonnet. (It’s a bee in their bonnet and a burr under the blanket.) But I think you’re both of those things to the LDS Church leaders. What do you think?

Denver: I think that if you were to reduce it down to one concept, the idea of democratizing revelation so that everyone can stand on equal footing is fearsome to people who entertain a lot of insecurities about that very topic. If you have the self-confidence to say, “I have connected with our Lord, and therefore, welcome, brother, if you have likewise connected.” That’s one approach. The other approach is, “I haven’t. I don’t expect I ever will. In fact, it is not within my ambit of experience or expectation, and therefore, what you say about connecting up with God, that’s threatening to me. We have office. We have order. We have position. We have rank. We have keys,” whatever the hell those things are.

RFM: Keys mean, “You can’t do bupkis without our permission.”

Denver: Yeah, keys are one of the most often-used and poorly-defined ideas that the institutional church rails upon.

RFM: Did I define it pretty well, though, in an LDS context? 

Denver: Yeah, “I’m the boss.” That’s… 

RFM: Yeah, “You can’t do anything without my permission,” whether it’s baptizing people, you rogue you, baptizing people without authority of the duly-constituted Bishop—or anything else that you do. And this is another thing that gets them very upset with you, such that they go and have a special Boise Rescue, not only because they’re concerned about you, but they’re concerned about the influence that you’re having among members of the church. I think that goes without saying, but I just said it anyway.

Denver: At one point I… In one talk I gave, I said they claim that they hold all the keys and that there’s one guy who’s the key holder, above all, and every one of you are nothing more than keyholes.

Bill: Yeah, yeah. 

RFM: Ooh. Yeah. He’s the… President Nelson is the Key Master. 

Denver: Yes. And you’re a keyhole. 

RFM: I’m the gatekeeper.

Bill: So, let me jump in here. Let me jump in here for just a second. So first, let us set up the… I want at least get the phone call stuff set up so that Maven can start screening some calls. And then I want to ask a question, while she’s doing that, maybe two. 

So first off, I’ll put the banner up. This is now our brand new “Victory for Satan” segment of the show where you get to not only put in the word “Mormon” (which we’ll get to), but you also get to put in the Mark of the Beast, 666. So, our telephone number, our new telephone number for our live call-in section here is 1-662-MORMON or 662-667-6667. And when you call in, Maven will screen your calls. We want to make sure that those calls are on topic and have to do with Denver Snuffer and the things that he’s saying tonight, and she’ll double check that. 

So, here’s my question while she’s doing that; two things, really. Jonathan Streeter asked a great question because, Denver, I’m a skeptic at heart. And, you know, I don’t want to debate my end-position on whether what some of these things you’ve said, in terms of your experiences, are real or not. But here’s what I do think. I think you’re much softer and kinder and more… You’re easier to work with and to sit with and to have a conversation and try to talk about hard things. 

So, two things. One is that when Joseph Smith died, there were multiple voices that came forward trying to lead the church.

Denver: Right. 

Bill: And one of my fears is that, you know, when your day on this earth comes to an end, that there’s going to be voices within your followers who do the same thing who say, “Hey, I’m now the guy who should be leading.” And I’m curious what your contingency plans are to make sure that whatever it is “your vision of what should happen” actually does happen rather than three or four James Strang’s coming forward.

Denver: Yeah. I’m trying to elevate people and to bring them along and teach them enough so they can stand on their own feet. Hopefully, by the time I finish, there will be people who are of deep enough understanding and vast enough experience that there won’t be a controversy. One of the things that I’ve tried to get across is that having an organization is going to doom anything because organizations can be taken over. But if you fragment it, if you leave it at the bottom level without an organization, then you have to corrupt every single person. You can’t get to a hierarchy or an individual or an inner clique, you can’t get to that and corrupt the whole. If everyone stands on an equal footing, then you have to corrupt every single one of them. 

One of the things that I’ve taught or suggested is that people get together in fellowships and they gather their own tithing among their group. And then after they gather their tithing, they use that money to help anyone with a need among them. I’m trying to take all of the money/all of the profit out of the practice of the religion, and there IS money in religion in the form of tithes and offerings. But if that money gets used to benefit people in need, and it never gets aggregated into some fortune with a hierarchy and control of it, if you have to sacrifice for the religion because you can’t earn a living by being a minister, then a lot of the people who want to practice a religion in order to benefit themselves look at this and say, “Well, it’s a dry well—there’s nothing there for me to benefit or profit from because I can’t get paid for what I do.” 

I’ve spent a small fortune on doing what I do in order to advance the religion. But I haven’t profited. I don’t make money. And tithing groups that gather money use that money among themselves to pay for food and shelter and transportation, medical care, and education, and take care among themselves of needs that they have. I’m hoping that, by the end, there is a group of people who are sufficiently united in how they view the practice of religion ought to be conducted that we don’t need a leader, we don’t need a,”Hey, hey, listen to me.” But if someone’s got a good sermon to deliver, a good message, a good concept, let them speak up, and let everyone listen and determine for themselves if it be true or not.

RFM: And I understand, also, Denver, that your definition of tithing is different from the LDS definition in current usage—that your definition of tithing is a tenth of an individual’s SURPLUS.

Denver: Only their surplus. Yeah, you have to take care of your own family. All of the costs associated with your own family, whatever’s left over after that, one-tenth of that is the tithe. You don’t deprive your own family. In fact, if you can’t meet your needs, not only should you not PAY tithing, but you ought to be the recipient of help from other people who ARE paying tithing. It ought to be a light thing. It ought to be easy to be born.

Bill: Perfect. And we’ve got a caller in the queue; we’ll go to her in just a moment. 

My last question is: When you have somebody who’s following along and they want to be included in your group, but they’re saying things or doing things that aren’t meshing, what is the way in which your system—and again, I don’t mean, you have a system; I know you don’t have a system—but the way in which your group of followers kind of do… Because on some level, you do have to regulate a little bit, right? You do have to… If somebody’s imposing themselves in unhealthy ways or maybe they have mental instability or maybe there’s some other reason that they’re putting themselves at the forefront, and it’s not helpful. What’s the way in which your organization (for a lack of a better word) handles that?

Denver: Issues like that are dealt with by the women. Men don’t do that. The women are entrusted with that kind of disciplinary stuff EXCLUSIVELY. They may ask a man to come testify, but the women are the decision-makers on that. We’ve empowered women to do that sort of thing, including investigating and even suspending people. That’s up to the women.

RFM: Hmm, where did that come from Denver? Was that a result of revelation?

Denver: Yeah, actually, I… We hadn’t gotten to the tenth talk, but one of the things that I had advocated for and prayed about was just giving women priesthood. And the response that I got was not that. But instead of women having priesthood, women have authority OVER the priesthood to govern, to discipline, to curtail—and so, the balance was struck. Instead of men holding the exclusive authority to do everything, men can perform ordinance work, but women have the ability to deal with the discipline, including terminating the ability of a guy to exercise priesthood because he’s out of line. In many respects, one of the most common problems that men have when they become abusive is something FIRST learned or experienced or witnessed by the women. And so, the women—who have long been powerless—really have been entrusted with that end of things, and it’s kind of a balance.

Bill: Perfect. So, we’re gonna go to our first caller. We’re gonna hope, we’re gonna cross our fingers, RFM, that the caller gets to hear you, as well. And so, she has called into the show before, but it is Nicola. Nicola, I’m adding you to the show now. Nicola, how are you?

Caller 1, Nicola: I’m fine. I just wanted to ask… And I was very… This is a very good episode. I really like it. And I very… I’m quite interested, but I wanted to know what his take on the sacrament was? Does he just do it the same way? Because like, if you’re going to do it from home, how the heck, I mean, basically, I’ve just been… I’ve been taking the sacrament, and I’ve just been praying that Heavenly Father does it because, obviously, I haven’t got priesthood. 

Bill: Yeah. 

Nicola: I’m not going to church anymore because I can’t… I’m… I suppose I’m concerned it’s just not right, but I feel very strongly about the sacrament. So, I want to know how you feel about, like, how you do things because obviously…?

Denver: Okay. I’ve actually tried to help out with this, particularly during the period of time in which meetings were suspended and people were not gathering together for fear of some, you know, exposure to something that’s going to kill them. So, I actually recorded the sacrament prayers, and they are on my website: denversuffer.com. And I’ve said if you want to use my recorded version of the sacrament prayer at home when you’re in isolation… And it was intended primarily for women to use. There are a lot of single mothers, there are a lot of widows, and they don’t have any access to someone that can bless the sacrament for them. I recorded the sacrament prayers, and you can play them off of my website and do the sacrament at home. 

And the prayer, by the way, is the one that you find in the Book of Mormon, not the one that you find in the Doctrine and Covenants. They changed the prayer in the Doctrine and Covenants. I’ve remained faithful to the version that appears in the Book of Mormon. (I believe that the section 20 language was written by Oliver Cowdery.) But the Book of Mormon version—slight wording difference—Book of Mormon version is the one that I would use…

RFM: The Book of Mormon says…

[crosstalk]

I’m sorry. In the Book of Mormon it says, “wine.” So do you use wine instead of water?

Denver: Yeah, I believe wine ought to be used in the sacrament. 

Bill: And I’ll just say, I’ve been to a remnant meeting, and we were there for the sacrament (being done here in southern Utah and St. George—it was at one of the conference rooms in one of the hotels). And the sacrament, as administered by your group, Denver, matched up much more closely with my study of LDS Scripture than the LDS sacrament.

Denver: Yeah, yeah. 

Bill: Unfortunately.

Denver: Again, it just… Yeah, the longer it goes on, the more distant they become from where it was, notwithstanding what Turley said in the recording you played earlier. 

Bill: Yeah.

RFM: And what was that he said? 

Denver: Well, he said that there are claims that it isn’t the same church as the one that Joseph did. Hell, it’s not even the same church I joined in 1973, or you joined in ‘78!

Bill: It’s not even the same church it was 10 years ago.

RFM: Can I tell you one of my favorite quotes for me? 

Denver: Yeah. 

RFM: One of my favorite quotes for me is the dilemma that the church leaders find themselves on, which is, number one, if Joseph Smith was not a prophet, then they’re not prophets. That much is obvious enough, right? 

Denver: Yes. 

RFM: The other prong is if Joseph Smith WAS a prophet, then they sure as hell aren’t prophets.

Denver: That ship’s sailed. 

RFM: Yeah.

Bill: Nicola, does that answer your question?

Denver: Emma Smith said…

Nicola: Yes, and thank you so much. That was very, very interesting. That’s very good. 

Bill: Thank you. 

Nicola: Will the show notes cut to these things?

Bill: Say that again.

Nicola: So, is this… Is his website attached to this… Have you got the website attached that you get the sacrament prayer?

Bill: Denver, where’s the website she can see that?

Denver: It’s the denversnuffer.com website. And there’s a link right on the front page that you can go to the sacrament prayer. Are you going to link it in this, in the notes of this? 

Bill: Yeah, I’ll put it in the show notes. 

Denver: Okay. By the way…

Nicola: Thank you so much.

Bill: Thank you, Nicola. Good, have a great night. Bye-bye.

Nicola: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Denver: Just to finish the thought that RFM provoked. Emma Smith said, “Without Joseph, there is no church.” And I think Emma was right on that score. 

Bill: Yeah, yeah. Cool. 

Next caller is going to be Christian, and Christian wants to ask you a question about gender within how you understand the theology works. So, Christian, you’re on the air, Mormonism Live with Radio Free Mormon and Bill Reel and Denver Snuffer. What’s on your mind tonight, my friend?

Caller 2, Christian: Hey, good evening, everybody. 

Bill: Good evening. 

Christian: So, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” has been a pretty big battleground, in terms of in the church and without the church. I was curious as to hear Denver’s thoughts on how much… You know, if that’s good doctrine, if it’s mixed doctrine. Essentially, I’ve heard him speak on the divine roles of men and women. And I was curious to hear more about that. And then, of course, more like, what are some social and cultural stigmas that we’ve made up in terms of men and women. What should we be seeking, in terms of divine, you know, prototypes of the man and woman?

Denver: I gave a talk that’s actually—I think it’s 47 pages in the form that it’s on my website—called “Our Divine Parents,” where I get into the whole issue of the Creation, the creation of the man, the creation of the woman, the relationship between the two of them, what it was that was required in order to make Christ the Redeemer for a posterity and, therefore, the essential fatherhood of Christ to the man Adam but, on the other hand, the essential connection of the woman to the Divine Mother. And that there’s so much about the story of the Creation and the origination of the two and how those two go together. 

And then I took off on the statement that Joseph made about Jesus Christ being the prototype of the saved man and that if you’re going to be saved, you have to be precisely what Christ is and nothing different or else not be saved. And I used that analogy to then talk about the role of the woman and the prototype of the saved woman and tied that into the role of Mary as the mother of Christ and Her stewardship over the whole thing—from the time of the Annunciation, the birth, the divine origin of Christ in mortality, Her role shepherding Him right through to the end. She was there at the Last Supper; She was there in the Garden; She was there at the cross. She shepherded Him through the entire thing and discharged the Divine Mother role and is the prototype of the saved woman. And I suggest in that talk that the Catholics got Mary right a bit more than did the Mormons get Mary right. 

And that there is a process by which the male fulfills, ultimately, the role of achieving, duplicating what the prototype of the saved man (or Christ) is and attaining to the resurrection. You’re going to be resurrected, but when you get resurrected, you’re dependent upon Christ for that. You have to “attain to the resurrection,” as Joseph explained it in the King Follette Discourse. “Our Divine Parents” goes into that and tries to explain how that relates. 

And then the prototype of the saved woman is explained in “Our Divine Parents” in a way that I think makes a lot more sense than what we’ve done with Mary in Mormonism. I mean, Bruce R. McConkie made her breeding stock for both the Divine Father and Joseph, and that, yeah, it’s all… It’s all a mess. 

That talk—I’d refer you to that. And I’ve only briefly skimmed the surface of that; it’s a big subject. Read the talk—it’s 47 pages—or listen to the talk. It’s recorded; it’s on the website somewhere. 

RFM: Can I throw a follow-up in here, Bill? 

Bill: Yeah, sure.

RFM: I apologize. Denver, is there a place for gay/homosexual/lesbian people to be accepted in full fellowship in your faith?

Denver: I don’t see any reason why they would not be accepted. They need to understand that there is a divine role behind sexual identity, and we get to imitate that divine role in being a father and a mother in this life. And… 

Look, people bring with them a whole lot of baggage. I would imagine that almost every person who’s ever been excommunicated from the LDS Church has suffered some kind of trauma. There are all kinds of reasons why we have the quirks we have, we have the hang-ups we have, we have the errors, deficiencies, mistakes that we have. The fact that someone has something that is quirky about them… 

And the objective is to love one another, and then go from there. You’ll never get anywhere if you can’t sort through the idea that there is a divine spark in anyone, no matter who they are and no matter what’s wrong with them. There are a lot of angry people who, if you were in their shoes, you would be angry. I mean, I don’t understand a lot of things about what people get hung up on. There are some bizarre, aberrant things that are fetishes that are out there. I don’t claim to understand them. But I don’t care if you’ve got them. Just don’t practice them on me, please. And we’ll get along just fine.

RFM: Okay, Denver… And I apologize. This is not at all a gotcha. I just want to put a fine point on this question. If I am a gay man—openly gay man in an openly gay (even) marriage—and I’m a member of your faith, are there any things that I, as a gay man, cannot do in your faith or any ordinances that I cannot perform?

Denver: Not that I’m aware of at present. I wouldn’t think so. We don’t have a temple, and we don’t have marriage sealings. And so, that’s an issue that we don’t even address at this point. I think, at some point, we may have a temple. 

Your question reminds me of… There was a homosexual couple… I grew up in small town in Idaho, and there was a homosexual couple in the hometown. They lived together. They owned a business together; they had a restaurant. I actually worked for these guys when I was in high school doing labor in the kitchen and washing dishes. And euphemistically… 

They were accepted in the community; no one, you know, talked down about them. But everyone knew that they were homosexual. And they were euphemistically referred to by the good Christian folks in my hometown as “bachelors.” They were a couple of bachelors. And so, for some time when I was a kid, I didn’t know if “bachelor” was codeword for homosexuality or an unmarried male, but bachelor had that connotation in our little neighborhood in my hometown. And by the way, we trick-or-treated at the house. They were accepted as people in the neighborhood. And I mean, they were known to be a couple of steers without a cow. But, you know, hey, if that floats their boat, what the hell?

Bill: Yeah, I just, I would simply hope that the God that we’re all kind of dealing with has a space for all of humanity and all of its expressions that isn’t causing harm to other human beings.

Denver: I think it is worse to collect tithing to pay a professional minister than it is to have a homosexual relationship in which you are a faithful companion to someone else. No matter what the relationship is, I think it begins with fidelity and trust and honesty. I don’t know how you become a suitable, trustworthy person if you’re untrustworthy in the most intimate relationship that you have. 

Now, the most intimate relationship you have was originally ordained to produce progeny, and progeny was intended to teach you something. I think both of you are fathers…?

RFM: Yeah. Mostly they teach me regret.

Bill: [laughter]

Denver: Well, and humility. And, yeah.

RFM: I’m still working on that one. 

Denver: Yeah. I mean, the life’s lessons that come from being a parent by far exceed any other experience that I’ve had. My children are exceptionally precious to me. They just… They make my life more whole. Some of my fondest moments in life have come inside the family—and not just with my wife, but with my wife and children. And so, that ennobling experience of the family is something that I would suggest needs to be included within life’s experience, if at all possible.

Bill: Yeah, and just a note. So, people are noticing, I mean, two women in 2021 can certainly have a kid; two men can certainly have a kid. I know lots of gay parents, and they seem to be doing a hell of a lot better job raising their children than I sure did do in mine. And my… Again, I just want to throw it out because I want to represent some of the voices in the…as the viewers. My hope would be that you (as you move forward, in whatever this is or turns into) that you do a better job than the LDS Church at finding a fair, healthy, equal place for people whose humanity has been marginalized over and over again when they are doing no… They’re doing as much harm or less harm in the world than I’m doing. And I hope that your God—and I’ll say, “My God,” because I would have to spend two hours debating what that sounds like or what that means to the listeners—but that your God or my God, that we find a place for folks to feel loved and to feel equal. Because I think that group of human beings have been marginalized and traumatized enough.

Denver: Yeah. And I do think that there are problems with all of us. But if what your focus is upon is plumbing the depths of connecting with God… I don’t know how many people are interested in what I’m talking about if they have no interest in trying to comprehend the value of the marriage relationship and the explanation that I’ve given in “Our Divine Parents.” If they do, then I have no problem with them. And I do think that there’s enough trauma to go around without us inflicting more upon one another. 

And I like what you said, Bill. I have no doubts that God loves everyone who’s down here. And I have no doubt that he would like the atonement to accomplish the maximum possible and to avoid having it affect a tiny group of people that are religiously narrow-minded as the outcome of all His suffering. The objective is to have everyone that enters this world be added upon. And I can think of hundreds of ways in which you can add upon someone no matter what their sexual issues are.

Bill: Yeah, and I would go one step further, and again, I don’t want to press. We can  go to our last caller here in just a moment, and we can kind of wrap up the show. But my two cents… And again, I haven’t spoken to the Savior, and I don’t have any of those experiences. But I would suggest, too, maybe we all have to kind of sit down and come up with better language. I’ve heard, as you’re talking the last few minutes, a lot of the words you’re using, saying “problem” or other kinds of rhetoric, often… And I think it’s reasonable to see some of those words as meaning “less than” or “problematic,” and I just… I think…

Denver: Or judgmental.

Bill: …I think we all ought to sit down and come up with better language. Not only are these folks looking for a place to be just human, they’re also looking for the rest of us to change our language so that the space sounds fair and equal, too.

Denver: Yeah, yeah.

Bill: So, anyway, final caller—if you’re okay with that, RFM?

RFM: Yes. And thank you for taking those questions that were sort of interruptions on my part, Denver. I apologize.

Denver: Oh, yeah, that’s fine. That’s fine.

Bill: Yeah, so Dark Swarm is our last caller. He wants to talk to you a little bit about your Scriptures. And so, Dark Swarm, you’re on the air—Mormonism Live with Denver Snuffer, Radio Free Mormon, and Bill Reel. You’re gonna close this out, my friend. What’s on your mind?

Caller 3, Dark Swarm: Hello there. I would like to hear more about Denver’s new edition of the Scriptures. I’ve heard that they’re attempting to distance from the LDS Church so that more people can view them. What’s your thoughts about that?

Denver: Yeah, all of the Scriptures are available free online. Surprisingly, there was a website URL (scriptures.info)—all of them are up and there. We did get a leather-bound set prepared, and those are available, and there’s still a handful of these that can be purchased through the scriptures.info website (I think there’s a link to get there). But you can read them free online. 

Dark Swarm: Hmm.

Denver: What the Scriptures are is an effort to go back and try to reclaim, as best as it is possible now to do so, the original Scriptures as they were first translated by Joseph Smith, in the case of the Book of Mormon, and as the revelations rolled out to Joseph Smith when they were first recorded. The Doctrine and Covenants that the LDS Church offers have been substantially modified, edited, revised, and don’t reflect what Joseph originally did. Doctrine and Covenants section 27, for example, was only about five verses long originally. Oliver Cowdery (in the Book of Commandments) out in Independence felt at liberty—because he’d been told that he could do some things—he felt at liberty to expand that. It grew; it became a monster—revelation 27; it includes the first recitation of a visitation by Peter, James…

RFM: Peter, James, and John.

Denver: …and John. Yeah, that wasn’t in the original revelation that got stuck in by Oliver. The press got destroyed in Independence, but pages got gathered up and smuggled out in the skirts of some women; those pages got bound. And then THAT was the prototype that got used for the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, where Joseph added the teach…the Lectures on Faith. We’ve gone back to get the—as near as possible as we can—the original revelation to Joseph, the Lectures on Faith in the form that Joseph published and vouched for them, and we’ve included that in the Doctrine and Covenants, which has been renamed “Teachings and Commandments”—T&C instead of D&C.

Dark Swarm: Oh!

RFM: And part of that, Denver, by the way, is you got rid of section 132, correct?

Denver: Yeah, we got rid of 132, and we got rid of 110—there are some problems with them. And there’s an explanation, actually, in the Scriptures for what got dropped out and why. Provenance is a problem with a number of things. We could probably spend an hour on that! The Book of Mormon…

RFM: By the way, going… I’m sorry, just before you get to the Book of Mormon (because I’m fascinated by all of this), but you’ve also added a few sections to the Teachings and Commandments (which is your version of the Doctrine and Covenants)…

Denver: Correct.

RFM: …including two sections that detail your visions or, well… Jesus appeared to you/visitations of Jesus. So, if anybody wants to read those, they can go to them. What sections are those, Denver?

Denver: They’re in the T&C, the Teachings and Commandments sections 160 and 161. You can read them there. And those are excerpts from a journal that I keep. Anything that happens gets recorded contemporaneous with the event. If I later talk about it, I only talk about it as a quote from the contemporaneously-recorded event. I don’t elaborate on it; I don’t embellish it. It’s just what’s there and only what’s there, and it doesn’t grow with time. So 160 and 161 are where you could read those two. 

The Book of Mormon has a really interesting provenance for what we’ve got. Joseph Smith translated it, and scribes wrote it down. They didn’t take that to the printer. They took a copy that Oliver Cowdery rewrote; it was the printer’s manuscript. The printer’s manuscript got copied by Oliver Cowdery, taken to E.B. Grandin, and then E.B. Grandin did all of the punctuation (it was John Gilbert, his employee, that set it up and did the typesetting and punctuated) because what the printer’s manuscript looks like is one long sentence. So Grandin and John Gilbert punctuated the Book of Mormon. 

Joseph Smith began to revise the Book of Mormon before he was killed, and the revisions that he made in the Book of Mormon appear to be corrections. When Oliver Cowdery copied it, he made, on average, a mistake every page and a half. When the printer printed it, the printer made some mistakes. Joseph was apparently going back to the original narration that he gave and correcting the Book of Mormon to make it conform to the first version. 

We know that (or we can conclude that) because the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon got deposited into the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House, and then, years later, it got taken out—it had rotted; only about 28% of the original manuscript still exists. But with that 28%, we are able to compare the what was originally translated with the printer’s manuscript (that we have in full) to pick out the errors. and then we have the ability to see what Joseph was doing when he was making revisions along the way so it looks like that original printer’s manuscript. So the Book of Mormon that we published is an attempt to get back, as near as possible, to the original translation. 

Now, here’s where the story really gets interesting. Joseph Smith’s revisions were not picked up when the Book of Mormon… Joseph authorized them to print it in London. When the Book of Mormon got printed in London, it was an earlier edition that hadn’t been corrected by Joseph, but it got printed in the mission field in London by the Quorum of the Twelve over there. When the LDS Church began to print the Book of Mormon itself, they did not use the version that Joseph had corrected. They used the version that was over in London.

RFM: Was that the 1837 version? 

Denver: Yeah, yeah. 

Bill: In Kirtland, yeah.

Denver: Yeah, so the Book of Mormon version contains errors that were made by the printer, errors that were made by Oliver in copying it, and errors that were made by a new printer over in London. And that’s the version that’s been handed down in the Book of Mormon version from the LDS Church is that. We’ve tried to fix all of that. And in the Foreword to each of the volumes of Scripture, there’s an explanation given that tells all of the effort that went in to try and fix it and to make it more correct.

RFM: Did you rely at all on Royal Skousen Herculean efforts in this regard to try and correct…?

Denver: Yeah, that was used in the examination as well. And his latest version where he did a side-by-side comparison and he tracked it down through, that was really helpful.

Bill: Perfect. Anything else, RFM?

RFM: No, that’s it. Except that, you know, we could go on for a long time. We’ve already gone longer than we usually go. But I have really, really enjoyed the conversation, Denver Snuffer. I appreciate your coming on the show and giving us of your time, and hopefully we can, maybe, get you to come on some…

Denver: Hah!

RFM: …time in the future to talk about everything that you’re doing now and all the great things that you’re doing—because it’s been a few years, and a lot of people I’ve talked to in my experience has been that you sort of seem to have fallen off the radar. And some people were wondering if you’re even around anymore, if you’re even doing anything anymore. Somebody thought maybe you had died. Obviously, that’s not the case.

Denver: Well, this is a few months old; this is about a year old [holding up books]. And there’s another one coming out here shortly. Yeah, I continue to work. And the purpose is to push the Restoration further along, to get more of it on the ground and back into the hands of people.

RFM: All right, well, you’re certainly very busy. And no, you haven’t fallen off the radar. So, thank you so much for coming on the show. And it says RFM. Yes. And this is… 

Denver: That’s so I don’t… Yeah…

RFM: That’s me. #lazylearner. 

Denver: There you are. 

RFM: I think that’s all of us here tonight.

Denver: Well, my note was up so I didn’t call you by your name.

RFM: I appreciate that. You had made a comment about in the private chat, saying you had the note up there to remind you to call me RFM. And I said, “And I have a note up on my computer to remind me to call you ‘Your Holiness.’” 

Denver: Your Holiness, yeah. 

RFM: Yes. And you take a joke. You’re so great. I appreciate it so much. 

Denver: Yeah.

Bill: Denver, thank you for your time.

Denver: Yeah. Good to talk to you. Take care. 

Bill: Yeah, appreciation to Maven for running things behind the scenes. By the way, it does look like the phone system now works, RFM, where you and I can both communicate with the caller. So, that worked out great, as well. And listeners, just want to say thank you. I appreciate so much everybody tuning in today, and was grateful for Denver to give us his time. And folks, if you like Mormonism Live, please go to mormonismlive.org and donate. And don’t forget…

Closing: Give Brother Joseph a break!

The post Mormonism Live appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

These remarks were shared in Manti, Utah on October 17th, 2021

Apparently, if you accept the doctrine of Christ—which is best defined in the Book of Mormon—that would suggest that you accept the Book of Mormon, which suggests that you believe in Joseph; and therefore, everyone has in common recognition of Joseph as someone through whom the Lord accomplished a great work. 

I grew up with a Baptist mother and a father who believed in God but doubted the legitimacy of churches, generally, and the Baptist ministers, particularly.  But my mom would make a fried chicken dinner every Sunday and invite the minister (whichever one it was at the time) over after the sermonizing was done, and we’d have fried chicken and the potatoes and gravy, which, by the way, endeared me to the whole “Baptist minister coming over” thing.  But it was my father’s skepticism about the legitimacy of that particular brand of Christianity that sort of alerted me to the possibility that churches may not be all they’re cracked up to be.

We grew up next door to a Catholic family. And I rather liked the Catholic approach because you could raise hell all week and go in and confess; and, you know, a few confessions later, you’re good to go again and raise hell for the next week. And that sounded kind of useful, if not particularly “authentically Christian.” And I couldn’t indulge in the excesses. (My mom thought statuary stuff was “making graven images.”) 

So, literally, I did not belong to any church until the Mormon missionaries hounded me when I was on active duty in the military. And they presented the Book of Mormon, and they presented their discussions, and I put up with them. I recall bringing cigars and a six-pack of beer to the Mormon family’s house to listen to the felt-board presentations (back in those days). And they didn’t want us smoking cigars or drinking beer during the missionary discussions. I assured them the beer, at least, would make things a bit more interesting. But they thought that was, you know, evil incarnate. 

And I didn’t particularly like the Book of Mormon. I didn’t particularly like anything that they were saying. But there was something about the Joseph Smith account that struck me as incredibly authentic—because if God worked with and cared about people anciently and sent His Son, and His Son had died as a sacrifice to redeem all mankind, then it made little sense why, immediately after that sacrifice, God would then abandon all those who believed in His Son. And it just struck me that the reformers had not claimed God did anything directly with them. They claimed that the errors they detected were based upon an evaluation of the Scriptures that had been left behind by those to whom God had spoken and that they detected the errors. And therefore, Christianity was amiss. And Martin Luther discovered that there were verses in the book of Romans that could justify a plan of salvation that was not dependent upon a priestly magisterium to hold keys that God gave to Peter, but that you could, by faith, be saved. And so, Martin Luther’s evaluation of the Scripture really opened the door not just for Lutheranism but, in turn, for every particular Protestant off-break of the Catholic mother. 

But Joseph was saying something altogether different. Joseph was saying that the Scriptures justified taking a case of faith directly to God and asking Him and that God can answer you directly. It was revolutionary in terms of how you define Christianity because it’s no longer dependent upon priestly authority and a magisterium recognizing that they held keys that had once been entrusted to Peter and passed down generationally, nor was it dependent upon someone feeling within themselves an inspired calling, and by faith, they had now overcome things. This was something very, very different. Joseph Smith was saying God talked, and God was talking; that Christianity was no longer an artifact of the past, dependent upon echoes that may or may not have been well-preserved through the corridors of history down to now, but it was, instead, God talking immediately and directly. 

And as I read the Joseph Smith story (or history) as they handed it out in the pamphlet and as it appears in the Pearl of Great Price of the LDS Scriptures, there was one line in there that just [snaps fingers]…  It struck me as so candidly honest that this would not be written by someone who was the vile deceiver that the Baptists accused Mormons of following, nor could it have been written by someone who was really pretentious and dishonest. 

(Being of very tender years, and persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends and to have treated me kindly — and if they supposed me to be deluded, to have endeavored in a proper and affectionate manner, to have reclaimed me), I was left to all kinds of temptations. (Joseph Smith History 2:10 RE) 

Well, why would the reaction to what Joseph had to say provoke anger, bitterness, and jealousy rather than, “Oh, you poor child. You’re deluded, and we need to reclaim you. Let’s show you that kindness and the tenderness that…” I mean, he was approximately 14 years old at the time. I don’t know in Sanpete County if it’s still true because of the damn internet, but a 14-year-old farm boy who is generally a tender creature, a naive creature. I’ve got 14-year-old grandkids that have been raised in rural circumstances, and they are very unacquainted with men and things, which is exactly how Joseph described his youth. So, why was he provoking this spirit of bitterness and this spirit of contention, and no one was endeavoring to reclaim him? 

Well, it was the Joseph Smith story that actually kept me listening to the missionaries. And then they had something that was called a “Fathers and Sons Outing” and a Priesthood Restoration celebration. I was in the military. We were on the coast of New Hampshire, but they were holding this thing at the birthplace of Joseph Smith in Sharon, Vermont. So, we all trudged up to Sharon, Vermont in a caravan of cars, camped out overnight, and there were talks. And I went down to a visitor’s center where very amiable old people manned the desk, and they had a copy of this blue book called Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. And I wanted to buy one ‘cuz I was interested in it, and they gave me one for free. So, I hustled out of there before they changed their mind and decided they wanted to charge me for it. And the fellow that had taken me up to the Fathers and Sons dog-eared Doctrine and Covenants section 76, which was the Vision of the Three Degrees of Glory. 

Now, the Joseph Smith History had struck me with passages that seemed very authentic, but D&C section 76 struck me as something that was altogether from another world. It hailed from Heaven. It touched me. It reached me in a way in which, you know, Corinthians had not. 

And I got very serious about investigating things. But, alas, I mean… Mormon families that I had been exposed to in the investigation process lived a lifestyle that was very different from everything I was acquainted with. I got the conviction that I ought to have been baptized, but I despaired at what kind of a Mormon I would make because Mormons were so much better than I was. They didn’t smoke. They didn’t drink. They went to church on Sunday. They actually owned and wore white shirts and ties. They had suits and stuff. And they read Scriptures. And the Bible, to me, was a cure for insomnia. It wasn’t… There was nothing in it that I could relate to (a lot of words). My mom had read the New Testament verses to us at breakfast, and some of them were catchy—For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 2:2 RE). Yeah, see, so some verses stick with you, and they’re nice, but the Scriptures did not appeal. 

I felt the obligation. I went ahead with baptism, but I despaired at what kind of Mormon I would make on the other side of the waters of baptism. But I went ahead, and I was baptized, and everything changed. The Scriptures came alive. Joseph talked about how the more mysterious passages of Scripture were opened up to their minds within a manner that they could never previously attain to. I was shocked at what happened with reading the Scriptures; I couldn’t get enough of ‘em. Who wanted to smoke and drink? This was something really interesting! God was now involved with the world again—which I had never supposed.

The summer before this, I had discovered J.R.R. Tolkien, and I’d read The Hobbit, and then I’d read the trilogy of [The Lord of] the Rings, and I’d done it all in, like, a month and a half because it was just gripping. That world came alive. Middle-earth was a real deal: Mount Mordor, Mount Doom, the caves, the caverns. 

The Scriptures became more lively to me than had Tolkien’s Hobbit and trilogy. It was a stunning transition. I couldn’t get enough. I bought and I read… Back then, they had what was called “The Seventy’s Mission Bookstore,” which in New Hampshire consisted of the back porch of Sister Long’s house. Sister Long had an enclosed porch that was windowed up and shut off against the elements, and her back porch was filled up with books. 

I bought and I read every biography of every one of the early Restoration church fathers. I bought and I read B.H. Roberts’ volume that summarized… His seven volumes that summarized church history. I bought and I read the documentary history that was the original effort in the Joseph Smith Papers. I read everything I could get my hands on because it was lively. It was something real and concrete and appealing. 

I probably had been a member of the church (baptized in ‘73, started law school at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU at ‘77)… In the four years between baptism and the time I started law school, I think I had exhausted the available library of materials about LDS founding and history and teachings. 

There is only one doctrine of Christ, and you’re right to lay hold on that. But there is precepts and principles and commandments and teachings and mysteries that go well beyond the doctrine of Christ. The doctrine of Christ is how you get your feet on the road in order to progress. But having my feet on that road, I wanted to know as much as I could know. 

Well, after I had exhausted the available library and thought myself a well-informed Latter-day Saint, along came the Leonard Arrington Church Historian’s Office and D. Michael Quinn. And things start rolling out of the Church History Library that D. Michael Quinn was repackaging. And he sounded to me like someone that had an axe to grind, and he was being incredibly unfair. He had an agenda, and his agenda was to do something to mess with retelling church history in a way that corrupted it and challenged faith—and it was wrong of him. 

So, he excited me to look into the whole history of the LDS Church and the Restoration at another level. But he did something very different from what other historians had done. Largely what they had done was base their histories upon secondary sources. I mean that the Documentary History and the B.H. Roberts materials and then a handful of other source material, secondary, were what they used, and D. Michael Quinn was now taking stuff directly out of the Church History Library and quoting materials that weren’t particularly available. So, I made it a quest to try and find the same original source material that Quinn had relied upon in order to show the errors, the unfairness, the bias that he’d allowed to creep in.

He got dismissed from BYU, he got discharged from the LDS Church Historian’s Office, and he finished publishing a number of things and then donated his papers to Yale University (because he did not trust the University of Utah or Brigham Young University to let the papers be made public). So, he donated a large volume of material to Yale University. And then Signature Books (which has an axe to grind themselves) started publishing typewritten transcripts of the original journals that much of which Quinn had had access to in the LDS Historian’s Office—now they were rolling out in limited numbers. And they were expensive, and they’re rare books, and I don’t know why anyone would buy them unless they were on a quest to try and get to the bottom of something. But I spent a small fortune acquiring a library of original source material. And I started reading the same stuff that Quinn had read and relied upon when he did his history-making. 

I don’t believe that D. Michael Quinn had an axe to grind. In many respects, he pulled punches that he didn’t need to pull. His history of the church—it comes from a vantage point that I would differ with, but I see the justification for the conclusions that he reached and for the stuff that he published. And the biggest disagreement that I would have with him is that I don’t think the narrative about the origin of plural marriage coming through Joseph Smith is defensible. The best you can say is that there’s not enough proof to decide that issue one way or the other. But you certainly can’t say that you know for certain that it originated with Joseph Smith. 

What Joseph was doing appears to be as Richard Bushman said: It appeared to be related to some kind of familial abundance in the afterlife. It didn’t have anything to do with taking plural wives and bearing children in this life. Brigham Young changed that kind of afterlife familial interconnectivity into a practice of taking more wives and having children. 

There is not a single child that was born to Joseph Smith that didn’t come through Emma Smith. She’s the mother of all his children. The stories about Fanny Alger are grossly distorted. If you go back and you look at the contemporaneous material, there really isn’t anything. Even Oliver Cowdery withdrew the allegations that he made when he was in front of the Far West High Council, called up for disparaging Joseph and insinuating that he had had some kind of inappropriate liaison with her. She had nine children from a husband; Joseph fathered eight children through Emma. Both of them were in their prime fertility when the alleged liaison took place, and yet, there’s no children as issue from that relationship. 

The most scandalous account of that is given by William McLellin, and he wasn’t there! He says he heard something from Emma which was told to him over two decades after “whatever happened” happened, and then he reports it in the 1870s. And he’s one of the two primary sources, the other being Levi Hancock, son of Mosiah Hancock; and Mosiah didn’t leave a record. And the only thing about the McLellin account is the punctuation and the spelling: “TRANSACTION” all in caps, “in the barn,” exclamation point, exclamation point. And he’s writing this to one of the sons of Joseph Smith. Well, what was the transaction? Apparently, Joseph practiced sealing of people together in a relationship for the next life. “Sealing” became a code word for marriage. But sealing did not mean marriage, at least not at the beginning: sealing included adoption; sealing included a number of other things—not marriage and certainly not marital relationships. 

Well, I went to dinner with D. Michael Quinn, and he was a great conversation starter. He said, “You know, I think your position on Joseph Smith and polygamy is bovine feces,” (but he didn’t use that; he used a more colorful expression). And that’s because he relies upon all of the historical material that got ginned up in the 1860s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. So, I posed this question back to him. I said, “If you take the historical record, and you limit your inquiry to what existed on June 27, 1844 and before then, and you rely upon nothing but the material that existed while Joseph Smith was alive, can you prove that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage?” 

And he thought about it for a few minutes. I could tell the wheels were turning. And I said, “Yeah,  Far West won’t do it, will it?” 

And he thought for another minute. He said, “Okay. Okay. I understand where you’re coming from.”

So, the problem with that subject is that it gets all changed after the 1852 talk given in General Conference by Orson Pratt when he was told by Brigham to go to the podium and announce the plural marriage thing, and then everything changes. And the Church Historian’s Office began to alter historical documents. You can see proof of that in the Joseph Smith Papers. 

And so, I wound up being an apologist for the church and a Gospel Doctrine teacher for about nearly three decades teaching the four standard works as you go through. I taught Gospel Doctrine in a Pleasant Grove ward, in multiple Alpine wards, and in multiple Sandy, Utah wards for decades. And I—even though we went through the four standard works serially—I never taught the same lesson twice. I wasn’t interested in plowing and boring myself with the same material. I tried to push it further. Got to the point that at the end… Going through the Book of Mormon, they give you eight chapters to cover in a 45-minute, and I would cover a verse or a phrase within a verse; and you know, the rest of the material you just… You’ve got to read that on your own. We’re not gonna get there. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon was a far more materially dense book with far greater volumes of information included within it than any of the other volumes of Scripture that we have. I’ve also come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith, throughout his ministry, understated everything, that he never overstated a proposition, that he never gave us anything beyond the veil that he was not required to give, that Joseph Smith was everything that he claimed to be and a whole lot more. 

There was a trendline that occurred in the Restoration, where Joseph—even after the publication of the Book of Mormon and after the initial success that the book began to have—was still susceptible of being influenced by bigger personalities than him. I don’t know that any of you have spent enough time with it, but I think in the marriage, Emma was the more dominant personality. I think Joseph deferred to her. I think she was trusted; she was better educated; and he looked to her for assistance, counsel, guidance, and that she was a stronger personality than was Joseph. 

Joseph continually read into other people the same sentiments that were in his own heart. Therefore, he was continually being duped by pretenders and con-men. That followed him right into Nauvoo with John C. Bennett—because he assumed John Bennett was just as good and decent and noble as he (Joseph) was, and John Bennett was not. He was a horrible character. 

Well, one of the people that showed up early on was Sidney Rigdon, who was an accomplished orator and a persuasive minister who had a fountain of biblical understanding and preaching competency that wowed Joseph Smith.  And part of the trajectory of the Restoration early on was influenced by the counsel and the guidance that Joseph, who was younger, took from Sidney Rigdon, who was older and more acquainted with men and things. And one of the things that Sidney Rigdon really wanted to see was a New Testament church revived. 

And of course, one of the things we learn from the Scriptures is that if you ask, and you ask often enough, no’s can turn into yes’s. And the lack of permission to give 116 pages into the custody of Martin Harris can turn into permission to give the 116 pages to Martin Harris, with certain restrictions—which would not be honored; and therefore, they got forfeited. But God had planned ahead for that failing. And Joseph is told right out in one revelation, “Joseph, you cannot see what’s in the hearts of other men. You’re no good at that.” And it plagued him throughout his life. 

Well, with Sidney’s influence, the church organization tumbles out, and we get a presidency, and we get a Quorum of Twelve, and we get a Quorum of Seventy, and we get stakes that are modeled after the larger magisterium, and we get priesthood authority, and we get hierarchy. And that continues right into the 1838 crisis in which the hierarchy in Zion…

See, there was a presidency in Kirtland, and there was a presidency in Zion. And the presidency in Zion was David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery. And they were the successors to Joseph Smith—if he was not gonna be around, David Whitmer was gonna run the church. And the group in Far West in Missouri (the presidency in Zion) turn on Joseph—members of the Quorum of the Twelve (David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery), these people (John Whitmer), they wind up excommunicated from the church. They wind up, several of them, signing affidavits that help get Joseph held in prison for treason and rebellion. 

And so, the magisterium of priestly authority that God established to roll things out has now turned on the founder of the Restoration. And Joseph Smith is in prison as a consequence of that, and he’s left for nearly half a year. He writes a letter at a moment when he really didn’t know when or if he would ever get out of prison. And things change dramatically.  This is what he wrote from a dungeon in Missouri: 

Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen…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 principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true, but when we undertake to cover our sins or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to 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 is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. (T&C 139:5) 

Joseph’s in the process of deconstructing the entire priestly magisterium (sitting in a dungeon in Missouri) because it’s proven to be potentially treacherous. He goes on to say: 

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood; only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned, by kindness and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul; without hypocrisy and without guile. (Ibid. v.6) 

See, imagine what the group out of which you have become disaffected would look like if no claim by anyone to any authority at any time was given any credence by anyone, but it was, instead, necessary that you had to be persuaded by the pure knowledge of the speaker before you said, “Amen,” to any proposition. Control and compulsion and dominion could not be exercised if the burden was placed upon the preacher, the priest, the minister, the president, the bishop to persuade you first that what they were asking of you or preaching to you was predicated upon truth and light and knowledge.

Well, everything has rather turned into a murky mess from the history to the current claims of leadership. My suggestion to any of you would be that you view claims that people make today of holding authority—whether it’s within a priestly establishment or hierarchy or some chest-thumper claiming to be “mighty and strong”—that you evaluate that based upon the way in which Joseph Smith pulled the rug out from under every one that would have the audacity to make such a claim and to say, “Not so.” 

If you’ve got something of light and truth, share it. Show me by your pure knowledge something that is of value. Edify me. Give me truth. But if you’ve got nothing but your claim to authority, then I can detect you right now as someone aspiring to have control and compulsion and dominion. And I’m a refugee from that nonsense, and I will not go back. 

So, there it is. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

I’m going north. Thank you. 

I don’t know—how long have I talked? 

AUDIENCE: Like, forty minutes.

DENVER: Okay. We’veWeve had people who’ve had to go already, and I envy them that. So…yeah. Do you want to hear from her [Stephanie Snuffer]?

STEPHANIE: No, no, no, no.

AUDIENCE:  Yes.

AUDIENCE:  Heck yes we do!

AUDIENCE:  What about a couple of questions?

AUDIENCE: Yeah, questions. 

DENVER: She’ll answer anything you want… [laughter]. Questions can always be asked, but answers are another thing. 

Yeah?

QUESTION 1: So, what do you think it’s gonna look like when Christ comes back or, like, when all the problems are fixed, and we become unified and build Zion, say? What is it gonna look like for, like, authority? Does that make sense? Like, how are we gonna be organized, is it Patriarchal Order or… What is it? What’s the ideal system that you think Joseph wanted to set up that kind of got kaboshed, you know?

DENVER: I don’t think that… In the book Gospel Doctrine, Joseph F. Smith said one thing I really agree with (and that one is quotable, and that one is worthwhile). He said, “The government of God is a family.”    

And I think that having our hearts turned to the Fathers is a way of expressing in a short— you know—phrase the idea that we began with a family that consisted of Adam and Eve; and both of them, in the garden, were exercising the priestly functions—both Adam and Eve. He was the high priest; she was the high priestess. And they were the ones to whom the government belonged. 

When Cain slew Abel, he did that to dispossess the heir (the one that would succeed the father). He murdered Abel; he did not murder Adam—because Cain did not want the position held by Adam to be subject to threat or death or overthrow. He wanted it. He envied it. He wanted to occupy that position, and he aspired to that role. 

God had other plans, and Seth was born, and the right of government passed to him. But the original structure of the family was patriarchal and matriarchal and familial. And I believe that when we are organized again in the Millennium into something that makes sense, that the sensibility will reckon from a family and that all who survive into that will be put into a family relationship—and everyone will be aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews, fathers and grandfathers, grandmothers. It will not be organized, in my view, outside of the family line because there’s really no reason to create redundancy. The eternities are a place in which there are families. It’ll just be getting us back into a familial connection that we’ll take with us on into eternity. 

QUESTION 2: Do you believe that Joseph Smith will return as the Davidic Servant? 

DENVER: Well, he denounced that idea as a doctrine of the devil, so I doubt it. 

AUDIENCE: Where did he denounce that as the doctrine of the devil?    

DENVER: When Matthias came and claimed… Well, when the guy who claimed to be Matthias reincarnated (or returned to Earth) came to him, Joseph rejected the idea as a doctrine of devils and said he had cast the devil out in bodily form after he told Matthias, you know, “Get out of here. You’re deceived, and you’re teaching a doctrine of devils.” 

Look, I forget which section of the Doctrine and Covenants it is—I was just reading it in the new Scriptures, but… 

Christ goes to the top of the Mount of Transfiguration. On the Mount of Transfiguration, we get in this revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants a greater explanation of what took place there. What Peter, James, and John were shown was what was gonna transpire on the world down to the latest generation. Coming out of that incident—so now, Peter, James, and John know what’s gonna happen down to the latest generation—coming out of that, Peter and James say, “Don’t leave us in the spirit world. Let us come speedily into your kingdom,” which means: “Resurrect us, and get us out of the spirit world so we’re not there.” John says, “Let me tarry here on this side; I don’t want to go there.” 

If it’s possible to recycle through the spirit world and what they were looking at was, “I’m gonna die; I’m gonna come back. I’m gonna die; I’m gonna come back. I’m gonna die, and I’m gonna come back,” it wouldn’t have said, “They looked upon the long absence of their spirit from their body as a prison” (see T&C 31:4). They would have said, “Well, we’re in and we’re out of prison. So, cool enough, we’ll just hang here, and we’ll do our thing.” And John would not have needed to say, “Let me tarry in the flesh,” if it’s possible to go and return. 

So, I think Joseph was right when he said doctrine of devils, and that when he threw… What was the name of the guy? I mean it was… He called him Matthias. But he was a roundabout preacher that made a thing off that. 

Yeah?

QUESTION 3: So, for me, if I was to sum up if someone asked me what the point of your remarks was, it sounds like you have a concern that someone in our group is claiming to be a “mighty and strong one.” So, I’m just asking you really directly: Do you have… Have you heard (from whatever source) that there’s someone in our group that claims to be a mighty and strong one? That’s one part of my question. 

The second part: Under what conditions do you believe a mighty and strong one would be called to set in order the Latter-day Saint Church? Do you subscribe to that? And how would you recognize that person? And do you think they need to have their house set in order?

DENVER: [Chuckles]

STEPHANIE: Okay, wait, wait. I want to answer something first. Can I answer something first?

DENVER: Sure.

AUDIENCE: She speaks.

STEPHANIE: Oh, I do speak. You know, I guess that’s an interesting… ‘cuz I’ve been sitting here listening, and I didn’t take that from it at all. And I think a lot of it might have more to do with… 

Oh, never mind. You go ahead and answer.

QUESTION 3 (continued): I’m not trying to be contentious!

STEPHANIE:  No, no, no…no. 

QUESTION 3 (continued): You said if someone comes to mind you… thumping their chest and thinking they could be the mighty and strong one… I haven’t heard of anybody doing that, and I’m just curious…  

AUDIENCE: Are you talking about the LDS Church in that scenario, or… there’s any church…? 

DENVER: Ok, let me clarify, let me clarify… I know nothing about your group other than having gone to lunch with a fellow named Curtis that Jeremy Hoop…

AUDIENCE:  Mark Curtis.

DENVER: …Mark Curtis, who Jeremy Hoop, a friend of mine… If you saw the movie Charlie, he was… 

AUDIENCE:  Or Testaments.

DENVER: He was the romantic interest of “Charlie” in that movie. Jeremy Hoop took… 

STEPHANIE: That’s how I know him.

DENVER: …he and I to lunch. And mostly, he talked about how he didn’t believe in eternal marriage, that he thought that his study of Scripture led him to the conclusion that there was no eternality to marriage, which…

AUDIENCE:  Really?  That’s weird.

DENVER: …was what stuck out in that lunch. 

I’m not saying anything about this group in particular. I just know that around every corner, in every fragmented group… You’ve got your Allreds, and you’ve got your… What’s the name of the guy that got arrested in the red… 

AUDIENCE: Daybell.

DENVER: No, no, not Chad Daybell—although I’m pretty sure he would have claimed he was mighty and strong. No, the guy that’s down in prison that… 

AUDIENCE: Jeffs.

DENVER: Warren Jeffs, yeah! The Cadillac Escalade with the $50,000 in cash in the back end of the… I mean, being mighty and strong really pays well, apparently! 

But no, I don’t know anything about anyone making any claims among your group. But if there is or are, if there’s 50 of ‘em here, then that wouldn’t surprise me because they’re everywhere. I think there’s one down in South America who has fabricated a phony set of brass plates, and he claims he’s… I think he claims he’s Joseph Smith reincarnated. 

STEPHANIE: Okay, and just so that, you know, where I was headed with that was that that tends to be a strong reaction for him because people think that of him. 

DENVER: Yeah.

STEPHANIE: There, I mean… You know, you don’t have to go too far into the depths of the internet to read, you know… 

AUDIENCE:  People think he is the Davidic Servant?

STEPHANIE: Well, or people think he thinks, or people think he… or whatever. I mean, just whatever iteration of…  

DENVER: I think… 

STEPHANIE: …that thought process is.

DENVER: I think that… 

COMMENT: Is it the followers of you think that you are, too?

STEPHANIE: I don’t… 

DENVER: I think—and I would proclaim it from the rooftops—I am “the one foolish and weak.” I don’t make any claims to have anything that requires you to respect me. If I can’t persuade you to a truth, if I can’t share light, then you ought to dismiss what I have to say altogether. I believe we probably need someone to help fix a whole lot of things, but they’re not gonna do it by proclaiming themselves to be something great and high and mighty. 

If you are something, then go get the work done! I assume that if they achieve some- thing, that that will identify them, but hollow claims and bragging and asserting entitlement to any kind of respect or position, to me is nonsense. The greatest who ever walked on this earth was asked about His authority. And what was Christ’s response?

AUDIENCE: To do my Father’s work.

DENVER: No, He said, “I’ll tell you what my authority is if you’ll tell me what John’s authority was.” And then they argued among themselves: “Well, if we say that He came from God, then He’s gonna ask us why we didn’t believe him. And if we say He’s not from God, the crowd’s gonna get mad because the crowd thinks John’s from God… So, we can’t tell you.” And Jesus says, “Well then, neither can I tell you what my authority is.” 

I mean, when Christ died, the “He called Himself the Son of God” thing that was up there was so controversial that there was an argument about whether or not it ought to be taken down. His followers scattered. It wasn’t until He reappeared and said, “Look and see”—then they went from cowering in the shadows to walking boldly into the temple. I mean, look— what did Christ do as the example who was the Son of God? He went about doing good. Go about doing good. Whoever…  If there is such a person that ever arrives on the scene—and Lord knows, every single group of people everywhere could use someone that goes around doing good. 

But I don’t know how you set in order a trillion-dollar organization. 

QUESTION 4: Speaking of doing good, the next 6 months to 12 months, what is your group hoping to accomplish? 

DENVER: There’s a conference in Kentucky in the spring that I’ll be speaking at. There’s a conference being organized in September of next year that I’ve been asked and I will speak at. 

There’s an ongoing project (it is a Herculean project) to translate the Book of Mormon into Old Testament Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is not what the Book of Mormon needs to be rendered into; it’s got to be put into Old Testament Hebrew. There is a panel… 

We do not possess the competency to be able to accomplish that. There’s a panel of scholars that are working behind the scenes that are some of the best “Old Testament Hebrew” scholars in the world. (I mean, we’re talking Europe; we’re talking people around the globe.) But we have to pay them to do that, and right now the cost is running about $15,000 a month to pay for the translation effort. The work is… About a third [is] in a great form, and probably 40% [is] done. We’ve got another (we’re guessing) year and a half at the current rate before we get it done. 

But there’s an obligation that’s imposed upon us through the Book of Mormon to take the message of the Restoration to two remnant groups: One group are native covenant people in the Americas; the other are the remnant of the Jews. You’re not going to attract any attention among the Jews unless the Book of Mormon is presented in an authentic form that requires an extraordinary effort to make it suitable for the audience. That work is being done. Outreach to the Native Americans is also being done. People have been asked to accomplish the work of… 

AUDIENCE: Are you translating that into a language more suitable for them, as well? Is that what you mean?

DENVER: Umm, okay. The Book of Mormon translation text in the version that we have at present is actually a formal kind of English that… It would be more correct to analogize the translation to 1600s English than it would be to analogize it to 1830 English. Some of the words and the phrases that are contained in the Book of Mormon are antiquated in 1830. So, if you go buy an 1830 Merriam-Webster dictionary and you use that, you’re really not gonna tree what the translation is talking about. There’s an effort being made to take the entire Book of Mormon and its correct translation setting and to move it up to English of today. 

Joseph made no effort to present to the Lamanites a version of the Book of Mormon any different than to the English-speaking audience of his day. We expect that when the modern-English version is finished, that that version will hold more appeal to the Native American audience because it is actually in simpler modern English that we use in our vernacular today. But those efforts are underway and are being accomplished. 

We have conferences scheduled. We just finished with the Scripture Project (that took far more work than we thought it would take to get out into print). And who knows, we… 

QUESTION 5: Do you feel like there’s any way that we can all work together? Or do you think we’re just gonna do our own thing and meet up in the Millennium or something like that?

DENVER: Don’t… Don’t know. I mean, I came down here. I mean, Bryce was the one who had this brainchild; he set this up. He knows you, apparently, through his father. I mean, some of you may know his father. I went to hear Bob talk in the park on Saturday, and on Monday, he was… I got news that he’d died. I mean, we went to the park, and my daughter (who was up from college in Southern Utah) was there in the park with us at the time your father talked, and it came as quite a surprise. 

QUESTION 6: Can I ask one more? So, you issued, as I understand it, a new covenant. I’m curious, what was the genesis for that? And what is it?

STEPHANIE: So, you get to end on this. This is your swan song, so… 

DENVER: But there’s a lady over here. I thought…  

STEPHANIE: Oh… oh. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: I’ve got a question for you.

AUDIENCE:  I did.

AUDIENCE: Do you want me to ask my question first?

DENVER: No, you can ask yours last. [Laughter]

AUDIENCE: Mine’s not as interesting as his is.

QUESTION 7: And my last question is: Can you bear witness of Christ and share your testimony of Him?

STEPHANIE: OK, go ahead. Start with one at a time, honey. It’s okay. One at a time.

DENVER: As the Joseph Smith Papers rolled out and as the source material started to become more abundantly available, it became apparent to a number of people that the Scriptures (in the form that it’s published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) were not what Joseph had started with. There were three different groups that had it occur to them that work needed to be done to try and find a more correct version of the Book of Mormon and a more correct version of the revelations through Joseph Smith, and they began working on this stuff. As long as they were at it, the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible was something that also ought to be looked at. And so, different groups began working on recovering the Scriptures. 

Two of the three groups combined into one; that left two surviving groups. Both of them finished their effort at the Scriptures within two weeks of one another. And both of them (when they finished their work) brought it to me and said, “Here, we want you to take a look at this. These are better Scriptures.” And I took what both of them had done, and I said, “Okay, you guys have been getting down really granular about these Scriptures, and now I’ve got, you know, 2,000 pages of material to read. I got a better idea. Why don’t we just get the two surviving groups together, and let’s all meet, and let’s all talk.” 

So, I set up a meeting at my law office, and I brought together the two groups—some of whom participated by Zoom but many of whom were there in person—and they sat down and they talked, and they’d all run into some challenges that they had resolved differently. And so, my suggestion was instead of leaving that with different resolutions, why don’t we compare notes and figure it all out? So, the effort that had reached a conclusion by the two groups started over as a single group looking at how everyone had resolved things. And the give-and-take was largely figuring out which was the better historical source to rely upon in order to figure out what the accurate statement of the record was, and some people had found better source material than other people had found. And that went back and forth. 

And so, we also stumbled upon a guy who had redone the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible in the 1960s and had put it into print—and that guy was still alive. And he was… He had sold everything he planned to sell, and he turned over… He just turned over (in a word processing format) all of the work that he’d done. And so, now we had a (we thought) a better thing. 

So, we’re getting to the point that we’re gonna suggest to a conference of people that we adopt new Scriptures, and at the point that discussion begins (we’re putting it out in paperback for everyone to read and everyone to comment on and everyone to pick apart and find any additions) there’s a guy sitting in the audience who has made it his life’s work to study the Joseph Smith Translation. And he—taking that JST—went back and found where the publication (in the form that it rolled out through the RLDS Church/Community of Christ/Herald Press) had changes made by the committee that published it that Joseph never did. And in the Nauvoo era, Joseph Smith gave talks in which he said, “I’m gonna quote from this passage in Galatians—I could give you a plainer translation, which would be this…” He had gone to the trouble of finding 14 other changes Joseph had made to the biblical text by talks he gave in Nauvoo, and those were being added in. And so, the work we thought was done on the Bible had to go through the same crunching again. And so, it really took years after the project had been finished. And after the project had been finished, it started over again, and it took years to get the whole thing done. 

Well, after it had gotten that far along, the people involved in the committee asked me if I would present the scriptural project to the Lord for His acceptance. And they all were united in agreeing that if I asked, that whatever answer was forthcoming, that they would consider accepting. So, I prepared myself, as people ought to do to offer a significant prayer to the Lord. And the dedication of the Kirtland Temple was done by a written prayer, and this, I thought, was a serious enough question that the prayer ought to be written. So, I sat down to compose a prayer. 

Now, I have written 250,000 words about LDS history in a single volume, and I’ve presented multiple papers at the Sunstone Conferences about incidents in church history, including a discussion about the original formation of the church. I sat down to write a prayer of my own writing, and what occurred was an inspired prayer that summarizes the entire history of the Restoration (from the beginning to this moment) in far, far fewer words than anything I’ve ever composed and gave a more accurate statement of what has and is happening. And it includes the necessity of repentance and forgiveness from the Lord for the condemnation that was originally imposed in 1831 because we were treating lightly the words of God. And instead of treating it lightly, this entire effort was an act of repentance; it was an act of contrition; it was acknowledging that we’ve inherited corruption and that we are trying—unlike those that got condemned by the Lord in 1831—we’re trying to say to the Lord: We want to shake off that condemnation.

And so, the inspired prayer for the Lord to accept the Scriptures was met with a lengthy revelation that was presented in September of 2017 in Boise. And it proposed that He’ll renew His covenant with this penitent group and that He’ll work with this penitent group to go forward. 

Now, you really need… It’s a bigger subject than we can talk about right now, but throughout… Every little red tag you see here in these Scriptures… 

Identities in the Book of Mormon shift; they go back and forth. You have Lamanites, and you have Nephites. And at some point, the Lamanites repent, and they are numbered among the Nephites, and at other points the Nephites are thrown out. And the identity of people being numbered among one or the other changes repeatedly in the text of the Book of Mormon. Your identity with “the remnant” is not determined based upon biology or genealogy. The remnant of the people of Nephi will include people that are called Gentiles (at the outset) who become numbered among the people of God when they repent and return to Him. And the part of the red tags includes language within the covenant the Lord offered in 2017 in September to a group of Gentiles assembled in Boise that says: “I will number you among the remnant of the house of Israel.” 

QUESTION 6 (continued): So, that was the covenant that you issued? 

DENVER: Yes. Yes. And the language of the prayer, the language of the answer, and the language of the covenant itself are all contained in the… They were added by the committee into the new Scriptures and sustained by a group of people. And they are separate sections of what’s called the Teachings and Commandments. (It’s the T&C, not the D&C.) 

QUESTION 6 (continued): So, do you see that as part of your issuance of a new set of Scriptures? Or what is the basis of, you know, extending that covenant that the, you know, this group of Gentiles might be adopted into the house of Israel?

DENVER: The process by which that gets accomplished is contained within the “Answer to the Prayer” and in the “Covenant” itself. And it can be renewed by anyone at any time in any circumstance just by following what the “Answer to the Prayer” and the “Covenant” itself states. I mean, people this last week have become covenant people—because it’s an ongoing thing. 

QUESTION 6 (continued):  Yeah. It talks about, you know, that in 1 Nephi 14.

DENVER:  Yes. Yeah, it’s a great chapter.

QUESTION 6 (continued): Yeah. I mean, the (you know) the process (you know) outlined by Nephi is that (you know) the Gentiles of the end times, we have to repent and return… 

DENVER: Yes. 

QUESTION 6 (continued): …that the Lord would remove our stumbling block. And really the (you know) what I would call the new and everlasting covenants that Christ declares in 3 Nephi 9, (you know) comprised of two oaths—an oath that man makes to God, an oath that God makes back to man… 

DENVER: Right. 

QUESTION 6 (continued): …is that you will offer up unto me a sacrifice of a broken heart and contrite spirit. And whoso does that (you know) become my daughters sons and daughters—the formal adoption process which is the baptism of fire/baptism of the Holy Ghost. And so that’s really (you know)…  What Nephi outlines is the way the Gentiles repent and return. It’s to enter into that covenant (you know), offering up sacrifice of a broken heart and contrite spirit.  

DENVER: And if that’s the universe of your belief and how you read the Book of Mormon, then I would say, be happy with that and go no further. 

QUESTION 6 (continued): So, how do you expand on that? 

DENVER: I would say, “Wherefore murmur ye, because ye receive more of my word? Ye need not suppose because I have spoken one word that I cannot speak another” (see 2 Nephi 12:9-10 RE). And to the Gentiles directly in 1831, the Lord said, “You are condemned because you treat lightly my word” (see T&C 82:20). 

QUESTION 6 (continued): Or in 1832.

DENVER: And later He said, “I am going to reject you with your dead if you don’t give heed to the things that I’m telling you to do.” That was the January…   

QUESTION 6 (continued): Yeah, “I’m giving you one last chance to repent and return.”

DENVER: Yes, that was the January 1841 revelation… 

QUESTION 6 (continued): D&C 124.

DENVER: …in which…

QUESTION 6 (continued): 124

DENVER: …in which He gives you the description. “This is how you know if you’ve met my terms: You will not be moved out of your place. But if you don’t give heed, then this is how you know that you’re rejected: You’re gonna be hounded out of this place by your enemies, and this center stake that I have accepted will not be where you’re allowed to live in peace.” 

QUESTION 6 (continued): Sure. “If you repent and return, I will fight your battles…”

DENVER: Right.

QUESTION 6 (continued): “…You will not be driven out of Nauvoo.” However, we were smitten and driven. 

DENVER: Yeah.

QUESTION 6 (continued): Therefore…

DENVER: And I don’t think that when you get to the precipice of having the Prophet Joseph Smith (who was the reason why we were a true and living church, because we have the oracles of God through Joseph)… When we did what we did, and we corrupted what we corrupted, and we treated lightly what we treated lightly—and we’ve dealt with incomplete, inaccurate, corrupted Scriptures for generations—I don’t think you simply pick up…  

The Book of Mormon itself has required numerous fixes. There was the printer’s manuscript (which was copied by Oliver Cowdery from the translation manuscript), and the printer’s manuscript we still have 100% of. The translation manuscript got put in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House. It rotted because moisture got in. There’s only about 28% of that manuscript that’s left. From what we’ve got of the original translation, Oliver Cowdery made one-and-a-half copy errors per page in transcribing the printer’s manuscript from Joseph’s translation. 

AUDIENCE (PETER): [after bumping something]: Oh, I did it again. I’m so sorry…

AUDIENCE: [Sarcastically] Peter, you’re not allowed to sit there anymore… [Laughter]

DENVER: Then E.B. Grandin took the printer’s manuscript and made even more errors. Joseph Smith was in the process of revising the Book of Mormon (after it had been in print) and correcting it for re-publication. And from what we can tell, Joseph Smith was changing the errors that had crept in by Oliver and E.B. Grandin back to the original translation— everywhere that we have any ability to determine that.

QUESTION 6 (continued): Right, so we’ve got the 1840 and 1842 edition.

DENVER: Yes. The Book of Mormon as published by the LDS Church is neither one of those; it hails from the British publication. And the British publication has its own additional swarm of errors contained in it. And that’s what’s been handed down. 

I don’t have the time to walk through everything that needs to be walked through, but I can tell you that I’ve dealt with all these subjects at one time or another in what I’ve written, in what I’ve taught, or what I’ve said. And not to be perfunctory, but I don’t… 

I’m not here to tell anyone to be discontented. If you’re happy, if you believe that you have obtained from the Lord a hope in Christ, I don’t want to upset you or set you at odds with me or anyone else. I say: Go your way in peace, and be happy; go your way rejoicing. All I’m trying to do is to get things right as we approach the decreasing circumference of the funnel leading up to the return of the Lord, in which a great deal has to be done.  And as far as I can tell, I can’t see anyone on the horizon that’s doing the things that need to be done. 

The LDS Church sold the right to proselytize in Israel to get the BYU Jerusalem Center. They have a treaty with the nation of Israel—they will not proselytize in the nation of Israel. They want to keep their BYU Center. They actually had a fellow who translated the Book of Mormon into Hebrew that donated it to the church, which then showed up… The church put it into print and then took it out of print and then took all the copies and destroyed ‘em. And oddly enough, they donated the Hebrew manuscript to the Genealogical Society, and we were able to get that copy from microfiche at the Genealogical Society. But it’s a crappy version; it’s modern Hebrew, and it’s not… You’re not gonna take that version to a rabbi in Jerusalem and present it as an authentic Old Testament text. They’ll laugh at it; they’ll say, “This is clearly a ginned up…” 

QUESTION 8: Can you give me the Reader’s Digest simplified version of what the covenant that was given in Boise 2017… 

STEPHANIE: No, hold on; over here first.

QUESTION 7&8: I still want to hear your testimony of Christ. But I’m wondering about the simplified Reader’s Digest version of what that was, ‘cuz Justin told us that…  

AUDIENCE: It’s on the website: scriptures.info. 

QUESTION 8: Okay, I just wanted to hear it.

STEPHANIE: Okay, over here.

QUESTION 9: Okay, super quick. So, I’m really new to all this, and I was intrigued. So, I bought the new Scriptures, and I was reading in T&C section 3 where the Lord says, “Oliver Cowdery, you have a gift of the sprout.” And I thought, “Man, that’s totally new; I’ve never seen that before.” So, I had to cross reference it with the D&C (which is what I’ve grown up with, and I have known my whole life) where it’s talking about the gift of the Aaronic Priesthood—which is radically different. Maybe… At least in my estimation, the word was so radically different that it just blew my mind. So, my question is, “How is it that the Scriptures that we have are so radically different?” And you may have already just answered it with the last thing, but since I’m so new to this and I just stumbled upon this, this is one thing that just was really kind of freaking me out this last week. Why are the Scriptures that I have so completely different than this, which I am to believe may be more accurate? 

DENVER: The revelations that were given to Joseph Smith (and you’re talking about that subject)… Manuscripts were taken by Oliver Cowdery to be printed at Independence on a printing press that the church bought there. He was going to print it in 1833 in Independence in what became known as the Book of Commandments. When Oliver Cowdery was setting it in Independence, he believed he had a certain “discretion” to write them up in an improved form for publication in 1833. And so, the typeset version of the Book of Commandments in 1833 is a starting point from which the next volume rolled out. The 1833 Book of Commandments was not a true and faithful, accurate reproduction of what Joseph had given. It was edited through the printing press in 1833. That’s the press that got destroyed in Missouri. They smuggled out printed copies in the skirts of some of the women. The copies that got smuggled out then got bound together, and a few copies of the 1833 Book of Commandments survive because of the smuggling process that went on. 

That 1833 version then became the basis that a committee used in 1835 to publish what would become known as the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith, leading up to the 1835 conference, spent time working on a series of lectures that had been delivered in the School of the Prophets, which became known as Lectures on Faith. Joseph edited Lectures on Faith, and they are the doctrine of the Doctrine and Covenants. They were put in the front of the book. They are in larger type than was the rest of the book. The revelations that were given to Joseph were in… I’m not sure the font size, but I’m gonna estimate it’s like a nine pitch, and the Lectures on Faith are in like a twelve pitch. So, they’re in the front of the book, they’re in larger print, and Joseph Smith (at the conference) vouched for the accuracy of the doctrine. He turned the revelations over to a committee. The committee consisted of a group of people who also felt that they had the right to do some editing. So when the Doctrine and Covenants rolled out, the revelations to Joseph had undergone further modification. And in the minutes of the conference, what Joseph vouched for was Lectures on Faith; he didn’t vouch for the publication that was made there. 

So, section 27 of the Doctrine and Covenants, when it was originally given, consisted of about (I forget what it was)—about three or four verses; it may have been five verses. Doctrine and Covenants section 27 now goes on for pages. And it’s in the expansion, beyond revelation given to Joseph, that we have the first mention of “Peter, James, and John, by whom I ordained new apostles,” which is part of the claim to the priestly succession that went on thereafter. In fact, when the first quorum of the twelve was called, they were ordained by the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. And, as an interesting side note, we don’t know who ordained who, but if you start with their names in order of seniority, every third one that got ordained would be [by] Martin Harris. And the math works out that Brigham Young was likely ordained to the apostleship by Martin Harris, which is sort of an interesting thing. 

You can read the Covenant in section 127 of the Teachings and Commandments; it’s online. Oh, no, it’s section 158 of the Teachings and Commandments” at scriptures.info/Teachings and Commandments. Just click on 1-5-8, and you can read it there.  

[Answer to QUESTION 7] You can also read an expanded version of a testimony (within the Teachings and Commandments) where I talk about the suffering of the Lord in Gethsemane and what happened on the morning of the Resurrection. I wrote accounts of those things (at the time that it happened) in my journal. I do not think later reminiscences are as accurate, authentic, or valuable than the thing you record at the moment. And so, I’ve never released reminiscences; I’ve stuck to exactly what was written in the journal at the moment in which these things occurred. And that’s what showed up that the Scripture Committee wanted added to the Scriptures and what people voted to have added in there, but you can read my extended testimony there. 

Here and now, at this (you know) late hour, with the exhaustion that is clearly setting in in the faces of some of you (some of whom would have liked me to shut up long ago, including the missus)… 

I know that the Lord lives because I’ve seen Him, and He’s ministered to me. The full extent of what the Lord has asked of me, I don’t think would ever appropriately be put into the public record. I can tell you that I don’t view myself as anything special. I don’t believe that a fantastic testimony makes the person to whom it’s been entrusted bigger or greater or wiser than anyone else. I don’t think I’ve lived as good a life as many of you have lived, because I did not become a practicing Mormon until I was 19 years old, and I grew up in southern Idaho where there was a lot of boredom. 

I sought the Lord sincerely, earnestly, using everything that I believed would be appealing to the notice of Heaven, including the formalities of prayer that you learn about in an LDS “true order of prayer” ceremony. I did every step that I thought would bring it about, and then nothing happened. 

So, I went about doing what other Latter-day Saints who are faithful did: I magnified my calling; I was 100% home teacher for 15 years; I was a diligent Gospel Doctrine teacher; I was a student of the Scriptures. But I thought that I had gotten all I was going to get from the Lord. And then, on His timing, at His chosen moment, for reasons that are entirely His, He decided that He would make Himself known to me—not because I’m “someone,” but because no one else was willing to do what needed to be done. I don’t think I’m anything other than someone who’s willing to do His agenda, not my own. I don’t have an agenda. I don’t want to be responsible for things. I am not pushing the Lord. If He wants something of me, He asks—I’ll do it; I’ll do it to the best of my ability. And I can tell you, much of what I’ve been asked to do I find more difficult than anything I ever imagined. 

At one point, the Lord told me, “If we go on, there is a war underway in this world, and you are going to be a combatant in the war in this world”—not taking up arms and shooting people. I’m talking about ongoing conflict between truth and error, lies, deception, arrogance, foolishness—the tools of the devil. When he wrapped the earth with a great chain at the time of Enoch, and he looked up at Heaven and he laughed, the chain was lies. The Lord is fighting against incessant, continual lies. The foolishness that exists down here…

And I responded to the Lord that “I’m ready to go,” and He literally… The Lord would not take my answer. He insisted that I think about it. And I thought about it for a couple of weeks, and I thought, “What’s so bad about fighting against the forces of evil? What’s so bad about fighting against the nonsense that goes on in this world?” 

Yeah, I can tell you that sincere, good, believing, religious people are aligned with the lies! People think they’re doing God’s errand when they’re fighting against what God is doing right this minute. And people that you would want to love and embrace, you cannot because they will not hear His voice speaking at this moment. They murmur because they do not want more of His word. 

And so, in my two weeks of reflection, I determined, “Yeah, I’m ready to go forward.” And then the Lord took me at the word, and we went forward. But I can tell you, if I knew then what I know now, I might not have answered in two weeks. I think I would have still given the same answer, but this—this is not fun. And this is not particularly even rewarding. And I don’t think anyone in this room can understand what I’m saying except her [Stephanie]. 

But I am on the Lord’s errand—as ill-suited as I am and as comparatively unworthy as I am to some of you. I try to be a diligent servant, and so far, that appears to be enough. But there is so much left to do; we’ve hardly begun. And the stuff left is the hardest of all, and we’ve still gotta get it done. 

I know He lives. He’s ministered to me. And I would guarantee you with every fiber of my life that I’m not overstating anything. I try to mirror the model of Joseph. Joseph said, “You don’t know me; you never knew me. If I hadn’t lived it, I wouldn’t have believed it.” I get that. It’s a terrible thing to be in the presence of a living God—but it’s an even more terrible thing to think yourself somehow involved in work that can affect the souls of men, and the truth of the matter is that “only fools trifle with the souls of men” (see T&C 138:18). Joseph put it well. And I hope not to trifle with any of your souls. I wish I could make a more persuasive presentation to convince you that God’s really doing something right now. But I’m as weak as I am and as flawed as I am and…

And I said we’d get out of here after that one, but there’s a hand over there. So, I’m gonna stand up and act like I’m walking out and… What’s your question? 

QUESTION 10: Real quick question. So, by the way, thanks for coming. So, in the beginning of the “Prayer for Covenant,” you mentioned having received the name David from Heavenly Father. I was just curious if you’d be able to tell us, like, how that happened and maybe what you understand that to mean?

DENVER: I thought it was really a disappointment. It was an ugly moment for me. I mean, I know what… I did not have in mind what people have in mind—at all! At all! The Voice that spoke to me said those words about the name—and God gives new names to people all the time; it happens in Scripture; He does it. To me what that new name meant was I’m supposed to rejoice at being named after an adulterer who murdered the husband of the woman that he committed adultery with in order to cover the sin of adultery that he impregnated… 

I thought of Uriah. I thought of Bathsheba. I thought of Joab receiving the orders. (It’s not in the Bible, but it’s in Josephus: Joab, the nephew of David, getting the order from David that was supposed to help murder this man in secret. And Joab, to his credit, read the order to Uriah and his commanders. And when they withdrew so that Uriah would be killed, many of the valiant men stayed behind and died with him because he was their comrade in arms.) This is David who betrayed these people! This is the name that… and the context. I spent two days troubled about that. In fact, I bitterly complained about the name. I did not want that name.  

QUESTION 10 (continued): So, when did it happen? 

DENVER: It’s in the Scriptures. It’s in the Teachings and Commandments. 

QUESTION 10 (continued): Okay.

DENVER: But after my bitterest return-prayer (that took a bit of emotional composition in order to go back before the Lord), the response that I got from the Lord was, “I thought it no great insult to be called the Son of David,” which, I mean, it just… It cut me like, “Here I am, ungrateful for something that the Lord viewed as a positive.” I’ve been cut to the heart many times. I’m not the… I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’m sure that all of the correction that I have required has been well deserved, and many of it has been poignant and heart-piercing.  

Yeah, you had a…

QUESTION 11: So back to… You lost me a little bit when you were talking about Joseph Smith and MMP [Multiple Mortal Probations]. Some of us don’t jump to that. So, when I came… I’m relatively new. About seven years ago, we found ourselves praying about the pollution in the church and asking Heavenly Father who the Apostles were, and we were told they’ve made an oath of death. We prayed about who Nelson was, and we were told, “I will send one mighty and strong, holding a scepter of power.” And we were then told that, “You’ll know him by his fruits,” and that, “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.” 

I asked the Lord when we moved to Manti recently: “I am lost; I have to speak in Sacrament,” saying, “I’m all alone, Father. They have killed the holy prophets; they have killed Joseph Smith; they have polluted our temple…” (that I was excited to move to this temple), “and they have… And I’m all alone.” And then I asked Heavenly Father for comfort and opened up to (I think it’s in) Romans, and it said [that] Paul said the same thing (that I opened to), which was, “They have killed the holy prophets; they have swept down the altars.” And I’m all alone, and I thought, “Please guide me to some people that know what I know,” and then I came into this group. 

And so, I asked Heavenly Father about the one mighty and strong recently, and I was just told that he would be involved with new records and translations and Cumorah. (I was about to a passage that said something about the Cumorah and the other records to be coming forth.) And so, I wonder if you can make remarks. And I just… 

I jumped to the conclusion that that could be Joseph Smith resurrected. I never went to the idea of MMP, so that frightens me. The whole idea of MMP is something that I, exactly, I asked that and opened up about Matthias as well. And I’ve been researching, and I see it from your point of view. So, how can you reconcile Joseph Smith or one “like to him”? Because I haven’t gotten the full answer to who he is, just that I know he will be involved in this before he puts the rec[ord], you know, gives the inheritances and puts the church in order and so forth, whatever. He might not even know who he is! 

So, could you maybe comment on the idea that it could be Joseph Smith, or if it could be…   

DENVER: I don’t think it’s possible for Joseph Smith to come and do work that… The work of salvation is the work of mortals. The burden of salvation is the burden of mortals. It does not happen that resurrected beings, translated beings, or “second-life” beings come back and do the work that would change the conditions for mortality. 

When the three Nephites exceeded their natural life, they were no longer seen publicly. But they ministered to Mormon and Moroni who, in turn, then ministered to the public. John ministers to people as a ministering angel, as is described in the Doctrine and Covenants. 

Angels minister—as explained in Alma and as explained by Moroni in the Ether chapter seven (I think it is)—angels minister to people “of a firm mind in every form of godliness” (in Moroni’s description), and (in Alma’s description) angels minister to the “chosen vessels.” Then the chosen vessels are the people that are of a firm mind [who] spread the message down. So, if you’re talking about a translated being who functions as an angel or if you’re talking about a resurrected angel ministering, they minister to people that are then sent on an errand—but the errand involves a mortal going out to preach. 

And other mortals have to hear the word from people to whom the angels have ministered, in order for them to rise up and to receive what they need to receive in order for themselves also to qualify to be ministered to by angels. And then the process proceeds from there, who preach and teach to the chosen vessels so that they’re prepared to receive the Son. And then the Son has a ministry with people in which He prepares and presents them to the Father. And it is an orderly process that’s described in both Alma and in Moroni. 

But the idea that we’re gonna get Joseph Smith, you know, walking around… Is he gonna show the bullet holes in his… Is Hyrum gonna show his bullet holes, as Christ did when He said, “See my wounds…” 

AUDIENCE: Wow.

DENVER: “…and know that it’s I.” I mean, what are we expecting when, in fact, Joseph denounced the…

QUESTION 11 (continued): Yeah, I agree.

DENVER: …Joseph denounced the idea of reincarnation. But there is an early-Mormon teaching about multiple mortal probations that is slightly different, and that teaching you can actually find in the Doctrine and Covenants where it talks about the “deaths” (plural), and it talks about “worlds without end.” And in Joseph’s King Follett Discourse, he talks about going from “exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead.” 

Well, we’re all going to be resurrected, but we don’t “attain to the resurrection of the dead,” because Jesus brings us out of the grave. You have to be precisely what the Lord is and nothing different than that to be a saved man. To be “precisely what the Lord is” means you have to attain to the resurrection of the dead. Until then, you will go from exaltation to exaltation until you arrive at the point that you are prepared, worlds without end, for the resurrection. 

QUESTION 11 (continued): That has to mean something…

DENVER: Yeah. And if you want a more fulsome description of the difference between that process for the man and the woman, then you should read the talk (now a paper) called “Our Divine Parents,” in which the role of the Mother in this process is described. But again, that talk kind of picks up where King Follett leaves off.

AUDIENCE: Who is the author of that talk?

DENVER: It’s my talk. 

QUESTION 12: Denver, could I just get your thoughts on an experience I had this year? 

DENVER: Yeah. 

QUESTION 12 (continued): And this is something that happened January the 9th of this year. But the Lord came to me and said, you know, “Michael, stop referring to the Book of Mormon as the Book of Mormon, but refer to it as the Book of Christ.” 

DENVER: Hmm.

QUESTION 12 (continued): And I said… I mean, my…  The reason that I’m here is because of the testimony of Nephi in the Book of Mormon. And so, people I’ve shared it with, some have outright rejected it; some have accepted it; some say, “It makes sense. Michael, you run with it; that’s your revelation.” What are your thoughts? 

DENVER: I think you should call the Book of Mormon “the Book of Christ.” And I don’t think you should vary from that, because I think by doing that you’re gonna provoke a lot of people into conversations that I think you ought to participate in. Because that message to you, I think, is a conversation starter and a really good one, and I think you ought to stick with that.

QUESTION 12 (continued): Yeah, I mean, I have. Because to me, it just makes sense. What other book can bring a Christian closer to Christ than the Book of Christ? 

DENVER: Yeah. Right. And it’s an astonishing book. I mean, I taught it every four years for years, and it got to the point that I became in awe of the Book of Mormon. Nephi…  

Well, we’ve got to leave. It’s… It is almost surreal. 

Thank you!

TRANSCRIPT

The post Joseph Smith appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following remarks were given in Challis, Idaho at Living Waters Ranch on September 5, 2021

Transcript

What if I talk so long that there are none of you left here by the time I finish?

I want to thank the organizers… 

I want to thank the organizers. These things are never easy to do. And the people who do this… (See now, okay, you can’t see me.) The people that do are always called upon to make a number of sacrifices. And invariably, by the time one of these occurs, they’ve vowed never again to ever do another one of these things. And it’s like childbirth: It takes awhile, and the memory diminishes. And they say, “Well, let’s do another one,” foolishly thinking that they won’t get to this point again! But I want to thank all of those. 

I was going to mention that we had people here… Kaai and McKenzie [Lincoln] that are traveled all the way from Hawaii. And what a remarkable thing it is to come that far. Until, of course, we have Maksalt [Maksad] and Holida who came from Turkmenistan to be here. And so, they win the prize. (I’m not sure what that prize is.) But they traveled the longest distance, and maybe the prize is you get to rest now. And he gets called “Max” to Americanize and make it easy for us. But I was saying, “It’s Max on, Max salt.” The real name is that: Maksalt [Maksad]. If you’ve seen Karate Kid… [Directed to Max and Holida:] I don’t know, have you seen Karate Kid? She has, okay. Brother and sister with an interesting story to tell. 

(I think if I move it closer, there’s more of that, not less. But you’re responsible. If you dislike the feedback, throw whatever leftover bread you have back there at that booth. And hopefully, it’ll be stale enough to make an impact.) 

There was a circumstance that came to many of our attention recently: a fellow named Randy Albalate who lost a friend of his, Delfin. And it occurred to me that I ought to mention the passing of his friend, as well as the passing of a number of other people: LueAnn Thayne, Shane [Shaylee] Achter, Lisa VanCampen, Tyson Hunt, Jody Bailey, Bob Bartel. Many of you probably don’t know any of their names. Some of you probably may know one or another but probably don’t know all. I can tell you that there isn’t one who passes out of this world who’s received a covenant from the Lord that isn’t notable on the other side after their departure. No one is forgotten in the wisdom of the Lord. 

Now, some practical stuff that needs to be said. Every one of you should do what you need to do to take care of your health. The average person who dies as a result of the COVID infection has 2.8 co-morbidities. That means that they have (on average) 2.8 other causes of their death. They don’t die from one; they die from a multitude. I saw an Alta billboard at the Alta Hospital, as you drive by. They have this neon sign that changes lettering to tell you things. One of the things that they circulated through on their billboard was that 80% of all strokes are preventable with 30 minutes a day of exercise. There is a expression about “when it comes to activity, you either use it or you lose it”—meaning that the body’s capacity is designed to be retained by activity, by the things that you do. If you don’t do, the body atrophies, you lose the capacity. Diet, exercise, smoking, alcohol, drugs, and just a general lifestyle—all of these things have an effect upon both your health and how long you will be here. That “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die” is more or less “eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we’re causing our death.” 

So, during the years in which Bill Clinton was the President of the United States, he had an inner circle of folks advising the presidency and trying to move the agenda along, and they made this statement at one point: “Everything is political.” And I thought—at the time that they said, “Everything is political”—what nonsense that was. That was a statement of an objective to be achieved. 

When I was little, I remember the adults saying that it’s not polite to ever discuss politics or religion. You can be friends with someone, you can be bosom buddies with someone, but don’t talk with them about politics or religion. That statement by the elders was purposeful. It was designed to prevent conflict over things that people feel strongly about. 

So, when the Clinton administration folks are advocating that everything is political, what they’re really advocating is that we need more conflict; we need more people to become angry with one another; we need to stir people up so that their hearts are alienated from each other because they feel intensely over some political issue. And make everything political. Make whether or not BYU’s football team wins or loses a game against the University of Arizona’s football team, played in the capital of sin—Las Vegas—political, and then we can get people even more angry than they would be over BYU playing the University of Utah. 

There was a statement that grew out of that same Clinton era that was widespread—you saw it everywhere—that certain kinds of speech are not politically correct. “Oh, oh, oh, you shouldn’t say that. That’s not politically correct.” It seemed like nonsense when that was first emerging into the vocabulary. And yet, today I would bet you that among you folks (who are all here in agreement on certain principles of religion) that there would be very sharp disagreements between the group of you over some political issues. That was an objective—long pursued, artfully developed, carefully manipulated—in order to get us into the position where we are today: divided from one another and our hearts alienated from one another over things that largely don’t matter. 

People did not discuss politics or religion, because they wanted to avoid being angry with one another. There is a problem that is identified by the Lord in the Answer to the Prayer for Covenant that says, Mankind has been controlled by the adversary through anger and jealousy, which has led to bloodshed and the misery of many souls. That’s the problem. And it’s a tool for control. Then the next sentence presents the solution: Even strong disagreements should not provoke anger, nor to invoke my name in vain as if I had part in your every dispute (T&C 157:54, emphasis added).

I find it interesting that the way that is put is “to invoke the [Lord’s] name in vain”—one of the “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” commandments that we found in the ten commandments that are foundational to our society. 

And so, the purpose is to get you stirred up to anger with one another and then to say— about a matter that’s purely political—that God is involved because “I’ve prayed about it, and I feel righteous indignation in opposing your political view.” And then, the inverse is true as well. They feel righteously indignant at whatever it is that you’re advancing. And so, we see everything is political. They’ve succeeded, and we’ve lost, and now anger becomes the rule of the day. 

Disagreeing rigidly… In the Joseph Smith History, part one, paragraph 11, describing the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists, this is what Joseph recorded about his youthful observations of how the adult religiousness or religionists were acquitting themselves: 

Notwithstanding the great love which the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it—let them join what sect they pleased; yet when the converts began to file off, some [of them] to one party…some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more pretended than real. For a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued, priests contending against priest and convert against convert, so that all their good feelings for one another (if they ever had any) were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions. (JSH 1:11 RE, emphasis added)

That description of the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists should not become a description of us. It should not be how we conduct ourselves toward one another, even if we have strong disagreements over something. And it certainly shouldn’t provoke us to invoke the name of God in order to make Him be on your side, as if He had part in your everyday petty disagreements with one another. 

“Take a breath, Nora.” (My wife’s gonna be talking about that; that you own that [speaking to Stephanie]. I’m just… I’m giving you attribution.) We have a granddaughter named Harper. What is she now? Two and a half? Three? Two. Yeah, she’s two going on 16. And her mom has taught her (and you’re gonna hear my wife’s podcast), when she’s upset and angry and can’t deal with it to take a breath. And they were driving about, and Nora was crying in the car. And her two-year-old sister was exasperated at her, and she said, “Take a breath, Nora!!” And so, it’s become kind of a internal family cliche: “Take a breath, Nora.” 

These folks that Joseph wrote about were no less zealous in their faith than we are in ours. 

So, some of you feel an inordinate anxiety at the events we can all see taking place throughout the world. You’ve allowed the politics of everything to make you desperate to flee. Well, it doesn’t matter if you flee; the circumstances aren’t going to change. And if you bring with you the conviction that “everything is political,” you’re not going to escape the anxiety that you feel. 

One of the reasons why political leaders find it very useful to make people frightened is because when they are frightened and they get to the “fight or flight” part of their mind, they cease to be rational—and they find themselves willing to adopt irrational choices to try and solve the problem that is making them afraid, even if the problem that they fear is of very little or even no consequence. 

You’re being played. You’re being played, America. You’re being played, the world. And you are allowing yourselves to be played as disciples of the Lord. You ought—of all people—to have an extraordinary amount of confidence that the Lord knows exactly what He’s doing, and He’s making provisions to accomplish the fulfillment of the covenants that He said He intends to vindicate. As well might man [put] forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri River [from running] in its…course (T&C 138:22) than man interrupt the purposes of God. It’s just not gonna happen. 

Patience is very hard to summon when you’re stirred up to anxiety—“Oh, my God, my God, my God!!”—over something that your God has control over. He defeated an invading Assyrian army using fleas. He fed the Israelites who were tired of manna with quail that flew in to be feasted upon. The God of Nature is not troubled by what troubles you. And the God of Nature is probably nothing more than bemused at how you’re acting in this moment of confusion and dread. Our Lord is unflappable and affable. And He’s not dancing around, doing a pee-pee dance because He’s afraid of what’s happening today. He has absolute confidence in the ultimate outcome, and it’s going to be exactly as He said it would be. So, fleeing—particularly at this moment—may not be at all what you think it will be. 

Well, I also want to fix some perceptions about the coming idyllic community that you hope to occupy. So, let me tell you what you have to look forward to. 

There’s two statements that really represent the one view, and one of them is drawn from the Guide and Standard, and the other one is drawn from T&C 64 [61]. This one from the Guide and Standard: We cannot allow ourselves to be drawn in to inequality when the result of this labor is to make us one body equal with one another. We cannot imitate the failures of the past by establishing a hierarchy, elevating one above another, and forgetting that we must be of one heart, one mind and with no poor among us (T&C 175:39). And then, the second one: Nevertheless, in your temporal things you shall be equal in all things, and this not grudgingly; otherwise, the abundance of the manifestations of the spirit shall be withheld (T&C 61:4). 

These two statements give the impression that we will have identical property and identical possessions and be identically situated with one another, and they also form the basis for complaints when your theory of what that means is the one thing and the reality is something different—and you’re not getting “yours.” So, now we’ve got a scriptural basis with which to point and to accuse and to judge and to condemn and to divide and to say, “It’s not fair—or Zion! ‘Cuz it’s not; look at these Scriptures I just read you.” 

So, let’s ease into what it really means to be equal with one another with a Scripture that is taken from Alma. And this is just describing how the people behaved: 

And when their priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people, [and] the people also left their labors to hear the word of God. And when the priest had imparted unto them the word of God, they all returned again diligently unto their labors, and the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers; for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner. And thus they were all equal; and they did…labor every man according to his strength. (Alma 1:5 RE, emphasis added)

They weren’t all priests. (Well, that’s not equal.) They weren’t all teachers. (That’s not equal either.) But they were all equal. “And they did all labor….” Oh, so they have one thing in common, and the one thing that they have in common is work, “…every man according to his strength.” You have to give what you have. And one man’s strength may not be another man’s strength, but he needs to give according to the strength that he has. And one woman’s strength may not be what another woman’s strength is, but she must give according to the strength that she has. 

If I could point to one of this morning’s examples (or mid-day examples, I guess): Connie Waterman is physically frail. But she has the strength to compose and the strength to sing a song of worship that means something to us all. It certainly means something to me; it certainly had an effect upon me. Everyone has to labor.

Then there’s the Lord just confronting Israel directly: 

Yet you say, the way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel, is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal? When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity and dies in them, for his iniquity that he has done shall he die. Again, when the wicked man turns…from his wickedness that he has committed, and does that which is lawful and right, he [will] save his soul alive. Because he considers and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live — he shall not die. Yet says the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? Are not your ways unequal? (Ezekiel 8:7 RE, emphasis added)

Equal (as the Lord is explaining here) means “accountable, responsible.” Every one of us is equal in the eyes of God, meaning you’re going to pay a price or you’re going to receive a reward, all of this talking about after they die. The righteous (after they die) shall live. The wicked (after they die) shall be dead. Everyone is equal. That’s it from Ezekiel, and he poses the question again another eight chapters later: 

Yet the children of your people say, The way of the Lord is not equal. But as for them, their way is not equal. When the righteous [man] turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall even die thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby. Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, I will judge you, everyone after his ways. (Ezekiel 16:6 RE, emphasis added)

We are all equally accountable before God. And no one gets away with disobedience, period. No one does. 

So, let’s take this to another level and look at something that the apostle Paul wrote, talking about marriage—in two passages, written to the same audience in two different letters: one in First Corinthians; the other in Second Corinthians. The one in First Corinthians says: 

If any brother has a wife that believes not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not divorce her. And the woman who has a husband that believes not, if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean, but now are they holy. (1 Corinthians 1:26 RE) 

Keep that in mind while we read from Second Corinthians: 

Be not [equally] yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has he that believes with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? (2 Corinthians 1:21 RE)

I would suggest that the correct way to read the second one is in light of the first one—that the first one was the foundation; the second one is the next part. And I would say that being “unequally yoked” is not talking about the problems; it’s talking about the commitment to marriage. If a man is committed to his marriage and the wife is committed to the marriage, then it doesn’t matter if there are religious differences between them. They’re equally yoked so long as they both are committed to their marriage. And there’s no reason why you can’t be happy with the spouse you chose if that spouse is committed to the marriage, and you are as well. 

The things that Christ talked about that were gifts from God were simple things: birds of the air, flowers in the field, the sunrise, the rain, the sunset, the cloud cover. These are simple things that can be enjoyed by everyone and appreciated by everyone as gifts that come from God—without getting into whether or not you ought to bless the sacrament and pass the bread before you bless the wine and pass the wine because “our fellowship does it different than that.”

Really?

Really!

Okay, here’s another way in which equality really is meant by the Lord in a context: Women have claim on their husbands until they are taken. And if they are not found transgressors, they remain upon their inheritances. All children have claim upon their parents until they are of age… (T&C 79:1), meaning, if you’re the man in the house, your wife has claim on you for her support. That’s an obligation that’s imposed upon you. Among other things, one of the things that occurs naturally in the course of husband- and wife-dom is that the wife will, on occasion, conceive a child, bear the child, give birth to the child, and be indisposed. Even if she’s doing light office work, the commitment to the furthering of the family is going to interrupt her ability. The husband has no such interruptions. Therefore, the wife has claim on the husband. And the two of them, together as parents, the children have claim on them. That’s your responsibility. That’s your parental responsibility. It’s ordained by God. And we all share equally these duties before God for the support within our own family. 

Then there is this: But if any provide not for his own, and especially…those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is [worth] worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 1:13 RE). Everyone—equally—is responsible to provide for their own. My family has claim on me for support. But your family has claim on you for support. Your family doesn’t have claim on me for their support. And my family doesn’t have claim on you for their support. 

Alma mentions that there was no inequality among them. This was because of the preaching that was given: Those priests who did go forth among the people did preach against all lyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, and malice, and revilings, and stealing, robbing, plundering, murdering, committing adultery, and all manner of lasciviousness, crying that these things ought not so to be (Alma 11:8 RE). These are the things that are required to be removed from among us:

• Lying—that has to end. 
• Deceiving, which can be a bit more subtle than outright lying. But deceiving can’t be among us. 
• Envyings—we should never be caught up in the envy of one another or of anyone else. 
• Strifes
• Malice
• Revilings 
• Stealing
• Robbing
• Plundering
• Murdering
• Committing adultery, and
• Lasciviousness 

I find it interesting that murdering and committing adultery are right together in this list of improprieties. I had a client who got who pled guilty. I didn’t think he should have; I recommended that he not. But he pled guilty to a white-collar crime because he didn’t want to take the risk of the trial. And because the prosecutor had suggested that he would recommend 90 days of suspended jail time and that he could—if he did get jail time—he could serve it at home. So, the client took the deal against my advice and entered the plea on a white-collar crime that I didn’t think he committed. I didn’t think what they were charging with actually fit the statutory requirement. And I told him not to do it; he did it anyway. And the judge rejected the 90-day recommendation of the prosecutor and sent him away for 14 years to 24 months in the state penitentiary. Well, this fellow was never ill-disposed to begin with. He didn’t belong in prison to begin with. The whole thing was just nonsense. And he went out, and it didn’t take the state penitentiary long to figure out that he was a good guy. He helped bring a literacy program into the prison. He helped some guys get through their GED. And as luck would have it, murderers are a problem at the state penitentiary, so he was made the jailmate with murderers in order to calm them down and reduce the threat and make it easier for the guards. 

While he was there, he became friends with three murderers in the Utah State Penitentiary. All three murderers had committed murder as a consequence of adultery. So, linking murder and adultery together in the list that Alma provides is not just happenstance. Preaching against adultery and guarding yourself against that may keep you also distant from the kind of anger and violence that results in the shedding of blood and the misery of many souls, just like the Answer to the Prayer for Covenant mentions. 

Then there is this statement—it’s a rather lengthy passage, but it’s really worth hearing: 

Therefore, say unto the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: I do not do this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the heathen where you went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which you have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. 

For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness; and from all your idols [I will] cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them. 

And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people and I will be your God. I will also save you from…your uncleanness, and I will call for the grain and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field, that you shall receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. Then shall you remember your…evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourself in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sakes do I do this, says the Lord God, be it known unto you; be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. 

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. …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, …I will do it. (Ezekiel 18:8-10 RE, emphasis added)

So, the land is going to produce—you have to walk in His statues, you have to keep His judgments. And if you do, eventually you will come to the point that you recognize, in your own eyes, the loathsomeness of the things that you have done that were ungodly, that were unclean, that were inappropriate, selfish, unkind, unholy. You’ll do that. Because as you become more clean, you look back with abhorrence upon your past failures. 

Then, you get to go to harsh lands, bad places, desolate wastes, desolate, desolate. Okay, that’s the list. That’s what He’s talking about. Here’s what these people that He’s going to gather are going to get to do: They get to go to desolate land; wastes shall be built; it’s gonna lay desolate in the sight of all that pass by. And the people that pass by that looked at this place are going to say, “This land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden!” Well, how did that happen? It’s because, apparently, idiots went and tilled this crappy, desolate, waste place and invested their labor. By the sweat of your brow shall you eat your bread (see Genesis 3:1 RE). What He’s saying is, “Okay—finally, finally I’ve got people who are willing to invest the sweat of their brow. I told Adam that was the deal. You didn’t like paradise. So here, go take this, and turn it back into paradise. I made you a husbandman to the ground. You didn’t like that; you’re malcontent. So here, go out, and work this stuff.” This whole passage in Isaiah in Ezekiel is accounting for the surprise. “Oh, my word. Look at that!”—the surprise of the passersby who see tilling going on in pretty unfavorable conditions. Well, why would that be? 

It’s because the Lord agrees to prosper what you do. But it is the doing that is incumbent upon you. The Three Nephites aren’t gonna come plow the field (folklore from early Mormon history notwithstanding). John the Beloved isn’t gonna come out and say, “Hey, I’ve been saving these magic beans for, you know, generations. And if you plant ‘em….” Actually, now that I think about it, if you plan ‘em you might inherit a giant in the land. So, why don’t you do without the magic beans? 

There’s work to be done. Our covenant with the Lord says, 

Teach your children to honor me. Seek to recover the lost sheep remnant of this land and of Israel and no longer forsake them. Bring them unto me and teach them of my ways, to walk in them. And I, the Lord your God, will be with you and will 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… (T&C 158:11-13) 

Notice that there’s a sequence here within the covenant itself. He’s saying He’s gonna lead us and bring us to peace. But there’s a troubling season that is fast approaching. That’s gonna happen with some rapidity; it’s gonna be upon you. “I will raise you up and protect you, abide with you, and gather you in due time.” That doesn’t sound like we oughta be assembling ourselves in haste. That sounds like the troubling times fast approaching are going to precede the time in which He will gather us in due time.

…and this shall be a land of promise to you as your inheritance from me. The earth will yield its increase… (Ibid. 13-14, emphasis added) 

Yield requires effort. It requires something be pursued. It requires that there be effort. 

• “We got our army together, and we got our battering ram, and we beat against the door of the castle, and a lot of us took arrows from above—but we just kept beating and beating, and the door to the castle yielded. And then we were able to take the stronghold.” 
• “I saw this gorgeous gal when I was a freshman and asked her out 30 times my freshman year and 60 times my sophomore year and 90 times my junior year. And my senior year, her returned missionary came back and abandoned her, and she went out with me! She finally yielded!” 

Okay, think of that word “yield” in the context of the covenant. It doesn’t mean, “There! I went out. I prayed. Jesus, I’d like wheat; oh, and barley; oh, oh, and oats—I like oatmeal. Oh, oh, oh, oh, grapes, too. Grapes. I want some grapes. And how ‘bout some peach trees? Love peaches!” [Denver singing] “Millions of peaches; peaches for me” (lyrics of the song “Peaches”). 

“Why is this a barren wasteland, desolate, no better than it was before my prayer? I don’t get it, Lord, wasn’t this supposed to be fairy dust that makes it all easy?”

…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 the fear of the Lord [shall] 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 [shall all] know me, from the least to the greatest. (Ibid. 14-15)

That’s at the end of the process that He’s describing in the Answer to the Prayer or this is the Covenant itself that we’re reading from. This is the process that He says is going to unfold. We expect a house of God with no labor, land that will yield without effort, a desolate wasteland to become the Garden of Eden when we do nothing more than to ask. 

And then we have these statements: But the laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion, for if they labor for money, they shall perish (2 Nephi 11:17 RE). Okay, we now have a reference to Zion. And in the reference to Zion, there is one singular, solitary role identified: laborer, labor, labor. Oh, there’s only one job; it’s to labor! Hey, we all get to be equal. 

This is all that He promises to us; once you start working, this is the only thing He promises to you: 

And they shall build houses and inhabit them, …they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another inhabit, they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, in my elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble…  (Isaiah 24:9 RE, emphasis added)

That’s what you’re promised. Anything you want, if you’ll work, He will help the ground to yield to your labor. And if you build yourself a house, someone is not going to come and take it away from you. If you plant yourself food, the yield that comes from that no one is gonna come and remove it from you by force. You get to enjoy that. 

And again, that was a prophecy by Isaiah. There’s another prophecy to the similar effect— fewer words—but in the Psalms: Blessed is everyone that fears the Lord, that walks in his ways, for you shall eat the labor of your hands (Psalms 128:1 RE). See, you get to be blessed. Why are you blessed? Because the stuff that you work for you get as the produce or the product of your labor.

And then there’s this: 

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil…  

He doesn’t have to go take from someone else. She’s productive. 

She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and works willingly with her hands. She is like the merchants’ ships, she brings her food from afar. She rises also while it is yet night, and gives food to her household and a portion to her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard. She girds her loins with strength, and strengthens her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good, her candle goes not out by night. She lays her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the rod. She stretches out her hand to the poor, yea, she reaches forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She makes herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders… She makes fine linen and sells it, and delivers girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looks well to the ways of her household and eats not the bread of idleness…  

Okay, I’m gonna insert an editorial parenthetical at this point: That’s because there is no “bread of idleness.”

Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but you excel them all. Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, …let her own works praise her in the gates. (Psalms 6:3 RE, emphasis added)

You see this is high praise. And it’s a proverb that applies to a virtuous woman. It’s a proverb that applies to the Mother in Heaven. And it is a proverb that applies to the people that are His. This is a description of all of them. And so, the people that are His do these things. 

Now, Isaiah 18:2. This gives you, I think, a pretty good idea of what we’re going to start with: For the Lord shall comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and he will make her wildernesses like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Okay, you see the juxtaposition: wilderness/Eden, desert/garden of the Lord. It’s got to be “made into.” And how does He make it “into”? He takes a group of people who are not quarrelsome, bickering, and accusing of one another—who can dwell in peace and unite in their effort with one another—to peaceably pursue the objective of the labor. The desire of the slothful kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. He covets greedily all the day long, but the righteous gives and spares not (Proverbs 2:353 RE). Then there is T&C 43: 

Behold, thus says the Lord unto my people: You have many things to do and to repent of, for behold, your sins have come up unto me and are not pardoned, because you seek to counsel in your own ways, and your hearts are not satisfied, and you obey not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness.

Woe unto you rich men that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls. And this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation and of judgment and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved! 

Woe unto you poor men whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, and whose bellies are not satisfied, and whose hands are not stayed from laying hold upon other men’s goods, whose eyes are full of greediness, who will not labor with their own hands. (T&C 43:4-6)

God cannot produce Zion for—or with—people who refuse to labor, because His promise is for the results of the labor and nothing else. Then we have this from Alma: 

He also commanded them that the priests whom he had ordained should labor with their own hands for their support. And there was one day in every week that was set apart that they should gather themselves together to [keep] teach the people, and to worship the Lord their God, and also as often as it was in their power to assemble themselves together. And the priests were not to depend upon the people for their support, but for their labor they were to receive the grace of God, that they might wax strong in the spirit, having the knowledge of God, that they might teach with power and authority from God. (Mosiah 9:10 RE, emphasis added)

Churches today are broken, in disrepair, and have nothing to offer that will save people— because they refuse to follow this instruction. Preachers who preach for the monetary reward that they seek cannot have the grace of God or wax strong in the spirit, having the knowledge of God, so that they can teach with power and authority from God. One of the worst offenders is probably the church out of which most of you came, in which they fare sumptuously and have bodyguards and fly first class. 

Some of you feel such inordinate anxiety that you want to flee right now in haste. Okay, here’s the good news. Assuming that you cannot control your anxiety—and assuming that nothing I have said or can say will calm you down enough to allow the words that the Lord spoke to us in the Covenant itself to inform how you allow things to proceed—and you need to charge off right now, then here’s the good news: Joseph Smith said all of North America was Zion. So, go to Philadelphia or Houston or Green Bay or Cape Cod; go anywhere you want, and call it Zion. And let them know you’ve gone through a flight to this place because of your anxiety because, today, everything is political, and you’re here looking for a place of peace. And I can tell you, if you don’t get rid of your anxieties before you flee, they’ll accompany you there. And you’ll find yourself just as miserable in Green Bay or Cape Cod or Philadelphia or Houston—because the problem is in you; it’s not wherever you are. 

We haven’t been told to gather. And we haven’t got a command to build a temple. And I’m assuming part of the reason why we’ve not yet gotten a commandment is because the people—the hearts of the people—that He wants to build His temple are apparently not the hearts that we presently possess. Therefore, we have to do something to prepare ourselves in order to be worthy of getting the commandment to do something on His errand. 

As far as I know, none of us… And certainly I cannot provide for everyone. But I can provide for my own family. And each of you should labor to do the same. There are fantastic opportunities to build net worth, based upon what’s going on right now in the housing market if you proceed cautiously and carefully and prudently and to prepare for yourself and your family.  

I’ve heard it said that there are people who think that the Lord expects them to spend their time studying the Scriptures. And that that’s the labor to which they’ve been called. I think that’s absolutely fantastic. And when you get through gnawing on your leather-bound Scriptures (which may have some limited nutritional value), then I hope that the ink on the cotton (which certainly has fiber) won’t kill you when your Scripture study leads you to eating your Scriptures to fill your growling belly. Because it doesn’t matter what God gives you, you’re not gonna be able to feed yourself. And if the labor of your hand consists in turning a page… Well, I would suggest we build a glass booth and put the person in the booth and put a hat out front for the entertainment value. And we can all drop our spare change in as we go by, watching the man who turns the page produce the labor necessary for Zion. 

Because Zion is hard work; it’s taking what is desolate and making it become something that it’s not. It may be that right now we need to see more economic upheaval in order for the place where God intends that we acquire to go on the market—may not even be available for us at present. But I can tell you, if you run off in haste at this moment, you are doing something that the Lord has counseled against. 

Now, one other point that has to be made as part of this talk.

Section 173 of the Teachings and Commandments says that: 

[Tithing] was never to establish a wealthy general fund nor to invite the wrongful accumulation of wealth that has resulted from the long abuse of this law. The law was to be a light thing, easily borne by the faithful. Tithing was always to be taken from surplus (meaning unnecessary excess property) and increase (meaning what remains after all costs of the household have been paid). It was to be drawn out of the abundance in the possession of the giver so that there may be enough and to spare [“enough” in the hands of the giver so that they can provide for themselves and their household, “and to spare,” meaning 1/10 of what is leftover goes as tithe], not from property required for their necessities. The tithes of this people are to be used for the poor among this people, if they want to become Mine. (T&C 173:1, emphasis added)

Tithing money should be used to help the poor. If you have enough and to spare, and you have given 10% to be used for the poor, and you still feel that you have surplus that is not needed, that’s where money for a temple ought to come from. That’s the money—not the tithing money. That’s that surplus money—or the money that you have in excess of tithe, and you still want to give. That’s to go to the temple. 

Now, I’m saying that, and I’ve read a number of Scriptures. And I know that there are Scriptures that have been read today that can be used to justify one position in an argument or another position in an argument. In your temporal things you shall be equal in all things, and this not grudgingly; otherwise, the abundance of the manifestations of the spirit shall be withheld (T&C 62:4). That’s a great Scripture to use to go attack someone because they’re not giving the way you think they ought to give, and you think that they have more to give. So, now I’ve got a Scripture, and I can use it like a club to justify my criticism of someone else. 

Okay. Let’s find another Scripture we can use to do the other thing. How ‘bout this one back here? The desire of the slothful kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. He covets greedily all the day long, but the righteous gives and spares not (Proverbs 2:353 RE). “You see? You’re just coveting. When you expect me to help you with anything, that’s covetous. Covetousness is ugliness itself, condemned frequently in Scripture, and that ought not be.” 

These Scriptures can be read as a cacophony of contradictions if that’s what you want to do to argue with one another. But that’s not the purpose of the Scriptures. The purpose is to make you wise. If you “have,” and you feel the impulse by the conviction of what these Scriptures say to you (that you can and you should give more), then make sure that tithes are used for the benefit of the poor. And then, your excess can go to accomplish other things. 

I know that there has been some criticism repeated to me that there is a general temple fund, and that that temple fund (which, by the way, has not been touched—not one cent)… They don’t like that accumulating when there’s need for the poor. When Christ was in the house of Simon the leper, who had been cured of his leprosy (which, as it turns out, was Judas’ father—Judas Iscariot), a woman anointed Christ with a fragrant anointing oil that in today’s money would be a $20,000 gesture. Okay? And there was a complaint voiced that this was an extravagant waste. The anointing of our Lord, preliminary to His death and burial—and He said it was done for that purpose—in order to secure for mankind, generally, the Resurrection as He came forth out of the grave; an anointing oil that had been kept for that very purpose. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been sold. Because as Christ pointed out, the poor you have with you always. It’s part of the condition that we find in this world. It’s not gonna go away. 

If we had to make sure that there were no poor still around before we were able to do anything to raise money for a temple, we would never fulfill the coming command that He has told us is going to be given. And He’s given us a season in which to prepare. If we don’t prepare—and if the command comes and we cannot fulfill it—we may as well go back to Nauvoo and divert the shipment of lumber that comes down from the Wisconsin Timber Mission and use it to build Brigham Young’s house and Heber C. Kimball’s house and neglect the construction of the Nauvoo temple, just like they did before. But if we want to be prepared because we’ve been forewarned that there will come a command—and the expectation is that when the command comes, we’re to obey it—then we need to do what we’re reading in Scripture. 

The tithes of this people are to be used for the poor among this people, if they want to become Mine (T&C 173:1). If all of the tithes gathered cannot take care of all of the poor, we fulfilled our command. And we can ask for others to help, as well. But we have an obligation, also, to prepare when the command comes so that we’re not caught—like the saints in Nauvoo—unable, incapable, and without the ability to afford to do what’s been asked of us. 

Now, there’s a… This is given in another context. It’s section 105 of the Teachings and Commandments where they’re actually trying to live a kind of United Order. It was an incorporation that they had various people that owned a part of. And in connection with that, against that background, the Lord said:

For it is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable as stewards over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures. [For] I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens and built the earth as a very handy work, and all things therein are mine. And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine, but it must needs be done in my own way. And behold, this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints: that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low, for the earth is full and there is enough and to spare. …I…prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves. [So] therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall with Dives lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment. (T&C 105:4-5, emphasis added)  

See, those words mean what those words say:

“The earth is full and there is enough…”  That’s one thing; that’s when the labor of your hands has finally fed you. And then after you’ve made the ground sufficiently productive, there is not just enough, but there’s also “and to spare.” It is that “and to spare” that enough hard labor will eventually yield that can be used to help others. And not just the one who produces. 

“If any man shall take of the abundance which I have made and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel…” Okay—of the abundance. That’s not the “enough.” That’s the “to spare.” You have to produce “enough”—and that in and of itself may be a mighty challenge in a desolate wilderness—before you get to the point that you are producing both “enough” and “to spare.” And when you have enough to spare, that abundance needs to be imparted in order to allow others to come and labor alongside you. 

So, that leads us then to this final thought. This was the definition of “mutual agreement” that was given that’s in T&C section 174: As between one another, you choose to not dispute (T&C 174:1). When the definition was given, it was accompanied by the realization the Lord could have disputed every day of His life with someone. He deliberately chose to not contend. He was not an argumentative personality. He wouldn’t have argued from a position of ignorance or from a position of being wrong. Had He chosen to argue, He would have been right in every argument. In other words, every day presented the Lord with an opportunity to go around correcting someone. “You’re wrong. You need to do it this way. Oh, you’re wrong, too! And you need to fix that and do it that… Oh, wait a minute. He’s wrong. I got… Just fix that! Now you, man, you’re really wrong.” Can you imagine what our Scriptures would read like if our Lord chose to dispute? It would be much like some of our fellowship meetings.

Well, I understand there is a schedule, and I understand that I have just a little bit of time that is supposed to be left. But we have some folks here who came a long distance. I don’t know if you both… They’re brother and sister. I don’t know if they want to both come up at the same time or come up… But Holida—yeah?—and her brother, Maksalt [Maksad], are going to talk to you for a few minutes and tell you an interesting story about how it is that folk from Turkmenistan happen to be here with us today. 

Let me end by commending to you that however you approach these issues, be prayerful, be generous with one another, be kind in your judgment, be patient with one another. We’re being asked to accomplish something that has only been accomplished twice before in the history of mankind. And it was accomplished in those days, in the first instance, with 365 years of opportunity to work through their problems and, in the second instance, among a homogeneous group of people. We are very different from one another. Sometimes diversity is not a strength. But diversity should not matter if you can come together with precept and reason, with kindness, and with patience. 

I’d suggest that you probably can’t get someone more diverse than the two folks, brother and sister, that we’re gonna hear from here in a few moments. And yet, we can be one heart with them. And we can welcome them and learn from their experience. They come from an entirely different world than the one we live in. And we have so much we ought to be grateful for that they are genuinely grateful for; just the ability to talk freely is a great gift to them. We get to talk freely, and we use that freedom to say ugly things to one another. And that ought not be so. 

God is working; things are progressing. Not everything that the Lord is up to among us is necessary to be talked about publicly at this point. But God’s hand is not idle, and things are moving, and sacrifices are being made, and work is being done to fulfill the words of the covenant. 

Of that I bear testimony and witness in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

——–

The following transcript has been edited and expanded by Holida and Max
to help make their comments more easily understood.

HOLIDA ANNAMURADOVA: Hello. Hi, everyone. 

MAKSAD ANNAMURADOV: Can you guys hear us? 

HOLIDA: Okay, so my name is Holida. It’s like “holiday” without the “y.” So, you know… 

MAX: And my name is Maksad, but because Denver mentioned “Maksalt,” and it sounds like a different version of it, I go for just Max so that it’s easier for everyone. And, yeah.

HOLIDA: And we are from Turkmenistan. This is in Central Asia; it’s by Afghanistan. And we came here… He came here three years ago, and I came here to U.S. two years ago. We came to Utah—it’s Snow College in Ephraim—don’t ask why did he [we] choose [it], because we don’t know the reason. It’s God’s hand, probably. He had a great plan for us. And now we know why we chose Ephraim, Utah, like exactly that place. 

So, it’s Muslim [Islam] in my religion [country]. In my country, the religion is Muslim [Islam]. But we were not active Muslims (in my country) as a family. And we… We had a lot of hardship. We, as a child… I remember, we grow up in labor all the time—laboring as [with] our parents, together, to help them. So, we did not have easy… We did not have [an] easy life. And suddenly, we had a hard time in our family with my brother—that he got [a] really bad sickness, Hepatitis C—and then my mother got that, too. So, my mom was, like, hopeless. We were all, as a family, [we] lost our hope. We didn’t see any door to go out of that darkness. 

And then they went to Iran [to get treatment]. And the Iranians, they taught them to start practicing the Muslim religion five times prayer. And then we started [practicing Islam religion]. It’s like four or five months, and we seek for God, even [if] we didn’t have anyone to teach us. At home, we prayed to God, even [though] we did not [know] how to pray; we tried our best. We did not know that we can talk to God, because they [the priests] did not teach us like that. No one around you talks to God. They don’t know how to talk to God. So, we just did it [our best to find the true God]. 

Suddenly, on the TV, [the] Ukraine Channel opens up, and there one man [an apostle] is talking/teaching about Christ. 10,000s of people are sitting and giving testimonies of Christ, that they’re getting healed—the same Hepatitis C that my parents got my brother and my mom got. And my mom is like, no way. This is my only hope. I will try this. Whoever says what I don’t trust, but I will try believing in Christ, because they are not crazy—10,000’s [of] people believing in Christ? Why would they believe if they don’t see any benefit [result] by believing? 

So, we started, we tried; we tried to believe. And as soon as we started praying and calling Jesus’ name, the change started in our life. Miracles started happening. He [Max] started being healed, and my mom started being healed [from the sickness]. 

And suddenly [one day], we found the U.S. program that’s going to help us, teach us, and prepare to U.S. college. Because five years ago, we did not even imagine or dream [of] coming to U.S. because it was totally impossible for us. We did not have any financial availability for that or any imagination. We did not have [it].

MAX: And I was looking for… First, I studied in that program, and I was looking for [a] college to choose. And then I noticed Snow College in the middle of Utah. And it’s out in the middle of [the] desert. And people asked me, like, “Why are you going there?” And “I don’t know, I guess it’s, you know, God’s call to go.” So, I…  

Before coming here, actually, when I told them (my people and my country) about “I’m going to Utah,” and that they will, “Oh, don’t go to Utah. They’re all polygamists in there.” And I was like, “Ummm…is that really true?” And I had to do my own research, you know. And it’s so funny that outside of the U.S. (probably maybe inside the U.S., as well), Utah is stereotyped as being Mormons, and yeah…  

So, I came to Snow College, and this was my second semester. And I met one of my friends. And her parents were… She and her parents were interested in Denver’s readings [teachings], and they persuaded us. They… So, we were seeking to know the truth. The very first semester I was here, two missionaries came to my apartment. And they…  And I had a talk with them. And I told them that I’m seeking for truth, and I’m not feeling like joining the church right now. And that they gave me a Book of Mormon for the first time. I did not open the Book of Mormon beforehand. And I opened it, and I thought I’d start reading it. I read the Bible before—little bit. Then as soon as I started reading it, I said, like, “Man, this must be like a Scripture because it’s boring,” like Denver mentioned that. It’s… But then I never opened that after that. Then after I met this people who were interested in the fellowship and the gospel of Jesus Christ, I started with a passion reading the Book of Mormon, and I… 

My sister was also planning to come, and I… She was planning to go somewhere else. And I was like, “Oh, come to Snow College… “

HOLIDA: And I was like, “Oh, no, there are so many Turkmens other students. I want to go somewhere else. It’s too small-town for me. It’s so boring over there.” I was saying, “No.” And he [Max] kept saying, “Yes.” And I wasn’t ready to come that year. And I was, like, praying. I had so many tests; it was so competitive to get the scholarship so we can cover our tuition. And I was like, “No.” And something [a voice] in my heart said, “You can do this.” And Christ… I saw Christ’s hand in my life; He started opening the path. He started little by little helping [me with] the exams to pass. And I’m like, “Okay, even [if] I am not ready, He is ready. 

So, He helped me to go through all those and to be chosen among the students. So, I got the scholarship and come that year [2019], and after two months, COVID started and [the] country was shut down. I wouldn’t be here at that time if He wouldn’t, like, give me motivate me. Yeah, so…  

So I… We came here. And as I said, I was looking for, again, church. And then, it was Mormon[ism]. I never heard Mormonism, anything [about] Book of Mormon. Missionaries—they caught me. And they kept messaging me, and like, “Hey, you are wonderful. Do you want to get baptized? Do you want [us] to come? Do you want us to teach?” And something in my heart was pushing [rejecting]; it was saying, “No.” And I prayed, “God, like, show me the true path. Show me the path that you want me to walk on.” 

And He said, “No, don’t join; just wait.” And I rejected them. And I didn’t go to church. We were—just [the] two of us—different from everyone because all our other Turkmen friends are Muslims and [the] other[s]—all of them are Mormons. So, we didn’t see anyone like us! 

And we met his [Max’s] friend; [she] invited us for the Thanksgiving, and we met with their parents, and they listened to us. And then, they noticed that we are looking for truth. Then they accepted/they saw us like their children. They loved us. I could feel so much love, so much care, so much passion in them that they kindly started persuading us, kindly shared this new Restoration, the Book of Mormon, about Joseph, all the history—[and] we were open. Why? Because we did not have any foundation about Christianity. No one taught us [before]; we did not go to church; we did not know anything [about Jesus Christ]. So, anything—everything—was like new, and I could feel in deep [the depth] of my heart, it was something different. These words cannot be told by man. It should be something from God. Because the emptiness in my heart was filled when I learned the truth. 

And then, it’s like everything started changing. And I told my mom, “Hey, I found a good religion/good truth here.” It’s like, “I don’t know what religion is this, but this is a good thing! They’re talking about good stuff!” And I started telling about that, and my mom is like, “Oh, no, that sounds strange,” because I was telling about Heavenly Mother, and it was like [a] new idea, right? 

And she was like, “Okay, you can continue your way, but I’m going to watch this channel— Ukraine Channel—and listen to him [the apostle on tv].” 

And then I said, “Mom, don’t listen to me. Just ask Christ. Why don’t you pray and ask which path is true, which path you should go?” 

And then, she called us tomorrow [the next day]. And she’s like, “The channel’s disappeared: I can’t find it.” Just no, no channel. And she’s like, “Okay, tell me more about that religion!” Then she got really, like, interested; she’s eager to learn. From that time… It was last year—March—that we started moving on this movement/in this journey. And from that time, I teach my mom every day (almost) because she is really eager to learn. And it’s so hard to translate [the] Book of Mormon because I barely understand the old language. I couldn’t even, like… We read… We opened [the Book of Mormon], and we closed [it] because, “It came to pass…” and we are like, “What’s that?” And we barely learned the English! Don’t say, “Again learn English, the older version.”

MAX: It was a total[ly] new English, actually. It’s a different version.

HOLIDA: Yeah. But with Christ’s power, I learned that everything is possible. We had passion to learn/gain truth. And then we started reading it. Even [though] it was hard, using a lot of dictionaries, asking people, asking for help. And those people [who accepted the Restoration] started teaching us; it was great help. Because I can’t imagine where to get the information, how to learn what is true/what is not. But with Christ, all the time asking [in] my heart [from Him], it was really helpful. 

And so, we started our beliefs [of Christ] six years ago, and after five [one] years ago, we came to this movement. And after that, I started… My mom started teaching our other relatives who are in a hard time. So, she was, like, just telling everyone—everyone on the, like, whoever she sees, and the people were, like, “You are on a wrong path; you will go to hell. You are not Muslim. You changed [converted].” We are like, “Oh, okay, whatever.” You know? “Whatever! You will see.” And after one year/two years, those people who’s been told [about Christ], they are coming and like [asking], “Did you talk about Christ or something? Can you tell more about it?” So, they felt in their heart that they need it, because they saw the miracles in our life, [and one of them was] that our bodies get healed.

We came to the place that no one can imagine in [among] our relatives, we were the only two children, like among our, like, all relatives/ all the village. So, everyone looked at us and like, “They dream, how they did  How did they get there?” they ask. And I say, “I don’t know. It’s God; it’s Christ.” I kept giving that testimony of Christ to everyone. And then they started getting interested. 

So, there are like around 15 to 20 people who are really interested, like, they’re like, “Send me more information [truth about Jesus Christ].” And I try [to] do my best to translate these things and share my understandings and teach them. And we have Sunday class where we teach people, our people, these things—the Restorations—and they don’t go to any religion; they don’t join any church, but they learn these things [restored gospel/truth]. 

So, as you can see, as God says, “I… My hand is everywhere.” And He will bring [people from] all four sides of the Earth to the Zion. And I can feel that; I saw that in my life, that [from Christ we could come from] through other side of the world. So, don’t ever doubt about God’s power. Because if He could bring the people from [the] other side of the world, finding and bringing [them] to this path, then what He can’t do? Nothing! He can do everything. Nothing is impossible for Him. 

And we ask your prayers for our people so they can we can find a way to send more information [translated books/gospels] for them and help them. But my country is closed right now. So, my parents want to come here—really, like so much—because we are the only children. They want to come and join here in this movement and be here physically [with us]. 

And also, this is our first conference coming here, and it was so great. Thank you so much for welcoming us. Thank you for smiling at us. It means a lot to us. And great—everyone helped us, everyone is helping [in] some ways, and we are very thankful for each of you/ each of your support, and we are happy to be here. We are happy to walk towards Zion. I can see that everyone is talking about Christ—everyone. I don’t have to say, “Know ye the Lord?” because everyone knows the Lord from the least to the greatest. Isn’t this the beginning of Zion? We should keep laboring and doing [God’s will] and having faith in Christ. So, this is our impossible story which is possible to [for] Christ.

The post Equality appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following remarks were given at the Joseph Smith Restoration Conference 2021 in Meridian, Idaho on June 26th, 2021.

Transcript

Mahalo. Okay, I promise I’ll end on time.

There are very few prophets who are given an assignment so important to God’s covenants that the prophet is named and his mission foretold in prophecy many generations in advance. You can probably call to mind the name of a number of such persons—for example:

• The Messiah (or Emmanuel).
• A prophet—John—whose mission would include baptizing the Messiah.
• Moses was identified and his mission foretold, both by name and by prophecy beforehand.
• There was a prophet—John—who was destined to write a remainder of the vision that Nephi had received, whose name and whose mission was identified in advance.
• Cyrus—the governor who would allow the Jews to return and to rebuild the temple after the Babylonian captivity—one of the very few who’s identified beforehand and his role clarified who was not a prophet but a king.

(What? He can’t hear? That’s his fault, not mine. I’m just… I’m just doing my job.)

But one of the individuals who’s named beforehand was Joseph Smith.

The title that I gave (when pressed for a title) was “Joseph, Joseph, Joseph” (which at the time I gave the title, I said those were purportedly the dying words of Brigham Young—but this has nothing to do with Brigham Young’s dying words). Joseph of Egypt gave a prophecy about a descendant of his who would be a choice seer, whose father would be named Joseph. And then the choice seer would be named Joseph like his father. And so, those three Joseph’s were what I had reference to.

In the Book of Mormon, as he is giving his final blessing, Father Lehi gives a quote from the brass plates that is an excerpt of what Joseph of Egypt had foretold about his descendant who would be the choice seer. But interestingly, what Lehi does is both paraphrase and quote—and it’s incomplete. If you want to get the complete prophecy that Joseph of Egypt gave about the descendant, you have to go to the Joseph Smith Translation of the book of Genesis, which you won’t find in the LDS or RLDS version. You literally have to go to the Restoration Edition (that just recently got distributed in a leather-bound form). And you can find that in Genesis chapter 12, verses 36 or paragraphs 36 to 43.

There’s some interesting details that leak through that I never noticed about the history that occurred. Joseph of Egypt died when he was 110. But apparently, all of his older—as well as his younger brother, Benjamin—survived him. It becomes clear from the Joseph Smith Translation of the book of Genesis. But Father Joseph, as he’s getting into his elderly years and is about to die, then gave some (like his father before him) blessings to his posterity. But because of the relationship that he had with his brothers, he also delivered to them—his brothers—some words of reassurance and comfort about their posterity, as well. And so, Joseph of Egypt becomes sort of the “patriarchal blesser” of his brethren and then the posterity of all the tribes of Israel, which tells you that the Holy Order that had originally been established at the time of Adam—that had gone through a period of apostasy and had to be restored by a connection made with Father Abraham—persisted to and included Joseph of Egypt as one who… I mean, we think Ephraim continued that. But we know for certain—particularly because of the passages that we’ve gotten in the Joseph Smith Translation—that the Holy Order that originated at the beginning was in full bloom in the person of Joseph of Egypt.

So, I’m gonna read from and comment on the events that took place there: 

And Joseph said unto his brethren… 

So, while he’s telling this—his last blessing—his brethren are alive.

I die and go unto my fathers…  

So, he knows he’s about to die, and his brethren will survive him. They will be around after his departure.

…and I go down to my grave with joy. (Genesis 12:36, emphasis added)

It’s an interesting observation. But a person who dies with a clean conscience before God—having the promises of God that things will be well with them, both in the hereafter and in eternity—can go down to the grave in joy, which Joseph of Egypt was able to do.

We do not have anything similar to this account for Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Benjamin, Gad, Asher… We don’t have anything like this for the others, which also suggests that upon the death of Joseph—who possessed the Holy Order and the right—none of his brethren succeeded him into that position. (If anyone did, it would have been Ephraim to whom the birthright was given.) 

The God of my father Jacob be with you, to deliver you out of affliction in the day of your bondage…  

As long as Joseph was there, there was no threat of bondage. But after his departure, after some generations, a new Pharaoh would arise who knew not Joseph (as explained in the book of Exodus). And Joseph is talking about that time and saying, “your bondage,” not meaning the very people to whom he was speaking but all of the posterity that are represented in the person of the people to whom he’s speaking: You are gonna go into bondage, meaning your posterity. So, he’s telling them that there are some bad times coming and that bondage in Egypt was both expected and foretold by Joseph to the other tribes.

…for [Joseph said] the Lord has visited me, and I have obtained a promise of the Lord…

That is covenantal language. That is exactly the kind of thing that one should expect from someone in possession of the Holy Order. So, he’s obtained a visit from the Lord and a promise from the Lord—and he’s about to explain what that is. 

There are those who think that a prophet can only speak for God if they quote God directly with a “Thus saith the LORD.” And Joseph will get there! But he begins by explaining what it is he understood as a consequence of what the Lord said and covenanted with him, a promise of the Lord: 

…that out of the fruit of my loins the Lord God will raise up a righteous branch, out of my loins… 

Meaning that there will be a branch covenantally connected to and part of what is “righteousness” or the family of God.

Joseph of Egypt knows there will come a point at which, out of his posterity, will come some people connected as a branch—that’s a genealogical, familial, and Holy Order kind of term—that’s gonna come from him. And he’s saying this, which is apparently dissimilar to his brethren.

Now he’s about to die, so they don’t have to kill him. But this is kind of the same sort of stuff that got him in trouble when he told them about the “sheaves bowing to his sheaf” and “the stars, the sun, and the moon bowing to him” that got him sold into slavery in Egypt. This can’t be welcomed stuff, but he’s about to die, so why not be candid? He’s gonna “raise up a righteous branch, out of my loins…” 

…and unto you whom my father Jacob has named Israel, a prophet — not the Messiah who is called Shiloh. …this prophet shall deliver my people out of Egypt in the days of your bondage. (Ibid., emphasis added)

Meaning: “Despite that (what I’m telling you about my posterity), you are gonna have someone that comes out of the group that’s named ‘Israel’ by Father Jacob—you are gonna have someone that’s going to deliver you out of bondage. So, there’s some good news for you, too.”

A deliverer, but that deliverer prophet is not gonna be the Messiah. That guy is going to deliver the family of Egypt out of slavery in Egypt. This would be Moses.

And it shall come to pass…  

This is what the Lord told Joseph in covenant, and all Joseph’s doing is explaining what is going to happen. There is no “Thus saith the LORD,” just, “This is how this stuff is going to take place,” explaining as a matter of fact. It shall come to pass…  

…that they shall be scattered again [meaning all of this family of Israel is gonna be broken up and scattered] and a branch shall be broken off and shall be carried into a far country. (Ibid., 37, emphasis added)

Well, “a branch in a far country” echoes from the blessing that Jacob gave to Joseph before Jacob’s death about how the branches of his family would go over the wall over the well (see Genesis 12:29).

Nevertheless, they shall be remembered in the covenants of the Lord… 

Meaning, that branch—scattered as it may be, broken, off, separated—is still gonna be part of what the Lord keeps in His mind: 

…when the Messiah comes; for he shall be made manifest unto them in the latter days in the spirit of power, and shall bring them out of darkness unto light, out of hidden darkness and out of captivity unto freedom. (Ibid., emphasis added) 

Meaning that when the Messiah comes, the Messiah is going to visit with that broken branch that’s gonna be scattered.

Then he says, 

A seer… 

A very important word because he’s now talking about a very, very specific person: A seer… 

…shall the Lord God my God raise up, who shall be a choice seer… 

There may be seers a-plenty in the coming generations of Israel, but a seer—distinguished from all others as “choice”— is going to be raised up. But he’s gonna be raised up:  

…unto the fruit of my loins [meaning he’s going to come through the line of Joseph, not the rest of his brethren]. Thus said the Lord God of my fathers unto me… 

Now we finally get to a “Thus saith the LORD.” So, everything that you’ve heard up to this point is simply Joseph of Egypt explaining what God let him understand in his (Joseph of Egypt’s) words. Now he’s gonna quote God, and it’s a long quote.

Lehi will primarily take the quote, but he also does some paraphrasing. It’s interesting the difference between how Lehi uses this passage from the brass plates and how it appears in the Joseph Smith Translation—and it would be worth the trouble of looking and comparing the two ‘cuz it tells you something about prophets quoting prophets. 

So, now it’s the Lord speaking, and Joseph of Egypt reporting.

…A choice seer… 

Again, this is God speaking about him. Joseph first called him a “seer,” but when God’s words get used, the very first words are “a choice seer.”

…will I raise up out of the fruit of your loins, and he should be esteemed highly among the fruit of your loins. (Ibid., 38, emphasis added)

Meaning that descendants of Joseph are going to hold this particular seer in very high regard; they’re gonna respect him; they’re gonna want to honor what it is that this choice seer represents.

So, now we’ve had him called:

• Seer
• Choice seer
• Choice seer

Anyone who feels that they can dismiss Joseph Smith as someone who may have “written inspired fiction” or may have been “a successful charlatan” ought to realize that they’re treading on very thin ice. Because if God and Father Joseph of Egypt can’t describe him without using the words “seer, choice seer, choice seer,” it would perhaps serve us well to sit up, take note, and say, “Maybe I ought to search deeply to find out the basis upon which God holds him in such esteem.”

And unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of your loins, his brethren. (Ibid., emphasis added)

So, this choice seer is gonna get a commandment from God, and he’s gonna do a work—but it’s not for his benefit. It’s for the benefit of the posterity of Israel, his brethren.

And he shall bring them to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made with your father. (Ibid.)

Your father, Joseph of Egypt, is Israel—Jacob of “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” fame. (You know that band; they had several top 40s.) “And he should bring them to knowledge of the covenants which I have made with your father.”

And he shall do whatever work I shall command him; and I will make him great in my eyes… 

God’s saying, “I’m going to make this man great in my own—in God’s own—eyes.” That’s the person that gets treated so roughly in anti-Mormon literature.

…for he shall do my work. (Ibid., emphasis added)

(I’m looking at the time, ‘cuz  there’s a point I want to make and keep this stuff in mind.)

“He shall do my work.” David Whitmer can complain that Joseph overstepped his commission, but God promised Joseph of Egypt that Joseph Smith would do God’s work.

And he shall be great like unto him whom I have said I would raise up unto you to deliver my people, O house of Israel, out of the land of Egypt… 

So, now God is saying, “This choice seer that is gonna be great in the eyes of God is going to be someone who is comparable to the promised Moses that was to come.” Well, when Moses came, one of the things that he accomplished was to reset the covenant of God, establish a law that would be followed, and create an entirely new root of Scripture. 

We have lost our Scriptures on a number of occasions. In the beginning, Adam kept the Book of Remembrance, which Enoch elaborated upon because Enoch was the great scribe. (His prototype in Egyptian hieroglyphs is Thoth, who is shown ibis-headed with the stylus and writing—that was Enoch.) And Abraham says that the records of the Fathers (that came down from the beginning) came into his hands, and therefore, he (Abraham) had a knowledge of the beginning of the Creation and of the stars and the planets and all the rest of that. And he proceeded to tell us something about the Creation in the book of Abraham, based (apparently) upon the content of the records from the beginning that fell into his hands—followed, in due course, with his full initiation into the Holy Order through the surviving Melchizedek, son of Shem [Noah], who was a pre-diluvian and had a covenant that he could have been translated and taken up to heaven (‘cuz that process continued right up into the flood). Even though the city of Enoch had risen before, people were still going through that process right up into the flood, and Melchizedek could lay claim on that promise as an antediluvian, but he tarried until he could hand off (after generations of apostasy) to Abraham. So, Abraham inherits the covenant, and Abraham has possession of the records.

But generations of slavery later, there aren’t any records left that Moses can make use of. And so, after a second period of multi-generational apostasy, the Scripture and the records and the description of the Creation had to be restored again. And so, Moses—in restoring the Scriptures—begins with the account of Genesis (the first book of Moses), which is an account of the Creation written by Moses, which (based upon the Joseph Smith Translation of the Scriptures) was Moses being tutored by God so that he understood the events of the Creation in a way that permitted him to create a new root of Scripture. 

Well, the Mosaic volumes of Scripture would then later get lost. And so, a new root of Scripture had to be created at the time of Ezra when they returned to the temple. And Ezra essentially writes the Old Testament based upon things he may have found during the effort when they’re laboring with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other to rebuild Jerusalem after Cyrus had permitted the return. But it was essentially a re-creation of the Scripture, at the time of Ezra. 

So, you’ve got Moses that has a root of Scripture because of what had been lost. You’ve got Ezra who does something fairly similar. 

But in this prophecy, what Joseph of Egypt is saying is this choice seer in the last days is gonna be just like Moses. Among other things, he would create a new root of Scripture. He would not only correct and edit and revise the Old and the New Testaments, but in addition to that, he would bring forth the Book of Mormon that is another companion that helps establish the validity and the veracity of what we have that we inherited from the Jews. And he would also receive other commandments that—by revelation—would be preserved. All of that is activity “great in the eyes of God” that God likens to what Moses would do.

So, when you think of the value of Moses to the Jewish people and the esteem with which he is held by the Jews, you should realize that Joseph Smith should be held in similar regard by anyone who accepts the Restoration as a fact that occurred through God working with him.

…for a seer will I raise up out of the fruit of your loins to deliver my people out of the land of Egypt, and he should be called Moses. (Ibid.)

This is explaining how Joseph Smith—the latter seer—will be great like this earlier one (who is Moses). And he’s explaining: Moses is gonna deliver the people out of Egypt. 

And by this name he shall [be] know[n] that he is of your house, for he shall be nursed by the king’s daughter and shall be called her son. (Ibid.)

So, he’s gonna be nursed by the Pharaoh’s daughter—but he’s gonna be called Moses, and because he’s got that name, you’ll realize he’s not from the house of Pharaoh. He’s from your house. He’s one of your people. So, don’t be confused (even though the leaders were rather confused when he came, and they wanted very little to do with him). 

And again, a seer will I raise up out of the fruit of your loins. And unto him will I give power to bring forth my word unto the seed of your loins — and not to the bringing forth [of] my word only, says the Lord, but to the convincing them of my word which shall have already gone forth among them in the last days.  (Ibid., 39, emphasis added)

So, what Joseph, the seer—the choice seer of the last days—is going to do is gonna be a work that will help to convince people that the earlier Scriptures/the earlier record/the earlier religion/the earlier testimony is in fact also true—God’s word convincing the faithful being centered on Joseph Smith.

Wherefore, the fruit of your loins shall write, and the fruit of the loins of Judah shall write… 

This is God talking to Joseph of Egypt, saying, “Your descendants are gonna write, and the descendants of Judah are going to write.” Now, the Bible is not merely the words of the tribe of Judah. In fact, Moses wasn’t a member of Judah; he was a Levite. But the tribe of Judah was the one who preserved the record. So, when the loins of Judah shall write, they are writing the record that includes prophecies that were delivered by prophets from all of the tribes—but we get them through Judah because Judah was the one who preserved and perpetuated the record, wherever it originated, from whatever tribe.

…and that which shall be written by the fruit of your loins [that is, the descendants of Joseph] and also that which shall be written by the fruit of the loins of Judah [that is, the Bible] shall grow together unto the confounding of false doctrines, and laying down of contentions, and establishing peace among the fruit of your loins, and bringing them to the knowledge of their fathers in the latter days, and also to the knowledge of my covenants, says the Lord. (Ibid.)

The purpose of what the choice seer’s going to accomplish in the last days is, ultimately, to bring an end to the religious contentions that people who believe in the Bible have with one another. Heavens, the conference that we’ve been conducting here (and this is peacemaking ground among people of the remnant) really demonstrates, among other things, that there remain contentions among people who believe in the Book of Mormon. We’ve divided up into various groups. And Tausha has been organizing this conference now (for, I think, the fourth year in a row) in part to try and lay down the contentions that exist religiously between and among one another. It’s really odd that when it comes to the subject of the “truth” and “salvation” and “all eternity”… I mean, for goodness sake—all eternity! We want to squabble and bitch and moan against one another rather than to say, “What light can you shed that I do not yet possess? What insight has come to you that I’ve not noticed that comes from the God of Heaven?” “What truths are there to be discovered and learn from one another?” We don’t do that. We bristle, and we complain, and we squabble. But the purpose of the work of Joseph was to lay down contention and put an end to it.

“Knowledge of their fathers.” “Knowledge of my covenants.”

And then he says,

And out of weakness he shall be made strong in that day when my work shall go forth among all my people, which shall restore them who are of the house of Israel in the last days. (Ibid.)

“Out of weakness.” I don’t think that Joseph Smith was at all spiritually weak. I don’t think that Joseph was physically weak. But Joseph Smith was absolutely, continuously, financially weak.

He had a pending petition for bankruptcy at the time of his death. They had just passed a national bankruptcy law, and everyone went flocking to file for bankruptcy because the ebb and flow of commerce and the banking system in that day was riotous. And if you were, as Joseph was, someone trying to found a city and establish a community, he took a lot of risks. He took risks that he could ill-afford to take. And then he conducted business for the benefit of the people that needed it, not for his own profit and gain. The Nauvoo store that he operated let people take things that they needed, whether they could pay for it or not, with the promise of an IOU—and then they defaulted. And Joseph was left, ultimately, holding the bag with a lot of uncollectible accounts. And he’s the very embodiment of weakness financially. It would require the financial support and the charity of his contemporaries in order for him to accomplish any of the work that needed to be accomplished. 

And when it came to the construction of the Nauvoo temple, one of the final tasks that the Lord permitted the saints to undertake (on condition that if they pursued it faithfully, they would be defended and protected and kept in their place; but if they didn’t measure up, then they would, instead of blessings, bring about cursings upon them, and they would be driven out and suffer a whole series of maladies)—the warning being given in January of 1841, and the subsequent events proving very clearly that they didn’t measure up, and they didn’t do what was expected of them.

…that seer will I bless. (Ibid., 40)

His financial condition didn’t matter. He didn’t lay up treasures on Earth, but he certainly laid up treasures in Heaven—because the Lord said he intended to bless him. 

And they that seek to destroy him should be confounded, for this promise I give unto you, for I will remember you from generation to generation. And his name should be called Joseph, and it should be after the name of his father. And he shall be like unto you [meaning Joseph of Egypt; Joseph Smith is not only like Moses, Joseph Smith is like Joseph of Egypt, as well], for the thing which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand shall bring my people unto salvation. (Ibid.)

Okay. I’ve now gotten to the point that if you are keeping score, the Lord in this prophecy has mentioned Joseph Smith—either directly by name or by description or by a personal pronoun—Joseph Smith, 22 times. It’s kind of a remarkable bit of scorekeeping, if you’re looking at it.

There are prophecies about unnamed future prophets that are gonna accomplish some work, referred to as candlesticks or olive trees—no names given. And yet, they’ve got remarkable responsibilities that they’re going to fulfill. And their mention is paltry by comparison. Joseph Smith’s mission and description as a choice seer rather dwarfs statements that are made about others.

I think people ought to be circumspect about evaluating, judging, and criticizing Joseph Smith. As Joseph was in Liberty Jail, the Lord, comforting Joseph because, well, jail was a highly unsatisfactory place to reside for half a year, and his tenure there was now coming to an end; and Joseph’s time of reflection and prayer and meditation drawing to an end, he wrote up an account. And in the account, it drifts from ‘what he was thinking’ to ‘what he was praying’ to ‘what God was telling him’ to ‘quoting God’ in the letter. It’s an interesting amalgamation.  But this is a quote from the Lord talking to Joseph: 

The ends of the earth shall inquire after your name, and fools shall have you in derision… 

Well, that oughta make some folks be a little more circumspect. 

…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. (T&C 139:7)

Why would the virtuous seek blessings and counsel from under the hand of a pedophile, polygamist, liar, deceiver who publicly preached against the practice of adulterous plural marriages and in secret went about practicing it? It makes no sense to me.

And if (in the review of the historical record) you can’t figure out that there’s an enormous gap between the available information about the virtue of Joseph Smith and the solidity of his marriage and commitment to his wife, Emma Smith, right up until June 27 of 1844, and then a flood of nonsense that creeps in from polygamists who—20/30/40 years after the fact—begin to reconstruct their recollection (and even quoting Joseph Smith to say exactly the contrary of what he said and taught publicly), then you’re not particularly wise.

It makes no sense to do that. I mean, that statement about “Never bet against a Sicilian when life is on the line…” Well, never bet against a Mormon hierarchy when money and property is on the line. Because I’m telling you, as the affidavits were being gathered to support the practice of plural marriage, property was on the line. And they went about writing the affidavits (because they’re in the handwriting of Joseph F. Smith) and collecting signatures from women who were in a vulnerable position economically and who desperately did not want to forfeit their position within the structure that had been created in Utah, and so, they have fixed their signatures to the affidavits. And from that, we have folk like Brian Hales that say, “Oh, there’s this flood of evidence to support the notion!” And I’m telling you, choose your historians carefully.

And your people, [your people] shall never be turned against you by the testimony of traitors. (Ibid.)

Okay. I want to put that statement into a very specific context because I have to assume that whatever extensions may flow from that statement to Joseph, at the moment this was being told to him in Liberty Jail, if you were to ask him the identity of the traitors, he would be able to give you—exactly—the names of the folks:

• Oliver Cowdery
• David Whitmer
• John Whitmer—the LDS Church… Well, the church historian. John Whitmer took all of the historical records with him when he was excommunicated in the preceding year. And Joseph Smith commenced re-writing the history in 1838 because the histories had been taken by John Whitmer. (Two of the Book of Mormon witnesses and the church’s historian.)
• Hiram Page
• W.W. Phelps
• Sampson Avard
• Thomas Marsh (of the Quorum of the Twelve) 

These people were not only traitors to him… 

They did not have the ability to hold Joseph Smith on the charge of treason without a sufficient body of testimony against him to prove that he ought to be kept in jail to stand trial on the charge. You didn’t have to prove the charge, you have to have a preliminary hearing in which someone said something that justified the belief that you might be able to convict this person for treason. And the people who testified (the Missourians) couldn’t come up with enough facts to bind him over in Judge King’s courtroom. It took Sampson Avard to come in and testify. 

Now Samson Avard was… He was in a command position with the Mormon protective group, and he… I think he may have coined the term “Danites.” But whatever it was, they came to be known by the vernacular of Danites—and he was spoiling for a fight. (He was like Louis Naegle in his youth.) He was just looking for a face to punch. So, Joseph decommissioned Sampson Avard because of his hostile attitude, and he made him, essentially, the cook/the mess Sergeant/the guy in charge of keeping them fed. The demotion of Sampson Avard was intended by Joseph Smith to de-escalate the tensions. He did not want Mormons provoking anything. And Sampson Avard wanted to go out on night raids, burning property that belonged to the Gentiles. 

It was Sampson Avard who came into the courtroom and who swore that all of the depredations that he had committed—and he described them—were done under the direction/with the permission/with the presiding authority and consent of Joseph Smith. And therefore, “All that crap I did that was so evil? Well, he told me to do it!” So, you’ve got the guy who did it saying, “Joseph was the author of it,” and that was a sufficient basis to hold him over, and he was languishing… 

This occurred in the first town they were held in; they’d been transported to and held in Liberty after (I think it was) Richmond, where the preliminary hearing had been held. But now they were in the Liberty Jail, and they were simply awaiting trial. And this statement about the traitors, “Your people shall never be turned against you by the testimony of traitors”…   

The second person on that list was one of the Three Witnesses named David Whitmer, who (in what—1886?—in his “Address to All Believers in Christ,” now an old guy and somewhat reflective on things) wrote his “Address to All Believers in Christ” that is an oft-cited, early Mormon historical document for the concept/for the proposition that “Joseph Smith was a fallen Prophet and that Joseph Smith’s original commission was to take care of the Book of Mormon but that after he finished with the Book of Mormon, that everything that he did thereafter to have himself as Prophet, Seer, and Revelator was overreaching and ego-maniacal and that Joseph fell into some sort of a personal ego trip that led to destruction and that Joseph was off the mark.” And that concept gets picked up and echoed by a lot of people. But it is fundamentally based upon the testimony of a traitor identified in a revelation given to Joseph in Liberty Jail that promised Joseph that the pure in heart will never be turned aside by the testimony of traitors. So, if you give great countenance to the testimony of David Whitmer in “An Address to all Believers in Christ,” you are literally falling into the very thing that was described by the Lord as something that the pure and the wise and the noble and the virtuous will not do. So, well, take heed.

And the Lord swore unto Joseph that he would preserve his seed for ever, saying…  

So, that now is simply a summary, an interjection that is not a quote from the Lord, once again. It’s covering something off-script. Now we’re going back to a direct quote of the Lord again: 

I will raise up Moses, and a rod shall be in his hand; and he shall gather together my people, and he shall lead them as a flock, and he shall smite the waters of the Red Sea with his rod. And he shall have judgment, and shall write the word of the Lord. And he shall not speak many words, for I will write unto him my law by the finger of [mine] own hand. And I will make a spokesman for him, and his name should be called Aaron. And it shall be done unto you in the last days also, even as I have sworn. (Genesis 12:41)

So, the question that ought to occur to us when we get this kind of language is: Joseph Smith had to restore this stuff back into the text of the book of Genesis—it was once there; it got dropped out. Why would it get dropped out?

Well, yeah… People did not want to have… You can’t just eliminate the reference to this latter-day Messiah ben Joseph that would still echo in the record of the Jews. Something this blatant, something this obvious, something this in your face has got to go! But there’s this analogy that I use:

Probably any one of you here in the room, if you listen to a lot of popular music over the course of your lifetime, you probably have an inventory of lyrics in your head that numbers in the hundreds of thousands of songs. And when a song begins, even if you haven’t heard it for many, many years, as soon as the song begins, you hear the first couple of words to the tune, and you probably start singing along with the lyrics. (And if you’re alone in your car, you probably do that. But if there’s anyone there with you, you’re probably a little more inhibited about that kind of rock and roll.)

The other morning, I was thinking about a song that I had not heard in three decades or more. But I’ll bet if I started singing it that a significant number of you could finish the tune. (Oh, you’re shaking your head! You don’t…  I’m gonna sing it! Yeah.) 

Oh, where, oh, where can my baby be? 

The Lord took her away from me. 

She’s gone to heaven, so I’ve got to be good 

So I can see my baby when I leave this world.

[They] were out on a date in [her] daddy’s car. [Okay] 

We hadn’t driven very far. 

[When] there in the road [lying] straight ahead

[The car was stalled,] the engine was dead. 

I couldn’t stop, so I swerved to the right…

(“Last Kiss” by J. Frank Williams and The Cavaliers)

Wait a minute. Hold on. Dude! Her daddy’s car. You couldn’t stop. This is a chauvinist song. This is sexist crap. Dude shouldn’t be driving her daddy’s car; she should be driving. This is why we don’t hear this song anymore. I gotta… Yeah.

You can eliminate part of a song. You can drop a verse a whole lot more easily than you can mangle a verse. And a lot of the Scriptures were perpetuated by repetition, by word of mouth, and literally, by being sung. That’s why a great deal of the Scriptures in the original language is more poetry than—or prose—that’s intended to have signals and cues to recall the passages. It’s clearly what the Lord was doing with the Beatitudes: making something that can be easily recalled and recited. 

So, if you’ve got passages like the one we’re dealing with here (and it’s filled with an amalgamation that mixes in both the character of Moses with, overwhelmingly, a description of the last-days’ Joseph) and you just don’t want to keep that stuff up, you’ve got to drop the whole thing (which is one of the reasons why Zenos appears in the brass plates in the Book of Mormon, and he did not appear in the record of the Jews—because it was so directly Messianic; whereas the poetry of Isaiah with Messianic “passages” could be used by analogy to describe not just the “singular, individual Messiah” but could be likened to the “people of the Jews”—so that the Jews themselves became the suffering servant, so that the Jews themselves became the ones that were marred for the testimony of the truth and the religion of the fathers).

Therefore, Joseph said unto his brethren… 

So, now he’s talking to his brothers, as the prophecy is wrapping up.

God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he swore unto Abraham, and to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph confirmed many other things unto his brethren, and took an oath of the children of Israel, saying unto them, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here. 

So Joseph died when he was a hundred [and] ten years old. (Ibid., 42-43)

That passage (Joseph of Egypt speaking about Joseph who would in the last days help restore people to an understanding of the covenants with the Fathers—including Father Jacob with whom God established the people Israel by giving unto him a new name that the people would thereafter be known by) that prophecy is one of the things that we ought to take into account when we try to calibrate how we view Joseph Smith. Anyone that God testifies will be “great in my eyes” is not someone that we ought to be disregarding and dismissing, as if all of the nonsense that we see said about Joseph should enjoy credibility. 

We live at a time when the world is enslaved: It’s chained; it’s bound by lies. In the vision of Enoch, when Lucifer had wrapped the Earth in a great chain and he looked up at Heaven and he laughed, the great chain with which he had wrapped the Earth was lies. People believed lies. If I believe the nonsense that people say about Joseph Smith, I would not respect such a person at all. If I believe the nonsense that people say about the “absence of evidence in support of the Book of Mormon” were true, I wouldn’t believe the Book of Mormon. And yet, here today, in multiple talks that have been given, there is overwhelmingly convincing evidence to support the authenticity and ancient source for the Book of Mormon.

Why are those proofs not predominating on the Internet, in the discussion groups, on Facebook, in the Reddit ex-Mormon section? Why are they not heard there? Because people believe and love a lie—and they shall be thrust down to hell, because that’s what they prefer.

I hope you don’t. And I hope that you have regard for Joseph of Egypt’s description and the Lord’s prophecy and promise of Joseph, the son of Joseph, of whom I have the absolute highest regard.

Thank you.

The post Joseph, Joseph, Joseph appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This is the second part of a talk given at a conference in Aravada Springs, NV on March 27, 2021.

Transcript

We’ve cobbled together a light that reflects, I think, the same sort of motif as the “redneck Rameumptom” (as they’ve named it). And I can actually see this!

Look, just a couple comments while people are still settling in. In order to talk about the subject I want to talk about, it’s necessary to rely upon content in the Book of Abraham. But the Book of Abraham has been under assault by critics for a long time. I was satisfied about the reliability, authenticity, and scriptural value of the Book of Abraham long ago, but after being satisfied I quit buying and reading the exchange that’s gone on back and forth. So, as this subject was something that I intended to talk on, I really needed about eight years’ worth of material to catch up on the give and take between the arguments that have gone back and forth. So, I had to buy a new “last eight years” library supplements to all of the Book of Abraham: bitching and moaning and defending and parading and… Went and picked up a copy of Ritner’s book, that I’ve referred to…

MAN: Sorry [referring to the light on the podium].

DENVER: Well, that’s fine. It’s like a lighthouse—none of you in a boat are gonna hit shore with that up here as your beacon. 

I didn’t know anything except this guy had been interviewed on Mormon Stories… I think he was jointly interviewed by (what does Corbin call himself?)… Radiofree Mormon and John Dehlin did a joint interview with him. So, I had to go buy his book. I went and bought his book, and when I got home I… Used a credit card; I didn’t realize how much the infernal thing was. It’s a really, really expensive book! 

Well, as I got to the end and I read everything (all the way through the back matter), I found out that it’s a very limited printing, and I bought the last one that this local book dealer had of the thing. So, I guess I’ve got a… I marked it all up. I’ve hemorrhaged all over it. I’ve interlineated. And it would have been a collector item, and I would have auctioned it off tonight, except I’ve wrecked it by all my interlineations. 

So… But what I’ve been doing is catching up on the arguments involving the Book of Abraham so that if someone reads this paper or listens to this talk at some point in the future and they see I’m referring to the Book of Abraham, they know that I’ve not done that without showing the courtesy to the polemics and the apologists for their give and take. I’m not just talking; I’ve read the stuff, and I’ve cited in the footnotes, and I’m not going off without having paid attention to the ongoing dialogue. 

But as you’ve already heard, I think the overwhelming majority of the dialogue that has been invested in the give and take in the Book of Abraham is completely off-point and has no value in trying to determine the authenticity of the book. The last one to weigh in is a book that came out last Wednesday, so I had to spend last weekend reading Dan Vogel’s book (that I read you a few of the quotes from) in order to let whoever got the last word to actually have my ear in expressing their last word. But if you’re interested in the library of  material, the footnotes in this talk will reference it, which will be up on my website tomorrow evening. We’ll get home and get it up.

Angels, including John, minister to chosen vessels. It’s the responsibility of mortal ministers to preach the message. The message must be accepted and acted on for faith in Christ. The Holy Order must be held again by mortals and must be returned voluntarily back to Christ in a second Adam-ondi-Ahman. That is the arrangement made before the foundation of the Earth. God gave dominion over the Earth to Adam, and Christ will receive back the right of dominion before His return in glory. 

All knowledge can be misused. The more the Holy Order is understood, the more sobering it becomes. Greater knowledge is being employed today to abuse, control, and subjugate people. The Scriptures warn of evils and designs which will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days (T&C 89:2). Any advantage one individual holds over another can be improperly used to subjugate, oppress, and exploit. Therefore, the hidden mysteries that reach into the highest heaven and contemplate the darkest abyss will include knowledge capable of misuse. Mysteries are guarded, cloaked in sacred ritual, confined to a qualified group of trusted and proven initiates.

The Holy Order will return lost knowledge to the Earth. The specifics have been withheld from Scripture, but the scope of that knowledge has been referred to often. Abraham had the records of the first Patriarchs, and he described some of what was included in the sacred texts: 

But the records of the Fathers, even the Patriarchs, concerning the right of Priesthood, the Lord, my God, preserved in my own hands. Therefore, a knowledge of the beginning of the creation, [as] also of the planets and…the stars, as they were made known unto the Fathers, have I kept…unto this day…. (Abraham 2:4 RE, emphasis added)

Knowledge to be revealed through the Holy Order will include information about the beginning of this Creation. At the beginning, “The order that God brought focused on people in his image to join with him in the continuing process of bringing order, but more importantly on the ordering of the cosmos as sacred space” (The Lost World of Adam and Eve, p. 150). We disturb this Creation because we are disorderly. We’re the opposite of what God intended for us.

…human sin has blocked God’s purposes for the whole creation; but God hasn’t gone back on his creational purpose, which was and is to [bring] in his creation through human beings, his image-bearers. In his true image-bearer, Jesus the Messiah, he has rescued humans from their sin and death in order to reinscribe his original purposes, which include the extension of sacred space into all [of] creation, until the earth is indeed full of God’s knowledge and [the] glory as the waters cover the sea. God will be present in and with his whole creation; the whole creation will be like a glorious extension of the tabernacle in the wilderness or the temple in Jerusalem. (Ibid. pg. 176)

Restoring the Holy Order will add knowledge about the religious significance of the planets and stars. They were ordained as “signs” to establish “seasons.” That does not mean times of the year but also means times of dispensations, ministries, and judgments. 

The gospel of Christ and the mysteries of His kingdom are vast. The doctrine of Christ is succinct. The entire doctrine of Christ is set out in one paragraph of Third Nephi. Christ was emphatic that His brief statement of His doctrine is solely and exclusively all of it; there can be nothing added to it. He warns us: 

Whoso[ever] shall declare more or less than this, and [establish] it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil and is not built upon my rock, but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell standeth open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them. (3 Nephi 5:9 RE) 

But the records of the first Patriarchs handed down to Abraham include the Creation, the discussion of planets and stars, and “greater knowledge.” The reason so much more was reserved [revealed] and preserved in the records of the Fathers is because the gospel of Christ includes all truth. 

From the Scriptures, it is clear many of those involved with the Holy Order—as well as dispensation heads and prophets—were taught truth far beyond the doctrine of Christ. 

Enoch, for example, was given seership by the Lord and through it uncovered hidden things: 

And the Lord spoke unto Enoch, and said unto him, Anoint your eyes with clay and wash them, and you shall see. And he did so. And he beheld the spirits that God had created, and he beheld also things which were not visible. And from that point forward came the saying abroad in the land, A seer has the Lord raised up unto his people...

Enoch was shown all eternity by the Lord: 

The Lord spoke unto Enoch and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men. Wherefore, Enoch knew and looked upon their wickedness and their misery, and wept, and stretched forth his arms. And he beheld eternity, and his bowels yearned, and all eternity shook. (Genesis 4:3,18 RE, emphasis added)

The Lord showed Moses everything about this world: 

And it came to pass that Moses looked and beheld the world upon which he was created. And…Moses beheld the world, and the ends thereof, and all the children of men who are [or] who were created, of the same he greatly marveled and wondered. (Genesis 1:2 RE, emphasis added)

The Brother of Jared saw everything through the ends of the earth: 

He shewed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also…that would be. And the Lord withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth. For the Lord had said unto him in times before that if he would believe in him, that he could shew unto him all things, it should be shewn unto him. Therefore, the Lord could not withhold anything from him, for he knew that the Lord could shew him all things. (Ether 1:15 RE)

From these few Scriptures, we learn that Enoch, Moses, the Brother of Jared, and Abraham learned and experienced:

• Knowledge about the spirits God created,
• Things not visible to the eye of mankind,
• All the doings of mankind,
• Beholding eternity,
• The creation of this world and the end thereof,
• All the inhabitants of the world past, present, and future, and
• All things.

Others had many “mysteries” revealed to them. Remember that knowledge of the mysteries of godliness is obtained only through obedience to God (T&C 159:31). That’s why Abraham’s desire to get additional knowledge was so he could receive instructions and keep God’s commandments. Obedience earns more knowledge, and more knowledge requires greater obedience. They move together in one eternal round.

In one sense, the religion of the Fathers is based on a direct connection to God. Reduced to one thought, it is that as long as God is speaking directly to a body of people, giving them commandments, they have the most essential element of the religion of the Fathers. If they remain true to that connection, all things can be restored to them.

Commandments given to others belong to them, and only commandments God gives to us belong to us. Joseph Smith explained this matter, after referring to the New Testament:

[Al]though we cannot claim these promises which were made to the ancients for they are not our property, merely because they were made to the ancient Saints, yet if we are the children of the Most High, and are called with the same calling with which they were called, and embrace the same covenant that they embraced, and are faithful to the testimony of our Lord as they were, we can approach the Father, in the name of Christ as they approached Him, and for ourselves obtain the same promises. These promises, when obtained, if ever by us, will not be because Peter, John, and the other Apostles…walked in the fear of God and had power and faith to prevail and obtain them; but it will be because we, ourselves, have faith and approach God in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, even as they did; and when these promises are obtained, they will be promises directly to us, or they will do us no good. They will be communicated for our benefit, being our own property (through the gift of God), earned by our own diligence in keeping His commandments, and walking uprightly before Him. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 66, emphasis added)

This is affirmed in our Scriptures:

I admit that by reading the scriptures, of truth, the saints in the days of Paul could learn, beyond the power of contradiction, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had the promise of eternal life confirmed to them by an oath of the Lord; but that promise or oath was no assurance to them of their salvation, but they could, by walking in the footsteps and continuing in the faith of their fathers, obtain for themselves an oath for confirmation that they were meet to be partakers of the inheritance with the saints in light.

If the saints in the days of the apostles were privileged to take the ancients for examples, and lay hold of the same promises, and attain to the same exalted privilege of knowing that their names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and that they were sealed there as a perpetual memorial before the face of the Most High, will not the same faithfulness, the same purity of heart and the same faith bring the same assurance of eternal life, and that in the same manner, to the children of men now in this age of the world?

I have no doubt but that the holy prophets and apostles and saints in ancient days were saved in the kingdom of God; neither do I doubt but that they held converse and communion with him while they were in the flesh, as Paul said to his Corinthian brethren that the Lord Jesus showed himself to above five hundred saints at one time after his resurrection. Job said that he knew that his Redeemer lived and that he should see him in the flesh in the latter days. I may believe that Enoch walked with God and by faith was translated. I may believe that Noah was a perfect man in his generation and also walked with God. I may believe that Abraham communed with God and conversed with angels. I may believe that Isaac obtained a renewal of the covenant made to Abraham by the direct voice of the Lord. I may believe that Jacob conversed with holy angels, and heard the voice of his Maker, that he wrestled with the angel until he prevailed and obtained the blessing. I may believe that Elijah was taken to Heaven in a chariot of fire with fiery horses. I may believe that the saints saw the Lord and conversed with him face to face after his resurrection. I may believe that the Hebrew church came to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. I may believe that they looked into eternity and saw the Judge of all, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. But will all this purchase an assurance for me, and waft me to the regions of eternal day, and seat me down in the presence of the King of kings with my garments spotless, pure, and white?

Or must I not rather obtain for myself, by my own faith and diligence in keeping the commandments of the Lord, an assurance of salvation for myself? And have I not an equal privilege with the ancient saints? And will not the Lord hear my prayers and listen to my cries as soon as he ever did to theirs, if I come to him in the manner they did? (T&C 99:14-17, emphasis added)

Whatever the status of other believers may be today, there are promises that have been given by God directly to us. There is now more revelation and more commandments than at any other time. Beginning with the “Answer to the Prayer for Covenant” and the accompanying Covenant, God has given new commandments. If they are followed, the promises made to this people will increase in light and truth until the perfect day. We are not reading the promises made by God to other people because we have God’s commandments and promises given to us.

The commandments given directly by God include, but are not limited to, the following:

• God’s will is to have us love one another, but we lack the ability to respectfully disagree among each other. The Lord compares us to Paul and Peter whose disagreements resulted in jarring and sharp contentions. We have been commanded to do better.
• Wisdom counsels us to align our words with our hearts, but we refuse to take counsel from Wisdom. There have been sharp disputes between us that should have been avoided. 
• Satan is a title and means accuser, opponent, and adversary; hence, once he fell, Lucifer became or, in other words, was “called” Satan because he accuses others and opposes the Father. The Lord rebuked Peter and called him Satan because he was wrong in opposing the Father’s will, and Peter understood and repented. We sometimes act as Satan: accusing one another, wounding hearts, and causing jarring, contention, and strife through accusations. Rather than loving one another, some have dealt unkindly—as if they were the opponents, accusers, and adversaries. In this, we’ve been wrong, and the Lord has rebuked us for our error.
• We have the duty to bind the spirit of the accuser (Satan) within us so that we give no heed to accuse others. It’s not enough to say we love God; we must also love our fellow man. Nor is it enough to say we love our fellow man while we—as Satan—divide, contend, and dispute against any person who labors on an errand seeking to do God’s will. 
• We’ve been warned that even a single soul who stirs up the hearts of others to anger can destroy the peace of the Lord’s people. All must equally walk in God’s path, not only to profess but to do as professed.
• We’ve scarred one another by our unkind treatment of each other; we bear the scars on our countenances, from the soles of our feet to the head, and every heart is faint. Our visages have been so marred that our hardness, mistrust, suspicions, resentments, fear, jealousies, and anger toward our fellow man bear outward witness of our inner self; we cannot hide it. When the Lord appears to us, instead of confidence, we feel shame. We fear and withdraw from the Lord because we bear the blood and sins of the treatment of our brothers and sisters. We’re commanded to come to our Lord, and He will make sins as scarlet become white as snow and will make us stand boldly before Him, confident of His love.
• We’re commanded to forgive one another, to be tender with one another, pursue judgment, bless the oppressed, care for the orphan, and uplift the widow in her need—for the Lord has redeemed us from being orphaned and taken us that we are no longer a widowed people. We’re told to rejoice in the Lord and rejoice with our brethren and sisters and to be one.
• We’ve been commanded to measure our words before giving voice to them and to consider the hearts of others. Although a man may err in understanding concerning many things, if we regard one another with charity, then our brother’s error in understanding will not divide us.
• We’re commanded to study to learn how to respect our brothers and sisters and to come together by precept, reason, and persuasion, rather than sharply disputing and wrongly condemning each other, causing anger. God warns us to take care how we invoke His name.
• God’s cautioned us that a greater work remains yet to be done. His covenant requires that we abide in it (not as in the former time when jarring, jealousy, contention, and backbiting caused anger, broke hearts, and hardened the souls of those claiming to be His saints during Joseph Smith’s life), but we’re commanded to receive it in spirit, in meekness, and in truth. 
• We cannot be at peace with one another if we take offense when none is intended. We’re commanded to not judge others except by the rule we want used to weigh ourselves.
• We’re to let our pride and our envy and our fears depart from us.
• He’s asked us to covenant with Him to cease to do evil and to seek to continually do good.
• God’s covenant with us requires we receive the Scriptures approved by the Lord as a standard to govern us in our daily walk in life, for us to accept the obligations established by the Book of Mormon as a covenant, and to use the Scriptures to correct ourselves and to guide our words, thoughts, and deeds.
• God has asked us, by covenant, to seek to become of one heart with those who seek the Lord to establish His righteousness.
• We’re commanded to teach our children to honor the Lord and to seek to recover His lost sheep and to teach them of the Lord’s ways, to walk in them.
• We’ve been instructed that tithes of this people are to be used for the poor.
• God instructed us to trust His words and proceed always in faith, believing that with Him all things are possible. 
• We’ve been commanded to stop murmuring and complaining against all who labor, because the Lord is pleased with all those who are grateful and merciful who will have Him to be their God. (See T&C 157 and 158.)

Consider the question posed by the Lord to us: What have you learned? What ought you to have learned? (T&C 176:2,12). The Lord’s question is still pending. It seems apparent to me that these questions are designed to make us talk to one another. 

There’s a gulf between knowledge and wisdom. We may have access to greater knowledge, but we often display very little wisdom. Knowledge can be arrogant. Wisdom is humble. Knowledge inflates our pride, but wisdom cautions us that we are still very far from being godly people.

Great spiritual development by individuals in isolation will never equip the individual to fit into a spiritually developed society. Alone, we seek connection to God. God represents the highest ideal in compassion, acceptance, and kindness. It’s easy to make a place for God in our hearts. But other people are not always compassionate, easy to accept, or kind. God is pure, and mankind is not. When called “good” by the rich young man, Christ responded, Why do you call me good? None is good save one, that is God (Luke 10:9 RE). If Christ would not allow Himself to be called “good,” then there is little reason to call one another “good.” 

Individual spiritual development and group spiritual development are two very different challenges. Recent revelations focus on the development of a group. Everything points to God’s desire to have His people turn to Him and live in harmony with one another. It is clear the Lord’s objective is Zion and not merely to make us better individuals.

There’s a Buddhist story about an enlightened monk who lived near a city having difficulties and conflicts. People from the town asked the monk to come into town to guide them so they could resolve their conflicts, but he refused. He preferred living alone and meditating. The town sent more representatives to ask again, and the monk refused again. Finally, a great crowd of people went to ask the monk for his help because, without it, they said they could never reach peace. At last, he relented. On the way back to town, in the joyful crowd, an old woman stumbled into the monk, pushing him to the ground. This made him very angry. 

It’s far easier for a hermit to live in quiet meditation than to live in harmony in a community. We are called into a dispensation with more expected than individual salvation and enlightenment. For the salvation of souls today, the primary focus of God’s religion is to gather a community. God’s purpose for the end times is focused on making people of one heart and one mind.

God’s spirit is withdrawing from the world. In the Covenant of Christ Conference in September 3rd, 2017, we were told:

Those who have entered faithfully into [this] covenant this day are going to notice some things. The spirit of God is withdrawing from the world. Men are increasingly more angry without good cause. The hearts of men are waxing cold. There is increasing anger and resentment of gentiles. In political terms, it’s rejection of white privilege. 

Language of [scripture] gives a description of the events now underway and calls it the end of the times of the gentiles. This process with the spirit withdrawing, will end on this continent, as it did with two prior civilizations in fratricidal and genocidal warfare. For the rest of the world, it will be as in the days of Noah in which, as that light becomes eclipsed, the coldness of men’s [heart] is going to result in a constant scene of violence and bloodshed. The wicked will destroy the wicked.

The covenant, if it is kept, will prevent you from losing light and warmth of heart as the spirit now steadily recedes from the world. The time will come when you will be astonished at the gulf between the light and truth you will comprehend and the darkness of mind of the world. (“Closing Remarks,” Covenant of Christ Conference, September 3, 2017, p. 1, emphasis added)

We have seen astonishing increases since September 3rd, 2017 of darkness, lies, deceit, and conflict. Lies imprison people. The chain Enoch saw that Satan had over the world was constructed of lies. The “chains of darkness” that hold men in prison after death are also lies. Today those chains of darkness hold fast many people, and their numbers are growing. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter (Isaiah 1:17 RE). Confusion over what is light and what is dark and the difference between sweet and bitter comes from widespread lies being accepted as truth.

As the light of Heaven withdraws, it is all the more important for us to keep it within us. But we also have many “thinking errors.” Recent revelations from God make it clear we are being challenged to be fit to live in peace with one another. The Scriptures tell us we should see God in our fellow man.

On His way to Jerusalem to be sacrificed, Jesus was asked by a rich young man, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is: Listen, and hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like [it]: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 5:44 RE, emphasis added)

Why would love of your neighbor as yourself be compared to the commandment to love God with all your heart, soul, might, and mind? It is because God is in every person you will ever meet. All life is a gift from God. God loans us the breath of life:

God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted [unto you] that [you] should live in peace [with one] another — …ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and art preserving you from day to day by lending you breath that ye may live, and move, and do according to your own will, …even supporting you from one moment to another…. (Mosiah 1:8 RE)

God sustains us all from moment to moment. Through His power, we live and move. If God is sustaining every living person from one moment to another, then God is within all of us. If He loves them enough to support them, lend them breath, give them power to move and do according to their will, sustaining their life continuously, how can we hate them?

There are sincere people who pray and ask God questions, and they get answers. Often the answers given to one might be different than the answer given to another. Both believe they have intelligence from God and desire to stay true to the answer they’ve received. In these circumstances, are conflicts inevitable? Well, of course. But does that mean that harmony is impossible? Of course not. 

This conflict is like another Buddhist story about a monk who accompanied a great teacher to learn how to help others. Throughout the day, the monk listened to the teacher as he gave answers to those who came for help. At the end of the day, the monk was disappointed and told the teacher his answers contradicted one another. The teacher had told one to do the opposite of what another was told. It made no sense to the monk. The teacher replied that there is only one road, but those who depart to the left must be guided back to the right. And those who departed to the right must be guided back to the left. The road does not change, but finding [it] after it has been lost depends on where the individual has wandered away. 

What does it mean for us when there is a contradiction between God’s answer to one prayerful soul and His answer to another prayerful soul? If discussion is warranted, it means that by talking through their disagreements, they may both be guided back to the one path to be followed. Sometimes that discussion will take time, experience, and careful, solemn thoughts. Even if the communicating takes a great while, why rush through a process that is designed to bring greater understanding? What if conversation does not produce an agreement? There’s nothing wrong with tabling a discussion that has not reached everyone’s approval and then resuming the discussion another day. Why the rush?

In legal disputes, there’s a conflict resolution process called “mediation.” Mediation involves a third-party mediator who helps the parties reach a settlement. The overwhelming majority of mediated cases reach settlement. However, I’ve seen many cases fail to reach a resolution, and the parties walk away from the mediation table still in conflict. But later, after the parties have taken time to reflect on the mediation, most of those unresolved cases will eventually settle as well.

I think the “Answer to the Prayer for Covenant” is the Lord pleading with us to take the time to talk through our differences. There is nothing in those words of counsel that require us to quickly resolve matters. Quite the opposite. The “Answer” is filled with instruction to us about the process, leaving the result to be obtained eventually—through a respectful process, no matter how much time may be needed. To the extent the Lord cares about time at all, He warns us against “haste.”

The “recommended means” to reach harmony are persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned, by kindness and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul; without hypocrisy and without guile… (T&C 139:6, emphasis added).

During the Scriptures project, there were many conflicts and differences to resolve. These conflict’s resolutions delayed the project far beyond what any of us thought it would take. When the two independent groups were first combined, both groups thought their respective project was complete (or nearly so). But it was quickly apparent that the projects differed, and there were issues to resolve. It took months, and when all believed the end was approaching again, new source materials and new research was uncovered that required more than half of the project to begin again. 

More than a year after expected conclusion, the project continued. At one point, I sent an email expressing my view of how I hoped to conduct myself:

I would rather submit to the decision of the group than insist that my view be followed. For me, harmony between brethren is more important than getting what I think best to be followed. I believe harmony can lead to much greater things than can merely enforcement of even a correct view. I know how difficult it is to have a correct view, because of how often [I’ve] been corrected by the Lord. Sometimes [I’m] humiliated by my foolishness when the Lord reproves me. Humiliation can lead to humility, but my experience is that the humiliation is accompanied by shame, whereas humility can proceed with a clear conscience.

My experience with others leads me to conclude that if we can have one heart first, eventually we can likewise come to have one mind. But if we insist on having one mind at the outset, we may never obtain one heart together. (Teachings and Commandments—Epigraph, emphasis added)

A friend sent me a Facebook rant from a man who wants to teach others and very much demands attention and respect. His angry rant ended by telling those who were insufficiently respectful of his great writings that they were “hypocrites and pollutions, and unless you fall down before God in humility, you will suffer horrors you can’t imagine. …The greater the reasons you resist, the more you will be damned.” The approach reminded me of the enlightened hermit monk who became angry once jostled. Zion cannot be established in solitary meditation. It requires a community. And community requires us to see God in one another. It requires we listen to and understand one another. That cannot happen if we do not talk with each other about even difficult subjects and serious disagreements. The sharper the disagreement, the more we need to learn! As the Lord explained, There have been sharp disputes between you that should have been avoided. I speak these words to reprove you that you may learn, not to upbraid you so that you mourn. I want my people to have understanding (T&C 157:3, emphasis added). Those may be some of the greatest words God has ever condescended to give to any people, at any time—and we treat them as if they’re a rebuke for someone else and not ourselves, as if we needn’t heed them. 

Also, we’ve been taught:

Study to learn how to respect your brothers and sisters and to come together by precept, reason, and persuasion, rather than sharply disputing and wrongly condemning each other, causing anger. Take care how you invoke my name. Mankind has been controlled by the adversary through anger and jealousy, which has led to bloodshed and the misery of many souls. Even strong disagreements should not provoke anger, nor to invoke my name in vain as if I had part in your every dispute. Pray together in humility and together meekly present your dispute to me, and if you are contrite before me, I will tell you my part. (Ibid. vs. 54)

From the foregoing, it is clear that the Lord has, in His mercy, chosen to speak again. God has renewed His covenant and provided commandments. But His instructions and commandments are to guide a community into godly harmony. It is only possible to rise up and become that community by following the instructions of God. 

I’m ashamed of every conflict I’ve caused. I regret any discourtesy I’ve shown to another. But I do not recall ever demanding someone submit to me. At every turn, I have intended only to persuade and invite, not demand and insist. I am no one’s commander, president, or church authority. You cannot make me anything more than your equal, because I refuse to rise above anyone else. We are all fellow-servants (and often, unprofitable ones, at that).

It is important to God that the Book of Mormon has been accepted as a covenant. It’s a bond between God and man. God has made for Himself a people and “numbered us among the House of Israel” (see T&C 156:15,48; 158:10, emphasis added). But remember that Israel has a long history of rebellion, disobedience, and rejection. Those who remain faithful and obedient to God are those who will vindicate His prophecies, covenants, and promises. Among other things, the people who keep His covenant will be called upon to build the tabernacle where He will take up His abode on Earth in the New Jerusalem. On July 14, 2017, He gave this revelation:

Whenever I have people who are mine, I command them to build a house, a holy habitation, a sacred place where my presence can dwell or where the Holy Spirit of Promise can minister, because it is in such a place that it has been ordained to recover you, establish by my word and my oath your marriages, and endow my people with knowledge from on high that will unfold to you the mysteries of godliness, instruct you in my ways, that you may walk in my path. And all the outcasts of Israel will I gather to my house, and the jealousy of Ephraim and Judah will end; Ephraim will not envy Judah and Judah will not provoke Ephraim. (T&C 157:41, emphasis added)

Knowledge that will unfold the mysteries of godliness and instruct in God’s path is designed to be embedded in the House of God. At this point, the prophecy waiting to be fulfilled states: 

…when the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law…. (Isaiah 1:5 RE)

The first Fathers had teachings and beliefs that included much more than what has been preserved from Joseph’s day. We should expect greater information to be passed along to us. But knowledge without the tempering presence of wisdom will prove to be dangerous. Aspiring and ambitious men are unwise. They cannot be trusted.

There are those who think circumcision originated with Abraham through his covenant with God. That was a restoration of circumcision, not the origination of it. In the beginning, when a son of Adam and a daughter of Eve covenanted to marry, the son of Adam shed blood by circumcision in order to seal the marriage covenant. Once healed, the marriage was consummated, at which point the virgin daughter of Eve shed blood to complete the sealing of the marriage covenant. Insomuch as Abraham and Sarah had been married for many years prior to the covenant, it was ordained that circumcision for all of Abraham’s descendants would take place at the eighth day. Because of the restoration of the covenant—and God adapting it for Abraham and all the faithful who would follow him as their Father—circumcision was expected to be done at birth. This remains an obligation for all the righteous. 

The much later Law of Moses perpetuated the Abrahamic practice of circumcision at eight days. Even non-Israelites who wanted to observe the Passover were required to be circumcised to participate in the Paschal meal. Although the Law of Moses is no longer in effect, restoring circumcision through Abraham pre-dates Moses by nearly seven centuries and is still in effect. Fulfilling and ending the Law of Moses did nothing to change the earlier covenant with Abraham and his descendants.

There were other practices known to the first Fathers that have been lost. We should expect to learn the earliest worship was not limited to a “Father in Heaven” but included a Divine Family. I’ve already addressed this subject in “Our Divine Parents.” The first Patriarchs understood there to be a Father, Mother, and a Divine Son who were all recognized as Divine. There was also a Heavenly Council or Divine Counsel who were among a recognized “hosts of heaven” who also held positions of authority.

In addition to a Sabbath day of rest, the first Fathers were given three Divinely appointed religious festivals or holidays (more correctly, “Holy Days”) that were to be observed yearly. These were tied to the Creation to remind mankind of God’s wisdom and mercy in organizing this world for mankind. 

Because of apostasy, numerous other festivals or religious observances have been added by men. For example, the Jews added Hanukkah, Purim, and Yom HaShoah. Christians added Lent, Ash Wednesday, and Christmas (among others). When the original religion returns, the original religious festivals—always centered in a sacred site or temple—will also return.

I mentioned before that Abraham entered Egypt before he entered Egypt, he received a great revelation about the stars, the heavens, events among the pre-existent spirits of mankind, the fall of Satan, and the Creation of this world. This list summarizes part of the knowledge associated with the Holy Order; God wanted the husbandman, shepherd, and High Priest to comprehend:

• Why this Creation was organized, 
• Man’s position in the cosmos,
• Who the “hosts of heaven” were,
• That there was a cosmic rebellion in the heavens,
• That a cosmic covenant was established that framed the Creation, established conditions for mankind to gain experience, and through which mankind could progress,
• That all things in nature—including the light of the sun, moon, planets, and stars— were purposefully organized and governed by a covenant with God.

Abraham, like Adam (at the beginning) and his descendant, Enoch, were caught up into Heaven and received a tutorial endowment from God. The purpose was simple enough: helping each of them to understand what came before and what comes after this life. This was to help rescue them from death and hell. In a very real sense, the curriculum of the Holy Order is designed to give both a personal and a cosmic context to Christ. The Holy One of Israel is the redeeming Messiah who has been our constant Protector, Example, and Guide from the foundation of Creation.

The Messiah was the central figure in the Creation. The Messiah was the foremost figure opposing the rebellion in the Heavens. The Messiah came to save the Creation by His self-sacrifice. Man’s universal death is reversed by their universal resurrection, made possible by the Messiah. And it will be the Messiah who judges mankind and will assign them to various conditions following mortality. It is the Messiah who occupies the central position in all the mysteries of godliness. The members of the Holy Order understood this best and, therefore, were most trusted to preach, teach, testify, minister, and watch over the posterity of Adam (and later, the posterity of Abraham).

The most useful and obedient servants of the Lord have been those who have been exposed to the greatest understanding of His eternal role. The opening paragraph of Abraham’s book is a direct statement of the relationship between knowledge and obedience. 

From the first generation, the Patriarchs used ritual to convey a great body of information (a theatrical revelation) to initiates. The Book of Abraham itself appears to be a ritual text. 

…the book of Abraham, far from being merely a diverting or edifying history, is a discourse on divine authority, which also is the theme of the three facsimiles. The <div><i>Please view this post in your web browser to complete the quiz.</i></div> to the three plates make it perfectly clear that they are meant as diagrammatic or formulaic aids to an understanding of the subject of priesthood on earth. (Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Abraham, p. 178)

Enoch’s account (now in Genesis of the Restoration Edition of Scriptures) also appears to be a ritual text. Hugh Nibley calls Enoch, 

…the great initiate who becomes the great initiator…

He adds:

His is the independent intelligence always seeking further light and knowledge. He is the great observer and recorder of all things in heaven and earth, of which God grants him perfect knowledge. The great learner, he is also the great teacher: Enoch the Initiator into the higher mysteries of…faith and secrets of the universe; Enoch the Scribe, keeper of the records, instructor in the ordinances, aware of all times and places, studying and transmitting the record of the race with intimate concern for all generations to come. He offers the faithful their greatest treasure of knowledge. He is the seer who conveys to men the mind and will of the Lord. (Enoch the Prophet, p. 19, 21)

The religion of the Fathers cannot be adequately conveyed if it is separated from ritualized knowledge. By using symbol, movement, gesture, dress, architecture, sound, orientation, and setting, it is possible to embed light and truth in a way to engage the mind, spirit, and heart of mankind. The temple can be the house in which it is possible to stretch the mind of man both upward and downward by the things presented there. “The temple itself was but a copy of the heavenly temple, the liturgy on earth a shadow of the worship of the angels” (Margaret Barker, The Great Angel, p. 118). It is through covenant-forming ordinances—including rituals—that the power of Godliness has been manifested to mankind. The order of the House of God has and ever will be the same, even after Christ comes, and after the termination of the thousand years it will be the same, and we shall finally roll into the Celestial Kingdom of God and enjoy it forever (T&C 117:4).

When writing from a dungeon in Missouri, Joseph Smith’s reflection on what is needed to save souls clarifies the function of a temple: 

…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. …None but fools will trifle with the souls of men. 

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 [mystery] of those things that 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 [out] from Heaven upon the heads of babes, yea, the weak, obscure, and despisable ones of this earth. (T&C 138:18-19)

Accordingly, there is always going to be a temple when the Holy Order is present in its fullest manifestation. Abraham also is directly associated with temple ritual. As Nibley explained, “There is a wealth of tradition now being zealously studied to show that the temple ordinances really go back to the beginning, as Joseph Smith declared. The four names associated with the tradition are those of Adam, Enoch, Abraham, and Elijah” (Temple and Cosmos, p. 78).

To return a complete Restoration, a temple will be required. As the Lord revealed to Joseph, a temple is always required of God’s people:

For your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations, and your statutes and judgments [in]…beginning of the revelations and foundation of Zion, and for the glory, and honor, and endowment of all her municipals, are ordained by the ordinance of my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name. (T&C 141:12)

The required temple in Nauvoo was not built. The fullness was not restored during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Instead of blessings, the saints were cursed. Not only did the January 1841 revelation warn of cursings—including forcible expulsion from Nauvoo—but 22 months following that revelation (in an editorial on October 1, 1842), Joseph Smith pled for renewed focus on the temple. He wrote:

Perhaps [we’ve] said enough on this subject, but we feel the importance of it and therefore speak plainly. It is for you, brethren, to say whether the work shall stand or progress; one thing is certain, that unless that is done all our efforts to aggrandize or enrich ourselves will be vain and futile. We may build splendid houses but we shall not inhabit them; we may cultivate farms but we shall not enjoy them; we may plant orchards, or vineyards, but we shall not eat the fruit of them. The word of the Lord is build my house, and until that command is fulfilled we stand responsible to the great Jehovah for the fulfilment of it, and if [it is] not done in due time we may have to share the same fate that we have heretofore done in Missouri. (JSP, Documents, Volume 11, p. 127)

Joseph’s warning did not inspire the saints. Their neglect and disobedience changed the warning into prophecy. They suffered the same fate as before in Missouri, even though the Lord wanted (and expected) better of them. There’s no reason to repeat their failure, because the Lord does not reward the disobedient. He offers blessings, and it is up to His people to receive them through obedience. But if His offer is rejected, there are no secured promises.

In the “Answer to Prayer for Covenant,” the Lord assures us that if we are faithful, we will be given His temple:

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…say, Know ye the Lord, for you [shall all] 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. (T&C 158:15-16)

The first and most complete religion belonged to Adam and Eve. They lived with God, and after being cast out, they retained a memory of living in God’s presence. The first Fathers were taught they could talk with God, receive answers from Him, and return to His presence. The experience of Enoch—seven generations after Adam—records that direct contact between mankind and God was part of the true religion. After the fall of mankind, the process of the ascent of man into Heaven to commune with God has remained the heart of the religion. That process will reverse, and contact between mankind and God at the end will involve the descent of God from Heaven to visit His tabernacle:

And Enoch beheld the Son of Man ascend up unto the Father, and he called unto the Lord, saying, Will you not come again upon the earth? For inasmuch as you are God, and I know you, and you have sworn unto me and commanded me that I should ask in the name of your Only Begotten, you have made me, and given unto me a right to your throne, and not of myself, but through your own grace. Wherefore, I ask you if you will not come again on the earth. And the Lord said unto Enoch, As I live, even so will I come in the last days, in the days of wickedness and vengeance, to fulfill the oath which I have made unto you concerning the children of Noah. And the day shall come that the earth shall rest. But before that day, the heavens shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth; and the heavens shall shake, and also the earth. And great tribulations shall be among the children of men, but my people will I preserve. And righteousness will I send down out of Heaven. Truth will I send forth out of the earth to bear testimony of [mine] Only Begotten, his resurrection from the dead, yea, and also the resurrection of all men. And righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out [mine] own elect from the four quarters of the earth unto a place which I shall prepare, a holy city, that my people may gird up their loins and be looking forth for the time of my coming. For there shall be my tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem. And the Lord said unto Enoch, Then shall you and…your city meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom. And they shall see us, and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other; and there shall be my abode. (Genesis 4:22 RE, emphasis added)

So that there are no false assumptions, the Scriptures explain that God’s covenant with Enoch includes an actual temple to be built today. And the Lord has reiterated in His Covenant: I will come to my tabernacle and dwell with my people in Zion, and none will overtake it (T&C 157:64, emphasis added).

The religion of the Fathers involved direct communion, contact, and connection between mankind and God. The Holy Order is an important part of the return of that direct association. The original religion of the Patriarchs enabled the faithful to hear directly from the Lord His promise of eternal life. God would seal them by covenant into His Heavenly Family. We can, if faithful, obtain all that the original Fathers received from God at the beginning: 

What I, the Lord, have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself. And though the heaven[s] and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by my own voice or by the voice of my servants [it’s] the same. For behold and lo, the Lord is God and the spirit bears record, and the record is true, and the truth abides for ever and ever. Amen. (T&C 54:7)

As a servant of God, I say with His authority that these promises are true, and He intends to fulfill them for His covenant people Israel. In the beginning, mankind was placed in a family. The first commandment to Father Adam and Mother Eve was to multiply and replenish the Earth. The first man and woman were married. Their union produced the family of mankind. Every soul born into this Creation came from parents and were all intended to be in a family.

The plan of salvation is covenantal and familial. The government of God is a family. If a family is established by covenant with God, it will be the only order that can survive death. In a very real sense, the salvation of mankind now comes only through the family of Abraham. The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob covenanted with these three successive generations that they would stand at the head of all who would be saved after them. The God of Israel requires some part of mankind—however small—to be sealed into that line or be utterly wasted at His coming. 

God has explained in Scripture how He intends to identify covenant Israel in the last days. After the death of King Solomon, Israel divided into two kingdoms:

• The first was the Northern Kingdom. After the division, they were sometimes called “Ephraim” or the “Ten Tribes” or “Israel” (in the Old Covenants).  
• The second was the Southern Kingdom, called “Judah” and, later, “the Jews.” 

The Northern Kingdom was conquered, taken captive, and removed from their land by Assyria in 722 BC. When freed by Assyria years later, they crossed the Euphrates River and disappeared from our records into a far land. They were only lost to our limited record of history. 

The Southern Kingdom was conquered in 598 BC by Babylon, taken captive, and removed from their land. When Cyrus allowed their return in 538 BC, only a remnant returned. 

Because of these two great exiles, the Ten Tribes were scattered and lost to our history, and the returning Jews were reduced to a small remnant of their original population. Today’s Jews descended from that small remnant. The greater part of Israelite blood is in the Middle East. These descendants of the exiled Israelites remained, intermarried, and today are among the ancestors of Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Turks, Jordanians, and Arabians. Israelites were also scattered into northern Europe and Asia among Europeans, Russians, and Scandinavians. As God promised to Abraham: Over the centuries, intermarriage and migrations has sent his Israelite descendants into “all nations.” Today, almost all Israelite blood runs through the veins of people regarded as Gentiles because, after being scattered, they assimilated and lost their original identity. 

Today’s Jews are only a tiny fraction of the original Israelites. Their history has been marked by continual persecution. Their perseverance has been heroic. They are a people of destiny and prophecy. However, many of the prophecies concerning Israel do not involve the Jews. In addition, Jews do not know the record of the Nephites. They have not been taught the prophecies of Joseph Smith. They are unaware of the covenant God renewed in 2017. Accordingly, many prophecies are unknown to and will not be fulfilled through the Jews. 

It will only be through Israel that we can be sealed by a covenant with God to Heavenly Parents through the Fathers. Salvation is still through Israel. The question is: Where are we to find the prophesied latter-day Israel now?

The Book of Mormon relates how religious identities are changed by God. Jacob, the brother of Nephi, prophesied that the gentiles shall be blessed and numbered among the house of Israel (2 Nephi 7:4 RE). His brother prophesied: As many of the gentiles as will repent are the covenant people of the Lord… (2 Nephi 12:11 RE, emphasis added). Therefore, God promised to number Gentiles as people of Israel by covenant. That promise was realized in 2017 when He ordained a covenant for the Gentiles to re-establish them as His people. 

The Jews are still a remnant of covenant people. However, they can forfeit their status if they reject the covenant offered by the Lord in 2017: As many of the Jews as will not repent shall be cast off. For the Lord covenanteth with none save it be with them that repent and believe in his Son, who is the Holy One of Israel (Ibid.).

How we respond to God affects our covenant status. When the resurrected Messiah visited the branch of Israel in the Americas, He quoted His Father about future covenantal realignment of identities. Covenant-status is now based on how individuals respond to the Holy One of Israel. But if the gentiles will repent and return unto me, saith the Father, behold, they shall be numbered among my people, O house of Israel (3 Nephi 7:6 RE, emphasis added). 

The Messiah explained the process for a Gentile change of their identity:

The gentiles, if they will not harden their hearts, that they may repent, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, and know of the true points of my doctrine, that they may be numbered among my people, O house of Israel — and when these things [shall] come to pass, that thy seed shall begin to know these things, it shall be a sign unto them that they may know…the work of the Father hath already commenced unto the fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the people who are…the house of Israel. (3 Nephi 9:11 RE, emphasis added)

The Messiah quoted a prophecy from Isaiah to confirm it was always God’s plan to change Gentiles into Israelites:

And then shall that which is written come to pass: Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife [Children of the desolate are the Gentiles; the married wife was Israel] saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes, for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. (3 Nephi 10:2, quoting from Isaiah 19:4, both RE, emphasis added)

As Moroni finished his father’s abridged record, he added his own prophecy of the last-days’ New Jerusalem to be built on the American continent. The occupants of that holy city are described in his prophecy: And then cometh the New Jerusalem; and blessed are they who [shall] dwell therein, for it is they whose garments are white through the blood of the Lamb; and they are they who are numbered among the remnant of the seed of Joseph, who were of the house of Israel (Ether 6:3 RE, emphasis added).  “Numbered among.” Numbered among: Covenantal.

The New Jerusalem will be built by covenant Israel. The group whom the Lord regards as His Israel is covenant-dependent. But a covenant must be kept.

There are two identifiable remnants of previous covenant people. One group is Native Americans who descend biologically from the Israelite-Nephite covenant people. The other is the Jews. Both are biologically connected to Israel, but they will be “cast off” if they reject the covenant now offered by God. And Gentiles may or may not be biologically connected to Israel but are numbered with Israel if they accept the covenant. 

The New Jerusalem is to be built by a remnant of Israel, or to be more precise, it will be built by a remnant the Lord regards as covenant Israel. The Lord’s “Answer to the Prayer for Covenant” accepted a body of believing Gentiles as His people of Israel. God’s promises and prophecies about Israel in the last days began to be fulfilled in 2017 when the covenant He offered was accepted. The Lord said to those people: 

I will number you among the remnant of Jacob, no longer outcasts, and you will inherit the promises of Israel. You shall be my people and I will be your God, and the sword will not devour you. And [to] those who will receive [more will] be given, until they know the mysteries of God in full. …I have redeemed you from being orphaned and taken you that you are no longer a widowed people. (T&C 157:50, emphasis added)

The Gentiles who accepted the Lord’s Covenant have been promised that they:

…are now numbered with my people who are of the house of Israel… 

God’s Answer goes on to assure covenant Israel:

And I, the Lord your God, will be with you and will 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 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…say, Know ye the Lord, for you [shall all] 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.

And you shall be called the children of the Most High God, and I will preserve you against the harvest.

And the angels sent to harvest the world will gather the wicked into bundles to be burned, but will pass over you as my peculiar treasure… (T&C 158:10,12-18, emphasis added)

…a second literal Passover. 

The Lord’s “strange act” is approaching completion. The promises made to the Fathers are being vindicated. The Restoration has recommenced, and if we’re faithful, it will not be paused or interrupted again. Although Israel’s numbers are few, there have never been great numbers willing to sacrifice everything for God. One requirement for faith has always been the same: A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation (Lectures on Faith 6:7 RE). The Lord has said this about our day: I tell you that [I] will come, and when [I do] come, [I] will avenge my saints speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, shall [I] find faith on the earth? (Luke 10:6 RE).

There are two groups God has (or will) covenant to preserve against the coming harvest. 

• The first are those who made and keep the covenant the Lord offered in 2017. It changed all those who accepted it into covenant Israel. They have the right to inherit this land and will be preserved. As stated in His “Answer to Prayer for Covenant”: And the angels sent to harvest the world will gather the wicked into bundles to be burned, but will pass over you as my peculiar treasure (T&C 158:18). 
• The second are those who will become part of the Holy Order and receive and practice the religion of the Fathers. God alone will decide how many and who will be invited into that order. We have no control over it. We have no right to decide who is worthy or unworthy to receive it. It is entirely the Lord’s choice because we are rarely able to determine other people’s hearts. The Lord told Joseph Smith bluntly that he was unable to tell the righteous from the wicked. We are in no better position than was Joseph. Therefore, we should leave it with the Lord to determine whether or not to invite men and women and, if so, who and how many. The Holy Order is as much—or more—a burden as a blessing. 

As Hyrum Smith explained, God imposes restrictions:

For the mysteries of God are not given to all men; and [to] those to whom they are given they are placed under restrictions to impart only such as God will command them, and the residue is to be kept in a faithful breast, otherwise he will be brought under condemnation. By this God will prove his faithful servants, who will be called and numbered with the chosen. (T&C 152:2)

The Egyptian imitation of the Patriarchal religion kept hidden the most important parts of their religion away from public disclosure. Hugh Nibley explained: 

Bleeker duly notes that “certain parts of temples were inaccessible to ordinary people” and that “the Egyptian temple was not meant to let the masses of the people participate in the religious services.” (The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, p. 86, citing CJ Bleeker)

This was because: 

The rites, “revealed to men by Osiris, the first mortal to be resurrected,” were nothing less than the “Great Secret” of how mortals may become gods, taught in the temple “the place of the great secret.” (Ibid. p. 88, citing A Moret)

Margaret Barker explained the Christian tradition of restricting information available even to the faithful. She likened the early Christian practice of concealing some truths from believers by referring to Origen’s Homily 5 on Numbers, explaining:

…the secrets of the temple which were guarded by the priests. Commenting on Numbers 4, the instructions for transporting the tabernacle through the desert, he emphasized that the family of Kohath were only permitted to carry the sacred objects but were not permitted to see what was in the holy place; then they had to cover the sacred objects with veils before handling them to others, who were only permitted to carry them. The mysteries of the Church were similar…. (The Great High Priest, pp.76-77)

Clement of Rome recorded that Peter quoted an unwritten teaching of Christ that admonished: “Keep the mysteries/secrets for me and the sons of my house” (Clementine Homilies 19:20). The resurrected Messiah taught His closest peers things that were not told to other believers. 

Knowing God’s plans does not always produce immediate joy. Solomon made this comment after a life of learning: In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:3 RE). We should not be surprised to learn that initiation into God’s mysteries can be troubling, disquieting, and even a burden. 

If asked to carry a burden by God, do it willingly. If not asked, do not envy. Remember Alma’s statement: Behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish, for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me (Alma 15:12 RE). It is our common enemy who stirs us up to jealousy and envy rather than patience and meekness. Great works of God fail because mankind will not wait on the Lord. 

Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen, and why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are [so set] 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. …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 is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man. (T&C 139:5, emphasis added)

The more God gives, the greater the peril. Weaknesses of appetites, ambitions, passions, and covetousness is akin to trying to navigate through a narrow pass, guarded by a great beast, pitiless and cruel, that destroys all those whose zeal and impatience brings them into the reach of the beast (see T&C 163). God has provided to us guidance on how to reach Zion. It requires self-discipline and meekness to follow the Lord rather than racing ahead of Him to destruction.

Our first Fathers experienced visions, ascended into Heaven, obtained promises of exaltation, and were transformed by their experiences from men into angels of God. Joseph Smith attempted to bring this back as part of the Restoration. Margaret Barker has written about the use of the term “angel” anciently to identify those who had encountered God’s presence. She also explains a Dead Sea Scroll text foretelling a return of that religion: “The Qumran Melchizedek text has a possible reading about people in the last days whose teachers have been kept hidden and secret; perhaps they have been preserving the older ways” (The Great High Priest, p. 79). The return of that religion will more likely be through a last-days’ restoration rather than through a preservation. But she is correct to anticipate its return.

The Book of Mormon has account after account of prophets receiving an audience with God the Father and His Only Begotten Son. This is the older, heavenly ascent religion that began with Adam in the Garden. 

Joseph was called to become a minister of salvation when he saw the heavens open. He taught the idea of direct association with Christ as the promised Second Comforter during a visit to Ramus, Illinois on April 2nd, 1843. After quoting Christ’s promises to not leave His followers comfortless because He and His Father would come to them and take up their abode with them, Joseph explained, “Now what is this other Comforter? It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ himself…. When any man obtains this last Comforter he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to attend him or [to] appear unto him from time to time” (TPJS, pp. 150-151, emphasis added). The appearing of the Father and the Son, in that verse, is a personal appearance; and the idea that the Father and…Son dwell in a man’s heart is an old sectarian notion, and is false (LDS D&C 130:3; originally found in JSP, Journals, Volume 2, pp. 323-6, emphasis added). This appearing of the Father and the Son began with Adam and was intended to continue in every generation.

Although the teaching of Christ as the Second Comforter was taught by Joseph Smith and believed by LDS Mormons, it is now one of the teachings that has dwindled from LDS teaching. In a Boise LDS meeting, church apostle Dallin Oaks denounced the teaching of mortals needing to see the Lord as “a tactic of the adversary” (“Boise Rescue,” June 13, 2015). Following that, the LDS Church removed a footnote from their King James Version John 14:16, which previously referred to Jesus Christ and replaced it with a reference to the “Holy Ghost.” At the time I wrote the book, The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil, in 2006, the text explained orthodox LDS belief. Since then, however, that sect has abandoned the teaching. If that book were written today by a faithful member of that church, it would have to be revised to reflect the church’s changed view. By leaving the text unchanged, it provides a current example of continuing dwindling in unbelief. Changing belief into unbelief happens very quickly. The Second Comforter: Conversing with the Lord Through the Veil was published in 2006, and the doctrine was denounced as a “tactic of the adversary” by an LDS apostle in an official church meeting in 2015—only nine years later. 

Joseph Smith’s mission was to recover and restore. He may have seemed every bit an innovator and revolutionary, but the truth is that he was the greatest religious reactionary since Jesus Christ. The recovery through Joseph ended with his and Hyrum’s murder, after which dwindling began. Dwindling in unbelief continued until a group repented and the Lord removed His condemnation in 2017. Now we hope to continue faithful. Christ commanded in the Sermon on the Mount: Wherefore, seek not the things of this world, but [first seek] to build up the kingdom of God and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 3:39 RE).

There is a chapter in a Hugh Nibley book, Temple and Cosmos, entitled “One Eternal Round: The Hermetic Tradition.” That chapter goes from page 379 through 433, and it is worth reading in its entirety. However, I am going to lift a few quotes from his explanation of history that should seem familiar:

In each dispensation the world went bad while the prophets united in futile protest, as in the days of Samuel, Hezekiah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. In the powerful phrase of Ether, “the prophets mourned and withdrew from among the people.” …When not preaching it was their custom to keep a low profile, or simply to depart from the scene in the time-honored manner of the Rechabites, a pattern we find repeated over and over again in the Book of Mormon and vividly depicted in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The holy outcasts would form with their followers a community of saints, a church, waiting and working for Zion. Zion itself is a model of such a retreat from the world: “And from thence went forth the saying, ZION IS FLED.” In their retreat the righteous refugees take particular pains to preserve the sacred records—we think of Moses, of John, of Ether, of Moroni, etc., preserving studying,…editing the sacred writings by special command.

…the esoteric community was limited to those who understood and could be trusted with the deeper meaning of…doctrine.

…Throughout the Book of Mormon the church itself regularly splits into a worldly society, notably the religion of the Nehors, and others consisting of “a few…humble followers of Christ” to whom special gifts and revelations were given.

…The gospel that the retreating wise men take with them into hiding is guarded as a secret, and that by express command. Why seek it? The jealousy and envy of others can be dangerous; they resent being shut out from something great and mysterious, like boys excluded from the club tree house. They usually take out their wrath and frustration by wrecking the place.

…[True worshipers] are naturally drawn to each other and excite ever-mounting distrust, suspicion, and envy of those excluded from the magic circle. “I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his (Satan’s) kingdom,” said Joseph Smith. …We all know how the public received the prophet Joseph, who was placed in the greatest danger, not from angry outsiders, but from his jealous followers, like the Higbees and the Laws. The ancient Ephesians passed a law banishing [the] great achievers from the city—they were a standing rebuke to the rest: “If they must excel”…“let them go and excel over [someone] else.” …Anything they don’t understand makes dogs and people uncomfortable, distrusting, and dangerous.

…We may consider the gospel as the most advanced knowledge on earth, known to but a few because it is accepted and believed by but a few and can be understood by no others. 

…In ancient times, apostasy never came by renouncing the gospel but always by corrupting it. No one renounces it today, and so we have…strange paradox of people stoutly proclaiming beliefs and ideas that they have no intention of putting into practice.

…We seek knowledge as our greatest treasure, while the poverty of most of our manuals and handbooks defies description.

…The great apostasy [at] the time of the apostles was not a renouncing of the faith but its corruption and manipulation.

…Everywhere we find myths and legends about how the primal bond that existed between heaven and earth in the Golden Age was broken by the wickedness of men; the great common assemblies ceased and the gods departed. But, as Aristotle notes, some bits of the old knowledge always survived to the next age. …the three things in the mysteries that Herodotus would never talk about were (1) the grand mystery of the true nature and character of God, which could be known only by revelation, (2) the ordinances by which the mysteries were taught and implemented, and (3) the doctrine or rationale of the whole, including that which explained the rites.

…Philosophy is the road, not the goal, which it never reaches. If you want answers to the questions which it proposes, you can get them in the end only by revelation.

…Joseph Smith points this out: “As Paul said, ‘the world by wisdom know(s) not God,’ so the world by speculation (is) destitute of revelation.” Religion answers by private but nonnegotiable spiritual experiences.

…[Isaac] Newton also talked as Joseph Smith did, that “truth had been given by God [at] the beginning, but had been fragmented and corrupted in the course of time; its traces survived in enigmatic form[s] in these different sorts of literature, but had to be recovered by a sort of dialectic between hard, disciplined inquiry and the ancient sources.”

…Joseph explained to the brethren the ordinances and covenants “on to the highest Melchizedek Priesthood, setting forth the order pertaining to the Ancient of Days, and all those plans and principles by which anyone is enabled to secure the fullness of those blessings which have been prepared for the church of the First Born, and come up and abide in the presence of the Eloheim in the eternal worlds.”

These few excerpts from Hugh Nibley illustrate the tension between sacred knowledge and dwindling in unbelief. Facsimile No. 2 in the Book of Abraham is an example of a hypocephalus. These first appeared in 400 BC, and most examples reckon from very late in the Ptolemaic era. These documents were developed because the priests realized that sacred knowledge was slipping away and needed to be preserved. One recent study of the hypocephalus concluded these circular funerary documents were “a synthesis of the widespread theological knowledge of the priests… (Tama Mekis, The Hypocephalus: an Ancient Egyptian Funerary Amulet, p. 75).

They were used in only few burials. “It is clear that the use of the hypocephalus never became widespread. Hypocephali remained exclusive pieces of funerary equipment reserved for the clergy and for the members of their [family] who occupied priestly positions in the pallacide of the temples” (Ibid. p. 2). 

The Facsimile No. 2 was produced at the end of the dwindling Egyptian religion in its final stages, still seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first Patriarchal reign, even…the reign of Adam… (Abraham 2:3 RE). That facsimile is both a powerful symbol of what the Restoration promised and how it has dwindled. The original hypocephalus was intended to preserve sacred, hidden knowledge for use by the faithful and initiated priestly inner-circle. But it was written at a moment when the priests realized their sacred knowledge was slipping away. They were only able to make a gesture to preserve it by sketching a montage of ancient hieroglyphs to echo their dwindling religion. That document aptly symbolizes Joseph’s calling to restore the original, sacred, lost knowledge. But Joseph’s efforts have also dwindled for nearly two centuries. The opportunity to recover and practice the original religion still exists if the conditions of God’s covenant are met. 

God overthrew the Egyptian gods by sending Moses. God overthrew the kingdom of the Jews by sending John as forerunner for His Son, the Messiah. God overthrew the Christian gods by sending Joseph Smith. Last of all, God renewed and restored life to His people in 2017 when He made a new covenant. Every time God acts, He overthrows all other false faiths to reaffirm His own religion. God’s goal is always to revive it in its fullness, but that has been rarely achieved. He is actively seeking to restore it again today. This work is His, and it will continue until reaching its fullness. I am a witness of His hand moving, His voice speaking, His will being revealed, and His guidance being provided continually as His work unfolds line upon line, precept upon precept. We will see it succeed if we have the faith and patience to allow it to do so. 

“Each of the great dispensations of the gospel has come in a time of world upheaval, when the waywardness of the human race has been matched by…climactic restlessness of the elements” (Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, p. 164).

The overthrow of Egypt’s gods by signs and wonders has inspired people (from ancient Israel to modern writers) with thoughtful reflection. When the signs and plagues are viewed from the Egyptian religious perspective (to the extent we have been able to reconstruct that view), the God of Israel directly challenged the gods of Egypt. 

The competing servants [serpents] described in Exodus 4:11 was a direct conflict between the power of Israel’s God and the Egyptian magicians. To Egypt, the serpent symbolized Apophis, the force of chaos. For Israelites, the brass serpent was to become a symbolic representation of their future Messiah. A serpent made of brass, raised up on a pole for suffering Israelites to look upon to be healed, foreshadowed the atoning sacrifice of Jesus the Messiah. 

Moses’ staff became a serpent that ate the Egyptian magicians’ serpents. The incident demonstrated the Messiah’s power to overthrow destruction and chaos. The event should have taught the Egyptian Pharaoh that Israel’s God held all power.

The plagues that began with Egyptian water turning to blood was a direct defeat of the Nile god, Hapi. That first plague and the final destruction both involved authority over water. Gabriel poisoned the Nile at the beginning and completed the overthrow when the waters of the Red Sea returned to drown Pharaoh’s horsemen and chariots.

Pharaoh witnessed the defeat of other Egyptian gods. Hathor was overthrown when the Egyptian cattle died, while the Israelite cattle were spared.

Geb was overthrown when dust under Uriel’s stewardship was sent to afflict the Egyptian’s skin with boils.

Fire was sent by Raphael with burning hail and loud thunder. Later, a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night unmistakably signified Raphael’s protection for Israel.

Michael sent the east wind and locusts to destroy the crops of Egypt. Then Michael blocked the light of Ra, overthrowing the Egyptian deity believed to have power over all creation, including the underworld. Michael removed the breath of life from every firstborn in Egypt that finally led to Egypt’s surrender. The power of Israel’s God and the combined acts of His archangels proved too much to resist.

Egypt believed there were “four sons of Horus.” This idea was left from the Patriarchal era and was their apostate belief that roughly corresponded to the four archangels: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. Yet Egypt chose to fight against these four until they were destroyed. Once Egypt was defeated, for centuries Israel’s religion increased, and Egypt’s waned. Eventually, this led to the ultimate death of Egypt’s religion. So complete was the God of Israel’s overthrow of Egypt that the Egyptian language itself was altogether lost until the Rosetta Stone made it possible to reconstruct (in part) the identities of some of Egypt’s defeated gods and fragments of Egypt’s ancient beliefs.

In another conflict, John the Baptist was ordained by God’s angel when eight days old to overthrow the kingdom of the Jews. Joseph Smith explained John the Baptist “wrested the keys, the kingdoms, the power, the glory from the Jews, and by the holy anointing and decree of heaven” (TPJS, p. 276). He went before the Messiah, as foretold by Gabriel to his father, Zechariah. The Messiah’s forerunner fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy and testified to the Jews that Jesus was their Messiah. Once the Messiah had been lifted up, God destroyed the Jewish nation and demolished their temple. 

After nearly two millennia, Joseph Smith ended the Christian God’s silence by declaring the heavens had opened and the Father and Son had appeared to and spoken with him. In the following two decades, ancient Scripture from Adam, Enoch, Melchizedek, Abraham, and Moses were restored, the Bible corrected and expanded, new revelations and commandments provided, and lost authority to act in God’s name was returned.

In 2014, God revoked the authority of the LDS hierarchy. In the ensuing few years, that institution has continually stumbled into darkness and disarray, with their temples closed and services altogether interrupted for a year. They have voluntarily altered and abandoned parts of their temple rites. They have voluntarily chosen to destroy the original Salt Lake Temple and replace it with a modern substitute lacking the original symbolism and meaning. They have continually surrendered to popular opinion and increasingly adopted the worldly agenda of accepting sexual confusion, political intolerance, and censorship of opinion. When viewed as trends, it becomes apparent the LDS Church’s leadership is rapidly moving in a direction contrary to its original roots. 

In contrast, a small group has been repenting and returning to the original roots established by God through Joseph Smith. By 2017, a more accurate version of the Book of Mormon was recovered, the JST Bible revisions were accurately published for the first time, the Lectures on Faith returned to the canon, additional Scriptures added, and a new covenant with God was established. Overthrowing and returning are repeated cycles, and they are underway again today. But the overthrow and the returning are not yet complete. The overthrow will bring a full end to all nations and religions, but the returning will be determined by covenant-keeping.  

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The post The Religion of the Fathers, Part 2 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This is the first part of a talk given at a conference in Aravada Springs, NV on March 27, 2021.

Transcript

I have to say: As time goes on, you folks look more and more eccentric. (That’s just from up here, looking out.)

I want to thank the organizers for putting it together, and I want to thank them for the invite to come talk. I also want to say before I begin that there’s no reason to think that I am implying anything apart from what is explicitly stated in the talk.

The name “Jesus Christ” is Greek. An Anglicized Hebrew version of the name is “Joshua the Messiah” or, more phonetically correct, “Yeshua the Mashiach.” God promised Adam there would be a Messiah or Christ sent to save his (Adam’s) descendants. Angels preached the gospel of the promised Messiah to righteous men and women beginning with Father Adam. Abraham was taught that same gospel. Jesus the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, lived as a mortal, and fulfilled God’s Messianic promises. He was not an innovator. Instead, He restored that gospel originally revealed to the Patriarchal Fathers. 

This talk is about understanding the worship of our Messiah. An 1833 revelation promised further information to be given the faithful who obeyed God’s commandments: 

I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fullness, for if you keep my commandments, you shall receive of his fullness and be glorified in me as I am glorified in the Father. Therefore, I say unto you, you shall receive grace for grace. (T&C 93:7, emphasis added)

A prophecy of Malachi is recorded in every volume of Scripture: Old Covenants, New Covenants, Book of Mormon, and Teachings and Commandments. The prophecy promises that before the great and dreadful day of the Lord the hearts of the children will turn to the Fathers or (as stated in the JST Old Covenants): Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall seal the heart of the Fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their Fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse (Malachi 1:12 RE, emphasis added).

Nephi quoted it to Joseph Smith a little differently: And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers; if it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming (Joseph Smith History 3:4 RE, emphasis added).

Two versions of Malachi’s prophecy have the very same interesting wording. Both the Old Covenants and the Book of Mormon twice use the word “heart” in the singular, but “fathers” and “children” are plural. It’s a small change but an important and revealing one. The Fathers are of one heart, and to the extent there are to be children sealed to them, the children will also be of one (and the same) heart.

In this talk, I hope to clarify and identify who the “fathers” are. It’s not your immediate ancestors from the last 20 or so generations; all of them who died without the required knowledge and acceptance of fullness of the gospel are in spirit prison. Therefore, they are damned and cannot progress until preparations are made to improve their resurrection.

Our hearts must become one. United hearts seem to be in a distant latitude from where we are now. Even then, before any attempt at “sealing” begins, the first question is the identity of the “fathers” to whom our singular heart must be sealed to avoid being “cursed”—or as Christ warned, “utterly wasted at his coming.”

There is a true religion; it was revealed first to Adam. Adam not only received and practiced that true religion, it is through him that every subsequent dispensation of the gospel has been revealed. Joseph Smith taught:

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

…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. (T&C 140:3,5-6; emphasis added)

God gave to Adam the right of “dominion” over the Earth and everything (correspondingly, everyone) on the Earth. That was part of the original true religion. When the true religion was combined with the right to hold dominion or preside as a High Priest, it was called the “Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God.” This was shortened to “Holy Order.” It has also been called the Melchizedek Priesthood. Because of the too frequent use of the term “Melchizedek Priesthood” by the LDS Church and resulting confusion about the meaning of the term, I’ve redefined “priesthood” and avoid making use of that term without clarification. In this talk, the term “Holy Order” is used to mean the original priestly position conferred on Adam and thereafter passed on to the one eldest, worthy descendant in each subsequent generation, and the religion then taught by that holder was correct and held salvation.

The Patriarchal Fathers are Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem (or Melchizedek), Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. These 15 generational heads stood, like Adam, as God’s Patriarchal Father and High Priest at the head of God’s family on Earth. There were many others who believed in the religion taught by Adam and the Patriarchal Fathers, but the Holy Order given to Adam was always held in its fullness by the eldest worthy descendant in each subsequent generation until—skipping generations to—Abraham. 

Abraham was the first precedent for “sealing” into the Order, tying a descendant separated by generations into the position of patriarchal successor to Shem (or Melchizedek). This precedent helps explain Joseph Smith’s later practice of sealing others to him. Given the examples of Abraham and Joseph Smith, it becomes clear that the Holy Order does not have to be exclusively dynastic (passing in one family line) but can branch out to include any other worthy member of the line, however distant or separated by generations.

The Patriarchal head of the Holy Order is the shepherd for the faithful, husbandman for the Creation, and teacher responsible for dispensing Divine knowledge. It is more than competent gospel teaching; it is authoritatively dispensing a message from a position established and recognized by God, hence Joseph Smith’s observation that there are many teachers, but perhaps not many fathers (T&C 139:12). When the Holy Order is active, these obligations attach to the position in every generation.

The first or Patriarchal Fathers learned the true religion from Adam and practiced it under his direction. Adam taught the first eight patriarchs born after him. Their religion was Adam’s religion, and their understanding reached back to the Garden of Eden. 

The majority of Adam’s family abandoned the truth. From the time of Adam, most people who have been given the opportunity to receive the gospel in their respective dispensations have dwindled in unbelief. The Book of Mormon repeatedly describes people dwindling in unbelief. An angel foretold to Nephi (the first prophet-writer in the first book of the Book of Mormon) that all his descendants and his brothers’ descendants would dwindle in unbelief. 

Dwindling happens whenever light and truth are neglected, forgotten, or rejected. The term “unbelief” applies not when people cease believing, but when they hold false beliefs. Those false beliefs include incomplete, unfinished, or incorrect ideas. Unbelief comes as much from rejecting Scripture as from deleting or changing ordinances.

The truth has dwindled, and there are not accurate enough Scriptures available to know all that has been lost. Upheavals in history have produced a barrier keeping the first religion away from us. Margaret Barker has spent a lifetime studying ancient Israel, largely pursuing the First Temple religion of Israel. Her goal is modest. She’s trying to reconstruct the Old Testament era from Solomon to Ezra. We are trying to reach back to Adam. Even with her more modest aim, she has concluded it is impossible for us to know what really took place. She calls the present state of all our understanding nothing more than “supposition”:

The exile in Babylon is a formidable barrier to anyone wanting to reconstruct the religious beliefs and practices of ancient Jerusalem. If we are to discover any possible reason for the distinction between the sons of El/Elyon and the sons of Yahweh it is a barrier, which has to be acknowledged. Enormous developments took place in the wake of enormous destruction, and these two factors make certainty quite impossible. They make all certainty impossible, and this too must be acknowledged, for the customary descriptions of ancient Israel’s religion are themselves no more than supposition. (Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God, p.12, citations omitted, italics in original)

Belief is only possible by receiving the truth. It is important to have the truth in order to acquire belief. The Lord commanded Joseph Smith to revise the Bible in order to permit “belief” (or “correct understanding”). One of the corrections Joseph made was to the exchange between Jesus and the lawyers. Luke was revised to now read: Woe unto you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge, the fullness of the scriptures. You enter not in yourselves into the kingdom, and those who were entering in, you hindered (Luke 8:17 RE). Without the “fullness of the scriptures,” it is impossible to have belief. Truth is the key of knowledge.

Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible was designed to restore the Bible to read: Even as they are in [God’s] own bosom, to the salvation of [God’s] elect (T&C 18:6). From the command to commence the corrected Bible project until the command to publish it, Joseph’s inspired revision was referred to in 14 revelations. The revised Bible was quoted exclusively in Lectures on Faith. The Bible revision was essential for people to have belief. Without it, the saints would dwindle in unbelief because they lacked the truths God intended to be known and accepted by His followers. Joseph Smith knew this and warned about how crucial it was for the revised Bible (which he called the “fullness of the scriptures”) to be published for believers. In an October 1831 Conference, he taught the saints: “God had often sealed up the Heavens because of covetousness in the church. Said the Lord would cut his work short in righteousness and except the church receive the fullness of the scriptures they would yet fall” (Joseph Smith Papers [hereafter JSP], Documents, Volume 2: July 1831-January 1833, p.85). 

The fullness of the Scriptures was never published in Joseph Smith’s lifetime—or ever by any church. The RLDS Church published an incomplete and altered version that excluded revisions made by Joseph Smith and included revisions made by a committee. A significant part of the work accomplished by Joseph Smith has been neglected by the LDS or altered by the RLDS (now the Community of Christ), and both of those groups have dwindled in unbelief. Because they have incomplete Scriptures, having rejected part of what the Lord has as “scriptures in His own bosom” (see T&C 18:6), it cannot be otherwise. All of the break-off groups that have separated from the LDS or RLDS have similarly dwindled in unbelief.

The Restoration has not been able to advance until recently when a penitent group of believers repented and endeavored to recover and reclaim what was discarded. In the inspired “Prayer for Covenant,” these past failures are acknowledged, and the Lord was asked to accept our repentance. Here are some excerpts from that prayer:

We are mindful that in 1832 the gentile saints were condemned for vanity and unbelief because they treated lightly the things they had received, and they were warned by you that they would remain under condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments, not only to say, but to do. You commanded the gentiles that they bring forth fruit meet for their Father’s kingdom, and if they failed to do so, there remained a scourge and [a] judgment to be poured out upon those who claimed to be the children of Zion. They failed to bring forth the required fruit, and were judged and scourged, and then violently driven out of Jackson County, Missouri. 

…Even today the gentile saints justify lying to others as part of their religion, believing you will vindicate them in their dishonesty. They seek deep to hide their counsel from others, and now deny your judgments against their ancestors, claiming you have never rejected them. They have, as you [have] foretold, spoken both good and evil of your prophet Joseph. They ascribe many of their wicked practices to Joseph, who correctly told their ancestors that they never knew him — for indeed, the gentile saints have grown distant from you because of their willful rebellion, pride, foolishness, and blindness. We acknowledge that we must distinguish ourselves from them, admit the errors of the past, and in the depths of humility, seek to be reclaimed as yours.

The neglect and rebellion of the saints during Joseph’s day and thereafter included how they have treated the scriptures, carelessly inserting numerous errors and [the] transcription problems into the Book of Mormon and other commandments and revelations. The original Book of Mormon translation manuscript was placed in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House where water and mold destroyed over 70% of the text. This was a similitude to the restoration provided by you through Joseph. Just as the original manuscript was allowed to decay, with only approximately 28% surviving, so likewise the Restoration has also decayed. 

…The other revelations given through Joseph Smith have also not been maintained and transmitted to us in their purity. 

…We ask to be corrected in anything we have gathered and ask to be instructed by you to discard what ought to be discarded, and inspired to keep only those things which should be kept. We were not responsible for neglecting your warnings, for treating lightly the Book of Mormon and former commandments, nor for failing to do as you asked, but have inherited that legacy and acknowledge that we also suffer under your condemnation as our inheritance. 

…Though only a remnant of the original faith you established through Joseph has likewise survived, we ask to be reconnected as a people to you by covenant, to make us yours, connected to a living vine, restored as a people, and numbered with Israel. We seek as a people to honor you and…keep your commandments so that a living body of your disciples may again exist on the earth. We desire that we may rise up through your grace and mercy so that you will perform your oath and vindicate your promises to the fathers concerning a faithful latter-day body of gentiles to be numbered with the remnant of Jacob, that your kingdom may come and your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. 

…We ask that you accept these books as yours so that people of faith may then rely upon this work as your word to this generation, …a standard for governing ourselves, as a law, and as a covenant, to establish a rule for our faith, and as the expression of our religion, so we may have correct faith and be enabled to worship you in truth. If this body of writings are not acceptable, we ask that you guide us further so we may correct, remove, or add whatever you would require for the writings to become acceptable for a covenant and [a] law, a rule of faith, as a correct expression of the religion that honors you, so [that] we may be in possession of correct faith and be enabled to worship you in truth. (T&C 156:2,7-8,10-11,15,17; emphasis added)

The prayer and the effort to recover the fullness of the Scriptures pleased the Lord. He answered by commending the recovery and accepting the Scriptures. His “Answer to Prayer for Covenant” states, in part: 

(And I’m gonna add: We asked Him to tell us if something ought be deleted and to tell us if something ought be added, and He did both of those things. Things were deleted and things then were added in response to the prayer.) 

But His answer included these:

The records in the form you have of the Old Covenants, given from Adam until Moses and from Moses to John, are of great worth and can serve my purposes, and are acceptable for this time.

The records of my apostles containing my New Covenants were to contain the fullness of my gospel, but during the formation of the great and abominable church, many parts were discarded and other parts were altered. False brethren who did not fear me intended to corrupt and to pervert the right way, to blind the eyes and harden the hearts of others, in order to obtain power and authority over them.

Conspiracies have corrupted the records, beginning among the Jews, and again following the time of my apostles, and yet again following the time of Joseph and Hyrum. As you have labored with the records you have witnessed the alterations and insertions, and your effort to recover them pleases me and is of great worth. (T&C 157:13-15)

Ours are the only Scriptures approved by God as sufficient for the labor[s] now underway (T&C 177:2). However, the Lord stopped short of endorsing them as without flaws. 

The records you have gathered as scriptures yet lack many of my words, have errors throughout, and contain things that are not of me, because the records you used in your labors have not been maintained nor guarded against the cunning plans of false brethren who have been deceived by Satan. (T&C 157:12) 

The Lord explained: 

What you have gathered as scriptures are acceptable to me for this time and contain many plain and precious things. Nevertheless, whoso is enlightened by the spirit shall obtain the greater benefit, because you need not think they contain all my words nor that more will not be given, for there are [yet] many things…to be restored unto my people. 

…There will yet be records restored from all the tribes, that will be gathered [together] again [in] one, and also as I have said, there is some truth in the Apocrypha, including the Pseudepigrapha and scrolls recovered at Nag Hammadi, and other New Testament texts uncovered since the time of Joseph Smith, and findings at Qumran, and there are other records yet to be recovered; [and] whoso is enlightened by the spirit shall obtain benefit by their careful study. (Ibid. vs. 44,47)

We have the best available, but they’re to be understood through the power of the spirit. In another revelation, the Lord explained this about our scriptures: 

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

Our Scriptures will do no good if they’re not read or studied. We, like all other Restoration churches and groups, can also dwindle in unbelief. 

Unlike the many existing and past Restoration believers, we must fight against falling into unbelief. Nephi warned us about the churches of the Restoration:

Yea, they have all gone out of the way, they have become corrupted; because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, and their churches are lifted up; because of pride, they are puffed up. They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries; they rob the poor because of their fine clothing, and they persecute the meek and the poor in heart because in their pride [they’re] puffed up. They wear stiff necks and high heads, yea, …because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray, save it be a few who are the humble followers of Christ. Nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because [they’re] taught by the precepts of men. (2 Nephi 12:2 RE, emphasis added)

We have no fine sanctuaries, and until commanded and instructed to do so, we do not anticipate building anything other than a single temple. We do not rob the poor, because our tithes are used only to aid the poor. We do not regard one above another, and we have no hierarchy in a position to lead anyone astray. Nevertheless, we can still be proud, rob the poor by our overindulgence, and participate in abominations and whoredoms. Some foolish people among us have done these things. They must repent, or they cannot be gathered.

We have little reason to be unguarded. We can fail to study the recovered Scriptures approved by the Lord as a standard to govern our daily walk. We can fail to accept the obligations established by the Book of Mormon as a covenant and to use the Scriptures to correct ourselves and guide our words, thoughts, and deeds. We can let the lusts of the flesh to control us. And when we do, we choose to dwindle in unbelief. 

You have the new Scriptures. The leather-bound copies will be shortly distributed. Use them. Study them. Show appreciation to the Lord by refusing to dwindle in unbelief.

Joseph Smith was able to revise the Bible through God’s inspiration. It is important to prize the corrected Bible and do better than the saints of Joseph’s day.

Despite nearly universal apostasy and rebellion against God while Adam lived, the line of Patriarchal Fathers preserved the true religion. Noah had a father who knew and was taught by Adam. Noah’s living grandfather, great-grandfather, and ancestors for seven generations knew and were taught by Adam. Learning about God from His messengers and priests was (and still is) necessary to avoid dwindling in unbelief and falling into apostasy. The “angels” who ministered included mortals who were given Divine knowledge to teach.

Noah preserved the original religion of God through the cataclysm of the flood. Three of the sons of Noah were taught it, and Noah’s most faithful son inherited the right. The fullness of the Holy Order was conferred upon Shem (who received the title “Melchizedek”). A descendant of Ham falsely claimed he held the Holy Order, but he could only institute an imitation of the Order. 

After Melchizedek, an apostasy lasted until Abraham. Although he was raised by an idolater and lamented that his fathers offered sacrifices to idols, Abraham searched for the true God of Heaven. Abraham found God, and the covenant of the first Fathers was renewed and conferred upon him by Melchizedek. Generations of apostates were excluded from the Holy Order, but Abraham was adopted into the line by Melchizedek, thereby restoring continuity back to Adam.

Abraham represents the key Patriarchal Father prophesied of in Malachi. Abraham not only renews the covenant of “the fathers” (including Noah and Enoch), but also through the Abrahamic covenant, God established Abraham as the new head of the family of God on Earth. God told Abraham: As many as receive this gospel shall be called after your name and shall be accounted your seed, and shall rise up and bless you, as unto their Father (Abraham 3:1 RE). For us, connecting to Abraham is akin to the original Patriarchs’ connection to Adam. Turning the heart of the children to the Fathers is a required part of the gospel. And after God’s covenant with him, salvation for all subsequent generations is dependent on being accounted Abraham’s seed.  

The covenant with Abraham was renewed with Isaac, who also became the Patriarchal head and husbandman-father of the faithful. Believers thereafter likewise are numbered as Isaac’s “seed” through the renewal and extension of the covenant. God renewed it again with Jacob. The covenantal relationship of these three Patriarchs in three successive generations is the reason the Scriptures use “the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob” as one name for Deity. 

Accordingly, the more we can know of Abraham, the more we can know of the covenant with the Fathers spoken of by Malachi. Any book written by Abraham should be priceless to us. 

The Book of Abraham translated by Joseph Smith has become a battleground because it is so important to our salvation. On one side are those who hope Joseph has made it possible to be sealed to the Fathers. Opposing them are those who cannot believe Joseph supplied a text of any value for salvation. The fight over the Book of Abraham is now aimed at the entire Restoration and Joseph’s Divine calling. Because of that controversy, I need to address the authenticity of the Book of Abraham in order to discuss God’s covenant with the Fathers.

There are several threads of thought to be drawn together. The first one involves understanding the different eras of written language used at the time of Abraham.

Most scholars believe Abraham lived around 2100 BC during the 9th Dynasty of Egypt. Moses lived around 1400 BC.  (700 years later, Moses lived.) Egyptian texts date back to before 3400 BC. A written Hebrew language was not developed until 900 BC, a half-millennium after Moses. Accordingly, since Moses composed the first five books of the Old Covenants, he would have used Egyptian characters. Hence, the Scriptures written on the plates of brass recovered from Laban and used by the Nephites were written in Egyptian.

The Hebrew language developed as a spoken language first and a written language added sometime later. The Book of Mormon confirms that although the Nephites spoke Hebrew, they used Egyptian characters to write their records. As Moroni finished his record his father started, Moroni explained what they used for the small, neatly carved characters on the Nephite records:

We have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also. (Mormon 4:11 RE, emphasis added) 

The Nephites used only Egyptian “characters” for their writing and, apparently, not Egyptian language (at least not in the same way as would an Egyptian). This is at best an ambiguous point. How are we to understand it? Egyptian characters are not alphabet equivalent. A single character can mean many words, and their written form compresses language. We do not have anything equivalent to this in our common experience to make a meaningful analogy. Perhaps Pitman Shorthand would give an idea of it.

One other idea that may help is to think of Romance languages. All Romance languages use a common set of written characters but employ them for entirely different languages; the “reformed Egyptian” used “characters” to write a different quasi-Hebrew language. 

For a comparison: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian are all different languages that descended from Latin. They all use the Latin alphabet. But the words they write and the meanings of those words are different from one another. Occasionally, the different languages use identical letters for different words. In English (a non-Romance language), “mesa” means “an isolated, flat-topped hill with steep slopes.” But in Spanish, it means “table.” 

The English language descended from German. So did Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Scots. These languages also use the Latin alphabet shared with the Latin-descended Romance language. But try to imagine another language that employs pictographic and short-hand figures to convey both words and sentences. If you’re moving information from such a language into any of the Latin alphabet languages, the result would be a far larger volume of translated text from the original text. 

The Book of Mormon used Egyptian “characters” to write a non-Egyptian form of language to compress the material. How the Nephites achieved this over a millennium of “reforming” their written language was not clarified. However, if the actual plates of the Book of Mormon were to be examined by a modern Egyptian scholar, they would not be able to make any sense of it.

Hebrew is written and read from right to left. English is written from left to right. When I began learning Hebrew alphabet, to help me remember the sounds I would write my name using Hebrew characters in a left-to-right English format. “Dalet-Vav-Resh” was close enough, since vowels did not exist in Old Testament Hebrew. Since Hebrew would read these letters in reverse order, it would be read “Vav-Dalet” and pronounced something like “Ervid” and would mean “rod.” And that’s not my name.

Then when I began learning the Greek alphabet, to help me remember the sounds, I would also write my name using Greek characters. But I added the letter “v” because it was the only way I could think of to make it work: “Delta-Epsilon-Nu-V-Epsilon-Rho.” Because “v” is English, it would not be used by a Greek speaker to figure the word out. Therefore, it would be pronounced something like “Dener” and would mean “steward.” That’s also not my name.

When you use only characters borrowed from another language’s alphabet but write things for your own native language, the result is a hybrid that requires an explanation. Hence, Moroni’s explanation that the Nephites only employed the Egyptian “characters” (and not the Egyptian language) in etching the record. This idea will figure in later in this talk.

Also significant is the assignment given to Joseph Smith to reform the Bible text. Joseph Smith began working on a revised Bible in June 1830. Joseph used the King James Version as his source text to accomplish the revision. There were few (if any) Greek or Hebrew materials used. Nothing was rendered from one language into another. The work was based on revelation, inspiration, and insight given to Joseph Smith by the Lord. The LDS Historian’s Office has correctly called the work a “revision” of the Bible. However technically inappropriate we may think it is to use the word “translation” for Joseph’s work, it is always called a “translation” by the Lord in numerous revelations to Joseph. 

By November the material about Adam, Cain, Abel, and the first murderer had been finished. The work advanced to include the Enoch material in December, and on 7 December 1830, Sidney Rigdon was commanded to act as scribe to “write for him.” The project included correcting the Bible, as well as numerous additions. It was undertaken so that the Bible would be rewritten and, according to the Lord, to become even as they are in [God’s] own bosom (T&C 18:6). The work of restoring Genesis advanced quickly. By February 1832 [1831], Genesis 1:1 through 5:12 was finished. These are eight chapters of the Book of Moses (as published in the Pearl of Great Price by the LDS Church). In these early materials, there are notable additions made regarding:

• Moses, 
• The Creation of this world, 
• An explanation of Satan’s pre-Earth existence and history, 
• The fall of man, 
• Adam and Eve, and
• Enoch (among many others). 

So much material involving Enoch was added to chapter 4 of Genesis that it’s become referred to as the “Book of Enoch.”

When the Genesis account got to Melchizedek, a flood of new material was provided. In the new Melchizedek materials, we received clarifying information about the Holy Order:

Now Melchizedek was a man of faith who wrought righteousness. And when a child, he feared God, and stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire. And thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained a high priest after the Order of the covenant which God made with Enoch, it being after the Order of the Son of God, which Order came not by man, nor the will of men, neither by father nor mother, neither by beginning of days nor end of years, but of God. And it was delivered unto men by the calling of his own voice, according to his own will, unto as many as believed on his name.

For God, having sworn unto Enoch and unto his seed with an oath by himself that everyone being ordained after this Order and calling should have power, by faith, to break mountains, to divide the seas, to dry up waters, to turn them out of their course, to put at defiance the armies of nations, to divide the earth, to break every band, to stand in the presence of God, to do all things according to his will, according to his command subdue principalities and powers; and this by the will of the Son of God which was from before the foundation of the world. (Genesis 7:18-19 RE, emphasis added)

From this addition, we learn that faith—not priesthood—is the power that stops the mouths of lions and quenches the violence of fire. Also, ordination to the Holy Order comes from the voice of God and is conferred according to God’s will. That will of God is predicated on two things:

• Belief on the name of God in this world, and
• The will of the Son of God before the foundation of this world. 

Despite the many additions and corrections to the Genesis text, very little was added in the Joseph Smith Bible revisions about Abraham. Given the importance of Abraham as a pivotal covenant Father, not adding an expanded account of his life to Genesis is a significant omission. The Lord told Abraham: For as many as receive this gospel shall be called after your name and shall be accounted your seed, and shall rise up and bless you, as unto their Father (Abraham 3:1 RE). Given Abraham’s importance, we should expect that any revision of Genesis would add as much about him as Genesis added about Adam and Enoch and Melchizedek. But the JST Bible does not do so.

If the Book of Abraham materials were added to the Genesis text, it would replace and expand the text from Genesis chapter 6, midway in verse 8, through chapter 7, midway through verse 4. The Book of Abraham supplies the missing important details we need to know that were omitted from the Genesis account of the Inspired Version of the Bible. 

It appears that the foreknowledge of God made it unnecessary for a JST expansion of Genesis materials about Abraham. When Michael Chandler later sold four mummies, two papyrus scrolls, and some papyrus fragments (in July 1835) to buyers in Kirtland, events were set in motion that resulted in adding Abrahamic details to our Scriptures. Three parties (one of whom was Joseph Smith) paid the $2,400 sale price. The Book of Abraham was then produced after Joseph Smith got access to the papyri. Instead of being part of the JST Bible, it is called a “translation” of a papyrus scroll.

The “translation” began in Kirtland from July to November 1835 and produced the text from Abraham 1:1 through first half of 4:2 in the Restoration Edition of Scriptures. (In the LDS scriptures it’s Abraham 1:1 through 2:18.) There are three different copies of the translation made in Kirtland in existence. These have been identified as Book of Abraham Manuscript A, B, and C. 

• Manuscript A is in the handwriting of Frederick G. Williams. 
• Manuscript B is in the handwriting of Warren Parrish. 
• Manuscript C is in the handwriting of Warren Parrish and William W. Phelps. 

None of the Kirtland era translations of the Book of Abraham include the introduction to the book. That introduction attributes the text to a papyrus written “by the hand of Abraham.” That statement has been the focus of a great deal of controversy. It states: “A translation of some ancient records that have fallen into our hands, from the catacombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called ‘The Book of Abraham, written by his own hand upon papyrus.’” Those words are in the handwriting of Willard Richards, and there is no existing source to explain why he added them to the publication of the Book of Abraham in the Times & Seasons in March 1842 (see JSP, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts, p. 245).

A small library of material has been written on the relationship (or lack of relationship) between the remaining Joseph Smith Egyptian papyri fragments and the Book of Abraham. It’s an understatement to say that subject is controversial. But given the importance of Abraham’s status as the “Father of the righteous,” it is important to discuss the controversy. 

If one is objective, the text of the Book of Abraham presents insurmountable problems if it must satisfy the current scholarly understanding of the Egyptian papyri purchased from Michael Chandler. If the authenticity of the Book of Abraham must be based on that, it’s very problematic. That is not to say that the scholar’s approach to this controversy is without its weaknesses.

The Egyptian language had two earliest forms; the first to develop was hieroglyphic and dates from before 4000 BC. At about 390 BC… Oh, excuse me: At about 390 AD, Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I closed all religious temples that he regarded as pagan throughout his empire. Because of this, hieroglyphs were no longer used.  Egypt was inside his empire. Therefore, the Egyptian temples closed, and the hieroglyphic language was neglected and ultimately abandoned altogether. For 1500 years, the language was lost. Egyptian monuments remained, but no one had a clue what the hieroglyphs meant.

After being lost for a millennium-and-a-half, hieroglyphic interpretation has been recovered only in a small part through work based on the Rosetta Stone. In July 1799, French soldiers were rebuilding a fort near the town of Rosetta and discovered a stone inscribed with three scripts: hieroglyphs in the top register, Greek at the bottom, and a script later identified as “Demotic” in the middle. Demotic was a still later form of Egyptian writing and was the common form spoken at the time the Rosetta Stone was originally carved.

Using the Greek from the Rosetta Stone as a guide to decipher the hieroglyphs, an attempt has been made to understand hieroglyphic Egyptian. The Rosetta stone contains a decree from Ptolemy V (dates from 196 BC). This is at the very end of a dying Egyptian culture, religion, language, and history. This era is known as the Ptolemaic dynasty. 

Greeks controlled Egypt after Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BC. When Alexander the Great died, his empire was divided between four generals. At that time, General Ptolemy assumed control over Egypt. The likelihood that the form of Egyptian hieroglyphic language dating from 196 BC is an accurate guide for understanding the way the language was understood millennia earlier is at best doubtful. If we accept the dating of 2100 BC for Abraham’s life, there would have been two millennia of time separating the language of Abraham from the language of the Rosetta Stone. 

The most basic linguistic problem is to understand how language changes with time.

Imagine you had a time machine. If you are like me, there would be many times and places that you would like to visit. In most of them, however, no one spoke English. If you could not afford the Six-Month-Immersion Trip to, say, ancient Egypt, you would have to limit yourself to a time and place where you could speak the language. Consider, perhaps, a trip to England. How far back in time could you go and still be understood? Say we go to London in the year 1400… 

As you emerge from the time machine, a good first line to speak, something reassuring and recognizable, might be the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer. The first line in a conservative, old-fashioned version of the Modern Standard English would be, “Our Father, who is in heaven, blessed be your name.” In the English of 1400, as spoken by Chaucer, you would say, “Oure fadir that art in heunes, halwid be thy name.” Now turn the dial back another four hundred years to 1000 CE, and in Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, you would say, “Faeader, ure thu the eart on heofonum, si thin nama gehalgod.” A chat with Alfred the Great would be out of the question.

Most normal spoken languages over the course of a thousand years undergo enough change that speakers at either end of the millennium, attempting a conversation, would have difficulty understanding [one another]. (David W. Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, p.22, footnotes omitted, italics in original)

Consequently, it would be surprising—bordering on miraculous—if the way Egyptian hieroglyphs were understood at the time [of] the Rosetta Stone proves identical to the way that they were understood two-thousand years earlier in the lifetime of Abraham.

That having been said, Egyptologists believe they have fragments of the Joseph Smith papyri translated by him to compose the Book of Abraham. They rely on their ability to interpret these fragments using reconstructed Ptolemaic Egyptian. Using their skill-set, they are confident that the fragments do not contain a Book of Abraham but are, instead, an Egyptian Book of Breathings (a sen-sen papyri). They conclude Joseph Smith was unable to “translate” the source document.

There are multiple ways apologists have dealt with this problem: 

• One approach, including Hugh Nibley’s analysis, is that there was an Egyptian papyri source but dispute that the papyrus fragments we have are the actual text Joseph translated. This group of apologists assume what Joseph actually translated was destroyed in the Chicago fire. The approach accepts Willard Richards’ Times & Seasons introduction explaining that it is a translation of records from the catacombs of Egypt, originating with Abraham.
• A second apologetic approach is to claim there never was a source papyrus for the Book of Abraham. This position ignores Willard Richards’ Times & Seasons introduction. This approach claims the source for the Book of Abraham was entirely revelation from Heaven. The LDS Church now seems to accept this view. 
• A third apologetic approach is that the Michael Chandler papyri were indeed the source for the Book of Abraham, and the text can actually be recovered using the Joseph Smith Papyri. These advocates make a full-throated defense of Willard Richards’ Times & Seasons introduction. Until the scholarly understanding of Egyptology challenged Mormons, this was the overwhelming position of those who accepted the Book of Abraham as Scripture. In this arena of argument, there is a belief that the hieroglyphs contained hidden, esoteric meaning encoded in their form. As Dan Vogel describes it, “…other, more spiritual, mystical, and theologically powerful messages were encoded in their pictographic etymologies” (Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique, p.67). Vogel rejects that idea.

There are other approaches. All of them address the issue of what perspective should be used to explain Joseph’s translation. 

• Should we assume the illustrations were original to Abraham? If so, then to interpret them, maybe we should look to how Egyptians in Abraham’s day, or Abraham himself, would have understood them. 
• Or should we assume the illustrations were original to Abraham but modified over time for other uses by the ancient Egyptians? 
• Or do we assume the illustrations were connected to the Book of Abraham when the Joseph Smith papyri were created in the Ptolemaic period? 
• Do we need to consider what Egyptians of that time thought of these drawings to represent? 
• Or should we assume the illustrations were connected to the Book of Abraham for the first time in the Ptolemaic period, but to interpret them we ought to look at what Egyptian priests integrating Jewish, Greek, and Mesopotamian religious practices into native Egyptian practices would have thought about them? 
• Or should we instead look at how Jews of that area would have understood them? 
• Or were the illustrations never part of an ancient Book of Abraham but instead adapted by Joseph Smith to depict the ancient text he revealed and translated?

Well, in the give-and-take following deciphering the Rosetta Stone and the research done to develop some understanding of the Egyptian languages, the apologists who think the Book of Abraham was directly translated from the Joseph Smith papyri appear to hold the weaker position. However, that’s not the end of the matter.

In every case in which he has produced a translation, Joseph Smith has made it clear that his inspiration is by no means bound to any ancient text but is free to take wings at any time. To insist, as the critics do, that “translation” may be understood only in the sense in which they choose to understand it, while the Prophet clearly demonstrates that he intends it to be taken in a very different sense, is to make up the rules of the game one is playing as well as being the umpire. (Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Abraham, p. 4, emphasis added)

Since Joseph Smith did not explain how the text was “translated,” that issue is left to conjecture. The entire debate between Egyptian scholars and apologists centers on the translation process. However, Joseph Smith did not use the term “translation” as would a scholar. One example illustrates the difference:

While Oliver Cowdery was the scribe during the Book of Mormon translation, he and Joseph discussed whether the Apostle John died or continued on Earth. The question was answered by a revelation. The written account in our Scripture about the answer includes this explanation: A revelation given to Joseph Smith Jr. and Oliver Cowdery in Harmony, Pennsylvania, April 1829, when they desired to know whether John, the beloved disciple, tarried on earth. Translated from [a] parchment, written and hid up by himself (Joseph Smith History 13:17, emphasis added). Joseph did not have the parchment. Therefore, there was no parchment source for the revelation. It came as Joseph Smith received it from God through the Urim and Thummim (Ibid.). 

Sidney Rigdon arrived in Fayette (during December 1830) as the Bible revision was then underway. The project involved editing and correcting the Bible. That project was also consistently referred to as a “translation” of the Bible, even though it would be more correctly called an “inspired revision.” On December 7th, 1830, the commandment was given to Sidney: You shall write for him, and the scriptures shall be given, even as they are in my own bosom, to the salvation of [mine] own elect… (T&C 18:6). This helped explain what the term “translated” meant for the Bible revision project. It clearly refers to something different than how the term is generally used and understood.

When Enoch’s City was taken to Heaven, it is described as being “translated” or a “translation.” For Enoch, “translated” meant moving someone from Earth into Heaven and changing him or her so they could survive there. This meaning can also be understood and used for the “translation” of the parchment of John. It means taking something recorded and preserved in Heaven and moving it back to Earth where it had been lost.

I think that the word “translated” as it refers to the Book of Abraham should be understood in this sense: It was something recorded in Heaven and was moved back to the Earth where it had been lost. Regardless of whether or not conveying Abraham’s testimony from Heaven back to Earth required a surviving papyrus scroll, that question is not as important as the accuracy and truthfulness of the Book of Abraham account that originated with Father Abraham. Only if the text is true, accurate, and legitimately Abraham’s would it be worthy for canonizing as Scripture. Joseph Smith clearly intended for the Book of Abraham to be Scripture. 

Apart from using the word “translation,” the content of the material bears all the indicia of an ancient record from the time of Father Abraham. The account in the Book of Abraham can be compared with Abraham’s history in Genesis. The comparison shows there are over a dozen details added through the Book of Abraham account that are missing from Genesis. For example:

• The famine in the homeland of Ur, 
• Haran[’s] (Abraham’s brother) death in the famine, 
• Terah (Abraham’s father) repenting of his idolatry, 
• Terah’s return to idolatry,
• Believers becoming the “seed of Abraham” and inherit the blessings through him, 
• Abraham held the priesthood, 
• Abraham earnestly sought God,
• An angel of the Lord was sent to rescue Abraham, 
• Abraham was familiar with Egyptian gods, 
• Abraham was 62 years old (not 75, as in Genesis) when he left Haran, 
• Abraham made converts while in Haran, 
• Abraham prayed for God to end the famine in Chaldea, and 
• The Lord instructed Abraham [Abram] to say that Sarai was his sister. 

All these differences (related to Abraham) can be found in ancient sources recorded in non-biblical texts. If ancient sources confirm events set out in the Book of Abraham did happen in Abraham’s life, it’s hard to simply dismiss the validity of the book as inauthentic. It only makes the most sense to consider… The most important thing to consider is the text itself when deciding the validity of the Book of Abraham. 

One might dismiss a single element found in a nonbiblical tradition that parallels the Book of Abraham as mere coincidence. However, when a large number of such elements come together from diverse times and places, they overwhelmingly support the Book of Abraham as an ancient text. There are far too many references to Terah as an idolator, Abraham as a sacrificial victim, Abraham as an astronomer, and Abraham as a missionary to lightly dismiss their antiquity. In addition, many other distinctive elements found in these traditions, though not repeated frequently, add to the overall strength of the unique elements found in the Book of Abraham. (Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, p. xxxv)

Facsimile 3 includes the comment that the scene depicts Abraham…reasoning upon the principles of astronomy in the king’s court. This echoes the account by Josephus that (to the Egyptians) Abraham, “…confuted the reasonings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrating that such reasonings were vain and void of truth; whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject…” (The Antiquity of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 2, ❡2). Josephus explained that Abraham, “…communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy…” (Ibid.).

The oldest written Egyptian material is the Pyramid Texts and date from the 5th and 6th Dynasties. At the time of those writings, the original Pharaonic imitative religion was already approximately a thousand years old. There is no way to know how well the religion was preserved between the first Pharaoh’s initial imitation and a millennium later when the Pyramid Texts were written. 

Egypt has a complicated theological development that morphed over time. The Horus stellar religion is very early.  The Osirian religion (sometimes linked to lunar theology) does not arise until nearly a thousand years after the Pyramid Texts at Saqqara and, arguably, most reflects the religion of the New Kingdom. That theology differs from the beliefs of the Old Kingdom religion. It was the Old Kingdom theology that is closer to that of Adam. It was the Old Kingdom… (Oh, excuse me.) Finally, the Memphite religion of Ra apparently begins in the late Old Kingdom. However, Ra (as the sun god) is syncretized to Ahmon (the god of light).  The figure of Ahmon is present in both the star cult and the sun cult. As Egyptian religion changed at the time of the New Kingdom, nothing remained of the star cult.

The Book of Abraham’s exposition on the sun, earth, planets, and stars fits neatly into the cosmological issues perplexing the rulers of the 9th Dynasty. (And by the way, the Joseph Smith rendering of the word “planets” is criticized by a number of scholars as being not a term that was understood at the time. But the word “planets” means “a star that wanders.” So, you had fixed stars, and you had stars that wandered. “Planets” simply is referring to the stars that move in the sky overhead. And so, calling them “planets” is not at all problematic. It’s just someone chafing to find an argument to throw at Joseph and at the Book of Abraham. And like so many of those things, as soon as you breathe on them, the house of cards falls over.)

There are many connections between the language of Egypt and the Restoration. The hieroglyphic form of Egyptian was used primarily to record religious texts and was the more formal or sacred form of the writing. A second, less formal form developed early in Egyptian language evolution, and it’s called “hieratic.” This second form was cursive and was the more likely form used on the Brass Plates. It’s arrogant to assume that Ptolemaic era writing is a sound basis for ciphering backward over 2,000 years to decode Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the end, the question must be asked: Do you trust scholar’s attempt to reconstruct antiquity using a partial record from 196 BC when it conflicts with the revelation given to Joseph Smith claiming to be a prophet, seer, and translator? Or do you believe God could inspire a prophet to recover a lost record from an ancient patriarch? It’s one or the other.

It is significant that Joseph Smith claimed that the Old Testament written on the Brass Plates, as well as the record of the Nephites, were written in Egyptian. At the time and under the circumstances, Joseph Smith had little reason to make such a claim. With what we know now, it would be an error to claim otherwise. The choice is between Joseph being prescient or prophetic.

Joseph revealed that Adam and his immediate posterity wrote the first records of God dealing with mankind. It was called “a book of remembrance” (see Genesis 3:14 RE). That record was written in a language which was pure and undefiled (Ibid.). We know these records existed during Abraham’s life (thousands of years later): The records of the Fathers, even the Patriarchs, …the Lord, my God, preserved in my own hands (Abraham 2:4 RE).

By the time of Moses, however, the original records were lost. Moses had to restore the record of the Creation based on the revelation he received directly from the Lord. Moses was commanded:

You shall write the things which I shall speak. And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught, and take many of them from the book which you shall write, behold, I will raise up another like unto you, and they shall be had again among the children of men, among even as many as shall believe. (Genesis 1:7 RE)

Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses from birth. She named him and treated him as “her son” (see Exodus 1:5 RE). Accordingly, when Moses was commanded to write the record revealed to him by the Lord, he would have recorded it in the language he understood: the language his adopted mother taught him, which was Egyptian. This detail is exactly what the Book of Mormon explains about the Brass Plates. Moses replaced the lost records of the Fathers by revelation from God. That record is described in the Book of Mormon as the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass and were composed in the language of the Egyptians (Mosiah 1:1 RE). Ask yourself the likelihood of a New England farm boy in 1829 choosing to claim the Old Testament was recorded in the Egyptian language? It’s a remarkable bulls-eye detail, unlikely to have occurred to a youthful swindler. (But of course, Joseph was an actual prophet, and therefore, God revealed to him the truths he recounted.)

Since Joseph translated over 500 pages of what was likely derived from Hieratic Egyptian for the Book of Mormon, he read and understood one version of that language better than any scholar, including all who have lived since the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. Because I accept Joseph’s claims of being a prophet, seer, and translator at face value, it’s easy for me to resolve conflicts over Egyptian texts in favor of Joseph and against the scholarly critics. 

Joseph Smith Papers, Volume 4 of the Revelations and Translations has copies of Egyptian Alphabet materials produced by Joseph’s scribes: Oliver Cowdery, William W. Phelps, and Warren Parrish. Teryl Givens has taken the position that these texts prove, “The Book of Abraham manuscripts, unlike their Book of Mormon counterpart, bear clear evidence of reworking, revising, and editing. This was no spontaneous channeling of a finished product by any stretch…” (The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture, p.201). He interprets these as proof that Joseph engaged in a very complex deciphering process to produce the Book of Abraham using the hieroglyphs in the Book of Breathings. 

When I first saw the Egyptian Alphabet materials, it appeared to me to be an attempt to reverse engineer Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham by using the Book of Abraham [Breathing] papyrus. Recall that Oliver Cowdery had attempted to translate the Book of Mormon and failed in that attempt. When he failed, the Lord explained his failure to him, stating: 

Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But behold, I say unto you that you must study it out in your mind, then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right, [then] I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. (Joseph Smith History 13:26 RE)

Two of the three Egyptian Alphabet studies (A and B) were in whole (or in major part) the study of Oliver Cowdery. It appears that these were the result of Oliver’s attempts to follow the Lord’s guidance after his failure to successfully translate the Book of Mormon. When he failed in 1829, the Lord said there were other records have I that I will give unto you power that you may assist to translate (Ibid. vs. 24). It seems apparent that the Egyptian Alphabet study in late 1835 was Oliver’s (and the other scribes’) attempt to validate the translation process and act on the earlier promise to Oliver.

Teryl Givens’ speculation that the Egyptian Alphabet is Joseph Smith’s study of the papyrus is refuted by John S. Thompson in his article, “‘We May Not Understand Our Words’: The Book of Abraham and the Concept of Translation in The Pearl of Great [Greatest] Price.” Thompson shows from contemporaneous sources that Joseph’s translation was accomplished quickly and before the Egyptian Alphabet documents were created. It’s clear from an examination of the historical record that the scribes did their deciphering work of the Egyptian characters after the translation of the Book of Abraham had been done. Accordingly, using the Egyptian Alphabet materials to try to understand the translation process is not likely to help us understand what Joseph did (but much more likely to help us understand his scribes’ attempt to understand Joseph’s translating work).

It is not possible to resolve this question. Those directly involved were never asked, and they failed to leave a clear account of what the Egyptian Alphabet documents were, why they were produced, and how they relate to the translation of the Book of Abraham. This has resulted in debate between scholar-critics and scholar-apologists.

The latest writer to weigh in on the subject, Dan Vogel, deals with the absence of hard answers by arguing the meaning and import of ambiguous details. As a lawyer, I appreciate his argumentation. However, since I care about the subject and would like to know the truth, the arguments from implication in the absence of proof cannot be fully convincing. The souls of men must not be trifled with (see T&C 138:18).

In arguing from the absence of hard historical evidence, Vogel urges his belief that: 

…what is required in any treatment of the Book of Abraham is not fluency in [hieroglyphs] or a belief in Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling, but a firm, clear-headed understanding of the methods of history and of the relevant nineteenth-century historical sources. Anything else is counterproductive. (Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique, p. xviii)

He makes the argument that the Kirtland Egyptian Papers were not created after the translation but were used to create and translate the Book of Abraham. His arguments are somewhat persuasive.

However, his analysis is advocacy, and his writings betrays the assumptions necessary for his conclusions. The book necessarily reflects a scholar’s caution in the absence of certainty. Although his work is interesting, well written, and attempts to make reasonable points, the information we have available does not let us resolve anything about the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. Everything is arguable. Vogel’s arguments clearly belong in the debate, but in the end is only argument (like so much else involving the Book of Abraham). A few examples of how he supports his arguments are (these are quotes):

• “implies a process of translation” (p. 1)
• “This clearly implies” (p. 12)
• “implies that” (p. 14)
• “more careful analysis shows” (p. 17)
• “the simplest way to explain” (p. 17)
• “This suggests” (p. 18)
• “most reasonably explained as” (p. 18)
• “was likely due to” (p. 18)
• “may have dictated” (p. 19)
• “The details of Smith’s participation in the creation of his own history are not…well known, but apparently” (p. 39)
• “were likely the result of” (p. 39)
• “Apparently, there was some hesitation” (p. 50)
• “is instructive, although piecing together what was intended is not always clear and necessitates some conjecture” (p. 54)
• “possibly from” (p. 55)
• “may have taken from” (p. 55)
• “is probably more than coincidence” (p. 56)
• “This is a problem from the theory” (p. 57) 
• (and so on)

Whether I agree or disagree with his interpretation does not give me the actual historical certitude that would answer the most important questions about the Book of Abraham’s creation (or “translation,” as the term was used and understood by Joseph Smith). There are debaters on both sides. They all make arguments to support their desired conclusion. Familiarity with the Egyptian language (insofar as the Ptolemaic period Rosetta Stone material permits the language to be resurrected) causes the Egyptologists to be dogmatic. They speak in firm declaratives. But Joseph Smith saw God the Father, His Son, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Peter, James, and John, and a host of angels who declared their dispensations, keys, rights, and honors. Joseph also spoke in firm declaratives. They line up on opposite sides; we must choose between them.

The best evidence of translation authenticity is the text itself. As Hugh Nibley put it, “…it is the Book of Abraham that[‘s] on trial, not Joseph Smith as an Egyptologist, nor the claims and counterclaims to scholarly recognition by squabbling publicity seekers…” (Abraham in Egypt, p. 3). The text of the Book of Abraham is compelling and adds important theological information I believe to be vital to understanding the religion I accept and Abraham’s role in God’s plan for this Creation. More importantly, I accept the idea that it adds information vital to salvation. 

I believe it is also important that Joseph Smith intended the Book of Abraham as Scripture. He wrote on March 1, 1842: 

In future. I design to furnish much original matter, which will be found of enestimable adventage to the saints,— &…all who— desire a knowledge of the kingdom of God.— and as it is not practicable to bring forthe the new translation. of…Scriptures. & varioes records of ancint date. & great worth to this gen[e]ration in…<​the usual​> form. by books. I shall prenit [print] specimens of the same in the Times & Seasons as fast. as time & space will admit. so that the honest in heart may be cheerd & comforted and go on their way rejoi[ci]ng.— as their souls become exp[an]ded.— & their undestandig [understanding] enlightend, by a knowledg of what Gods work through the fathers. in former days, as well as what He is about to do in Latter Days— To fulfil the words of the fathers.—

In the penst [present] no. will be found the Commencmet of the Records discoverd in Egypt. some time since. as penend by the hand. of Father Abraham. which I shall contin[u]e to translate & publish as fast as possible till the whole is completed. (JSP Documents, Volume 9, p. 206-7)

That accompanied what got published. He wrote, and the first installment of the Book of Abraham in the Times and Seasons followed. 

If Joseph Smith regarded the Book of Abraham as Scripture, I do not want to dismiss it because an Egyptologist cannot read it in the remaining papyrus fragments some claim as the source for the book. 

It is not at all clear that Egyptology is even relevant to an analysis of the Book of Abraham. The narrative text begins in a location named Ur of the Chaldeans. The book states 32 times it does not cover events in Egypt. There are 13 times the location is Ur. Another 16 times the events happen in Haran, Jershon, Sechem, Morah, or Canaan. Then before ending, it clarifies 3 times the account is not about events in Egypt. Here is a brief review of the many times it clarifies it is NOT an account from Egypt: 

• Facsimile No. 1 illustrates an event that took place in Ur, not in Egypt. 
• Abraham’s record begins: In the land of the Chaldeans (Abraham 1:1 RE). 
• When Abraham was bound and put on the altar to be sacrificed—as illustrated in Facsimile 1—it was upon the altar which was built in the land of the Chaldeans (Ibid. vs. 3). 
• It was constructed after the form of a bedstead, such as was had among the Chaldeans (Ibid. vs. 4). The record is silent about whether Egyptians had any similar altar. Scholarly critics explain the Egyptian funerary practice associated with the Chaldean altar with the customary lion-headed funerary bier on which embalming—not human sacrifice—is typically depicted by any similar Egyptian hieroglyphic. Again, however, that is not particularly helpful to understanding what happened in Ur of the Chaldeans. Nor does that criticism address Chaldean behavior, religious rites, or altar design.
• The Book of Abraham does not give us any Egyptian names but explains Chaldean (not Egyptian) terminology is used. 
• The book explains that Facsimile No. 1 shows the figures at the beginning, which manner of the figures is called by the Chaldeans Kahleenos, which signifies hieroglyphics (Ibid.). This word is what the Chaldeans would call the vignette, not what an Egyptian would. The explanation is provided because the Chaldean word is different from the Egyptian word. On this point, an Egyptologist’s criticism is of little help to authenticate or refute the Book of Abraham.

To the eye of an Egyptologist, the four figures under the lion couch in Facsimile No. 1 are canopic jars. They are the four receptacles used in Egyptian embalming practice for the liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines. The liver jar is, to the Egyptians, the human-headed Imseti. The lung jar is to them the baboon-headed Hapi. The stomach jar is the jackal-headed Duamutef. The intestine jar is the falcon-headed Qebehsnuef. None of the Egyptian names are used in the Book of Abraham by the Chaldeans. 

But then again, the text is not about Egypt but about the local practice of those living in Ur of the Chaldeans. In that place, nothing Abraham understood about the four figures suggests they were jars. Instead, Abraham understood they were Chaldean idols before which human sacrifices were performed. The names of these idols in the land of the Chaldeans were Elkenah, Zibnah, Mahmackrah, and Koash. Abraham’s account is not about the gods of Egypt. It’s about the gods of the Chaldeans.

Egyptologists criticize the account that Abraham (as well as three virgins before him) was offered as a human sacrifice. Many scholars dispute Egyptians offered human sacrifices. To an Egyptologist, the mention of human sacrifice is evidence the Book of Abraham is not credible. But the book is not set in Egypt. Human sacrifice is known to have taken place in the land of the Chaldeans where the Abrahamic account is actually based. Newsweek reported the following:

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that at least 11 children and young people were killed as a result of ritualistic sacrifice between 3100 and 2800 B.C.E. Their research was published Wednesday in the journal Antiquity. …Some remains show [the]…stab wounds, but researchers aren’t sure how all of the individuals lost their lives. One male had violent injuries to his hip and head, similar to wounds reconstructed from other Mesopotamian ritual sacrifices. …“It is unlikely that these children and young people were killed in a massacre or conflict,” the London Natural History Museum’s Brenna Hassett said in a statement. “The careful positioning of the bodies and the evidence of violent death suggest that these burials fit the same pattern of human sacrifice seen at other [locations] in the region.” (Katherine Hignett, Newsweek, “Ancient Mesopotamia: Ritual Child Sacrifice Uncovered in Bronze Age Turkey”)

This discovery puts Chaldean human sacrifice occurring at or near the conventional dating of Abraham’s life. 

The New York Times reported on human sacrifices at an ancient location named “Ur” located in Iraq:

A new examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur, discovered in Iraq almost a century ago, appears to support a more grisly interpretation than before of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia, archaeologists say.

Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary [practices], were not dosed with poison to meet a rather serene death. Instead, a sharp instrument, a pike perhaps, was driven into their heads. (John Noble Wilford, New York Times, “At Ur, Ritual Deaths That Were Anything but Serene”)

(And he goes on from there. It’ll be in the published version of this.)

According to the Book of Abraham, none of the names of Chaldean gods—or any of the religious practices Abraham witnessed and experienced—were Egyptian. They were cultic practices and may have been entirely conducted in a locality that imitated their own incorrect understanding of the religion of Egypt. Chaldea’s Ur was populated by ‘Egyptophiles’ who were apparently imitating and practiced a local corruption of an ancient Egyptian religion. They clearly got some things about the Egyptian religion wrong (and may have gotten very many things wrong). 

Robert Ritner’s book includes a chapter written by Christopher Woods addressing the location of Ur. The chapter is titled, “The Practice of Egyptian Religion at ‘Ur of the Chaldees’?” (Dude, you can tell from the title that this is laced with condescension and arrogance. Congratulations, Christopher Woods. You’ve proven your ego won’t fit into a normal human form.) The chapter begins by acknowledging that, “The location of ‘Ur of the Chaldees’…remains open for debate.” He explains, “Cuneiform sources attest a number of settlements bearing the name of Ur (or a name phonetically similar) in northern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northern Mesopotamia, mostly small villages, and so making for unlikely candidates for biblical Ur…” (see Ritner, Robert K., The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition, pp. 73-74). 

A discovery of an ancient library of thousands of cuneiform tablets in 1975 raised another possibility for Abraham’s Ur, this new one being located in ancient Haran rather than a thousand miles away, as previously thought.

Since Ritner’s book is a collection of scholarly criticism of the Book of Abraham, the author does not leave it open-ended. Instead, he speculates Ur may have been at a specific Babylonian location. Based on that assumption, he concludes, “If we are correct in identifying Abraham’s Ur with Babylonian Ur, this poses grave difficulties for the account given in the Book of Abraham” (Ibid.). Obviously, if the author is not correct, the inverse is also true: If we are incorrect in identifying Abraham’s Ur with Babylonian Ur, then we don’t know anything about the matter, and it poses no justifiable difficulty for the account in the Book of Abraham.

Hugh Nibley discusses Ur in An Approach to the Book of Abraham from pages 424 to 428. He writes on page 427: 

What leaves the door wide open to discussion is the existence in western Asia of a number of different Urs. Ur in the south was a great trade center… and since Abraham was a merchant, one should expect to find him there. But on the other hand that same Ur had founded merchant colonies far to the north and west at an early date, and some of those settlements, as was the custom, bore the name of the mother city. 

The angel of God rescued Abraham from being sacrificed on the altar. The angel killed the priest attempting to sacrifice Abraham. This resulted in great mourning in Chaldea… (Abraham 2:1 RE). Following this, a famine prevailed throughout all the land of Chaldea (Ibid. vs. 4). During the famine in Ur of Chaldea, the Lord commanded Abraham to leave, and the events in the Book of Abraham finally move from Ur: Now the Lord had said unto me, [Abraham], get yourself out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, unto a land that I will show you. Therefore, I left the land of Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan (Ibid. vs. 5, emphasis added). The story moves but is still not in Egypt—nor is Abraham heading to Egypt in the account.

The next location must have been comparatively uninhabited when Abraham’s family arrived. They name the location after Abraham’s deceased brother, Haran. Abraham explains his family went unto the land which we denominated Haran (Ibid., emphasis added). It apparently had no name before their arrival, since they denominated (or named) the place. We have no way to identify the location but only know that it was away from the earlier (also unknown) location called Ur.

At Haran, there is no mention of famine. Abraham’s father, Terah, had repented of his idolatry in Ur, but in Haran, he returned to it. When God later told Abraham, “Depart from Haran,” Terah remained behind.

Abraham’s journey then takes him through Jershon in the land of Canaan. There—still not in Egypt—Abraham built an altar. Moving on again, he arrives in Sechem, situated in the plains of Moreh at a place described as [on] the borders of the land of the Canaanites (Abraham 4:2 RE). He is still not in Egypt. In that location the Lord promised Abraham, unto thy seed I will give this land (Ibid.). Abraham was not given Egypt.

Famine is mentioned again in the land given to Abraham’s seed, and as a consequence of that, Abraham reports: I, Abraham, concluded to go down into Egypt, to sojourn there, for the famine became very grievous (Ibid. vs. 3, emphasis added). Abraham’s conclusion to go down into Egypt confirms for us that he had not yet reached Egypt during any part of his account to that point.

Abraham received a great revelation about the stars, the heavens, events among the pre-existent spirits of mankind, the fall of Satan, and the creation of the world. This great revelation comprises the remainder of Abraham’s account in his book. However, the account clearly states that God told Abraham: I show these things unto you, before you go into Egypt (Abraham 5:4 RE, emphasis added). Accordingly, nothing in the Book of Abraham took place in Egypt. When it is added to the Genesis account, what happened following the conclusion of the Book of Abraham text is: And it came to pass that when [Abraham] had come into Egypt… (in Genesis [7:4 RE]) and goes on from there to explain about Sarai being accosted.

Willard Richards’ introduction that claims the book is “purporting to be the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt” is demonstrably wrong from the text itself—32 times the Book of Abraham states otherwise. When nothing in the text reckons from Egypt, it is questionable how useful criticism of the Book of Abraham from an Egyptological vantage point is. We should expect there to be some deviations from Egyptian religion, language, or culture in the book. The account only covers events among an ancient people, in an uncertain location called “Ur,” located somewhere in Chaldea. Those people were only imitative of Egypt. They were not Egyptians. And the events in the book did not happen “while [Abraham] was in Egypt.”

One hieroglyph appears in all three Facsimiles:

• It is figure 10 in Facsimile 1, 
• At the bottom and adjacent to the figure 2 in Facsimile 2, and 
• Figure 3 in Facsimile 3. 

The hieroglyph is used to represent “Abraham in Egypt.” The figure is a libation table (or “traditional offering stand”) on which drink and food were offered. Since Abraham concluded to travel to Egypt because of famine, a symbol of drink and food for Abraham in Egypt would be altogether apt. But the table figure shows a lotus flower atop it. The lotus was a symbol of ascent to the throne of God. That concept is most clearly referenced in the explanation of panel 2 in Facsimile 2. It is at least thought-provoking that Joseph identified the food and drink offering stand and a symbol of ascending to God to be representing Abraham’s presence in Egypt. 

To be clear, because nothing in the Book of Abraham happened in Egypt, it is questionable how useful anything authentically Egyptian (if we’re able to determine that) is to understand or to question the text. The names and practices Abraham encountered imitated—but did not correctly replicate—the religion of 9th Dynasty Egypt. The text explains that the place where Abraham was offered as human sacrifice is an unknown village located somewhere under Chaldean influence named “Ur.” However, Ur could have been in any Mesopotamian location across thousands of square miles from Turkey, northern Syria, into Iraq, or Iran. There are many known villages contemporary with Abraham known to have been named “Ur.” Of course, there may have been many others unknown to us with the same or similar name. The text ends before Abraham enters Egypt, and therefore, the continuation of an account involving Abraham picks up in Genesis. This begins halfway through Genesis 4 [7:4]. The account deals only briefly with the “princes” bringing Sarai to Pharaoh who was then plagued because of Sarai’s presence. Pharaoh then returns Sarai to Abraham [Abram], at which point Abraham [Abram] and Sarai were sent away. 

Because nothing in the Book of Abraham or Genesis gives any detail about Abraham’s experiences in Egypt, we have no narrative account to help us give context to the facsimiles. We do not know if Facsimile No. 3—like Facsimile No. 1—is a scene that took place outside of Egypt. The footnotes explaining the scene end with this clarification: Abraham is reasoning upon the principles of astronomy in the king’s court. It is unclear which “king’s court” is being referenced. Clearly, the people of Ur involved in Abraham’s experience imitated Egypt. They sought to imitate the Egyptian’s “earnest imitation.” Therefore, we cannot be certain if Facsimile No. 3 is reporting an event that took place among people who imitated Egyptian religious rites or if they instead happened in Egypt. If it’s the former, it’s consistent with the rest of the text where nothing else has happened in Egypt. 

The Book of Abraham explains the Egyptian Pharaoh could only imitate the Holy Order but had no right to claim that priestly position. In context, this exposes the Chaldean’s error in looking to Egypt for Divine guidance. These Urian residents even anointed for themselves a “priest of Pharaoh” who practiced human sacrifice. Was this an innovation by Ur or imitative of an Egyptian rite? We do not know anything certain. But we know that it was distant from (and only imitating) an Egyptian imitation of the religion of the Fathers. We only have Abraham’s understanding of what these people were up to. 

It is clear from the text that “before” his journey “into Egypt,” Abraham was shown a great revelation about the pre-existence, Creation, and organization of the stars.  It raises the question of where Abraham tried to clear up people’s understanding in Facsimile No. 3. 

The Book of Abraham clarifies many “mysteries” that are not otherwise to be found in Scripture. But Scriptures tell us there are many important truths that are withheld from us. Even if they are unknown to us, there are “mysteries” that are still part of the true religion first revealed to Adam.

We learn of God’s promise to the righteous in T&C 69:2: 

Unto them will I reveal all my mysteries, yea, all the hidden mysteries of my kingdom. From days of old and for ages to come will I make known unto them the good pleasure of my will, concerning all things to come. Yea, even the wonders of eternity shall they know, and things to come will I shew them, even the things of many generations. Their wisdom shall be great and their understanding reach to Heaven, and before them the wisdom of the wise shall perish and the understanding of the prudent shall come to naught. For by my spirit will I enlighten them and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will, yea, even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.

We’re told in Alma 9:3 [RE] that those who give heed and are diligent are rewarded with understanding:

[It’s] given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless, [they’re] laid under a strict command that they shall not impart — only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give….therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word. …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.

While Christ was among the Nephites, the greatest part of what He taught them is withheld from our record. We read in 3 Nephi 9:5 [RE]: 

He went again a little way off and prayed unto the Father, and tongue cannot speak the words which he prayed, neither can be written by man the words which he prayed. And the multitude did hear, and do bear record, and their hearts were open, and they did understand in their hearts the words which he prayed.

There are many other references in Scripture to important things that are left out of our canon. The true religion contains many “mysteries” that are important, not yet known or taught, but which were to be restored to the faithful in the future.

The Book of Abraham helps us uncover some of the missing information about the religion of the first Fathers. The first verse of the Book of Abraham includes these remarkable words: 

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

Abraham begins by explaining he “sought for the blessings of the Fathers,” the very thing Malachi prophesies will return before the great and dreadful return of the Lord. Abraham obtained what will be available again. Those blessings of the Fathers will be administered again before the end.

At the beginning of his record, Abraham mentions some of the specific things that are part of “the blessings of the Fathers.” This identifies Abraham, not Joseph Smith, as the writer of the book. 

When the Holy Order is established in its fullness, there is one Patriarchal head appointed to stand as the husbandman-father, occupying the position of the first Father or Adam. When God set Adam at the head, “The tasks given to Adam are of a priestly nature: caring for sacred space. In ancient thinking, caring for sacred space was a way of upholding creation. By preserving order, non-order was held at bay” (John H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve, p. 106). This priestly responsibility was what Abraham sought. He explained that he wanted to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a Father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a high priest, holding the right belonging to the Fathers (Abraham 1:1 RE). The Lord offered to return this lost fullness in Joseph Smith’s day, but the required conditions were not met. Therefore, the fullness was not “restored again” and remains unrestored.

Abraham knew more about the Holy Order in his day than Joseph in 1842. After all, Abraham had the records of the Fathers. Much of what Joseph learned about the Holy Order (or as he termed it, the “fullness of the priesthood”) appears to have come as a result of him translating the Book of Abraham.

Abraham knew Adam was the Father of many nations. Likewise, the first Patriarchs all expected to have numerous posterity and to be Fathers of many nations. The line of the Patriarchs named in Scriptures is a list of those through whom the Holy Order descended and does not name all of the righteous. The residue of the righteous was also blessed. The original Holy Order meeting at Adam-Ondi-Ahman is described in Scripture: 

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. (T&C 154:19)

Those names, listed in order from Adam, were the first to hold the presiding Patriarchal priesthood from the oldest to the youngest holding that right.

The Holy Order in its fullness is a right of government or right of dominion. Anciently, it was always held in a line of descent. Abraham marks the first time that non-direct lineal descendant was sealed in the Holy Order to hold it in its fullness. Once sealed, Abraham became entitled to be a “Father of many nations, a rightful heir, holding the right belonging to the Fathers.”

This right is not worldly. Abraham’s record gives us a perfect vantage point to understand the difference between worldly government and the government of God. At the time of Abraham, any earthly king did not have the right to make that claim. The Pharaoh of Abraham’s day feigned to hold it, claiming it descended to him through Noah. Abraham explained the conflict:

Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first Patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood. Now Pharaoh being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood, notwithstanding the Pharaohs would fain claim it from Noah through Ham, therefore my father was led away by their idolatry. (Abraham 2:3 RE)

Pharaoh was “righteous” but still descended from a line that could not claim legitimate rule. He modeled his kingdom after the order established by the first Fathers, but it could only be an imitation. He claimed a lineal connection with Noah, which was true enough, but his ancestry gave him no heavenly acknowledgment for his rule. And because he descended from a line that usurped authority not given to them by God, all those who submitted to his earthly rule practiced idolatry.

Abraham, on the other hand, was given dominion, the right to rule over nations, Patriarchal status, and the rights belonging to the Fathers. But Abraham made no attempt to displace the Pharaoh. They were rivals, to be sure, but Abraham was content to hold the right, receive instructions, be a diligent follower of righteousness, be one who possessed great knowledge, be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge. He was content to teach his followers the path of righteousness. Unlike Pharaoh, he did not assert authority over others. Abraham was interested in eternity, not earthly recognition and control. Hugh Nibley described the circumstance:

The Book of Abraham brings out the main points of rivalry between the patriarch and the pharaoh in high relief: Each claims to possess the only true priesthood and with it the only true kingship. The earliest legends of Egypt and Mesopotamia introduce us to a scene repeated over and over again in apocalypses and testaments of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, of a great and terrible monarch who feels his divinity threatened and his dominion challenged by an emissary of the true God. (Abraham in Egypt, p. 254)

Nibley has observed that “Pharaoh was always unsure of his authority over his own people” (Ibid. p. 233). There were many Pharaohs in later dynasties who investigated their claim to authority.

Of particular interest are those devout and sincere pharaohs who spent their days in the archives engaging in the constant search of Egyptian rulers for divine authority, such men as King Neferhotep in the Thirteenth Dynasty, [and] the great Amenophis I, “a wise and inspired man,” according to Manetho, who yearned to see the gods but feared to risk any force or trickery to get his wish, or Ptolemy the son of Glaucias, “the recluse of the Serapeum,” spending all his days in the library, as does the hero of the Khamuas story, searching in the House of Life for the book that bestows the knowledge of divine dominion and authority.

The trouble was that they lacked revelation. In Egypt, Henri Frankfort observed, “The actions of individuals lacked divine guidance altogether.” (Ibid.)

Egypt’s claims may seem arrogant after the Exodus of Israel. However, their civilization attempted to preserve something precious. As one writer put it, “Ancient Egyptians inherited their great wisdom from a much earlier Elder culture which was able to pass on the flame of knowledge before its own apparent demise” (Gods of Eden, p. 17).

God has declared His intent to assert control over His Creation and overthrow all governments. The Christmas 1832 revelation states:

And thus with the sword and by bloodshed, the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn. And with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God, until the consumption decreed has made a full end of all nations, that the cry of the saints, and of the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of [the] Sabaoth from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies. (T&C 85:3)

All nations, other than the Holy Order family-government ordained by God, will be brought to a full end. Or in the various iterations of the prophecy of Malachi, God will smite the earth with a curse (Malachi 1:12 RE), or the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming (Joseph Smith History 3:4 RE)—doesn’t mean universal death. It means universal disillusion into chaos, with no governance possible apart from the one that He intends to establish, that will provide revelation, guidance, order, and preserve His people. The only surviving rule or dominion at that time will be the one tied to the Fathers. It will be the people whose one heart is like the one heart of the Fathers. They will possess the promises made to the Fathers, or in other words, they will have been sealed to the Fathers. It is phrased differently in different versions of Malachi’s prophecy, but they all mean the same thing. Occasionally, God describes the same thing in different words. The purpose is to help us grasp His meaning.

There are many obstacles to overcome before the Lord returns in glory. Recovering the religion of the Fathers, becoming of one heart with the Fathers, and fulfilling the prophecy of Malachi are directly connected to Abraham. In a very real sense, it will not happen without a connection to Abraham. 

Holding the promises made to Abraham is not just a covenant. It also involves knowledge. Joseph Smith was required to recover the “fullness of the scriptures” (or translate the Bible as it was in the bosom of the Lord) into a volume for the faithful to study. Joseph warned the Latter-day Saints they would fail without the fullness. Until the publication of the Restoration Edition of the Scriptures, there was no version of the fullness of the Scriptures available. Of course, they do not accomplish anything if they’re not read and studied.

Repenting and reclaiming the fullness of the Scriptures was a required first step of repentance for the Restoration to continue. When that step was taken, there was a covenant. If people are faithful to the covenant, the Restoration will continue.

Abraham was not content with knowledge. He wanted to obtain greater knowledge. The purpose of pursuing knowledge was to receive and obey commandments. Greater knowledge facilitates greater obedience. Knowledge is not the goal, it is the desirable effect that knowledge has on the heart and mind of a righteous soul.

Knowledge about the Holy Order can be misused. Even understanding its rights has inspired envy, jealousy, and anger. Cain murdered Abel because Cain understood the importance of standing at the head of the Holy Order. As he contemplated the possibility of it slipping away from him, Satan tempted him to usurp the right by murdering the more worthy heir. The account of that attempted overthrow is succinct:

Satan [said] unto Cain, Swear unto me by your throat, and if you tell it, you shall die. And swear your brethren by their heads and by the living God that they tell it not, for if they tell it, they shall surely die — and this that your father may not know it. And this day I will deliver your brother Abel into your hands. And Satan swore unto Cain that he would do according to his commands. And all these things were done in secret. And Cain says, Truly I am Mahon, the master of this great secret — that I may murder and get gain; wherefore, Cain was called Master Mahon. And he gloried in his wickedness. And Cain went into the field and Cain talked with Abel his brother. And it came to pass that while they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And Cain gloried in that which he had done, saying, I am free; surely the flocks of my brother fall into my hands. (Genesis 3:9 RE, emphasis added)

The “flocks of my brother” were not sheep; they were posterity. Abel was to become Adam’s successor and stand as the Father of many nations. By displacing Abel, Cain hoped to be the next in the line of Patriarchal Fathers. 

Ether chapter 4 shows how the envy of “kingship” results in generations of murderers obtaining power through bloodshed. The Holy Order is not a worldly thing. It cannot be severed from the Powers of Heaven or the Heavenly Council. The presiding Patriarch of the Holy Order is a representative of the Heavenly Council who lives as a mortal on Earth. This is why the Patriarchal head of the Holy Order is the shepherd for the faithful, husbandman for the Creation, and the teacher responsible for dispensing Divine knowledge. That was who Adam was and what Abraham became.

The Holy Order is approved for practice in a proper, functioning temple belonging to God. As Walton put it: 

When we consider the Garden of Eden in its ancient context, we find that it is more sacred space than green space. It is the center of order, not perfection, and its significance has more to do with divine presence than human paradise. 

…We did not lose paradise as much as we forfeited sacred space and the relationship it offered, thereby damaging our ability to be in relationship with God and marring his creation with our own under-developed ability to bring order on our own in our own wisdom. (The Lost World of Adam and Eve, p. 116, 145)

What records that remain do not give a full picture of how much was anciently included in God’s temple. For example, Margaret Barker’s investigation has uncovered an ancient presence of the Divine Mother who was identified as “Wisdom.” She explained that Josiah’s reform changed the First Temple by removing, rejecting, and deducting:

Wisdom was eliminated, even though her presence was never forgotten, the heavenly ascent and the vision of God were abandoned, the hosts of heaven, the angels, were declared to be unfit for the chosen people, the ark (and the presence of Yahweh which it represented) was removed, and the role of the high priest was altered in that he was no longer anointed. All of these features of the older cult were to appear in Christianity. (The Great Angel, p. 15)

Later Christianity, like Josiah’s reforms, also abandoned these parts of the religion. Joseph Smith never had the opportunity to finish restoring them. How oft would God have gathered people together under the arms of the Holy Order, but mankind has not been willing or even interested (see 3 Nephi 4:9 RE).

When the Powers of Heaven are offended and the spirit is grieved, the Powers withdraw and the Holy Order rites are either not restored or, if restored, come to an end. Cain’s ambition could not be accomplished through any degree of unrighteousness. It was doomed from the time the plan was suggested by Satan. Yet Abel was murdered, and a conspiracy to seize power by blood and horror began while Adam was alive. Mankind is no less ambitious today. That impulse to exercise control, dominion, and compulsion persists and can be seen everywhere: in business, churches, governments, and schools.

The reason so little is understood about the Holy Order is because weak men aspire to honors. Once they learn about the Order, they want control over it. Therefore, it is withdrawn…  

(I circled one of the footnotes. What I’m reading you is omitting 390 footnotes. But I’ve circled this one and I’m… Once they learn about the Holy Order they want control over it. “Too often when men learn some great truth and recognize it by the spirit, they then assume that confers upon them some authority or right to act. Nothing could be further from the truth. There[’s] a great gulf between learning and recognizing and authority to act” (footnote 207). People tend to do that. “Oh, my heart burned within  me while I heard it, therefore God gave it to me.” That didn’t happen. It just means that God told you something and you recognized the truth. How you get it is based upon the order of heaven.) 

Therefore, it is withdrawn from mortal men from time to time. When not active among men, it only remains present through John the Beloved. John was translated, acting thereafter only as an angelic minister. Because of this, he’s not free to openly preside. The Lord explained to Peter concerning John: I will make him as flaming fire and a ministering angel. He shall minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation who dwell on…earth… (Joseph Smith History 13:19 RE). John has ministered only “as a flaming fire and a ministering angel,” which circumscribes how and to whom his ministry is extended. He ministers “for those who shall be heirs of salvation who dwell on the earth,” or (as Moroni explained by quoting his father):

The office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfill and to do the work of the covenants of the Father which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him; and by so doing, the Lord…prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the holy ghost may have place in their hearts…. (Moroni 7:6 RE, emphasis added)

[Unknown comment from audience]

Okay, yeah, I get what you’re saying, but according to my pocket watch… 

Is anyone hungry? Yeah… Look, this is not the breaking spot. See that red sheet there? [Holding up his notebook] That’s the breaking spot. So, we’ll eat and come back and resume this later, and those that have heard enough, you can go do something else. And I don’t know how long the movie’s gonna be shown to the kids, but you might want to check that out.

Anyway, we haven’t really gotten to the important stuff. (There—that’ll get you back.) 

So, we’ll break for dinner, apparently, and resume again at some point.

The post The Religion of the Fathers, Part 1 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This talk was given in Highland, Utah on March 6, 2021 to a group of young adults

Transcript

Why don’t we go ahead and start? And we’ll just spend the first few minutes doing a review. I’ve written up on the board some of the same kinds of information that was up there last time. I hope you listened to that so that the continuation of that makes sense. 

The definition is given about what the soul consists of, and there are two components to the soul of every individual: The body and the spirit are the soul of man. And we talked last time about how the body has a variety of weaknesses that are associated with the body of flesh that’s essentially appetite-based. 

• Every body has to be fed. If you deprive the body of food, its weakness and need for food will become readily apparent: first, by hunger; later, by starvation; and ultimately, by death. 
• The body has to have rest. If you deprive the body of rest, it will experience exhaustion. Ultimately, if you don’t allow a body to sleep, it will eventually lose sanity, and eventually, you can die from that, as well. 
• The body requires a whole lot of periodic maintenance. 

It’s like buying a 1945 Ford and expecting that thing to run for an indefinite future. With modern oils, you might keep it going (maybe even a ‘45) maybe even 150,000 miles, but eventually that ‘45’s gonna wear out; it just isn’t gonna hang around. That’s what you’re walking around in right now: vulnerable, weak, filled with appetites, and susceptible to anger, rage, a whole lot of problems that are associated with the body of dust. And I’ve written a list of some of the things that the Apostle Paul includes in his letter that describes what the flesh is all about [adultery, uncleanness, idolatry, hatred, envy, drunkenness]. 

Then there is a spirit which has a coexistence that goes right back to God Himself. That spirit is composed of intelligence or light and truth, which is a big deal as we get into the topic again today. The spirit does not have the same kinds of vulnerabilities as does the body. Therefore, if you can link up to the connection within you of the spirit, you will not be vulnerable to many of the weaknesses of the flesh—because the spirit is fortified and capable of enduring through all kinds of things that the body would succumb to. 

As it turns out, in the religious and intellectual traditions of the world, Christianity and the West have largely focused upon the body. But in the East, the religions and the philosophies have largely focused upon the spirit. Buddhism does not claim to be a religion; it claims to be a way of life and a way of understanding life. Its focus is primarily upon overcoming the weaknesses of the body and getting into connection with the spirit. Assuming I can impose upon her to do so, I’m gonna ask my wife to talk a little bit about that topic as I finish up today. 

But if you were to look at—carefully—at both the teachings of Christ and the T&C revelations given through Joseph Smith, what you would find is that Christ’s doctrines and the teachings of the Restoration marry together both the body and the spirit. It is a kind of religion that Christ taught that expected you to come into the flesh, do battle with the flesh, overcome those temptations, subdue the appetites, and ultimately, win a battle so that you are not tempted to do, succumb, or submit to the appetites of the flesh, but instead, you make the flesh rise up to live and contemplate, exist, and enjoy the fruits of the spirit. Because few things are as rewarding as having the opportunity to have spiritual experiences while occupying a body of flesh. It is enlightening. It is enlivening. It is (according to the description given by both Nephi and Alma) a fruit that is most white and most delicious and more to be desired than anything else that there is. There is no thrill that you can have in the body that is equal to the thrill of overcoming and connecting with the things of the spirit. It’s called the “search for enlightenment.” It’s called “attaining to the Church of the Firstborn.” It’s called “enjoying the fruits of the spirit.” That’s the religion that Christ taught. That’s the thing which Joseph Smith was in the process of restoring. 

Unfortunately, the converts that came aboard the Restoration while Joseph Smith was alive were drawn largely from Protestant Western Christianity and Catholicism (largely Protestants, but some Catholics). The problem with that is their basic orientation (when they came aboard) was: “If you can circumscribe your physical appetite, then you’re a good guy. And if you’re a good guy, you get to feel proud of yourself, and you get to look down your nose at everyone else that succumbs to that.” It kinda worked, and it kinda held together—until you got to Nauvoo, and then:

• They discovered the whole imported “spiritual wife” system, 
• Which gave rise to adultery, 
• Which, in turn, gave rise to conspiracies to commit murder (which succeeded in the case of Joseph and Hyrum), 
• Which, in turn, gave rise to lying and deceit and ambition and the desire to displace Joseph and to engage in submission to the appetites of the flesh. 
• And after that, the vote was held. The Twelve ostensibly won the vote, but in fact, it was Brigham Young. They come west, and it turns into a religion that is holding up adultery as a sacrament, and 
• It’s all downhill from there. 

You’re emerging from, basically, either Mormonism or Christianity into a continuation of the Restoration which has extraordinarily high ambitions for what you are supposed to be. One of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this subject with the youth is because if you can figure this out early in life and if you can engage in this struggle early in life, you stand a far better chance of developing into the “full measure of the person of Christ” than does someone who has basically spent their life looking at things through the lens of basic Western-orientation without understanding the difference between the body and the spirit and the significance of connecting to the spirit. 

So, with that introduction and brief reference back to what went on before, I want to take a look at a statement that is made. (This is actually Enoch, but it’s found in the book of Genesis.) Enoch recorded this about Father Adam. So, he’s describing Father Adam’s experience accompanying the baptism of Adam, okay? 

You are baptized with fire and with the holy ghost. 

…is stated to Adam. This fire in the Holy Ghost, 

This is the record of the Father and the Son, from henceforth and for ever. And you are after the Order of him who was without beginning of days [and so on]… (Genesis 4:10 RE) 

It is given to abide in you: the Record of Heaven, the Comforter, the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, the truth of all things, that which quickens all things — which makes alive all things, that which knows all things, and has all power according to Wisdom, mercy, truth, justice, and judgment. (Ibid. vs. 9)

That’s what the spirit includes. So, among other things, it is the Record of Heaven; it is the truth of all things; it is that which maketh alive. That’s the spirit. 

How on Earth can the Record of Heaven and the truth of all things be embedded in you [pointing to audience members]? You are walking around with that in you! And think about that for a moment: how on Earth can it be that you possess something that reaches back into “the truth of all things”? 

Well, before you got here, you lived somewhere else in something that is called a “first estate.” It’s called the first estate because it was “before this one.” It may not have been your first estate: It may have been your 100th; it may have been your 10,000th; it may have been your 100,000th. But as to here, it was first—before here. How much went into that beforehand? It’s not important; we aren’t told about that. It’s not included in the Scriptures, and it’s anyone’s guess. However, 

…the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was, and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones. 

“Intelligences” are spirits, and it includes you—because if you got here in this cycle of creation, the only way you got here to experience this life is because you were part of that group there. And within that group there (which were organized before the world was), within that group, there was another group: 

And among all these there were many of the noble and great ones. …God saw these souls… (Abraham 6:1 RE, emphasis added)

So, these “souls” [the noble and great] were good. Intelligences are spirits. What are souls? The vocabulary that Joseph Smith was using by the time he translated the Book of Abraham already had acquired the definition of what it meant to be a soul. So, among the group of people (the spirits that were there), there was a subgroup from among that group that were “souls.” If they were souls, then they have already been through an experience that involved this kind of an existence. And they were good. 

How do you know someone is good? Because as Alma writes, “In the first place, they were allowed to choose between good and bad, and having chosen good, they were foreordained according to the foreknowledge of God” (see Alma 9:10 RE), so that those souls would come down, and they would exhibit goodness—so that people could look at their example and understand the kind of example that would be set by the Savior. (It’s in Alma. It’s the old Alma chapter 13, verse…which I would have to look up in order to tell you where it is in Alma in the Restoration Edition, but it’s the chapter about Melchizedek priesthood and who gets chosen in order to be an example.) They were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God, because God knew—based upon their past experience—that they had already stepped behind a veil; they had already been tested and proven, and they had already risen up to the point that they could be trusted. But now, we’re all the way back to preparation for another cycle of creation—in which we’re organizing a creation, and we’re determining who will be born when and where, and how this cycle of creation is gonna go down. 

…the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was, and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones. And God saw these souls, that they were good…he stood in the midst of them and he said, These I will make my rulers. For he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good. And he said unto me, Abraham, you were one of them; you were chosen before you were born. (Abraham 6:1 RE) 

The word “ruler” doesn’t mean king, and it doesn’t mean president, and it doesn’t mean boss. Abraham was chosen to be one of them: Abraham lived and died with almost an insignificant number of people who gave heed to him. He lived, essentially, as a family man, but he was going to be made a ruler [Denver drew a ruler on the whiteboard—a measuring stick]. He would set a standard; he would be someone by whom you could measure the truth. In the Book of Mormon, the word “ruler” is equated with “teacher.” That’s who Abraham was. That’s the rule that Abraham marked out as the plan or the pattern, the example, the baseline—the very thing that, if you follow, will bring you closer to God. 

(Hey, there’s a chair up here. Go through the kitchen.) 

So, go back now in your mind to the idea that the spirit, the holy ghost, the thing that you possess (in particular, when you connect up with it following baptism) includes the Record of Heaven or the truth of all things, and realize that that is connected to what went on before this world was. 

• You’re standing there when this Creation was planned. 
• You saw, and you heard what went on in the Councils of Heaven preliminary to the commencement of the Creation of this world. 
• You knew what the plan was. 
• You knew who the Redeemer would be. 
• You knew who the opponent of that was. 
• You knew about the rebellion, and you chose not to participate in that. 
• You elected to come here and to take on all of the risks and vicissitudes, the troubles and the trials of mortality because you trusted that Christ would deliver on His promise to come here and to redeem and reverse from the blows of death that are inflicted through the fall of man by Adam and Eve, our first parents. 
• You trusted that you would get out of the predicament that you’re in presently because the Savior stood up and said He would go, and He would do as the Father commanded. 
• And another one argued that, “Not so fast! Let me go down. I will destroy the agency of man, and I will make it possible for everyone to be saved without regard to whether they are good or bad, virtuous or unvirtuous, whether they are kindly or whether they are murderers. I’ll just redeem them all, and we’ll repack Heaven with that same crew that goes down (after they go down, and they indulge themselves in the flesh).” 

Kind of a messy plan. It might get everyone back there again, but once you brought them back there, they’re even less suitable for occupying the halls of Heaven than they were before they came down here in the first instance. And the objective is to come down here to be added upon—that is, to experience things and to make war against them; to let your conscience control your fleshly appetites; to reign in, not to give vent to licentiousness and worldliness and body-ness and ambition and hatred—all of the appetites that drag you down. And every one of you who’s here, if you’ve ever engaged in an internal debate in which you were tempted to do something and you held yourself back from doing so, every one of you have been added upon. And the more you do that over the course of a lifetime and the more you connect to the Record of Heaven, the more you are able to understand and see and comprehend the truth of all things. It’s what you’re here to experience. It’s what you’re here to do. And every time you make a move in that direction, you’re added upon. 

This gives definition to what Christ was telling His apostles about when He described the coming Holy Ghost that would fall upon them. He says, 

But the Comforter, who is the holy ghost whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance… (John 9:9 RE, emphasis added) 

How can you possibly remember the truth of all things? It’s because it resides within you, and you can access that by your heed and diligence. Those are the very words that are used to describe how it was that Christ overcame the world: by His heed and diligence. The more heed and diligence that you give to the commandments of God, the more the light within you grows. It’s already there. You’re just permitting it to invade the body of flesh and to inform you by triggering your memory. 

Now, before I got here today, a fellow who’s a student up at Boise State University sent me an email that asked about a series of Scriptures (Ether 1:13, T&C 86:4, and T&C 93:10) about… Essentially, he’s a physics student at Boise State University. And Dallin provoked some thoughts that I thought were worth repeating here. So, indulge me for a moment about… 

It also fits in with what’s on the board because you might be asking yourself, How can a soul—already has an experience—how can a soul then revert back to being a spirit? (…which is one of the things that Christ says in that Ether 1:13 verse when He appears to the brother of Jared, and He’s talking about, “Hey, that same body that you see me in is the kind of body that I will appear in in the flesh when I come into the world”). Okay? It also ought to make you think about the virgin birth and about how if Christ was a soul, then He already had the capacity to come into the flesh with a body. On occasion in the Scriptures, you find barren women conceiving and having children. Mary’s example is the most astonishing because, in the case of Christ, it’s a virgin birth. But it’s no less improbable a pregnancy than Samson’s or John the Baptist’s or Isaac’s. If a woman cannot conceive a child and yet she bears a child, it’s a pretty strong indication that this is one of the souls that were sent into the world that had proven themselves before. And in each instance, they performed in this world in a way that justifies capturing their story and recording it in Scripture as instruction, as a lesson, or as a parable for us to understand how to choose the right and avoid the wrong. 

Well, if you were to draw a graph of the hottest temperature that we know about… In our neighborhood, it’s not the hottest that there is—but there’s a 20 million degrees temperature in our local neighborhood on the corona of our sun. If you go into space, there is a temperature at which you reach absolute zero, which means that atoms and molecules turn solid, and they cease to be moving. That is called absolute zero. And absolute zero is something like, I don’t know, something less than 400 degrees below zero, okay? So, in the universe, we have temperature variation from 20 million degrees to -400 degrees in our little niche of the Milky Way. Mankind can only survive in a little place (I’ve been really generous in drawing the little red line there) in a little place that is capable of sustaining life. If you get too much colder than that, we die. If you get too much hotter than that, we die. But here in the temperate zone (that’s what it’s called)—in the temperate zone, we can live and move. 

Well, one of the differences between what’s going on at 20 million degrees and what’s going on at -400 degrees, the difference between those two is how animated the elements are or how fast things are moving or how quickened the things are moving in this Creation. “Quickening” is the word that gets used in Scripture, and oddly enough, quickening is actually a pretty good word to use to describe what happens when something approaches such power, such glory, such temperature, such heat that if you and I were exposed to it for even a second, it would destroy us—because we’re living at a level in which we’re tangible, we’re hard. 

So, when you hear a dialogue in an LDS Temple Endowment (which some of you have probably been through, and some of you may never go through), there’s a colloquy that takes place behind the veil in which angelic ministers are gonna come and check on the man Adam and the woman Eve, and they say, “Come, let us go down” [Denver points to “decreasing temperature” on the thermometer he has drawn on the whiteboard.] Going down and engaging in physicality is a way of reducing the glory, reducing the temperature, reducing the elements so that it assumes a physical form. Those souls who have been here before have acquired the competency, through a physical experience, to know how to exist in this solid form. Solid, liquid, gas, plasma—at some point, what happens to the elements in the quickening is that they become pure energy, or they become a glorious being of such capacity that they approach (ultimately reach) infinite. If you had the ability to be quickened beyond the speed of light, all of our mathematical formulas suggest that, at that point, the amount of energy involved is infinite (meaning: it wouldn’t be but a small exercise for you [pointing to the audience] with infinite power to move planets around). 

All of the Scriptures where Christ is talking about “the body you see me now have is like the body that I will get when I come into the flesh” is Him explaining that “There won’t be much difference, but I won’t have to quicken you in order to abide in the flesh. I’m going to lay aside My Glory, and I am going to descend into the world, and I will take up my abode in the flesh—with all of the weaknesses that are associated with living here in this environment—and I will dwell among you. And while I’m here, I’ll pray to the Father, ‘Father, let Me come back to the glory I had with You before the world was,’” because He longs to get back into that state. 

Well, all of those Scriptures are talking about this kind of subject. We get a kind of peek into it with what we know about the physical Creation, so far as we’ve been able to calculate it, examine it, measure it, and look at it. But everything that physics is attempting to talk about is already built into and embedded within the language of Scripture, and it’s describing not just spiritual phenomenon. It’s describing actually what God is up to and how this Creation reflects those kinds of realities. 

Now, one of the challenges that we all face is trying to get in touch with this [the spirit] in order for that to subdue and to control what’s going on in the body. You never want to wind up in a position in which this side [the body] is controlling that side [the spirit]. But you have the ability to check that from time to time and to reel in the body and to say, “Not so, I won’t go there. I won’t be that. I will submit only to the counsel of the spirit.” 

There’s this saying that mental health folks have that if someone comes and tells you “they’re God,” they’re probably crazy. But if they tell you “they’re God, and you’re God, and you’re God, and you’re God, and everyone’s God,” they’re probably not crazy; they probably just caught a keen insight into what it means to have dwelt in the presence of God at one time and to bring with you from His presence the Record of Heaven and the truth of all things. You already know it. The purpose of the Holy Ghost is to bring that into your remembrance. The purpose of that is to search for and to find a connection to God, and that connection is not on the other side of the world, up a mountain in Tibet. It’s here, it’s now, and it’s accessible by you. But you have to give heed and diligence in order to find that. 

In a very real sense, God the Father and God the Son have a mind that you share with them. That mind you share with them is the Holy Ghost, and that Holy Ghost, as far as each one of you is concerned, is the third member of the Godhead who dwells within you and can be accessed by you. And when you do that, it will lead to companionship with angels, and ultimately, it will redeem you from the fall and bring you back into the presence of the Beings from whom you originated. 

That ends my part of this. I’ve asked Steph if you’ll [directed to Stephanie] come up and say a few words about ideas that may help you connect to the spirit. I’m gonna stand up here, but you come join me. 

Stephanie: If you want that [the notes on the whiteboard], take your pictures now, ‘cuz I’m erasing it. [inaudible]

Denver: Oh, I should probably get out of the way. 

Stephanie: I thought about just erasing it, but then I  know, “No, Steph…!” 

Denver: I’ll erase everything except this. I wanna keep that up here. 

Stephanie: The -400?

Denver: Yeah. 

Stephanie: Okay. So, I am a “how” person. All of this stuff is great. And then there’s this gigantic disconnect about, “Okay, yeah, it all sounds really good. Now, what are we supposed to do?”

I’m not an expert, by any means, but I have recently embarked on a new journey which is full of all kinds of interesting and edifying things. And one of them is that the language of “good mental health” is basically just Scriptural, written in secular terms—so people who are not religious can understand the same concept. There is a universality about God and about connecting to God. And so, if the soul is the body and the spirit, then you want to connect with the spirit, right? Okay. Connecting to the spirit can be accomplished by learning about and practicing mindfulness, okay? So, I’m gonna give you a few things to think about so that as you think about his talk and start reading the Scriptures again from a new paradigm, you have in your mind this idea of mindfulness. 

So, at our basic level, human beings are down here to do five things, pretty much consistently. We are down here… 

Audience Member: Can you use the black [marker]?

Stephanie: Oh, yeah—oh, I like color! Okay, we are down here to:

1. Seek pleasure,
2. Avoid pain, 
3. Increase our social standing, self-esteem (or in the words of social media), “be liked,” okay? We like to be liked, right? and
4. Protect our loved ones, and
5. Think constantly about how to accomplish 1-4, okay? 

Does that sound about right? Okay, these five things are pretty much the reason all human beings suffer—okay?—‘cuz we do; we suffer. It is why and how we find ourselves emotionally upset, emotionally dysregulated (these are therapy words; sorry, I got a new job), and there are a million reasons why we do this, okay? These are the basis upon which we do this (I’m not gonna write these down). So, here are a few of the ways we suffer as human beings: 

• We worry about the future—yeah, all of the time, right? 
• We regret our past: “Oh gosh, shoot, I shouldn’t have done that! I can’t believe I did that!” 
• We are angry or we’re sad for any number of reasons.
• We suffer from guilt and shame because of the things that we do.
• We enjoy physical pain: hips, knees, joints, gallbladders, kidney stones—you know, whatever.
• We find ourselves often bored and stressed.
• We have anxious thoughts, or we’re depressed, or we worry all the time, or 
• We engage in addictions or other kinds of things that really bring us down. 

So, lesson number one: “Being human” is really hard; “being human disconnected from our spirit” is even harder—it makes everything harder. So… Just I’ll get this out here; this is words to live by: Pain is inevitable, okay? You are down here in your human form (dust, flesh)—you are going to be in pain. Any number of these things are gonna cause you pain, just like I said. But suffering is optional, okay? We do not have to make our pains worse by making them our focus. We can let go of some of this. So, the question then is: How do we avoid suffering when we are in pain? 

So, the way to do that is to connect to your spirit and set aside our preoccupation with our bodies, okay? That stuff that you took a picture of [on the whiteboard before Stephanie started talking], that’s exactly what I’m talking about: body, spirit, all right? So, we want to separate ourselves from that. 

So, here’s a couple of definitions of mindfulness. Mindfulness means “relaxed, embodied awareness.” (Whatever.) It means “paying attention—on purpose—in the present moment without judging (as if your life depended on it),” okay? So, what does all that mean? Well, at the root of mindfulness—which is not sitting cross-legged in a room on a cozy cushion with your legs crossed, ohming and ahming or whatever—mindfulness is awareness, okay? It is being aware of the present moment. 

So, you’re all sitting here, and I would venture to say that most of you are thinking about something else other than what’s going on here, okay? 

• “Crap, I can’t believe I was late.”
• “I wonder if I’m gonna get out of here soon enough to do something with my friends.” 
• “I think there’s food in the kitchen.” 
• “It’s Friday—is it Friday?—I don’t have homework on Friday.”

Denver: It’s Saturday. 

Stephanie: “Oh, it’s Saturday. Holy crap! I’ve lost a whole day!” 

Denver: That’s life. 

Stephanie: “Oh, my gosh! I’m stressed out.” Right? Yeah, okay, exactly. I can’t remember what I was thinking over there…  Oh, I do know: I was thinking, “Pretty good! That was pretty good.” 

Denver: You were here “in the moment”??

Stephanie: I was! That’s what I was thinking. 

Okay. So, there are some very specific things you can do to bring yourself into the present moment—whatever that present moment is—because “present” is now. 

Oh, it’s gone. 

Oh, nope—it’s now. 

Oh, it’s gone again. 

See? You only have one moment—ever. Anything in the past is gone, anything in the future hasn’t happened yet. 

Oh, there we go! Another one’s gone. (See? It’s kind of mind-blowing, actually.) 

So, there are some actual skills, exercises, and things you can do to bring yourself into the present moment. There’s something called breath awareness, okay? Breath awareness is literally exactly what it sounds like: you just pay attention to your breathing. You don’t have to “not think of anything,” because your brain is absolutely incapable of not thinking of other things—but you can, “In, out; in, out,” and just pay attention to your breathing. You’ll be doing that, and you’ll get one breath in, and you will think about whether there’s food in the kitchen. You will get two breaths in, and you will think about, “Shoot, I didn’t text that kid back!” You will get three breaths in, and your little “puppy brain” will be all over the place. And that’s fine! Notice your puppy brain, and bring him back, and go, “In and out…” 

My favorite breathing exercises go like this ([picking up a red marker and then changing to a black one] Okay this… Fine, fine, fine). There’s visuals you can do. This is actually called “square breathing,” but I prefer to turn it into a baseball diamond. And I go home to first (and I breathe in), and then I go first to second (and I breathe out), and then I go second to third (and I breathe in), and I go third to home (and I breathe out). And in my mind, I have this little diagram where I go up and over and down—and that helps me keep my brain at least focused on something else. Okay?

There’s another one called “infinity breathing,” and if you start to pay attention to your breath, you will notice that you breathe in, and you breathe out—and in the “in and out,” there’s a hitch—okay?—[breathing in…] and you kind of pause, and then you breathe out. Infinity breathing is working on breathing in a way where there’s no hitch, so your breath looks like that [infinity sign] instead of like that [infinity sign with straight lines]. Okay? It’s a really kind of interesting exercise because when you get here [to the pause] in your breathing (I’ll just leave this to you to figure out), you want to make it smooth. 

Now, I don’t really care how you breathe. I mean, the object is not how you breathe; the object is to give your mind something to think about for the breath awareness. If this doesn’t work, fine; whatever. Say “in and out,” picture a tide, blow up a balloon, whatever—you know, just get something going in your mind so that you’re focused on breath awareness. It actually calms you down, it changes the way your amygdala is activated, it puts you back in your prefrontal cortex, and it makes everything better immediately—even if just for a short time. 

The other awareness is a body-scan awareness, where you literally sit in a chair, and you start at the top of your head, and you think about your head: “Can I feel anything in my head? Do I have a headache? No, I feel pretty good. What about my neck, my shoulders…” Just go all the way through your body, however you want: arms, elbows, fingers, toes. And then, when you get all the way down to the bottom, you come back up to the top. And your mind is all over the place, and pretty soon you forget that you were at your elbow, or you don’t realize how you got to your abdomen, or whatever. And you just bring it back, and you just do it again. 

All of this is designed to do is just keep you aware of what’s going on without being everywhere in your puppy mind or monkey mind, which is what we also call it. “Sensory awareness,” same thing. Finish your body-scan awareness or finish your breathing meditation or mindfulness, and then say, 

“What do I hear?” A kid. A fan. I was sitting by Chris; I could hear his thing go in and out, his…  Okay? So, literally, what are [do] you hear? 

What do you see? I see people. Pink. Just that simple. 

What do you smell? 

Can you taste anything? 

I meditate in my car right after I get a Diet Coke. You would be shocked at how noisy Diet Coke is—just bubbles like crazy; carbonated Diet Coke. Very noisy. 

Denver: Devil’s brew.

Stephanie: …very noisy when you’re listening to it in your car.  

Emotion awareness. This is… We don’t like this one, nobody likes this one because nobody likes to think about how they feel! ‘Cuz sometimes we don’t feel very good. Sometimes we’re sad. Sometimes we’re scared. Sometimes we’re angry (which is usually because we’re sad or scared). Sometimes we’re, you know, we feel depressed. Sometimes we feel like school sucks. Sometimes we feel like, “If I have to put a mask on, I’m gonna rip someone’s freaking eyes out!” Okay? We feel ways that we are uncomfortable with because we’re not good at feeling our emotions. So, emotion awareness is exactly that: being aware of how you feel at any given time, okay? 

All of this is designed to keep you in a present moment. I’m gonna say it again: The present-moment awareness takes us out of what we call our monkey mind or our puppy mind (the part of us that is usually disconnected from our spirit). That’s what disconnects us from our spirit. It disrupts our connection with the Divine or the Heavenly because it’s all over the place thinking of things that are not divine. “Oh, I think there’s food in the kitchen.” “Damn, I’m not gonna get out of here before it’s…in time to do anything with my friends,” okay? The present moment is all we ever have because the past is literally gone, and the future has not arrived. It’s pretty mind-blowing, actually, when you start to think about it. 

So, mindfulness is the antidote to being consumed in mind and heart by the natural man (the part of us that creates our suffering). This is an element of Eastern religious practices that focus on the soul and the spirit (or the spirit instead of the body). At its highest and best, mindfulness practices are designed to create a path for us to experience enlightenment, which is the connection to God ([addressing Denver] you used a whole bunch of different phrases)… 

Denver: Oh, the truth of all things, the Record of Heaven…  

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s what it is. And if you read other things, honestly, like mental health books, the language is all over the place: Christ consciousness, enlightenment, they call it a mil… Oh, connecting with the universe, you know. I mean, there’s a lot of non-godly words used to describe exactly the same thing, okay? This journey includes yogic traditions, as well, because yogi (or yoga) is not just stretching and contorting our bodies, okay? The word “yoga” actually comes from the Sanskrit root yuge or yuj (y-u-j), which means “to yoke or unite oneself with God,” okay? So, yogis are the enlightened ones; yoga is what we do when we contort our bodies, but it is also uniting or yoking with God, okay? So, it’s uniting or yoking with God, and it also refers to the practices and principles that are used to create this union. 

So, mindfulness practices and yogic traditions have many benefits, the most important one being the ability to open ourselves up to higher states of spirituality, to have more direct experiences with God, and to begin to see things as God sees them. This is how we’re making the connection. This is how we’re moving (from his [Denver’s] diagram) from the body to the spirit. 

One of the obstacles of Western culture and Western Christianity is that we come from a “deficit model,” meaning that Christianity in the Western world talks about mankind as deficient, all right? We are carnal, sensual, base; we have lust; we have appetite…  

Denver: Enemy to God.

Stephanie: We are an enemy to God. We are a natural man, okay? And we need Christ as our Redeemer (who is the only perfect being to do all the heavy lifting, so that from our state of deficiencies, we can be redeemed). This kind of thing is offset by Mormon teachings where we learn that we are divinely created in the image of our Heavenly Parents, and we can actively participate (to some degree) in our salvation by repenting, being obedient, and living righteously. So, we can contribute to that. 

The yogic tradition, on the other hand (which is the Eastern traditions), believe that human beings are whole and divine at their very core. Mormons tend to believe that, too—so Mormon teachings include the idea that we’re born of Heavenly Parents, and we can live by that divine parentage—but we’re down here in this cesspool of a mess pool (hah…that’s funny), and we’re disconnected from the divinity that is actually in us (again, which goes to the whole thing). So, the yogic tradition says that the Redeemer, our Savior, isn’t necessarily pulling us from the depths of our deficiency, but He is revealing to us the true nature of God—which is the Record of Heaven, intelligence, light and truth, same thing that it says in the Scriptures, okay? 

So, how do we tap into this principle of divinity and connection and awareness so that we can pull ourselves out of our natural state? Well, we begin by understanding the Scriptures. Men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish, and are shut out from the presence of God (Genesis 4:7 RE), which he [Denver] explained in the last talk (so, you can go find that). Understand this Scripture about being the natural man is an enemy to God (Mosiah 1:16 RE)—because it’s not an enemy to God; it is just disconnected from God. We are at odds with God. So, understand those two Scriptures, and then begin to practice mindfulness to quiet your monkey mind, to find the light and truth and intelligence, which is the glory of God which is in you—you just can’t hear it or find it or see it because we’re too busy trying to seek pleasure, avoid pain, be liked, protect our loved ones, and think constantly about how to make those happen. 

So, I’m gonna end with recommending one thing—‘cuz if I can recommend one thing to help you get in touch with your spirit, it would be to practice quieting your mind. Because the One whom we worship says, Be still and know that I am God (T&C 101:3). 

That’s my part. 

Denver: Okay, now that you’ve heard from me and my therapist wife… 

Stephanie: Who did you like best? 

Denver: I liked you—because I wasn’t talking. Any questions for her to answer? Any questions? Any questions at all?

[Inaudible audience question.]

Stephanie: I am a therapist. 

Audience Question 1 (continued): You’re certified?

Stephanie: Yeah, I am. Yeah. 

Denver: Yeah, she finished her Masters and now is a licensed clinical therapist, which I think her marriage drove her to. 

Audience Member: I was gonna say that, but… 

Audience Question 2: Yeah, so in my studies and trying to understand the Scriptures, it kind of seems like most perfect beings are kind of identical in personality in kind of every trait that they have. Because you have to be a perfect being. You have to be just like Christ. And yet, it seems like you kind of stated that our differences should be celebrated. So, can you explain maybe how the Gods, maybe, are different and how that is? 

Denver: Yeah, the question basically is “Does exaltation result in uniformity and sameness?” And I would say that exaltation results in remarkable diversity. The Creator has never in this Creation made two people that are the same. There are no two snowflakes that are the same. If God goes to all the trouble of making unique snowflakes—all of which are patterned after the same crystalline structure, and yet, no two of them are alike—then why would God expect that kind of uniformity? Now, set that on one side for a moment, and… 

A lot of disagreements that exist between people are based upon their background, education, and experience, okay? If all of us read the same library, if all of us grew up in the same household, if all of us had the same basic education, shared the same friends, went through the same kind of socio-economic experiences, if all of us shared all of those things, there would be a whole lot of disagreements that would go away, and we would find ourselves agreeing on a whole lot more than we agree on now. 

However, we would still disagree with one another. We would still find differences of opinion. We would still find ourselves really preferring different hues and shades, and you would buy an ugly-colored car, and I would buy a beautiful-colored car, and I would be so glad I wasn’t driving that ugly thing you’re driving around in. (But we would certainly all have four-wheel drive pickups; they just wouldn’t have the same color.) 

Christ’s experiences completed a circuit that attained to the resurrection, that took him through an experience that allowed Him to attain to the resurrection of the dead. But after that experience was over—you can read it in the Teachings and Commandments— following that, the Lord was absolutely exultant, as was Mary when she met Him on the morning of the resurrection—never saw a happier being more so than the Lord on the morning of the resurrection. How He coped with that feeling and how you will cope with that feeling eventually and how all of us will cope with that will be uniquely experiential, uniquely yours, uniquely His. Even the same experiences are gonna lead to differences. No one is going to be uniform except in education, background, experience, knowledge; but their attitudes are gonna be uniquely yours, uniquely his, uniquely hers. It’s all gonna be different. 

Okay, so, now we’re done, right? Yeah, no more questions. Go Jazz! Yeah, yeah. Okay, we’re done. 

Audience Member: We’re done. 

Denver: We’re done. Now you can get the cookies!

[Crosstalk]

Denver: Why? What, what? Okay, here’s someone: 

Audience Question 3: Okay, so in the talk, you were kinda talking about how, like, people can develop spirituality in isolation, but that’s not the same as developing it in community. So…  

Denver: Right.

Audience Question 3 (continued): …like, what would it look like to develop that in community and how can we do that? 

Denver: One of the ways in which we develop in community is by sharing in fellowships, contributing tithing in order to relieve people’s basic needs (shelter, food, education, medical care, transportation) and, when you are a person in need, receiving that. And in that dynamic, the giver needs to do it cheerfully (and that requires some amount of learning), and the receiver needs to do so cheerfully. And no one should think of themselves as “better than” and no one should think of themselves as “less than”—because we tend to develop unhealthy attitudes. 

Fellowships in which tithing gets used locally is a vivid example of how resentments or jealousies or insecurities and feelings of inferiority can develop. And we’re supposed to interact with one another in a way that puts that on display to you, internally, so that you can reflect upon why you’re feeling that and whether that is godly or ungodly. 

We have to cooperate with helping one another because there are all kinds of needs. There are people who are socially retarded, in that they’re obnoxious, they’re overbearing… They need to come to realize that, in some respects, that’s ungodly. And then there are people who notice that someone is obnoxious and overbearing, and they need to come to grips with the fact that that too is ungodly. Because in a perfect society, everyone’s inadequacies are accepted and noticed by that person, and tolerated and endured by the others, as they work through their deficiency. And to the extent that you can help them do so, it’s a kindness to tell them so. (I tell Louis all the time about his deficiencies [laughter].) Yeah, yeah, there we go—you need to work on that, too—because he’s a target-rich environment. 

Yeah, there was another hand right here.

Audience Question 4: Why do you need to connect to your spirit? 

Denver: Because your spirit is composed of intelligence, and intelligence is the glory of God, which is also light and truth. That’s what your spirit is, all those things. It gets called a bunch of other stuff in the Scripture that I read today about the Record of Heaven, the truth of all things, and all that. That’s in you. Now, if you can connect to that, God is absolutely able to talk to that on an ongoing basis (God has a real hard time talking to this [the body]). A whole lot of accommodations have to be made to talk to this [the body], including the power of God necessarily quickening the body in order to have it endure the presence of God. 

But the spirit within you doesn’t have those defects. Your spirit will not be destroyed by the glory of God being revealed. Joseph Smith once said that when God manifests Himself to someone, He does so precisely as if there were no body at all. Well, that’s because God can do more with revealing Himself to the spirit without destroying it than He can to the body, because revealing Himself to the body requires Him to go to a lot of trouble in order to make this [the body] capable of enduring the glory of God: you have to be transfigured; if it’s permanent, translated. You have to be glorified; you have to go through something. That’s why when Moses descends from the mountain and the children of Israel see him, his face is glowing—because he still bears some of the glory of God on his countenance; and Israel says, “Put a mask on, and stay six feet apart from us, and hide the glory of God that’s manifesting itself on your countenance.” Because it hurt, it frightens; it’s off-putting. 

Yeah, you had a hand up.

Audience Question 5: Yeah, if your spirit left your body, would the body perish? 

Denver: Yeah. 

Audience Question 5 (continued): …and is the spirit ever required to leave the body in order to be quickened or…? 

Denver: Yeah, let me… I got that. The answer to that question is T&C 147:12. Someone tree that. T&C 147. This is Joseph commenting on some claim of someone. 147, oh yeah… 

Audience Member: Can you repeat the question?

Denver: Okay, what happens when the spirit leaves the body?  ([flipping through the Scriptures] Oh, that’s 146. Now I’ve gone backwards.) 

Joanna Southcott professed to be a prophetess, and wrote a book of prophecies in 1804; [and] became the founder of a people that are still extant. She was to bring forth, in a place appointed, a son that was to be the Messiah, which thing has failed. Independent of this, however, [we do not] read of a woman that was a founder of a church, in the word of God? Paul told [that] the women of his day “to keep silence in the church, …that if they wished to know anything, to ask their husbands at home.” He would not suffer a woman “to rule, or to usurp authority in the church”; but here we find a woman [who’s founded the] church, a revelator and a guide… (emphasis added)

…and so on. Then he talks about Jemima Wilkinson, and then, in verse 13: 

…the idea of her soul being in Heaven while her body was living on earth is also preposterous. When God breathed into man’s nostrils, he became a living soul, before that he did not live, and when that was taken away his body died; and so did our Savior when the spirit left the body, nor did his body live until his spirit returned in the power of his resurrection. But Mrs. Wilkinson’s soul (life) was in Heaven, and her body without the soul (or life) on earth, living (without the soul or) without life. 

So, he’s saying, “Can’t happen.” Just so happens that that question is in the Scriptures. 

Yeah?

Audience Question 6: So, we really wanted the LDS Church in primary, we would always have the description of, like, our hand being our spirit and the glove being the body. Now, I had a question on my mission of actually pointing out Christ was resurrected—he had a physical body—but he could also basically walk through walls. He could appear and reappear. He could come and go. So, would the attaining to the resurrection be the way I see it have our soul, our spirit and body be one substance? Or will it be a temporary spirit and a body? 

Denver: One. One with the absolute capacity to manifest itself in any condition—from blinding glory destructive to the physical elements, at one end, or the retained capacity to go down and to say, Handle me and see, for a spirit [hath] not flesh and bones as you see me have (Luke 14:6 RE), and then to ascend (which a body can’t do… Ahh, there’s some carnival acts where they use a cannon, but they need a net, or it’s gonna end badly)—but it’s one; it’s one. But it’s—at that point—it’s connected in a way that all of the capacities that existed in the physical body, all of the capacities that exist in glorious exaltation are combined into one being who is a being of glory and holiness. 

Unfortunately (well, fortunately—I don’t know; make your own judgment on it), the Father who is sitting on the throne emanating glory that sustains the whole of the Creation (and the word “the Father” is a title which, after the resurrection, applies to Christ) in that state of glory, sustaining all things while possessing the responsibility to sustain the whole of Creation, you really can’t descend. The Father has to appear in glory. And at the Second Coming (when the Lord appears in glory), it will be in part because of certain rules that apply to how things work in eternity when you become the Father. But that’s neither here nor there. 

What’s this? 

Stephanie: I have a question.

Denver: Really? 

[crosstalk] 

Stephanie (Audience Question 7): [reading from a text message] “What does it mean to fear God?”

Denver: Respect. 

Audience Member: Will you repeat the question?

Denver: The question is, “What does it mean to fear God?” It means to respect Him, to stand in awe of Him, to recognize the great gulf between you and Him, and to realize that you’re dependent upon Him. 

Stephanie: Okay, one more (which you’ll probably have me answer). How do you… Okay, now that you’ve moved out of the LDS… Oh, I’ll just read it exactly: Now that I have found a new perspective of the gospel in this movement, how am I supposed to find an eternal partner that will also have the same perspective on the church/gospel as I do? 

Denver: You probably don’t need to. Yeah, you probably don’t need to. Find a spouse that you love, find a spouse that is a good companion for you, find someone that shares the kind of values you have, and eventually develop into the kind of unity and love in which that won’t matter. Values are more important, according to my therapist wife. 

Stephanie: No, no. Values are more important than interests, than religion, than activities. I mean, all this stuff is nice, and it will come. But values…! And if the language of God can be spoken in all kinds of languages, the values… Let’s not mention it; I don’t know.

Audience Question 8: Stephanie, there’s a question that came in on the chat, and it is: “Could struggles with inherited mental illness and addictions, etc. be a way to learn (for the noble and great ones) how to quiet oneself when it’s biologically challenging? And how does being still work with struggles in the body?”

Stephanie: Yes, and it’s… I mean, it’s the same thing just… 

Denver: Yeah, they can’t hear you. 

Stephanie: If you want to strengthen a muscle you have to lift a weight, okay? If you want to run a marathon, you have to run a block or, you know, a mile. If you want to increase your connection to the spirit through mindfulness, you have to practice mindfulness every day for some amount of time, and the distillation of the improvement will go more or less unnoticed except that you will find connection; you will find peace; you will find that you have quieted even your inherited anxious tendencies. You will find that you have risen above even your legitimate physiological/biological depressing thoughts or depression. It doesn’t make it go away, it just makes suffering less interesting. That’s about it 

Denver: Yeah, and inherited mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s something to be confronted and dealt with. 

Eventually, if you’re really lucky, you will live long enough to find out that you’re dying from an incurable disease—that’s who’s lucky. Because then you get to reflect upon the transition that’s coming. And you don’t arrive there abruptly and without reflection. Someone contracts a disease that requires them to face the reality of coming death, you oughtta visit them, and they oughtta be cheerful, and you oughtta talk about what comes next. Because what comes next is better than what we got here.

Stephanie: “Nearly as important as the Red Sox”? [referencing something Denver wrote on the whiteboard].

Denver: Well, yeah, I was trying to talk about what really matters, although Pedroia retired, and they traded Benintendi and I’m not so sure. Today’s game of the Twins—it was on the MLB channel—got rained out. I don’t even know what we’re doing this year. But Chris Sale’s gonna be back, and he had Tommy John surgery, and in a good pitcher, that adds like five miles per hour, so we have that to look forward to. (You don’t even need an offense if you got Chris Sale on the mound; just bunt a guy around until you score one, and let Sale close it out.) 

Yeah, hey!

Audience Question 9: Since sacrifice is essential for part of this journey, if… Is it essential because when one is sacrificing in their right mind, it is slowly detaching them from the natural man or our carnal state? Is that why it’s so important?

Denver: Yeah, you’ve nailed it, yeah. Because the sacrifice, it’s this thing [the body]. Yeah. 

Yeah, yeah? 

Audience Question 10: So, when you have the baptism of fire, or like, most of the time when it’s talking about, like, fire in the Scriptures is that talking… Is that like connecting to the quickening that we’re talking about? 

Denver: Yeah, it’s talking about letting that emerge. It can emerge abruptly and suddenly. Joseph talked about how you can have come to your mind sudden bursts of insight and ideas such that, shortly thereafter, you will find the thing come to pass. So, that’s the principle of revelation; that’s the beginning of the path. Revelation begins with stirring up from deep within you the power of that light, that truth, that glory of God so that it intrudes into your consciousness; it intrudes into your body. You grasp things that you could not previously have attained to. That principle of revelation grows and grows brighter and brighter (as it says in the Scriptures) until the perfect day. In the perfect day, you’re actually standing—although in the body—you’re actually standing with the Heavens opened unto you. It… The light shines forth so that you comprehend and you find companionship with the folks in Heaven, the ministering angels, the Son. The purpose of angels is to fulfill and do the works of the covenants. Purpose of the covenants is to lead you along until you have an audience with Christ. The purpose and ministry of Christ is to bring you to the Father. And the purpose of all of that is to reunite you back to that family that you were part of before you ever got here and to become, you know, one with them again. But… 

There’s ice cream on the counter! We gotta close! Hey!

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

Now go eat, drink, and be married.

The post Understanding Your Soul, Part 2 appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

These remarks were given in Sandy, Utah on February 6th, 2021 to a youth group.

Transcript

I’m actually using a new set of the Scriptures that came as a sample set. The ones that are finishing up now will be slightly better than these sample sets because the spine on this one is not reinforced; they missed that step. So, these have floppy spines, but they are (other than that) exactly like what the finished product will be. And I get to use them today.

Can you hear me in the back? Is there a problem? Okay, good. I think the time’s arrived, shall we start? 

I’ve written a word up on the board—“glory”—and tried to illustrate that with some coloring. There’s a verse I wanna read to you out of the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament (in the new Scriptures, it’s chapter 21 verse 27): 

Afterward, he [this being the angel of God] brought me to the gate, even the gate that looks toward the east. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east, and his voice was like a noise of many waters, and the earth shined with his glory. And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city. And the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar. And I fell [on] my face, and the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. So the spirit took me up and brought me into the inner court, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house. (Ezekiel 21:27 RE)

That’s a description of an event involving the prophet Ezekiel, in which he’s in the presence of God; but what he refers to is the glory of God, not the person of God. The Scriptures in many places refer to “the glory of God” as a substitute for God Himself.

I went on a hike; it had been snowing earlier that day, and the ground was covered with snow. And it just so happened on this particular day on this particular hike, I wore my sunglasses for no particular reason (because I never wear my sunglasses when I’m hiking). And a break in the clouds happened, and the sun shone down on the snow, and it was blinding if you didn’t have your sunglasses on. But on this occasion, I just got lucky. 

Sometimes when you’ve been in a dark place and you step into a light place, the light is blinding. Oncoming headlights at night when you’re driving (particularly if the driver coming toward you has their lights on bright) can blind you. Light can prevent you from seeing what is past the light. 

The glory of God doesn’t allow you to see God; as the Scripture tells us, no man hath seen the Lord except he be quickened in the spirit. You have to get your sunglasses on in order to not be blinded by the glory of God.

So, the “glory” of God is a substitute for describing the person of God Himself (even though that passage in Ezekiel is about God coming and going into a specific place in the temple). We have a definition of the glory of God in Teachings and Commandments section 93, paragraph 11: The glory of God is intelligence, or in other words, light and truth.

Intelligence is the glory of God. Keep that thought in mind for a moment while we look at another couple of Scriptures about where we find ourselves right now, today—living in these tabernacles of flesh that are made of the dust of the Earth (and after your life ends, these tabernacles will turn back into dust eventually). This is what it says about occupying these “things”: Men have become carnal, sensual, and devilish, and are shut out from the presence of God (Genesis 4:7 RE). Well, that doesn’t sound good: carnal, sensual, devilish. Those words sound like we’re just inherently bad. 

• But the word carnal means that the body has appetites. You get hungry. You get sleepy. You get tired. You get sick. You get weak. You get sore. All of those things are carnal. 
• Sensual means “indulging an appetite.” You oversleep. You overeat. You do things that satisfy the appetite of the body, and you do it in excess so that you become addicted/subordinate/a slave to the appetite. 
• And devilish means you’re at odds with God. 

So, when you look at the words and you realize what they’re describing, it’s not that we’re all really, really corrupt; it means we are all vulnerable. Every one of us is weak and vulnerable and can be compromised if we don’t work to protect ourselves against that compromise. 

Well, there’s another Scripture (probably equally distressing), For the natural man…  

See, that word “natural” is actually used in a lot of advertising as something really good. You want natural hair color (or at least natural-looking hair color out of a bottle, which is not natural at all). You want natural-healthy skin. You want natural-looking eyes, and therefore, you use something artificial to put over your eye in a contact lens. But everything is supposed to look natural. “Natural” is advertised as the great wonder product of whatever it is you’re doing or selling; it’s natural.

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

“Enemy of God” means the same thing as devilish. It means you are at odds with God. You’re not in sync with Him. If you’re not in sync with Him and you’re out of the way He would like you to live, you’re at odds with Him—and He’s inviting and enticing you to change what you’re doing and to become more like Him. 

Well, there are two parts to you. This is in Teachings and Commandments; this describes the two parts of you: …and the spirit and the body is the soul of man (T&C 86:2). The soul consists of two parts: the spirit and the body. Everything that I have read from the Scriptures talking about being carnal, being sensual, being devilish, being at odds with God, being an enemy to God, all of that is a description of the condition of the weakness of the physical body. 

The spirit isn’t that. The spirit is called “intelligences” that are organized by God (see Abraham 6:1). Intelligence or the glory of God (the Scriptures tell us) cannot be created or destroyed; it is co-eternal with God Himself. So, when God becomes God and is a Being of Glory (or intelligence, or light and truth), that intelligence coexists with God. He emanates that. From the moment He is God, He emanates intelligence. But that “light and truth” can be organized itself into “intelligences.” Your spirit—that that is inside you, that which is eternal in you—is made of the glory of God, it is co-eternal with God, and it is filled with light and truth. That’s one part of you. 

The other part of you is a body made of dust, which—in the book of Genesis (I won’t bother reading it; it’ll go quicker if I don’t)—in the book of Genesis, describes how God created man, organizing him out of the dust of the Earth. He made man, and then He made a companion for man. And He called the man “Adam,” and the man Adam called the woman “Eve.” And the description of the Creation is: …in the image of [God] created [He] him. Male and female created [He] them (Genesis 2:8 RE). So, this is the image of God that was created after the same pattern as God, and therefore, the image of God is Adam and Eve in their physical bodies modeled after God (male and female). God the Father and a female counterpart to Him created mankind after the image of God Himself.

Well, we have a description of what the body is like and what its characteristics are like. And we also have a description of our spirit and what our spirit is like and what its attributes are.  This was written by the apostle Paul: Now the works of the flesh…  (that’s this body of dust that has all these weaknesses)… 

…the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revel[ing], and such like…. (Galatians 1:21 RE) 

So, what you’ve got in the body of flesh is a lot of weakness, temptation, and what I will just call generically “sin”—because all of those things are simply at variance with/contrary to/opposed to God and what God would want to you. So, that sounds rather pessimistic. 

There’s another part of you. Your soul does not consist merely of this weak body. Your soul also consists of a spirit. 

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. (Ibid., ❡22)

So, the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, kindness—in a word, “godliness.” And why is it that your spirit is like that? It’s because your spirit is composed of something that is natively already inclined to this. 

Look, when you came into this world, when you were born here, the spirit was fused into the body. Admittedly, that’s not gonna last forever. That body of dust is gonna wear out. It’s gonna fall apart. It’s gonna droop and sag before you get to the end of the finish line. You’re gonna find stuff you don’t like. It’s gonna start to creak and groan and complain. And eventually, if you live long enough, you’ll say, “Hey, death is kind of merciful, really. I get to vacate this crappy apartment built out of dust that I’m living in.” Now, if you die young, of course, you die in health and vigor, and you don’t wanna vacate that particular body. But eventually, all of us are gonna wear out, wear down, and it’s gonna lay in the dust. 

Because your spirit is fused into that, the only way in which you, in this life, gain any understanding is through the brain that operates this mechanism. But the brain is exceptionally literal, vulnerable, and all of these things. If you watch a TV show and you see a murder, your brain cannot tell that that’s just story-telling. If you play a game in which you shoot and kill other people or Walking Dead or you hash off the head of a zombie in your game, to your brain, part of your life’s experience is shooting and killing, chopping and destroying, and so far as the body is concerned, every bit of that that you take in is real. 

Now, your spirit knows the difference. But there are actually two voices going on within your soul at any given moment. At any given moment, your brain has the capacity on its own to gen up all kinds of foolishness, mistakes, improprieties, submission to the lusts of the flesh. Your brain can do all that on autopilot. And if you catch yourself doing that, you also have the ability, in the spirit, to say, “I hate that thought; I reject that thought.” In fact, if you take any of the wretched, sinful thoughts that come into the mind and you allow your spirit to ask the question, “Well, what’s the consequence of pursuing that? What’s the consequence of doing that? What’s the consequence of acting on that impulse?” within your soul, you have the ability to discipline the body, to call it back into a form of godliness in which the acts that you commit are governed by the light and the truth that is the glory of God or intelligence. 

If you have a bad thought, that’s pretty normal. In fact, with the entertainment that we watch, with the games that we play, with the social media that is out there, everything is designed to stir you up to envy and jealousy and ambition and carnality and to look for sensuality and to be at odds with the will of God and, therefore—because of your odds to the will of God—to make you, by definition, “devilish.” And your spirit has the capacity to interrupt that and to say, “Not so! I’m not that. I don’t do that. I don’t believe that. I don’t act on that.” 

Inside of that approach of the spirit, there is peace, there is joy, there is happiness. King Benjamin said wickedness was never happiness. But wickedness is really the playground in which, because of this environment, our bodies are naturally vulnerable and inclined to those failings. Your body gets tired. Your body gets sleepy. You have to go to sleep at night in order to give this frail body an opportunity to rest. Does your spirit need to sleep? Does your spirit get tired? Does your spirit wear out? It’s co-eternal with God. Very often, what’s going on at night when you’re having dreams is not your body—but it’s the fact that your body can’t contain the activity of a spirit that never sleeps. There are numerous instances (in the Scripture) of God communicating a message to someone in a dream.  There are numerous instances of God appearing in the night vision. 

The apostle Paul talked about how he was caught up to the third heaven. And when he was caught up to the third heaven, he makes the observation: …whether in the body…or…out of the body, I cannot tell (2 Corinthians 1:41 RE). But he was caught up to the third heaven because the bodies of your first parents (Adam and Eve and all of us as descendants of them) are made in the image of God. If you are in the presence, caught up to the third heaven, all of the things that you have now—fingers and toes, a body composed of intelligence and made of light and truth—appears to be the same thing that you’re walking around here that’s composed of dust. You can’t tell the difference between the two. Everything about that is just as physical in its appearance/in its experience as is what we experience here in these bodies of dust.

But he was caught up, and he experienced the presence of God, and he saw and he heard unspeakable things. Well, why are they unspeakable? They’re unspeakable for largely the same reason that Ezekiel describes the “glory of God” instead of “God”—and the glory of God inhabiting the place in the temple that God went into. Because it’s hard to get past the limitations of this dust in order to get your hands around and to describe what it is that gets experienced there. It is “unspeakable” because the only way I’m able to communicate to you today is either using my mouth or writing letters on a board. That’s pretty limiting. What Paul experienced was not limited in that way. You have the same capacity as Paul. You have the ability to take into you, through the spirit, the light and the truth or the intelligence that is coequal and coexistent with God Himself. 

In your physical body, there is one and only one organ that allows you to see. Now, you get a side-by-side in order to have depth perception—because the only way you can perceive depth is if you have two points of origin in order to see that you’re closer and you’re further away, and depth comes from the triangle. It gets used in order to triangulate to figure out distance all the time; computers do that for us all the time. But in this physical body of dust, the only way you can see is through your eyes. If we injure your eyes, we can blind you. Do you think that your spirit can only see with eyes? Well, the answer to that is your spirit can see as a native part of every bit of the person of intelligence or light and truth. If you were in the spirit and you could behold God, and God were at your side (or above you or behind you)—in the spirit and quickened, so that you weren’t blinded by the body, but you could behold—you would not need to turn your eyes or to turn around; you could behold the presence of God in the spirit from every source. All of the powers of the body that are limited to the particular organs are a function of this organization [referring to the body]. The spirit has capacities far, far greater than the body. 

When you say (assuming you sing that old song) that you are a child of God, you are literally that in the sense of your spirit. It was and it is connected to that couple who created you, that image (male and female) that organized the first parents—it’s part of them. It resides within you. It was organized to exist and to experience things to help it grow and increase in understanding. You have to come down here and to live in a body of dust in order to spend a time experiencing things that let you comprehend the difference between light and darkness, goodness and badness, weakness and strength, eternal life and mortality. This body is going to go (that you occupy), it’s going to go through not only a lot of changes, but it’s also going to be riddled with mistakes and errors, some of which are going to be relatively serious. That body is going to experience a lot of regrets. Well, the regrets are because the spirit has learned something from the error or the mistake that got made and will wish that it had not happened, it was not done, you did not fail. But you did. So, how in the eternal scheme of things does God’s will play out in your life, in my life, with this body of dust that has made mistakes and made errors? Temporarily, while we’re still here, we have the opportunity to repent and return to God and be forgiven. 

There’s a book (…has a great title), and the title really does profess a profound truth; title of the book is The Body Keeps the Score. You simply, within your body, keep the score of all this. The spirit can forsake, repent, and be forgiven of that, but the body still keeps the score. A merciful God allows that body, at some point, to be laid down, and all of those weaknesses and all of those frailties and all of those appetites and all of those mistakes and errors to dwindle into dust and to be put behind you. And what your spirit takes from that is the wisdom, the understanding, and the intelligence to go on, to look back, and to say, “From that experience, I have gained. From that experience, I understand.” 

Throughout your life, you’re going to encounter problems, dilemmas, challenges, and thoughts (some of which are going to be not just challenging but quite ugly). You still have within you something connected directly to God that can extract itself, that can call you back to repentance. Don’t think the thoughts that come to you, if they are offensive to God, originate in the mind of the spirit. Much of the fight that you’re going to undertake in this life is a fight that will be inside of you. Overcoming the weaknesses of the flesh and gaining experience to understand the difference between “carnal, sensual, devilish, and an enemy to God” (at odds with Him) and “love, joy, kindness, mercy, forbearance, goodness”…  You see examples of the difference between these two in the Scriptures. 

Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane preliminarily to being crucified and struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane with the dealing with the sins of mankind. He asked three of the apostles to accompany Him a little further. And then He asked them to stay there and to keep watch with Him while He engaged in this struggle. He went and separated Himself from those apostles, and He came back, and they were all asleep. And He woke ‘em up, and He asked them again, “Please, keep watch with me.” And he makes this statement to them: The spirit…is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 12:9 RE). “I know you guys want to do this,” Christ is saying to Peter, James, and John, “I know you would like to be able to stay there with me, but I recognize you’re weak, and your body’s weak.” And when He came back again and He saw that they were asleep, this time he said, Sleep on (Ibid.), and He returned to the task of the atonement.

When mankind submits to the weaknesses of the flesh and are controlled by these appetites, the Scriptures call this “a beast.” Ecclesiastes talks about how this is a beast or, in our vernacular, an animal. Well, why is the body of man (when he submits to this side of his soul) considered an animal or a beast? It’s because man’s doing the same things that animals do: They eat, they sleep, they mill around, they fight, they reproduce, they do animal things, much of which is done thoughtlessly. When a man does not awaken to the spirit within him, the Scriptures regard him as a beast or as an animal. You are not a man (and man includes both male and female), you aren’t that until you awaken to and submit to the spirit and the inclinations of the spirit. Until you do that, you’re regarded as an animal or a beast.

Thoughts originate both in the dust, and thoughts originate in the spirit. And when you allow the spirit to control and lead you back towards God, that’s often referred to as “the heart of man” in Scripture—the heart of man where these things originate or “the bowels of the spirit.” We don’t tend to view the heart as anything other than an organ that pumps and the bowels as anything other than something that processes food. But in the Scriptures, referring to the heart and the bowels very often is referring to the inclinations of the spirit—because the spirit is filled with intelligence. And the reflection of what the appetite of man is—if he submits to the spirit—is a reflection of the will of the spirit.

Now, there’s a couple of points I wanna make, and then I’m hoping some of you young people have questions. And if so, we can talk for a few minutes on that (but we wanna get out of here on time). 

There was a fellow from the East who came to actually set up shop in California—Yogi Bhajan—who was a very successful spiritual teacher who came here and began teaching in the 1970s in California. He taught until 2004 when he died. And after he died, it now appears beyond all dispute that he was involved with sexual, physical, emotional, and financial abuse. And a lot of the accusations against him appear to be proven at this point.

So, here you have someone who is enlightened and has some great spiritual truths to share, but he gets into a position of influence, and he succumbs to the appetites of the flesh. Why is it that you can have someone who has absolutely astounding spiritual capacity who winds up submitting to the appetites of the flesh? Well, it’s because the spiritual capacities were developed in isolation. Going alone in a mountaintop and meditating and having profound spiritual breakthroughs doesn’t make you a good neighbor. Going out and dealing with God in reflection and meditation does not equip you to live alongside other people. Living with other people is a challenge all its own. 

There are so many profound, great, spiritual leaders who succumb to adultery. Why is that? It’s because their spirituality was developed in isolation and not in community. That’s one of the reasons why we need fellowships so that we labor alongside each other to become civilized, both body and spirit, among others. 

I think it is an absolute distortion of the record of the history to say that Joseph Smith succumbed to adultery. I’ve studied his life. I’ve read all of the accusations. I’ve gathered all the material that exists to this point in publication, and I’m satisfied that Joseph Smith was a virtuous man who was surrounded by men who were incapable of disciplining their bodies.

Well, there’s a Buddhist story that I think’s worth telling about an enlightened monk who lived near a city that had a lot of infighting, conflicts, and difficulties in the city. People from the town asked the monk to come into town and to guide them so they could resolve their conflicts, but he refused to go. He preferred living alone and meditating. The town sent more representatives to ask again, and the monk refused again. Finally, a great crowd of people went to ask the monk for his help because, without it, they could never reach peace. He at last relented. On the way back to town in the joyful crowd, an old woman stumbled into the monk and pushed him to the ground. This made the monk very angry. 

It’s far easier for a hermit to live in quiet meditation than for the same hermit to live in harmony within a community. We’re not called into a dispensation of only individual salvation. For the salvation of souls today, the primary focus of God’s religion is to gather a community. God’s purpose for the end-times is focused on making people of one heart and one mind. In order to do that, your soul needs to be disciplined by, subordinate to, controlled by the glory of God or the spirit or the intelligence that is inside every one of you. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Do any of you kids have any questions that…? Yeah, yeah!

[Youth Question]

It can be, but… 

The question is: Is being quickened in the spirit like the baptism of fire? 

It can be, but what you’re talking about in “no man hath seen God at any time,” you can have the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost and have your mind opened up so that you comprehend things that were not comprehendible. 

One of the best descriptions that we’ve got of this in the Scripture is what happened after Joseph and Oliver went out and baptized one another based upon the commandment that they were given by John the Baptist. Afterwards, Joseph makes the observation in his history, T&C 1: “Our minds being enlightened, we were able to comprehend the more mysterious passages of scripture in a manner we could never previously attain to” (see Joseph Smith History 14:4). What that meant was: Having been quickened by the spirit, having been enlightened by the baptism of fire, having received the Holy Ghost, this awareness came to mind. 

See, the Scriptures become an extraordinarily valuable basis for unlocking (with the power of the Holy Ghost) the understanding of eternity, whether it’s opened up in a vision or simply comprehension as you read the Scriptures. Scriptures got composed by people under the influence of the Holy Ghost. And so, they reduce what their understanding, comprehending, or “having opened to their mind” to words on a page. But the words on the page are not the content. The content was what the spirit inspired. So, if you read with the power of the spirit like Joseph and Oliver were doing, then what comes alive in these passages is the same extended view, comprehension, light, and truth that extended knowledge as a result of that. 

But being “quickened in the spirit in order to behold God” is actually dealing with an impediment that we have in this [the body] because the glory of God in a fullness is actually dangerous to this body. It’s toxic and destructive. It would be like stepping in front of a—you know—a thermonuclear explosion. I mean, God is capable of occupying everything within His creation. He can occupy any of it. Temperature at the corona of the sun is what? Twenty million degrees? God is not damaged by that. Well, if He were to unveil all His glory (which He intends to do at some point around the Second Coming), it will be destructive of anything that He doesn’t pick out to preserve and to save by quickening—which is the same thing as wearing sunglasses in the bright, sunny, snow-filled terrain. 

I think we’ve got time for maybe one more. Does any… Yeah?

[Youth question]

Why is God displeased with premarital sex? 

The commandment—the first command that was given to these two [Adam & Eve]—was to multiply and replenish the Earth. Therefore, it’s an obligation to marry and to multiply. But the obligation to marry and to multiply does not attach until the union of the male and the female has been put together by an oath or a covenant of marriage. That’s because the effect of sex is reproduction. 

Every child that comes into this world is entitled to have the image of God (or the father and the mother) be the one that introduces them into the world—because every child enters this world very much like Adam and Eve entered this world: innocent, without sin, in a physical body, but protected and guided and insulated against the dangers that attach. 

There’s no more vulnerable creature in nature than a human baby. A giraffe—moments after the giraffe is born—can run. The same would be true of a horse. I mean, human babies are exceptionally vulnerable. Therefore, if you’re going to take an innocent and vulnerable new life and introduce them into this world, you need to introduce them like Adam and Eve were introduced into this world: in a state of innocence that’s protected and watched over (in the biblical analogy, it’s called the Garden of Eden). But every child comes into this world cuddled, held, warmed, protected, fed, clothed, kept dry, kept warm by parents—much the same as the Heavenly Parents watched over and protected Adam and Eve in the Garden. If—contrary to that model—a child gets introduced into a bickering, uncertain, unstable, warring couple that extends outward to parents that are offended on both sides, then you have not followed the divine pattern of introducing life into this world. 

(And in case the thought occurs to the body that there are ways to prevent conception, I can tell you that there is no such thing as a foolproof—doesn’t matter which option is chosen—nothing’s foolproof in terms of preventing pregnancy.) 

And therefore, the model that was set by God in the beginning (which is the model that ought to be followed, the one that will bring joy and love, kindness, peace, and represents godliness) is to refrain from premarital sex but to get married, in part, in order to have sex and to produce offspring and to introduce them into the world and to care and nurture and raise them. 

I can tell you that children… They’re maddening. They’re frustrating. They’re delightful. They’re hilarious. They’re funny. They’re stupid. They’re an experiment. They’re extraordinary… Children make the life of parents ten-thousand times richer, experiencing joy that comes from no other source in as great a magnitude…and pity and anger. It’s just… It’s a rollercoaster ride. But your children create in you, as parents, a whole new life. It’s the most marvelous undertaking that you can have, to produce children. And there is nothing that will matter more to you in your old age than your posterity.

Thank you for coming. We’ve about used up all of our time. What?

Audience Member: Can I ask a question?

Denver: No, you’re not a kid! [Laughter.]

Audience Member (continued): I know. But I think it would be interesting.

Denver: You think it would be interesting? [Laughter.] Well, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to hear anything about that. What is it?

Audience Member (continued): When the Book of Mormon says that God put a curse of the skin of blackness on someone, what would that be in terms of the body or the spirit?

Denver: Yeah, okay, so now we’ve got the question that comes up forever about, oh, what’s the curse of the skin of blackness? 

Look, these guys were (for lack of a better word) Bedouins. K? They’re Bedouins. How does one dress? I mean, essentially, you wear a headdress, and you wear a robe. And how did the rebellious Lamanites dress? Well, they wore a loincloth made out of lambskin. And when they weren’t decorating themselves with blood, they were otherwise naked. 

What happens to you when you strip down to a Speedo and you hang around outside all summer? It’s cultural. It’s behavioral. It’s… You darken. It just happens. 

And the Nephites didn’t dress that way. They didn’t behave that way. They kept the culture from which they reckoned. And their [the Lamanites] behavior reflected that they’d gone back to the natural man, and they indulged what the natural man indulges—which is generally at odds with God and, therefore, an enemy to God. 

So, see, he wasn’t interested. He didn’t care about that. [Laughter.]

Thank you for coming, and I hope this made sense over the Zoom. I could see the reflections coming off the board. They probably… You should take a picture of this and put that up so that they can see what was written. Thank you.

The post Understanding Your Soul appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The following talk by Denver, discussing personal revelation, was originally given on August 16th 2008, in Sandy, Utah.

…And since no one’s paying me… 

You know, the other problem is this: in the Doctrine and Covenants there’s a mandatory statement. It’s much ignored, but it’s a mandatory statement. It says… 

So, I have to talk loud? Do Bob Dylan? Bob’s always swallowing the mic. Can you turn it up?

Talk normal. Can you hear me? Is it…? Can you hear me back there? Alright.

The other problem with treating you as if you were a jury is the mandatory statement in the Doctrine and Covenants—much ignored by us but nevertheless the case—which says if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach (D&C 42:14). I view that as mandatory. If ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not… is one of the prohibitions on what we ought to be doing. I’m always amazed at those who are eager to do this kind of thing. I am a reluctant draftee. I don’t want to do this. I don’t think I will ever do this again. Doug nags me to these things. And so, I’m telling you that if he tells you I’m coming again, don’t believe him, because I view this as a terrible responsibility. Anytime you’re going to take up the subject of truth and you’re going to speak, I think you have an obligation to do so by the spirit, and if you don’t, then the requirement is: shut up; just don’t do it. 

We have this erroneous reading of the description given in section 138 about those that were called to be rulers. There’s a parallel drawn between the statement in section 138 and the section the description given by Abraham in the pre-existence about how Abraham, you were chosen, you were one of them, you were one of the rulers that were chosen before the world began to be a ruler. And we equate ruler… 

Well, in the Book of Mormon, the equation between ruler is teacher. It has nothing to do with position or rank or authority. It has everything to do with whether or not you teach. And so, in the Book of Mormon what Nephi says is that my brothers are always angry at me because I’m going to be a teacher and a ruler over them. Teacher and ruler are an equivalent. 

Abraham presided over a family, but Abraham learned great truths, and he taught great truths, and he is distinguished as a consequence of the things which he learned and he taught. You can occupy a position of authority and never say one thing worth anyone remembering, and therefore, you are not (by definition, using the Book of Mormon) a ruler.

On the other hand, you can be one of the least of the Lord’s. I have heard… In fact, the most memorable statements I have heard in church meetings came from a stake president bearing testimony while talking about the David and Goliath incident in the Old Testament, came from an elderly woman, widowed and in ill health, bearing testimony in a Fast and Testimony Meeting. When I think about those talks that have affected me, that have enlightened me, that have enlivened me, it is the rule that they come from odd places. And it is the exception when I hear something like Hugh B. Brown’s “Profile of a Prophet” that still resonates with me. There are talks, the greatness of which will endure forever. Paul (on Mars Hill) talking is still resonating in the world.

(Ya know, I don’t know how you’re gonna get that up here. But if you got it here, I’d use it.)

(It has a wide base? Just turn it into a mosh pit and bring it/hand over to the front.) 

In any event, so we’ve got this a… 

(Well, I’ll be quiet while we move the chalkboard. I surrender to the chaos of… There it is. Just out of curiosity, do we have a marker and an eraser? ‘Cuz it’s a lot of trouble to go to. Oh, we do. We do. OK, I’m gonna be wary of the microphone and try and stay close to it, but I can still reach part of this.)

So, the obligation becomes—if you read section 42, and you read what the Scriptures generally have to say about the subject—the obligation becomes: if you’re going to say something, to say it by the spirit. And so, I’m hoping that the trip to and from the airport, the soccer game that I’ve had to go to, and the fact that when I leave here I am in a hurry to get my daughter and get her to the pet store to buy the frozen pinky mice for her pet snake, and then get her to her babysitting appointment at 6 o’clock will all come together somehow happily, and that I can forget about that while I’m here. (It’s a corn snake. Have you seen her corn snake? It’s this pink, light-colored… It’s a pretty snake, as snakes go.) But…

In one of the latest offerings in the… By the way, all of this bears on a subject that we’ll get to, but you have to triangulate in if you’re really gonna… If you’re gonna say something meaningful.

One of the latest offerings about our greatest controversy, we now have Massacre at Mountain Meadows in publication. We have listed… I mean, everyone refers to this as “Turley’s book” when it was coming out, but listed (in order of priority) the authors are: 

It was published (or it is published) by Oxford University, carried by Deseret Book. And it was the intention that it be published by Deseret Book in order for the book to bear—or excuse me, published by Oxford Press—to bear the imprimatur of independent scholarly approval on the book and not be something that is simply an apology.

But when you go back to the acknowledgements portion of the book, and you look at who all was involved in getting this into print, he references:

Colleagues in the Family and Church History Department and other departments of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Brigham Young University traveled to many librar[y], archives, and other historical institutions… 

…and they list all of them that they went to, and it is formidable. And they give special thanks to all of those from those various church institutional sources who participated in this information gathering and give credit to them. 

Then they thank “the professionalism of several editors,” and they list the editors, many of them inside the Church or Deseret Book, but then they also thank an editor from Oxford Press. They thank:

Others at church headquarters or Brigham Young University who gave countless hours of assistance with their various skills and knowledge includ[ing]… 

…and they give a page-and-a-half list of names. These are names that are involved in doing the review, and included among them is Dean C. Jessee, who is working on The Joseph Smith Papers. 

And then they also thank “the skills and knowledge of archivists, librarians, historians” and others, some of whom reviewed and provided information or critiqued the manuscript. And included among them are some very interesting names like:

(He’s ubiquitous, ok? You can’t get anything into print without John Welch’s name appearing somewhere.) And then there is thanks given to doctors who helped them and to others who are scholars that looked into it and pages of names. 

And then they end all this—and this is pages; this is pages, and it’s “Who’s Who,” OK? They end all this with:

We also express appreciation for the support and feedback of Russell M. Nelson and Dallin Oaks, advisors to the Family and Church History Department, and of Marlin K. Jensen, Church Historian. 

So, I assume, therefore, that this is a very deliberate book. This is a very calculated and intentional book. And that the words that appear in this have been weighed carefully in the balance and chosen in order to have an effect. OK, let’s accept that as a given for a moment. Go read the Acknowledgments if you would like to check that and reach your own conclusion.

There are precious few things which appear in this book, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, which touch upon the subject of revelation or visitations. I think I can read all of them to you. (I may have missed some because I just finished the book a few hours ago and may not have been as deliberate as I went through it as they were in preparing it, but I think these are the quotes.)

This is talking about the primary villain responsible—ultimately, the only one that will be executed for the crime of murder of over a hundred and twenty people at Mountain Meadows. This is Brother Lee:

During missionary tours to Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee, Lee said he beheld heavenly visions, contested with evil spirits, and defeated other Christian ministers with strong, inspired words. Although at first timid and inexperienced before a congregation, he soon believed he was transformed by a higher power. “My tongue was like the pen of a ready writer. I scarcely knew what I was saying,” he reflected, after speaking to a congregation for an hour and a half.

“I grew in grace from day to day,” he said…

So, “beheld heavenly visions, contested with evil spirits, …defeated other Christian ministers with strong, inspired words.” That’s from page 60.

Beginning on page 65, there’s another source they quote at some length, speaking also about John D. Lee on the subject of inspiration and the spirit:

Thomas D. Brown…wrote an extended passage in his diary that accused Lee of having an “abundance of dreams, visions and revelations” that he used for his own purposes. Brown believed the actual source of Lee’s information was more ordinary. “He listened behind a fence to Bros. P[eter] Shirts and W[illia]m Young who are talking of his immeasurable selfishness, and he repeated it next meeting as having read it from a sheet let down from…[heaven] before his eyes,” Brown claimed. 

Then there was the incident in which Lee, thinking he was temporarily out of favor with Brigham Young (his adopted father), was troubled over whether he would get the appointment to be the U.S. Indian farmer, which was a governmental position, and Brigham Young was at the time the governor. And so, as the governor and as his adopted father, he could make an official appointment. And Lee was sweating over that ‘cuz it meant an income for him. And Brigham Young, sure enough, did make the appointment, which gratified him because he now he knew he was not out of sync with his adopted father. And again, this is from page 66:

When Lee learned of his appointment, he wept—not because it satisfied his ambition, he said, but because it allowed him to continue to serve. He later said that several days before Young’s letter arrived, “an angel of the Lord….stood by [his] bedside and talked….about these and many other things.”

Now, are you picking up a pattern yet about how spiritual phenomena are being dealt with? Since we’re confining it exclusively to Lee in this account (and since Lee will ultimately turn out to be filled with all manner of wickedness and chicanery)… 

Well, after he had led the early abortive attack and personally become involved in the surrounding of the emigrant wagon (when they were dug in), in the fracas that ensued and the bullet fire that was going on, he got hit several times in his clothing, but he did not get injured. Then, a couple of Mormon communication bearers, Willden and Clewes, arrived; the incident occurs (and this is set out on page 172) in this way. (And this account, by the way, will… You’ll want, in your own mind, to juxtapose this account with Willard Richards’ statement about why he escaped Liberty [Carthage] Jail without any injury and what some people believe that possession of the temple rites do for you—but that’s not mentioned, but keep that in mind.) So, reading now on page 172:

At one point—perhaps after getting bullet holes in his clothing— 

Well, undoubtedly, because that’s the point. I mean, he has the bullet holes, but this is between dashes. So, it’s just to remind you that we’ve got that background. 

At one point—perhaps after getting bullet holes in his clothing—Lee had told the Paiutes “that the bullets of the emigrants would not hurt the ‘Mormons’ the same as the Indians.” Seeing Willden and Clewes, the Paiutes decided to test Lee’s claim[s]. They “demanded that Willden and Clewes should put on Indian attire and run unarmed past the emigrant train within easy range of the rifles, to a neighboring point about a hundred yards distan[ce].” It may have been the same route Jackson’s brother took when he was shot. The two white men concluded that they would have to “take their chances” in doing what the Indians demanded “or risk being killed by them. So they ran, amid a shower of bullets from the emigrant camp and reached the opposite point in safety.” The men then returned to the Paiute camp, where they “were heartily cheered for their bravery after their perilous run. Soon,” said Clewes, “we were hailed from a ridge on our left; we looked around and there stood John D. Lee.” Lee told the Indians to return to their camp—”pacif[ying] their feelings by making explanations to them”—then sat down and talked to [them].

Well, we get that. And in the context of this book and this treatment, and given the fact that the focus of the tale is upon what’s the worst crime committed in the history of the Church, this is the first words. This is the Preface:

On September 11, 1857, Mormon settlers in southern Utah used a false flag of truce to lull a group of California-bound emigrants from their circled wagons and then slaughter[ed] them. When the killing was over, more than one hundred butchered bodies lay strewn across half a mile stretch of an upland meadow. Most of the victims were women and children. The perpetrators were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints aided by Indians.

It makes no apology for the Church’s involvement. It exposes it. It limits the damage to those who were locally involved in perpetrating it and doesn’t gloss it over. It’s a very raw, candid description (including of the killings themselves). And I’ve read to you from this book (deliberately prepared), those statements that exist in it with respect to the subject of visions, revelations, and visitations. 

And so, if you are going to form an opinion about how we regard the subject of visitations, and this is the latest statement from all of the gathered, well, “powers that be,” blue-bloods, insiders, credentialed folk—all the good people that we rely upon—if that’s what they had to say about it, you would have a hard time reconciling that with what our nineteen-year- old missionaries do. 

The nineteen-year-old missionaries go out, they hand people the Book of Mormon, and they say, “Look, look! Here in Moroni 10:4, it says, Ask God, and He’s gonna tell you. And oh, by the way, this whole thing started/this whole thing began when Joseph Smith read in Scripture, Ask God. And Joseph read that God…giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. And Moroni says if you ask with a sincere heart, God’s going to answer you.” And so, our missionaries go about saying to everyone, “You go get revelation.”

And then we encounter the Church Historian and the director of the…well, the Assistant Church Historian, reviewed by the Church Historian, Marlin Jensen (who I knew when he was still practicing law), and no one seems to have said, “Wait a minute, for a church whose bedrock remains—indispensably remains—the presence of the spirit, and for a church who, in order to expands, requires those that would like to join to go ask of God and get an answer to prayer, ought we not to do something more with the passing mention of revelation then to simply confine it to the guy who gets executed for the crime/the guy who led the charge that created the problem/the guy who shot someone (and we had to now cover it up because white men were involved in this incident, and if the emigrants got out, the emigrants were going to spread the word of that), ought we not put revelation in the hands of someone else and in some other context?

Well, there is a little bit more, and to be fair I probably ought to read that, ‘cuz the sisters were involved. “At 2:00 that afternoon…” This is after the group had set off from Cedar City—the militia had set off—to finish the deed and to kill ‘em, under the direction of the stake president.

At 2:00 that afternoon, leaders of the Cedar City Female Benevolent Society held their regular meeting. “Sister Haight” reported that she had been visiting some of the Cedar women and “taught them the necessity of being obedient to their husbands” and not to be fearful in these “troublesome” and “squally times.” …They had advised the women they visited “to attend strictly to secret prayer in behalf of the brethren that are out acting in our defence.”

So, prayer creeps in here, too. And then, there’s this comment in the…umm…as they got ready for the final killings (in the chapter, “Decoyed Out and Destroyed”)—I’m reading on page 187:

The men sat in a circle off by themselves and began by praying for “Divine guidance,” a sacrilege that only the passions of the time could explain.

So, we do have prayer. We do have prayer in the book, too.

Now, I find this troublesome. I find it more than troublesome. I find it troubling enough that it’s worth commenting on as we get into the subject of revelation. Because there is a competition afoot. It is a competition that if history should inform us of anything, it should inform us of this tension. This is always the case. There is always an effort to turn the gospel of Christ into religion and to turn religion into something that is very different. And you have to be on your guard, and the church has to be on its guard. And every one of us have to wage war against this process, because this process is foreseeable/predictable/ knowable. If you want to know how it happened in the past, all you have to do is study the past. I was surprised in reading… 

(I watched the soccer game, okay? I did. But there were timeouts. There were… I don’t know what they did to bring that little girl into that crumpled ball off the… I mean, it didn’t look like that, but the girl that kicked her was rather big. And then we had halftime, and so there long periods when I was reading this just a few hours ago.)

Yeah. In any event… 

This is the book I’m waging into at the moment. It’s the latest in the Hugh Nibley Collected Works, Eloquent Witness: Nibley on Himself, Others, and the Temple. And some of this stuff struck me. This—a publication of “The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Hugh Nibley and Associates, LLC” (see, there didn’t used to be a Hugh Nibley and Associates—yeah, Tom, the next generation, LLC’d up)—and printed by Deseret Book Company. So, there’s hope! I mean, there’s happy news. This squeaked through. Let me read you… I mean, these two books came out at virtually the same time. They were hot on the shelves when I walked in and took them off a few days ago.

This is Nibley in an interview that they’ve published, and so, here we go:

And the two marks of the Church I see are and have been for a long time these: a reverence for wealth and a contempt for the scriptures. Naturally, the two go hand in hand. We should call attention to the fact that these things we are doing are against the work of the Lord. There is one saying of Joseph Smith I think of quite often. If the heavens seem silent at a time when we desperately need revelation, [it’s] because of covetousness in the Church. “God had often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the Church.” And now the Church isn’t just shot through with covetousness, it is saturated with covetousness. And so the heavens are going to be closed. We’re told we don’t get revelation if we put our trust in money in the bank.

Well, okay, what do you do? Well, that’s answered a little later in the same book: if you  seal the heavens up because you’re covetous, then… 

This is a description of what happened in the Christian church, k?—the history of Christianity and the church fathers. We’re now a couple of hundred years post-Christ and into the era when the apostles are gone, and we’ve got a limit on ongoing revelation. So, here, I’m reading from page 127, here:

When the Church lost revelation it had to turn to another source for guidance and so it threw itself into the arms of the established schools of learning. The schoolmen, as one of them expresses it, took over the office and function once belonging to the prophets and once in power guarded their authority with jealous care, quickly and violently suppressing any suggestion of a recurrent inspiration.

Oh, I shouldn’t read this, but this is a great comment:

… I was forced to admit that the Berkeley institution is if anything less anti-religious than BYU, where religion is under more conscious and deliberate attack. But I do not for that reason hold my BYU colleagues culpable—they cannot help themselves. By its very nature the university is the rival of the Church; its historic mission has been to supply the guiding light which passed away with a loss of revelation, and it can make no concessions to its absolute authority without forfeiting that authority.

Yeah. Huh. Here’s another quote a couple of pages later:

The celebrations of the learned men and not the utterances of the prophets comprise the gospel [according to the university]. This has been the credo of the Christian schoolmen since the days of Clement of Alexandria: the universities—Christian, Moslem, Jewish, or pagan—has its own religion, and the basic tenet of that religion is the denial of revelation.

(And then he quotes from C.S. Lewis; I’m not gonna read that, but in any event…) So, there’s hope because this is thesome of the same folks… I’m sure (I didn’t look), but I’m sure Jack [John] Welch’s name’s in here somewhere, too. You can’t… Yeah, you can’t get it out into print without him appearing here as he does in the other. So, there is hope—there’s perhaps some schizophrenia—but hope nonetheless, in the way that it all unfolds.

So, what of it all? You know, there was a time when… Our language is still permeated by words of usage and descriptors which presumed a whole different world than the one we live in now, words like “envision” or “light.” I mean, we accept the idea of anything that is not in front of your face being described and using the word “envision” as the manner/the proper word to use when you’re talking about it. Can you envision what Utah will look like in 2050? Can you envision what the new temple in Draper will look like when it is completed? Can you envision this or that? It’s a holdover from another period of time in which the visionary experience was so commonplace that it leaked into the vocabulary, permeated the vocabulary, and we all thought it perfectly appropriate. “Can you give me further light on that subject?” “Can you shed some light on that?” “Are we enlightened on the subject yet?” 

And you can be talking about anything from General Motors to solving the problem of sabermetrics (a subject that is worthy of devotion). If anyone here wants to devote themselves to a Ph.D. effort, that’s the study of mathematics and baseball and figuring out what really wins games. I think Billy… We owe a lot to Billy Beane, I’m telling ya—the Oakland A’s. If you have a resistance to reading obscenities in print, then you ought not get it. But if you’d really like to know what baseball is all about, that book, Moneyball,  is just… It’s  full of light and truth (and a number of obscenities at the same time).

So, then we get, we encounter… Joseph defies categorization. Joseph brought a flood of light, literally a flood of light. And… 

I appreciate the efforts of the scholars. I applaud the work that they do, but they don’t give us the answers. You have to find a revelator if you would like to get the answers. And the preeminent one for our time was and is Joseph Smith. He covered the turf. What we’re trying to do is catch up with him and to figure out what it was that he was talking about. Joseph repeatedly said, “Hey, I can’t go any further than this. The Lord forbid me from saying anymore. And many more things did he reveal unto me, which I cannot at this time put into write. But great and marvelous were the things which the Lord showed unto me, and the mysteries of his kingdom which surpass all understanding, which we were commanded we should not write while we were yet in the Spirit” (see D&C 76:114-115).

I mean, the account of the First Vision, the account that we find in section 76, repeatedly in the Book of Mormon, we get right up to the precipice, and then we draw the curtain. And the Scriptures say, “Naw, we’re not gonna go there.” And why aren’t we gonna go there? We’re not gonna go there because, well, we would profane it. We would take and we desecrate it if we put it on public view.

Well, doesn’t the Lord want us to know this stuff? Well, of course He does! Of course He does! In the proper setting, with the proper person, in the proper light, so that you know that it will not be profaned or desecrated, the Lord will show anything to anyone that anyone would like to see. He’s told us that. Joseph said that repeatedly: “He didn’t show me,” this is Joseph speaking, “…anything that he won’t show unto the least of you.”

(Hey, Benjamin, can you come here? Make sure you lock it when you come back. But in the middle, I left the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It’s a small, leather-bound copy, and it’s right in-between the seats. Yeah. We need Joseph…in more ways than one.)

See, Joseph was way, way out ahead; we still haven’t caught up, and we display the least amount of curiosity about the things which are most enticing. He throws out a statement, and he just dangles it, and then…no more. And what was the reaction of Nephi to the dangling statements versus the reaction of Laman and Lemuel to the dangling statements? We know what Laman and Lemuel said. They said, “The Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.” 

And what did Nephi say? He said, “Hey, have ye inquired of Him? Have you asked? Have you asked? Have you asked?” 

“No, we haven’t asked; the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.”

Well, I’ve got this, and then I’ve got this. Now, you be careful; you be very careful. In the Encyclopedia of Mormonism on the subject of “Revelation,” one of the great precautionary statements there is the devil—the devil’s gonna crop up and mislead you. 

I noticed that on the… It was the 20th anniversary, I think (it may have been the 25th anniversary because that… I mean, that was in the intro; I didn’t keep that in mind), to a news article on KSL this last week. We had a… (Hey, thanks.) We had a repetition of the woman who threw her children off of the 11th floor and killed them, and then she jumped off and killed them [herself], and then the brother-in-law to the woman (the uncle to the children) giving his explanation of how the husband—his brother/her husband—was Jesus Christ and was God the Father and that because he had died, that the family had committed mass suicide to be with him again, and “Can you imagine…the faith that [that] took?” 

And that incident, again, is another cautionary tale: Be careful. Be afraid; be very, very afraid. Revelation: You could be John D. Lee! Revelation: You could throw people off a balcony! Be very afraid. 

These are not just random happenstances. This is the era in which we find ourselves. This is the times in which we live.

Well, this is from the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, a comment that Joseph made. (And again, there’s so much of this that I would canonize in the teachings if I were given discretion to ask you to sustain things in adding to Scripture. We’d have a bigger quad; we’d all look like high priests.) So, this is from page 51:

We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments….

So, he’s… I mean, this is Joseph Smith using, really, prose to describe the process, because for Joseph it was prosaic; it was poetry; it was a thing of beauty. “Light communicated from heaven to the intellect.” “A mind capable of instruction….a faculty [that] may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence [it’s] given.” These aren’t just idle words. These are Joseph trying to put into the English language a description of a process. And the process works. 

Well, a couple of other Scriptures before we start on to something. This is from Doctrine and Covenants section 93, one of Joseph’s most profound revelations. In section 93, he says, beginning in verse 27:

No man receive[s] a fulness until he keepeth his commandments. He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things.

Well, that’s interesting: keeping commandments, receiving truth and light, glorified in truth, knows all things. Then he adds,

Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. Light and truth forsake that evil one….that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.

Huh, yeah, well, we’re fetching up on that, aren’t we? 

So, we’ve got these interesting statements. And there’s this notion that there is some relationship between keeping commandments, on the one hand, and receiving truth and light, on the other hand. And then, there is this statement about “intelligence, or the light of truth, [wasn’t] created or made”—intelligence wasn’t created or made. Intelligence or “the light of truth” and “the glory of God,” then… It’s redefined “glory of God,” “intelligence,” “light of truth.” K? In two separate statements, in verse 36 and 29, it’s reiterated for us twice that intelligence (that which can’t be created or destroyed—and can’t be created or destroyed—intelligence) is light and truth. Light and truth, co-equal with God.

Now, that’s an interesting statement because here we have the word “intelligence,” and it appears here in the singular. When you go back to Abraham chapter 3, beginning in verse 22, it says, 

Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized.

Now we’ve encountered something that has a plural to it. And in Abraham chapter 3, when it talks about the plural form of this,

…the intelligences that were organized before the world was; …among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; …he stood among those that were….

From what then were your spirits organized? Light and truth. Okay… At your core, at your nub, at the very essence of what it is that constitutes you to be you, what is it that constitutes you to be you? Light and truth. 

There’s another place where a description is given of the Lord—Christ—in the pre-existence: In the beginning was the Word. Now, that’s an interesting thought, that word. So, what you have at your core is light and truth or intelligence, which is…what? The glory of God—God the Father; you’re derivative from Him. He is the Creator or the Organizer. But what He created or organized you from is light and truth.

Okay. Now, this ought to become increasingly obvious to you as you look at what we were reading in section 93. Why, why is it necessary, therefore, for you to keep his commandments in order for you to receive truth and light? Why? Why is that the way it works? Why must you keep the commandments if you want to get more of this? 

[audience comment]

Exactly! We’re trying to harmonize ourselves with Him. We’re trying to get back to Him. We’re trying to get ourselves aligned correctly so that when we resonate in the same way that He resonates, we can pick up on things that are not pick-up-able in the absence of that resonance. We’re trying to get in harmony with God. 

So, what are the commandments? What use are they? Well, He’s giving us a blueprint. And some portions of the blueprint may appear altogether ridiculous. We’re supposed to do them anyway. And why are we supposed to do the things that may seem even ridiculous anyway? Because at your very core, you know… You know if it comes from Him. And you know when you’re getting light and truth from Him. There is never a futile act. You know when you pay tithing that you’re doing something He asked you to do. And you know what? If it involves a sacrifice, you know all the more by that sacrifice.

This is what Joseph was trying to get across in the Lectures on Faith. Would you like to know God? Then go inconvenience yourself by following what He asks of you, and you will unlock inside yourself resonance with the light and truth of God. And it’s an unfolding process. 

It grows… (Oh, you gotta go back to 50 for that). It grows… Let me find that, which is really also borrowed from the Psalms or the Proverbs, rather:

That which is of God is light, and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

Proverbs 4:18 is a similar thought. But it’s a dynamic process. It involves your (again, you know, we’re victims of our time), your interface with God. (Another 500 years and the gospel will be perverted by computer terminology, but…) The way you link up to God (see? There it goes again) is by this mechanism of obeying the commandments that He’s given you. And it’s never futile, and it’s never superfluous. It’s how you, as a being at your core made of light and truth, knowthat you’re pleasing God.

In the Lectures on Faith, Joseph said you had to know that the sacrifice that you are making was pleasing to God. How can you know that? You can know that because in your core you have light and truth, that’s why I read the quote a few minutes ago. The nearer you come to God and the more obedient you are—the more “heed and diligence” were the words he used in that statement—the more heed and diligence that you give, the more correct your understanding will be. Well, why is that the case? Because you are enlightened, because you are enlivened, because you are drawing closer to Him.

One of the great descriptions of how Christ did what He did—in addition to 93—is in section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants, beginning at verse 21:

Wherefore, the Almighty God… 

And by the way, since we’re not in church, you can actually get your Scriptures out and read along. I talk in a ward tomorrow as the High Council representative, and it es prohibito tomorrow, but today you can get your Scriptures out. This is D&C section 20, beginning at verse 21. 

(Can you hear that annoying rustling of the pages? Because these things aren’t made of paper. They’re made of fabric; that’s cotton you’re hearing. And it’s just annoying. It grieves the spirit and withdraws itself.)

[ audience comment]

Yeah, some of mine won’t. Okay, so, we’re reading, beginning in verse 21:

Wherefore, the Almighty God… 

And by the way, if we can’t laugh at ourselves, there’s something really, really wrong with us. I mean, if we take ourselves so seriously that we can’t look at and say the most comedic thing on Earth is a Mormon trying to live his religion, then you missed the point.

I mean, we do not attain to perfection in this life. The visions that we read in Scripture all have a constant theme. And the constant theme is a wretch managed to make it into the presence of God, and then God fixes the wretch. What was the very first thing—not in our current version of the First Vision, but it is in the earlier versions that Joseph wrote—what is the very first thing God does when Joseph’s in His presence? He forgives his sins; He cleans the mess up. “Joseph, you know you’re a wretch; let’s fix that. Okay, now, now you can endure My presence.” Isaiah, in the temple:

Woe is me! …I am undone; …I am a man of unclean lips, …I dwell [among] a people of unclean lips.

Fetch the coal; fix the guy. Coals from the altar, touched to the lips—there; purged; you’re okay. 

You do… Look, we really are comedic. Our religion promises the fantastic, it promises the perfection of us frail, messed up, insecure human souls. We get hungry; we get thirsty; we get tired. We’re vulnerable; we’re subject to pain; we’re gonna ultimately die, every one of us. We have infirmities, and they progress over time. What about us can possibly be perfected? And you look at it and say, I can’t detect a thing. Oh, wait there is one thing. You can be perfect in your desire. You can hope for it. And for God that’s enough. As long as you make the kind of sacrifice that He would like to have you make preliminarily. And we’re talking about that at this point. And we’re reading from verse 21 of D&C section 20, where it says:

Wherefore, the Almighty God gave his Only Begotten Son, as it is written in those scriptures which have been given of him. He suffered temptations but gave no heed unto them. He was crucified, died, and rose again the third day; And ascended into heaven….

See, “He suffered temptations but gave no heed unto them.” Turn back to D&C section 130. Verse 19 in section 130 says,

If a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.

That’s what Christ did. Christ gave no heed to the things that were pulling him in the one direction, and He gave strictheed to the things that were enticing Him to the other direction. And He obtained (as section 93 explains) a fullness of that. So, if there is an increasing flow of light/an increasing flow of truth that comes to someone by their heed and diligence in following the commandments, then that seems like a fairly simple formula for someone to follow if they’re interested in obtaining further light and knowledge. 

There was a time when all of these words crept into our language, and their usage in our common vernacular became popular when everyone simply assumed that we all were in contact with the mystic, with the mythic, with the forces that were around you. Everyone simply assumed that was the case. There was a way of describing the phenomenon. And the way that the idea was reduced to words was by using the concept of a third eye. Well, why that? It was because physically your eyes are the source that light gets into you. You perceive light through your eyes. So, if you’re gonna collect light from somewhere else, two things are essential. The first thing is you have to realize that it’s there, and then you have to be willing to see it. Well, it was a fairly common thing because people weren’t as well educated as they are now. They weren’t…yeah. They weren’t schooled in naturalism and the philosophies of men, which we have so successfully commingled with Scripture that we have essentially supplanted, in all of Christendom, the gospel of Christ and replaced it with the doctrines of men and the precepts of men and the creeds of men. And we’re beginning to develop our own set of creeds.

You see, it’s hard. It’s hard to keep the commandments. It involves inconvenience and sacrifice. It’s hard. And for some folks, in a trial and error kind of way, it’s like riding a bicycle. And when you start riding a bicycle you get bloodied elbows and bloodied knees, and you make mistakes, and it’s unhappy. But you know what? You can write a Ph.D. thesis on riding a bicycle without ever getting on a bike or ever suffering an injury. Well, isn’t that interesting? Because that’s essentially the trade-off that we’ve made. That’s the trade-off that Christendom made, and that’s the trade-off that is rapidly, rapidly advancing right now… 

I… Why would Satan ever change his agenda? Why would he ever invent a new tool if the old one works perfectly well? If I can use the sexual appetite of men to destroy a David, well, why not just bust that thing out all the time and aim it at whoever happens to promiscuously get in front of me? (In that context, the word means “randomly,” and it was a pun.) In any event, why invent a new way of corrupting the truth when the old way has been so entirely serviceable?

When the Jews returned from the discipline of Babylon, they learned the wrong lesson. And they became sophisticates in the Babylonian system of thought—which, as Lehi would tell us, was necessary because they were the only people that would kill their God, and they had to be in the right frame of mind (which is to say, “screwed up”) in order to be willing to kill their God, because no one else would do it.

It takes a lot of learning to really be in hell, because the gospel of Christ beckons people to become childlike and to become simple. That’s not to say the gospel is simplistic, because it comprehends all truth, and it involves light, and it involves everything that is—everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be. And there are enormous surprises along the way. The gospel of Christ ought to be a delightful process of discovering new things all the time.

Well, at a time when people understood this idea that you could take in light, that it was possible to tune in and to receive information… And by the way, this information was so readily available that you just had to be sensitized to the awareness of its existence and the willingness to look into the matter for you to begin receiving it, whether you were Lutheran or Calvinist or involved in folk magic. In fact, folk magic largely grew out of the idea that you can tune into these things.

This has been a war that has been waged (and waged successfully), and…it’s my own people that did it. I’m just… The Scottish Enlightenment, my ancestors, they’re… They just—you know, David Hume and the gang—they won. And whether you know it or not, your minds are full of that crap. And Joseph Smith brought… He was carefully selected at the time that he came at the end of one epoch And the American Revolution was a war against some of that stuff; we wanted to preserve an island/a place where you could still be in touch with the deity and be free to accept and receive things from the deity. There were more things in play at the time of the American Revolution than simply a new form of representative government. It was trying to preserve an ideal—an ideal that was rapidly fading—and allow an environment in which people could continue to be in touch with God, however you envisioned your God to be, because there were things available that, if you would let them in, would speak to you (if you were willing to see them).

Why does a mother suddenly know that her child is in danger at the edge of the camp, with her back turned, and drops everything and runs and catches her child before he or she falls in the creek? Well, we’ve all read stories about that. Oooh, ummmm, tuition or intuition or PMS? Somehow it’s ovarian. I… See, we tend to reduce that to the biological function now. But there was a time when everyone accepted the fact that that was sight, that was vision, that was light. She saw it. She envisioned it. 

You know, you do fall down, and you do scuff your elbows and your knees when you learn to ride a bike. But when you finally master it, it’s the closest thing you will do to flight other than flying. And I don’t even think an airplane feels like flight as much as riding a bicycle does. (I’m so converted to the principle that I own four Harleys, and I fly about on them. Yeah, it’s cost me a few tickets, that flight.) 

But you can’t… You can talk about bicycles; you can build them; you can repair them; you can have discourses on them without ever having experienced the bike. And what the school men are trying to do is change the subject. The subject ceases to be that sensation/that wonderment/that childlike experience of getting in the seat and running down the road and leaning as you propel yourself under your own strength into something that nearly replicates flight itself—and changes that into something that can be controlled and bona fide, and we can credential it, and we can give you a Bachelors of Bicycle-dom, and we can give you a Masters of Derailleurs. Now we’re getting even more specialized, because it’s not simply the bicycle as one component. At the Masters level, we’re talking derailleurs. And if you would like to go on to and graduate to axles, well, that’s a Ph.D.  

And so, we never encounter the vision. We can fill libraries up with crap talking about it and never do it. And the gospel that Christ delivered and the thing that Joseph was trying to describe for us was the doing of it.

There was another analogy, and I like it a lot, too. It’s an analogy I borrow from Jon Larsen, and it’s not original with me. He likens it to the launch pad that’s built down at Cape Canaveral, where we have this enormous infrastructure, and it’s all kept and preserved and polished and… But if you never fly anything out of it, then all you’ve got is a launch pad. The gospel of Christ was designed to be a launch pad. One of the unfortunate things about launching is you melt a bunch of stuff, and you make a mess. I mean, anytime you fire one off, it gets kind of ugly for a while.

And of all things we Mormons would like to be, it’s orderly and punctual and uniform. We would hate to have the mess, the chaos, the disaster of…  I mean, we all remember John [Hiram] Page, right? And we got a section in the Doctrine and Covenants about Page. And he’s the guy with the peep stone/the seer stone that got rebuked for having visions because it came from the wrong place. 

Well, you know, we learned the wrong lesson from that! The lesson from that is not that John [Hiram] Page got misled and had a false revelation using a peep stone that gave him bad information. The message from that is spirits were afoot. Now, let’s get… Let’s weed them out, let’s figure out which ones are bad and which ones are good, but let’s stay in touch with them. Let’s keep the dialogue going. Take that stone, and take a hammer to it. Go find some others, because as far as I know, John [Hiram] Page is the only one (other than Joseph) in this dispensation who claimed to have contemporaneous revelation using a seer stone. Although I’m sure there were others, they aren’t published. Well, yeah. I mean, the whole idea… The idea of the crystal ball gazing, the Urim and Thummim—these things… They’re traditions, they’re echoes; they’re found everywhere, and they’re based upon the truth.

Well, look. Ether chapter 4, verse 11 (I’m going to the last sentence of it—Ether 4, verse 11):

For because of my Spirit he shall know that these things are true; for it persuadeth men to do good. And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me. I am the same that leadeth men to all good; he that will not believe my words will not believe me—that I am.

See, “he that will not believe my words will not believe me.” It’s a real simple test. Did the words you heard originate from God? You should be able to tell that. You should be able to say, sitting and listening, “I hear God in that.” And then whoever it is that is speaking, it doesn’t matter if she’s an elderly widow. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he’s the stake president—it doesn’t matter. You have to hear Him in the words that come. And then, it ceases to be the woman or the man who is standing in front of you, and it becomes the Lord. And the person is simply… I mean, good for them; they resonated with Him, and they caught on to something.

Turn back to Moroni chapter 7; it’s the same thing. Moroni chapter 7, verse 16: For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man. Wow, now there’s another thought. The Spirit of Christ given to everyone. You have a link to Christ. By virtue of the fact that you’re here, you have a link to Christ. K?

The Spirit of Christ is given to every man [and in this sense, “man” means mankind; it’s not sexist], that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.

Satan is so committed to doing evil that he’s treacherous even to those that’ll follow him. He won’t support those who say, “I’ll follow you, Satan, if you’ll do something for me.” And Satan’ll say, “I’ll do it. Come, follow me.” And you come follow him, and he doesn’t support you, and you say, “Wait a minute. You said you’d make that bargain!” And he says, “I’m a liar from the beginning. I’ll always tell you what you what to hear, because I’m a liar.” 

[audience comment]

Yeah, he is unreliable. He doesn’t even support those who follow him, as the Book of Mormon makes the point (repeatedly) with those who, after having followed him and succeeded in bringing others to apostatize, are not sustained by him.

Well, the thing to fear is not the existence of Satan or the fact that you may be deceived. That’s a given. Turn on your TV. Uh, I don’t know…do Toyota trucks really get that mileage? I mean, you’re being deceived every time Wall Street has your attention. The glitter, the glitz, the garbage they’re trying to sell you. If you love your family, you’ll buy some wretched piece of trinkery from someone somewhere because they know you like families. If you love your wife, you’ll do some hopelessly pathetic physical acquisition and make an offering to the goddess, and then she’ll be pleased. And it doesn’t work that way! Because if you come bearing rings and trinkets and you’re a jerk, she’s gonna see right through the rings and the trinket to the jerk. It’s just… They’re not fooled! Hollywood says, “Hey! Trick them this way, and you know, we’ve got Viagra for the elderly. It could work out.”

It’s not difficult (as Moroni points out, both in his interlude in Ether and again in chapter 7 of Moroni), it’s not difficult to tell the difference. It’s really not. “Satan deceived me!” Well, why did he deceive me? “Well, he deceived me primarily because I wanted to be deceived. I knew it was a crappy deal. I knew what I was up to was no good. I had this nagging feeling at my core, because I am, after all, made of light and truth, that something was wrong with this. But I did it anyway.” I mean, how many times do those who are caught—the primary antagonists of the Book of Mormon, when they’re caught, and they’re not supported by Satan, and they collapse at the last day—how many times do they confess, “Yeah, I knew all along I was deceived. I knew all along it was wrong, but I did it, I taught it, I preached it, I participated in it, I urged it. I knew it was a lie, but I nearly believed it myself because I had success at it. It looked good; it felt good. It was fun.”

There is nothing more fun, however, than gathering light and truth. We’re sent down here on a journey in which we are supposed to be getting “added upon.” Those are the words. That was the goal. We’re gonna send people down to the second estate, and what’s the goal? The goal is to be added upon. But what are we adding? What are you adding to yourself that you didn’t have before? You’re adding light and truth. You came with a certain amount of it. You’re supposed to leave with a greater quantity of it.

The description given in section 93 of Christ:

I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory [this is verse 11 of section 93, his glory], as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father.

You know, you’re just gonna have to do your best with this. We’ve got this idea that God the Father and his unnamed Consort (Mrs. God the Father) had a Son (and we know Him as Jesus or Jehovah) and then had another son or sons and some others, and then we got a Lucifer. And then some others and what have you. And then this group, these are called “sons of morning.” And then there’s this birth order, and eventually, we get down to the rabble that we were among. And that that picture is this linear development of the family of God.

If you read very carefully what we find in section 93, there’s another picture. And that picture is that you have this group of… Imagine all of these being little stick figures because I don’t have the time to draw them. You have them all, and… 

Oh, I think I can read you something on this. Yeah:

This is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercis[ed exceeding] great faith, are called with a holy calling…Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren.

K? This is chapter 13 of Alma. So, let’s change that picture, and let’s say that instead of this [referencing the original picture Denver drew], everyone was on the same… “In the first place…” In the first place everyone was just alike. Everyone had the same potential. Everyone had the same light and truth. Everyone was made of that. Everyone was just like one another.

Where did the birth order come from? Where did Christ come from? 93, beginning at verse 11, this is John (and I’m starting at verse 11, but we’ll back up in a minute):

And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us…  

K? This is Him; He came, and He dwelt here. “[But] I…” I’m talking about the pre-existence…  

…I saw that he received not…the fulness at first [He received not the fulness at first], but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness; …thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not…the fulness at the first.

What did He do? One of this group/one of this family/one of this assortment of people/one of them went from grace to grace until He received a fullness. He proved it could be done. He showed the way. He was called the Only Begotten of the Father. He was called that because He embodied the word of God. Would you like to know what God the Father’s word was? Look at Him. Look at the Only Begotten. Did you make it without Him? No, you didn’t. You didn’t make it here without Him. Christ proved the word of the Father by the things which He did. As a consequence of Christ doing it, some few others, in turn, were also able to rise up. And they became “sons of the morning.”

You see, the picture that we get in D&C section 93 (coupled with Alma chapter 13) is different than the picture that you sometimes pick out or get described for you. Look at verse 30 of section 93:

All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.

Did Christ exist? If Christ existed, He had to be free to choose for Himself. This had to be a voluntary act on His part. He had to be willing to receive the light and truth. 

Believe it or not, we’re all just talking about the same thing. This is just about personal revelation. All of it is. And it’s about how you receive light and truth. Because we’re acting out again here what we acted out once before, and the process is the same here as the process was there—although here it’s coupled with a lot of illusions that are guaranteed to make you progress whether you want to or not—it’s coming. 

So, when you look at the word of God, what you’re seeing in Christ is the embodiment or the fulfillment of what the Father said. When Christ defines Himself in 3rd Nephi chapter 11, and He tells you who He is, He can’t tell you who He is without referring to the Father three times in a very brief introduction: I…suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning, He tells us. He is the word of the Father. He is the embodiment of the things that the Father would like to have for us. So, why do we obey the commandments? Why do we follow the process? Why do we want to go from grace to grace, and how do we open the third eye to be able to resonate with and receive light and truth into ourselves from the Being who is defined as light and truth?

Well, I read another book just a few days ago. (I’ve heard that he’s written a good book. I was challenged to read this one, and I was challenged by reading it.) You just… You can’t pick up that title without… Well, maybe you can: Odds Are, You’re Going to Be Exalted. Well, he’s got a “Master’s degree in theology and a Ph.D. in biblical studies.” So, he has credentials: Alonzo Gaskill—actually, I was gonna leave him alone, but I heard him on the radio a couple of days ago, and it was that… It was the tone in his voice—it was the absolute, resolute, bitter, hostile conviction that “God wouldn’t do that!” on the radio that just struck me, convinced me I don’t want to talk to the man. But in any event, here’s a quote from his book:

The thought that God would promote something that would ensure that the vast majority of His children would never again be able to dwell in His presence is incomprehensible. And the assumption that our mother in heaven would idly sit back and allow such a guaranteed flop to eternally strip her of any interaction with her spirit offspring is equally unfathomable. Such could not—and did not—happen!

I couldn’t contain myself, and I wrote, Why? You see, nature tells us that of all the male turtles that are born, precious few of them are ever going to survive long enough to reproduce. And of all the bull elk that are born, precious few of them are gonna survive long enough to ever reproduce.

And he’s made the cataclysmic leap of presuming that all children who die under the age of eight are promised something other than the Celestial kingdom (which is what the Scriptures say that they’re promised—they inherit the Celestial kingdom); he’s leapt to “exaltation,” which is a different kind of life within the Celestial kingdom. And he does some math calculations based upon the Millennium, based upon the number of children infant mortality tells us will die before the age of eight, and the city of Enoch, and people who are unaccountable because they’re mentally impaired—which I presume would include most of the faculty of many of our learned universities—equals, in his computation, that the odds are you’re gonna be exalted.

The problem is none of us fit in the category about which he’s exalting. You’ve lived beyond the age of eight (except the kids that aren’t listening). And you’re… Well, I was gonna say you’re not retarded—I need to at least hesitate on that point—I don’t think you’re mentally impaired, although some of us are. And you don’t live during the Millennium, and you weren’t in the city of Enoch, and you’re not part of the Nephite centuries and the post- visitation by Christ. I mean, the audience… You know, odds are you’re gonna be exalted… Peddle that to children under eight, peddle it during the Millennium, maybe you got an audience. But the audience to which this is directed is you. And he’s trying to tell you that this isn’t hard, when everything that the Savior said implies very strongly that this is hard, and that “few there be that make it,” and that it’s designed (just like nature is designed) to start with a lot and to end up with a few.  And the lessons of nature tell us that you will start with a lot, and you will end up with a few. Just like this overly generous outpouring of priesthood ordination to anyone who is twelve years old or older who happens to be baptized in the Church results in just the most promiscuous series of priesthood certificates of any dispensation ever. But then we read,

Behold, there are many called, but few are [then] chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are [so set] upon the things of this world, [they] aspire to the honors of men, …they [don’t] 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…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’s] withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.

See, odds are you are going to be…a priest? Well, “that they may be conferred upon us, [it’s] true.” But I just read a bunch of limitations.

Odds are you’re gonna be exalted? Well, you can go to the temple and fetch an ordinance, but unless it’s sealed upon you by the Holy Spirit of Promise, you know, all those things are conditional. And so, it’s not… The call is to do this. The call is to come down here and be a gatherer of light. And it doesn’t matter if the process seems so ephemeral; it seems gossamer. It seems like the web of a spider and so delicate that the blowing of the wind can tear it apart. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. Because you’re trying to get in harmony with God. And you’re trying to gather a substance that proves your existence by your free will choice to accept light and truth. When you do, Joseph said you could taste the truth. When you do, you can feel the truth. You can sense its presence; you can let it in to you; you can resonate with it. The…umm… 

(Boy, we’re not going to have the time to get through this stuff. And I have to go buy frozen pinky mice. Yeah.)

When you go back to the account that’s given in section 93 and you go back to the description that’s given in Abraham chapter 3, you learn in Abraham chapter 3 that the Father shows (Christ shows, acting in the role as the Father) all of the organized intelligences that existed before the world was; and among this all there were a subset called “many” that were noble and great (if you can read that scratch).

…saw many that were noble and great. And God saw these souls that they were good… 

These souls, that they were good,

…and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers.

These are the people that are gonna teach truth and light. These are the ones that are gonna come down and bring to you revelation. These are the ones that are gonna shed forth light and truth. They’re not administrators.

These [will I] make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, …he saw…they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham… 

So, we know that one of them is like the Son of God, but another one is Abraham.

Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. …there stood one among them that was like unto God…  

And that’s Christ. Christ stood among them, k? He (Christ),

…he said [to] those [that] were with him: 

K? Christ talking to “noble and great,” He says to them,  “We, we will go down.” This group… 

We will go down, for there is space there, …we will take of these materials, …we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them…to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first estate… 

…and so on. Well… 

This is from the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, from page 375:

“Now,” says God, when He visited Moses in the bush, (Moses was a stammering sort of a boy like me) God said, “Thou shalt be a God unto the children of Israel.” God said, “Thou shalt be a God unto Aaron, and he shall be thy spokesman.”

I [this is Joseph, I] believe those Gods that God reveals as Gods to be sons of God, and all can cry, “Abba, Father!” Sons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods, even from before the foundation of the world, and are the only Gods I have a reverence for.

This is Joseph, just in the middle of a talk, saying that there is a group who exalted themselves to be gods even before they were born, and all of them can cry, “Abba, Father!” 

Well, Abraham served as the prophet-leader of a little, tiny family. We read about him now and think him “big cheese,” but at the time, he led a badly-fractured family and presided over a small group. His apparent one public ministry in Jerusalem resulted in him getting run out of town. From then on, he ministered only inside his own family. Abraham (while he had a fairly interesting career in a varied climate and managed to get to sit on Pharaoh’s throne because he taught some things about the heavens and ingratiated himself to Pharaoh—not the least of reason was his wife and her beauty) went on to lead a relatively private life in a family—in a family. And we all call him the father of the righteous.

Christ’s largest audience was, in all likelihood, the group He spoke to at the temple in Bountiful after His resurrection. During His mortal ministry, in all probability, even in the temple He didn’t have as big an audience as He did at the temple in Bountiful. Perhaps as He hung on the cross, as the crowds were gathering to attend the festivities at the Passover in Jerusalem, more people passed by Him and wagged their tongue at Him in His final state of making the sacrifice, but we don’t know that.

The folks who the Scriptures identify as being most clearly “noble and great” are people that really didn’t have much more responsibility in life than every one of you have inside your own family. You know, we get filled with covetousness because celebrity-dom has come to Zion. And I mean this in all sincerity: I do not intend to be a celebrity, and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like talking at these things. Because I think to the extent that you attract attention for yourself, you’re missing the mark. The best of us are horribly flawed, the best of us are. Anyone that would attract light or distract people for themselves and take it off of the perfect example that you find in Christ is a fool. They practice the wrong sort of religion. 

We’re down here to gather light. Whether you recognize it or not, you are a son or a daughter of light. That’s what you are. You’re down here to gather more of it. And the place where you’re primarily responsible for presiding and conducting is inside the confines of your own family. That’s why Abraham is remembered. That’s why Lehi is remembered. For the most part, the public ministry of ancient prophets was met with almost universal failure. Noah saved his own family. You rarely find a prophet or prophetess (and they are in Scripture, as well) who succeeds in their own lifetime.

Christ got it right when He was saying the only words of the prophets that you really respect are the dead ones. And why do you respect the dead ones? Well, because then the professors of religion can take over, and they can package them and parse them and explain them—or explain them away. Without the living oracle there to be able to say, “Not so fast!” you can take the words of any of them and parlay them into whatever you want them to become. Hence, Joseph’s insistence that every one of us become a prophet and prophetess, every one of us get in touch with the things of the spirit, every one of us receive what is out there in the way of light and welcome it into yourself. Vessels of light—that’s what you’re supposed to be.

You know, it’s very basic, and I think it’s (in all likelihood) the case that the first principles and ordinances of the gospel are not the first principles (meaning the beginning), but they are the first principles meaning the primary/the essentials/the ones that must be kept/the ones that are always in front of you: 

You receive the Holy Ghost. D&C section 130, “The Father…” This is verse 22: 

The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.

Receive the Holy Ghost, and let it dwell in you. 

Well, you know, it’s… I don’t know if the odds are you’re gonna be exalted or not, but I can tell you that the way in which that will happen, if it does happen, is going to be through—unlike the way revelation is portrayed in this, the latest offering by the powers that be, as something perverse and something that only the nutcases engage in—it will be by your connection with the spirit. 

Moroni chapter 7 is a dissertation on all of those things of the spirit, and it says, “Hey, if these things have ceased, then there is no faith, and no one’s being saved.” And it’s just that simple. If it doesn’t happen, no one’s being saved. You’re a child of light; you’re a son or a daughter of light. You proceed from the glory of God or the intelligence of God, which is light and truth. At your core, what is there is light and truth. But it has been made independent. It gets to choose for itself. Otherwise, there is no existence.

And you—each of you—need to receive the Holy Ghost—each of you—and to permit it to dwell in you. You know, there are a lot of symbols that get employed in the Scriptures. One of the words that gets employed to describe the Holy Ghost (which should dwell in you), is “the third member of the godhead.” Would you like to be like your Father in Heaven? Well, then, receive ye the Holy Ghost. He is as close, He is as intimate, He is as in connection with you as the very substance out of which you were originally organized. If you would like to be in touch with Him, keep His commandments.

Follow Him. You’re not… Even if you do your best, you’re not gonna do a very good job. But the Scriptures talk in terms of your sincerity: those who keep all His commandments or seek earnestly to do so. Even the best of us are doing things wrong that we don’t even know are wrong yet, because we haven’t got that much light and truth yet. And so, we proceed to blunder around in the china shop, breaking the furniture and damaging all of the things that we ought to be holding sacred, and we do it with reckless abandon. And God doesn’t care about that, because He hasn’t brought us that far up the ladder yet to respect the furniture. He’s just trying to get us to stop messing our pants and stop putting graffiti on the walls—if we’ll just settle down enough to do that. 

The atonement of Christ is a work in progress. He’s trying to fix us, and He does that by giving us a little light, and a little more light, and a little more yet. Until finally you look back upon yourself from two decades earlier, and you say, “What a wretch was I!” Well, it’s a progression in light and truth. You’re still a wretch, you’re just 20 years away from recognizing it still. Start obeying further and getting more light and truth, and you’ll be astonished at what it is you’re going to become. 

Well, let me end by bearing testimony to you that, in my view, the Church is exactly what it ought to be, staffed exactly as it should be, filled with all you good people, with all of the things that you bring with you to the party. And that this is a perfect environment in which each one of you get the opportunity to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord. And you ought to be afraid. You ought to be fearful, because the things that you hold onto in your secret sins are the very things that you ought to be abandoning. And the fact that you’re holding on to them means you have not yet chosen the light and the truth. You ought to be abandoning that junk, whatever it is. 

We all have our shortcomings. We all have our temptations. We all have our failings.:

These people met with the Lord.  It is not a distant mountain. It is not an insurmountable problem.  Have faith, repent, go and partake of the sacrament—do so (and I use the word advisedly), do so worthily. 

By the way, do you know how to determine if you’re worthy or not? You ask the Lord. You don’t do as brother Gaskill suggests and simply presume it. You do as Joseph said: And after thinking about his native cheery temperament and his inclination towards irreverence, he decided to inquire of the Lord to find out what his standing was. It had been four years since the First Vision, and Joseph wanted to know. Joseph didn’t presume. In fact, if he were presuming, he would have presumed to the contrary that he was worthy. “How am I doing, Lord?” And the Lord answered, in the form of the angel Moroni.

You know, don’t settle for a book about riding the bike. Don’t settle for polishing up the launch pad. It was designed to be set in motion. It was designed to engage you. You’re supposed to be part of this. The prophetic history of all that we read needs to come down to and be embodied in you and your life.

You have whole generations of people that went before you and you have people that are coming after whose faith, just like our faith in the pre-existence, was stimulated by the word of God embodied in the life of Christ. You have people looking upon you and having faith as a consequence of what you’re doing. You’re called “saviors on Mount Zion” not simply because you trek to the temple, and you fall asleep during the endowment. You’re called that because all of those that went before and all who come after have an investment in your life. You! You are the source of faith. You are the source of light for many. 

Live your life as if you’re on stage because, believe me, you are. There are people who are being redeemed as a consequence of the investment that they have in you. A failing, flagging, despondent ancestor is being buoyed up by the example you set. You have no private moments, and you have no private sins, so stop holding on to them. For goodness sake, they’re not only being shouted on the rooftops in the day of judgment, they’re being shouted on the rooftops right now. This is only the illusion of privacy. Everything you do is on display, which is why it is so important that you be one who gathers light and truth. 

You be one who is open to receiving these things, which God offers liberally—liberally, however perverse that may be in political terms in Utah, that’s a descriptor of God. He spends money like a Democrat with the federal budget when it comes to giving you light and truth. God giveth liberally. Deficit spending doesn’t matter. He gives liberally, so where’s the impediment? 

The impediment is that we lack the faith to bring ourselves into harmony with perfect perpendicularity to the Earth—because as long as you’re in sympathy with the Earth, you’re out of sync with heaven. You have to get perpendicular to it. You have to draw a line between you and it. And when you draw a line… That’s one of the reasons why we have gravity. That’s one of the symbols that God gave us in this life. If you can walk, you’re walking around teaching a lesson about “getting in harmony with God” to yourself. All things testify of Christ. They all do. 

And I bear testimony of Him in His name, Amen. 

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