Light and Truth

This talk was given at a fireside on October 29, 2017, in Bountiful, Utah.

Transcript

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Denver: Apparently we are still waiting on someone. I am talking about irrelevancies. Down in Dallas there was a bright light shining from where I was standing at the podium and it hit right on the top ledge of the podium. The microphone that I was using was black and it was aligned with the shadow underneath that bright surface so literally, the microphone was invisible from where I was standing and on occasion I would make a gesture and hit the microphone, which was really obnoxious in the room and I assume even more so online. But the recording people have the ability to take those spikes and reduce them down and make them better, but it was obnoxious. What bothered me was I would make a conscious effort to get back from the microphone, wherever it was. I literally could not see it against the black of the shadow that was behind it.  

Question: How many people were there?  

Denver: The only ones that really matter were Christians. There were probably a dozen of them.  One of them, one lady leads a group of about 70 people whose primary ministry is helping feed the homeless. That group of about 70 people are from small Christian groups. None of the mega church people show up to help out. They are very grassroots, very humble, and very low key. I think she brought her son with her and afterwards she said she was going to have everyone of the 70 people that’s in her group listen to the talk because she thought it would be good for them.  There were a couple from another more organized religion, kind of an intermediate sized church.  They started out fairly grim faced and oppositional and by the time it was done they were interested and they were going to do some more investigating on the website. There were three baptisms the day after. There were two ordinations, they had been ordained previously but they got their certification. There is two married couples down in the Dallas area, both of whom have children, who feel themselves really quite isolated and it was very meaningful for them to have a group descend from Boise and Utah and come spend a few days there. Lewis, who’s not here with us, actually moved in with one of them for the few days before hand. He was passing out fliers. A lot of good was done, but it’s only the Christians that matter. Since the attendance has not filled the venues, for Atlanta we don’t care who comes. We don’t care if there are members of fellowships. We don’t care if they’re local or traveling. 

Introduction: Thank you so much for coming down. Most of our fellowship and a few others have been asked to come. This is kind of a loose meeting. I will bring some water out. Feel free to move around. There is some pop in the fridge and some water. Thanks so much. I know some of you traveled a long ways in the last 24 hours, and some shorter distances. Thank you for coming. One of the greatest faith promoting things to me; there are two things in my life that have brought me here. The rest, I struggle a lot with spirituality. I’ve said this before to many of you, and those in my fellowship who know, so it’s difficult for me. I challenge about everything that I see and I’m pretty critical about it all, until I kind of beat it up enough that I believe in it. The two things that I believe in the most, and why I’m here, are present in this room tonight. 

I just want to let you know how much it means to me to have our fellowship and our friends here, because that is, to me, the reason why I’m here. And because I believe this man has the words of Christ. Those two things are the glue for me. The rest of it is difficult, I’ll be honest, it’s very difficult for me to come along. Having that here tonight is very special for Angela and I. I appreciate you being in our home. We’ll turn the time over to Denver. 

Denver, most of these people have been reading for over ten years, so they’re well acquainted. We’re up to speed on priesthood. We’ve reviewed most of the stuff that you’ve now talked about so feel free to do about whatever you can do to give us some more and widen some of those things we’ve kind of left on the table. We’ll turn the time over to you. 

Denver: I told my wife when it was time for me to stop that she should walk over and kick me. Very often the signal is I get kicked under the table, so if that happens you’ll know that it’s time to wrap up. 

The biggest problem I can see with the whole topic of priesthood is that everyone’s got a context already inside their own mind, and whatever is said about priesthood gets put into that context, so that it becomes almost impossible to make any meaningful forward momentum in understanding the big picture. There’s a reason why, when the temple message began to roll out, the message began with telling the story of the Creation and Adam and Eve. We tend to divorce priesthood from the Creation and from the first man and woman, and to insert it into something as narrow and as limited as someone laying hands on someone, and then that person upon whom the hands are laid now having authority to go do something that is part of a bundle of ordinances or initiation rites, whereas priesthood, in it’s truest sense, is much more comprehensive and far reaching. 

What I would like, is for you to let me talk about what I’ll call the Holy Order. Imagine, if you can, that you know nothing about the Holy Order, and that the Holy Order is not the priesthood as you understand it, it’s something different. We’re going to try and get our hands around that tonight as a new, and as a distinct, and as a more broad-based concept than something that is called and is familiar to you, with the term priesthood. Some of the quotes that I’m going to read to you from Joseph are going to use the word, “priesthood”. I may or may not read it correctly, I might change it to “Holy Order”, because I want that to be the broader understanding that we hopefully walk away from tonight.  

Joseph said, “The [Holy Order] was first given to Adam; he obtained the First Presidency.” By the time this statement was made in 1839 there was something official organized in the Church that was called “First (capital F) Presidency (capital P)”, and as a result of that, when Joseph Fielding Smith put together the Teachings of the Prophet [Joseph Smith] the words, “First Presidency” are capitalized in here as though they were an office that Adam held. I want to get rid of the capitals and just say Adam was, in effect, the first presiding officer. 

“[The Holy Order] was first given to Adam; he obtained the [first presiding position on the Earth], and held the keys of it from generation to generation. He obtained it in the Creation, before the world was formed. He had dominion given him over every living creature. He’s Michael the Archangel, spoken of in the scriptures. Then to Noah, who is Gabriel; he stands next in authority to Adam in the [Holy Order]; He was called of God to this office, and was the Father of all living in this day, and to him was given the dominion. These men held the keys, first on earth, and then in heaven. 

“The [Holy Order] is an everlasting principle, and existed with God from eternity, and will to eternity, without beginning of days or end of years. The keys have to be brought from heaven, whenever the Gospel is sent. When they are revealed from Heaven it is by Adam’s authority. 

…He (Adam) is the father of the human family and presides over the spirits of all men, and all that have had the keys must stand before him in this grand council. This may take place before some of us leave this stage of action. The Son of Man stands before him, and there is given him glory and dominion. Adam delivers up his stewardship to Christ, that which was delivered to him as holding the keys of the universe but retains his standing as the head of the human family.” (TPJS, p. 157). 

The Holy Order really begins at the point that Adam, the first man, who is called “the son of God” in Luke 3:38. Adam, the first man, obtains the Holy Order in the beginning, and included within it, is the right to preside over all of the human family and then the right to minister to his posterity, and to continue to hold that presiding position until the end of time. 

Now Joseph skips from Adam down to Noah because Adam had a position and dominion and a right over all of humanity and Noah occupied the same position. All the descendants were looking to him, genealogically, as a father. The right descended down to Noah, through the Fathers, and these held that same Holy Order. But they had siblings and they had relations who were not their descendants. Therefore, although they were within the Holy Order, unlike Adam and unlike Noah, there were other people living who would descend outside of their genealogical connection. They would not be the father of these people, but the Holy Order was passed down in this fashion. Joseph is looking at this from the perspective of who has it all, and all was combined into Adam and into Noah. There’s a shift in the landscape that’s going to take place later but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Joseph says: “there are two priesthoods spoken of in the Scriptures, viz, Melchizedek and Aaronic or Levitical. Although there are two priesthoods, yet the Melchizedek priesthood comprehends the Aaronic or Levitical and is the grand head, and holds the highest authority which pertains to [I’m   going to change the word now to the Holy Order] and the keys of the Kingdom of God in all ages of the world, to the latest posterity on the earth; and is the channel through which all knowledge, doctrine, the plan of salvation, and every important matter is revealed from heaven” comes through the Holy Order. “Its institution was prior to ‘the foundation of this [world] where the morning stars sang together or the sons of God shouted for joy’ and is the highest and holiest [order] and is after the Order of the Son of God.”. I’m going to pause there. 

We think that the renaming of the Holy Order to the Melchizedek priesthood, in order to avoid the too frequent repetition of the name of the Son of God, was done out of respect for the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and that’s true enough. However, the Holy Order, by its very nature, includes the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God; one of whom was also Adam. When the apostle John wrote his epistle, he described those who had come in by way of conversion through him and received from him what the Lord had given to him, and he says: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” (1 John 3:1-3.)

I would like to suggest that the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God includes the fact that those who inherit the Holy Order are sons of God. Therefore, in a way, calling it the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God, is a way of identifying the recipient as someone who has become one of God’s sons. I think it’s appropriate to regard the primary identifier–that is the subject of who the Son of God is–to be Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. Because quite frankly, He’s the only one who attained the resurrection, and it is through the power of the resurrection that we’re going to come forth. We do not have the power in ourselves to rise from the dead. The wages of sin are death, we’ve earned those wages; we all will die. The Savior did not earn those wages, He died, and therefore His death was unjust and the law of justice got broken when He died. Therefore, whenever justice makes a claim on any of us He can point to the fact that justice extracted from Him eternal life, and that is an infinite price for Him to have paid. Therefore He has compensated for all of mankind’s shortcomings [and] failures. 

Christ is the means by which we lay hold upon the promises but it is His intention to make of us all sons of God. Therefore, the Holy Order after the Son of God is when the name is announced, self-identifying the person holding such a Holy Order as one of God’s sons, even though they may be mortal, even though they may be in the flesh. The Holy Order is for that very purpose and is after the Order of the Son of God. “…All other priesthoods are only parts, ramifications, powers and blessings belonging to the same, and are held, controlled and directed by it. It is the channel through which the Almighty commenced revealing His glory at the beginning of the creation of this earth, and through which He has continued to reveal Himself to the children of men to the present time, and through which He will make known His purposes to the end of time.” 

Therefore, among other things, the purpose of the Holy Order is to put in place a mechanism by which God can reveal from heaven what is necessary for the salvation of man on earth, in every generation, in order to fix what is broken, in order to restore what has been lost, in order to repair, heal, forgive, and reconnect those who are willing to give heed to the message sent from heaven, so that they can rise up to become sons of God. 

The Holy Order descended from Adam in turn. We’re not going to do it but if you take the time to go through and look at who got ordained, Seth was a replacement for the slain Abel. Cain was an elder brother. Cain would have qualified as the elder brother if he had been righteous for inheriting the Holy Order. He had lived long enough and he had been observed by his parents long enough so that Eve identified Cain as a man who had been gotten from God. Therefore she knew he would not fail, which means that for at least some prolonged period of time after the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve had drifted into apostasy, Cain exhibited not only an interest but an adherence to what was being taught by the first parents. Eve celebrated that they at last had someone to whom the Holy Order could be passed. Cain was not the oldest son. He was the oldest righteous son and as the oldest righteous son it would have passed to him in due course. Abel, his younger brother, was probably in his day righteous because of the positive example of his older brother Cain. If you’ve got someone in the family who is on the right path, it’s so much easier for the sibling to respect the example of someone similarly situated with them than it is to listen to the parents. Abel likewise followed in the path of righteousness. 

Satan put it into the heart of Cain to view the inheritance that he was going to receive of the Holy Order as an opportunity to gratify his pride, and to satisfy his ambition, and to exert control and compulsion, because if he were the one in the line then the Messiah would descend through him and he would have a patriarchal position superior to the Messiah himself. This was an important part of the plot of the adversary. If the adversary could gain control over the inheritor under Adam of the Holy Order, then as I just read a moment ago, before the Savior returns, when dominion was given to Adam, it was by God’s word and God cannot break His word. The right of dominion had been conferred. It has to be returned to Him. If Cain were the one in the position to exercise control then he could exert whatever conditions Satan put into his heart before he would return the right of dominion back to the Savior. Thus, if a disciple of Satan were to be in possession of that Holy Order in that line holding dominion, all of the conditions that Satan had demanded in the preexistence, which were rejected by the Father and created the war in heaven designed to destroy the agency of man, could become the condition for the redemption of this creation. Therefore, Cain’s apostasy represented an enormous threat to the salvation of everyone who would live thereafter. As a consequence of that, the offering by the younger brother was approved and the older brother Cain was told, “You need to stop what you’re doing, you need to repent and return, and if you do not, sin lieth at the door. The adversary is ready to enter into your house.” This represented a serious frustration or threat to the second great conspiracy to destroy the souls of men and to capture this creation. Therefore, Satan put it into the heart of Cain to murder his brother and Abel was slain so that, the theory was, by controlling the position that necessarily meant that the Messiah would be a descendant of Cain’s, the line would come through him, and he would have the authority, the control, the dominion, and the right to change the plan or the conditions for the salvation of the souls of men in this world. 

Question: …You’re saying that it’s genealogical then, that the Holy Order gets passed through; it’s not verified by God?

Denver: At this point we’re at the very beginning, we haven’t gotten very far. But it is essential when you begin to talk about the Holy Order that you start here. If you don’t start here, if you want to start at the time of Moses and the Aaronic priests, or you want to start at the time of Joseph Smith and talk about ordinations in June 1831, or if you want to talk about the three witnesses identifying the Quorum of the Twelve and then ordaining them, you’re not going to comprehend what the Holy Order is all about because the Holy Order has, as part of its implication, the right of dominion over all creation. That was what it was established for and it came down to the beginning. It belonged to God. It is why God is God. In essence the Holy Order is to create of flesh and blood a surrogate for the Father and Mother. That’s what the Holy Order was designed to accomplish. 

In the beginning, when you’re talking about this process, the reason why we have Seth as the next person is because Cain fell, Abel was murdered, and perhaps, because of the example, Adam and Eve in their sorrow were able to inform Seth of things that secured his fidelity to God. It descended in regular course down through these fathers until you get to Shem who was called Melchizedek. Mulek, king; Zedek, priest. It’s a new name for the man, Shem, and then it simply falls into disrepair or apostasy and we encounter our first gap in the descent from the days of Adam down, which lasted several generations until we get to Abraham. 

Abraham also happened to have a genealogical right but that wasn’t what was important. In the case of Abraham “…finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers…” The “blessings of the fathers” after which he was seeking was the Holy Order. He wanted to become one like those that had been in the beginning. 

Question: If Cain got the Holy Order and decided to use it for nefarious purposes how come he wouldn’t just lose it by virtue of having evil intention? 

Denver: When God spoke to Cain He called him to repent. So, God speaks to Cain and tells him to repent. He didn’t repent; he did forfeit, but he forfeited by becoming the first murderer. So the first time that you do something wrong, would you want God to say, “There you go, you’re done, you’re cut off, you will never have an opportunity to become what I would like you to become, a son of God,” or would you want him to call you to repentance? Because God called Cain to repent and he didn’t; he went out and he murdered his brother. He just got more determined to accomplish what he wanted. At that point Cain did not die as a result of the murder of his brother. He was driven out but he wasn’t killed, and he did lose the right. So, even though he was living and even though he was alive at the time of his brother Seth, the right went to his brother exactly for that reason. The first instance of error, I mean heavens, [the] Kirtland Safety Society may have been out to get rid of Joseph’s position. 

“…I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge.” 

When you think of the Holy Order after the Order of the Son of God, don’t think of it exclusively as some sort of status. It’s implicit that what that includes is possession of great knowledge and greater knowledge. “A man cannot be saved in ignorance,” as Joseph put it. “A man is saved no sooner than he gets knowledge,” but implicit in those statements by Joseph Smith is that the purpose of the knowledge is so that you can be a greater follower of righteousness. It’s not so that you can play spiritual Trivial Pursuit and win because the knowledge has to be implemented into practice in order for it to have the desired effect. Without accompanying obedience to the things that are known there is no salvation in that. It has to be as Abraham puts it: 

“To be a greater follower, and to possess a greater knowledge and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir.” (Abraham 1:2).

At this point in the creation Adam would have all mankind descend from him and Noah would have all mankind descend from him, and therefore they would be the fathers of nations. Abraham knew that was part of what was involved. It’s not merely knowledge for knowledge’ sake, it’s being put into a position in which there is a posterity involving nations that would look to him as they looked to Noah, [and] as they had looked to Adam, as their father. 

Think of fatherhood as an opportunity to nurture, to assist, to provide for, to care for, to bring along, to take what is innocent and malleable, and turn it into something that is God-like, responsible, capable, something or someone who can stand on their own two legs and defend the truth when called upon to do so. Someone that will themselves be a vessel of righteousness. Don’t think of a father as a bully with a whip or a belt. What Abraham desired was to be a servant; that was what his ambition to be a father of nations involved. And so he became a rightful heir, 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… even from the beginning, or before the foundation of the earth, down to the present time, even the right of the firstborn, or the first man, who is Adam, or first father, through the fathers unto me.” (Abraham 1:3). That’s where it came from. A son of God descended through those fathers to Abraham, because Melchizedek, after a period of apostasy lasting generations, reconnected father Abraham into the fathers. Which is the issue raised a minute ago about this genealogical thing. This is non-genealogical. This is a righteous man in a world of apostasy, looking to reconnect to heaven. He becomes the father of the righteous because he’s the first example of a generation, a man in a world of apostasy coming out of that apostasy and reconnecting to Heaven. 

There were generations separating Abraham from Shem. Abraham qualified to receive the rights belonging to the fathers because he sought for his appointment, he possessed knowledge, he lived consistent with the knowledge he had, and he wished to have greater knowledge, so that he could obey more commandments so that he could gain further light and knowledge by the things that he learned through obedience. 

When you get to what happens after he’s connected up, the Lord talking to him says: “My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Holy Order unto all the nations; And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father; (See Abraham 2:8-10). That’s non-genealogical. That’s the same process through which Abraham went to become a descendant of the fathers. It’s reconnecting. Whoever does that, in whatever generation, is a descendant and can call Abraham their father. 

Question: What reference was that?

Denver: Abraham 2:9-10, and I am going on to 11, so right in there.

“…I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Holy Order) and in thy seed (that is, the Holy Order), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of eternal life.” (See Abraham 2:11).

Abraham says: “Now, after the Lord had withdrawn from speaking to me, and withdrawn his face from me, I said in my heart: Thy servant has sought thee earnestly; now I have found thee.” (Abraham 2:12). He’s saying, that whenever you receive the Gospel, whenever you receive this Gospel, and it’s really hard to try and get this Gospel back on the earth. There was still a great deal left to be recovered, restored, and returned when Joseph was killed at 38½ [years old]. But when this Gospel–the one that Abraham had received–was on the earth at any time then whoever receives that is a descendant of Abraham. They are part of the family of Abraham and he is their father, and so he becomes the father of many nations. He instructed and passed along the same birthright to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to Joseph, and to Ephraim, and then it rather turns into the same sort of mess that we had previously until the time of Moses. 

I don’t know how much to say. Moses really didn’t belong to the tribe. Moses really was not identified with the tribe that held the birthright. There’s no question that by the time you get 200 years downstream from the days of Joseph and Ephraim, that through intermarriage Moses would have had in him blood of Judah, blood of Ephraim, blood of Benjamin; they intermarry. 

There’s a practice among some Indian tribes. The tribes are the nation and inside the nation there are clans. When a daughter gets to be marital age she is forbidden to marry inside her clan. She has to go marry into another clan. The boys from the other clan court girls who are not of their clan and when they marry, the girls go to live with the clan of their husband. If the female is from the water clan and she marries someone who is the bear clan she is now part of the bear clan. Genealogically she is water clan. Governmentally she is bear clan. 

How you reckon who Moses was a descendent of, is not based upon doing a DNA search or looking at a genealogy chart to figure it out. That’s not how it was done. Moses is an isolated restoration of a single person into the position in which he could have brought all of Israel back into God’s presence. We could have had essentially Zion. Israel was, after being habituated to slavery for 200 years, not willing to climb up the Mount, probably felt themselves incapable of climbing up the Mount. They were perfectly willing to go along with Moses. Of course, there were some ne’er do-wells out there in the wilderness too, and they kept them out of the Holy Land, but Moses arises and that brings up a statement that Joseph Smith made. 

During the period of time after this, down to the time of John the Baptist, there were prophets who ministered in Israel. Joseph had this to say about those prophets: “All the prophets had the Holy Order and were ordained by God himself. If they didn’t have what they needed to have they would not be in possession of the channel through which all knowledge, doctrine, the plan of salvation, and every important matter is revealed from heaven. They would not have the ability to hold the channel through which the Almighty commenced revealing his glory at the beginning of the creation of this earth, and through which he has continued to reveal himself to the children of men to the present time.” It was essential that they be put in possession of something that equipped them to be able to minister in a way that guaranteed, if anyone would listen, salvation. 

Then we get down to something more immediately important to us and that is Peter, James, and John. I’m not going to read it because I want to move along a little more quickly. Remember a few minutes ago I read to you that Adam holds the keys of all dispensations, and that Adam holds the keys of the dispensation of the fulness of times, those are Adam’s. Peter, James, and John declare themselves as possessing the keys of the dispensation of the fulness of times. Adam holds keys in order to bring about every dispensation from the time of Adam down to the very end of time, but Adam didn’t live through every dispensation from the beginning to the very end of time. Therefore, although he is in possession of it and although he has a say about who was involved with it, and although he may exercise the right of dominion in the counsels of Heaven, (because he is resurrected now after all), it still requires for salvation that flesh and blood accept and act on the challenge of redemption. 

Salvation is a mortal challenge. Whether or not we’re saved depends upon what we do. We don’t have angels running around fixing all our errors. We have no immortals that are going to come to our rescue, except for the Second Coming, to destroy the wicked and to visit with those who are wheat. The best way to understand it is, once the lifetime of the three Nephite disciples who asked to tarry on the earth ended, the way they continued their ministry was to minister to prophets, mortals, and then the mortals ministered to others. They came and they visited with Mormon, for example, but the people to whom Mormon ministered didn’t see them. They ministered to Moroni, but those to whom Moroni ministered didn’t see them. They become as a ministering angel, and the ministering of angels is predicated upon the faithfulness of people. 

You can read about how the system of salvation works, it’s in Alma. Angels minister to those who are supposed to then preach salvation to others in order to inform them about the conditions that are needed to be met for the salvation of others. John the Beloved has become a ministering angel and he has a ministry. There are those people who expect them to step out in public and to do what people of flesh and blood are obligated to do. Why, that’s kind of unfair to that generation. An apology will be owed to every other generation, if the angels suddenly assume the obligation to accomplish things, which from the days of Adam had been primarily the obligation of mortals to accomplish, with some to whom angels minister, ministering to others. 

This may seem like a diversion but it’s really not. I’m going to read to you. This is the fifth volume of the Documents of The Joseph Smith Papers. In the regular course of maintaining documents there were patriarchal blessings that had been given some time earlier than this Volume 5 and the blessings are in Histories, Volume 1 where they’re written down; a whole bunch of blessings given at the same time. They’re written down and they take about a page. No, it takes about three pages of typewritten material to put them all in, and it’s just person after person after person, patriarchal blessings. When they get recorded in the documents of the blessing, Oliver Cowdery is the one who is acting as scribe to convey them from the notes you get in Volume 1 of the Documents into the separated, separate blessings in Volume 5. Before they show you the version that Oliver Cowdery records in [Volume] 5, the Church Historian’s Office gives a little explanation of why what you are about to read is enormously expanded from what you saw in Volume 1: “It seems more likely that Cowdery made the expansions without direction from Joseph Smith. This would not have been the only occasion he did so. There is evidence that Cowdery altered at least one other blessing text, his own, when he recorded it in the volume. There is no direct evidence that Joseph Smith was involved in expanding and editing the 1833 blessings in September or October of 1835 and there are reasons to think he was not.” This is the document transcript of what Oliver Cowdery recorded in the 1835 blessing book, and I’ve highlighted what was in the original. It’s part of that last paragraph. 

[Inaudible audience comments.]

Denver: No, this is Don Carlos’. Oliver Cowdery’s is too many pages. Don Carlos’ was the only example I thought I’d copy because it’s easy to hold in one hand. 

Question: Why did he do that? 

Denver: Someone in my handwriting has written in pencil on the margin of my version of this book: “If Cowdery made changes on his own to patriarchal blessings did he also do so for Section 27? Why did he do so?” 

Oliver was told in a blessing when he failed to translate the text of the Book of Mormon that he would have other opportunities to write spiritual stuff, and sure enough, he took advantage of the license and he did so. The point I’m on right now is that if the Church Historian’s office is being candid about the fact that when we get to the patriarchal blessings, and Oliver Cowdery, on his own, blows up the content and includes a lot of stuff on his own initiative, which the greater proof suggests Joseph had no hand in, the reason why the Church Historian’s office is not equally candid with many other parts of the historical record that were altered by Oliver Cowdery is because they like what Oliver added. They want what Oliver said. It helps support a traditional narrative that gives them certain rights that they would love to be able to claim belong to them. It’s one of the reasons why it was necessary in the third volume of the new scriptures to go back and to painstakingly examine the original documents of the original revelation that we know that Joseph Smith gave, and then to augment that only with anything that was altered in the handwriting of Joseph Smith, and to limit the revelations given to Joseph to that. It’s one of the reasons why the new third volume, Teachings and Commandments, are going to be a superior set of scriptures, even though many of the revelations that we’re familiar with are going to have greatly reduced content, and some of the revelations will be gone altogether, because they simply have no basis for being able to say Joseph was the originator of that, some of which are foundational to authority claims. 

One more aside: the word “apostle”. There is no such thing as priesthood called apostle. It is an office in the Church like Relief Society president, like Primary president. (Like used to was Scout leader but that’s not so much now.) There’s no such priesthood as elder, it’s an office in the Church. This is why in the office of elder, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith could function in the Church as elders before the restoration of any of the higher priesthood. This is one of the reasons why we are particularly vulnerable in our lines of authority, because for about 22 years during the presidency of Heber J. Grant, ordinations did not confer any priesthood, they ordained to an office in the Church. And while the person ordained to the office in the Church was authorized to function in the office to which they were ordained, conferral of priesthood is a separate matter. You can have them be apostles without them being recipients of the priesthood. 

I say all that to suggest that when it comes to parsing the events of the restoration involving Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, the historical narrative upon which you base your understanding needs to be pretty carefully examined. The best source of material from which to draw is actually a composition that Joseph Smith began after Oliver Cowdery had been excommunicated from the Church. Oliver’s excommunication happened in April 1838 and with him and David Whitmer and John Whitmer gone–John Whitmer was the Church historian. He took with him all of the records that had been compiled involving the events of the restoration up to that time. In 1838 Joseph Smith began the recreation of the history of the events in the restoration. Joseph Smith’s history is identified in Histories, Volume 1 of The Joseph Smith Papers. What he wrote in 1838 is draft one and it’s been lost. We don’t have what he wrote in 1838. But Mulholland, who was his clerk at the time, recopied it in 1839 and that’s called draft two. We have internal material in draft two to suggest it was a really faithful copy because he copied it in 1839 but all of his dating is 1838, the year before. So when the internal dating copied by Mulholland in 1839 is 1838, a year earlier, it suggests that he was not doing anything to revise, change, or alter what Joseph had put down. 

In the earliest history that Joseph Smith wrote there’s a revelation that’s given in March 1829. It’s a revelation to Martin Harris that includes some interesting language that touches up against the topic we’re on tonight. It says: “Verily, I say unto you, that woe shall come unto the inhabitants of the earth if they will not hearken unto my words; For hereafter you shall be ordained and go forth and deliver my words unto the children of men. Behold, if they will not believe my words, they would not believe you, my servant Joseph, if it were possible that you should show them all these things which I have committed unto you.” (D&C 5:5-7). The statement in the revelation to Martin Harris includes this content addressed to Joseph Smith, telling Joseph that he’s going to be ordained to go forth and declare God’s words. But when he’s ordained to go forth and declare His words, he’s supposed to say what God tells him to say, “and if they won’t believe, that it wouldn’t matter if you told them everything that had been committed to Joseph Smith, they wouldn’t believe that either. So, you only tell them what I allow you to tell them and then they can receive what they need to receive in that mechanism.” Joseph had things which were committed unto him but which he did not reveal to anyone else. 

Promise of ordination. Then we get down…this is May 1829: 

“We…went into the woods to pray and inquire of the Lord respecting baptism for the remission of sins, that we found mentioned in the translation of the plates. While we were thus employed, praying and calling upon the Lord, a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light, and having laid his hands upon us, he ordained us, saying: 

Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness. 

He said this Aaronic Priesthood had not the power of laying on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, but that this should be conferred on us hereafter; and he commanded us to go and be baptized, and gave us directions that I should baptize Oliver Cowdery, and that afterwards he should baptize me.” (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith History 1:68-70).

Joseph was the first to baptize but he was the second to be baptized. 

This ordination takes place. At this ordination they have the authority to baptize and get angels to minister to them, but they don’t have something else that involves the power of laying of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, but that would be conferred thereafter. So go baptize. Something more is coming. 

You read through the history and there’s no mention of the appearance of Peter, James, and John but there is a desire on Joseph’s part to get this higher priesthood. There is also in the account a statement in Joseph Smith’s History that is the exact same wording that gets used involving ordinations in the Book of Mormon. These are the words: “To ordain priests and teachers, to declare my gospel according to the power of the Holy Ghost which is in you.” So the power to ordain in the early days of the Restoration was derived from the power of the Holy Ghost which is within the person that is doing the ordaining. Ordinations continue. Now we’re talking about “elders, priests, teachers, or deacons is to be ordained according to the gifts and calling of God unto them and is to be ordained by the power of the Holy Ghost which is in the one that ordains him.” Ordination early in the restoration was accomplished in the same way as ordination was accomplished in the Book of Mormon, that is by the power of the Holy Ghost that is in the person being ordained. 

Joseph Smith writes a letter while he is in exile in Nauvoo and the letter also tracks what he did in his histories, but he mentions something that is not mentioned in the histories:

“And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets—the book to be revealed. A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book! The voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna, detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light! The voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna county, and Colesville, Broome county, on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times!” (D&C 128:20). 

I have the keys to my Dodge truck. Do you have the keys to my Dodge truck? Well, they’ve declared themselves as possessing the keys. 

“And again, the voice of God in the chamber of old Father Whitmer…and at sundry times, and in divers places through all the travels and tribulations of this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! And the voice of Michael, the archangel; the voice of Gabriel, and of Raphael, and of divers angels, from Michael or Adam down to the present time, all declaring their dispensation, their rights, their keys, their honors, their majesty and glory, and the power of their priesthood; giving line upon line, precept upon precept; here a little, and there a little; giving us consolation by holding forth that which is to come, confirming our hope!” (D&C 128:21). 

Joseph Smith is saying that he was in possession of great knowledge but he also came into possession of greater knowledge. Because Joseph was going to be called upon, in a very serious role, to achieve something that involved trying to bring back nations into the Holy Order, that makes sons of God. Therefore, Joseph could not accomplish what needed to be accomplished without having greater knowledge than existed on the earth. Despite the discovery of Dead Sea scrolls, the Nag Hammadi, and research and translation of texts that were not available in English at the time of Joseph Smith’s lifetime, the fact remains that much of that material was simply corrupted. If you are going to try and understand the truth, the way in which that is brought about is by having possession of a “…channel through which all knowledge, doctrine, the plan of salvation, and every important matter is revealed from Heaven”. Therefore, Joseph needed to not only be in possession of that channel, but the channel needed to respond to, and did respond to Joseph’s petitions and inquiries, in order for him to be able to function in the position that he held. 

There’s a revelation that was given in January 1841, the last lengthy revelation given while Joseph was alive. His last vision–that’s a second-hand account, still reliable because it was recorded so quickly after, and that contains… William Smith is going to replace Hyrum as a counselor to Joseph. The revelation in January 1841 records: “And again, verily I say unto you, let my servant William be appointed, ordained, and anointed, as counselor unto my servant Joseph, in the room of my servant Hyrum, that my servant Hyrum may take the office of Priesthood and Patriarch, which was appointed unto him by his father, by blessing and also by right; That from henceforth he shall hold the keys of the patriarchal blessings upon the heads of all my people, That whoever he blesses shall be blessed, and whoever he curses shall be cursed; that whatsoever he shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And from this time forth I appoint unto him that he may be a prophet, and a seer, and a revelator unto my church, as well as my servant Joseph; That he may act in concert also with my servant Joseph; and that he shall receive counsel from my servant Joseph, who shall show unto him the keys whereby he may ask and receive, and be crowned with the same blessing, and glory, and honor, and priesthood, and gifts of the priesthood, that once were put upon him that was my servant Oliver Cowdery; That my servant Hyrum may bear record of the things which I shall show unto him, that his name may be had in honorable remembrance from generation to generation, forever and ever.” (D&C 124:91-96). 

Hyrum was put into a position that was once occupied by Oliver, to stand with Joseph, possessing the ability to ask and receive, so that the channel through which you can know and understand what God wants or intends for people is open as the mechanism to save souls. At the end of this it’s sole purpose is to save souls. It talks about him, and his name had an honorable remembrance from generation to generation. Only descendants of Hyrum occupied the position of the Presiding Patriarch of the Church until 1979 when Eldred G. Smith was made emeritus, but he still signed everything as Patriarch to the Church and he still kept an office in the Church Office Building. (Dave, I think you went and visited with him before he died?)

Comment: He got changed. Not in the Church Office Building but over in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Denver: Smith Memorial Building. 

Comment: Like in a broom closet or something.  

[Crosstalk and audience laughter.]

Denver: But he insisted on attending the Thursday meetings for a long period of time and maybe right up until the end. On 04 April, 2013 he died; the office has not been filled, and so far as we know it’s gone forever. 

What the Holy Order consists of is being able to have a channel which not only is occupied by God at the far end, but is reigned over by the man who first held dominion over all the earth, Adam. I’m not going to talk about this until March but there’s a reason why it was Eve who identified Cain as the worthy recipient to be the successor. There is no authority that gets established on earth that the mother does not approve of. Fathers can be quick to give up hope. Moms hold on a lot longer. Therefore, mothers control certain decisions. When you say that Adam holds the keys at the far end to preside over it, the name “Adam” was given to not just the man, Adam, but the name “Adam” was given to Adam and Eve jointly. When you hear that Adam holds the keys, the best way to read it is in the second way in which the name Adam is applied in scripture; that is to both the man and the woman. 

We’re running out of time. This subject is bigger than most people have ever grasped. We could talk about it a whole lot longer but I want to answer some of the questions that were put. 

If I had children who could not go to the temple today I would not personally induct them into the temple ceremony because despite the fact that I have been excommunicated from the Church I made promises in the temple which I have kept. You may say, “How the hell can you claim that given the fact that you got kicked out of the Church.” I have kept the covenants. Part of what I was obligated to do was to not disclose certain things, but that rather than do so I would suffer my life to be taken, because I went to the temple before 1990. 

Since I am under an obligation not to disclose certain things to people, if it were my children I would not induct them into a temple ceremony because to do so, in my view, would violate my obligation. But if they go and read the ceremony on line–and the pre-1990 transcript is better than the post-1990 altered ceremony–they can learn everything there was in the ceremony before 1990 and I’m not disclosing anything to them. There was nothing in the ceremony or the covenant or the obligation that says, if you already know something and I’m not disclosing it to you, there’s nothing that says that we can’t talk about what you already know. I’m just not allowed to disclose it to you. Similarly, if I had a kid who goes through the temple today, I would want them to read the ceremony as it existed before the changes in 1990. I wouldn’t disclose it to them, I’d say go read it online. Then after they’ve read it online I’d feel free to discuss what they know and I’m not revealing to them. 

I do think that the ceremony is useful even though I don’t think that the transmission of it has been altogether correct. I think it is merciful by God that the way in which it came down was altered, because we can enter into the covenants of the temple and take them very seriously. But if we wind up violating them we have not violated an authentically empowered ordinance, so we’re really not offending God by violating something. 

Ordinances that were ordained by God cannot be changed. If they’re changed they’re broken; if they’re broken they’re ineffective. Therefore, an altered ordinance can be informational and if you take it sincerely, and if you adhere to the covenants and if you obey, God can work with that because God can work with any soul. You can ultimately realize every blessing and every promise of the temple. You’re just going to get it as a one off from heaven, as God, by the Holy Spirit of Promise, works with you to confer upon you blessings that are intended for you. There’s no downside, but there’s a considerable upside if you’re true and faithful to the things that you obligate yourself to do, and the temple tells you that:

“Brothers and sisters, if you’re true and faithful the time will come when you will be called up and anointed kings and queens, priests and priestesses, whereas now you’re only anointed to become such. The realization of these blessings depends upon your faithfulness.” They dial it right back in the introduction to the ceremony itself, almost as if they’re making an admission against interest. 

The purpose of a temple is to allow the communication of great knowledge and greater knowledge, to restore what has been lost since the time of Adam in order for people to rise up and receive the Holy Order. You don’t get saved in ignorance, and there are so many gaps in what was going on. 

The way in which the blessings of Peter, James, and John, and the naming of Peter, James, and John occurs on the Mount of Transfiguration–they went up and they were on the Holy Mount. They were endowed with knowledge. They saw the history of the world right down to the end of time. They were given an insight into things. We learn about that in Doctrine and Covenants; I think it’s 67 but it’s in there, you can read it. They were shown essentially everything because they saw what they saw. This was the reason why Peter negotiated a rapid resurrection. He didn’t want to camp in the spirit world. This is why John said, “I don’t want to go there, let me just stay here and I’ll minister here.” They made choices as a result of the knowledge that they got on the Mount about what was going to happen down to the end of time. But this is an order. Peter, and James, and John are symbols of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Grandfather, father, and son. It was Jacob through whom the nations, the twelve tribes, the twelve nations of Israel, were established. So John, he produced a righteous son. I don’t know about the children of Katura, but Ishmael and Jacob have continued their bloodshed right down to this minute. Esau sold his birthright and the garment to Jacob, who presented it to Joseph. He’s the one through whom a great progeny developed. 

Peter, James, and John–John is the one who remained to create, as a ministering angel, an analogous progeny by his ministrations as a ministering angel through the ages. When you get to the names of Peter, James, and John in the restoration story, we don’t have enough details of what happened to be able to correctly construct exactly how Peter, James, and John fit within the restoration of the Gospel in the last days. If we’re going to put them into a context, I would not say that the reason that they came was in order to ordain someone, when that has a really good account provided to us in the account of the conference that happened in June 1831. I described that in A Man Without Doubt, beginning on about page 19 and going through the end of that section. 

The folks that got ordained at that conference included five that Joseph Smith ordained; Lyman White, who was excommunicated in 1848. Harvey Whitlock, excommunicated in 1835. Thomas Marsh, who left the Church in 1838, signed an affidavit against Joseph which contributed to his imprisonment in Missouri. He was excommunicated in 1839. Parley Pratt, who apostatized and was excommunicated in 1842, but then reinstated in 1843. Those are the ones Joseph ordained. The ones Lyman White ordained; John Whitmer excommunicated 1838, Rigdon excommunicated in 1844, Partridge died in 1840, Ezra Thayer refused to follow the Twelve after Joseph and Hyrum were martyred. (Well, that guy has some potential.) Joseph Wakefield was excommunicated in January 1834. Ezra Boothe apostatized within months and went on to write anti-Mormon and anti-Joseph publications, and it just goes on; you can read it in there. It didn’t work out as well as had been hoped. 

The way in which I would suggest it would be best to understand is that they came, not for purposes of conferring priesthood that would occur in June 1831, but for reconnecting the genealogical line that required someone to be designated as descendants from “the Fathers”. Now, some folks have argued that that meant that Joseph Smith was the birthright holder in the line from Ephraim. Given the way in which genealogical lines run, and given all of… If you kill Charles and William and George (and I think there’s another one [in] the royal line of England), then it’s all the way back to Andrew. You can have a line that goes on a long distance. But if you have the Thirty Years War, and you have World War I, and you have World War II, and you have the Black Plague, and you’re following genealogical lines, there’s no way to track who God thinks holds the birthright. Then you have the added complication that Esau was older than Jacob but Jacob was more righteous, and so Jacob got the birthright. Seth had older brothers who were grandfathers by the time he was born but the birthright went to Seth because he was true and faithful. 

I would suggest that it may be possible that in this room there is a lot of people who could qualify. Whether or not that ever happens depends upon being a son of Abraham, which requires you to receive this Gospel, meaning the one to which Abraham had been exposed, which requires a great deal of correct information to be restored. 

It’s almost amusing for people in their arrogance to assume that they know enough to understand what God is doing or has done. The things of God are of deep import, and careful and solemn and ponderous and prayerful thought can only find them out. Your understanding has to reach into heaven itself and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, if you’re going to save any soul, including your own. That’s not accomplished casually, nor is it accomplished without sacrifice. 

The Lord, whose own heart was broken, ultimately requires a great deal to happen to create a broken heart and a contrite spirit willing to endure, however uncomfortable it may make you feel, all that God requires of you to do in order to be a son of God. That’s not accomplished in an instant suddenly, it’s accomplished carefully and over trial after trial, test after test, temptation after temptation, but ultimately it will be required before the return of the Lord. It will be mandatory, before the return of the Lord, for the original Holy Order to exist in all of its components, it has to. There has to be established on the Earth all of the rites that originally belonged in the days of Adam, because that has to be surrendered back. It has to go back through those that had possessed it in order for God to have the right to come and claim this world as His own, and to exercise dominion over it. Because if the dominion over the world belongs to someone other than Him, His word cannot be broken, and He cannot come and interfere with the right of dominion that exists on the Earth. It has to exist. It has to be fully restored, and it has to be in the possession of those who will not covet it. Those who will not, like Cain, attempt to influence the conditions of salvation for the souls of men. Those who look upon it merely as a burden to be held, under the authority of God, belonging to Him, to be returned to Him so that He can come and fix this broken world and bring wickedness to an end. 

If an aspiring, or ambitious, or a vain person is given that position, all of the Lord’s plans can be frustrated. Therefore we need to be like our Lord, the greatest of all, who came here and knelt, and served, and washed the feet of others. Who gave His life as a sacrifice. Who trembled and begged not to be put through what the Father commanded that He endure. Nevertheless, that is despite His own will, that is in spite of the fact that He did not want to do it, He partook of the bitter cup, to the dregs. He was slain, and He gives all glory and all majesty to the Father. That’s the kind of person you have to become if you’re going to be of any utility to the Lord in the final scenes that are approaching. 

I hope we’ve expanded somewhat the context of the Holy Order, and that you realize that the term “priesthood”–is bandied around in our day among most people when they talk about the subject of priesthood–is a really tiny sliver of a very big subject, about which the world knows very little. Latter-day Saints, because of their arrogance, know even less because they wrongly assume that an incorrect model constitutes what God is all about. The restoration of all things literally means “the restoration of all things” including the Holy Order, and it doesn’t stop with a New Testament church. It’s got to go back to the days of Adam. 

Of that I bear testimony, with ample reason to be able to discuss these things. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Denver: We’ve gone over the time I thought we would be. Come claim your phone. 

Question: Are you open to answering any questions about the content? 

Denver: On my way to the car, yes. Questions just create problems but if it’s a good one then yes. 

Question: In St. George you rather emphatically declared that anyone who declares the Gospel of Abraham is inferior or less than the Gospel that was given to Adam; that person, if they don’t repent, they’re going to regret it. I’m paraphrasing. I see here what that means based on what you put on the board, this Gospel, it’s the same thing that Adam had. Who is teaching that it’s not, that was so emphatically called to repentance? It’s just bewildering. 

Denver: There are some folks who have studied this out, who believe that the Gospel of Abraham is inferior to the Gospel of Noah, and the Gospel of Adam. 

Comment: Someone was teaching that. 

Denver: Yes, they’ve written about it. There’s an enormous volume of pompous screeds available on the Internet to expound endlessly the stupidity of some people who are carefully studying and feel a burning apparently, either in the bosom or in their fingertips, and have vomited nonsense onto the Internet. I’m not here to argue with people. I’m not here to correct all of the lies, all of the misstatements. I’m not here even to defend. There we are; the answer to your question. 

Comment: Better run for it.

The post The Holy Order appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This talk was given to an audience at the Atlanta-Fullerton Central Library in Atlanta, Georgia, November 16, 2017, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Christian Reformation.

Transcript

Thank you, and thank everyone who has assisted in making the venue available, in organizing, recording, and ultimately broadcasting the talks. Everything that is done is done voluntarily. No one is passing the hat or soliciting donations. Part of what we do, we do as a sacrifice to demonstrate our commitment. And everyone who has and does participate in this, sacrifices and provides their services as a matter of faith and commitment to what we believe in. And I can’t thank those who have helped enough. 

Religion should not divide us as it does. It’s tragic that anyone’s search to find truth and to connect with God should divide them from their fellow man. Christ said the greatest commandment was to love God, but immediately added that the second greatest commandment was like unto it, and that commandment was to love our neighbor as ourself. 

Christ never taught us, love only those who love us in return. He taught: 

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:43-48). 

Let us make our search for truth one that brings us closer together rather than something to divide us apart. We share more than we disagree. [I] want you to consider the meaning for us all in the account of Adam and Eve. We all have one set of original parents in common. All of the genetic potential for the entire human race comes from these two original parents. No man or woman possesses any genetic feature that did not first come from them. They set the limits on their descendant’s height, they set the limit on how high their descendants could jump, how fast we could run, how intelligent we could become, how strong we could become. Every facet of us, their diverse descendants in the world at this moment, were determined by the genetic makeup of Adam and Eve. When we despise the differences we see in one another we despise our first parents. Christ taught: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye [should] also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35). 

Menno Simons, who was one of the Reformation fathers after whom the Mennonites are named said, “True evangelical faith, cannot lie dormant, it clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all creatures.”  

Everything Christ taught is intended to change our inner self. He did not want me judging and condemning you. If you decide to abuse me, Christ teaches I should forgive you. If you offend me seventy times seven, Christ taught me to forgive. If we believed in Christ enough to live as He taught, our families would heal, our communities would heal, our nations would heal, and the world would heal. Christ was an idealist, but He showed by His life that it is possible to live the ideal. As a Christian I should commit to that ideal and at every missed step resolve to do better. Each of us control only our own life, but your example is enough to change the lives of many others. 

I hope to strengthen your belief in Jesus Christ by what is said here this evening and to encourage you to develop faith in Him. Belief does not require action. Faith, on the other hand, requires you to take action to live your belief. Far more people have belief in Christ than have faith in him. Christ really is the Savior who offered Himself a sacrifice for sin. 

Tonight we will examine what Jesus Christ did to save you and I from death and hell. To begin tonight, because this is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, we look back on Christian history. 

The Protestant Reformation was two things. First, it was a protest against the corruption of Roman Catholicism, hence the term, “Protestant”, because the protestors rejected the corrupt Roman hierarchy then in charge of western European Christianity. Second, it was an attempt to reform corrupted Christianity into something better, hence the term, “Reformation”, because the protestors hoped to recover and establish something marginally better than the institution headquartered in Rome. They hoped to reform Christianity into something better representing the actual commandments and teachings of Jesus Christ. None of the Protestant fathers hoped to reestablish the original Christian church, or what is referred to as the primitive church, which once existed when Peter, James, John, Matthew, Luke, and other New Testament figures lived. When Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire it did not improve Christianity, it compromised it. Christianity is best understood and practiced by the meek and the humble. 

Christ came as a lowly servant, kneeling to wash the feet of others. He held no office, no rank, commanded no fortune, submitted to Jewish and Roman authorities. He was abused and rejected. His only tool was the truth. He was born in a stable and continually regarded by the leaders as unimportant. There was nothing about His position that commanded respect. When those who claim to follow Him acquired the rank of official Roman Empire state religion, Christianity could not have become more alienated from how Christ lived. Silk robes and gold headpieces worn by church leaders replaced the rough clothing and crown of thorns worn by Christ. This was a tragedy, not a triumph. Christianity was utterly broken. It has not been fixed, even by the Reformation. 

Protestant reformer John Wesley candidly admitted the fallen condition of Christianity. He concluded that Christianity did not have the gifts of the Spirit because they were no longer really Christian at all. In Wesley’s sermon, “The More Excellent Way,” he explained:

The cause of this [decline of spiritual gifts following Constantine] was not (as has been vulgarly supposed,) “because there was no more occasion for them,” because all the world was become Christian. This is a miserable mistake; not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christian. The real cause was, “the love of many,” almost of all Christians, so called, was “waxed cold.” The Christians had no more of the Spirit of Christ than the other Heathens. The Son of Man, when he came to examine his Church, could hardly “find faith upon [the] earth.” This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church — because the Christians were turned Heathens again, and had only a dead form left. 

A New World Protestant leader, Roger Williams, admitted the same fallen state existed for Christianity but also envisioned the possibility for recovery of original Christianity. He conceived it would be possible for God to once again endow mankind with authority and knowledge that would allow us to have what had been lost. He wrote, “Christianity fell asleep in the bosom of Constantine, and the laps and bosoms of those Emperors who professed the name of Christ.”This sober reflection led to his conviction that freedom of conscience was necessary to allow every soul to search for and accept all truth they could find. He declared, “There is no regularly constituted church of Christ on earth, nor any person qualified to administer any church ordinances; nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the Great Head of the Church for whose coming I am seeking.”

I believe Christ has spent the last 500 years inspiring mankind to restore a more correct form of Christianity. He declared he would return again in glory to judge the world but before his return, many prophecies remain to be fulfilled. Almost the entire burden of prophecy focuses on two events: the First Coming of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ. And a great deal about the Second Coming of Christ will require that there be things that occur prior to his return in glory, that will involve the Restoration and the presence of those who speak in his name with authority, testimonies to be born. The world cannot be judged without an adequate prior warning being given. Even if the world is ignoring the message, it doesn’t matter. God assumes the obligation to making clear His plans. He assumes the obligation of having the warning voice sound, and whether the world gives any heed or not, it doesn’t matter. They’ve been warned and they will be judged. 

One of the prophecies came through Peter. He declared:

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began (Acts 3:19-21).

The time of refreshing, or restoring, promised to come from the presence of the Lord has, in fact, begun. Jesus Christ has been sent again to prepare for His return. I believe that Joseph Smith was an authentic messenger called by Christ to help us become more Christian. One message sent by Christ in 1829 explains more of what He, Christ, accomplished as the sacrificial Lamb who atoned for our sins. We know from Isaiah that by his stripes we are healed. God laid on him the iniquity of us all. He bore our griefs, carried our sorrows, and the chastisement we earned was put upon Him. Traditionally, Christians have understood that to have been accomplished in the Roman beating, scourging, and crucifixion of Christ. However, many men suffered similarly at the hands of Rome. Christ suffered to remove our sins and repair the fall of mankind. Isaiah’s description suggests that this was cosmic and that Christ took the entire burden of mankind’s sins upon Himself. Only Luke gives a glimpse into Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane. Luke describes it in these words: “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

In an 1829 revelation, Christ explained the price he paid for our salvation. His reflection on that suffering mentions only what happened to Him in Gethsemane, the place where Luke recorded He sweat great drops of blood. Let me read you what Jesus Christ explained of that event in 1829. 

Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken (D&C 19:15-20).

Christ pleads with us in this revelation to repent of our sins so we do not experience anything like the dreadful price He paid for us. We should let that message penetrate our hearts: God does not want us punished. God wants to relieve us from the bitterness of our sins. In His kindness and mercy, Christ revealed yet more of His suffering in His atoning sacrifice in February of 2005 and December of 2007. Again, He provided us with a description of what happened in Gethsemane. This is the account: 

I knew a man in Christ about four years ago who, being overshadowed by the Spirit on the 26th of February, 2005, had the Lord appear to him again. And the Lord spoke to him face to face in plain humility, as one man speaks to another, calling him by name. As they spoke the Lord put forth His hand and touched the eyes of the man and said, Look! The man had opened before him a view of the Lord kneeling in prayer. It was in a dark place. The air was heavy and overcast with sorrow. The man beheld the Lord praying in Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal and before the [His ]crucifixion.

All the Lord had previously done in His mortal ministry by healing the sick, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, restoring hearing to the deaf, curing the leper and ministering relief to others as He taught was but a prelude to what the Lord was now to do on this dark, oppressive night.

As the Lord knelt in prayer, His vicarious suffering began. He was overcome by pain and anguish. He felt within Him, not just the pains of sin, but also the illnesses men suffer as a result of the Fall and their foolish and evil choices. The suffering was long and the challenge difficult. The Lord suffered the afflictions. He was healed from the sickness. He overcame the pains, and patiently bore the infirmities until, finally, He returned to peace of mind and strength of body. It took an act of will and hope for Him to overcome the affliction which had been poured upon Him. He overcame the separation caused by these afflictions and reconciled with His Father. He was at peace with all mankind.

He thought His sufferings were over, but to His astonishment another wave overcame Him. This one was much greater than the first. The Lord, who had been kneeling, fell forward onto His hands at the impact of the pain that was part of a greater, second wave.

This second wave was so much greater than the first that it seemed to entirely overcome the Lord. The Lord was now stricken with physical injuries as well as spiritual affliction. As He suffered anew, His flesh was torn which He healed using the power of the charity within Him. The Lord had such life within Him, such power and virtue within Him, that although He suffered in His flesh, these injuries healed and His flesh restored. His suffering was both body and spirit, and there was anguish of thought, feeling and soul.

The Lord overcame this second wave of suffering, and again found peace of mind and strength of body; and His heart filled with love despite what He had suffered. Indeed, it was charity or love that allowed Him to overcome. He was at peace with His Father, and with all mankind, but it required another, still greater act of will and charity than the first for Him to do so.

Again, the Lord thought His suffering was over. He stayed on His hands and knees for a moment to collect Himself when another wave of torment burst upon Him. This wave struck Him with such force He fell forward upon His face. He was afflicted by this greater wave. He was then healed only to then be afflicted again as the waves of torment overflowed. Wave after wave poured out upon Him, with only moments between them. The Lord’s suffering progressed from a lesser to a greater portion of affliction; for as one would be overcome by Him, the next, greater affliction would then be poured out. Each wave of suffering was only preparation for the next, greater wave. The pains of mortality, disease, injury and infirmity, together with the sufferings of sin, transgressions, guilt of mind, and unease of soul, the horrors of recognition of the evils men had inflicted upon others, were all poured out upon Him, with confusion and perplexity multiplied upon Him.

He longed for it to be over, and thought it would end long before it finally ended. With each wave He thought it would be the last but then another came upon Him, and then yet another. The one beholding this scene was pained by what he saw, and begged for the vision of the Lord’s suffering to end. He could not bear to see his Lord suffering in this manner. The petition was denied and the vision did not end, for the Lord required him to witness it.

The man saw that the Lord pleaded again with the Father that “this cup may pass” from Him. But the Lord was determined to suffer the Father’s will and not His own. Therefore, a final wave came upon Him with such violence as to cut Him at every pore. It seemed for a moment that He was torn apart, and that blood came out of every pore. The Lord writhed in pain upon the ground as this [great] final torment was poured upon Him.

All virtue was taken from Him. All the great life force in Him was stricken and afflicted. All the light turned to darkness. He was humbled, drained and left with nothing. It is not possible for a man to bear such pains and live, but with nothing more than will, hope in His Father, and charity toward all men, He emerged from the final wave of torment, knowing He had suffered all this for His Father and His brethren. By His hope and great charity, trusting in the Father, the Lord returned from this dark abyss and found grace again, His heart being filled with love toward the Father and all men.

These great burdens were born by the Lord not only on behalf of mankind, but also as a necessary prelude to His death upon a Roman cross. Had He not been so physically weakened by these sufferings and drained of power from within, the scourging and crucifixion He suffered at the hands of men could not have taken His life.

It was many hours after this vision closed before the one who witnessed this suffering could compose himself again. He wept because of the vision shown him, and he wondered at the Lord’s great suffering for mankind.

The witness reflected for many days upon this scene of the Lord’s great suffering. He read many times the account of the Lord’s agony given to Joseph Smith, which reads, “Therefore I command you to repent – repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore – how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit – and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink – Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.” [D&C 19:15-19].

He pondered and asked: Why were there waves of torment? Why did they increase in difficulty? How were they organized as they seemed to fit a pattern?

After long inquiring into the things which he had seen, the Lord, who is patient and merciful and willing to instruct those who call [up]on Him, again appeared to the man on the 20th of December, 2007. He made known [un]to him that the waves of torment suffered by the Lord came in pairs which mirrored each other. The first of each wave poured upon the Lord those feelings, regrets, recriminations and pains felt by those who injured their fellow man. Then followed a second wave, which mirrored the first, but imposed the pains suffered by the victims of the acts committed by those in the first wave. Instead of the pains of those who inflict hurt or harm, it was now the anger, bitterness and resentments felt by those who suffered these wrongs.

From each wave of suffering, whether as the one afflicting or as the victim of those wrongs, the Lord would overcome the evil feelings associated with these wrongs, and find His heart again filled with peace. This was why, in the vision of the suffering of the Lord, it was in the second waves that there appeared oftentimes to be injuries to His body.

The greater difficulty in these paired waves of torment was always overcoming the suffering of the victim. With these waves the Lord learned to overcome the victims’ resentments, to forgive, and to heal both body and spirit. This was more difficult than overcoming the struggles arising from the one who committed the evil. This is because the one doing evil knows he has done wrong and feels a natural regret when he sees himself aright. The victim, however, always feels it is their right to hold resentment, to judge their persecutor, and to withhold peace and love for their fellow man [men]. The Lord was required to overcome both so that He could succor both.

In the pairing of the waves, the first torment was of the mind and spirit, and the second was torment of mind, spirit and body.

The Lord experienced all the horror and regret wicked men feel for their crimes when they finally see the truth. He experienced the suffering of their victims whose righteous anger and natural resentment and disappointment must also be shed, and forgiveness given, in order for them to find peace. He overcame them all. He descended below them all. He comprehends it all.

And He knows how to bring peace to them all. He knows how to love others whether they are the one who has given offense or the one who is a victim of the offense.

In the final wave, the most brutal, most evil, most heinous sins men inflict upon one another were felt by Him as a victim of the worst men can do. He knew how it felt to wrongly suffer death. He knew what it was like to be a mother holding a child in her arms as they are both killed by those who delighted in their suffering. He knew how it was for ambitious men to rid themselves of a rival by conspiracy and murder. He knew what it was to have virtue robbed from the innocent. He knew betrayal, treachery, and abuse in all its worst degrading horror. There was no cruelty, no offense, no evil that mankind has suffered or will suffer that was not put upon Him.

He knew what it is like for men to satisfy their ambition by clothing their hypocrisy in religious garb. He also felt what it was like to be the victim of religious oppression by those who pretend to practice virtue while oppressing others. He knew the hearts of those who would kill Him. Before confronting their condemnation of Him in the flesh, He suffered their torment of mind when they recognized He was the Lord, and then found peace for what they would do by rejecting Him. In this extremity there was madness itself as He mirrored the evil which would destroy Him, and learned how to come to peace with the Father after killing the Son of God, and to love all those involved without restraint and without pretense even before they did these terrible deeds. His suffering, therefore, encompassed all that has happened, all that did happen, and all that would happen in the future.

As a result of what the Lord suffered, there is no condition physical, spiritual or mental that He does not fully understand. He knows how to teach, comfort, succor and direct any who [will] come to Him seeking forgiveness and peace. This is why the prophet wrote, “by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.” [Isaiah 53:11] And again, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” [Isaiah 53:4-5] He obtained this knowledge by the things he suffered. He suffered that we might avoid sin by being obedient to His commandments. None of us need harm another, if we will follow Him. He knows fully the consequences of sin. He teaches His followers [how] to avoid sin.

The prophet Alma taught and understood our Lord’s sufferings as he wrote, “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” [Alma 7:11-12].

He can bring peace to any soul. He can help those who will come to Him love their fellow man. He alone is the Perfect Teacher because He alone has the knowledge each of us lack to return to being whole and at peace with [the] God and Father of us all after our transgression of His will. Christ He is wise to what is required for each man’s salvation.

As the Lord made these terrible things known to the man he cried out, Hosanna to the Lamb of God! He has trodden the winepress alone! Glory, honor and mercy be upon the Chosen One forever and ever! I will submit unto anything you see fit to require of me! I will bend my knee in obedience to you! Let thy will, not mine be done! For worthy is the Lamb!” Then, thinking upon how trifling his difficulties and disappointments had been in comparison with the suffering he saw imposed upon his Lord, the man added, Surely goodness and mercy have been mine all the days of my life!

And the Lord responded, And you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

Then the man wept.

From the forgoing accounts, Christ has finally made it clear to us that His death on the cross was not where He paid the price for our sins. Many have died in that same way and suffered that same dreadful agony. But Christ alone paid for mankind’s sins because He alone was able to take on the terrible burden of our terrible failures. He conquered sin. And so what of the cross? He certainly needed to die, because without dying He could not rise from the dead and conquer death. 

In Matthew we have an account of something Christ declared as He hung on the cross: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over [all] the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour [Christ] cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45-46). This is misunderstood. Christ was not forsaken by God. He predicted in John before His death that the Father would never leave His side. Christ was reciting the opening lines of a hymn about Himself. The psalms were hymns. If I were to, for example, say, “Silent night, holy night,” in your mind you could go to that hymn. If I were to say, “A mighty fortress is our God,” your mind would go to that hymn. On the cross Christ was taking the minds of those who were present to a hymn about Himself. Let me read some of that hymn.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and [they] were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.  But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly. Be [thou] not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me… They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me… I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard. My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation… All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and he is the governor among the nations… All they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this (Psalms 22:1-31).

That was the hymn to which Christ pointed while on the cross. He started “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45-46). This was not a lamentation; this was a declaration that for this purpose He came into the world, and for this purpose He would die. Christ suffered for our sins in Gethsemane. Christ died on the cross while testifying He was the promised Messiah. Christ rose from the dead to break the bonds of death. Since He was entitled to live forever His death was an infinite price to pay. Therefore, the demands of justice have all been met, and that, infinitely. We can benefit from that by accepting the ransom He has paid, repenting and being baptized. Here is His doctrine: 

Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine. And this is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me; and I bear record of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost beareth record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me. And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; [for] they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God. And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and I bear record of it from the Father; and whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto him will the Father bear record of me, for he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost. And thus will the Father bear record of me, and the Holy Ghost will bear record unto him of the Father and me; for the Father, and I, and the Holy Ghost are one. And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things. And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them. And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them (3 Nephi 11:31-40).

If you’ve not been baptized, or if you would like to be re-baptized, there are people who have authority to do so who will do so without charge, without requesting or expecting a donation; indeed, they would refuse it if you offered it. There is a baptism that has been arranged for anyone who is interested tomorrow, and details of that you can find out from people here after this ends. 

Well, I got a number of questions sent in through the website that I’m going to take a few minutes to answer, and then we’re gonna invite anyone who is here that has a question to use the microphone. This is being recorded and the microphone can only pick it up if you use that in the recording, and we’ll answer questions. 

[Question:] One that was sent in was, “What drove Luther to create his own version of the Bible?” 

[Answer:] Well, at the time that Luther did a translation of the Bible the only version that was available was written in a language that most people did not commonly speak. He translated the Bible into the common tongue. The first time the Bible got translated into English, for example, was only about 470 years ago. Before, it was translated into the common tongue so that people could read the Bible in a language that they spoke and understood, began with the effort that Martin Luther did in translating the Bible into German. We take for granted that people can get access to a Bible that you can read and you can understand in your own language, but one of the most important things that Martin Luther did, and one of the things that made the Reformation itself assume a durable form that would last past the generation of the Reform fathers, was translating the Bible into the common tongue so that people could read it in their own language, in language they would understand. That let the genie out of the bottle, so to speak, because then you were no longer dependent upon someone that could read a foreign tongue, to read a text that was written in a language you didn’t understand, to tell you that they were speaking for God. Now you could get access to the text yourself, and you could compare what you were seeing in the clergy with what was written in the biblical text. And the gap between what you saw in the biblical text and what you were seeing in the clergy was so enormous that immediately you began to have the same reaction–once you had access to the Bible–that the Reformation fathers had to Catholicism. But as the Bible has been made available in more and more of the vernacular tongue, what’s happened is that Christianity has divided and redivided and redivided again, because now anyone has access to the text. 

As we stand here today there is no official registry that we can go to, to say how many different kinds of Christian churches there are but it is estimated that there are at least 40,000 different Christian churches in existence today. You know, the apostle Paul wrote in one of his letters about the hope he had for seeing us all come into the unity of faith. It seems like the more access that we have gained to biblical understanding the more disagreements we’ve managed to have with one another, which is one of the reasons for the things I said at the very beginning of this talk. We should not let our individual search for truth become a breeding ground for resentments, disagreements and conflict between one another. If you have found some great truth that you can articulate and persuade me also to accept, then I should welcome you in doing that. And if I have some truth that I can present and persuade you to accept, then we’re both benefited. But if you and I read these things and study these things, and have our own religious experience, and we accept Christ as a Redeemer, as a Savior, as the Son of God, as what He said He was, why can’t we rejoice together in that fact? Because it is greater than any of the petty disagreements that divide us. Christianity needs to take a very sober assessment of itself and decide there is no room for venom in the Christian heart. There is no room for conflict. Celebrate what unites us. And as for the petty disagreements, well, if you’re from Jersey you just “fuget ‘bout it.” 

[Question:] Did the Catholic Church ask Luther to retract all 95 Theses? 

[Answer:] No. Well, the purpose of the 95 Theses was to demonstrate that the sale of indulgences, which was going on in order to finance St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with a financial deal that the papal signature on the indulgences were given to franchise holders. And then the franchise holders could go around and fill in the name on the indulgence with the papal seal on it and sell that to someone for money, and the guy who was selling it–the franchise holder who was selling that–he got to keep part of the money, and then part of the money went back to Rome. It’s like owning a McDonald’s franchise. You get to keep part of the money but you’ve still got to pay some for the franchise holder. They were financing the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica by this process of selling. 

There were a couple of the 95 Theses (if I can find those real quick), there were a couple of them that I really like a lot. Number 45 and number 87. I could summarize them, but I’d rather read ‘em. Well, number 87, for example, Martin Luther was saying that anyone with common sense can think of reasons to doubt the practice of selling indulgences. For example, if the pope really can get people out of purgatory and end their suffering by a papal decree, why would he not do that just because it’s a nice thing to do? Why do you have to pay him to do something that’s good?  

The entire burden of the 95 Theses does not question the primacy of the pope, the position of the pope, but it says that that primacy and that position needs to be exercised under the constraint of what the scriptures say. And if the pope violates the scriptures then the pope is wrong. He does not possess independent authority to do stuff. You don’t get to be God. You have to submit to God, even if you’re the pope. So, they didn’t condemn them all but the burden of it was offensive. 

In that first talk that I gave in Los Angeles, someone listening to that was concerned because I referred…, Jesus Christ’s most extensive prophecy is in the 24th chapter of Matthew, where His disciples were asking Him about the future and, among other things, they wanna know about the signs of the times when He’s going come. And Christ answers them, and it’s…, well, you can read the 24th chapter. There’s a lot of really tragic, ugly things that will go on before His coming but it has a happy ending. He’s coming, and when He comes He’s going to fix everything that’s wrong with the world, primarily by destroying the wicked by the brightness of His glory, but if you’re not wicked that’s still good news. 

[Question:] So, this question comes in, and it says: “You addressed this in your lectures. Let’s say for argument’s sake I believed you. What can or should a university student do? I can’t drop out because I would immediately have to pay back student loans. Do I just keep attending school and trust that everything works out? Or let’s say I’m in high school. Would you recommend young people even go to college? Should young people who want to be lawyers just quash their dreams because everything is going to hell? That’s my general problem with gloom and doom prophecy, it stagnates individual growth and development. People isolate themselves from the rest of the world, spend a bunch of money on guns and emergency supplies, and generally waste their lives living in fear. Is there a balanced approach to watching out for that dastardly thief in the night?” 

[Answer:] I would say, finish high school. I would say, go to law school. And, I mean, one of the first things on the agenda that Christ will destroy — it’s not the lawyers, it’s the bankers and the insurance companies. They’re all evil. [Audience laughter.] But, your student loans won’t need to be repaid because there will be nothing left of the institutions who hope to collect on them. You don’t live your life in contemplation of the fearful return of the Lord. You live your life in a grateful celebration for everything God has done and given to us. 

As I was flying here, we were taking off just as the first rays of the sun were creeping up in the east, and there was this brilliant scarlet ribbon on the horizon. And my wife pointed it out to me (I was sitting in an aisle; the only thing I get to see is the cart they bring you treats), as I looked across at the sunrise, it was spectacular. 

Where I live in Utah we have this Wasatch Front. These are jagged granite cliffs that go upward. The top of one of the ski resorts is 11,000 feet. We live at about 4,000 feet. When the sun sets as you are in the valley, you see the sun go down in the west but in the east, on the mountains, you see the sunlight creep up, and creep up the mountain until finally just the very top peaks remain with light. What happens is that the light, as it goes up the mountain in its nightly retreat, because of the refraction of the atmosphere it tends to shift to the blue and to the purple. And every night those mountains…, and it’s particularly spectacular when there’s snow up there because the hues of the sunlight refraction become very colorful up there. 

Now, I happen to like impressionist art, and my favorite impressionist is Monet. We have a couple of Monet — I mean, they’re forgeries — they were given to me as a fee, we didn’t pay for ‘em, but they’re actual Monet paintings right down to the brush strokes being reproduced, and they’re beautiful. 

Every night as the sun sets, God does something on the mountains that is never the same, always beautiful, and greater in beauty and splendor than anything Monet ever put on canvas. 

We ought to love life, and we oughta love one another, and we oughta pursue our education. And we shouldn’t bunker down with guns and ammo, fearfully waiting for a direful end to things. Of all people, Christians should have the most hope, the most optimism, the most vitality, and greatest amount of joy in life. We oughta celebrate every day. 

[Question:] Oh, here’s a good one: “Having studied evolutionary biology in college, I came to appreciate the vast amounts of evidence for this scientific theory.” [I’ll pause there. Read Darwin’s Black Box.] Recent anthropological data (Gobekli Tepe) is pushing the origins of civilization far beyond 4,000 B.C. It is an increasingly tenuous position to accept a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis in regards to creation and chronology, especially among the younger millennial generation I am a part of. Having also had a few mystical experiences that lead me to accept Jesus as Lord, I feel somewhat torn. Whatever I do, seems like I am rejecting truth. Whether I consider ignoring physical scientific evidence or effectively dismissing parts of the Bible, both are not satisfying solutions to me. Is there a way to make secular data fit into the Christians metaphysics?” 

[Answer:] Yes, there is. I’m gonna go ahead and answer this fellow, for what it’s worth. The problem with biblical literalism is not necessarily that what is in the Bible is untrue but it may be that what is in the Bible is speaking using a vernacular that mankind is unacquainted with. For example, the work of the creation is referred to generally as “a day”. There is no reason to believe that calling it a day in the language that gets employed in scripture has reference to anything other than a discrete event. It would be more accurate to say that there were labors that were performed during the incremental progression of the creation which took however long, and when the labor was completed then that labor was called “a day.” There is nothing to suggest that the labor of the first day was exactly the same amount of time as the labor of the second day, nor is there anything to suggest that the labor of the third day was equal in time to either the first or the second, and so on. 

How many eons of time were required in order for God, through the process that we see in nature, to form the earth, was the first day. However long it took, through seismic, and volcanic, and other activities to cause the dry land to appear was labor that took however long it took. 

In the vernacular of scripture — the earth is moving in two ways. It is circling the sun on a tilt. Twice a year that tilt aligns so that we have an equinox, which means that there’s exactly twelve hours of sunlight and twelve hours of darkness on that one day, twice a year. And then there are solstices, when in the north the days are the longest because it’s leaning towards the sun, and when it gets to the other side it’s leaning away, and at that moment the nights are very long because in the north you’re leaning away from the sun. As it makes this movement in one direction it’s also wobbling at the poles. 

The earth is not perfectly stable in how its axis fits. It wobbles. It takes 25,900 years roughly for it to complete one circle at the pole. In the ancient vernacular, because of that wobble, we have a pole star. It happens at this moment to be Polaris, but if you go back several thousand years we have a different pole star. That pole star changes. 

We also have, around the circumference, a group of constellations that everyone on earth can see. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the south, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the north (south being below the equator, not Atlanta; or the north, not meaning Canada, it means everything, the northern hemisphere and the sout…). There are a group of constellations everyone can see. There are twelve of them. All twelve of them had a story behind them in the beginning. All twelve of them have symbols that represent Christ. That’s for another day. 

When the pole star changes, which happens about seven times every 25,900 years. When the pole star changes, anciently that change was called “A New Heaven”. Likewise there is a different constellation that appears at sunrise on the vernal equinox, and that constellation tells you what age you’re in. Star fields overlap and sometimes there are gaps. Right now we are in an overlap between — Christ said, “I will make you fishers of men,” and the constellation that that age was identified with is Pisces: two fish. One fish caught in the net is endlessly circling the equator, but another fish, and it’s much smaller, this other fish is headed to the north, where you will find God. 

That constellation is going to be replaced by the One who is coming. We call him Aquarius. We also call him The Waterman. He is pouring out; a new age will come. If you go back far enough, what he is pouring out is two streams. One stream is water, which gives life, and one stream is fire. He who is coming in the great day of the Lord is coming for “the great (the water) and dreadful (the fire) day of the Lord”, to pour something out. Well, it just so happens that the star fields of these two overlap. If you date the return of the Lord by the star field of Aquarius at its earliest star, then the first sign of the times of refreshing would have been about in the 1840s, when Joseph Smith was saying that Christ appeared to him and gave him a message to preach. We have not yet fully exited the star field of Pisces. 

Now, all of that is to make this comment: When there’s a new pole star that’s called “a New Heaven.” When there’s a new constellation on the horizon at the vernal equinox, that’s called “a New Earth.” There will be “a New Heaven” and there will be “a New Earth” when Christ returns. And all of these are given, as Christ said in Genesis 1:14, for signs and for seasons, and everything testifies of Him. 

So, there’s a lot of scientific proof, but there’s a lot of material in the Bible that is simply misunderstood. This earth is pretty old, and how long it existed before it was considered sufficiently complete for man to occupy it is not to be measured in days, it’s to be measured in epics of time referred to generically as a day, meaning a period, meaning an agenda. 

[Question:] “If Christ never had buildings then what is His church and how do you know if you’re a part of it?” 

[Answer:] Christ and the apostles and the earliest Christians met in homes. They talked on hillsides. They met in places that were convenient but they didn’t build buildings. The prophecies predict that in the last days there are going to be only two buildings that matter to God. One of them will be a temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, and the other will be a temple built in the tops of the mountains in a place called Zion. And these two places will be the center of activity. 

Now this is an answer to a question but I’m not going to read the question because I didn’t print it out. The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Church split at approximately 1,000 A.D., it’s about 1,054 A.D. Martin Luther was generally positive towards the Eastern Orthodox Church. He and they both rejected celibate clergy. Both rejected the pope’s supremacy, both rejected purgatory, both rejected indulgences. Martin Luther claimed the Orthodox or Greek Church was proof of Catholic deviation. Luther did not personally attempt to build a bridge to orthodoxy but some of his followers did do so. 

Now, I wanted to finish my comments by reading you a few quotes from some of the Protestant leaders. A husband and wife team, William and Catherine Booth, founded the Salvation Army, and I wanna read you a comment of William Booth’s. William Booth cautioned us about the trends he saw in both society and religion. Here’s his quote: “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost; Christianity without Christ; forgiveness without repentance; salvation without regeneration; politics without God; and Heaven without Hell.” 

C.S. Lewis may be one of the most influential Christian apologists that have appeared on the scene. Let me read you a few things from C.S. Lewis. “Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.” “There are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your (own) way.”

C.S. Lewis was the one that said, “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” I really like this comment: “Of all the bad men, religious bad men are the worst.” He also made this proposition: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

Dwight Moody (after whom the Moody Bible Institute was named), when he founded it, it had a different name. He said, “Christians should live in the world, but not be filled with it. A ship lives in the water; but if the water gets into the ship, she goes (down) to the bottom. So Christians may live in the world; but if the world gets into them, they sink.” He made this observation: “Moses spent forty years thinking he was somebody; forty years learning he was nobody; and forty years discovering what God can do with a nobody.” 

He said, “Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian,” hence your obligation. “The world does not understand theology or dogma, but it understands love and sympathy.”

And then this, and I’ll end with this. And then if any of you have something you’d like me to comment on I’d be glad to. 

There’s a great difference between recognizing the signs of the times and knowing the detail of how prophecy will be fulfilled. An example of the difference is found in Matthew. Matthew 2:1-18 tells of wise men who studied the scriptures, watched the signs in the heavens, recognized a star that testified of the birth of the Messiah or newborn King of the Jews, traveled a great distance, perhaps as long as two years to worship him, facilitating fulfilling prophecy by their presence in Jerusalem, and were visited by God in a dream. You know the story. They came, and when they got to Jerusalem they asked Herod, “Where is he that is born the King of the Jews?” which caused Herod to say, “Get in here and tell me about this,” and his advisors said, “Bethlehem.” Not the least out of these should come a Governor. So he sends the wise men then to Bethlehem and says, “Hey, when you find him you return to me and you tell me so that I can go (wink wink, nod nod) worship him too.” And of course, they were warned by God not to go back and tell Herod. And when Herod found out that he was not going to be advised to make this job easy, he sent soldiers to kill all the kids two years old and younger. In the meantime, Joseph and Mary were departed into Egypt. 

Despite all the wise men were able to know, they did not know where to find the newborn King. They mistakenly went to Herod’s people to inquire about Christ’s birth. They did not know, and God did not reveal to them, that Christ would be born in Bethlehem. It’s unlikely they would have willingly acted to fulfil the Jeremiah 31:15 prophecy of the slaughter of the children, yet Matthew credits their involvement with fulfilling this prophecy. 

So ask yourself, can men unwittingly fulfil prophecy? Can anyone, even wise men who are well studied in scripture and prophecy, and acquainted with the heavens and the stars and the signs up there, ever fully understand prophecy? 

One of the lessons from the scriptural account is that all wise men whose diligence and faithfulness lead them to understand God’s hand is at work, may still not understand how or where God will act. There remain mysteries which God will accomplish but men cannot understand beforehand. If the wise men knew He had been born but could not identify where Christ’s birth happened, despite all else they were able to do, then how can anyone know how God will accomplish his strange act in the last days? This is what the Lord has said: 

What I have said unto you must needs be, that all men may be left without excuse; That wise men and rulers may hear and know that which they have never considered; That I may proceed to bring to pass my act, my strange act, and perform my work, my strange work, that men may discern between the righteous and the wicked, saith your God (D&C 101:93-95). 

Prophecies are not given to know details beforehand; they’re given so that they, once fulfilled, prove that God knew the end from the beginning. I’m here as a witness to tell you: God is working. There are signs in the heavens above, there are signs on the earth below, that testify that He intends to come again. Don’t interrupt your life because you want to buy guns and ammo and go live underground somewhere. There’s a YouTube song, “You’ve been living underground, eating from a can, Talking about things you can’t understand.” Don’t be like Reba McEntire and her husband in [the movie] “Tremors” when they slayed the beast with the elephant gun and said, “You broke into the wrong damn rec room.” Be like Christ, hopeful and helpful, and positive. He went about doing good. That’s who we’re supposed to follow, and that’s what we’re supposed to do. That’s how we’re supposed to live. Be hopeful, be helpful. 

The story of Adam and Eve that I mentioned at the beginning makes every single one of us descendants of a common set of parents. I keep thinking, you know, these “23andMe,” these genetic ads that say, figure out who you are and where you reckon from, well, they gathered genetic databases in order to try and segregate us into regions and into groups. But at the end of the day they just don’t go back far enough, because if they went back far enough everyone’s genetic makeup would be half Adam and half Eve, and you wouldn’t spend $49 to learn that. But if you want to spend $49 to learn that truth then donate some money to the poor and homeless instead of sending it in elsewhere. 

Let me end by bearing testimony to you that I didn’t come here because I thought it was a good idea, I came here because the Lord asked me to. I’ve been in now, this is the third location, to accomplish what He’s asked me to do, after telling me the things that I ought to say and the subjects that ought to be covered. 

I hope you realize that God is real, and that He is as concerned about you and your day, and in your life, as He was concerned about Peter, or Paul, or John, or Mary, or Elizabeth, or Abraham, or Sarah. Every one of you matter to Him. And if He were to speak to you out of heaven today He would call you by name, just as He has done with everyone to whom He’s ever spoken. And if the Lord calls you by name, it’s not gonna be by your full legal name, it’s not gonna be by what’s on your birth certificate. He will call you by that name your best friend knows you, because God is intimate with every one of us. He knows everything, including the desires of your heart. And even though we are all rough customers, the fact is the only reason you’re here is because your heart is inclined to follow Him. You’re aspirations, your desires and your hopes can be perfect and your conduct can be reprehensible. God takes into account the perfection of your hope and He evaluates you based upon your most noble aspirations. And He’s cheering you on to try and get you to move a little closer throughout your life to that ideal, that perfection that you would like to have. We get hungry, we get tired, we get ill, we get weak, and so we excuse ourselves. But through it all we can maintain the aspiration, the hope, the love of Christ. If you do that He will take that into account as He deals with you. 

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

[Question and Answer section]

Denver: There’s a microphone? Does anyone wanna…? Because we do have to be out of here, and they’ve got to wrap up. We have one hour before they close and they’ve got some work to do. If there are questions I’d be happy to respond. If not, then we have people that have work to do. Anyone want the microphone? Okay then. I came a long distance, and I’m hungry. You got … What? There is a question.

Question #1: The scriptures talk about a day where we’re all filled with the spirit. Some call it a Day of Pentecost. Is there another day like that to come?  

Denver: Yeah. Yes! That was an easy question. You’re talking about the generality of mankind. The gifts of the spirit are intended to flourish in the hearts of those who seek the Lord. There are ways of having that develop in individual lives. But to have a community in which that happens, consider for a moment all of the ills and illnesses, pathologies and defects of any community that you live in. 

Within Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost there were a group of believers who had so fully dedicated themselves to the Lord that they had, at that point, all things in common. They were living as a society in a way in which they had consecrated themselves, not only to God but to one another, so that they were all equal with one another. There were two people, a husband and wife, who in that community had lied about what they had done. They had sold property and they had kept back part. In essence, they were trying to live a law that one would live with Christ dwelling among them but this married couple conspired, lied, and then broke any number of the ten commandments, bore false witness, they coveted, they stole, and when confronted they were judged and the wages of what they did resulted in both of them dying. In essence, they committed to live on a level in which sin of that sort, that base of misconduct, is not permitted. 

The general outpouring into a community is going to happen with a community of people who are willing to abide by those kinds of terms. You can accomplish it in an individual life but we don’t have a society that is sufficiently healed. We have the last days society identified generically by the name Babylon the Great Whore, which is the society in which you live. The Great Whore does not abide the conditions for that outpouring but you as a Christian soul can and should, and therefore, if you do that, you’re entitled to that outpouring in your life. But make no mistake about it: If you sign up genuinely and sincerely to follow the Lord, what you’re going to encounter is the hostility, the anger, even the rage of this world, ‘cause this world is not interested in surrendering to Christ’s control. That’s why when He comes He’s going to judge the world. In the meantime, Christians, sincere Christians, devout ones who will obey Him, are going to encounter a necessary opposition. The challenge is to not let it overwhelm you. And I’d encourage every one of you in your faith to press on and to stay committed. Christ is real and He paid a terrible price, and He did that so that you would not have to pay a price. He suffered for you but He expects that we have not merely belief in Him, but faith in Him, and that we act consistent with our belief. Thank you. 

Question #2: I also have a question for a friend. Do you believe Joseph Smith came reincarnated? 

Denver: No, I don’t believe that anyone comes back here to live a second mortal experience in this creation. I do think that when the scriptures use the phrase, “worlds without end,” that the work of God is infinite in scope and reach, and that God’s redemptive work is, in each individual case, adapted to the development of the individual until they grow and are fashioned and are developed to the appropriate godly stature that we become like our Lord. 

Christ went and He preached to the spirits in prison, meaning that when He died and He went into the place where the dead are, He continued His ministry. Peter writes about that. Well the continuation of a ministry among the dead suggests that when you die there’s still work to be done, at least preaching to be done. And if you read real carefully some of the content about the things that occurred before the world, and the things that will occur at the end of the thousand years of peace when Lucifer–Satan–is released, at the end of the thousand years of peace, the very, very beginning of what went on before the world was created, and the very, very end when, after a thousand years of peace Satan is loosed from the pit again, look an awful lot alike. But that’s a subject beyond the challenges and the problems of this mortal life and what we today confront and are faced. 

There’s a lot of stuff in the far distance that aren’t relevant for the challenges we face now. In fact, we were just looking at that phrase, “worlds without end,” which is how it’s rendered. The original language, if you take it literally, What it means is as you look out at the horizon it’s something past your ability to see. It’s beyond the end of the world as you see it, meaning that what comes after we finish our sojourn here will be trouble for another day, because sufficient is the evil of this day for the purposes God has in mind for us, and our challenges here. 

And I know there are people who believe, look, that you do come back, and I know there are people who think that they’re, ya know, Peter, or David, or Solomon, or Isaiah, but I’ve met too many Peter’s to believe all of them, and there’s a whole lot of Mary Magdalene’s,  Martha’s, so I don’t put any stock in that. 

Question #3: What advice would you give to other intellectuals, or even an analytical person, that would struggle with seeking for those answers or those truths that they desire to know, and they’re struggling with finding those truths and not allowing those things to drive a wedge in the faith that they put in Christ?

Denver: Yeah, I believe that there is tension, if not outright hostility, between charity as a priority on one hand and knowledge as priority on the other hand, and that as between the two it is more important to acquire the capacity for charity or love of your fellow man than it is to gain understanding. It’s like what Paul said, “If I have all gifts and know all mysteries but have not charity I’m nothing.” Charity, or the love of your fellow man is the greater challenge and the more relevant one, and when you’ve acquired that you can add to it knowledge. But knowledge has the ability to render the possessor arrogant and haughty, whereas charity renders the possessor humble. If you want the greatest challenge in life, try loving your fellow man unconditionally, and viewing them as God would view them, and then behaving according to that view. And out of that you will learn a great deal more about Christ than you can simply by studying. Walking in His path is a greater revelation of who He is than anything else that’s provided. 

Joseph Smith once remarked that, “If you could gaze into heaven for five minutes you would know more about it than if you read every book that has ever been written on the subject.” Likewise, if you live charitably for five minutes in the presence of what you would normally condemn, what you would normally find repugnant; if you can deal with that charitably you will understand Christ better than if you spend a lifetime reading books written about Him.  

Well, we need to let these fellows wrap up and close their stuff out. Thank you for coming. Thank you for the attention you’ve paid. And thank all of you who have helped, participated, and sacrificed in order to make this event and the others before this possible. Thank you all.

The post 3rd Address to Christians appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This talk was given in front of an audience in Dallas, Texas, at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library on October 19, 2017, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Christian Reformation.

Transcript

No matter how interesting or uninteresting proves to be this evening we have to vacate this place in its entirety by eight o’clock. And so we’ll end at 7:30 sharply, even mid-sentence, perhaps.  

I hope to strengthen your belief in Christ this evening and to increase your confidence in Him as who and what He really is. First verse of the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1). When it was created it was God’s. Everything belonged to Him. Twenty-six verses later it says: “…God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over…” (Genesis 1:26) the creation. God, who owned the earth, gave dominion over His property to man, to the man, Adam, and the woman, Eve.  

John tells us who it was that did the creating and who it was that gave man dominion over the earth; the Word, who was with God. John describes, quote: “All things were made by him;” (John 1:3). That’s in John 1:3. Christ is the light and the life of man. That’s the next verse. Luke explains in the book of Acts: “…he [meaning God] be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being;” (Acts 17:27-28). 

Another prophet explained our relationship to Christ in these words: “…God [who] has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and… he [who] has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another… Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but [behold] it belongs to him who created you.” (Mosiah 2:20, 21, 25).

We borrow from Christ the power to live and move. Christ is sustaining our lives from moment to moment. Because of this, Christ knows our every deed, even our every thought, because we use His power to have our being. Christ can therefore understand us perfectly. And at the end of all of this, Christ can therefore judge us perfectly, because it’s not just what you do, it’s why you did it, and he knows that too, about every one of us. 

Do not imagine Christ as a being who is distant from you, that’s incorrect. You should envision Him as someone who is intimate with you.

I’m glad to return to Texas. I spent nearly two years here while I was in the military. My oldest daughter was born here in Texas. And was, it was mentioned a moment ago that I graduated; I got a Bachelor’s of Business Administration from McMurry University in Abilene. In Abilene there were three colleges at the time and every one of them is supported or sponsored by a religious institution. The one that I attended was sponsored by the Methodist church.  

I was raised by a Baptist mother. At age 19 I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; it’s commonly called the Mormon Church. After 40 years to the day from the day I was baptized, I was excommunicated from the LDS Church because I wrote candidly about Mormon history and disagreed with the institution’s questionable retelling of its history.  

One of the things about the Bible is the characters about whom we read are not spared. When they mess things up, committing adultery and murder as did King David, we know about it. When errors are made and Peter denies the Lord three times before the cock crowed twice, we know about it. That’s not true about Mormon history. What you get there is very sanitized and somewhat misleading, and in some places horribly so. 

If you, as a Christian, were to read what I wrote of Mormon history you would think I was a defender of the LDS Church, but because I questioned the validity of their authority claims and exposed some of their un-Christian and deplorable acts that provoked the judgements of God against them, the institution considered me an apostate.  They viewed my account of history as threatening to them.  

Let me be clear: I have faith in Christ and know our salvation is found only in Him. I also believe Joseph Smith was an authentic Christian and inspired advocate with a message from God. I do not believe the LDS Church has been faithful to the message God spoke through Joseph Smith, nor has the LDS Church told an honest account of their many failures to follow God. You do not need to join any institution, and certainly do not need to become LDS, to respect Joseph Smith or find inspiration in the Book of Mormon.  I think the LDS Church is in a fallen state and growing darker year by year.  But I’m not here to talk of LDS history. I mention this only so you can understand and know what my views are. We’re here to reflect on Christian history and to honor the Protestant Reformation.

In 1517, a Catholicism was a religious, economic, land and military monopoly in Europe. Market control leads to laziness, indifference to the needs of the public, and excesses. Catholicism became abusive. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York today, commented on how the Catholic Church cannot deny it had become corrupt.  Dolan said Martin Luther was responsible for the “striking of a match, creating a bonfire, the flames of which are still burning.”

Martin Luther was not the first open critic of Catholic abuses but he succeeded where other earlier critics were burned at the stake. Luther’s timing was aided by the Gutenberg printing press, making it possible for Martin Luther’s 95 Theses to be turned into a pamphlet that turned out to be history’s first best seller. But after a millennium-and-a-half of Catholic hegemony it was not possible for Martin Luther or the other Protestant Reformation fathers to envision Christianity as something that could exist apart from an institution.  

For a millennium-and-a-half the Christian church had a hierarchy, professional clergy, cathedrals, icons, pageantry, and provided social structure. Anything like Christianity’s original independently functioning groups, meeting in homes and using donated resources as charity for their poor, was long forgotten. The Reformation did not attempt to restore an original Christianity. The Reformers were victims of a structure that confined even their imagination. Their aim was much lower. It sought only to reform an admittedly corrupt institution into something marginally better. The rebellion of Martin Luther lead to the establishment of a new Christian institution that mimicked its mother.  The Lutheran church bears striking similarities to its Catholic mother. To a casual observer of a Sunday service in both of these churches they can seem identical. The differences are not particularly cosmetic but are based on Lutheran rejection of the pope’s authority.  

There are three great Lutheran principals: First, grace alone; second, faith alone; third, scriptures alone. These deprive the Catholic pope of religious significance and the Catholic rites of any claim to be the exclusive way to obtain salvation. But none of these were part of original Christianity.  

As to grace alone, in original Christianity baptism is required for salvation.  Christ’s simple command to “follow me” was given repeatedly; three times it’s recorded in Matthew, twice it’s recorded in Mark, once in Luke, and twice in John. Christ showed the way and as part of that He was baptized to–according to His own mouth–“…fulfil all righteousness.”(Matthew 3:15). It was only after Christ was baptized that the Father commended Jesus and said He was well pleased. 

Christ also had His disciples baptize his followers; you can read about that in John chapter four. Christ spoke to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus and converted Him by that contact. Following his conversion, Saul was healed of blindness, renamed Paul, and immediately baptized. Paul tied baptism to resurrection in Romans chapter six.  He declared that to be baptized is to put on Christ, in Galatians three. There is only one faith and it is in only the one Lord whom we worship and it requires one baptism to be included in the body of believers, according to Ephesians [4].  Peter explained that baptism saves us, in First Peter chapter three.  

Christians who follow Christ will all be baptized. If you’ve not been baptized, or would like to be baptized again, there are those who have authority to administer the ordinance, who will travel to you, or there are some locally who are available to perform the ordinance. The ordinance is free. The service is provided without any charge or expectation of any gift or donation. If you’re interested you can make a request on the website that’s identified in things that are around here, christianreformation500years.info.

Christ taught only one doctrine. He taught a new law. He taught principles, precepts, parables, teachings and commandments, but he only taught one doctrine. This is the doctrine of Christ: 

31 Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine.

32 And this is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given [unto] me; and I bear record of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost beareth record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me.

33 And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God.

34 And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned.

35 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and I bear record of it from the Father; and whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto him will the Father bear record of me, for he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost.

36 And thus will the Father bear record of me, and the Holy Ghost will bear record unto him of the Father and me; for the Father, and I, and the Holy Ghost are one.

37 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things.

38 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.

39 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.

40 And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them.  

(3 Nephi 11:31-40)

Accordingly, original Christianity believed and taught that baptism was essential to salvation, not merely grace. As to faith alone, the original Christians not only believed in baptism but they also believed they could progress in knowledge, obedience, and virtue. Paul denounced the idea that Christians could sin and follow God: “…Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Romans 6:1-2). Paul envisioned the Christian as becoming a new creation through baptism after which we walk in Christ’s path with sin destroyed:  “…we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4). It’s in Romans chapter six.

Peter taught that Christians would progress in godliness until the Christian has his or her calling and election made sure: “…that by these things ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. [And] beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall be neither [be] barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.” (2 Peter 1:4-10, emphasis added)

As to scripture alone, Luther translated the Bible from a second language that was not commonly spoken–that is, Latin–into the common language of Germany, in order for the common man to read it. If scripture alone defined faith, given the illiteracy that had gone on for a millennium-and-a-half before Martin Luther’s day, and given the fact that even the literate would’ve had to been bilingual, (whatever country or language they spoke, Latin had become a dead language; they would have to be able to read and understand a dead language) then, by definition, if that’s one of the keys to defining Christianity, Martin Luther just defined the overwhelming majority–practically all of the Christian world–was incapable of salvation because scripture alone was unavailable to them as one of the required premises of Christianity.  

There was no New Testament during the era of original Christianity. The idea of compiling a New Testament originated with a second century heretic who was excommunicated for apostasy. The only scriptures used or cited during the time of original Christianity was the Old Testament, containing none of the teachings of Christ, none of the letters of Paul, Peter, James, or Jude, and none of the four Gospels. It took until the fourth century for a New Testament canon to be settled. By that time many of the writings had been altered. Further, neither Christ nor his apostles handed out a New Testament. They testified of what they knew to be true and administered baptism as a sign of faith and repentance.  

Despite this, Martin Luther was entirely correct in condemning Catholicism for its errors and excesses. Following Luther’s example, other Protestant churches reformed Christianity in marginal ways. But reconsidering institutional Christianity, in attempting to return to its original form, was not even attempted in the Protestant Reformation. Therefore, Protestantism is only a marginal improvement from its corrupt mother church.  It has never been, nor attempted to become, original Christianity.  

A return to original Christianity would require a restoration. That did not begin until God spoke to Joseph Smith in 1820, but Joseph’s followers also wanted an institution and now have one of the most wealthy and self-interested institutions claiming to be a church. They are undertaking approximately a trillion dollar real estate development as part of the Church’s enterprise, in the state of Florida, constructing everything that it will be necessary, from schools and streets to fire stations and homes, to house over half a million people just outside of Disney World, on what used to be 133,000 acre cattle ranch.  That church owns about 3% of the state of Florida.

Unlike the institutional Christianity of the 1500s, early Christians were called the ecclesia meaning “a congregation or an assembly”. But early Christians were not institutional and certainly not hierarchical. The first century of Christianity had no formal organization and no central control. Christians met informally in small groups and worshiped together in homes or public places. In this earliest form, small groups led by both men and women, who were called deaconisse, a word that is translated into English as either “deacon” or “deaconess”; that Greek word means, “servant”. It was in these home meetings where original Christians worshiped and learned of Christ and Christianity.  

Original Christians had no professional clergy. They operated in a way akin to a method described in the Book of Mormon: “And when the priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people, 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 all labor, every man according to his strength. And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted…” (Alma 1:26-27). This is how I believe Christianity ought to be practiced today, without a professional clergy, diverting tithes and offerings that ought to be used to help the poor, needy, sick, and afflicted. We need to, and can return, to those early days of Christianity.  

Justin Martyr lived from 110-165 A.D., and he wrote in the “sub-apostolic” age. His writings give us a glimpse into how Christianity functioned in its earliest days.  In his First Apology he describes Christian worship. They met in homes, having no church buildings.  

Before being considered a Christian, a candidate was baptized “in the name of God, the Father and the Lord of the universe, and our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit.” (First Apology, Chapter LXI-Christian Baptism.)

Meetings began with a prayer and “saluting one another with a kiss.” Then sacrament was prepared and administered using bread a “cup of wine mixed with water” [and bread] which is blessed by “giving praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands.” (Id.,Chapter LXV-Administration of the Sacraments.)

The early Christians recognized there was an obligation for “the wealthy among us [to] help the needy.” Therefore, after reading scripture and “the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets” donations were collected. (Id., Chapter LXVII-Weekly Worship of the Christians.) Then the donations were distributed to help those who were poor or needy among that group of Christians.  

These simple observances were resilient enough to preserve Christianity after the death of the apostles and before any great hierarchical magisterium arose. It was the power of baptism, the sacrament, scripture study and financial aid among believers that gave Christianity its power. But it was diffused, and therefore incapable of destruction. When Justin Martyr was slain, the scattered Christians continued unaffected. It was just like when Peter and Paul were slain, and before them, James was killed. The power of Christianity reckoned from the vitality of its original roots. These roots were in Christ, His message, His teachings, which were employed to relieve one another by the alms shared from rich to poor.

When a centralized hierarchy took control over Christianity, the money that was used for the poor, the widows and orphans, was diverted to build churches, cathedrals, basilicas and palaces. Ultimately, the wealth generated by the generosity of Christian believers became the tool used by the hierarchy to buy up armies, kings, lands and treasures which were used to rule and reign as a cruel master over a subjugated population made miserable by the abuse heaped on them from Rome.

Even after the Protestant Reformation, Christianity continued to be ruled by hierarchies. Cathedrals and church buildings consumed and consume resources that are to be used to help the poor. Christ built no building, although He accepted the temple in Jerusalem as His Father’s house. Peter built no church building, nor Paul, nor James, nor John. Christianity in the hands of the Lord and His apostles needed no brick and mortar for its foundation. It was built on the hearts of believers, brought together by the charity and assistance shared between them.

Today Christianity is not benefitted, but weakened, by hierarchies, cathedrals, edifices and basilicas housing opulence, wealth and art. Although the prophecies foretell of a temple to God to be built in Zion, and another to be built in Jerusalem, there are no other structures foretold to be built by Christians or latter-day Israel. How much stronger would Christianity be today if wealth were reserved for the poor, and hierarchies were stripped of their wealth?

We would not be undervaluing the gospel and overvaluing the churches if all donations went to aid the poor and none went to support the institutions.  

We have a hard time even imagining the earliest generation of Christians. We also have a tendency to use what we are familiar with as our guide and standard in trying to understand early Christianity. It affects even how we read our scriptures. I’d like you to try to abandon the picture that you have in your head and imagine a new picture in its place.  

Early Christians were very diverse. There was no one in charge and no attempt to standardize Christianity. These earliest believers were divided into the following kinds of Christians:  

Pauline Christians: These believers were grounded in a tradition founded by the apostle Paul. They claimed to follow the Old Testament and Paul’s instructions. They were located in the areas Paul served as a missionary. Paul appointed teachers who were charged with guarding the doctrine from being changed.  

Mathayan Christians: Followers of Matthew centered in Antioch, who attempted to form a compromise between Jewish and non-Jewish, or Gentile, Christians. It was in Antioch that the conflicts in Jewish Christianity were worked out. You read of Mathayan Christianity in the Book of Acts where respect and loyalty to the Jewish temple at Jerusalem is acknowledged but Gentile converts were welcomed.  

Johannine Christians: These are followers of John. These believers tried to keep an original focus on the individual’s relationship with Christ alive. They emphasized the indwelling of Christ’s spirit in each Christian. They taught and believed in the pre-earth existence of man’s spirits. Before the creation Christ was the great high priest of heaven who would redeem the creation by his sacrifice. The strength of their teaching was focusing on the individuals’ relationship with Christ and no organization could replace that individual relationship. 

The idea of the love of Christ was preserved in Johannine Christianity. Spirit, knowledge, and ritual were designed to preserve knowledge of Christ. Although lost to western Christianity, John taught that man would become divinitized, or ascend in stages of progression, to become just like God. His teachings have been lost but two passages in the New Testament writings of John preserve that teaching still. First John three beginning at verse one: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it did [doth] not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope . . .purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” (1 John 3:1-3, emphasis added)

And then in Revelation chapter three, beginning in verse 20, it is Christ who is speaking:  “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” (Revelation 3:20-22, emphasis added)

Petrine Christians: These were followers of a tradition that could be traced to Peter. These Christians emphasized authority and viewed their leaders as shepherds over exiles from heaven. It was the Petrine tradition that lead to hierarchical control as a central feature of the later kind of Christianity that survived. Peter’s original teachings evolved and changed and Peter can’t be held accountable for what occurred in a corrupted system. As it evolved, sheep–that is believers–followed bishops, who were the successors to the apostles. These bishops were believed to hold a commission to lead the flock.  

There was also Gnosticism centered in Egypt. They claimed to follow John. They believed Christ and John taught hidden knowledge and salvation was related to understanding these mysteries of God. There was also Syriac Christianity, and yet another form of Christianity established through Thomas’s teaching in India and Asia.  

Almost all knowledge of the earliest forms of Christian practices have been erased by the destruction of records. John’s teaching of a pre-earth existence for the spirit of Christ and for all mankind did not suddenly disappear. It lingered for centuries. 

Origen, an early Christian, claimed the original teachings of Christ included that Christ came into this world in possession of knowledge He held from before the creation of this world. Jesus had been so faithful to the Logos, or “word of the Father”, that He was entitled to that as His name. He exemplified the word of the Father. You wanna know what the Father said? “Look to Christ,” because everything Christ did was an example of that word of the Father. Other spirits who were less faithful, and some of whom fell away altogether, are involved also with this world.  

Joseph Smith also testified that we all existed as spirits living before the creation of this world, and I believe this is a teaching. Each human soul is at a different point of progression and therefore has different abilities to perceive the truth here. Every person in the world has a distinct spiritual past that began long before the creation of this world.  Salvation consists of doing what is necessary in this world to advance individual spirit progression. The greatest way to progress is to follow Christ. 

Joseph Smith, like the apostle John, believed and taught that all of us existed as spirits before the creation of the world. We are spirit beings having an earthly experience.  There’s a veil of forgetfulness because as physical beings our thoughts are processed through a physical biomechanical connection limiting our pre-earth memory. This limit is an important part of God’s plan. If we had a perfect memory of our pre-earth existence we would not be required to develop faith in Christ, but our spirits know God, and in our quiet moments we all sense our immortality. We are here to be tested and the test is now underway.  

Early Christians were very diverse but they agreed on two things: Christ’s doctrine, which I read to you a moment ago, and Christ’s law. The law of Christ is found in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapters five, six and seven. Once Christians have these two essential teachings in common you can have differences on other issues just like the early Christians. 

Christ’s apostle witnesses, like all witnesses, testified from their own background and experience. In the courtroom when you have witnesses testifying to some event that took place, you can have a group of people at the same place, observing the same event, and they will testify under oath, swearing to tell the truth under penalty of perjury–they go to jail if they lie–and their stories will be markedly different from one another. That’s because in this world our orientations, our understanding and our perceptions, differ depending upon the spot we stood at, at the moment we witness something.  

I assume all of you think you know the difference between left and right. I was in a hospital going to visit a fellow who had had open heart surgery about a week ago, and at the information desk I’m facing her and she’s facing me. She says to me, “You go down the hall to the right…”  Okay, that’s your perception. Mine is: I must go down the hall to the left. It is the opposite of what she’s saying but she’s giving me the directions from the vantage point she occupies. 

From home plate, right field is to the batter’s right. But if you’re in right field you’re playing to the extreme left (and I hope the Astros succeed. No god-fearing Christian would root for the New York Yankees to make it to the World Series. [audience laughter] And I don’t know, is that game underway? Do we have a score?)  

Because original Christianity was peacefully diverse the differences found in the earliest forms are somewhat preserved in our New Testament. I’ve got a question from the website. I’m reading you the question that came in: Is it possible Paul and Jesus taught two different gospel messages? There is debate such is the case, or is it Paul expressed the message differently than Jesus did? In other words, did Jesus elaborate more content and less terminology, justification, reconciliation, grace, et cetera, and Paul did the opposite? 

It seems Christ, Peter, James, John’s messages were sublime and easy to understand, whereas Paul’s letters are difficult to understand and require fitting the pieces together. So let’s take a look at those two witnesses.  

Paul was a strict pharisee who followed the law. Paul persecuted Jesus’ followers, even assisting when Stephen was killed for his testimony of Christ. He had a great many things to regret. Everything in his life before his conversion to Christ gave him a context for understanding Christ and Christ’s message. Paul wanted grace, reconciliation, and justification because he needed these to have hope. 

Peter was a fisherman but he walked alongside Christ for years. He saw Christ heal the sick, heard Him bless the children, saw Him walk on water. He knew that storms were quieted by Christ’s word. He saw the dead rise, and stood on the Mount of Transfiguration when the Father declared Christ was His Son. 

Peter was as qualified a witness as Paul to testify Christ was the promised Messiah but we cannot expect two witnesses with such different experiences and from such different backgrounds as Peter’s and Paul’s to provide us identical testimonies of Christ. Both Paul and Peter understood and explained Christianity according to their background experiences, training, and culture. So long as they agreed on Christ’s doctrine and accepted Christ’s law that was enough. They were both Christian and provided us with truth. 

As the earliest forms of Christianity passed through two generations, mutual respect and acknowledgement of others’ Christianity was replaced by competition and conflict. As they competed with one another the original Christianity passed away. 

There are many ironies in Christian history. Most of them are embarrassing and therefore not widely mentioned. In that regard, Christian history and Mormon history share this tendency for selective recollection. Christianity changed over the first two centuries. Change of that kind was a signal that the original had passed away. Since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, a change to His religion suggests that God was no longer in charge. It was during this time that an apostasia, a Greek word from which we get the word, “apostasy” or rebellion, took place and the foundation of Christian belief splintered. 

Apostasy implies a sudden event and a deliberate rebellion. The original followers of the way taught by Christ gave way to those who wanted to have both a form of Christianity and worldly popularity. Christianity was intended to change the world but the world changed Christianity. Christian converts of this latter time were unacquainted with the original beliefs. As groups struggled for control, instead of Christian tolerance, less and less of the apostles’ original teachings were retained. The debates even resulted in changing the scriptures to support one interpretation over another. Bart Ehrman has tracked some of the changes made to what would become the New Testament texts in his book titled, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. (Interesting title, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.)

Even the scriptures we use today were compromised during the second and third century Christian struggles–almost following an identical pattern, which is one of the reasons why I’ve suggested the study of Mormonism and the history of Mormonism to Christians. Mormons have changed their scriptures and they’ve only been around 180 years. So within a 180-year window you can see a pattern in what has gone on in Mormonism that mirrors the research that Bart Ehrman has done in showing the orthodox corruption of scripture. 

When Christ was originally baptized the voice that was heard from heaven did not say, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The original text says, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” (Psalm 2:7) which is a quote from Psalms two seven, Psalms two chapter [verse] seven.  

During the second and third century debates, one of the arguments that was put forth was that Christ was just a man and not the Son of God, and he became the Son of God at His baptism when God accepted Him. Now, none of us believe that. We believe He is the Son of God; we’ve got the account in Matthew and we’ve got the account in Luke.  We know that He was born and the angel Gabriel announced to Mary; we know this story and we know His Father. But it was being debated during the second and third century and that verse tended to support a doctrine that was defeated as proto-orthodoxy converted into orthodoxy. They were winning the debate and they changed the verse.  However, when Paul wrote his epistle to the Hebrews he quotes Psalms two seven, and Paul wrote more. They just didn’t get around to changing that one. (Shoot, the editors missed one!)

Over time there emerged one interpretation or faction of Christianity that became identified. It was originally proto-orthodox, and then it became orthodox as it won over time, and that became the Roman Catholic religion. “Catholic” means “universal”, means “all”. Original Christianity did not have orthodoxy or heresy, these are terms that were adopted once the proto-orthodox advocates sensed victory. They branded their view as orthodox and everything else as heretical. Once heresy was identifiable it was suppressible, and proto-orthodoxy could persecute and suppress their competition with the confidence of sensing their complete coming victory. Those who disagreed or opposed could be excommunicated for heresy, and once they gained the confidence to do so, killed; and they were killed, and their version of the scriptures burned. 

These proto-orthodox Christians decided to improve the appeal of Christianity by assuring the uneducated that there was no need to learn about Christ or His actual teaching. Men could be saved in ignorance so long as they accepted the sacraments or ordinances offered by those who had authority. Christ was displaced and faith was replaced by allegiance to an institution. This made for lazy believers who accepted a convenient religion. Once there was a universal–or catholic–church, it owned the religion. As property of the institution the religion was used to gain economic power, wealth, control society, and suppress anything considered a threat to its power. Even kings were subordinate to the Pontiff in Rome. 

One of the most hotly debated topics by Christians in the second and third centuries was the nature of God. That threatened open warfare in the Roman Empire once Constantine adopted Christianity as the religion of the state for the Roman Empire. He had no clue there was that much debate over the nature of God. But the views were not going to be surrendered easily. 

The gospel accounts, letters of the apostles, and common sense describe Jesus Christ as a mortal man. Jesus was carried by a pregnant woman, born after a normal period of gestation, grew through childhood into adulthood, walked, talked, ate, slept, tired, rested, suffered, bled, and died. Every action he took was human. His father, a separate being, spoke from heaven at Jesus’ baptism and again on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Christ’s father spoke from out of a bright cloud veiling His personage from view. Nothing in the New Testament makes Christ and His father the same personage. I emphasize that: Nothing in the New Testament makes Christ and His father the same personage. Even His declaration that He and the Father are one is explained in terms that clarify they are two distinct persons:

“…Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 

“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 

“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one;” (John 17:11, 16-18, 20-23). 

The idea that the Father and the Son were only one in the same way mankind becomes one, or unified by agreement and purpose, was unacceptable to many of the third and fourth century Christians. The idea was regarded as polytheistic, and a tradition of monotheism carried forward from Judaism into Christianity made this unacceptable. The earliest Christians thought nothing was improper with the Father and Son being separate and distinct. 

The Old Testament begins with plural gods. I read this verse a moment ago: “…Let us make man in our image…”(Genesis 1:26).  The “us” and “our” is a word, Elohim, which is the plural form of the word, “El”, El being “God”, Elohim being “Gods”. Indeed, Paul contemplated a structure of heaven that included many lords and many gods: “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we by [in] him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6).

One of the disputes that was wrongly decided at the counsel of Nicea, called by King Constantine to resolve Christian disputes, was the nature of God. Was the Godhead as taught by Eusebius, homiusios, meaning, “of a similar substance,” or was God, as taught by Athanasius, instead homoosious, meaning, “the same identical substance” as God the Father. The counsel at Nicea did not claim to have revelation or inspiration to answer this question. They only voted and adopted Athanasius’ definition of God giving birth to the Trinity, an orthodox teaching that has become the litmus test used ever since for determining true Christianity from heresy.  

I am going to pause and make an aside. Original Christianity wouldn’t care. If you accepted the doctrine of Christ and the law of Christ and you were baptized, you could believe in either one of these, and Paul would suggest that with time and with discussion and with fellowship, we would eventually come into the unity of faith. But the unity of faith may be a distant goal, particularly among today’s Christians.  

They voted. The Trinity became the litmus test for heresy, and I believe they got it wrong at Nicea and had been wrong ever since, because Christ taught in John 17:3; “And this is life eternal, that they might [first] know thee the only true God, and [second] Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Christ’s definition of eternal life separates the Father from the Son and requires us to know both. 

A new dispensation of the gospel began with Joseph Smith and continues today. There are now more revelations and more scripture given to us by Christ. At this moment the work of laying out and formatting all of the scriptures: Old Testaments–and the volume has the plural, Testaments, because it includes covenants made with Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, but it’s what you know as the Old Testament; New Testaments–again plural, because it was given first to the Jews and then taken to the Gentiles. It’s a multiple covenant-making opportunity. And then a third volume called, Teachings and Commandments; are being prepared for publication at present. 

The Book of Mormon foretold how the Gentiles would react to new scripture: 

“…many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, [and] there cannot be any more Bible. 

“Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. 

“…[And] because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever. Wherefore, because [that] ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.” (2 Nephi 29:3, 6, 9-10).

The new edition of scriptures will soon be available on Amazon in an inexpensive paperback version, and a higher cost, leather-bound onionskin print version should be available by Christmas this year. They confirm that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The purpose of the new dispensation is to make it possible again for mankind to know both God the Father and His Son.  

There was a remarkable event that occurred during the last two weeks of Christ’s life.  And I, I wanna read [to] you and then talk about that.  

“And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, that [and] thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, and follow me. [And] when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

“Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.” (Luke 18:18-24, 31-34)

That incident occurred when Christ changed the trajectory of His ministry and determined to go up to Jerusalem to be killed, and He knew that’s what He was doing.  And He invited the young man “dispose of your property, give it to the poor, and come and follow me”. In the scriptures Luke calls this fellow “a certain ruler”. Matthew calls him “the young man”. Mark describes him as “one who came running”. John doesn’t mention him at all.  

What if he had done as Christ invited him to do? He’d have been with Christ during the final two weeks of his life. He would have seen Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He would have heard the crowds shout, Hosannah! He would have heard Christ denounce the scribes and pharisees as hypocrites in the temple. He would have been there for the anointing of Christ to prepare Him for His death. He would have eaten dinner and seen Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. He would have been there when the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was first introduced by Christ. He would have witnessed the crucifixion. He would have seen the resurrected Lord. And perhaps most importantly, we would know His name, because he wouldn’t have been able to participate in all those events and remain unnamed in scripture. Now, it’s possible, had he accompanied them, that we would have another gospel, having been written by him as yet another witness of Christ’s passion and resurrection. Instead, he left sorrowful because he cared for his riches. 

What Christ asks of us today is no different than what Christ asked of the unnamed man who left sorrowful as he turned to head to Jerusalem. It’s never convenient to follow Christ. It’s never without its anxieties and its sacrifices. 

There is a small group of us who believe, as we do, in an original form of Christianity. We believe in gathering tithes and donations and then using them to help people among us. We don’t own any buildings and we don’t anticipate ever owning a building unless God commands that that new temple in Zion be built by us, but that would be the only thing. We rent places like this from people who donate to allow the rental to take place. This is being broadcast on the internet by people who have voluntarily come here, brought the resources to do it, and are broadcasting this event right now. People who came down here to prepare the way, paid their own way and sacrificed to do it. 

The only way you can have faith is through sacrifice. You can believe a lot of things but faith requires you to act on your belief and to act consistent with that belief, which is exactly what the young man did not do. The only reason why he came to Christ as an advisor, to ask of Him, “what can I do to inherit eternal life”, is because he had confidence that Christ could answer the question and give him the truth. He respected Christ. He believed in Him as a messenger of eternal life. But when he heard the message, he stopped short and retained whatever belief he had but he did not develop faith, because faith is acquired in one and only one way, and that is by sacrifice. I hope you do not walk away sorrowful and fail to participate in a new dispensation underway.  

We are a small assembly of believers. We worship in homes. We have no buildings. In a larger event like this we rent the facility. Everything is done and all work is done by volunteers and people that contribute. Although we’re small we are worldwide. I’ve come in part to invite you to participate with us in worshipping Christ and practicing His doctrine. 

We have authority to baptize but we’re not jealous of our authority and will share it with any man who accepts and practices Christianity as we do. 

It may seem odd to you to consider Joseph Smith as an authentic Christian. It may seem odder still to hear me say that Mormonism has rejected Joseph, and Mormons were responsible for persecuting, rejecting, and ultimately killing him, particularly when today the LDS Church claims they have succeeded Joseph as God’s vehicle for salvation. The LDS Church, like the Roman Catholic Church, has no inspiration to offer and therefore both rely on hollow claims to have authority. When an institution’s greatest claim is in it’s authority they have lost Christ’s message.  

Joseph Smith never finished his work. He was killed when 38 years old. His last year of life showed he was headed in a very different direction than where the Mormon Church has now arrived. I would not make Joseph Smith responsible for what you see today in the LDS Church. 

Christ came as the least, as a servant, kneeling to wash feet, as a teacher of righteousness. He invited, persuaded, and taught. He did not demand respect for his authority. He submitted to abuse, rejection, and ultimately to being slain. He loved mankind. Those who demand their authority be respected are anti-Christ because they oppose the core of Christ’s example. We are most Christian when we are most like Christ. 

I’ve written a book to try and help explain Joseph Smith. The title of the book is, A Man Without Doubt. I’ve brought 20 copies to give away. You don’t need to pay for it.  No one’s here to take any money for it. We don’t want any money from you. But if you will read the book it will acquaint you with Joseph Smith in a way that I think shows he is an authentic Christian. If you’d like a copy it’s yours for free. They are on the back table and someone will show you how to get a copy.  

I got some questions on the internet. There are some of you who are here and were told you can ask questions, and I wanna leave little time for that. I’m only gonna answer one of the questions that came in that hasn’t already been addressed in the talk. And, it’s an obvious question from an obvious source. 

A Seventh-day Adventist inquired if I keep the Sabbath. So, that cuts right to the rub, doesn’t it? The answer is: Yes, I keep the Sabbath. But let me explain to you why I do keep the Sabbath as I do. 

In the creation God had a plan for six days of labor and one day of rest, and that one day of rest was to be continually observed, would later be memorialized in the Law of Moses. But on the day of rest Adam and Eve managed to get the boot out of the Garden of Eden, and so instead of a day of rest they were laboring. The reckoning of the week was disturbed by the fact that we lost the first one, and the calendar resulted in a days’ disparity from the fall of Adam and Eve. When Christ was resurrected, He was resurected–instead, it’s called the “first day of the week”–because it was the first day of the week reckoned according to the fall of Adam. But Christ’s atonement was intended to fix the fall of Adam, to put everything back right again, to repair the damage that had been done. And therefore, when Christ was resurrected, His resurrection coming, as it was, one day late, was actually just on time, and He repaired not only the damage done in the original fall, He repaired the Sabbath as well. Hence the observance of the day of Resurrection as the day of rest, called the first day of the week instead of the seventh, because that’s how time had been reckoned from the fall of Adam until the resurrection of Christ. 

I observe the Sabbath as the day on which Christ was resurrected, as a symbol of his repair of the premature fall and the loss of the original day of rest, going back to the time of Adam and Eve. But yes, I keep the Sabbath. Now having said that, the original Christians would let you worship on Saturday and would let me worship on Sunday, because as long as you keep the doctrine of Christ and you accept the law of Christ we’ll figure it out together over time and eventually one will persuade the other. Not perhaps by argument and debate but by the quiet example that persuades the heart that there’s something more to be preferred in one than in the other.  

Before asking if you have any questions, we have fourteen minutes before we have to wrap this up because we need to vacate this entire place on time, as I mentioned when we began. 

Let me end by saying that I do believe in the potential for the unity of Christians coming together in one faith. I suspect that sitting here in this room, if every one of you were asked, “are you a Christian?” every one of you would respond, “yes.” And I suspect if I asked you to explain what denomination you were, that probably every one but you would tell you what’s wrong with your particular version of Christianity. I don’t think the measure of your Christianity is determined by whether or not I want to judge, condemn, dismiss, belittle, complain about, your version. The authenticity of your Christianity is reckoned in your heart and in your relationship with God, and if that’s authentic and if that’s sincere, how dare anyone question that? If I think I know more than you, and I have a better view of Jesus Christ and His atonement than do you, then I ought to assume the burden of persuading you. I ought to meekly tell you why you ought to have greater faith in something else; but to demand, and to insist, and to belittle, and to complain, quite frankly that’s exactly where early Christianity wound up when Christians were killing Christians because of doctrinal disputes. What kind of nonsense is that? Let’s not go there. Let’s accept one another as Christians, if any one of us says that they are a Christian, and then if you think you can improve their understanding, have at it, but let’s not dismiss, belittle, or discard.  

Do we have a microphone for people that are gonna–well, I’m assuming someone wants to ask questions. Oh, yeah. Does anyone wanna ask a question, ‘cause we can always end eleven minutes early. [Muffled audience comment. I gotta question. ] Yeah, you wanna hand him the microphone? The purpose of the microphone is so people that are listening on the internet can hear it.

Question #1: You spoke about a sign. That’s kind of cryptic but I think you can probably recall it, when the seed of the woman was born, the line of Judah returns, and something about a new star will appear, and people will be troubled.  Do I get the gist of it?  

Denver: Yes, you’ve got the gist of it.  

Question #1: Can you expound on it?  

Denver: Well, the answer is I could expound but let me, let me tell you, let me give you some background about that. For those of you who don’t know what he’s talking about, I have, I have written up a description of a future event that’s going to take place, that I was, I was  inspired to write up. But like what happens very often with things that are given to people by God, God tells you what to say and limits what you say about some things for purposes that He may understand a whole lot better than do we. You can read John’s book of Revelation, or Isaiah, or Daniel, or Ezekiel, and the debates about the content and the meaning of those more obscure passages are endless. And at the end of all the debate what you wind up with is more confusion than understanding. 

The way in which prophecies are handed to mankind by God is in a way that allows us, when the event takes place, to say, as Isaiah explained, “God knows the end from the beginning”. Nothing’s going to happen that surprises God, but the description that’s given is not intended to tell us beforehand where to put our money in the stock market and when to sell, and when to get out of stocks and bonds, and when to get into real estate, or when to buy gold because it’s all going to crap. And the purpose is to, once an event occurs, it is to ratify God’s foreknowledge. It is to confirm to us that God knew what was going to happen. Sometimes the way that God tells us that is by giving a specific date for an event, but if he gives you a specific date for an event, the description of the event will be such that you won’t understand what the event is going to be until the date arrives. Alternatively, he can give you a reasonable description of the event but no date, and so sometimes you wait generations, millennia, for prophecies to be… I mean Isaiah was 725 B.C., and much of what Isaiah wrote about is happening now. 

So what I wrote was what I was told to write and confined to what was intended to be conveyed. And despite what some people may think, I try to be exact, obedient, and to take no step to the left, no step to the right, no step forward unless I receive instruction from God. The only reason I’m here giving this talk is because this was something God wanna to have take place. So yes, I could tell you a lot more but what I’ve written is what I was told to write, and therefore when it happens you’ll say, oh yeah, God knew about that beforehand and gave a pretty good description now that I see, now that I see what it involved. Anyone else got a…?  

Question #2: In the talk you gave in California you referenced Matthew 24, and the signs of the last days, and that the signs have begun, and that it’ll all get wrapped up within one generation. Would you be able to shine more light on the vague description of “one generation?”  

Denver: Ha!  See, yeah?  There probably been as many Bible commentaries written on the definition of “generation” as… One, one offered definition of generation is: “while the teaching/religion/movement remains in an unaltered state”. Almost invariably however, the way a new revelation from heaven works is that God will reveal Himself in a generation, and then when the prophet/prophets of that time–the mortals living, the messengers–die, what survives cannot be kept intact. It simply cannot be kept intact.  You need another Peter, you need another Paul, you need another Moses, you need another one with that standing, or it falls into immediate disrepair. So, while there are living oracles that are in communication with God, that’s the best definition of the generation.  But you don’t, you don’t add on to the work of a prophet.  It, it goes downhill.  

From, from the death of Moses until the coming of John the Baptist, the only interruptions you get were when these singular men, Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, came upon the scene, and their work was confined to them in that spot. It’s…you don’t, you don’t  improve upon what God gives. When God gives something, it is living and it is breathing. It is, it is like a fire that has been lit and it exists until the flame goes out. But when the visions of heaven are gone because the recipient is no longer on the stage–it’s what happened with the death of Joseph Smith. Now, I use his name here, and I say that I accept him as an authentic prophet. 

You’ve got probably an image in your mind that’s derived from those elders knocking on your door. And, that image I would hope to correct if you take the book and you read it. Joseph Smith was a very deep Christian thinker who confronted imprisonment because of betrayal by his own followers. He confronted the inability to convey the miraculous from himself to someone else, even though the someone else’s were sincere believers. He did everything he could to try and bring them along and they failed. Instead of saying, woe is me, he backed up and attempted a project of educating them and bringing them along. And his writings are in the book, and an introduction is in the book, but time and time again he was confronted by authentic Christian dilemmas just like our Savior was. I hope it’s an interesting book. They are for free if anyone wants to read it.  

And we are, we are out of time so we gonna need to end. Thank you for coming. This is the second in three talks. There is a third one that will be given in Atlanta. That one, like this one, will be streamed live on the internet so if you go to the website christianreformation500years.info, you’ll be able to watch the Atlanta talk when it’s given. All of them are being recorded and all of them will be available to watch again afterwards. And I assume that when I hit the microphone you guys can work the volume levels to get rid of that, because they’re magicians.

Thank you for coming.  In the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen. 

The post 2nd Address to Christians appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This talk was given to an audience at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, California, on September 21, 2017, in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Christian Reformation.

Transcript

I want to thank all of those who have volunteered and assisted in getting this event set up, the venue rented, the venue paid for, and this evening organized. Everything we do is done voluntarily and without compensation. We do not have an organization that gathers funds and makes it possible to purchase events like this. Everything that is done, including the online live video broadcast over the internet this evening, is being done by volunteers who are taking the time to use their own resources to make this possible. We believe that sacrifice is necessary if a person is to have faith. You can believe a lot of things, but if you’re going to have faith it is the order of heaven that you have to make sacrifice to demonstrate your faith. 

All the videos that were just shown are on the Christian Reformation 500 Years website [www.christianreformation500years.info] and also are available on YouTube and can be watched at any time. It’s my hope that this evening I’ll give you a greater reason to have belief in Christ and have confidence in your belief in Christ.

In the book of Matthew, chapter 24 is Christ’s most extensive prophecy about the future events including the time of His Second Coming. While He gives some details in Matthew chapter 24 there is a statement that He makes: “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” (Matthew 24:37) 

He makes an analogy between the events that occurred during Noah’s time and what we will see on the earth at the time of his return. Let me read you a description of the events at the time of Noah—and these are the kinds of events with which we typically associate the days of Noah: “And God saw that the wickedness of men had become great in the earth; and every man was lifted up in the imagination of the thoughts of his heart, being only evil continually. The earth was corrupt before God, and it was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence, and behold I will destroy all flesh from off the earth.” (See, Genesis 1:5-7; Moses 8:22, 28-30)

Ominous. Terrible.  Reason for concern. That is what we generally think of.  But there’s another side to that. That other side includes obviously Noah. You can’t have the days of Noah without having a Noah. Another contemporary who lived at the same time with Noah was Enoch, who built a city of righteousness where people gathered together to worship the only true God, who were then in turn taken up to heaven. That group of people, taken up to heaven, are going to return with the Lord when He comes again in glory. Book of Jude –there is only one chapter in there. “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these things saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints.” (Jude 1:14)  There were those that were taken up into the heavens numbering in the tens of thousands who will return with him. 

So if there is reason for pessimism when Christ predicts that, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the time of His return,” (Matthew 24:37) there is also extraordinary reason for optimism because we are going to see things like Noah and his family –that included Shem, who would be renamed Melchizedek, about whom the apostle Paul had a great deal to say in the book of Hebrews comparing that man, a son of Noah, to the Lord Himself –actually we ought to flip that. He compares the Lord Himself to that man. And then there is Enoch. And so while we tend to look at the prophecy Christ gave concerning His coming negatively, about how far degenerate the world is going to go, those are the tares ripening. 

Christ said, “We’re not going to uproot the tares, bind them in bundles and burn them, until the wheat also becomes ripe.” (Matthew 13:30) You are here, you are Christian, and God would like you to be wheat. He would like you to ripen in righteousness while the world ripens in iniquity.

Roughly – a little over 2,000 years ago – something happened that changed the course of history. Christ was resurrected. We have in one generation of people a series of testimonies about Christ and His life, death, and resurrection. The authors of those testimonies do not spare themselves from their embarrassing behavior. Christ was taken captive in the Garden and many of those who followed Him fled immediately. Peter took a little time to knock off a servant’s ear, which Christ healed, and rebuked Peter and told him to put away his sword.  

By the time He gets to being tried there are only two who hung around for the trial, and on the cross the only ones who followed Him, who remained, were women, and they stood at the feet of the cross until He passed. Upon His death there is no mention of a disciple being involved in His burial. They were cowering. They were hiding. And these were they who spent their time with Him as His chosen disciples.

Everything changed on the first day of the week when something turned cowards into men who would be willing to die for the testimony that they had that He is risen! That testimony changed the world, it changed their lives. They no longer lived as though their master had been defeated in death. They lived as though their master had triumphed over death, because He had. Multiple witnesses telling the same story: Abject defeat, fear, and cowardice, followed by triumphant, confident, defiant belief in a risen Lord, many of whom would go to their own deaths rather than to deny their testimony that Christ lives. 

You have every reason to have confidence in the fact of the resurrection of the Lord. The lives of those disciples are abundant testimony of the fact of His resurrection. And then we have His greatest persecutor, Saul, on the road to Damascus, being confronted by the Lord Himself, calling him and saying, “It’s hard for you to kick against the pricks. Why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 26:14) Look at the change that happened in the life of Paul, ultimately leading to his death in Rome. Again, as a witness and a testimony of Him in whom he had confidence of a glorious resurrection. And so, 2,000 years ago, an event occurred that changed the world.

About 1,900 years ago the ministry of that generation of believers and witnesses drew to an end and the apostles then had their voices silenced. It would take until 1,675 years ago before there was an attempt to stabilize and define what it meant to be a Christian. Between the time of the death of the apostles and the council at Nicaea there is an interlude in which Christianity assumed extraordinarily divergent forms of Christian belief, many of which were completely contradictory of one another. If you read the ante-Nicene –the prior to Nicaea—fathers of Christianity, the debates, the contradictions, the descriptions –the content of Christian belief was remarkably unstable, unsteady, and very different irreconcilable versions. 1,675 years ago now the Nicean counsel made an attempt to redefine what it meant to be Christian and to stabilize the conflicting Christianities into something that would be singular and therefore define what it would mean to be an orthodox Christian. Coming out of Nicaea is a creed –the Nicean Creed –but it would take until about 1550 before the efforts to suppress divergent forms of Christianity succeeded far enough so that we had our orthodox Christian faith in a reasonably stable form. 

It was about a 1,000 years ago now, when what is called the Great Schism occurred in which the east and the west divided between the church centered in Rome, the Roman Catholic, or Universal church, and the Eastern Orthodox church, divided from one another and no longer shared communion, hierarchy, or their faith in Christ together. It was 500 years ago when Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses and set in motion the series of events that were discussed in the videos shown just before this talk.

I assume all of you regard yourselves as Christians. I regard myself as a Christian. Today there are approximately 40,000 different Christian denominations. If you go back only 500 years most of what you regard as Christianity, and in all probability the form of Christianity in which you believe, would not have existed. If you go back earlier still, whatever it is that you hold as your Christian belief –even the current form of Catholicism that is practiced – would be regarded as heretical by the Roman Catholic hierarchy itself. Only 500 years ago the only authorized forms of the Bible were printed in Latin and they were the exclusive property of a Catholic clergy that taught in Latin. A group of people who were told what to do and how to regard Christianity. Unfortunately for almost every one of us the form of Christianity that we hold in our hearts and that we look to in faith, believing that it has the power to save us, would be regarded throughout almost all of Christian history as heresy, as false, as damnable.

One of the Protestant fathers – he was a Firebrand, he was kicked out of the Massachusetts colony, he was considered dangerous, as dangerous in the Massachusetts setting as Martin Luther was considered dangerous in Roman Catholic Germany – was Roger Williams. Roger Williams is actually the one who founded the First Baptist Church.

It was mentioned that I was raised within a Baptist family. I made an attempt to get baptized. I had conviction when I was ten years old but the minister didn’t think that I was a suitable candidate. Apparently I wasn’t much of a character at ten years old, at least in the eyes of a Christian Baptist minister attempting to evaluate the worthiness of a soul for baptism, and so he punted, and by the time I got to high school the last thing I wanted to do was to be baptized. I got baptized for the first time into the Mormon church and I’ve apparently earned the same sort of reception from them as I did from the Baptist minister when I was ten. I’ve been regarded as unsuitable material, I guess because when it comes to the history of Christianity and of the various denominations, what churches want are apologists. They want people to defend whatever it is they’re doing, however aberrant, however unjustifiable, however flimsy the basis upon which what they teach is grounded; they want apologists. And the role of the apologist is to defend at all costs.

It was mentioned that I’m an attorney. I practice law. I actively go into the courtroom and I defend cases at the trial level and at the appellate level. The job of an attorney is an advocate, is to present persuasively your side of the argument. However, attorneys are only licensed to practice law if they behave ethically. One of the ethics that is binding upon an attorney is, if the court poses a question to you that exposes a weakness in your position or a fact that you dislike because it harms your position, ethically you are obligated to disclose honestly, forthrightly to the court the true answer to the question that is put to you. Christian apologists have no such ethical constraint. They do not need to tell you the weaknesses. They do not need to disclose to you honestly what the problems are. 

I was excommunicated from the LDS church because I evaluated their history, concluded that there were indefensible positions, and preferred to state honestly what I believe to be the truth rather than to support a distortion that is unjustified in fact, in truth, and in all honesty. I supposed in that respect that a lawyer comes off rather better than lawyers normally do because legal ethics governs my thinking on how we ought to treat any discussion of our Christian faith, any discussion of what the truth is.

Roger Williams, the founder of the First Baptist Church, as a refugee went and helped found Rhode Island and continued his preaching, and reached this conclusion. This is a quote from Roger Williams: “There is no regularly constituted church of Christ on earth, nor any person qualified to administer any church ordinances, nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the great head of the church for whose coming I am seeking.” I think Roger Williams was telling the truth and I think Roger Williams foretold what was actually in the heart of God, and what God ultimately intended to do.

As I mentioned, the days of Noah have to include Noah, have to include Enoch, or in other words, in addition to all of the wretchedness that we look forward to, the world disintegrating and devolving into, there will be an opposition to that, a hand sent from God in the form of prophets, apostles, someone with a message. 

When I use the word apostle I mean the word in the same sense in which it is used in the New Testament, that is: someone with a message coming to deliver a message from God to those to whom he speaks. I’m not talking about some officious chap claiming a title as his rightful inheritance as is done in Mormonism. I’m not talking about someone who calls themselves. I’m talking about someone to whom God speaks and says, “Go tell the people thus.”

I think there has been one such man who came about 200 years ago. His life was brief. After 38 ½ years he was slain largely because of the conspiracy of followers. Shortly before his death he said to those who were among his followers, “You don’t know me, you never knew my heart.” They would conspire to kill him after they had conspired to put him in jail, and they use his name now, as if invoking it gave them the same kind of moral authority that a man who gave up his life, a man who suffered in prison, had as his moral authority in following and sacrificing to obey God.  The man about whom I’m speaking is Joseph Smith, and I would ask you to please not associate that name with the Mormon church, but to allow him to stand on his own, and to consider what he had to say independent of what they say he said. 

There are remarkable similarities between the struggle from 1,900 years ago until 1,550 years ago in the Christian tradition, before it adopted a settled, although corrupted form, and the last 160 years of Mormonism following the death of Joseph Smith. Christians could profit from the study of the more recent events involving Joseph Smith to gain insight into the earlier Christian experience.

The Apostle Paul asked questions of critical importance to Christians immediately after his declaration that says this: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13) Immediately following that he poses this series of questions. He does that in order to demonstrate to the satisfaction of anyone who comes across this material that they can have confidence in him, in what he’s saying, and in what source he draws his information and his inspiration from. The overwhelming majority of Protestant Christians believe and rely on his statement: Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But what of the critically important questions he then asks: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?” (Romans 10:14,15)

There’s a difference between belief and unbelief. Belief means that you have a body of correct information from which to draw in reaching your conviction concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unbelief simply means that you’re drawing upon information that is either incomplete, inaccurate, or outright false. 

With those questions in mind – How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?  And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent?  Who can send? In the Apostle Paul’s series of declarations, WHO? Who can send? How can they be sent? There were no theological seminaries. There were no doctorates of theology. There was no doctorate of divinity.

The Catholics who believe and rely on Paul’s questions to justify their claims. They claim to have an unbroken line of authority traceable to Peter to whom the keys of the kingdom were given by Christ. If you are a Protestant do the keys of the kingdom matter? If you are a Catholic, what are the keys of the kingdom given Peter, and how confident are you that those can be transferred at all, since Peter got them from Christ directly? And if they can be transferred how confident are you that they have survived intact until today?

Protestants and Catholics must both face the question of whether salvation can be obtained apart from the Roman Catholic Church, but Paul asserts a different point and asks a different question. Catholics and Protestants alike recognize Paul’s authority and right to claim that he represented Christ. Paul’s conversion, however, was not based on Peter. It was not based on a preacher who was sent to him. It was not dependent upon the keys of the kingdom given to Peter. Paul asserted he was an apostle but his calling did not come because of a transfer of authority to him by Peter. He was called by God.  He begins the first few words of his epistle to the Galatians: “Paul, an apostle (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead)” (Galatians 1:1) 

Was Paul therefore sent? By whom was he sent? You think it obvious no doubt, but the principle is critical to finding true faith in Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If Paul was an apostle because Christ sent him – not men or man –then for a preacher to be sent to preach the truth the same should be required today as then. If Christ does not require the same then Christ has changed and we know that cannot be true, for He is the same forever. If, therefore, a preacher must be sent then Christ must do the sending. Then the only preacher you should heed must be one who declares plainly that he has been sent by God.  That was the claim of Joseph Smith. It was a claim that ultimately cost his life. It was a claim that, given the hardship through which he passed, and the perils that he faced, and the betrayals that happened, and the lies that have been told by people who have profited by using his name, it is a claim that I believe and I accept.

Another example of one who was sent by God is John the Baptist who is clearly identified in these words: “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” (John 1:6) Christ’s apostles likewise were sent by Him, according to the New Testament. Christ said, “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go forth bringing forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” (John 15:16) Everyone sent by Christ to preach in the New Testament were given their message from Him. They were sent by Him. Joseph Smith declared he was likewise sent. I would invite you to investigate his claim and see whether it persuades you.

Today – and I say these words advisedly, and I want you to take them seriously – Today all Christian churches have become corrupt. They love money more and acquiring financial security and church buildings more than caring for the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted. The institutions claiming to be the church of God are all polluted by the cares of the world. I want you to understand what I mean by that. During the apostolic era there was no such thing as a Christian church building. Christians met in homes. They did not collect and compensate ministers. They gathered money and they used it to help the poor and the needy among them.

As soon as you get a church building, I regret to inform you you’ll have to hire a lawyer. In what name are you going to take title to your building? How are you going to hide title or hold title and deal with succession? What form will the organization take? Do you intend to qualify for tax deductibility? If so, do you intend to file as a charitable institution, as an eleemosynary institution, as an educational institution? Those are all words that you find in 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code. And what do you do if you want to hire and fire a minister, and you want to dispossess the one you fired and put into possession the successor in the building, what rights and who is on the board, and who possesses the right to deal with that? As soon as you own property the cares of this world invade. It’s unavoidable.

If you meet in homes as the early Christians did, and if you gather your tithing – one tenth of your surplus after you have taken care of all your responsibilities, all your needs, whatever’s left over – one tenth of that is your tithe. After you gather your tithe then you ought to look at your brothers and your sisters who are there in your meeting, and you ought to help those who have needs, who have health needs, who have education needs, who have transportation needs, who have food needs, who have children that need care. Christians should take care of the poor among them, and no one should be looking at the flock and saying, I need your money to support myself.  Christian charities should be used to take care of the poor among you and not to engage in acquiring the cares of this world. This is why all Christian churches have become corrupt. They love money and acquiring financial security and church buildings more than caring for the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

I speak as part of a very tiny movement but we are worldwide. We are a very small group of people scattered from Japan to Europe, scattered from Australia to Canada, as a small group of people but we are trying to practice authentic Christianity in the form that it was originally intended to be practiced: Meeting in homes. I met earlier today with a group of people from this local area, and there are a number in this local area who believe as I do.  We celebrated the sacrament as a group together and we reaffirmed one another in our faith. Jesus Christ taught many principals, truths, precepts, and commandments but He only taught one doctrine. I’m going to read you Christ’s doctrine:

“Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine. And this is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me; and I bear record of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost beareth record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me. And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God. And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and I bear record of it from the Father; and whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto him will the Father bear record of me, for he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost. And thus will the Father bear record of me, and the Holy Ghost will bear record unto him of the Father and me; for the Father, and I, and the Holy Ghost are one. And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things. And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them. And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them.” –3 Nephi 11:31-40

We believe and practice this doctrine of Christ. We practice baptism by immersion in living waters— meaning lakes, rivers, streams, and oceans, where there is life. We prefer living waters for a living ordinance. We have authority from God to perform baptism and other ordinances, such as the sacrament, but we are not jealous with our authority and are willing to share it with any man who is willing to accept and follow the doctrine of Christ.

As to the commandment to be baptized, even Jesus Christ went to be baptized by John “to fulfil all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15) “And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, even by water.” (2 Nephi 31:5)

If any of you want to be baptized you can request it through our website and someone local will respond. Baptism is an ordinance between you and Christ and does not mean you are joining a formal institution, because we have no institution.

We are all equal believers accountable to God.  We do try to fellowship with one another and you would be welcome to fellowship with the few believers in this area. We own no buildings; like the early Christians we meet in homes. We ask for tithes, or 10% of what you have left over after you’ve taken care of all your needs, but anything collected is then used to help anyone in the fellowship meet their needs. We hope for there to be no poor among us because we use donations to help one another.

Our numbers are small. There are a few here locally nearby you but we are worldwide. At the moment we are composed mostly of former Mormons, and I’m really getting tired of talking to former Mormons. I would really like to talk to Baptists, and to Lutherans, and a Methodist – particularly if they’ve made Wickliffe’s material a matter of study –you would add so much to a discussion among fellowship groups.  Mormons know a lot, but Christians know a lot about the Bible. Would love to see a cross-fertilization of the Christian ideal in which we can bring to you some things that we have learned about the Christian faith and in turn hear from you what you have to share in fellowships. We want other Christians to fellowship with us.  The only thing we have to offer is Christian worship to share.

We accept the Book of Mormon but not as a book that belongs to the Mormon church or the Mormon hierarchy. We view it as a testimony of Jesus Christ. I’d invite you to read it. You don’t need to go buy a copy from a Mormon. You don’t need to go get one from one of us.  You can go to Barnes and Noble. The copyright has expired. It is now one of the Penguin Classics. If you feel a little self conscious about buying a Penguin Classic Book of Mormon then get the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and War and Peace and the Book of Mormon and you’ll look like some eclectic reader. And you needn’t face the shame, the awful shame of buying a Book of Mormon. Or, you can get it on Amazon, you can do that privately. 

I believe if you read the Book of Mormon and you give it a fair shot, not with the Mormon missionary coming back every few days on your door with their name tag and pressuring you, rooting for you to, “Come aboard, come aboard! We really want you within our clutches.”  Dispassionately, at your leisure, contemplating it, mulling it over.

The Book of Mormon confirms that Christ was resurrected. It confirms that He had other sheep that He mentions in the Gospel of John, to whom He said He intended to go minister. It confirms that there were scattered bodies of believers throughout the world. It confirms that Jesus Christ is the same Lord yesterday, today, and forever. It confirms that Jesus Christ is a keeper of covenants. If Christ cared enough to speak to others in times past does He not care enough likewise to speak to us? Can He not speak in our day?

Let me read you a few lines presented as part of the very closing of the Book of Mormon:

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men? For he hath answered the ends of the law, and he claimeth all those who have faith in him; and they who have faith in him will cleave unto every good thing; wherefore he advocateth the cause of the children of men; and he dwelleth eternally in the heavens. And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men. For behold, they are subject unto him, to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness. And the office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfil and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men… And by so doing, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ… And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me. And he hath said: Repent all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, and have faith in me, that ye may be saved.

And now, my beloved brethren, if this be the case that these things are true which I have spoken unto you, and God will show unto you, with power and great glory at the last day, that they are true, and if they are true has the day of miracles ceased? Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved? Behold I say unto you, Nay; for it is by faith that miracles are wrought; and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men; wherefore, if these things have ceased wo be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief, and all is vain. For no man can be saved, according to the words of Christ, save they shall have faith in his name; wherefore, if these things have ceased, then has faith ceased also; and awful is the state of man, for they are as though there had been no redemption made.” –Moroni 7:27-38

We believe we are approaching a moment in which the Lord is about to return. Read that chapter, Matthew 24.  All of the signs that He speaks of will occur in one single generation. If you’ve not noticed, the signs have begun to appear. It means you are living within a generation in which a great deal is to occur. As it was in the days of Noah so is it about to be. That means dreadful things are coming on the one hand, and it means prophets are going to be among us again, people with messages that come from the Lord.

I’m not here on my own volition. I’ve not done anything that I’ve done throughout the last number of years on my own volition. I do what I do, I preach what I preach, I testify to what I testify to, because, like Paul, I’ve been sent.

I would rather understate than overstate the case but let me end by telling you Christ lives. He died and He was resurrected. I know this to be true because, like Paul, I have seen Him. I don’t tell you that to make this seem sensational. I tell you that to give you cause to believe in Him. He is real.

Encountering Him as a resurrected being changed the course of history. It turned cowards into courageous, willing, and enthusiastic witnesses who faced down the Roman empire to their death.  They died willingly. They died as evidence of the truth that they were testifying to. That kind of faith needs to return again to the earth. That kind of faith is possible again in our day.

Christianity has taken so many turns and so many different forms from the death of the apostles until now.  But, however you may regard yourself to be a Christian, what every one of us needs, is for heaven itself to reaffirm to us what it is that heaven would like us, as Christians, to be and to do.

I mention that Christ gave many commandments, precepts, teachings. He also gave a law. His law can be found in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7.  That is how you and I should practice our Christianity.

Thank you for coming this evening. Thank you for listening. This has been streamed live over the internet. It will be available in an improved form in which graphics are going to be inserted in a couple or three weeks.

I’m going to be speaking in Dallas, Texas and then in Atlanta. All three talks will be different from one another. They are all intended to give you reason to believe in Christ, and at all three of them I’m going to invite people to go to the website. Some people who are participants in local fellowships are here. But go to the website and if you would like to be baptized, if you would like to attend a fellowship, if you would like to meet some of these people that are essentially believers in Christ trying to practice an original and more authentic version of Christianity, and to bear with one another’s burdens, and to help one another in Christian charity in an attempt that there be no poor among us, then come forward you will find us very welcoming.  You’ll find us very welcoming. Although there are a number of believers in your area, we remain few. But we are undaunted by that and we intend to address as many as will hear us, including this evening, by doing so on the Internet so that anyone worldwide who may have an interest can tune in.

Thank you all very much for attending this evening. Let me end in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The post 1st Address to Christians appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

These closing remarks were given after the covenant had been offered at the Covenant of Christ Conference, held at the Egyptian Theater in Boise, Idaho, on September 3, 2017.

Transcript

Ok, that concludes all of the work to be performed and all of the business. But I have a few remarks, if I can impose on you for a few more moments before we finish up today.

I was here in Idaho during the recent eclipse. We travelled to be near Lake Alturas, near Stanley in the zone of totality. At that spot totality was a little less than two minutes. During totality in a small lake adjacent to Alturas I performed a baptism. He might be here today.

We waded out and back into the cold water beforehand and we’re trying to acclimate to the temperature of the water. At our spot the temperature dropped 20 degrees during totality. I observed as totality was approaching that it only takes about one percent, certainly no more than three percent, of the sun’s exposure to give absolutely, adequate light. But obscuring any significant portion of the sun affects heat at our location that day. Both of us were shivering for some time afterwards because of the water and the twenty degree temperature drop.

Those who’ve entered faithfully into the 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 scriptures description of the events now underway calls it the end of the times of the gentiles. This process with the spirit withdrawing, will end on this continent, as two prior civilizations ended 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 hearts 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.

Be charitable and patient and labor to reach others. They will judge you harshly, but nevertheless be kind to them. They are going to grow to fear you, but that’s only part of how darkness responds to light. Give them no reason to fear you. The time will come for us to gather, but between now and then, be leaven. Preserve the world. Be salt. Preserve the world, even if it hates you.

I hope for myself when the time comes to gather that I will have been proven faithful and to be among you.

May God bless you and send to each of you a growing light and warmth. As the spirit withdraws from the world may it continually shine un-eclipsed upon each of you to enlighten your minds and to warm your hearts.

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

The post Covenant of Christ Conference – Closing Remarks appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

The Lord’s answer to the Prayer for Covenant and the covenant offered to all who will receive it was read aloud by Denver Snuffer Jr. at the Covenant of Christ conference, at the Egyptian Theater in Boise, Idaho, on September 3, 2017.

Answer and Covenant

I, the Lord say to you: You have asked of me concerning the scriptures prepared on behalf of all those who seek to become my covenant people, and therefore I answer you on behalf of all the people, and not as to any individual. For there are those who are humble, patient and easily persuaded. Nevertheless people who are quarrelsome and proud are also among you, and since you seek to unite to become one people I answer you as one.

I covenanted with Adam at the beginning, which covenant was broken by mankind. Since the days of Adam I have always sought to reestablish people of covenant among the living, and therefore have desired that man should love one another, not begrudgingly, but as brothers and sisters indeed, that I may establish my covenant and provide them with light and truth.

For you to unite I must admonish and instruct you, for my will is to have you love one another. As people you lack the ability to respectfully disagree among one another. You are as Paul and Peter whose disagreements resulted in jarring and sharp contentions. Nevertheless they both loved me and I loved them. You must do better.

I commend your diligent labor, and your desire to repent and recover the scriptures containing the covenant I offer for the last days. For this purpose I caused the Book of Mormon to come forth. I commend those who have participated, as well as those who have offered words of caution, for I weigh the hearts of men and many have intended well, although they have spoken poorly. Wisdom counsels mankind to align their words with their hearts, but mankind refuses to take counsel from Wisdom.

Nevertheless, 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.

There is great reason to rejoice because of the work that has been done. There is little reason for any to be angry or to harshly criticize the labor to recover the scriptures, and so my answer to you concerning the scriptures is to guide you in other work to be done hereafter; for recovering the scriptures does not conclude the work to be accomplished by those who will be my people: it is but a beginning.

In your language you use the name Lucifer for an angel who was in authority before God, who rebelled, fought against the work of the Father and was cast down to the earth. His name means holder of light, or light bearer, for he had gathered light by his heed and diligence before he rebelled. He has become a vessel containing only wrath and seeks to destroy all who will hearken to him. He is now enslaved to his own hatred.

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. I rebuked Peter and called him Satan because he was wrong in opposing the Father’s will for me, and Peter understood and repented.

In the work you have performed there are those who have been Satan, accusing one another, wounding hearts and causing jarring, contention, and strife by their accusations. Rather than loving one another, even among you who desire a good thing, some have dealt unkindly as if they were the opponents, accusers and adversaries. In this they were wrong.

You have sought to recover the scriptures because you hope to obtain the covenant for my protective hand to be over you, but you cannot be Satan and be mine. If you take upon you my covenant, you must abide it as a people to gain what I promise. You think Satan will be bound a thousand years, and it will be so, but do not understand your own duty to bind that spirit within you so that you give no heed to accuse others. It is not enough to say you love God; you must also love your fellow man. Nor is it enough to say you love your fellow man while you, as Satan, divide, contend and dispute against any person who labors on an errand seeking to do my will. How you proceed must be as noble as the cause you seek. You have become your own adversaries, and you cannot be Satan and also be mine. Repent, therefore, like Peter and end your unkind and untrue accusations against one another, and make peace. How shall there ever come a thousand years of peace if the people who are mine do not love one another? How shall Satan be bound if there are no people of one heart and one mind?

Therefore, in answer to your petition:

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.

The records of The Old Covenants given from Adam until Moses and from Moses to my forerunner John were written in holiness and contained light and truth, but the records you have received have not transmitted that which was first written in holiness, nor are they as many as the records on the plates of brass; and the plates of brass also do not contain all my words. Nevertheless 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. You may remove the brackets from your record as I accept your clarifications and you are permitted to proceed to the end with your plan to update language to select a current vocabulary, but take care not to change meaning—and if you cannot resolve the meaning either petition me again or retain the former words. Nevertheless you labor with an incomplete text.

I desire to heal you from an awful state of blindness so that you may see clearly my will, to do it. I promised to bring unto you much of my gospel through the Book of Mormon and to provide you with the means to obtain a fullness of my gospel, and I have done this; yet you refuse to receive the truth even when it is given unto you in plainness. How can you who pursue the truth yet remain unable to behold your own weakness before me?

Unto what can I liken it, that you may understand? For you are like a man who seeks for good fruit from a neglected vineyard—unwatered, undunged, unpruned and unattended. How shall it produce good fruit if you fail to tend it? What reward does the unfaithful husbandman obtain from his neglected vineyard? How can saying you are a faithful husbandman ever produce good fruit in the vineyard without doing the work of the husbandman? For you seek my words to recover them even as you forsake to do them. You have heretofore produced wild fruit, bitter and ill formed, because you neglect to do my words.

I speak of you who have hindered my work, that claim to see plainly the beams in others’ eyes. You have claimed to see plainly the error of those who abuse my words, and neglect the poor, and who have cast you out, to discern their errors, and you say you seek a better way. Yet among you are those who continue to scheme, backbite, contend, accuse and forsake my words to do them, even while you seek to recover them. Can you not see that your works fall short of the beliefs you profess?

For the sake of the promises to the Fathers will I labor with you as a people, and not because of you, for you have not yet become what you must be to live together in peace. If you will hearken to my words I will make you my people and my words will give you peace. Even a single soul who stirs up the hearts of others to anger can destroy the peace of all my people. Each of you must equally walk truly in my path, not only to profess, but also to do as you profess.

The Book of Mormon was given as my covenant for this day and contains my gospel, which came forth to allow people to understand my work and then obtain my salvation. Yet many of you are like those who reject the Book of Mormon, because you say, but you do not do. As a people you honor with your lips, but your hearts are corrupt, filled with envy and malice, returning evil for good, sparing none, even those with pure hearts among you, from your unjustified accusations and unkind backbiting. You have not obtained the fullness of my salvation because you do not draw near to me.

The Book of Mormon is to convince the gentiles, and a remnant of Lehi, and the Jews, of the truth of the words of my ancient prophets and apostles, with all the records agreeing that I am the Lamb of God, the Son of the Father, and I was sent into the world to do the will of the Father, and I am the Savior of the world. All must come unto me or they cannot be saved. And how do men come unto me? It is by faith, repentance, and baptism, which bring the Holy Ghost to then show you all things you must know.

If the gentiles unto whom the Book of Mormon was given had hearkened unto the Holy Ghost they would have come unto me in Hyrum and Joseph’s day. But they did not hearken, and would not allow me to abide with them in word, and in power and in very deed.

Hear therefore my words: Repent and bring forth fruit showing repentance, and I will establish my covenant with you and claim you as mine.

I instruct my people to add to their records the following writings:

You have eliminated the account of the revelation of April 3, 1836. Therefore add the following account to your record:

On the third day of April 1836 Joseph and Oliver were in the temple in Kirtland, Ohio, The veil was taken from their minds, and the eyes of their understanding were opened. They saw the Lord in his glory standing above them and the breastwork of the pulpit; and under his feet appeared as it were a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying: I am the Alpha and the Omega; I am he who was slain, I am he who lives; I am your advocate with the Father. Behold, your sins are forgiven you; you are clean before me; therefore, lift up your heads and rejoice. Let the hearts of your brethren also rejoice, and let the hearts of all my people rejoice, who have, with their might, built this house to my name. For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house. Yea, I will appear unto my servants, and speak unto them with mine own voice, if my people will keep my commandments, and do not pollute this holy house. Behold and see: the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands shall greatly rejoice in consequence of the blessings that shall be poured out, and the endowment with which my servants will be endowed in this house. Behold: the fame of this house shall spread to foreign lands; and this is the beginning of the blessings I shall pour out upon my people. Even so. Amen. As this vision closed, the heavens were again opened to their view, and they saw and beheld, and were endowed with knowledge from the beginning of this creation to the ends thereof. And they were shown unspeakable things from the sealed record of Heaven which man is not capable of making known but must be revealed by the Powers of Heaven. They beheld Michael, the archangel; Gabriel and Raphael, and divers angels, from Michael or Adam down to the end of time, showing in turns their dispensations, their rights, their keys, their honors, their majesty and glory, and the Powers of their Priesthood; giving line upon line, precept upon precept; endowing them with knowledge, even here a little, and there a little; holding forth hope for the work God was yet to perform, even the revelation of all things which are to come upon the earth until the return of the Lord in glory with His holy angels—to pour out judgment upon the world, and to reward the righteous. And they were unable to take it in; therefore they were commanded to pray and ask to comprehend by the power of the Spirit, to bring all things to their remembrance, even the Record of Heaven which would abide in them. Amen and Amen.

You have removed an altered document taken from an account written on July 12, 1843, and inquired of me concerning marriage therefore let my people hearken to these things and you will do well:

Marriage was, in the beginning, between one man and one woman, and was intended to remain so for the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve, that they may multiply and replenish the Earth. I commanded that there shall not any man have save it be one wife, and concubines he shall have none. I, the Lord your God, delight in the chastity of women, and in the respect of men for their wives. Marriage was established at the beginning as a covenant by the word and authority of God, between the woman and God, the man and woman, and the man and God. It was ordained by my word to endure forever. Mankind fell, but a covenant established by my word cannot fail, and therefore in death they were not to be parted. It was my will that all marriages would follow the pattern of the beginning, and therefore all other marriages would be ordained as at the first. But fallen men refused my covenant, did not hearken to my word, nor receive my promise, and marriages fell outside my rule, disorganized and without me, therefore unable to endure beyond the promises made between the mortal man and the mortal woman, to end when they are dead. Covenants, promises, rights, vows, associations and expectations that are mine will endure, and those that are not cannot endure. Everything in the world, whether it is established by men, or by Thrones, or by Dominions, or by Principalities, or by Powers, that are not by my word and promise shall be thrown down when men are dead, and shall not remain in my Father’s Kingdom. Only those things that are by me shall remain in and after the resurrection. Marriage by me, or by my word, received as a holy covenant between the woman and I, the man and woman, and the man and I, will endure beyond death and into my Father’s Kingdom, worlds without end. Those who abide this covenant will pass by the angels who are appointed, and enter into exaltation. Concerning them it shall be said, You shall come forth in the first resurrection, and if they covenant after the first resurrection then in the next resurrection, and shall inherit in my Kingdom their own thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, all heights and depths and shall pass by the angels to receive exaltation, the glory of which shall be a fullness and a continuation of their posterity forever. Marriage is necessary for the exaltation of the man and woman, and is ordained by me through the Holy Spirit of Promise, or in other words by my covenant, my law, and my authority. Like the marriage in Eden, marriage is a sacrament for a sacred place, on holy ground, in my presence, or where the Holy Spirit of Promise can minister. But rebellion has kept mankind from inheriting what I ordained in the beginning, and therefore women and men have been left to marry apart from me. Every marriage established by me requires that I be part of the covenant for it to endure, for Endless is my name and without me the marriage cannot be without end: for so long as I endure it shall also endure, if it is made by my word and covenant. But know also that I can do my work at any time, for I have sacred space above, and can do my work despite earth and hell. The wickedness of men has not prevented my will but only kept the wicked from what they might have received. 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. And again, I say to you, Abraham and Sarah sit upon a Throne, for he could not be there if not for Sarah’s covenant with him. Isaac and Rebecca sit upon a Throne, and Isaac likewise could not be there if not for Rebecca’s covenant with him. And Jacob and Rachel sit upon a Throne, and Jacob could not be there if not for Rachel’s covenant with him. And all these have ascended above Dominions and Principalities and Powers, to abide in my Kingdom. Therefore the marriage covenant is needed for all those who would likewise seek to obtain from me the right to continue their seed into eternity, for only through marriage can Thrones and Kingdoms be established.

I, the Lord, say to you, with these additions, 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 many things yet to be restored unto my people. It is ordained that some things are only to be given to people who are mine, and cannot otherwise be given to mankind on Earth. You do not yet understand the glory to be revealed unto my covenant people.

And now I will accept what you have produced and you need not labor further to recover my words, but to complete your labors as you have agreed. You have inquired about the details, including punctuation, and what I say unto one I say unto all: I have given to you my doctrine, and have also revealed teachings, commandments, precepts, and principles to guide you and it is not meet that I command you in all things—reason together and apply what I have given you and it will be enough.

The Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and the language given to Joseph was precious. There were things of beauty in language I revealed to Joseph that have been lost. Your work has been aided by the labor of Royal Skousen, whose diligence has pleased me. When the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon is brought forth, then will you know and understand how great things were lost to you.

There will yet be records restored from all the tribes that will be gathered again into 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 recovered 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.

It is not enough to receive my covenant, but you must also abide it. And all who abide it, whether on this land or any other land, will be mine and I will watch over them and protect them in the day of harvest, and gather them in as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. 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 unto those who will receive will more be given until they know the mysteries of God in full.

But remember that without the fruit of repentance, and a broken heart and a contrite spirit, you cannot keep my covenant; for I, your Lord, am meek and lowly of heart. Be like me. You have all been wounded, your hearts pierced through with sorrows because of how the world has treated you. But you have also scarred one another by your unkind treatment of each other, and you do not notice your misconduct toward others because you think yourself justified in this. You bear the scars on your countenances, from the soles of your feet to the head, and every heart is faint. Your visages have been so marred that your hardness, mistrust, suspicions, resentments, fear, jealousies and anger toward your fellow man bear outward witness of your inner self; you cannot hide it. When I appear to you, instead of confidence you feel shame. You fear and withdraw from me because you bear the blood and sins of your treatment of brothers and sisters. Come to me and I will make sins as scarlet become white as snow, and I will make you stand boldly before me, confident of my love.

I descended below it all, and know the sorrows of you all, and have borne the grief of it all and I say to you, Forgive one another. Be tender with one another, pursue judgment, bless the oppressed, care for the orphan, and uplift the widow in her need for I have redeemed you from being orphaned and taken you that you are no longer a widowed people. Rejoice in me, and rejoice with your brethren and sisters who are mine also. Be one.

You pray each time you partake of the sacrament to always have my Spirit to be with you. And what is my Spirit? It is to love one another as I have loved you. Do my works and you will know my doctrine; for you will uncover hidden mysteries by obedience to these things that can be uncovered in no other way. This is the way I will restore knowledge to my people. If you return good for evil you will cleanse yourself and know the joy of your Master. You call me Lord and do well to regard me so, but to know your Lord is to love one another. Flee from the cares and longings that belong to Babylon, obtain a new heart, for you have all been wounded. In me you will find peace and through me will come Zion, a place of peace and safety.

There are only two ways: the way I lead that goes upward in light and truth unto Eternal lives, and if you turn from it, you follow the way of darkness and the deaths. Those who want to come where I am must be able to abide the conditions established for my Father’s Kingdom. I have given to you the means to understand the conditions you must abide. I came and lived in the world to be the light of the world. I have sent others who have testified of me and taught you. I have sent my light into the world. Let not your hearts remain divided from one another and divided from me.

Be of one heart, and regard one another with charity. Measure your words before giving voice to them, and consider the hearts of others. Although a man may err in understanding concerning many things, yet he can view his brother with charity, and come unto me and through me he can with patience overcome the world. I can bring him to understanding and knowledge. Therefore if you regard one another with charity then your brother’s error in understanding will not divide you. I lead to all truth. I will lead all who come to me to the truth of all things. The fullness is to receive the truth of all things, and this too from me, in power, by my word and in very deed. For I will come to you if you will come unto me.

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.

You are not excused from writing a statement of principles that I have required at your hands. I forbade my servant David from participating, and again forbid him. But I require a statement of principles to be adopted by the mutual agreement of my people, for if you cannot do so you will be unable to accomplish other works that I will require at your hands. When you have an agreed statement of principles I require it to also be added as a guide and standard for my people to follow. Remember there are others who know nothing, as yet, of my work now underway, and therefore the guide and standard is to bless, benefit and inform them—so I command you to be wise in word and kind in deed as you write what I require of you.

Do not murmur saying, Too much has been required at our hands in too short a time. If your hearts were right it was a light thing I have asked. You hinder and delay and then you say I require too much of you and do not allow you time, when, if your hearts were right and you prepared yourselves you could have finished this work long ago. Do you indeed desire to be my people? Then accept and do as I have required.

And again, the husband is to hold priesthood to baptize and bless the sacrament of bread and wine in the home, and the husband and wife are to bless their children together. For the husband to use authority to administer outward ordinances outside his own family, his wife must sustain him. I have told you that to remove authority to use priesthood outside a man’s family requires a unanimous decision by twelve women. A council of twelve women must be convened either in the man’s home fellowship among those who are acquainted with his daily walk, or in private at a general conference also including among the twelve women from the conference those who are acquainted with his daily walk, so that no injustice results. Reinstatement of the man’s authority must be considered by the same council of twelve women when the man petitions for the decision to be rescinded, and requires seven of the twelve to agree upon his reinstatement, which can occur at any time. During the period of suspension, nothing affects the man’s duties and responsibility in his own family.

There remains great work yet to be done. Receive my covenant and 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 my saints. But receive it in spirit, in meekness and in truth. I have given you a former commandment that I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men. And again, I have taught that if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses. How do I act toward mankind: If men intend no offense I take no offense, but if they are taught and should have obeyed, then I reprove and correct and forgive and forget. You cannot be at peace with one another if you take offense when none is intended. But again I say, Judge not others except by the rule you want used to weigh yourself.

I will give to you words to speak to the people to accept my covenant, and you shall read those words to them. Read first to the people these words I now speak, and then read the words of the covenant, and the people who will receive and do my words and my covenant shall then stand and say, Yes.

Then by my law and my word they will be mine and I will be with and lead my people onward through the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, the Record of Heaven, the peaceable things of immortal glory, even the Holy Ghost which will abide with them, and you will be children of the Most High God, fellow servants and numbered with the congregation of the just. Therefore rejoice!

And the angels are given charge to watch over and protect my people.

My eyes are over the whole earth and all men everywhere are before me. Men conspire to overthrow and oppress and use violence to control others through fear. My Spirit restrains the destroyer to allow those who are in the world and willing to give heed to my words time to prepare, but I will not always suffer with the wickedness of man.

The Earth groans under the wickedness of mankind upon her face, and she longs for peace to come. She withholds the abundance of her bounty because of the offenses of men against me, against one another, and against her. But if righteousness returns and my people prove by their actions, words and thoughts to yield to my Spirit and hearken to my commandments, then will the Earth rejoice, for the feet of those who cry peace upon her mountains are beautiful indeed, and I, the Lord, will bring again Zion, and the earth will rejoice.

In the world tares are ripening. And so I ask you, What of the wheat? Let your pride, and your envy, and your fears depart from you. I will come to my tabernacle and dwell with my people in Zion, and none will overtake it.

Cry peace. Proclaim my words. Invite those who will repent to be baptized and forgiven, and they shall obtain my Spirit to guide them. The time is short and I come quickly, therefore open your mouths and warn others to flee the wrath which is to come as men in anger destroy one another. The wicked shall destroy the wicked, and I will hold the peacemakers in the palm of my hand and none can take them from me.

Be comforted, be of good cheer, rejoice, and look up, for I am with you who remember me, and all those who watch for me, always, even unto the end. Amen.

Covenant

There are four questions I will read. Please remain seated until the four questions have all been read. If after you hear all four questions you can answer, Yes to all four, then you will be asked to stand and say, Yes to accept:

First: Do you believe all the words of the Lord which have been read to you this day, and know them to be true and from the Lord Jesus Christ who has condescended to provide them to you, and do you covenant with Him to cease to do evil and to seek to continually do good?

Second: Do you have faith in these things and receive the scriptures approved by the Lord as a standard to govern you in your daily walk in life, to accept the obligations established by the Book of Mormon as a covenant and to use the scriptures to correct yourselves and to guide your words, thoughts and deeds?

Third: Do you agree to assist all others who covenant to likewise accept this standard to govern their lives to keep the Lord’s will, to succor those who stand in need, to lighten the burdens of your brothers and sisters whenever you are able, and to help care for the poor among you?

Fourth: And do you covenant to seek to become of one heart with those who seek the Lord to establish His righteousness?

If you agree, please stand wherever you are located, either here or in a remote location, to be recognized and numbered by God and His angels. All those standing please confirm you are willing to accept this covenant by saying, Yes. Please be seated.

Now, hear the words of the Lord to those who receive this covenant this day:

All you who have turned from your wicked ways and repented of your evil doings, of lying and deceiving, and of all whoredoms, and of secret abominations, idolatries, murders, priestcrafts, envying, and strife, and from all wickedness and abominations, and have come unto me, and been baptized in my name, and have received a remission of your sins, and received the Holy Ghost, are now numbered with my people who are of the house of Israel. I say to you:

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, and this shall be a land of promise to you as your inheritance from me.

The Earth will yield her 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 to say, Know ye the Lord, for you all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

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

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.

But if you do not honor me, nor seek to recover my people Israel, nor teach your children to honor me, nor care for the poor among you, nor help lighten one another’s burdens, then you have no promise from me and I will raise up other people who will honor and serve me and give unto them this land, and if they repent I will abide with them.

The time is now far spent, therefore labor with me and do not forsake my covenant to perform it; study my words and let them be the standard for your faith and I will add thereto many treasures. Love one another and you will be mine, and I will preserve you, and raise you up, and abide with you for ever. AMEN.

The post Covenant of Christ Conference – Answer and Covenant appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

This prayer for the Lord to establish His covenant, was publicly posted July 23, 2017. It was subsequently read aloud at the Covenant of Christ Conference as a part of the remarks at that conference and in prelude to the Answer for Covenant.

Transcript

Heavenly Father, it is I whom you named David, asking you in the name of Jesus Christ for your mercy and grace to be with those of us who seek to become your people. We hope to repent and return to your path and no longer be condemned and rejected as a people because of those who went before.

Take pity on us all and have mercy for us, as we acknowledge and accept the condemnation and rejection of the latter-day gentiles, and petition that we may overcome it.

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 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.

You explained there were jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires by them; therefore by these things they polluted their inheritances.

But they did not repent, and in their pride they threatened to wage a war of extermination against the Missouri citizens, heedless of your warnings.

But it was you who used the Missouri citizens as your hand of judgment to scourge the condemned saints, in your attempt to persuade them to repent and no longer treat lightly your word.

They still saw no Divine purpose behind their distress, and railed against their Missouri persecutors.

Despite their suffering, they were not sufficiently humbled to repent, instead they breathed out threats and expressed hope to gain vengeance against the same Missouri mobs to whom you had given power to afflict the gentile saints to inspire them to repent.

Because of the hardness of their hearts, the gentile saints were again mobbed and slain and in 1838 altogether driven out of the State of Missouri, with Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith and other leaders cast into prison and condemned to die.

But you were merciful, and did not suffer Joseph, Hyrum or any of those imprisoned with them to be killed.

In your mercy, the surviving saints and the imprisoned leaders were able to obtain refuge in Illinois, whose people welcomed the saints, and a season of peace followed.

In 1841 you mercifully extended another opportunity to the gentile saints to repent and return, and you approved Joseph’s offering and acknowledgements of the past failures of the saints when he petitioned you on their behalf.

You found the prayers of Joseph and the gentiles were acceptable before you and you granted to the saints another chance for you to recover them as your people.

As you stated to the former gentiles, there is not a place found on earth that you may come to and restore again that which was lost unto us, or which you had taken away, even the fullness of the priesthood.

You offered and intended for a house to be built unto your name in which you deigned to reveal to your people things which have been kept hidden from before the foundation of the world, things which pertain to the dispensation of the fullness of times.

You gave to them sufficient time to build a house unto your name warning them to complete the work or their baptisms for the dead would be unacceptable.

In those days you warned the people you will not perform the oath which you make, neither fulfill the promises which they expect at your hands, or in other words you would remove your covenant, if they failed to do what you commanded.

And you foretold what you would do unto the people if they neglected to do the work assigned them.

You warned: For instead of blessings, we, by our own works, would bring cursings, wrath, indignation, and judgments upon our own heads, by our follies, and by all our abominations, which we practice before you.

You foretold that at the end of this appointment our baptisms for our dead shall not be acceptable unto you; and if the gentiles did not do the things you commanded, at the end of the appointment we would be rejected as a church, with our dead, said the Lord our God.

But the secret works of darkness multiplied, and the gentile follies did not end, and they practiced secret abominations in violation of your commandments and in defiance of your warnings.

The wickedness of the gentile saints dismayed the people of Illinois who had welcomed them, and provoked the anger of their indignant neighbors, who then implemented your judgments against the rebellious saints.

The former gentile saints were driven into the wilderness, and relocated into a desolate land, where they suffered hunger, cold and sickness.

In that isolation the gentile leaders were emboldened to openly practice abominations and wrongly teach the people to call them sacraments, as they reigned with blood and horror over the people.

Secret murders, open defiance, and the slaughter of over 200 men, women and children fixed the anger and opposition of the entire United States who were moved by your will to curtail the barbarism of the gentile saints.

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 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 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.

Using that remnant of the original translation we have confirmed there were numerous transcription errors made when Oliver Cowdery copied it for the printer.

We know that EB Grandin’s Print Shop also made errors, and the punctuation was supplied by John Gilbert, which changed the meaning of the text.

We know there has been over a century of debate caused by the errors in understanding the text solely due to the way in which the text has been punctuated.

We have labored to make corrections and to recover a truer meaning, but are required to use our best conjecture to sort out the many textual dilemmas we now face.

We have inquired of you and prayerfully sought guidance on even small issues out of respect for your words.

Joseph Smith revised the printed copy in 1837 and again in 1840 to try to eliminate errors and make the text more correct.

Most importantly we know that you have, by revelation, recently supplied corrections to some of the writings in the Book of Mormon quoting you, for which we are grateful.

We have labored over the text of the Book of Mormon to try to remove as many of the mistakes in the text as we can discover, but know that our efforts fall short of perfecting the text.

The other revelations given through Joseph Smith have also not been maintained and transmitted to us in their purity.

Many originals have been lost, and some of what we have from Joseph are copies of copies, and many were later recorded by others using their recollections of your revelations to him.

We have used brackets and re-punctuated the texts as we have worked with them, all in an attempt to show respect for your holy texts. We ask that you accept this work and the punctuation and allow us to remove the brackets.

We have also determined to update some words that were in use and understood by earlier people, but whose meaning has been lost or so changed as to render the language foreign to modern usage. We ask for your approval to update the wording so as to clarify the language for modern readers.

Mindful of how mistakes can be made, we have attempted to gather only those revelations which are authentic, attested to have come directly from Joseph in a reliable transmission, and which likewise involve general principles applicable to us rather than a personal revelation to an individual.

We are mindful of the criticism of David Whitmer, who thought the recording and use of Joseph’s revelations was never wise and, therefore, 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.

We also have been left with a copy of a copy of a revelation recorded July 12, 1843 that is not in the handwriting of a scribe of Joseph’s, and which we believe to have been altered from its original form before it was publicly disclosed.

That revelation has been the source of a great deal of mischief, sorrow, ungodly conduct, violence and adulterous lusts among those who accept the published version of that revelation among the various Mormon factions.

We first attempted to edit it to make it more consistent with your other commandments and revelations, but have ultimately concluded to remove it altogether because we cannot fix it.

We ask that if there are any commandments, principles or precepts involving the marriage covenant you would be willing to reveal to us to become part of our record, we would receive it with gratitude and rejoicing.

We desire as a people to repent and remove the condemnation and to overcome your rejection, and to be true and faithful to your commandments.

All those involved have labored to avoid and eliminate the interpolations and uninspired emendations of others, however well they may have meant.

If it is not from you or of you we do not want to acknowledge it as scripture, and therefore we have labored to present this to you in the hope we have shown respect for your word and not the works of men.

We acknowledge that you have inspired and guided this work by your Spirit.

We acknowledge we are imperfect and, despite your inspiration and assistance, we know there are faults and weaknesses with us and therefore we ask for your mercy to cover our weakness.

We have attempted to be unified in this work but have sometimes disputed with one another, and therefore ask to be forgiven for our own contentions as we were laboring beside one another.

I confess my own failure in securing a replacement for the former section 20. You required a unified statement of principles for us to adopt, and I asked others to provide such a document.

I have understood that you required that to be developed by others, and not myself, and therefore I have refrained from any involvement.

Despite three attempts by representatives of twenty-three fellowships there remains disputes and no agreed statement of principles has been composed and accepted by the people, as you directed.

Forgive those who have worked unsuccessfully. I ask that you look at the earnest desires of those involved and forgive this failure.

I would ask that we not be required to provide a statement of principles, but the people be left to govern themselves according to their varying circumstances, needs and desires.

We are mindful of the duties expected by you for any people who would claim to be yours, and ask that our weaknesses be forgiven and our own follies and errors be corrected and not condemned.

We as a people present the result of our labor to you as our best attempt to preserve and recover the scriptures provided to us in the restoration through Joseph Smith at the beginning of the dispensation of the fullness of times.

As you began to roll forth a restoration through Joseph and others, we ask you to now continue that work and to allow your revelations, work, covenant, and blessings to roll forth with us, and things kept hidden be uncovered and a fullness be given to us as a people.

It is written that those who will not harden their hearts will receive a greater portion of your word, until they know the mysteries of God in full.

It is also written that those who will harden their hearts will receive a lesser portion of your word, until they know nothing concerning the mysteries of God.

We seek to leave behind a hard heart, and to be open to receiving a greater portion of your word, and to know of your mysteries and obtain your grace for us as a people that we may become yours.

Though only a remnant of the original Book of Mormon manuscript has survived, and 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 to 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.

O Lord, remove our blindness, forgive our sins and weaknesses, give to us a new heart that we may become children of the Most High God.

We acknowledge our unworthiness. We are descended from rebellious and wayward ancestors and know that without your mercy we will remain in an awful state, unprepared for the return of our Lord in glory.

The scriptures foretell of a latter-day recovery of your people, and of natural fruit returning to your vineyard. We seek to be part of that, so you may value us as yours and preserve us against the coming season of harvest.

We have added only things to the scriptures as we have understood to also have come from you and would be pleasing to you.

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; as 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 law, a rule of faith, as a correct expression of the religion that honors you, so we may be in possession of correct faith and be enabled to worship you in truth.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, in faith believing that with you all things are possible. Amen.

The post Covenant of Christ Conference – A Prayer for Covenant appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

These remarks were shared at the opening of the Covenant of Christ Conference, held at the Egyptian Theater in Boise, Idaho, on September 3, 2017.

Transcript

I’m grateful for the opportunity to be here with you today. Preliminarily I should explain to those who are listening to this or participating in this for the first time, a little about this group. Everything that goes on is voluntary among us, no one is paid for any service that they provide. Tithes that are gathered among us are used for the poor. Therefore, we have no funds because the tithing money goes to assist the poor. The Boise Fellowships volunteered to conduct this conference, they are the ones who organized it, they are the ones who paid to rent the venues. Since we own no buildings and use tithes for the poor and we meet in homes, when we meet in a place like this it requires someone to pay to rent the venue which the Boise Fellowships have done. They are also providing all of the web services for free to broadcast these proceedings. I want to give thanks to the Boise Fellowship and all of those who helped them and I want to thank them for the invitation to speak here today.

Before we get to the business of the meeting I want to try and give a context. Since we do not yet have formatted and available scriptures to use, for today’s talk whenever I refer to a verse I am referring to a verse in the traditionally laid out Book of Mormon format with Jacob chapter five being the only chapter from which I refer to a verse. There are many verses quoted but if I give you a verse number that verse is in Jacob chapter five.

Take courage! Life was meant to be a living sacrifice, to be lost in the service to God, only by losing your life will you find it. Saving faith is so rare precisely because it requires courage to engage the opposition in this world and to cheerfully endure the abuse, lies, threats and fiery darts sent by those who fear your faith above everything. Faith in God will save you through his grace, it can render every weapon of this world and hell powerless, but it takes courage. When friends betray you and fear overtakes your associates and causes the knees to buckle under the weight of the burdens God allows to be imposed upon you. Remember the Lord descended below it all and when He cried out asking for the bitter cup to be removed, there was no relief. He is the prototype of the saved man and the Father loved Him for his sacrifice. It was the Lord’s sacrifice for us that perfected His love for us. He values us because of the great price He paid for each one of us. If you love God you will be given the opportunity to prove your love. You will be proven by the things you endure for His name’s sake. Do not fail. Melchizedek’s people in the land of Salem were like this people they had waxed strong in iniquity and abominations, yeah, they had all gone astray, they were full of all manner of wickedness but Melchizedek having exercised mighty faith and received the office of the high priesthood according to the Holy Order of God did preach repentance unto to his people and behold they did repent.

The Covenant being offered does not require one to reject it, only voluntary acceptance. It assumes mankind’s rejection and therefore to reject one need do nothing. Entering into the Covenant offered by the Lord today does not mean there is a church or organization to be joined, it only means that you affirm that you will accept and abide the terms set by the Lord for being one of His people. You can be one of His covenant people and also hold membership in any church of your choosing. 

However, the Covenant imposes the responsibility to help others who also accept the Covenant. To regard them also as the Lords, to honor God, seek to recover Israel, teach children to honor God, care for the poor among God’s people and to help lighten the burdens of others. None of those responsibilities involve establishing or joining an institution. The words of the covenant require us to have left behind the destructive and vile practices of the world. It reads in part, “all you who have turned from your wicked ways and repented of your evil doings of lying and deceiving and of all whoredoms and of secret abominations, idolatries, murders, priestcrafts and envying and strife and from all wickedness and abominations and have come unto Me and been baptized in My name and received a remission of your sins and received the Holy Ghost are now numbered with My people who of the House of Israel.” Those enumerated vile and destructive things must end among us today. We are all equal. We all accept the Book of Mormon as a covenant for us to be numbered among the Lord’s covenant people. This land, in particular, is a land of promise to those who serve the God of this land who is Jesus Christ. The time is coming when those who are not the Lord’s people will be swept off the land.

I have been given authority from God to deliver this Covenant, this day. Every formality required from the days of Adam until now for establishing a Covenant has been kept and met. Once the Covenant is established, those sustained by seven women or a man inside his own family, who receive it, also have authority to administer the ordinance to others who want to be numbered among God’s people. To administer to others, repeat the ordinance, read aloud the Lord’s answer and the words of the Covenant. Ask them to stand and say yes and they will become one of the Lord’s Covenant people. Do not change the words of the Covenant, for to change an ordinance is to break it. All our ancestors have failed to follow the Lord’s path. Generations now dead, anxiously wait and hope for us to be faithful. They have part in this through you, if they have a righteous living descendent they are blessed vicariously through that relationship. We are all part of one family and your role in that family can bless the living and the dead.

I have been ashamed of us because of recent events. Subsequent to the Lord’s answer we have continued to be quarrelsome, bickering and unkind to one another to such a degree, we certainly must offend the Lord. I thought God would be so disappointed with us that it was wrong to proceed and therefore I prayed to call this off. To my surprise, the Lord did not expect us to do things right at first, He expects us to learn how to do things right. Failure is part of learning. Zion is something that has only been accomplished in the known history of the world by two communities. It’s prophesied that there will be a third. What is to be created is something so foreign to this world, that there is nothing in the world to use to judge how we are doing. Even the scriptures do not give a blueprint to follow. If they contained the necessary information, Zion would’ve been established long ago. God alone will establish Zion; His instructions are vital and necessary for us. Once He instructs us, the Scriptures can then be used to confirm that His directions to us now is consistent with what He prophesied, covenanted and promised would happen. But the path to Zion is to be found only by following God’s immediate commands to us. That is how He will bring it. He will lead us there. There is no magic, there is no sprinkling fairy dust that will take you to where God is. It does not and cannot happen that way. He will lead us, teach us, command us, guide us, but we have to be the ones who become what He commands. We have to be the ones who do what He bids us do.

The greatest instruction that I know of, given by God at any time, to any generation, is a rule of community found in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Sermon at Bountiful. Now we have the answer to the prayer for Covenant, that not only resonates with the message of those two sermons but applies it directly to us in our peculiar circumstances, to fix our peculiar defects and urge us to be more like Him. The Lord revealed His plan for our day approximately 3000 years ago. We now begin fulfilling that ancient prophecy. Our current struggles were foreseen and foretold. The Lord of the whole earth considered destroying all the wicked. But His servant plead for him to grant more time (Jacob chapter five:49-50). The Lord of the whole earth hearkened to His servant and decreed that He would spare it and would labor within His vineyard a final time in our day (v. 51). The Lord determined long ago He would use a Covenant to graft back people who had become wild and bitter and connect them to the original roots of the tree of life or in other words restore a people in our day to His Covenant. The Covenant offered today is from God and is the first step required to restore the family of God or tree of life on the earth. It will change the lost, wild and bitter fruit and begin to recover them and turn their hearts to the Fathers. This will connect those who are living today, with the natural roots or those Fathers who still hold rights under the original Covenant (v. 52-54).

Work for this grafting began years ago and it took a great leap forward approximately two years ago with the effort to recover as near as possible the text of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith revelations. The initial graft happens today.

Although the Book of Mormon has remained in print continuously since its first publication in 1830, Latter Day Saints did not respect it as scripture until the 1950’s. The book has been a test and not the fulsome revelation of all God’s dealings even with the Nephites. 

“And when they shall have received this, which is expedient that they should have first, to try their faith, and if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them” (3 Nephi 26:9).

From its founding until 1937, Brigham Young University did not offer a single course on the Book of Mormon. Only in 1961 did it become mandatory for incoming BYU freshmen to take a class on the Book of Mormon. Hugh Nibley defended the Book of Mormon in a debate with Sterling McMurrin in 1955. Nibley offended nearly all those who were in attendance because of his serious defense, some of whom declared flatly that the Book of Mormon needed to be abandoned because it was driving the best minds out of the church.  Although Hugh Nibley advocated taking the Book of Mormon seriously in the 1950’s, the Saints only began to take it seriously after Ezra Taft Benson’s General Conference talk in 1986. “The church was underwhelmed with the Book of Mormon until late in the 20th century.” Noel B. Reynolds wrote about this church wide neglect in his article “The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon in the 20th Century” found at BYU Studies, Volume 38. He wrote “The Book of Mormon was largely overlooked throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. A handful of church leaders appealed for more serious attention to the book, however the church as a whole did not respond in any dramatic way to any of these urgent messages until after Pres. Benson’s emphatic messages in 1986.” Within 18 months of the restoration through Joseph Smith, the Saints were condemned for unbelief. By January 1841 the Saints were warned they would be rejected with their dead if they failed to repent and keep God’s commandments. They did not repent.

And so, the restoration has been in a pause for four and five generations waiting for God to begin it anew. Today marks a moment when the stirrings that have been underway for years result in God’s offering to establish His people, on earth, by a Covenant He ordains. The few ready to receive the Lord’s offer today are scattered to the nethermost parts of His vineyard (v. 52). Despite this, a live broadcast on the Internet allows them to be grafted in at the same moment this is happening in Boise, Idaho. Correspondingly, those who utterly refused to accept the offered covenant are plucked from the restoration’s tree of life because they’re bitter fruit, unable to meet the Lord’s requirements. The Lord is taking the step to preserve part of humanity, not to destroy it (v. 53). A few descendants of the Covenant Fathers have the natural gift of faith, that gift belongs to the natural branches (v. 54). When grafted we are connected to the natural roots or Covenant Fathers as heirs of the promises made to them. Even after the Covenant, there will still be those who are bitter and wild, who will be unable to produce natural fruit despite the Covenant. These will remain for a time despite their bitterness (v. 56-57). Today only the most bitter, who refuse to be grafted in will be trimmed away.

We look forward to more nourishing or restoring of truths, lights and commandments which will bless those who receive, but for those who will not the continuing restoration will prune them away (v.58). These bitter and wild branches must still be cut off and cast away. These steps are necessary to preserve the opportunity for the natural fruit to fully return (v. 59). The good must overcome the evil, this takes time and it means that the Lord’s patience is extended to give time to develop and further improve. We are not expected and cannot become natural fruit in a single step. But we are expected to accept the initial graft today. The Lord is taking these steps so that perhaps, that’s a deliberate word, perhaps we may become natural fruit worthy to be preserved in the coming harvest (v.60). Perhaps is the right word. Some who are grafted will still be plucked away and burned. But others will bear natural fruit and be preserved. Accepting the Covenant is not the final step. Our choices will determine whether we are bitter or natural fruit, that will decide our fate. Just as the ancient allegory foretold, the Covenant makes us servants and laborers in the vineyard (v. 61) We are required to, this is from the Covenant, “seek to recover the lost sheep remnant of this land and of Israel and no longer forsake them. Bring them unto the Lord and teach them of His ways to walk in them.” If we fail to labor to recover them, we break the covenant. We must labor for this last time in the Lord’s vineyard. There is an approaching, final pruning of the vineyard (v.62). The first to be the first to be grafted in are Gentiles so that the last maybe first. The lost sheep remnant next and then Israelites so that the first maybe last (v.63). But grafting is required for all, even the remnants, because God works with his people through covenant- making. There will be more grafting and further pruning. As more is revealed and therefore more is required, some will find the digging and dunging too much to bear and will fall away or in other words will be pruned despite the Covenant (v.64). The Covenant makes it possible for natural fruit to return. The bad fruit will still continue, even among the Covenant people, until there is enough strength in the healthy branches for further pruning. It requires natural fruit to appear before the final pruning takes place (v.65). The good and bad will coexist. It will damage the tree to remove the bad at once. Therefore, the Lord’s patience will continue for some time yet. The rate of removing the bad is dependent wholly upon the rate of the development of the good. It is the Lord’s purpose to create equality in his vineyard.

In the allegory equality in the vineyard appears three times in verses 66, 72 and 74. We cannot be greater and lesser, nor divide ourselves into a hierarchy to achieve the equality required for Zion. When a group is determined to remain equal and I am personally determined to be no greater than any other, then it faces challenge that never confront unequal people. A religion of bosses and minions never deals with any of the challenges of being equals. Critics claim we will never succeed because of our determined desire for equality. None of our critics can envision what the Lord has said in verses 66, 72 and 74 about His people. But equality among us is the only way prophesied for us to succeed. That does not mean we won’t have a mess as we learn how to establish equality.

Similarly, Zion cannot be established by isolated and solitary figures proclaiming a testimony of Jesus from their home keyboard. The challenge of building a community must be part of a process. Zion is a community and therefore God is a God of community and His people must learn to live together with one heart, one mind, with no poor among us. Isolated keyboardists proclaiming their resentment of community can hardly speak temperately of others. How could they ever live peacefully in a community of equals? We must become precious to each other. Although the laborers in this final effort are few, you will be the means used by the Lord to complete His work in His vineyard (v.70). You’re required to labor with your might to finish the Lord’s work in His vineyard (v.72). But He will labor alongside you. He, not a man or a committee, will call you to do work. When He calls do not fear, but do not run faster than you have strength. We must find His people in the highways and byways invite them to join in. Zion will include people from every part of the world. This conference is broadcast worldwide as part of the prophecy to Enoch that God would send

“righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, unto a place which I shall prepare, an 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.” (Moses 7:62)

We must proclaim this to the world. Do not despair when further pruning takes place it must be done. Only through pruning can the Lord keep his tree of life equal without those who are lofty overcoming the body (v.73). The lofty branches have always destroyed equality to prevent Zion. The final result of the Lord’s labor in His vineyard is declared by the ancient prophet in unmistakable clarity “the trees have become again the natural fruit, and they became like unto one body and the fruits were equal and the Lord of the vineyard had preserved unto Himself the natural fruit which was most precious unto him from the beginning.” Mark those words. That’s verse 74. When the Lord explained this to me I realized how foolish it was to expect natural fruit, worthy of preservation, in an instant. The Lord works patiently, methodically and does not require any to run faster than they have strength. We cannot allow ourselves to be drawn into 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 no poor among us.

The restoration was never intended to just restore an ancient Christian church. That is only a halfway point. It must go back further. In the words of the ancient prophet God intends to do according to his will and to preserve the natural fruit that it is good even like as it was in the beginning (v.75). This means the beginning, as in the days of Adam, with the return of the original religion and original authority, everything must be returned as it was in the beginning. Civilization began with the Temple as the center of learning, law and culture. The Temple was the original university because it taught of man’s place with God in the universe. God will return the right of dominion once held by Adam, to man on earth to make us humble, servant, gardeners laboring to return the world to a peaceful paradise. The Covenant received today restores part of that right.

There is a land inheritance given to us as part of the Covenant and therefore if we keep the Covenant, we have the right to remain, when others will be swept away. Ultimately all rights given to us must be turned back to the Fathers who went before, who will likewise return them to Adam, who will surrender them to Christ. When Christ returns, He will come with the right to exercise complete dominion over the earth and exercise judgment over the ungodly. Things set into motion today are part of preparing the way for the Lord’s return in glory. 

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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These comments were recorded at a gathering at Alturas Lake, Idaho on the day of the solar eclipse, August 20, 2017.

And see that works really well if your watch says 11:28 when it’s 11:28. Mine probably says 11:28 when it’s 11:40. Since this is all over with, and since there’s some kids here, I wanted to tell a story. This, this is true story. I, I grew up in Idaho and I actually worked for the Sawtooth Lumber Company, which does not exist anymore. Boise Cascade bought ‘em out. But there was a time when the Sawtooth Lumber Company could win a bar fight at Featherville against the Boise Cascade boys.  

Female from audience: There are kids here.

Denver: Well, that’s who I’m talking to.

Denver: So, when you go… I worked for the lumber company, I cut down trees. When you cut down a tree the tree wants to fall in a very specific place, and when you walk up to it with a chainsaw you have to stand at the bottom and look at it. If a log [tree] is perfectly symmetrical and perfectly straight you can make it fall anywhere you want it to. If there’s more branches on one side than another it will only fall that way. If it’s leaning in one direction it doesn’t matter what the branches are doing, it’s only gonna fall that way.  

The boss, Junior Ownsby, who never came out to watch us work, one day showed up to watch our crew. And our foreman who ran our crew was named Budd. Budd and Junior Ownby [Ownsby] were up on the road, the dirt road that had been cut in and they were standing there watching me.  And I’d walked up to a tree that literally – it didn’t matter how long I looked at it – it was like the corkscrew tree in the parable. There was no way to figure out where this thing was gonna fall. And I thought, “Maybe I’ll leave this for someone else ‘cuz I’m kind of afraid.” This, this was a very big tree. It was gonna kill someone and I’d just assumed it wasn’t me. But when I turned to leave it, the foreman yelled, “Get on with it!” So I got on with it, and I cut a wedge out. And it looked to me like this damn thing could go anywhere so what difference does it make, if you don’t know where it’s gonna go, what you do to it. So I cut a wedge out of it and I think, “Maybe they’ll leave and cutting the wedge will be enough,” but they were still standing there watching me, like, “Let’s see what the idiot does!”  

In addition to all of the other problems this tree had, termites had it eaten quite a bit of the inside, but the wedge didn’t reveal that. I set about cutting the tree down to connect up with the wedge, and about a third of the way through there was not enough remaining support for the tree to stay up, and it started to move. But it didn’t move like it was gonna fall. It moved like twisting on the trunk which trapped my chainsaw. So I let go of it as it moved around and I was thinking, “Wow, this is gonna be a disaster!” And I backed away from the thing with my chainsaw left behind, still running, and this was not a model of how you drop a tree. This was a model of: How much insurance do we have for these guys? The tree twisted, it made a horrible splintering sound, exactly what you don’t want to do to a tree, and then it fell. And, I ran like back and forth trying to figure out where it was gonna land because it was not… it was shimmying. And when it finally fell to the ground I picked up where it was going and I thought, “Oh, good.  I’ll be safe here.” Except the tree was like a corkscrew, and when it hit the ground, because of the twist on the tree, it jumped backwards.  

I still own the orange hard hat I wore that day. The base of the tree, which was bigger around than about two of those, flew back right at my head and hit the bill of that hardhat and sent it flying up the hill. I managed to duck and leave my head intact but my hard hat is now about half way between me, the owner of the company, and my foreman. I left my chainsaw running and I walked up the hill to get my hard hat back and put it on –because you’re supposed to wear it if you’re out there cutting trees down –and I can still remember the quote from the owner to the foreman. But because this is a story for the kids I won’t repeat it. But he was anything but impressed. So, in addition to every other reason why they would leave that tree up in the parable on the hill and not touch it, messing with things like that gets lumberjacks killed. And there was a time when I was, briefly, a lumberjack.  Anyway, that’s my story. That’s your goodnight story.  So there it is. 

That really happened. 

TRANSCRIPT

The post The Story of the Lumberjack appeared first on Restoration Archives Blog.

These remarks were given at a conference held in Southern Utah County on July 30, 2017.

Am I supposed to talk now? I assume that pause means: Get up.

There is a concept that I mentioned just in passing yesterday at the Sunstone conference, that “chosen-ness” does not mean what we oftentimes think chosen-ness means. We tend to view that as something laudable, and it means we’re better than someone else because God’s focused attention on us, and therefore, since we get His attention, there is something great about us. There is a passage in… (I am using these new scriptures, mind you, so I have no clue where you will find it in your actual Book of Mormon). 

Comment: First Nephi 20:21.

Denver Snuffer: Oh, First Nephi 20 [LE]. But I am reading from First Nephi 8. This is the Lord talking to ancient Israel and he says: “…For I knew that thou wouldst deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb. Nevertheless, for my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain from thee, that I cut thee not of. For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For mine own sake, yea, for mine own sake will I do this, for I will not suffer my name to be polluted, and I will not give my glory unto another.” (1 Nephi 20:8-11).That doesn’t sound like high praise for the chosen people. 

I have a new favorite reality show that’s on the History channel. I think they’ve been doing this for four years now so there are a lot of episodes out there. It’s called, “Forged in Fire.” I don’t know if any of you have ever seen it. They start the show with four blacksmiths. The four blacksmiths are required to take something–they provide them the something. Sometimes it’s a wrought iron fence, sometimes it’s a wrecked car, sometimes it’s a pile of garbage. These people have to sort through whatever it is. The first stage is to fashion it in a forge into a kind of knife blade, which they inspect, and then one of the four people are sent home, and the three that have done the best job then have to finish that product and turn it into something that can be sharpened and hold an edge, with a handle on it, and then they test it. It is fairly brutal testing. Things shatter. If they don’t hold an edge, they’re gone. They have to qualify by producing something that is a fairly well-made knife. Then after they finish and someone gets kicked out, the two that remain are sent home to their own forge and they’re given five days to build some weapon from history. It could be something that they used in France to duel with. It could be something that even the contestants don’t know how to pronounce. 

When they finish after five days, they come back and they present their weapons. The judges then put those through tests. Sometimes the test is to stick it into a metal holder and bend the sword 33 degrees one direction and 33 degrees the other. The people watching, that have fabricated these things, are anticipating the shattering of what they’ve built. They hash coconuts with these things. They lock them into a catapult that has a controlled speed, so that every weapon gets tested consistently, and they will smash it down on a metal shield. The objective is to see if it will still hold a sharp edge after they’ve done all this crap to it. Then when they have finished all the strength and durability things, the sharpness test takes over. One of the judges is a guy named Doug Marcaida. He almost invariably uses a pig carcass. He will attack the pig carcass with the weapon, and when he is done, if it succeeded, his line is: “It will kill.” (He is from the Philippines and has an accent.)

I’ve learned a lot watching four seasons of that show on the History channel. There are some kinds of metal that it doesn’t matter what you do with them, they will never hold an edge. 
Sometimes what they require the contestants to do is to take metal that will not hold an edge–for example, here’s a bundle of barbed wire and here is some high carbon steel. You have to fuse together in your forge the high carbon steel and the barbed wire that will never hold an edge, and you have to produce something that we’re going to put through these tests. Now if a person knows what he’s dealing with he can take that incapable metal, and he can make a sleeve in which is set the high carbon steel, so that the edge of the high carbon steel is what’s exposed to the force of contact. And if they don’t know what they are doing–they blend it together in such a way that it doesn’t matter what you do–it doesn’t matter how much you work with it, or sharpen it, or fashion it, it’s simply not going to take. 

If you go through and read the scriptures about the concept of chosen-ness, almost always you run into words about forging in a fire the product that God regards as His people, which means that God has a fairly realistic assessment of what people are like, and choosing them doesn’t mean He’s found a finished product. Choosing them means He’s found something with which He’s determined to work. 

High carbon steel requires iron and it requires a matrix of that carbon to be within the element. Life–all life–is based on carbon. We breathe oxygen. We are carbon based, all of us. In a very real sense, every breath we take, we take and burn it in our furnace. The way that we convey that oxygen throughout the body is by oxidizing iron in our blood. That’s why our blood cells turn red when exposed to oxygen, because the iron element fused with the oxygen oxidizes, or rusts, and so it looks red. And then, when it drops the oxygen off where it’s going to be consumed in the limbs, it loses that element and it returns and it’s blue. Forging us in the fire of affliction, breathing into us the breath of life, talking about being chosen, the example of what it takes in order to fashion something that will withstand and hold an edge, all of these things are types and shadows of what it means to be chosen. 

Chosen-ness puts you on display in order for the Lord to either prove what foolishness is in the person chosen, or if they succeed, to put them through an ordeal that demonstrates faithfulness and commitment, desire and earnestness, so that everyone stands back and says: This people represented God, either by the shabby performance, and the persecution, and the failure, and the folly, or it represents God by the diligence, and the effort, and the faithfulness. 

I’ve been pretty hard on Latter-day Saint history because from the perspective of triumphal success it hasn’t succeeded. But within the Latter-day Saint history is embedded this strain of diligence, and faithfulness, and sacrifice, and commitment that has preserved enough of what was here at the beginning so that we today have something to work with. The Latter-day Saints are an example of both folly and triumph. It has not resulted in Zion. And it’s certainly headed, in fact now galloping, in another direction. But within that, there has been a preservation and a restoration of material which would have otherwise been lost; would have otherwise been forgotten. 

What’s rolling out now in the Joseph Smith Papers is an extraordinary blessing. Now true enough, if I had the archives in my possession I would eliminate a lot of footnotes and editorial comments and you’d get more than we’re getting. I wouldn’t try to package it in a way that defends a story that simply isn’t true. Nevertheless, they are preserving, they are perpetuating, they are publishing materials, and we’re the beneficiaries of that. For that we ought to be grateful. 

Within every group of chosen people there are always those who are resilient and faithful enough to pass the test, to hold the edge, to survive when the difficulties come. And when the Lord puts us through the furnace of affliction our burdens are designed to get us to be able to qualify. Our burdens are designed to make us a little more realistic about our own limitations. 

I want to talk about a couple of things. I want to remind you that becoming a chosen people or being chosen by God as His, is no guarantee that we aren’t going to be remembered by history for our own foolishness, and an example of how to inspire God’s ire and fall short. I’m a little more optimistic at this point in history because of the hour, because of the signs in the heavens above, because of the things that we see on the earth. I assume that John Pratt is going to address some of the signs of the timing of what’s happening now. And so, someone’s going to do this. Someone’s going to achieve it. The prophecies are not going to fall to the ground unfulfilled. Perhaps coming out of this group will be that example that is pointed to, not as folly and failure, but as vindication of the Lord’s promises. 

I’ve taken personally a lot of criticism and I’ve gotten a lot of email, and my wife will read stuff and report back to me what the latest round of nonsense contains. One of the things that gets suggested is that I am personally arrogant and haughty and that I’m relatively untrustworthy because I talk with just too much confidence. Try to put yourself into the position in which God has told you something. You respect God and what he’s told you needs to be delivered, and ought not to be delivered by a shaky voice, an unsound trumpet, a weak attempt. It doesn’t matter how good a trumpeter you are. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself, or whether you would gladly pass that to someone else. If you’re going to speak on behalf of the Lord you have to speak in a way that represents Him as well as you can, however incomplete, however unworthy, however much you may think yourself ill-fitted to the assignment. You’re given the assignment, you need to do it, and you need to do it well. 

The confidence with which I speak does not reckon from myself. In fact, like I’ve heard so many people ask about themselves, “What am I doing in this position?” Well none of us really can come down here into this sphere and walk around proclaiming, “Check it out, this is how you ought to be.” There is only one. There is only one who is the prototype of the saved man. There is only one that we can look upon and say, “As to Him, I have confidence in Him.” Everyone else the confidence is misplaced. But if you have confidence in Him, and He has given you something to say, then say it with the confidence that you have in Him. Announce the message that He has given with the respect that He deserves. 

Now I know some people were hoping that I would come down here and talk about what God released yesterday on the answer to the petition for a covenant. I’m not going to talk about it for this reason: I don’t believe it belongs to me. I believe it belongs to you, and I believe it is God’s statement to you. For me to try and take up any attention is to distract you from the Lord’s words to you. What kind of a fool would put themselves between you and God and say, “I would like to interrupt the Lord in order to tell you something that I think.” What I have or what I think is wholly inconsequential in comparison with the content of that document. It doesn’t have my voice, it doesn’t have my speech patterns, it doesn’t have me in it. If some of it is a little garbled, I’ll own that. But the message belongs to the Lord, the words belong to the Lord, and they’re words that He was giving to you. Therefore it’s yours, and you have as much right to apply the meaning of those words to yourself and to others as anyone. I have no right to get out and say, “Pay attention to me.” There is, and they really are quite remarkable. 

The other thought that my wife and I kick around (and Steph any time you want to interrupt me, come up here and join and take over, if you would like) is this idea: Take any event at any time, in the Book of Mormon for example. You have the family of Lehi and what went on there, or later in time during Alma and Abinadi in the courts of King Noah. Take any of those circumstances and ask yourself: Let’s assume that that was happening today. Let’s assume God was doing things today similar to what He was doing back then. What would that look like? How would that unfold? What would be said? What would the response be? How would you react to that if it were going on today? How would you decide if something like that were happening now, whether or not it was authentic and of God? How would you go about deciding that in your own day, in your own time, among your own people, within your own family, what is happening is of God and not of men? 

I don’t think that just because something gets enshrined in scripture we should lose sight of the fact that it has always required faith, it will always require faith, and it doesn’t matter what proofs you can muster for or against belief in something. At the end of the day either God is behind it or God is not. And if God is behind it and your heart is open to it, you’ll recognize it; you’ll receive it. 

The problem we have as people is we don’t really believe the Book of Mormon. We believe in long ago and far way. The Book of Mormon is telling us, “Hey, Gentiles, among you, in your day, in your time, there are going to be things that God necessarily is going to have to accomplish.” What would that look like? What would that unfold like? How would that come rolling forth? Many of the people about whom scriptures are written, and the pivotal moments in which choices have to be made before great things unfold, have remarkably humble beginnings, almost inconsequential, so much so that the biblical record entirely omits Lehi. So much so that the people chosen by the Lord to flee before the fall of Babylon, and to start a new civilization on the other side of the world, remained entirely obscure to the world from the moment they left Jerusalem until the time that the Book of Mormon rolled forth in 1830.

(You [Stephanie Snuffer] want to join me? Yeah, yeah. This is a historic moment.) [audience laughter]

[Stephanie Snuffer comments omitted at her request]

Denver Snuffer: We still have 25 minutes left.  What are you doing running off for? [Laughter]

I’ve thought some of our exchanges [between Denver and Stephanie] on hikes were the best material I’ve ever recorded anywhere, and it’s just in my journal. 

I was looking for something. I was asked to find some dates and it required me to go research through piles of journals. As I am going through (I have to skim them) I ran across a number of things where my wife was going after me on a hike and it was in the journal. It’s not self-deprecating, it’s spouse-deprecating. It was one of those amusing parts of the relationship. She warned me that people reading that stuff later won’t know that it’s funny. They’ll just assume that I’m not telling a joke when I say there are men living on the moon that dress like Quakers, because Joseph made a comment like that and it tells you something about his sense of humor. But there are anti-Mormons that say, “He thought there were men that dressed like Quakers that lived on the moon.” It’s preposterous. 

Yesterday while I was talking… We went to lunch with Carol Lynn Pearson a couple weeks ago and she gave me a copy of her book, The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. I read her book. It’s a pretty good book, but I told her afterwards I think she is being really unfair to Joseph, because the typical account of history reads out of the accounts all of what Joseph did before the Nauvoo High Council, and all of what Joseph Smith did in public sermons, to detect and to denounce and to try an put down the practice of plural wives in Nauvoo. Instead, all of that is skipped over, including the Relief Society statement taken out in the Times and Seasons as a joint statement of the women of Nauvoo condemning the practice that Joseph had inspired to take place. 

Everyone reads that out and simply homogenizes Brigham Young and Joseph Smith because of Brigham Young’s attribution to Joseph, so Joseph owns everything that Brigham did. After I talked yesterday, she was there and we spoke for a moment. I said, “I loved the book, but I think you are unfair to Joseph, and that everyone is unfair to Joseph. No one really deals with how firmly a position he took in public and before the Nauvoo High Council in opposition to that stuff. But at a minimum you have to admit that, whatever went on Joseph kept out of the public view, and Brigham Young celebrated as something public to be practiced. At a minimum you owe it to Joseph to make that distinction and you didn’t do it in the book. But having said that, the book’s great, it’s wonderful, loved it, and appreciate getting a copy.” 

One of the lamentations that appear in her book is how troubling and disorienting the whole concept of plural marriage is to currently living Latter-day Saint women. She did a survey and she collected comments from people in the survey. It’s remarkable. She put hundreds of these comments into her book. It is remarkable how many women fear dying before their husband because their husband can go get another wife and be married for eternity to her, and then she winds up with another spouse in addition to her husband. There was some preview of an upcoming movie that we saw, while we were watching “Dunkirk”. In the preview, it was a comedy, and one woman is talking to another woman and she is saying, “Yeah, I believe in polygamy. I just haven’t found the right guy, and gal, and gal.” That notion hangs over. 

One of the great things that happened in the Answer was we now have a replacement for D&C Section 132 that rather clearly explains that it was not so from the beginning. In one respect we should have been smart enough to figure that out on our own, because in the days of Adam… I know that Brigham Young said that Adam came with one of his wives, because to Brigham Young all things were polygamous. But there is no basis in the Bible for that. There is no basis in scripture for that. Adam received “a wife”. Then, in the book of Moses the children of Adam and Eve married two by two, male and female. One of the clarifications that we now have is that the divine purpose of marriage is to multiply and replenish the earth. That answers the question about relationships between the same sex because you cannot multiply and replenish the earth in any other form than that. 

Marriage was instituted by God in the beginning. It is an ordinance. It involves the man and the woman, and it doesn’t matter what other kind of social relationship you want to form, it’s not marriage. At its heart marriage is from God and confined to that relationship. When you define marriage as given by God, keep in mind the definition of an abomination. An abomination is something that you practice that is wrong, done as a religious belief. So marriage that doesn’t conform to the pattern of God is, by definition, an abomination. Its result is not only to defile the definition of marriage, but it absolutely precludes multiplying and replenishing the earth. It renders the marriage bed devoid of progeny, incapable of producing offspring. It is desolate. An abominable practice that produces desolation is something that we all ought to take note of. It’s not a social issue, it’s not a civil rights issue. In a secular society I don’t care what people do in the privacy of their own homes. But when you begin to say that that is not merely the right of privacy and the right of association, but is a religious right involving marriage, and it produces nothing but desolation, we ought to stop short of that. We ought to say: Go and do as you will do. 

Lot chose to live in Sodom. What’s up with Lot? Maybe they had good music. Maybe it was fashion. Maybe they had great art. (I’m pretty sure they had great performance art, I’m just not into that.) When Abraham went to recover his nephew and the angels came and Lot bargained, it wasn’t Abraham who was out to destroy the wicked, and it wasn’t Lot that was out to destroy the wicked, it was the Lord. The Lord is going to take care of the abominations that are out there. Our responsibility is to invite people to see a better way, to conceive of a higher and more noble way to live life. Our job isn’t to rebuke and condemn and to belittle. 

There are really two forces at work in all of creation. One force is generative, creative, and positive. It fabricates new things. It is ongoingly surprising and life-filled and wonderful. What’s opposed to that are the forces of degeneration, decay, negativity, entropy, destruction. There isn’t enough being done in order to bring that positivity, that creativity, that newness into this world. Even though children are born every day, and life starts over all new again with the birth of every new child, our minds are preoccupied by the forces of negativity and what opposes us. I could spend all day every day responding to negative arguments and negative comments, and if I were to do that I wouldn’t get anything new done, covered, accomplished, or out there. 

When we take a message out to people about the restoration of the Gospel, the work of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the offering of the Covenant, the expected coming Zion, there is no reason to deal with the criticism. It’s going to collapse on its own. Here’s a great bit of advice: If the criticism level would condemn Jesus Christ, then the criticism is the problem, not the object of the criticism. 

Now understand, (this is secondhand, because I don’t go there and do this) but my wife informed me that in some Facebook group there was complaining about the Prayer for the Covenant because that was “praying for to be seen of men.” It’s public. Okay, when Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven”, he did it publicly. It got reduced to writing. It’s the most widely read prayer in all of western society. So if you are going to condemn, on that basis, the Prayer for the Covenant, you are going to have to condemn the Lord’s Prayer and in turn condemn the Lord. If you can resolve criticism leveled at you by applying the test and saying, “Jesus would have failed that test, too,” then you don’t even need to respond to the criticism. But if they level criticism at you, and you look at it say, “Jesus would have passed that and I would fail,” then it’s time to start saying, “Well, okay, then I need to clean up something in my own life.” Because all of us deserve some level, we merit some level, of criticism and condemnation. We’re just not perfect. 

It’s really hard to sit inside your own life and be realistic about your own personal failings. We always tend to apply tests that are given in scripture outwardly and to say, “As long as I use persuasion and pure knowledge then I can beat you into submission and never yield the argument because I am doing what was said is the criteria.” Gentleness—okay, I won’t yell at you. Meekness—okay, I’ll be polite enough to let you say what you have to say, I won’t interrupt. Love unfeigned—okay, I love ya brother, I LOVE ya brother. Persuasion—okay, when I get my opportunity to present mine I’m going for the brass ring. 

Wait a minute. What if that’s God trying to get through to you? What if the way in which God is trying to persuade you is by the meekness of the humble Lord who speaks to us in plain humility; who comes to us, not to try and overawe us, but comes to us saying: “You are me in embryo. I know what it took for me to become the Son of God, and I know you can do it, too.” What if the Lord is your greatest cheerleader, and he wants nothing more than to try and get you to be more like Him. You can’t be more like Him when the center of everything is yourself and you never self-examine. We all deserve criticism. 

I was asked if I would bear my testimony and I’m willing to do that. I’ve tried to let people know exactly what has and is going on without the need of resorting to a lot of spectacular descriptions of the Lord’s direct involvement in my life. 

I want you to imagine for a moment: Moses is on the mount. The setting is awesome. The Lord is speaking to him, and in that setting he is overawed, so much so that when the Spirit of the Lord withdraws, he collapses because it has drained all his strength. He comes to himself and realizes man is nothing and he’d never supposed that. The adversary comes to tempt him. He can tell the difference between a merely pretentious soul whose message is dark, and the God of glory whose message is Light. And then the God of glory comes again and presents to him yet more. This is a spectacular event. He is told: “Take your stick, go to Pharaoh’s court, throw your stick down and we’ll humble the Pharaoh.” 

Now you’ve probably got–by the time you walk down the mountain, and you get ready and provisioned and make arrangements for your affairs while you are gone–days before you set off for Egypt. And then when you travel to Egypt, you’ve probably got a couple of weeks or more of hard trudging across the desert. You arrive in Egypt and you realize, kind of like God, the pylons of Egypt are awesome. They represent a false religion but they do so impressively. You come, with your shepherd’s sandals and your homespun garments, into the courts of Pharaoh where you are supposed to deliver a message. You tell me that no matter how spectacular the circumstances were on Sinai some three weeks earlier that it didn’t take faith for Moses to confront the Pharaoh and to deliver the message. As the sound of the staff is rattling into a stable position on the floor of the courts of Pharaoh, I suspect Moses was palpitating. “I sure hope He’s God here, too!” Because everyone thought that gods were local. Everyone thought that gods were from different districts. Sinai may have been Jehovah’s. Ra, Fa, who is big cheese here? I can imagine that for a moment Moses held his breath, hoping. 

We sit back from our distance with the confidence that this was going to play through triumphantly, and it was going to work out just exactly as the story always works out. Moses had absolutely no such assurance. He was sent out to do, what may be to him humiliating and embarrassing things to do and to say, but he did them anyway. Not because he knew he would triumph and history would remember him. He did them because God told him to and he really, really, hoped it was going to work out. 

I don’t know how often it is, that no matter what I’ve been shown or given, taught or received, that I realize, that at the end of the day, the only proof anyone will have will be the words that I get told to deliver. From my perspective it’s like…the stick rattling on the floor as it settles there, while you swallow hard and you hope that there are at least some who have hearts that are receptive, who are willing to say, “God spoke unto the Fathers in times past, and has spoken unto us by His Son, and again spoken unto us by Joseph, and God speaks again today.” 

It’s not Joseph, it’s not Moses, it’s the One behind that. It’s the God of Heaven and His Son. It’s the only sound, reliable, and true thing that there is in the universe, and that God speaks again. However unlikely it may seem in the circumstances, God speaks again. 

There will come a time when there will be people among whom it will not be necessary to say, “Know ye the Lord,”because everyone is going to know Him. What He will put us through to get from here to there is up to Him to determine. And how He is going to accomplish that is up to Him to decide. But when we get there and the Lord is among us, none of us are going to be surprised. None of us are going to dance around excitedly because we are going to say, “We knew He was with us every step of the way anyway.” It will be ever so nice to come and embrace, and to feel wounds, and to kneel, but you won’t be surprised. 

What it takes to get us from where we are to that point is entirely individual. It’s entirely up to every single one of us. But He’s willing to take us on that journey and He’s willing to put us through the forge, and melt us until we are pliable, and hammer us until we are shaped. He is willing to put us through what’s required in order to take people and turn them into something that is far more like Him and far less like the world. 

There is a question He poses about the tares that are ripening and so what of the wheat? We are supposed to be godly. We are supposed to be God-like. Imagine yourself trying to be like God. Well, it almost makes you laugh out loud when you think about such proposition, and yet it’s there in scripture and He’s telling you that’s what He wants of you. 

The greatest who was ever among us, knelt to wash other people’s feet and did what he could to help those who were infirm. With patience and kindness He dealt with people, till the moment arrived when it was necessary for Him to lay His life down. And then He went exactly where He needed to go, and said exactly what needed to be said, in order to inspire the rage of the people who felt threatened so that they would kill Him, on time, as the sacrificial paschal lamb on the Passover that year. At the end He controlled even the moment of His death. We’ve got the example in front of us. 

I have always been surprised at the humility of the Lord, the meekness of the Lord, and the fierceness of His disapproval. Some of what you read in Come, Let Us Adore Him is actually taken verbatim from my journals. I tend to record incidents when they happen, exactly as they happen, and lock down the account at that moment [and] then never change it, because Joseph took criticism for writing multiple accounts of the First Vision. So I write it one time and I don’t change the story, so what you’re reading in Come, Let Us Adore Him is taken verbatim out of the journals. But part of the story is left out because it wasn’t necessary, and it changes the focus and it didn’t belong there. But, I will tell you because I have been asked to bear my testimony. 

After I had seen the events in Gethsemane and recorded that in the journal, it was some time later, trying to take all that in. I saw the resurrection and what happened that day. After I had seen it, I sat down and I wrote the account. I’m writing the account, and I entered–literally into my journal I wrote–“The joy of that moment made the suffering that He endured in Gethsemane seem small by comparison.” I literally wrote that in my journal. I was instantly… I couldn’t write another word; I was instantly condemned. I had no right to make that comparison and it wasn’t true. So I closed up the journal. I stopped writing. I went to work, and the whole day was awful. 

When I got back from work that evening, I drew a line at that point in the journal across the page and I explained what happened. “What I wrote above I should never have written. It’s not true, and I was condemned for writing it.” Because there was nothing about the triumph that lessoned the price that was paid in Gethsemane, and to suggest that anything mitigated the price our Lord paid for us is untrue and unwarranted. When I explained that in the journal I felt back in His good graces. 

The Lord, when He lets you know you’re wrong, lets you know in a way that’s like…our dog Mowgli. She cannot bear to displease her family. She just wears it on her. Everything about her, the ears, the tail, everything about our dog droops when she has familial ire directed her way. That’s how you feel when the Lord is letting you know you’ve offended. I’ve offended Him far too many times for me to even recount. Sometimes I’ve wondered why I’m still involved. I assume at some point He is just going to get tired and I’m going to ignite like a match head and He’s going to say, “Well, he probably had that coming.”

The Lord is real. He is working. The time is short. The evidence of what is going to happen and is presently underway is not just in scripture, it’s also in nature. The evidence of this is written everywhere. And if some of you are lucky enough to be able to hang around for the 6 o’clock fireside with John Pratt, try to keep him here long enough to let the stars come out. He’ll need a laser pointer but then he will really entertain you. 

Let me end by simply saying that I know the Lord, and I respect Him enough to confine what I do to exactly what’s asked of me, and leave it to Him to determine everything from content to timing. And that if He says go, we go; and if He says not yet, it’s not yet. I’ve learned that He has an agenda. He’s known about the moment we’re in right now for a long time. Work on what is underway began two years, and more than a year-and-a-half before I was involved. I didn’t look at the people who were involved and say, “Why didn’t you include me?” I looked at them and said, “I’m so glad you did the work.” I didn’t envy them, I’m not jealous of them. I welcomed it. They felt called by God and they did the work. As it turns out, they were. And as it turns out, God is now calling all of us to step up and do some other things. How that will manifest it in each one of our lives is up to the Lord and you. 

I bear testimony to you that it is His work. And although it may seem small, great things have small beginnings. By small means the Lord brings great things to pass. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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