Mosiah Chapter 4
19 For behold, are we not all beggars?
Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the
substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and
for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?
20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.
21 And
now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your
lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever
ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then,
how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another.
and
Alma Chapter 7
11 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.
12 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.
13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon
him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions
according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the
testimony which is in me.
and
Matthew Chapter 7
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither
can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
The first two scriptures are from the Book of Mormon. They are some of my favorite passages that describe the saving power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I believe that a man called by God translated the Book of Mormon, his name is Joseph Smith. The scripture in Matthew tells us that we can discern between good and evil by the fruits of the work. I hope that my own life stands as a testimony to the goodness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which in this modern day I believe Joseph Smith helped usher in a restoration of.
An angel messenger told Joseph that his name would “be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues.” (
JSH 1:33)
John Taylor declared, “I testify before God, angels, and men, that [Joseph] was a good,
honorable, [and] virtuous man— … [and] that his private and public
character was unimpeachable—and that he lived and died as a man of God.”
(D&C 135:3)
There are two questions I want to address that many of my faith have struggled with. Can Joseph Smith be a prophet if there were so many different accounts of the First Vision? How can you not find your faith shaken to know Joseph Smith used a seer stone to aid in his translation of ancient records?
Can Joseph Smith be a prophet if there were so many different accounts of the First Vision?
This
article gives an good explanation of all the different versions of the First Vision.
"How many First Vision reports were made while the Prophet was alive?
It is better to ask how many independent
accounts came from contact with the Prophet. Some vision narratives
were republished and are really copies of an original record.
We
now know of nine contemporary reports from the Prophet himself or from
those who personally heard him relate his first vision: (1) the
Prophet’s handwritten description in 1832, an attempt to start a
manuscript history of the Church; (2) a Church secretary’s brief 1835
journal entry of Joseph talking with a visitor who called himself
Joshua, the Jewish minister; (3) the 1838 history discussed above,
published in 1842 and now in the Pearl of Great Price; (4) Orson Pratt’s
publication, the first publicly disseminated, of the Prophet’s vision
in his Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions,
issued in 1840 in Edinburgh, Scotland; (5) Orson Hyde’s revision of
Orson Pratt’s pamphlet, published in 1842 for German readers and adding
some insights that may have come from his contact with Joseph Smith; (6)
the Wentworth Letter, created in response to editor John Wentworth’s
inquiry and published by Joseph Smith in 1842 in Times and Seasons;
this account adapted parts of Orson Pratt’s pamphlet; (7) Levi
Richards’s diary about Joseph Smith preaching in the summer of 1843 and
repeating the Lord’s first message to him that no church was His; (8) a
newspaper interview in the fall of 1843; (9) Alexander Neibaur’s 1844
journal entry of a conversation at the Prophet’s house."
I won't go into all the details of the versions, you can find and read each for yourself. I think the point is that there are narratives made from those who heard him, and those narratives were copied, and copied, and copied...and as we know things change. And then there are reports written directly for publication.
I have a personal example of records I've made that vary. Last month I attended General Conference at the Conference Center. I blogged about it with pictures and stories of what messages I heard from the speakers, and my general impressions. That was one version of my experience. In my personal journal however I added a lot more, and I wrote a lot of other things about people I spend time with and places I ate. I didn't need to mention in my blog that I had dinner at Black Bear Cafe with Elizabeth, but it still happened. My audience in my blog vs my journal is different.
Another example I thought of is the four gospels in the New Testament. The Gospel of John doesn't talk about the birth of the Savior and the annunciation made to the shepherds. Were their really shepherds if John didn't mention them? Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't mention the wedding at Cana. Did the miracle there with the wine not happen? The four gospels cover the life of Jesus, but do not emphasize all the events equally.
The previously mentioned article says,
“The biggest trap is comparing description in one report with silence in
another. By assuming that what is not said is not known, some come up with arbitrary
theories of an evolution in the Prophet’s story. Yet we often omit parts of an
episode because of the chance of the moment, not having time to tell
everything, or deliberately stressing only a part of the original event in a
particular situation.”
Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave a talk titled "Safety for the Soul". It is his testimony of the prophetic call of Joseph Smith and the validity of the Book of Mormon. In reference to the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith he said,
"Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children
fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be
“houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave
footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor.
9
Never mind that legions will die and other legions live
declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of
Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of
that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would
enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding
solace in a book which, if
not the very word of God, would brand them as imposter's and charlatans until the end of time?
They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon."
and in reference the validity of the Book of Mormon to the honest seeker of truth he said,
"In
this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No
wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write
it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.”
10
I
testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and
thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our
times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and
the Lord
Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If
anyone
is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore
unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without
honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially
without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the
profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of
millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or
otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it
must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to
make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said
to be: “a stone of stumbling, … a rock of offence,”
11
a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. "
How can you not find your faith shaken to know Joseph Smith used a seer stone to aid in his translation of ancient records?
For me personally, if I believe that Joseph
Smith was really given records kept buried for 1300 years in a hillside
in the Eastern United States, by an angel, written by even more ancient civilizations, than how he translated them is of little consequence. (By the way I believe these things because I have read the book of Mormon and have received my own witness that it is truly the word of God.)
Here is an article about the
Seer Stone. Here is the detail that bugs a lot of people,
"In fact, historical evidence shows that in addition to the two seer
stones known as “interpreters,” Joseph Smith used at least one other
seer stone in translating the Book of Mormon, often placing it into a
hat in order to block out light. According to Joseph’s contemporaries,
he did this in order to better view the words on the stone."
As mere mortals we want physical evidence. Science teaches us to rigorously seek out evidence to support our theories. How many times in the scriptures do those with shaky faith ask for a sign? Here with Joseph Smith we have a mortal, making mistakes like everyone else, man. He was learning how to be a prophet. He had to learn how to receive revelation. Have you learned how to receive personal revelation in your own life? It takes practice, it takes humility. Sometimes it takes quiet. Sometimes it takes reading the word of God. Sometimes you can be driving down the road and have to pull over so you can write down a moment of inspiration before it fades away. Sometimes you have a moment of brilliance that only the Spirit of God can bring but then the fulfillment of the promise takes so long by mortal standards to come that you doubt and start demanding God to prove he will be true to the promise he made you. A prophet is receiving revelation for the whole world. Joseph Smith was a young man who had to be taught how to receive revelation. The scriptures are full of example of physical items that were used symbolically to perform miracles.
Moses hands held up overhead were used to beat Amulek.
Exodus 17:11
11 And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12 But Moses’ hands
were heavy; and they took a stone, and put
it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
Moses held up a staff with a serpent on it to heal his people, Numbers 21:8-9.
8 And the
Lord said unto Moses, Make
thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to
pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
9 And Moses made a serpent
of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a
serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he
lived.
A woman was healed by touching the corner of Jesus clothes.
Luke 8
43 ¶And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,
44 Came behind
him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.
Jesus used spit to heal a deaf man.
Mark 7
32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.
33 And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue;
Jesus used spittle and clay to heal a blind man, and then had him wash in the pool.
John 9
6 When
he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the
spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
And finally in Ether we read of the brother of Jared asking the lord to touch stones to provide light while crossing the waters to the promised land.
Did the spit, the staff, the cloth, Moses hands, the clay have power? Did the physical things create the miracle? No, it was the power of God that provided the miracle. He tailors his miracles to the needs of the people. Joseph Smith used a stone to translate.
I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
1 Corinithians chapter 1:
10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and
that there be no divisions among you; but
that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them
which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
No, they were not baptized to Paul, or Peter, or Joseph Smith. I see Joseph Smith as a prophet of God, but I was not baptized in his name. We are baptized in the name of Christ.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I close with an account I wrote after visiting Nauvoo.
"There were only 4 others on the tour of the jail. They were not members
of the church because one lady asked about Jon Smith. As we sat in the
upstairs room where the mob came through, the missionary couple asked if
any of us had a comment to make. Grandma talked about how she is a
convert and looked into a lot of churches before being baptized (The
Salvation Army being one of her favorites). Grandpa spoke of Joseph
Smith's last prophecy that Dan Jones would go on to serve a mission and
that those vigilantes/mob members whose hearts were ready for blood
would have more blood shed then they could stand...the interpretation of
which could lend itself to the Civil war. I decided that I wanted to
share my testimony of the prophet of the restoration of the church of
Jesus Christ. I referred to the short video we saw prior to the tour. In
it a lady approached Joseph Smith and asked if he thought he was the
savior of his people. He replied no, he was just a man. I was able to
testify, and do so again now, that member of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints do no worship Joseph Smith. We honor him, and hold
him with high and great respect, "Praise to the Man", but we do not
worship him. We honor him because of what he did, he brought the light
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ back into the world. He restored
priesthood power which gives me access to the mercy and healing power of
the Atonement. Everything Joseph Smith did pointed back to the Savior
of the world. That is why I say "Praise to that man"."
