Lorenzo Snow 23: The Prophet Joseph Smith

At its core, this lesson is about gaining a firm testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith, his divine calling and his role in restoring the gospel.  It gets me to thinking about the elements of a testimony.  A quick online search a few days ago brought me to a blog post about the Testimony Glove.  You all remember the Testimony Glove?  The idea is that there are 5 essential elements of a testimony, and we can remember them using the 5 fingers of our hand.  I was rather astonished to find that this blog post generated a very heated and contentious debate between the pro-Testimony Glove camp and the anti-Testimony Glove camp.  Fortunately, here in this class, we do not have to declare ourselves pro or anti Testimony Glove.  I think arguments can be made both ways, but I will declare myself in the neutral camp.  While I do think it is a little kitschy and formulaic, when I think of the Testimony Glove, I think over those 5 elements of testimony represented there, and do a little self-evaluation to see how my testimony in each of those areas is doing.  To see which are strong and thriving, and which might need a little more attention.  What are those 5 elements?:

• ·      God is their Heavenly Father
• ·      Jesus Christ is their Savior and Redeemer
• ·      Joseph Smith is a prophet of God (who restored the gospel of Christ and translated the Book of Mormon)
• ·      The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s church on earth today
• ·      The church is led by a living prophet

For me, when I go through this list, I consistently find that the weakest of the 5 elements for me is the third: Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.  Now, I’m not saying that I don’t have a testimony of the importance of Joseph Smith, only that this point is the one that I about which I have done the least studying, praying and contemplating.

If you add some of the other elements of the gospel in which Joseph Smith was instrumental, in particular translating the Book of Mormon, restoring the priesthood and restoring temples, I have a stronger testimony in those areas because I have more thought, time and experience invested in them.  However just on the Prophet Joseph Smith himself, I haven’t really put that much effort into it, and so I’m grateful for the opportunity of this lesson to look more closely at the Prophet.

I had this lesson prepared, and then a tragedy occurred that caused me to shift things all around.  The son of family friends died suddenly and unexpectedly this past week, leaving behind a devastated family, wife and newborn son. 

The bleakness and frailty of life brought home to me by this tragic death made me mindful of the beauty of the gospel truths, revealed by Christ to the Prophet Joseph Smith, that make these painful events so much easier to bear.  In particular, I thought of the words; not just words, but truths, spoken by Joseph Smith in the King Follett Sermon.

Just to give a little back ground, King Follett was a member of the church in Nauvoo.  He was a kind and faithful man who was much loved by the members.  He suffered an untimely death, which caused great sorrow and distress among those in Nauvoo.  At his funeral, Joseph Smith offered powerful words of comfort and revelation.  This is an excerpt from that sermon:

King Follett Discourse

I now call the attention of this congregation while I address you on the subject that was contemplated in the fore-part of the conference. It is a subject of the greatest importance and the most solemn of any that could occupy our attention, and that is the subject of the dead. I have been requested to speak on the subject on the decease of our beloved brother, Elder King Follett, who was crushed to death in a well. I have been requested to speak by his friends and relatives but inasmuch as there are a great many others here in this congregation who have lost friends, I feel disposed to speak on the subject in general and offer you my ideas as far as I have ability and as far as I will be inspired by the Holy Spirit to treat and dwell upon this subject.

I want your prayers, faith, the inspiration of Almighty God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost that I may set forth things that are true and that can easily be comprehended and which shall carry the testimony to your hearts. I want to ask this congregation— every man, woman, and child—to answer this question in their own heart: What kind of a being is God?  Does any man or woman know?  Have any of you seen Him, heard Him, or communed with Him? There are but very few beings in the world who understand rightly the character of God.

In order to understand the subject of the dead and to speak for the consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary to understand the character and being of God. The first principle of truth and of the Gospel is to know for a certainty the character of God, and that we may converse with Him the same as one man with another, and that He once was a man like one of us and that God Himself, the Father of us all, once dwelled on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did in the flesh and like us. If the veil were rent today and the great God that holds this world in its sphere and the planets in their orbit and who upholds all things by His power—if you were to see Him today, you would see Him in all the person, image, fashion, and very form of a man, like yourselves. For Adam was a man formed in His likeness and created in the very fashion and image of God.

Here then is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God. You have got to learn how to become Gods in order to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done—by going from a small capacity to a great capacity, from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, until the resurrection of the dead, from exaltation to exaltation—till you are able to sit in everlasting power and glory as those who have gone before, sit enthroned.

How consoling to the mourners when they are called to part with a husband, father, wife, mother child, dear relative, or friend, to know, though they lay down this body and all earthly tabernacles shall be dissolved, that their very being shall rise in immortal glory to sorrow, die, and suffer no more. And not only that, but to contemplate the saying that they will be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. To inherit and enjoy the same glory, powers, and exaltation until you ascend a throne of eternal power and arrive at the station of a God, the same as those who have gone before.

So I come to what I wish to speak of—the resurrection of the dead.  The soul—the immortal spirit—the mind of man. Where did it come from? Man existed in spirit; the mind of man—the intelligent part— is as immortal as God Himself. Intelligence is eternal.  It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it. Hence, when I talk to these mourners, what have they lost? You who mourn the loss of friends are only separated for a small moment from their spirits, and their spirits are only separated from their bodies for a short season.

The greatest responsibility that God has laid upon us in this world is to seek after our dead.  It is necessary that those who have gone before and those who come after us must be made perfect and have salvation in common with us. For it is necessary that the seals be in our hands, to seal our children and our dead for the dispensation of the fullness of times—a dispensation to meet the promises made by Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world for the salvation of man. God has made it obligatory to man and thus has He laid it upon the eaves of the world. 

What have we to console us in relation to our dead? We have reason to have the greatest hope and consolation for our dead of any people on earth. For we have aided them in the first principles. For we have seen them walk worthily on earth in our midst, and sink asleep in the arms of Jesus; and those who have died in the faith are now in the celestial kingdom of God. Hence, is the glory of the sun.

You mourners have occasion to rejoice, for your friend has gone to wait until the perfection of the reunion and the resurrection of the dead. At the resurrection of your friend in felicity, he will go to the celestial glory, while there are many who die in the world who must wait many myriads of years before they can receive the like blessings. 

Your expectation and hope is far above what man can conceive. For why has God revealed it to us? I say to you my friends, by the authority of the Holy Ghost and in the name of the Lord, that you have no occasion to fear; for he is gone to the home of the just. Don’t mourn; don’t weep. I know it by the testimony of the Holy Ghost that is within me. You may wait for your friends to come forth to meet you in eternity in the morn of the celestial world.

I have a father, brothers, children, and friends who are gone to eternity to a world of spirits soon to meet me. I bless those who have lost friends. They are only absent for a few moments and the time will soon be gone. They are in the spirit. The trump will soon be blown, and then shall we hail our mothers, fathers, friends, and all.

A question about parents receiving their children. Will mothers have their children in eternity? Yes! Yes! Mothers, you will have your children. For they will have it without price; for their debt of redemption is paid. 

As the child dies, so will it rise from the dead and be living in the burning of God and possessing all the intelligence of a God. It will never grow, it will be the child in its precise form as it was before it died out of your arms. Children dwell and exercise power, throne upon throne, dominion upon dominion, in the same form just as you laid them down. Eternity is full of thrones upon which dwell thousands of children, reigning on thrones of glory, with not one cubit added to their stature.

I have the truth and I am at the defiance of the world to contradict it.

Hear it, all ye ends of the earth: I call upon all men—priests, sinners, and all. Repent! Repent! Turn to God and obey the gospel.

I have intended my remarks to all—to all the rich and poor, bond and free, great and small. I have no enmity against any man. I love all men—I love you all. My voice is always for peace. 

I cannot lie down until my work is finished. When I am called at the trump and weighed in the balance, you will know me then. I add no more. God bless you. Amen.

Isn’t that powerful? I first heard it this past summer in Nauvoo, in a circumstance that greatly impacted me.  In addition to the pageant, the actors and others do various vignettes or shows during the week.  The actor who portrays the Prophet Joseph Smith presented the discourse one afternoon.  It was in a quiet grove, and as the actor stepped into the filtered light and began to speak, a transformation occurred, in which the character became the man for those few minutes, and testified to my heart of the Prophet and his teachings.

If we need to have a testimony of the divine calling of Joseph Smith, how do we get it?  Through reading what has been written about him by those who knew him, maybe? The Prophet Lorenzo Snow knew him well. He said:

“Perhaps there are few men now living who were so well acquainted with Joseph Smith the Prophet as I was.  I was with him oftentimes.  I visited him in his family, sat at his table, associated with him under various circumstances, and had private interviews with him for counsel.”  In addition to these private interactions, Lorenzo Snow witnessed Joseph Smith in public – in his ministry as a friend to the Saints and as the Prophet of the Restoration. 

Although President Snow was impressed by the experiences he had with Joseph Smith, his testimony of the Prophet’s mission was not based on those experiences. He repeatedly declared that he had received his testimony from the Holy Ghost. He said:

“As to [Joseph Smith] being a man of truth and honor I, nor any one else that knew him, have any reason to question for a moment. But then I never went forth to preach the principles of this Gospel depending entirely upon any information I received through him or any other man; but I believed on his words, coming as they did to me as the words of truth, from an inspired man of God. … The Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost which all men may receive and enjoy, … confirmed the truth of what he had told me, and it became knowledge to me of that nature which no man can give nor take away.

What is President Snow teaching here?

·      That we gain testimony from Spirit teaching spirit, not from observations gained through our mortal, earthly bodies.

As the Prophet Joseph stated:

All things whatsoever God in His infinite reason has seen fit and proper to reveal to us, while we are dwelling in our mortal state, in regard to our mortal bodies, are revealed to us in the abstract and independent of affinity of this mortal tabernacle.  They are revealed to our spirits precisely the same as if we had no bodies at all.

I really liked this concept, because it gives a good explanation of why we will never gain testimony through the physical act of study or observation, but only through our spiritual eyes.  The Apostles of Christ, even though they walked with him for three years, could not see who he was, because they looked with their physical eyes.  Only after receiving the Holy Ghost did Spirit testify to spirit.  In the same way, we can best increase our conviction that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God by seeking out circumstances where the Spirit can testify.

What kind of a man was Joseph?

Lorenzo Snow testifies that when Joseph Smith received his divine calling, he was a pure, sincere, honest young man. 

Not only was he young, but he was poor and uneducated, He was a mere boy, honest, full of integrity, unacquainted with the trickery, cunning and sophistry employed by politicians and religious hypocrites, to accomplish their ends. He felt incompetent and unqualified for the task, to stand forth as a religious reformer, in a position the most unpopular. But, God had called him to deliver the poor and honest-hearted of all nations from their spiritual and temporal bondage.

Regarding his Joseph’s character, President Snow said: 

I knew him to be a man of God, full of the spirit of his calling—a man whose integrity could not be disputed, and who was honest in all his endeavors. No one that was as intimately acquainted with him as I was could find any fault with him, so far as his moral character was concerned. … I bear testimony of the good character of Brother Joseph Smith, of his honesty, his fidelity, his faithfulness, his generosity, and benevolence, as a man and as a servant of God.

How where those qualities-sincerity, honesty, integrity- vital to Joseph Smith’s ability to serve successfully in his role in restoring the gospel?

One man who, upon meeting the Prophet, was impressed with his integrity, was Dan Jones.  Dan Jones was a ferry boat captain of Welsh descent who immigrated to the US around 1840.  Captain Jones noticed negative comments about the Mormons, and as he says, ““Through a careful investigation of the accusations I perceived clearly that it was impossible for them to be true, either because in their zeal they overstated the case or because they contradicted themselves in some way.”  After some time of study, and inner conflict, Dan Jones became converted to the gospel.  Finally, in 1843, he docked at Nauvoo with a load of converts who had emigrated from Great Britain.  According to written accounts, “Eager to become personally acquainted with Joseph Smith, Captain Dan ran his eyes over the crowd at the dock. No one, however, fit his notion of what a prophet was to be like—a man wearing a goat skin, having “a long beard and long, white hair … with a high and retiring gaze, murmuring quite a lot and very saintly.” Even after a “large, comely man” approached him on the boat and said, “God bless you, brother” while shaking his hand kindly, Brother Jones failed to recognize the person whom he sought. Only when Joseph Smith returned a second time did the captain realize that he needed to look no further. After studying him for a while, Brother Jones reformulated his concept of what a prophet should be like. Four years later he wrote: “His fair countenance and his cheerful, guileless face rather convinced me that he was not the cunning and deceitful man I had heard about.”

As stated earlier, Joseph Smith was a poor, uneducated boy at the time of the first vision, but through the continual guidance of the Holy Ghost, he gradually increased in spiritual power and knowledge.

President Snow relates:

Toward the latter part of his life Joseph Smith became a master of strength and influence over his fellows. The Prophet had the power to impress in a remarkable manner all who approached him. There was something about him that went to their hearts. This was particularly the case with brethren when receiving from him their appointments to go forth and preach the Gospel. They loved him, and believed in him, and were ready to do whatever he directed for the furtherance of the work of God. He filled them with the power of his presence, and thrilled them with the testimony of his prophetic mission. There are many people in the world who possess an extraordinary spirit of friendship and warmth that everyone feels who meets them. I have met many such men, but never yet have I met another person in whose company I felt the peculiar and powerful influence that I felt while in the presence of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was due to the great portion of the Spirit of God that he possessed, merely the shake of his hand would cause a person to become filled with this influence, and any sensitive nature would know that he was shaking the hand of an extraordinary person.

Although obviously I don’t not know this from first hand experience, my impression and opinion is that the effect described above was not due to the personal charisma of the Prophet, such as an expert politician or orator would have, but because of the power of the truthfulness of his words.  Even today, when we hear someone testify of the Prophet or relate his words with conviction, we can often feel that same powerful influence fall over us. 

Has anyone ever had an experience with that?

I know that for me, and probably for most of you, I have that experience each time I hear, or read or watch the account of the First Vision.  As we seek to gain a testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the gospel was restored through him, the most important first step is to specifically seek and ask for a testimony of the First Vision. 

We have been counseled by prophets and apostles to gain a direct witness of this event.  Why?

·      Everything hinges on this pivotal account.

The greatest event that has ever occurred in the world, since the resurrection of the Son of God from the tomb and his ascension on high, was the coming of the Father and of the Son to that boy Joseph Smith…having accepted this truth, I find it easy to accept of every other truth that Joseph Smith declared.  (Joseph F. Smith)

You should always bear testimony to the truth of the First Vision.  Joseph Smith did see the Father and the Son.  They conversed with him as he said they did.  (Ezra Taft Benson)

President Lorenzo Snow said:

In the integrity of my heart, with honesty of purpose to know the truth, I received [Joseph Smith’s] message—I obeyed this form of doctrine, and I received, in the most tangible and satisfactory manner, a divine manifestation—the promised blessing—a knowledge of this work. Am I the only witness? How is it with the experience of thousands whom I now address? Are you also witnesses?

Would anyone like to add your witness? 

I would like to add mine.  I know that the events described by Joseph Smith did in fact happen as he said. He was a true and living prophet, foretold from antiquity.  He did in fact see the Father and the Son. I testify that Joseph Smith was sent of God, and that he did establish this work in the name of the Son.  I testify that he sealed his testimony with his blood as a martyr because, and did so because, knowing it was true he could not deny it even to save his own life.  In the Nauvoo pageant, the martyrdom is narrated as the audience watches Joseph and Hyrum stand in determination, never fearing, and then march in glory from the stage.  Watching them exit, my heart burned with the knowledge that they were received into heaven in glory.

Sisters, at the start of this lesson, I we discussed some of the elements that are essential to a testimony.   Having a sure testimony of Joseph Smith is not one we can afford to overlook. It is the pivotal link to so many other aspects of the restored gospel.   I would like to close with my testimony to you of the second of those elements, Jesus Christ.

This gospel and in particular my Savior, are so precious to me.  Not just at this time of year, but continually, my faith and trust in Christ is foundational to all the desires of my heart.  At certain times such as Christmas and Easter, when I take the time to focus on them, they are tender and close to the surface.

To think that God himself came down among men. “And he said unto me, knowest thou the condescension of God?” “And I said unto him, I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.”  When I was younger, I felt like I needed to understand everything, to know everything.  But what has become central to my faith is just that—“I know that he loveth his children.”  I know that God loves me, as does His Son. 

The story of Christmas, of Christ’s birth is not just a story.  It gives reason and meaning to life for all of us.  Christ is truly the Son of God, only begotten in the flesh, who chose, condescended, to take on the form and limitations of mortality to walk among men; to teach, to lead and to set in place all those elements necessary that we can return to him through his grace.  And for the one reason: because he loves us.  He loves me infinitely.  He loves YOU unconditionally and boundlessly.  I love my Father and Christ deeply and rely on that faith each day of my life. 

Who is Christ to me?  The Creator of this beautiful world that I love so much.  A gentle Counselor who teaches me when my heart is unwilling to follow.  Love and Forgiveness without end when I fall short.  My precious Savior and Redeemer.  I love Him.  I believe in Him and I believe Him.  I will always do my best to follow him.