Mormon Musings

Sometimes this deep infusion of Christ into modern revelation [i.e., including through the Book of Mormon] does not achieve its purpose in people’s lives. Some people’s faith is based more on Joseph Smith than on Jesus Christ. When they begin to question the Prophet, they lose faith in the Savior. We all know of Latter-day Saints whose faith is shaken by new facts, such as the existence of the alternate accounts of the First Vision which I have talked about today. When this new information builds up, they grow concerned. Could it all be wrong? Their consternation goes so far that they consider leaving the church, painful as that would be.  For a long time, I would try to answer their specific questions, try to persuade them there was another way of understanding the facts that were bothering them. I reminded them that people like me and many other informed Latter-day Saints are aware of all the disruptive information and still believe in Joseph Smith. We would talk for hours, but nothi

How can we become the men and women--the Christlike servants--the Lord needs us to be?  How can we find answers to questions that perplex us? If Joseph Smith's transcendent experience in the Sacred Grove teaches us anything, it is that the heavens are open and that God speaks to His children.   The Prophet Joseph Smith set a pattern for us to follow in resolving our questions.  Drawn to the promise of James that if we lack wisdom we may ask of God, the boy Joseph took his question directly to Heavenly Father.  He sought personal revelation, and his seeking opened this last dispensation. In like manner, what will your seeking open for you?  What wisdom do you lack? What do you feel an urgent need to know or understand? Follow the example of the Prophet Joseph.  Find a quiet place where you can regularly go.  Humble yourself before God.  Pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father.  Turn to Him for answers and for comfort.   President Russell M. Nelson

From what we can draw from the Scriptures relative to the teaching of heaven, we are induced to think that much instruction has been given to man since the beginning which we do not possess now...We have what we have, and the Bible contains what it does contain: but to say that God never said anything more to man than is recorded, would be saying at once that we have at last received a revelation: for it must require one to advance thus far, because it is nowhere said in that volume by the mouth of God that He would not, after giving what is there contained, speak again; and if any man has found out for a fact that the Bible contains all that God ever revealed to man, he has ascertained it by an immediate revelation. Joseph Smith, Letter to The Church March 1834 

"When His commandments teach us, it is in view of eternity; for we are looked upon by God as though we were in eternity; God dwells in eternity, and does not view things as we do.”  Joseph Smith

Search the Scriptures and ask your Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, to manifest the truth unto you;...you will then know for yourselves and not for another.  You will not then be dependent on man for the knowledge of God; nor will there by any room for speculation.  Joseph Smith

  "God gave to mankind through a young man, Joseph Smith, the ultimate and immense truths of the gospel in this, the last dispensation. This young man who had no social status to protect, no private theology already worked out for God to endorse, and who had loving and listening parents, could report that theophany honestly and cling tenaciously to the truth of that first vision in the midst of great persecution. A sophisticated man who had community status to protect and his own ideas about what kind of religion the world needed—even though a good man—would have been sorely tempted to have traded off truth for the praise of the world. Paul reminded us that "the friendship of the world is enmity with God. . . ." (James 4:4.) Could any but a humble non-linguist have gone to the Hill Cumorah and, under the direction of an angel, be shown ancient records and be told, so boldly, that he, personally, would be the unlettered instrument in translating these for the benefit of a

I resonate to so much of what President John Taylor wrote about the Prophet Joseph Smith. Elder Taylor possessed great intellect and an unusual command of the English language. He also had extensive personal contact with the Prophet. He wrote: I testify that I was acquainted with Joseph Smith for years. I have traveled with him; I have been with him in private and in public; I have associated with him in councils of all kinds; I have listened hundreds of times to his public teachings, and his advice to his friends and associates of a more private nature. I have been at his house and seen his deportment in his family. I have seen him arraigned before the tribunals of his country, and have seen him honorably acquitted, and delivered from the pernicious breath of slander, and the machinations and falsehoods of wicked and corrupt men. I was with him living, and with him when he died, when he was murdered in Carthage jail by a ruthless mob . . . with their faces painted. I was there and was

"There is NEVER a time when the spirit is too old to approach God.  All are within the reach of pardoning mercy, who have not committed the unpardonable sin".   Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith p. 191 (emphasis added); as quoted by President Boyd K. Packer in October 1995 General Conference

“The devil flatters us that we are very righteous, while we are feeding on the faults of others…if you would have God have mercy on you,  have mercy on one another. ”  – Joseph Smith

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/is-it-possible-that-a-single-author-wrote-the-book-of-mormon

Shortly after the Prophet Joseph Smith’s death, Brigham Young told of a dream in which Joseph visited and instructed him: “Joseph stepped toward us, and looking very earnestly, yet pleasantly, said: ‘Tell the people to be humble and faithful, and be sure to keep the spirit of the Lord and it will lead them right. Be careful and not turn away the small still voice; it will teach them what to do and where to go; it will yield the fruits of the Kingdom. … Tell the brethren that if they will follow the spirit of the Lord, they will go right’” (JH). https://www.lds.org/manual/ teachings-brigham-young/ chapter-6?lang=eng

“ It is by words … [that] every being works when he works by faith.  God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’ Joshua spake, and the great lights which God had created stood still. Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain. … All this was done by faith. …  Faith, then, works by words; and with [words] its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed. ” Joseph Smith Lectures on Faith  (1985), 72–73; emphasis added.

All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not. The devil has no power over us only as we permit him; the moment we revolt at anything which comes from God, the devil takes power. --Joseph Smith

"Whatever God commands is right,...although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire." Joseph Smith Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith

15  So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging.   17  Now the  Lord  had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish  a three  days and three nights. Jonah 1:15, 17 Consider what this incident from the life of Jonah teaches us about the Lord, about His omniscience and His power to accomplish His purposes.  The great fish that swallowed Jonah would have been "prepared" many, many years previously by the Lord, whether through His use of evolution, genetics, etc. or otherwise.  In other words, we may safely assume that this fish was NOT just magically "poofed" out of nowhere just prior to its appearance in the water at the moment it swallowed Jonah.  Rather, it was born and grew to maturity, over the course of many years... In addition, consider the fact that this "great fish" was in the exact place and at exactly the right time to be able to swallow Jonah, save Jon

The scriptures are our Father in Heaven’s letters; only He knows more than I did as a father what you and I would need.  There are times in our lives when we need to open the letter and communicate with our Father in Heaven, and understand what He is like and His concern for us.  I would like to share this morning, with you, four letters from my Father in Heaven that have been very important to me—that I hope will be indicative of the power that the scriptures can be for us as we face different trials and challenges of our lives.  The first letter is called "The Fourth Watch." That letter comes from the sixth chapter of Mark.  The Savior has fed the five thousand that day, and in the late afternoon, early evening, He is sending his apostles down into the ship. He will dismiss the multitude. He wishes to pray that evening, and then He will meet the apostles a little later on the shore and they are to pick Him up.  In late afternoon, early evening, the apostles get on the sh

Amazing talk about the nature of God, answers to prayer, adversity, etc.: https://devotionalarchive.byuh.edu/node/332.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR2xdzkEIQk&feature=youtu.be Bread or Stones: Understanding the God We Pray to Devotional Talk Given at  Brigham Young University-Hawaii  March 31, 2009 S. Michael Wilcox  Religion Instructor & Author CES Institute of Religion A number of years ago when my daughter was about your age, she was just out of high school, she went to one semester at BYU and then she got an opportunity to go to the Soviet Union (former Soviet Union) and teach English in Russia. Now this was before e-mail and cell phones, and communications between the United States and the Soviet Union were not going to be really good. She was eighteen; we were a little bit worried that there might be moments or times when she would need to talk with a parent, and not be able to because of communication difficulties.  So I decided that I would write her a series

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/safety-for-the-soul?lang=eng

“God has given certain laws to the human family, which, if observed, are sufficient to prepare them to inherit [His celestial] rest.  This, then, we conclude, was the purpose of God in giving His laws to us: if not, why, or for what were they given?  If the whole family of man were as well off without them as they might be with them, for what purpose or intent were they ever given?” Joseph Smith - Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith , 54