By Jack H. West, 1954.
Now the boy Prophet had his answer, and the statement came to him, you recall, that if he were faithful, he would be the instrument in the hands of God in restoring the true gospel to the earth.
Following the unparalleled experience, the young man waited for over three years for further divine instruction, and it seemed like an eternity to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Possibly mankind has forgotten the ratio of time with man as against time with God. Remember, one day with God is the time of one rotation of Kolob (the closest planet to the habitation of God) on its axis, which is equal to one thousand years in the timing of men. I took the trouble to break this down mathematically once and found that one of our years is equal to roughly a minute and a half with God. So God had kept Joseph waiting three times one and a half, or less than five minutes, and yet to his young man it seemed like an eternity.
The first vision, you recall, took place in the spring of 1820, so on the 21st of September, 1823, with real anxiousness, Joseph Smith went to his bedroom, and there he prayed with all the fervor in him to see whether there was something wrong with him that he had heard no more from heaven. Then he received a marvelous manifestation. A personage appeared to him.
Again in a shaft of brilliant light* that came through the ceiling of his bedroom.
[Note the personal testimony of Joseph Smith and the descriptive details in his testimony. If you ever get into legal trouble, you just hope and pray that you have witnesses on your side as good as this young man was. Joseph the Prophet never changed his story. Through thick and thin he continued to maintain these things, marvelous, things, yet in a straightforward simple manner.]
…I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.
He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant. His hands were naked, and his arms also, a little above the wrist; so, also, were his feet naked, as were his legs, a little above the ankles. His head and neck were also bare. I could discover that he had no other clothing on but this robe, as it was open, so that I could see into his bosom.
…his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightening. The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around his person. When I first looked upon him, I was afraid; but the fear soon left me.
He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.
He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fullness [now this is important] of the everlasting gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants [of this, the American continent]; (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith 2:30-34.)
Many other important instructions were given Joseph Smith at this time. Three times during this night of September 21, 1823, this same vision burst upon him. Each time the identical words which were used in the first session were given, but in the second and third sessions, additional instructions were given. Joseph testified that as the third vision ended, he looked out of his window, and it was becoming daylight as the visions had taken the entire night of the 21st of September, 1823.
When he went to work in the fields the next morning, his father noticed he was pale and apparently not feeling well. He said to him, “Joseph, go back to the house and rest a while, and when you feel better come back.”
Joseph left with the intent to go home, but when he attempted to cross the fence to leave the field, he fell helpless to the ground. At this time, in broad daylight, and for the fourth time now, the Angel Moroni visited him. He repeated everything given to him in the first session the night before. God has long since learned the lesson of repetition. By now Joseph Smith could almost repeat verbatim the words of the Angel Moroni, the message of God to him.
Additional instructions were given in this fourth vision. He was to go to the hill that he had seen in his vision, and there he was to go to the particular spot which he had also seen in that vision. This is rather amazing. He did go, immediately recognized the hill from his vision, and walked right to the spot that he had particularly seen in the vision. He tells how he was impressed to dig around what appeared to be a boulder. He found that what had been originally a boulder had been cut by someone so that now it was flat on the bottom, rounded on the top, and came to sharp edges all the way around the outside. He tried to lift it but couldn’t. With the help of a lever he found close by, he raised this stone and found it formed the lid of a stone box. Again note the descriptive detail: Two long stones formed the bottom, and the stones were cemented together by some sort of mortar. In the bottom of the box, lying crossways, were two other stones upon which were placed the golden records and the Urim and Thummim and other things. Joseph reached down to get the plates, but immediately, the Angel Moroni appeared. He told the young Prophet that the time for bringing these records forth had not yet arrived. Moroni told Joseph to come to that hill and meet him on the 22nd of September each of the next four years. Joseph testified that he did this, and each year he received more help from the angel.
Here is the case of a man who was not educated as to the things of the world but who was perhaps the best educated man as to the things of God ever to live in his day; he was taught and tutored by angels and many messengers of God.
*I wish I were about fifty years younger and could start out studying this business of the brilliant shaft of light as a possible means of securing power. Later revelations to Joseph Smith, you remember, told him that the very power of God was based on daylight—yes, that light that is reflected from God, from planet to planet to planet, finally to our sun, and then to the earth. Every time these messengers appeared to him, apparently, they appeared either in these shafts of white light brilliant beyond the brightness of the noonday sun, or in a cloud of brilliant white light.
http://youtu.be/dZDaHTuKrU8
Recent Comments