JOSEPH, THE PIONEER OF OUR FAITH

 

Imagine you were called into your Bishop’s office and he said he had a brand- new calling that he feels God wants only you to fill. He tells you there will be members in your ward who will oppose you every step of the way, call you a fraud and even attempt to kill you for it. Would you accept?

This is Joseph, the Prophet of this Dispensation. He was called by God for our generation to have God’s word through him only and in no other way (D&C 5:10; see also “Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie [1989] p 19). In other words, a brand-new calling.

I am often amazed at the sheer magnitude of the responsibility Joseph had in restoring the Saviour’s Church. Not so much the work involved or even the persecution of the unbelievers, as great as that was, but the opposition which he had to deal with within the Church.  

When you consider that most of the early converts came from Christian backgrounds where they were no doubt indoctrinated in the concept that revelation from heaven has ceased, it is no surprise to me then that his death originated from within the Church. I don’t know how he withstood one betrayal after another, none of which prospered against him:

“In early 1844, a group of apostates in Nauvoo, Illinois, declared the Prophet Joseph Smith to be a fallen prophet and tried to start a rival church. Some even held secret meetings, during which they plotted to kill him. (See Glen L. Leonard, “Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise” [2002], 357-62.

There has been opposition to Joseph’s calling as the prophet of this Dispensation from the commencement of the Church to today. The Lord’s prophecy that ‘the ends of the earth shall inquire after his name and fools shall have him in derision’ (D&C 122:1) has truly been fulfilled. Joseph’s name has been slandered over and over. He has been called a gold digger, a fraud, a false prophet and a tool of Satan.

Joseph was also told in Liberty Jail that hell shall rage against him (D&C 122:1). There is only one person who is in charge of hell. Joseph was on Satan’s radar right from the beginning when he tried to silence him in the Grove (JSH 1:15): “It seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom else why should the powers of darkness combine against me?” (JST 1:20) And combine they did.

There is another who was called to a brand-new calling that would lead to His death. A greater disturber of Satan’s kingdom than Joseph. One of the accusations by the Sanhedrin that led to Jesus’ death was their claim that He too was a tool of Satan by whom He performed His miracles (Matthew 12:24-27).

We too are annoyers and disturbers of Satan’s kingdom. As the saints of this the last Dispensation we have ‘a labour to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness….” (Moroni 9:6). The greatest calling of all…..and not for the faint hearted.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Joseph by Brent Borup)

LESSON FROM LIBERTY JAIL #3

 

LESSON FROM LIBERTY JAIL #3:

Remain Calm, Patient, Charitable, and Forgiving-

“It has always been a wonderful testimony to me of the Prophet Joseph’s greatness and the greatness of all of our prophets, including and especially the Saviour of the world in His magnificence, that in the midst of such distress and difficulty they could remain calm and patient, charitable, and forgiving – that they could even talk that way, let alone live that way. But they could and they did.

“The Spirit has a near-impossible task to get through to a heart that is filled with hate or anger or vengeance or self-pity. Those are all antithetical to the Spirit of the Lord. On the other hand, the Spirit finds instant access to a heart striving to be charitable and forgiving, long-suffering and kind – principles of true discipleship.”

-          Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lessons From Liberty Jail”, BYU Speeches, 7 Sept 208

 

You stood in the vista of my heart

Granting me the wider view.

My eyes were opened

And I understood the meaning of You.

You came to this plane of sorrow

Your footsteps to pave the trail

To make all things anew;

I follow, I follow

To one day become like You.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Peace of God by Yongsung Kim)

LESSON FROM LIBERTY JAIL #2

 

Even the Worthy Will Suffer –

 “When we promise to follow the Saviour, to walk in His footsteps and be His disciples, we are promising to go where that divine path leads us. And the path of salvation has always led one way or another through Gethsemane.

“So if the Saviour faced injustices and discouragements, persecutions, unrighteousness, and suffering, we cannot expect that we are not going to face some of that if we still intend to call ourselves His true disciples and faithful followers. And it certainly underscores the fact that the righteous – in the Saviour’s case, the personification of righteousness – can be totally worthy before God and still suffer.”

-          Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lessons From Liberty Jail”, BYU Speeches, 7 Sept 2008

 

I was tempted my burdens

To lay to Your charge;

I considered them acutely unfair.

Then you opened my heart

And showed me Your godly task,

Beyond human capacity to bear.

 

Knowing where you had gone

I would never have to go,

I sorrowed and sought

My arrogance to bury;

In humility I assent,

Your mortal burden,

So valiant, so holy,

I would never in this life

Have to carry.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Gethsemane by Danny Hahlbohm)

LESSON FROM LIBERTY JAIL #1

 

Everyone Faces Trying Times -

“The righteous will be called upon to face trying times. When that happens we can sometimes fear God has abandoned us. When suffering, we may in fact be nearer to God than we’ve ever been in our entire lives. When what has to be has been and when what lessons to be learned have been learned, it will be for us as it was for the Prophet Joseph. Just at the time he felt most alone and distant from heaven’s ear was the very time he received the wonderful ministration of the Spirit and wonderful, glorious answers that came from His Father in Heaven.

“Even though seemingly unjust circumstances may be heaped upon us and even though unkind and unmerited things may be done to us – perhaps by those we consider enemies but also, in some cases, by those whom we thought were friends – nevertheless, through it all, God is with us.”

-          Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lessons From Liberty Jail” BYU Speeches,7 Sept 2008

 

The winds of tribulation scatter my hopes

Like feathers they lift to the sky.

They find You there

ever waiting to answer my pleas;

To restore that which is lost,

To renew that which is broken.

I stand amazed at Your love, Your care:

Your everlasting token.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Comforted by Lester Yocum)

TO LOVE

 

“While we should oppose evil, the Lord has directed the Saints to show love for enemies of the Church. President Spencer W. Kimball closed a conference talk with this plea:

“Brothers and sister, pray for the critics of the Church; love your enemies. Keep the faith and stay on the straight and narrow path. Use wisdom and judgment in what you say and do, so that we do not give cause to others to hold the Church or its people in disrepute….This work, which Satan seeks in vain to tear down, is that which God has placed on earth to lift mankind up!” (In Conference Report, April 1980, p 6; or Ensign May 1980, p 6; D&C Student Manual p 303, commentary for 123:11-14)”

I do not know of anyone in our dispensation who has had cause to hate his enemies more than Joseph Smith. We all know the horrors of Liberty Jail yet in his letter to the saints from this diabolic establishment, Joseph wrote of the duty of the saints, not to hate in response to the persecutions they suffered, but to uphold the truth for the sake of those who do not have it (D&C 123:12,17):

“Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven – these should then be attended to with great earnestness…..Therefore, early beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God….”

In October 1976, President Spencer W. Kimball advised the membership of the Church that Governor Christopher S. Bond of the state of Missouri had rescinded the 138-year-old old executive order of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs calling for the extermination or expulsion of the Mormons from the state of Missouri. By the year 2001 there was a temple in St. Louis and over 50,000 members of the Church in Missouri.

Would this have been possible if the saints had retaliated and the Church made the state of Missouri their enemy for 138 years? I think not. What was accomplished was done by the example of the members of the Church who lived their religion in peace despite the past.

I think of the greatest example of forgiveness and love toward His enemies and the undeserving…. Would there be Christianity today if the Saviour had left a legacy of hate and war and retaliation. Would a Gospel of love ever been known in the world? Would salvation have been possible at all? Joseph learnt and understood well…..

We, as members of Christ’s Church, carry the banner of brotherhood and Christian ethos. This is us: “And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few…and I Nephi beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended upon the saints of the Church of the Lamb and upon the covenant people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory.”  (1 Nephi 14:12-14)

And this is our mandate: "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." (Matthew 5:44)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Behold the Man by Christopher Young)

ETERNAL REWARD

 

“Sometimes the tests and trials of those who have received the gospel far exceed any imposed upon worldly people…..sometimes the Lord’s people are hounded and persecuted. Sometimes He deliberately lets His faithful saints linger and suffer, in both body and spirit, to prove….that they may be found worthy of eternal life.

“But come what may, anything that befalls us here in mortality is but for a small moment, and if we are true and faithful God will eventually exalt us on high. All our losses and sufferings will be made up to us in the resurrection.” (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, In CR October 1976 or Ensign Nov 1976)

I believe in this promise because some years ago I had a memory from my pre-mortal existence where the Saviour was saying to me: “I will save you and I will make up for everything.” I believed it back then and I believe it now because a God cannot lie.

Section 58 of the Doctrine and Covenants begins with such a promise. It tells us that we cannot ‘behold with our natural eyes the design of our God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation’ (v 3).

I know of no one in this dispensation who has suffered more tribulation than Joseph, the Prophet of the Restoration. In comparison, my life is a breeze compared to his. The endurance and faithfulness of this man, despite the jaws of hell that were at his heels is beyond reproach. You would think that he would have been spared the hell he went through in his life considering he was on God’s errand.

Joseph spent the winter of 1838-39 in Liberty Jail where ‘his soul was bowed down and his nerve trembled from long confinement and where pen, or tongue, or angels, could not adequately describe the malice of hell that he suffered there during the coldest winter on record in the state of Missouri’ (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lessons from Liberty Jail”, speeches.byu.edu)

“Every one of us, in one way or another…..is going to spend a little time in Liberty Jail – spiritually speaking. We will face things we do not want to face for reasons that may not have been our fault. Indeed, we may face difficult circumstances for reasons that were absolutely right and proper, reasons that came because we were trying to keep the commandments of the Lord.”  (ibid)

I don’t remember what godhood or the mansions on high look like so I am not particularly keeping that in mind. What I am looking forward to is the fulfilment of the promise spoken of by Elder Bruce C. Hafen who has said that “the deep hurt we have experienced here is the mirror image of the deep joy that still awaits us’ because of the Man of Sorrows who has born all our griefs. (The Belonging Heart, p 315). I want that for Joseph.

“When we promise to follow the Saviour, to walk in His footsteps and be His disciples, we are promising to go where that divine path leads us. And the path of salvation has always led one way or another through Gethsemane”.  (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Lessons from Liberty Jail”, speeches.byu.edu)

All those who journey, soon or late,

Must pass within the garden’s gate;

Must kneel alone in darkness there,

And battle with some fierce despair.

God pity those who cannot say:

“Not mine, but thine”; who only pray:

“Let this cup pass”, and cannot see

The purpose in Gethsemane.

- (Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artists Unknown)

IN TRIBULATION AND CAPTIVITY

 

The winter of 1838-39 would have been the crucible of Joseph Smith’s life. It was the coldest winter on record in the state of Missouri and Joseph and four other Church leaders found themselves in a hell hole of Liberty Jail ‘surrounded with demons….where they were compelled to hear nothing but blasphemous oaths, and witness a scene of blasphemy, and drunkenness and hypocrisy, and debaucheries of every description’ (History of the Church 3:290). In his letter to Emma on 21 March 1839, Joseph told her that “pen, or tongue, or angels” could not adequately describe “the malice of hell” that he suffered there (Personal Writings, 463, 464).

Liberty Jail was an inescapable prison with four feet thick walls.  It was a two-storey establishment with a rope and a bucket as the only link between the dungeon and the upper floor. It was in this dungeon of rough bare stones for a floor, covered by a bit of loose, dirty straw that Joseph and four others spent the cruelest winter of their lives. It was also through this depth of despair that the Lord gave us three of the most valuable sections of the Doctrine and Covenants: 121, 122, 123. Out of his extreme aloneness, when he felt the furthest away from heaven’s door, Joseph received glorious answers to his most heart-wrenching petition. Into the pit of hell known as Liberty Jail, where he knew not how long he would languish, came the most loving voice of God, addressing him in the most tender manner, as someone who knew the very depths of his soul: “My son, peace be unto thy soul…..” (D&C 121:7-8).

I wonder if Joseph ever reflected on another servant of God with a similar experience of tribulation in captivity, the man whose very experience he translated from the gold plates. Alma, and his convert and missionary companion, Amulek, found themselves in captivity in the most wicked city where they sat in a dungeon naked, suffering hunger, thirst, and physical abuse by their captors (Alma 14:18-23)….and having witnessed the catastrophe of Ammonihah in which the wives and children of the newly fresh converts were consumed by fire (Alma 14:8). Being constrained by the Spirit to prevent this tragedy was excruciating to Amulek who would have known these people of his city well (v 10,11). Amulek had many friends and kindreds in Ammonihah and was a rich man (Alma 10:4). He had an extensive household with wives and children (10:11). It is not clear from the record whether these children were young or grown and whether his family also perished in the fire. One thing we do know is that Amulek was left without family and possessions. Following their prison break-out, Mormon recorded that Alma took him back to Zarahemla to live with him and his family and ‘administered unto him in his tribulations, and strengthened him in the Lord’ (Alma 15:18). Amulek had undergone the most traumatic  change in his life. The painful effects of such on body and mind would have been extreme.

In the extremity of his captivity, Alma also, like Joseph, offered the most heart-wrenching petition to God when he asked: “How long shall we suffer these great afflictions, O Lord?” (Alma 14:26). One would wonder why the Lord would allow his most chosen servants to suffer so unjustly. The same for us who are striving so hard to be righteous and who inevitably come to face a crucible of our own lives. We often feel that we do not deserve it…..except there is an explanation. If we would be followers of Jesus Christ we must follow where He leads. Salvation and especially exaltation, comes at a price, and that price invariably leads to Gethsemane. If Christ himself did not suffer there, our trials and tribulations would be ever so much worse. He suffered the blow so that we wouldn’t but has given us a glorious promise through Joseph, our beloved prophet: “thy God shall be with you forever and ever” (D&C 122:4,9) and then the ultimate: “All thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, shall be revealed and set forth upon all who have endured valiantly for the gospel of Jesus Christ” (D&C 121:29).

-        CATHRYNE ALLEN

(I highly recommend the BYU talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland titled “Lessons from Liberty Jail” at speeches.byu.edu)

(ART: Replica of  Joseph Smith at Liberty Jail by Val Brinkerhoff)