A SUFFERING SERVANT

 

"Oh God Where Art Thou" by Paul Marli - LDS ART

Chapters 52 and 53 of Isaiah contain the greatest Messianic prophecy identifying the Messiah as ‘the Suffering Servant’. This was the Saviour’s role in His mortal life. This prophecy is also dualistic in nature, meaning it speaks of two men in very similar roles.

In this prophecy Isaiah says the Saviour’s visage was “marred more than any man”. This is a reference to His crucifixion and suffering on Calvary when He atoned for the sins of the world (Isaiah 52:14).

When visiting the Nephites, the Saviour Himself made it clear that there shall be another servant in the latter days who shall accomplish ‘a great and marvelous work’. Even though there will be many who will not believe him, the Saviour said this servant shall be ‘marred’ because of them and be persecuted throughout his life until they succeed in killing him. This latter-day servant is Joseph Smith. (3 Nephi 21:9,10; Old Testament Student Manual, commentary for Isaiah 52:13-15).

I am amazed at how similar Joseph’s earthly life was to that of the Saviour’s. Like many other prophets, he was the prototype of Christ. When Joseph cried out in misery to God whilst in Liberty jail, the Lord told him that hell shall rage against him (D&C 122:1-2). This truly proved to be true.

Right from the beginning Joseph was aware that he was destined to be “a disturber and an annoyer of Satan’s kingdom” (JSH 1:20). Two years prior to his death he said that ‘envy and wrath of man have been his common lot all the days of his life and that ‘deep water was what he was wont to swim in, which had become second nature to him’ (D&C 127:2). That is a description of one hard life….

This is how he saw himself:

“I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain, and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft, lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, and the authority of perjured executives, backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women – all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there” (Teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith, p 304).

Not only did Joseph have to contend with the unbelievers but he often had to struggle with opposition within the Church: “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).

I am certain that Joseph felt it was all worth it when the Saviour sealed upon him his exaltation a year prior to his death:

“For I am the Lord thy God and will be with thee even unto the end of the world, and through all eternity, for verily I seal upon you your exaltation, and prepare a throne for you in the kingdom of my Father…..Behold, I have seen your sacrifices, and will forgive all your sins….”  (D&C 132:49,50)

A mission achieved, a life well endured……I wonder how many of his critics would be willing to live a life like his. 

 

You stood so resolute and willing

In the councils of heaven,

Knowing the jaws of hell

Would open at the mention of your name.

 

Still, you knelt in the sacred grove

And uttered the words of faith.

You honoured your promise

To restore the truth

And you opened the heaven’s gate.

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN  

JOSEPH THE MAN

 

Joseph Smith once described himself as ‘a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing he got was when some corner got rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft, lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, and the authority of perjured executives, backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women – all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there……..

Thus, he said:  I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.”   (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p 304)

Persecuted from the age of 14, tarred and feathered, imprisoned, suffering personal tragedy and loss and betrayed by friends certainly made Joseph a polished arrow shaft in God’s quiver.

An arrow shaft is generally polished so that it can fly truer and faster for one’s most important shot. For God’s most important shot, being this last dispensation, He truly did use His most polished arrow shaft, the man Joseph Smith, who willingly rolled down the mountain…….

But what of the woman behind the man? Joseph could never have accomplished God’s purpose for him by the age of 38 had he not had a wife of equal spiritual stature as himself. Perhaps out of all the love tragedies, there is not one greater than that of Joseph and Emma Smith.

Joseph and Emma shared an unbreakable bond of faith. I am certain Emma was foreordained to share in the work that Joseph accomplished as the prophet of the Restoration. She trusted God and joined Joseph in the work despite all odds.

The differences between them were startling: she was rich, he was poor, she was well-educated and he was a farm boy with questionable sanity because of his claims. Her parents were opposed to the marriage but Emma was a woman of faith who made her choice which led her to great tragedy.

Emma was Joseph’s partner in every way. She was with him when he received the gold plates. She was his first scribe and she was deeply invested in their protection. The difficulties she suffered in her life with Joseph are too lengthy to list here. Her greatest tragedy is that she had 11 children, six of which died in infancy. All this by the age of 39 when she became a widow with five children.

When Parley P. Pratt visited Emma, 'a woman of commitment in sorrow', in Nauvoo where she remained after the saints travelled west, she told him 'I believe Joseph was everything he professed to be'.

Emma lived almost 35 years after the martyrdom of her prophet-husband. A few days before she died she told her nurse, Elizabeth Revel, that Joseph had come to her in a vision and said: "'Emma, come with me, it is time for you to come with me'.

As Emma related it, she said, 'I put on my bonnet and my shawl and went with him; I did not think that it was anything unusual. I went with him into a mansion, and he showed me through the different apartments of that beautiful mansion'. And one room was the nursery.

In that nursery was a babe in the cradle. She said, 'I knew my babe, my Don Carlos that was taken from me'. She sprang forward, caught the child up in her arms and wept with joy over the child. When Emma recovered herself sufficiently, she turned to Joseph and said, 'Joseph, where are the rest of my children?'

He said to her, 'Emma, be patient and you shall have all of your children'. Then she saw standing by his side a personage of light, even the Lord Jesus Christ." (Gracia N. Jones, My Great-Great-Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith, Ensign Aug 1992)

In my mind, Joseph was only half a polished shaft in the quiver of our God. The other half was Emma.

“Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord”

-        1 Corinthians 11:11

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: But For A Small Moment by Liz Lemon Swindle)

HEAVEN'S VOICE

 

 

Since God loves all His children and wants them all saved, the very first chapter of the Doctrine and Covenants indicates that this book of scripture is a voice of warning to the entire inhabitants of the earth, that God will not be mocked and judgment awaits us all.

The major theme of this book is to prepare for that judgment. The word ‘prepare’ is mentioned over 90 times throughout this book of scripture.  

The message to the world is this:

1.      In this day and age where people at large, even in most corners of Christendom, believe that revelation has ceased, the Lord has parted the heavens once again and continues to commune with humanity. In verse 30, the Lord describes His Church as ‘the only true and living Church’. The Church has a life, because it has living prophets to administer to it through revelation. It does not operate on dead doctrine.

2.      It is an offer of sanctuary to anyone who will come out of the world, repent and enter into the covenants of salvation. Doctrine and Covenants basically says this to the world: I will return; these are the signs of my return; if you will repent and come into my kingdom and make covenants with me, they will lead you to salvation and life eternal. If not, you will reap the rewards of your deeds. The warnings and promises are the same for Church members.

It is amazing to me that a book which contains such strong warnings for our day and contains such important doctrine is judged and rejected so readily, and for one reason: it encompasses the history of the Church. This is a thorn in the flesh of non-members and inactive members alike.

When I was doing my University degree, I studied a lot of history subjects. One of my history professors told us one day to be careful about judging history. He said even though history is factual it is in reality subjective because it is written by humans from humans’ perspective.

Very often we tend to judge people and past events by today’s standards and we readily disparage those who are dead because they are not here to defend themselves. We have no idea what it was like to live 1,000 or even 100 years ago.

We don’t understand the cultural differences, limitations and difficulties people lived with and what impact that all had on their mentality and understanding of the human experience, just as they could not relate to the liberties and privileges of our society today.

When it comes to the Church, we cannot understand the cultural, religious or socio-economic impact of the 1800s on the society of its day.

We cannot relate to being tarred and feathered today where human rights are the rule of the day. We cannot relate to pushing a cart across our continent and leaving our dead children in the frozen ground along the way in a day where airplanes, trains and cars take us wherever we want to go. We cannot relate to not having supermarkets full of food and having to till the ground for our survival.

We do not know what went on in the hearts and minds of people who went before us. We only know what others could see of them and write about them. That’s history. Highly subjective. When I think of Joseph and all he went through from the age of 14 and now see what is written about him, it makes me want to weep.

Imagine the disbelief, the mockery, the aversion towards Joseph when he dared to tell others of his experience. God had parted the heavens and chose him to speak to! Not a professor, not a doctor, not anyone educated and on the pillar of society, but just a man, a humble man, a teachable man, a willing man. “Fools mock, but they shall mourn……” (Ether 12:26)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Joseph Smith at Saviour's Feet by Liz Lemon Swindle)

THE PROPHET OF THE RESTORATION

 

When I went searching for the truth at the ripe old age of 16, I read a lot about the Church.  By the time I sought to be baptised, there was nothing much the missionaries could teach me. I knew all about Joseph Smith and accepted his prophetic calling without question. My real testimony of him, however, came 30 years later when I was working towards my University degree. I decided I would do a history assignment on the Church. This time I read much more about Joseph, as so much more was available online. What I read, however, were things written by the so called ‘intellectuals.

Joseph was told by Moroni, when only a teenager, that his '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' (JHS 1:33). The research for my assignment took me down the path that made me sorrow and shed tears. In the end I had to bend my knees and ask the Lord to help me understand the man Joseph Smith. What happened is not something I expected. I don’t know how it COULD happen but it did. During the course of my prayer, I was ‘shown’ Joseph Smith’s heart. I understood that all he did during his prophetic calling was done out of the goodness that lay there. As this understanding flooded over me I could not contain my tears and came to appreciate the great sacrifices he made in fulfilling his earthly purpose. I came to know and understand him in the spiritual sense and my testimony of him became iron clad.

It is my belief that we need to tread lightly when we delve into the past. I heard one of my University professors say once that history is very much subjective. Even though it is supposed to be cold hard facts, they are recorded from someone's perspective, a human perspective. We of this century cannot fully understand the mentality, the challenges and the pattern of how things worked in times past. Equally hard to understand to the people of other time periods would be our dispensation; the liberties we take, the freedoms we have, the technology which affords us the ease with which we perform our daily tasks, the stresses of modern-day living, our sicknesses, our anxieties, our depressions, our battle with forces of evil.  Some things we consider normal now would be considered unacceptable and inappropriate in yesteryear. Times change and with it the mentality of the people.

Joseph Smith is the root of our Church, the Church being an institution and establishment, not the Gospel. The root of the Gospel is and ever will be our Beloved Christ. He is the foundation on which the Church rests. We are blessed with immensely rich heritage as members of the restored Church. We should never be ashamed or reluctant to voice our witness of this heritage. When we tell non-members about our Church, may we always bear witness of the Prophet of the Restoration. I have heard it said, if a person cannot accept Joseph Smith, they can’t accept the Church. I share here a missionary story of the father of President David O. McKay to prove this point:

"He accepted a call to a mission about 1880. When he began preaching in his native land and bore testimony of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he noticed that the people turned away from him. They were bitter in their hearts against anything Mormon, and the name of Joseph Smith seemed to arouse antagonism in their hearts. One day he concluded that the best way to get these people would be to preach just the simple principles, the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first principles of the gospel, and not bear testimony of the restoration of the gospel. It first came simply, as a passing thought, but yet it influenced his future work. In a month or so he became oppressed with a gloomy, downcast feeling, and he could not enter into the spirit of his work. He did not really know what was the matter, but his mind became obstructed; his spirit became clogged; he was oppressed and hampered, and that feeling of depression continued until it weighed him down with such heaviness that he went to the Lord and said: 'Unless I can get this feeling removed, I shall have to go home. I cannot continue my work with this feeling'.

It continued for some time after that, then one morning before daylight, following a sleepless night, he decided to retire to a cave, near the ocean, where he knew he would be shut off from the world entirely, and there pour out his soul to God and ask why he was oppressed with this feeling, what he had done, and what he could do to throw it off and continue his work....He entered that place and said: 'Oh, Father, what can I do to have this feeling removed? I must have it lifted or I cannot continue in this work'; and he heard a voice, as distinct as the tone I am now uttering, say: 'Testify that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God'. Remembering, then what he tacitly had decided six weeks or more before and becoming overwhelmed with the thought, the whole thing came to him in a realization that he was there for a special mission, and that he had not given that special mission the attention which it deserved. Then he cried in his heart, 'Lord, it is enough’……... (Gospel Ideals, pp 21-22)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Joseph Smith at Saviour's Feet by Liz Lemon Swindle)