God is a loving Heavenly
Father. Since Adam and Eve, He has provided opportunities for His children to
learn of Him, know what to do to be happy, provided the tools to do so, and offered
the opportunity to repent when we choose misery.
He has called prophets to
teach of Him, His commandments, the ‘how tos’ of obedience, and the Atonement. Through
out the history of man, His prophets have been rejected and so have lost
instruction and direction. God has not forgotten man. It is man who has
rejected God.
This rejection of God is
called an apostasy. The great and last apostasy occurred after Jesus Christ was
crucified and His apostles were rejected and killed.
This loss of instruction and
direction lasted until 1820, when again God called a prophet.
That prophet was Joseph
Smith. And through this prophet we have
been instructed in the nature of God, the commandments, how to keep the
commandments, and learned more about the process of repentance. This call came in a
vision. Joseph Smith described this sacred
event as follows:
In the
place where we lived [there was] an unusual excitement on the subject of
religion. Indeed, the whole district of country seemed affected by it, and
great multitudes united themselves to the different religious parties, which
created no small stir and division amongst the people, some crying, “Lo, here!”
and others, “Lo, there!” Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for
the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist.
During this
time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great
uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and often poignant, still I kept
myself aloof from all these parties, though I attended their several meetings
as often as occasion would permit. In process of time my mind became somewhat
partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them;
but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations,
that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with
men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong.
In the
midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What
is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong
together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?
While I was
laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties
of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and
fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God,
that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given
him.
Never did
any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did
at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of
my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed
wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get
more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion
of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently
as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the
Bible.
At length I
came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or
else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the
determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that
lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture.
So, in
accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to
make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the
spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I
had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made
the attempt to pray vocally.
After I had
retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked
around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the
desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was
seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an
astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak.
Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were
doomed to sudden destruction.
But,
exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this
enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink
into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to
the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous
power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great
alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of
the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
It no sooner
appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When
the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy
all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me,
calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son.
Hear Him!
My object
in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right,
that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of
myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above
me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had
never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
I was
answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the
Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in
his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the
commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power
thereof.”
He again
forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me,
which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself
lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no
strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up
to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind,
all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother, “I have learned
for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.” 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? Why the opposition and persecution that arose against me,
almost in my infancy?