Question
I have been searching for answers about the book of Mormon. What is your view on the subject? “It reads funny” to me.

Answer
In June 1844 Smith met his death from an angry mob. He was tarred and feathered, beaten senseless, and left for dead according to one account, while another account states that he was shot to death in a gun battle along with his brother Hyrun. The Mormons believe he was martyred. A new leader arose, Brigham Young, who led the flock of some 1600 followers to Utah. Young set himself up as a divinely inspired prophet whose words were to be strictly obeyed.

The Mormon Church has many beliefs which do not meet with the established Word of God. Remember the conversation of Darrin and Angie? Darrin was about to speak.

“…Are you aware that your church’s basis for belief comes from an unsupported “vision” of a fifteen year old boy—that history has established that the basis for his “revelation” did not occur when he said it did? The translation of the Book of Mormon is riddled with inaccuracies while Scripture has a tradition of almost two thousand years. Being a Mormon does not make you a follower of the true and authentic Jesus.”

In Doctrines of Salvation, Joseph Fielding Smith states:

If you want salvation in the fullest, that is exaltation in the kingdom of God, so that you may become his sons and his daughters, you have got to go into the temple of the Lord and receive these holy ordinances which belong to that house which cannot be had elsewhere.

“While this may come as a shock to you,” Darrin continued, sensing the calm strength which comes from being informed, “Let me tell you a short version of my salvation story.”

“I was a family man for twenty years. I had a good job. I was set financially. My wife and kids were healthy, but my life was on a downhill collision course with death as the only alternative that I could think about. I had tried religion with no success. A friend of mine told me about a personal encounter with Jesus that had changed his life. He relayed how the emptiness he felt had been replaced with joy and peace that he was ecstatic about. Inside my heart pounded, ‘If only this could be true.” His belief was overwhelming. I decided to go to church with him and find out for myself it this could really be true. I have only been a believer for a short time but I know that when I accepted Jesus into my life, I changed. I believe that you believe that you are correct and that your church is the only way to God. But it’s not true. You know the loneliness that you feel inside? God can fill it. You don’t have to go to the temple to become a true believer. You actually become God’s temple when you accept Jesus into your life” (1 Cor. 6.19).

With this summary Darrin smiled. “Think about it, let God speak directly to you! He does, you know!”

Like the story above, God will also equip you with a cool calmness to tell your own I-once-was-blind-but-now-I-see story. Becoming better informed also gives the Holy Spirit more to work with when you are faced with difficult challenges about your faith.

Question
I have been searching for answers about the book of Mormon. What is your view on the subject? “It reads funny” to me.

Answer
The practice of polygamy began in 1831 after Smith moved his family and followers to Kirkland, Ohio. Smith inquired of the Lord if the principle of taking more than one wife was a true principle. It is not difficult to see that he simply wanted to have God justify adultery. In the 1840s polygamy came to an apex. Emma Smith, Joseph’s wife, opposed the practice bitterly. In response Joseph gave her a revelation, “And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord.” With convenience Joseph popped another revelation that further demonstrates his corrupt character and his need to place revelations above revealed Scripture. Of interest, this admonition to Emma not only approved of Joseph having adultery, but gave Emma a death threat. “And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord, for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abides not in my law.” Joseph is reported to have had twenty-seven wives.
To be continued…

Question
I have been searching for answers about the book of Mormon. What is your view on the subject? “It reads funny” to me.

Answer
The founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, called Mormonism for short, was Joseph Smith, Jr. Joseph was born in Vermont in December of 1805. Twenty-five years later in 1830, he began a religious odyssey that has fascinated historians and has grown from 30 people to more than 12 million members on its rolls (The Salt Lake Tribune).

Mormonism has been riddled with inconsistencies since its beginning. Joseph Smith recorded in The Pearl of Great Price, that in the spring of 1820 when he was fifteen years old, “an unusual excitement on the subject of religion,” produced a revival in the Methodist church. The end result of this revival was different groups stirring up division in the midst of revival. Upset by all the different convictions, Joseph asked God to grant him wisdom about his will. Immediately Joseph had a supernatural visit. Here is his account:

…immediately I was seized upon by some powers 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 that I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound (Pearl 2:15b-17a).

During this “deliverance” Smith was told by the Personages that “all of the creeds were an abomination in his sight.” Joseph records a second vision as occurring in September 1823. The problem: History reveals that there was no revival in the community of Palmyra, New York, in 1820. History does record that such a revival did occur in 1824. Thus Joseph had his second vision a year before the revival that was supposed to have spawned his first vision. This first so-called vision became the centerpiece of Smith’s prophetic authority. From this vision came the basis of the church’s teaching on the nature of God, i.e., that the Father and the Son are two separate gods with flesh and bone bodies. In addition from this “vision,” the church teaches that the true church was not on the earth in Smith’s time and that he was the “designated prophet” for the restoration of true Christianity. One “spiritual revelation” became the roots for the church to teach its converts that, from the close of the age of the Apostles till Joseph Smith, no one, including Origen, Justin, Irenaeus, Jerome, Athanasius, Luther, Calvin, Wesley to name a few, was successful in bringing the claims of Christ to his generation. The church was simply dormant until God chose Joseph Smith for its restoration, with implication that if one belongs to it, he or she is a true believer, while all others are lost.
In a little over thirteen years (1831-1844) Joseph Smith issued 135 “revelations” from which Mormon doctrine was birthed. He believed that this “first vision” summoned him to this prophetic life.

The Lord did not come with the armies of heaven, in power and great glory, nor send His messengers panoplied with aught else that the truth of heaven, to communicate to the meek, the lowly, the youth of humble origin, the sincere enquirer after the knowledge of God. But He did send His angel to this same obscure person, Joseph Smith jun., who afterwards became a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, and informed him that he should not join any of the religious sects of the day, for they were all wrong, that they were following the precepts of men instead of the Lord Jesus (Journal of Discourses 1:171).

However spiritual these “visions” must have seemed to the beginning flock, Smith’s character was strong-willed toward deception. E.D. Howe, a contemporary of Joseph Smith, as early as 1834, stated that Smith was “destitute of moral character, and addicted to vicious habits” (Mormonism Unveiled p. 261). One such was his belief in polygamy.
To be continued…

Over the next few days I will post my answer to the question below.

Question
I have been searching for answers about the book of Mormon. What is your view on the subject? “It reads funny” to me.

Answer
Below is a piece I wrote several years ago which may be of some help.

It was clear, cool, and calm outside the office, but inside the heat was rising. Darrin and Angie were in fevered combat! Darrin was a new believer who had just taken a course in his church about Cults. Angie was a Mormon. What was all the furor about? Angie had claimed to be a true Christian, leaving no room for Darrin’s new found belief in Jesus.

“I can’t believe that you can just stand there and tell me I am not a Christian,” snorted Darrin with a grim look on his face. The temperature was rising and others in the office were being drawn into the conflict.

“I am not telling you that you are not a Christian, Darrin,” responds Angie, as she proceeds to explain why only her church is the recipient of true Christianity.

“What I am telling you is that Christianity had become non-existent in the early nineteenth century. Into that vacuum God sent Joseph Smith as a true prophet for the restoration of true Christianity. The bottom line here is that you can only achieve true belief in God if you follow the path which was revealed to Joseph. All other paths are false.”

“Hold on for a minute,” Darrin said as he looked for a response…
To be continued…