Tag: Restoration

Chapter 1: Introduction

Part 1: From Apostles to Apostates

  • ( Apostles) Persons who are commissioned by the Authority of Jesus Christ to preach the gospel to the World and administer the Affairs of his Church here on Earth.
  • * ( Apostate) Persons who have intentionally abandoned their former believe system and those who follow them

As long as Jesus Christ was alive, the Jewish Authorities hounded him without let up. Inciting, heckling, and disrupting him during his public teachings, the shouting and accusations soon escalated to physical violence and in the end, his death. His fellow Jews threatened civil unrest if Christ did not cease and desist. The local Roman authorities had already reached their limits of tolerance with these almost ungovernable, religious fanatical Jews.

Yet what they feared even more were reprisals from Rome if they took no action at all to squash this latest rebellion.

 Pilot had already been threatened with retribution because of his mishandling of Roman/Jewish affairs in Jerusalem. He was more that eager to collaborate with the Jewish Sanhedrin to bring about a quick and final solution which culminated in the execution of Christ. There on a cross, among thieves at Golgotha, the place of the skull, he died like a common criminal. 

This deed, accomplished in a very ordinary, unspectacular location, was intended to end the rise of this troublesome teacher. Instead it was his launching pad, literally when he rose from the dead three days later.

There was nothing ordinary about the life of Christ. Not the way he was born, not the way he lived and not the way he died. Certainly no one had risen from the dead before. Every effort was made then, and ever since, to make it appear that none of the supernatural events recorded ever happened. His death and the disappearance of his body from the tomb was explained away. The Roman guards were bribed to falsely report his friends came by night and stole the body. Unarmed rebel-rousers overpowering the experienced, battle hardened Roman soldiers? I hardly think so. The penalty for such dereliction of duty was death. Where were the dead bodies of at least some of the rabble the guards had managed to kill before submitting? Where were the dead bodies of the soldiers who had been overwhelmed? Surely, they would have fought to their death. Where was the evidence to suggest such a scenario? The shoddy attempt at a cover up was obvious. The Jews do admit Jesus was a good and wise teacher. In the end, they could eliminate the teacher, but they could not eliminate his teachings.

In the short three years Jesus taught, his teachings were filled with wisdom and life-changing concepts for those who believed Him. He turned the skeptic’s conception of heir God from one of oppression and punishment to one of Love, Compassion and Forgiveness. He redirected their hopelessness into service for others and hope for an eternal life for all. He organized a Church with Apostles, Pastors, Priests and Prophets. He commanded them to go into the world to preach His word to every nation, tongue and people.

After his appearance following his crucifixion they, being filled with the Holy Ghost, went forward to do this missionary work as they had been commanded. With the exception of John, each sealed his testimony with the shedding of their own blood.

In one of Christ’s last acts of encouragement, He stood outside Jerusalem reassuring these disciples of His love and promised he would return. Then He suddenly ascended in a light into the Heavens. He was gone. They were on their own. What great courage and conviction it must have taken for them to pull their hoods over their heads, wrap their cloaks tightly over their shoulders and walk into the winds of adversity and death. In a few short years, they too, would lay lifeless, having sacrificed their all to the cause.

The message of Christ, his atonement and his resurrection were immediately subjected to a deliberate conspiracy to falsify and distort. This conspiracy reached its pinnacle of madness in the third and fourth centuries, A.D. Roman and Greek scholars and philosophers reconstructed the teachings of Christ in a manner more acceptable to their limited logic and understanding. Had Christ’s ministry been an exercise of futility? Had He failed? Ask the millions of followers who have embraced his gospel since. Ask yourself the same question. 

This written testimony is a brief summary of that period of history. It hopes to catch both the miraculous as well as the malicious events that occurred to the orphaned child, the Church of Jesus Christ.

Abandoned almost at birth in a wild and scheming world, the Church grew into an almost totally unrecognizable adulthood. The simple yet profound gospel, taught with so much hope by Jesus of Nazareth, became a sophisticated lady of the night. Powerful and unprincipled, she reigned with blood and horror. Miraculously, an ember of its former self still burned in her calloused heart. This ember is what fed the hopes of millions down through the dark centuries that followed.

I will be satisfied if even one soul, my own perhaps, will have been improved from better knowing the history of those colossal events and the persons that shaped the western Church for the next 1600 years. After all, it was this same Church that spawned the New Testament , the Bible. It became the only witness of Christ available to countless Christian Martyrs for over 1800 years. And it was that same Bible that sent a searching young boy into the woods, to his knees in prayer in 1820 after reading these words in James 1: 5.

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. “

The long dark night of spiritual ignorance, and famine of hearing the word of God would have to wait almost two millennium before that event.

Chapter 6: The Final Restoration – Preparation for The Second Coming

Part 2: From Apostates to Apostles 

The door that Luther had opened was, as Winston Church observed:

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Now, more than 500 years later, we are still watching the beginning of the end of the old order unfold. The mere utterance of the name of the Roman Catholic Church no longer strikes terror in the hearts of the beholders. The Great and Mighty “Harlot” had fallen and her power over Kings and Empires is rendered impotent. Rising from the ashes of the corpse, phoenix like, are the children to who she gave birth – millions of faithful Catholics and protestants who now turn their love of Christ into deeds of compassion and service to humanity. Responding to the biblical teaching and voice of the Master from Galilee, they are motivated by a desire of obedience, faithfulness and love. This is the option they have chosen to prove themselves as followers of Christ.

Each generation gets their opportunity to prove themselves and decide which they want:  evil or good, liberty or bondage. Our generation today has no less of an opportunity. And I believe each and every generation of children will be afford their opportunities as well.

When Christ came to Earth for his mortal experience, there were many different Churches and voices calling from the shoals and rocks. His voice was one among many. Those who responded to him came and followed him with nothing but their faith. The call has been sounded again in our day, but now with more urgency. 

Never have the two sides (good and evil) been more divided, more driven, more subtle, and more persuasive. It is the same on-going drama. The scene changes, the players changed but the challenge is the same. And we will play our role accordingly. Here we stand, for good or bad, in trembling and fear, just as all others have done before us. It is now our turn.

The question from the mid-fifteenth century has evolved from “What is God like?” to “What is God?” The secular mind believes there is no God. It regards all regulations, laws and standards as having been man-made. And what man made for his convenience then, they reason, other men can un-make for their convenience today. 

Many of today’s generation sees families as financial death pits and marriage as the ultimate prevention of their freedom of expression. Morals are optional. Sex is okay between whomever and with whatever gender. They ignore the experience of those civilizations that have plowed this field before – those that discarded the social, moral and wisdom of centuries – and ultimately threw away the safeguards of civic security carefully crafted for human happiness and survival. They abandoned themselves to depravity and self-fulfillment. In the end, every society that embraced this lifestyle, self-imploded. We are on track to repeat the process. There are no exceptions. As Ralph Waldo Emerson pointed out, “The dice of God are always loaded.”  

This time the Church is beyond reformation from the top as Martin Luther attempted to achieve. These days, such Churches have become redundant. They lie prostrate, empty and ignored. 

When Christ came for the first time and was born in Bethlehem, there were people who had been waiting 4000 years – since the time of Adam and Eve – for his coming. Yet when he finally came, for the vast majority of the world he came and left unnoticed. It was a non-event. They were not expecting his birth to be in an animal stable, in a remote town, to unknown parents. 

His death, on the other hand, was much more newsworthy because of the controversy he caused while alive. Everybody had heard of the itinerant teacher Jesus. Perhaps they knew him by his other names, Joshua, Christ, or the Messiah. No matter which they called him, they knew him for good and for evil.

Rome had heard of him through their local Military Procurator, Pontius Pilot. Pilot was eager to appease the local Jewish authorities by signing the order for his execution. Herod, the Roman appointed Jewish King had heard of him, and attempted to execute him when the opportunity arose. 

The great number of his followers, both converts and the curious alike, had followed him night and day to hear him speak. Jesus had prophesied that he would rise from the dead (Luke 9: 22) and when he did, his name became even further renown.

Forty days after his resurrection, Christ was with his apostles on the Mount of Olives. When he ascended into Heaven, his stunned apostles watched in disbelief as he disappeared from their view. Meanwhile, two men in white apparel stood among them and asked:

“Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” All this was carefully recorded in Acts 1: 11.

The world has been hanging onto this promise since that event. The second coming of Christ has been the theme of two millennium of intense anticipation. All Christians prayed as Christ had instructed them in Luke 11: 2:

“Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come…” 

John foresaw this restoration as recorded in Revelation 14: 6-7:

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every enation, and kindred, and tongue, and people…”

A modern Apostle, Mark E. Peterson, expressed these words regarding the period of preparation for receiving the Savior at his coming in his September 29, 1974 speech, The Great Prologue:

The restoration of the gospel should be seen “in the true perspective…a perspective of some two thousand years.”

1/ It involved the discovery of a new continent and its colonization of a select people.
2/ It encompassed wars between world powers of two centuries, even the renaissance of medieval Europe.
3/ It followed an awakening of mankind stimulated in the Dark Ages.
4/ It required struggle for the fundamental element of personal freedom.
5/ A fight for both religious and political liberty was fought over hundreds of years.
6/ The first establishment of Human rights began with the Magna Carta, 1215 A.D. and is continuing even to today.

Do you understand the steps that were taken? There was a great apostasy in the Eastern Hemisphere, then the preservation of the western Hemisphere. Next Columbus and the colonization movement. The revolutionary war to set the colonist free. Then a constitutional form of Government which guaranteed religious freedom, free speech and free press. All these events were acts of God leading up to one thing: The restoration of the Gospel.

“It was only half a dozen years or so after America was established as a free constitutional nation that one of the great spirits in the preexistence was sent to earth to be born Dec 23, 1805 in a little farmhouse: His name was Joseph Smith.”

The scene was now set to begin the fulfillment of the promise: “(He) shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Acts 1: 11.

In the spring of 1820, a young boy in his fifteenth year, named Joseph Smith, went into a grove of trees near his Father’s farm in his search for answers to his prayers regarding which church he should join. He records:

“I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. 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.” (Joseph Smith History 1: 16)

The Heavens had finally reopened. Jesus Christ had returned in a like manner as he had departed. He spoke to Joseph. The promised day of Salvation had dawned on the earth. The restoration of all things had begun.

Chapter 12: Bringing forth the Ancient Record Called the Book of Mormon

Part 2: From Apostates to Apostles 

New Testament: John 10: 16
“And other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring , and they shall hear my voice : and there shall be one fold and one shepherd”

Book of Mormon: 3 Nephi 15: 11-17, 19-24
“And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words, he said unto those twelve whom he had chosen: Ye are my disciples; and ye are a blight unto this people, who are a remnant of the house of Joseph.
And behold, this is the land of your inheritance; and the Father hath given it unto you.
And not at any time hath the Father given me commandment that I should tell it unto your brethren at Jerusalem.
Neither at any time hath the Father given me commandment that I should tell unto them concerning the other tribes of the house of Israel, whom the Father hath led away out of the land.
This much did the Father command me, that I should tell unto them:
That other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
But, verily, I say unto you that the Father hath commanded me, and I tell it unto you, that ye were separated from among them because of their iniquity; therefore it is because of their iniquity that they know not of you.
And verily, I say unto you again that the other tribes hath the Father separated from them; and it is because of their iniquity that they know not of them.
And verily I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
And they understood me not, for they supposed it had been the Gentiles; for they understood not that the Gentiles should be converted through their preaching.
And they understood me not that I said they shall hear my voice; and they understood me not that the Gentiles should not at any time hear my voice—that I should not manifest myself unto them save it were by the Holy Ghost.
But behold, ye have both heard my voice, and seen me; and ye are my sheep, and ye are numbered among those whom the Father hath given me.”

Two of the most astounding discoveries that have occurred in recent time has been the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Both these records were different from all other discoveries in the sense they had been deliberately buried by a group of people who were witnessing the destruction of their civilizations and were determine to preserve their records so that they would come forth in the future and be a guide and direction for those living in the last days. 

Both accounts laid hidden for centuries to come forth untouched, in their purity. Consequently, they were protected from the tampering and tinkering of scribes and religious scholars who might have bend or distort the writings to comply with ever-changing philosophies. 

One may wonder why these ancient writings remained hidden for so long. The loss of the true gospel of Christ had been the cause of religious intolerance, persecution and bloodshed. The world needed a reformation for centuries. Instead, history reveals the records remained in the hands of a few who used them as an instrument of power and control. With so little direct access to scriptures, for all intents and purposes, they remained a sealed book written in languages only the rich and educated could read.

The world had to wait until a time when favourable conditions would allow the records to emerge without the threat of them – and those who believed their words — being destroyed.

The first of these favourable conditions was the weakening of the controlling power of the Catholic Church. Martin Luther was able to survive where other reformers had been executed for challenging the authority of Rome. This opened the door for others to follow.

The second was Political freedom. In all cases in the European theatre, Monarchs and Kings determined which Church was the authorized representative of God, which Bible was to be used and in which language it would be read. Each made its own creed and any persons who failed to show obedience to these decrees would suffer severe penalties. And it was there, in the wild frontier of 19th century New England, that old and new intermingled. Settlers from the old country brought their traditional and reformed faiths. Many were based upon the doctrines established by Augustine. Confessions, obedience to the Pope and priest, the Holy Trinity, everlasting punishment, salvation for some, damnation for others. Those that died could expect to dwell in Heaven or Hell, saved through grace alone, or condemned to the burning of everlasting fires.

It was not until America was discovered and settled, and a New Constitution written that the opportunity to set up the restored gospel became a reality. Only in such a time could new ideologies be brought forth with a hope of surviving. Here, at last, was the freedom to choose for one’s self and not suffer death for religious expression.

The young American Nation was the most favourable place in the world at that time for the lost Gospel of Christ to be restored. Yet even with that freedom, the price was high, and tolerance low, for bringing about the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ, as Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum discovered. They paid with their lives, while those who followed suffered banishment.

The Book of Mormon covers about 1000-year period (from 600 BC to 400 AD) of the history of a specific civilization in ancient America. At that point their civilization was wiped out.

Joseph Smith, a farm boy in upper State New York, was directed by God to go a hill not far from his parent’s property, where records of that ancient civilization had been deposited by its last surviving prophet.

Engraved on plates (flattened gold sheets), the record was comprised of 15 main divisions or books. Joseph Smith translated the writings despite having little formal education and absolutely no experience in any language other than the American Frontier English.

Joseph attributes the astonishing achievement of translating the gold plates to assistance he received from God, which included the use of “seerer stones” also called the Urim and Thummin. (In Hebrew the term means “light and perfection”.) An instrument prepared of God to assist man in obtaining revelation from the Lord, references to their existence anciently can be found in Exodus 28: 30, Leviticus 8:8, Numbers 27: 21, Deuteronomy 33: 8, 1Samuel 28: 6, Ezra 2: 63 and Nehemiah 7: 65. 

Joseph Smith was not a scholar or philosopher. In the process of translating the record, restoring the Priesthood and organizing Christ’s Church, Joseph had many questions. He wrote down the answers he received, and they were eventually published in a book called the Doctrine and Covenants. Along with instructions regarding the restoration of Christ’s Church and Priesthood, Joseph was also given information about the application of principles, rules and the commandments.

Of interest to us all is the differences of doctrinal understanding between traditional Christian Churches and that of Joseph’s translation of the ancient record and his modern revelation – which have subsequently been carried on through the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. The following list outlines many of those differences. Although it is quite extensive, it is by no means complete.

1/ The necessity of a living prophets and continuous revelation from God.
2/ The concept of a plan of salvation whereby mankind may qualify for salvation.
3/ The concept of personal progression which began before this earth life.
4/ The knowledge that man is co- eternal with God: Man did not come into existence at the time of his earthly biological birthday.
5/ The knowledge that we are literal children of a Heavenly Father and Mother.
6/ The knowledge that there are necessary ordinances for salvation instituted by God — but they of themselves will
not save us. Instead these ordinances are part of process that will, through the testing of our obedience, bring us closer to Christ and help us become more like his character.
7/ All of God’s commandments, laws and ordinances are for the eternal growth of mankind and not for the punishment or the penalizing of his children.
8/ God is a loving and patient parent whose “work and glory is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of mankind.”
9/ The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are three distinct personages. The Father and the Son have bodies of flesh, as we have, but the Holy Ghost is a being of spirit matter.
10/ Men will be punished for their own sins and not the sins of Adam and Eve. (See: Article of Faith 2)
11/ God speaks through prophets and reveals his will through them for the salvation of his children. As in days past, he speaks to his chosen prophets today and will always do so unless we become disobedient and reject his prophets. In which case, God will withdraw his spirit, and miracles will cease. 
12/ When God speaks to his prophets, they are commanded to record what he says. These records are called scriptures. All such scriptures are for our edification and are considered binding. We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal and that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. (See: Article of Faith 9)
13/ Part of the great work for the salvation of mankind is the work done in the God’s temples. There, all ordinances necessary for the salvation of man can be done, for one’s self as well as for those who have died before hearing the gospel. Work is done by proxy for those who for one reason or another were unable to do this important work for themselves.

The mandate given to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its followers is to go throughout the world and bring the message of the restoration of these truths to all persons of all nations. (See Matthew 28: 19-20) As a result, the Church’s population has grown from a handful in 1830 to over 16 million in 2016. This is still a small percentage of the world’s population. Obviously so much has yet to be done before we see the time when “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.”

Over 80,000 missionaries are voluntarily fulfilling this mandate throughout the world today as witnesses and examples to the truthfulness of this divine message. They invite all to come unto Christ.

Doug Garrett