The Martyrdom: The Prophet Seals His Testimony with His Blood [168th anniversary of Lds censorship]

The winter and spring of 1843–44 was a time of great tension in Nauvoo, as Joseph Smith’s enemies increased their efforts to destroy him and the Church. Knowing his mortal ministry would soon come to a close, the Prophet met frequently with members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to instruct them and to give them the priesthood keys necessary to govern the Church. These preparations culminated in a meeting with the Apostles and a few other close associates in March 1844. In this extraordinary council, the Prophet charged the Twelve to govern the Church after his death, explaining that he had conferred upon them all the ordinances, authority, and keys necessary to do so. “I roll the burden and responsibility of leading this church off from my shoulders on to yours,” he declared. “Now, round up your shoulders and stand under it like men; for the Lord is going to let me rest awhile.”1

On June 10, 1844, Joseph Smith, who was the mayor of Nauvoo, and the Nauvoo city council ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor and the press on which it was printed. The Nauvoo Expositor was an anti-Mormon newspaper...

From the piece: On June 10, 1844, Joseph Smith, who was the mayor of Nauvoo, and the Nauvoo city council ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor and the press on which it was printed. The Nauvoo Expositor was an anti-Mormon newspaper...

So...168 years ago...TODAY...
We have...
...a Mormon leader...
...who was running for president...
...who was also a local civil leader...
...who headed the effort to not only silence a former Mormon's printed opposition to Mormonism...
...but who ordered the destruction of its entire "press" process and its materials!

Because "The LDS Church Library no longer allows access to the Nauvoo City Council and High Council minutes from 1839 to 1845" -- per Mormon columnist Doug Gibson (Nauvoo City Council’s minutes of 1840s provide chaos, contention and lies [Lds' Smith Shenanigans]) ... allow us to retreat in history to 168 years ago to find a solid description of what occurred.

From an article re-post of what happened: Mr. Sharp: -- I hasten to inform you of the UNPARALLELED OUTRAGE, perpetrated upon our rights and interests, by the ruthless, lawless, ruffian band of MORMON MOBOCRATS, at the dictum that of that UNPRINCIPLED wretch Joe Smith. We were privately informed that the CITY COUNCIL, which had been in extra session, for two days past; had enacted an ordinance in relation to libels, providing that anything that had been published, or anything that might be published tending to disparage the character of the officers of the city should be regarded as LAWLESS. They also declared the "Nauvoo Expositor," a "nuisance," and directed the police of the city to proceed immediately to the office of the Expositor and DESTROY THE PRESS and also the MATERIALS, by THROWING them into the STREET!!!! If any resistance were made, the officers were directed to demolish the building and property, of all who were concerned in publishing said paper; and also take all into custody, who might refuse to obey the authorities of the City. Accordingly, a company consisting of some 200 men, armed and equipped, with Muskets, Swords, Pistols, Bowie Knives, Sledge-Hammers, &c, assisted by a crowd of several hundred minions, who volunteered their services on the occasion, marching to the building, and breaking open the doors with a Sledge Hammer, commenced the work of destruction and desperation. They tumbled the press and materials into the street, and set fire to them, and demolished the machinery with sledge hammer, and injured the building very materially. We made no resistance; but looked on and felt revenge, but leave it for the public to avenge this climax of insult and injury.
Source: Unparralled Outrage at Nauvoo (Mormon - OPEN) (Original source: The Warsaw Messenger)

How would we feel, if the Mormon "prophet" of today, "determined" that Free Republic was a "public nuisance" and ordered "a company consisting of some 200 men, armed and equipped, with Muskets, Swords, Pistols, Bowie Knives, Sledge-Hammers to march to Fresno, break down JimRob's business doors with a Sledge Hammer, and commence the work of destruction and desperation, tumbling computers, etc. into the street, and set fire to them, and demolished the machinery with sledge hammer??? Or what if the Mormon "prophet" simply used a Mormon president to more subtly accomplish the same?

Mormons celebrate all this? Why? Because they celebrate Smith as a martyr. And it was principally this act he ordered, that led to an eventual gun battle where Smith died (two guns were smuggled into Smith in prison, just like Ron Gardner's acts in Utah where he sat on death row for having a weapon smuggled into him)

Mormons don't celebrate Smith the criminal, but Smith the "martyr." They wind up essentially endorsing what Smith did to the Nauvoo Expositor. Hence, this doesn't remain merely an act in history. It catapults through time.

Go ahead. Ask your Mormon neighbor: "Was Joseph Smith committing criminal acts by ordering the destruction of the Expositor?" The answer you'll get will show where their absolutes lie -- and it won't be with Freedom of the Press.

The article this is excerpted from goes on to decry Joseph Smith's death.

Nobody but nobody today would wonder about an inmate today being shot in a jail if such a prisoner had a loaded gun on his possession. (The Smith brothers had TWO such loaded weapons)

(I tell you what, any prisoner today who was armed with a gun and took out two people as he was being shot wouldn't receive a martyr's crown)

If Smith was walking in the true Savior's footsteps, where was Smith's "put down your sword" theology when a criminal accomplice gave a Nauvoo prisoner a lethal weapon? Smith didn't put the revolver down. (Note: had it been discovered & the mob held off, criminal charges could have been added to the charges Smith was already being held on.)

And for some reason, Mormons didn't celebrate June 25, 1994 as the 150th anniversary of Smith's arrest for the charge of incitation of a "riot"...later changed to a charge of "treason."

So...
(1) Smith already had a separate pre-trial hearing for a separate charge of "adultery."
(2) He was arrested for inciting a "riot."
(3) Before his death, he was charged with "treason"
(4) He could have been charged with carrying an illegal weapon...sorry, even today's concealed permits wouldn't work for inmates then or now!!!
(5) Smith was an Illinois polygamist and laws existed on the books in the 1840s to prosecute him for this.
(6) Smith was also charged in the early 1840s as a before-the-fact accomplice to attempted murder of the Missouri Gov (Boggs). [That charge was later dropped]
(7) Earlier in his life, Smith underwent a trial for "glass looking" in New York -- and was found guilty
(8) He was rightly accused of bank fraud in Kirtland, Ohio...but then left the state (ever hear the term, "as phoney as a $3 bill?" -- well, Smith was running out of money...as one Web site once put it, "What to do? Hold a tent revival? Call an emergency capital fund drive? No none of that, Instead, he declared that the Lord, through Melchizedek Priesthood, had commanded him to open a bank, a bank to be called an 'Anti-Bank' to skirt Ohio laws. And it came to pass, thus sprang the $3 Mormon tender...In those days, the US government didn't print money, states chartered local banks to do that...in Ohio there was an anti-bank movement...far too much money floating around...the Mormons started the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Bank, which minted currency. Because it was an Anti-Bank it required no charter, or so they maintained, because it was not a bank but an anti-bank, thus keeping with the anti-bank movement. The Mormon tender was backed by one dollar for every hundred printed. So there was once a $3 bill, purposed equal to $3 of US currency, only the signatories were Joseph Smith and Mormon bank president Signey Rigdon with Warren Parrish shill to disburse the stuff.") See Joseph Smith's 'Anti-Bank' [Wow! All Congress would have needed to do was to "follow the 'prophet's" example, print $3 bills with the names of Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank as signatories!!!]

Furthermore, had Smith lived today and tried the same shenanigans, he would have been charged with:
(9) Possible statutory rape of a servant girl who the Smith family took into their home (Smith later married her)
(10) Destruction of Property (printing press)
(11) A conspiracy to engage in the cover up of his Spring 1844 actions as mayor

(12) He could have also been impeached as Nauvoo mayor had not the riot Smith started on Mainstreet extended into his personal jailhouse.

Smith's first wife, Emma, essentially said this way before you did: "It was secret things which...cost Joseph and Hyrum their lives, and it will cost you and The Twelve your lives as it has done to them." (Source: Solemn Covenant, by B. Carmon Hardy, Univ. of Illinois)

Do Lds agree with Emma Smith on this, "It was the secret things which...cost Joseph and Hyrum their lives... (Or do they want to critique Emma?)

Imagine Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He realizes he's going to be arrested.
So what does he do? Does he rebuke sword-wielding Peter and heal the soldier's ear had he been Smith-like? (No) Instead...
#1...before the soldiers arrived, the Mormon-like jesus would have hightailed it out of the garden across the river in order to not face consequences for his actions...
#2...then he would have had to be goaded back into town by a letter accusing him of cowardice (in Smith's case, the letter was from his first wife)...
#3...Instead of the true Jesus being helped along in carrying the cross by Simon of Cyrene, the Mormon-like jesus would have been "helped along" in carrying his cross by Cyrus of Nauvoo, who smuggled a weapon to the Mormon-like jesus...
#4...the Mormon-like jesus, instead of when threatened, would have actually joined Peter in cutting off ears with swords in hand and probably slitting throats...
#5...the Mormon-like jesus would have injured or killed three people...
#6...instead of having the famous line, "he who lives by the sword dies by the sword," I guess we have "he who lives by the smuggled pistol, dies by the rifle" -- but it's not very "Messianic" when we realize that what the true Jesus was teaching Peter has been turned on its head in the person of Joseph Smith.
#7...and then to top it all off...had the true Jesus acted like the Mormon-like jesus, we would have many millions more who would never even know that Jesus' "sword" words actually constituted a rebuke of Peter...
#8...and, in fact, we do see millions of the Mormon-like jesus followers now concluding: You know what, in a similar situation, I would have done the same -- and this entails not just taking up swords to cut off ears -- but actually still generations later defending criminally illegal actions of...
...(a) weapon smuggling into arrest situations;
...(b) possessing weapons in arrest situations -- and calling it "jesus-like";
...(c) using those weapons to try to kill multiple people.

[Yeah, just try mentioning you favor that the next time you try witnessing to a law enforcement officer or prison corrections officer]

Yeah, that's the portrait we want of the cross: A Roman soldier hammering a nail into the Lamb of God, and the Lamb of God responds by pulling a sword out of the soldier's sheath and proceeds to wound or kill three of them. (end sarc)

Joseph Smith then reacts by pulling his gun out of his pocket, opens the door and attempts to unload all 6 shots -- 3 misfire, he shoots 3 and kills 2. He then leaps up on the window ledge to try to cry the Masonic signal for help ("Oh lord my God, is there no help for the widow's son?") -- but falls in a hail of bullets -- at least one from the door & at least one from the windows outside...hit 4 times he dies...only being able to get out the initial part of the Masonic distress signal, "Oh lord my God..."

Accordingly, a company consisting of some 200 men, armed and equipped, with Muskets, Swords, Pistols, Bowie Knives, Sledge-Hammers, &c, assisted by a crowd of several hundred minions, who volunteered their services on the occasion, marching to the building, and breaking open the doors with a Sledge Hammer, commenced the work of destruction and desperation. They tumbled the press and materials into the street, and set fire to them, and demolished the machinery with sledge hammer, and injured the building very materially. We made no resistance; but looked on and felt revenge, but leave it for the public to avenge this climax of insult and injury.
_________________________________________________

AH so here we havew the true martyrs of June 1844...

Mr Sharp, Mr William Law et all...lambs lead to the slaughter...

But wait...NO GUNS...

They didnt kill anyone...

Nor resisted...

Nor defended themselves...

True martyrs...

and the crazed mob...

all Mormons...

200 strong and HUNDREDS more...

armed with sledge hammers...

intent on destruction and mayhem and death to anyone who resisted...

Breaking down the deoor...breaking in with evil internt...

Poor martyrs...

Upstairs and helpless...

What innocent lambs...

JESUS: Hey Smith! Remember that boast you made about doing more than even I had done to hold the 'church' together?

JOSEPH SMITH: Where am I?

JESUS: Don't you remember? A few seconds ago you were in that jail.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah; but where am I NOW?

JESUS: Don't you remember? Does bang - bang ring a bell?

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh; yeah - that crummy gun I had was about USELESS!

JESUS: I hope you left instructions on how to hold your church together.

JOSEPH SMITH: Dang! I knew there was SOMETHING I was forgetting!

JESUS: Looks like there's a power struggle going on down there.

JOSEPH SMITH: Yeah; there was always SOMEone who wanted the power that I held - especially over the LADIES - wink wink.

JESUS: No need to worry about that now; remember what my friend Matthew wrote down?

JOSEPH SMITH: This? “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30)

JESUS: That's it.

JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.

JESUS: Nah - it was right.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh well; it was fun while it lasted. My buds will still get it on with the girls.

JESUS: Uh; I'm sorry; in just a few more years; your followers will cavein to the United States government and abandon the 'Eternal Covenant' that you came up with.

JOSEPH SMITH: ME!? YOU are the one that told me to do that!

JESUS: Sorry; but you must have mistranslated what I told you. What part of Do NOT commit ADULTERY did you not understand?

JOSEPH SMITH: mumble....

JESUS: What did you say?

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, nothing.

JESUS: Well; it was interesting talking to you; but now I must get back to perparing a place for those who believe in Me.

JOSEPH SMITH: Oh, yeah; the Celestial Kingdom.

JESUS: No...

JOSEPH SMITH: The Telestial one?

JESUS: Nope.

JOSEPH SMITH: SUREly not the TERRESTRIAL one!!

JESUS: Nope. Didn't you read that the mind of man had NOT conceived of it? Paul wrote it down in 1 Corinthians 2:9.

JOSEPH SMITH: I thought that was mistranslated.

JESUS: No; it wasn't.

JOSEPH SMITH: You SURE?

JESUS: Yes. Now I must be going: what did you say your name was again?

JOSEPH SMITH: Joseph Smith.

JESUS: Hmmmm. According to my Heavenly FAITHbook, you didn't sign in as one of my friends - sorry, I never knew you.

JOSEPH SMITH: But....

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