Reasons Joseph Smith Is More Important Than Jesus [Mormon Merry Smithmas!]

Mormon Curtain.com ^ | Feb. 10, 2005

[Colofornian]

"Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)

"If we get our salvation, we shall have to pass by him [Joseph Smith]; if we enter our glory, it will be through the authority he has received. We cannot get around him [Joseph Smith]" Apostle George Q. Cannon, as quoted in 1988 Melchizedek Priesthood Study Guide, p. 142

"Whosoever... does not confess that God has sent Joseph Smith, and revealed the everlasting Gospel to and through him, is of Antichrist...," Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 8, p. 176

[There is] "no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith. If Joseph Smith was verily a prophet, and if he told the truth...no man can reject that testimony without incurring the most dreadful consequences, for he cannot enter the kingdom of God" Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, p.190

"No man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith...every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are... [Joseph Smith] reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim—"Oh, that is very disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!" But it is true." Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p.289-91

"He that confesseth not that Jesus has come in the flesh and sent Joseph Smith with the fullness of the Gospel to this generation, is not of God, but is anti-christ" Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p.312

"It is because the Lord called Joseph Smith that salvation is again available to mortal men.... If it had not been for Joseph Smith and the restoration, there would be no salvation," Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 396, 670

"I tell you, Joseph holds the keys, and none of us can get into the celestial kingdom without passing by him. We have not got rid of him, but he stands there as the sentinel, holding the keys of the kingdom of God; and there are many of them beside him. I tell you, if we get past those who have mingled with us, and know us best, and have a right to know us best, probably we can pass all other sentinels as far as it is necessary, or as far as we may desire. But I tell you, the pinch will be with those that have mingled with us, stood next to us, weighed our spirits, tried us, and proven us: there will be a pinch, in my view, to get past them. The others, perhaps, will say, If brother Joseph is satisfied with you, you may pass. If it is all right with him, it is all right with me. Then if Joseph shall say to a man, or if brother Brigham say to a man, I forgive you your sins, "Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them;" if you who have suffered and felt the weight of transgression—if you have generosity enough to forgive the sinner, I will forgive him: you cannot have more generosity than I have. I have given you power to forgive sins, and when the Lord gives a gift, he does not take it back again." Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p.154-155

"You call us fools; but the day will be, gentlemen and ladies, whether you belong to this Church or not, when you will prize brother Joseph Smith as the Prophet of the Living God, and look upon him as a God, and also upon Brigham Young, our Governor” Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 5, p. 88

"It is to be feared that in course of a century, some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator, who will be able by his eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever ready to hear, and be carried away by, the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may succeed in breathing a new life into this modern Mahometanism, and make the name of the martyred Joseph ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty name of Christ itself. Sharon, Palmyra, Manchester, Kirtland, Far West, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Ramus. Nauvoo, and the Carthage Jail, may become holy and venerable names, places of classic interest, in another age; like Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Calvary to the Christian, and Mecca and Medina to the Turk." Brigham Young, History of the Church, Vol. 7, p.40-41

[Colofornian]

Well, let's talk a moment about our "originators"

Adam and Eve fell. (Not much of a "hurrah" there, eh?)

By parallel, the Catholic church badly disgraced (history of pre-16th century popes; selling of indulgences; etc....not much of a "hurrah" there, either, eh?)

...the only real church is the Catholic Church...

Before there was the "Roman Catholic" church (capital "C"), it inherited the church from the "catholic" church (small "c"). All "catholic" means is "universal." The "genuine article" wasn't the "Roman Catholic" church; yet God saw fit to put up with the foibles of that church...It was "the church of the dark ages," after all...which has both a positive and negative connotation.

It's "positive" in that despite it being a trying time with the advancement of Islam, the church rose up to defeat it. Lack of light...the knowledge of our Lord...was prevalent in that dark time...and yet the church still "survived." And monasteries -- especially those developed by St. Patrick and those enclaves he helped to jumpstart...helped to preserve much of what we have in church history, etc.

It's "negative" for some of the same exact reasons: In a time when the church was under tremendous attack, monasteries were great preservations/sanctuaries of light...and when that attack began to relent, an over-abundance of remnant & newly created monasteries meant for a grand retreat from missionary and public ministry.

Hence, the church of the "dark ages" doesn't have much to promote pride-wise. (Their candle wattage wasn't exactly overwhelming in cultural impact)

[WayneS]

...and if you are a Jew, your religion is a couple of thousand years older than THAT.

[NavyCanDo]

If what you are saying is you are not a true Christian unless you are Catholic, then you are as bigoted as some in the LDS church or some of the JWs, or even fringe Baptist groups, who regard non members as gentiles. The Apostle Paul wrote seven letters to seven different churches. Even in the first church it was evident that there were differences between them, In a sense different denominations. In no letter did Paul say you all need to be more like the church of (fill the blank). And Paul had both good and bad things to say to all of them. That has not changes in 2000 years.

[NavyCanDo]

Good one! :-)

[surroundedbyblue]

Good post! Of course the haters don’t think so but too bad for them.

[BipolarBob]

It’s obvious both sides of the pew drink Haterade®. It would be difficult (but not impossible) to find a church as arrogant and boastful as the Catholic Church. The Rock the Real Church is founded upon is The Rock of Ages - Jesus Christ not any man. Does your pope wander the cities alone with just a staff and clothing preaching the Gospel and healing the sick? There is no “succession” of Apostles. They started the movement and it is up to us to keep it going. Jesus was a Jew not a Catholic, Mormon or LDS.

[Colofornian]

If you think everything was hunky dory with the Roman Catholic church, then you need to read why how the Jesuits got started in order to train a large number of clergy who couldn’t even read the Bible from which they could not teach. Simultaneously, they were burning people at the stake for distributing copies of Bibles to common folk.

Yes, the Jesuits historically were the most bigoted, persecuting anti-Christians there were of that time.

[Yulee]

If anyone depends upon anything except the shed blood of Yeshua (Jesus)for their salvation, they are lost. This includes any group in your list that calls themselves a church that adds anything additional as a requirement for salvation.

The founder of Christianity is Yaweh, in the person of Yeshua. No one except yourself can pray you in, pray you out, or in any way approach G_d except through the Holy Spirit placed in each believer, when he or she confesses their sins to G_d, and accepts the salvation offered through Yeshua sacrifice. The Church is the body of Christ, the believers, not a building, nor an organization whatever it may call itself.

[svcw]

I know when my belief was formed - the day Christ was born. I am a member of the Body of Christ, not a man organized group.

[BipolarBob]

"If anyone depends upon anything except the shed blood of Yeshua (Jesus)for their salvation, they are lost."

That is correct. That is what the Bible teaches.

[metmom]

When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)

True words, no doubt.....

[CommerceComet]

And if you are a CHRISTIAN - one who has accepted Christ's Gospel of Grace, regardless of which local fellowship you worship with - you belong to the ONE TRUE CHURCH, purposed in the heart of God before time began!

You get an A+ on your theology exam.

What thesaleboat (and Catholics in general) fails to recognize is that these new orthodox denominations (Lutherians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans, etc.) didn't create from whole cloth but built on the foundation of the earlier church. This foundation is not the exclusive property of the Catholics and we Chrisitains should never surrender it to them. The Church of Acts is our church, too. And since, Martin Luther and other squeezed out the earlier corruption, our version is a purer form of that church than the RCC.

[metmom]

If what you are saying is you are not a true Christian unless you are Catholic, then you are as bigoted as some in the LDS church or some of the JWs, or even fringe Baptist groups, who regard non members as gentiles.

Yup. That's Catholic doctrine and mindset.

[metmom]

Ping to post 26

[annieokie]

""""If we get our salvation, we shall have to pass by him [Joseph Smith]; if we enter our glory, it will be through the authority he has received. We cannot get around him [Joseph Smith]" Apostle George Q. Cannon, as quoted in 1988 Melchizedek Priesthood Study Guide, p. 142""""

Blasphemy!

""""" You can say that again, it is SATANIC BLASPHEMY in their own words, this will not go unpunished. If there are any Mormans here, you BEST BE WARNED of your satanic cult's teachings. How did you allow yourselves to be so deceived???

You can only serve one master, and Smith ain't the one. If he had not invented this cult, he would have sold SNAKE OIL, maybe he did and developed that trade to his highest ego. BLASPHEMY.

[MarkBsnr]

You can only serve one master, and Smith ain't the one. If he had not invented this cult, he would have sold SNAKE OIL, maybe he did and developed that trade to his highest ego. BLASPHEMY.

He was a glass looker (preceding the Urim and Thimmims and the magic hat), and was convicted of fraud.

[annieokie]

Did not know that bit of information. Thanks

All I know is I am allowed to HATE SATAN, and his name was Joseph Smith, for a spell. Charlatan, deceiver, hate filled, woman hater, thief, murderer, self rightous egomaniac who has led many souls to hell with him.

[Tennessee Nana]

Young regarded Joseph Smith “as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as god does in heaven”:
____________________________________________

Well after all Joey Smith showed his buddies a sure and easy way to get all the young girls they wanted...

[Elsie]

I hope they’re sarcastic posting about this stone reading, embezzling, polygamist, pedophiliac, phony prophet.

"Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkned his Eyes than he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on. But if it was not Spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated."

---Joseph Knight's journal.

---

"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."
(History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols.

(Independence, Missouri: Herald House,1951),

"Last Testimony of Sister Emma [Smith Bidamon]," 3:356.

---

"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation."
---(David Whitmer,

as published in the "Kansas City Journal," June 5, 1881,

and reprinted in the RLDS "Journal of History", vol. 8, (1910), pp. 299-300.

---

In an 1885 interview, Zenas H. Gurley, then the editor of the RLDS Saints Herald, asked Whitmer if Joseph had used his "Peep stone" to do the translation. Whitmer replied:

"... he used a stone called a "Seers stone," the "Interpreters" having been taken away from him because of transgression. The "Interpreters" were taken from Joseph after he allowed Martin Harris to carry away the 116 pages of Ms [manuscript] of the Book of Mormon as a punishment, but he was allowed to go on and translate by use of a "Seers stone" which he had, and which he placed in a hat into which he buried his face, stating to me and others that the original character appeared upon parchment and under it the translation in English."

---

"Martin Harris related an incident that occurred during the time that he wrote that portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone, Martin explained the translation as follows: By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin and when finished he would say 'Written,' and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used."
(Edward Stevenson, "One of the Three Witnesses,"

reprinted from Deseret News, 30 Nov. 1881

in Millennial Star, 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.)

---

In 1879, Michael Morse, Emma Smith's brother-in-law, stated:

 

 "When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon [I] had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph's placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while the scribes Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down."
(W.W. Blair interview with Michael Morse,

Saints Herald, vol. 26, no. 12

June 15, 1879,  pp. 190-91.)

---

Joseph Smith's brother William also testified to the "face in the hat" version:

 

"The manner in which this was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light, (the plates lying near by covered up), and reading off the translation, which appeared in the stone by the power of God"

("A New Witness for Christ in America,"

Francis W. Kirkham, 2:417.)

---

"The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods."

---Isaac Hale (Emma Smith's father's) affidavit, 1834.

---

---

[Elsie]

Smith's people never turned on him at the end, either.

A lot sure did in the middle!

---

Here is one...

---

 

W. W. Phelps I have a Dream William Wines Phelps, assistant president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Missouri

I Have a Dream

 

---

 

 

William W. Phelps' grave marker.

 The back is inscribed with the words

 

There is no end to matter

There is no end to space

There is no end to spirit

There is no end to race.

 

There is no end to glory

There is no end to love

There is no end to being

There is no death above"

from the hymn

"If You Could Hie to Kolob".

Today, William W. Phelps is probably best-known for his legacy of LDS hymns, many of which appear in the current edition of the LDS Hymnal.^[6]

Just a couple...

If You Could Hie to Kolob

Praise to the Man

---

Excommunicated and rebaptized

A scribe to Joseph Smith Jr., for some time, in late 1838 Phelps was one of several who bore witness against Smith and other leaders, aiding in their imprisonment in Missouri until April 1839. In June 1840, Phelps plead for forgiveness in a letter to Smith. Smith replied with an offer of full fellowship, and ended with the famous couplet, "'Come on, dear brother, since the war is past, For friends at first are friends again at last.'"^[4]

It was decided that Phelps, along with Frederick G. Williams, could be ordained as elders and serve missions abroad. Phelps served a brief mission in the eastern United States in 1841. Phelps moved to Nauvoo, Illinois where on August 27, 1841, he replaced Robert B. Thompson (who had died) as Joseph Smith's clerk. Beginning in February 1843, Phelps became the ghostwriter of many of Smith's important written works of the Nauvoo period, including General Joseph Smith's Appeal to the Green Mountain Boys of November 1843, Smith's theodemocratic presidential platform of January 1844, and The Voice of Innocence which was presented to and unanimously approved by the Relief Society in February 1844 to rebut claims of polygamy in Nauvoo arising out of Orsimus Bostwick's lawsuit accusing Hyrum Smith of polygamy and other sexual misconduct with the women of Nauvoo.^[5]

Phelps was endowed on December 9, 1843, received his "second anointing" promising him godhood on February 2, 1844, and was also made a member of the Council of Fifty. In Nauvoo, Phelps spoke out in favor of the destruction of an opposition newspaper, the Nauvoo Expositor. He believed that the city charter gave the church leaders power to declare the newspaper a nuisance. Shortly afterwards, the press and type were carried into the street and destroyed. Phelps was summoned to be tried for treason with Joseph Smith at Carthage, Illinois.

During the Mormon Succession Crisis in 1844, Phelps sided with Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was again excommunicated on December 9, 1848 for entering into an unauthorized polygamous marriage, but was rebaptized two days later.^{[citation needed]} He took part in the Mormon Exodus across the Great Plains and settled in Salt Lake City in 1849. He served a mission in southern Utah Territory (as counselor to Parley P. Pratt) from November 1849 to February 1850. There he served in the Utah territorial legislature and on the board of regents for the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah). Phelps died on March 7, 1872 in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. He was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.

---

---

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._W._Phelps_(Mormon)