“The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn to Their Fathers”
In this episode, we will be talking about the connection between Mormon and Joseph Smith, we explore the takeaways from the time between Joseph’s first and second visions and we finish by talking about the significance of Elijah coming before the great and terrible day of the Lord.
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we explore the weekly Come Follow Me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here with my friend and this show’s producer, Nate Pifer.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: What is up?
[00:00:31] Speaker A: All right, so last week we talked Doctrine and Covenants Section 1. But this week in our Come Follow Me, we are actually taking a little diversion away from Doctrine and Covenants to look at the first vision and Joseph Smith history, but just the first 26 verses.
So in this podcast, at least this episode, we are going to look at the context of the Restoration, first from a biblical parable, then from setting the stage, kind of the world getting ready for the restoration. We’re going to talk about the Smith family, give some context that way, and then some context to what was going on in America. Talk about sacred groves and what we learned from Joseph Smith’s preparation and the process itself of the first vision.
So to kick us off, Nate, I really wanted to. I really wanted to look at a parable I think we’re all very familiar with, but with a different perspective on it. And the parable I’m talking about is the parable of the ten virgins. And a lot of times we think of the parable of the 10 virgins as some future date when Christ comes to his church and the wedding feast and who’s going to be invited there. And we look at these virgins of members of the church where half of the people are prepared and ready with the oil in their lamps. But this time I want to look at it in a little different light, as in context to before Joseph Smith’s first vision.
So we understand the groom to be Christ, and we talk about Christ coming as the groom, but I don’t think we talk a lot about the bride.
And we look at the Old Testament and you have your favorite book, Song of Solomon.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: My favorite book. That and the cubits, baby.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: There we go.
This whole idea of this intimate relationship between Christ as his church, it plays out in several different places. We don’t just see it there. We see it in the book of Hosea, this idea of the Lord and the church being a wife and when she goes to apostasy, an unfaithful wife versus when the Lord is going to redeem and the restoration bring her back and marry her again. We have Ephesians 5, when Paul is talking about a marriage and how a man should love his wife and be willing to give his life to her, just as Christ loved the church and gave his life to the church to protect her. And it describes that intimate relationship between man and wife. And 2nd Corinthians 11, we also see a little bit about this. But, you know, to sum it up, the point of it is the church is Christ’s wife and he is the groom, and they’re going to get married. And at this point of time in the restoration, they’ve been estranged. The church has fallen away from Christ. They haven’t been worshiping Christ. You read about this in the Book of Hosea. It’s been prophesied. We talk about the time when the church has strayed from the ordinances. They haven’t kept his commandments, they’ve changed the doctrine. And now when the church is ready to be married to Christ, it’s the restoration of the gospel, when Christ is going to reunify this church.
So we talk about the virgins now, and I think the virgins, all of Christianity, this idea of a virgin is someone who’s only faithful to one person. They’re not cheating on them, they’re not adulterating themselves with other people. And I think Christianity at this time, they’re worshiping one God, they’re worshiping Christ, they’re worshiping Jesus as their Savior. They’re virgins. But not all virgins are prepared for a restoration, are looking for a restoration, or have this oil in the lamp, the spirit that’s guiding them.
So this is a little bit of the context I want to provide as we dive into this discussion. And as one of those people who had oil in his lamp, to give you an example, I wanted to talk about Isaac Newton a little bit.
What people might not have realized about Isaac Newton is he wrote twice as much on religious and scriptural topics as he did math and science.
And if you’re not aware, I mean, we’re talking about Isaac Newton, the guy that invented calculus, the guy that defined the laws of motion. He defined gravity. He was possibly the. The father of modern physics. This guy was brilliant, right? And he lived shortly before Joseph Smith. But the guy, what focused him, what helped him, when he was a young boy, he went to. They had like these fairs, these big events, and all sorts of things were on sale. All sorts of people got together and there was always this tent, right, this peep show. And he happened to got a peep at a peep show as a young boy. And he realized that this would be a temptation for him and that he had to be very careful about that this was something that he might end up wasting his life on. And to get his mind off it and to try to focus himself and dedicate himself to other pursuits to stay morally straight. He bought a math book at the fair. I know that’s your favorite thing, mate.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah, Songs of Solomon and math.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Math. Right up your alley, right? So he bought this math book and he thought if he kept his mind occupied on trying to understand God, understand God’s creation, understand what governs the universe and the world, and math would be a way for him to appreciate the Creator. It would keep his mind out of the gutter, so to speak, and keep him focused on a good path.
So he bought this math book. He read it. He didn’t understand any of it. So he had to go buy a second math book to teach himself enough math to be able to understand the first math book he bought. And he really kind of dedicated himself and trying to learn and understand as much as he can.
And he kind of. As he learned and discovered more and he wrote more and more and more, he realized that the church had really kind of strayed from what he thought it should be.
And he described it as.
The Lord has always had times where he’s called prophets. He’s taught the people through the prophets or dispensed truth for them, these dispensations.
And the people come to a point where they reject the prophets and they fall away to this time of apostasy. And the Lord once again calls a new prophet in a restoration and brings the truth back to the earth and dispenses it again through revelation and guides the people that are willing to listen through a prophet. He said, it’s the oldest religion in the earth. This is the pattern. The Lord and he walked through the whole history. The Lord’s called Adam and Noah and Abraham, all the way down to Christ. And he says, and now we’ve reached the time of the Gentiles. And the Gentiles have strayed from the covenant. They’ve broken the path. They’ve all gone astray. And so it is a wonder to me why the rest of the Christian world isn’t looking for a prophet today to restore the church. And when he restores the church, it won’t be a new religion. It’ll be the oldest religion on earth, the same religion that’s existed from all time. And that’s what Isaac Newton was looking for in my book. This is a guy who had oil in his lamp. He had focused his life in trying to learn as much as he can, understand as much as he can not Just about a religious topic, but really broad. Understand all of God’s creation, how math worked, how science worked, how the religion played into it, the Bible. Just understand as much as he could and give credit to God as the source of all light. That is, the more he learned, the more he understood, the more prepared he would be to come closer to God and understand and appreciate his creation and how he works.
And that understanding brought him to expect and wait for a prophet to be called.
So I go to that parable of these virgins.
I think there’s a lot of people that were ready for the restoration of the gospel. I think there was a lot of people that were really looking for truth. And when it came, it sounded right and they were ready to join and their eyes were open for when the groom came back and restored the church here on earth.
So with that context there kind of out of the way, I want to bring it in a little bit more closely, focus in a little bit more narrowly.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Narrowly.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Narrowly.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: I mean, narrowly is cool, too.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Whatever. Yeah. I just want to take the focus and, I don’t know, maybe a different word would be zoom in on the Smith family itself and give us some context to the setting before Joseph Smith received his revelation.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: All right.
So Joseph Smith Sr. Was actually a fairly prosperous guy. He did pretty well for himself. Lucy came from actually a pretty depressing setting. She was in a bad place.
Her sister’s caught.
Tubular. Help me out, Nate.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: It’s working well.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Tuberculosis.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yup.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Save me, Nate.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: I don’t know. Tuberculosis.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Tuberculosis. Thank you. Thank you. I was waiting for that life preserver. I was drowning in that sea. Anyways, she had two sisters, and both of them died from tuberculosis. Tuberculosis.
And the crazy thing is, one of them actually got. She was on her deathbed, and all of a sudden she woke up. She was feeling great. She said, I’m better. I’m cured. And then she died, like, right after that.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it was crazy. And it left her, well, with no sisters, but also with a lot of melancholy. She kind of slumped into a depression and was just kind of lost in herself and was wondering, really wondering if there was any purpose to living still.
And her brother cared a lot about her, tried to bring her out, and ended up bringing her to a party where she met Joseph Smith and fell in love. And that really kind of changed things for her. But this is going to play another role because she catches tuberculosis.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: I got you. Just say the T word and I’ll get you.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: You know, they actually called it consumption back in the Time, just call it that. We just call it consumption from here.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: I mean, honestly, there’s some symbolism in that even now with our consumerism. Anyways, right.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: So she found this tall, handsome guy. He was very successful. And she didn’t have much because, you know, kind of humble circumstances. Their family had been some hardships, but her brother did very well. And her brother had a business partner over, and they were just chatting, having a conversation at their wedding. And the conversation turned to where the business partner said, you know what, whatever you give her as a present for a wedding, I’ll match it. And he said, well, that sounds great. I’ give her $500. And he said, I’ll match it. I’ll give her another 500. So they gave her $1,000 as a wedding gift, which was a lot at that time, quite a bit.
She actually held onto it because she didn’t need it. With Joseph Smith being as prosperous as he was the first six years of their marriage, he did very well on the farm.
But things take a turn for the worse as we’re getting ready for Joseph Smith to come onto the stage. In 1802, at this time period here in the US where they lived, ginseng was all over the place. It grew very easily. It was a readily available crop. And over in China, there was a lot of fear with the plague. And ginseng was used as a pharmaceutical to help with the plague. And there was a high demand for the ginseng. So Joseph Smith, being a prosperous guy, being an intelligent guy, decided to start a mercantile to collect a bunch of ginseng and sell it to the Chinese. And he gathered this huge crop, invested a lot of his money into this deal. And his partner, he went to sell it to his partner, said he’d give him $3,000 for the crop.
And Joseph Smith said that this was. And we’re talking about Joseph Smith Sr. He said this was about 2/3 the value of what it was, or less than 2/3 the value. He said he could do a lot better for himself if he were to sell the crop directly to the Chinese and not work through the middleman in this case. So Joseph Smith made a trip to New York, talked to a captain of the boat to go sell the crop for him, act as his agent and bring back the money for him, and he’d divide some of the profits with him. Well, this previous partner that he had talked to that wanted to buy it on the cheap, spent some time and energy to find out who the captain of the boat was and what boat Was selling with Joseph Smith’s crop. And as he got on the boat and talked to the captain, he had his own ginseng crop that he wanted to sell. And he told him that he would be in charge of selling Joseph Smith’s crop as well. So he. He boarded the boat, went over to China and sold all the ginseng. Came back, he made a large profit. He was kind of bragging about the profit to Lucy’s brother, not knowing that who. Who he was, about how much money he had made. He had a chest full of silver and gold. It made a pretty good profit. But he came back to Joseph Smith Sr. And told him that the cell was a bust, that all he got was a chest full of tea. So he gave Joseph Smith Sr. Just a couple bags of tea for his efforts, and that ruined Joseph Smith Sr. He had to sell his farm.
He had accrued about $1,800 of debt going into this venture and starting the mercantile. And he needed to bail himself out with the $1,000 dowry that his wife had raised. So this was the start of their troubles. From being successful, from being prosperous, from always having what he needed to. Now all of a sudden, he’s scraping to get by. He sold everything that he had. Now he’s going to start being a farmer again, but working on other people’s property to try to pay the rent for the lease on the farm that he’s living on.
To make matters worse, it really just goes downhill from here.
1816 was the year without a summer. A volcano in Southeast Asia erupted, put so much ash and dust and volcanic debris into the air that it blocked out the sun, dropped the temperatures, Crops froze. They had snow all the way through June. Just terrible conditions to where it was a bust. He couldn’t grow anything.
And again, he was at a loss and had to sell what he had and try to make a move up to upstate New York. And that’s where things kind of take a change for, you know, for the Smiths. Now you’re going to have Joseph Smith. He’s coming from a family of very humble circumstances. They were once proud, prosperous, doing really well, but they’ve been scraping to get by and selling everything they had and just trying to make things work In a world that really everything’s kind of turned against them. The deck is stacked against them to make things, you know, maybe one little more piece of information about Lucy Smith.
The same year that they had the Ginseng Problems, 1802. Around that same time, she contracts consumption. And remember, her sisters both of them had died from this tuberculosis. I’m not even going to try to say it. Tuberculosis.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
She catches this and she’s deathly ill.
But now she’s got something to live for, right?
And she’s praying to God and she makes a covenant with him that if he allows her to live, that she’ll seek his religion, she’ll seek him out and do her best she can to raise her children according to God’s way. So she has this really spiritual experience. And then later on, as she’s seeking this religion, and she’s part of this time period, the second Great Awakening, where she’s trying to find the true church. The story really doesn’t begin with Joseph Smith, but even before him, when she had this experience and God spoke to her when she was on her deathbed and said, you trust in God, now trust in me. And also said, ask and you shall receive. Seek and it shall be given to you. And some of the same experience is really going to play into Joseph Smith as he’s searching and discovering, trying to find the truth. And even later on, she was a little bit worried about her husband, Joseph Smith Sr. Because he wasn’t interested in organized religion.
He didn’t want to attend church. He was a religious man, but didn’t feel any tendency to. To attach himself to any sort of church. And she was worried about his soul, his sake. And so she prayed. She actually went to a grove of trees and prayed for her husband, in which the Lord assured her that he would one day join the true gospel of Jesus Christ and gave her some peace on that. So Joseph Smith Jr. Later on, he’s not the first Smith to go to a grove of trees to pray, which is kind of interesting.
And a lot of that influence and his family kind of sets the stage for the experience that he’s about to have.
Now, to set the stage for the time period from 1790 to 1830, we have a second Great Awakening. And I just wanted to read to you guys a quote from somebody who lived through that time period. They said the noise was like the roar of Niagara. The vast sea of human beings seemed to be agitated, as if by a storm. I counted seven ministers all preaching at one time, some on stumps, others on wagons. Some of the people were singing, others praying, some crying for mercy.
A peculiarly strange sensation came over me. My heart beat tumultuously, my knees trembled, my lips quivered, and I felt as though I must fall to the ground.
I mean, can you imagine that? Seven preachers preaching at the same time, standing up on soapboxes or stumps and yelling. I mean, you had people that running around on all fours, barking like a dog, just doing all sorts of weird things. This is a revival period, a lot of excitement. People are trying to drive people to these events. It was the thing to do to try to find Jesus. It was kind of a crazy time.
So just to share one scripture and we’ll dive into this first vision.
Doctrine and covenants 1, 13.
Joseph Smith says, therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power. And then may we stand still with the utmost assurance to see the salvation of God for his arm to be revealed. And that’s one thing we’re going to see about this revelation, this first vision, this great experience is there was a lot that happened where Joseph Smith was doing everything he could in his power to get to where he could before God would step in and unveil himself to him in that grove.
And a lot of times I think we focus on, you know, Joseph Smith said a prayer and God all of a sudden appeared and answered him. So if I pray about the Book of Mormon, why wouldn’t God just come and tell me? Or why won’t I hear a voice instantly telling me that the Book of Mormon is true? What we don’t realize is the amount of effort and time that actually passed in this process.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: I think to that point it was kind of always, it was always kind of weird for me, you know, while serving a mission that we would kind of talk about the first vision. It was that was always that, that always kind of ended up being the theme of it, which is just like, hey, like, you know, this 14 year old boy prayed and, and in answer to his prayer, God spoke to him. It’s funny because I feel like it’s kind of the wrong message, you know what I mean? Especially when talking with people that are, that are learning how to pray for the first time. It’s like a funny thing to be like, it’s kind of a weird setup, right?
[00:20:55] Speaker A: You set the bar pretty high.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: I’m just like, yeah, just like, just for the record, I’ve God’s never come down and told me anything, you know what I mean? Like, at least in person, you know, when I’ve prayed. But it’s funny because like the, the whole point of that message should be, oh, hey, by the way, like God has restored the church on the earth, right? It’s like, it’s the highlight of the story. Should definitely not be, hey, a 14 year old kid prayed and God spoke, you know, or God came down to him. Right, because that’s like you said, it’s like all of the factors that had to take place beforehand to make that happen, you know what I mean, are probably not going to happen to anybody, you know, but the biggest thing that we need to learn from it is, hey, luckily this kid put in the preparation and the work and was worthy and was called. And because of that, the highlight is, oh, and by the way, the church has been restored. God’s church has been restored.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: It’s been restored and he does answer prayers.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: We’ve got to put in our work though. It’s not something that you can expect that all of a sudden the heavens are going to open, a beam of light’s not going to come, all the angels aren’t going to be singing praise to you. Are you the one restoring the church? This is a pretty glorious event and I don’t know, it does set the bar pretty high like you say. I don’t know if the message is you should expect all of heaven to move out of their way and all of a sudden accommodate you because you said a prayer once.
There’s more going on here than just that.
But to be fair, I will say, you know, when I first prayed to find out if the Book of Mormon was true, my experience wasn’t like Joseph Smith’s, kind of your point, right. For me it was more of a, in my mind, just, you know, you’ve always known it to be true. It’s just kind of a very subtle confirmation, almost kind of disappointing in my mind of what I was expecting versus what I got. But I did see, I did see a prayer answered, which was a really cool experience in kind of a big way. Joseph Smith told this account, I think there are four different written records that we have on the church website that you can look at and all the records. He talks about this process starting when he is 11, 12 years old and going all the way up until he is in his 15th year or even maybe his 16th year. You are talking about three or four years of him doing everything he can to figure out which church it is. And what’s driving this desire is he feels like he himself has sinned or is not worthy or he wants to know where he stands before God. It’s kind of his personal worthiness issue that he’s dying to know. Am I saved? Am I good enough?
What’s the fate of my soul? What do I need to do?
And this question drives him to attend as many meetings as possible, as it says in Joseph Smith history. Can you imagine that a 12 year old boy saying, mom, can you take me to this church now? Can you take me to this church?
A lot of our 1112 year old boys can’t wait to get home from Sagam meeting or throw off the tie and change the clothes and be done for the day.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: 11 or 12 year old boys are pretty much all of us.
We’re going to be honest here.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that dedication to him to attend not just a meeting, but as many different meetings as occasion would permit, as he says it, to try to sort this out in his mind and find the truth. It wasn’t just a single prayer. It was this journey.
And the word that he uses in Joseph Smith history. He says after he had labored, right. This word that we associate with childbirth or hard labor or he had labored under these circumstances for several years. He’s turning to the scriptures. He’s attending as many different religions. He’s thinking it out. He’s asking questions. He’s really just diving into this. How many of you guys are. Nate, you know, do you have experience where you’ve asked a question where it’s just driven you to the point where you ask that same question for four.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Years and no, I’m just saying I’m too impatient. I am just going to be, you.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Know, well, especially in this day and age when we have got cell phones and if we have a question, we pull it out and we search it up and you know, within a matter of minutes we have the answer to our question.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: I think we’re so far removed from that time when, I mean, we talked about this in our last episode. But communication taking weeks at a time to find out what happened or what’s going over on the other side of the sea. You waited for things. And this was a process that he was willing to devote himself to and really just test out over years.
And the cool thing is when he decides to pray, it’s not just, okay, I’m going to go pray right now.
Right. He didn’t just kneel down all of a sudden, wherever he was standing next to his bed and kneel down and pray and ask God, is this true? But he says he retired to the place where he had previously designated.
Right. He planned this prayer out. He didn’t just say, oh, this is a lovely spot, I’m going to kneel down and pray right here. No, he said, this is a lovely spot. I’m going to come back and pray. Here, when I’m ready, I’m going to prepare myself for this prayer and I’m going to really ask God what’s been on my mind for these last several years.
What are your thoughts over there, Nate?
[00:26:20] Speaker B: I mean, my mind kind of just goes back to what you’ve already said, which is, and, and again, like, I always, I always look to this stuff to kind of relate to, you know, to me personally or to, to us. You know, like, I try to, I try to do that with all this stuff. And, and again, it is it, it always kind of comes back to what are we willing to do to receive an answer to something or even, you know, when I’ve, when I try to prepare lessons for, you know, whatever meeting I’m, I’ve, I’m in charge of teaching or something like that, you know, I always strive to have kind of a, you know, a profound personal experience in connection with whatever that lesson is. And, and do I, you know, obviously do I, do I try to find time to set aside you know, other distractions and kind of get to it. And then when you look at, you know, the maturity of, of a 14 year old who had, you know, who had literally planned, hey, for years, it says, and then has designated a place to pray and to put that work in.
I’m just saying, like, there’s a reason that Joseph Smith in my, you know, in my belief was, was called because it takes kind of a special person to be able to be that disciplined at that, at that age when I have a hard time doing it at my age.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I go back to the parable of the virgins with the lamps, right. The oil that we put into it.
I look at the focus, the dedication that Newton put into getting to the point where he saw and understood everything that was going to happen. Not that he was a prophet, not that he was Isaiah, but yet he still had a firm grasp on those situations.
And the time and the dedication, the focus, the energy that Joseph Smith put into getting this answer.
And a lot of times we oversimplify this restoration process. Joseph Smith prayed and God came and told him not to join the church. And then an angel came and showed him where the plates were. This whole thing just kind of rolls out, but we skip over the, the years and the stress, centuries really preparing.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: The earth for it. I’m just saying, it’s like if you want to, I mean, if you want to talk about oversimplification, I’m just saying it took so many inspired people along the way to even, to even start the process of, you know, I mean, even reorganizing the writings of the church to be at least some. Some sort of guide, you know, to get started, to have a belief in. In Christ. And then at that point, to, you know, to make it so that anybody could read the scriptures and not just, you know, clergy and even. That’s just oversimplifying, again, the idea of centuries that it took to even. To even prepare the earth, not just for a young man to prepare himself.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Oh, I mean. I mean, we could really.
We could have a whole podcast just on that. I mean, you talk about the Mayflower where it landed. They were off course. They were hundreds of miles away from where they should have been. But where they showed up was cleared land ready for them to go with springs of fresh water, because the Native American inhabitants that lived there before all got sick, died of infirmity. And everybody else. All the other.
All the other inhabitants here of the continent didn’t even want to touch that area because they were so afraid that they would get sick and die, too. So you’ve got this area with the ground is ready, you’ve got freshwater springs. It’s been cleared, it’s ready for farming. Someone had already gone in and done the work for them. Yeah, just all sorts of things happening to make this thing come about. Right.
Well, going back to Joseph Smith, you know, not only does he have the couple years of preparation that he puts into this, he finally has this prayer. He has this really awesome experience. He sees. Well, first, he’s almost overcome by. By the adversary.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I’ve seen the church movie. There was. There was a clock sound that went like.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Right, that’s the one. That’s pretty intense, too.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that church movie. We had to stop showing that to everybody.
Everybody’s too freaked out about that whole thing. And again, I mean, I don’t. I mean, it is kind of freaky, but usually when you’re trying to. When you’re trying to convince people that we’re not just the weirdest people in the world, maybe not the best video to show them.
I’m sorry, Church. I’m sorry, Church. For that video.
For hating that video. I mean, I kind of like it, but.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: But it wasn’t. It was an intense experience. Right before he. Before the light comes down. He has.
He has this struggle with an unseen power, but a very real power. And really, so many times we talk about Satan in the abstract or the devil or the adversary or this abstract concept, but really, this first vision makes it very tangible, very real. There is something there, not just something in our imagination, but there isn’t a force that as much as God has been working to try to bring this about, to try to prepare the world for the coming of his Son, there’s something there that’s been trying to stop it as well, that we fight with, that we need to be willing to push past or to reach out to God to deliver us from that, to find that energy to persevere, to make it through at the end.
And the heavens open. And he sees God the Father, he sees his son, Jesus Christ. And he learns some things for himself. He learns that he does have a good standing before God, that his sins have been forgiven and that was the one thing that was just driving him crazy to find out. But also that God’s church wasn’t there. And so you might ask, okay, well where is it? What do I need to do? And God, it’s not like he answered the question right. And sometimes that’s the question we ask. We ask and we expect a straight answer from God, like, what church should I join? And God says, well, don’t join any of them yet. You’re like, oh, well, what do you mean?
Is there not some more questions there? Like, are you saying, is there another church that’s going to happen?
God is not telling Joseph Smith at this point, hey, I need you to bring this church back to the earth. It’s kind of open ended, just, I don’t want you to join any of them yet. And that’s not really what you’re expecting God to answer. Have you ever had a prayer and you’re expecting something like God is going to tell you, here is my church, or you can join any of them, or it doesn’t really matter. But God says, you know what, I don’t want you joining any church. That just doesn’t seem like an answer God would be giving.
But he answers him, he’s drained. He comes back home to his mom and he tells her, you know, I’ve learned for myself that the Methodist church isn’t correct because that was the way she was leaning and they were thinking and whatever else. But he’s really tested his hypothesis that he thought maybe this church would get him there. He asks God and he learns for himself there’s something else going on.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: And his family had been being prepared to accept this by the way too.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: His, his, his mom’s desire for God and, and her, her commitment to trying to become closer to God. A lot of this again, like I think kind of keeps coming Back to people being prepared, even if they didn’t realize they were being prepared for something. Yeah, I mean, his family were the only people that believed him at first. You know, I mean, that’s to not.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Just reject them outright like all the other people, you know, you’re crazy.
You know, you saw God. What? Why did God talk to you and not to the reverend down the street?
Yeah. There’s a lot of faith and a lot of trust and a lot of preparation that went into this. And it’s pretty neat that here, this experience is happening in a sacred grove. The grove has played a prominent role throughout history in the church.
And to show you what I mean, you go back to Abraham.
And when the Lord appears to him in the name of the place Mamre the M A M R E as he’s sitting here, it’s a grove.
He’s gone to this grove, he’s built an altar, he’s worshiping the Lord in this grove, and he’s dwelling in this grove. And God appears to Abraham in a grove and establishes his covenant with him.
Not only does he establish a grove with Abraham, and this happens several times in Genesis. You see the story of, of Abraham. He plants a grove and then builds an altar and worships God somewhere else. Then he seeks a grove among the land of the Canaanites. This idea that the grove was associated with God, it’s kind of an interesting idea. And it gets a bad rap because after the temple is established, the people are told not to be building their groves anymore. And they tear down the groves and they tear down the high places. So the groves is oftentimes associated with apostasy. And these people that are worshiping false idols or false gods in all of these groves. But before it was a symbol of apostasy, it was a place where people could find God when there was no temple here on earth.
And, you know, to show you that point a little bit more, think about Moses before he delivered Israel out of Egypt.
Joseph Smith being somewhat of a modern day Moses that is restoring Israel. Where did God appear to Moses before he called him to redeem his people?
You know, you got the burning bush and you’ve got, you know, the palm branches that are laid before Christ when he enters triumphantly into Jerusalem, when he goes to start the atonement that the night before he dies, he’s in a grove of trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Ultimately, when he’s hung on a cross, it’s almost like a grove of trees, as the New Testament says. He was hung on a tree. He was almost as if the center of a grove or a body hanging on a cross, and all of his harks back to the Garden of Eden. When God walked on the face of the earth with man, it was in a grove of trees in the Garden of Eden, in the center of which he had the Tree of Life.
So this imagery, this powerful idea or notion of these trees and finding God in the trees existed as a place of worship before a temple was built on the earth. And then as you see the temple show up in Israel and the religion centralized now, you didn’t have all of these offshoots and individual people going and worshiping in trees because that was pulling away from your church, your centralized worship. That started people down the path of apostasy. But in Joseph Smith’s day, when you’re in an age of apostasy and there is no temple for the Son of Man to come to, there is no place to worship. Here you have him going back to a grove just. Just like the ancient patriarchs did, and having an experience very similar there, showing really that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: I think there’s a lot of symbolism there, too, like the idea of the tree and like, of the, you know, obviously of, like the process and life cycle of a tree. And, you know, it is interesting because, like, when Joseph Smith goes into the grove, he’s just. He’s just like a young, small branch, you know what I mean? That luckily is taking strong roots. But at the same time, it’s like he’s not at that point ready for the weight of what eventually he’s going to need to be ready for, right? And when he has his, you know, his first vision, he doesn’t get. He doesn’t get burdened with the weight that could have broken the small. You know what I mean? Like the small sapling or whatever. And as. As he. As the tree begins to be nourished and. And fed, eventually line upon line, he’s kind of. He. It’s revealed to him the weight that he is going to have to be able to bear, you know, and what the full extent of that calling is actually going to be.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: I love that, and I love the imagery, really. It’s a dual.
In one instance, you have the tree representing the Tree of life or Christ, right? An image of the Savior.
But then at the other side, you know, you’ve got the allegory of the olive tree, where you’re cutting these branches and relocating them all over the place. And this imagery, this tree is, is no longer the Savior, it’s us, it’s Israel, it’s scattered. Or this represents us.
Isaiah 53. You’ve got this. He grew up as a tender root, as this plant, as this sprout that’s growing up out of the ground and is referring to Christ, but at the same time it’s referring to us. And this thing is, Christ is the sheep, or Christ is the shepherd, but we’re the sheep, but we’re also expected to be the shepherd. This idea that really God, Christ is becoming us so that we might become him in this dual symbolism where these images are used to describe him or to worship him, but he’s not afraid to turn that back around and say, really, this is you.
You’re the same stock, we’re the same together, and I am going to bring you to be just like me. And what better place to illustrate that than this grove of trees?
As you’ve expressed this imagery of Joseph Smith as the sapling. Powerful.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: Very powerful imagery. I love it.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in this week as we discussed the start of Joseph Smith history.
The next episode, we’re going to talk a little bit more about. After the first vision, we start talking about Moroni and the plates and how that comes into play, and we’ll dive a little bit more into the restoration.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Until next time.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: See you Sa.
0 responses on "JS History 1: 1 - 26 (2025)"