Mormons
CULT#2: MORMONS
Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, also known as Mormonism, and an important religious and political figure during the 1830s and 1840s. In 1827, Smith began to gather a religious following after announcing that an angel had shown him a set of golden plates describing a visit of Jesus to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. In 1830, Smith published what he said was a translation of these plates as the Book of Mormon, and the same year he organized the Church of Christ.
Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr.
Joseph Smith, Jr. was born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont to Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith, a poor farm family. In Joseph’s early teen years, they moved to western New York—a region of intense religious activity during the Second Great Awakening—where they continued to farm just outside the town of Palmyra, to the east of Rochester, New York. Although Smith never joined a church during his youth, he did read the Bible and was influenced by the contemporary folk religion of the area.
In 1820, Joseph Smith goes into the woods to pray and ask God which church to join because he isn’t sure which one is true. In response to the prayer, God the Father and Jesus Christ appear and tell him not to join any church because “they were all wrong.” Jesus then tells Smith “that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt.”
Golden plates
Smith first came to documented public notice in the late 1820s after he declared that he had received a visitation from an angel named Moroni, who had directed him to a long-buried book, inscribed on golden plates, which contained a record of God’s dealings with ancient Israelite inhabitants of the Americas. This record, along with other artifacts (including a breastplate and what Smith referred to as the Urim and Thummim), was buried in a hill near his home. According to Smith, on September 22, 1827, after he had spent four years in spiritual preparation, the angel allowed him to take possession of the plates and other artifacts. Almost immediately thereafter local people tried to discover where the plates were hidden.
According to the theology of Latter Day Saint movement churches, the golden plates are a book of bound and engraved metal plates that Joseph Smith, Jr. said was his source for the Book of Mormon. Smith said he returned them to an angel after translating them. Therefore, if they existed, they are not available for researchers to examine.
Joseph Smith said he was guided to the plates on September 22, 1823 on Cumorah Hill, Manchester, New York, in a buried box. Smith said they had been protected there for centuries by the angel Moroni, once a mortal prophet and the book’s final author, and the one who guided him to the plates. According to Smith, the angel told him he could not take possession of the plates until he obeyed certain commandments, which included making four annual visits to the spot.
Smith’s 1827 announcement that he had uncovered an ancient golden book brought him local notoriety. The curious came to see the wooden chest where they were told the plates were stored; but Smith said that the angel had commanded him not to show the plates to anyone else until a later date.
Book of Mormon
Smith and his wife moved to Harmony, Pennsylvania, with the financial assistance of their wealthy neighbor Martin Harris. Initially Smith told only a few family members and Joseph Knight that he had retrieved the reputed plates, which he said were written in unusual characters he called Reformed Egyptian. Smith also described the plates to Harris, who acted as Smith’s scribe while Smith reportedly translated the inscriptions “by the gift and power of God.” To translate, Smith gazed into a stone in the bottom of his hat, a method of investigation he had used earlier while treasure seeking. Smith said he could also translate using a set of spectacles made of two stones, called “interpreters” or the Urim and Thummim; but unlike the single stone he often used, Smith said that by command of the angel, he could not show these spectacles to anyone.
From April 12 to June 14, 1828, Smith and Harris worked consistently on the translation, a curtain set between the two men. The result of their work was 116 pages. After relentless requests by Harris, Smith reluctantly allowed Harris to take the manuscript to Palmyra to assuage the growing skepticism of Harris’ wife Lucy. When Harris returned, long overdue, he told Smith that the manuscript had disappeared.
The Curtain that seperated Smith and Harris
About the same time, Smith’s wife Emma gave birth to a stillborn son. Smith, distraught over losing both his child and the manuscript, then dictated to Emma his first written revelation, which rebuked him for losing the manuscript pages but assigned most of the blame to Harris. The revelation assured Smith that if he repented, God would restore the interpreters that the angel had taken away. During this period, Smith also may have briefly joined a Methodist inquirers’ class in Harmony.
Joseph Smith was forbidden by the Lord to retranslate that part of the record previously translated because those who had stolen the manuscript planned to publish it in an altered form to discredit his ability to translate accurately (D&C 10:9-13). Instead, he was to translate the Small Plates of Nephi (1 Nephi-Omni) down to that which he had translated (D&C 10:41). Those plates covered approximately the same period as had the lost manuscript
Soon thereafter, Smith received his first revelation written down – now known as Section 3 of the Doctrine and Covenants. Until that point, Smith had only claimed to be the translator of an ancient record. But at that moment he took the step from translator to prophet – a man who speaks the words of God. From that point on, Smith started writing revelations, not just translations. As we see in D&C Section 3, the 116 pages were truly lost and God would not tell Smith where they were.
In another revelation regarding what to do next, Smith wrote that the Lord said “if you should bring forth the same words they will say that you have lied and that you have pretended to translate, but that you have contradicted yourself. And, behold, they will publish this, and Satan will harden the hearts of the people to stir them up to anger against you, that they will not believe my words.” (D&C 10:31-33)
So Smith was commanded not to go back and re-translate the Book of Lehi from the gold plates, but to skip to the Plates of Nephi, which happened to be an account of the same story, but from a different person’s perspective. Thus, the Book of Mormon story could be told but it would not match the same version as the first 116-page manuscript, because it would be a translation from different plates. (See Official History of the Church 1:56).
In May 1829, while Joseph translated passages of the Book of Mormon about the necessity of baptism, he and Oliver Cowdery had asked the Lord who had authority to baptize in His name. “The voice of the Redeemer spake peace to us,” Oliver later wrote, and a heavenly messenger, John the Baptist, “came down clothed with glory. He conferred upon the two men the Aaronic Priesthood, which holds the priesthood keys “of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins.”
In early June 1829, Smith and Cowdery moved to Fayette, New York to complete the translation, and Smith began to seek converts. When people believed, they were baptized.”
John the Baptist directed the two men to baptize each other, and they soon also baptized others converted to the restored gospel. Through priesthood ordination they authorized others to perform baptism by immersion.
On April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith and his followers formally organized as the Church of Christ,. There was strong opposition to the church, and in late June, Smith was again brought to court but acquitted. Smith and Cowdery later said that they had received a visitation from Peter, James, and John, three apostles of Jesus, who appeared to them in order to restore the Melchizedek priesthood, which they said contained the necessary authority to restore Christ’s church.
Peter, James and John appear to Smith and Cowdery
What the angel told Joseph
Moroni identified himself as a Native-American yet appeared as a naked white man wearing nothing but a “loose, open robe.” According to this 1842 official account, the Angel Moroni told Joseph Smith that:
“there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this [American] continent, and the source from whence they sprang. [The angel] also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants [of the Americas].”
- Joseph Smith History, Verse 34
The angel Moroni as a white man
The Book of Mormon tells of how the Native Americans were cursed with red skin because they killed all the white-skinned Native Americans.
Book of Mormon, Alma Chapter 3 Verse 6
“And the skins of the Lamanites (Native Americans) were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.”
The Book of Mormon also tells the story of how Native-American “Indians” are really Jews that came from Jerusalem and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in barges. The Book of Mormon says it
“…gives an account of two great civilizations. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., and afterward separated into two nations, known as the Nephites and the Lamanites. The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.”
- The Book of Mormon, Introduction Page
The Tower of Babel
The other group came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. (+/- 2200 BC)
After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians
After the the Tower of Babel, the Jaredites cross the ocean in barges. These barges are described as having large glass windows (Glass technology was too primitive for this sea going vessel to endure the elements)
Building the barges that would carry the Jaredites to the Americans
These Barges would need to navigate the occupants from Yamen to the American continent, enduring rough seas. This is the route that is suggested the trip navigated…
The route of the Jaredites from Yamen to America
A barge enduring the elements
Jesus appearing to the Nephites after His Resurrection
After Jesus’ resurrection (AD 34), Jesus appears to the Americans (The Nephites)
Moroni had been a Nephite prophet in his mortal life (men become angels? ) –son of Mormon the prophet who compiled the golden plates.
Jesus teachers the Nephites after his reserrection
After Jesus’ Resurrection, Jesus visited the Nephites in the land of Bountiful – Jesus had to come to America cause the original church had become corrupted and was beyond repair.
Jesus had forgotten to teach the original disciples to baptize, take communion and tithe. Also, Jesus showed them his marks of the crucifixion. Jesus instructs the Nephites on how to baptize, take communion and various others laws and practices. Jesus also healed them.
Jesus healing the Nephites
Smith saw himself as a descendant of Joseph, commissioned to begin the gathering of Israel
(Isaiah 11: 1-16)
Before the great battle between the Nephites and their enemies, the Lamanites, Moroni hides the Golden Plates
Moroni hiding the Golden Plates
These are the plates that Joseph Smith would latter find.
The Garden of Eden.
The Book of Mormon does not say that the Garden of Eden was in America. This in fact came from Joseph Smith many years later when he and the Mormon Church settled in Jackson County, Missouri. Smith taught that Adam and Eve lived there in the Garden of Eden and this doctrine has been supported by many other church leaders. According to the official Church History, Joseph Smith even identified a mount of rocks in Missouri as Adam’s altar.
The garden of Eden
The death of Joseph Smith
The death of Joseph Smith
What the Mormons Teach
- Baptism for the dead – Baptize each other on behalf of non-Mormon’s who die, in order to enable them to progress to a higher level of Mormon heaven
- Believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly
- The book of Mormon is more correct than the bible
- There is no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet of God.
- The devil was born as a spirit after Jesus. They are spirit brothers (siblings born in heaven)
- A plan of salvation was needed for humanity. Both Satan and Jesus offered a plan. Jesus’ plan was accepted.
- God used to be a man on another planet – The Father and Jesus have bodies of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s and they are in the form of a man.
- God the Father had a Father
- God resides near a star called Kolob
- God had sexual relations with Mary to make the body of Jesus (This is disputed among Mormons and not always officially taught)
- Good Mormons have the potential to become gods. – There are many gods. There is even a mother god to whom God is married. God and his wife have many spirit children.
- The trinity (phrase they use) is three separate Gods, individuals, physically distinct from each other. – God cannot be one, as He would then be the biggest god in the world, a monster, a giant, wonderfully big (Joseph Smith)
- We are first begotten as spiritual children in heaven and the born naturally on earth.
- The true gospel was lost from the earth, Mormonism is its restoration
- Jesus’ death dealt with Adam’s sin only, individual sin is forgiven as we comply with the ordinances and laws of God.
- The are three heavens – telestial, terrestrial and celestial
- The Holy Spirit is a male personage
- The first spirit born in heaven is Jesus
- Jesus’ sacrifice was not able to cleanse us all from sin (murder and continual adultery)
- Christ was not begotten, born with human aid
- Elohim is the name of God
- There is no salvation outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- The worst false doctrines which originated from Satan is; that man is saved by grace alone and belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation.
- Good works are necessary for salvation. “We know that it is by grace we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23)
- Black people are angels that did not fight valiantly in the war in heaven.
- Man is not sinful by nature – replace the doctrine of original sin with that of “original innocence”
- Salvation is found in believing in Joseph Smith as prophet, belief in doctrines of Mormonism, temple work, the Word of Wisdom (a dietary law forbidding the use of tobacco, intoxicants, coffee, and tea) and salvation by works (James 2:14-26)
- All men will be given a second chance in the world to come (except those who have out-and-out rejected Mormonism)
Faith vs Works
Salvation by Works teachers:
- If we want to please God or attain salvation, we need to do what God has commanded us to do.
(John 14:15 “If you love me, obey my commandments”
John 14:23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. )
- WORKS led to salvation,
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?” -James 2:14
Salvation by Faith teachers:
- Works flow from our relationship with God (as a result of our love relationship)
- Good works always accompany true faith.
- James 2:22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?
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