all right
all right welcome to the quick media
come follow me series
this is doctrine and covenants we're
focusing on joseph smith history 1
through 26 essentially the first vision
here a couple of things i want to point
out before we
uh get into the nitty-gritty here on
joseph smith history and on the first
vision
number one there are about nine accounts
right more there's actually probably
more but officially the church says
there's about nine different accounts
that they have of joseph smith talking
about
the first vision some of them are kind
of sanctioned some of them
are from witnesses that heard him speak
about the first vision
i had a member of the study group
say something about how bring up a quote
about how
looking back at history it's hard to say
what history is true
right in other words we've been we've
grown up for the most part
after about more around the nine
turn of the century in the 1900s
looking at joseph smith history and the
first vision
as a a bedrock
principle and a bedrock event of the of
the restoration before that it wasn't
right because it wasn't talked about
that much
and and there's you know we've got all
these different
versions of of the first vision which is
great
but it was it's it's taken a while now
for us to start kind of move back on the
pendulum
and not be focused just on joseph smith
history
there's more to the story and
there is a lot more richness if we can
put things
into context here and understand kind of
what was happening we
we we look back on history oftentimes
this goes to the quote of the study
group member
and you know as i like to say
we're all monday morning uh historians
right instead of a monday morning
quarterback we're all monday morning
historians we look back
and we all have our own opinion we all
have our own views of what has happened
and transpired
he said she said type of thing right and
so
the more information we can get the more
we can understand
what has happened so that's that's one
thing to look at the second thing is
as i was implying
this wasn't talked about very much early
on
it was not a a a is something that that
you know when the when the missionaries
would go out when they would preach they
didn't
talk a lot about the first vision
because joseph smith
rarely talked about it and you would
think well why wouldn't he go through
this why wouldn't he talk a lot more
about
i mean he saw the father and the son
well how much do you talk about the
temple
right i mean it's it's it's it's
something that on one end
is very sacred and so
and very personal to him and i think we
need to see that it's hard to view like
okay this is
the opening of the heavens for the last
dispensation for all of us but
it was also a deeply personal
experience for joseph smith
that by the way many other prophets have
gone through especially especially
dispensational prophets right and so
the other thing is is when he came back
right and he tells the minister as we
get
in the example of joseph smith history
what happens
right he's a teenage boy he gets
ridiculed he gets mocked he gets
i remember what the frenzy of the moment
there
of the great awakening and all of this
fervor this religious
spiritual fervor that's going on in new
england in the early 19th century
passions were running very very high and
so for joseph smith you can imagine what
kind of adversity would face him when
he's going against
everything that everybody's talking
about
and something's deeply personal to
everyone which is
your religious experience and what is
truth
in that religion and here joseph smith
is saying look the heavens
opened to me and i saw father and the
son and etc etc
you can see how the from the reaction
that he would have had in many cases
possibly a very traumatic
type of experience after that
and another thing to look at in terms of
looking at this as something very sacred
and personal
to joseph smith is that
if you look in the gospels and we see
oftentimes
this uh um example at least a couple
times in the gospels of mary
where for example gabriel comes right
and speaks to her and
and afterward we're told from the author
of the gospels
uh each of the gospels that and mary
kept this to herself
right in other words she didn't it was
something that was deeply personal to
her
it wasn't something that would have gone
out to everybody
right away necessarily she would have
kept some of these things
very close to her and not going over it
was a very
sacred event if you had an angel appear
to you
you may say something to your family and
maybe a couple others but you know who's
going to believe you for one thing
and where do you cross the line as far
as
putting pearls before the swine so to
speak
right and so and so this whole
thing here about you know it wasn't
canonized early on we didn't have the
pearl of great price
until later in the 20 in the 19th
century
this is not something that the early
saints really
anchored on uh as far as this the
historian event right of of
the of the first vision and there is a
separation
between the idea of the organization of
the church
and of the first vision right we don't
we don't hear about
a new church that needs to be formed
anywhere in the accounts
that we have of from from joseph smith's
first vision
we do hear about the gospel we do hear
about the new and everlasting covenant
that's very important
but we don't hear about the church and
so these are these are
separate things in in a sense
uh and and and i think the early you
know historian would know this much
better than me but
i i think that it looks like in the
early 19th century that
you know the focus was more on the fact
that the
the church was restored and that it had
a prophet
and and that here's the organization of
the church and here's the book of mormon
and joseph smith is the prophet of the
restoration
right but what there wasn't that that
element of the first vision was not
real strong in there anyway it doesn't
appear
all right so so that's one thing i want
to look at there's actually two more
that i want to cover here before we we
get in number two
is that let me just read this from the
1832 account
right and
and i'm going to go down into the
account just a little bit here it says
here that the light or
the the fire right came down from above
and rested upon me
and i was filled with the spirit of god
and the lord
opened the heavens upon me
and i saw the lord that's interesting
he's using almost like he's using the
lord here is as two different
uses here of of each of the personages
but the phrase i want to look at here is
that he opened
the heavens upon me now if we go back
right again just like i did in the last
episode i wanna i wanna i wanna
drive home here the point that
this is the continuation in a sense
of the book of mormon this is why mor
moroni
is the messenger it's not just because
he's delivering the book of mormon that
he finished up
right it's that that moroni is the last
known
prophet that we have with the fullness
of the gospel with the melchizedek
priesthood
that's really important right
we have the book of mormon which has
despite what some critics say
the fullness of the gospel in it why
because its focus
is on the abrahamic covenant on the
eternal
covenant the great and everlasting that
the new and everlasting covenant
and that's what's missing in the time of
joseph smith
and that's what's got to be brought back
and sure enough as you'll see here in
the next couple of weeks
that's what moroni goes over before he
ever goes over
the book of mormon or anything else it's
the restoration
of the new and everlasting covenant in
in in
in the setting of the last days but if
we look at moroni's message right which
was his father
mormons message that the heavens have
been
closed in his time
that the people first started denying
christ and
the doctrine of christ they let that
slip
and then everything else with the higher
law which is what the new and
everlasting covenant is
started to fall apart right and then
eventually of course the people start to
fall apart
and they fall into sin and eventually
they're annihilated
it gets to that point and what is more
moroni and mormon's message
to us in in in the last writings that
that we have
it's don't close the heavens
right remember in ether 12 remember that
in in
mormon asks moroni to finish his record
which is the little space he has left
on this plate that's that mormon has
engraven on
and so mourinho moroni goes in and he
writes chapters eight and nine of
the book of mormon and he focuses on his
father's message of faith hope and
charity
and spiritual gifts
right and christ the doctrine of christ
then we go to the abridgement of ether
which is what moroni does next
and you go to chapter 12 where moroni
very much so
inserts his own writing in there in that
chapter 12 and again we get
faith hope and charity and christ he
talks about him
seeing christ and there's a focus
from moroni on the inbridgement of
talking about the brother of jared
seeing christ why well it's not just
about the doctrine of christ it's a
message from moroni that mormon was
giving to the people and to his son
that they had closed the heavens and
that's why they are falling apart
that's why they're being annihilated at
the very end with moroni 10
same thing we talk about that chapter
about
moroni 10 4 and how it's all about the
book of mormon
but putting it into context and learning
learning about the book of mormon being
true right if you pray about it but
putting it into context it's a it's a
continuation
of this message about the heavens being
closed it's about prayer
it's about calling up and opening up the
heavens and that chapter also is about
faith hope and charity
and all of the spiritual gifts that you
would get down from heaven
so at the end of the book of mormon with
moroni
and his primary message there about the
heavens being closed
and make sure you don't close the
heavens
then the continuation of that at this
time here
comes right to joseph smith with what
happening
what is it that happens here the heavens
are opened
to a farm boy a teenage boy
and from here the dispensation
will little by little occur of
priesthood priesthood keys ordinances
truths prophecies fulfilled
etc so that is how i think we ought to
be looking at that
right you've got to bring the book of
mormon and the
opening of the new dispensation here
with joseph smith together
it worked they fit together very very
closely
then the third thing i want to cover
here is
we look at the joseph smith history as i
said very much
or the first vision account very much as
this anchor for the restoration
and it is but it is also a deeply
personal
message to joseph smith and it is a very
similar
experience that many other prophets have
had
and in some cases to the point of being
almost exactly alike
to what they these other prophets have
experienced let's go for example back to
lehigh
and a lot of us think about the you know
i talk a lot about lehi's dream
right but there was another vision
that is recorded in first nephi one
in fact there's two visions in in in
first nephi one
that lehi has and in the first one
in in chapter one verse six it says and
it came to pass as he prayed being nephi
talking about his father lehi
as he prayed unto the lord there came a
pillar of
fire and dwelt upon a rock right
came down dwelt upon a rock before him
now this is interesting here and he
saw and heard much so
same example here why isn't nephi going
through this now it's very
possible perhaps likely that
lehigh had already gone through this in
the lost 116 pages
right that he he gets very specific
perhaps about what he sees
but maybe not it's the same idea with
joseph smith
that i was bringing up previously we
don't know how much of that is
really going to be revealed maybe in
writing it's a lot easier to do
but how much did that he of that did he
really give out to even his family
but because of the things which he saw
and heard
he did quake and tremble exceedingly so
we can imagine these are pretty profound
things
perhaps events and perhaps an
understanding
of the heavens a little bit more that
would be very
concerning and driving some fear into a
human being
but when he gets back to his own home at
jerusalem
he says that he cast himself upon his
bed and being overcome with the spirit
and the things which he had seen
he was overcome by that spirit and
carried away
in a vision i think that's an important
thing to understand he's he's carried
away
in a vision is this something he's
sitting there and he sees
in his body or does he have to be
carried away
and enter into a spiritual world it says
that
even that he saw the heavens
open right the veil is removed
and he thought he saw god sitting upon
his throne
surrounded with numberless concourses of
angels
in the attitude of singing and praising
their god and then he talks about
one being brighter than the others the
luster above that of the sun
and that's the savior right and then 12
others etc
and there's discussions about the sun
about stars
about a lot of things that we get in
some of these other visions from the
prophets
but it seems like there's an ascension
process here that happens
there's a lot of uh writings that are
non-canonical writings that are called
apocalyptic
writings now we use the term apocalypse
or apocalyptic in terms of doomsday
right of the last days of
of sodom or of
gog and magog type of thing right but
that's not
really what it means we use that term
today that way because
of the book of revelation and what it
talks about
in the happening in the last days or in
the times of
of the early saints which are very to us
very apocalyptic
because the name of the book of
revelation in greek is
apocalypse right so
apocalyptic means revelation so
apocalyptic writings
are an extreme version of revelation in
a sense they're
they're the heavens opening and in these
writings you see things like
abraham being taken away in fact even
metaphorically written where he's taken
away on a bird
and he's ascends up and sees many things
or isaiah same idea daniel
enoch is another example of that well
here we have lehigh where there's
kind of an idea of an ascension and i
think that's important to understand
because
as we have talked a lot about temple
drama
a lot of that mirrors i think what these
experiences uh reveal to the prophets
in in many ways these are endowment
experiences
right they are they are being brought up
through the ascension
up to the throne of god and that's
usually what's mentioned there might be
a lot more
between that but but they're brought up
to the throne of god to the holy of
holies
to the celestial room and there they see
god
and angels and and others right or with
isaiah in isaiah 6 right there's god and
there's the seraphim
and there might be other angels or or
the cherubim or
whatever else we want to talk about that
are characters in these
types of of scenes the book of
revelation
same type of thing they're going into a
spiritual world that is
very difficult to portray to articulate
in mortal terms so some of these other
accounts we get just a little bit more
information
that fills these things in for us
because again what we want to look at
here is putting ourselves in
joseph smith's shoes well we want to
know where he's walked
we know that he was inquisitive we know
that he went to pray
to get answers we also know that he want
to have his sins forgiven of him
but if we want it we want to have a
better idea of what he went through
because that is also for us
and i think that if we think about a
temple experience
we have a better idea of what the first
vision was
okay so i'm going to go down here to
verse 10 in joseph smith history
and let's start there with this example
and then we'll move to the other
the other some of the other accounts
verse 10 in the midst of this war of
words and tumult of opinions all the
the religious uh frenzy that's going on
here
i often said to myself what is to be
done who of all these parties are right
are they all wrong together if any of
them be right which is it
and how shall i know it so this is
our example that we have of why he's
going to go to
the grove but it's not the only reason
it's an important reason but it's not
the only reason
remember this account is given more in
in a narrative of restoration
than it is of a an ascension experience
so then he says in verse 11 while i was
laboring under the extreme difficulties
caused
by the contests of these parties right
the contest against each
other of religionists i was one day
reading the epistle of james
first chapter and fifth verse i think
it's interesting that it's
james here that is uh
prompting him triggering him to
to go pray right james is a lot about
faith and works
then it says which reads 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 right it's
temple imagery knock
and it shall be given then he says in
verse 14 so in accordance with this my
determination to ask of god
i retired to the woods to make the
attempt
well the woods to him are very familiar
we'll get into that in just a second
it was on the morning of a beautiful
clear day early in the spring of 1820
it was the first time in my life that i
had made such an attempt
for amidst all my anxieties i had never
as yet made the attempt to pray vocally
well this is very common
for that time period right the custom of
the day
was for the father to always lead in
prayer
right and we we could look at that in in
the church today as kind of like it's
kind of like a priesthood duty
to always lead the family in prayer very
different from what we do today
but that was the custom then so it's not
a surprise to see that a teenage boy
here
is going to go out and try praying
vocally that doesn't mean he hasn't
prayed before
but out loud for the very first time
at age 14 15 years old okay now a couple
of other things that we want to go
through here in terms of
setting the stage for why he's going to
the woods why he's going to the sacred
grove
again let's go back to the 1832 account
which is the earliest one that we have
and it's the only one that's written
specifically in joseph smith's
handwriting
he says that going back all the way to
age 12 that he was
seriously thinking in regards to the
important concerns
of the welfare of my immortal soul right
he's a very
conscientious kid he's worried about the
welfare of his own soul
at age 12. right there's there's not a
lot of
40 year old men that are always worried
about the
the their their soul right
it says this led him to searching the
scriptures believing as i was taught
in other words the way he's taught from
his family i felt to mourn for my own
sins
and for the sins of the world so this is
the making of a prophet
this is who he is he's worried about his
own
sins what have i done wrong what do i
need to make up for
where do i fall short and he sees that
man is in a fallen state this is what
he's been taught
right the family reads the bible a lot
they pray a lot
and so this becomes concerning to him he
wants to
you can see this is such an important
principle
especially it's astounding that for
somebody that young at 12 years old
right he's worried about himself but
he's worried about mankind
he's worried about their well-being and
this is what helps drive him
to the woods
and then this is the account again that
talks about the heavens that were opened
unto him now
let's go to the 1842 account all right
so the four large accounts that larger
accounts we have are 1832
1835 the one we have in joseph smith
history is the 1838
account and then we have the 19 1842
account
and then some other witnesses that have
spoken up but here in the 1842 account
it says when about 14 years of age
i began to reflect upon the importance
of being prepared for a future state
so same idea very conscientious worried
about his well-being
i retired to a secret place in a grove
it's not the first time he's gone there
what he means is this is a
secret area where he and his family
would go to right so this is this was a
clearing we know it was a clearing who
made the clearing
well the smith family did they would
have made the clearing
in fact it looks like joseph smith
on perhaps the day prior had left an
axe in a stump right in the clearing
why because he was chopping for firewood
very possibly firewood that was for
making fires under these large pots
these kettles
in order to make maple sugar which is a
way that the smith family would have
used that and probably sell
that maple sugar and it's something that
helps
distinguish perhaps the day that this
actually happened you have two
researchers who independent of one
another
came up with the same day right one was
based off of
weather and and then someone else who
brought it up going through the enoch
calendar that they actually came up with
the same day what day was it was march
26th well it's
pretty much the only day that it would
be as we're told in verse 14 here
a beautiful clear day that would have
happened during that time
in that part of spring so the likely day
is is march 26th
but this area here this clearing is a
place that they probably would have gone
to
and had their family prayers perhaps or
where or maybe even where the family
would have gone to
to discuss things or to even read the
bible perhaps i mean that's just
conjecture but
but it was a familiar place to him it
was secret to the family
so now we're going to go back to the
pearl of great price
version here joseph smith history he
says i kneeled down and began to offer
up the desires of my heart to god
okay back to the 1832 account
i cried unto the lord for mercy or this
is about his sins
for there was none else to whom i could
go and to obtain
mercy this is very familiar this is also
oftentimes what the prophets are doing
they need to be purified that's that's
that's a part of the temple experience
whether you have
made that connection or not right that's
part of what you're doing when you're
going through the temple
same thing we get in isaiah 6. what is
isaac what does isaiah do
in this temple imagery he's going
through and and one of the seraphim
one of the we would think of it maybe as
an angelic
type of a figure
takes a hot coal from the an altar
and puts it to isaiah's lips
right that is a metaphor a middle
eastern metaphor at least egyptian and i
think it goes beyond that
for repentance right isaiah needs to
repent well that's part of what you do
when you go through that process
of going through the temple before you
get to see
the throne of god
in isaiah's case it also happens
probably to apply to the people
and the temple and maybe to isaiah
himself for following false traditions
that's just my take on it my opinion
so joseph smith goes there to find
forgiveness from the lord
so here in the 1838 account the joseph
smith history account it says i kneeled
down and began to offer the desires of
my heart to god so again
keep in mind here he's in the grove it's
important to see this it's to start with
he's in the grove i had scarcely done so
when immediately i was seized upon by
some power which entirely overcame me
well this is very common think about
moses one
what happens with moses and his
experience there upon the mountain with
his vision
with god right he's left alone with
satan
and and satan tries to overcome him
tries to pull him his way
it's very very common you have to battle
with satan with the opposition you have
to slay the dragon
before you can have eternal life
which is what those myths or stories
those fairy tales are about right where
before you can save
the princess you've got to slay the
dragon
before you can get the treasure he says
that
this being entirely overcame him and had
such an astonishing influence over me
as to bind my tongue so that i could not
speak
thick darkness gathered around me so
he's we're moving
against creation here right instead of
getting light in order
we're going backwards here it's the
opposite opposite way in the opposite
direction
thick darkness gathered around me and it
seemed to me for a time
as i were doomed to sudden destruction
but exerting all my power so this is
important to understand to apply to us
in this example i think so he's being
as an outside force is trying to get him
he's trying to overtake him
well we get this all the time through
temptation we get this all the time
through
depression anxiety a lot of different
things that
are evil right they're evil things to us
why are they evil it's not that we're
evil in that sense
there are there are influences in our
lives whether they're
chemical or they're situational or
environmental whatever they are
right that that are trying to pull us
away from happiness
they're trying to pull us away from
eternal principles they're trying to
pull us away from
reaching the throne of god and that's
what's happening here with joseph smith
again if we think about this not just as
the adversary trying to stop the
restoration
which certainly he is but if we think
about
joseph smith as an individual
and as the other prophets having the
same experience
not just in the last days here and that
that experience is
our experience of going through the
temple also
then we get a better understanding of
what's happening here
with the adversary he's trying to stop
joseph smith
from going through the vision and
getting to the throne of god
he's trying to stop us when we're
working
when we're here in mortality he tries to
stop us from
in a metaphorical sense getting to the
throne of god getting to the celestial
kingdom
getting to the celestial room so in the
middle of this temptation in the middle
of you know whether it's
we can look at it as temptation but even
in this case it even it's more
depression darkness anxiety it's
it's whatever is going to pull you away
and destroy you
right in the middle of this he
does something he doesn't just give into
it
by exerting all my powers every he has
to give everything he has
that's the only way to get out of it
it's the only way to break through it
exerting all my powers to call upon god
to deliver me out of the power of this
enemy
which had seized upon me and remember
it's external
you're a child of god those things are
external they are
carnal they're part of our body they're
part of mortality in the environment
around us
they're not part of you they're not part
of your spirit
so he calls upon god to deliver him out
of the power of this enemy which had
seized upon me
and at the very moment i've had this
experience
with a couple of things at the very
moment
when i was ready to sink into despair
that's on one end of the spectrum
despair
and abandon myself to destruction
not remember he's not just giving up
he's giving all of his powers here
not to an imaginary ruin but to the
power of some actual being from
the unseen world who had such marvelous
powers i had never before felt in any
being
just at this moment of great alarm i saw
a
pillar of light exactly over my head
above the brightness of the sun
right think of visions here sun moon
stars etc
above the brightness of the sun which
descended
gradually until it fell upon me
it no sooner appeared than i found
myself delivered
from the enemy which held me bound so
again
looking at this as a parallel experience
to other prophets and their visions
looking at this as moses's vision what
was moses's vision the creation
that's his that's a vision that he had
same thing right the light comes out
across the deep across the abyss
across the void and then
there's organization there's order now
another thing i want to point out here
is that this pillar of fire this
pillar of light is descending gradually
upon him
right again back to the 1832 account
come down from above it came down from
above
and rested upon me and i was filled with
the spirit of god
right he's coming out of the darkness
and what is the out of the darkness it's
the it's the you can also think of it of
the dark ages
right it's from the time of moroni up
until the time of joseph smith all the
darkness
the lack of the ever the new and
everlasting covenant
i was filled with the spirit of god the
lord opened the heavens upon me and i
saw
the lord well that's something that
not necessarily happened immediately who
knows what happened in
going through that experience
maybe it happened right away maybe it
didn't i don't know
here's the 1835 account for as far as
the adversary goes he hears
someone a person walking towards him
i strove to pray but could not the noise
of walking seemed to draw
nearer i sprung up upon my feet
we can think about some of the videos
especially the more recent ones
where they're taking more and more of
these accounts and witness
testimony to into account to make these
videos
the latest one i saw you can see that
actually as he walks into the clearing
sure enough there's an axe sitting right
there in a stump
then he says that a pillar of fire
appeared above my head
it presently rested down upon me
and filled me with joy unspeakable
a personage appeared in the midst of
this pillar of flame which was spread
all around and yet nothing consumed
another personage soon appeared like
unto the first
he said unto me thy sins are forgiven me
right so that's that's important
it's one of the reasons he goes there
and that has to happen first
it probably happened before the vision
expanded for him
he testified unto me that jesus christ
is the son of god
think about nephi and the angelic tour
guide
right that that brings him and shows him
the meaning of the tree of life which is
basically the doctrine of christ
and and the focus there is the about the
son of god
now the other thing he says here in the
1835 account is that he saw
many angels just like lehi
right again in the in even with isaiah
and others and
the book of revelation with john the
john the revelator you see these other
figures
again trying to translate that from a
spiritual from spiritual eyes
to carnalize is a very difficult thing
to do i think
but he sees more there and that's
important
that is the council right that's the
salt
that you have in the old testament in
hebrew it's what happens
in the beginning which is a
representation of the holy of holies
and joseph smith all you know has this
this doctrine about the council in
heaven
especially toward the end of his life
but here it is right at the very
beginning
in the first vision he would have seen
what would represent the council in
heaven
in 1820 now in the joseph smith history
account it says 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 something i've brought up i
think before
but again i think beloved son may very
well be a title
he says the same thing at jesus's
baptism
well again beloved in hebrew is
david right this is the davidic
king the davidic king
this to me would be something that would
tie
this uh experience and
and this identification of jesus christ
to a temple drama that would have been
given in jerusalem
in the old testament times that's just
my thought on this
and it would have been the same thing
with john the baptist when he he
baptizes jesus right the
his father comes the voice is heard this
is my beloved son
well if that's a title he's not just
saying i love him
that's a title it's an identifier
right this is who was represented in
those temple dramas
in public especially the feast of
tabernacles
this is who this figure is it is the
messiah
it is jehovah jesus christ
is jehovah that's what jesus is lord
actually is saying in our english
versions it's it's jesus is jehovah
now let's go back to this pillar of fire
and what's happening here because i
think this is important to see as part
of an ascension experience here
like lehi had being carried away or
nephi being carried away
remember nephi says in his
vision whether i was carried away in the
body or
in spirit i do not know something to
that effect
right they don't know exactly what's
happening when they go through this
but they're carried away carried away
well is their
body carried up in a way or or are they
entering into a spiritual world
well it says here in the 1842 account i
retired to a secret place in the grove
and began to call upon the lord
while fervently engaged in supplication
my mind was taken away from the
objects with which i was surrounded
and i was enrapt in a heavenly vision
so he's looking at the objects so while
this starts off again he's in the grove
he can see
his axe the stumps the trees the leaves
the ground right he's in a physical
environment as this begins
but eventually he's taken away he's
carried away
back to the 1835 account which i had
just gone over
the pillar the pillar of fire which was
spread all around yet
nothing consumed right so again he's
there
in a physical environment the trees are
not being burned
nothing is being burned
but then eventually he is carried away
and then eventually comes back to
himself so to speak
and he finds himself laying on the
ground looking up into the sky
up into the heavens so this is
this is an endowment type of an
experience this is a theophany of
of ascension this is an apocalyptic
vision
that he's having it seems to me
and as don bradley says remember he's
the author of the lost 116 pages
he's a church historian and he writes
and speaks a lot on the first
vision and as he says um
he thinks that you know 200 years later
here we still are just
barely grasping what happened
with joseph smith in the first vision
now the last thing i want to bring up
here
is about what what this is about because
this is going to lead right into the
next
several weeks and really for the whole
rest of the year
and that is about what is being restored
what is beginning to be
said here by these visitations first by
the father and the son
and then by moroni and others
well we know in the 1842 account that
he received joseph smith received a
promise that the fullness of the gospel
right there in the first vision he
doesn't tell him that he's going to
start a church
doesn't tell him to go start one right
now right
but he does say that the fullness of the
gospel should at some future time be
made known
unto me in other words you don't have
the fullness of the gospel right now
it's not there and that's that's what
the restoration is all about
it's the new and everlasting covenant
it's the abrahamic covenant it's the
higher law
it's the ordinances and administration
of the melchizedek priesthood
it's the patriarchal priesthood if we go
back to the last episode and we look at
doctrine and covenants
chapter one which is the beginning of
talking about what this
book of commandments this doctrine and
covenants is going to be about
we can see right in here in verse 22 it
says that mine everlasting covenant
might be established that's what has to
happen
even when this was given here in 1831
right that was still being unveiled
as far as the wholeness of the
everlasting covenant it's probably still
being unveiled
and then the immediate verse after that
23 that the fullness of my gospel
might be proclaimed by the weak and the
simple unto the ends of the world and
before kings and rulers well
in order to have the fullness of the
gospel you have to have
the establishment the of the everlasting
covenant
and that's what the book of mormon has
so that becomes the tool that moroni
then brings
to help us understand the everlasting
the new and everlasting covenant
and that's what we need to filter
as we go through that book through the
book of mormon and of course with the
doctrine and covenants because
we're going to get a a continual
revelation
a revealing of the new and everlasting
covenant
for the last dispensation and this is
what we get in each of the dispensations
before there's a falling away right it's
everything is brought back to you
at some point it's that everything is
there
right the fullness of the gospel is
there the fullness of the priesthood the
fullness of the ordinances
the fullness of the abrahamic covenant
it's just that little by little or even
boom all at once like with moses
that higher law is removed and and
people fall away from it that's what
happened with mormon and moroni's people
and so the restoration of the gospel the
mission of joseph smith here
is to restore the new and everlasting
covenant and then you can preach the
fullness of the gospel
so this experience with joseph smith yes
it is an opening of the heavens to bring
the restoration of the gospel the
restoration of the church
right to to the earth again it is an
opening of heavens
where they have been closed for so long
from as far as we know from the time of
moroni
and he happens to be the messenger
that's going to come next
but it's also the beginning of
unfolding of revealing the new and
everlasting covenant
through the form of priesthood which is
going to happen with
john the baptist and peter james and
john and elijah and many many others
that are going to bring the keys to
joseph smith
it's a restoration of the temple
ordinances
that support that new and everlasting
covenant
it's a more clear understanding of the
doctrine of christ that had been removed
up to the time of joseph smith
especially about
the understanding of us needing to
become
like christ because we are co-heirs with
him
and then also applying very specifically
to joseph smith
and therefore to each of us individually
because joseph smith kind of represents
us in this case this is a vision
of ascension it's a vision of
it's a temple imagery vision is what is
happening here it is in many
ways an endowment type of event
an endowment experience and just as
joseph
is shown that he can ascend all the way
to the throne of god each of
us also have that opportunity
and we metaphorically go through that
when we go to the temple and so the
temple being put together was not
something that happened in nauvoo or
kirtland
prior right the temple
the temple doctrine was something that
was
thrust upon joseph smith right from the
very beginning
right here in the first vision and right
away
with moroni and i think we'll be able to
see this very clearly
as we go through the beginnings here of
the doctrine and covenants in church
history
i'll talk to you next time
Come Follow Me LDS
Doctrine and Covenants
