Where is the clear voice of authority on
right and wrong?
Divided and drifting churches supply religious 
philosophers but not prophets.
Yet Latter-day Saints testify
that Joseph Smith and his
successors were called to rescue a world
adrift in its own conceits and problems.
Such a claim can be tested by the Bible,
the record of prior prophets. Would you
assist me in making an important point?
I would like to record accurately your
awareness of the Bible,
but remember that the value of the result
depends on your strict honesty now.
I have two simple questions. First, do
you know who delivered the Sermon on the Mount?
If you do, raise your hand.
Second, could you name
all four Gospels in the New Testament?
If you can, raise your hand.
We have here observed that an audience of
Latter-day Saint college students can
score nearly 100%
 in a simple literacy test about Christ.
A Gallup poll this year determined
that only 42% of Americans
could name Jesus as
delivering the Sermon on the Mount;
only 59% of the college graduates
in this country knew who gave the sermon.
The national results on your
second question are similar.
Whereas about 85% of you indicated that you
could in name the four Gospels,
only 46% of Americans can do so; again
only 61% of college graduates can name
the four Gospels. So you and this audience
are on the high level of the grade
spectrum even college graduates
in our country our on the low level.
There could not be a stronger argument
for a college education of the kind
you are getting, blending scripture and
secular knowledge. This world cannot rise
higher than nominal Christianity until
the message of Christ and his prophets
is learned by educated people.
Another name for religious education 
is missionary work.
We must
share our reasons for Joseph Smith as a
modern prophet, restoring religious
insights to bring all to Christ in this
world and in eternity. As a religion
teacher who taught many of your parents,
I wish to share an approach to Joseph
Smith that grows naturally out of an
informed view of the Bible. I have spent
half of my time studying the sources of the
life of Joseph Smith, and the other half
studying Christ and the New Testament prophets.
I find it hard to believe
in the biblical prophets without also
accepting Joseph Smith and those called
after him. The same reasons that lead a
thinking person to accept Peter and Paul
as Christ's servants should also lead a
person to accept Joseph Smith as
commissioned by Christ. Here I'm going to
take Paul as an example because we know
more about his life than that of any
New Testament prophet. His main strengths as
a prophet or those of Joseph Smith.
If you forget some comparisons,
please remember the principle—
that the leading evidences that Paul 
is a true prophet also support
Joseph Smith as called of God.
Remembering that fundamental proposition,
you can reconstruct this talk anytime
with your own examples. Proof of the
mission of any true prophet gives the
format for identifying a later true prophet.
This approach does not assume
that any individual is a carbon copy of another.
Paul was not striking in person whereas
Joseph Smith impressed most
visitors by his height and bearing.
Paul was a missionary apostle whereas Joseph Smith 
presided over apostles and mostly
directed missionary work instead of
traveling to do it personally.
Paul had the best education that 
his culture could afford
whereas Joseph Smith was raised in
frontier poverty without training beyond
junior high school skills. But in spite
of such wide personal differences,
there are dramatic common denominators.
It matters little that one spoke English
and that the other was fluent in
Hebrew and Greek, provided they both
spoke as inspired by the Holy Ghost. 
It is a question of their common calling
and authority and revelation that we are
addressing. This forces us to go behind
appearances to inner spiritual realities.
In doing this with Paul and Joseph Smith,
we may also increase our own abilities
to be sensitive to the inner spiritual realities
of those prophets who lead and
will lead us in our lives.
Both Paul and Joseph Smith were considered 
blasphemous by their contemporaries.
Their sin?
They had added to traditional scriptures.
Paul was considered  anti-Jewish, 
and followers of
of Joseph Smith today are superficially
labeled as non-Christian. But every
Jewish and Christian prophet had added
to the prior revelations by speaking
God's message for a new generation.
Paul demonstrated this continuity by
standing before the Jewish High Council
and observing that he was on trial for
believing what other Pharisees believed—
the reality of the resurrection.
And Joseph Smith made the same kind of plea
in a letter testifying to his nonmember uncle,
who later joined the Church. The
letter must have been a good one.
He contended that the revelations to
earlier servants of God were the history
of religion, not religion. True religion
demanded present communication with God.
The great answers of God 
to biblical leaders were really
an invitation to seek those answers anew.
Joseph Smith asked his uncle,
"And have I not an equal privilege with the 
ancient saints?
"And will not the Lord hear my prayers, and 
listen to my cries
as soon as he ever did to theirs, if I came to him in the manner they did?"
No true servant of God teaches that the day 
of continuing revelation is past.
The following story about Joseph Smith comes
from Parley P. Pratt's autobiography, a
fast-moving introduction to Church
history that is a must in your gospel
education. It would be great between-term readings.
Parley P. Pratt was in
Philadelphia in January 1840, when Joseph
Smith spoke at a meeting during
Christmas recess of Congress, before which
he had testified 
on behalf of Latter-day Saint
reparations after the Missouri
persecutions. Joseph's counselor,
the eloquent Sidney Rigdon, spoke at length
on biblical evidences for the Restoration.
But Joseph virtually
sprang to the pulpit afterward to tell
his personal experiences of how God
called him,  "bearing testimony of the
visions he had seen the ministering
angels which he had enjoyed."
When Paul was challenged in the resurrection,
he did not argue with the Corinthians
about the philosophical
possibility. On the contrary, he answered
their objections only after insisting
that he and others knew for themselves,
for they had seen. If there is no
resurrection,
"we are found false witnesses of God."
The essential job of
the Prophet is to testify personally.
And in the case of the great prophets Paul
and Joseph Smith, they did so on the
basis of their high witness contact with
Christ. Thus there was a "first vision"
for both Paul and Joseph Smith. Their
backgrounds differed, but the vision near
Damascus and the vision in the New York
forests were orientations for these two
prophets for a lifetime of service. 
Both open revelations told them to change
their course and to wait for the 
Lord's further instruction.
And both were conversations
with the resurrected Christ.
Criticisms of Joseph Smith
demand consistency in studying the prophets.
Many Christians accepting Paul
comfortably think that their sniping at
Joseph Smith's first vision has proved
it wrong. But what appears is a double
standard for these critics. 
Most arguments against Joseph Smith's first
vision detract from Paul's Damascus
experience with equal force.
For instance, Joseph's credibility is
attacked because he did not describe his
first vision until a dozen years
after it happened. But the first known mention
of the Damascus appearance is in
1 Corinthians 9:1, written about
two dozen years after it happened.
Critics loved to dwell on supposed
inconsistencies in Joseph Smith's
spontaneous accounts of his first vision.
But people normally give shorter and
longer accounts of any vivid experience
that is retold more than once.
Joseph Smith was cautious about public explanations
of his sacred experiences until the
Church grew strong and could properly
publicize what God had given him.
Thus his most detailed first-vision account
came after several others—at the time
that he began his formal history that he
saw as one of the key
responsibilities of his life.
In Paul's case there is the parallel. 
His most detailed account of Christ's call
is the last recorded mention of several. Thus before Agrippa, Paul related how the
glorified Savior first prophesied His work
among the gentiles; this was told only then
because Paul was speaking before a
gentile audience.
Paul and Joseph Smith had reasons
for delaying full details of their
visions until the proper time and place.
The first visions of Paul and Joseph Smith
 underlined the directness of their divine contact.
Many riders now use
prophet of religious leaders who are
eloquent but do not merit that
designation. But the overused awesome
correctly pictures Joseph Smith and Paul
standing in the presence of the resurrected Lord and
receiving specific direction. Yet such
powerful visions do not happen every day.
Divine beings do not appear to anyone
because of easy whim or casual desire.
Such great revelations come when God
 has a purpose for them.
In Paul's case, he saw the Lord on four other
 known occasions after his first vision—
stretching through 25 years of his career
in the Church. Joseph Smith is very
similar in the number of other times he
saw the Lord throughout 17 years after
his first vision.
Neither Paul nor Joseph Smith fell into
the imposter's trap of over claiming such
sacred experiences. And there is a
corollary here that is a mark of true
prophets. Visions supplement agency—
they do not supplant it. For years Paul
struggled in a lesser light and even
opposed the truth before his first vision.
We know that Joseph Smith also
had a history of years of inquiry.
Great answers come after intense quests.
Every vision of Joseph Smith or Paul
represents an important answer at a critical time.
Each of us here is
involved in the deepest realities given
to these great prophets. For one thing,
the visions of these prophets tell us of
our personal destinies. Nothing is more
religiously exciting
than the brilliant scene of three
degrees of glory in Joseph Smith's
vision recorded in Doctrine and
Covenants, section 76. One proof of his
inspiration is that the Christian world
knows nothing of such degrees of glory—
only the superficial heaven or the
dismal hell. Yet Paul spoke of himself in
humility as "a man in Christ" who was
caught up to the "third heaven" to see
glorious things. Joseph Smith and Paul
here agree against the Christian world
because they received true revelation
that religious leaders do not have.
In the modern Prophet's words, "When any
person receives a vision of heaven, he
sees things that he never thought of
before." Our origin and destiny are among
the most powerful appeals of the
restored gospel, and both are vivid in Paul.
There is another dimension where we
may identify personally with the prophets.
Though they were given great
doctrinal guidelines to share, they
didn't know the answers to everything.
Several statements of Joseph Smith
regarding judgments in the Second Coming
mirror this 1839 comment, "I know not
how soon these things will take place."
Paul could shatter the arrogance of the
Corinthians by comparing human knowledge
to the understanding of a child: "for we
know in part, and we prophesy in part." The
revealed part is critical for our
perspective on earth, but the unrevealed
part is essential to our agency and
growth in learning through discernment
and consistency with revelation. And just
at this point is one of the great
personal messages from these prophets—
the invitation for all to become
prophets. The sharp distinction between
clergy and the common man never existed
when prophets were on the earth. From the
point of view of authority and doctrinal
revelation, the New Testament apostles
clearly had a special position of
leadership. But from the point of view of
sharing God's inspiration, they invited
all to be baptized, receive the Holy
Ghost by the laying on 
of hands, and participate in the gifts of
the Spirit. While correcting excesses,
Paul encouraged the early Saints to
"desire spiritual gifts" and seek to
"prophesy." Joseph Smith's similar invitation
comes in many forms but permeates his
speeches. It proves the true prophets do
not seek to maintain professional status
in an exclusive group, but to lead all to
the same power that God has shared with
them. On a half-dozen occasions Joseph
Smith affirmed that he claimed to be a
prophet but added, in the
words of Revelation 19:10, that everyone
else who could gain a testimony of Jesus
would also be a prophet, "for the
testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."
That is, if all pay the price to
gain the Holy Ghost,
all can be prophets. The parallel between
Joseph Smith and Paul is vivid here, for
Paul penned the most impressive
perspective on the Holy Ghost:
"the things of God" can only be revealed "unto
us by his Spirit"— that which searches
"the deep things of God." In turn Joseph Smith
gave in my opinion the most practical
advice on how to identify these subtle
but powerful spiritual promptings.
"A person may profit by noticing the first
intimation of the spirit of revelation,"
Joseph Smith counseled. Proceeding, he
asked you to pay attention "when you feel
pure intelligence flowing into you—it
may give you sudden strokes of ideas."
Is anyone here not concerned with a
relationship with God? Paul and Joseph
Smith are trustworthy guides. Their
spiritual quality stand out as
impressively similar. Paul's mature
letters refer to constant prayers for
the Saints, and hope that they will pray
for him. The great miracle of being freed
from prison by an earthquake came in the
midst of the prayers of Paul and his
companion. Joseph Smith's pattern is
better documented, not only in his early
prayers before his early visitations.
Joseph Smith's many letters,
personal diaries, and Nauvoo speeches are interspersed with
open prayers for the blessings of God
upon his work and upon the Latter-day
Saints in that work.
These are not staged references,
but the spontaneous appeals
of a sincere man. We are trusting in God's
answers to the men who deeply trusted
him.  And their authority in representing
God is overwhelming—
they knew that they knew. Paul answered
when challenged, "Am I not an apostle?... Have
I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord?"
Public and private remarks of Paul and
Joseph Smith are filled with the
personal knowledge of their authority to
speak for Jesus Christ. That needs no
demonstration in the case of the ancient
apostle, who constantly
preached Christ to a world that had
scarcely heard of him. Since Joseph Smith
was sent centuries later to a society
that professed belief in Christ, he did
not argue that point as much as explain
the meaning of Christ's will. Yet his
closeness to the Lord is symbolized by
his private letters to his wife, which
were dashed off with no thought of
publication.
In 1832 he told her
of a delay in returning home, mentioning
his heartfelt prayers to God for
forgiveness and blessings, and spoke
of God as his friend and comfort,
continuing: "I have given my life into his
hands. I am prepared to go at his call. I
desire to be with Christ. I count not my
life dear to me, only to do his will."
Joseph Smith was a powerful witness of
Christ not only in the first vision, but
in the visions of the three degrees of
glory in the Savior's appearance to
accept the Kirtland Temple. But strangely,
the followers of this prophet who knew
Christ personally are slandered as not
Christians by their detractors. Joseph
Smith and Paul furnished the most
powerful testimonies of Christ
outside of the records of his ministry.
That raises the central issue of
Christ's religion. Can one become a
Christian through words alone? Isn't it
odd that the saved-by-grace tracts seldom
quote Christ and his central Sermon on
the Mount? If Paul taught salvation by
grace alone or faith alone, that would be
a major cleavage from Joseph Smith, but
it is not. Let's start with the
foundation of the Savior whom both served.
Jesus closed the Sermon on the
Mount with the warning that hearing
(or reading) these things without doing them
would produce a moral catastrophe
similar to the house that collapsed
because it was not built on a sound
foundation. In half a dozen letters Paul
listed the moral sins that will
keep one from God's kingdom
 if not repented of, saying to the Galatians,
"I tell you before, as I have
also told you in time past, that they
which do such things shall not inherit
the kingdom of God." What could be better
proof of apostasy than the change of the
Christian religion from a religion of
action to a religion of belief alone?
Newspaper stories of business fraud or
repulsive immoralities are reminders
that no Latter-day Saint goes into God's
kingdom because of his name—only because
of his repentance and high performance
after accepting Christ's atonement.
Joseph Smith taught a restored gospel
filled with mercy and the love of the
Savior. But he consistently added the
principle of responsibility after
learning of mercy. There's no such thing
as easy salvation. Somebody once said of
education:
"Never say that learning is fun. It is difficult, painful, hard work. But it is worth it."
You have just about finished a successful semester know the satisfaction of progress based on discipline.
And Joseph Smith consistently
taught a salvation based on successfully
controlling one's body for good.
Thus salvation is not easy and pleasurable.
But paying the price is
worth the magnificent reward. Like Paul,
Joseph Smith taught that unrepentant evil
would not be ignored on the day of judgement.
At a funeral he appealed to
all to put their lives in order now:
"Let it prove as a warning to all men to deal
justly before God with all men—
then we shall be clean on the day of judgment."
Paul taught accountability throughout
his letters and throughout his letters, and throughout his Nauvoo preaching Joseph Smith insisted that
eternal judgment was among the first
principles of the gospel. Indeed, how to
meet that judgment successfully is the
gospel. One night's binge on TV or twenty
dollars spent on movie tickets would be
enough to prove that the motivating
principle of this world is pleasure. But
the motivating principle of Paul and
Joseph Smith was putting aside
easy pleasure to bring about God's kingdom.
When the Corinthians doubted the
resurrection, Paul simply asked why he
risked his life "every hour" and faced
death "daily." Would one of Paul's
intelligence live a life of discomfort
for something not true? To his
Corinthians detractors, he simply asked
who had given more for the gospel.
Paul's record is magnificent in a simple modern
translation: "From the Jews five times I
receive forty stripes minus one. Three times
I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned,
three times I was shipwrecked, the night
in a day I've been in the deep; in
journeys often, in perils of waters... and
hunger and thirst... and cold and nakedness—
besides other things, what comes upon me
daily; my anxiety for all the churches"
I seriously ask you, would you trade a
record like that for sports cars, a
constant tan, and other material
pleasures that money can buy for a few
temporary decades on this earth? Joseph
Smith also proved his sincerity by sacrifice.
Writing to the Church during a legal
persecution that kept him in hiding in
and out of Nauvoo for months, he also
looked back: "The envy and wrath of man
had been my common law all the days of
my life... and I feel, 
like Paul, to glory in tribulation."
Why did either Paul or
Joseph Smith do this? Because they
positively knew that the riches of
eternity made everything else secondary.
The modern Prophet explained
that his lifelong persecutions for
telling his visions made him feel "much
like Paul... [H]e was ridiculed and reviled.
But all this did not destroy the reality
of his vision. He had seen a vision, he
knew he had, and all the
persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise."
Many men and women
sacrifice for their families and their principles.
How many claim the visions of heaven
and sacrifice as a witness of that? Most
recent founders of successful religions
live comfortably by the donations of
their followers. But God's plan for his
prophets tries them in fire, not only for
their own postgraduate education, but for
the clear validity of their testimony.
Relatively few religious leaders have
dared to claim visions on the level of
Paul and Joseph Smith. And in the test of
integrity, the quality of Joseph Smith's
sacrifice clearly reaches the level of
the ancient Apostle. Joseph Smith's
biographers will never run out of
exciting copy because his life writes
itself in the drama drama of giving for
the gospel. Any historian can easily take
Paul's format and adapt it to Joseph
Smith, who might have written: "A number of
times Christians leveled guns at me
with the threat of death. Once I was
beaten, tarred, and feathered, and left unconscious.
Twice I was endangered by
stagecoach runaways went on the Lord's business.
I have taken backroads and waded
through swamps to escape my enemies.
I have endured years of
inconvenient travel on land for the
kingdom, as well as risk many steamboat
journeys on waterways. I faced years of unjust
legal harassment, and was imprisoned for
a long winter in a filthy jail on
unverified charges. Through all I
maintained the responsibility of leading
the Church, worrying, praying, and planning
for the welfare of my family and of my fellow Saints.
Neither Paul or Joseph Smith were strange aberrations, but vital personalities who loved and were loved.
Indeed the genuineness of their selfless love is an
important facet of their sacrifice for
the gospel.
They must have been close to
the Savior, who made love the foundation
principle of the gospel. Indeed,
the various fields of social studies
recognized healthy love as the core
of a healthy personality. Now I'm going to
read two quotes on love one, of which I
even passed by first Corinthians 13—who
could have come closer to the celestial
love that Paul's books speaks about there?
Aand Joseph Smith said to the
twelve when they were on a mission: "A man
filled with love the love of God is not
content with blessing his family alone,
but ranges through the whole world
anxious to bless the whole human race."
I pondered on the relationship of love and
truth an issue not very far from Keats'
association of truth and beauty. The link
for me is selflessness. One with true
concern for you is not trying to exploit
you for his benefit, thus he is most
likely to give you truth and not his
devious form of exploitation. Joseph
Smith gave one of his most telling
insights into self just weeks before his
martyrdom. Biographer Brody thought that
Joseph's "no man knows my history" hinted
at deception, a 180 degree error. But this
1844 statement is really Joseph Smith's
valedictory of love, linking his visions
with his unlimited giving of self:
"I have no enmity against any man, for I
love all men especially these my
brethren and sisters. You never knew my
heart. No man knows my history. I cannot
do it. I shall never undertake it. If I
had not experienced what I have, I should
not have known it myself.
I never did harm any man since I have
been born in the world. My voice is
always for peace." Joseph Smith simply
says that he knew marvelous things,
therefore, he shared. Can you believe a
generous teacher or loving parent who
says this:
"Such language pierces my soul knowing
that Joseph Smith and Paul sincerely loved.
"I cannot believe that either
deceived." There is little time for the
many prophecies of Joseph Smith and Paul.
They both passed the test of pre-inspiration.
There is room for a brief comment on the
prophecies of each concerning
martyrdom. Paul's last words in a simple
translation and Second Timothy read, "for
I'm already on the point of being
sacrificed the time of my departure has
come." From 1842 Joseph Smith had said
that his work was virtually through and
that he could die any time. In 1844 he
negotiated on final arrest, bluntly
telling Governor Ford in several letters
that the legal process was a pretext
till "some bloodthirsty villain could find his
opportunity to shoot us." Joseph gave
himself into the hands of his enemies
with full knowledge of his impending
death. I'm convinced on the basis of
Nauvoo sources.
What are the most important
things in the world today? As you read
Joseph Smith's teachings and Paul's
letters note the total commitment of
each. Both were men consumed with a
mission which continues that question of
what is really important in your world
in your life. Of his work Paul said, 
"necessity is laid upon me for woe to me
if I do not preach the gospel."
One who had stood in the presence of
Christ knew the urgency of each day
and the real work of eternity going on
around him. With the same conviction of
urgency, Joseph Smith commented, "If I had
not actually got into this work and been
called of God. I would back out. But I
cannot back out. I have no doubt of the
truth." Does the spirit of revelation in
you respond to the spirit of Revelation
in them?
Do you expect to dwell with Christ, Paul,
and Joseph Smith without paying the
price that they paid: energetic service,
discomfort, and ridicule for the cause of
the Lord? The lives of these men who gave
their all testify eloquently to the
truth of their message, but their
examples pose an inescapable question
for everyone who knows what you know
about them: How much will you give for
the cause of the Lord? The answer can
only be yours. I pray that you will
find an inspired one, which I ask in the
name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
