In our dispensation there have been
three classic scriptural statements
about spiritual gifts: what they are, where
they come from, and the spirit in which they
are to be sought and manifested.
Those three sources are Doctrine and Covenants
46, Moroni 10, which is also the last chapter
of the Book of Mormon, and Paul’s statement
in 1 Corinthians 12.
These three are interrelated and can be studied
profitably by comparison.
If we go through the scriptures as history
and make note of ways in which the Spirit
of God has been manifested in the lives of
individuals, we find at least thirty ways.
In the account of these gifts in section 46
the prophet records these two verses
which indicate that each of us 
is entitled to at least one spiritual gift.
The Prophet said elsewhere, “A man [he could
equally as well have said ‘a woman’] who
has none of the gifts has no faith; and he
deceives himself, if he supposes he has.”
Orson Pratt made the same comment in a different
way.
“No one,” he said, “who has been born
of the Spirit, and who remains sufficiently
faithful, is left destitute of a spiritual
gift.”
One follows from the other.
“No man can receive the Holy Ghost without
receiving revelations,” Joseph Smith explained.
“The Holy Ghost is a revelator.”
Why spiritual gifts?
The Lord says, “That ye may not be deceived
seek ye earnestly the best gifts, always remembering
for what they are given; for . . . they are
given for the benefit of those who love me
and keep all my commandments.”
And then a very happy phrase: “and him that
seeketh so to do.”
So not only those who are fully living the
commandments can hope for these gifts but
also those who are trying, seeking.
The warning is clear: “always remembering
for what they are given.”
Then comes the caution: Saints are to “ask
and not for a sign that they may consume it
upon their lusts.”
In the same revelation the Lord promises that
“unto some” (the bishop, for example,
and such others as are called to preside in
the Church) “it may be given to have all
those gifts.”
Elsewhere the Prophet said: “The gift of
discerning spirits will be given to the Presiding
Elder.
Pray for him that he may have this gift.”
This is the precious, almost indispensable
gift for any leader in the Church.
But “unto some it may be given to have all
those gifts [not just one, but all], that there may be a head.”
With that as a premise, I have gone through
the life of Joseph Smith and singled out instances
in that life when these gifts were manifest.
It is no surprise that he did, in fact, experience
all the spiritual gifts.
Let us consider in serial fashion the more
prominent, though in some cases less well-known,
experiences of the Prophet, all in an effort
to increase our awareness of possibility spiritually,
and to increase our recognition that the prophet was indeed, a prophet of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
One of the first gifts Moroni mentions is
that of “exceedingly great faith.”
As section 46 puts it, “to some it is given
by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, and that he was crucified
for the sins of the world.”
The Prophet Joseph Smith certainly had exceedingly
great faith.
We have the demonstration over and over of
his coping with trials that sorely tested
his endurance, his perseverance.
We also have, at the outset of his ministry,
his testimony of the effect the verse James
1:5 had on him.
(One wonders whether James, when he wrote
the verse way back in the first century, could
have had any notion of the impact it would
have.)
The following two verses are similarly powerful:
“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.
For he that wavereth is like a wave of the
sea driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think that he shall receive
any thing of the Lord.”
We are often willing to say what we would
like to receive of the Lord, even what we
would do for it, but we are not as eager to
say what we will do with it once it is given.
The Prophet proved himself willing on both
counts.
In connection with that gift it is said, “To
others it is given to believe on their words”—“their”
meaning those who have great faith—“that
they also might have eternal life if they
continue faithful.”
Some people are gifted to know, and others
are gifted to believe on what those people
know.
Or, to put it differently, some people have
secondhand testimonies.
My own conviction is that this is a preparatory
gift.
It is not sufficient unto itself.
You cannot live and endure and overcome simply
on the basis of believing the word of another.
Sooner or later, and preferably sooner, you
too will come to firsthand and direct knowledge
for yourself.
The Prophet did believe on the word of other
trustworthy souls.
He was sponsored and nourished and strengthened
thereby.
He pored over the records of the past until
they became part of his nature.
A study of his sermons, for example, on the
question of how often he slipped almost inadvertently
into the language of the New Testament, shows
that a great deal of his thinking and feeling
was conditioned in the phrases of Paul and
also in the writings of John and other
New Testament books.
The same would go for the Old Testament and
such books as he himself became an instrument
in translating.
He trusted the revealed word and in that sense
proved himself a believer secondhand.
Then there is the gift of prophecy.
This is the gift of anticipating future events.
Elder John A. Widtsoe, after making a study
of the Doctrine and Covenants, concluded that
it contains nearly [eleven hundred] statements
about the future.
If one extends beyond the Doctrine and Covenants
to other scripture, to the personal promises
the Prophet gave in blessings, to comments
made in sermons, to his counsels in the midst
of his own brethren and sometimes in private
and sacred circumstances, and to predictions
he wrote in letters, they would far exceed
that [eleven hundred].
The Prophet said on one occasion that “the
Lord once told me that if at any time I got
into deep trouble and could see no way out
of it, if I would prophesy in His name, he
would fulfill my words.”
One can discern, therefore, times in his life
when he almost despaired and when that state
of mind was the symptom, or the background,
of his uttering prophecy.
In Kirtland, for example, in that period of
mass apostasy when perhaps half of the Church
members were falling away, including many
of the Twelve, he rose in tears after prayer
in a meeting one night and said, “I prophesy
in the name of the Lord that those who have
thought I was in transgression shall have
a testimony this night that I am clear and
stand approved before the Lord.”
Many in whom this prophecy was fulfilled bore
their witness in later testimony meetings.
Prophecy can be a burden as well as a blessing,
for as a person commits himself in the spirit
to a certain course of action or a certain
counsel of the Lord, he is by that very process
making himself responsible to do all within
his power to bring it to pass.
It was so in the case of Joseph Smith, as
it was with Heber C. Kimball, who was perhaps
the second most prophetic man in LDS history.
Often, even in trivial circumstances, Joseph
slipped into a prophetic mode—as trivial,
for example, as the question of whether it
was going to rain enough to wet people’s
shirt sleeves in the grove as they listened
to a discourse, or whether they should break
ranks while in a Nauvoo Legion parade and
return to their homes.18 He would sometimes
say, “It will not rain,” and he would
sometimes say, “I prophesy that it will
rain—you’ve only got a few minutes—go!”
To those who argued that there was no such
thing as prophecy, ancient or modern, he would
say (quoting John in Revelation 19:10): “The
New Testament says that the testimony of Jesus
is the spirit of prophecy.
I am a servant of Jesus Christ.
I have a testimony of Jesus.
Therefore, I am a prophet.”
Occasionally he tied his enemies into a logical
paradox.
He would say, “Have you discovered that
there is no revelation?
How?”
They would say, “Does not the Bible end
all revelation?”
He would reply, “If so, there is a great
defect in the book or it would have said so.”
Pointing out that it takes revelation to know
that there will be no more revelation, he
once asked, “Have ye turned revelators?
Then why deny revelation?"
As a prophet he said things which to me are
“keys that never rust.”
When he said, “I will give you a key that
will never rust,” he meant that what he
would say would last in its power till the
end of time.
An example: In the midst of the leadership
struggle, the apostasy of a group in Nauvoo
led by William Law, and the claim of others
to have special prerogatives of leadership,
he said, “I will give you a key that will
never rust.”
This is a test.
“If you will stay with the majority of the
Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church,
you will never be led astray.”
Not one offshoot group can pass that test.
How many were on the stand, for example, at
Nauvoo in August 1844, after the Prophet’s
death, when Sidney Rigdon wanted to be the
guardian and, in effect, the leader of the Church?
How many of the Twelve were on the stand when
the decision was made to follow the Twelve?
There were seven, a bare majority (John Taylor
was recovering from his wounds, and four had
not yet come back from missions to the East).
Again and again, in Church history the Twelve
in unity have made the revelatory decisions,
under the prophet, which have been binding
upon us all.
And the records?
Which records are most important?
Likely, I suggest, the records of temple ordinances.
We have them, we preserve them, and they are
a mark of authentic transmission of divine
authority and power to our day.
Joseph Smith made many prophetic statements
that last to our day.
Some of them seemed preposterous at the time.
Lillie Freeze recalls one such.
“He said the time would come when none but
the women of the Latter-day Saints would be
willing to bear children.”
In large measure this is already happening
today—before our eyes.
He said on another occasion that the Saints
would be driven and would suffer, but they
would go to the Rocky Mountains and there
become a great and mighty people.
Other recollections of that prophecy do not
say a great and “mighty” but a great and
“wealthy” people who would be tried more
with riches than they ever had been with poverty.
This too is happening before our eyes.
Joseph was prophetic in promises to individuals.
“Your name,” he said to Brigham Young,
“shall be known for good and evil”—just
as Moroni had said to Joseph himself.
And it is so.
He said to Eliza R. Snow, “You will yet
visit Jerusalem.”
She wrote it in her journal and forgot it.
Forty years later it came to pass.
When death seemed near in the Carthage jail,
Joseph uttered one of his last prophecies.
To Dan Jones he said, “You will yet see
Wales, and fulfill the mission appointed you
before you die.”
Dan Jones later helped convert over fifteen
thousand people in Wales.
“Have no fears, for you shall yet see Israel
triumph and in peace,” Joseph said to fifteen-year-old
Johnny Smith, whose feet were bloody from
drilling with the Nauvoo Legion.
He did.
There was a beautiful moment when Dimick Huntington
in a shoe shop was working on the Prophet’s
boots.
The Prophet recounted things Dimick had done
for him, mostly physical and comforting things—rowing
the boat across the Mississippi until his
hands were blistered, carrying messages, and
as the scriptures have it, “hewing wood
and drawing water.”
The Prophet expressed gratitude and finally
said to Dimick, “Ask of me what you will,
and it shall be given you, even if it be to
the half of my kingdom.”
Dimick did not want to impoverish the Prophet.
He asked something else.
“Joseph,” he said with his whole soul,
“Joseph, I desire that where you and your
father’s house are [meaning in eternity]
there I and my father’s house may be also.”
The Prophet put his head down for a moment
as if in meditation, and then looked up.
“Dimick, in the name of Jesus Christ, it
shall be even as you ask.”
The father of Dimick was named William.
One night the Prophet learned from Shadrack
Roundy, who stood guard at his gate, that
a mob was on the river.
Shadrack Roundy’s “rascal beater,” which
we would call a billy club, would not be enough
against twenty men.
The Prophet went down the street to William’s
house, woke him up, and said, “A mob is
coming, counsel me.”
William said: “I know what to do.
You climb in my bed.
I’ll go back and get in yours.”
That is what they did.
The mob came and dragged William out.
Down by the river they discovered they had
the wrong man.
Their viciousness knew no bounds.
In wrath, they “stripped him, roughed him
up, tarred and feathered him, and herded him
back into Nauvoo like a mad dog.”
When he finally staggered into his own home
the Prophet
embraced him and said with all the power of
his soul, “Brother William, in the name
of the Lord I promise you will never taste
of death.”
That prophecy was fulfilled.
To be able so to prophesy in the name of Jehovah
was both the blessing and the burden of Joseph
Smith.
“Brethren,” he said—this is Wilford
Woodruff’s recollection—“I have been
very much edified and instructed in your testimonies
tonight, but I want to say to you before the
Lord, that you know no more concerning the
destinies of this church and kingdom than
a babe upon its mother’s lap.
. . . This church will fill North and South
America—it will fill the world.”
Related to that, George A. Smith recalled
hearing the Prophet once say “that we may
build as many houses as we would, and we should
never get one big enough to hold the Saints.”
Discernment.
We have previously noted the Prophet’s words:
“The gift of discerning spirits will be
given to the Presiding Elder.
Pray for him that he may have this gift.”
Discernment is the recognition of the spirit
that actuates a person.
“The way I know in whom to confide—God
tells me in whom I may place confidence,”
the Prophet said.
Jesse N. Smith records, “I felt when in
his presence that he could read me through
and through.”
Wilford Woodruff says that once he met him
on the street.
The Prophet took his hand, held him, and paused
while he seemed to be searching the other
man’s soul.
Then he said, “Brother Woodruff, I am glad
to see you.
I hardly know when I meet those who have been
my brethren in the Lord, who of them are my friends
They have become so scarce.”
A man acting, as it were, as an undercover
agent came to Nauvoo, tried to work his way
into the good graces of the Prophet, then
invited him out for a walk.
On the crest of a hill the Prophet stopped,
called him by name, and said, “You have
a boat and men in readiness to kidnap me,
but you will not make out to do it.”
It was true.
The man had planned to kidnap him, but instead
he went away cursing.
Joseph once wrote in a letter, “It is in
vain to try to hide a bad spirit from the
eyes of them who are spiritual, for it will
show itself in speaking and in writing, as
well as in all our other conduct.
It is also needless to make great pretensions
when the heart is not right: the Lord will
expose it to the view of faithful Saints.”
Despite the presiding officer’s discernment,
Joseph Smith set up the law of witnesses,
which requires that evidence and testimony
must be used to prove a person’s acts.
But the spiritual recognition that something
is wrong or that something is right, he had.
He once prayed to know whether a choir in
Nauvoo was singing acceptable praises to God.
The Lord made known to him that the director
was immoral.
Shortly the man resigned and left.
Joseph was discerning, although he trusted
many beyond their ­trustworthiness—which
perhaps was a function of what Brigham Young
described as his “regarding everything according
to the circumstances of the case and every
person according to the intrinsic worth.”
Brigham himself once said, in the spirit of
the Prophet: “If you have the spirit of
God you can discern right from wrong.
When a man is not right, even though his language
is as smooth as oil, there will be many queries
about him, he will not edify the body of the
Saints.”
And Brigham added, “I give this to you as
a key.”
Yes, Joseph discerned.
Dreams.
Some dreams result from pressure, from diet,
from anxiety.
Some psychological research indicates that
we all need to dream, that our mental health
depends upon it.
But there are also dreams sent of the Lord.
It is one of the spiritual gifts.
Being warned in a dream, Joseph fled with
Mary and Jesus into Egypt.
The wife of Pilate had a dream that gave her
much anxiety.
She pleaded with her husband not to condemn
Jesus.
Joseph Smith had 
prophetic dreams, as he once indicated to
Levi Hancock.
Levi started on a mission, was out one night,
had a terrible night of nightmares, and returned
in fear.
“Don’t let that trouble you,” said the
Prophet.
“I have had dreams as bad as you ever had.
You do as I now tell you to and you will come
out all right.”
Levi recalled that Joseph then “gave [him]
to understand how the Comforter would comfort
the mind of man when asleep.”
Then there was the dream—the ugly, ominous
dream—at Nauvoo.
He dreamed of William and Wilson Law.
They had cast him into a pit, a pit higher
than his head, so that there was no way for
him to climb or spring out of it.
Shortly both of them were attacked by serpents
and were dying.
They cried out for his help.
All he could say was, “I would help you
if I could, but you have made it impossible
for me to help.”
This dream was all too authentic.
William and Wilson Law were the leading spirits
in the Nauvoo Expositor and in the meetings
of conspiracy that culminated in the Prophet’s
death.
Visions.
There are visions in open daylight, waking
visions, as we say; and visions that occur
in the night.
Did Joseph have visions?
“It is more than my meat and my drink,”
he once said, “to know how I shall make
the Saints of God to comprehend the visions
that roll like an overflowing surge, before
my mind.”
Frustrated at times in his effort to teach,
though there is abundant testimony of his
effectiveness, he sometimes felt, as he said
to John Taylor, as if he were “shut up in
a nutshell.”
Whenever he countered the traditions that
people had accumulated, some would “fly
to pieces like glass.”
He said in frustration, talking about the
Saints: “There has been a great difficulty
in getting anything into the heads of this
generation.
It has been like splitting hemlock knots with
a corn-dodger for a wedge and a pumpkin for
a beetle.”
Now, that’s nineteenth century!
Hemlock knots are tough.
If you had a wedge made of cornmeal like a
pancake, and if you tried to drive it in with
a pumpkin, you know how well you might do
at splitting hemlock knots.
That’s how effective he felt his teaching
sometimes was.
And yet the Lord did reveal and unfold line
by line the whole plan.
“I have the whole plan of the kingdom before
me,” he said, “and no other person has.”
Everyone else had parts, fragments, pieces.
But over the training period the Lord gave
Joseph Smith, he received it all.
Some of his visions were panoramic.
He said of Doctrine and Covenants 76 on the
three degrees of glory, “I could explain
a hundred fold more than I ever have of the
glories of the kingdoms manifested to me in
the vision, were I permitted, and were the
people prepared to receive them.”
A hundred times more than the present length
would be more than the full length of the
Doctrine and Covenants.
More knowledge stored itself in his mind,
I believe, than in any intellect since the
time of the New Testament.
And yet he said, “I am not learned, but
I have as good feelings as any man.”
Learned he was not in the standard bookish
and university sense.
But taught by the greatest teachers in the
universe he was.
It will not do if one is speaking of him in
his maturity to say that Joseph was “an
ignorant farm boy.”
He had by that time become a very informed,
enlightened, and divinely taught man.
“The best way to obtain truth and wisdom,”
he said, “is not to ask it from books, but
to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine
teaching.”
He also said that “an open vision will manifest
that which is more important.”
But in another connection he said that the
Lord “always holds himself responsible to
give a revelation or interpretation of the
meaning thereof.”
As for the principles he had that placed him
in communion with ancient worthies, John Taylor
said he was as familiar with the ancient prophets
and apostles and patriarchs, including those
of the Book of Mormon, as we are with one
another.
Examples: He said one day of his brother Alvin,
“He was a very handsome man, surpassed by
none but Adam and Seth.”
In the spirit of instruction in Nauvoo, Joseph
described Paul: “About five foot high; very
dark hair; dark complexion; dark skin; large
Roman nose; sharp face; small black eyes,
penetrating as eternity; round shoulders;
a whining voice, except when elevated and
then it almost resembles the roaring of a
lion.”
How did he know that?
I’ve known a few scholars who claim to be
the world’s leading experts on Paul.
One man, I suspect, knows more than they.
That is Paul.
Apparently he is one who taught Joseph Smith.
Doctrine and Covenants 128 tells of some of
the ancient worthies who manifested themselves
to the Prophet Joseph, declaring their keys
and glories and dispensations and making possible
the welding of authorities in this dispensation.
He knew Peter, he knew James, he knew John.
He knew Adam and Eve.
He knew Abraham.
He knew Enoch.
He knew the Twelve who were on the American
continent.
“He seemed to be as familiar with these
people as we are with one another,” said John Taylor.
He had visions of the past as well as of the
future.
As a seer, he knew things about the past that
are not part of our own scripture, but which
he spoke of in discourse.
This indeed was a visionary man in the best
and highest sense.
Tongues.
Did the Prophet Joseph Smith ever speak in
tongues?
He did.
Brigham Young met him for the first time in
Kirtland.
They had a meeting.
Brigham was called upon to pray, and in the
course of this prayer spoke in an unknown
tongue.
When he and the others rose from their knees
and were seated, the Prophet addressed them:
“Brethren, this tongue that we have heard
is the gift of God, for He has made it known
unto me, and I shall never oppose anything
that comes from Him.
I feel the spirit that Brother Brigham has
manifested in this gift of tongues, and I
wish to speak myself in the tongue that it
will please the Lord to give me.”
After then speaking for a time in that tongue,
Joseph declared: “Brethren, this is the
language of our father Adam while he dwelt
in Eden; and the time will again come, that
when the Lord brings again Zion, the Zion
of Enoch, this people will then all speak
the language which I have just spoken.”
As for interpreting tongues, on an occasion
when the Prophet was subpoenaed and was leaving
to attend the trial, he was met at the door
by a sister named Sarah Cleveland, who spoke
to him.
The Prophet listened intently.
When she was through, he said, “You need
not fear for me, as Sister Cleveland says
I shall have my trial and be acquitted.”
She had spoken in tongues and prophesied.
He was tried, and he was acquitted.
It is recorded by John Nicholson that the
Prophet once gave a blessing to Orson Pratt
in the course of which he spoke in an unknown
tongue, naming several worlds which he, as
a servant of the most High, should visit in
order to minister to their inhabitants.
One of the cries of this generation is the
need for a religion for the Space Age, a religion
that isn’t earthbound but that takes account
of the vast universe we now know about.
Through the Prophet Joseph Smith was revealed
a religion for the Space Age, for the cosmos,
for the whole universe.
That brought division and opposition into
his life.
To heal, and to be healed.
These are separate gifts.
The Prophet was called upon, over and over,
to administer—sometimes with oil, sometimes
not—to those who were sick, both in his
own family and beyond it.
On the occasion now known in LDS annals as
“the day of God’s power” (July 22, 1839),
he himself arose from a sick bed of cholera
and went across the river to Montrose, Iowa.
Dozens were instantaneously healed that day.
His journal says only, “Many of the sick
were this day raised up by the power of God.”
He does not add, “and I was the major instrument.”
We learn from others’ journals that he led
that procession of faith.
He counseled his brethren in this matter.
He pleaded with them, according to Parley
P. Pratt, to “cease to minister the forms
without the power.”
How one does that without having mighty faith,
I do not know.
He said to them on an occasion, "Four of you should gather around this person, take turns in blessing,
until one of you receives the Spirit sufficiently to make divine promise." They did just that and on the third round,
Hyrum, the prophet's brother, had the Spirit, made the promise, and the man was healed.
There were times when he had to give repeat
blessings.
Jedediah M. Grant had dyspepsia, perhaps what
we would now call a stomach ulcer.
He would feel better for a time when the Prophet
administered to him, and then the pressures
would arise, things would eat on him, and
he would be back in the same condition.
The Prophet one day said, “Brother Grant,
if I could always be with you, I could cure you."
This is testimony of the serenity of soul
of the Prophet, and of the faith of Jedediah.
Joseph’s personal presence might have overcome
this uneasiness of stomach.
Was the Prophet himself faithful sufficiently
that he was ever healed?
Yes—repeatedly.
He once was poisoned and then vomited so violently
that his jaw was thrown out of joint.
He was immediately administered to and healed.
In another experience, this time with his
brother Hyrum, at the end of the Zion’s
Camp march, he prophesied that because the
Camp was not repentant and not living as a
modern Camp of Israel should, some of them
would die.
One account says, “like sheep with rot”—a
terrifying statement. Thirteen died.
In spite of his prophecy, Joseph yearned to
heal them.
He and Hyrum tried, but they had no sooner
laid their hands on the sufferers than they
themselves were smitten with cholera.
They felt its ravages, fell down prostrate
together, and prayed for deliverance.
Even at that moment, Mother Smith was praying
for them.
In prayer they asked for a testimony that
the Lord would relieve them and that healing
would come.
Within minutes they arose free of the disease
which, in other cases, was fatal.
To have knowledge and to teach it, to have
wisdom and to teach it.
I believe this involves four spiritual gifts.
It is possible for a person to know much,
and yet be ineffective in teaching.
What is the distinction between knowledge
and wisdom?
I know of no final scriptural definition.
But, clearly, just to have extensive knowledge—as
the Prophet once said, “being puffed up
with correct (though useless) knowledge”—is
no great blessing.
It is about as vain as pride in other areas.
But wisdom is something else.
Wisdom is the insight that comes out of genuine,
firsthand experience.
Some write that Joseph Smith seemed to possess,
as Edward Stevenson put it, “an infinity
of knowledge.”
Wilford Woodruff wrote that Joseph Smith was
“like a bed of gold concealed from human
view,” and that, as with Enoch’s, only
God could comprehend his soul.
Jedediah M. Grant said that “Joseph could
take the wisest Elder that ever travelled
and preached, and, as it were, circumscribe
his very thoughts,” and others said that
he would teach and testify with such power
that no other man in the kingdom could match
him.
All that gives us indication of his wide knowledge.
A promise was given him in 1833 that he would
have “power to be mighty in testimony.”
This promise was brilliantly fulfilled.
Loren Farr said to his grandson, “Oh, my
son, I have sorrow that you will never hear
the Gospel of Jesus Christ taught in power.”
He meant that Joseph Smith was dead and gone,
and that though there were giants in the kingdom,
none of them could command the power of heaven
as he had, standing between heaven and earth
in witness, and in testimony.
Yes, he had knowledge.
And he taught.
He was not a natural orator.
Others of the brethren were more eloquent
in the flowery sense; Sidney Rigdon certainly
was, Parley P. Pratt was.
Others were more orderly and systematic; Orson
Pratt was.
Others were more practical in their counsel;
Brigham Young was.
But it is a testimony to the Prophet’s greatness
that all of these, each superior in one way
or another, yet sustained him as the greatest
prophet of all time, apart from Jesus Christ
himself.
A final word on his wisdom.
“I made this my rule: When God commands,
do it.”
That took him all the way to Carthage.
The gift to voice scripture—The promise came at Harmony
when they didn't have paper enough to write the book on, let alone enough to eat!
In Harmony, Pennsylvania, to he and Oliver, the revelation comes.
You'll look at the manuscript someday, we have about a third of it,
One piece of paper yellow, the next page white. One lined, the other not, one torn on the top the other not—
they used scratch paper to translate the "Marvelous Work and a Wonder."
If it hadn't been for a barrel of pickerel that one of the Knight brothers brought up for them
they might have starved. In that setting is this sentence;
"This generation shall have my word through you."
Glorious, and burdensome. There is a story, I cannot find the source, it may be apocryphal,
that on the way one day to the press with another section to be put into type and printed,
it came down again on the prophet, with a weight that crushed him,
"What am I doing? Here is a book I am intending to publish as scripture! A book to go side by side
with the Bible! How can I do this?"
and the voice of the Lord came to him saying "I will bring forth evidence,"
Ask Hugh Nibley sometime just how much evidence has come forth.
To voice scripture—so he did.
To recognize the diversities of operations
and the differences of administration.
It is possible that the term “diversities
of operations” refers to the recognition
of the movements, the trends, the activities,
the ongoing processes of history, recognition
as to which are centered in the light, in
the influence of the living God, and which
are simply of man, and which, if any, are
from the lower regions.
“Lying spirits are going forth in the earth,”
the Prophet said.
“There will be great manifestations of spirits,
both false and true.”
The adversary always sets up his kingdom in
opposition to the kingdom of God.
The multiplicity of variegated religions in
our generation is, indeed, a sign of the times.
Joseph Smith felt and taught, and it is the
testimony of this Church, that as Latter-day
Saints we must recognize that the Lord’s
Spirit has worked upon all generations and
all cultures.
This is confirmed by the First Presidency
statement of February 15, 1978, wherein they
mention some of the great religious leaders,
such as Mohammed and Confucius, as well as
ancient philosophers.
These, they say, received a portion of God’s
light.
While often condemned for being “exclusive,”
Latter-day Saints belong to the one Church
that has the capacity to retain its roots
and still relate to, and eventually embrace,
all mankind, sifting through the error and
offering the truth in its place.
The Prophet Joseph had that kind of expansive
soul.
“We should gather up all the good and true
principles in the world,” he said, “and
treasure them up, or we shall not come out
true ‘Mormons.’”
To have communion with the heavens, to see
both angels and spirits.
Section 107 of the Doctrine and Covenants
says that the Melchizedek Priesthood, in holding
the keys of the spiritual blessings of the
Church, is to have the privilege of holding
communion with the general assembly and church
of the Firstborn.
Who are they?
Apparently they are the most righteous, who
have filled their missions on earth and are
now serving worthily in the spirit world or
have inherited celestial glory.
Did Joseph have communion with them while
he was on earth?
Yes.
The only other man in LDS history who enjoyed
a comparable richness of communion was Wilford
Woodruff, who seemed to have had that gift
from birth, and who seemed to live as if with
one foot in the spirit world and one foot
in this one.
Only Wilford Woodruff could say to a brother
as he went down the street in Salt Lake City,
“Brother John, it’s good to see you,”
and then could add as an afterthought, “You
know, I don’t think I’ve seen your father
since he died.”
Finally, though there are other gifts, I mention
the working of miracles.
Someone asked the Prophet once, “What was
the first miracle Jesus performed?”
He answered, “He made this world, and what
followed we are not told.”
Miracle is the term we use for the operation
of divine power beyond our understanding.
It is not a violation of law.
Every miracle that Christ performed, including
the creation of the earth, was executed in
harmony with eternal principles.
We will one day know that whatever we call
miraculous was, in fact, lawful.
Joseph was promised that upon him would be
laid much power.
When someone who had known him was asked to
name the greatest miracle she had seen in
the first generation of the Church, she replied
that it was Joseph Smith.
The Prophet was a God-made man.
It will never do to say, as critics are beginning
to say, “This man was a genius.”
So saying, they wish to reduce a most remarkable
movement to its leader, its founder, and,
as they believe, its origin.
True, he was a genius; he was a brilliant
man.
It takes a brilliant man even to comprehend,
let alone to write, as he comprehended and
wrote, the glorious insights that came to
him, even granting that they came from the Lord.
He was a man of superb intelligence.
Nevertheless, that does not explain Mormonism.
What explains Mormonism is that Joseph Smith
at his greatest, as a prophet, was not merely
Joseph Smith.
He was a prophet, made so by the power of
God.
He was a modern miracle.
