Jesus Christ restored His church back to the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Bible suggests that God has always called the humble and meek to be His prophets rather than the wise and powerful. Indeed Jesus Christ Himself was as humble and meek as you can get.
Joseph Smith was born on December 23, 1805 in Sharon, Vermont, in very humble circumstances. He was the fifth of eleven children. Because of their financial circumstances, Joseph only received a formal education for 3 years before being unable to continue. His family was very religious. His parents taught their children to read from the Bible and to pray.
In 1820, he was living with his family in Palmyra, New York, working on the family farm. During this time, the Second Great Awakening was sweeping the United States. Many denominations were preaching and trying to bring religion to these people. Nearly all the churches in upstate New York conducted revivals which were evangelistic gatherings in the form of camp meetings held on the edge of groves of trees or in small clearings in the forest.
At a young age, Joseph became "seriously impressed with regard to the all important concerns for the welfare of [his] immortal soul." The many different religions confused Joseph and he wasn't sure which one to join. Joseph said, "I attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit... It was impossible for a person young as I was and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong." They were all Christian and all preached from the Bible, but each of their interpretations were different. "The teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.". Joseph's mother, a sister, and two brothers joined the Presbyterian faith although that system of belief didn't satisfy Joseph.
One day, Joseph was reading in the Bible and he came across James 1:5 which reads: "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." Joseph said that "never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know."
Joseph decided to do as James directs. He prepared to ask God.
One day in the spring of 1820, Joseph went into a grove of trees near his home. He knelt down to pray aloud, which he had never done before. As he began to pray, an incredible thing happened. In his own words, he said, "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. 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!" God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him. "No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself... than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right...and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong."
Why did Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appear to this humble, 14 year old farm boy living in New York? Because it was time for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be restored. This period of darkness, the Great Apostasy, was ending, and it was time for the glorious light of the restored gospel to penetrate the earth.
After this heavenly manifestation, Joseph Smith ran home and told his family. He told others about this experience, expecting them to be overjoyed, but instead he was treated coldly and harshly:
"I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age, and my circumstances in life such as to make a boy of no consequence in the world, yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution...
"It caused me serious reflection then, and often has since, how very strange it was that an obscure boy, of a little over fourteen years of age, and one, too, who was doomed to the necessity of obtaining a scanty maintenance by his daily labor, should be thought a character of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the great ones of the most popular sects of the day, and in a manner to create in them a spirit of the most bitter persecution and reviling. But strange or not, so it was, and it was often the cause of great sorrow to myself."
Although he was severely persecuted and mocked, Joseph never wavered in his testimony. He knew what he had seen and nothing anyone said or did could make him deny that. Like prophets of old, he was called upon by God to do a great and marvelous work. And, like prophets of old, he was rejected and persecuted, yet he stayed true to God until the very end of his life. I am very grateful for the Prophet Joseph Smith.
"For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it."
Amen.
Click here to read Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision.
Click here to watch a video of the First vision.
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