Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Throughout history God has called prophets.  There has also been many instances of apostasy.  Apostasy is when people choose to reject the prophets and their teaching.  When people chose to reject the prophets, God would withdraw His priesthood authority from the earth.  When the time was right, God would call another prophet to restore His gospel anew.  God even sent His Son, Jesus Christ.  Incredibly, people even rejected and crucified Him.  With the death of Christ and the rejection of His Apostles, the world fell into a dark night of apostasy.


God loves us so much that when the time was right, He again reached out to His children in love. After the long night of darkness and apostasy, God called another prophet to restore His gospel anew! This prophet is Joseph Smith!



Joseph Smith grew up in the Eastern United States at a time of great religious excitement. Joseph didn't know which church to join. He describes in his own words, "During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and often poignant, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though I attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit. In process of time my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them; but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that 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."

Joseph was one day reading in the Bible.  He was reading the Epistle of James chapter 1 verse 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." He said, "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; for 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."


He came to the conclusion that he needed to pray and ask God.  Joseph Smith records:


"So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. 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.


After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as 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, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.


It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. 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!"


Joseph was able to ask his question, "I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join."


His question was answered.


"I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”"

Later, Joseph and his associate Oliver Cowdery were visited by other heavenly messengers.  John the Baptist appeared and conferred upon them the Aaronic Priesthood, which includes the authority to baptize.  Peter, James, and John appeared and conferred the Melchizedek Priesthood.  This is the same authority Christ gave His apostles anciently.  With this authority, he was directed to organize the Church of Jesus Christ on earth.

I testify that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith.  They did in reality speak to him.  Joseph Smith was called by God to restore the gospel anew.  The evidence of this is found in a book, The Book of Mormon. 

Images found at:
http://lds.org/hf/art/0,16812,4218-1-4,00.html
http://lds.org/hf/art/0,16812,4218-1-2,00.html