Episode #100: The Fulfilled Prophecies Of Joseph Smith W/Brian Stutzman

0:00 Well, it's a big day on the podcast. It's episode #100, and I know what you're thinking and I agree with you. I didn't think I'd make it this far either, yet here we are To go along with that, I have a few special announcements I'm going to be making on this podcast that I really need you to hear. These announcements will be made right after the intro commercials on this episode, so please stick around for that. OK, moving on to this episode, Joseph Smith is obviously the man when we talk. About the Restoration, he wore a lot of different hats in his ministry. The one we're most familiar with is that of prophet. So if Joseph Smith really is a prophet, we should expect to see some of his prophecies fulfilled. Well, today I have on Brian Stutzman to talk about a book he has written that explores the fulfilled prophecies of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

0:48 We cover Brian's back story just a little bit, then dive right into some of Joseph's prophecies that we have seen come to pass. Towards the end, we discussed what this all means As for believers in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith's legacy, that and more on this episode of the Mormon Renegade podcast. Look, it's no secret that our society has become much more crude and coarse. To become and raise men and women of virtue and character is a Herculean task. To help with this, I have recently wrote and published a book. Now, back in the 1700s, Washington had a book called Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior and Company and Conversation. It was a book with 110 rules that talked about how to conduct yourself like a civilized person in society, something that today's society is sorely lacking. What I did is I went back through the book and I reinterpreted his original sayings for the 21st century. So the book is laid out in a way in which you see Washington's original rule.

1:48 Right below that is my explanation for the 21st century. And below that, you'll find two or three examples of where to use this in the real world. Now, to go along with this, there's a workbook that helps parents teach these principles and practices to their kids. To find the book, go to mormonrenegade.com, go to the bottom of the page, search out the blog post, and order your copy. Today, I can bear personal testimony from personal experience. That this is an invaluable tool to help you raise men and women of virtue and character. So as I alluded to in the show Open here, I have a few announcements to make. But first, I've been really prompted all week to address some folks out there in the audience.

2:29 I don't know who you are. It's just a feeling I've got from the spirit this whole week. First, I felt prompted to to address you, the listener. If you're here on this podcast listening, it's not an accident. There's a reason for that. Most likely you're either being prepared or called to something. Now, what that is, I don't know. I'm not your spiritual leader, but I can point you in the direction of someone who can tell you, and that's our Father and our God. He stands ready to hear those prayers and to. Reveal to you what you need in these last days. Now I want to speak just for a second to folks who are feeling a little confused about where to go and what to do. I've had an increasing number of emails over the last few weeks from folks asking where they can go to attend church.

3:13 Look, myself and others are here to help. No matter who you are, if you're a traditional believing Mormon, there is a place for you in the fullness of the gospel, both for you and your family. Heck, if we can't find a place, you can come worship with me and my family. That door is always open now. I know things in Mormonism feel a little confusing right now. I get it. I've been there. If you're feeling this way, please, please, please. I'm begging you not to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to your testimony of the restored gospel. If you are leaving the LDS Church but still have a testimony, or if you feel like your testimony is hanging by a thread, reach out.

3:53 You can always reach out to me. I will always answer your emails, and if it's an emergency, put 911 in the description. I will reach out to you quick. I and others stand ready and willing to help you any way possible. Maybe you just need to talk through some questions. We can do that here. Myself and others in the Mormon fundamentalist community stand ready to help you no matter where you end up or no matter where you feel called. But please don't throw your testimony of the restored gospel away, OK? Announcement number one. One place I feel like we can do better in in fundamentalism is helping the sisters, both in fundamentalism as well as sisters investigating Mormon fundamentalism. To help those sisters specifically, my wife Tanya and my wife Amber, and women from a few different faith traditions within Mormon fundamentalism have set up a new Facebook group just for these sisters.

4:49 Its name is Mormon Fundamentalism for Women. I know it's not real catchy and it's a simple name, but hey, we aren't exactly marketing experts, you know what I mean? Now this is just for the sisters. Let me stress again, this is just for the sisters. That means no dudes. If any of the admins catch a dude trying to infiltrate this group, they will be mocked mercilessly on this podcast for quite a few weeks. So don't go there fellas. It's not going to work out in your favor. This is a private group where if a woman with questions about fundamentalism can go and ask questions without having to worry about being exposed, they can have their privacy protected.

5:33 The link to that Facebook group can be found in the episodes show notes or at mormonrenegade.com in the blog menu of the of the website. Finally, I want to tell you about some changes that I've made to the the news program I do when you subscribe to the $12.00 package on Patreon. I've retooled that show so that you're going to get more analysis and less comedy. My hopes is, is that as we begin to enter more and more troubled times, you'll be able to be able to digest the news in a way that is really from the the point of view of someone who believes in the fullness of of the restored gospel. So if you so feel like subscribing to that news program, you can do that at Patreon under the Mormon Renegade page.

6:21 And that's 12 bucks a month. Now for the next 4 weeks, I'm going to be putting up the news program for free on Rumble so that you can get a taste because I don't want you just to buy something you don't feel like you're going to get your money's worth. So go to the Mormon Renegade Rumble page, look it up, and for the next 4 weeks that news program will be free so you can try it out and know if it's for you or not. In conclusion, I just want to say how thankful I am to you, the listener, for coming here every week. And I hope that your time here is well spent, that that you don't, that you feel like you're getting something out of this that is so important to me. If there's anything you ever want discussed on the on the podcast, feel free to drop me a line.

7:03 We'll definitely take that under consideration. But know that I'm so thankful to you, the listener that's been here with me on this journey as we've explored Mormon fundamentalism and we look forward to just keeping this going. So again, thank you for listening. The.

7:49 You're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast. Brian, how you doing? Great. It's great to be with you tonight, Dave. Dude, I'm so excited you're here. So real quick, we're we're going to talk about your book, a timeline of Joseph Smith's prophecies, and the subtitle, if you will, As his prophecies Fulfilled and. People can find that on Amazon, is that right? That's. Correct. Anywhere else? Cheap. Nope, Amazon. And then I've got another version of the book called On This Day and we'll talk about that. I think the the first book's $14.00 and the second one's 9 bucks.

8:33 Right on, I'll tell you. About that. Perfect. So, but before we dive into that, you're an active member of the LDS Church. Were you were, were were you born Mormon? Did were you born in the covenant, so to speak, and brought up Mormon? I was. I was born, my dad was a adult convert when they met my mom. Then they got married, had a family, and I was born in the church. Very cool. So I always like to ask this question because whether you're born into the gospel in whatever strain, LDS or Fundamentalist, there is a moment at which you have to make that conversion, right? And and and I think we're all conversions. What was yours?

9:14 Yeah. I would say I think I was always born with a testimony, but it became brighter as I got older and had different spiritual experiences. Whether I remember the first time I visited the Sacred Grove as a child, right boy, I was knocked out of my shoes. The spirit just just hit me. I've always had a love for Naavu. I remember going there as a younger person and catching the spirit of Naavu. But as I studied the restoration, I just see God's hands all over it and and it just has gotten stronger and stronger. Yeah, OK Yeah.

10:01 Kind of a gradual process for you where where you always believed it, but it was strengthened as you just continued to to immerse yourself in it. It's funny you bring up like the Sacred Grove and and Nauvoo. Me, me and my family just got back from there. Oh, I want to say two or three weeks ago and we went to Missouri, we went to Adam one day almond and you're right there. There is a very special spirit to those places. And when when your feet kind of touch down there it it's hard not to become immersed in it. It's hard not to feel that that spiritual tug for sure so. Absolutely, we were. We spent last week in Nauvoo, me and my wife, and then about a month and a half ago I was.

10:46 Palmyra and Kirtland and Nauvoo. Oh, that's awesome. So yeah, it's about my 15th time in both places. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. No. Anyway, but you don't have to go to get it. But for me that that's really kind of the icing. So I do live in East Idaho. My profession. I'm a businessman. We have some real estate commercial properties and things that we own and and manage. And then I had some free time. I I serve. I don't think it's any secret. I serve as a Bishop at the YSA ward in Rexburg right now, but somehow I still had some extra time and I do some local politics as well, but I had some extra time to really delve into. My first foray into really church history was a little town called Warsaw, IL and Warsaw is 18 miles South of Nauvoo. And when I was when me and my wife got married and we start having children, I said to my wife I said I want to do 2 things with our kids before they leave the house. I want to take them on a personal father son. I we have four boys one-on-one trip to the church history sites and I also want to take him to the Holy Land and so I was able to take my first two.

12:02 Our oldest two right before the oldest one on a mission and then the younger two a couple years later to the Holy Land. But each one of the other ones I took on a church history trip and son #3. We were leaving Carthage and you always want to end your church history trips at Carthage. I I'm a big believer. I I say don't go anywhere after Carthage, just go home because it's such an exclamation point to the restoration. But we were coming down the road through Hamilton, over the over the bridge to Keokuk, IA. And there's a slow green sign that said Warsaw. This is about 10 years ago and I said Warsaw, Warsaw. Gosh, I remember I was saying Keith Perkins who was a famous BYU religion teacher. I was in his class and I think that we read something about Warsaw, something about this newspaper editor named Thomas Sharp or something.

12:49 I don't know, I can't remember much. So we took a left hand turn and went down there 5 miles and wow, there's this fascinating little broken down Rivertown. And I thought this had something to do with Nauvoo, but I couldn't remember. So we got out of the rental car and walked around and I got out my phone and I texted history of Warsaw, IL and there was none. And coming home it just hit me that that was one of my missions in life was to write a history of this town. And I went back and spent weeks and weeks and weeks and went to archives and things. I wrote the history of Warsaw, IL. And come to find out, Warsaw was actually the nemesis of Nauvoo, and it's where the mob came from that killed Joseph Smith. OK, and there's a history before and a history after.

13:33 There was positive interactions with Nauvoo and there was some real negative interactions. And the newspaper editor basically called for the the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. He said Triumph War, they said they did it afterwards. They helped kick the worms out on the Battle of Nauvoo in September of 1846, Kicked the 3rd wave out. And there's just all this history in it I spent, you know? Six years, seven years writing his book. And the people at worse are really nice. They had nothing to do with what happened back then. And they invited me to come and I'd speak at their high school three different times. Sell out crowd, tell them about their history, A Mormon from Idaho coming to worse Illinois, telling them that they used to fight with their neighbors and not be. There's a little ironic but they've supported, they've loved.

14:17 They found it really interesting. So I wrote this book and so we're sitting along and somebody contacted me about a year and a half ago and said, Brian, there's this. Group that's actually been excommunicated or not, not part of the church. I don't know the the, the complete history. But there's this group that's come out with this movie that tries, that's trying to say that somehow the mob just got lucky and happened to be at Carthage jail right at the very moment that John Taylor Willard Richards shot Joseph and Hiram, which doesn't make any sense at all. And there's so much evidence why it was not an inside job. And one of the real things is Joseph Smith. He didn't die in the bedroom upstairs.

14:58 Nobody killed him upstairs. He was alive. He fell out the window. Yelled the Lord my God, is there no help. It was the beginning of the Masonic cry for help. He was very much alive and just like Taylor who had taken 5 balls upstairs and he lived. I believe Joseph Smith would have left if lived if he would have had medical care when he hit the ground. But they lined him up against the well, Levi Williams and a militia. Brigade Firing Squad shot and killed Joseph. I mean, some of those people stood trial. So this notion that it was upstairs, that somebody upstairs killed him, impossible, 'cause they didn't kill him. He was alive. When? When So, so.

15:39 When I first, when I first came across that movie and and that theory and I watched the movie, I remember when it was done I turned it off and I just looked at looked at my wife and I said. You know, people say you have to have a lot of faith to believe that a, a, a 14 year old farm boy got some gold plates, but this account takes even more faith than that, right? That makes that story look absolutely, you know, factual. I, I, I agree with you. That's that's been some of the stuff to come out of. So because I had done so much on Warsaw, people contacted me and we made some podcasts.

16:23 And then I got contacted by Kimberly Watson Smith, who's been on your show, and other people, Shannon Tracy and and Taylor Smith. And we put together some podcasts that really could have debunked that movie. And thankfully I was out there in last week and we went to Carthage. I talked to six missionaries, Some had been there for over a year at Carthage Shell. I said, Has anybody come through here? And said what about John Taylor Willard Richards killing Joseph Smith. Has anybody ever mentioned that five of them said I'd never heard anything one of them said. I think I heard one person kind of in just say that to somebody one person between six people over a whole year in Carter.

17:04 So it's it didn't really get any trash and except from people who maybe didn't believe anyhow or or you know that that particular movie and so we yeah we did some different work that way and then. What happened next And And again, the book's called History of Warsaw, IL, it's on Amazon and it's got some some phenomenal pioneer stories that that are are somewhat original. For instance, I'll tell you one, then I'll move on to what we're talking about today. There was a a, a school teacher in Iowa named Isaac Allen and he married. He had three different wives over. His life and they all died.

17:45 And his fourth wife that he married was from Warsaw and he went down there and it was a sister of the there was a military Fort on the river. This is 18 twenties, 18 you know and he married this gal. And well, the long and short of it is the way it works out is that he becomes brother-in-law with Thomas Sharp, that Isaak Gallon joins the church and becomes a missionary for the church. And I believe Hiram Smith baptized him and he becomes brother-in-law through some deaths and remarriages to Thomas Sharp, who was a newspaper editor that would eventually stand trial for the murder of Joseph Smith.

18:29 Wow. Brother-in-law. So imagine Thanksgiving dinner. Mormon missionary Isaac Gallatin and brother-in-law anti Mormon editors stood trial for the murder of Joseph Smith. Thomas Sharp. At the same table, their kids were cousins, played Prince. You don't find that in any history book. I put that together through a lot of research. That's awesome. So yeah, that's that's the way things were back then. And and I the the book kind of tells about how Warsaw was prospered and then within a generation economically in ruins and shambles, Joseph Smith made a prophecy about Warsaw, in fact.

19:11 And he said that the Warsaw would be broken down and it would not be built up until some certain things happened and that then you can interpret that any way you want. But I've got it in the book and you know to Warsaw today they went from 5000 people to about 1500 people. And so when you take this, that town that has stores and infrastructure and Main Street based on 5000 people and then you collapse it to 1500, you got some urban decay buildings falling down even today. So, but it's a great town and it's got it's so much more than just the six or seven years of the Mormon period before and especially after. So they claim that bringing Young's favorite plural wife, Amelia Folsom was from Warsaw. We built a castle of Amelia's castle. What was it called?

20:00 It was right across from Temple Square Palace, Amelia's Palace in the 1870s and 80s. I think it was torn down about turn of the century. But but she was Brigham's favorite wife. You got to look her up. She was quite gifted, musical, very intellectual when dignitaries came while you would sit at the head table and she was from they claim for Morris, IL. So anyway, so I've done done this work and then one day a while back I I was checking some different podcasts and one pretty well known anti Mormon guy did a podcast about the Feld prophecies of Joseph Smith. I said whoa, what's he talk about here? And he has 10s of thousands of viewers. I said, well Joseph Smith had hundreds of fulfilled prophecies.

20:48 And what happened was in 2003 my sister-in-law was married to a gentleman named Pat, and Pat was a researcher and a writer and a really good one. Unfortunately the marriage didn't last as long as we would have liked it to And but when we see Pat at different events instead of at a family wedding a couple times, I said when this came out, I said, Pat in 2003 you wrote a book called The Prophecies of Joseph Smith. You tried to publish it privately, publicly. It didn't really take any legs. I I got a copy. You didn't sell very many. I said you have the right to that, right? And yeah, I said we need to resurrect it. And he says I'm, I am a believer, but I'm busy in these other directions and I don't have time. I said, well, if you let me take it, publish it, edit it, republish it and put it out there and share these prophecies on podcasts and things, is that acceptable? And he says, yeah.

21:53 And I said I'll do one more thing. We'll price it low and if any profits, I'll I'll send it to you. Pat, I, I, I did my Warsaw, but I'm thousands of dollars in the hole. I don't do it for money. Thankfully our rental properties are doing good. So packets any profits. But as I got into this book, you know, they're just public. He, he did a lot of good research, but you can go to journals and do things like that and find these, so find these prophecies and it's just phenomenal. And then there's really, honestly a really explanation. There's really hasn't been a prophecy that can't be explained. And so can I. Just start by my one of my favorite scriptures.

22:33 It's First Corinthians 1422. First Corinthians 1422 says prophecy sign serveth not for them that believe not prefer them which believe. And so here's kind of what your audience needs to know about at least what I think prophecies are. First of all, when we talk about today, we're gonna talk about is the prophecies of Joe Smith and we classify, say the Book of Mormon. Those aren't the prophecies of Joe Smith. They contain the prophecies of Alma and Nephi and those guys, right, The authors of the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine Covenants. I don't really classify them as prophecies of Joe Smith. There are about 1100 forward-looking statements in the Doctrine Covenants, but we'll classify that as the word of the Lord.

23:22 OK. So what we're talking about here are sayings, prophecies from journals, from the history of the Church and different sources that are not necessarily, that are not in the scriptures. And some of them are in like the times and reasons, as long as they didn't like, hit the pro great prize. So these are Joseph Smith's prophecies. They're not Lord's prophecies. They're not Lord's voice, I should say through the doctorate covenants or Almas or or Nephi's. So that's what's in this book. But I also need to, to clarify this the role of prophecies in a testimony.

24:03 They should be testimony affirming, but the real testimony is based on faith and study and a confirmation of the Holy Ghost. And it's first of all based on Jesus Christ and His role as our Savior, Right and Redeemer. And second of all on the Restoration, the Book of Mormon, the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the teachings of living prophets today. OK, these other things are kind of just like bricks in a foundation. Somebody should not base their whole testimony on whether some prophecies came true or whatever. They can be faith affirming and just one more, you know, brick in the foundation. Does that make sense?

24:52 No, that that makes sense. Yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense. I I guess my thought on that is that Joseph Smith is a pretty pivotal, a pretty big pivotal part in that, right. So that if, if, if, if you you can't say the Book of Mormon is is a true document without saying Joseph, what's the process? And so that you can have Joseph Smith, a prophet with or without prophecies because of the Book of Mormon. So this is just an additional witness to the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith outside of the Book of Mormon and outside of some of the things he did. The setting up of the church was prophetic. Right when he's sitting there outside of Kirtland in, what is it, Morley's house And he he takes a couple elders and he says, you guys, you know the famous saying you guys are nothing more than babes, you know, infants in a mother's arms.

25:48 You don't know this church is going to go through North and South America and fill the world. Right. How prophetic was that? Right. And you people say, well is that really filled the earth? Well, you take a room and you squirt 3 squirts of of of perfume. You fill the room with with fragrance, right? And that's how you fill the world with the gospel. It doesn't mean every single person, but how, how prophetic that is. So let's maybe talk first the criticisms. Sometimes people read a prophecy or get something out or and say, well, this hasn't come to pass yet. Well, just because sometimes prophecies have not been fulfilled how we think they should be, doesn't #1 mean that they haven't been or #2 doesn't mean that they won't be. Sometimes prophecies are very contingent on certain things happening.

26:44 For instance, Joseph Smith said New York would be, I think, destroyed if they didn't accept the gospel and they set missionaries and hundreds of people join. But if we look at the Bible and we look at Isaiah, you know this, the the scripture, everybody does unto you a, a a child should be what a virgin will conceive and his name will be called Emmanuel, right? Right. We read that every Christmas. Did you know that that was given 700 years before Jesus Christ came. So for 699 years, people critics were saying Isaiah was a false prophet. Right. There's no virgin conceived. Well, whatever who believes this Bible thing or this Old Testament, you know, or, you know, whatever, you know, whatever book you know there there was a formal term for the Jewish Bible.

27:34 Jesus Christ himself has prophesied that in three days the temple will be rebuilt. And you sit there and say, well, the temple wasn't rebuilt in Jerusalem. While he wasn't talking about a physical temple, he was talking about his resurrection. And so you you, sometimes you have to look at prophecies and say, well, what were they talking about? Isaiah, other Old Testament prophets said, you know, Israel will be gathered. You know, the gathering of Israel's gonna happen or or it will happen or is happening. Well, what we have today. And like I said, I've been over there multiple times, actually more than just with my kids. What we have today is just a political gathering that you know happened in about 18/19/40, seven, 8-9, something like that, right.

28:20 But for about 2000 years Israel didn't gather and all the prophets were false. Well, when we talked about the gathering, Jackson County, OK, in 1831 when Joseph came and and laid that out and said this, you know this will be built in this generation. Well, the word generation can mean 1000 years or more. Doesn't mean in 75 years or 80 years that people lived, right. So also, you know, Jonah, one more thing and then we'll jump in Jonah. And then Jonah went to Nineveh and said that city would be destroyed, but it wasn't. Why 'cause they repented. But it the Bible doesn't have a if had a if if statement there.

29:03 So go on. I I was just give you some context about prophecies. Yeah. What? What? What? What I was gonna say is that too often. We, we, we make the assumptions of what the Lord is saying, right? And so we think, well, if if there's a prophecy, it's got to come to pass while I'm alive, or else it's false, right? Or if it hasn't been fulfilled right now. And just like you said with with with Jesus, where he says, you know, in three days this temple will be torn down and rebuilt again, right? He's not talking about the temple. And so a lot of times we have to look. And we have to do our due diligence and maybe a lot of times it's not till after the fact that we can look back and go, Oh my gosh, it's fulfilled.

29:49 And so for people who who put heavy emphasis on on prophecies of of any profit, I would say you might want to slow your roll just a little bit because you're making a lot of assumptions on a prophecy that's not. That you didn't receive personally and so you don't know the context, but thankfully evident. Thankfully there's about 400 that have come to pass and I'm gonna go over maybe 10 or 15 and. If he's not a good if. If he's not a prophet, he's an awfully good guesser at that point. Over and over and over. I mean, you know, for instance, he told people that they weren't, you know, gonna taste the death or they wouldn't have a painful death. Well, I think some people, he said that you won't, you won't die until Christ returns, right?

30:41 Well, guess what? Some of those were given 183118321833. What had happened in 1836 in the currently temple? Christ had come, Christ came, yeah, and then they died after. Yeah, but that's not context that maybe anti Mormons would take. Well Second Coming hasn't come. Well who says it's the second coming? Christ came before this guy died. Orson Whitney explained it this way. We are not going to die. We are deathless beings. We lived before we came into this world and we shall live after we go out of it. What we call death is not worthy the name. There is no death for the righteous. Christ died to destroy death. The change called death is but a separation, a temporary separation of the spirit from the body. None of our dear departed ones are dead. They have gone.

31:33 They have but gone before this so-called death, when properly understood, is simply going back home. And so we need to keep that definition in mind. If we talk about Joseph Smith's prophecies now they've a a few big ones that every being that should know about is things like the Word of Wisdom. How prophetic was that? And people try to. Well, there was some health societies already talked about that. Well, no, no organization came out as strong against it as large and and went through, you know, it took 100 and something 150 years for the medical community to really come out and say, yeah, you know, the word it was smoking and drinking and tobacco are bad, right. And there was a lot of debates.

32:15 And yeah, individually there was temperate societies and things. But it was really a battle. And no, Joseph Smith came out and said, you know unequivocally this is bad. And he was, he was a leader in his time. And you can, you can say, yes, this this was a prophecy that this is good. You read the, you know that revelation again that that was a revelation from the Lord. Same with the Civil War. It's a phenomenal, phenomenal even named South Carolina. Well, there was some talk about it. Well, no, He came out strong and said this right? And it said that war would be poured out among all nations. And there's two explanations for that. One is that in the Civil War there was members of countries from every country in the world living in the United States that was involved in the Civil War, OK. The other one is an explanation is from the Civil War date on there's always been a war somewhere in the world. Right.

33:12 Well, and two World Wars, right? Right. And wars involved. You poured out, right? No the he he does hit the nail on the head and the South Carolina 1 the arguments that I've heard where they say well it's not a big surprise South Carolina was was the one. Well, slow your roll, because you can find you can find old newspaper clippings of the time that people swore it'd be Virginia that let out in it. Right. That was what made sense. That's where, you know, even before it was official, everyone understood that the Confederacy's capital was in Richmond.

33:55 That's where they were meeting. And so there were just as many people, if not more, saying it's most likely to break out from Virginia. So the arguments against Joseph Smith on that particular prophecy are super weak, super weak. And it was what, 2530 years before the war broke out. And a lot of dynamics and politics and shifting happen be between then the prophecy given and then the last one of course is martyrdom. He gave so many prophecies or you know, I'm going to Carthage, I'm not coming back. I'm not a prophet of God if we don't, you know if if we, if we return things like that. And so, but today let's talk about some of his maybe lesser known ones and and this book that I have that I helped Pat put put out on the market. It's kind of divided by eras of church history. And we have like a a little chapter, a couple pages maybe in the 1st of each chapter dealing with what's happening in the church.

34:56 And then we go into his prophecies. One of the first ones I'd like to talk about is is actually before the church was established summer of 1829, there was a lot of animosity, probably more than most people realized against Joseph in Palmyra. And you know, if you look at some of the affidavits, France and Kirkham, Francis Kirkham wrote this phenomenal book called A Do Witness for Christ in America. And he went back and and people just, he went back and got affidavits in all newspaper articles. Some people were just making outrageous claims against Joseph and how dumb he was and how stupid The Smiths were. Now it's what a genius he is. Look at the book of Morton.

35:39 He just made that up. But back then it's like, oh, he he couldn't even put together a sentence. Well some of the opposition knew that this book was gonna be published and he was making arrangements with EB Grant and most a lot of member probably your listeners have been back to Palm Ryer and the churches the LDS churches restored that printing press. He can go and see how the book memorial was kind of put together. But but when he went out to EB Grant and there was a a doctor McIntyre and he and 40 men were collect were collected in the capacity of a mob and they requested that doctor McIntyre take him out of the company and he refused to do so.

36:22 So a Mr. Hussey HUZZY who made hats in Palmyra decided to offer his service and their aim was to kill Joseph Smith before he could get the Book of Mormon published. Right. Most people don't know this. There was a mob assembled to kill Joseph Smith before the Book of Mormon was published. That's correct. On hearing this, Joseph's mother told him not to go to see granted. And then he, Joseph just smiled and said, never mind mother, just put your trust in God and nothing will hurt me. Today in a short time Joseph set off for Palmyra along its route. He found the mob seated on a fence running along the road coming to Mr. Hussey.

37:04 First Joseph took off his hat and good naturally said good morning Mr. Hussey. Joseph passed on to the next man, who he saluted in light matter in the next and so on. And this is from the history of Joseph Smith by his mother. Quote this This struck them with with confusion and while they were pondering in amazement, Joseph passed on, leaving them perched upon the fence like so many roosting chickens and he arrived at Pelmyra without being molested. UN quote. How would you like to know that a mob's not to kill you and you just tell your mom. Say you know, trust God, I know that we'll all be OK Is that did he say thus Saith the Lord. I'm not sure.

37:45 He might have. We don't know. I mean this Max Smith wrote this in what, the 1850s? Eighteen 60s from memory. Yeah. But that happened. OK. Absolutely phenomenal. So. And the next one is Kirtland. And this is really, really, really cool. We all know about the Kirtland Safety Society, right? Yep. There's no you know, the the, the this, it, it failed. It was an anti banking society because the state didn't allow the bank to have a charter and so the country the whole country was on a bridge to the great financial crisis and Joseph warned him, he pulled out. He says this this bank is not built on righteous principles. There's a lot of greed and and and fall fighting and things. And So what happened is when through March and April of 1837, about 50% of the financial institutions in the United States, half of them went under, including the Kirtland Safety Society.

38:54 And there was fault fighting and apostasy and Justice Smith had prophesied these problems and then resigned his position at the bank in 1837. Yet many people blamed the bank's failure on Joseph. So much so that he and Emma and others left in the night to go to Missouri because they thought people were going to kill him. But before you, he left the bank. Bills had become worthless. OK Joseph, before you left prophesied, Check this out. Joseph prophesied that the Kirtland notes would one day be as good as gold. Well, now you know.

39:38 Well, 10 years later, 10 years later, check out what happened. They took some of the Kirtland Bank notes with them through Naboo and out to Utah. They were worthless. The Mormon Battalion came up from California and had gold dust. The gold dust brought, they brought it to Salt Lake and they found it. It was inconvenient, difficult to coin. So they got out the Kirtland notes, signed them again and placed them, placed them on par with gold. With gold that's fulfilling the prophecy of Joseph that the Kirtland notes what would one day be as good as gold in 10 years? Yep, how prophetic is that when the papers were absolutely worthless and there was a lot of different banks that had paper worth worthless.

40:29 Yes. Today any bank note is worth their weight in gold. But to to say that that way then when all these banks were failing and people I mean it's almost like the the the German mark doing hyperinflation right before Hitler took you know the old story that you somebody took a wheelbarrow full of German marks to the grocery store to buy 11 loaf of bread and it came out and the wheelbarrow was stolen and the and the paper was just there on the ground. That's the way it was with the with the Kirtland bank society notes. And he prophesied that would be one day be as good as gold and in 10 years they were as good as worth, as worth. They were on par with gold. How prophetic. Well, yeah, not just that, but ten years for a prophecy to come to pass.

41:17 That's that's darn near instantaneous in the world of prophecy, right? And. And in the context too. Well, and and here's the other thing, right? That's not the only prophecy that happened there. He he also said, he also said, look, that this thing's not built on correct principles. He resigns, he foretells what's going to come. And I'm sure it wasn't just, you know, obviously it wasn't just a problem with the Kirtland Safety Society. This was a banking problem of epic proportions throughout the whole country. And so when when this collapses for some reason, they want to blame Joseph. And I've never been able to figure that out, but whatever.

42:01 But the fact he's warning people in advance, hey, this this doesn't hold up. This is going to collapse. I mean he he, he even gave them a a prophecy of you might want to get your money out. Let's move on to the next year at the, you know, this is one of my favorites because it happened in what happened in in actually in the Liberty Jail and my wife's 4th grade grandfather was with Joseph and Hiram. His name was Alexander McCray and phenomenal experiences he, he was described for doctor covenants one 21122 and 123 given in Liberty Jail. But anyway, so Joseph and Hiram are there. Liberty Jail.

42:52 Yeah, the winner of 1838 through the spring of 1839. And we all know about Alexander Donovan, who was an attorney that actually disobeyed A unlawful order to execute Joseph. And he became friends with Joseph and he came to Liberty Jail and he was upstairs and kind of talking to another guard about some he he was mentioning that he was offered some land in Jackson County as payment for another client. And Joseph overheard the conversation. He said to Donovan, quote, I advise you not to take Jackson County land and payment of the debt. God hath.

43:39 And this is again, Donovan was dealing with another client and just mentioned that this guy wanted to pay him. So Joseph said God's wrath hangs over Jackson County. God's people have been ruthlessly driven from it. And you, you will live to see the day when it will be visited by fire and sword. The Lord of hosts will sweep it with the bosom of destruction, that fields and farms and houses will be destroyed, and only the chimneys will be left to mark the desolation well. The Civil War is a fulfillment of this prophecy in addition to and and because in addition to tremendous destruction brought by both the Northern troops and Quantrell Raiders, which is a rebel group from the South.

44:25 During the war Union soldiers swept down on Jackson Cass and Bates, Bates counties, killing animals, burning homes and fields, and molesting inhabitants. The whole area was plundered, left death, slipped by fire and sword, and some areas depopulated. The sufferings of the Missouri people have been thought by many writers to exceed at the sufferings of the Mormons. Now in 1864, a soldier who fought the Civil War described the condition in Missouri this way. Quote. We found houses, barns, outbuildings, nearly all buildings burned down, and nothing left standing at the chimneys. UN quote. I so that one, that one I've heard. That one I I've heard a a few different times. And what I also find interesting with that Brian is that Brigham Young makes his yellow dog.

45:16 Prophecy sort of a thing in conjunction with that. And then after the Civil War, Brigham never brings it up again, ever. I think Brigham even understood this is prophecy fulfilled. This is what Joseph was talking about and I. I've not been able to back this up. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Deseret flag.com. I've said this before and I really mean it. Mormonism isn't just a religion, it's a culture. As such, it has its own vernacular and practices, but also its own symbols. And those symbols become even more important and prominent when you look back into our history. Perhaps one of the most recognizable symbols of Mormonism is the Deseret flag.

45:58 This is the flag that I use as cover art in this podcast. This was also used for a good chunk of time during the Pioneer era in Utah. Now, today, we have people who want to replace the existing Utah flag with some other progressive monstrosity. Well, I think it's damn past time that we start pushing back here a little bit in Utah. Our friends at Defending Utah are here to help you with that. Now, if you go to deseretflag.com, you can now purchase your own Deseret State flag. It's time here that we start making ourselves known and join the resistance against those who seek to rewrite our state's history. Go to deseretflag.com or check out the link in this episode's page. Show notes and get yours today. Can't get enough of the Mormon Renegade podcast? Well, good news, we're on Patreon and there's three packages that you can choose from. The first one, the Slightly rowdy package, allows you to hear the podcast without all those pesky commercials getting in the way.

46:53 For those who want a slightly more in depth experience, there's the Stirring It Up package where you can hear ad free audio, ad free video and transcripts. Finally, for those who want to go full Renegade. That package is available too, where you can get everything in the previous two packages, plus an extra show where myself and Ben Winfield breakdown the news of the day from a very Mormon point of view. You will also get exclusive access to Renegade Chat, and on there you'll be able to talk to others about the show or whatever topics are on your mind. Go to Patreon today and get your exclusive content only by one account. And I usually don't like talking about things unless I can find it in two or three places. But there's actually a statement from Donovan that someone was telling me about where he actually says, you know, he looks around.

47:42 He says, gentlemen, today you've seen it, right? You, you've seen this fulfilled and and I I know as Mormons, we're, you know, a lot of times we're we're hesitant about Missouri because we're like, oh, well, there there's judgment coming. And sometimes we don't even recognize when prophecy is fulfilled. Uh huh. I do have an and a postcard here painting painted by Tom Lee Annan, Mormon in 1865 that shows a family in Jackson County returns of a Confederate family to their burn and barren farm in Jackson County after Civil War. Only the chimney of the house is left standing.

48:23 He had no idea he was painting the fulfillment of Joseph's prophecy. I wish I could share screen with you there, but. I can do that. I can grant you access to share screen. Yeah, give me just one second. Let's see. OK, you should be ready to go. Can you see that there? Yeah, I can. Yeah. Getting here at the bottom. Oops. Oops. I skimmed. This is painted by a non LDS guy in 1865 fulfilling that prophecy. And while we got it, this is. Fascinating what the book looks like. So very cool. Continue. Let's go to the Nauvoo era era. This is a lot of people know about Oren Porter Rockwell or Porter Rockwell or OP Rockwell.

49:07 There's a couple names for him and he plays. I really fell in love with him when I was right in my history of Warsaw, because OP Rockwell's first confirmed kill was Frank Worrell who was at the AT one of the Carthage Grays at the at the at the day of the martyrdom and he actually sent a note to the Warsaw mob that he collected. They had assembled over by of little town called Golden's Point and they were going to go out. They turned that Thomas Ford was in Nabu, which he was the day of the martyrdom. They had heard that Thomas Ford had been kidnapped by the Mormons and was in distress and needed to be rescued.

49:52 And so this this mob from Warsaw, 2 regiments from Warsaw and one from nearby Green Plains went up to Golden's point and the governor heard got word of this and sent a messenger, told them to go home. And while they were there a messenger got a note sent, excuse me, came with a note from Frank Warrell. And Frank Warrell had written now's the time to do the deed and that that it in the hands of Thomas Sharp. And so here's this Warsaw mob. It's about noon. It's the day of the martyrdom there at Golden's Point. Some say, well, we're going to obey the governor, we're going to go back to Warsaw. And some of them listen to Thomas Sharp and say now's the time to do the deed. Frank Worrell told us this.

50:33 Let's go on and kill Joseph Smith, which they did. Year later, Frank Warrell's chasing the sheriff out of Warsaw, and Porter Rockwell raises his gun and shoots Frank Warrell, the guard who's told the mob to come kill Joseph Smith. Most people don't know that story, so that's in my book. By the way, let's talk about Porter Rockwell. OK. He was arrested at March. He know the story most people do that. He was accused of trying to kill Governor Boggs, Liberan Boggs and of course assassin Miss And Porter said, well, that's how you know it wasn't me, because it was me. I would have got it.

51:15 But Porter Rockwell was arrested in March 4th, 1843 in Saint Louis and he was put in what they call iron hobbles or or chains and taken to independence. Now this is after, you know, four years after the extermination order and Porter Rockwell is now an independence and kind of enemy territory, right? About 11 days later, actually, on March 15th, Joseph spoke of Rockwell's fate. He said, quote I prophecy in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Oran Porter. Rockwell will get away honorably from the Missourians, really. He's intimate at enemy territory.

51:57 He's getting charged with shooting, a shooting at the governor. They hate the Mormons, right? So guess what happened. Rockwell was tried December 13th that same year, 1843, and the charge of shooting former Governor Boggs could not be sustained. And he was released. Yep, Yep. I think that's absolutely phenomenal because the odds were against that. But he prophesied. Yeah, the odds are so against that, right? Because, you know, this is a short time after they've booted the Mormons out. The foment is still heavy, the hatred is still there and somehow justice prevails. People don't need need now. People need to understand. In fact when Thomas Sharp was trying to gather people and and hatred against the Mormons in in 1844 and and Jenny writes in his newspaper he calls for his friends in Missouri and other states to come join him to help get rid of this Mormon prophet and he relied heavily on the hatred in in Missouri.

52:56 In fact, Joseph made a prophecy one time in the 1840s and now he says, you will I prophecy? I will never go to Missouri again or I'm not a prophet. Some, some along that line. And he was arrested by Missourian Lawnmen and and and and gonna be taken to Missouri. But that never happened, right? That's a whole different prophecy. Again. There's hundreds of fulfilled prophecies. One I'd like to talk about was dealing with, you know, Douglas, you know we have the Lincoln Douglas, Stephen Douglas, the Lincoln Douglas debates. And boy Lincoln is just so big. If you if you go over to to to Carthage now and go across the street from the jail to the Hancock County Kibbe Museum half that is dedicated toward President Lincoln. And I'm like, well, did you you know, know that Lincoln got there because Joseph made a prophecy. See what happened in May 18th, 1843, Joseph was having dinner in Carthage with a couple people from the church. Orson Hyde was one of them with the sheriff, Sheriff Bacintose and with Stephen Douglas.

54:14 And they were kind of friends and Joseph and people have heard this said that you will yet expire. He said this to Stephen Douglas. You will yet inspired to the presidency of the United States. But if you ever raise your hand or your voice against the Latter Day Saints, you shall never be President of the United States. Have you heard that prophecy before? I have not. Well, in 1857 Stephen Douglas called the Mormons quote a disgusting cancer and called for the repeal of the territorial status of Utah. Douglas's popularity has increased. He was assuming for the presidency dominant party. The last election there was three main political parties in the United States.

55:05 His party got more votes than the other two parties combined. But in 1860 it was an absolute shocker when a little known guy named Abraham Lincoln got 180 electoral votes and Douglas got 12. Right, Lincoln had said. Leave the Mormons alone. Douglas Scott, 12. He was. It was supposed to be an absolute landslide, and he only won two states. Wow. No, I've not heard that prophecy. I knew that. I knew that Douglas lost big time to Lincoln and it was a shock. But I hadn't heard that prophecy by Joseph Smith. Well and November 27th, right after the election results in 1860.

55:48 Orson Hyde, responding to this disastrous selection result for Douglas, wrote, and I I give credit to this slide from my to my friend Craig Dunn, who's a professor down in in Utah. He sent me this, he says Will Orson, Hyde wrote on the letter. Will the judge, meaning Stephen Douglas, now acknowledge that Joseph Smith was a true prophet? If he will not, does he not recollect a certain conversation that Mister Joseph Smith at the House of Sheriff back in Towson, Carthage, IL, in the year 1843, in which Mr. Smith said and again quote, you will yet aspire to the presidency of the United States? But if you will, if you ever raise your hand or your voice against the Latter Day Saints, you shall never be President of the United States. That was just a powerful, powerful prophecy. And guess what happened?

56:40 Stephen Douglas died a year later in 1861 at age 80, at age 48, a disappointed man he only got he only won two States and he was a shoo in an absolute landslide, and he raised his hands against and his voice against the states. He also called the the the Mormons that loathsome ulcer on the body politic, and he recommended a knife be applied to cut it out. So I'm guessing him and Brigham Young didn't exchange Christmas cards. Christmas cards? Well, he died within a year, right? Have you heard of the Battle of Buena Vista and that prophecy? No.

57:22 Oh, this is just, this is a great prophecy. So Joseph and Hiram and and several members of the church go to Carthage and I really kind of get into this part in my book and there's a lot of books that deal with it that they the all time classic of course is The Carthage Conspiracy by Marv Hill and Alan Oaks where they've got gotten back and it's really great story. But Joseph kind of has bounced around in the night of June 25th, 1844 actually I believe this happened about noon. They're they're gathering around and Joseph is actually staying at the Hamilton house, which is about two blocks east of the Carthage jail and it's about actually four blocks. E we just were there at the site it it's no longer stands. We were there last week and there's a little marker there where the Hamilton house was and Joseph's gathered around and and there's some anti warns there's there's some members of the military regiments and things they're eating and talking and he basically says gentlemen, do I look like you know the man that you've that you've been led to believe. And they said no.

58:32 And he says, you can't see my heart. He says, but I can see what's in your heart. And this is Joseph Smith talking to these these people who would eventually be part of either the mob or or people outside, you know, waiting and watching and what's happening. Joseph says, I I will tell you what I see. I could see in your heart, and I will tell you what I see. You thirst for blood and nothing but my blood will satisfy you. And he says, I prophecy in the name of the Lord, that you shall witness scenes of blood to your entire satisfaction. And many of you who are now present shall face the cannon's mouth from sources you think not of UN quote.

59:14 Well, during the Mexican War a few years later, some of these men were called to battle, and that was the battle of Buena Vista. And they got caught in friendly fire, and a bunch of them were killed. I think this is within a decade. Within 10 years, these soldiers and it was against Santa Ana the the Mexican war. You can read up on it. But the battle of Buena Vista fulfilled this prophecy where some of these men were caught in in the in crossfire and they were killed by friendly fire and they faced Cannon's mouth. From sources you think not of I prophecy in the name of the Lord that came true at the battle of Le Buena Vista. You can't just get these things just time after time after time after time, right?

1:00:07 Without having the spirit of prophecy and being a prophet of God. I mean, we all know June 27th, 1844, right at 5:16, the mob storm Carthagell. We know that time from from Taylor's watch. But Joseph told what Willard Richards. Everybody knows this time will come, that balls will fly around you. Willard Richards and he's and his This is kind of the second quote. And he should see a second person, and he shall see his friends fall on the left, and the right and the left. But there should not be a hole in his garment, right? Because that one. Right to pass, Yeah, absolutely, They came to pass. The bullet graces here. Nothing struck his garment, and he was the biggest man in the room by about double. Yep, He was.

1:00:49 He was. He was. He was a man after my own heart of robust birth. So. But Joseph prophesied that balls would fly around him and his friends would fall on the left, right and the left. But there should not be a hole in his garment. How do you get that one right? Yeah, yeah. Especially in the scene that was Carthage jail, right? Because bullets are coming from every direction, right? Both from the door and from the window. And somehow he manages to escape with a scratch right on his ear. Not not through his clothes at all. Yep. So can I share with you his Joseph Smith's last prophecy? Please do. Given to somebody else. Now, the next morning, he he kind of prophesied to the rights of the church. But this is a personal prophecy, and it was a night before the martyrdom.

1:01:37 And I hope I can get through it, 'cause I get quite emotional because it's so powerful. Many people in the church have heard of Dan Jones. Captain Dan Jones, in fact, he was a very powerful Nauvoo convert and became friends with Joseph. And he was there the night of before the martyrdom. And he had gotten a mission call to return to his native whales. And they were laying on the floor and they heard gunshots at the square of Carthage and some different things. And they were, well, they kind of knew the end was was coming. And Dan Jones asked the Prophet Joseph Smith if he was ready to die. And Joseph talked for a little bit and then asked Dan Jones the same, and he wasn't quite sure. And then Joseph said, you shall yet see whales and fulfill the mission appointed to you.

1:02:31 And that was kind of cool because here's what happened the next day. Dan left and went and got some, ran an errand or two for Joseph and came back and got some papers. And Joseph said to Dan, he says, I want you to go to Quincy and get my attorney and here's some papers I want to for you to give to him. And so Dan is outside Carthage and the mob there sees Dan with some papers and they think that Dan is going to Naavu to rally the troops that the Naavu Legion had been disbanded. But maybe they were going to get them back together and come rescue Joseph. And so the mob shoots at Dan right outside the Carthage jail, and they miss him.

1:03:17 But it confuses his horse so much that they went down the wrong road to Quincy. And it saved Dan's life because a mile or two out of town, of the ways out of town, a mob had come combined with orders to kill anyone, any Mormon that came that down that road. So Dan didn't get shot at Carthage even though they aimed at him and he didn't get killed on the road to Quincy 'cause he went down the wrong Rd. He avoided death two times and then he made it to the river and got on a boat that went by Warsaw. And that afternoon that night he was on this, on this boat going down to Quincy, not knowing what had happened in Carthage and a mob members inspected the boat with orders to kill any Mormons.

1:04:08 They could not see him on the boat, even though he was there and his life was spared a third time that very day. And he did go on not only to 1 mission to Wales, but two missions to Wales. He published thousands of pages of tracks. He converted. He was a missionary that helped convert the spirit converts. But he taught. Over 5000 people that joined the church came to Utah. He he was one of the most prolific missionaries of the Restoration. If you open up the missionary manual called Preach My Gospel on Lesson One, page one is a painting of Dan Jones preaching in Wales. If you go to the Provo MPC, his painting of Dan Jones's painting is on the wall when you walk in.

1:05:00 Wow. He became the mayor of Manti, Utah. In fact, some of his Saints, they were coming back from Wales. And by the way he could preach for 8:00 or 10 hours and keep people's rapt attention. It's he was a little guy. He'd stand on a on a box and and preach and his he were coming back to to Utah and they were having a general conference and they needed a choir. And his Welsh Saints were musical and they put together a choir of Dan Jones's converts and they sang at the general conference of the church in Salt Lake City. And that choir became the foundation for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

1:05:49 Alcohol. The choir Temple Square. That was the last prophecy of Joseph Smith to a person, Dan Jones, that he will live through Carthage and he will yet see whales. Wow. And then go on to influence. Mormoned them as we know it. Oh geez, in in so many ways. Now if you can share your screen one more time, I want to share with you one of the coolest things here. Yep, it's it's still on. You can still share kind of the whole prophetic thing lingered with Joseph after the martyrdom. You know the New York paper. You may have heard this right after the martyrdom wrote Joseph Smith said Best ends Mormonism. Right.

1:06:33 Have you heard that? That's against Mormonism. Well, I somebody else. Let's see, we'll we'll full screen this. Let me remove this here the large scale sentiment. Joseph Smith the Mormon prophet is dead. Thus Lynn ends Mormon Mormonism headline of the New York Weekly Herald. But there was just a spirit of Joseph Smith the Mormon prophet. And this picture here is a newspaper article. Again, my friend Craig Dentz just said this to me. This is a New York Tribune, July 20th, 1844. OK, so this is less than a month after the martyrdom in this newspaper, this, this critic was talking about how he had a rough exterior and this and that. But he says Joseph Smith has carved out for himself a title to a page in the history of this of his country, and his name will be remembered for good or for evil. And when it names of half the statesman of the age, when they when the names of half the statesman of the age will be forgotten.

1:07:39 Catch this wording. Joseph Smith is carved out for himself a title to a page in the history of this country. And yet the the large scale sentiment is Mormonism is dead right? Well, guess what? In 2015, the Smithsonian Magazine published a list of the most 130 most significant Americans of all time. A number one religious figure is Joseph Smith, and he carved out with this painting here his own page in the in the history, in American History. Holy cow.

1:08:25 Yeah. So here's a quote again. Joseph Smith has carved out for himself a title to a page in the history of his country. 2015 #1 Religious Figure in America. Joseph Smith was with his own page here on the on the right side. Number one, Number one. So, so Dave, you tell me, did God give Joseph Smith a prophetic gift? Absolutely he did. Absolutely he did. Unfortunately, we don't teach us enough. We don't teach us to our young people. That's really the foundation of who we are. And what we do is the Restoration. God called a man in our day restored priesthood keys, brought back scriptures, and gave him the gift of prophecy. This is one of the fruits of the Restoration. Absolutely.

1:09:20 And I I agree with you that that Mormons of all stripes. I don't care where you're at. I don't think we can put too much emphasis on Joseph Smith's prophetic calling. It's on that work. He is he is the wellspring. He is the the dispensation head and it it everything we have is Mormons cascades from that font that is Joseph Smith look. As a 13 year old boy, when when my dad passes, there was a a minister from a a a church, a well meaning man, I'm sure a good guy. He couldn't give me the answers about where my dad went, but who could?

1:10:08 Joseph could. Oh boy. And so when when the king fall fall at discourse to the discourses, semen, Bradson's grave, you know just the whole thing. The answers are here and this is Jesus Christ Church and we can't lose sight of that. But a lot of people believe in Jesus that are clueless to the prophetic calling and the gifts that God gave to mankind. And in our day as the scripture saved to roll that that that you know the the hand without the OR the rock without the hands and the the the scripture, I followed the restoration of our day And that's what makes Mormonism so impactful and so important that we've got to pull that message there bring that message out and and and bring it out to the world.

1:10:59 Yeah, absolutely. As you were writing and compiling this book, I I got a few questions for you. First, you see in in Joseph, 'cause you, you said you kind of broke it up by time, right? By era. Do you see? Like more more prophecies being made the further along he gets in his prophetic ministry. Yeah, I I think so. And the reason is I think at the beginning he was so busy bringing, well, he it it again we we're talking definition here. At the beginning he was bringing forth prophecy for sure because but it was the Book of Mormon and again I classify that as the prophecies of Mironi and the Mormon and Alma.

1:11:41 So he's producing hundreds of pages of revealed word, OK And then comes the the, the revelations we find in the Doctrine and Covenants. They were printed in the time and seasons and compiled in different arrangements, the book of commandments and things like that. So these are flowing from the Lord. And then when the foundation of the Scriptures and the Joseph translation of the Bible and things like this or then I think we see a little bit more free time where he's giving prophecies, especially in the Nabuk period. I mean there's one of my favorites, gosh, Dave, I didn't even get to was they were settling. And again, where I study mostly Hancock County history 1838 to 1846, that's really kind of where I spent the last decade of my life. You got to remember that this is on the river. There's the Des Moines Rapids.

1:12:33 It's not like it is today. There's a little few houses called Hotchkiss by Nauvoo in a little area called Commerce, And Joseph and Hiram have just been LED let to escape from liberty. And they make it. So where the Saints are in Quincy and they come up to Hotchkiss and there's a Mr. White. And this is in the spring of 1839, and he has some land for sale and he wants $500 down. And the Saints are basically penniless. Right, Right. And Joseph Co comes up and spends the night and he tells the people around and the brother and he says go and tell Mister White that we will buy his land and we will give him his money down.

1:13:22 They looked at him like, what are you, you know, what are you talking about? We don't have any money. He says just go do it. And he they go and and make the arrangements. And the next day, Joseph goes over to Mr. White's house, goes inside. They pull up a table and they have a contract, and it's $500 down. Mr. White signs it, pushes the paper over to Joseph. Joseph signs it. He pushes the chair back. He puts his head down like he's saying a prayer. And just then a wagon pulls up outside. A man comes, gets steps down, walks up to the door, knocks on the door and says I'm looking for Joseph Smith. And they said, oh, he's right here. And Joseph says, what can I help you with? And he says, I want to buy some land from you, but I don't have time to look at it today.

1:14:09 I have some down payment money. I will come back and talk to you tomorrow. Here's $500. Wow. Joseph turns around and gives it to Mr. White, he later says to his brother. And he says, you put your faith in money. I put my faith in God. Yeah, that is recorded history. Joseph Smith had no idea who this guy was, had no idea he was coming, had no idea that $500 is coming. He felt prompted and inspired to sign that document in within seconds. Within, you know, 10s of seconds, the money showed up out of nowhere. Right, $500 to close the deal. You know, so these types of events happen more and more, I think.

1:14:54 I mean, they happen throughout Joseph's life, but I think we have more once the foundation of the gospel was established. Man he's he's teaching people about temple ordinance of baptisms for the dead. The whole purpose of pre earth life, the post earth life in more detail of course you know it. It really started early but he just added to it. I mean my favorite is like at the John Johnson home in Hiram. Have you been down there, South of Kirtland, about 20 miles where the visions were given, which we called Dr., Feminist 7, Section 76. How prophetic is that? Now? That's in the Doctor Covenant, so I don't have it. In my book. You talk about a prophetic gift where he reveals the three degrees of glory and all these different things that are happening, and he sees his brother Alvin, who was not baptized.

1:15:44 And in fact, you talked about your dad dying. You know, the story of Alvin Smith and Palmyra dying and the minister. The church hadn't been restored, dismissed that Mormonism was around. The teachings of the doctrines of salvation weren't there and the ministers asked if Alvin had been baptized and the Smith family said no. And the minister said, I'm sorry, Alvin is not going to go to heaven because he hadn't been baptized. He had destroyed The Smiths. And then in 1833 at the Johns Onsen farm upstairs in that bedroom the elders are meeting in city region and and and Joseph Smith see this vision and he sees Alvin in the special Kingdom and he says how can that be And the doctrines, the word for the dead and all these things are are brought forth.

1:16:33 You just don't have an you know a a a guy with a three-year education on farm boy in in backwoods New York in the early 1820s with no Internet no you know they're working 1214 hours a day just to eat. He doesn't have all this time to sit around and philosophize and get around people. He's he. This is just just absolutely remarkable. So I hope, I hope that answers your question. It was all along. But I think at first it started with the revelation of the scriptures and the setting up of the Church. And then we have some really cool stuff happened in the novel, period. Just prophecy after prophecy after prophecy that are outside the scriptures and outside the Doctrine Covenants. As as you were writing this and compiling this, what was the thing that that that kind of shocked you or maybe something that you weren't prepared to see? Oh gosh you know I I think this that we what shocked me was that we don't as a people and as as as believers that God called us meant to be a prophet.

1:17:37 That we don't know more about. Some of these things this prophecy about the Kirtland Safety Society notes being worth their weight in gold happened in 10 years. I've been to Kirtland probably 1015 times and never heard that. But yet it's right here, right? There's so many things. And again, this isn't the foundation of anybody's testimony, but it's a it's it should be reassurance that Joseph had a prophetic gift, that he was called by God. Absolutely could do his work. Just a reassurance. Another witness maybe? Well, let me ask you this. What? Why is it you think that that we as Mormons of every stripe don't spend the time to to?

1:18:23 Illustrate Joseph's prophetic calling like this. Again, as you were saying, it shouldn't be the foundation of your testimony, but it could serve as as kind of a a shield, right? What do you think? It's lack of access to records? Do you? Do you think? No, that's out there. I mean Dwayne Crowther's wrote a phenomenal book listing 400 prophecies. I I'm we're we're dealing in the realm of speculation here and I really don't wanna go down that way especially where I, the position I currently serve in in my ward and things I don't I don't wanna be misconstrued.

1:19:05 But I I will tell you that the foundations of of exaltation is is you know not whether Joseph had this prophecy or not. It's faith in Jesus Christ and repentance and baptism and things like that. And we put a rightful focus on that. And I think sometimes just be just kind of off the record here. My personal opinion is that we're busy, right? And a typical Mormon family is large. Yep. And it takes a lot of time and money and effort to raise a family. And we're teaching good gospel principles, you know, principles of faith, repentance, baptism, these things and following the commandments of God. And it's just so you know, the serious student probably has heard everything we talked about, OK, this is, this shouldn't be new to somebody who is really taking the time to study the gospel, right?

1:20:06 But there's a lot of distractions and and some people just frankly don't study as much and when they do. They're rightfully going to the scriptures first. OK, really? We we are told to read the scriptures every day. We're not told to read church history every day or whatever. You know what I'm saying? So I think the emphasis is rightly on the principles of the gospel. But there's some good stuff here and it's mainstream Mormonism. So that's just some speculation. I don't want to speak for the brother and of why the emphasis is there that that people can spend time.

1:20:46 We have plenty of time to golf. We have plenty of time to play pickleball. We have plenty of time to to binge watch TV shows and do all this. I I served with steak present and I know that you're you know you're a fundamentalist. But he he told me one time, he says If then he was just talking Generally says. I feel that if I have time to golf, I have time to go to the temple. Yeah, and you could say that about studying church history, the prophecies, or other aspects of the gospel. Other history gospel, yeah. But we don't have many people go on dates every week with their wives and go to the movies, but they don't have time to do. Yeah, read some good stuff, I mean.

1:21:28 You know, I I remember. I'm, I'm kind of, I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of a meathead. So I naturally like to read about history. And I I was in junior high when the first Gulf War happened and I remember, I remember it happening, but I didn't have a lot of the context. So I I I remember I read a book about this and Norman Schwarzkopf said something that was really profound. And in some, not some ways, in a lot of ways, I think it can apply to our our spiritual eyes. When he was asked what the strategy was, he said, well, the first thing we need to do is cut the head of the snake off and then kill the body.

1:22:13 And someone said, well, can that It's a little graphic, but could you expound on that a little bit? And he said, yeah, we want to cut off communications first. If we can cut off communications, we can we can finish off the body. Sometimes I think as Mormons and and I've seen cross spectrum doesn't matter, you know which branch you're in, so to speak. We're busy just for the reasons you said we got. We typically have larger families. You know, you're you're busting your rear to put food on the table. You know, mom's toting the kids to whatever practice is going on and none of those things are bad things. But we haven't invested the kind of time that I feel like we need to, to give our kids that extra. Protection and that extra reinforcement against some of the attacks that are coming out now. And with with as busy as we are, I feel like the adversary's done a really good job in not only making sure that we're not receiving that constant communication we need through both prayer and study, but also he's disguised it in such a way that that it's not bad things, right? It's just things.

1:23:21 That we get in the way trying to live, quote a wise I think it goes in a different direction too. We know in the scriptures in the last days that the prophecies are that men's heart hearts will fail them or what does that mean? And we also read in the scriptures. But in the last days there will be some who lie in wait to deceive. Yeah, there are people who are making a living, making a fortune off of bashing the church. And many times I have seen things that are historically inaccurate or wrongly portrayed or proof. Texting or what what we would call taking things, taking out of context, things shaded. Things not told properly by the enemies of the church that are shaking.

1:24:09 People's testimonies that are maybe weak to begin with. Attacks on Joseph Smith as we talked about attacks on Brigham Young. Yeah, it, you know, attacks on our our mutually shared history. And some are completely dishonest. Absolutely, absolutely. Well said. No, that's that's correct. That kind of torques me off personally. Makes me want to write more books and go on more podcasts because because I when people are lying in wait to deceive and intentionally saying wrong things on purpose or misquoting or taking I I think. Yeah, yeah.

1:24:56 Yeah. No, I I so more. And that's what we've got to fortify, fortify. When when I have students in our home for family home meetings or something, they're always shown a great church video or something about the his early history of the church to try to fortify them with with some truth in case they come across some wild claim on the Internet. Well, thank you, Dave. I think I've covered everything in my book. Is there anything you want to talk about further? I I don't think I. Think you covered it pretty well. I enjoyed you coming on I Tell This to all my guests once you've been on once you got a standing invitation. So if you do write one of those books, let me know. We'll get you back on.

1:25:39 All right. I appreciate it. All right. Bye everybody. You're listening to the Mormon Renegade podcast.