THE RISE AND FALL OF JOSEPH SMITH?
This morning when I fired up my MSN.com home page, I found the following short video (about two minutes) from the New York Historical Society about Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
In the last few moments of the video, the narrator refers to “the rise and fall of Joseph Smith”.
I posted the following in the comments section of the video:
The rise and fall of Joseph Smith...?
I don't think so.
Rise, yes, fall, no.
Lifted up by God from the total obscurity of his backwoods background, that great man rose but has never fallen.
Though martyred by a murderous mob in his 39th year - the same fate suffered by numerous prophets before him - Joseph Smith has never been more prominent in the Christian world than he is today. As the angelic messenger Moroni said of him, Joseph’s name would be “had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people”.
All men die and most are forgotten, but some are forever remembered for their greatness.
Among the many millions of devout Christians who have eyes to see and ears to hear, Joseph Smith is honored today as an acclaimed prophet of God, in league with the greatest of God’s servants who ever lived, prominent in that hallowed quorum of God's messengers sent into a depraved world. He was God's man charged with the latter-day restoration of great things long lost and other things never before revealed.
His contribution to the modern world:
The revelatory reopening of the heavens after a long age of fractured apostate spiritual darkness -
The expanded canon of revealed Christian scripture - The Book of Mormon and more -
Under the hands of heavenly messengers, the endowment from heaven of divinely authorized priesthood power - that same power the Great High Priest Jesus held and ordained upon his Apostles -
The Restored Gospel and Church of Jesus Christ - "the only true and living church on the face of the whole earth"
All of this monumental work - finished in the space of a few short years - shines brighter now than it ever did - Daniel’s stone cut out of the mountain without hands, rolling forth to fill the whole earth (Daniel 2:34,44).
We have only seen the beginning of what will flow from the life and work of the Prophet Joseph Smioth.
Right vs. wrong, truth vs. lies, reality vs. fantasy, law vs. lawlessness, justice vs. injustice, order vs. chaos, patriotism vs. treason, light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, happiness vs. misery, God vs. the Godless…
Torquemada
p.s. In the comments section of the same Joseph Smith video, I found the following posted by someone called Wheel M:
From the comments it's pretty obvious that when Lord was right when he said Joseph Smith's name would be had for good and bad. For being such a fraud, the church that he restored has become one of the fastest growing churches in the world. It's helped millions find the Lord Jesus Christ and helped blessed the lives of millions. Pretty good for a fraud.
In response, I posted this:
Wheels M seems to be oblivious to the obvious and glaring contractions in his argument - that Joseph Smith, a man he says was a liar and a fraud, as is the church he founded, has been instrumental in helping millions find the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Satan who is the Father of Lies, not God. Does Satan do God’s work? Does the Father of Lies lead men to Christ? Does one find Jesus by believing a lie? I don't think so. God does not approve of or use lies or liars to accomplish his purposes. If so, he, who proclaims himself the God of Truth, would cease to God. Does one gather good fruit from a bad tree, or sweet water from a polluted spring? “By their fruits ye shall know them”.