Saints Exodus from Nauvoo Part 2

Mormonism 101 by Mormonism research ministries Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson has helped many more to understand what separates Mormonism from the Christian faith.

Mormonism 101 is available at your favorite Christian bookstore online@mrm.org .1 examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism. So glad you could be with us for this additional viewpoint on Mormonism.

I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry and with me today is Eric Johnson.

My colleague at MRM yesterday. We began looking at a new history book that came out in 2020. It's titled Saints. No on hollowed hand.

It's the sequel to the first edition called Saints the standard of truth, and as I mentioned in yesterday show the first volume ends with the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints getting ready to leave Naboo after the death of Joseph Smith and this book begins with the Saints getting ready to leave Naboo.

It opens up by talking about a message that was given by Joseph Smith mother Lucy Mack Smith and she's going to recount some of the things that her son accomplished during his lifetime. The conference message that Lucy Mack Smith is giving was in October 1845. Now if you want the details of her message, you can go to volume 7 of the history of the church.

That's the blue volume.

The seven volume set and it starts on page 470 in the middle of the page where it says Wednesday, October 8, 1845 conference opened at the usual hour with singing and prayer working to get back to that but were going to be looking today at page 5 in this book. No unhallowed hand when it talks about the persecution that the Saints were facing in Naboo at this particular time. It says for more than a month. Vigilante mobs had been torching the homes and businesses of saints in nearby settlements. Further lies.

Many families had fled to the relative safety of Naboo, but the mobs had only grown stronger and more organized as the weeks passed and soon arm skirmishes had broken out between them and the Saints the state and national governments. Meanwhile, did nothing to protect the Saints rights we should stop here and talk about that because how many times have we received criticism and emails from Latter Day Saints, who think that we are trying to promote some kind of animosity or ill will and even violence against the LDS people, which is certainly not our goal at all. When I read a paragraph like this and knowing LDS Church history as I do, I admit, they went through some hard times. They were persecuted. It was wrong. I don't know how many times we have to say that before Latter Day Saints finally believes that us. Maybe they never will believe us, but will certainly we find nothing that is God honoring in persecuting anybody for what they believe. You may disagree with them. You should, I think is a good Christian offer arguments against what they may believe. If it's false and show what you believe is a Christian to be true, but to use violence as a means of showing your hatred for what a person might believe or even a hatred towards an individual person will if you have hatred towards an individual person. If you claim to be a Christian you got problems in that area alone. So certainly we would not be in favor of the persecutions at the LDS people faced while they are in love and let me just add one more thing on that bill. The idea that we are considered to be anti-Mormons. A lot of Latter Day Saints will call us at and we don't like that term because anti-Mormon was used back in those days of persecution and then the very idea that a Mormon which is a person, a person who is Latter Day Saints and so where against Mormons. Now you might call us anti-Mormonism. We talked about that before, but I think that needs to be set again because many Latter Day Saints think we must hate them for even having a ministry like Mormonism research ministry, I think you're absolutely right, Eric, and another thing that troubles me in our culture today is because when we talk about anti-Mormon bigotry or just anti-Christian bigotry if it's only limited to disagreeing with the theological and maybe even historical principles of that faith, I don't see that is bigotry at all. I think things like that should be challenged if somebody has a problem with what I believe as a Christian and little believe what I believe as a Christian I want to challenge me on that. The last thing I'm going to do is automatically assume that there are big it against either me as a person, or what I believe they just happen to disagree and because they disagree I'm not going to put that into the category of bigotry we disagree, but we have something better to offer. We don't believe it honors God to believe something that is falls. We do believe the Mormons are believing something that is false. If anything, we are trying to help them to see the error of what they believe and hopefully fill that vacuum with the truth of the gospel. The book continues on page 5, believing it was only a matter time before the mobs attack Naboo church leaders had negotiated a fragile piece by agreeing to evacuate the Saints from the County by spring goes on to say this. Eric and this is where I'm puzzled guided by divine revelation. Brigham Young and the other members of the quorum of the 12 apostles were planning to move the Saints more than a thousand miles west beyond the Rocky Mountains just outside the border of the United States now and I read that I obviously wondered guided by divine revelation whose revelation was this revelation given to Brigham Young or is it talking about a revelation that perhaps was given to Joseph Smith. How did you take that paragraph.

When you read that while definitely according to the context guided by divine revelation, then you're going to put the person who's being guided by the revelation of the next words are Brigham Young, so it seems to be very clear that Brigham Young is who is being guided by the divine revelation and when it says beyond the Rocky Mountains just outside the border. The United States, I think the average reader and including myself, assume it's talking about the state of Utah which is where the Latter Day Saints ended up coming in 1847 that we have to understand when this is supposedly happening. We already know from the context that it's conference in the fall of 1845 the Mexican American war has not taken place that takes place eventually and then ends in early 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo will come about.

A few months after the surrender of Mexico to the United States, and this is where the United States acquires a huge chunk of land that was the property of Mexico.

So when it says that they were planning to move the Saints were thousand miles west beyond the Rocky Mountains just outside the border. The United States at this time.

You could easily assume that they're talking about Utah. The territory of this arete as it would be called. And then of course later on the state of Utah, but I don't know of any reference in either this conference or another messages that Brigham Young gave prior to the time that they left that they were specifically going to go to the Salt Lake Valley. This book gives the impression that that's exactly where they're planning on going back let me skip ahead because I think it's important in this context to look at it it says on page 10 that the Lord had already directed the Saints to settle near the great Salt Lake. Now the Lord it already directed the Saints is talking about Brigham Young or is it talking about what has come to be known as the Rocky Mountains prophecy that is been attributed to Joseph Smith and that he allegedly received from God. In 1842 know there's a lot of controversy over this because there's nothing written in Joseph Smith's hand about this alleged Rocky Mountains prophecy. It's only talked about after-the-fact and it's given kind of a retrofit before Joseph Smith dies to make it sound authentic question I raises this.

Joseph Smith was running for president in 1944, just before he dies.

If the Lord was really telling him in 1842.

Around that time that he needs to go to the Salt Lake basin. How you gonna run the country and the church. If you're supposedly living in in the Salt Lake area and your headquarters for your country is in Washington DC. There is no railroad at that time the railroad wouldn't come about until 1869.

So this raises all sorts of questions for me personally and I think it should raise some questions for Latter Day Saints because I think the book is being misleading when it makes it sound so specific on page 10 that the Lord had already directed the Saints to settle near the great Salt Lake. Brigham Young didn't seem to know that before they left. There's even evidence to show that when Brigham Young was asked where are you going Mr. young. He did not know. In fact, one of the options was to perhaps even go to Vancouver's Island which is owned by Canada others thought that they were going to the upper California as it was known at that time.

Some others were suggesting that they go to Texas.

So to make it sound like Brigham Young had in his mind that the Lord was leading him to the Salt Lake Valley I think is very misleading and that's one of the problems I have with this book and the other book as well. Like the documentary history of the church that gives us dates and times, and specific things that people said and did.

This book becomes very vague in many respects, it tries too hard to be just a mere prosing narrative rather than what I like to see in the actual history book, at least not one that I like to read. I like to have specifics and I think this book fails miserably in that regard. One of the things about the Rocky Mountains prophecy is. As you mentioned Bill there is nothing in the handwriting of Joseph Smith.

There is nothing that was published during his lifetime, and in fact it seems to be one of those legends in Mormonism where it comes up later after they have already moved to Salt Lake. It seems to get more specific and we see other issues such as Brigham Young saying this is the place well.

Did he really say that we don't know about that until 20 years after he supposedly set in 1947. It's interesting how a lot of folklore becomes historical in Mormonism, even when it comes to the seagulls. The miracle of the seagulls that were going to talk about because it's mentioned in this book that we have an article on our website MRM.org/Rocky Mountain prophecy with hyphens between Rocky Mountains prophecy written by Lane through it. It's an excellent description of what the Rocky Mountains prophecy supposedly was, but I find it interesting in this book. No one hallowed hand that gave the impression you're given is that it was meant to be for them to go to Utah when it doesn't say that at all in the history books. I think you're right. And one more thing I want to mention before time expires here. It also talks about in the speech given by Lucy Mack Smith. It gives you the impression that she's not going to go with the Saints when they leave Naboo to go out west on page 6.

Is this.

Furthermore, most of her living family members were standing Naboo. Her only surviving son, William had been a member of the quorum of the 12, but he had rejected their leadership and refused to go west her three daughters, Sophronia, Catherine and Lucy were all staying behind. So, too, was her daughter-in-law Emma. The prophets window but yet if you go to volume 7 of the history of the church.

On page 470 to 72. It gives you a lot of the details of the talk. Brigham Young says when she speaks to him in a voice that the congregation could not hear. Brigham Young got up and related to the congregation. Her last closing remarks and this is what Brigham Young said mother Smith proposes a thing which rejoices my heart.

She will go with us.

Obviously something must've happened between that conference message and when the Saints finally leave because Lucy Mack Smith does not go with Brigham Young or any of the Saints out west from Nauvoo. Thank you for listening. If you would like more information is research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter Mormonism research.

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