(Note: you can skip to the video at the end for a more succinct explanation than I can give.) As a 14-year old boy, Joseph Smith had questions regarding which religion to affiliate himself with. After reading James 1:5-6, he determined that he would pray directly to God to see what path to take. That prayer led to a visit from God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints generally refer to this as the First Vision, because it was what started the ball rolling toward the restoration of Christ's Church. (For Joseph's account of this, click here). After having his question answered (and receiving much, much more information than he ever anticipated, I'm sure), things were quiet for awhile. Three years later Joseph was once again reading in the Bible when he received another heavenly messenger, an angel named Moroni. Here is what Joseph said regarding this visit (and here):
“On the evening of the … twenty-first of September [1823] … I betook myself to prayer and supplication to Almighty God. …
“While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor...
“Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning. The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around his person. When I first looked upon him, I was afraid; but the fear soon left me.
“He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should 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.
“He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants;
“Again, he told me, that when I got those plates of which he had spoken—for the time that they should be obtained was not yet fulfilled—I should not show them to any person ... only to those to whom I should be commanded to show them; if I did I should be destroyed. While he was conversing with me about the plates, the vision was opened to my mind that I could see the place where the plates were deposited, and that so clearly and distinctly that I knew the place again when I visited it.
I ... went to the place where the messenger had told me the plates were deposited; and owing to the distinctness of the vision which I had had concerning it, I knew the place the instant that I arrived there...
“At length the time arrived for obtaining the plates ... On the twenty-second day of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, having gone as usual at the end of another year to the place where they were deposited, the same heavenly messenger delivered them up to me with this charge: that I should be responsible for them; that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off; but that if I would use all my endeavors to preserve them, until he, the messenger, should call for them, they should be protected."
Is this a fantastic story? Yes, it is, but I would use the word miraculous. Is this type of experience common? Of course not, otherwise it wouldn't be considered fantastic or miraculous. This type of experience is not unheard of, though. The scriptures, both Bible and Book of Mormon, are testimonies to the fact that God commonly works in this manner when He calls people to serve Him. I know through the testifying of the Holy Spirit that Joseph Smith's account of the Book of Mormon is true.
-- Who likes kickoffs of all kinds
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