Joseph: Welcome everybody. Let’s start with a word of prayer. Since we do not always organize everything to the detail ahead of time, do we have a volunteer who would like to say the opening prayer for this Winter Conference?

Opening Prayer: Will

Welcome Visitors:

Ezra Marube: Yeah, I can introduce myself. For the ones who don’t know, I have been talking with Brother Rockwell, Joseph. And I am a pastor from Africa. I have a small charity which is growing spiritually. And it’s by the grace of God. And I’ve got some wonderful kids to take care of. And it is through God that I took that opportunity to take care of the kids. I am happy to join you in this meeting today. So that we can get more teachings from the brother, for what God has given him to teach us today. And we share more about God. I pray that as we are about to start the meeting, we finish and get the teachings in Jesus’ name. Thank-you my dear brother.

Joseph: Excellent, thank-you.

Introduction:

Joseph: I thought I would introduce a little bit about the purpose of this conference. As everybody knows, we have been instructed to actually go out and organize so that we can get more things done. And that people can help each other and learn and grow, that the Gospel can go forward. And so, on that note, I believe it is very important that we strive very hard to work together to accomplish this goal.

The Book of Mormon:

And, for myself, I am very aware, that it has been about 194 years, since the angel gave the plates to Joseph Smith. And from which plates he translated the Book of Mormon. And this Book of Mormon of course contains the New Covenant which the Lord is offering in this day. And there is a scripture that I would like to read to kind of give us a start and key note our conference. And even if you hear this scripture again today, I think it is well worth hearing. It says:

“But if they will repent, and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant, and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance.”

To be a part of the Family of the Lord, to be a part of His Family which He is offering to all who will of course repent and keep this New Covenant, even the covenant of the Book of Mormon, the covenant that is contained in the Book of Mormon.

Now, many people have asked, so I would like to express that the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed largely from the transcript of the original manuscript, and also using a small portion of the Original Manuscript as well. So, the first printing had some mistakes in it, but it is still the closest published translation to the original manuscript. We have looked at many different manuscripts, and many different published Book of Mormons and we have seen, that as we have gone through them, that many of them have taken liberty with what they have translated. And what they think should or should not be within that book. So, since there were mistakes in the printing of the original manuscript, there is, right now, an ongoing effort to publish the Book of Mormon as close to the Original Manuscript as possible. But until this new edition is completed, we still generally use the first edition of the Book of Mormon, as the most correct translation, the most correct printed edition of the Book of Mormon. Many of the Mormon churches, and the various Mormon religions have their own versions of the Book of Mormon, and we have looked at many of the different copies, which definitely have been altered to suit their doctrine. And so, I would like to encourage everybody to stick with the first edition of the Book of Mormon, until we can get the new printed edition done, of the Original Manuscript. And this will give us the best choice of doctrine that the Lord has actually given to us. Instead of choosing other books that were changed, were altered.

And the original book does contain the New Covenant of the Lord even to this day.

And the Lord promised to bring us into His holy light, if we keep the commandments, including those that are contained in the Book of Mormon. And this light, He promises, that will bring forth much good fruit unto the Lord. So it is really of the utmost importance that we study that Book, we feast upon it’s words, we really do get to know it very intimately. There is a lot more there than just stories. This Book is actually, teaches us the principles, and how we should behave. And living this New Covenant carries with it the promise of the Lord, that we will be His children, and He will, of course, be our Father.

And so, I would like to relate an experience. And this experience is about the Book of Mormon:

When I was a little younger, I had devoted myself to the reading of the Book of Mormon quite a bit. And within it’s pages, I noticed a pattern. I noticed a pattern that all the prophets in there, lived. That is how they lived. They lived a certain way. And as I learned this pattern, and kept noticing it with each prophet, I began to be able to write it down, I began to be able to follow it. And of course I made many changes in my life, in accordance to the precepts that I found in that Book. And the pattern in the Book of Mormon became more and more clear, the more I lived it. And the more I lived it, the more of the pattern that I saw. It did take a lot of change, a lot of change in my live. And it took a lot of effort to change my life, there were a lot of sacrifices to be made. And I lost a lot of friends, just because my lifestyle changed. And people were not always very pleased with me, because I was living a different way. New things became important to me. The Gospel became number one in my life. All other things, sports and various other activities like, I was a very physical young man at the time, so I would go out on adventures, canoe, and hike, and climb mountains, things like that. But those things started to lose their interest to me, as the Gospel became more and more prevalent in my life. And so I focused mostly on trying to help people. And I started praying for people. And not just praying for them, but praying that I would get some inspiration as to how to help people. And as the more I changed my life to following that pattern, the more inspiration that I obtained.

And one day, I was praying for a friend of mine, and he was going through a very difficult situation, in his life. And I was asking what I could do to help. Now, during this prayer, and I have told this story many times before, but during this prayer a very bright light came on, and I opened my eyes, of course, to see if someone had come into my room and turned on the light. Instead, there was no one had come into my room, it was in front of me, that this light was. And it was this beautiful shimmering curtain of light. And really it looked like the Northern Lights. Only it was pure white light. It was very bright, pure white, like a curtain of light. And within that curtain stood the Saviour. And the Saviour and I, we talked. We talked about how I could help my friend. And I was given some ideas, how to go and help him. The Saviour was very interested in helping my friend. And so I was very touched by His caring nature. I knew that He loved us, but the depth of His love seemed to elude me, until that time. I started to learn that He actually cared. So I began to ask Him questions.

After this first experience, the Saviour returned several times in the following months. Each time I would ask Him questions and find out more about His true character. And, I learned so much more about Him. I learned what He was all about, and what the purpose of life on this earth really was. And what His purpose on this earth was. Where He came from and why He was here. And, the type of life that He expects of us, or that He is offering to us. And how we can actually do as He did. How we can actually fulfill the measure of our purpose here on earth, to become like Him. Because, He fulfilled the law, so the scriptures say, He fulfilled His purpose from start to finish. And He has offered all of us to fulfill the same purpose that He fulfilled, and if we do we would gain the same as He gained. And that we would then be empowered to help a lot of people just as He is. So, He taught how to fulfill this earthly experience in order to move forward into the next stage of eternity.

The greatest things that I believe that I learned from Him, were things about His character. And I suppose, He is not really a shy man, but He does not say many things about Himself. It is always someone else who teaches about Him. He is very very careful about that. But He did say a few things, and the other things I would watch. I would watch how He interacted with people, I would watch how He interacted with me. I would watch how He interacted with the angels, and various people that came in and out. And I noticed what His true character was, and what His purpose was by that, as well as His teaching me directly of His purposes.

So, this is what the Book of Mormon actually is. This is why Heavenly Father sent the Book of Mormon to earth, to actually teach us, to give us this information, this actual covenant: That if we walk this covenant, we can actually walk back into the presence of the Tree of Life. We can get to the Saviour, but we have to actually live this New Covenant. So, all the people, everybody, everywhere, because this covenant is unto all: All who repent and live this new Covenant, contained in the original translation of the Book of Mormon will come into the presence of the Lord. And this is a very, I think it, for me it is beyond words. It is a very wonderful promise, and I can testify, very much, that it is a true promise, that it is actually accurate, and that it does work.

But a lot of things have to be put aside. A lot of our lifestyle has to be changed, in order to match the lifestyle that is within those pages.

And we have two very important areas: One is the external area, which we all know. We have to make sure what we do is in accordance with the Lord. We need to keep all His commandments. We need to also help people whenever we can, expressing all the virtues that the Saviour taught us. These things are really not negotiable, and yet at the same time, they are given to us so that we can, if we want, actually do them, and gain the same result. Now there is something there I would really like to clarify, and that is, this concept of punishment and reward, thinking that Heavenly Father is this great big meanie, who is going to beat the daylights out of us and going to send us to hell at His slightest whim, is completely false. This is not true! And it has never been true. The Bible and other scriptures have been translated hundreds of hundreds of times, and not only into many languages, but also as times change. Look at, it has only been less than two hundred years, since we got the book of Mormon, look how much it has been changed. Just imagine what would happen in thousands of years. So we have to first learn about the true character of God. His true character is: That He will pour out all His knowledge upon us. And He has. The problem is, that we do not see it. But I would like to say again: That as a person actually follows what is laid out in the Book of Mormon, then those other things will come. More information will be given, more understanding. Of course we all have little moments of enlightenment, but even more than that, to the point where we must keep moving forward, and more is added to us all the time, until we become very familiar with our Saviour. And He will teach us even from his own mouth from time to time.

Now, it is very important to understand that this cannot be done in vanity. I know it contains all this in the Book of Mormon, and already says it, but I would like to say it again: That it cannot be done in vanity. We cannot seek the face of the Saviour for the sake of seeking His face. We cannot seek the face of the Saviour for the sake of being able to say: O we did it, we got there. Even if we are only telling that to ourselves. We must seek the face of the Saviour, for the purposes of helping others. In fact, I did not even seek His face, really. It was not that part of my prayer. I was only praying for my friend. I had tried to seek His face earlier. As I have told the story many times, and it did not work. And until I could let go of that vanity, and only seek to help people, then nothing happened, just regular everyday, type of inspiration happened, but nothing else. And so that is a little side note.

To get back to the two areas that we need to apply these things to, the one is the outer area, what we do, what we say. We need to be very careful not to do things to harm people, but to do things to help people. This is not just like the boy scouts where we do one good deed a day, this must be a constant thing at all times. And the same thing with our speech, we should not be using our voice to argue, fight, put somebody down. We should be using our voice to uplift, and encourage, to help people to grow, within the bounds of goodness, of kindness, of patience. And this again needs to be a hundred percent of the time.

And then the second area is the internal area. We need to keep our minds pure too, and our minds must be constantly thinking of how to help people. Never criticizing, never complaining, never murmuring even inside our minds. And in our hearts, the desire of our hearts has to be to help the Saviour. And if we have done it unto one of the least of these, we have done it unto Him. Our desire must be for others. And this is a hundred percent desire. This is not 99.9999. It is one hundred percent. And these things are what we need to change in our lives. So it takes a lot of work. And it is very challenging at times.

And so, the reason I wanted to explain some of these things is because I know that some of the folks here are very close. And we need to try really hard, to really watch out for that vanity, that pride. Get rid of that. Even the last little pieces. Of course there is always layer upon layer anyway. As soon as you get rid of one layer, the Lord introduces another. And we always have a lot of adventure ahead of us. Some folks are very close, and we do need to understand, what is blocking us.

And so by studying that Book of Mormon, the first edition, this will actually help us see what the intent of the Lord actually was. And we can understand how we should be living, and it is all a matter of our lifestyle. We are only here upon this earth to strengthen our hearts, actually make our hearts so strong that as we go into the nest life, that goes with us. As we are born in the next realm we will be very strong, seeking after the Lord from the start. So, can you truly say, if you were born again as a little baby this day, that even from the first moment you could talk, would you be seeking after the Lord? Do we have it that deep within us?

I know these are hypothetical type questions, but it is true; living the way that is taught in that Book of Mormon will get us into the service of God. And from time to time, He will come and visit us. [Thank-you.]

Joseph: I would like to pass the time over to John, who will go through some of this.

Establishing The Church:

John: Hello. Can everyone hear me?

I would just like to talk a little bit today about the Church.

I would like to say, when the Saviour first shows up to the Nephites, one of the first things He does is He gives them power to baptize, and He teaches them the commandments, and then He teaches them of the sacrament. He says:

“Behold, there shall be one ordained among you, and to him will I give power that he shall break bread, and bless it, and give it unto the people of my church, and to all they which shall believe and be baptized in my name.”

And here we can see where the Lord sets up His church here on the earth. And then He commands His disciples to take the Gospel and to spread it across the entire face of the land.

“And it came to pass that thus they did go forth among all the people of Nephi. And did preach the Gospel of Christ unto all people upon the face of the land, and they were converted unto the Lord, and were united unto the Church of Christ.”

If anyone is wondering what the Church is, the Church itself is just a society of people who are given the opportunity to follow the pattern and perfect themselves. The Church is just a vehicle to move people from the world, into the presence of God.

As it says, that the people in the church are commanded that they should “preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord to redeem His people.”

And in the Church we are commanded to do nothing except for the works which we have seen the Saviour do. And that which ye have seen the Saviour do, that is what you are supposed to do.

In the Book of Mormon we see the church is established several times. One of the most significant, and well documented times, is right after the death of Abinadi. Where Alma goes to the Waters of Mormon, and about 204 people go there and are baptized into the Church of God.

“After this manner did he baptize everyone that went forth to the place of Mormon, and they were in number 204 souls. And they were baptized in the Waters of Mormon, and were filled with the grace of God. And they were called the Church of God, or the Church of Christ from that time forward.”

After the initial baptism, Alma and the people who go with him, they flee King Noah. And as they travel, their church keeps getting established better within, until they come to Zarahemla, where the church is established so much so, that they can then take it, and spread it across all Zarahemla. And they create four other churches. And Alma ordains priests and teachers among them. And as people begin to follow these words, and do and practice in the church as they have been commanded, Alma gets this revelation, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying:

“Blessed are thou Alma, and blessed art they which are baptized in the Waters of Mormon. Thou are blessed because of thy exceeding faith in the words alone of my servant Abinadi. And blessed art thou hast established a church among this people. And they shall be established, and they shall be my people. Yea blessed is this people which is willing to bear my name, for in my name shall they be called, and they are mine.”

Here we see God has accepted their baptism and accepted their church as His own church.

When the Saviour came to the Nephites, He said this:

“But if they will repent, and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come unto the covenant, and be numbered among this remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance.”

Which is of course, a very nice promise, that if we just keep ourselves humble and not harden ourselves against Him. That if we do all these things, in a society, take care of one another, and bring each other towards God, and do as we have seen Him do, that we, so long as we keep His commandments, He will make us His covenant people. Thank-you.

Joseph: Kevin, did you have something you would like to share with us?

Order In The Church:

Kevin: I wanted to talk about a couple of things to you this evening. The first is, leadership within the church. It’s been suggested that there may be some concern, among a few people, of the danger of a strong-man scenario developing within the church, therefore the church should not been organized. Well the Church has been organized, and for those that may not be familiar with the term “strong-man” it makes reference to an individual, who through the force of their personality, or position, essentially takes control of an organization, and thereby controls people. We know that is antithetical to what our Heavenly Father wants for us. He does not seek control and compulsion. He wants us to choose, of our own free will. So basic principle of the Gospel. And many that might be listening tonight come from an LDS background, and they cite that as a reason for leaving the LDS church. And I think that most of us have our own experiences that we share in relation to that. As for me, I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and I didn’t join the church, the LDS church until 1977, when I was 21 years old. And I can tell you that I owe a lot of the basic things, that I know, and that I understand about religion, about my belief in God, about my belief in the Saviour, because of those two churches. There’s a lot of very good and noble people within both of those churches, that are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. And our responsibility is to love them, and care for them, is our responsibility for all people. What I can tell you is that we do follow the Saviour and His programme which He laid out to father Adam, 6000 years ago. And it’s still followed today. It’s essentially the same programme as it was then. The Lord does not vary. He does not change the programme. The programme is essentially the same, as it always has been here on the earth. In terms of His requirements, and what He wants for His children. We don’t have to be concerned about having a strong-man developing in the Church. We certainly don’t have one right now. And the biggest problem has been when man deviates from the programme, that our Heavenly Father has given us through the Saviour, that method of living and learning that He has laid out for us. And when we deviate from that path that the Lord has laid out, that’s when problems do arise. And that’s happened in virtually every age, from ancient Israel to modern Christianity today. Even though people may be good, people can still be misguided.

So, in 1835 through the Prophet Joseph Smith the Lord tells us how decisions affecting the Church as people, are to be made by the leaders of the Church. In the 107th section of the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord tells us the following. And He starts in verse thirty, He says:

“Decisions of these quorums (and He’s talking about the really all quorums, but particular the quorums in the leadership of the Church.) or either of them, are to be made in all righteousness, in holiness, in lowliness of heart, meekness, and long suffering, and in faith, in virtue, in knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity.”

So it really prohibits even the introduction of somebody that would try and take control, because those are the benchmarks of His Church, those who would follow Him. He’s always been about equality among the members of His Church, and having no hierarchy. It is not a new principle, equality among quorums. Now we haven’t seen the organization of a lot of quorums, as are found within the LDS church. But the restoration of this Gospel, the restoration of the Church, it’s moving forward. It will continue to change, it will continue to move. But the basic principles of righteousness and as He said, meekness, long-suffering, faith, and virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, and godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity, these principles don’t change. They have always been the principles upon which the Lord Himself operates.

121st section, our Heavenly Father and Saviour tell us:

“Behold there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? (He asked the question. And then He answered it.) Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honours of men, that they do not learn this one lesson: That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven. And that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled, nor handled, only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true. But when we undertake to cover our sins, to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion, or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness. (any degree.) Behold, the heavens withdraw themselves. The Spirit of the Lord is grieved. And when it is withdrawn, amen to the priesthood, or the authority of that man.”

And then further in that same section, He tells us:

“No power or influence can or ought to be maintained, by virtue of the priesthood. Only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness, and meekness, and by love unfeigned, by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul, without hypocrisy, and without guile.”

To me, and it precludes the rise, or control, of anybody that would try and force, or compel members of any organization to do anything. Within the Church, the Family of Yeshua Messiah, there’s simply no room for strong-man to take hold. All are equal. All are servants to the master, Lord Yeshua, who is Jesus Christ, and to our Father in Heaven. We operate within the bounds that He has laid out in the scriptures, just for reference. That means we are all servants to each other as well. We show love for each other, as we follow the path the Lord Himself follows. The Lord has told us that this is His work, and this is His glory: To bring to pass our immortality, and the eternal life of man. This is His purpose. This is His glory. He works 24 hours a day to bring us back to Him. It‘s His sole desire, it’s what He does. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t take vacations. He doesn’t take breaks even, during the day. He only cares about us, and bringing us home to Him. The Lord Himself came to earth, and took upon Himself flesh and blood to show us how to serve each other, how to love each other. He set the example for us in all things. It was righteous King Benjamin who taught us, in the Book of Mormon:

“I say unto you, as I have been suffered to spend my days in your service (Now this is the king.) even up to this time, and have not sought gold, nor silver, nor any manner of riches of you. Neither have I suffered that ye should be confined in dungeons, nor that ye should make slaves one of another, nor that ye should murder, or plunder, or steal, or commit adultery, nor have I suffered that ye should commit any manner of wickedness. And have taught you that ye should keep the commandments of the Lord in all things, which He hath commanded you. And even I myself have laboured with mine own hands, that I might serve you. And that ye should not be laden with taxes, and that there should nothing come upon you which was grievous to be borne. And all these things which I have spoken ye yourselves are witnesses this day. Yet my brethren, I have not done these things that I might boast, neither do I tell you these things that thereby I might accuse you, but I tell you these things that ye may know that I can answer a clear conscience before God this day. Behold I say unto you, because I said unto you that as I had spent my days in your service, I do not desire to boast, for I have only been in the service of God. And behold I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom. That ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God. Behold ye have called me your king, and if I then whom ye call your king do labour to serve you, then ought ye not to labour to serve one another.”

And I think that the corollary here is that, when we’re not in the service of our fellow beings, we’re not in the service of our God. It’s something that if we truly love each other, as is a requirement that want to serve, that we want to take care of others. So you see it’s deviating from these principles that the Lord has set forth, from since the very beginning at the time of Father Adam that, it has caused men and women to go astray.

Now I’d like you to, just share one final thought in closing, we need to be about our Father’s business, His business is that of saving His children. And the world, as we look around us, is in tremendous turmoil right now. It’s in a lot of commotion. It’s not just in North America, it’s in Asia, it’s in Europe, it’s in Africa, it’s in Australia. And wherever you look, it seems that there is an awful lot of turmoil, and wars rage. Satan and his followers are rampant in the hearts of the people over the entire earth, and the prophecies of our time found in the scriptures are being fulfilled almost daily. But I can tell you that peace can be found in loving each other, and then obeying all of our Heavenly Father’s commandments. It is to Yeshua’s as well. All of His words. We need to be feeding each other, we need to be clothing each other, we need to be teaching each other, and comforting each other. Christ personally showed us 2000 years ago. And He continues to teach today.

Some of us have been called to serve Him as servants and How many of us will be chosen? 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants asks that question. Follow, I just want to close with the words of an ancient American prophet Jacob. It was son of Lehi, and he said:

“We did magnify our office to the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads, if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence. Where fore by labouring with our might, their blood might not come upon our garments, otherwise their blood would come upon our garments. We would not be found spotless at the last day.”

Brethren and sisters, I want you to know that I love ya. And I would implore you to follow all of Father in Heaven’s commandments, Follow the Saviour’s commandments. I would invite you to focus, laser focus, and give Him our total devotion. Many of us, and to a degree each of us, have tasted of this love at some time or another in his life. Let us work together, and as this final gathering is taking place here on the earth today.
Thank-you

Joseph: Brother Bill, do you have something you would like to say to us as well?

Understanding The Restoration:

Bill: I certainly do, thank-you.

Seems like we are talking about a church. I think, in my mind, we have had a concern, because in society right now, churches have done a lot of things that kind of make you look twice at them and think: “What are they doing?” And a lot of people lose faith. They think that if the churches are really abusing people or having problems that somehow, that affects their belief in God. And so, I too want to say a few things, about a few words. One word is “church”, one word is a word called “apostasy”, and one word is called “restoration”.

And so, in the Doctrine and Covenants. And for Pastor Ezra, I will just say a couple words. The Doctrine and Covenants is a group of revelations that were received by a young prophet named Joseph Smith. And Joseph Smith had prayed and was approached by God, by Heavenly Father, and he ended up setting up a church. And the process of that church, since Joseph Smith was young and inexperienced, he received many revelations. And those revelations, in essence, showed him how to set up a church.

Well, one of the revelations is in section 10 of the Doctrine and Covenants, it says, this is verse 67; and this is the Lord speaking:

“Behold this is my doctrine, whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my Church.”

So we have to repent, we have to come unto the Lord, and those are two of the factors. And then John had quoted the same scripture that I’d looked at from the Book of Mormon, in 3rd Nephi, that’s page 490, after Christ did the sacrament with them, He said:

“Behold there shall be one ordained among you, and to him will I give power that he shall break bread and bless it, and give it unto the people of my church, unto all those who shall believe and be baptized in my name.”

So here’s four of the things that make up the church; whosoever repenteth, cometh unto me, believe, and be baptized in the Lord’s name. Well that’s one set of factors. Secondly, the Lord has actually set up an organized church, and He’s done this numerous times on the earth. One time He did it in what we call the meridian of time, in the area around Jerusalem, where He actually called church officers, and He had a formal church. Some people don’t like the idea of a formal church, because there’s been some abuse through various churches, but Christ called apostles and prophets. And then he lists some of these other officers, Seventies, Elders, Priests, Teachers, Evangalists, Deacons, and Pastors. So this is a pretty formal church organization.

So, you look at it and you think: So what’s the purpose of the Church? What is the whole idea here? And you think: Well, let’s kind of examine.

One thing that the Lord did when He established His church, He called 12 apostles. You think: Okay, why did He call 12? Why not 7? Why not 5? Why not 16, or 17? Well, in the history of God’s dealings with man, He’s had, in the Old Testament He had Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These were the patriarchal fathers, and that these are some of the Holiest people on earth. Abraham, and then Isaac, and then Jacob. Well Jacob is renamed Israel, and Israel has 12 sons. Okay. So twelve apostles come from, arguably the 12 sons, the 12 tribes of Israel.

But, there’s more because, recall what happens with those 12 sons. Some of those boys take one of the younger sons, and actually sell him as a slave, down in Egypt. And so, Joseph, who is sold into Egypt, later becomes kind of a powerful ruler down in Egypt. And then when world-wide famine hits the area where Israel is living with all of his other children, they have to go down to the son that was sold into slavery in Egypt in order to get food. And so now the family of Israel has to go to Egypt to get food from their younger brother Joseph. And so, the scriptures tell us, that when the family of Israel goes down there; How many are there that go into Egypt? Well coincidentally, there are 70. That’s in Genesis chapter 46, verse 27.

And so we have 12 apostles, because of the 12 tribes of Israel. Now we have the office of the Seventy, which was a missionary calling, and that’s because of the family of Jacob, who becomes Israel, as they go down to Egypt. And so, when you organize a church, the Lord did it with a pattern, simply to say: This is the Family of Christ, this is the Family of God. And in fact, Kevin had mentioned King Benjamin’s sermon, and one of the other things King Benjamin talked about was, he had given this great sermon, recall what happened; an angel came to King Benjamin and told him a bunch of cool stuff that he had to tell his people, and so King Benjamin did. And at the end of it, King Benjamin asks the people what they thought. And the people say this, it is from page 166, in the Book of Mormon. That’s the 1830 version. The people said:

“We are willing to enter into a covenant with our God, to do His will, and to be obedient to His commandments in all things that He shall command us, all the remainder of our days.”

So it was a pretty cool sermon that King Benjamin had to give, because now these people are completely convinced, that they will keep the commandments, and covenant with God to do it as long as they live. And then King Benjamin says this:

“Now because of the covenant ye have made, ye shall be called the children of Christ, His sons and His daughters. For behold, this day He hath spiritually begotten you. For ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on His name, therefore ye are born of Him, and have become His sons and His daughters.”

So, these people have made a covenant with God, and the essence of that covenant is that they have now become His family. Now, the name of the Church, that we have established in the past year, and when I say we, I’m talking about our group of believers. The name of the Church is the Family of Yeshua Messiah. And that’s because the church literally is a family. We are trying to become part of His family literally. And why do we say Yeshua Messiah? Well, Yeshua is the Hebrew form of how you would say the Lord’s name. And so it’s Yeshua the Messiah, or Yeshua Messiah. And so, we are a church, we are the Family of Yeshua Messiah. And so, we don’t have to be afraid to say we’re a church. We don’t have to be worried about other things some people get concerned about.

The second word I wanted to talk about is this fancy word called apostasy. Apostasy is a falling away. It’s a withdrawal. It’s an abandonment. It’s a defection from faith and trust in God. Webster’s Dictionary says it’s an act of refusing to continue to follow a way or recognize religious faith. And so, if you’ve had someone who believed in God, and then, say they stubbed their toe, and they blamed God for stubbing their toe, then they’d say: Well, I’ve just lost my faith in God. I don’t believe in Christ anymore. I don’t want to keep the commandments. Maybe they’re persecuted. Maybe they just choose to live a wild lifestyle, they don’t want to keep commandments. And so there’s a lot of reasons why people may become, falling away from the Church. And sometimes you’d say they’d become apostate. They’ve failed to live up to their belief system. And so the question is, that is a personal descision, if someone does it individually. But what about this, what if a church decided to quit following what God wanted the Church to do? Could the entire church be in apostasy? Now that’s an interesting discussion, isn’t it?

So, let’s go back through, and see what happened when Christ was on the earth, and He called a church. He had the apostles and prophets, and He wanted to have a foundation of having 12 apostles. And so, He did. But some of the apostles were just not very popular. And some of them really didn’t really do what they were supposed to do. One of them, betrayed the Lord.

And so, Judas, when he betrayed the Lord, he ended up dying. And so now they didn’t have 12 apostles, they only had 11. So, what did they do? Well, the remaining 11 got together and they cast lots, is what it says, and they chose a new apostle. And so, there was always this idea that the Lord’s church would have 12 apostles. And so, actually in the New Testament, if you look it up, you can find a list of 16 different people that were actually apostles. People are familiar with the apostle Paul. Well he was not one of the original 12 apostles. And so you think: Well I think the Lord was intending that He would always have a foundation of 12, seasoned, experienced men, who could keep the Church together. Because they’re going to face persecution. They are going to have a lot of false doctrine come in. They’re going to have a lot of bad things happen to them. In fact, most of the apostles were killed, right? So, they were going to have some bad days, and so in the midst of all this persecution, 12 apostles could try and hold things together. And so, if you look at it, you think: Well, they were not very nice, even the Christ, were they? The Hebrew people kind of led the way, and they got the Romans to crucify Him. And so it’s kind of an ugly story, but even as popular as Christ was at times, the bottom line is, they killed Him. So do you think His church is going to do very well? And so, going it over it again, the history of the church, the Christian Church, you think: Hmmm, I wonder what happened to it? Because you had a period of persecution, and then you had a period in history called the Dark Ages, and then you had periods, which we will get to in a minute here, where we talk about the third word, the idea of a restoration.

And so, what is a restoration? If there’s an apostasy of truth, is there a possible restoration? And sometimes you think: Well some people hear of a reformation. When I was a kid, you always talk about: Hey, you’re going to go to reform school. Kind of a joke, right? But the idea of reform is when you take things, and you kind of change it for the better, over the course of History. And so, the idea of a reformation is what the Christian world did. And they had these great reformers: Martin Luther; John Westly; John Calvin; John Knox; many, many, many others, tried to reform Christianity, and get it back where the Lord wanted it. And sometimes greed would step in, maybe sometimes people wanted to do other things that weren’t appropriate. And so, you think: Well, let’s think of an example like, if I had a bicycle. And I took my bicycle out in my driveway, and if I accidentally run over the bicycle, and I destroy it. I break the frame, I pop the tires, I take all the spokes and I bend them up, and they look more like pretzels. So, if I was going to try and reform that bicycle; could I do it? Or, would I have to just buy a new bicycle. That’s the difference between a reformation, and a restoration. And so, in the scriptures, we have this concept that God would have this complete restoration of the Gospel. He would come down and completely re-establish Christ’s Church. And you find references to this throughout the Old Testament. You can find it in the New Testament. And in fact we know that it happened, because in the 1820’s, a young boy named Joseph Smith was concerned about which church he should join. He had faith, he read the scriptures, he prayed and he had God and Jesus Christ come to him. And they taught him. And they used him to restore a church.

And that first vision happened in the spring, according to his record, the spring of 1820. Now historians tell us, because they’ve studied some calendars, the Enoch calendar. John Pratt did, had a PhD in astronomy. And then some other guys studied weather patterns for the Joseph Smith family production of Maple Syrup, and they say: We know the date when Joseph Smith had that first vision, it was March 26th, 1820. Well, it’s kind of interesting. Because if you look at what happened, exactly 200 years later to the month, you’ll find some really interesting facts. And maybe we’ll get into that, we’ll see how it goes on time, because I’m going to have to quit, really at 30 minutes. My wife will make sure. Haha.

Okay, so, there’s this idea of a restoration. And we know that Joseph Smith restored a true and accurate church to the earth. And we call that, “the first restoration.” But that’s what it was, “the first restoration.” And in the Book of Mormon, which is the book of scripture that Joseph Smith brought forward, it spells it out very clearly. And this is the book that Joseph was referring to. If you can see this. It’s a 1830 version, this is the Allegro edition, which we use in our group. And this is as close as being accurate, as currently exists. And in this book, you can see on page 31, (and the other versions of the Book of Mormon, it would be in 1 Nephi, chapter 13.) Page 31 says this about this restoration:

“After the gentiles do stumble exceedingly, because of the plain and precious parts of the Gospel of the Lamb, which have been kept back by the abominable church, which is the mother of harlots, saith the Lamb. Wherefore, I will be merciful unto the gentiles in that day, saith the Lamb, insomuch that I will bring forth unto them, in mine own power, much of my Gospel, which shall be plain and precious.”

This is the First Restoration. This is prophesied in the Book of Mormon. It is that much of the Gospel would be brought forth, through scriptures, Book of Mormon, and it would be given to the gentiles. I just read, “Wherefore I will be merciful unto the gentiles, wherefore they will bring forth much of my Gospel.” At one point He actually brought forth, for a short period of time, the fullness of the Gospel. But, the gentiles were privileged to have, for almost a couple hundred years, access to much of the Gospel.

Now, it gets a little more interesting than that, because from that first page, I refer to page 31, turn over two pages. You’ll see it talks about the rest of the restoration. And that is that the restoration is a work in progress. And what happens, and what is called the Second Restoration. Now this is page 33, and it says:

“Therefore, wo be unto the gentiles if it so be that they harden their hearts against the Lamb of God. For the time cometh (and now, he’s saying this, he’s described the first restoration. Then he says, “For the time cometh.” In other words, there’s going to be a passage of time.) saith the Lamb, that I will work a great and a marvellous work among the children of man. A work which will be everlasting, either on one hand or the other, either to convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds, unto being brought down into captivity.”

And he talks about captivity, because the gentiles who were brought to this land of freedom, out of captivity, were given freedom, and they were given the chance to have the gospel after many years of darkness. So this Gospel plan was to give it, upon a free land, to give the fullness, or the opportunity to get the fullness. For the time cometh, and wo be unto the gentiles if they don’t take advantage of them. And then he continues on:

“When the day cometh, (again, a passage of time) that the wrath of God is poured out upon the Mother of Harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil. Then at that day, the work of the Father shall commence.”

See now, this is different from that first restoration. This is the work of the Father, and it will be when the wrath of God is poured out on the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church. And then at that day it will prepare the way for the fulfilling of God’s covenants which He has made to His people, which are of the House of Israel.

Okay, the first restoration was an opportunity to give unto the gentiles, but now the great and marvellous portion, is that portion to be given to the House of Israel. So, it’s a nice little interesting thing that a lot of people are unfamiliar with. Or they just haven’t paid any attention to. The “Great and Marvellous” portion of the restoration, when the Lord fixes what was wrong with the gospel that came out, is when it comes forth in it’s purity. And that will be to His people, the House of Israel.

Now, years and years, I have looked at certain scriptures in the Book of Mormon, and it always says something quite peculiar to me. It says:

“When the Lord shall set His hand again, the second time.”

You think, man that’s weird. That’s weird language. “The Lord shall set His hand again the second time.” What, someone wrote that down wrong? That’s just goofy. That’s not how people talk. I don’t talk like that. I probably do, but, … ha. But, He doesn’t say that just once or twice. Isaiah says it in chapter 11. The Isaiah quote is actually, Isaiah 11:11:

“It shall come to pass in that day, the Lord shall set His hand again, the second time to recover the remnant of His people.”

Now, that is said also, that exact language in the Book of Mormon. And then they say it, I think 7 times, in the Book of Mormon. “Again, the second time.” And it deals with this is the great and marvellous portion of the work. It’s when the Lord tries to save His people, restore the covenant, “again the second time.” And these are things that are to restore again what has happened. And so this becomes really an interesting thing, because some of the things that are going to be corrected, is:

• 1. He’ll set His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people,
• 2. To restore His people from their lost and fallen state.
• 3. To proceed to do a marvellous work and a wonder among the children of man,
• 4. And it will come at the last time, when the servants of the Lord shall go forth in His power, to nourish and prune His vineyard.

This is all in Book of Mormon allegories and parables, section 101 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And then in Section 124 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which has this parable of the redemption of the,… where section 124 talks about the falling away of the gospel. But when it talks about the loss of the fullness in the church community, it says:

“There is not found a place on earth that He, God, may come to and restore again, that which was lost unto you, or which he hath taken away, even the fullness of the priesthood.”

So it says, the Lord will have to restore again, the fullness of the priesthood. Well, so He restored it the first time, and it was lost, and now He has to restore it again. So, you see this word “again” numerous times. Now, when Joseph Smith was first visited by the angel Moroni, who was going to tell him about coming forth of the Book of Mormon, Moroni, who is an angel, who’s talking to this young boy, Joseph Smith, and he says that, “The fullness of the gentiles was soon to come in.” That’s from Joseph Smith’s history. “The fullness of the gentiles was soon to come in.”

And then in the Doctrine and Covenants, section 45, it says this:

“When the times of the gentiles has come in, (that first effort to restore the gospel) a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness. And it shall be the fullness of my Gospel. But they receive it not, for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me, because of the precepts of men. And in that generation shall the times of the gentiles be fulfilled.”

So in other words, the times of the gentiles comes in, they don’t perceive it, they don’t receive it, and then it’s fulfilled. And in that time, there would be men in that generation that will see an overflowing scourge, and a desolating sickness cover the land. Well, that’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? When you think about what’s going on in the world right now, and you look at all the things that are taking place.

And I could go on. Let’s see how long I’ve been chitchatting here. Oh, I never hit start. That’s not good.

Joseph Rockwell has a good quote, and since he’s one who has been taught personally by the Lord, it’s a good person to quote in this circumstance. What is the complete meaning of restoration? And this from his blog, February 19th, 2015, he said it again recently:

“The entire purpose of the restoration, was to restore the knowledge of how to come into the presence of God, the Eternal Father, nothing more, nothing less."

“Many seem to forget, the entire restoration was to restore the knowledge of how to come into the presence of God, the Eternal Father. This is the knowledge that was restored to the prophet Joseph Smith, and what he tried to give to all those that would accept it. A church was established as a vehicle to move people from the world to the presence of God. The church is only a society to give people an opportunity to follow the pattern to perfect themselves, work on those traits to bring them into the very presence of the Saviour in this mortality. The true purpose of the restoration is to restore the correct knowledge of God, and then to offer to all who will, to come into the presence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Says it a couple times, because that’s pretty good.

I could give a little summary of the first restoration attempt, but I think you kind of get the gist of what I’m suggesting about it.

Sometimes I do this in the morning; I will sit in my study, and I’ll pray, and then often times I’ll take my scriptures; I did that with this book this morning. And I will ask the Lord, I will let it flop open, and then I’ll see what the Lord has for me to consider during the day. This is what happened this morning, section 64, Doctrine and Covenants. Now this is the Lord speaking, and I think it’s appropriate for what I wanted to say today:

“Verily, verily, for verily I say (verse 36. So section 64, verse 36) verily I say, the rebellious are not of the blood of Ephriam, wherefore they shall be plucked out. Behold, I the Lord have made my church, in these last days, like unto a judge sitting on a hill, or in a high place to judge the nations. For it shall come to pass, that the inhabitants of Zion shall judge all things pertaining to Zion. And liars and hypocrites shall be proved by them, and they who are not apostles and prophets shall be known. And even the Bishop who is a judge, and his counsellors, if they are not faithful in their stewardships shall be condemned, and others shall be planted in their stead. For behold, I say unto you that Zion shall flourish, and the Glory of the Lord shall be upon her. And she shall be an ensign to the people. There shall come unto her, out of every nation under heaven. And the day shall come, when the nations of the earth shall tremble because of her, and shall fear because of her terrible ones. The Lord has spoken it.”

Well, that’s, in my mind, what we’re trying to do as a church. That’s what we’re trying to do.

I want to testify, in my search for truth; I always try to be a seeker. I have found the current work we’ve come across; I found what Joseph has been teaching. I believe it. I testify it’s true. It is the real deal. It is what will save the world. It will save mankind. We need to follow his example, and every other good guy’s example, and connect with the Lord. We need to set aside the false beliefs, the false things, and we need to do what God wants us to do. We need to pray to Him. We need to learn to hear him. And we need to do His work. And I testify of this in the name of Yeshua Messiah, Amen.

Joseph: Thank-you very much.

Updates:

Joseph: Before we have our last speaker, I just wanted to update everybody, a little bit on a couple of the projects that are going on.

One, we were expecting to have a Church website up and running by now, but it will take us a little bit longer. We need to find a webmaster who can actually take the time with it, and make sure that it functions properly. So we will continue to work on that.

The ministry, as far as feeding the poor and needy and things like that, is going along. It is a little slow. The Church does try to help wherever we can.

And we are expecting the new Tabernacle to be ready this spring as well.

So, these things are ongoing, and still are continuing. And, most all the other things are published on the Forum, and on Facebook. We do have a little group now on Facebook that is just beginning.

Did I miss anything that needs to be said, that anybody can think of?

Bill: Joseph, I can add something, because I have got a little notes from my talk, and I was going to put that on the Family of Yeshua Messiah site, if anyone want to see some. There’s much more to it, in terms of citations of the scriptures; they can read that. And if the other guys with their remarks want to post on there, I think that would be good for everybody.

Joseph: Absolutely. I think we should make sure we have all the links, and everything ready to post, so the people can find things. That would be good.

We have one final speaker for this evening, and Will will talk to us a little bit here.

A Good Attitude:

Will: Lots of people are talking about all sorts of large and serious things, and something that I would just like to remind everyone is that: It’s always good to smile when you’re doing such things. Often times, when I’m doing the Lord’s work, if I’m giving someone a blessing, or performing an ordinance, or any of that sort of thing, I sometimes try to be so serious, that I forget that it is important to have feelings of joy and thankfulness.

In the Doctrine and Covenants, section 59, verse 15, it’s:

“And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving, with cheerful hearts and countenances, not with much laughter for this is sin, but with a glad heart and a cheerful countenance.”

That seems to be very important, when we are doing the Lord’s work, it is important to keep that attitude of thankfulness, and that joy in your heart. It makes everything a little bit easier.

In the Book of Mosiah, the 206th page; that’s chapter 24, verse 15, for the LDS version. It says that:

“Now it came to pass, that the burdens which was laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light. Yea the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease. And they did submit cheerfully and with patience to the will of the Lord.”

Now, kind of working backwards, but if they did not submit cheerfully and with patience to the will of the Lord, their burdens would not have been light. It is inseparably connected that, You need to have that attitude of cheerfulness and thankfulness, that our burdens are made light. Attitude is so very important, and it is one of the things that you can control about your situation, about anything that happens.

If you look at the entire first Book of Nephi, technically speaking, Laman and Lemuel did follow their father into the wilderness, they did go back and get the plates, they did help build the boat. But anyone whose actually read the Book of Mormon, knows that things weren’t exactly like that. Because they never changed their attitude, no matter how many miracles they witnessed, they were always grumpy, they were always doing things begrudgingly. And the difference is, is that with Nephi, he went and asked the Lord. And he changed his attitude. He changed. And attitude of willingness to help, an attitude of thankfulness for everything that’s happened. And with Laman and Lemuel, because they never changed their attitude, eventually they stopped listening to miracles all together. They eventually fell away, apostatized.

One more scripture, in the Doctrine and Covenants 136, it says that, in verse 23:

“If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. If thou are sorrowful, call on the Lord thy God with supplication that your souls may be joyful.”

So it says that God wants you to be happy, He wants you to be joyful. He wants you to rejoice in the good news of the Gospel. That’s said so many times in the scriptures that you can hardly list them all. It’s sort of like Jacob, when he spoke to his people, he said that he didn’t want to just point out their flaws, he didn’t want to just; He was sad that he had to point out their sins, or anything else. He wanted to spread the good news, he wanted to give them the pleasing word of God, that their souls, “the word which healeth the wounded soul.” So, it’s always good to focus on these things, focus on being joyful and thankful, whenever you’re doing the Lord’s work. To spread that good word that healeth the wounded soul. Thank-you.

Joseph: Well, thank-you very much.

Conclusion:

I think we have covered the material very well. Especially for not collaborating very much. Definitely, everybody has been inspired to put together a good understanding of what is actually occurring right now. And so, I think we should conclude on a happy joyful note. So, whose going to sing for us? Haha. I’m so mean. Haha.

How does everybody feel today? Everybody doing well with the information that was shared?

Would somebody like to volunteer to close our little conference this evening?

Kevin: I’ll say it.

Closing Prayer: Kevin

Thank-you

Joseph: I would like to thank everybody for coming, for participating. It certainly has been very enjoyable. We definitely have heard many things today that as we ponder them, we will see that they go together. We are going to get out a transcript of everything, and we will see how everything fits together. Thank-you very much!