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Joseph Smith was every bit as much a prophet of God as Abraham, Moses, or Isaiah. He was also a human with flaws, just as they were. He struggled to direct an erratic & often disobedient flock, just as they did. He groaned under the weight of the world, just as they did.
Religious culture taught us to think a prophet is an ethereal being with a long beard, flowing robe, and shepherd staff—more wizard than human. But a prophet is just a man God called to the work, & the man agreed, & the man tried, & God mad him able capable.
A prophet is a human wearing a heavy mantle. His job is to push back a whole-world culture of pride & sin, while the devil himself raises a hellish army against him. His job is to heed God’s voice & somehow convince the panicked masses to abandon their natural ways & be holy.
Prophethood is not for the faint heart but is impossible without a meek heart. A meek heart is fully open—to love & to pain—so a prophet bears the impenetrable armor of God yet still feels the sufferings of those he serves. He wields the truth, but at a personal cost.
Joseph Smith was one such prophet. For those who wld loot his life & rifle through his every thought like a tweet history looking for any whiff of mistake with which to cancel him: you are not new. Since the dawn of time, men have stoned their prophets but kept their prophecies.
Christ said “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” (Luke 4:24). Mankind habitually shuns God’s prophet while he stands in their presence, then adopts the doctrine he delivered as though it flowed down from heaven without him. This sin will not go unanswered before God.
If you expect to follow a perfect human to heaven, you will find yourself in hell; a perfect human does not exist, & he who pretends to be is a liar with no intention nor ability to take you to God.
A prophet is a human w/a divine assignment. To discover if a human was a prophet, stop examining the ways he was a man & look for evidence that he had that divine assignment. Ask God if he was called. When you know, observe the doctrine & forgive the man for being like you—human.
Joseph Smith WAS a prophet—the most prophetic man in modern history, assigned with the superhuman task of opening the windows of heaven at the last dispensation of mortal history upon this earth. A fulness of light, knowledge, & authority flows from the channels he unlocked.
I know this bc I examined what he delivered from heaven, & it was pure & true, in spirit & in practice. I know bc the Spirit of Truth, whom we call the Holy Ghost, confirmed it to me himself. Joseph Smith’s history proves he was a man. Restored doctrine proves he was a prophet.
