Sunday, June 30, 2019

The End, Part 2: Commemoration

And because they did cast them all out, that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them.
—3 Nephi 4:6 RE


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

As I covered in my previous post, June 27, 2019 marked 175 years since the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. In keeping with its new policy of not commemorating significant events in church history, the LDS church did nothing to commemorate the death of its founding prophet. 

June 27th passed without any official commemoration by the largest of the branches claiming Joseph Smith as their founder.

The next day, June 28th, the Lord gave his own commemoration, though it was more of a demonstration, really. What did the Lord do, you ask? 


According to a report from the Nauvoo Mercantile:

NAUVOO: Just shortly after 2pm, the Nauvoo Temple was struck by lightning. The statue Moroni atop the Temple tower took a direct hit from a lightning strike while a severe thunderstorm passed through the area. The shock of the deep boom startled those attending the Temple as well as most citizens in the entire city.  
"I was actually looking up at the tower exactly when the strike happened" said Alex Claiborne, a visitor to Nauvoo who was just across the street as it happened - "there was smoke coming off the Moroni statue." 
Today’s storm moved quickly and darkened the skies over Nauvoo as it  crossed several cities in the area. 
There is no report yet as to the extent of the damage.

The timing cannot be coincidence. In fact, it's mind-blowing. (Sorry again, Moroni.)

When the LDS temple at Bountiful, Utah took such a hit in 2016, the damage went all the way to the footings of the tower, and required over a year and a half, and millions of tithing dollars to repair. Though I don't expect such extensive damage in this case, it nevertheless remains to be seen just how emphatic was the Lord's commemoration of the deaths of the prophets.

Meanwhile there IS in fact an emphatic commemoration planned soon at LDS, Inc., for a significant anniversary. It was announced on June 26, and updated June 27. The celebration is for Russell M. Nelson's birthday. This star-studded gala event will feature a huge lineup of performing artist and stars, and will be held in the 21,000-seat Conference Center. In addition to the live celebration at the Conference Center, the program will be rebroadcast in seven languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Mandarin and ASL. So...it's not like the LDS church doesn't know how to celebrate a life.

Addendum: 7/7/19

An expert in sacred calendars let me know some important information about the timing of this event. The lightning strike occurred on the following dates and calendars:




The date of the strike was the 6th on 9 separate calendars! If the number 666 is bad, then what is the number 666,666,666? A threefold 666?

I asked this expert how often such an alignment might occur on 9 sacred calendars, all of which operate according to different days, weeks, months and years and cycles. He calculated such an alignment will occur approximately once in 10,000 years. In other words, this is an absolutely unique day in all history. 

The timing, date and location of the strike were absolutely surgical. This was NOT a random act of nature. 

Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against my anointed, says the Lord, and cry, They have sinned! — when they have not sinned before me, says the Lord, but have done that which was meet in my eyes and which I commanded them. But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves, and those who swear false against my servants, that they might bring them unto bondage and death, woe unto them because they have offended my little ones. They shall be severed from the ordinances of my house, their basket shall not be full, their houses and their barns shall famish, and they themselves shall be despised by those that flattered them.
—T&C 138:13



16 comments:

  1. For kicks, I looked at all Church magazines for this month, June 2019 (Ensign, The New Era, and The Friend), to see if there was any attempt to commemorate the 175th anniversary of Joseph and Hyrum's death.

    Not a peep.

    Crickets from lds.org too.

    So I went back to the 150th anniversary (in June 1994) and checked out the online Ensign, wanting to make sure I hadn't lost my mind and that the Church had mentioned him on that occasion. And I DID find the Ensign was basically dedicated to commemorating Joseph's death in the 150th anniversary year and month.

    There is a new line in the sand forming in the Church. It's becoming increasingly "apostate" in the Church to preach what Joseph Smith preached.

    The BoM carefully preserves, by mentioning prophet's names and experiences who did it, the ascent to God. Teaching face to face interaction with God is basically apostate in the Church.

    The other great example is the Lectures on Faith, part of our scripture from 1835 - 1921 when it was secretly and unceremoniously removed from our canon without a vote or announcement. Today, if you teach from the Lectures on Faith consistently, that'll end up getting you branded as first an oddball and then apostate, because it teaches the true way of salvation, which is in direct conflict with what the Brethren teach.

    There are other examples.

    In other words, siding with Joseph Smith and attempting to preserve the Restoration will result in you being viewed as apostate.

    Following this trajectory, predictions are self evident. It doesn't take a genius to predict that the Church will eventually have to fully part with Joseph Smith because he's embarrassing to them, or to so water down his teachings that they are unrecognizable. In fact, the watering down of his teachings is in full swing now.

    The next step invariably points to disavowing him in some stunning fashion. I'm not sure what that will look like (any ideas?), but I sense it's around the corner. The disavowal is already occurring in that the Church, having pinned polygamy on him rather than Brigham, has decided to continue with that fake narrative despite the tidal wave of evidence that he ferociously fought polygamy in his day.

    When the Church controlled the history, it could enjoy the fruits of its misinformation, namely the fruit of having very few dissidents who could challenge the official story line.

    But with the Internet, control has all but vanished, as thousands of people are learning the truth and spreading it. And yet, the men at the helm of Old Ship Zion can't see they're traveling at breakneck speed towards an iceberg. Pres Nelson is feverishly making accommodations to placate certain groups based on focus group feedback, but that's akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

    It's a sight to behold.

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  2. If, as https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/museum-treasures-nauvoo-temple-in-ruins-lithograph?lang=eng claims, "the Nauvoo Temple [today] serves as a symbol of the promises of the Lord to [the L-dS Church]", I wonder what this sign could be trying to suggest?

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  3. This article was posted on Church News and then was shared on facebook via Mormon Times. It still seems inadequate given the anniversary.
    See: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-06-25/joseph-smith-russell-ballard-175th-martyrdom-anniversary-50201

    Lena M Hansen

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  4. I find the assertion interesting and perhaps true. But what is it about the 175th anniversary that you find so important to believe that God would display his wrath by a lightning bolt to the head of Moroni ? Why is it different than say the 174th or 168th...etc.? Is it just because we like numbers that end in 0 or 5? Do those years matter to God any more than the others? Just curious. Not knocking your view at all. Thanks

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    1. Great question! The fact that we humans tend to like numbers that end in 5 or 0 plays into it. Wedding anniversaries 5, 10, 25, and 50 tend to be a bigger deal than 7, 11, 22 or 31. We view these as milestones. I believe it's built into the psychology of our base-10 counting system.

      If we tend to view such anniversaries as significant milestones, it follows that these are the anniversaries to which we give special commemoration and recognition. (I still recall hearing president Kimball struggling to pronounce "sesquicentennial" while celebrating the 150th anniversary of the organization of the church.)

      Given that we humans tend to ascribe special importance to these anniversaries, and therefore celebrate them, the absence of recognition is particularly obvious this year. I believe it is significant to God because it SHOULD have been significant to us.

      Delete
  5. Thank you for bringing this lightning strike to my attention. I find it rather ironic that the Kirtland Temple, which Joseph Smith dedicated, has stood without damage for 183 years, while both of the temples dedicated during Brigham Young's administration, Nauvoo and St. George, were destroyed by lightning and had to be rebuilt. And it seems that now the rebuilt Nauvoo Temple hasn't been let alone, either.

    The lack of commemoration is indeed startling. I think that a large part of it is that our culture has simple forgotten how to mourn properly, so we don't make a big deal out of the loss of Joseph and Hyrum. The church sometimes puts out something on Joseph's birthday (not a good time for commemoration as it is in the middle of the Christmas season), but they don't do what Christians have done for the first 1900 or so years of their history and commemorate the saints on the anniversary of their martyrdom.

    For me, the day of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum is a fast day, along with Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. I had decided at the beginning of the year that fasting on the first Sunday of each calendar month was too bland and mechanistic - I would rather pick days that had a deeper spiritual significance, and this is one of them.

    Then, I wrote a post at my website about the significance of the day, and concluded it with a quote from Lamentations:

    “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

    “He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

    “Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.”

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  6. That is quite a few 6's there; I've been working on this same puzzle for a few days now, using John Pratt's Sacred Round Calculator (found here: http://johnpratt.com/items/calendar/calcalc/datelist.html ), but when I enter the date as pm (since this happened at 2 pm), I find the Star and the Priest calendars are on the 7th rather than the 6th. Entering the date as "am" will result in all 9 sixes.

    I'm curious, did I use the "pm" suffix wrong in the calculator? Should this strike be listed as "am" to generate the nine sixes? Even if entering "pm" is correct, that's still a total of 7 sixes, which is an impressive and foreboding symbolism in its own right.

    (In fact, it generates two seven's through this manner: one seven among the stars, another among the priests. If "pm" is correct, who could those two sevens-symbols of completion and perfection-represent?)

    Oh, and as to the potential importance of 175, try this thought: 175 is equal to 7x25 (5 squared). It's also on the 28th (7x4), 7 days after the Summer Solstice (compared to 6 days after the Solstice for the actual martyrdom). That's three more 7's right there.

    Anyone have any thoughts on the number symbolism here?

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    1. Great observations. Here's the deal with the AM/PM issue. First, it's important to remember the calendar is based on the sundial time, rather than the artificial construct of Daylight Saving Time. So 2 pm in Nauvoo was actually 1 pm on the calendars, and 12 pm in Salt Lake City.

      So the target of the strike was in Nauvoo, which associates directly with the Smith brothers, but the target of the message was in Salt Lake City, and it was directly applied to that time zone. It was indeed yet AM, and therefore nine sixes.

      Isn't the Lord brilliant? Who could foresee this? Who could anticipate it? Who could target the location and the time so specifically? The message is clear and chilling.

      Delete
    2. Okay, that comment on the calendar makes a lot more sense; it's entirely based on the location of the observer, and not a calculation based on some distant calculation like Grenwich Daylight Time. Thanks for that!

      While I'm not yet convinced this wasn't a "pm" timing (since both the Priest and Star calendars change days at Noon, and it was just after Noon in Salt Lake), it's no big deal for me; either way, it's an intense symbol and warning, either with sixes repeated 9 times (6 as a symbol of preparation and imperfection, 9 as 3 squared and a symbol of highest Divinity and utter perfection) on the one hand, or sixes repeated seven times (7 as a symbol of eternal or spiritual perfection and wholeness), with another seven among the Priests, and a third seven (3 as a symbol of completion and Divinity) among the stars, on the other hand. Both informative and thought-provoking, in my opinion.

      Delete
    3. Knight, 7 sixes. Sounds like a perfect 6, rather like a perfect basket in basketball. Seems rather ominous, as if we've reached perfect imperfection.

      The star priest. Would that be Christ, I wonder?

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    4. Toni, that thought about the 6's definitely sounds possible; as if representing something fully ripe and complete. Another ominous warning indeed.

      As for the priests, I'm not entirely sure, but this is how it seems to connect to me:
      Two 7's -- Two completed, redeemed beings killed
      A Seven on the Priests' Calendar -- A connection to God's family of Priests
      A Seven on the Star Calendar -- A connection to the Heavens, and the Ordinances written there

      In my mind, from what I've been able to study, the 7's may not refer to individual people, one a Priest and one from the Stars, but rather to both Joseph's and Hyrum's connection to both the Heavens and God's Family.

      Delete
  7. Who's to say that the target of the message wasn't the modern restorationists who had actually been seeking an answer to the question they had fasted and prayed about the previous day? (See your post from June 17th)

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    1. Curious QuestionerJuly 8, 2019 at 4:44 PM

      And what Anonymous writer @ July 7, 2019 7:29 PM do you say is the message to the modern restorationists who fasted and prayed? If this lightening thing is a message to them, as you suggest is a possibility, what is the message?

      Based on this blog's prior announcement the fasting and prayer was about how to prepare for a temple. Lightening the next day strikes a notable LDS temple with obvious ties to Joseph and Hyrum Smith, who's martyrdom was being remembered, the same temple which the Saints didn't complete back in Joseph's day, but finished generations later.

      Maybe you're better at symbolism than I am. What is the message to a tiny group of restorationists who don't own and most of whom can't even enter that temple? Don't put golden statues of men on buildings purporting to be God's house? Don't follow the LDS example? God doesn't accept the LDS temple in Nauvoo as ever having been completed? Moroni is angry at being made into an idol? Help me out.

      If your proposal has merit I'd very much like to hear it.

      Delete
  8. So I have been following you, Brother Snuffer and the remnant movement in your online blogs for nearly two years now as I try to make sense of what has happened, and is happening, within Mormonism since the martyrdom of Joseph Smith.
    I sympathize with a lot of you and Brother Snuffer's beliefs, and am curious to know more. It is my understanding that Snuffer often posts on his blog in response to questions about doctrine and practice from other members of the movement; however, I am unable to figure out how to ask such a question myself - i.e. I haven't found any public-facing email address to do so. Could you help me get my question to Br. Snuffer?

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    1. Hi Wesley, I don't know whether Denver writes blog posts in response to questions, but I can get yours to him. Please use the contact form on the right side of the window to send me a note. Thanks!

      Delete
  9. How has the church not learned its lesson? Two lightning strikes ought to be enough. How dare they not commemorate the death of Joseph and then not even recognize the ire sent down from heaven the very next day? What has Moroni done that we dont recognize to also deserve such wrath?

    ReplyDelete

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