There's probably not a more dramatic shift in scene in the Doctrine and Covenants
than when you go from section 110 in the Kirtland temple to section 111, which is received in Salem
Massachusetts. In section 110 Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery literally saw Jesus Christ,
Moses, Elias, and Elijah in the Kirtland temple. They received a witness that Jesus
Christ was real and the priesthood keys necessary to govern the Church,
but then flip the page and you'll see that section 111 is received in Salem,
Massachusetts, home of the famous Salem witch trials. How did Joseph Smith go from being in
Kirtland to dedicating the temple to being in Salem on some kind of wild goose chase?
Well, we know a little bit about the background behind the story of section 111
and that is that there was a convert to the Church a man by the name of Burgess
according to the history of the Church that told Joseph Smith that there was a house in Salem
where there was treasure. Now why would Joseph Smith leave Kirtland to go and search a treasure?
Because of the condition of the Church at the time.
The backstory behind all the sections this week sections 111, 112, 113 and 114 are the troubles
that happened in Kirtland after the temple had been dedicated. Losing the lands in Missouri,
the trip of Zion’s camp and building the Kirtland temple had placed a severe financial strain on the
Church and part of the reason why Joseph Smith and several of his associates, including Oliver
Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon, traveled to Salem Massachusetts was to try and find this treasure
as a way of maybe relieving the debts that the Church was facing. Joseph Smith and his trip to
Kirtland is chronicled by a source that we need to be a little bit cautious with, that's Ebenezer
Robinson, who later left the Church, but there is a letter from Joseph Smith to Emma Smith while he
was in Salem, where he talks about trying to get into the house, but not being able to get in.
Forced to take another path they sought direction from the Lord and section 111 was received.
The Lord in section 111 of the Doctrine and Covenants very carefully and tenderly rebukes
them for going on the trip, but also tells them that there's much to be gained now that
they're in Salem itself. The Lord told them in verse 9 to “inquire diligently concerning
the more ancient inhabitants and founders of the city;” And Joseph Smith and his associates spent
three weeks in Salem learning about the history of the city, it's founding by the Puritans,
its relationship to the American Revolution and several other historical items. They
visited Bunker Hill, the site of one of the most important battles of the American Revolution.
But probably the most moving moment to Joseph Smith was when they visited a Catholic school
that had been burned down just a few years before because of religious persecution.
Local Protestants in the area who didn't like Catholicism had attacked and burned down this
school killing several people along the way. Joseph Smith looked over the burned and charred
remains of this school and thought about religious persecution. He later wrote “When will man cease
to war with man, and wrest from him his sacred right, of worshiping his God according as his
conscience dictates? Holy Father, Hasten the day.” Now the treasure could also have been
converts from this journey. in this particular trip Joseph Smith and his friends didn't convert
anybody, but a few years later missionaries were sent to Salem and over a hundred people
were converted to the Church and as we know the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.
Now if you turn to section 112, this is where Joseph Smith has to deal more directly
with the problems that are happening in Kirtland and the problems and this section centered
around a man named Thomas B Marsh, who was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Thomas was the original President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
in this dispensation and if he had remained faithful it's likely that he instead of Brigham
Young would have taken Joseph's place when Joseph Smith was martyred in 1844. Instead
of BYU we could have had TMU because Thomas Marsh was supposed to lead the Church.
But Thomas also had some problems. He was caught up in some problems that were
happening in Kirtland surrounding the Kirtland Safety Society,
which was a bank that Joseph Smith and his fellow Church leaders set up to try and alleviate some of
the Church's debt and also assist members of the Church in Kirtland, to have funds
to purchase farms and build homes. The Kirtland safety society opened in the winter of 1837
and almost immediately ran into trouble. People from outside of Kirtland tried to bankrupt the
bank by turning in their bank notes and taking the money out. There was some corruption inside
the bank, none of it linked to Joseph Smith, but some people that did the things that they weren't
supposed to do, and the bottom line was this bank that had been set up by the Church failed,
and it caused a lot of people to question their faith in the Prophet.
Thomas B. Marsh was upset over the bank, but also because Joseph Smith had sent apostles Hebrew C.
Kimball and Orson Hyde on a mission to England without his permission
and Thomas felt like as the President of the Quorum, it was his job to do that.
Section 112 tells Thomas B. Marsh that the First Presidency is in charge of everything,
including the Quorum of the Twelve and also counsels him in verse 10, “Be thou humble;
and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers.”
Now the good news is that Thomas B. Marsh repents at this time and does fulfill his
calling and help Joseph Smith regulate some of the problems in the Church.
The difficulty is about a year later Thomas B. Marsh did apostatize from the Church.
He moved to Missouri and in Far West he got involved in a number of problems.
The most famous story linked to Thomas B. Marsh's apostasy has to do with the cream strippings,
where Thomas B. Marsha's wife and another woman in the town had agreed to share the cream that
floats at the top of the milk. Thomas B. Marsh's wife apparently took more than her share and
it turned into a controversy that worked its way through each of the quorums of the Church. At one
point George A. Smith actually remembered Thomas B. Marsh being so upset and so angry that he said
he would sustain the character of his wife, even if he had to go to hell for it, and eventually
did leave the Church, though he came back 20 years later after his wife had passed away.
Not just Thomas B. Marsh but other apostles during this time apostatized, like Luke and
Lyman Johnson. Even Parley P. Pratt, one of the most stalwart and faithful members of the Church,
one of the original missionaries of the Church, almost left as well. Now in Parley's defense,
his health wasn't doing too good at this time and his wife, Thankful Pratt, had passed away in
childbirth, which was emotionally devastating him. But Parley gave a pretty harsh speech criticizing
Joseph Smith and other members of the Twelve were speaking out against Joseph Smith as well.
Parley was actually pulled back from the brink of apostasy by a little British convert that he had
baptized about six months prior in Toronto Canada. This little British convert came to Kirtland and
heard Parley P. Pratt criticizing Joseph Smith and then took him aside and said, “I am surprised to
hear you speak so, Brother Parley. Before you left Canada you bore a strong testimony to Joseph Smith
being a Prophet of God, and to the truth of the work he inaugurated; and you said you knew these
things by revelation, and the gift of the Holy Ghost... Now Brother Parley, it is not man that I
am following, but the Lord. The principles you taught me led me to Him, and I now have the same
testimony that you rejoiced in. If the work was true six months ago, it's true today; if Joseph
Smith was then a prophet, he is now a prophet.” And Parley because of this little English convert
and other friends was convinced to come back to the Church and repent of his apostasy.
You might have guessed that the little English convert's name was John Taylor who just a few
months later was also made an apostle and became the third president of the Church
after Brigham Young passed away. There were other things that happened during the Kirtland apostasy.
For instance some people were convinced that David Whitmer, the Stake President of the Church
in Missouri, should replace Joseph Smith who was the Stake President of the Church in Ohio.
There was a meeting where David Whitmer was invited to take over his leadership of the Church
and it might have succeeded if Brigham Young hadn't attended the meeting. Brigham Young
remembered years later, “I rose up, and in a plain and forcible manner told them that Joseph was a
prophet, and I knew it, and they might rail and slander him as much as they pleased- they could
not destroy the appointment of the Prophet of God, they could only destroy their own authority,
cut the thread that bound them to the prophet and to God and sink themselves to Hell.”
Well, this apostasy was so severe that during the Kirtland apostasy we lost almost half of
the members of the Quorum of the Twelve. A member of the First Presidency, Frederick G. Williams,
was removed and the seeds were sown for the Three Witnesses, Oliver Cowdery,
David Whitmer, and Martin Harris to also leave the Church. Later on Brigham Young said, “This
was a crisis when earth and hell seemed leagued to overthrow the Prophet and the Church of God.
The knees of many of the strongest men in the Church faltered.”
Eventually, in January of 1838, Joseph Smith was forced to flee Kirtland, for Far West, Missouri,
and he gathered with the saints there. Now the very first section that's received in Far West,
Missouri is Doctrine and Covenants 113, which is really just a simple revelation that
answered several questions about the scriptures, particularly the Book of Isaiah. These answers it
appears may have been calculated to sort of lift up Joseph Smith in a time when he may have been a
little discouraged about his prophetic mission. It starts out by telling us or asking the question,
“Who is the Stem of Jesse spoken of in the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th verses of
the 11th chapter of Isaiah?” The answer the Lord gave was, is that the stem is Christ.
Now in some biblical translations instead of stem it's more like stump and you might be asking why
is Jesus Christ represented by a stump? A stump is a dead tree, right? Wel,l the idea was that the
house of Israel or the royal house of Israel. The house of Jesse where the kings came from was
basically a dead stump by the time Jesus Christ came on the scene. But Jesus as the true king,
not only of Israel but also all the world, the Messiah that was said to save us, showed that a
dead stump like Israel appeared to be in Jesus time could become a living tree again.
The second questions asked were, what are the rods spoken of and the root of Jesse spoken of
in the 11th chapter of Isaiah? Rod could also be translated as sprout; it's like a new branch
coming out of that dead stump. And the root, you know what a root is, goes down into the earth. The
Lord both times identifies both the rod and the root as a servant in the hands of Christ. So not
Jesus Christ himself, but someone “who is partly a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim,
or of the house of Joseph, on whom there has laid much power.” He says that the root is someone who
“is a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood, and the
keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days.”
Now we don't have an absolute answer as to who the rod and the root are, but the most likely
answer is that it's Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith was a descendant of Ephraim and was told early
on in the Doctrine and Covenants in section 86 that he had a right to the priesthood.
It's possible that the revelatory answers to these questions were the Lord's way of telling Joseph
Smith he was still called and chosen in spite of all the problems that had circulated in Kirtland
with the bank and with the apostasy and everything that had occurred.
It wasn't just Joseph Smith that received a measure of redemption when he arrived to
Missouri too. The next section of the Doctrine and Covenants talks about one of the unsung heroes
of the restoration and that is apostle David W. Patten. Now remember Thomas P. Marsh was
the president of the Quorum of the Twelve, but since all the apostles were called at the same
time in 1835, they couldn't go by seniority like we do today so instead they went by age. Because
Thomas B. Marsh was the oldest member of the quorum he was made the president of the quorum
and seniority went down through the quorum by age. Now we actually found out that Thomas B. Marsh
misremembered his birthday. It wasn't that uncommon for people to do that back then,
but Marsh remembered that he was born in 1799 when the records we can find
identified that he was actually born in 1800. That means that if they had known everything,
David Patten would have actually been President of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles.
David Patten was a wonderful missionary and teacher,
but he too got a little caught up in some of the bad feelings that happened in Kirtland
surrounding the Kirtland safety society. David Patten however repented and stayed in the Church.
When he arrived in the Far West he was known as Captain Fear, not because he wasn't afraid
of anybody or anything except the Lord and he did everything he could to try and defend the saints.
In fact, a few months after this revelation was given, David Patten led a group of Mormon Militia
at the battle of Crooked River to rescue some hostages that had been captured by the Missouri
mob. Unfortunately David Patten was hit in the middle of this battle and killed.
A story told about David Patton was that he told Joseph Smith he wished to die a martyr
for the cause and Joseph Smith sadly remarked, “David when a man like you, a man of your faith,
asked for something from the Lord, he usually gets it.” David died at the battle of Crooked river
and at his funeral the next day Joseph Smith said, “There lies a man
that has done what he said he would- he has laid down his life for his friends.” So
whether this is a story about Thomas B. Marsh who left the Church and eventually came back,
David Patten who flirted with leaving the Church but stayed and became a martyr or Joseph Smith who
may have temporarily lost faith in himself, remember the Lord has a purpose for you.
When it comes to apostasy sometimes it feels like it swirls all around us at all times
and that everybody's faltering in their testimony. But it's never been about the other people,
it's about you and your faith in Jesus Christ, in the restoration, and his prophets. If you hold
fast and hold on you'll be the sort of person that's honored for your testimony. And if you
mess up a little bit you can also repent and come back. David Patten, Thomas B. Marsh, and Joseph
Smith all learned that the Lord knew who they were. And that he had something special planned
for each of them. They only had to hold fast of what they knew was true and stay in the Church.