Joseph Smith Biography

Without Disclosing My True Identity

wicked [those not taken like the Zion of Enoch in the Lord’s bosom

comprised of all LDS/Mormons there present] have I kept in chains of

darkness. ...and even so will I cause the wicked to be kept, that will not hear

my voice but harden their hearts, and wo, wo, wo is their doom [the

LDS/Mormon peoples’ spiritual destruction in process of time].^26

Joseph did not mince words when he continued, SPEAKING TO THE MEMBERS OF
THE CHURCH gathered at the conference:

But behold, verily, verily, I say unto you [the members of the Church at

the conference] that mine eyes are upon you. I am in your midst, and ye

cannot see me;^27

Joseph was telling the people, without disclosing the absolute reality of the situation at the
time, “You people can’t see Christ. You have not been taken into the Lord’s bosom like the
Zion of Enoch was, but are as the wicked that are kept in chains of darkness.” As the
LDS/Mormon people usually do when they read the Book of Mormon, they thought Joseph
was talking about someone else. He was not!
Joseph was prophesying of the people’s own spiritual destruction because of
their inability to set up Zion as he had first described to the people. This description was
in the book of Moses that Joseph rewrote the previous year: “And the Lord called his
people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness;
and there was no poor among them.”^28 The LDS/Mormon people have never “dwelt in
righteousness”; and the disparity between their wealthy members and their poor ones
substantiates the fact that they have not been “taken to the Lord’s bosom,” but are the
“residue of the wicked that remain in darkness.”

Desiring the “Endowment From on High” Without “Becoming of One Heart”

During the same conference, the scribes had heard something Joseph said about
Kirtland, Ohio and made notes that were transcribed as:

Wherefore, for this cause I gave unto you the commandment that ye should

go to the Ohio; and there I will give unto you my law; and there you shall be

endowed with power from on high.^29

Joseph had mentioned creating a city of Zion, like the city of Enoch, somewhere near
Kirtland, Ohio, where many new converts were beginning to gather. During the course of
his speech, he told the people that they could never receive the “mysteries” unless they
became of one heart and mind and helped each other out. If they would, then they would “be
endowed with power from on high,” which meant they would receive the “greater things”^30
spoken of in the Book of Mormon, and “have the heavens opened and have the privilege of
receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”^31 The people didn’t have a clue what he
was talking about. They thought Zion actually meant developing an organized religion,
building churches and temples,^32 receiving ordinances, and doing everything BUT listening
to the words of Christ and obeying his commandments.