Wednesday 25 April 2007

Hello and welcome once again to the Latter Day Church of Christ blog site. We hope that you have all had a wonderful week and that God has blessed you with all that you have prayed for.

We have been very busy over the last week or two with emails from what seems to be an endless source. We have been answering questions about a lot of different topics form things as simple as our basic beliefs to things such as, were we stand on the King Follett discourse given by Joseph Smith. I must admit that the Prophet has been flat out over the last week or two what with all these things as well as the continued revelation concerning Zion’s camp and the building of the Temple that we have been getting from the Lord.

As the web administrator I have been asked to answer one of the continuing questions being asked of us by many people, in particular LDS members. With regards to weather or not we support the King Follett Discourse. This is a topic that has drawn a lot of comment. A topic that has caused and could cause much contention. Because many believe that if we hold with the King Follett discourse then a lot of what we preach could be wrong….it is not wrong, with regards to Joseph Smith we only teach what can be proven came from him. Before we go on to answer the question directly I think that an expiation of the King Follett discourse in needed. And for this I give the time over to our Prophet Matthew Philip Gill

The King Follet Discourse was a funeral address delivered by Jospeh Smith on behalf of Elder King Follett, an early convert to Mormonism, who, on March 9, 1844 was crushed to death when a bucket of rocks fell on him as he was walling up a well. On a windy day in April, 1844 at Nauvoo, Illinois less than three months before Joseph Smith's assassination, the discourse was presented to a congregation of the church. Many reports have suggested that the discourse was addressed to more than 20,000 people this number is questionable since the census records of Nauvoo in 1845 show a total population of only 11,057. It is more likely that the number present was as few as around 8,000.

Although there is no verbatim account of the speech and it has been proved that such an account does not exist four scribes were present to record Smith's remarks they were Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, Thomas Bullock and William Clayton. All of whom were close friends and associates of Brigham Young and all of whom supported his claim to be leader of the church after the death of the Prophet. The first time that the sermon was seen in public was in the Times and Seasons in August 15 1844 a good two months after the death of the Prophet Joseph which took place in June 27, 1844. A later version was also constructed from amalgamations of the Richards, Woodruff, Bullock and Clayton texts. This amalgamation was done by Church employee Jonathan Grimshaw roughly ten years after Smith's death and is generally regarded as the "official" version. However this is were some controversy comes in to play because it contains some text not found in any of the primary sources. It should also be noted that the current versions contains only roughly 30% of the actual address. It would seem then that on balance, the Times and Seasons version would be the closest to the original speech.

The Latter Day Church of Christ are in no doubt that Joseph made an address at the funeral service of King Follett and we are under no illusion that there were probably many people who were writing it down as the Prophet spoke, However we are of the opinion and may we just stress that this is our opinion, that Joseph smith never intended this to be recorded and the reasons that he never intended this to be recorded are simple. There was nothing in the King Follett discourse that he thought was earth shattering. And I will explain the reasoning behind this statement.

Every time Joseph received new revelation it was written down and published almost instantly Joseph never gave such an order in this case. It must also be noted that the four mentioned scribes at the funeral were all friends and allies of Brigham Young and it seems very strange that there is not one note that Joseph ever intended this to be published yet just two months after the Prophet was martyred it appears in the Times and Seasons. That is the first problem. The second is this. If the Times and Seasons was so accurate why did Brigham young ask for it to be re-written with what seems to be staggering differences and with only 30% of the core material remaining, I wonder!

The other thing that may be worrying to many LDS members is that your own so called Prophets have also not viewed the original discourse with favorable light. For example it was not published in the annals of Joseph Smith's life ca 1902 ("History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints") because of then Church President Joseph F. Smith’s discomfort with some ideas in the sermon which he felt suffered from inaccuracies. This would seem right to me if the LDS church was doing things that Joseph smith never for one minute would have allowed.

So were do The Latter Day Church of Christ stand on the discourse. We say this, that it was given by Joseph Smith the then Prophet at the funeral of King Follett but we say this, that we do not believe for one minute that Joseph Smith was best served by all the members in the congregation taking notes that day and that things were afoot that Joseph would not have taken very kindly and we also believe that Joseph never intended to have this published as it was given at a funeral of one of the elders of the church and not at a general assembly. Joseph never stated that it was revelation or anything of the kind. I also wish to state that also though the LDS church claim to be doing Joseph smith a great service they are not and I will not give my opinion of this but will leave that up to his sons who said to George Q Cannon in a meeting with Brigham young ,John Taylor, Daniel Wells, George A. Smith, Brigham Young, Jr., George Q. Cannon, J. F. [Joseph Fielding] Smith, John Henry Smith, John Smith, Samuel Smith, Joseph Young, Phineas Young, and a number of others.

The boys say this “President Young would no longer talk to me; so I said, "Come, David, let us go; it is useless to prolong this controversy." We arose to our feet, and David said, “Mr. Young, are we to understand that we are denied the use of the tabernacle?” President Young then turned to his brethren, and said, “What do you say, brethren?” Several of them expressed themselves disapproving the letting us have it. The exact words of none come to me except those of George Q. Cannon. He arose and said, “So far as I am concerned, I can soon express myself. After we whose hairs have grown gray in the service of God and after we have borne the heat and burden of the day in persecution and suffering, on land and sea, and have labored long and hard in heat and cold to build up the work and name for their father; for these boys to come now and ask us for the use of our houses to tear down what we have been so many years in building up, to me it is the height of impudence, and I will not give my consent to it.” He was very much in earnest; his face was as white as death.
David then quietly arose to his full height and his face was also white but his words were calm, but oh, so full of sarcasm: “We will not deny that you have traveled far, suffered much, and labored hard to build up a name for our father, but what sort of a name is it? A name that we his sons are ashamed to meet in good society, and it shall be our life's work to remove from our father's name the stain you have heaped upon it."

I will leave those words as they stand. And say Amen to them.

Friday 13 April 2007


Welcome we hope that you all had a very special passover holiday and that the spirit if the Lord was with you in spirit for a very special time of year. The Latter day Church of Christ held its first Passover meal last Sunday and it went extremely well. The Prophet led the prayers that were said and the spirit was present in abundance, it is good to have Passover (Easter) dedicated to the Lord rather than to chocolate and bunny rabbits. So we hope all of you had a good holiday and that it touched you in some small way.

The Lord has been fulfilling the promises made in the bible most recently, particularly those found in 1 Corinthians 5: 7-8 which says:-

7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

The Acts 2: 17-19 which says:-
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:

Our Third Elder David Smith has been a direct recipient of these promises, he has had three vision recently concerning the journey to the north countries to find the people spoken of in the Book of Jeraneck. He has also had a vision concerning life in Zion's camp. And to complete his trilogy of revelations he has been shown the temple witch the Prophet saw in Zion's camp, so now we have 2 witnesses to the temple that is to be built in the Zion's camp. These revelations are to be found in The Book of Prophesy and Revelation along with all the Prophesy and Revelations given to the church. We thank the Lord that Elder Smith has been given these wonderful things and we thank the Lord for showing the temple to another witness.

Our Prophet has also had a new Revelation that will be given on Sunday the 15th during our Sacrament service. The Prophet has kept this very close to his chest so that no body get to know what it contains until he gives it on Sunday. However the Lord has opened the widows of heaven and the words are tumbling down at great speed The times spoken of by brother Joseph are being fulfilled and the work is gathering.

The Prophet has been talking to a representative from The Church of Jesus Christ Restored 1830. They are a restoration Mormon church who are led by a a First Quorum of Seventy they are waiting for God to call a Prophet to lead them. To this end the Prophet has been talking to them, about the building of Zion and also the unification of the two churches. We will keep you posted on this. I will now hand over the remaining time to our Prophet who would like to write the rest of the blog personally.

It seems that the words of Joseph that say:-

The Savior said, . . . "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you." Now, dear brethren, if any men ever had reason to claim this promise, we are the men; for we know that the world not only hate us, but they speak all manner of evil of us falsely, for no other reason than that we have been endeavoring to teach the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Amd if i may take a little licence with the Following:-

Hell may pour forth its rage like the burning lava of Mount Vesuvius . . . and yet shall "The Latter Day Church of Christ" stand. . . . God is the author of it. He is our shield. . . . It was by Him we received the Book of Mormon and the Book of Jeraneck; and it is by Him that we remain unto this day; and by Him we shall remain, if it shall be for our glory; and in His Almighty name we are determined to endure tribulation as good soldiers unto the end.

These are coming in to being in our efforts to speak the truth. The wolves are gathering and the hounds of hell are baying for our blood. It would seem that truth is a hard thing for most people to deal with, it would also seem that many people who have the audacity to call themselves Mormons are hell bent on our destruction, surly these are not the actions of ones who are supposed to be led by God and are supposedly doing his will. Our Aim is to live in peace with all people and our aim is to live up to our Articles of Faith and allow all men the privilege of worshipping god how were or what they will. This however is not good enough for a lot of the members of the LDS church. It seems to me that the same things that the people of Joseph Smiths time accused him of and the things that he went through have fallen on both blank minds and on deaf ears for the majority of the members of the LDS church. Joseph was accused of destroying the very fabric of religion and was accused of speaking with devils and making things up just to elevate himself in to a position that he would never have normally had as a farm boy. These things are being laid at my door and I am sick of it. I say this to any one that wants to challenge the truth either put up or shut up. I encourage you to do what it says in the Book of Mormon and that is to first read then pray about it. The Book of Jeraneck is a book of Scripture that testify of the Christ, I ask all those who revile against us to read it before condemning it as a work of the Devil. To all those who say that there are spelling and grammatical errors, do you not know your own history? WW Phelps accused Joseph of the same things and this is what Joseph said to him and i say it to you. “You have give us to believe that there are glaring errors in the revelation. If we have made mistakes in punctuation or spelling we say by way of excuse, we do not think so much of the orthography as we do the subject matter. The word of god means what it says” let me say this to all, that those words that Joseph spoke to WW Phelps are as true today as they were when he wrote them.
Stop baying for our destruction for you will find yourself as a ship that has been caught in a storm and found itself smashed against the rocks. We are led by the Almighty and that is good enough for us. The Lord loves you all and so do we. Come and talk to us so that we may dispel these hateful felling that you have towards us. We wish to be friends to all and enemy to none. However I say this in warning. Just as Joseph was moved to do what he did against his enemy's we will do the same.
I would like to welcome all to come and visit with us I am the Prophet of the Church I will always be willing to talk and welcome anyone that wishes to find out more. God Bless






Tuesday 3 April 2007

Well it seems that we keep having to make some sort of apology to our readers lately. First about our internet being down and now about an administration error. It would seem that a few of you have been trying to email us but have been unable to. We are sorry for the problems that this may have coursed but we have now corrected the information that had been posted incorrectly. Our email address is as follows latterdaychurchofchrist2006@yahoo.co.uk this should find us okay. Once again we take this opportunity to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

A small development has taken place this week that was missed out on the blog that was placed yesterday. We have now moved in to a new room for Sunday service. It is just ideal for what we need and we can all feel the spirit of this new meeting room. We wish to thank all those that helped with the move and also for those that gave us support while it was being sorted. Many thanks. God bless

Monday 2 April 2007

We are still being asked by many people what it is that we The Latter day Church of Christ stand for what it is that we believe in that is any different from the other Mormon churches out there. May we first say to all those that have asked this question that the answers are to be found on our other bog pages, however we know that it can be a little difficult to look through page after page of posts. So with that in mind we have decided to dedicate this weeks bog to our beliefs and to let all those who are reading this for the first time have a first taste of what it is that we believe.

Firstly we here are our Articles of faith which outline our basic beliefs:-

  1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.


  2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s c transgression.


  3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.


  4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.


  5. We believe that those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof must be called by a man of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands


  6. We believe in the same organization that existed at the time of Joseph Smith. Namely, Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, Evangelists, and so forth.


  7. We believe in the gift of Tongues, Prophecy, Revelation, Visions, Healing, Interpretation of Tongues, and so forth.


  8. We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. We also believe the Book of Jeraneck to be the word of God. We also believe that God will reveal many more books of scripture unto his children.


  9. We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet revel many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.


  10. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisical glory.


  11. We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.


  12. We believe in obeying, honouring, and sustaining the law when the law is given in righteousness


  13. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
Above are the Articles of faith of The Latter Day Church of Christ. They are simple and they are there so that all who come to us with the question are you christens they will be able to see that yes we are and yes we believe in the Christ and in the Bible. For all those that ask the question are we Mormons the answer is yes of course. We follow the gospel laid down by God through the first prophet of the last dispensation Joseph Smith.
The things that make us different to the other Mormon religions out there are the things like the Book of Jeraneck and the fact that our Prophet still receives revelation from God. Many other Mormon faiths claim to have a Prophet but they do not receive revelation. Many other Mormon sects claim to be led by no Prophet. The Latter Day church of Christ is led by a prophet who speaks to god on a daily basis and receives instruction from him. We do not believe that Brigham Young was the next prophet, we believe that no body was called to fulfil that role as they should have been as commanded in Doctrine and Covenants.
Our main mandate from the Lord is to rebuild his church which was shattered when the prophet Joseph Smith was martyred. We have been given strict council that we are to bring together all the restoration churches that will listen so that we can build Zion in Jackson county Missouri in the united states and also Zion's camp in Britain. Our Prophet has asked that this blog be dedicated to what we believe so we have done this for the benefit of all those that want to know. We however are always here to answer any questions that you may have. It has come to our attention that there are many LDS members who read this blog. We would council you to come and talk with us.
My friends we hope that you have a great week and that we have gone some way to answer the questions that you may have had. God Bless

Welcome to The Restored Branch of Jesus Christ

We hope you find this blog a good source of information about the Restored Branch of Jesus Christ. If you have any questions or are interested in finding out more about the church email us at info@restoredbranch.com

You are also welcome to join us at our Sunday services, which are held at 10:30 - 1:00 every Sunday. Contact us for details. God Bless and keep you.