“I Was Answered That I Must Join None of Them, for They Were All Wrong”
Joseph Smith—History 1:18–19
18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”
Elder Bruce R. McConkie said:
“Great God in heaven above—what wonders do we now behold! The heavens rend; the veil parts; the Creators of the universe come down; the Father and the Son both speak to mortal man. The voice of God is heard again: He is not dead; He lives and speaks; His words we hear as they were heard in olden days.
“‘My object in going to inquire of the Lord,’ our young supplicant says, ‘was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right—and which I should join.
“‘I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: ‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof’ [Joseph Smith—History 1:18–19].
“Once or twice in a thousand years a new door is opened through which all men must enter if they are to gain peace in this life and be inheritors of eternal life in the realms ahead.
“Once or twice in a score of generations a new era dawns: the light from the east begins to drive the darkness of the earth from the hearts of men.
“Now and then in a peaceful grove, apart from the gaze of men, heaven and earth share a moment of intimacy, and neither are ever thereafter the same. Such a moment occurred on that beautiful, clear morning in the spring of 1820 in a grove of trees near Palmyra, New York.
“Man asked and God answered.
“Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son.
“These things I know and of them I testify. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son, and whose witnesses we are. Amen.”
(“Once or Twice in a Thousand Years,” Ensign, Nov. 1975, 18.)
