BOOK OF MORMON
Jacob - Chapter 3 Critique
Setting: Jacob supposedly began his record in 544 BCE and continued to about 421 BCE in America. This would have been during the time of the captivity of the Jews under the Babylonians and Persians, their return from captivity, and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. The fictional book of Jacob would have been during the time period of the Biblical books of Daniel, Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Verse 1: BUT behold, I, Jacob, would speak unto you that are pure in heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down justice upon those who seek your destruction.
Note: The Son intercedes with the Father for Christians.
Romans 8:33-34 Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Verse 2: O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever.
Note: These Jews were not practicing animal sacrifices per the word of God.
Leviticus 1:10-11 "If his offering is of the flocks; of the sheep or of the goats; as a burnt sacrifice, he shall bring a male without blemish. He shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the LORD; and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle its blood all around on the altar."
Verse 3: But, wo, wo, unto you that are not pure in heart, that are filthy this day before God; for except ye repent the land is cursed for your sakes; and the Lamanites, which are not filthy like unto you, nevertheless they are cursed with a sore cursing, shall scourge you even unto destruction.
Note: God never promised an escape to America for the rebellious children of Israel.
Jeremiah 11:11 Therefore thus says the LORD: "Behold, I will surely bring calamity on them which they will not be able to escape; and though they cry out to Me, I will not listen to them."
Verse 4: And the time speedily cometh, that except ye repent they shall possess the land of your inheritance, and the Lord God will lead away the righteous out from among you.
Note: The land of inheritance for the children of Israel is in the Middle East not America.
Numbers 32:32 "We will cross over armed before the LORD into the land of Canaan, but the possession of our inheritance shall remain with us on this side of the Jordan."
Verse 5: Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father--that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.
Note: Joseph Smith and Brigham Young committed "whoredoms" with plural marriages.
The practice of plural marriage, as part of the restoration of all things, was being taught by Joseph Smith to his closest friends as an eternal principle which God would expect them to embrace. Joseph himself demurred, postponing the terrible confrontation as long as he dared.
Brigham Young: A Personal Portrait. Covenant Communications, Inc., 1996.
Verses 6-7: And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people. Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?
Note: Your relationship with God is not based on your family relationships.
John 16:26-27 "In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God."
Note: Do you love Jesus Christ?
Verse 8: O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God.
Note: Your relationship with God is not based on having white skin color.
John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."
Note: Do you love Jesus Christ?
Verse 9: Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.
Note: Your relationship with God is not based on having white skin color.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him."
Note: Do you love Jesus Christ?
Verses 10-11: Wherefore, ye shall remember your children, how that ye have grieved their hearts because of the example that ye have set before them; and also, remember that ye may, because of your filthiness, bring your children unto destruction, and their sins be heaped upon your heads at the last day. O my brethren, hearken unto my words; arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye may not become angels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.
Note: The Latter-day Saints of the 19th century practiced spiritual filthiness.
A series of antibigamy laws culminated in the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887. This harsh law not only punished those convicted of polygamous living but also restricted the Saints' participation in elections, disincorporated the Church as an institution, and provided for the seizure of its assets. In 1889 the United States Supreme Court upheld this law as constitutional. This posed a dilemma for the Latter-day Saints who believed that the practice of plural marriage had been divinely revealed, but who had been instructed to obey "that law of the land which is constitutional". The Church in the Twentieth Century. Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1985.
Verses 12-13: And now I, Jacob, spake many more things unto the people of Nephi, warning them against fornication and lasciviousness, and every kind of sin, telling them the awful consequences of them. And a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people, which now began to be numerous, cannot be written upon these plates; but many of their proceedings are written upon the larger plates, and their wars, and their contentions, and the reigns of their kings.
Note: God never promised an escape to America for the rebellious children of Israel.
Lamentations 1:18 The LORD is righteous, for I rebelled against His commandment. Hear now, all peoples, and behold my sorrow; My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.
Verse 14: These plates are called the plates of Jacob, and they were made by the hand of Nephi. And I make an end of speaking these words.
Note: Jews wrote on scrolls of parchment not plates of brass.
Jeremiah 36:2 "Take a scroll of a book and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day."
Note: Have you been deceived by the words of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young?
Romans 16:18 For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.