Maketh War With the Saints of God

I recently listened to a podcast where they suggested there was a connection between two significant events in church history in 1832: the receipt of the vision of the kingdoms of glory on February 16, and the attack of a mob on March 24 in which Joseph was nearly killed. They commented, “Just as with the First Vision, Satan always attacks the light, especially when it is ushered in with such power.” The Saints book similarly connected these events by recording them in the same chapter entitled Visions and Nightmares and suggested that “the vision further troubled some of their neighbors, who were already bothered by the letters Ezra Booth had published in a local newspaper.” This then was at least part of the reason that led the mob to their actions that fateful night. It was Joseph and Sidney who received the marvelous vision in which so much light was revealed, and it was then Joseph and Sidney five weeks later who were brutally beaten by this mob in the darkness. Surely Satan was seeking some kind of retaliation for the light that he could not stop from coming and which revealed how he “was thrust down from the presence of God and the Son” because he “rebelled against God.” Interestingly, Joseph and Sidney revealed in the vision that the devil “maketh war with the saints of God, and encompasseth them round about” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:25-29). If nothing else, the mob attacks that night ironically proved this statement of the vision to be true. The devil would make war with the saints of God, especially when they received great light and revelation from the Lord.

               Joseph recorded this of the attack on him and Sidney: “My friends spent the night in scraping and removing the tar, and washing and Cleansing my body, so that by morning I was ready to be clothed again. This being the sabbath morning, the people assembled for meeting at the usual hour of worship, and among them came also the Mobbers…. With my flesh all scarfied and defaced, I preached to the congregation as usual, and on the afternoon of the same day baptized three individuals.” That has always been an incredible story to me that he could preach the very next day to the very mob that had nearly killed him the night before. According to this podcast, “His topic for the talk that day was charity and brotherly kindness,” which, if the case, would make the sermon that day all the more incredible as he stood there beaten up and preaching to his enemies. It certainly was an indication that Joseph was seeking to live up to the vision he had just received where he learned that those who want to inherit a celestial glory must “overcome by faith” and be “valiant in the testimony of Jesus.” Certainly he was doing this that day as he sought no retaliation but rather bore his witness of the Savior’s love to those who had tortured him the night before. He did not “glory in man, but rather [did] glory in God, who shall subdue all enemies under his feet” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:53,61). He chose to leave retribution to the Lord for his attackers just as the Savior did not retaliate in the day of His untold suffering at the hands of wicked men. And it is seems that God did indeed mete out some kind of recompense to these attackers in mortality. Luke Johnson (the son of John Johnson, whose house Joseph was staying at) recorded this about three of the mobbers: “Soon after the persecution, Mason had an attack of the spinal affection. Fullars, one of the mobocrats, died of the cholera in Cleveland, Dr. Dennison was sent to the penitentiary for ten years, and died before the term expired” (Millenial Star volume 26, pg 835). No matter what happens in mortality we can trust God and leave judgment to Him. How grateful we are that Joseph and Sidney received that glorious vision in 1832 to bring so much light to the world, and knowing the physical cost they suffered because of it is all the more reason for us to treasure it and live by its words.