Restoring Knowledge

There are at least three stages in the process of restoring knowledge. The first stage is to receive it. Receiving it is not the same thing as the second stage, which is to comprehend it. It is possible that a man receive something without understanding what it was that he received. Time and careful, solemn, and ponderous thoughts are required to untangle what has been received in order to comprehend what it is that one has been given. But it is altogether something of a different order of magnitude, completely separate from that, to teach it. One can receive it and comprehend it, but he may not be able to teach it. When it finally does get taught, undoubtedly it will be taught in the manner Joseph Smith was beginning to work on in Nauvoo but never finished — that is, by ceremony and by covenant. And this, too, by something given by God. It will only be established in a House that is acceptable to Him. If anyone wants to know what Joseph Smith was doing in his efforts — in a whole new effort — he has to understand the birthright, sealing power, and organizing again on the earth the kingdom of God. He was trying to bring back the actual family. But he was taken at the incipient stage, because all that he was sent here to do was to lay the groundwork, to lay the beginning, to come as an Elias. Joseph came to call to the world and to give them, if they will pay attention to it, a basis for study to learn and potentially qualify for the Lord to resume the restoration and bring it to a completion.¹