Joseph Smith on Naturalism

Joseph Smith

prophecy naturalism mormon authorities technology accelerating change

[The Gentiles] will make wonderful improvements in machinery of every kind, especially implements of husbandry for the working of the land and raising grain, saving a great deal of labor to the saints in building up the kingdom. The Lord will inspire the Gentiles to do this, but they will not acknowledge his hand in it, nor give him the glory … The benefits of all their ingenuity and inventions will be the means of advancing the building up of Zion with greater speed. The Lord will have the glory.

Statement Made by Isaac Decker, Remembering Joseph: Personal Recollections of Those Who Knew the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 466, Mark L. McConkie, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003

Related Quotes

Spencer W. Kimball

Third, I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse. The Prophet Joseph Smith declared: “The truth of God will go forth boldly, till it has penetrated every continent, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished.

L. Tom Perry

I have sometimes wondered what would have happened if Nephi had asked the Lord for tools instead of a place to find the ore to make the tools. I doubt the Lord would have honored Nephi’s request. You see, the Lord knew that Nephi could make the tools, and it is seldom the Lord will do something for us that we can do for ourselves.

Gordon B. Hinckley

David Ransom: As the world leader of the the Church, how are you in touch with God? Can you explain that for me?

More from Joseph Smith

Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know unless we comply with or keep those we have already received.

If tomorrow I shall be called to lie in yonder tomb, in the morning of the resurrection let me strike hands with my father, and cry, “My father,” and he will say, “My son, my son,” as soon as the rock rends and before we come out of our graves. And may we contemplate these thing so? Yes, if we learn how to live and how to die.

I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm, yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor, than the smooth-faced hypocrite. I do not want you to think that I’m very righteous, for I am not. There was one good man, and his name was Jesus.

How vain and trifling have been our spirits, our conferences, our councils, our meetings, our private as well as public conversations—too low, too mean, too vulgar, too condescending for the dignified characters of the called and chosen of God.

The things of God are of deep import. ... Thy mind, ... if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity.