Here we have a revelation for Thomas B. Marsh. It must have been nice to get a transcript of the exact words God himself spoke specifically for you. It's a shame that doesn't happen anymore.
Divine Revile-ation
Verse 9 highlights the hypocrisy of the modern church, which claims to follow these scriptures:
Be patient in afflictions, revile not against those that revile. Govern your house in meekness, and be steadfast.
Okay, should we list all of the times the Lord's anointed have reviled against those who revile?
Jeffrey R. Holland characterizes people who leave the church as having a "patty-cake, taffy-pulled experience." Neal A. Maxwell and Neil L. Andersen want us to know that "studying the church through the eyes of its detractors is like interviewing Judas to understand Jesus." Elder and Sister Renlund describe someone who keeps noticing possibly problematic issues in the church as playing "church history whack-a-mole."
Admittedly, there's plenty of mudslinging going both directions (although people like me will say ours is justified and people like the apostles will say theirs doesn't happen), but considering that God said in canonized scripture not to revile against those who revile, I should have to think much, much harder to come up with any example of an apostle publicly denigrating critics of the church.
Constant Vigilance!
Mad-Eye Moody makes a guest appearance in verse 12:
Pray always, lest you enter into temptation and lose your reward.
This is both manipulative and misleading.
It's manipulative because telling people that remaining in a state of constant vigilance is the only way to prevent the things they want from going down in flames is...well, it's manipulative. Transpose this into a different context, and it's the same reason every American election seems to be billed as the most crucial election of our lifetimes—even midterms. Fear is a powerful motivator, and if you can pinpoint what people are afraid of and convince them you have the solution (or that you are the solution), you can get them to do a lot of stuff that might be against their self-interest.
Now, if it's God saying this, maybe that's how the universe works, I guess. But if you entertain the idea that it's actually Joseph Smith saying this, it's not difficult to see how gross it is.
But it's misleading too because it makes it sound like praying always actually prevents you from succumbing to temptation. That's clearly not the case. And if it is the case, it's completely impractical anyway.
Really, Genuinely, Authentically Non-Fake
I wonder sometimes if Joseph Smith lived with near-crippling fear that he'd be found out and exposed. I mean, take a look at verse 13:
Be faithful unto the end, and lo, I am with you. These words are not of man nor of men, but of me, even Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, by the will of the Father. Amen.
These words are totally not of men, Thomas. It's not Joseph Smith saying this. It's Jesus. Even though I started out by calling you "my son," which heavily implies I'm God the Father instead of Jesus. Because the point is this is absolutely communication from Heaven, why would you think otherwise, who said that?!
Now, of course, if this is coming from God, you'd think he'd possess the self-confidence and the—I don't know, gravitas, maybe?—to speak authoritatively without reassuring us that it's actually him speaking.
Mobster God
I do usually try to go through each chapter and point out my objections in order of appearance, but I think this one was important enough to save for the end. Let's jump back to verse 5:
Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your back, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Wherefore, your family shall live.
The use of the conjunction "wherefore" to begin a sentence may be poor grammar on God's part, but it does make it seem like it's tying the continued existence of Marsh's family with the previous sentence. God is saying that Marsh's family will live if he thrusts in his sickle with all his soul. Which carries the implication that his family might die if he doesn't do that.
Which is basically saying that you have a beautiful family and it would be a shame if something were to...happen...to them. That's really not okay.
And what happened?
Well, that's an interesting story. Because his family didn't all live—his son James died in May of 1838. But before we try to connect this to Marsh's public falling out with the church and, ostensibly, his cessation of God's prescribed sickle-thrusting, we need to check the timeline. The factitious "milk strippings" story we've all heard didn't occur until August or September of that year and official church materials indicate that Marsh's apostasy was brought on specifically after the death of his son ("within a few months, Marsh fell prey to the spirit of apostasy").
And lest we think there might be another loophole we can use to wriggle out of this, James was 14 years old when he died in 1838. He was certainly alive when this revelation was given in 1830, so the promise that Thomas B. Marsh's family shall live absolutely included James.
Which means that not only did God indirectly threaten Marsh's family when he promised they'd live so long as he remained committed, but God also lied while extending that promise. Because there's no call to let a member of Marsh's family die if Marsh was yet to break his end of the bargain, right? This wasn't Marsh's elderly uncle passing away, this was his teenaged son dying long before his time. Whatever happened to "I, the Lord am bound when ye do what I say"? I mean, admittedly, God hadn't given that particular revelation yet, but if he's the same yesterday, today, and forever, it's not like he'd suddenly changed from a mendacious deity to an honorbound deity sometime between D&C sections 31 and 82.
And, yet, bafflingly, Thomas B. Marsh is the bad guy in this story. Not God. Not the one who made an extravagant and manipulative promise which he didn't fulfill—and, being omniscient, always knew wasn't going to be fulfilled.
God is the bad guy.
Thomas B. Marsh is the one who's demonized in modern Mormonism, but he just got shafted. God is the villain here.
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