Preserving the Restoration by Denver C Snuffer Jr   'For Joseph Smith Mormons'

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Preserving the Restoration

by Denver C. Snuffer Jr.

Published by Denver C. Snuffer, Jr. (2015)

Condition:

Excellent++ Softcover Book! NO MARKS! The binding is tight and all 554 pages within are bright white with NO WRITING, UNDERLINING, HIGH-LIGHTING, RIPS, TEARS, BENDS OF FOLDS! It has just minor cover wear as can be seen in my photos. You will be happy with this one! Always handled and packaged with care!  Buy with confidence from a seller who takes the time to show you the details and not use just stock photos. Please check out all my pictures and email with any questions! Thanks for looking!

About author, Denver C. Snuffer, Jr:

Denver Carlos Snuffer Jr. is a Utah lawyer, an author of Restorationist devotional books, a lecturer, a speculative theologian, and claims to be a “revelator to fellowships of the remnants movement,” a spiritual movement in schism with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The movement has a few thousand adherents, many of them members or former members of the LDS Church. He was excommunicated by the LDS Church in 2013 for refusing to cease publication of his 2011 book, Passing the Heavenly Gift which challenges many points of LDS orthodoxy. He subsequently has been identified as a prophet by many, and several of his teachings have been canonized as scripture.

Two Book Reviews:

5/5 stars - I thought this was Anti-Mormon until I read it. I understand other's fears.

I have wondered all my life if I would have recognized Christ as the Son of God had I been a resident of Jerusalem during his ministry. I have wondered if I would have cheered when Barabbas was released, of if I would have helped cast stones at Stephen, or encouraged the archers aiming for Samuel the Lamanite or watched dispassionately as Abinadi was scourged and burned. I have wondered if I would have recognized the truth in what young farm boy Joseph Smith shared. I now have my answer.

In March 2017 I did a 90 day spiritual fast. To begin this fast I fasted from all food and water for 30 hours while praying to Heavenly Father and telling Him that I felt like a failure for having sought my baptism of fire since Summer 2013 and I still had not obtained it. I sincerely wanted His help and guidance so after hearing about this 90 day fast challenge, I decided to participate. The challenge involved fasting for one day and praying to ask what I needed to remove from my life and what I needed to add. Anticipating there being a long list, I was very surprised by my simple answers. I needed to fast from speaking rudely in any way. I felt clearly that I was to add "Read the Book of Mormon every day" (which I was already doing and needed to continue) and "Follow the Promptings of the Holy Ghost" to my list of things to add. That was it. I was expecting a huge list but that was it. Just those 3 things.

In April, around 30 days into my fast, I was reading various scriptural things online, following links from talks, blogs, etc. when I was led to Denver Snuffer's blog, which I considered to be apostate. His blog post that day was about a Restoration Scripture Project. I remember feeling drawn to it and interested so I clicked on it and read about the project. I liked the idea because I was already aware that Lectures on Faith by Joseph Smith, which I had read years before, were once in the D&C and had been removed. I liked the idea of them being added back in, so to speak, and I saw nothing wicked, evil or apostate in the idea of including more of Joseph's words in the scriptures. My heart was open just enough to consider that maybe Denver, who I was CERTAIN was anti-Mormon to the core, might have actually linked to a useful scripture project. So I read.

I read Come Let Us Adore Him, which had the most soul-piercing witness and description of what Jesus Christ experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane that I cried. Books never make me cry. You don't even need to buy that book to read that portion - you can read it for free online by searching for it. It is well worth your time even if you never read anything else, simply to experience the powerful healing that comes from understanding that the Savior suffered for all your wounds as a victim, too.

A few days ago (August 2017) I finished reading Preserving the Restoration. Reading it has convinced me that the prayers I offered five months ago in March as I began my 90 day fast have been answered and answered beyond my wildest dreams. I have had the Savior Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father come to me in a dream to encourage me because I was so afraid, so worried and so concerned that Denver's expounding of scripture was somehow wrong or apostate that I literally needed them to come to assure me it was true. They did!

My learning and understanding are growing in incredible ways because of the expounding of scripture that I have read in this book. I understand the fear and hesitancy because I experienced it myself. I even understand the anger from those who don't want anyone to read these things because it is scary to think that there is more to do to be exalted than simply qualifying for a temple recommend. It is easier to ridicule than it is to read. I know, because I was that person once. I was a review reader, just like you, who took a chance and simply read the book.

I have worried all my life that I would not have recognized the Savior teaching in Jerusalem. He has now personally assured me that I know His voice.

--Outdoorsy Boy's Mom

5/5 stars - A Critically Important Work

I waited several weeks after finishing this book before posting a review. The subject matter is of such deep importance and the topics are so wide-ranging that I felt I should take some additional time considering the book's message before offering my review.

This book deserves to be widely read by all who are interested in the restoration of the Gospel begun through the Lord's servant, Joseph Smith. Preserving the Restoration is an expansion on a series of lectures given by Denver in 2013 and 2014 at various venues within the so-called "Mormon corridor" in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and western Colorado. The chapter titles are deceptively simple: Faith, Repentance, Covenants, Priesthood, Zion, etc. However, the contents of each of the chapters, while not claiming to exhaustively treat any of the subjects, provide detailed and in-depth discussions which even well-informed students of LDS scripture and the teachings of Joseph Smith are bound to encounter something new or which will shed new light and insights into important yet less considered truths found within the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

An example of this is evident in Denver's treatment of Joseph Smith's largely ignored and decanonized series of lectures on the subject of faith (The Lectures on Faith). Denver has provided a valuable service in examining how these vital lectures were carefully prepared and vouched for by Joseph Smith and were then canonized as scripture by the body of the church, comprising the "Doctrine" section of the 1835 edition of the Doctrine & Covenants. Denver also chronicles how in 1921 the Lectures on Faith were removed from the Doctrine & Covenants without a vote before the general body of the church by a committee of church leaders who assumed that Joseph Smith - the prophet they accepted as having stood in God's presence - had an incorrect understanding of God's character, perfections and attributes. The irony of this action taken by the 1921 church committee is that Joseph Smith taught in his third lecture on faith that a correct idea of God's character, perfections and attributes are necessary in order to "exercise faith in God unto life and salvation."

Denver's purpose in publishing this book is, at least in part, an effort to get believers in the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to look backward and remember what God has already revealed through Joseph Smith, even though much of what was revealed has been forgotten by "the saints" today. Until we remember and live according to what God has already chosen to reveal, there is no reason for more to be given.

Personally, I found Denver's treatment of the subject of Covenants to be fascinating and light-filled. It is generally unappreciated what a significant role Joseph Smith played in restoring to us a knowledge of the covenants God has made with "the fathers" (Biblical patriarchs) and how those covenants are of great significance to those who seek to be a part of the family of God. In my estimation, Denver convincingly argues that Joseph Smith was the prophesied "choice seer" referenced in 2 Nephi 3:7 and in the Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis 50.

This book can be viewed as a mercy from the Lord, offering those who value the scriptures brought to light through Joseph Smith an opportunity to awake to our present-day apostasy, to repent of our idolatry, and to rise up and make our own individual connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. This book is also a testimony from the author that Jesus is the Lord and Savior of the world and that He is no respecter of persons, but instead invites all to come unto Him. The history of the LDS church's disregard, neglect, and perversion of Gospel truths and Gospel ordinances is not the point of the book. However, I could not help but notice again and again the stark contrasts between the Gospel set forth in the scriptures and in the teachings of Joseph Smith, and the current state of affairs in the LDS church.

The final chapter of Preserving the Restoration will be challenging for most readers, especially LDS readers who have been raised in a hierarchy-saturated religious culture. For many readers, the idea that the LDS church could fall into apostasy is unthinkable. However, despite protestations from subsequent church leaders from Wilford Woodruff down to the present time claiming that they cannot lead the membership astray, there is no such scriptural assurance. Instead, if we actually believe Christ, we accept His warning of Gentile pride and apostasy (3 Nephi 16:10) and He foretold that He would bring the fullness of His Gospel from among the Gentiles. Denver's treatment of God's house as a house of order is worth serious consideration: "God's house is a house of order, but that does not mean what many of us think it means. God follows patterns. He establishes and ordains things according to one pattern, and then takes them down again according to another. He does not vary. There is no guarantee that when He establishes a house at a certain point in time, that the house will not rebel, reject Him, and then be rejected by Him at another time. Just because God undertakes a work does not mean it will remain forever. Just because He ordains it does not mean that, when He deems necessary, He cannot abandon it to begin something more. He follows a pattern and that is the house of order." (Pgs. 481-82).

Readers of this work will have to prayerfully consider for themselves whether God has in fact set forth His hand again to bring to pass His covenants and purposes, and has begun something more.

--Litigator

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