From an email I received. This is an exchange between third-parties.
I’ve attended many of the ten lectures and I’ve listened to all of them. I was at the Phoenix lecture. At the conclusion of the lecture, different people had different understandings of what was communicated, what was to be done, and what they were to do. It is interesting to see all the discussion online and in the social media about what “Denver said.” Some of what I’ve seen is a reasonable, fair summary. Some summaries are downright wrong and could only be spread with malicious intent to confuse or deceive others. Reading either fair or unfair summaries lead to poor understanding.
Most people interested in these things are familiar with Mormon investigators who tell the missionaries or members that they heard X, Y, or Z about the Book of Mormon and the Mormon church from their pastor. The typical response is to encourage the investigator to read the book themselves and to make up their own decision and ask God for wisdom over the matter. I think the same thing applied here.
If anyone is curious about what was said in Phoenix, they should listen to, or preferably read, all ten parts of the one talk that culminated in Phoenix.
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I’m getting a lot of questions. I will not be answering. So far as I know, I have completed everything asked of me concerning those talks. Until asked to do something else, I wait on the Lord, and will only proceed when told to do so.
If you re-read the earlier 9/10ths of the talk you will find there are answers to be found there. Let me refer you to the Orem talk on priesthood. In the beginning there was one priesthood, not three divisions. That same priesthood which was in the beginning will be in the end of the world, also. Read the talk.
If I were ordaining anyone to any priesthood today as part of a community, I would ordain them to “the Holy Order” and leave it to God and the angels to decide how far the individual is permitted to progress in their association with the Powers of Heaven.
When the high priesthood was first restored in the June 1831 conference, those ordained failed. (I have already given an account of this in the post on August 19, 2014 titled “Laying On Hands.”) Later that year, in a conference held in October 1831, another group was ordained to high priesthood. They likewise failed.
Joseph was undeterred by the persistent failures. He believed anyone could rise up if they were taught how. Joseph believed it was ignorance that damned us and a man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge. Boise lecture.
Rather than throw his hands up at the failure, he set to work compiling a series of lectures to be given to these prospective “prophets” in a School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio. By 1835, he carefully edited the lectures to print them for the entire church. The Lectures on Faith were the first part of the Doctrine and Covenants, published in 1835, and vouched for by Joseph Smith. This was the Idaho Falls lecture. The Lectures tell you what the religion was designed to accomplish. They were composed in an effort to get the early church to rise up and reclaim power from heaven.
The failure to secure power in the priesthood was so complete, widespread and thorough that by 1921 The Lectures on Faith seemed only to mock the church. So a committee took them out of the scriptures. Idaho Falls.
There are many answers to the questions you may have because of the 10th lecture found in the previous 9. Read them.
The struggle, questions and dilemmas you face are good. Hopefully they will take you to God looking for answers.