Description

Such a Rebuke!

Benjamin Brown was a seeker and after attending various Churches and revivals he went out of curiosity to a Latter-day Saint meeting, where he saw manifested the promised gifts of the Spirit, but having seen similar gifts elsewhere he wasn’t overly impressed or convinced. In fact, when he was invited to be baptized he became very flippant and disrespectful. He started to read the Book of Mormon but with an intent to prove it wrong. Ten pages in and he rejected it altogether. He similarly felt inclined to reject his Bible. It was at this point that Benjamin realized that something was very wrong. The spirit moving him was darkness—not light. He said:

The light that was in me became darkness, and how great it was, no language can describe. All knowledge of religious truth seemed to forsake me, and if I attempted to quote scripture, my recollection failed, after the first word or so!

Recognizing what had happened to him, Benjamin determined to repent and start over with the Bible and then the Book of Mormon. Speaking of the Book of Mormon, he said, “I resolved to read it through, and I perservered in its perusal, till I came to that part where Jesus, on visiting the continent of America, after his resurrection, grants the request of three of the apostles whom he had chosen to permit them to live until he second coming on the earth.”

At this point, Benjamin began to consider that the book might actually be true. He began to plead with the Lord to know if it was true, asking the Lord to let him “see them [ the Three Nephites] for a witness and testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon, and I covenanted with him, if he complied with my request, that I would preach it, even at the expense of my life, should it be necessary.”

As to what happened, Benjamin records, “The Lord heard my prayer, and about five days afterwards, two of the three visited me in my bedroom….One spoke to me for some time, and reproved me sharply on account of my behavior at the time when I first attended the meeting of the Saints and treated so lightly the gift of tongues. He told me never to do so again, for I had grieved the Spirit of the Lord, by whose power that gift was given. This personage spoke in the Nephite language, but I understood, by the spirit which accompanied him, every word as plainly as if he had spoken in English…..Such a rebuke, with such power, I never had in my life before or since, and never wish to have again. I was dumb before my rebuker, for I knew what he said was right, and I deserving of it.”

At the conclusion of the interview, Benjamin described:

How these men went, I do not know, but directly they were gone. The Spirit of the Lord said to me, ‘Now, you know for yourself! You have seen and heard! If you now fall away, there is no forgiveness for you.”

What was Benjamin Brown’s response to such a manifestation? He said:

Did I not know then, that the Book of Mormon was true, and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord? Surely, I did, and I do now, as surely as I know that I live.”

Accordingly, Benjamin Brown was baptized in 1835, and would live out his days serving the Lord as a faithful priesthood man, missionary, and colonizer. He died in Salt Lake City, Utah May 22, 1878. He was 83 years-old.

Sources:

https://books.google.com/books?id=WjMEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=%22as+I+found+it+stated+that+the+three+Nephites+had+power+to+show+themselves%22&source=bl&ots=z_KqorN1mZ&sig=bfPtpcyckwL-dFzaUD1Rk2bxadM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwje7Oa__YjaAhURy2MKHYBMCWEQ6AEIMDAC%23v=onepage&q&f=false#v=onepage&q=%22as%20I%20found%20it%20stated%20that%20the%20three%20Nephites%20had%20power%20to%20show%20themselves%22&f=false
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWJP-QTH

Copyright Glenn Rawson 2022

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