Early in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the Lord instructed the Prophet Joseph Smith to introduce polygamy. 3rd President and prophet of the church, Wilford Woodruff was instructed by the Lord to discontinue this practice.
As foreign a practice this is in our day and age this was practiced in the Old Testament. So, Joseph Smith didn't take initiative to start polygamy for the heck of it, the Lord Jesus Christ instructed him to do it.
Joseph Smith was not happy that this was implemented, in fact Brigham Young 2nd president and prophet of the church said this about polygamy
- "Some of these my brethern know what my feelings were at the time Joseph revealed the doctrine; I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time.
And when I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I was not in the coffin, knowing the toil and labor that my body would have to undergo; and I have had to examine myself, from that day to this, and watch my faith, and carefully meditate, lest I should be found desiring the grave more than I ought to do."
GOD THE FATHER AND JESUS ARE SEPARATE BEINGS
Genesis has God saying let us make man in our own image. Not I'll make man in My own image. God the Father and Jesus were both involved in the creation of the planet and the human race.
Skipping ahead 4000 yeas is the next recorded instance where Jesus and God are in the same place at the same time, Jesus's baptism: God the Father states that Jesus is his beloved son.
Jesus states he cannot do anything except what He sees the Father do.
Jesus is Praying to God, in the Garden of Gethsemane. He doesn't pray to himself.
Jesus, on the cross asks why God has forsaken him. He didn't forsake himself.
After Jesus is resurrected he tells Mary that he hasn't ascended to His Father and her Father. His God and her God.
Ok, we have 5 specific examples that Jesus himself states that he is not God the Father. God the Father is Elohim. Jesus is Jehovah. Jeremiah himself states that Jehovah is his salvation. Peter in the New Testament states that there is only one name under heaven whereby man can be saved. Jehovah is Jesus, plain and simple, not God the Father.
A modern-day example that Jesus and God the Father are seperate beings is the account of Joseph Smith.
It was the Spring of 1820 when 14 year old Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. Shortly before this time Joseph Smith was impressed upon to find which church was right.
Here is Joseph Smith's own words about this time of his life.
Go here to read the experience in it's entirety: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1
- 7...My father’s family was proselyted to the Presbyterian faith, and four of them joined that church, namely, my mother, Lucy; my brothers Hyrum and Samuel Harrison; and my sister Sophronia.
8 During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and often poignant, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though I attended their several meetings as often as occasion would permit. In process of time my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them; but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong.
9 My mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their errors, or, at least, to make the people think they were in error. On the other hand, the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were equally zealous in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and disprove all others.
10 In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be aright, which is it, and how shall I know it?
11 While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
12 Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.
13 At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture.
14 So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.
15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
16 But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
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