REVELATION TO DONOVAN
The Word from the Lord, Jesus Christ, given to the Latter Day Saints (being the community of Joseph Smith, Jr. and all of its related branches) March, 20, 1996 through a humble servant named Donovan. He writes, "In March 1996, the Lord spoke to me by the power of the Holy Spirit, and I wrote a prophecy that defines the terms of the new covenant (see Jeremiah 31:31-34) and explains what it is that the people of the church have done in rejecting the new covenant. I publish that prophecy here as a testimony and a witness against those who have rejected the new covenant, and as a promise of salvation to those who repent.
This issue is very important. The scriptures (D&C 1:17-23, especially verses 19-22) tell us that one of the purposes of Joseph Smith's mission was to prepare a people among whom the Lord could establish the new covenant. At the time (March 1831), the Lord was pleased with the congregation that had assembled around the prophet Joseph. By September 1832, however, the entire congregation was under the Lord's condemnation for having rejected the new covenant (D&C 84:54-57). According Ezra Benson, the people of the LDS church have never been absolved from that condemnation.
A prophecy setting forth the terms of the new covenant and explaining the need to rely entirely and exclusively on the God of Israel, the Savior of the world, for salvation and instruction. Written March 20, 1996.
1 1n the hours of the early morning, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Prophesy! Prophesy against the leaders of the Lord's people. Yea, prophesy against all the house of Israel, saying, thus says the Lord:
2 I will set my heart against this people, that it be hard like flint. I will turn my face away from them and bless them no longer. For the judgement of the Lord is strong against this people, and the time is soon at hand when he will bear their iniquity no longer.
3 This is the judgement of the Lord against his people: he will make their houses desolate, and their cities without inhabitant; he will make their fields barren, and their storehouses empty.
4 The anger of the Lord against his people will be poured out in signs and in wonders, in pestilence and famine, in war and oppression.
5 And for this reason, saith the Lord, have I set my face against this people, and this reason only: they have set their hearts against me, saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
6 They have set their hearts upon their idols, the things they have made with their own hands. They look not to me, the Lord their Creator, for their salvation, but they look to their own devices, certain of salvation in their own institutions and in their own efforts.
7 They have entered into a covenant with death, saying, Surely if we do thus and so, we can escape with our lives. By this they have rejected my covenant with them, the covenant with which I promised them that I would be their God, and they should be my people.
8 When I covenanted with them in the days of their affliction that I would be with them, and speak to them, and teach them by my own voice, they hearkened unto my voice and received the covenant, but received it only half-heartedly, saith the Lord.
9 Now, when they prosper in the abundance with which I have blessed them, they have forgotten me, the Lord their God, and they have turned, as it were, to gods of wood and of stone, gods in whom there is no life, no power, and no salvation.
10 For I ask: Is there in any of these idols the power to save even a single soul? Can any of these images reconcile even a single human creature to God?
11 Is there on the face of the entire planet a single person, either man or woman, who can save their own soul by their own efforts?
12 Behold, saith the Lord, I offered them the covenant of my peace; I promised them salvation if they would but believe in me, their Father and Creator.
13 This is the covenant I offered them: that I would redeem them if they would only avail themselves of my redemptive power. It is a redemption wrought, as it were, by the shedding of my own blood, for it was necessary that the Sinless One make payment for sin, that all who would but believe in him might receive salvation unto their souls.
14 But they received not my covenant. In their vanity and unbelief they turned their hearts away from me, and trusted in others to save them. These others, to whom the people look for their salvation, are not gods. They have not the power to save.
15 Whether object, or image, or idol, or device, or institution, whether church or government, whether man or group of men, all those of my people who look to any of these for their salvation shall certainly be disappointed, by and by, saith the Lord.
16 Do I love these, my people? Yea, I love them as a man loves his own flesh, and as a father loves his own children. Is it the desire of my heart to afflict them? Verily, saith the Lord, it is not.
17 When they turn their hearts to me and accept me as the source of their salvation, I can bring them unto myself and make them my own but when they turn away from me, rejecting the covenant of peace that I offered them, I have no choice but to leave them to their own devices, that they may wander, and stumble, and fall.
18 In the day of their prosperity, when in their pride and faithlessness they rejected me, the Holy One of Israel, and rejected the covenant of peace I offered them, I gave them in its place a covenant of Law, that perchance they might yet repent and come unto me.
19 The purpose of the covenant of Law was not to bring them to salvation, but to bring them to repentance, for salvation comes not by the Law, or by obedience to rules of conduct or by obedience to ten or any number of commandments; salvation comes by faith in the One who has the power to save.
20 The covenant of Law was given for repentance, as a blessing and a curse: a curse, because the people, in their vanity, believed that they could save themselves by their obedience, and a blessing, because it brings about repentance in the hearts of those who, having been sufficiently buffeted by the demands of the Law, turn their hearts to me and cry out for redemption, which redemption comes only through Him who has the power to redeem them from the demands of the Law.
21 For those of my people who thus repent, my grace is sufficient to forgive them of every sin, every failure to meet the expectations of the Law.
22 These are they who receive the covenant of peace I spoke of, which my covenant is not a covenant of Law, but of grace. For in that day will I forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
23 Sadly, those who thus repent and partake of my grace are few, very few in number. I, the Lord, of whom it is said that he knows all things, and sees the end from the beginning, even I, the Lord, am amazed at the stiffneckedness and hard-heartedness of these people, for the great number of them repent not, and because they repent not they must perish in their sins.
24 I, the Lord, the creator of all, stand in amazement at the haughtiness of these people, for after that they rejected my covenant of peace, I gave them a covenant of Law, that they might break themselves upon it.
25 And now I stand and watch as year after year, and generation after generation, they give themselves wholly to the Law, confident that they can obey every provision thereof, persisting in the vain hope that their own obedience to the commandments has the power to save them and to make them right with God.
26 I gave commandments to these people, not that they should please me by strict obedience, but that they should learn of their own experience that such obedience is impossible.
27 That is the simple lesson I would have this people learn; yet their pride, their arrogance, their confidence in their own power to obey is so great that they continue, year after year, and generation after generation, persisting in the vain and false belief that they can save themselves by their own effort, a belief that makes the salvation I wrought for them of none effect.
28 For what need have these people of a Savior, if they are so confident that they can save themselves by their obedience? Verily, I say unto you, none: no need at all.
29 Behold, these people wax strong in their iniquity, generation following generation in the false belief that they can find salvation and make themselves right with God by obedience to commandments, by membership in a church, by devotion to what they call the Only True Church, and by loyalty to their leaders.
30 In this thing the sin is very great, and the temptation almost irresistible, being a seduction to submit to a false state of holiness.
31 In this great iniquity is the saying fulfilled, that the creeds of the fathers are riveted upon the hearts of the children, and for this reason the iniquity persists from generation to generation; and as the parents stumble in darkness, the children follow after.
32 And the most dangerous sin of all is the persistent belief, passed on from generation to generation, that the light of God is possessed by this people, and by them alone, by virtue of their membership in a church led by men who claim authority and revelation from God.
33 This single belief cuts them off from the light of God, because it informs them that they have no need of the very thing they need the most.
34 In this great and dangerous sin the leaders themselves have sinned most grievously, for they are the ones who persist in teaching the false beliefs to the people, reaffirming in their minds the very notions that stand as the greatest obstacles to their salvation.
35 For when a man stands before the congregation of Israel and declares in all seriousness that he and his colleagues have authority and revelation from God, and when he intimates by any combination of words that the people's station with God depends on their loyalty to the authority of the leaders and on their willingness to follow and obey, how great the temptation, how horrible the seduction, for the people of the congregation to withdraw their trust from God and to place it instead in these men, who claim so convincingly to speak and act in God's behalf.
36 And when any such man, claiming authority from God, declares that the church he leads is God's one and only church, and intimates by any combination of words that membership in this church is a requirement for salvation or that this church alone can offer a person the blessings and rituals necessary for salvation, how great the temptation, how horrible the seduction, for the people of the congregation to look to the institution of the church for their salvation, as if the church itself had the power to save them.
37 And when any such man, claiming authority from God, declares himself or his colleagues to be an infallible source of truth, or intimates by any combination of words that God will not permit him or his colleagues to err or to misdirect the church they claim to lead by God's authority and revelation, how great the temptation, how horrible the seduction, for the people of the congregation to assume that all is well in Zion, and that they need not and should not seek any light and truth beyond the words spoken by their leaders.
38 Yea, in these things are the sins of the leaders of the congregation of Israel most grievous, and in these false traditions, passed down from generation to generation, is the darkness perpetuated, imposed upon the minds and the souls of the people of the congregation even until the present day.
39 Therefore, Donovan, I speak to you clearly, that you might declare my word unto this generation, while there is yet time for them to repent, that your voice might be unto them a voice of warning and a voice of reproof; for unto the people of the congregation of Israel is yet given a little time to repent, that they might receive unto themselves of the light and truth I have to offer them.
40 Let them change their minds and change their hearts, that they might turn away from their pride and their vanity, their faithlessness and arrogance, and turn their hearts to me, the God of Israel and the Savior of the world, that they might find unto themselves the salvation of their souls.
41 For I have promised unto them salvation, and I extend unto them even yet the terms of the New Covenant, a covenant of peace, a covenant of grace.
42 This is the covenant that will make with the House of Israel: I will write my Law in their hearts, yea, I will inscribe it on their inward parts; and no more will every man say to his neighbor, and to his brother, Know the Lord; for they will all know me, from the least of them even unto the greatest. For I the Lord will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
43 In that day, saith the Lord, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. This promise of the new covenant is certain, and it is extended continually to the people of the congregation of Israel, a covenant conditional only upon their willingness to receive it.
44 As for the leaders of the congregation of Israel, I the Lord will deal with them myself, in my own way, and in my own due time.
45 This word, my servant Donovan, is the word of the Lord unto you today, that you might receive it gladly and declare it with faith and confidence.
46 Let this word stand as a prophecy against the people of the congregation of Israel, and against the leaders of the congregation of Israel, and as a promise unto all those who repent, that they might know of my love for them and of the mercy I desire to extend to them.
47 The Lord has spoken it by the still small voice of His Spirit. Amen.