Thursday, January 29, 2026

Text of the King Follett Discourse in The Zion's Watchman of April 12, 1855 (LDS Periodical in Sydney, Austrlia)

I recently downloaded all the issues of his publication (from 1853 to 1856), so hope to read them in full soon. Until then, I came across the following, where the text of the KFD affirms, not denies, the eternality of God (the Father) being God:

In order to understand the subject of the dead, for the consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary that they should understand the character and being of God, for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined that God was God from all eternity. These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are the simple and first principles of the gospel, to know for a certainty the character of God, that we may converse with him as one man with another, and that God himself, the Father of us all dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did, . . . (“Joseph Smith’s Last Sermon delivered at the April Conference, 1844,” The Zion’s Watchman 1, nos. 32-33 [April 12, 1855]: 250)


Further Reading:


The Different Accounts of the King Follett Discourse and Whether God (the Father) was God from All Eternity