An article by Edward R.K. Dwemoh about why he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the “Mormons“) recently appeared in the Accra Daily Mail, a leading private newspaper in Ghana.
Brother Dwemoh begins his account by explaining that many people have asked him why he joined the Church. In his own words, “To set the minds of those who have asked the question at rest, and (this may surprise some of you) to quench my own burning desire to go public with the story of my conversion to Mormonism, let me now place on record why I am now a Latter-day Saint.” (”Why I Joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Accra Daily Mail, February 21, 2008).
He describes some early visits he had with missionaries from the Church. The things they taught him made sense to him. “Something out of this world hung in the air – something fresh and sweet and gentle and kind,” he says. The missionaries invited him to find out for himself if the Book of Mormon and the things they had taught him were true. They showed him the promise the prophet Moroni made at the end of the Book of Mormon:
And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. (Moroni 10:4-5)
“I thought that this was the most noble challenge I had ever been thrown!” says Brother Dwemoh. He recognized that, although the teachings of the missionaries made sense to him, his faith and salvation needed a stronger foundation. He needed to know the truth of them from God Himself. “And it is He who has manifested to me that this Church is true!” he concludes.
Some of the people who have questioned his decision to be baptized into the Church have shown him the scripture in Revelation 22:18-19 that says, “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” They wonder how the Book of Mormon can be true if the Bible itself says not to add to the book.
Brother Dwemoh gives a clear answer to this question: “God did not say in Revelation 22:18-19 that He would not add to His own words. God rather warned us against man adding to (or subtracting from) His word…God commanded the Prophets of the Bible to write just as He commanded the Book of Mormon prophets to write.”
He also points out that a similar directive is given much earlier in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 4:2. If God meant in this scripture that He would not reveal any more of His word, then the rest of the Bible beyond Deuteronomy could not be the word of God.
Going back to Moroni’s promise, Brother Dwemoh explains that this is the sure way to establish the authenticity of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. “For those of us who would sincerely want to know (and not just brush off the testimony of whoever God might use to bring forth “scripture”…) we would ‘ask God.’ Only He can reveal to us that what we hold in our hands is ‘authentic,’ true.”
Of the Book of Mormon, President Gordon B. Hinckley, the fifteenth prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said:
It is the only book that contains within its covers a promise that by divine power the reader may know with certainty of its truth…The same book that converted Brigham Young, Willard Richards, Orson and Parley Pratt, and many others of the early leaders of the Church is also converting people today in Argentina, in Finland, in Ghana, in Taiwan, in Tonga, and wherever else men and women are reading it prayerfully and with real intent. The promise of Moroni, written in his loneliness following the destruction of his people, is being fulfilled every day.
If they read it prayerfully and with a sincere desire to know the truth, they will know by the power of the Holy Ghost that the book is true.
From that knowledge there will flow a conviction of the truth of many other things. For if the Book of Mormon is true, then God lives. Testimony upon testimony runs through its pages of the solemn fact that our Father is real, that he is personal, that he loves his children and seeks their happiness. (”The Power of the Book of Mormon,” Ensign, Jun 1988, 2)
