Why 1820?

 Why 1820 - Speech given by Hyrum W. Smith at Ricks College 

I have to tell you this is quite an awesome experience to stand before this many 

people. I have the opportunity of speaking fairly regularly in the corporate world, but 

rarely to four thousand people, and I want you to know that it’s a great honor to be 

invited back. I’d like to express my love and appreciation to your president. My wife 

and I, as he mentioned, got to know the Christensen's when we first went through the 

MTC as a new mission president and President Christensen tried to teach us how to be 

a mission president in four days.

What I’d like to do with you today is share with you my testimony as to why I believe 

the Church of Jesus Christ was restored when it was restored. One of the questions 

that is often asked of missionaries in the field of anyone who is investigating the 

Church for the first time is a) why a Restoration and b) if a Restoration was necessary, 

why did the Lord wait until 1820? Seems like there were a lot of people who lived 

and died between 96 A.D. and 1820. Why wait?

May I begin what I would share with you today by asking you if – by the way, if you 

have something on which to write today, I would ask you to produce that. I’m going 

to ask you to write some things down. I’m going to give you some dates that I think 

you’ll find interesting. If you don’t have anything on which to write, I think I could 

recommend something. That’s a joke.

I’m going to share with you today a timeline of events that led up to the Restoration of 

the gospel and therein my testimony as to why 1820. I’d like to preface that 

testimony by taking you first to the book of John in the New Testament and go to the 

sixty-sixth verse. In the sixty-sixth verse of John, chapter six. As a preamble to this 

experience, you may be aware there was a terrific falling away taking place as a result 

of the persecutions which were now being heaped upon the saints. Because of the

falling away, the Savior became concerned about this, so he gathered his brethren 

about him. Verse sixty-six, we read: “from that time, many of the disciples went 

back, and walked no more with him.” In other words, they were falling away.

So he gets his apostles around him and he levels with them a very sobering question 

that I would level at you. Verse sixty-seven: “Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will 

ye also go away?” To me that’s a very poignant experience. “Are you going to leave 

me too? It’s not so much fun any more, is it, brethren? They’re not laying out leaves 

for us now as we enter Jerusalem. They’re trying to kill us now. It’s not near as neat 

as it was a few years ago. Are you going to leave, too?”

Peter stands forth and responds on behalf of the twelve in verse sixty-eight, a little 

surprised, I think. “Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? 

Thou hast the words of eternal life.” In other words, “We leave you, where do we go? 

There isn’t any place to go.” Verse sixty-nine, he then bears a wonderful testimony. 

“And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” I 

would hope, brothers and sisters, and I can assure you that there will be a time that 

someone’s going to stand up in front of you and say “That’s what you believe, too?” 

Or, “You really believe all that?” And if your testimony is in the right place, you 

understand how you fit historically and you understand what Peter understood you’ll 

be able to stand for it as Peter did and say, “If I leave here, where do I go? There isn’t 

any place to go. I happen to know who He is.” And that’s what Peter said.

Now will you record some dates very quickly. I’d like to build a historical case for 

why I believe why 1820 was the only time the gospel of Jesus Christ could have been 

restored and survive on the planet.

Start with the year 0 in your notes. Just write these very quickly. The year 0: the 

Savior was born. It wasn’t really the year 0. Five centuries later, they decided it 

ought to be the year 0 because that was a significant event, so it is now, in our 

calendars, the year 0.

30 A.D. is the next date you need to write. The Savior is now a grown man. We 

don’t know a great deal about His first thirty years. We have a scripture in Hebrews 

that says He grew in stature and wisdom and that sort of thing, but we don’t know a 

lot about His first thirty years.

33 A.D., third date. Three years after His ministry He had established a church. 

Called and established a specific form for that church. Rejected by the people and He 

was crucified. 33 A.D. At that point, it was the charge of the apostles and the 

organization of the church at that point to go throughout the world, strengthen and 

build the church.

The next date you need to write is 42 A.D. In 42 A.D., Peter went to Rome and 

established the Church in Rome. He ordained a bishop in Rome by the name of 

Linus. Linus is the man to whom the Catholics retrace their historical lineage.

In 43 A.D., the next date you need to write, Paul, performing the function that 

apostles still perform, went back to Rome to see how the church was doing. 

Discovered that in one short year, the church under the Bishop Linus had completely 

apostatized from what Peter had established. Read the first chapter of Romans in the 

New Testament, understanding that that chapter was written upon Paul’s return from 

Rome and described what he found there. As a result of this apostasy that had taken 

place in Rome, Paul established a new leader of the church in Rome, a deacon by the 

name of Linus as well. History kind of gets messed up here between the two Linuses

one, therefore they are one.” Read it. You need to understand it. That document is 

the basic document now that is accepted by most of the Christian faiths in the world 

as a description of God.

We find now, the beginnings now, the Roman Catholic church now becomes the 

formal church of state. Up until this time, it was just trying to survive. Now it 

becomes the church and this is the way people are going to believe. A period of 

history begins now called the Reign of the Popes. Was this a religiously tolerant time, 

brothers and sisters? No. The popes were not just ecclesiastical leaders. They 

became emperors and kings as well.

The next date you need to write is 785 A.D. 785, Empress Irene was in charge. She 

had another council in the same place. She sent her learned people off to Nicea. In 

the Second Nicene Council, the canonization of saints takes place. Idol worship 

enters into the Catholic Church. Understand, brothers and sisters, that you cannot 

read European history and Catholic history as two separate histories. They are the 

same. Who wrote history back then? The only ones who could read and write were 

primarily the clergy, and a few wealthy.

Alright, the next date you need to write is 900 A.D. In approximately 900 – the exact 

date is not pinpointed – there was a woman pope. The Catholic Church denies this; 

the Lutheran Church has detailed documentation. There was a pope in charge. Four 

years into that reign as pope, this pope became pregnant. This was very embarrassing 

to the Catholic Church and she is known as Pope Joanna. She just disappeared.

The next date you need to write is 1100 A.D. In 1100 A.D., there were three popes. 

They broke off from each other, three different European cities. They all 

excommunicated each other and then went to war to prove who was the only true and 

living pope.

I’m not here making fun of Catholic history. I’m here helping us understand. We 

need to understand the fact that the Apostasy was very real.

The next date we need to write is 1200 A.D. In 1200 A.D., two significant events 

took place. First, the advent of the printing press. Up until 1200 A.D., how many 

people could read? Not many. The printing press surfaces and has a major impact on 

the culture in Europe in the next hundred years. We’ll talk about that in a moment. 

The next event, the man in charge in Rome: Pope Innocent III. Pope Innocent III was 

known in history as The Boss Pope. He was fighting wars all the time. He was 

fighting on three fronts. Started to run out of money. Decided he needed a creative 

way of raising money for his wars. And so he initiated in the church a money-making 

program called the Sale of Indulgences. This was a significant event 300 years later; 

we’ll discover why in a moment. The Sale of Indulgences simply means you can pay 

to have your sins remitted. I’ve often wondered why we don’t do that. We could 

build lots of chapels. It even got to the point where you could prepay sins. “I’m 

going to Vegas for the weekend, Bishop. Here’s a thousand bucks. Cover me.” 

“You’re covered.”

The next date you need to write is 1300 A.D. 1300 A.D., revolution begins in Europe, 

not a revolution of knives and swords, but a cultural revolution. That revolution is 

known and we refer to it now as The Renaissance. European culture turns upside-

down. One of the reasons was the advent of the printing press. More people had 

more information. Questions started to be asked that never had been asked before and 

the culture turns upside down.

The next date we need to write is 1492. Surely, what happened in 1492. You got that 

right. Columbus, a product of the Renaissance, was part of a growing number that 

said, “You know, this is not a flat world. It’s round.” And so he conned the queen 

out of three boats and he finds the New World.

The next date we need to write, very few short years later, 1515 A.D. Martin Luther 

surfaces. I shared this with a group of young people in Utah not too long ago. I said, 

“Who was Martin Luther?” Kid jumps up. “Isn’t he that black guy that got killed a 

few years ago?” No, different guy. 1515, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, one 

of the highest orders in the Catholic Church, a product of the Renaissance, he had 

access to many of the ancient documents. He had a major problem. His problem was 

the Sale of Indulgences. He said, “I don’t think that’s right. I can’t find anything in 

the ancient writings that the Savior said anything about the sale of indulgences.” 

Ultimately, he developed 95 questions that bothered him a lot. He nailed these 

questions to the door of the cathedral in Wuttenburg, Germany. That’s how he 

communicated. Took several weeks for people to wander by and see the questions. It 

bugged the church a lot. He was then pulled before several church courts and told, 

“Back off with your questions or you’ll be excommunicated.” Understand that 

excommunication in the 14th, 15th centuries was tantamount to death. Martin Luther 

did not want to destroy the Catholic Church. He loved the Catholic Church. He 

wanted to get back to what was being taught at the time of Christ. The next several 

years were not a good experience for Martin Luther. He would not back off from is 

questions.

Next date you need to write is 1523. In 1523, Martin Luther was excommunicated 

from the church and the church put out a proclamation, saying, “We will not consider 

it murder to kill Martin Luther.” They put out a papal hit on Martin Luther. He had 

to go into hiding. He was protected by a group of wealthy German princes. The 

German princes, quite frankly, I don’t believe were particularly interested in his 

theology, but they were not interested in paying tribute to Rome any more. And so 

they created a church. Finally they talked Martin Luther into heading that church. He 

didn’t want to at first, but when they started trying to kill him, he decided he would. 

He became the head of the Lutheran Church. Brothers and sisters, if there is a people 

on the planet today that have a testimony of the Apostasy, it’s the Lutheran Church. 

That’s why they exist. They have documented it very carefully.

The next date you need to write is 1534. In 1534, King Henry VIII in England had a 

problem with his wife. He wanted to unload her. And so he went to the pope and 

said, “I want to divorce my wife.” The pope said, “You can’t do that. There is no 

divorce in the church.” He looked over at Germany and said, “You know, Luther’s 

doing all right. I think I’ll create my own thing.” And so he created the Church of 

England and it breaks from the Catholic Church. Was that a popular decision in 

England? Really wasn’t. Many wars resulted. Ugly, terrible battles as a result of that 

decision. He was able then to get rid of his wife. No revelation. No saying, “I talked 

to somebody in heaven.” But he said, “I want to get rid of my wife.” A church starts. 

What church in America today is the Church of England? The Episcopal Church.

The next date you need to write is 1540. I’m just mentioning a couple of the major 

reformers. By the way, go back to 1515 – the Reformation starts. There had been 

some earlier reformers but the major beginning of the Reformation really goes 

through Martin Luther. The reformation begins. 1540. Man by the name of John 

Calvin in Switzerland and France starts an organization called the Huguenots. He was

a disciple of Martin Luther. Didn’t agree with everything that Luther was doing, but 

he said, “I think he’s on the right track. Something’s wrong.” The Huguenots begin. 

Presbyterians in America today.

Next date is 1560. 1560 in England, John Knox. John Knox, a disciple of both 

Calvin and Luther, says “You know, I think they’re on the right track but they’re not 

totally on the right track. Think I’ll start my own thing.” And the Puritans begin.

The next date you need to write is 1575. 1575, an event took place in Paris, France, 

called Bartholomew Day. This was not an isolated incident, but I plug this in here to 

give you an idea as to how the Reformation was being received in Europe. 

Bartholomew Day, a pogrom took place in Paris, France. The Catholics rose up and 

destroyed every Protestant they could find. There was a bloodbath in Paris. 

Bartholomew Day. The Reformation was not a popular movement.

The next date you need to write is 1620, not too many years later. What happened in 

1620? The Puritans come to America. Fed up now with the lack of the freedoms that 

they wanted, they came to America. 1620, a nation is invented. It was discovered by 

Columbus. It was invented by the Puritans. The United States of America has its 

humble beginnings. Between 1620 and 1776, a nation is born.

The next date you need to write is 1776. 1776, we’d had enough. We wrote a letter 

to King George. It said something like this: “We’re tired of your taxes. We don’t 

like your troops over here. In fact, we don’t like you. Will you take them home. 

We’re going to be our own thing.” Now that paraphrases the Declaration of 

Independence a little bit, but that’s basically what it said.

An ugly war began. George was not very excited about that and for the next six years, 

a war. The Revolution. For some, miracle. May I suggest to you, having done a 

military study of the Revolution, there is no way that war could have been won 

without the direct intervention of God. I believe that with all my heart.

1781’s the next date you need to write. The war ends.

1785 is the next date. A meeting begins in Philadelphia. They discover the Articles 

of Confederation are not working. We need another document. It took two more 

years, until 1787, to finish the Constitution. For the first time, in the incorporating 

papers of any nation on the planet, a guarantee of the freedom of religion was written 

into the constitution. 1787, it is signed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

The next date you need to write is 1805. How many years between 1787 and 1805? 

Not very many. Who was born in 1805? Joseph Smith. Now, maybe – maybe – the 

Church can survive again on the planet. The Prophet is born in upstate New York.

The next date you need to write is 1812. A significant war was fought in 1812. What 

was the name of that war? That’s good. The War of 1812. That’s a significant war. 

Why? This time, we beat the British with some definite win. We had our own navy 

now. The USS Constitution had been commissioned in 1797. We had a major win. 

They came up the Potomac River, levelled the White House, we didn’t like that very 

much and we won soundly this time. We threw them off and we said, “No one will 

ever fight a war against us again on our own land.” That was the last war fought with 

an external force on American soil. We had a little family trouble in 1860, but that 

was internal. Last war with an external force.

Next date you need to write is 1820. What happened in 1820? Joseph Smith, the boy 

prophet, goes into a grove of trees, wanting to know: “Something’s wrong. There are

a lot of people teaching different things. What church should I join?” And the Lord 

and Jesus Christ appear to him and the Restoration begins.

The next date you need to write is 1830. 1830, the Church is formally established on 

the earth. You might be interested to know that in 1830, in Washington, DC, the 

patent office, the US Patent Office, was closed. You can read in the congressional 

record for that year, “We’ve decided to close the patent office because everything has 

been invented that could possibly be invented.” 1830. It’s been opened since. More 

progress on this planet since 1830, brothers and sisters, than in all 5,000 years past.

Now I’m going to ask you a question. Why was the gospel restored in 1820? Why 

didn’t the Lord appear to a young man in a grove of trees in Europe in 1512? If 

Martin Luther had come out of a grove of trees and said, “I just talked to God and 

Jesus Christ and you know that they said? We’re all messed up.” How long would he 

have survived? Twenty minutes, maybe? Not very long. I would suggest to you, 

brothers and sisters, that the reason the Lord restored the Church in 1820 is because 

that is the only time that it could possibly have survived on the planet. And it almost

didn’t survive then. Was there religious freedom in America in 1830? No. Was 

Joseph Smith welcomed with “You talked to God and Christ? Boy, that’s exciting. 

Tell us what they had to say.” No, they weren’t excited about that. Ultimately, they 

had to leave the confines of the United States and come to a God-forsaken place 

called Salt Lake City to survive. Brigham Young did not say “This is the place.” He 

said, “This is the place?” No, that’s a joke. That’s a joke. That’s a joke. They had to 

come out here to survive.

There is another date we need to write in your notes. The date you need to 

superimpose, you need to go back to 1817 and write in the birth of another person 

over in Europe. A man by the name of Karl Marx. You know who Karl Marx was, I 

trust. Is there any coincidence that the opposition raised up its leader the same time 

the Lord raised up His? I don’t think there was a coincidence. Who’s winning? How 

many LDS people are there today? Six million. How many active? 6500 – no. Six 

million, or seven million. There are 700,000,000 communists. Is there a work for us 

to do?

Brothers and sisters, I would like to suggest to you today that the gospel of Jesus 

Christ was restored in 1820 because that’s the only time it could have survived. There 

is a more pointed question that needs to be asked. Why were you born when you 

were born? Why weren’t you born in 911, or 1215? Is it because some computer in 

the cosmos blipped and you came out now? I don’t buy that. I believe you were born 

in this dispensation, with the gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth today, because you 

were somebody before you got here. If you had any idea of who you were before you 

got here, the hair would stand up on the back of your neck. Joseph Smith said on one

occasion, “If I were to tell you who I am, you’d slay me for blasphemy.” Wisely 

never told anybody who he was, but he knew.

On one occasion

, President McKay, president of the Church, several years before his 

death, on a Sunday evening, didn’t have anything to do, so he took his wife, said 

“Let’s go to a fireside.” They went down to a stake center. There were lots of cars in 

the parking lot so he walks in and their stake president was speaking to a group of 

young people your age. Eight hundred of them. President McKay and his wife

walked in. The stake president about swallowed his tie. Walked down to about the 

eighth row. He said, “Don’t get excited. I want to hear what you have to say.” The 

president continued with his talk. About halfway through his talk, he stopped and 

said, “You know, young people, I feel impressed to tell you that before the world was, 

before the world was, in that war in heaven, each of you in this room served as 

captains and generals in the Lord’s army.” And then he went on with his talk. It had 

nothing to do with what he was talking about. As he finished his talk, he looked 

down at President McKay and noticed President McKay was drilling him with his 

eyes. His heart stopped. He sat down and thought, “Boy, what have I said?” The 

closing prayer ended. He jumped up and ran down to President McKay. Looked up 

to President McKay – everybody looked up to President McKay, he’s a great big guy 

– and he said, “You know, President McKay, I got a little carried away in my talk 

tonight. Did I say anything that was inappropriate?” He said, “No, you didn’t say 

anything that was inappropriate, you were just inaccurate.” “Well, what did I say?” 

He said, “There were no captains here tonight. They were all generals.” And he said, 

“Don’t you ever forget it.” And he turned around and walked out.

I have a testimony of that, brothers and sisters. If you were to know who you were 

before you got here, it would scare you. You know what that means? It means we 

don’t have the right to do all the dumb stuff a lot of the other young people in the 

world are doing, fooling around with drugs and alcohol and premarital sex and all that 

dumb stuff. We don’t have the right. Why? Because we know too much. Why? 

Because we’re here because we were somebody before we came here and the Lord 

has sent us here to accomplish some great task. And that task is to take now and 

export the reality of the fact that the gospel has been restored. No one between 96 and 

1820 could authoritatively say “Thus saith the Lord.” Now we can. Why? Because 

there is a man on the planet today that can say “‘Thus saith the Lord’ because I speak 

with him.”

I want to bear my testimony to you, brothers and sisters, that that is a fact. That is a 

fact, and we have the opportunity of basking in that light. The priesthood of God is 

back on the earth, the same power by which the universe was created, and the only 

thing which limits our ability to exercise that power is the sanctity of our lives. May I 

plead with you to keep your lives right. Pure. Holy. Live up to the expectations that 

were sent with you when you got here. I bear that witness in the name of Jesus Christ, 

amen.