"The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ Is the Body ... with Whom the Authority Rests!"

By J. W. Nanny

During the prophetic leadership of Joseph Smith III, J. W. Nanny became concerned about which church was God's true one. After prayer he received a vision which answered his question.

Shortly after this I got quite a bundle of tracts and a little paper entitled The Return, which made some very strange claims. Also quite an assortment of tracts and papers from Utah claiming legal succession for that body [the LDS Church], and there was a Mr. Collins representing the Church of Christ [Temple Lot] which are Hedrickites, claiming they were the true Church. Now, I had asked for the divinity of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and now comes three other bodies claiming to be that Church.

The same argument that convinced me that the sects were wrong was evidence that but one of these factions could be right, so I decided to put James 1:5 to the test. I sought the Lord in prayer and continued to read everything they sent me and compare it with the Scriptures, knowing that God alone could give me light—till one day in the latter part of February I was chopping wood out of dead trees in a cotton field; being alone I was in silent prayer. I had felled a tree and sat down beside it to rest, leaning back against the log as it lay across the cotton rows. As I sat there in silent meditation I was impressed to look up, and to the northwest I saw a personage approaching me clothed in a white flowing robe. He stopped directly in front of me, and about ten feet away, and beckoning me said, "Come hither."

I immediately left my body and started with my guide, and we seemed to go many miles till we came to an exceeding high mountain which was very beautiful. For the first time since we started, my guide spoke and said, "What desirest thou?"

I answered, "Oh, my Lord, if I have found favor in thy sight, shew unto thy servant where is thine authority and upon whom it rests, and where is the true Church of Jesus Christ."

He said, "As thou hast been faithful before the Lord, and sought him in humble prayer, these things shall be made known unto thee; therefore, I say unto thee, look."

I looked and he said, "What seest thou?"

I replied, "Oh, my Lord, my reins are consumed within me, for I see an old man with full, long white beard and gray hair crowned with a radiant light and hedged about with a structure mighty and strong, which all the powers of earth and hell cannot overthrow."

He then said to me, "Knowest thou the meaning of these things?"

I said, "Be merciful unto me, oh, Lord, and declare them unto thy servant, for I know not their meaning."

He said, "The old man that thou seest is the servant and prophet of the most high God, Joseph Smith [III], the son of Joseph Smith that was slain for his testimony, and the light that crowns his head is the Spirit of revelation by which the Saints of all ages are led; and the structure thou seest is the truth, the rock on which the Church is built, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ is the body, the bride, the Lamb's wife, with whom the authority rests."

I would have kneeled down and thanked or worshiped him, but he said, "Do it not, but return unto thy body and do the work that is in store for thee." He spoke also many other words unto me which have given me strength thus far and will help me to anchor in the port when the Lord of Glory calls (Zion's Ensign, July 11, 1912; Alvin Knisley, Infallible Proofs, [Independence, Missouri: Herald Publishing House, 1930],pp. 182–184; italics added).