On October 8th, 1854 Brigham Young delivered a conference discourse in Salt Lake City. After making several preliminary remarks to the congregation he said,

“I think these preliminaries will satisfy me, and I feel prepared to take my text: it is the words of Jesus Christ, but where they are in the Bible I cannot tell you now, for I have not taken pains to look at them. I have had so much to do, that I have not read the Bible for many years. I used to be a bible student; I used to read and study it, but did not understand the spirit and meaning of it…. My clerks know how much time I have to read. It is difficult for me to snatch time enough even to eat my breakfast and supper, to say nothing of reading.”

Brigham Young then launched into what future LDS Prophet and President Wilford Woodruff described as “the greatest sermon that ever was delivered to the Latter-day Saints.” What follows are some bullet points and quotes from this Brigham Young conference discourse.

• God the father differs from human beings only in that he is immortal and incorruptible (conversely, humans are mortal and corruptible).
• God the father is the father of our flesh, “he being the founder of that natural machinery through which we have all obtained our bodies.”
• God the father has a grandfather and a great-grandfather.
• There are very many who have attained to the position of Gods, who are “gathering around them thrones,” and who have the power to “organize elements and make worlds.”
• Worlds are “from eternity to eternity…have always been in progress, and eternally will be.”
• Every world has an Adam and an Eve, and a first-born son who, if faithful, will be the Savior.
• Adam was made of the dust from a different earth than the one upon which we live.
• Adam is the father of our spirits. He lived and died on another earth with his wives and, because of his faithfulness and priesthood, he was resurrected (by someone who had already been resurrected) to immortality and eternal life.
• “…Father Adam was a resurrected being with his wives and posterity, and in the Celestial Kingdom they were crowned with glory, immortality and eternal lives, with thrones, principalities and powers, and it was said to him, ‘It is your right to organize the elements, and to your creations and posterity there shall be no end, but you shall add kingdom to kingdom and throne to throne, and still behold the vast eternity of unorganized matter.’ Adam, then, was a resurrected being. And I reckon our spirits and the spirits of all the human family were begotten by Adam and born of Eve. ‘How are we going to know this?’ I reckon it. And I reckon that Adam came into the Garden of Eden and did actually eat of the fruit that he, himself, planted.”
• “I tell you, when you see your father in the heavens you will see Adam; when you see your mother that bore your spirit you will see Mother Eve”
• “Hear it all ye ends of the earth: if ever you enter into the Kingdom of God it is because Joseph Smith let you go there. …No man or woman in this generation will get a resurrection and be crowned without Joseph Smith says so.”

These teachings of Brigham Young are not found in, or supported by, the Biblical text. Promoting unbiblical doctrines — heresy — is what happens when a spiritual leader can find no time to read and study the Word of God.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God pronounced a stern warning: “If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20, KJV). Brigham Young apparently missed (or forgot) that truth. Now that you know it, what will you do with it?

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Find a transcript of Brigham Young’s discourse at Brigham Young Addresses – Vol. 2, pages 130-146 (transcript pages [224] – [237]).