Let’s examine these dates of significance in light of the above quotes.
1820 – The Mormon Church’s official date when Joseph Smith supposedly had his first vision. He was 14. His vision was a visit of the Father and Son together, separate, standing in the air, talking to him.
1829 - The Book of Mormon is published.
1829 – Joseph Smith enters the priesthood when he and Oliver Cowdery are visited, this time by James, Peter and John.
1830 – The Mormon Church is established.
1832 – Joseph Smith gives prophecy that no man can see the face of God without being in the priesthood. So how did he see the Father in 1820 when, by his own admission, he was not in the priesthood? Or is the “Priesthood” prophesy false? Which is it?
1834 – Oliver Cowdery, assisted by Joseph Smith, recounts in the Messenger and Advocate, published in Sept. 1834, that the first vision actually came in 1823. Joseph Smith would have been 17 instead of 14 as told by the church.
1842* – Joseph Smith publishes his ‘official’ account of his first vision in the publication Times and Seasons.
1844 – Brigham Young takes over control of the Mormom Church after the murder of Joseph Smith. Young had 363 sermons published in the inspired Journal of Discourses. Never once does he mention the first vision upon which the foundation of the church is set.
1820-1850 - Numerous publications describe the first vision as Joseph being visited by the angel, Moroni.
1851 - Mormon publication of the first edition of the Pearl of Great Price reveals it was actually the angel, Nephi, that Joseph Smith actually saw in 1820, contrary to all other Mormon publications that previously said it was Moroni. This is quite troubling. Was is it God the Father and Son, the angel Moroni or the Angel Nephi? And how did we get from two visitors to one?
1853 – Joseph Smith’s mother, after Smith’s death, wrote in her biographical Sketches, confirming it was, Nephi, that Joseph Smith saw.
The book of Mormon is published in 1830, 10 years after the so-called First Vision, yet the 1820 vision upon which the Church if founded is not officially given until 1842?
Only one conclusion can be drawn from these events, which are backed up by facts and reliable sources including the Mormon Church’s own historical records, and that is that Joseph Smith was a false prophet, money-digger and lying manipulator of people of the worst kind. Please, do not put your trust and eternity into the hands of Joseph Smith. Jesus Christ said, “I am the truth, the way and the life, no man goes to the Father but by way of the Son.” Jesus is all you need. No church, belief in no prophet is required.
Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you’ll be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43). Instant, FULL Salvation! No works, no church, no baptism, nothing but faith.6 The Greek word for “paradise,” that Jesus uses in Luke 23:43, is paradeisos, the same word in the Greek that Paul uses in 2 Cor. 12:4 to describe the third heaven that Mormons use to explain the “three degrees of glory” doctrine. Paul says in 2 Cor. 12:2-4:
I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth

such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth

How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
You can see that Paul refers to the third heaven as “paradise.” Closer examination of the word, paradeisos, the same word that Jesus said to the thief. How can you reconcile this, my Mormon friends? This passage clearly contradicts Mormon teachings about heaven and how to get there. Paul goes on in the passage to reveal that it was himself who was caught up into paradise, the third heaven, where Jesus took the saved thief.
Even if one was to put the “three degrees of glory” doctrine aside, the thief is still a problem for Mormon apologists. There simply is not enough exegesis (reading out of the bible) to explain the Mormon position that the thief, a lying cheat and swindler who lived a life of reprobate, could never be in the third heaven with Jesus. By the Mormon Church’s own doctrine and admission, you need to be a member of the “true church,” their church, be baptized and married and having performed many works (how many?…no Mormon for nearly 200 years can tell you), in order to go to the third heaven after you die. Yet, here we see Jesus and Paul, clearly describing the same heaven in the bible’s original language, paradeisos (meaning no misinterpretations here), the same heaven that will have the thief there. You see my Mormon friends, there is but one way to heaven, and that is Jesus. Confess your sins to Him, pray to Him, read His word, the holy bible, and KNOW you are saved (1 John 5:13).
* Note: 22 years went by before Joseph Smith published his account of the first vision upon which, according to McKay, “is the foundation of the church.” If it was so significant, why did it not appear in the Book of Mormon?
Footnotes
1. History of Joseph Smith, Jr., by himself, in Joseph Smith’s Letter Book at Kirtland, November 27, 1832 to August 4, 1835 (Church Historian’s Library, Salt Lake City, Utah).
2. History of the Prophet Joseph, Improvement Era, vol. 5, p. 257.
3. No Man Knows My History, The Life of Joseph Smith. 1971, 1973. New York. p. 18
4. God’s Word, Final, Infallible and Forever. 1985. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 24
5. Book of Mormon, title page.
6. God’s Word, Final, Infallible and Forever. 1985. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 162
http://lifeafterministry.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/will-the-real-joseph-smith-please-stand-up/