Posted on 04/06/2008 5:27:22 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Local and state officials entered the temple of a secretive polygamist sect late Saturday, said lawmen blockading the road to the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado.
The action comes hours after local prosecutors said officials were preparing for the worst because a group of FLDS members were resisting efforts to search the structure.
The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper and Schleicher County sheriff’s deputy confirmed that officials have entered the temple but said they had no word on whether anything occurred in the effort.
The incursion into the temple caps the three-day saga of the state’s Child Protective Services agency removing at least 183 women and children from the YFZ Ranch since Friday afternoon. Eighteen girls have been placed in state custody since a 16-year-old told authorities she was married to a 50-year-old man and had given birth to his child.
Saturday evening, ambulances were brought in, said Allison Palmer, who as first assistant 51st District attorney, would prosecute any felony crimes uncovered as part of the investigation inside the compound.
“In preparing for entry to the temple, law enforcement is preparing for the worst,” Palmer said Saturday evening. They want to have “medical personnel on hand in case this were to go in a way that no one wants.”
Apparently as a result of action Saturday night at the ranch, about 10:15 p.m. Saturday, a Schleicher County school bus unloaded another group of at least a dozen more women and children from the compound.
Although members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, have provided varying degrees of cooperation to the sheriff’s deputies and Texas Rangers searching the compound, all cooperation stopped once authorities tried to search the gleaming white temple that towers over the West Texas scrub, Palmer said.
“There may be those who would oppose (entry) by placing themselves between law enforcement and the place of worship,” Palmer said Saturday afternoon. “If an agreement cannot be reached … law enforcement will have to — as gently and peaceably as possible — make entry into that place.”
Sect members consider the temple, dedicated by then-leader of the sect Warren Jeffs in January 2005 and finished many months later, off-limits to those who are not FLDS members, said Palmer, who prosecutes felony cases in Schleicher County.
Palmer said she didn’t know the size or makeup of the group inside the temple.
The earlier refusal to provide access was even more disconcerting because CPS investigators have yet to identify the 16-year-old girl or her roughly 8-month-old baby among the dozens removed from the compound, Palmer said.
“Anytime someone says, ‘Don’t look here,’” she said, “it makes you concerned that’s exactly where you need to look.”
The girl told authorities in two separate phone calls a day apart that she was married to a 50-year-old man, Dale Barlow, who had fathered her child, Palmer said.
The joint raid included the Texas Rangers, CPS, Schleicher County and Tom Green County sheriff’s deputies and game wardens from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Although CPS and Department of Public Safety officials have described the compound’s residents as cooperative, Palmer disagreed.
“Things have been a little tense, a little volatile,” she said.
Authorities removed 52 children Friday afternoon and 131 women and children overnight Friday. About 40 of the children are boys, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
No further children have been taken into state custody since Friday, when 18 girls were judged to have been abused or be at imminent risk for abuse. CPS has found foster homes for the girls, Meisner said, and will place them after concluding its investigation.
Meisner declined to comment on the fate of the 119 other children and said authorities were still searching the ranch for others Saturday evening.
“They’re in the process of looking,” she said. “They’re literally about halfway through.”
He will indeed come in glory as he left those men in Galilee. In the meantime, he leads and guides the affairs of His kingdom on earth, and will return to Jerusalem one day to stand on Olivet and redeem Israel.
No you didn’t. Who are those whom you consider living prophets of God. I know you you consider false ones, but who are the real ones?
Now you're catching on.
Find this verse and be enlightened.
“...that they may be one, even as we are one:”
Do you see any of us on these threads DEFENDING polygamy? Do you see any of us claiming that Martin Luther is a "prophet" who was spoken to by God/God and Jesus, depending on which vision you are quoting? Where is the evidence that Martin Luther himself was a polygamist? Do you have any proof that Martin Luther claimed that polygamy was DOCTRINE as shown here:
“... if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouses the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then he is justified.”
- Doctrine and Covenants, Section 132, verse 61
"And if Joseph Smith have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore he is justified for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified."
- Doctrine and Covenants 132:62-63
The D&C is STILL doctrine, is it not?
Lastly, let's see where Martin Luther related a comparable experience to this: "The same God that has thus far dictated me and directed me and strengthened me in this work, gave me this revelation and commandment on celestial and plural marriage, and the same God commanded me to obey it. He said to me that unless I accepted it, and introduced it, and practiced it, I, together with my people would be damned and cut off from this time henceforth. We have got to observe it. It is an eternal principle and was given by way of commandment and not by way of instruction." - Prophet Joseph Smith, Contributor, Vol. 5, p. 259
Nice attempt at a red herring, but it falls flat.
You might want to offer your explanation for that verse since you never liked mine. My explanation reverts to other scripture in the New Testament, specifically in John 14, Philip’s Physics lesson.
Depends on if, 2000 years ago, he said all that was necessary to say. Any questions one might come up with, even today, can be found in the words he has already given us in the Bible. Who are we to demand that he continue to answer the same questions, over and over, just because we rephrase them and are too dense to recognize the answers he has already given?
If you want to speak of “patterns” then one would have to ask, “Why does not God speak to mankind nearly daily, in an actual voice that all can hear resounding in the skies, since that was the pattern throughout the first part of Genesis?”
To expect God to speak to us on OUR time schedule is hubris and pride. Might it not also be that the reason God no longer speaks to us like that is because he has already stated all that needs to be said, and is now testing us to see how we will hold to our faith? If you require that he speak on a regular basis, then that is a test that you would fail.
Now Foxy, you know when the adultery of Joe Smith is brought up the mormonism apologists claim Joe never had sex with those married women he ‘married’ while they were still married to living other men. Don’t push them into lying for the lord don’tchaknow.
Does this mean you are not willing to answer my questions?
Ahhh. well you did not originally ask who I think are “living” prophets. But I still answered that. Those who give prophesies which are not in contradiction to the Bible... that holds true for all prophets, living or dead. As for “Living” prophets, walking the Earth now... who says there ARE any?
We believe in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost they are one in mind!
Roman 15
6 That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
No, it means I will not ‘contend’ with you ... I have no need to ‘win’ some obtuse argument. The topic is something you appear to disdain so I will remain mute on it, on your behalf.
Yeah, too true. It is like saying “Jimmy never lies, and if you do not believe it, just ask him.”
I am not just now catching on, I recognize circular logic when I see it. It is just rather amazing that people can be so foolish enough to use it and believe it. Leaves one breathless with disbelief.
First time I ever saw Martin Luther used to defend polygamy....how 'bout you? Who d'ya think will be next?
We've seen some pretty incredible claims in the past months, haven't we?
Revelation is not the last book written it was just placed as the last book in the Bible.
Oh, I see. You'll go toe to toe all day long with Mormons and challenge every jot and tittle of their peculiar beliefs, but you are not willing to stand toe to toe with a fellow Christian and publicly defend your own? I dare say that is rather hypocritical, don't you think?
The topic is something you appear to disdain so I will remain mute on it, on your behalf.
Don't do me any favors. Just be willing to give unto every man an answer. If you are not willing, then I suggest you not engage in debate on these threads.
The only thing I recall the bible mentioning about prophets after Christ was in Revelations, where it speaks of false prophets.
****
Rev. 14
6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Indeed. The muslims need not worry about their mosques being searched or having their child brides taken from them because the authorities are seeeeennnnnnsitive to their feeelings.
Congrats on a 1,000 reply post - that’s a landmark around here!
I did not say it was, in fact, I often read other books which were not included in the official Canon of the Bible. However, those which are contradictory to the words of the Old Testament, or to the words of Christ himself, I do not recognize as being the word of God. And there are things in the B.O.M. which I believe DO contradict the words of Christ and the prophets which he specifically told us were true.
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