So everyone who lived before J Smith unburied and translated those golden tablets are of the church of the devil? 1800 years is a long time to let something that serious go.
Yes, nice pick up, Metmom...And, yes, Elsie, ever on the ball as you are in citing the relevant LDS "Scripture" as you did on post #212 w/ 1 Nephi 14:10 from the Book of Mormon: 10 And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.
Non-LDS & LDS need to really pay attention to this verse & how the LDS general authorities have interpreted it.
I can't tell you how many "not-so-apologetics oriented"--"nice"--"befriending" LDS FREEPERS who will wander thru or lurk in these posts have yet to take in the full implication of this verse.
They think, "Why are folks always pickin' on us poor LDS?" "What have we done to them?" "We never publish broadsides against other churches so why are we always the target?"
Yet they fail to comprehend the broadside that this one verse constitutes against the entire Protestant & Catholic & Orthodox churches! If the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that they were but one church among many, I wonder what the response would be? But the LDS have never left that option open.
And so, Joseph Smith narrows it down for us: Only two churches. Smith and his followers say the LDS church is the "Church of the Lamb." All other "churches," say LDS and its general authorities, are really only one church: "the church of the devil."
You see, Protestants, Catholics & Orthodox. You really didn't comprehend that all true believing Mormons deem you as "Satanic," now did you? According to 1 Nephi 14:10, all non-LDS church members are Satan worshippers...and yes, Metmom, as you picked up, that goes back some 1500 years or so.
Jesus prophesied, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against my church." Well, according to Mormon beliefs, yes, it did prevail against his church for 1500 years.
The irony here is overall LDS "lamb" theology...the book of Revelation describes a marriage between the "Lamb, Jesus Christ" and the Bride, His Church. (Funny, I don't hear LDS talk about any such marriage...too preoccupied with alleged eternal marriages to their own spouses--and for past LDS--marriages to multiple spouses...to pay attention to those Scriptures).
All in all, that's quite a gap: The Lamb refers to the Church as His bride (and the latter-day saints find any such perspective as foreign & alien to their notions)...yet the supposed "one true" church on earth describes the Bride as Satanic.