Posted on 04/25/2010 3:15:31 AM PDT by GonzoII
I’m sure one of these fine fellows would be willing to toss your salad for you.
I would rather have them decorated my bathrooms.
Normandy,
Your lack of logic is telling.
James 1:5 does not tell us to pray about whether God’s Word, the Bible is true.
James does not tell us to pray about ANYTHING that God has already said.
James does not tell us to pray about whether Joseph Smith was a prophet - God already gives us explicit instructions as to how to know.
James does not tell us to pray about whether other religious writings are equal to the Bible - in fact, none can be. The Church has already codified the canon of Scripture more than a thousand years ago.
James does not tell us to pray about what the Gospel is - it is recorded in Scripture and Paul specifies what it is. He also tells us that if an angel brings a new Gospel, let him be accursed! That means Moroni is to be accursed. He also says if anyone brings a different Gospel, let them be accursed. Joseph Smith is cursed. Don’t need to pray about
any of that.
When you go against what God has revealed in the Bible by
the Holy Spirit, who inspired Scripture, DON’T BLAME THE HOLY SPIRIT when you ignore it!
ampu
Yeah, but you'd have to spray it down with plenty of bleach afterwards.
Hi William,
I do understand that there are false spirits that can deceive so of course we must be careful in what we accept as truth. I can assure you that I have taken great pains to make sure that I have not been deceived in my religious faith — the most important part of anyone’s life in my estimation.
In the last chapter of the Book of Mormon a test presented to the reader of the book whereby he or she may know of its truthfulness:
“Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder them in your hearts.
“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
“And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moroni 10:3-5)
I took this test to heart and did as Moroni exhorted, praying in faith to God, my Father, in the name of Jesus Christ asking him to manifest the truth of the Book of Mormon to me by the power of the Holy Ghost — and I received that confirmation in an unmistakable way.
My account is certainly not unique. There are countless accounts from others in the LDS church who have followed the same pattern, and who have received the same answer.
I don’t believe that if someone with “a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ” prays to God the Eternal Father in the name of Jesus Christ will receive a revelation from the devil.
I would add that I don’t find the Book of Mormon to be in conflict with the Bible. To me it’s not either/or - it’s both. Both are testaments of Jesus Christ and they run together.
A favorite passage of mine in the Book of Mormon explains it like this:
2 Nephi 29: 10. Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written.
11 For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them; for out of the books which shall be written I will judge the world, every man according to their works, according to that which is written.
12 For behold, I shall speak unto the Jews and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the Nephites and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it.
13 And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews.
Best regards,
Normandy
Yes, but don’t you see, my friend, that, despite your sincerity, you’ve set yourself up for deception by appying the test of truth that is in question to begin with.
Let’s say I walk up to you and say, “Hi, I’m God.”
You’d naturally be inclined to ask, “Why should i believe you?”
“Because God wouldn’t lie.”
That’s what you’ve done by using the Book of Mormon’s own test as a means of verifying itself. You’ve assumed the legitimacy of it already when you apply the test it’s given you. It’s called circular reasoning, i.e., presupposing the conclusion.
Remember, even Jesus said that if he alone testified of himself, there was no reason to believe him.
“I would add that I don’t find the Book of Mormon to be in conflict with the Bible. To me it’s not either/or - it’s both. Both are testaments of Jesus Christ and they run together.”
No wonder! You asked God to tell you the truth of something
He has already condemned. Instead of going to the Bible,
like the Bereans, to see what God has already said, you
opened yourself to familiar spirits - deceiving spirits -
and they gave you an answer and a feeling.
NONE of that can do away with the falsehoods of
mormonism that contradict the Gospel of Christ.
In the final judgment, none of your feelings will count
for squat.
God may simply ask you, “Why didn’t you listen to what
I said, instead of opening yourself to deception by Satan
and his workers?”
Your answer may be, “BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS YOU!”
And He will likely tell you ... “If you knew I was a truth-
telling God, why didn’t you read what I said and believe it,
instead of going to the familiar spirits who contradicted
My truth? Depart from me. I never knew you.”
And your thoughts may come back to Free Republic,
where you were warned patiently, directly, repeatedly.
And you may say to yourself, “I insisted on my feelings
as the basis of truth, instead of listening to God’s
objective truth.”
and I will be sad for you.
best,
ampu
William, the thing is that we don’t ask people to believe the Book of Mormon to be true just because it says it is true.
I don’t think the test is an illogical one, or a circular one — if the book claims to be of God, why not ask God if that is really the case? In asking God, you are going to an external source for knowledge, the most trustworthy source that there is.
In addition, there is another proof system for the Book of Mormon, that of witnesses.
Three men, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris and David Whitmer, testified until their deaths that an angel of God had shown them the plates, and they had heard the voice of God commanding them that they should bear record of it. These men all at some point in their lives became disaffected with the LDS Church and Joseph Smith (two were later rebaptised), but none ever denied their testimony which is found at the beginning of each copy of the Book of Mormon. (The full testimony can be read here: http://scriptures.lds.org/bm/thrwtnss)
,-)
And if you believe that urroner - then there is no reason for a RESTORATION, since Christianity never became completely apostate.
If you had those two decorate your bathroom, would you ever feel comfortable sitting upon the seat?
Why not ask God if that is really the case? Because he has already provided you with far more information than you could ever require in the Bible. And that’s on top of the heaps and heaps of archeological evidence for the Bible. There is no such evidence for the BoM. None. Zero. Recently some missionaries visited me and when I asked them about such evidence they said, “More and more every day,” yet couldn’t offer a single example. Do you honestly think that if such evidence existed, a basic rundown of it wouldn’t be part of every young missionary’s basic training? After all, it would be some very persuasive material.
Frankly, the issue isn’t really even with the Book of Mormon. As you correctly point out, there’s not that much in the BoM that contradicts the Bible (apart from assorted errors such as Jesus’ birthplace), which is not so unusual given the amount of plagiarism from the Bible that exists in it (easily proven).
However, by assigning the Book of Mormon scriptural authority, you are simultaneously handing that authority over to Joseph Smith as a prophet. This is where the real peril comes, because once you believe he speaks for God, he can teach all manner of unscriptural things and you will be expected to embrace them. In fact, this is exactly what happened with the LDS doctrines that followed the BoM. The warning of Galatians to not believe even an angel out of heaven if he showed up with a different gospel was forgotten.
As for the witnesses you speak of, wherein lies their credibility? Aside from later modifying their testimonies to saying that they saw the golden plates with the “eye of faith,” pretty much all of the primary “witnesses” nevertheless left the church (Martin Harris changed his faith about eight times, as I recall), and in numerous cases, Smith himself cursed them and pronounced them as villains.
The fact that they never specifically renounced their testimony of the BoM is hardly persuasive. First of all, they were hardly put in the position of martyrs and made to choose. Unless they finally entrusted their lives to the authentic Jesus Christ, I don’t see them being convicted enough to confess. “And by the way folks, I helped put over one of the biggest frauds you’ve ever heard of not long ago.” Of course, it may simply be that they were duped and ashamed of how easily they had been led astray. Not something most people like to call attention to (I don’t apply this to Cowdery, however. He was too shrewd, and clearly knew what was what).
Aside from that, I will easily call three men liars if their testimonies endorse another gospel that leads men away from Christ. (”Let God be true and every man a liar.”) The problem is that, in order to embrace the teachings of the LDS, you have to call God a liar, or at the very least fickle or even simpleminded (”No God was created before me, neither shall there be after me. If there is another, I know him not”), as once you get into the “meatier” LDS doctrines, there is simply no way to reconcile them with the Bible. It is no wonder the primary emphasis is on the LDS standard works at the expense of the Bible.
So again, whether it be the test that the Book of Mormon offers for itself, or the testimony of three, twelve, or 100,000 witnesses, if those testimonies do not line up with the revealed word of God, then they cannot, and should not, be trusted.
You see, no feeling I ever get will undo Smith’s fraudulent translating of the Book of Abraham, or the Kinderhook plates. And no feeling will ever manufacture archeological evidence to support the stories of the BoM. No feeling will erase the evidence of Smith’s plagiarism of the Bible (including the use of italics where none existed in ancient manuscripts but did in the King James) or the mistakes found in it. The list goes on and on and on.
As mentioned before, God expects us to love Him with all of our minds, among other things. Our minds and gifts of reason we received for him are not to be dismissed. When you pray to know whether something is true in the face of overwhelming evidence against it, within the Bible and from other resources, how does that not insult God?
The fact that you receive what you think is confirmation means nothing if God is staying silent on the subject. The devil isn’t interested in playing by your rules, so he would be only too happy to provide you with any form of confirmation he can if you have put aside the means God has provided to determine truth. Remember, we are told to pray for wisdom, not specific knowledge.
I was thinking more of these guys picking out towels and colors. ,-)
determined to ignore any refutations to their chosen belief.
—
People do come out though.
Man. I really regret getting so curious that I back-tracked this up-thread to the picture. I hope I can expunge the image from my consciousness. LoL
Norm, Mormons take a promise from James 1:5 given to believers and shotgun it across the board with no discretion as to whom they are addressing it to.
James 1:5-6: 5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.
First of all the reason why God finds no fault with people who believe minus doubt, is because Christ's blood has covered that fault; and like the people of the Old Testament who had faith enough to place the blood on their doorpost during passover, not doubting that death would pass them over, it involved faith in the blood.
Non-believers do not have faith in His blood. How do we further know this was written to a very specific audience? James 1:2-3:
2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
James makes very clear he is speaking to "brothers...of...faith"; he doesn't use James 1:5 as some fishing expedition in trying to "catch" whatever he can on the open sea.
It would be simply ludicrous for James to tell an unbeliever to count all his trials as "pure joy"...yet if Mormons wrestled James 1:2 out of context just like they do James 1:5, 52,000 Lds missionaries would go around telling the non-Christian world to "count it all pure joy" about all their trials and tribulations!!!
The twisting of context would be tantamount to what a Mormon leader spoke specifically to "Zion" -- Mormons @ General Conferences -- only for Mormons to take it & use it as some "test" to apply to those they deem as "Gentiles."
Mormon missionaries & their trainers are in this regard, context-twisters, showing further poor discernment in interpreting the Scriptures. They use it as some sort of "formula" for unbelievers to determine truth, when unbelievers (minus God giving them the gift of faith), have no faith to cast upon God.
When people ask me if I've prayed about the Book of Mormon, I ask them, "Which version?"
The 1830 version? (Pre thousands of changes later made?)
The pre-printed version Martin Harris brought home to his wife, and was promptly lost?
Because there was never a universal apostasy.
Any Protestant church/denomination exists because they believe an apostasy occured in the Christian church sometime since the first Christian generation, else why would there have been needed a Reformation.
Again, "yes" on apostasy; "no" on a universal one.
So, you really have only two choices ejonesie, there was an apostasy and the Church didn’t survive intact because of the apostasy or there wasn’t an apostasy and the RCC is the true Church.
Sorry, Urroner, you know neither "Greek" relevant to this matter, nor have you fully grasped church history.
The Greek word for "church" is "ecclesia" -- meaning "called out ones."
"Ones" = people; flesh-and-blood body of Christ;
an organism; not an organization;
the people of God, not a religious hierarchy & religious structure.
[Just like when Mormons think of "temple," usually the first thing they think of is a building, not the habitat of the Holy Spirit!]
Those are your only logical choices...
No it's not. If there wasn't a 100% apostasy of the people of God, then you've carte blanche ruled out a nuanced middle ground by automatic exclusion, of which you have no biblical or historical basis to do so!
So, is the Catholic/Orthodox Church the Church that Christ organized or is it an apostate religion?
(That's like asking if the large Catholic family on the corner has "apostatized" -- and then projecting whether they have or haven't onto the entire worldwide Catholic population!)
If it is the Church that Christ organized, then we should all be members of it.
Again, the "church" that Christ "organized" is a living body -- an organism. And yes, members like Szonian are grafted onto Him all the time! (The body of Christ is a Living Being...a Him...not simply an "it").
If there wasn’t an apostasy, then why is there a need for the Reformation? The only need for the Reformation would be because there was an apostasy.
Have you seriously spent time reading the Old Testament? There is verse after verse after verse after verse of God coming against His people; warning them; admonishing them; very often judging them in real-time; allowing them to go into exile; contending against His people; etc. etc. etc.
Despite all of that, did God ever completely forego His covenant with Israel??? (NO!!!!) He tried to revive them. He tried to renew them. He tried to revitalize Israel. He tried to reform them. And times it happened; only for them to fall back into both a backslidden and often apostatized lifestyle. But corporate Israel NEVER completely buckled under!
Don't you comprehend that? The same thing was true with the Orthodox and Catholic churches. There was never a time historically that the people of God were ever completely wiped off the faced of earth. (Unlike Mormon claims that it was "destroyed" -- another Lds false prophesy!!!)
God promised there would always be a remnant! In fact, even Mormons teach that! Even Mormons say the apostle John and 3 supposed "Nephite disciples" never died and have wandered the earth all this time. So even Lds technically say there was no "100%" apostasy! What? You don't believe your own hype?
Lds FReepers have come before you 2-3 years ago; citing all of the biblical "prooftexts" where they tried to show some universal apostasy. I answered them twice, verse-by-verse. They could not prove from the Bible that there would be a "universal" apostasy.
In fact, the Holy Ghost expressly said just the opposite through the apostle Paul:
1Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times SOME shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1)
The Holy Ghost said only SOME would be guilty of apostasy; and He said so "expressly". Who are you, Urroner, to imply that the Holy Ghost was either mistaken, lied, or falsely prophesied??
And the two PERSONAGES that visited JS fit the bill EXACTLY.
And they very well have been telling the truth!!
That STILL doesn't say that GOD was the ORIGINATOR of any plates that these folks 'witnessed'.
II Thessalonians 2:3, 9
"Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.