For me Woody, I am blessed, I have the Stick of Judah, the Bible and the Stick of Joseph, the Book of Mormon and my Lord commands me to be patient and respecting another’s faith, and most of all to Love One Another.
The LDS do not deserve the venom you continue to spew forth, for they in no way have the fruits of the adversary the-
Gal. 5
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
These are the fruits the LDS were commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ, and strive to do-
Gal. 5
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Woody
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Well, you certainly do have the Bible. Unfortunately, you specifically deny the ABSOLUTE and FINAL authority that God has given to His written word. For you the Latter-Day Revelation is the final authority over the Bible itself. This is a denial of the Word itself.
And you are specifically taught to be suspicious in the Bible:
1 Ne 13:26 And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable dchurch, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.You believe in the Bible to be the Word of God "as far as it is translated correctly." (Pearl of Great Price 1:8)
"You may read and believe what you please as to what is found written in the Bible. Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 319)
Divine TRUTH is self-authenticating:
In fact, it would seem strange if God revealed himself in his Son Jesus Christ and inspired the record of that revelation in the Bible, but did not provide a way for ordinary people to know it. Stated most simply, the common path to sure knowledge of the REAL Jesus is this: Jesus, as he is revealed in the Bible, has a glory--an excellence, a spiritual beauty--that can be see as self-evidently true. It is like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light and not dark, or like tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet and not sour. There is no long chain of reasoning from premises to conclusions. There is a direct apprehension that this person is true and his glory is the glory of God.The apostle Paul described this path to knowledge of Jesus in 2 Corinthians 4:4-6:
The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…. For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.Notice that Paul speaks of God's enlightening our hearts (and in the work of creation) to apprehend "the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." He is talking about people who have never seen the historical Jesus. How can they know him and be sure of him? What they "see" is the verbal portrayal of Jesus in the Gospel, that is, in the apostolic preaching of Christ. This portrayal, Paul says, accompanied by God's shining "in our hearts," appears to us as what is really is--"the glory of God in… Christ," or as "the glory of Christ… the image of God."You can see that two things make this path possible. One is the reality of the glory of Jesus Christ shining through his portrayal in the Bible. The other is the work of God to open the eyes of our blinded hearts to see this glory. This is very different from God "telling us" that the Bible is true. It is rather, God's enabling us to see what is really there. This is an important difference. If God whispered in our ear, as it were, that the Jesus of the Bible is true, then the whispering would have the final authority and everything would hang on that. But that is not the path I see in the Bible nor the path I follow. Rather Jesus himself, and his divinely inspired portrayal in the Bible, have the final authority.
The practical effect of this path is that I do not ask you to pray for a special whisper from God to decide if Jesus is real. Rather I ask you to look at the Jesus of the Bible. Look at him. Don't close your eyes and hope for a word of confirmation. Keep your eyes open and fill them with the full portrait of Jesus provided in the Bible. If you come to trust Jesus Christ as Lord and God, it will be because you see in him a divine glory and excellence that simply is what it is--TRUE.
Sometimes this path is called the "testimony of the Holy Spirit." The old catechisms say it this way: "The Spirit of God, bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able to fully persuade it that they are the very Word of God." Be sure to notice that the Spirit persuades "by and with the Scriptures." He does not skirt the Scriptures and substitute private revelations about the Scriptures. He removes the blindness of hostility and rebellion, and thus opens the eyes of our hearts to see the self-evident brightness of the divine beauty of Christ.
Beholding is becoming. Seeing Christ saves and sanctifies. ~ John Piper Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ
- 2 Cor 3:18 We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
You have, unfortunately, replaced the Bible with "secret whispers" from your prophets.
For me Woody, I am blessed, I have the Stick of Judah, the Bible and the Stick of Joseph, the Book of Mormon and my Lord commands me to be patient and respecting another’s faith, and most of all to Love One Another.
Well, I know that you didn't like my comments, but the Bible does not ever teach that I should respect a false faith. And all ways but the one given in the Bible are a false way:
Now, from your answer you obviously think that I must respect your faith in order to love you, but love never embraces a false way. And you completely ignored my statement that I specifically do pray that God will open your eyes to see the truth. Oh well, such is the way it always is.