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.”
What didn’t I answer?
Luke 1:35
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
But in that same manner, Isaac was the “only begotten son of Abraham”.
The Greek Septuagint has YHWH calling Isaac Abraham’s “monogenes” [Genesis 22, when Abraham received the living oracle of the Day of Atonement to rehearse, as a living prophet.
Ishmael was the first son born to Abraham, but not the son of promise. In the same manner, the Creator has two “human being kind”, created sons: Adam [the dead, former son of God of the human kind; Luke 3:38; Malachi 2:15], and Israel [Isaiah 49 -”Jesus/Salvation/Hoshea” is called Israel, as the only living human being Son of God].
I agree.
Why don't you do us all a favor (& try) to cite ANY Old Testament passage showing where God was the Agent who instituted polygamy. (You can't 'cause there ain't) Tell you what, why don't you start with Deut 17:17: "He MUST NOT take many wives, or his heart will be led astray."
Issac...Hosea...Simeon...That's a small list. Too bad that so many of these were Holy men and they were just committing adultery huh. Too bad that the promises of the proliferation of Abraham's seed isn't a reason they did this./sarc
Who is "Issac?" (There's Isaac & there's Issachar, but who is Issac?) I think you mean Issachar. But even the pro-polygamists only cite 1 Chron. 7:4 in support of this, where it says that 630,000 men had many wives and sons...like duh...(like maybe close to 630,000?)
Hosea? There's one verse -- Hos 3:1-- which talks about loving an "adulteress"--but the "adulteress" is his very wife...this is quite clear in every version except the KJV...and even so, if you want to embrace the awkward KJV wording as loving an "adulteress," it hardly qualifies as polygamy (unless you want to call Gomer schizophrenic...then I guess you say Gomer was "2"...LOL) The fact that you included "Issac" & Hosea shows me that you've relied upon some second-hand poorly researched list & have failed to read the Old Testament for yourself!
Simeon? Gen 46:10 & Ex. 6:15 mention "a Canaanite woman." (sounds singular to me)
Jacob...That's a small list. Too bad that so many of these were Holy men and they were just committing adultery huh. Too bad that the promises of the proliferation of Abraham's seed isn't a reason they did this./sarc
That's pathetic. You flunk Old Testament reading, let alone Old Testament theology. Jacob himself says that his whole multiple wife thing was sprung on him because he was "deceived"--he labored for Rachel and was given Leah minus knowledge it was her until he was "knowledgeable" with her to the point where he couldn't (in that day) throw her back like a fish in the lake. So, deception-based polygamy of Jacob is somehow "divine?"(see Gen. 29:23,25).
Yet you have the gall to sarcastically accuse Jacob before all the witnesses of heaven & earth that it wasn't really deception at all that was thrust upon him. I suggest you repent of your slanderous lies for which God will hold you accountable for!
Gen. 30 also shows it wasn't God who prompted Jacob--it was more women (Jacob's 2 wives) who acted in exactly the same pattern as did Abram's wife--with them giving their maidservants to Jacob. (Also, note that Leah was given a "bridal week" even after the deception in Gen. 29. So the question for Rachel's maidservant: Where was her "bridal week" between Gen. 30:3 (Rachel's idea) and Gen. 30:4 (sexual liaison carried out with maidservant)? No mention, there, of a new "bridal week" or "bridal day"...no assumption, therefore, that this was "polygamy" in terms of additional "wives"--they appeared to be "concubines--sexual cohabitators."
Too bad that the promises of the proliferation of Abraham's seed isn't a reason they did this./sarc
So you claim Sarai was God's agent to invoke polygamy for Abram? Upon what verse do you make such an outlandish claim?
Beyond that, please tell where in Gen. 16:3 re: Hagar, or anywhere that Hagar is ever referred to as a wife or anything but a maidservant? Unless you think Abram's wife is "god," where did God ever instruct Abram to sleep with her? Where in Gen. 25:1 or thereabouts did God instruct Abraham to take another wife as he did with Keturah? (Your ignorance slip in having the audacity of including Abraham in your "short list" of the "proliferation of Abramham's seed" is showing, I'm afraid, 7)
...David, Solomon...That's a small list. Too bad that so many of these were Holy men and they were just committing adultery huh.
Response: First of all, if we're going to "commend" polygamy just because David may have engaged in it (which seems to be your cockeyed argument), then I guess we have to "commend" adultery just because David also engaged in that, eh? (2 Sam chptrs 11 & 12). I mean, in effect, David made Bathsheba into a "temporary" polygamist--which is the bottom-line net effect of adultery. You can't get around that adultery, pure and simple, IS adultery according to Gen. 2:24; Matt 19:4-6.
Secondly, David's concubines, post-repentance, were treated like widows (2 Sam. 20:3). His actions with Bathsheba was labeled by God as an act where David "despised" God (2 Sam. 12:10). (I say "may have" engaged in polygamy because it's possible that his first wife, Michal, may have died re: pre Solomon's birth via Bathsheba, for 2 Sam. 6:23 mentions her death).
Solomon: Solomon had been warned NOT to intermarry (1 Kings 11:2). Polygamy & "concubinage" behavior with idolatry-loving women turned his heart away from God (1 Kings 11:4). Solomon was condemned by God (1 Kings 11:9-11).
Caleb, Manasseh, Saul......That's a small list. Too bad that so many of these were Holy men and they were just committing adultery huh.
You error on two counts here...first on your assumption that your list is chalked with "holy men"--and second that they all had multiple wives.
First of all, Saul didn't exactly leave the world on "holy" terms. He even used the medium of Endor to call up a dead spirit. (Wow! How "holy" can you get? Occultism is your idea of holiness, Sevenbak? How pathetic)
Manasseh? Oh, he, too, is your version of a "holy man," eh? As one author who even takes issue with the Old Testament wrote, "The Hebrew Bible portrays King Manasseh and child sacrifice as the most reprehensible person and the most objectionable practice within the story of 'Israel'..." Read 2 Chronicles 33:6-7, 9. Just how bad a King was Manasseh? (God prominently mentions his sin of child sacrifice, his spiritualism and his desecration of the temple. Verse 9 ends with the note of irony that "God's people" were worse than "the world." ) Manasseh sacrificed his own son in the fire (2 Kings 21:6)
What is true with Caleb, Manasseh and Saul is that they each only had one wife. For Manasseh, Aramitess (1 Chron 7:14) was a concubine--essentially a live-in mistress. (If the 1,000 women who lived with Solomon were all "wives"--then pray tell, inform us all, 7 why the Bible distinguishes between his 300 wives & 700 concubines?) For Saul, Rizpah was also a clearly identified "concubine" (2 Sam. 3:7). Ahinoam is clearly identified as the wife (1 Sam. 14:50).
(Tell you what, Seven...if you're married, why don't you just mention to your wife that you fail to see the difference between a wife and a mistress...that one should go over real well with her!!!)
As for Caleb, it clearly says his first wife, Azubah, died. 1 Chron 2:18-19 frames it this way: wife Azubah (and by Jerioth). The passage does NOT say wives [plural] Azubah and Jerioth. It says "wife" (singular). It sets apart Jerioth. (So we can't say for certain Jerioth was a wife). This is especially so because it then clearly identifies Ephrata (1 Chron 2:18-19) as his (second) wife (post Azubah's death). 1 Chron 2:46, 48 then goes on to say that after Azubah's death, two other women--Ephah, and Maachah, became Caleb's "concubines." (Not WIVES)
So. Now we're down to Esau, who indeed had three wives, and Zedekiah, who had wives plural (number unknown). The problem is we're back to your "holy men" assumption again.
Notice, too, the "character" of most of the men you picked...Manasseh, Saul, Esau, Zedekiah, Simeon, Solomon & his "can't say no to 1,000 women."
Esau: The patriarch of the Edomites, the antagonists of Israel (Num 20:18-21; 1 Kings 11:14; Ps. 137:7, etc.). The Bible says the Lord hated Esau (Mal. 1:2; Rom. 9:13). Esau symbolizes those who abandon their hope of eternal glory for the sake of seen, temporary things
Simeon: Joseph chose Simeon as a hostage--perhaps because he played a leading part in selling Joseph to Egypt. Simeon, along with Jacob & Levi, were rebuked for their violent nature--& they were to be divided & scattered (Gen. 49:5-7).
Zedekiah: Jeremiah knew that King Zedekiah, who had Jeremiah arrested, might kill him (Jer. 38:15). We know that the era of Jeremiah's prophetic status was one where this prophet had to deal with Israel at its most corrupt point; hence, the warning from Jeremiah on the cusp of the Babylonians overtaking Israel. Zedekiah? Well, we know after this all or most of his sons were executed & he had his eyes gouged out & taken prisoner.
And the Mormons take it entirely out of context and use it in a strained eisegetical manner in order to attempt to prove that the gospel was restored by Joseph Smith.
From Albert Barnes' Commentary:
Having the everlasting gospel - The gospel is here called everlasting or eternal:
(a) because its great truths have always existed, or it is conformed to eternal truth;
(b) because it will forever remain unchanged - not being liable to fluctuation like the opinions held by people;
(c) because its effects will be everlasting - in the redemption of the soul and the joys of heaven. In all the glorious eternity before the redeemed, they will be but developing the effects of that gospel on their own hearts, and enjoying the results of it in the presence of God.
The gospel did not need to be restored. It is perpetual. It is, like God, the same yesterday, today, forever. It was never taken from the earth.
If fact, in Mormon theology, John the Apostle never died and is still walking the earth. If John the Apostle never died, and he held the priesthood, as you guys claim, then the priesthood was never taken away, unless it was stripped from John the Apostle and the 3 Nephites. Now maybe the LDS Church saw the contradiction there and maybe they don't teach that anymore. I wouldn't be surprised. They do have a tendency to change their theology as often as some people change their underwear.
Joseph Smith History.
16 But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.
17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My beloved Son. Hear Him! Both accounts similar, Jesus on the right hand of God.
As one of our resident Mormon experts, can you explain why these care packages at this site are so expensive, wouldn’t it be cheaper for the missionary to buy his own bag of tostitos and dip, or for the family to send them themselves?
http://www.dearelder.com/index.php#
Does he answer your questions?
It does count. Marriage is ordained of God. Obviously the antis like to look at the period of 50 years of Polygamy in the early LDS church to tell us what we believe, and they ignore the end of it over a hundred years ago, they ignore the admonition that it’s up to the Lord to command to raise up seed unto him and build up his people, they also ignore the sanctity of Marriage that the LDS view. They also ignore that LDS marriages that happen in the temple have the lowest divorce rates in the US. They also ignore that repeated commandments against adultery, fornication, lasciviousness, and sexual perversions in any way. Those are no no’s in the LDS faith, and require serious repentance when people do them.
Sure. As will I. I believe that Christ is the literal son of God, and the literal son of man, born of Mary.
How do you explain God giving David his wives through his prophet Nathan?
2 Sam. 12: 8
8 And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom,
YHWH/LIFE/BREATH [His name is wrongly written as Jehovah], is one Spirit, everlasting, self existing; and three Persons. He has only One “Similitude” seen by any created being, and that One Similitude is “God the Word”. He is also called the Head/Ancient of days.
Adam was made in that same image, as Genesis 1:26-28; Romans 5:14 -and others- state.
He [God the Word, YHWH in the second Person [whom Jerusalem was named after, by Abraham, as “YHWH seen” -Genesis 22, in Hebrew], is now come in human being flesh of the second creation, to be the Kinsman/Redeemer of His own created human being “temple” [which is what the human son, Adam, was made to be, before the fall; a House for the Glory of the unseen Father to dwell in]. Haggai chapter 2 explains the first created human being temple for the Glory [Adam] and the second [Israel -Isaiah 49], in parable.
And it is that belief, when taken to its logical conclusion that led to the statements by Brigham Young which suggest some kind of physical (sexual) union between God the Father and Mary and in Brigham Young (and others) categorically denying that Christ was begotten by the Holy Ghost.
Where you get into trouble is in insisting that Son of God on an eternal basis, means that Jesus was not always God and that God the Father was God before the Son of God was God. Then you start getting into all this nonsense about God having a Father and his Father having a Father, and the next thing you know, you've got Mormon prophets preaching at funerals and insisting that "As man is, God once was and as God is, man may become" or insisting that God was not always God.
John 21: 22-23
22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
23 Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
Another Scripture of note on this topic:
Rev. 10: 11.
11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.
Sometimes, but usually it’s snippets veiled in hostilities. Sometimes he’s a good by though. ;-)
When exactly did the world "reject" the "everlasting gospel?"
And when exactly did God take away the priesthood from John the Apostle?
Do you have answers for these questions?
And if John is still on the earth, then why didn't John the Apostle come out of retirement and lay hands on Joseph Smith? Why did they have to receive it from John the Baptist coming back in some kind of "familiar spirit" form?
It all sounds sooooo contrived.
Well, the ad is a bit unclear on one point: It reads at one point: Get this care package started and are joined by a load of hot tamales and atomic fire balls. So my first question is, "Does the care package contain tamles and fire balls?" (If so, that might explain the $23 care package tag)
(If it doesn't, then your question wouldn’t it be cheaper for the missionary to buy his own bag of tostitos and dip is more likely simply a practical issue than a cost issue. What do I mean? First of all, many LDS missionaries are in remote areas where a purchase of this nature simply isn't possible. Secondly, even if these items could be purchased by them, LDS missionaries don't necessarily have the "cash on hand" to be buying snack items. Finally, their lives are pretty much scheduled for them 16-18 hrs. a day & the rest is pure sleep time...so on some weeks, even getting to a store to make such a purchase wouldn't be a sure thing... So, care packages are a "way of life" for many LDS missionaries)
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