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.”
Galatians 3
Faith or Observance of the Law
1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
6Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[a] 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”[b] 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”[c] 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”[d] 12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”[e] 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”[f] 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
The Law and the Promise
15Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,”[g] meaning one person, who is Christ. 17What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 18For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.
19What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one.
21Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
23Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ[h] that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.
Sons of God
26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
You said: Then POST those comments that have been made here 7. I've seen those terms directed against Smith and those in TX. So put up or retract.
This is an old debate, and those comments have happened more than once, but not on this thread.
Looks like the DOG ate your HOMEWORK!
AGAIN!
Well??? What will it be?
Colorcountry, would you care to share your feelings on the matter? I assumed that other evangelicals felt the same way as you do, whoremonger, lustful, etc. Others have called him an adulterer.
No no NO!
No slithering away!
Clarification is needed: Who were the women who had children for BY Abraham?
I wonder how many Mormon’s here would admit that the only reason they don’t practice polygamy is because of the Manifesto?
I also wonder how many would admit they wish the Manifesto prohabition would be lifted?
It's too bad that Joseph Smith did not feel this way when HE took OTHER MENS WIVES!
Solved?
You're kidding; right?
TURNING BLUE ALERT!
Don’t forget the “higher” laws, we’re still waiting on those too.
Joseph Smith was deceived by two satanic messengers, Sevenbak. Does that not mean anything to you?
To PROVE you two are not the same; perhaps HE will tell us just what is UNTRUE about PRESBYTERIANISM.
I guess that's why your founder and early leaders were so agin likker: they didn't think the admonition found in the Bible AND in your Scriptures about having only one wife to be ACTUAL - but SOBERING!
Stupid funky A's Unite! Down! Down! With the Oppressive B's of the...
...
Heck...
Where's that coffee...
ALL of them have to!
For there is NOWHERE, in ANY of their 'scripture', that has GOD telling them NOT to do it!
Now when I come back from church this morning, I expect to find 7 or 8 Mormons who have dug out the facts and proven me wrong.
I'm not worried about meeting joey, he's been judged already.
What a vile and slanderous insult (grin)
First off, you implied this recent round of threads spun off TX issues. Second, that is lame, if you are going to make that kind of accusation (which I haven't seen any of), you better have the evidence.
And once again I said Ishmael was not one of them. Hagar and ishmael left back at Gen 21:14 and given bread and water.
Keturah was married after Sarah died 25:1 and counted as a full wife, not concubine.
Ishmael come back only to bury Abraham. 25:9
There is no inference that Keturah was a concubine since she was officially married.
Clearly Joseph understood that to do this was adultery - to take some one else's wife. This is an entirely different issue than polygamy. It appears that this Joseph had the moral awareness that another Joseph didn't in the 1800's when he took wives of other men to be his own.
That is hardly the horny pedophile who couldn't keep his pants down description you made 7. And making the case for adultery in hagar's case does not negate God's call on Abraham, which was not even associated with that particular post.
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