Hebrews 11:6 (NIV) And without faith, it is impossible to please God.

James 2: 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

Therefore if faith is dead without works, it is impossible to please God with out works.

Your words make no sense. You have to be born on the earth in order to get to heaven is what you're saying. Just no sense at all.

Not surprising.

Jesus didn't say we had to be baptized to get into heaven. He did tell many people that their FAITH had saved them.

Jesus knew what baptism was as He Himself was baptized, so if Nicodemus were wrong in his understanding, Jesus could simply have said, no, you are misunderstanding. You have to be baptized first.

He didn't because it's NEVER works we do in the body that save us or *make us eligible* for salvation.

If righteousness could be gained any other way than Christ's death on the cross, then it would have been done, but it can't.

Jesus is enough. If you can't or won't accept that, that's on your head. But nobody can stand before god and say to Him, *You owe me because I did (fill in the blank).*

He just happened to change his mind? Really?

Yes, he did change his mind.

It's called *repentance*.

It's written down right there in Scripture. I posted the passages to you before. The one thief initially mocked Him and then CHANGED HIS MIND ie REPENTED, and was saved.

If you choose to not believe Scripture, there's not much anyone can say to you that will sink in.

Go ahead, tell us that the Bible is wrong.

Absolute malarkey.
The language of the Romans was Latin!
*The commentary and debate in the Roman Senate was in Latin and transcribed as such; from Cicero, Catiline, among hundreds.
*War Dispatches to Rome from its Generals were written in Latin and later anthologized in Latin, such as Caesar’s Gallic Wars; all 500 pages.
*The literature of Virgil, Suetonius, Seneca, Juvenal; among hundreds, was expressed in Latin.
It was likely April 1, when that guide was leading the tour.

Matt 7 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. (obey the commandments)

I suggest you keep reading. The thing these people are missing is faith. They rattle off a long list of what they did. Only faith is missing.

You're grasping for straws.

Matt 7
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

They prophesied but didn't have faith? Cast out devils but didn't have faith? In thy name done many wonderful works?

They didn't have faith??!! What are talking about? Surely you're kidding!? 99.9999% of every believe in all the modern churches will never have the faith to do 1/10th of what they did. They had all the faith in the world in Jesus.

Belief in Jesus can and will accomplish miracles on this earth. Belief alone, will not however, get you into heaven. Which is the warning Jesus gives in Matt 7 and Luke 13. And very strongly in Matt 25.

It's what James explains in James 2.

These people will be cast out, that are spoken of in Matt 7. They believed as strongly as any human can in Jesus. But they had one problem, they didn't believe the way Jesus wanted them to, they didn't do what He wanted them to. And at the judgement, Jesus Himself says, "I don't know you." And he casts them out.

Remember Jesus is doing the will of the Father. It's the Father you have to know in order to be allowed into heaven. That's the law and that's how it will work at the judgement. And you can only learn about the Father is through His prophets.

You're going to have to do a better job of cherry picking to make your point than that. That was too easily refuted.

Yea, you made short work of that straw man you created. You go girl!

The point was there's no such thing as instant salvation. Your point was that the thief had no knowledge of Jesus and was granted salvation the moment he acknowledged Jesus. The strong point is that the thief already knew Jesus, which you refuse to accept.

But you keep at it cuz your Straw Man-Fu is epic.

All sorts of hucksters do things in the name of Jesus.

Doesn’t mean they have salvifivc faith. Tons of people go through seminary, preach and teach. At some point they fall away and admit they never believed.

He didn't because it's NEVER works we do in the body that save us or *make us eligible* for salvation.

You'll never see it different I get it. You're just going to go in circles and pretzels I get it, I do.

or *make us eligible*

Perhaps you'd take a stab at how your belief aligns with Jesus' description of what will qualify and disqualify people at the judgement in Matt 25.

Matt 25
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Now... what exactly was it that disqualified them from entering heaven?? What got them sent to hell? I can't wait to hear your answer. Really.

Jesus reinstated the full law.

Baloney!!!!

We are not under the law but under grace. In Christ we died to the law. It no longer has any authority over us.

Jesus came to fulfill the Law so that those who place their trust in Him will be granted through grace and grace alone, the righteousness of Himself credited to our account.

We don't earn it. We can't earn it.

If we did anything to make ourselves eligible for grace, then it's no longer grace, it's wages due for performance rendered.

It's strictly Mormon thinking that we do all we can and then Jesus takes up the slack for us and does the rest.

All our righteous deeds are as filthy rags in the sight of God. We can do NOTHING that He would find acceptable to give us eternal life.

His standard is ABSOLUTE perfection. One sin and we're done, we need forgiveness and grace. And both forgiveness and grace are purely gifts, freely given by the Giver.

Jesus does forgive if His criteria is met. The Lord has always required, first believe, then go and do.

So you claim you are saying but what you said earlier is to do first (be baptized) then believe.

The only criteria to be met to receive forgiveness is to ask for it. NOT baptism or any other work.

The strong point is that the thief already knew Jesus, which you refuse to accept.

Prove it.

Use Scripture.

He’s not talking to church age believers.

Amen.

I have done so much wrong, that there is no way for me to buy my way to heaven. even if I win 20000 powerball jackpots. I am at God’s mercy.

You don’t know the story of the thief bro, but you can think whatever you like. That’s on you. I don’t do false religions.

I do ignore the wrong interpretations made by modern prophetless churches.

True.

You ignore the plain reading of scripture used in your OWN church; Living Prophet or not!

"Any Latter-day Saint who denounces or opposes, whether actively or otherwise, any plan or doctrine advocated by the 'prophets, seers, and revelators' of the Church is cultivating the spirit of apostacy..."

(Improvement Era, June 1945, p. 354)

The Doctrine and Covenants

Section 132

Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet, at Nauvoo, Illinois, recorded 12 July 1843, relating to the new and everlasting covenant, including the eternity of the marriage covenant, and also the plurality of wives (see History of the Church, 5:501 - 7). Although the revelation was recorded in 1843, it is evident from the historical records that the doctrines and principles involved in this revelation had been known by the Prophet since 1831.

.

58 - 66, Laws governing the plurality of wives are set forth.

58 Now, as touching the law of the ^apriesthood, there are many things pertaining thereunto.

59 Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was ^aAaron, by mine own voice, and by the voice of him that ^bsent me, and I have endowed him with the ^ckeys of the power of this priesthood, if he do anything in my name, and according to my law and by my word, he will not commit ^dsin, and I will justify him.

60 Let no one, therefore, set on my servant Joseph; for I will justify him; for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands for his transgressions, saith the Lord your God.

61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood: "if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse ^aanother, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

62 And if he have ^aten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

63 But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to ^amultiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be ^bglorified.

64 And again, verily, verily, I say unto you, if any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law.

65 Therefore, it shall be lawful in me, if she receive not this law, for him to receive all things whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will give unto him, because she did not believe and administer unto him according to my word; and she then becomes the transgressor; and he is exempt from the law of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law when I commanded Abraham to take ^aHagar to wife.

66 And now, as pertaining to this law, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will reveal more unto you, hereafter; therefore, let this suffice for the present. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen.

OFFICIAL DECLARATION—1

To Whom It May Concern:

Press dispatches having been sent for political purposes, from Salt Lake City, which have been widely published, to the effect that the Utah Commission, in their recent report to the Secretary of the Interior, allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in Utah since last June or during the past year, also that in public discourses the leaders of the Church have taught, encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy—

I, therefore, as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that these charges are false. We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice, and I deny that either forty or any other number of plural marriages have during that period been solemnized in our Temples or in any other place in the Territory.

One case has been reported, in which the parties allege that the marriage was performed in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, in the Spring of 1889, but I have not been able to learn who performed the ceremony; whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge. In consequence of this alleged occurrence the Endowment House was, by my instructions, taken down without delay.

Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws, and to use my influence with the members of the Church over which I preside to have them do likewise.

There is nothing in my teachings to the Church or in those of my associates, during the time specified, which can be reasonably construed to inculcate or encourage polygamy; and when any Elder of the Church has used language which appeared to convey any such teaching, he has been promptly reproved. And I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.

WILFORD WOODRUFF
President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

President Lorenzo Snow offered the following:

“I move that, recognizing Wilford Woodruff as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the only man on the earth at the present time who holds the keys of the sealing ordinances, we consider him fully authorized by virtue of his position to issue the Manifesto which has been read in our hearing, and which is dated September 24th, 1890, and that as a Church in General Conference assembled, we accept his declaration concerning plural marriages as authoritative and binding.”

The vote to sustain the foregoing motion was unanimous.

Salt Lake City, Utah, October 6, 1890.

EXCERPTS FROM THREE ADDRESSES BY
PRESIDENT WILFORD WOODRUFF
REGARDING THE MANIFESTO

The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty. (Sixty-first Semiannual General Conference of the Church, Monday, October 6, 1890, Salt Lake City, Utah. Reported in Deseret Evening News, October 11, 1890, p. 2.)

It matters not who lives or who dies, or who is called to lead this Church, they have got to lead it by the inspiration of Almighty God. If they do not do it that way, they cannot do it at all. . . .

I have had some revelations of late, and very important ones to me, and I will tell you what the Lord has said to me. Let me bring your minds to what is termed the manifesto. . . .

The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter.

The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?

The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for . . . any of the men in this temple at Logan; for all ordinances would be stopped throughout the land of Zion. Confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice. Now, the question is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the Lord has manifested to us, and leave our Prophets and Apostles and fathers free men, and the temples in the hands of the people, so that the dead may be redeemed. A large number has already been delivered from the prison house in the spirit world by this people, and shall the work go on or stop? This is the question I lay before the Latter-day Saints. You have to judge for yourselves. I want you to answer it for yourselves. I shall not answer it; but I say to you that that is exactly the condition we as a people would have been in had we not taken the course we have.

. . . I saw exactly what would come to pass if there was not something done. I have had this spirit upon me for a long time. But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write. . . .

I leave this with you, for you to contemplate and consider. The Lord is at work with us.

(Cache Stake Conference, Logan, Utah, Sunday, November 1, 1891. Reported in Deseret Weekly, November 14, 1891.)

Now I will tell you what was manifested to me and what the Son of God performed in this thing. . . . All these things would have come to pass, as God Almighty lives, had not that Manifesto been given. Therefore, the Son of God felt disposed to have that thing presented to the Church and to the world for purposes in his own mind. The Lord had decreed the establishment of Zion. He had decreed the finishing of this temple. He had decreed that the salvation of the living and the dead should be given in these valleys of the mountains. And Almighty God decreed that the Devil should not thwart it. If you can understand that, that is a key to it.

(From a discourse at the sixth session of the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple, April 1893. Typescript of Dedicatory Services, Archives, Church Historical Department, Salt Lake City, Utah.)

What kind of 'Leadership' is THIS???

compared to...

Hebrews 11:35-40
35. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
36. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.
37. They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated--
38. the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

or compared to...

Acts 4:19. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God.

So much for an 'Everlasting Covenant' that thundered out of Heaven!!!

Well; it DID last about 47 years!

Inasmuch as laws have been enacted by Congress forbidding plural marriage...

I hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws..."

~ Wilford Woodruff, 4th LDS President

Is your TR valid?

I also know how stories get told.

I'll bet!

And how people view events.

So true!!

Three different accounts of the same event, two are wrong, but it was just an observation someone was making.

Which two?

Nine or eight different accounts of the same event: First Vision.

Kinda makes ya wonder which one (if any) are right; doesn't it.

Version Number When Published Brief Description	Age/Year	Evil Power	Pillar of Light or Fire	Number of Personages	Father	Son	Question: Join What Sect	Remarks
Official Version, Mormon scripture, Pearl of Great Price p. 47, 48, 1974 Ed.	Age 14 1820	Yes	Yes Light	2	Yes	Yes	Join None	Lucy, Hyrum, Samuel, Sopronia Join Presbyterian Church 1820
Paper by Joseph Smith, Times and Seasons March, April 1842	Same as item 1 above
Letter from Joseph Smith to John Wentworth, editor Chicago Democrat 1841 account Published March 1,1842	None given	No	No	2	?	?	No question, told all incorrect	Joseph Smith's First Vision by Milton V. Backman Jr. Bookcraft, Appendix D. Ensign, Jan.1985, p. 16
				Both looked the Same They spoke
Dictated by Joseph Smith, in hand of James Mulholland, 1838	Same as item 1 above, first known account of the official version.							Ensign, Jan. 1985 p. 14
Joseph Smith's diary of 1835, Recorded by Warren Cowdery Nov. 9, 1835, conversation of Joseph Smith with Joshua	Joseph, about 14	No Tongue seemed swollen; heard someone; at first couldn't pray	Yes Fire	One, and then another like unto the first	?	?	No question, told sins are forgiven, Jesus Christ is the Son of God	Joseph Smith's First Vision by Milton V. Backman Jr. Bookcraft, Appendix B
				Second spoke.
				Saw many angels
Messenger & Advocate by Oliver Cowdery supervised by Joseph Smith Feb. 1835 p. 77-79; Also see Dec. 1834 p. 43	Joseph 17 1823	No	Yes	1	No	No	No question told sin are forgiven	Note on pg. 78 that the revival was in 1823 (NOT 1820) so this must be the First Vision.
				Messenger from God
Dictated by Joseph Smith to F. G. Williams Summer to Nov. 1832	Joseph 14 or 16	No	Yes	1	No	Yes	No question, told "None doeth good", sins forgiven	Joseph Smith's First Vision by Milton V. Backman Jr. Bookcraft, Appendix A
				Saw Lord (Jesus) he "spoke"
Written by Joseph Smith, 1832 diary	Joseph 15	No	Yes	1	No	Yes	No question, told sins forgiven all do no good	Ensign, Dec. 1984 pgs. 24-26 Jan. 1985 pg. 11
				Saw the Lord Jesus Christ (said He was crucified)
Early Church leaders B. Young, G. A. Smith, J. Taylor	Joseph 15	No	No	1	No	No	Join None	Journal of Discourses, 2:171; 18:239; 13:77,78; 20:167; 12:333,334
				Saw an angel, and asked the angel