Mormon Direction

Have you heard this cry? – “I have seen the truth!”, as many walk away and become advocates against this Church.

This is frequently heard and is in abundance in the claims made by ex-mormons on the Internet. Are these claims that they now see the truth, true? Can these ex-mormons be speaking the truth? I am sure for many current members this has been a kink in their spiritual armour, wondering if these claims are really true.

For those members who wonder this, please consider this.

When this Church began, was in it’s infancy, there were none of these alleged scandals and subterfuges claimed by Anti-Mormons, yet people hated this Church and even attacked Joseph Smith. Are these modern day claims against this Church more valid than the claims made by religious mobs in the 1800′s?

“In time, exciting and exaggerated reports began to spread through the country and fill the columns of newspapers, respecting the troubles existing in the counties previously named. These accounts were all garbled in such a manner as to place the Mormons to great disadvantage and make them the aggressors. Every subterfuge was seized upon with avidity and colored with false representations, so as to place the Mormons’ cause in a false light before the country. The majority of the inhabitants of Clay, Ray and other counties, became poisoned in their feelings by these insidious and often repeated exaggerations, and finally the greater portion of the people of upper Missouri were influenced and prejudiced thereby. Nothing could be related too horrible and unreasonable for them to swallow as a sweet morsel. ”

( Lyman O. Littlefield, “REMINISCENCES OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS”, Chapter IV)

The claims by those against us and by those who have become disaffected from the Church, all remain in the same false light, where “every subterfuge was seized upon with avidity and colored with false representations, so as to place the Mormons cause in a false light”

It is within the Bible as well the the Doctrine and Covenants that Satan has the power to appear as an angel of light, thereby deceiving many to believe that he is with God. This power to present a false light, a light that appears as real and as being true is in reality, false and in darkness. This power of Satan to present himself as “light” is not restricted to a single form or manner. This power extends itself to many other forms, methods and appearances that Satan uses to deceive.

The first Biblical example of a false light occurred with Eve in the Garden of Eden, where he deceived Eve to believe that she would not spiritually die if she partook of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. She believed it to be true and from that falsehood, that false light, Eve fell. She fell to this deception because Eve did not know the difference between good and evil. She had no such knowledge, no such experience to deception and how evil can mislead and bend the truth. To Eve and her lack of spiritual knowledge and experience, she perceived the words of Satan as the light of truth.

Eve, still in her ignorance of evil, then spread the false light and knowledge to Adam who then fell after her. This is how false light, which people today call “truth”, affects them and causes them to fall from grace to end up as the rabble of the early days of the LDS Church and in the days of the primitive Church of Christ as found in the New Testament.

The affect of the false light has already affected many members of this Church, who have fallen to false truths or false lights and as of today, still do not realize it. The Bible prophesied this in Revelations 13:7-8, where many saints will fall or be deceived, and so it is true.

The false light affects and infects the intellectual and the spiritually weak. Those that solely depend on their own power of intellect (Proverbs 3:5) and those that are spiritually weak will be the ones that Satan can control. It is why the prophets of this Church have warned us for decades to develop our own light with God, else each would not weather the storms ahead.

This is because Satan is far more intelligent than we are, far more experienced in his ability to deceive, but his intellect and skills remain no match for the spiritually tuned, those that abide in and walk with the Spirit of God.

Satan knows enough of our spiritual weaknesses to play them and do it well. Satan can woe the intellect, affecting and infecting the intellect mind, such that it will see what he wants the intellect to see, and choose what he wants a person to choose. Satan does this by twisting truth, misrepresentations, deceiving, feeding into our desires and emotions (and personal issues), giving part truths mixed with falsehoods and exaggerations. The same way he deceived Eve.

There is no scholar and no intellect, by their power alone, that can withstand Satan’s works and influence. This is primarily because the human mind, no matter how intelligent and trained in the world it may be, remains subject to the nature of the “natural man”, said another way, the “carnal mind”. It is only by the spiritual mind, beyond the worldly intellect and thought that a man or woman can withstand Satan’s influence.

Think about it. How many very intelligent people in the world have fallen to evil as greed and selfishness, justifying and elevating themselves intellectually, but falling spiritually?

The power of the false light works wonders in realm of the human intellect, but fails in the light of true spiritual truth called the light of Christ or the Spirit of God. This is why God constantly tells us to develop our faith, walk with the Spirit, seek personal revelation from him and use the Gift of the Holy Ghost frequently. It is then we will not fall to the false light that the fooled, call truth.