Mormon Direction

A new update to Mormon Messages entitled, Book of Mormon: An Introduction, narrated by Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, spoke about the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, stating that this book are the words of ancient prophets of God, spoken by the Spirit of Prophecy and Revelation.

Can we believe this?- The answer is Yes, it is believable, as it is also believable that the Bible is the word of God.

The Book of Mormon is as believable as the Bible.

Many outside the Church, even those who disaffected from the Church would deny my statement that the Book of Mormon is as believable as the Bible. Those that doubt or deny will claim that the Bible is clearly the word of God, but not the Book of Mormon, but have they really thought about it?

Many who read and believe the Bible do so by their personal choice. Many have not researched the Bible or read history or seek historic evidence of its existence in past centuries, but they still believe. They have not sought out physical proof that Jesus lived on this earth and died on the cross, yet they simply believed it when they read it. They may believe the words spoken by others, by a local pastor or friend who speaks to them about their local Christian church. For a large number of these people, what it comes down to for them, is they simply believe. An act of mind and heart that is no different for those who simply believe the Book of Mormon.

Some may claim that the Bible is backed up by historic fact, proven that it was written by ancient people, but none of these temporal claims can prove it is the word of God.

Please read that last sentence again, it said that no historic evidence can prove the Bible to be the word of God and no historic evidence can prove the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

For anything to be the word of God must be proven by the Holy Spirit, not by historic evidence.

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To pass through the eye of a needle is a metaphor that has troubled me for sometime, trying to understand the meaning and reference used by Jesus Christ, until one day when I was reading a book entitled, “What the Scriptures Teach us about Prosperity” (by S. Micheal Wilcox). The author wrote the book to relate the scriptural teachings about wealth and prosperity. How the enticements of worldly wealth can cause us to fall from grace and loose faith. His book came to a place where he spoke of Jesus Christ using a metaphor of the camel passing through the eye of a needle to reference the burden of riches and condemning aspects of worldly wealth.

Previously I understood that the camel and needle reference speaks of a great difficulty in reference to wealth, but the actual understanding eluded me, despite all the scripture reading I had done. It was not until the camel-needle reference was matched to my own spiritual experiences that I arrived at an understanding of what Jesus meant. To pass through the eye of the needle refers to the trials and tribulations of spiritual life with Jesus Christ. Jesus told the rich prince to give away his wealth to charity and take up the cross and follow him, that was the trial. As the story goes, the rich prince could not do this and he walked away disappointed and that was the tribulation, the prince could not bring himself to accept and endure this sacriface.

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I read a recent August 2010 – Ensign article entitled, “Being Worthy to Enter the Temple”. It was a basic article on temple worthiness but the word “worthy” stood out in this article. As I focused on that single word, the word “exclusion” came into my mind.

I then began to pondered why many Non-Mormons attacked this LDS Church since the first day they heard the words from Joseph Smith speak about his First Vision and what God said to him. As I pondered, I began to see a pattern appear and the single word that would describe this pattern is the word “exclusion”. The word “exclusion” is to omit or to exclude.

What God said in the First Vision about other Christian churches was in fact, an act of exclusion by God and that appears to have triggered the sour resentment by others. There were others since Joseph Smith who claimed prophecy from God, but none have suffered the persecution and attacks more than this LDS Church, because none of the others have “excluded” other Christian creeds to the extent that God had in the First Vision and none received any visions equal to the First Vision by Joseph Smith.

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The end goal. Is commitment all about the end goal? I found that commitment is not about end goals, I found that commitment always comes before the end goal, especially if faith is the a goal. If a person wants to have good faith in God, to establish a relationship with God that works and is faithful, then commitment to faith must occur first, else the end goal of faith cannot occur.

Commitment, in itself, does not automatically denote or become faith. Commitment is a “trait of sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose” toward something or in something. Once the object (faith) is chosen to pursue and achieve, then commitment will be “the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action”. Once this is established, then faith, being “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  is exercised. The binding of oneself, intellectually and emotionally to the act of faith causes faith to be true and does not end up as just a word or lip service.

Let’s take a life example. A boss makes promises that he will do this or that, saying that to do those things are required and needed. Those things are good to hear, even if they are things that you had hoped for at work, but the results, or fruits of his labor proves otherwise. The things promised never manifest and in fact the old status quo remains or the things done were so inadequate, they proved as useful as doing nothing. The result for you is disappointment and discouragement. The problem with all the promises and things said, even if they were great to hear, was the absence of commitment. The failure to bind oneself to the course of action, to be sincere and steadfast.

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I am sure that many remember this doctrine spoken of by Joseph Smith and that is still reverberating throughout Christiandom today. How this doctrine, that God was once a man, upset so many people and their false doctrines, that no person outside the Church was able to read the Bible properly to see that same doctrine within its bindings.

My other website named “innerlightvision.com” holds the Biblical explanation for this famous doctrine spoken by Joseph Smith. It shows, by the Bible, how God the Father was mortal like us and became exalted and he showed or taught Jesus Christ the same thing. The example of this doctrine was actually given by Jehovah-Jesus Christ who clearly proclaimed that he followed the will and example of the Father in heaven, doing only what the Father had done.

Simple concept and most importantly, Biblical, meaning that the Bible holds that very doctrine for other Christians to read and learn.

Please attend that web page at: http://www.innerlightvision.com/article/God-was-once-a-man.php

The Book of Mormon, edition 1854, written by Joseph Smith is available as a free download from Google Books. The download is in a PDF format (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).

To see this book listed by Google, go here >> The Book of Mormon 1854

You can search Google Books yourself with these key words (includes quotations) – “The Book of Mormon” 1854

There will be two books listed, with the same edition date. Either one is fine. The book exists at two separate libraries.

Click the one you want and it opens in a viewing window. You can search the book by key words while online with Google Books or download it completely as a PDF file (23 mb).  The only downside to your own copy is that the PDF version you download cannot be searched. The pages are images and not a regular PDF searchable file. The only option is to find software that can convert the images into text form.

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Recently an Anti-Mormon contacted me and tried to present himself as a ex-member of this Church, likely because he wanted to gain some favour in my eyes. During our email conversation he brought up his disbelief in this Church based on his view of historic events and one of them was the story of Joseph Smith putting a stone into a hat, using it as a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. Suffice the say the correspondence ended quickly due to his argumentative style of writing, but that encounter spurred me to write about the “seer stone” and the Urim and Thummim which was used by Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon.

Before writing, I took the position as an investigator, one who has a background in the scriptures. I investigated the validity of a seer stone within the Bible. I started with the Bible because this pertains to religious matters, not worldly matters. Here is what I found.

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Recent events in Texas with the raid on the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) compound may bring back the confusion that led many people to perceive LDS as the same as the FLDS, in particular the issue of plural marriage.

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A simple concept came to me today, so simple that it can boggle the mind.

The simple concept was as follows. For hundreds of years during the time of the Old Testament (BC), certain men prophesied the coming of Jesus Christ. Many ancient scrolls that prophesied of Christ were confirmed as existing before the birth of Jesus.

Then after Jesus Christ was born and grew into a man, he came and announced himself as the Son of God and Saviour of mankind. He performed miracles and many visions were seen to pinpoint Jesus as the Son of God. After his crucifixion, he rose from the dead and appeared before his followers, proving he was the one crucified and risen.

These events and especially what Jesus had clearly stated of himself is astonishing to say the least. The thought was that how can a man, who proclaimed himself as the Son of God, with all other evidence proving who he was, end up still denied today?

I have heard and read many personal opinions of the man we call Jesus Christ and many discount his divinity and attribute him to a minor complement, that he was a wise and good man and that was all. Just a “good man”, that was it. All the rest Jesus was and still is excluded.

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