Assurances today's LDS church is the restored gospel


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3 hours ago, SpiritDragon said:

Thanks for your concern, I'm afraid I don't have the strongest of testimonies these days either, so your concern wouldn't be amiss in my direction either. The difficulty for me is faith in general and trusting feelings of the spirit, in conjunction with never having enjoyed church. I've unfortunately had many experiences where I felt as though I was given an answer by the spirit that later appeared to be wrong. This has made it very difficult for me to trust the feelings that I believe to be the spirit. Not enjoying church doesn't help matters.

Are some of our experiences a matter of obedience rather than outcome? Just a posited thought. Example, on my mission one of my companions stopped and then went up to a guy and asked if he would be interested in hearing a message. The guy immediately, rudely, said no. My companion came back and said, "I guess I was wrong, I thought the Spirit told me to invite him to hear message." He assumed the outcome would be different if inspired by the Spirit.

Do we at times cause our own trouble by assuming the outcome of following the spirit impression, rather than accepting and asking God what next? By the way, I am asking this question to myself also.

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@SpiritDragonRe:original question. Best I can think of at the moment. When Joseph Smith was being prepared to be prophet, he received a variety of keys from a variety of key holders. Meeting Christ and the Father was part but not all of the process. Snuffles (Mr. silly name) only claims to have met Christ but what about the other keys? It is repeatedly said the Gods church is a house of order. In the description on line of this new faith at least some of its sects seem to embrace disorder.

Edited by Sunday21
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11 hours ago, Vort said:

Not a supervillain, just a sad, lost soul who has fallen prey to the old deception of "I'm much smarter than those small-minded men who lead the Church."

Has a different sensibility if you do as my wife tends to and add a "The" to his name when speaking of him.

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12 hours ago, Anddenex said:

Are some of our experiences a matter of obedience rather than outcome? Just a posited thought. Example, on my mission one of my companions stopped and then went up to a guy and asked if he would be interested in hearing a message. The guy immediately, rudely, said no. My companion came back and said, "I guess I was wrong, I thought the Spirit told me to invite him to hear message." He assumed the outcome would be different if inspired by the Spirit.

Do we at times cause our own trouble by assuming the outcome of following the spirit impression, rather than accepting and asking God what next? By the way, I am asking this question to myself also.

Indeed, I do try to be careful in suggesting that things "appear" to have been false and not that they are. Although I grew up in the church, I never believed it was true until I was graduating from high school. My testimony has been based on a witness of the spirit to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon as promised in the last chapter of Moroni. Even if the solution is that the answers don't always mean what we expect them to mean, this leads me to wonder if my answer to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon could be misinterpreted. I have lost faith in my own ability to communicate with and understand God, but I still think He is there.

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48 minutes ago, SpiritDragon said:

Indeed, I do try to be careful in suggesting that things "appear" to have been false and not that they are. Although I grew up in the church, I never believed it was true until I was graduating from high school. My testimony has been based on a witness of the spirit to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon as promised in the last chapter of Moroni. Even if the solution is that the answers don't always mean what we expect them to mean, this leads me to wonder if my answer to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon could be misinterpreted. I have lost faith in my own ability to communicate with and understand God, but I still think He is there.

I get this!

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1 hour ago, SpiritDragon said:

Indeed, I do try to be careful in suggesting that things "appear" to have been false and not that they are. Although I grew up in the church, I never believed it was true until I was graduating from high school. My testimony has been based on a witness of the spirit to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon as promised in the last chapter of Moroni. Even if the solution is that the answers don't always mean what we expect them to mean, this leads me to wonder if my answer to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon could be misinterpreted. I have lost faith in my own ability to communicate with and understand God, but I still think He is there.

This is why the Book of Mormon is sometimes referred to as a Urim and Thummim.

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On 8/8/2017 at 2:12 PM, Carborendum said:

This is why the Book of Mormon is sometimes referred to as a Urim and Thummim.

Is this a reference to the Urim and Thummim being implements that bolstered faith to translate and receive revelations and comparing that to the Book of Mormon building faith?

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I loved the suggestion of chiasmus and hebraisms, as well as stylometry (referred to above in this thread as "wordprint", which has to do with identifying authors using statistical analysis - I looked it up and apparently the preferred term is "stylometry"). I'd heard about stylometry but not read anything about its application to the Book of Mormon. Loved what I found here: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies

The story of how chiasmus was found in the Book of Mormon is a fun one:

 

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42 minutes ago, eddified said:

I loved the suggestion of chiasmus and hebraisms, as well as stylometry (referred to above in this thread as "wordprint", which has to do with identifying authors using statistical analysis - I looked it up and apparently the preferred term is "stylometry"). I'd heard about stylometry but not read anything about its application to the Book of Mormon. Loved what I found here: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies

The story of how chiasmus was found in the Book of Mormon is a fun one:

 

For anyone who is willing to look, there is a mountain of evidence that the Book of Mormon is true, stuff that absolutely defies any other explanation.

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Quote

Doctrine and Covenants 112:

30 For unto you, the Twelve, and those, the First Presidency, who are appointed with you to be your counselors and your leaders, is the power of this priesthood given, for the last days and for the last time, in the which is the dispensation of the fulness of times,

31 Which power you hold, in connection with all those who have received a dispensation at any time from the beginning of the creation;

32 For verily I say unto you, the keys of the dispensation, which ye have received, have come down from the fathers, and last of all, being sent down from heaven unto you.

33 Verily I say unto you, behold how great is your calling. Cleanse your hearts and your garments, lest the blood of this generation be required at your hands.

34 Be faithful until I come, for I come quickly; and my reward is with me to recompense every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega. Amen.

While I was away camping this last week-end I encountered this little nugget that I felt made for a strong case as to the role of the twelve being known during Joseph's time as leaders of the church, and the priesthood being brought forth for the last time.

Edited by SpiritDragon
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/7/2017 at 11:24 AM, SpiritDragon said:

Are there not any scriptures or teachings  that say that in this last dispensation the church will not apostatize... at least something to that effect. That the priesthood will never be taken away again. I have been searching unsuccessfully for scriptures or quotes from Joseph Smith or his contemporaries this weekend - I've found support for the idea but no clear proclamation. I'll keep digging, but if anyone with better fortune searching things out could help I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

I just came across this tonight and thought of you. This is a Joseph Smith quote cited in Elder Haight's talk on Solemn Assemblies:

Quote

“No true angel from God will ever come to ordain any man, because they have once been sent to establish the priesthood by ordaining me thereunto; … the priesthood being once established on earth, with power to ordain others, no heavenly messenger will ever come to interfere with that power by ordaining any more. … You may therefore know, from this time forward, that if any man comes to you professing to be ordained by an angel, he is either a liar or has been imposed upon in consequence of transgression by an angel of the devil, for this priesthood shall never be taken away from this church” (Millennial Star, 20 Nov. 1846, p. 139).

 

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1 hour ago, mordorbund said:

I just came across this tonight and thought of you. This is a Joseph Smith quote cited in Elder Haight's talk on Solemn Assemblies:

 

Thank you so very much, this is a fantastic find:

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/MStar/id/973/rec/10

here is the online copy of the source material, the information contained within the ellipsis is also awesome!

Edit: It appears the link defaults to page 149 or section 109 of 122, you'll need to click previous until you reach section 99 of 122 to be on page 139.

Edited by SpiritDragon
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Further along the idea of succession of the prophet Joseph Smith belonging to the twelve we have Joseph Smith teaching:

‘I will give you a key that will never rust. If you will stay with the majority of the Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church, you will never be led astray’”

We also have what is sometimes termed the last charge given to the apostles wherein Joseph rolls the kingdom off his shoulders and onto the brethren. 

Concerning Brigham Young in particular, I was listening to the dramatized church history audio recordings and heard them relay a story of Brigham speaking in tongues and the members feeling that Brother Joseph would set him straight soon enough, as he had done with others who were not acting on the spirit of the lord when doing so. In this instance Joseph, instead, defended Brigham's gift of the spirit and declared he had spoken in the pure Adamic language and would one day preside over the church. I wondered if this could be verified or if it was a bit of artistic licence taken in the dramatization of the narrative. I was pleased when I was able to later find that there is a record of this event in the 25th volume of the millenial star on page 439 under the heading of History of Brigham.

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/MStar/id/7990/rec/56

This links to the issue in question, simply jump to no.28 July 11 1863 and click on the heading for Brigham's history, then scroll to page 439 and read away.

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