Anatomy of a Mormon Melchizedek Priesthood – Study Guide Lesson on Mormon Theology
The Mormon Church hierarchy has not long ago, in 2014, condescended from what it regards as its sacred responsibility to “lie for the Mormon lord” to publicly point out some poignant truths about the lifetime and character of Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, Jr. However, Mormon Basic Authorities, these kinds of as Mormon Apostle Jeffery R. Holland, proceed to stand in front of tens of millions of rank-and-file Latter-day Saints, in the course of their most the latest Typical Conference, and swear in the name of their Mormon god that the lustful adulterous techniques of Joseph Smith have been accepted and blessed by that utterly changeable deity. Throughout that 2014 LDS meeting, Holland waved a duplicate of the “Ebook of Mormon” in his hand in the course of his sermon as he raved about the truthful historicity and the doctrinal correctness of that 19th Century apochraphal guide. He failed to point out, nevertheless, that the “E book of Mormon” entirely contradicts the polytheistic doctrines of Mormon theology that Joseph Smith wrote and proclaimed 14 years following he experienced called the “Book of Mormon” the most most correct e-book on the deal with of the earth. This was in 1844, when Smith ushered-in his ex-cathedra doctrine,known as the King Follett Discourse, in the course of a Mormon Standard Meeting in Nauvoo, Illinois.
To-day, I really don’t believe that that anyone, Mormon, non-Mormon, or ex-Mormon, has publicly spelled out, web site-by-webpage, an precise lesson of elementary Mormon theology from an formal LDS Melchizedek Priesthood Analyze Manual, a review guideline printed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (previously by the “Company of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)” for doctrinal use by Melchizedek Priesthood groups in Mormon wards and stakes. These teams comprised, and still comprise, the quorums of elders and significant-clergymen in LDS, or Mormon, wards during the environment. Through 1984, while in Oceanside, California, I, my 1st-spouse, and youngsters were actively attending the Oceanside To start with Ward of the LDS Church. I was then an lively elder in priesthood rank and, by ward business office, an assistant ward clerk and missionary, and took portion in priesthood functions as a member of the Oceanside Initially-Ward Quorum of Elders. The name of the LDS Priesthood Analyze Guidebook, from which I examined Mormon doctrinal theology all through 1984, was “Lookup These Commandments.” One of the LDS Palomar California Stake Presidency, the Stake President himself, testified officiously in the identify of the Mormon god, ahead of the Initially-Ward Quorum of Elders, on September 4, 1984, that the 1984 Priesthood manual contained only commandments that the Mormon god expected every single elder to obey.
Hence, Lesson 21 of that priesthood review guide was just one of the number of major theological classes, comprised of primary Mormon theological principles, introduced by the Mormon Church, which each Mormon elder world-extensive, together with Mormon Apostle, and Counselor in the LDS Initially Presidency, Gordon B. Hinckley, had been instructed to review all through the calendar year 1984. Additionally, the title of the priesthood examine tutorial, “Look for These Commandments,” conferred doctrinal stature on each individual, and every, lesson in that guidebook. But, due to the fact Hinckley had been virtually only accountable for writing and approving the review guide’s publication, he experienced absolutely acknowledged, a great deal much better that I experienced identified at that time, the sacred Mormon commandments that the lesson had contained.
So let’s go, site-by-webpage, by Lesson 21, which is entitled, “Man may develop into like God.” The lesson starts on website page 151 in the priesthood examine guide and commences with a conversation in between two devout Mormons, Invoice and his quorum leader. In get to observe copyright legislation, I will present the lesson utilizing revised syntax and synonyms to convey, in paraphrase, the lesson’s verbatim content material.
“What is the ultimate goal of finding out all these commandments, and why are we commanded to be obedient to all these commandments?” Monthly bill requested his elders’ quorum chief. His leader replied,
“We will have to reply to our Mormon god for the things we do and we will not do on the earth.”
Then the study guide asks the dilemma. “Is it possible that you have forgotten about what a devout Mormon elder can finally grow to be by adhering to the commandments?” At the bottom of website page 151, a statement about of one the Mormon prophets, Lorenzo Snow, is designed.
“You, a Mormon elder, can know as certainly as Lorenzo Snow did, although as a youthful holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood, the acme, or greatest amount, of everlasting accomplishment. You can be like Lorenzo Snow.”
Then a tale is advised about Lorenzo Snow, when he was explained to in his youth, by a Mormon officer acknowledged as a Patriarch, that by obeying all of the Mormon commandments he could, and would, develop into equal to the greatness of the Mormon god. So, a quotation (as the defining component of a doctrinal commandment) by Mormon Prophet Lorenzo Snow was supplied, which has given that develop into the crux of this theology. “As person is, god after was, and as god is man may well grow to be.” The lesson even goes further more on site 151 to denote that, later, Lorenzo Snow was personally instructed by the founding Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith that the foregoing assertion about man starting to be a Mormon father god was right theological doctrine and was a private statement from the Mormon father god to him.”
Now the Mormon Salt Lake hierarchy has produced ongoing tongue-in-cheek statements to the effect that the 1844 “King Follett Discourse” of Joseph Smith is not, and has under no circumstances been, regarded by the Church as Mormon theological doctrine.” Well, as you will see, the next element of Lesson 21, on page 152, is a immediate statement from Joseph Smith’s “King Follett Discourse” that he designed in that auspicious 1844 LDS Typical Conference, which was regarded then as holy scripture, as the brain, will, and voice of the Mormon god. Right after Joseph Smith’s demise, the Mormon Church hierarchy put the most critical components of the “King Follett Discourse” into a ebook called “Teachings,” which was published four many years just after Joseph Smith died, but the author is supposedly Joseph Smith.
At the top rated of webpage 152, the similar statement is produced that is identified on internet pages 345-46 of “Teachings,” and also in the recorded phrases of the “King Follett Discourse,” as they were being written down by Mormon scribes as Joseph Smith spoke them in 1844. “It is the initial theory of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we can converse with him as 1 person converses with one more, and that he was the moment a man like us yea, that God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth.”
Then even further in the Analyze Tutorial, on page 153, Brigham Youthful is quoted in his doctrinal extension of the “King Follett Discourse,” identified as the “Adam-God Doctrine,” which he vehemently mentioned in quite a few LDS Basic Conferences in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, as divine revelation. This discourse of Brigham Young is found recorded in the “Journal of Discourses,” Vol. 6, web pages 274-75. “It ought to be that God appreciates a thing about temporal points, and has experienced a human body and been on an earth ended up it not so He would not know how to judge guys righteously, according to the temptations and sins they have had to contend with.”
The Mormon theological commandment for guy to develop into like the Mormon father-god is, therefore, speciously predicated on the notion that a God of spirit, with no commencing and no end, these as is explained in equally the “Reserve of Mormon”(which is plagiarized from the Bible) and the Holy Bible, is not able to choose his little ones righteously. It is then clearly very clear that Brigham Young and Joseph Smith neglected reading through John 1:1-20, in the Bible, regarding the Word that was Jesus Christ in the Spirit, who presided around the Little ones of Israel as they migrated via the wilderness to the Promised Land. In essence, Brigham Younger was arrogantly saying that Jesus could not have righteously judged his persons at that time without possessing a mortal physique. What is extra, the Mormon hierarchy has, since all around 1900, been fond of stating that “the LDS Church only thinks, as commandments, those people statements created, and commandments supplied, by the Mormon god in the 4 typical operates of the LDS church, the Reserve of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Wonderful Price (the Book of Abraham), and the Bible. If this is so, Lesson 21 is, nevertheless, an additional blatant Mormon contradiction, as every single theological commandment listed in Lesson 21 is uncovered outdoors the four normal is effective of the Mormon Church, in excathrdra statements by Mormon Prophets and Apostles, which were regarded as canonized Mormon doctrine and scripture until eventually close to 1910.
At the base of website page 152, Lesson 21 carries on as the origin of the Mormon
father-god is all over again explicated according to the “King Follett Discourse,” in accordance with the arrangement expressed by successors of Joseph Smith, Jr. Mormon Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith is quoted from his “Doctrines of Salvation, 2:47, that, “Our Father in heaven, in accordance to the Prophet (Joseph Smith) experienced a father.” Mormon Prophet Joseph F. Smith (the father of Joseph Fielding Smith) is quoted as indicating, “I know that God is a currently being with human body, parts, and passions… Guy was born of female Christ, the Savior, was born of female and God, the Father was born of girl” (“Church Information,” 19 Sept. 1936, p. 2). To demonstrate that the Mormon father-god was comprehended to have long gone through the very same mortal biological course of action that Mormon guys go by in this existence (obeying commandments, performing his way to heaven, and going by the Mormon temple endowment ceremony), Mormon Prophet Wilford Woodruff, at the bottom of web site 152, is quoted as expressing, “He [God] has experienced his endowments a good a lot of a long time back. He has ascended to his thrones, principalities and powers in the eternities.” (“Deseret News Weekly, 28 Sept. 1881, p. 546).
As yet another restatement of Joseph Smith’s “King Follett Discourse,” Brigham Young is, once again, quoted on site 153 of Lesson 21. “He is our father – the Father of our spirits – and was when a guy in mortal flesh as we are… ” To impress on the reader the polytheistic blasphemy of Mormon theology, Brigham Youthful is quoted as declaring a little bit a lot more. “There was by no means a time when there had been not GODS and worlds and when gentlemen were being not passing by means of the very same ordeals that we are now passing as a result of., and it seems preposterous to the earth, under their darkened and faulty (Christian) traditions, that God (the father) has after been a finite currently being.” (“Deseret News,” 16 Nov. 1859, p. 290). Then, on web site 153, the Mormon writers use blatant sophistry in vainly making an attempt to use the Apostle Paul’s statement about Jesus in Philippians 2:5-11 (NIV) in defense of this polytheism.
“5. Your mind-set ought to be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6. Who, being in very character God, did not take into consideration equality with God some thing to be grasped, 7. but built himself absolutely nothing, getting the very character of a servant, staying manufactured in human likeness. 8. And being discovered in look as a gentleman, he humbled himself and became obedient to dying– even demise on a cross! 9. Thus God exalted him to the greatest put and gave him the identify that is higher than each individual identify, 10. that at the title of Jesus each knee really should bow, in heaven and on earth and below the earth, 11. and each tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The Mormons actually believe that this foregoing biblical scripture, which declares that Jesus’ Father permitted his only begotten Son to turn into human, whilst still remaining as God, and to present himself as a sacrifice, unto demise, on the cross for sin, endorses the polytheistic theology that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was conceived biologically as all mortals are conceived, and was not born as God Almighty, but turned a God in excess of time via constant adjust, as had his exalted father-god. Then, continuing on page 153, the Mormon writers attempt to use John 15:1-8 to check out to exhibit an endorsement by the Gospel writer for ongoing operate and alter in the Mormon process of a person turning into as fantastic as the Mormon god.
“I am the accurate vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every single department in me that bears no fruit, when each individual branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even a lot more fruitful. You are now clean up due to the fact of the word I have spoken to you. Stay in me, as I also continue being in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself it should keep on being in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit aside from me you can do practically nothing. If you do not continue to be in me, you are like a branch that is thrown absent and withers these branches are picked up, thrown into the fireplace and burned. If you continue to be in me and my text remain in you, check with what ever you wish, and it will be finished for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear considerably fruit, demonstrating yourselves to be my disciples.”
By any extend of the creativeness, this endeavor to use the foregoing words of the Apostle Paul to clearly show the mortal origin of God Almighty is profoundly ludicrous. On top of that, the Mormon use of John 8:29 (NIV) as a indicates of supporting the Mormon theology of the exalted guy father-god, to present that what the Father taught Jesus, right before and after he came to the earth to take upon himself flesh, comprised the very same recommendations that he gave to all mankind, is similarly ludicrous. Jesus experienced a mission to perform as the “only” Savior of the globe, the only Savior in the universe. Mormon theology teaches that each and every Mormon person that turns into a Mormon father-god will develop a savior, a Jesus, as a result of biological replica. So in accordance to Mormonism, there is, and have often been, an infinite selection of finite saviors.
Even further, on web page 154, Mormon Prophet Joseph F. Smith is all over again quoted as saying, “We are exactly in the exact same situation and underneath the similar instances that God our heavenly father was when he was passing through this, or a identical ordeal.” (Gospel Doctrine, p.64).
Then, once again, on page 154, the Mormon sophists try to use the Trinitarian theology of the Book of Mormon, in 3 Nephi 28:10, to test to protect the eternity of polytheistic Mormon theology. This is why they will not use this specific E book of Mormon scripture in conjunction with the previous verse, verse 9, as the fictional account of Jesus checking out the South American continent and blessing the 12 Nephite apostles with presents he did not even give to his Twelve Apostles in the Holy Land. Soon after 1838, the Mormons attempted to disavow the Trinitarian theology of the E-book of Mormon, but verse 10, of 3 Nephi 28, appears to contradict the doctrine that the Father and the Son are, now, two separate beings in heaven. “And for this trigger ye shall have fullness of pleasure and ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my father yea your pleasure shall be entire, even as the father hath presented me fullness of joy and ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father and the Father and I are a single.” Just simply because Jesus was resurrected on the earth, and ascended into heaven as a resurrected currently being, it won’t necessarily mean that Jesus has to hold that exact resurrected sort in heaven even however he will return to the earth in his resurrected system. Jesus is God almighty, and has no boundaries. He is infinitely highly effective, and are unable to be quantified and place into a test tube, as the Mormons have tried using to do.
On web site 155, in the Examine Guideline, the Mormon writers get started to summarize what they assume has been a cogent lesson about man’s mortal journey from Mormon mortality to godhood, and conclude with a quotation from the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith. “Listed here, then, is everlasting life – to know the only sensible and correct God and you have to master how to be Gods yourselves, and be kings and priests to God, the similar as all Gods have done in advance of you” (“Teachings,” pp. 346-47).
This specific anatomy of an official Mormon Melchizedek Priesthood Research Guideline lesson on Mormon theology ( all about Mormon godhood) is very startling and conclusively proves that the Mormon Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley was lying when he was requested by Larry King, in 1999, on national tv whether or not or not the Mormon Church teaches that God was once a man, and that a gentleman can be come to be a god (with a cash G). When questioned this by Larry King, Hinckley seemed into the tv digital camera and replied with a grin on his confront, “I do not assume we know incredibly much about that.” In summation, the venerable verse uncovered in the Reserve of Numbers 23:19 (NIV), of the Old Testomony, appears to be to say it all about God Almighty not becoming any section human, or derived from mortality. “God is not human, that he must lie, not a human, that he ought to improve his mind. Does he converse and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” With regards to the very last sentence of this verse does it not remind a person of a guarantee manufactured by Joseph Smith, Jr. in the identify of the Mormon-god that a Mormon temple would be created, occur hell or higher-h2o, in Jackson County, Missouri in the 1830s. Perfectly, it was under no circumstances designed…
