Belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joyful husband and father. Faith is power. Mechanical Engineer, and lucid dreamer. I wrote #DreamWake
Members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) may not fit the mainstream United States definition of the term “Christian”.
But they most definitely fit the description of Disciples of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And thus you see why signs and evidence will never have power to convert, only faith through prayerful study and action can bring faith. Similarly the atheist will reject the cloth of Christ as merely evidence that the jews buried their dead. Many believe there was a man named Jesus due to the historical evidence but reject the miracles, His Divinity and Atonement. The evidence will never prove Jesus is the Christ. Only faith can do that.
The Apostles themselves declare corinuation of Prophets and continuing Revelation. They preach of a "falling away" and a "time of restitution".
You claim post-Apostolic, but we claim Apostle's have been called once more, and ordained at the hands of Peter, James and John no less. You claim we preach a "different Jesus" and a different Gospel but provide no evidence for this beyond your claim. Whereas I have the teachings of the Book of Mormon and all the scripture to refute your claims of a "different Jesus".
To be true, we DON'T believe the Nicene and many of the other creeds to be true and certainly none of the creeds were authored by a Priesthood authority. The Nicene creed teaches a different Jesus from the New Testament, a "trinith in unity... without parts or passions" Jesus. This is directly refuted by the New Testament.
By your own standard, the Creeds are post-Apostolic and yet you believe those?
This is easily described in the "Articles of Faith".
8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
The New Testament itself affirms that it is an incomplete record, that there are many records both Old Testament and New Testament that were lost, and we get only passing references to these in the New Testament.
This stems from non-prophetic translation and apostasy where many plain and precious truths were lost. The many councils deciding on canon also left out records, most of the Catholic churches accept the Apocrypha as part of the canon and protestant churches don't. Some horny greek scribes decided Song of Solomon was canon even.
So close yet so far.
The Jaredites utterly destroyed themselves. You keep neglecting the "When?" That would be sometime between 600 BC and 120 BC. The evidence of their destruction was clear at the time. How many years did the Nephites live in the land after this destruction? 500-1000 years. The Nephites slowly moved into all the places the Jaredites had once inhabited. Removing wreckage and building new structures in their stead.
The Nephites were destroyed by the Lamanites ~430 AD. Mormon himself died from wounds suffered in battle. It's also important to note. Both Jaredites and Nephites appear to have gathered at the same hill for their last stands, a prominent hill in upstate New York. Mormon was far more likely to have moved the plates and the source records over the course of 40+ years of war, where his people were pushed gradually northwards until their final gathering. Note it took 4 years for the final gathering to be completed to the battleground in New York. And what of the Lamanites? They wandered the land in tribal bands. What did explorers and the pilgrims discover 1100 to 1200 years later? Bands of "savages" with some small "Nations".
What do pagans do to structures of their defeated opponents? Pagans took out all of the items of the Temple and destroyed the Temple on multiple occasions in the Bible.
The pagan Lamanites took over, failing to maintain the once great cities as they slipped further and further into depravity. Many of the buidings were wood, which we know won't last more than a few decades without upkeep.
1100 years is plenty of time for not only the structures to be utterly decayed and returned to the land, but the weapons of metal to rust into nothingness.
The rest, the weapons of stone were used by the lamanites for a millennia to kill each other in pagan wars. Even so, American settlers often discovered large mounds and abnormally symmetrical hills, with the occasional cache of stone or obsidian arrowheads. Many were taken as curiosities, not studied on location by archeologists. The sites themselves were often reworked by American settlers.
We have accounts from 49 BC onward in the Book of Mormon of many houses being made of cement. What do we find in the American west? Adobe "cement" apartments and towns. There is evidence of cement structures among predecessors to the Maya and the Maya themselves dating as far back as 300-250 BC and a significant expansion around 100 BC. Exactly with Book of Mormon claims. Teotihuacan also had cement structures with evidence back to 100 AD.
The Jaredites don't speak much on architecture beyond their barges, but have claims of an advanced civilization. There is evidence in South America (of Inca and predecessors) of precision stone masonry (stones so tight and precise no mortar was needed) back to 3100 BC. Right around the time the Jaredites would have been expanding here after the tower of babel.
Finally, these discoveries of "cement" structures weren't until after Joseph Smith's time. Journeying through desert and then jungle of meso-america and the Amazon region is no small feat, even today. New technologies are constantly discovering more and more evidence of advanced civilizations with literal cities buried beneath thousands of years of tropical and rainforest growth.
In North America, many of the structures weren't destroyed by the American Expansion without a care for documentation. Even so, the great mounds that suggest raised defensive walls as described in the Book of Alma and fortress type designs are being discovered more and more.
And a reminder. The pagans had 1100+ years to warp the structures, adding their Gods and fads popular in each new generation, further desecrating the original text and plainness of Christian living and Temple worship. The Christian altars were abused for human sacrifice for longer than the original christian Nephites used them per the Law of Moses.
Again, nothing in the BoM contradicts the Biblical Gospel
You wish so badly to be "right"
here but you keep going back to cursing and "authority" of which you have none. Notice how the Country demanding revisions to Japan's museum records of Nanjing isn't in that list... curious. Why might that be? Perhaps those countries are okay with Japan's portrayal of this event? Perhaps they disagree with the CCPs demands because, once again, the CCP are Communist LIARS?
Your argument holds no weight. China can "demand" whatever they want and every serious country will continue to ignore their asinine claims.
@Splougy@Latterdaytruth Alright, you got the gist of it. It IS important to note that Moroni, Mormon's son, buried the plates sometime around 433 AD. Now what of the Nations of The Book of Mormon, what became of each of them and when?
And the reason the atrocities of the CCP matters in relation to Nanjing: It is clear to all but the poor citizens of China, that the CCP lies compulsively. Why then should a reputable Nation change the weight and phrasing of their history to conform to the whims of a Government that LIES CONSTANTLY? The changes they want can't be verified by any reputable source only by CCP claims.
The CCP claims Tianamen Square didn't happen, that COVID did not originate in a Wuhan Lab, that Taiwan is not a separate Nation. Why should anyone in the world believe anything they say about Tianamen? It's not like Japan is hiding what they did. That's quite a bit better than most countries would do, especially China. Why should Japan appease liars?
Your initial premise is false though: Faith is not the same as blind zealotry.
"Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things. Wherefore dispute not because ye see not."
"Faith is to believe in things which are not seen, which are true."
"You receive no witness until after the trial of faith."
"5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Notice a complete and utter lack of "archeological or historical evidence" in any of these scriptures? Because the evidence of the world will not bring Salvation. You could hold the very cloth Christ's body was wrapped in and unless you had received the knowledge of Christ through the Holy Spirit, it would not lead to your salvation.
So I ask, as one who has read The Book of Mormon, what does the book itself say happened to the Christian civilizations? What happened to Mormon? When did he live? How did the plates end up in a hill in New York? What became of Jaredites, Lamanites and Nephites and when? Within these questions is the answer to your "Where's the evidence?"
The "primitive Church" as shown in the New Testament is also heretical to the Nicene Creed.
The term "Christian" appears in the New Testament. The term "trinity" does not.
We conform to the New Testament definition of Christian and claim the title thus. We absolutely reject the Nicene Creed and many of the other Catholic creeds. This makes us heretical to Catholicism. This does NOT make us heretical to Christ or the New Testament, original meaning of Christian.
We understand and agree that these creeds were a necessary heresy to prevent greater heresies from tearing christianity apart, but this was necessary BECAUSE the "falling away" or Great Apostasy had already occurred, the Priesthood and Revelation had already been lost. We are grateful to the Catholic Church for preserving what it could of Christianity for thousands of years. Those efforts led directly to the enlightenment, which led to the translation of the Bible into english. This translation allowed common folk to see just how far the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and The Church of England had all deviated from biblical Christianity and resulted in the fracturing into "protestant" sects, so called because they protested specific declarations and practices that had been introduced by one or more of the first three churches contrary to the Bible. Protestant churches implicitly believe in the great Apostasy otherwise they would never have started in the first place.
Instead, the fractures led directly to the 13 colonies and to the founding of America. After fighting for and winning Freedom, there was finally a Nation where Original Christianity could be restored by God Himself. Again, we are grateful to these early churches for preserving what they could while compromising where they had to. This preservation led to each subsequent step getting to a Nation where man's religion was not dictated by King or State any longer, and enough freedom for the Restoration.
To reiterate though, the Great Apostasy occurred before Catholicism or Greek Orthodox existed. These were Churches formed via committees of philosophers, politicians and statesmen, not by Prophets and Apostles with Priesthood Authority and Keys from Jesus Christ.
@KyleSeraphin Hey, look, some of the bigger accounts are hopping on the "mormon's arent christians" train too.
bunch of phonies looking to boost their payouts.
Have you read The Book of Mormon? Don't you know what became of the Christian Nations in The Book of Mormon and when? If you did, you would have part of your answer.
More importantly, why do you ask after signs as proof when our Saviors message can only enter the Heart through faith?
Did He not say "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign"? Is your belief in the Bible founded on physical evidences or is it founded on faith in Jesus Christ? If the former, then you don't have faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning power.
Nevertheless, there is growing physical evidence. Simply look at @MoundLore who is no member of our Church, after reading the books of Alma and Ether and you will begin to understand there IS physical evidence indeed. Comparing a middle eastern desert where time preserves history to the forests and jungles of the Americas where even modern structures are consumed by the land within decades if abandoned is a foolish error.
Because you don't ask the question in good faith. Similarly, Satan, which name means "the slanderer" attempted to slander Jesus Christ with "if thou be the Son of God" challenging our Lord to "prove" Himself. Did Christ answer Satan's question's with proof? No. He simply cited the Bible until Satan departed.
You likewise are setting the basis of your question in slander "the ramblings of Joseph Smith". You are not asking a question with real intent but instead trying to mock.
Know that God has declared "fools shall mock but they shall mourn".
Perhaps if you are willing to humble yourself and ask questions with real intent, without mockery or slander, you would find that there is indeed an answer and quite different from your presumptions.
The Book of Mormon teaches that Jesus Christ is the Everlasting God. That He descended below all things, first taking on a mortal body, and then in suffering for our sins descended below the smallest and weakest of all things, that all things could be saved through His Eternal power and Love. He died and rose again on the third day of His own power. He is the Only Begotten of the Father and always has been. Through Him we all will receive salvation, every man woman and child will be resurrected to immortality. Through Him, we can all receive Eternal Life, IF we take up our cross and follow Him, living according to His Gospel.
This the Jesus Christ of The Book of Mormon and the Bible. He is the same being, author and finisher of the faith of ALL His children.
You just decided that no people beyond the Jews were important after Kings and that this must mean His power was limited to only providing revelation through the Jews. Not so! He did not forget ANY of His covenant people even in their captivity and scattering. He continued to teach and give them Prophets and revelation. The Book of Mormon is a record of the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. What's more, Bible and Book of Mormon agree there are yet "other sheep" the other ten tribes of the House of Israel, all with their own records and testimonies of what great things Jesus Christ has done for them and prophesies of what He will yet do.
All of these records are of our God, our Savior and Redeemer.
Your comment belies your lack of understanding of our doctrine. You couldn't possibly end up in outer darkness with your current understanding. 99.9% of humanity can't end up there.
I care because I have felt the power of God's redeeming Love. I have tasted of the fruit of Jesus Christ's Atonement, and He has changed me so that my greatest desire is for the welfare of ALL the souls of my brothers and sisters. Which means I will absolutely continue to invite you and everyone to Come Unto Christ, to come and taste of His matchless Love. He anxiously desires to reveal as much of Himself and His Gospel as you and I are willing to receive. His revelations aren't finished, His work isn't finished. There's so much more than you have received and there will yet be more for all of us to receive from Him, and it will fill our hearts with joy and change much of this fallen world into His Kingdom, Heaven on Earth.
You understand that EVERY book within the Bible is a separate Testament of Jesus Christ right? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each wrote their testimonies aka testaments of what Jesus Christ did for them. Does that mean Mark and Luke teach a different Gospel from one another? No. They agree in the Gospel doctrine.
So too does the Book of Mormon agree with the Bible on every point of Gospel doctrine. It is a collection of testimonies of Jesus Christ from ancient Prophets in the American continents. They were led out of Jerusalem by God, of the House of Israel but not of the Tribe of Judah. They share their revelations, their lives, the miracles that God wrought through their faith in Jesus Christ, and most importantly how the resurrected Christ visited the righteous and gave them the same message and teachings He gave the Jews at Jerusalem. That Christ remembers ALL of His Covenant people, meaning ALL the Tribes of the House of Israel that were scattered.
The Book of Mormon and the Bible also agree and witness, that the Gospel and the Covenant of the House of Israel is now extended to ALL Nations, kindreds, tongues and people. We can accept Jesus Christ and live according to His Gospel and be adopted into the same Covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
There is NO disagreement in the Gospel doctrine between Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the Acts and Epistles of the New Testament, any book of the Old Testament, or between all of these and The Book of Mormon. Read it for yourself. Test it. Pray to God to ask if it is His word just like the Bible. He will let you know in Love that it IS the same Gospel.
The Book of Mormon does not preach "another" Gospel though. It is exactly the same Gospel as taught by Jesus and as revealed through Prophets in every age since Adam and Eve. The Bible prophesies of the people living in America anciently as part of the House of Israel, as it also prophesies of The Book of Mormon and Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is only one Christian Church that preaches with the symbol and the reality of "another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel". There is only one Christian Church that preaches the reality of Prophets in our day, which the book of Revelation affirms will come to pass, or else how will two Prophets be slain in Jerusalem by the armies of Gog and Magog?
No, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches no other Gospel, only the fulness of what was revealed anciently, what is now revealed and what else God will reveal. There is no END to revelation, because God is the same yesterday, today and forever. If He stopped giving revelation forever after some event, would He not be changed?
We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
We do not believe they are without parts (bodies) or passions (emotion & desire). The Father and the Son have bodies of flesh and bone as tangible as mans. Their bodies are immortal, perfect, Eternal. The Holy Ghost has a body of spirit only, so that He may reside in the hearts of men and guide us towards Father and Son by testifying of Truth.
The Bible clearly teaches God feels, sadness, anger and joy and above all Love for His children. His greatest desire is to bring to pass our immortality and Eternal Life. The first was accomplished when Jesus died and rose again, ressurrected from mortality into immortality. Because He rose, we will ALL be resurrected to immortal bodies after death.
The second, Eternal Life, was again accomplished by Jesus Christ during his mortal ministry. He suffered and bled for our sins, that if we should accept Him, and strive to live His Gospel, we will have Eternal Life through Him. Thus we can become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ BECAUSE of Christ. But we have to choose to follow Him, He will not save us without our willing participation to be saved.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is simply: Faith in Jesus Christ leads to repentance from sin which leads to Baptism by Immersion: for the remission of Sins, conducted by an authorized Priesthood representative, and "Baptism by Fire" : receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands again conducted by an authorized Priesthood representative, the promise to have God as our constant guide and companion so long as we are striving to stay on the Gospel path, and Enduring to the End: continuing on this path to the end of our lives.
This is the Gospel
Cults are easy to join and difficult to leave. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is difficult to join, and VERY easy to leave. Yet, most people stay. Why?
Because the Spirit of God is felt within this Church. The truth claims can be verified by anyone who prays with real intent to God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Why is it difficult? For the same reason, when a rich man who believed in Jesus as the Messiah asked "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus didn't say "You believe in me, you're already saved my boy!" and the question expresses individual action to seek exaltation.
No, Jesus said "Sell all that thou hast, take up your cross and follow me."
Jesus can say to each of us "Yet lackest thou one thing."
When you honestly seek to find the truth of the Gospel in its fullness, you WILL be requires to change, to repent. You will need to remove things of the world from your life of which this world has made more and more commonplace.
This includes abstaining from sex outside of marriage, avoiding pornography in all forms, not doing drugs such as tobacco, marijuana of alcohol, paying a full tithe, and obeying the ten commandments. What's more, you must be able to affirm that you have a testimony of each: God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.
You must be able to testify that Jesus is the Christ, our Savior and Redeemer.
You must be able to say that through the Spirit of God, with God as witness, that you believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God as well as the Bible.
You must believe in continuing revelation, in Priesthood authority and keys, and that these have been restored through Prophets and Apostles just as in Christ's time.
You must affirm your denial of the ungodly and your obedience to the commandments.
Finally, you must be willing to be baptized by immersion for the remission of sins by an authorized individual holding the Priesthood, followed by the "baptism by fire" or receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands again by authorized Priesthood representatives.
All this you must do just to become a member of this Church.
To leave, you simply... stop showing up. Some cult that turns out to be...