The Record of John the Baptist: Deconstructing the Denver Snuffer Revelation on St. John

I owe a debt of gratitude to Denver Snuffer.

My understanding and clarity of many tenets of the gospel have been made greater because of him and his ministry.

Before he emerged as a popular author with his “how to ” book on receiving the “second comforter” I had been negligent in deeply searching the meaning of the term and associated doctrines.

Because of Denver, I felt compelled to do extensive research into the topic to see if his claims and the doctrine he teaches is true.

After researching this doctrine as a result of his  claims, I feel that I now have a much deeper and richer understanding and appreciation for the true doctrine that is taught in the scriptures and clarified by Joseph Smith.

I feel that I now have a much better understanding of what the two comforters do in manifesting the truth of all things and how they related to each other and fit into the plan of salvation presented in the scriptures.

Before Denver began publicly questioning the historicity of the amazing visitation of Christ, Moses, Elias and Elijah that is documented in Section 110, I knew it was true. But I had not searched out just how integral the visitations were to the restoration narrative.

I had not realized how many questions it answers and how many other passages of scripture in both modern and ancient scripture it interrelates to the event.

Before Denver proclaimed in his book that priesthood authority was not necessary in administering a valid baptism, I already understood that priesthood WAS necessary.

However, as I scoured 3rd Nephi and Sections 13, 20, 22, 42, and 107 to see what he was seeing that I wasn’t, I gained a much deeper and renewed appreciation for priesthood authority and how God always administers his church and kingdom through human priesthood guides.

I now have a deeper regard for the necessity of the various orders and divisions of priesthood and priesthood offices in the church. I now appreciate to a much fuller degree why priesthood restoration is one of the trademarks of the LDS restoration movement.

When Denver declared that Abraham’s patriarchal priesthood was greater than the Melchizedek Priesthood, I already knew Denver was wrong about that. However, by being forced to document and articulate why I disagreed with his conclusion, I personally gained a much deeper clarity in my mind on the issue.

Numerous other false doctrines that he has taught have caused me to reevaluate and dig deeper in the scriptures to verify and validate the truth.

Several Snufferites have contacted me and acknowledged that they agreed with me that Denver had taught many false doctrines.

Curiously, most of them have concluded that they should accept him as a valid priesthood guide anyway solely based on his claim to be speaking with and being taught by God.

These conclusions seemed somewhat illogical to me but once again motivated me to ponder and do additional research on the relationship between the teaching of true doctrine and the role of prophets.  I had to scripturally validate the supposition that true prophets must teach true doctrine unless and until they fall from their calling.

I have been asked by one of the Snufferites to dedicate an entire blog to cataloging all of the major false doctrines taught by Denver Snuffer and providing a detailed analysis of and comparison of what the corresponding true doctrine is and how he has corrupted it. I may do that some time this year if I can find the time.

This four part series will simply detail the most recent false revelation that Snuffer has presented.

With the advent of the new revelation Snuffer claims to have received called the inspired version of the testimony of St John, Denver Snuffer has once again blessed my life by directing my attention to , and motivating me to revew a topic that I have previously given very little thought about, namely, the record of John that is spoken of about in Section 93.

Part One of this series will demonstrate that the record of John in Section 93 is speaking about the record of John the Baptist, not the record of John the Evangelist as the Snufferite community has been claiming.

Part Two will explain what the fulness of the record of John really is. It might surprise you how obvious it was all the time.

Part Three will detail the major changes to the gospel of John the Joseph Smith revealed in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. It will show that Denver Snuffer has rejected and deleted and/or completely changed the wording and meaning of many of the clarification that the JST had provided in the Gospel of St John.

Part Four will detail many of the other false teachings in the Snuffer revelation, including  the insertion of the King Follett theology of God the Father having once been a mortal  man and the false doctrine that their are many saviors who have created many worlds and provided atonement’s for the worlds they have created.

The Record of John

Section 93 makes reference to the fulness of the record of John that is to come forth at a later time in verses 6 & 18:

6 And John saw and bore record of the fulness of my glory, and the fulness of John’s record is hereafter to be revealed.

18 And it shall come to pass, that if you are faithful you shall receive the fulness of the record of John.

Denver Snuffer has unobtrusively posted his new revelation on the Gospel of St. John on his blog without saying very much about it publicly.

Nevertheless, the Snufferite community is buzzing about it and someone has even created a webpage that is dedicated to the study of this new revelation.

Again, I have Denver Snuffer to thank in motivating me to research this topic. I confess that I had never done a deep search and the whole topic was rather ambiguous in my mind.

This topic was brought to my attention one day when I got the following email from a subscriber

Today on one of the Facebook groups Bob Sontag (I don’t know him) posted this about the origin of this Testimony of St John:

This is Denver’s full response to my email this morning asking him for any information he could share about how and why it came to be. Shared with his permission:

There is a new edition of the scriptures being prepared which will use the JST of the Bible. That will result in both the Book of Moses and JS-Matthew being removed from the Pearl of Great Price. When I was asked to take a look at the project I had the impression that a new translation of John’s Gospel was needed and ought to replace the missing texts. I asked a qualified Greek Scholar to undertake that project and he declined. But the impression remained that it needed to be done.

I made it the subject of prayer and was told to do the work. I spent a few days working with an English-Greek New Testament, the JS Translation of John, and a Greek Lexicon before becoming hopelessly discouraged by the many options and choices. I prayed about it before retiring for the night and essentially quit. I explained that it would take years for me to accomplish this, and that I was not going to be able to solve the riddles of the text. I went to bed assuming I was done with it.

In the middle of that night I was awakened and given the solution to every dilemma I had been facing in the work on the text. So the next day I continued on from where I had abandoned the work and, to my surprise, everything was opened to my mind so clearly and continuously that the entire project was completed in less than three weeks. The light of heaven opened the material in a way I had never thought of nor had previously attained to in considering the Gospel of John. At times it progressed so rapidly that I was unable to finish one part before the next came rolling out. Many new and different things were added, and at least one thing was dropped entirely because it was not part of John’s original composition. Because of the rapid way it rolled out, once I finished the text I went back to clean up a lot of what had been left as incomplete sentences, run-on sentences, missing words (particularly conjunctions) and cryptic or inadequate explanations. The intent of the writer, John, was revealed, including why some things were included in the text and the manner he wrote.

When it began it was an attempt at a “translation” but by the time it was completed it was clearly a “revelation” and not merely a translation of a text. Therefore the result does not have my name on it, because I cannot claim any credit for the content. I failed in what I was attempting. What resulted came from heaven

As you can see, Snuffer claims that while trying to translate a more revelatory and accurate version of the text in the Gospel of St John, he was given a revelation from God that explained what he considered to be the “cryptic or inadequate explanations” in it.

Sadly, several of the “inadequate explanations” that he refers to were are directed at clarifications provided by Joseph Smith in the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. Hence, Denver simply deleted them or replaced them with a completely contradictory explanation.

When I quizzed one of the Snufferites about this latest development he gave the following response:

“evidently this is supposed to be a fulfillment of the D&C 93:6 prophecy which reads, ” And John saw and bore record of the fulness of my glory, and the fulness of John’s record is hereafter to be revealed.”

As similar belief was expressed by Adrian Larsen on his blog.

One such record has recently come forth. The Testimony of St. John has been revealed and published to begin the fulfillment of the prophecy we’ve discussed above. I believe this record is also a partial fulfillment of the promise contained in section 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants:

And John saw and bore record of the fulness of my glory, and the fulness of John’s record is hereafter to be revealed…And it shall come to pass, that if you are faithful you shall receive the fulness of the record of John. (D&C 93:6, 18)

I have since noticed other Snufferites declaring that this new revelation is the fulfillment of the prophecy in Section 93 about the future coming forth of the fulness of the record of John.

Although it is unknown to me if Snuffer has come out and claimed that his revelation on the testimony of St. John is in fulfillment of the prophecy in Section 93, he seems to be implying it in the following statement:

When I was asked to take a look at the project I had the impression that a new translation of John’s Gospel was needed and ought to replace the missing texts.

Why else would Snuffer single out the Gospel of John has having missing texts instead of all other books in the New Testament unless he was interpreting Section 93 the same way his disciples are?

In his inspired revelation Snuffer changes the text to substantiate his belief that the “record of John”spoken of in Section 93 is referring to the record of John the Evangelist:

“And I, John, bear record, and lo the heavens were opened, and the Holy Ghost descended upon Him in the form of a dove and remained upon Him. There came a voice out of heaven saying: You are my Beloved Son, this day I have begotten you; for I was there with John the Baptist when he baptized Jesus.”

The above passage completely contradicts the inspired Version which clarifies that  it was only John the Baptist that heard the voice and saw the Holy Ghost descending like a dove. None of the spectators saw or heard what John the Baptist heard and saw.

This new revelation from Snuffer takes his ministry to the next level in that he had not previously produced a written revelation from the Lord that will be canonized. Apparently this new revelation will be canonized in a new edition of LDS scriptures that will be coming forth from the Snufferite movement.

Obviously, if his revelation was a valid one, it would establish him as a revelator.

If Denver’s revelation can be shown to have significant errors in it, it would be a clear sign that he is not a true prophet, or at the very least, he would be a fallen prophet.

Section 43 warns us about accepting the teachings of anyone claiming to be a revelator who had not been duly appointed by the Lord.

Producing a written revelation from the Lord is a tricky business because it enables scholars and students of the gospel to really scrutinize and dissect the content in the revelation instead of some ambiguous second hand statement regarding something the Lord had said.

There was an interesting event in the early history of the church that included the challenge of fabricating a revelation that could meet the scrutiny of critics that are weighing the content against the existing body of scripture in the  accepted canons of scripture.

Some of the leading authorities of the church were called upon to bear solemn testimony that the revelations that had been compiled for publication were true.

[In the afternoon session of the Hiram Conference on 1 November, following the reception of the Lord’s preface to the Book of Commandments (D&C 1)] Br. Joseph Smith jr. said that inasmuch as the Lord had bestowed a great blessing upon us in giving commandments and revelations, asked the conference what testimony they were willing to attach to these commandments which should shortly be sent to the world. A number of the brethren arose and said that they were willing to testify to the world that they knew that they were of the Lord.

Ultimately, a few of the leading brethren including William E. M’Lellin, took issue with some of the revelations because of the language used in some of the Sections.

This prompted a challenge from the Lord for that person who considered himself the “most wise” among the group, to see if he could manufacture scripture that could pass the scrutiny of the others.

1 Behold and hearken, O ye elders of my church, who have assembled yourselves together, whose prayers I have heard, and whose hearts I know, and whose desires have come up before me.

 2 Behold and lo, mine eyes are upon you, and the heavens and the earth are in mine hands, and the riches of eternity are mine to give.

 3 Ye endeavored to believe that ye should receive the blessing which was offered unto you; but behold, verily I say unto you there were fears in your hearts, and verily this is the reason that ye did not receive.

 4 And now I, the Lord, give unto you a testimony of the truth of these commandments which are lying before you.

 5 Your eyes have been upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and his language you have known, and his imperfections you have known; and you have sought in your hearts knowledge that you might express beyond his language; this you also know.

 6 Now, seek ye out of the Book of Commandments, even the least that is among them, and appoint him that is the most wise among you;

 7 Or, if there be any among you that shall make one like unto it, then ye are justified in saying that ye do not know that they are true;

 8 But if ye cannot make one like unto it, ye are under condemnation if ye do not bear record that they are true.

 9 For ye know that there is no unrighteousness in them, and that which is righteous cometh down from above, from the Father of lights.

 10 And again, verily I say unto you that it is your privilege, and a promise I give unto you that have been ordained unto this ministry, that inasmuch as you strip yourselves from jealousies and fears, and humble yourselves before me, for ye are not sufficiently humble, the veil shall be rent and you shall see me and know that I am—not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual.

The challenge from the Lord proved to be a humbling experience for Elder MLellin:

After the foregoing was received, William E. M’Lellin, as the wisest man, in his own estimation, having more learning than sense, endeavored to write a commandment like unto one of the least of the Lord’s, but failed; it was an awful responsibility to write in the name of the Lord.

The Elders and all present that witnessed this vain attempt of a man to imitate the language of Jesus Christ, renewed their faith in the fulness of the Gospel, and in the truth of the commandments and revelations which the Lord had given to the Church through my instrumentality; and the Elders signified a willingness to bear testimony of their truth to all the world.

In this post I am going to detail why the fabrication of scripture will ultimately be much more humiliating to Denver Snuffer than it was for William E. M’Lellin.

Imitating the “language of Jesus Christ” entails more than just trying to sound like Jesus Christ, or one of his servants . The content must be consistent with other scriptural content. It must square with history and doctrine and prophecy that has already been revealed in scripture. Obviously, fabricating a few passages of scripture is much easier than fabricating several chapters.

The only way a person can actually know if a book of scripture is true is though the spirit. On must study the content and pray about it.

By producing this revelation, Denver has invited the world to parse and vet the content for consistency and accuracy. The difference between the attempt of William E. M’Lellin and the attempt of Denver Snuffer is that M’lellin was simply attempting to fabricate scripture at the invitation of the Lord to see how difficult that task is and to validate the revelatory nature of the scripture Joseph had brought forth.

Snuffer, on the other hand, is seriously trying to convince people of his revelatory gift to prove he is a prophet of God. He is using the new revelation to gain credibility and to generate additional followers.

Although I had done some surface reading about the topic in years past, I decided to begin my investigation anew.

I began by simply googling to see if the Church had taken an official stand on whether Section 93 was refering to the “record of John the Baptist” or the “record of John the Evangelist” (also referred to as John the Beloved and John the Revelatory)

I had somewhat of a bias going into this project because the revelation clearly states up front that the testimony of John had to do, at least in part, with seeing Christ receive the fulness of his glory. It is well documented that John the Baptist is the one who bore record of this at Christ’s baptism.

Nevertheless, I wanted to be open to all of the information available.

I began by searching out what the official position of the church is and what LDS general authorities and gospel scholars have concluded.

I had assumed that it was commonly believed that it is not clear which John was being spoken about in Section 93.

To my surprise, I found the following declaration by apostle Neal A. Maxwell:

The record of John referred to in Doctrine and Covenants 93 is a record kept by John the Baptist. The full record of John the Baptist is yet to be revealed, but it will come forth in the future. This record is not to be confused with the writings of John the Revelator, the Apostle, found in the New Testament. ( Neal A. Maxwell,“Not My Will, But Thine”[1988], p. 44.)

The online Gospel Doctrine Manual agrees with the declaration made by Neal A. Maxwell:

DC 93:6  John saw and bore record of the fulness of my glory

The Lord doesn’t identify which John this is.  The doctrine of section 93 is similar to the first chapter of John’s gospel.  The assumption that the John spoken of is John the Beloved is natural.  However, the student must read the text of D&C 93 and John 1 very carefully to correctly identify this John.  John the Beloved hints that the first chapter of his gospel actually comes from the lost record of John the Baptist.  He declared, “this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?… He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (John 1:19-23).

Apparently, in the lost record of John the Baptist is a testimony of what the Baptist saw upon baptizing the Son of God!  What did he see? Read verses 7 – 17 of section 93; he saw that Christ was the Word in the beginning; he saw that the worlds were made by Him; he saw that He received grace for grace; he saw the Holy Ghost descend upon Him in the form of a dove; he heard the voice and witness of the Father; he saw that Jesus received all power both in heaven and on earth.  Fortunately, we have the promise that someday we will enjoy more than 11 verses of the record of John the Baptist, for “the fullness of John’s record is hereafter to be revealed.”

Again, tThis kind of surprised me because I had been under the impression that it was not clear which John was being referred to in Section 93.

I found yet another authoritative declaration from Bruce R. McConkie that agreed with Neal A. Maxwell and the online manual above:

From latter-day revelation we learn that the material in the forepart of the gospel of John (the Apostle, Revelator, and Beloved Disciple) was written originally by John the Baptist. By revelation the Lord restored to Joseph Smith part of what John the Baptist had written and promised to reveal the balance when men became sufficiently faithful to warrant receiving it…Even without revelation, however, it should be evident that John the Baptist had something to do with the recording of events in the forepart of John’s gospel, for some of the occurrences include his conversations with the Jews and a record of what he saw when our Lord was baptized-all of which matters would have been unknown to John the Apostle whose ministry began somewhat later than that of the Baptist’s. There is little doubt but that the Beloved Disciple had before him the Baptist’s account when he wrote his gospel. The latter John either copied or paraphrased what the earlier prophet of the same name had written. (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965-1973], 1: 71.)

Additional Googling did in fact show that not all LDS manuals are in agreement on this issues.

Notice the following statement in an LDS student manual:

ADDITIONAL RECORD OF JOHN. In another revelation to Joseph Smith on May 6, 1833, an excerpt of eleven verses appears from what is called the “fulness of the record of John” (D&C 93:7-18). Important similarities exist between these verses and the opening verses of John’s gospel (John 1:1-34), but links to the experiences of John the Baptist are also apparent (cf. D&C 93:15; John 1:32-34). Since Doctrine and Covenants 93 mentions only the name John, without annotation, it is unclear whether John the Beloved or John the Baptist is meant (cf. McConkie, 1979, Vol. 1, pp. 426-27).

Clearly, there is reason for some to believe that it is not known for sure which John is being spoken about.

Oddly enough, the above quote is also from McConkie, although I am not sure which one.

As you can see, the manual suggests that it is unclear which John is being spoken about. It is apparently because of the above statement and others like it that some have assumed that perhaps Section 93 is speaking about the “record of John the Evangelist”

It is unclear why the Denver Snuffer movement has assumed that Section 93 was referring to the record of John the Evangelist instead of the record of John the Baptist. However, in a recent post by Adrian Larsen on his blog, a commenter put a chill in the conversation by making the following comment:

Craig Morris February 26, 2017 at 10:57 PM

 

John is one of my favorite books of scripture. I studied the Greek New Testament in college and later on studied John 1 extensively and came to the conclusion that most of John 1 was taken from the record of John the Baptist, that John the Beloved was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, that John the Beloved included a portion of the record of John the Baptist as the preface to his testimony, that the record of John referred to in D&C 93 refers to the record of John the Baptist, not John the Beloved and that the fullness of the record of John would be scripture written by John the Baptist and an expansion of John 1. For this reason I don’t see TSJ as the fullness of the record of John.

Also TSJ mentions Mary cutting Jesus’ hair which had not been cut because of the vow. I assume this refers to the Nazarite vow. This vow has three main restrictions, not to cut your hair, not to drink wine and not to have contact with unclean things including corpses. Jesus was a Nazarene (from Nazareth) but it is doubtful he was a Nazarite. I find this section of TSJ problematic.

Interestingly, we have someone who appears to be a Snufferite who had previous done a significant amount of research on the topic and he is agreeing with Apostles Maxwell and McConkie that the text in 93 is referring to John the Baptist. It is unfortunate that Craig did not share his personal research.

Although a surface reading of Section 93 and the testimony and logic provided by modern church authorities and other scholars seems rather compelling to me that it is the record of John the Baptist, I have learned to not take anything for granted. Modern LDS authorities do not have a lot of credibility with me anymore. So I decided  to do a contextual and intertextual keyword search on the word “record” in the related scriptures to see if it would back up the accepted teachings of the church on this topic.

My keyword search first led me to the third chapter in the Gospel of Matthew verses 1-8. Notice the comparison between the JST with the KJV

Joseph Smith Revision	King James Version
Matthew 3:27-35	Matthew 3:1-8
Matt 3:27 And in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, Matt 3:28 And saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matt 3:29 For I am he who was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord and make his paths straight. Matt 3:30 And the same John had his raiment of camels’ hair and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Matt 3:31 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, Matt 3:32 And many were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. Matt 3:33 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O, generation of vipers! Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Matt 3:34 Why is it that ye receive not the preaching of him whom God hath sent? If ye receive not this in your hearts, ye receive not me; and if ye receive not me, ye receive not him of whom I am sent to bear record; and for your sins ye have no cloak. Matt 3:35 Repent, therefore, and bring forth fruits meet for repentance;	1 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judæa, 2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 4 And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the region round about Jordan, 6 And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 ¶But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Notice the clarification in the JST that it is John the Baptist that was sent by God to “bear record” of Christ. The KJV omits the critical declaration that it is John the Baptist that has that commission from God.

I was next led to Matthew 3:11-17

Joseph Smith Revision	King James Version
Matthew 3:38-46	Matthew 3:11-17
Matt 3:38 I indeed baptize you with water, upon your repentance; and when he of whom I bear record cometh, who is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear (or whose place I am not able to fill), as I said, I indeed baptize you before he cometh, that when he cometh, he may baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. Matt 3:39 And it is he of whom I shall bear record, whose fan shall be in his hand; and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, but in the fullness of his own time will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.Matt 3:40 Thus came John, preaching and baptizing in the river of Jordan, bearing record that he who was coming after him had power to baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire. Matt 3:41 And then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him; Matt 3:42 But John refused him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee. And why comest thou to me? Matt 3:43 And Jesus, answering, said unto him, Suffer me to be baptized of thee, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. Matt 3:44 And John went down into the water and baptized him. Matt 3:45 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and John saw, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him; and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Jesus. Matt 3:46 And lo, he heard a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.	11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:  12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. 13 ¶Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. 14 But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? 15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. 16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:  17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

In the above passages, the JST inserts the declaration that John the Baptist is the one that “bears record” of Jesus. It makes this insertion three times.

Those same passages in the King James Version do not mention that John bears record. The JST is making sure this very important distinction is made and that it is clear that it is the calling of John the Baptist to BEAR RECORD OF THESE EVENTS

Also note the clarification that “John saw” the heavens open and the spirit of God descending like a dove. The King James implies that the whole crowd saw it. It was John’s calling to bear record of the spirit descending like a dove!

Continuing on about the specific calling of John to bear record, “he heard” a voice from heaven saying “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him”. Again, the KJV implies that the entire crown heard the voice but this clarification assures us that it was John the Baptist who bears record of these things. 

Those above changes are very important. Later in this presentation I will demonstrate from scripture that the entire world must accept the record of John the Baptist in order to believe in Christ.

John bears record that Jesus has the authority to baptize with fire and the Holy Ghost

As you can see, the JST provides numerous clarifications in the Gospel (Testimony) of Matthew that John bears RECORD of Christ.

Now lets make note of the fact that the testimony of Mark does the same thing . The King James version of the testimony of Mark never mentions that John the Baptist bears record of Jesus, however the JST makes this clarification in the two following passages:

Mark 1:9 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And John bare record of it.

Mark 9:11 Again I say unto you that Elias is indeed come; but they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, and even as it is written of him. And he bore record of me, and they received him not. Verily, this was Elias

Are we seeing a pattern here?

The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible is going to great lengths to restore the numerous testimonies that John the Baptist is the one who bears record of Jesus and the fulness that he obtained.

The reason Section 93 does not clarify which John is bearing record of Jesus at his baptism is because the scriptures are very clear about who it was.

Now lets take a look at the JST of the gospel of John

It is important to note that the inspired version renames the “Gospel of John” as “John” followed by “His Testimony of Christ”.

This is true of all four gospels. Joseph Smith essentially changed the “Gospel of” to the “Testimony of”.

This is because all four writers of these four gospels, two of which were apostles, were called to bear testimony of Christ and his ministry.

That is very significant.

Even though the definitions of “bear testimony” and “bear witness” and “bear record”  overlap, there is a subtle distinction between the calling of John the Beloved to bear testimony, and the calling of John the Baptist to bear record.

In the KJV of the Gospel of John, it is noted in three different places that John the Baptist bore record of Jesus. However the JST of the Testimony of John, it inserts this fact three additional times for a total of six!

Interestingly, in John 1:7, the KJV says that John the Baptist bears testimony, however the JST changes the word testimony to RECORD!!!!!

As you can see, a simple keyword search in the Inspired Version provides overwhelming evidence that it was the mission of John the Baptist to bear record of Christ while it was the mission of the Twelve Apostles and the writers of the Gospels that were tasked with bearing witness of Christ.

What about the Book of Mormon?

Is it congruent with the JST in declaring that it is John the Baptist that bears record of Christ?

Yes

7 And he spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord—

8 Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing.

9 And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water.

10 And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world.  (1 Nephi 10 & 11, )

Conversely, the Book of Mormon does not speak of John the Evangelist as being the one that bears witness of Christ at the time of his baptism as mentioned in Section 93, rather, it identifies his role in writing about the events of the end times and in his role in being translated and bringing souls unto Christ during the end times along with others. (See 1 Nephi 14, 3 Nephi 28 & Ether 4)

Even though the scriptures speak of many prophets and apostles that “bear witness” and “bear testimony” and “bear record” of Christ , the evidence is overwhelming that the person named John in Section 93, that bears record of Christ and his fulness, of whose record was to come forth in its fulness, was clearly John the Baptist.

It Is Through the Record of John the Baptist that All Men Might Believe

One of the most remarkable things about the Record of John the Baptist that I discovered during my keyword search, that differentiates him from John the Evangelist and all of the other prophets and apostles, is that his record is given that all men might believe . This is revealed in JST John 1:6-8

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came into the world for a witness, to bear witness of the light, to bear record of the gospel through the Son, unto all, that through him [John the Baptist] men might believe. He was not that light but came to bear witness of that light

As previously mentioned, the second use of the word “witness” in the above passage was changed to “record” in the JST.

In addition to showing that there is a subtle but profound distinction between the definition of bear witness and bear record, the above passages reveals that it is the record of John that goes to ALL people and that it is through his record that all men might believe on Christ.

That is a profoundly notable distinction.

It is not necessary that a person hear and believe the testimony or record that any other prophet or apostle has given, in order to believe in Christ, but the record of John the Baptist is essential.

It is from the testimony of John the Baptist that we know that Christ was the Son of God, that he was sinless, that he was baptized to fulfill all righteousness and that he received the fulness of his Father.

The implication of the above passage seems to be that it is impossible to gain a testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the redeemer of the world, without hearing and believing the record of John the Baptist.

This no doubt is at least in part why Christ identified him as the greatest prophet that ever lived. John the Baptist was sent into the world to bear record of the LIGHT.

This remarkable prophet had the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb and had been baptized before he came forth out of the womb. Although many of the Jews ultimately rejected Christ, they all knew that John the Baptist held the priesthood power.

He was the Evangelical High Priest of the Law by birthright and by ordination by an angel.

The Jews did not questioned his authority although they rejected the record he bore of Christ. Even though they did not accept Christ’s authority, they did accept the authority of John who was bearing witness of Christ.

Having established the fact that Section 93 is clearly speaking about the fulness of the record of John the Baptist that was to come forth at a later time, it is obvious that those claiming that Denver has prophetically brought forth the record of John the Evangelist that they assumed was prophesied of in the Gospel of John, have egg on their face because they completely misinterpreted the prophecy in Section 93.

Again, it is not clear to me whether Denver ever specifically made the claim that Section 93 is referring to the record of John the Evangelist, but his following statement certainly seems to imply that he was making that connection:

When I was asked to take a look at the project I had the impression that a new translation of John’s Gospel was needed and ought to replace the missing texts.

Why replace the missing texts in the Gospel of John and not the other Gospels unless Denver was interpreting the prophecy in Section 93 erroneously? Furthermore, if Denver knew the truth about what the prophecy in Section 93 was referring to, wouldn’t he have corrected all of his disciples when they began making the false interpretation and attributing the fulfillment of it to Denver?

It is also noteworthy to point out that some of Denver’s disciples who have misinterpreted the prophecy in Section 93 claim to have received the “Second Comforter” of Christ appearing to them. Joseph explained that the Second Comforter is to have Christ continually appear to you from time to time and teach you the mysteries.
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“Now what is this other Comforter. It is no more nor less than the Lord Jesus Christ himself; and this is the sum and substance of the whole matter; that when any man obtains this last Comforter, he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to attend him, or appear unto him from time to time, and even he will manifest the Father unto him, and they will take up their abode with him, and the visions of the heavens will be opened unto him, and the Lord will teach him face to face, and he may have a perfect knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God..”
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This begs the question, if Denver and many of his followers are continuously being visited and taught by Christ, and having the heavens opened and taught the mysteries of the kingdom, why are they all incapable of understanding the basic things? Why are they incapable of teaching sound doctrine?

Why are they collectively misinterpreting the prophecy in Section 93 as an entire group?

If Denver really was the Lord’s servant called to usher in the events of the last days and lead the saints in building a temple and establishing Zion, why does he get so many things wrong? Why does he and the other false prophets spawned by his movement teach so many false doctrines?

Having shown that the Snufferite claims about Denver’s revelation being the fulfillment of the prophecy in Section 93 to be false, in part two of this series I will share my understanding of what the fulness of the record of John really is.

Apostle Dallin H. Oaks vs. Denver Snuffer: “False Prophets are among us!”

In a remarkable turn of events, the LDS church has gone on the offensive against the claims and criticisms of Denver Snuffer and the Snufferite movement in what appears to be an effort to do damage control.

Approximately 22 months ago Denver Snuffer gave his address in Boise Idaho. (which I attended)

On June 13 2015, Apostle Dallin H Oaks and Assistant LDS Church Historian, Richard Turley Jr., showed up in Boise Idaho to address many of the criticisms that Snuffer and other wannabe prophets have leveled against the church over the years.

A recording of this event was apparently sent to John Dehlin who posted it on Mormonstories.

http://mormonstories.org/boise-rescue-oaks-turley/

This is a mega historical tipping point in the sense that this type of thing has not happened in modern times that I am aware of. It is almost unheard of  in modern times that a General Authority of the LDS Church has ever personally engaged in any kind of debate or LDS apologetics that is specifically directed against a contemporary person or fringe movement. Although Snuffers name was never mentioned during the presentation for obvious reasons, he and some of his outspoken followers appeared to be the primary “false prophets and false teachers” that the Boise saints were being warned about.

The details behind this visit and what meeting this address took place in is not clear to me. It was clearly not a priesthood meeting since a woman gave the closing prayer.

For as long as I can remember, general authorities of the church have always stayed safely tucked away in their Ivory Tower while “scholars” and “apologists” who have written for FARMS and FAIR have attempted to address the really difficult questions from skeptics and apostates.

The format of the presentation was quite interesting with Oaks and Turley doing a tag-team presentation taking turns speaking. Turley would provide historical context and Oaks would provide doctrinal context.

This is clearly a historical event of significance that shows at least some degree of desperation on the part of church leaders regarding the fall out that is currently taking place in the church.

Despite the recent denial from a church leader in General Conference that lots of Mormons are leaving the church, this special appearance of an apostle and a historian, to respond to the criticisms made by Snuffer and others, seems to indicate that the claim at General Conference was disingenuous. It appears that the public acknowledgment from  LDS Church Historian Marlin Jensen a few years ago, is true. He claimed that because Google has made it so easy for members of the church to research and become aware of extremely challenging and disrupting historical and doctrinal issues,  the LDS Church is experiencing the greatest apostasy since the Kirtland Apostasy,.

One of the questions addressed had to do with the claim that the current corporate church is not the same church that was restored and does not have the same authority.

Oddly, Apostle Oaks answered that question with a question. Then who has the authority? He quipped.

I was shocked to hear Turley imply that the succession issue between Rigdon and the Twelve Apostles was determined solely by the vote of the people and that the nearly unanimous vote was an indication of God’s approval. That seems to contradict what happened during Old Testament times when Israel voted to be led by a king instead of a prophet. Although God allowed apostate Israel to have their King, it was contrary to the will of God and it was detrimental to Israel.

Turley did not spend much time attempting to force some kind of succession protocol scenario to justify the transition of authority from Joseph Smith to the Twelve Apostles, on which the veracity Oaks and his fellow apostles rests. In previous times the official response of the church would have been to do so, however, thanks to Google and a host of Internet bloggers, the masses are more educated now than they used to be and leaders of the church now realize they are dealing with a much more sophisticated and educated audience both in and out of the church.

I am not going to take the time right now to do a critique of the entire presentation but I highly encourage anyone interested in these issues to listen to the address that Oaks and Turley gave. It is really quite interesting and entertaining.

 

[Editorial Note: I just came upon an excellent review of the Boise Rescue by the “Searcher”. Enjoy

http://onewhoissearching.com/2015/06/18/the-boise-rescue-and-the-prophetic-claims-of-the-church/  ]

For a follow up article regarding the two types of false prophets that Christ spoke of click on the link below

 

Two Kinds of False Prophets” Institutional vs. Non-institutional

 

The Emergence of Cults and Cult Leaders: “I am God the Father in the Flesh”

I have Met some Interesting People Over the Years

When I had my epiphany that all was not well in Zion Babylon and started on my quest to find out the truth about God, and Mormonism, I met many very interesting people as  I started making the rounds, visiting different splinter groups and fringe study groups. As I mentioned in a previous post, years ago, I was playing “button, button, whose got the button“, looking for who really had the truth and the elusive “fulness of the priesthood” that the ancient prophets like Enoch, Elijah and Melchizedek had.

I eventually began doing thousands of keyword searches and formulating my own views about what had happened to bring the church into the latter day apostasy, and I gave a few presentations to various study groups about various gospel topics. My quest enabled me to meet many of the movers and shakers of the Mormon fringe, if you will.

Jim Harmston

I have previously mentioned my encounter with Jim Harmston, who taught gospel doctrine in his local ward in Ogden Utah, and then began getting into fanatical gospel interests and beliefs, ultimately moving to Manti Utah where he eventually started his own church, and claimed that he was the reincarnation of Joseph Smith and appears to have been extremely successful in creating lots of chaos and destroying peoples lives. He began taking polygamous wives, and claimed he had the true priesthood and church. As I recall, he finally announced that he was God the Father in the flesh, or something ridiculous like that.

I have encountered many people like this over the years.

Sterling Allen

Another interesting personality that I met back in those days was a fellow by the name of Sterling Allen.

At the time I became aware of Sterling, he had started the “America Study Group” which was a study group that met to study the constitution and gospel topics, etc. There were lots of LDS patriots that formed local chapters of the American Study group across the Wasatch Front, that would meet and discuss various things.

Jay Benson and Chris Nemelka

One of the leaders of a local American Study Group in Layton Utah is a fellow named Jay Benson (no relation to President Benson). He was another very interesting person who is now an avid follower of Chris Nemelka, the false prophet who claims to have translated the sealed portion of the Gold plates. I have also previously mentioned Nemelka. You can read Benson’s testimony of Chris Nemelka here.

Getting back to Sterling Allen. Sterling Allen has a brilliant mind and he became obsessed with doctrine and innovative ways of searching for truth. He created the website called greater things. One of the things that Sterling become known for is “alphabetics“, which is a method of study involving the use of the Strong’s concordance and matching up the numbers relating to Greek and Hebrew words in the Bible as well as page numbers in the Bible and virtually anything else you want to throw into the mix.

The idea behind Sterling’s concept of alphabetics, as I understand it, is that “all things testify of Christ” and therefore, just about everything in the world around us, including numbers and mathematics points to truth about Christ and virtually everything else.

Example: Internet Foretold

These two words come one after the other in the Old Testament Hebrew lexicon. 4545 ;,./ macceketh: “web” 4546 %-./ mecillah: “highway“

click here to see complete write-up

I frankly think there is something to the concept, however, it is so incredibly subjective, that a person can find validation to justify just about any heretical idea, concept or doctrine that they want to. Since becoming obsessed with numbers, Sterling kind of reminds me of “John Nash,” played by Russell Crowe in the movie, “It’s a beautiful Mind“. Its about a genius that became obsessed with numbers and basically lost touch with all reality, and lost his mind, kind of like the chess player I once referred to that lost his mind while in deep contemplation, during a chess game.

Anyway, I had very little personal contact with Sterling back in those days and never got to know him very well. Nevertheless, I have kept track of him from time to time because he is such an interesting and colorful and entertaining fellow. Like most brilliant people with magnetic personalities, he has attracted somewhat of a following from time to time, over the years.

Setting the Church in Order

Shortly after I met Sterling, He showed up at an LDS general conference and attempted to walk up to the podium to address the church. The rumor going around at the time was that he intended to announce that we was the “one mighty and strong‘ who was going to release all of the general authorities and then set the church in order. His version of the story on the Internet is that he was simply going to give a talk. He has since posted the talk he was going to give on the Internet.

Needless to say, he never made it to the podium.

Church Security intercepted him and promptly removed him from the premises.

He was excommunicated and eventually took a long break from religious activity, reinventing himself as a “free energy” guru. He established a few organizations that reviewed nontraditional technologies for harvesting energy from Mother Nature. The hope is to free mankind from the financial bondage of the power grid. Over the last decade, Sterling has become a high profile player in the alternative energy industry. Sterling has traveled the world interviewing inventors that claim to have invented new technologies for creating or harvesting electricity, etc.

Why am I telling you all of this?

A Random though Came into my Mind

I am telling you this because yesterday the thought came into my head that I should check up on Sterling and see how he was doing. It was really really weird. The thought just came into my mind. I had not given Sterling a thought in years but all of a sudden, I was curious to see what he was up to. (in the back of my mind I may have been wondering if Sterling’s organization had covered the supposed generator that runs on water that I had seen promoted a website)

When I punched Sterling’s name name into the Internet I was blown away with what I discovered.

The Church Bans Sterling Allen From all Church Properties

On one site, Sterling was telling about how he had just received a letter from Kirton and McConkie, the legal firm that represents the Mormon Church, informing him that he was banned from any properties own or operated by the Mormon Church because he had been disruptive in their meetings and because members of the church felt threatened by him. (even though Sterling has not been rebaptised, he had been attending the local LDS church for several months and had permission from his bishop to participate in Sunday School class)

He claimed that when he confronted his Bishop and Stake President about the legal notice, neither of them knew what he was talking about and neither of them felt he had been disruptive or threatening to members, etc., yet when he pressed the issue by the church, his Bishop and Stake President caved in to the pressure put upon them by their superiors and provided the necessary acknowledgments, that Sterling was disruptive and was a threat.

His version of the story can be seen on the youtube below and it has some interesting details about how local leaders are often railroaded into making accusations against their wills:

He covers much more information in the above youtube.

“I have a Lust Addiction”

The next bombshell I came across, is that on Sterling’s energy website that attracts thousands of people from all over the world, Sterling has recently made a public confession about being involved with pedophilia which has resulted in his  divorce, the loss of his family, his resignation from the alternative energy companies he has founded, and the fact that he may well be going to prison in the near future. He refers to his affliction as a “lust addiction”

Learning Lessons from Current Events

Normally I would not publish this kind of information out of concern for the privacy and feelings of the individual who is obviously suffering at many different levels, but in this case, Sterling has made the decision to go public and he wants everyone to know about his situation. My feeling is that although I want to be sensitive and compassionate and as non-judgment as reasonably and rationally possible, there are lessons to be learned from this heart-breaking event.

The youtube below was posted on his energy website where lots of non-Mormons visit. It is interesting to see some of the comments his former friends and associates in the alternative energy industry have made about his pedophelia and his “confession”.

“I am God the Father in the Flesh”

The confession he makes is an interesting one because in it, he matter of factly informs his audience that he is literally God the Father in the flesh, ( where have we heard that before?) but wait, there is more. He claims he agreed to accept this lust addiction in the pre-existence.

He seems to believe that all of the Davidic Servant passages in the scriptures are referring to the return of God the Father, not a servant of God. A version of this general belief is passionately taught by other bloggers out there. Sterling opines that the first messianic event had to do with the Son of God who had a sinless ministry, but the second messianic event (featuring himself) has to do with God the Father who is first muddled down in sin and judged harshly by the world, and then eventually he emerges in power to fulfill his calling, etc.

Victimization?

He points out that he has largely been a victim of a lustful society that flaunts seducing graphics all over the media, etc., and he ends his confession with a stern warning to the world about the impending 3 1/2 year judgment they are going experience if they don’t repent.

Addiction

As I was reading and listening to some of Sterlings remarks about his addiction I really did feel compassion. I confess that I struggle with a food addiction that has been out of control. I LOVE sugar, chocolate, and just about any kind of junk food. If you put it in front of me and it is edible, or looks edible, I will eat it! I am always eating when I am not hungry and I am never hungry because I am always eating. My ideal body weight based on height and frame, is about 158 LB, I currently weigh 217. AAAAAAAAAGGGGGG!

Mrs Watcher is a health food and alternative medicine guru that stuffs lots of good stuff down me, and that is what has kept me alive all these years, but I still have the ability to purchase, hide, and stuff my face with it, faster than she can find it and flush it.

Naturally, I started a new years resolution yesterday and I am proud to report that I have only eaten a bowl of bean soup, some herb tea and a few hand fulls of fritos corn chips in that amount of time and I have already lost 2 LB! LOL

BTW a friend of mine is related to a Guru on overcoming addiction. I just reviewed a short snippet that the guru did and I am really quite impressed.

Anyway, my point is that since I struggle with addiction, I felt more compassion, than judgment for Sterling as I heard his plight.

Fanaticism

One of the things I could not help but think about as I sat spell bound at the astonishing claims and deductions that Sterling makes, with a straight face, is that fanaticism can lead to insanity, demon possession, or both. Frankly, I don’t think religious fanaticism is categorically bad. I believe I am somewhat of a religious fanatic in some respects. However I believe Christ was considered a fanatic during his earthly ministry and most of his prophets and patriarchs were fanatics.

So where does one cross the line between being passionate and attempting to be pious, vs being overcome with seducing spirits that are so prevalent in our day in age? How does possession by demons take place?

Followers of Cult Leaders

In this post I am not just pondering what makes people into crazy cult leaders, I am also pondering what makes their followers so mesmerized by them. We could simply assume that cult leaders that lead people astray were ordained to that calling in the pre-existence and we could say that all of the seemingly mindless  followers that they accumulate were also ordained in the pre-existence to be deceived, but that is not for us to judge.

It is interesting to me how different Harmston, Nemelka and Allen are in personality traits and demeanor. Allen comes of to me as highly intellectual. Nemelka is kind of a red-neck, country bumpkin hick that catches you off guard because of his unsophisticated delivery and looks and manner of speaking. Harmston was more of a stately, elderly fatherly image that could make you feel personally loved in a one on one conversation. They are all very different personalities and yet there is a magnetic, low-key yet powerful charisma that they all have with certain types of people that desperately need a leader to follow.

Critical Personalities

Our responsibility is not to  judge and mock these types of people, although I think it is ok to mock the stupid things they are saying and doing. Our responsibility is to feel concern for all of these people. this brings up another one of my many sins and evil personality traits. I have a tendency to be really critical of people instead of being able to separate the sin from the sinner. It is difficult for me to not get incredibly anxious and angry when I see cults and cult leaders forming and accumulating a followership. I can also get so passionate that it appears as if I am critical of those that differ with my doctrinal views. I suspect that admission doesn’t take any of my readers by surprise. LOL

I have decided to fast and pray this Sunday for all of the contemporary cult leaders and their followers. (Harmston has passed on) There are more than the three that I have mentioned in this post BTW.

Although I do not have lots of faith that my prayers will change them, I am doing this exercise for myself as much as for them, because I am hoping it will help me to become more charitable and to re-frame things contextually, focusing on judging the sin instead of the sinner. We all sin and we all fall short of the glory of God.. We are to love all men and leave judgment to God

The Desired Take Away of this Post 

As I am sharing what I am pondering about on this post , relative to Sterling Allen’s situation specifically and the issue of false prophets generally, there are two points I want to make about this post.

The first point is that the gospel requires us to judge the doctrine and the actions, of people so that we are not deceived by their folly that can adversely affect us, but we are to  not condemn or judge the people themselves, in the eternal scheme of things because judgment is the Lord’s domain and people can repent after making serious mistakes.

We should mourn for them and pray for them. We should be concerned for their souls. I am inviting the readers of this blog to unite with me this next Sunday in praying for all cult leaders and their followers.

The emergence of these cults is a sign of the times and there is a spiritual battle taking place right now for dominion over the souls of men.

The other point I want to make is that even though we should be having charity and compassion  upon the souls of those who appear to be possessed or insane, we still have an obligation to judge their doctrine and their actions and to be vigilant about not being seduced by lying spirits that are abroad in the land.

It may be instructive to analyse the lives of people like Chris Nemelka, Jim Harmston and Sterling Allen. I believe there are some trends and commonalities that they all share. They are all very intelligent, passionate, creative people with charismatic and magnetic personalities. They all began making interesting observations about the gospel just like many other gospel scholars do. Eventually they made small claims and taught doctrinal inconsistencies, and finally they ended up making outrageous claims, taking themselves way to seriously. Eventually their focus is not as much about the gospel and doctrine as it is about themselves.

What is interesting is that there are people in this world that are so mesmerized by these kinds of personalities that all logic and reason, as well as the spirit of discernment are totally deactivated in them once they are entranced by such a magnetic personality. It doesn’t matter how illogical some of the declarations from these magnetic personalities are, their followers are so emotionally drawn to them and so invested in their desire for the magnetic person to be the long awaited Davidic servant or Savior of mankind, that they are willing to drink any flavor of cool aid that is offered to them.

“This is not about Me!!! Well, Maybe Just a Little Bit”

One of the narratives that often accompany magnetic people who rise to power and start cults is that they start out appearing to be very humble and self depreciating, always focusing on the doctrine and not lifting themselves up as a light unto the world. They often begin testifying of the truthfulness of the church prior to becoming more bold in their declaration about the latter day apostasy…. I know, I know, some of this kind of sounds a little like me, doesn’t it. After all, I do believe that there are been a global apostasy and I am often critical of the brethren…

To my credit, I don’t have a following of mindless groupies that hang on my every word. My readers all tend to be amazingly independent thinkers who feel very free to challenge and criticize me. I love that and wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want the burden of being responsible for someone else’s salvation.

Another key is that initially these cult leaders assure their following that “This is not about me!”  But as time passes, they become increasingly self-important.

Eventually, they are the central player in their own narrative in the salvation of their followers. Before you know it. They are claiming to have messages from God to pass on to the people and they even make outrageous claims of having the only authority to administer the ordinances of salvation, how they have now wrested the true authority away from the evil leaders of the mother church, or they are dictating to their followers how the ordinances are to be done differently, etc.

Those who are not emotionally invested in these magnetic personalities can see this amazing transformation to power and the dramatic change in the content and tone of their message from meekness to authoritarianism. The mesmerized followers cannot discern this or they blissfully dismiss it because they are so excited about the new movement and they want the new message and messenger to be true.

Can the Brethren Have the Priesthood Wrested away from them if they Didn’t Have it?

One of the amazing things about the followers of  cult leaders is that their followers are unable to parse out the contradictions that are consistently being presented. Suppose, for instance, hypothetically, that a magnetic personality was to state in their talks and blog posts that the Mormon Church was devoid of truth and priesthood authority and that they are only a pantomime of truth and priesthood authority. Indeed the pantomime used by the church is only the “pretense” of priesthood authority and priesthood “keys” and had been devoid of true authority for decades. Suppose then that a few months later the same magnetic personality were to contradict himself and declare that he had just wrested the true priesthood away from these same men that he had previously declared were void of true priesthood? At face value, the contradiction might be obvious and laughable to someone not emotionally invested or possessed of the same seducing spirit as the cult leader, but to the ardent followers, it cannot be seen or it can easily be rationalized.

Changing the Revealed Order of the Priesthood

 Again, Suppose, for instance, hypothetically that the new cult leader began changing the long established, scripturally documented method by which God calls men to the priesthood through his properly ordained servants, by prophecy. Suppose he was to declare that because of his miraculous petitions before the Throne of Glory, that the Lord had agreed to put women in charge of deciding which men could hold and exercise priesthood? Again, the rational, non-emotionally invested bystander would look upon this claim by the cult leader to be absurd. Nevertheless, those who are emotionally invested and perhaps even possessed by a lying spirit would feel perfectly comfortable with changing the laws and ordained protocols of God.

 “I will Never Start a Church!”

Again, suppose, for instance, hypothetically that initially a cult leader made a bold categorical statement that they would never start a new church, yet, if the casual observer visits the scene a few years later, presto! The guy is encouraging people to organize into groups to worship together, pay their tithing directly to the poor as individuals or as a group, and mandate that everyone needs to be re-baptized in the new ordinance and priesthood protocol designated by the leader, in order to be saved. Yet the cult leader is assuring his followers the whole time that he hasn’t started a church and that the power in the new church he has started is not centralized, even though he is dictating that the groups must be set up, and that the tithing funds must be redirected, and the ordinances must be done how he dictates, etc., etc.

Keep in mind, of course that all of these scenarios are completely hypothetically. I am simply providing hypotheticals to demonstrate how differently non-emotionally invested people can see the obvious contradictions, while those who are emotionally invested cannot.

Countless other hypothetical inconsistencies and false doctrines could also be provided to illustrate how cults evolve and flourish despite the countless falsehoods and doctrinal inconsistencies that they are founded upon.

Anyway, we live in perilous times. My heart breaks for Sterling Allen. May God have mercy upon his soul.

Miscellaneous Musings #9 The Mystery of the Shemitah

I think I will take a break from the current Zion series to share a few musings.

 ISIS

In one of my posts in the current series I made the following statement

“From my personal study, adding context, from other related prophetic passages, it appears to me that during this time of upheaval, a secret combination of traitors within the US government coordinates a military invasion of America from an external army that is assembled from many foreign nations.

While the invading army is approaching, God’s people are gathering or have gathered to the designated place where the city Zion is to be built. During this time of “consumption” upon the hypocritical nation, the gathering of the elect “overflows with righteousness“.

To borrow a phrase from Masonry, “Out of chaos comes order.”

Shortly after I made that observation I got an email with the following comment in it:

“have you read the reports of ISIS fighters (who are made up of many nations including the USA) gathering in mexico where they intend to come through the porous border to carry out attacks inside the country? apparently the feds know but choose to do nothing about it.”

The next day I saw the following post on a conspiracy board

I have since seen several other interesting articles related to this topic. This is the latest one

Could ISIS result in the fulfillment of the invasion prophecy in Micah?

I don’t know.

“Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say:Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.”

A friend of mine from “down under” sent me this link to a fascinating blog post that is detailing how the LDS Church is actually charging new converts to join the church in certain parts of the world. http://www.nearingkolob.com/new-mormons-converts-must-pay-baptized/

Although I can appreciate that one of the challenges of the modern church in some parts of the world has to do with people that become inactive from the day they are baptized, as well as freeloaders that join because membership has its privileges, it is still shocking to see prophecy being fulfilled.

You just can’t make this stuff up!

“For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.”

The Succession Issue- Doing Secretive Priesthood Ordinations and Authorizations in the Dark

The scriptures warn us time and again to beware of those that do secret things in the dark. When the Lord’s Church is on the earth, He always chooses and ordains his servants openly, never in darkness.This is how the Lord operates so that conspiratorial combinations cannot take infiltrate and hijack the church if the Saints are paying attention.

“ I say unto you that the Lord God worketh not in darkness.” (2nd Nephi 26 :23)

Emma made the astute observation that Joseph and Hyrum were killed because of the secret things they had been involved in.

One of the things that God stresses regarding priesthood offices and how to govern the church, is that everything needs to be done publicly, in the open. Nothing should be done in secrecy.

“no person is to be ordained to any office in the church where there is a regularly organized branch of the same, without the vote of the that church.. Every president of the high priesthood (or presiding elder) bishop, high councilor, and high priest, is to be ordained by the direction of the high council or general council or general conference” (D&C 20 65-67) See also all of the passages regarding the law of common consent.

The Law of Common Consent make transparency requisite.

Over the years I have read countless papers on the LDS succession issue. Back when I was a naive member of the church who had done virtually no research into church history and very little serious scripture study, I used to read the various diatribes on the succession issue by LDS scholars as if they were the gospel truth.

Nearly four decades of research later, I am torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to cry when I go back and read the justifications and shameless spin that the apologetic wordmeisters come up with in these essays.

A friend of mine recently sent me the following essay by Esplin:

EsplinR_JosephBrighamTwelveContin

On page 20 Esplin makes the following observations:

“That because of the proven competence and loyalty of the Twelve, Joseph Smith privately prepared them and fully authorized them by priesthood keys and the knowledge of temple ordinances and doctrine to carry on his mission. No other quorum or group of men was similarly authorized, prepared, and charged”

Privately prepared, authorized and charged to carry on Joseph’s mission?

In secret?

Since when is a different first presidency supposed to be “privately authorized, prepared and charged ” to replace the existing president, without the knowledge of the saints?

How was the general church membership supposed to know that the Lord had changed the order of things, instituted secret ordinances, and made the quorum of the Twelve (who had previously been told they were not allowed to preside in an organized stake) the new First Presidency of the church. Since when does the Lord secretly replace existing authorities because others are deemed more “competent” and “loyal” than someone, who had been established in the first presidency for over a decade, by revelation and common consent?

According to the mind dazzling observations of Esplin, these secret meetings with secret instructions and secret keys and ordinances, secretly replaced Sidney Rigdon as the rightful successor to Joseph Smith, with the quorum of the 12, yet these secret proceedings did not finally became public until the disciplinary church court of of Sidney Rigdon which was essentially conducted under the authority of the Twelve, with the Twelve acting as Sidney’s accusers?!?:

“Sidney Rigdon’s trial, 8 September 1844, provided the most extensive public airing of the [secret] temple-related issues at the heart of succession and served as an important forum for making the Saints more aware of the private instructions, keys, and anticipated ordinances.”

Incredible!

 Trust in me… trust in me… trust in me…

Here’s the logic from Brigham and the Twelve that the more ignorant of the saints bought into:

” We need to excommunicate Sid because he has not been as competent and loyal as us! (the Twelve) (and because he will discipline us  for our secret wife abominations and bring our works of darkness into the light, if we don’t!) Oh, by the way, don’t worry about us getting rid of Ridgon, which will leave the church without a member of the First Presidency that was called of God through Joseph, and without someone that has been ordained and sustained as a prophet seer and revelator. We are happy to be able to report to you that the Lord secretly authorized, prepared and charged us with replacing him and carrying on Joseph’s mission several months ago while you were sleeping…. TRUST US!”

It appears to me that these observations and declarations by Esplin were calculated to prey on the ignorance of those that don’t understand how church administration, priesthood authority and succession is supposed to work according to God’s word in the scriptures. Had Esplin been raised in the RLDS or Strangite traditions, I suspect his logic would have been just as dizzying in supporting their claims.

For those interested in the succession issue, here is another fascinating read by Ehat which I have referred to before:

Ehat Succession-continuity

It is quite an exhaustive expose on what was taking place in Nauvoo during the time leading up to and including the death of Joseph Smith.

Although it is also couched in apologetic spin just as dizzying as the above essay, it is quite revealing.

(One of the things that it proves beyond doubt, is that Joseph Smith was definitely secretly practicing polygamy while publicly preaching against it. Another incredible read is the “Nauvoo City anbd High Council Minutes” by Dinger which documents the fact that Hyrum Smith, under the direction of Joseph Smith, publicly read the revelation on polygamy to both the Nauvoo High Council and the Nauvoo City Council, declaring that Joseph had received the revelation and that those that did not live it would be damned.)

I past that little gem by Ehat on to an acquaintance years ago who has publicly staked his reputation on the belief that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy, hoping he would have the integrity to seriously review the overwhelming mountain of documentation available and amend his position but alas, it is human nature to believe what one wants to believe, and not be bothered by the facts.

 DS Distances himself from DS

Despite the love-fest that Daymon Smith and Denver Snuffer have had with each other in the past, it appears as if Smith is distancing himself from Snuffer after the outrageous claims that Snuffer made during his last speech:

“I don’t have any words of wisdom concerning or specific to recent moves by you-know-who, but can only draw on what I’ve written already.  Just a few notions I happen to subscribe to, generally..”

Smith is the revelatory anthropologist who has authoritatively declared that the Bible is an uninspired and corrupt canon of scripture and that the original intent of the Book of Mormon had nothing to do with Biblical Christianity or the need for a restoration to Biblical Christianity. He opines that the dastardly duo of Rigdon and Parley Pratt high-jacked the true intent of the Book of Mormon by placing their evil restorationist views upon it.

All of this was divined by Smith despite the copious quotations from the King James Version of the Old and New Testament all throughout the Book of Mormon and the declaration in modern revelation that the Book of Mormon proves that the Bible is true!!!!

“And gave him power from on high, by the means which were before prepared, to translate the Book of Mormon;
9  Which contains a record of a fallen people, and the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and to the Jews also;
10  Which was given by inspiration, and is confirmed to others by the ministering of angels, and is declared unto the world by them—
11  Proving to the world that the holy scriptures are true, and that God does inspire men and call them to his holy work in this age and generation, as well as in generations of old;
12  Thereby showing that he is the same God yesterday, today, and forever.  Amen.”
.

(Also problematic for Smith is the fact that when the LAW of the GOSPEL was introduced (Section 42) The Saints were told that the existing King James Version of the Bible was to be considered the law of the Church along with the other revealed scriptures until the Inspired Version was completed. Apparently the KJ Bible was pretty acceptable to God even if Daymon Smith finds them to be evil)

I felt honored that Daymon recently made reference to me in one of his papers even if his statement of the facts is perhaps, distorted just a little bit:

“there is a blogger who insists Sidney Rigdon was some sort of quasi-divine figure, who shall return as the whirlwind we have reaped.”

Actually my characterization of Rigdon is that he was one of the great orators and scriptural scholars of the time whose prophetic role as a scapegoat figure, eventually caused him to have the sins of latter day Israel place upon him and therefore, he did lots of crazy things. He perhaps even became a little crazy during the later part of his ministry and remainder of his life.

It is true, however, that I hold Rigdon in high regard. There are no less that 13 sections of the D&C where the Lord gives great assignments, responsibilities and even great honor, to Rigdon. Rigdon’s responsibilities extend into the 3rd watch…  hence, I do believe that he, Joseph, and others, will return in POWER at the appointed time to fulfill their missions (perhaps that is where the “quasi-divine” misunderstanding  comes into play. LOL

It is interesting that out of the 13 sections that address Rigdon, most characterizing him in a very positive way, Smith could only find one of significant importance to quote  in his thesis.. the one where the Lord chastises Rigdon. LOL It is a natural tendency to only see the evidence that supports our personal conclusions. ( know, I know, I probably suffer from this tendency as much as the next guy.) What is strange about Daymon Smith is that he quotes profusely from the D&C during his lectures even though he clearly does not believe most of the sections he quotes from based on the foundational claims he makes about his cultural based revisionism and reinterpretation of what the Book of Mormon is really supposed to be conveying.

Snuffer also appears to make veiled references to my posts. Perhaps some day I will document and respond to them.

It is interesting to me that many of the people that seem to despise me and detest my beliefs and my literal interpretation of scripture, seem to be avid readers of my blog.

Go figure.

September 21-22nd

Today and tomorrow are very special days. It is the time of year (Autumn Equinox) that Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith consecutively, about six or seven years in a row. At the end of that string of events, a major revelation was received, designating the seven shepherds that would gather out the elect, at the appointed place, in the 3rd watch. (A literal interpretation of the literal promises God has made about how Zion will be redeemed leaves very little to do for who would take it upon themselves to redeem Zion.)

• September 1823 Moroni Visit
• September 1824 Moroni Visit
• September 1825 Moroni Visit
• September 1826 Moroni Visit
• September 1827 Moroni Visit and Plates Received
• September 1828 Joseph sins but has Plates returned
• September 1829?
• September 1830 Revelation (Section 29) designating the Seven Elders that will return in the 3rd watch to gather the elect.

Interestingly, there is a seven year period between section 29, given in September of 1830, and September of 1837, when Joseph and Sidney fled Kirtland during the peak of the Kirtland apostasy. You will recall that the “drop dead” date for Zion to be redeemed, according to Section 64, was September 11th of 1836.

(Adding another seven years to 1837 takes us pretty close to the martyrdom in 1844)

In addition to reoccurring events every seven years, it is remarkable how so many of the major events in the history of the restored church fall on ancient Jewish feast days. (This is no coincidence. As I have pointed out before, Mormons are Jews, they just don’t know it.)

If you have not read the papers by John Pratt and Lenae Hadley and others on this topic, you should take the time to do so.

The Golden Plates and the Feast of Trumpets

Joseph Smith’s Receipt of the Plates and the Israelite

Feast of Trumpets

Major LDS Events That Have Fallen on Hebrew Holy Days

The Rosh Hashanah-Sefer Mormon Connections

Enoch Calendar: Another Witness of the Restoration

The Restoration of the Priesthood Keys on Easter of 1836 Part One

The Restoration of the Priesthood Keys on Easter of 1836 Part Two

There are several dates within the month of September that have prophetic significance. In addition to the 21st and 22nd, the 11th is very significant, regarding section 64 and the redemption of Zion. Countless other significant events took place on the 11th of September, including, the mountain meadows massacre, the collapse of the towers on 9/11 of 2001.

Over the years I have noticed many interesting time sequences between major events that seem to be significant. Many of them match the prophetic time sequences in the Book of Daniel.

There are many events that seem to happen 3 1/2 years apart and others that happen seven years apart. The illustration below shows five major historical events that just happen to all take place in seven year increments.

Is it a coincidence that there was exactly four biblical generations between the rejection of the church with their dead in September of 1841 and the tumbling of the twin towers of Babylon in September of 2001?

I think that studying prophetic time sequences in the past can be helpful in studying prophetic time sequences in the future.

Those of you who have read about the amazing “Harbinger” prophecy in Isaiah by Jonathan  Cahn are no doubt aware that he just released another bombshell called “The Mystery of the Shemitah“. Shemitah has to do with the ancient seven year cycle that God commanded Israel to keep, but the Shemitah is was also pointing to and typological of, the prophetic events of the end times.

In the book, Kahn points out that many major historical events have taken place during Shemitah years.

He highlights the fact that 2001 when the twin towers came down, was a Shemitah year. He says that seven years later in 2008, when the stock market crashed was a Shemitah year. The fall of the towers and the fall of Wall Street both took place, seven years apart, during Shemitah years. And guess what… according to Kahn, the next Shemitah year begins this month within just days.

He cautions that God doesn’t always do something major during a Shemitah year, but he thinks we should be on the alert.

He also cautions that a major event is just as likely to happen at the end of this Shemitah, in September of 2015, as at the beginning, in September of 2014. In fact, September of 2015 is probably when something huge is going to happen, but since we know that God’s servants must return, possibly before a huge, global event occurs, we would be wise to be alert from here on out.

When the Harbinger and Shemitah research of Jonathan Cahn is viewed in conjunction with the research of Pastor Mark Biltz, (both of these guys claim to be are Messianic Jews) regarding the sequence of four blood moons that we are currently experiencing, it becomes obvious that we are knocking on the door of the return of God’s servants and the beginning of the Marvelous Work. [speaking of 2014 being a significant year, this is kind of interesting]

Are you watching?

I am.

[BTW a new development with the Georgia Guidestones pointing to 2014]

Miscellaneous Musings #8 Sunstone Symposium 2014

 

I have just experienced three days of nostalgia by attending the Sunstone Symposium. (Warning- It is late so my spelling will be even worse than it usually is…)

My first experience with a Sunstone Symposium was in 1991 when I attended Sunstone for the first time and listened to a presentation by Ogden Kraut. Ogden Kraut (who has since passed away) was one of the most prolific writers and promoters of LDS fundamentalism.

I had become friends with Ogden back during that time frame. Mrs. Watcher and I had had Ogden and his 2nd wife Anne Wilde over to our home for a fireside and had compared notes with them.

It was a sweet surprise to see Anne at the symposium. She was walking up the Isle during the “Moderating Mormons in Cyberspace” panel so I grabbed her and reintroduced myself to her. We had a great moment doing a little reminiscing with each other about the past.

I introduced Anne to my son and she asked him if he had read any of Ogdens books. He informed her that he owned the book Ogden wrote titled the “95 thesis”, or something like that. As I recall, the book does a great job of pointing out the similarities between how Catholicism and Mormonism both eventually departed from scripture. The 95 doctrinal problems that Martin Luther nailed on the door of the cathedral were a type and shadow of the doctrinal changes that had taken place in Mormonism. One year, Mrs Watcher and I gave the book to everyone we knew as a gift for Christmas. The book did such a good job of alienating our friends and relatives that we did not even need to hand out gift the following Christmas because we no longer had any friends. LOL

Ogden’s presentation at the Sunstone Symposium back in 1991 was on the topic of the “One Mighty and Strong” which originated, in modern revelation, from a letter sent from Joseph Smith to the Saints in Zion. A portion of the letter has become canonized as scripture in section 85. The following passage from section 85 is the primary theme that Ogden Kraut addressed in his presentation:

“And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God, and to arrange by lot the inheritances of the saints whose names are found, and the names of their fathers, and of their children, enrolled in the book of the law of God”

The Davidic Servant

We often think of the “One Mighty and Strong” as the “Davidic Servant” however there are numerous other prophetic terms and phrases that are often associated with the last great servant that will set the church in order to prepare it for Zion. Included among these are, the “one like Moses” and the last “Elias“, “the Branch servant“that is mentioned in Isaiah 11:1, (Zech 6:12), “his hand” Isaiah 11:11, “My Servant” referenced in Isaiah 42:1, 49:5, etc., etc.

Much of the content of Ogden’s presentation was taken from a book he wrote on the topic. (by the way, Bill Shepard, co-author of Lost Apostles, who also participated in a wonderful session at this recent Symposium, “, has also written about the One Mighty and Strong)

Back in 1991 Ogden agreed with me that Joseph Smith is the “one mighty and strong”. He agreed that the parable of the redemption of Zion in Section 101, provides an unconditional prophecy about how Zion is going to be redeemed once the light shines forth among those that sit in darkness. It also identifies Joseph as the lead servant that redeems Zion.

Anyone that truly wants to know how Zion is going to finally be redeemed can know how this is going to take place if they believe in the literal interpretation of the unconditional prophecies received by Joseph Smith, and have the faith to believe these unconditional prophecies about this upcoming epic event.

Section 103 is a follow up revelation to the parable of the redemption of Zion in section 101, that informs us that:

“..the redemption of Zion must needs come by POWER; Therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man, who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel.”

 

The Strong Man Model

 

The Holy Word of God  informs us that the Lord is going to use a “strong man” approach to establishing Zion just as he did in the days of Enoch. The term “strong man” typically refers to a person that has “great physical strength” and often “rules” using “force” and sometimes even “violence”.

 

In the scriptural and prophetic narrative, the servant of God is demonstrating miraculous, supernatural powers and leads a military conquest.

 

In the case of the one mighty and strong, this mighty servant of the Lord will be showing forth the fulness of priesthood power like Moses, Enoch and Melchizedek manifested. Enoch represented a prophetic strong man type when he was going forth in power, resulting in the establishment of Zion (BTW Section 103 reminds us that Jesus Christ will personally return with the servant(s) of the Lord’s vineyard as well. )

 

 

The parable of the redemption of Zion informs us that God’s servant will lead a military strike and will “ break down the walls of mine enemies; throw down their tower, and scatter their watchmen”

 

The Lord is going to use a man that is commanding the elements and showing forth the great miraculous power found in the fulness of the priesthood. This power will be similar to the power manifested by Moses when he led the Children of Israel out of Bondage. (The bondage the ancient Children of Israel were in pales in comparison to the bondage we are in today, and yet, few people even know that they are in bondage!))

 

Section 103 informs us that the servant of the Lord that returns in power to redeem Zion AFTER “many days” and after the enemy has “broke down the hedge” and literally “destroyed their works and broke down the olive trees“, is none other than Joseph Smith.

 

“Verily, verily I say unto you, that my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., is the man to whom I likened the servant to whom the Lord of the vineyard spake in the parable which I have given unto you.”

 

According to the unconditional prophecies contained in the word of God, Joseph Smith must return and complete the gathering of Israel and the redemption of Zion. (see also Isaiah 49) This is why the Lord declared that the keys of priesthood would remain with Joseph Smith in this world and in the next, because Joseph’s calling was not completed during the second watch:

 

“Thus saith the Lord, verily, verily I say unto you my son, thy sins are forgiven thee, according to thy petition, for thy prayers and the prayers of thy brethren have come up into my ears.

 

Therefore, thou art blessed from henceforth that bear the keysof the kingdom given unto you; which kingdom is coming forth for the last time.

 

Verily I say unto you, the keys of this kingdom shall never be taken from you, while thou art in the world, neither in the world to come;”

 

Of course we have many scriptural witnesses that Joseph will return. One of the more notable ones is found in the allegory of the Olive trees in the book of Jacob. I have blogged about this before and broken the allegory down into the different time frames. Regarding the return of the Lords servant who had previously done a work in the vineyard, we read that the Lord of the vineyard sends this servant back to the vineyard again:

 

“And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard sent his servant; and the servant went and did as the Lord had commanded him, and brought other servants; and they were few.”

 

I have also discussed how the Lord has revealed, by name, who 15 of the other servants are from the 2nd watch that will return with Joseph to “gather up the strength of the Lords house“, and fulfill the prophetic commandment of the Lord in section 101 etc.

 

Break down the Hedge… destroy the works..

 

If you don’t understand what it means to break down the hedge and destroy the works that the Lords servants were overseeing in the parable of the redemption of Zion and the allegory in Jacob, I would suggest that you do a little research to see just how dire our current situation is in the church, and how desperately we need the divine intervention that has been prophesied about.

 

Integrated into your search, I would suggest considering that the tower was the Nauvoo temple (or possibly Nauvoo House- Temple) which was never finished… that fleeing from the enemy represented the leadership leading the saints in many different directions from Nauvoo despite the fact that they had been commanded to not be moved out of their place.

 

Lastly, I would suggest that the breaking of the hedge has to do with loss of the remaining priesthood the saints had in Nauvoo, and that the act of having their “works destroyed” had specific reference to the failed attempt to redeem the dead. Clearly, the works for redeeming the dead and all associated works, came to no avail and were destroyed. Note the associated warning given in section 124:31-33

 

“But I command you, all ye my saints, to build a house unto me; and I grant unto you a sufficient time to build a house unto me; and during this time your baptisms shall be acceptable unto me.

 

But behold, at the end of this appointment your baptisms for your dead shall not be acceptable unto me; and if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.

 

For verily I say unto you, that after you have had sufficient time to build a house to me, wherein the ordinance of baptizing for the dead belongeth, and for which the same was instituted from before the foundation of the world, your baptisms for your dead cannot be acceptable unto me..”

 

Lots of Wannabes

 

Ogden Kraut was perhaps the most famous polygamist in modern Mormonism. He had people flying in from all over the world to consult with him and to have him perform their polygamous sealings.

 

CLAIMANTS TO THE TITLE

 

As a result of his high profile and his down to earth willingness to speak with anyone about the gospel, all of the crazy delusional wing-nuts in the LDS fringe would meet with him, so he was well connected to a lot of people.

 

During his Sunstone talk in 1991, he mentioned that he had personally known countless delusional people that had all been visited by angels and by Christ. Each of these pathetic individuals declared themselves to be the “one mighty and strong” and the “one like Moses”. Kraut also pointed out that many people had claimed that calling in the early years of the restoration movement following the death of Joseph Smith.

 

According to Kraut, the following people were among the most noteworthy “mighty ones” of the deluded, from the past until Kraut’s talk in 1991:

 

• James Strang
• James Brighouse
• Samuel Eastman
• Paul Feil
• LeRoy Wilson
• John Tanner Clark
• Benjamin LeBaron
• Joel LeBaron
• John Bryant
• Elden Hollis
• Sherman Russell Lloyd
• Frank Miller
• Jasper No. 7
• Art Bulla (Art is the fellow that initially agreed to debate me about the polygamy and the spiritual wife doctrines, claiming he had never lost a debate. Sadly, he didn’t lose the debate with me either since he was a no-show)
• Alonzo Langford

 

Since the passing of brother Kraut, there have arisen a few other notable colorful personalities that suffer from delusions of grandeur. One is Christopher Nemelka. Another is Jim Harmston, who I personally knew.

 

The Time of Joseph’s return must be Near

 

I always sit up and take notice when well meaning people begin bearing their testimonies that the “one like Moses” has arrived,  or, “there is a new prophet in town”.

 

When someone rises up claiming to have a message from God and/or claiming to have been commissioned to lead people to Christ, or show people how to redeem Zion, or set the church in order, etc., I take note because Joseph Smith revealed that the devil would be setting up a part of his kingdom and sending his false prophets at the same time the true kingdom of God was ready to go forth:

 

Here is an excerpt from the discourse:

“..In relation to the Kingdom of God–the devil always sets up his Kingdom at the very same time in opposition to God,–every man who has a calling to minister to the Inhabitants of the world, was ordained to that very purpose in the grand Council of Heaven before this world was–I suppose that I was ordained to this very office in that grand Council–“

Another excerpt is as follows:

“..false prophets always arise to oppose the true prophets, and they will prophesy so very near the truth that they will deceive almost the very chosen ones–“

We often think of the coming of false prophets when we think of Matthew 24 because it clearly speaks of the role of false prophets at the time when the light once again shines forth during the last generation. But Joseph Smith used the German Bible to show that Matthew 24 also testifies that a TRUE prophet would arise during the last generation as well:

“..the Savior said, when those tribulations should take place, it [the Gospel] should be committed to a man, who should be a witness over the whole world, the keys of knowledge, power, and revelations, should be revealed to a witness who should hold the testimony to the world..”

In the discourse, Joseph alludes to the fact that it is he, Joseph, that is the one that is to be the holder of keys that is to be a witness over all the people. He also alludes to the fact that he, Joseph will be the angel flying in the midst of heaven, spoken of in the book of Revelation:

“..all the testimony is, that the Lord in the last days would commit the keys of the Priesthood to a witness over all people–has the Gospel of the Kingdom commenced in the last days..

I have read it precisely as the words flowed from the lips of Jesus Christ–John the Revelator saw an angel flying thro’ the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, &c.”

Joseph Smith then lists the signs that will be taking place when he, Joseph Smith , and his associates return to the vineyard:

• wars
• famines
• pestilence
• great distress
• judgments
• false prophets

“.. the Scripture is ready to be fulfilled when great wars, famines, pestilence, great distress, judgments, &c are ready to be poured out on the Inhabitants of the Earth–John saw the angel having the holy Priesthood who should preach the everlasting gospel to all nations,–God had an angel, a special messenger, ordained, & prepared for that purpose in the last days–    (quoted Rev. 14-6 having the Gospel saying the hour of his Judgment is come.)

Joseph then prophesies that the man or set of men (false prophets) that have already set themselves up as the appointed servants to set the church in order, will lift their hands against God and his witness and, if possible, will deceive almost the very chosen ones:

 

Woe! Woe! be to that man, or set of men, who lift up their hands against God and his Witness in these last days.–for they shall deceive almost the very chosen ones–“

Joseph Smith taught that his return to the earth, to give his final testimony, would be accompanied by the rising up of false prophets who would deceive “almost” the very chosen” ones.

That is why I sit up and take notice when a new “One Like Moses” wannabe begins claiming that Christ and angels have commissioned him to bring a message about Zion, etc to this wicked world.

I have wondered if in fact the last great imposter would be a little different type of person than the typical ones that have risen in the past. Many of the ones in the past have been poor and lowly types with relatively little money or worldly education. For this reason, they were not appealing to the wealthy or the highly educated intellectuals.

But what if a false prophet showed up, that was a highly educated and highly respected professional type that would be much more acceptable to the more sophisticated in today’s world?

What if he were a doctor or a lawyer that was a great thinker and eloquent orator with great confidence and charisma?

What if he began challenging God’s word on how Zion was going to be established and yet he was so smooth and persuasive that he could convince people to discard the truth so clearly laid out in the word of God?

What if his main emphasis was a “how to” see the Savior instead of warning EVERYBODY to REPENT and receive the true baptism?

When the light shines forth for the last time, everybody on the earth is going to need to repent and receive the true ordinance and start from the beginning with faith and repentance. It is impossible to use the false ordinances and doctrines of Mormonism as a springboard for getting the Second Comforter! The assumption that we don’t need to repent is critical for deluded people to think that they simply need to exercise faith and they can see God.

What if much of what this person is saying is not congruent with the true gospel found in the scriptures? Remember how all of Adam and Eve’s posterity quit believing the gospel Adam and Eve had taught them once Satan claimed to also be a son of God and told them to not believe?

 

And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.

 

And Satan came among them, saying: I am also a son of God; and he commanded them, saying: Believe it not; and they believed it not, and they loved Satan more than God. And men began from that time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish.

(yes, that is right, Eve also preached the gospel to their posterity, not just Adam. Emma was also promised that she would be ORDAINED to preach the gospel: “And thou shalt be ordained under his hand to expound scriptures, and to exhort the church, according as it shall be given thee by my Spirit” (I point this out to keep all of the feminist stoners happy 😉  )

What if a successful, articulate, charismatic fellow came among the people and began preaching a different gospel and was able to mesmerize people into disregarding many of the true points in the scriptures by mingling selected passages with his own narrative?

What if he claimed that priesthood authority was not necessary to administer the ordinances of salvation even though God’s word teaches it is categorically necessary?

What if he began claiming that Zion would not necessarily be established in the designated places identified in scripture?

What if he challenged the strong man narrative so clearly laid out in scripture and convinced people to believe in a different protocol for establishing Zion instead of the protocol provided in the  word of God?

It is easy to get sucked into the belief that someone who is speaking to God is more credible than the lowly voice of warning coming from someone who simply quotes scripture, even though the person claiming to be speaking directly to God, is contradicting scripture!

What if he was to declare “A “strong man” model is the opposite of Zion” even thought prophecy teaches that Zion can only be established by someone endowed with power from on high?

What if he continued teaching the false doctrines that Joseph taught in Nauvoo, which contradicted the “thus sayeth the Lord ” teachings revealed during the Kirtland era?

We know that according to ancient prophecy, Joseph had his eyes covered, had the sins of latter day Israel placed upon himself and spoke “presumptuously”, delivering the Saints over to Satan for a little season which resulted in false doctrine being taught that contradicted the foundational doctrines, ie, the King Follett discourse completely contradicts Lectures on Faith. What if the false prophet foolishly continued teaching those falsehoods to tickle the ears of his hearers?

What if he denied that God is from everlasting to everlasting, without beginning of days or end of years and began teaching the heresy that there are other numerous numberless Gods above God the Father, even though the Father has declared that there is no other God beside him?

What if he could sway public opinion in his favor by getting highly popular LDS fringe bloggers to begin promoting him to their readers?

What if he was to write an impressive book detailing the problems with modern Mormonism, filled with doctrinal errors, and inaccurate historical dates and characterizations, yet was unwilling to respond to or acknowledge those specific problems when exposed by critics?

What if he were to question the historicity of one of the most significant and foundational visitations that took place during the LDS restoration movement?

Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the last great false prophet is much more palatable to the tastes of the scripturally ignorant, yet highly “educated” masses than his past predecessors… but I digress, I wanted to briefly share some brief thoughts and experiences I had at Sunstone.

I am not going to give a detailed analysis or even a summary of the content in the sessions I attended. Rather, I am simply going to randomly share a few impressions and thoughts that came to me while attending the symposium.

Moderating Mormons in Cyberspace

I enjoyed the “Moderating Mormons in Cyberspace” session. Of particular note, Andrew Spriggs was a bright, witty, engaging personality that was fun to listen to. It was also fun to see and hear from Rock Waterman of PureMormonism who is always quite outspoken.

Interestingly, John Hamer was sitting in back of me and I got to chat briefly with him. He was familiar with my blog and remembered chatting with me in the comments section of his Mormonstories interview. (John Hamer, Mike Quinn, William Sheperd and every other credible LDS historian all agree that Joseph Smith secretly practiced polygamy. The evidence is overwhelming. That is why the RLDS Church finally decided to reinvented itself and take their emphasis off of Joseph Smith. Yet some people still think there was a global conspiracy by Brigham Young to blame the practice on Joseph Smith even though he never practiced it.

During the free lunch sponsored by Signature Books, I randomly sat down by a guy in a crowd of several hundred people and started chatting with him… before long it occurred to me that he was one of my old online friends that used to comment quite a bit on my blog. It was fun to get to know him better and have a face to associate with a screen name! We picked several of the same sessions to attend because great minds think alike.

 

One of the best sessions I attended was the one titled “The Latter day Apostasy: A scriptural perspective” done by “Spek” (Joe Jensen) author of the Just and true blog. He did a SPEKtacular job. It was the only session wherein the scriptures were exclusively used as the foundational basis for what was being presented. It proved to be a novel approach for a Sunstone presentation.

“Sealing and salvation in early Mormonism: Perspectives on the law of adoption” was an interesting session wherein feminist Cheryl L. Bruno debated with polygamy enthusiast Brian C Hales about how the mystical law of adoption is supposed to work.

As you all probably know, after the death of Joseph Smith, the apostate apostles in Nauvoo started running around trying to seal as many men and women to themselves as possible thinking it would give them greater power and glory than their fellow apostles in the afterlife if they could recruit more people to be part of their own spiritual tribe. Brigham Young even called all of his sealed minions together and named them the “Tribe of Brigham”.

It was kind of like a multilevel marketing pyramid that was trafficking in souls instead of snake oil and money. Everyone was frantically trying to build their spiritual “down-line” in hopes of gaining more power and glory. The New Testament refers to the situation as a “strong delusion”.

I was amazed that both of the presenters have spent so much time and energy trying to figure out something that originated primarily from Brigham Young and yet, Brigham Young himself was clearly clueless about the concept and simply improvising to keep everyone in tow.

I found it interesting that both of these people conveniently neglected to mention the visitation Brigham Young claimed to have with Joseph Smith in a dream, wherein Brigham admitted that he and the brethren didn’t understand the concept and needed a little help understanding it.

During the Q&A I got up and asked both presenters o comment on the content of the dream in that I felt it clearly showed that Brigham Young was clueless about the law of adoption.

In the dream Brigham Young said to Joseph:

“The Brethren have a great anxiety to understand the law of adoption, or sealing principles; and if you have a word of council for me, I should be glad to receive it.”

Of course Joseph refused to dignify the question with a direct answer but instead told Brigham to tell the saints to be humble and faithful and to keep the spirit of the Lord…. bla bla…

Here is a post I wrote on the topic years ago

At the end of this session, I crossed paths with the notorious Jeremy Runnells who wrote the controversial Letter to a CES Director, so I took the opportunity to shake his hand and tell him that I enjoyed his paper. I then said with a smile, “I disagree with your conclusions, but I enjoyed reading your paper”. He smiled back and nodded his head and we parted in peace.

I enjoyed “Authors Meet Critics: The Lost Apostles”. My favorite historical takeaway from the book is how the first person called by the three witnesses to be a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles was Phineas Young, but Joseph intervened and replaced Phineas with his brother William Smith, who proved to be an embarrassment to himself and the church. Since Phineas was older than all of the other apostles, he would have been the president of the quorum and that would probably have very significantly changed the trajectory of the church and the outcome of the succession crises, etc! Had Joseph never interfered with those that had received the commission to choose the apostles, the church may well have never heard about blood atonement or the Adam-God doctrine or any of the other absurd heresies that BY introduced into the apostate church.

An unrelated but interesting historical issue that came up afterwards, while I was speaking to Bill Shepard- he informed me that the complete affidavits of Thomas B Marsh and Orson Hyde, were now available online. Here is the pertinent portion of the Marsh declaration that brought persecution upon the church and got them expelled from the state:

“… Hogs were brought in dead, but I know not how many; I saw only two. They have among a company consiting of all that are considered true Mormons, called the Danites, who have taken an oath to support the heads of the Church in all things, that they say or do, whether right or wrong. Many, however, of this band are much dissatisfied with this oath, as being against moral and religious principles. On Saturday last, I am informed by the Mormons that they had a meeting at Far West, at which they appointed a company of twelve, by the name of the Destruction Company, for the purpose of burning and destroying; and that if the people of Buncombe came to do mischief upon the people of Caldwell, and committed depredations upon the Mormons, they were to burn Buncombe; and if the people of Clay and Ray made any movements against them, this destroying company were to burn Liberty and Richmond. This burning was to be done secretly, by going as incendiaries. At the same meeting, I was informed, they passed a decree that no Mormon dissenter should leave Caldwell county alive; and that such and that such as attempted to do it, should be shot down, and sent to tell their tale in eternity. In a conversation between Dr. Avard and other Mormons, said Avard proposed to start a pestilence among the Gentiles, as he called them, by poisoning their corn, fruit, &c., and saying it was the work of the Lord; and said Avard advocated lying for the support of their religion, and said it was no harm to lie for the Lord!! The plan of said Smith, the Prophet, is to take this State; and he professes to his people to intend taking the United States, and ultimately the whole world. This is the belief of the Church, and my own opinion of the Prophet’s plans and intentions. It is my opinion that neither said Joseph Smith, the Prophet, nor any one of the principal men, who is firm in the fiath, could be indicted for any offecne in the county of Caldwell. The Prophet inculcates the notiion, and it is believed by every true Mormon that Smith’s prophecies are superior to the law of the land. I have heard the Prophet say that he should yet tread down his enemies, and walk over their dead bodies; that if he was not let alone, hew ould be a second Mahomet to this generation, and that he would make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean; that like Mahomet, whose motto, is treating for peace, was ‘Alcoran or the Sword,’ so should it be eventually with us, ‘Joseph Smith or the Sword.’ These last statments were made during the last summer. The number of armed men at Adam-on-diahmon was between three and four hundred. “ Thomas B. March.

According to Shepard, Marsh was accurate in everything he stated and he never recanted anything in the statement. His sin was in telling the truth.

“Apologetic Ethics: Defending the Faith without Losing Your Soul”

In this presentation Seth Payne appeared to be encouraging LDS apologists to change their tone and strategy in how they debate with skeptics.

“Church Discipline: A procedural Overview

Nadine Hansen is a feisty attorney who wrote the legal brief for Kate Kelly which was submitted to her Bishop and Stake President. She did an eye-opening job of showing how the church violates their own rules of disciplinary procedure, let-alone the procedures provided in revelation. It was a great session.

Perhaps the most significant procedural takeaway is that the “judge” of the court is not supposed to be the “accuser” also, yet in Modern corporate Mormonism, the Bishop or Stake President that presides at the court acts as both judge and accuser.

Another session I attended which I cannot remember the name of, involved Paul Toscano and Mike Quinn. Although I think the world of Quinn as a credible historian, he presented a rather weak and illogical presentation on why people should stay in the church in my opinion. He claimed that the church facilitates us in serving others. He acknowledged that he could go volunteer at a soup kitchen, but he was too self centered and selfish to do so. He said he had never done such a thing and likely never would… Therefore, church membership is good because it helps people to be of service to others who are otherwise unwilling and unmotivated to be proactive in serving others….. Huh?

I could listen to Toscano nonstop because he is so funny, entertaining and relevant. At one point he said something to the effect of, “I wish the Twelve Apostles would simply go out into the world and preach the gospel as a traveling missionary quorum like they have been commanded to do. When they hang around Salt Lake, all they do is irritate people.” LOL, LOL, LOL

I attended a panel discussion on demanding financial transparency from church headquarters that was excellent. I was extremely impressed with everyone that participated on the panel. They were all very bight, passionate people who had done their homework. Obviously, they are pissing into the wind if they think the church will ever provide full transparency. How can a church that spends money on paid shills to influence public opinion be expected to provide transparency on how they spend their money?

The very last session I attended was “Cutting Down the Tree of Life to Build a Wooden Bridge” by Denver the Snuffer.

My first born son and Mrs Watcher were able to attend and it was very interesting. Snuffer is a gifted thinker and orator. He was providing historical context to how and why doctrine has changed in the past and why it will continue to change in the future based on social trends and potential threat of tax status.

He did a remarkable job.

I felt sorry for the respondent who tried to challenge the supposition Snuffer made that gospel fruits are no longer in the church. He felt that the church was being blessed by all of the special interest groups that are gaining acceptance and traction in the modern church… go figure.

As an added bonus to the session experience, Snuffer took off his “independent historical researcher who was giving a presentation at a symposium of liberal Mormons” hat, and put on his “prophet” hat during the Q and A.

A person asked a question that sounded something like: “why can’t we get a complete sentence from God when we pray to him?”

That was all Denver needed to begin proclaiming how he has been visited by God and angels. I don’t know if the person was a “plant” or if she simply felt inspired to ask the question, but that question gave Denver the opportunity to let everyone know that he has heard a complete sentence from God!

It was somewhat of a crowd-pleaser of a presentation in my opinion.

It would be interesting to know how many of the approximate 3oo attendees were Snufferites that follow him around in mindless adoration and how many of them were Sunstone “intellectuals” who were boredd and wanted to be entertained. My guess is about 80% followers and 20% Stoners… but that is pure conjecture.

I enjoyed my visit to Sunstone this year/ I am really glad I attended…  however, it may be another 23 years before attend another one. Perhaps I will attend again if Joseph returns and decides to speak there

Miscellaneous Musings #3 Kingdom of the Jews (3/7/2014)

WARNING: This blog documents the truthfulness of the restored gospel and the validity of the LDS restoration movement and the ministry of the prophet Joseph Smith, HOWEVER, it also contains very controversial material about LDS Church doctrine and history and it is often critical of modern Mormonism.

I have been pondering lately how important transparency is.

I will probably be providing the above graphic (or something similar) and disclaimer at the top of all future posts that have extensive criticism, or something similar thereto.

Although I have had disclaimers in posts and on the side panels, I have decided to make a more concerted effort to be as transparent as possible about the fact that I do belief in the LDS restoration BUT I believe there has been a latter day apostasy and I am often critical of the Modern Church and their leaders.

The Miscellaneous Musings Format

I like the “miscellaneous Musings” format from time to time because it works well with my short attention span and the fact that I often have multiple thoughts on my mind.

Historical Essays

According to some anti-Mormon sites, the primary person that has been hired and compensated by the Mormon Church to write the historical essays is a person named Jed Woodworth. Apparently, he has written for BYU Studies and was the co-author to the book, ‘Rough Stone Rolling. Although I have never heard of the guy before, I am sure he is well qualified to act as voice for the prophet of the church in demystifying all of the disconcerting historical and doctrinal dilemmas that confront members of the church. I would love to know how much he is getting paid… I would have done it for much less!

Bait n Switch Internet Sites

I feel that certain sites such as Mormonstories, MormonThink and even Blogs that promote books like Denver Snuffer and Daymon Smiths, whether intentional or not, are somewhat disingenuous on how they portray their doctrinal agenda, on their main page and in their public persona. I feel they seduce readers into a surface narrative that appears to be pro-Mormon, by an active, believing, card carrying Mormon or Mormons, and then slowly lead the reader into a deeper narrative that is not faith promoting, and not historically or doctrinally accurate.

Using Faithful Membership to Establish Credibility

People often use their “active membership” and “supportive of the Church”  status as a badge of credibility to promote whatever they are promoting, be it a book, an idea, or even a claim of personal enlightenment.

When people claim to have special information to share or want testify that they have had some miraculous pentecostal experience they will often want to reassure their readers that they are a credible and believable source by making sure that people know that they are an active member of the church that submits to the “authority” of the true church.

If a person were to state on their blog that they are a normal lay member of The Church  and that they respect the authority of those presiding authorities and that they served an honorable mission and married in the temple, and have a current temple recommend and have been and remain an active member of the church and that they have no intentions of leaving it… I would personally see those credentials as a questionable resume for informing people how to see God, are sharing a vision, etc.

Those that know the truth about how the restored,true and living church, with fulness of priesthood, fled back into the wilderness as quickly as it came out of the wilderness, can see a huge red flag in such a testimony. The fact that a person is pointing people to the modern church as God’s true church and encouraging them to put their trust in that authority, negates veracity of their claim that they are having conversations with God IMO.

Nobody that has been allowed into the presence of God, IMO, would be encouraging people to put their trust in the apostate church.

The old, humble, self depreciating, “I am nothing special” disclaimer that people often provide and how they are ” not any more righteous than anyone else”,  just because they have had the heavens opened and saw the father and the son is questionable.

The problem with such nonsense of course is that 99% of the seekers out there that have desperately been exercising faith to have the heavens opened, haven’t been able to and they are extremely frustrated and insecure about it.

Being assured that any “normal lay member” that is not anymore virtuous than anyone else can have the experience, only frustrates the poor ssouls even more.

MormonThink

The folks over at MormonThink provide this declaration at the top of their main page

“MormonThink has been produced primarily by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are interested in the historical accuracy of the church and how it is being taught to its members and portrayed in the media.

There is a lot of misinformation on the LDS Church that is presented by both critics and defenders of the faith – particularly on the Internet. We present both viewpoints fairly and let the reader decide.”

These purveyors of truth, knowledge, fairness, and objectivity, have also responded to the new history essays in an open letter to President Monson, and, in an attempt to objectively provide both view points, began purchasing billboards along HWY I-15 back in 2011. In November of 2013 their website hits went from 1500 to 170,000 as a result of the billboard marketing campaign:

The above sign seems intriguing.

Saving 10%? Hmm these folks are offering both views?

There’s an objective snippet leading you to both views on the issue!

Yep, if you are feeling confused, mormonthink is surely the place to go because they are prepared to present two fair, unbiased views for you to consider. LOL

Moral Dilemma of News Reporters

The Ukraine

Dennis Kucinich Tells Bill O’Reilly the Truth about US involvement in destabilizing Ukraine

Monster Putin — Could Ukraine standoff have been avoided by Obama?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/03/06/monster-putin-could-ukraine-standoff-have-been-avoided-by-obama/

New York New York

Speaking of the Ukraine, I couldn’t help but see some typology in the following video relating to how well Babylon (America) has seduced the people of other nations into wanting the “good life” and the quest for fame and stardom. We have not only seduced the other nations into the false fiat currency that is easily manipulated by the secret cabal that runs this world, which has brought the nations to the brink of global financial disaster, we have affected their entire world view.

I have never seen so much personality packed into one song. The look on the judges face shortly after the song started compared to his face at 1:13 was priceless. During the first 15 seconds I thought the girl was possessed. By about 1:04 it become apparent this girl can actually sing!

Mrs Watcher claims she missed a few notes in the early part of the song, but this country boy was rather mesmerized by the performance. Since Fusion is a skilled musician, I’ll need to get his input as to whether this girl sang off key or not. It was fun to see how she won the audience and the judges over.

She won me over!

I couldn’t help but wonder what percentage of the audience (and even the judges) speak English.. LOL

I’m sure old “blue eyes” was impressed as he watched the performance from the other side.

The Danger of Conspiracy Theories

A Harvard Law professor wrote a very long paper about the danger of conspiracy theories and on page 14 he offered solutions for dealing with conspiracy theorists:

II. Governmental Responses
 What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do, what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).

Daymon Smith and his Cultural Book of Mormon Bullshit

In my last post I shared my belief, after reading the majority of his first two free pdf’s, that Daymon Smith questions the revelations Joseph Smith received in the BofC and the D&C. I have since had two sources verify that my suspicion was correct.

I also questioned whether Daymon even believes the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

I have had two people assure me that he does. One of them recently attended a fireside in which Daymon spoke.

I also speculated that those that accept many of the suppositions contained in Daymon’s writings would end up going down the rabbit hole presented in the jsfellowship site that I provided which postulated that Joseph was never commanded to do anything other than translate the Book of Mormon. That theory of course was just an old David Whitmer invention after he became disenchanted with the church organization

I have now had it confirmed that in fact, that is largely the foundational premise upon which  Daymon’s thesis rests upon, however he has added much more historical detail and gone to great lengths to assassinate the character of people like Parley Pratt and Sidney Rigdon to support his point.

I got a few more emails from the friend that had originally suggested that I read Daymon’s stuff. The confusion of mind and cognitive dissonance that he is experiencing is incredible. IMO He has been thrown into a state of crisis primarily because of the Daymon Smith BS. I am going to share some of his statements and my responses, for those that want to get to the bottom-line  of what Daymon teaches in his writings about the BofM.

I don’t want to clutter this post with the content so you need to click  on the link below to view the dastardly details conjured up from Daymons demons..

daymon smith BS222

Anyway, if the information I have gleaned from my friend is accurate, I believe Daymon Smith has been seduced by an evil spirit and that the same spirit is buffeting my friend. I hope those of you that have obtained a witness that section 1:37-38 is true, and that the revelations in the BofC and D&C that were originally sustained by the church and God, are true, will join with me in mighty prayer that both of these individuals will be released from the spirit of delusion that they have been inflicted with.

The New USA? Secession Movement Gains Steam

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2014/March/The-New-USA-Secession-Movement-Gains-Steam/

Don’t Seize Guns from Idaho Citizens

February 19th, 2014:
The Idaho Senate passed a bill today without any objection to affirm the 2nd amendment by punishing cops who would obey federal orders to seize the guns of Idaho citizens:

Earth Changes

15 Sinkholes open within a 24 hour period

Four Blood Moons

We live in crazy freakin times.

We havein our midst false teachers and prophets that Christ has warned us about.

Well over 20 Bankers have committed suicide( or have been suicided.)

A global financial calamity is being predicted by many between now and the first of four blood moons that  takes place on April 14th or 15th depending on whether you are a Jew or a Gentile.

Some think that war with Russia and China is in the cards.

This is a time to watch even harder than usual.

We are getting ready to start the 13th year of what appears to be a 14 year judgment that followed the completion of the 400 years of affliction prophesied in Gen 15:13-16

Pole shift, sink holes, dramatic climate change, jet stream shift, radiation poisoning the oceans, mass animal die offs, increased volcanic activity, oh my!

Need I say more?

I am going to be turning off my comments functionality or just not moderating and responding to questions as frequently as I used to, from time to time as we approach the first of four blood moons coming up in April. This is because I have some projects I am working on and because I don’t want to be distracted as I WATCH.

Hope you fellow watchers will join me as we WATCH.

I absolutely love all of the comments I get on this blog but I just can’t spend as much time conversing with people as  I used to. Don’t be offended if the comment feature is turned off or I am not as responsive, from time to time.  🙂

Here is the next part of the current series.

The Kingdom of the Jews

BTW
If you are a Mormon, there is a good chance you are a Jew 🙂

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If the Temple and Nauvoo House are not Finished you must Run Away

The Nauvoo House of God vs . the Nauvoo Temple of God

I have written some harsh things about how I feel about LDS Apologetics in general. Nevertheless, some of the apologists come up with some good stuff every once in a while. One of my favorite apologists is Gregory L Smith.

I generally like the way he reasons and lays out an argument that he is defending. I feel that he writes with great clarity and is generally quite thorough in his research.

Another thing I like about him is that he is willing to accept the more difficult assignments that bring the greater criticism from LDS readers.

By that, I mean to say that he is willing to…

 

The Nauvoo House of God vs. The Nauvoo Temple

(Updated version)

The Controversy of Zion

In the 34th chapter of Isaiah, we are informed that when the indignation of the Lord falls upon the nations, it is referred to as the day of the Lord’s vengeance.

It is also described as the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.

I believe we are quickly approaching the great controversy that Isaiah speaks about.

Many people that have studied prophecy realize that virtually all prophecies have multiple fulfillments. One is a literal fulfillment while others are shadow fulfillments that are typological to the literal fulfillment.

I agree with this observation that was made on a prophecy website-

“The Hebrew idea of prophecy is a pattern that is repeated, multiple fulfillments with one ultimate fulfillment. Each of the multiple fulfillments is both a type of, and a lesson on, the ultimate fulfillment”

People who reject section 110 because they think the Elijah comes in the future need to understand that he did come and fulfill the prophecy in Malachi, AND, the prophecy will be fulfilled again, a second time in the end times.

More on that during this series. I plan on detailing what the true doctrine of Elijah really is and how it demonstrates just how true section 110 is. I guarantee it will raise a few eyebrows.

Getting back to the Controversy in Zion-

I believe there was a great controversy in Zion at the time of the succession crisis in Nauvoo when there was great debate and confusion over who the rightful successor to the prophet Joseph Smith was. I believe that controversy was very possibly a type of the controversy spoken of by Isaiah, only on a much smaller, narrower scale.

I am also open to the possibility that the great LDS google apostasy that has been spoken of in the media lately is bringing about another preliminary controversy, one that could very possibly be a sign of the impending return of God’s properly ordained and anointed servants back into the vineyard to bring about the redemption of Zion during the work of the Father.

Perhaps one of the most significant contributors to the Google apostasy is Denver Snuffer because of his controversial book, Passing the Heavenly Gift.

In the book, he does a remarkable job of accumulating and cataloguing much of the disruptive historical and doctrinal data that has been mined by numerous other authors and researchers over the last several decades. Because of the Internet, much of this information has been posted or paraphrased on the Internet for all to see, causing a crisis of faith for many Latter day Saints.

Much of what is in the book is accurate and valuable. Nevertheless, I have found numerous things that I feel are problematic.

The Redemption of Zion has been Predetermined

The book and the associated lectures being given, seem to promote the belief that the redemption of Zion will not literally take place the way that the Lord has promised it will,  in the parable of the redemption of Zion found in sections 101 and 103.

We have the unconditional promises from the Lord God of Israel that the voice of warning that will begin the Marvelous Work will be given by the Lords disciples that published the Book of Commandments and the Doctrine and Covenants.

When these servants return, they will go forth in the unstoppable power of the fulness of the priesthood.

The premise given in PTHG does not appear to support the unconditional promises in modern revelation, that assure us that Zion will be re-stablished on earth under the direction of first laborers of the last kingdom who have been properly ordained and anointed to do so. We have been promised that they will go forth for the last time  to  bind up the law and seal up the testimony, and to prepare the saints for the hour of judgment which is to come.

Rather, the book, and statements made by the author during his first lecture on Zion in Boise, seem to imply that inspired mortals will need to finish what Joseph started. Needless to say, I disagree with that premise. More importantly, I believe the scriptures disagree with it.

Joseph and his associates will finish the work that Joseph started under the divine guidance and power of the Lord God of Israel !

A Spike in Traffic

After I announced that I was going to provide a rebuttal on Passing the Heavenly Gift, the author of the book boldly put a link on his blog to my blog informing his followers that I would be doing a critique.

It appears that he is confident about what he has written and wants his readers to evaluate my critique .

This is consistent with a comment he once made wherein he encourages all of us to speak up and correct someone that is teaching false teachings.

It is reassuring to know that the author believes that we should all be vigilant in correcting each other when a false doctrine is presented, and is therefore supportive of my attempt to do so.  He believes that we each have an obligation to speak up when we see something false that is being propagated.

“If there is an error in doctrine or practice, everyone has an obligation to speak up, from the least to the greatest. (D&C 20: 42, 46-47, 50-51, 59, among other places.)… Therefore, if someone should say something that is untrue or in error, then correct their doctrine, show the error“

The link that he posted to my blog resulted in an obscene amount of traffic to my site as depicted below by my wordpress analytics graph.

Within the first five days his site had sent 1734 unique visitors.

During that period of time, my site experienced over 7,200 views.

I point this out for two reasons.

Popularity Contest

One is that if people judge my rebuttal and any responses that the author might offer, based on who their favorite writer is, making the event a popularity contest, I will clearly be the looser! LOL

As you can see, my site normally only gets one or two hundred views per day.

That is pretty pathetic for a blog that has been around as long as mine has been around.

In my opinion, very few people can handle the bold truth that is contained in the scriptures that are highlighted on this blog.

I don’t sugar coat anything and I am not here to tickle anyone’s ears.

I don’t tell people that even though the church has been condemned, cursed and rejected with their dead, there is nothing to worry about because anyone can simply open the heavens and enjoy open communion with the Savior and legitimately expect to receive the second comforter even though the person is not living the fulness of the Gospel.

If you are here for a warm and fuzzy feeling, you are at the wrong site.

When you get done reading some of the articles on this site you may well be curled up in the fetal position whimpering like a little girl.

Nevertheless, if you persevere, you will find much reason to be hopeful because God, in his infinite wisdom, justice, and mercy, has provided a remedy for the awful situation we are in.

Are you ready for what is about to happen?

Interestingly, even now that the traffic has slowed way down to a trickle from his site to mine, I am still getting two to three times the volume I normally get in page views.

This is a good sign. It indicates to me that some of his followers are not mesmerized by the messenger but rather they want to discern the message.

They are open to hearing other points of view and want to make sure they test the doctrines in PTHG against the scriptures and the promptings of the Holy Ghost. They want to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good.

I appreciate the authors confidence and generosity in publicizing my intention to provide a rebuttal.

I hope he will provide another link on his blog when my final work of rebuttal is published.

The Possibility of a Huge Movement

The other point I want to make, with reference to the large amount of views that his blog generated for my blog, is that the following of loyal readers that the author has amassed, is formidable.

Clearly the number of his followers that actually follow his blog and clicked on the link represents only a small fraction of the readers of his book and the believers of the doctrines that he teaches.

If the approximately 2,000 people that he has sent to my site represents 10 percent of his following, that is 20,000 people!

I don’t know if 10% would represent a modest or liberal guestimation of his total readership, however, one can appreciate why the brethren labored with him so long, trying to do damage control.

There is a lot at stake here.

Consider the fact that the average person has a sphere of influence of about 98 friends, relatives and work associates that they associate relatively closely with. 20,000  times 98 is a significant influence that has the potential to grow exponentially.

You can see what a tremendous impact the author can have through his passionate followers that are sharing their beliefs with other friends and relatives.

This is why I feel I need to speak up and challenge some of the things in the book that I know to be erroneous.

Listing of Rebuttal Points

I have decided to post most of the rebuttal points that I will be addressing before I even address them.

I suppose that from a debate strategy point of view, what I am doing is foolish, but this is not about winning a debate. This is about exposing the truth and getting people engaged. I want the doctrinal teachings that I espouse to be just as challenged as the ones that I am challenging in the PTHG.

I want a lively discussion and debate. I am openly challenging the author of PTHG and/or any of his followers to test what I am saying if sound doctrinal arguments  against them can be brought forth.

Let the discussion begin and the truth prevail.

Salvation is at stake. We need to avoid being deceived.

The scriptures inform us that there are only two ways to avoid being deceived.

One is to treasure of the word of God in the scriptures.

The other is to take the Holy Ghost as our guide.

Most of the doctrinal rebuttal points that I will be addressing in future posts are listed at the end of this post to enable people to know what the main issues will be and to allow the author and his supporters to begin preparations for a response to each rebuttal point, should anyone choose to tender any.

I will be posting each rebuttal point in a separate blog post to enable everyone who is interested to comment and produce any evidence they desire to support and challenge my rebuttal.

I will not be allowing responses to the rebuttal points below, on this blog, until I have had the chance to complete the associated post on it, demonstrating what was taught in PTHG along with my corresponding evidence that disputes it.

Before I begin posting on each of the rebuttal points, I will present a post titled “priesthood Primer” that will help readers to better understand my first five rebuttals having to do with priesthood issues.

Following that post, I will begin addressing each of the individual rebuttals independently.

I am also going to produce a PDF that contains ALL of the rebuttal points and supporting evidence in one document. It will be posted on the Internet. The advantage of the PDF is two fold. First it provides one comprehensive article that contains all of the rebuttal topics and associated evidence. Secondly, it enables me to provide footnotes containing greater context and clarification.

The online PDF will be a work in process that will be updated as more documentation is added from any comments that are made on each post. I will show the current “version” under the heading so that people will know if there have been updates.

If I am ever convinced that one of my rebuttal points is without merit, and has been adequately debunked by the author or anyone else, I will humbly apologize, eat a little crow, remove it from the PDF, and crawl under a rock and hide for a few days to hide my profuse shame and embarrassment for having made a doctrinal mistake and demonstrating that I am human and fallible. LOL

 Conversely, if commenters bring up valid and compelling points of rebuttal that I missed, I will add them to the debate as well, and to the PDF.

By the time the blog series is finished, the PDF will be hopefully be finished as well.

Naturally, it is not just the doctrines contained in PTHG that are on trial here.

Many of the doctrines contained in PTHG are just rehashed  and in some cases, re-spun doctrines that have been or are currently taught in the corporate church.

Hence, many doctrines taught by the corporate church are also being challenged in these rebuttals.

The listing of some of the upcoming rebuttal points are listed below-

Is an honest Rebuttal Possible?
Weighing the Doctrines Postulated in Passing the Heavenly Gift

Rebuttal Point #1: Joseph Smith was Instrumental in Restoring Three Priesthoods not just Two

Rebuttal Point #2: Peter James and John did NOT restore the Melchizedek Priesthood in 1829, the Lord restored the Melchizedek Priesthood in 1831

Rebuttal Point #3: The Patriarchal Priesthood is NOT the “third order of the Priesthood”

Rebuttal Point #4: The First High Priests were ordained in June of 1831 NOT June of 1832

Rebuttal Point #5: Priesthood IS necessary to officiate in the Ordinances of Salvation

Rebuttal Point #6 The Twelve do NOT have Equal Authority with the First Presidency in Governing the Church

Rebuttal Point #7 Hyrum was NOT just next in line at the time of the martyrdom, He WAS the Sole Prophet

Rebuttal Point #8 It WAS clearly documented who the Lord had Previously Conferred the Keys On at the time of the Martyrdom

Rebuttal Point #9 It WAS Rigdon’s Right to Claim Leadership in Joseph’s Absence

Rebuttal Point #10 Section 132 could NOT have been received as early as 1829

Rebuttal Point #11 The Book of Mormon does NOT necessarily reaffirm that the rejected Gentile Church will remain part of God’s Plan leading up to the New Jerusalem

Rebuttal Point #12 The Doctrine and Covenants DOES clearly Detail When and Why the Fulness was Lost

Rebuttal Point #13 The First 33 verses of section 132 ARE about Polygamy

Rebuttal Point #14 The Book of Abraham was NOT translated in 1842

Rebuttal Point #15 Joseph Did NOT Receive a Revelation about Blacks and the Priesthood after ordaining Elijah Able

Rebuttal Point #16 The Masonic Temple endowment is NOT part of the pure and simple Gospel of Jesus Christ

Rebuttal Point #17 After the Gentile Rejection, the Remnant of the Book of Mormon was NOT given the Fulness

Rebuttal Point #18 The Fulness of the Gospel is NOT available when God Rejects the Church with its Dead

Rebuttal Point #19 The Church HAS Changed the Ordinances of the Gospel

Rebuttal Point #20 Rigdon is NOT the Reason the Restored Church had an objective of restoring the pattern of the New Testament Church

Rebuttal Point #21 The Gospel Law of Marriage in Section 132 Categorically Contradicts the Gospel Law of Marriage in section 42. Reject the Law of the Gospel contained in section 42 at your Peril!

Rebuttal Point #22 Zion can only be established by Those Who Have Been Appointed

Rebuttal Point #23 What Constitutes a Testimony?

Rebuttal Point #24 Elijah Did come AND Will Come

Rebuttal Point #25 Section 110 IS a true Event that Literally Took Place as Described. The Evidence is beyond Overwhelming.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

The Marvelous Work is about to begin.

Praise God.

Will Denver Snuffer be the September 7th?

A high profile, believing Mormon, that has written several books about Mormonism, has publicly “denigrated virtually every prophet since Joseph Smith and put the church in a negative light”.

Please don’t jump to conclusions.

I am not referring to the person you think I am.

I am not referring to Denver Snuffer, although those exact words are contained in the Notice of Disciplinary Council that was recently hand delivered to him.

Last week I got a call from one of my sons who said he had heard a remarkable interview on NPR that I needed to hear.

“Just Google NPR and Black Mormon“, he said.

I did so and was fascinated to hear a short interview between NPR’s Jacki Lyden and LDS scholar and author, Terryl Givens. The interview was actually given back in March regarding changes that were made in the new digital scriptures, I glanced at it back then but I had not paid close attention to it at the time.

Givens is a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond and a celebrated LDS author who has served as a Bishop. He is very active in the LDS faith and he provides one of the messages of faith on mormonscholarstestify.org.

In the brief five minute interview, Givens was asked about the new digital edition of the LDS scriptures and some of the ground breaking changes that have been made in them.

Givens said, “.. there are some rather substantive changes in terms of the introductions to the actual scriptural material. And those are what are really catching the attention of members of the church.”

Regarding the Priesthood ban on Blacks, Givens said that “it appears that Joseph Smith himself ordained black members of the church to the priesthood” and that “after his death, beginning in the late 1840’s, Brigham Young apparently charted a new direction” with regard to the Blacks and the priesthood.

He said that the priesthood ban was “.. a matter of error or cultural and historical conditioning rather than as the will of God“.

He acknowledged that the change in direction has “been an albatross around the neck of the church and was for many, many years“.

Givens noted that although there had not been any introductory notes to the Official Declaration 2 previously, it now acknowledges that

“The Book of Mormon teaches  [that] all are alike unto God, including black and white..It mentioned that during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, a few black male members of the church were ordained to the priesthood. ” and that “church records offer no clear insights into the origin of this practice [of banning Blacks from the priesthood.”

It appears that the “records” that offer no clear insights to the origin of the practice are the scriptures. LOL

When Givens was asked about the practice of polygamy, he noted that again, introductory notes have been added to Official Declaration 1 stating that “The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless he declares otherwise.”

Givens said, “I think one could read that almost as an inversion of many Mormons’ historical understanding of plural marriage.

For many years, it was taught that plural marriage represented a higher law, a law to which people could aspire if they were worthy and prepared for this higher law.

Now, that’s been inverted to the point that monogamy is declared to be the standard law for God of marriage. And polygamy represents a brief and momentary historical aberration from that norm.”

Give observed: “That’s a fairly significant change in focus.”

In essence, Givens is saying that from the time of Brigham Young, the church got off track regarding two of the most important doctrines.

Significant errors were made regarding the proper understanding and practice of who the priesthood was to be given to, and what the law of Celestial Marriage is.

In other words, Brigham Young acted falsely in his role of the prophet of the church.

The revelatory guidance he gave to the church was wrong and he made some serious errors regarding Blacks and the priesthood and regarding polygamy and the true celestial doctrine pertaining to marriage.

Obviously, every one of the presidents of the church that followed Brigham’s lead or refused to acknowledge the false doctrines he taught when doctrines were adjusted, were just as guilty as Brigham Young.

Although changes in doctrine have been made and the pendulum is swinging the other way regarding some of the important doctrinal issues, none of the presidents of the church have stood up to the plate and acknowledged these serious mistakes.

Rather, the church has decided to slowly and subtly revise the context of some of the official declarations and retroactively provide explanations of mainstream beliefs so that it will appear to future generations as if the true doctrines were always understood and taught even while false practices emerge for a season.

All of these changes in the scriptures are being made without having to make a formal public apology and acknowledgement that every president of the Church since Brigham Young has perpetuated serious errors and practices.

In essence, Professor Givens publicly “denigrated virtually every prophet since Joseph Smith and put the church in a negative light”.

Will he be hauled into a church tribunal like Denver Snuffer?

I suspect not.

Of course, Givens understands a little more about diplomacy than snuffer does. It was clearly “ cultural and historical conditioning ” that was the culprit, not the incompetence of Brigham Young and those that followed in his footsteps.

Givens has the ability to make someone feel like they just got kissed even though he actually gave them a backhand to the jaw.

In light of the current event having to do with Denver Snuffer, I find the above mentioned interview amazing.

I have previously suggested that John Dehlin is guilty of doing significantly more damage to the reputation of the church and its leaders than Denver Snuffer has done. At least Snuffer continues to sincerely believe.

It seems somewhat unfair that people like Givens and Dehlin are given a free pass to denigrate the reputations of church leaders and yet Denver Snuffer is being called on the carpet for simply being honest about some of the problematic historical issues.

Nevertheless, Snuffer obviously knew he was heading down this path and the brethren have labored with him and given him every opportunity to change his course. As I have observed in other posts, the church is now on the defensive because of the ongoing carnage from the Google Apostasy and they want to avoid high profile disciplinary actions whenever possible. They did not want it to come to this.

Denver surely knew it was  going to come to this if he didn’t back off. He has counted the cost and appears to be unflinching in his stance. He does not appear to be terminating his speaking tour or the publication of the book that the church finds so offensive.

As I told a reader in a personal email six months ago, “Denver has put the church leaders between a rock and a hard spot, if they do nothing about him, there will continue to be fallout from what he has written, on the other hand, if they EX him and make a martyr out of him, he has the potential of taking a lot of followers with him and creating a public relations nightmare.”

Either way, tithing income will suffer and that is a major consideration to the brethren.

Unfortunately, Denver has put himself between a rock and a hard spot as well by continually bearing testimony that the modern church is true and that the leaders are God’s anointed and that every member should obey the leaders.

Because of this, Snuffer is going to have a credibility problem at this point regardless of what he does.

If he decided to repent and follow the council of the brethren, it looks like he bagged out on the instructions he has been getting from Christ and the ominous prophecy he made about himself being a servant of the Lord a few months ago.

On the other hand, if he continues going counter to the admonition of the brethren, his past advice to support the leaders looks less than inspired.

What to do?

One of the shocking statements in the letter of the disciplinary council that Denver received is the notice that his witnesses had to be approved by his local church leaders.

“If you wish to bring any witnesses, let me know by Wednesday, August 28th so that I can consider who you would like to bring and their purpose in participating in the council, in addition to the High Council“.

Imagine that!

Now it is no longer the exclusive prerogative of the accused to choose their witnesses and have them testify on their behalf in the court hearing. Apparently, the Stake President can now prevent a witness from being heard for virtually any reason. I don’t remember seeing that in the protocol in the scriptures.

It is no secret that President Hunt has been working closely with the brethren on the Denver Snuffer problem and that they have bent over backwards to try and avert a confrontation.

Their hand has been forced.

It would appear that they have determined that the fallout of this court proceeding will be less, in the long run, than if they allow him to continue unrestrained.

For those who sustain the leaders of the church as prophets seers and revelators, it would appear as if the officially ordained prophets aren’t buying what Denver is selling. They don’t seem to think that Jesus is directing his efforts.

They don’t believe the god that Denver is communing with behind the veil is the same god they are communing with behind the veil.

I have felt this September was going to be memorable, but I hadn’t counted on this particular drama.  It will be interesting to see how much traction and publicity this event attracts. One of the great sales strategies is to offer people a choice rather than to ask them if they have decided to make the purchase.

Now weak-minded people that need to follow a prophet have some exciting drama and a choice of which prophet they want to follow. Will it be Monson or Snuffer?

Anyway, it has now been 20 years since the famed September Six were weighed in the balance and found wanting.

September of 93 was a noteworthy time in LDS church history.

Will destiny make Snuffer the September 7th added to the list in September of 2013?

Disciplinary Council of Denver Snuffer

This is just a temporary post for those who may be interested. It will be removed within a few days.

I am not going to personally comment on this situation at this time.
I am only giving a heads up to those that may find the event of interest.

http://denversnuffer.blogspot.com/2013/08/dont-call-me-yes-that-means-you-too_23.html

 

[ See the next post on this topic “Will Denver Snuffer Become the September 7th?]