Testimony in new prophet

[CMZ]

14 minutes ago, Jeanne said:

Okay..I understand then what you and others are saying and believe..but is there a divinity of His Father that gave Him a better understanding and/or better perception in the perfection He attained?  Somehow, I have always thought that it may not have been easier for Jesus but at least a divine certain knowledge that made Him more than mortal in His own mortality. I know that this doesn't make sense..but being a Son of God had to have added gifts of divine knowledge that we mortals could only obtain on that line upon line.

Yeah, probably something like that.

[Meerkat]

3 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

Why would we expect more people (billions more?) to accept LDS baptism in the afterlife?

I'll tell you why.  About three years ago, my wife and I took a cruise to Alaska with some dear friends.  Stopping off in Ketchikan, where I lived as a child, we decided to go visit my Grandfather Odin's grave.  Arriving at the cemetery, there were too many graves.  We knew we would miss our ship and probably not find Grandpa.  We prayed.  I asked my wife if she had any impressions.  She said she felt he was on higher ground.  I said it was somewhere between us and the road (3 rows.)  I said "You go to the top and I'll start working up from here."  About three minutes later she called down to me "Here he is."

I was thinking about Odin and Hilda and their youngest daughter Jacqueline, who hadn't been sealed to her husband.  My wife and I drove down to Oregon to find her cemetery.  It was very large.  We prayed.  Like a wind vane, our heads turned in the same direction.  Fifteen minutes later we had found her grave.  Researching her husband, we found his parents and others on Familysearch.org and have been able to do some of their work.  We also found another vein of ancestors from a 2nd cousin that connected us with 42,000 of my relatives.  And my wife and me are just two people.

The spirit of Elijah is working with us to accomplish this important work.  I would recruit you also, if I could.  These beloved relatives are working with us from beyond the veil.

This is what Malachi has to say about those billions in your question:

"¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
            6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

Malachi 4:5-6

[Calm]

4 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

This is one of the most beautiful truths revealed since the restoration - but to me the problem remains that there are so many good people who reject the LDS church on this earth, who are alive today.

Why would we expect more people (billions more?) to accept LDS baptism in the afterlife?

A friend collected these quotes for another discussion:

Quote

Lorenzo Snow, October 6, 1893;  in, Deseret Weekly 47 (4 November 1893): 609; Millennial Star, Jan. 22, 1894, p. 49; Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, p.98; Collected Discourses 3.363; also reported Burton, ed., We Believe, Death)  A wonderful work is being accomplished in our temples in favor of the spirits in prison. I believe, strongly too, that when the gospel is preached to the spirits in prison, the success attending that preaching will be far greater than that attending the preaching of our elders in this life. 

 

Lorenzo Snow, April 5, 1894, meeting of Quorum and First Presidency:  “President Snow said, and Pres. Woodruff coincided with the view, that very, very few of those who die without the Gospel will reject it on the other side of the veil” [Abraham H. Cannon diary, under date [Lyman, 491; Horne, 313; Collected Discourses 4. 68, note from previous page which refers to this diary entry]

 

Wilford Woodruff;  Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah, Sunday, April 18, 1894. Millennial Star 56 (May 28, 1894): 339-341; James R. Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, Vol. 3, p.257 - p.258; Collected Discourses 4.74; The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, p.157-158—. So it will be with your fathers. There will be very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel. Jesus while His body lay in the tomb, went and preached to the spirits in prison

 

Abraham H. Cannon, January 5, 1895, Millennial Star 57 (1895): 467’ = Collected Discourses 4. 208.  “I think the cases will be very few of those who in the spirit world reject the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

[Calm]

4 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

One small example: Joseph Smith once stated that Quakers live on the moon.

Is my testimony insufficient for this church if I think that’s nuts?  While is is VERY minor, I wonder if any leaders of the church would openly repudiate that statement? 

A more accurate statement is 'someone once stated someone claimed JS said there were Quakers on the moon.'

Quote

The source for this claim is not Joseph Smith himself; the first mention comes in 1881 in Oliver B. Huntington's journal, who claimed that he had the information from Philo Dibble. So, we have a late, third-hand account of something Joseph is supposed to have said. [1] Hyrum Smith [2] and Brigham Young [3] both expressed their view that the moon was inhabited.

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Did_Joseph_Smith_state_that_the_moon_was_inhabited,_and_that_its_inhabitants_were_dressed_like_Quakers%3F

If Joseph Smith was discussing theories of the day (which an inhabited moon was) much like we discuss ideas here, would you view such a comment differently than how you imagine it occurred when you said the above?

[SouthernMo]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

If Joseph Smith was discussing theories of the day (which an inhabited moon was) much like we discuss ideas here, would you view such a comment differently than how you imagine it occurred when you said the above?

You bet I would!  Context of any statement is imperative to its understanding.

That specific statement is just one minor example of a prophet being wrong (if he did say that). And that’s ok to me. Prophets can be wrong; I want to give them a wide latitude - they deserve it.

My struggle comes when on the one hand, I am asked to accept that they are just men and subject to theories of the day when they are dead, but when living, there is far less latitude for doubt in their words.

I need to resolve this paradox. 

[Calm]

Quote

t when living, there is far less latitude for doubt in their words.

I think context is still imperative there.  And what is meant by doubt.

I don't believe anything I hear mortal men saying is the Word of God as it proceeds from the mouth of God because I don't believe mortal communication can convey the full meaning of God's experience and knowledge.  I believe everything the prophets say including "thus sayeth the Lord" is really "thus sayeth the Lord to the best of my current understanding of how to communicate what I was told".

So I don't doubt that something is revelation or that leaders are teaching their best communication of what God wants us to know.  I just don't take those words as the ultimate authority because over time and in the next life God will keep sending us his revelations and we as individuals and as a community and world will be developing better and better ways to comprehend it.  And over time as our understanding grows, that may cause a complete reversal of belief because the new perspective allows us to more fully interpret our experience (think of how one would perceive the sun moving around the earth until one sees the same thing but with the additional knowledge that the earth that feels so immovable beneath our feet is actually spinning, we can stand in the exact same spot and see the exact same thing and yet have opposite understanding of the same message being sent to our senses).

I believe people give too wide an authority to GAs while imo revelation for the Church is likely quite limited in range even if the potential for any knowledge God chooses to share with us is there (limited most of the time to what is needed to lead the Church as a community towards being a better vehicle for God's work for both members and the world).  I don't believe God gives revelations just because people ask for them if there are other forms of the same information out there that can be received through education/study and pondering.

I think a lot of people assume, including leaders, that because one receives a revelation on the truth of a particular position that the process of thought that led to that position has been validated by the revelation when that might not be true at all (the revelation being akin to recognition the sun's position in the sky varies throughout the day consistently day after day, the thought process could be 'the sun is moving' or 'the earth is moving' or something else)

I think it would be better if we started thinking of revelation as 'encounter with God' (whether through spirit or other form) and less as what ideas occur during that encounter.  Like every other communication, the receiver affects the message form.  Think of an old typewriter hooked up to some electronic receiver for long distance communication.  If the typewriter is missing half its keys, the message  read at the receiving end will be quite different than the one sent.  Sure, the sender if they are aware of what keys are missing can adapt and choose words that use the least number of missing keys...but then that limits word choice and therefore limits meaning that can be conveyed.  Any message sent is still a message though, no matter the limitations of understanding by those who receive it.  Revelation is still revelation, but it must always be filtered through our limited mortal ability to understand and communicate.

Edited May 13, 2018 by Calm

[SouthernMo]

17 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think it would be better if we started thinking of revelation as 'encounter with God' (whether through spirit or other form) and less as what ideas occur during that encounter.  Like every other communication, the receiver affects the message form.

I love this idea. This is a beautiful perspective to have. 

[mfbukowski]

On 5/8/2018 at 8:55 AM, Stargazer said:

Over the more than 50 years of church membership, I have testified that I know the Church is true many times.  And over that period, while the words haven't changed, what I understand and mean by them has varied and grown.  

And I expect that in the hearts of those who have heard my words what it meant and means to them has varied a great deal.

 

It is a phrase in the Mormon dialect which does not translate exactly but we know exactly what it means.

[mfbukowski]

On 5/11/2018 at 6:53 PM, JLHPROF said:

You are misreading my statements.  I don't believe the Church perfectly exemplifies God's will.

I believe it represents the gateway to the one path that leads to Christ  (who in turn is the one path to the Father).

It is the only path to Christ, no matter how out of order it may be in some areas.

I have been trying to figure out how exactly to put that for a long time. That's it. Thank you.

There are other paths that lead to Christ like rivers and streams flowing from One Source.

And the church is not even the source. It is the Gateway leading to the source.

It is the door on which we knock and which Christ opens.

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, SouthernMo said:

You bet I would!  Context of any statement is imperative to its understanding.

That specific statement is just one minor example of a prophet being wrong (if he did say that). And that’s ok to me. Prophets can be wrong; I want to give them a wide latitude - they deserve it.

My struggle comes when on the one hand, I am asked to accept that they are just men and subject to theories of the day when they are dead, but when living, there is far less latitude for doubt in their words.

I need to resolve this paradox. 

Leaders must lead.

No leader in any organization would ever say "Don't listen to me. I'm wrong half the time anyway"

If your leader is wrong, why follow?

The role of leader requires being right most of the time. It's just a human thing.

 

[CMZ]

Quote

We have all had the privilege of sustaining President Russell M. Nelson as our prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this conference. The Twelve, as a group and individually, had a significant spiritual experience when we laid our hands on President Nelson’s head and President Dallin H. Oaks, acting as voice, ordained him and set him apart as President of the Church. I testify that he was foreordained and has been prepared his entire life to be the Lord’s prophet for our day.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2018/04/prepare-to-meet-god?lang=eng

 

Edited May 13, 2018 by CMZ

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, CMZ said:

The Twelve, as a group and individually, had a significant spiritual experience

I really dislike such vagaries and find they do little to increase testimony. I wish they'd either describe the experience or keep it to themselves.

It almost seems phrased to induce the membership to imagine the most miraculous experience without actually claiming one.

Can you imagine if the First Vision, D&C 13, 110 or 76 were described in such terms?  And we were to take our doctrinal directions based on that?

Edited May 13, 2018 by JLHPROF

[CMZ]

2 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I really dislike such vagaries and find they do little to increase testimony. I wish they'd either describe the experience or keep it to themselves.

It almost seems phrased to induce the membership to imagine the most miraculous experience without actually claiming one.

Can you imagine if the First Vision, D&C 13, 110 or 76 were described in such terms?  And we were to take our doctrinal directions based on that?

Sorry, I'm not the one who said it. We should know that different spiritual manifestations come with different commands to either tell others or not tell others about them, or to tell about them but not in full detail. The First Vision and Section 76 were both only partially revealed to others. Could be the same with 13 and 110.