VernPorter.com

Warning: Declaration of smilies_plugin::GetDefaultSettings() should be compatible with Plugin::GetDefaultSettings(&$params) in /home1/vporter/public_html/b2e/plugins/_smilies.plugin.php on line 73

Warning: Declaration of smilies_plugin::GetDefaultUserSettings() should be compatible with Plugin::GetDefaultUserSettings(&$params) in /home1/vporter/public_html/b2e/plugins/_smilies.plugin.php on line 149

Warning: Declaration of facebook_plugin::SkinTag($params) should be compatible with Plugin::SkinTag(&$params) in /home1/vporter/public_html/b2e/plugins/_facebook.plugin.php on line 56

Deprecated: Methods with the same name as their class will not be constructors in a future version of PHP; OnlineSessions has a deprecated constructor in /home1/vporter/public_html/b2e/plugins/_whosonline.plugin.php on line 121

Warning: Declaration of whosonline_plugin::SkinTag($params) should be compatible with Plugin::SkinTag(&$params) in /home1/vporter/public_html/b2e/plugins/_whosonline.plugin.php on line 84

Those who refuse to sustain their leaders, some things about atonement, some things about polygamy, and some things about Abraham.

Sustaining our leaders:

It seems that at every conference there are a few members who raise their voices against some of our general authorities and they are told to talk to their stake presidents. Don’t they know that the Lord will stand by his appointed leaders unless they are guilty of serious sin? It is not our duty to tell the Lord when He should give up on one of his leaders. He stood by the Israelites for hundreds of years. He stood by the Latter-Day Saints for several decades as they disappointed him time after time. Even when they proved unworthy to establish the Zion of God in Missouri He gave them a new commission, and after being scourged from city to city they were allowed to settle in the Utah territory and do the latter-day vicarious work for the dead, but they had to settle for the law of tithing instead of the law of the Celestial Kingdom.

When the twelve apostles were chosen in 1835 Oliver Cowdery of the First Presidency told them “Your ordination is not full and complete till God has laid His hand upon you.” When you raise your voice against one of the Apostles take care you don’t raise your hand against someone upon whom God has laid his hand. I don’t understand why anyone would want to chance making that mistake.

Atonement:

I understand atonement as a vicarious ordinance performed on Jesus for us. We receive the benefit of this vicarious ordinance when we take the name of Jesus Christ upon ourselves through faith, repentance, and by being reborn through the waters of baptism and the bestowal of the Holy Ghost, if we endure to the end. As Latter-Day Saints we understand vicarious ordinances. Some of our leaders have told us that it isn’t that simple. They often admit that they do not understand their own complex explanations about Jesus feeling the weight of each and every sin of each and every person infinitely into the past and future while He was in the Garden of Gethemane. Though they insist that Jesus also atoned for all of our sicknesses and stresses, they don’t even try to explain why they think Jesus was required to atone for them. If Jesus had to atone for our sicknesses and stresses, I don’t understand why we haven’t been told that we need to repent for them or if we need to make confessions for them. If we don’t repent for our sicknesses and stresses are we bound for hell?

Polygamy:

Our General Authorities are good at getting some of us to believe things which we cannot understand. In the second chapter of Jacob the Nephites were warned against committing whoredoms because of the things which were written concerning David and Solomon having many wives and concubines. The Nephites were told that the Lord led them out of the land of Jerusalem because He wanted to raise up a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Therefore they were not to have more than one wife and no concubines. In verse 30 the Lord reiterates the instructions, “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall harken unto these things.” It seems evident to me that the Lord was saying that if He wanted to raise up seed unto Himself He would command his people to avoid whoredoms, otherwise they would harken to the examples set by David and Solomon. But, we are led to believe that the Lord contradicted his prior instructions and what He meant was that when He wanted to raise up seed unto himself he would command his people to have many wives. In other words, the Lord would command his people to commit whoredoms if He wanted to raise up seed unto himself. I don’t understand this assertion.

Abraham:

There are those in the church who would have us believe that the Patriarchal Priesthood is superior to the Melchizedec Priesthood. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek which tithing we recognize as a lesser law. Abraham had wives whose offspring were not eligible to be included in the Abrahamic covenant. In the meantime, Melchizedek took a wicked people and brought them to such a high state of righteousness that he was able to take them in search of the Zion of Enoch. In other words, Abraham was not expected to provide for the sanctification of his lineage, but merely to prepare them to keep the covenant of circumcision and remain a distinct people who would eventually inherit their promised land..

Obsessions with racism, polygamy, and Abraham are a natural consequence of looking beyond the mark, of which Jacob gave fair warning in the Book of Mormon Jacob 4:14. Is our refusal to understand that Jacob 4:14 was a warning to us indicative of our refusal to recognize that our failures and the price we paid was similar to the failures and the price paid by the Israelites in the wilderness? If this is not an indication of anti-Semitism then perhaps it reveals a degree of self-righteous snobbery or at least false pride for we failed to establish our Zion in the center place at Independence, Missouri where we would have been living the Celestial Law.

The Latter-Day Saints were encouraged in their obsessions with racism, polygamy, and false pride by some of the things Joseph Smith delivered to them, namely the Pearl of Great Price and D&C section 132. With regard to the many false doctrines taught by Brigham Young I am satisfied that the Lord delivered those things to him in accordance with Jacob 4:14. The Latter-Day Saints despised the words of plainness and sought for things they could not understand, therefore the Lord delivered to them such things.  As for me, I would rather believe that the Lord delivered false doctrine to Brigham Young than to accept the charges that he was a false prophet.