199: THE TRUTH IS NEVER APOSTASY

Can the Truth ever be considered Apostasy?

No. Truth is truth and any deviation from that truth is apostasy.

I received an interesting email yesterday from one of my friends.   He shared with me that his Sunday School teacher defined apostasy as, and I quote, "Apostasy is the act of choosing not to follow the counsel of the prophets and priesthood lines of authority."

However, past centuries have always defined the word apostasy as the "abandonment or neglect of Truth, or God's word,"  There is a constant battle for us to distinguish between what we as mortal men consider to be "true" and what is Divine Truth.  We error and fall into apostasy as the result of ignorance, a lack of doctrine, adding to and or deliberately adopting some views in history that is not correct. But most importantly, we fall into apostasy when we lose our connection with heaven and we rely upon the precepts of man.

In this world, We are either gathering and gaining more light, or losing light.  Gaining and receiving light is restorative, losing light is apostasy. The devotion to a leader, or to an Institution rather than devotion to God and learning via heaven would be considered apostasy.

Here are a few excerpt from a blog post entitled, "The Trick to Apostasy"

"The trick to successfully pulling off an apostasy is to distract people into thinking there hasn't been one. The "believers" need to think everything remains intact.

So the issue of "apostasy" becomes a discussion about individuals and individual conformity to the expectations of the group. The subject can then be a topic that polite, fellow-believers can discuss without ever searching into the overall condition of a fallen people.

The Jews mocked efforts to tell them they were apostate. They thought it was humorous when Lehi preached the idea. Because they were so very religious, so devout, so unassailably active in following God, the idea was absolutely laughable that they were apostate.

To pull this off Satan must be concerned with the "macro" institutional failure, not just individuals falling away. It is the small, minor spirits who follow Lucifer who engage in petty tempting of individuals to sin. Success for the Adversary is not accomplished in petty enterprises. He wants failure for the whole, so none can be saved. For that, apostasy must be universal.

He has never succeeded by admitting there has been a failure. The trick is always to have the apostasy come unnoticed, unacknowledged and from within.

The topic is worth studying. When apostasy is noticed, acknowledged and exposed, then it is possible to repent and return. Until then, it progresses apace, discarding and rejecting what might have been given. All the while being happily ignored by "believers" whose devotion will not save.

Since Christ predicted that at some point the latter-day gentiles would reject the fullness,  we probably should consider what the Book of Mormon has to say about the subject.

To finish the thought about the "trick to apostasy" the D&C has a remarkable statement. Lucifer succeeds when he manages to get us NOT to reject ordinances, but to change them. As soon as they are changed, they are broken.  That is an important step. Because then religious people can continue to claim they follow a true religion, while practicing one that has been broken. These practitioners become like the ancient Jews, who mocked Lehi because they knew they were still righteous. They knew Lehi was foolish, even fraudulent. They still had the truth, the ordinances, the temple, and the priesthood. Lehi was just a mistaken crank."

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To avoid apostasy we need to communicate with heaven. The heavens want to communicate with us, but so few can hear, so few pay attention, so few understand the language. Too few look up in the heavens any more. Instead, too many seem to be "looking down".. mostly at their electronic devices for the latest text message, the latest email response, or the latest blog post. 

"There is so much to be seen, so much to take notice of with all these goings on, and so few that will actually be paying attention." Quoting from a friends email that I received this morning.

We don't need to go far to see the wonders in the skies. While it is preferable get out from the city the lights to see the wonders in the heavens... you only need to walk outside your own front door. Here are 3 photographs that I took yesterday from my house. In case you didn't see it, there was a beautiful crescent moon last night that was aligned with the planet Venus. This "morning/evening star" was as close to the moon as I have ever seen it. These two heavenly spheres were for a brief moment.. side by side.

 

 

Photographed at 8:00 PM on Sunday, September 8, 2013

 

 Despite the incredible storms that occurred over the weekend, starting on Friday. There were moments  that the peaks of the mountains could be seen through the storm.

 

Photographed as the rain storm was starting to clear up at around 2:00 PM on Sunday, September 9, 2013
 

Sunset at around 7:30 PM on Sunday, September 9, 2013