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Whenever there is an increase in spiritual manifestations, there is always an increase in both true and false spiritual phenomena. When you have more light, it is usually accompanied by more darkness. You do not get one without the other. All of us will sooner or later be confronted by false spirits and/or be invited to participate in gatherings where they are present. Many amongst us are going to be seduced by false spirits and be deceived. Others will be able to discern between the two and avoid the deception. False spirits abound all around us. Those who want to lead others, have an audience or following can easily be misled. False spirits can prop up our egos and feed our pride... which eventually will lead to mischief and ultimately darkness.
These things are all around us. But this is how it should be.
The false spirits need to be unleashed. They need to be exposed. We have a choice to either withdraw from it, or join the deception. In the process, there will be some ugliness. Zion can not happen until those false spirits have been identified and weeded out from the community.
Ambition in spiritual gifts leads to acceptance of evil influences.
I recently read the following. "In Kirtland, new converts who were overzealous to participate in the new heavenly manifestations coming as a result of Joseph Smith's claims, opened themselves up to receiving influences they could not understand, and did not test for truthfulness. They were so delighted to have any kind of experience, they trusted anything "spiritual" was from God. As a result, there were many undignified things, degrading conduct, foolish behavior and evil influences which crept in among the saints. Joseph received a revelation in May 1831 concerning this troubling development. In it the Lord cautioned there were "many false spirits deceiving the world." That Satan wanted to overthrow what the Lord was doing. The presence of hypocrites and of people harboring secret sins and abominations caused false claims to be accepted. It is required for all people to proceed in truth and in righteousness if they are going to avoid deception. Meaning that unrepentant and unforgiven men will not be able to distinguish between a true and a false spirit. Just because you have a "spiritual experience" you cannot trust it will invariably be from God." (Read D&C 50: 1-9). As part of the same problem in Kirtland, in September of the previous year, Hiram Page wanted to be like Joseph, and was able to attract a deceiving spirit to communicate with him through a seer stone. But the commandments he received were designed to lead him into error.
Here is a quote from History of the Church concerning a branch of early saints in Kirtland, 1831.
"The branch of the Church in this part of the Lord's vineyard, which had increased to nearly one hundred members, were striving to do the will of God, so far as they knew it, though some strange notions and false spirits had crept in among them. With a little caution and some wisdom, I soon assisted the brethren and sisters to overcome them." (HC 1:146)
How do we discern between strange notions and correct ones.. between false and true spirits?
Here is some guidance I read. "All spiritual gifts, including distinguishing between true and false spirits, requires the Holy Ghost, given through obedience to the truth, which allows a person to distinguish between truth and error. The truth is like light, and when you follow the light of truth it grows inside you until you have a "perfect day" in which there is no more darkness, but everything is illuminated by the light of the spirit within you."
But this only comes as a result of repenting of all sin. Truth will not leave you confused, but will enlighten your understanding.
From this you can see how necessary it is for each of us to continually repent, conduct our lives in conformity with such truth as you presently understand, and avoid deliberate wrongdoing in order to be able to distinguish between a true and a false spirit. You must attract light. It is attracted by obedience to such light as you already have. When you proceed forward using the light you already possess to attract more light it will grow in one, consistent and truthful manner from a lesser to a greater light. All of it conforming to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Do not think all spiritual experiences can be trusted. There is no difference between the activities of deceiving spirits today and those in Kirtland, as well as those in the New Testament times. If you follow the Lord you must still test the spirits and only follow those which point to Christ. Even Joseph Smith had to ask God about some of the phenomena going on in Kirtland before he knew which were of God and which were deceiving.
And lastly... As far as gathering, there is no reason to gather to fail again. Without appropriate preparation of people beforehand, angels will not gather them in. Angels do the gathering, not men. Not even men with good intentions. Zeal and haste will prevent Zion from coming and will destroy it if it's here.
21 comments:
BOOM! Let the fear mongering continue! I love the spirit of fear and warning you promote. It because of love that you do it, of course.
I agree with you that I much prefer the faith promoting vs the fear mongering.
Maybe just like the premise of this post.. along with what you consider the fear mongering posts... you hopefully can find the faith promoting posts as well. Good to have both so we can see the difference.
Thanks for caring enough to write a comment. :)
Hmm something fishy is going on....
http://www.totheremnant.com/2014/11/whos-up-for-family-reunion.html?showComment=1416973216112#c8021782633239766409
You are so right we should avoid talking to people and gathering in larger groups out of fear that we might receive dark spirits. Wait didn't we just do that when Denver had his talks. I guess it is ok when THE prophet says to gather. I thought I left the Mormons behind.
I love you man, but these old ways have got to die. Follow the spirit till it brings you to Jesus. there is no other way, and if I fail and I am deceived then so be it. I am done being afraid to get it wrong. I put my life in His hands, I trust Him to carry me past my intense failings and weakness. I frankly have no other chance.
One thing I need more of is tinfoil.
Dave:
Actually, I am not right if you interpreted what I said that we should avoid talking to people and gather in larger groups. Maybe I should be more clear. Yes, Talk and gather with others.. we NEED to do these things. But, hopefully we can learn from making the same mistakes in the Kirtland era.
I agree with you that we should follow the Spirit. Yes, put our lives in His hands. Trust Him... otherwise, none of us have a chance.
Thanks for your comment
don't we all...especially tomorrow to wrap up all the leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. :)
"Angels do the gathering, not men. Not even men with good intentions."
Thank you for this crucial warning, as much is at stake here.
Will you please next follow up your warning with teaching of the truth of the matter?
Please forgive my ignorance, as I ask in all sincerity:
What does "angels do the gathering" look like?
How do I know it? What do I look for? Are you referring to mortals or visible, audible Powers of Heaven, or will an increase in intelligence to our mind through the Holy Ghost suffice?
When angels do the gathering do they lead us or do they invite us to use our agency to figure it out on our own (ie make mistakes until we get it right)?
Does the warning you're giving us apply to any Conference or simply a Conference labeled with the express intentions of someday creating Zion, or only to those immediately wanting Zion NOW?
Do you feel we are to practice remotely via Internet and not gather until everyone is "ready", and if so, how shall we know it?
Or can interim practice gatherings be led by the angels until we are "ready"?
You speak of "appropriate preparation of people beforehand". What does that look like? How will we know when we are prepared?
I don't ask in a snarky manner at all. I take your warning of what NOT to do very seriously. I am now looking for you to share further light and knowledge about what TO do.
Please advise. Thank you. :)
Agree completely with this post. In fact interestingly, I felt to write about the same subject on my blog. And then I was pointed to Rob Kay's blog ...
Part 1. http://mormonyeshiva.blogspot.com/2014/10/perilous-time-shall-come-latter-day.html
Part 2. http://mormonyeshiva.blogspot.com/2014/11/dear-gentiles-or-missing-mark-too-sequel.html
Your brain love to find patterns, it loves to find meaning. Your brain is constantly looking to fulfill your expectations and biases. You will feel that these things have deep importance and meaning. It is your brain, lulling you deeper and deeper so you can feel you are on the right path, that a so called god is directing you and what your spend time thinking about. Yes it is very interesting how you felt and now here is your friend writing the same thing. Oh yes it is god and the hosts of heaven warning and influencing you and those that have similar thinking on many issues. God must be using your brain natural programming to confirm to you that you are finding divine favor. Must be such a good feeling to know this.
We can say we trust Christ, and that is great, for he is perfect & trustworthy, but it's ourselves that we can't trust. We aren't perfect and we can't be trusted to always discern correctly. So saying we just trust Christ to save us is refusing to take our part of the responsibility to discern truth from error. Christ cannot save us if we don't do our part of living righteously enough to discern truth from error on our own. He can only save us 'after' we have kept all of his commandments. He can't do that for us. He can't discern truth from error for us. If we are deceived, and we all are, then it's our own fault, for that's the test of this life, to see who will fall for false prophets and false doctrines and false spirits and false revelation and false visions and false Christ's appearing to us. And who won't.
We may want to pass the test over to Christ and wish he could just save us but he can't, we must pass the test alone.
Angelina,
Angels must do the gathering because the righteous are so few and far between that they rarely find each other, even if they wanted to gather and there would be nothing wrong with them gathering, IF they could find each other, but they can't, except for maybe 1 or 2 people throughout their life.
Thus it's impossible for the righteous to gather themselves together, for there are so few and they rarely if ever hear about one another. Few there by that find it. Few around the world. It's rare to find a righteous person. It's like 1 person in a city.
Angels must and can only gather them and only the righteous will know the gathering is happening, all others will think they are righteous but never be gathered because they really weren't righteous and did not really follow Christ.
Well if Christ is talking to you through the spirit then you can know you are deceived. If Christ is talking to you face to face, make sure it is not a hallucination the best you can by going to a doctor and try to rule out thing that may have been the source of the hallucination. Spiritual sight is real. It is hallucinations and illusions your mind makes up. If you have been deceived, I would not say it has been all your fault. It's the culture in which you are in. The meaning of life is whatever you choose it to be and your brain will give you many confirmations along the way which will be very meaningful. Your fantasy does not represent anything conclusive. Your brain is very powerful in conjuring droves of phenomenon. What you call spiritual experiences is one way the brain does this.
I agree with you that not all spiritual manifestation can be trusted. Few seem to understand or think about that. But neither can all or even any revelation or prophets be trusted either. We must prove all things, even the best of men and the best of what we think 'the spirit' is telling us.
For the Adversary can and does so easily deceive us all by giving us near constant false revelation that feels so good & right & appeals to the natural man in us. While truth is usually things we don't want to do and don't want to accept, for it's very hard and contrary to our natural desires and inclinations.
The best men & women who ever lived were deceived by many things until they realized it and corrected their thinking. Even Christ learned line upon line. How can we think we are so smart as to never be deceived while growing up and into our adult years, no matter how wise, kind & wonderful our parents & leaders may have been. All good, honest & wonderful people are deceived by many things they don't realize yet. It will take a lifetime to awake to all the deceptions we have fell for in this world.
So I would not say that 'many' are deceived but that 'everyone' is deceived and greatly so, because no one is so wise & perfect coming into this life, except Christ, that they can discern all truth from error from childhood on into adulthood, .
We are all raised amid many truths and many errors, taught in our homes, societies & religions, even by the best parents and most well intentioned church leaders. It's just the nature of man. Even the elect, the righteous, the humble followers of Christ are often deceived to believe in things they are taught their whole life that really aren't true. Or they fall for false revelation or for false spiritual experiences or they misinterpret such things to mean something they don't.
It's so rare for anyone to actually live the laws of Christ insomuch that they are really in tune with the Holy Spirit, and able to hear & discern true revelation. It even takes years of practice and obedience to Christ's commandments to learn the difference between true and false revelation and true and false doctrines.
Discerning truth from error by 'spiritual means' is not possible, for mortals can't always discern the source of their revelations & feelings. Thus Christ taught us to prove all things by concrete facts & people's fruit, their behavior which we can see, in order to know if something or someone is true and right, not by feelings or warm fuzzies, for everyone is deceived by such.
So the best one can do is acknowledge that they are deceived and do all they can to study and figure out one by one all their deceptions.
It it pride that causes us to think we can't be or aren't deceived. Such thoughts totally impede our progress. While if we follow Christ to beware of & follow his way on how to discern false prophets, especially in our own church, then we will stay deceived our whole life and never know it and never achieve Eternal Life.
People in every religion are just as sure their church & leaders & revelation & spiritual experiences are true and right, just as much as any LDS person does. It is pride to think we are right and everyone else is deceived & wrong. It is the natural man in us to firmly believe the religion we were raised in is the only true & right one, no matter how wrong or evil it may be in reality.
Part 2-
Thus the only wise & safe position is to assume we are completely deceived and to take every belief we have and realize it may be wrong and then prove them all against Christ's teachings, or even more basic, prove it against unconditional love & the Golden Rule. Prove all leaders we may want to put trust in and prove them against the teachings of Christ to see if they are really following his commandments or not and whether they truly have Christlike unconditional love or not and if they are truly standing up for liberty or not.
Even the ideas and feelings we think the Spirit is teaching and telling us must be proven before it's trusted. The Holy Spirit is a teacher of truth, but the Adversary can also and more easily teach & tell us things, and it's impossible to tell the difference between which spirit is communing with us. So we must prove all things that come to us through inspiration & revelation and compare those ideas to what Christ taught to see if they are in harmony or not. Most people just assume their revelations come from the right Spirit when most do not. That's why people in every religion are getting contrary confirmations and beliefs while feeling sure they are right. They do not prove their revelations or spiritual experiences 1st before believing them.
Few there be that find it and prove all things and thus few ever awake to their deceptions. For false prophets preach an easier Gospel then true ones, and false Spirits make us feel better about ourselves and behavior and desires then the Holy Spirit would. Christ's doctrines were simple but very very hard to do, almost even impossible and completely contrary to what we would want to naturally do.
If we do live Christ's teachings we will probably not be able to find anyone who agrees with us or who lives or believes in them too. We will walk the path alone, as Christ did.
Most people do not want the truth. They just want constant reassurance what they believe is the truth. Then you have a message they will do just about anything for.
Thank you for the post. Initially, I did wonder if it was about the get-together being planned, then I decided that it really didn't matter. The advice is good. It is timely. As heaven attempts to gather souls, hell will also - until hell reaches the borders and bounds of its powers. Our job is to be humble and teachable, close to the Lord, and trusting that all things will work together for our good.
Humble and teachable! Funny! Your pride is in knowing stuff and having an imaginary connection to a person who does not exists. You will be closed minded to protect your fragile beliefs.
May God bless your soul, Bill. May He help you to be humble and teachable. May He give you strong desires to have your soul healed and to come into His presence.
Toni B
BR-
The "general conference" going on at Daymon Smith's website is got very interesting reading. I just posted this on Rock's website and a couple of others. Read the latest. Stunning writing!
http://daymonsmith.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/gencon14-the-power-of-the-text-itself/
Earl
Hello brother Bare Record. I'm trying to understand. Are you LDS? Do you believe in the movement of Denver Snuffer or something? I'm trying to understand who and what you are from the various posts here, including this one. Are you speaking here of the gathering that Denver Snuffer is talking about? What is it about, and how does it work? This Denver Snuffer stuff is not very clear to me at all.
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