Zion, Part 4

Now let’s look at the Mormon doctrines of today. They think they have a lot of knowledge that goes way beyond every other religion. And they do have a little bit but what is that little bit? Number one they believe we have a pre-mortal existence. Okay it does not take long to preach that idea. They also believe that instead of just a heaven and hell that there are several kingdoms of glory. But basically they still believe in a heaven and  hell. The hell consists of the sons of perdition and the spirits in prison and then you have the three heavens so it still a basic duality thing but you have several places to go. But as far as what we are going to do in the next world, it is still not much clearer than in a Baptist church or any place else. They say we are going to have our families around us and we will be happy. They do not know what all it is going to be involved but it is going to be great.

The Baptists say pretty much the same thing. We are going to be in heaven but they are not sure what we are going to be doing there, maybe play a few harps and sing praises but it is going to be fun whatever it is. There will be bliss for all eternity. As far as what is going to transpire in this eternal life the Mormons do not have much more knowledge than anybody else. The Mormons do have a little  more common sense than the average believer though. For instance, they accept the fact that the Bible had errors in translations and errors probably crept in the text. The born again people figure that it is perfect just the way it is so the Mormons are just a little ahead there. You can take the half a dozen extra truths the Mormons have and one can you can teach them in about 15 minutes. So, one can say the Mormons have about 15 minutes worth of knowledge the other religions do not have.

Audience: They have the teaching of the saving ordinances.

JJ: Okay, they have the teaching of the saving ordinances, but lets look at a teaching of Joseph Smith on these powers. Joseph Smith said “If there is a beginning then there will be an end” The only way there can be no end is if there is no beginning. He says if there is a beginning “as God lives” there will be an end. Now people in the church believe that there is a beginning to getting their priesthood but a priesthood is supposed to have no end. Now Joseph Smith said if there is a beginning then there is an end, so something is wrong here. So what is the true mystery behind it? The true mystery is actually given in the scriptures. They say that the priesthood is the “key to the knowledge of God.” That is what the priesthood is. It does not say the priesthood is given to you and there is a beginning to it. The truth is that you have always had the priesthood but there is a beginning to your ordination. Your ordination is merely to stimulate your recognition of authority that you already have and have always had from eternity because you have always been a god and will always be a god because you are one with God. If there is a beginning to your being a god that means there is going to be an end to your being a god and if there is no end to you being a son of God that means you have always been a son of God and you always will be a son of God.

Using Joseph Smith’s logic (and he was so sure of this that he said it was a true “as God lives”) if there is a beginning there will be an end. The ordinances are symbols – they are symbols to stimulate recognition within us of things that are true. He says that we can only be saved by these ordinances, which means until we recognize the truth behind them, we cannot be saved but the physical ordinances in them selves have no power. He even says in the Doctrine and Covenants, I believe it is section 22; it says though a man be baptized a hundred times it means nothing.

He says we are not saved by dead works and he calls baptism  a dead work. It is the meaning behind the baptism that moves us forward in our progression not the baptism itself, because we can be baptized a hundred times and it will mean nothing. He calls it a dead work but these dead works are given to us, it says because that is our mentality and it is a little bit like when Moses came down with the higher commandments and the Israelites were not ready so he gives them the lower commandments which were the dead works but the dead works prepares us to recognize what is within.

The scriptures tell us again and again that, that which is within is what is important. “The kingdom of God is within you.” The church is a little bit like a kindergarten to prepare us for real learning and it is also a little like the situation with the carnal commandments in the days of Moses. This was a kindergarten to prepare them for the true message of Christ, and we still are not ready for the true message of Christ so the D&C tells us that we must be given dead works to move us forward and to motivate us until we come to the true living works. The true living works requires no outward ordinances at all.

When Jesus was in Palestine He had no outward ordinances given to Him at all, He went through no temple ordinances. His whole work was all within Him and He was like us. The scriptures says the we are to be one with Christ just like Christ is one with His God. The reason He had power is because He was one with His Father. If we follow the footsteps of Christ all the physical ordinances can be bypassed unless we want to accept them to fulfill righteousness as he did with baptism.

But the physical ordinances are important to us for one purpose as we journey on our path. The outward ordinances speak to the inner soul in a language that our inner self understands that our outer self does not understand. The angel world understands symbols a lot better than us and they communicate by the use of symbols and this is why the prophets have often instituted symbols. The invisible lives see those symbols and they understand their meaning and it draws their help and influences them.

Getting back to the prophecy… We have to face the fact the prophecy of building the temple did not come true but that does not mean that it was not inspired because many things have been inspired that have not come true. Many of the greatest lives, the masters, the prophets if we could have all their words we would find out that even the greatest prophets have said a lot of things that did not come true. I would say about 60% of Joseph Smith’s prophecies have come true. A lot of them did not and you don’t find the failed ones in  the church books. If you look at all the things he said probably about 60% of what he predicted came true and about 40% did not. But that is a lot better than most of predictors.

I would guess Edgar Casey is the other way around, 30-40% of his came true but most of them did not. According to Casey Atlantis was supposed to rise up in 1972 and we have not seen it yet. Joseph Smith was one of the most accurate prophets in our history and the fact the he was close to about 60% accuracy is very good because if anybody gets over 50% than they are usually getting their information from some higher source.

If we have the mindset that a prophet is going to be 100% accurate then we are going to be let down every single time.Followers make up lots of excuses like they do now in the churches. But if we understand that unless it something is tightly under the control of the one who is making the prophecy then future events are malleable because of free will. Free will throws a wrench in the equation so that we cannot predict things 100%.

It is expected by the masters that we can enter into a new age and have 1000 years where there is peace and prosperity but it may not happen and it is not 100% sure. We could have a religious war rise up; we could have all kinds of things happen with terrorism or have a nuclear bomb exploded in New York or Washington DC. There are lots of unpredictable things, so we have to be on guard to make sure that we can sail smoothly into this new age of peace. One of the biggest dangers that we have is that the religious folk think it is all up to God. Well if you see a guy starving on the side of the road and you said, well it is up to God as to whether you get fed or not and you move on and the guy starves to death then is it God’s fault or is it your fault?

It is up to us and this reminds me of the movie “Oh God.” George Burns, as God, appears to John Denver and John says, “Well God when are you are going to make things right?” And God (George Burns) says  “That is your responsibility.” And Denver says, “Our responsibility, I thought it was your responsibility.” This was like a great awakening for John Denver. I thought, that is a great truth to be taught in this movie – that it is our responsibility to make sure  we are ushered into an age of peace and we do what is necessary to make good things happen.

If you just think it is in God’s hands then what we are doing is releasing ourselves from power and who assumes the power? People like the terrorists, people with bad intentions will assume the power because when we relinquish the power of decision then we are not giving it to God, we are just giving it to a lower level person than ourselves. People with fewer good intentions than ourselves then take the reigns with a decision that we gave up. We must be vigilante just like they say, “Freedom is not free,” freedom must be won by eternal vigilance. We can’t just sit back and say freedom is our right and God is going to give it to us forever. It must be won with eternal vigilance and eternal vigilance must also ensure a principle which is called the dominating good. Good must always dominate but good only dominates because intelligent people of good will come forward and throw their energy behind that which is constructive. The average person has more good in them than bad. The average person wants good things to happen and if the average person comes forward and does his part then the world will make uniform progress toward peace on earth and good will toward men.

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