Heaven is Involved: Revisit / New things

There is a lot going on that is really great. If you're paying attention, everywhere you look prophecy is being fulfilled. Here are some things to look at and consider:

A temple is being prepared for -

http://denversnuffer.com/2016/12/temple-fund-website/
http://denversnuffer.com/2016/04/why-a-temple/
http://www.recordersclearinghouse.com/2016/12/
http://www.totheremnant.com/2017/01/the-temple-part-1-house-of-glory.html
http://www.totheremnant.com/2017/01/the-temple-part-2-strange-work.html
http://www.totheremnant.com/2017/01/the-temple-part-3-bountiful-endowment.html

New scriptures are being put together:

http://www.recordersclearinghouse.com/2016/12/

http://anoffenderforaword.blogspot.com/

EDIT 2/8/2017

Cheeeeeck it out!

http://denversnuffer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/The-Testimony-of-St-John.pdf

Note: when we take scriptures seriously, we are told we will get more. Take for instance 3 Nephi 26:10, D&C 6:26; D&C 93:6 etc. There are tons of records that are supposed to come forth. I think that will happen soon.

Conferences to talk about these things are happening:

http://www.doctrineofchristconference.com/

Heaven is involved in our lives if we will just pay attention.

Another Way God Speaks

I guess it is true that signs follow those that believe.

A story from a friend:


"In the fall of 2013 I had just gotten home from my mission and was given one of the greatest callings I had ever had: locking up the church at night. I often had the entire church building to myself and would sit in the chapel to think, read, and pray.

One of those nights, I felt pretty useless and asked the Lord what He wanted me to be doing with my life. As I pondered this question the Lord spoke to me (although I wouldn't have called it that at the time) saying that I needed to read through the replica of the 1830 book of Mormon that I had from beginning to end. I thought that it was too simple of an answer to the question of "what should I do with my life", but I began anyway.

As I read, I noticed a huge increase in my understanding because of the way the 1830 was formatted. There were no verses, fewer chapters, no footnotes to distract me, and a lot of space in the margins for note taking and referencing. I liked the fact that the notes I took were not someone else's idea of what the scriptures were saying, they were mine and what the Lord had taught to me. And my references were connections that I had made, not connections that someone else had made and printed into the scriptures for me. My scriptures were very alive.

For the next two years some friends of mine and I would talk every once in awhile about how nice it would be to have scriptures that were all formatted similarly to the 1830 book of Mormon. In the summer of 2015 one of my friends said that they had a plan to re-do the scriptures. I shared all of the ideas I had from my experience reading the 1830 and which turned out to be pretty much what my friend had in mind. We fiddled with some ideas for a while, like including the JST, making sure that all the scriptures we included were from the earliest extant source, and perhaps even throwing in some revelations that Denver had shared. In November of 2015 we began the project and acquired help from other trusted friends.

The entire process was a great learning experience. We would often run into roadblocks and ask in prayer what should be done about them. Our questions were often answered with clarity on how we were to proceed. A year later, in November of 2016, we had finished the project aside from some formatting that needed to be done. Since we had decided to include some of Denver's material we had to reach out to him in order to obtain permission to use it. He agreed to let us use some of his material and even offered to reach out to his publisher to get these new scriptures printed. At that point we essentially handed the project off to him and were just waiting for a new, functional set of scriptures.

About three weeks later I dropped in to Adrian Larsen's blog. He had posted earlier that day that a new, earliest extant version of the scriptures were made available. At first I thought that Denver had told Adrian about the project, but as I read through the post I realized that this was not talking about the project we had finished three weeks earlier. My heart sunk and I was really confused at why the Lord would inspire two different groups to do the same thing, or if one was inspired and the other wasn't. I contacted Denver to see what he thought we should do and he suggested that we meet with the other group to see what the differences were and if we could possibly merge the two projects to make one superior project. I agreed and the other group was contacted and a date was set to meet.

It took me a couple of days of prayer and looking at the other group's project before I realized that the left hand had no idea what the right hand was up to, and that this fulfilled the required testimony of two or three that this was a work inspired of God. I was glad that no one group could take credit, but because of the circumstances, God HAD to be given credit.

We are no longer two separate groups, but one bigger group. The process of merging the two projects has been almost effortless and certainly very inspiring.

While there is much more that could be added, this is basically what led me and others to where we are now."

So that is another way God speaks.

One Way God Speaks

It is easy to deny what is in the hearts of men, since we cannot see into the hearts of men. At least not directly.

It's interesting to me that the Church office building is the second tallest building in Salt Lake (by only 2 feet) second to Wells Fargo Bank.

"Because of pride, and because of false teachers, and false doctrine, their churches have become corrupted, and their churches are lifted up; because of pride they are puffed up." (2 Ne. 28: 12)

Or that the conference center is the largest auditorium on the planet. (https://www.lds.org/liahona/2005/08/news-of-the-church/tabernacle-choir-getting-to-know-unique-conference-center?lang=eng&_r=1)

"And it came to pass that I saw and bear record, that the great and spacious building was the pride of the world; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceedingly great. And the angel of the Lord spake unto me again, saying: Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb." (1 Ne. 11:36)

Did you know that the number one cause of death in the U.S. is heart disease?

"And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men’s hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people."(D&C 88:91)

When I came home from my mission, as my plane descended into Salt Lake, I couldn't anything except for mountain tops and a few columns of smoke coming out of the smog. 

"Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth; there shall be murders, and robbing, and lying, and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations; when there shall be many who will say, Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day. But wo unto such, for they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.

O ye wicked and perverse and stiffnecked people, why have ye built up churches unto yourselves to get gain? Why have ye transfigured the holy word of God, that ye might bring damnation upon your souls? Behold, look ye unto the revelations of God; for behold, the time cometh at that day when all these things must be fulfilled. Behold, the Lord hath shown unto me great and marvelous things concerning that which must shortly come, at that day when these things shall come forth among you.

Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing. And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts. For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world? Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads? Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer."(Mormon 8)

Maybe we can't see into the hearts of individuals. I know courageous people with unhealthy hearts, humble people who work in tall buildings, and pure people who live in filthy societies. These people seem to be exceptions though. 

So that's one way to hear the "voice" of God. 

The Good Don't Speak, And the Speakers Aren't Good.

From the Epistle of James:

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness, the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the vices of the world."

Language

JST Genesis says,

"And the Lord came down, beholding the city and the tower which the children of men were building; And the Lord said, Behold, the people are the same, and they all have the same language; and this tower they begin to build, and now, nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined, except I, the Lord, confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So I, the Lord, will scatter them abroad from thence, upon all the face of the land, and unto every quarter of the earth."                

"And they were confounded, and left off to build the city, and they hearkened not unto the Lord, therefore, is the name of it called Babel, because the Lord was displeased with their works, and did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face thereof."      

Ether 1:34 says,

"And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words."      

He says that if they were confounded, then they couldn't understand the language anymore. This sounds a lot like the politically correct culture we live in now. No one listens to the spirit of what a person is saying, they just require others to get all their words right. This is the day when a man is made and offender for a word. (2 Nephi 27:32) It is what Moroni was worried about in Ether 12:23-25(How is this applied today? Moroni was able to be confident in the words he spoke, but not the words he wrote. How do online discussions usually turn out in today's society if the reader and writer don't both have the Holy Ghost?)

If the speaking and listening parties both had the Spirit, then the language they both speak would be understood. This is also what is required to understand scripture. If scripture happens when a person speaks the words of God by the power of the Holy Ghost (D&C 68:4; Acts 4:31), then by what means are we to understand scripture? How did Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery begin to understand scripture in a way that they never before could?(Joseph Smith History, verses 73-74) 

D&C 50 says,

"Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the comforter, the spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the spirit of truth, or some other way? And if by some other way, it be not of God. And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the spirit of truth, or some other way? If it be some other way, it be not of God; therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know that he that receiveth the word by the spirit of truth, receiveth it as it is preached by the spirit of truth? Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understandeth one another, and both are edified and rejoice together; and that which doth not edify, is not of God, and is darkness..."

Why is it easier to understand someone if you both have the Spirit? What does it mean to be of one Mind? Think about when you have "heard" God's voice in your life. How did you "hear" it? Why is it that when dreaming you can understand those who speak to you when there is no sound?

The Lord tells Oliver Cowdery that when he asks a question in faith, believing, He "will tell [him] in [his] mind and in [his] heart" the answer. (D&C 8:2)

What if everyone had this gift from God? Then would everyone be of one mind? Would we all understand one another regardless of what our vocabulary was or the way in which our words were arranged? What does the Fifth lecture on Faith say about these things?

Interesting things to consider.

Religious Freeedom Debate

I was watching this.

What I came up with is that a person may believe and act in any manner they wish if no one is physically imposing anything upon anyone else. There is no force. Only persuasion on everyone's part.

If force is used, then force may be required. What I mean is that if there is a rogue person killing others, then others may do what is needed to stop that.

Whatsoever Thing is Expedient in Me

1830 Book of Mormon p. 579:

“If you shall have faith in me, you shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me”

I remember a conversation I was having with a friend’s dad about faith. We talked of experiences we had where we were able to do extraordinary things by faith, but were unable to duplicate the experience. My friend’s dad seemed to struggle with the definition of faith because of that. I think a lot of people have no idea what faith is. It seems like faith is something that you should always have, but if you always had it, then wouldn’t you be able to duplicate experiences you had as a result of your faith? And if I can’t duplicate, then why don’t I have faith now?

It is a good question. I have wondered about it in times past.

If you look at Genesis 14 in the New Translation it shows the type of faith Melchizedek had and makes clear that the power of that kind of faith is only to be used when it is the will of the Lord. No freelancing. You can always have the faith within you, in Christ. You can’t always do whatever you think needs to happen. “If you shall have faith in me, you shall have power to do whatsoever thing IS EXPEDIENT IN ME.” You may have all the faith in the world. But if your actions are not according to that which is expedient in the Lord you may as well have no faith at all.

Now, I know this isn’t a perfect explanation. Moses still messed up by not following the exact commands of the Lord. When told to speak to the rock and it would bring forth water, he smote it with his staff instead. Because of this Moses was cursed and was not permitted by the Lord to enter the promised land.  Though he disobeyed, the rock still brought forth water. Perhaps it was close enough to the will of the Lord that the result was similar to what would have happened if he obeyed. Who knows what the result would have been if he obeyed perfectly though. Perhaps it would have strengthened the faith of someone who had faith that by speaking the word of God great things could happen. Who knows what we missed out on by Moses not entering into the promised land? Who knows? Nevertheless, if you have faith in Christ, you will have power to do anything that he wants you to do – but maybe only that which he wants you to do.

Something I have learned regarding these ideas is that you CAN NOT understand them fully without experience. Experience brings both success and failure, but it has to happen. So go get experience. Serve people, pray often, read the scriptures, and these things will guide you into other actions you can take, and experiences you can get.