Given both halves of the Lorenzo Snow couplet:
“As man now is, God once was.
As God now is, man may be.”
(a) If we will forever be dependent on and subordinate to our God, then it stands to reason that God himself remains dependent on and subordinate to his own God (our Heavenly Grandfather).
(b) If God is no longer dependent on and subordinate to his own God, then it stands to reason that we can someday become Gods who are independent of, and no longer subordinate to, our own God.
Yet the theistic conscience wants to affirm that both:
(c) God is independent of, and not subordinate to, any other Gods.
(d) We will forever remain dependent on, and subordinate to, our God.
With Biblical Christianity, (c) and (d) are compatible. With traditional Mormonism, they are incompatible.
I study mormonism because they claim to be christian, yet they are not. So I share from their scriptures what they refuse to share with people. Also the bible in acts 17:11 says, search the scriptures, so I do. As far as denomination, im just a guy who studies the bible, and loves Jesus and believes His word.
Rick B
That’s really cool.
Is that your radio station?
dreamer,
I don’t belong to a denomination or even a church, but I do attend church services. Here’s the deal to contrast with the LDS church. I’m not at all interested in someone joining a church. What I am interested in is people coming to a knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
What the LDS are interested in is getting people to join their church/sect. Their whole program is based on what they call the “restored gospel”; believing that the first century church went into apostasy upon the death of the apostles. It’s all total nonsense but some people will believe it especially if they’ve been born into the sect.
So their salvation has two levels. The first is a universal salvation granted to everyone who ever lived. The second level is the god-maker program. They believe that belonging to the one true church and doing the proper amount of “works” will result in them having done enough to reach god status. So that’s why there’s so much emphasis with the LDS on theirs being the one true church. They believe that they have the system that can turn mortal men into gods.
so what kind of church services do you attend, Falcon?
Do you worship God in songs? Do you go for mission camps in different countries ?
I dont have a radio station, I just do a live radio show every Saturday and then post the podcasts on my website.
In my country we were doing conferences on the streets, it’s a mission service. A lot of people never heard about God, they were coming with tears and giving their lives to Jesus. People of all ages, rich or poor, homeless kids. Mission is very important.
So what LDS people do when they go to mission?
For example to China?…
The LDS missionaries have one over-riding message and that is that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and he/Smith was called to restore the lost gospel. When the LDS give their testimony it has five basic points. They believe in Smith as a prophet, they believe in the Book of Mormon, they believe the LDS church is the one true church, they believe in the current “living” prophet, and then as an after thought, they believe in Jesus. But it must be remembered that the LDS Jesus is not the Jesus revealed in the Bible.
As far as what type of service I attend; the music is what I’d term “modern”. Basic praise and adoration but set to more of a rock genre. I like it. The preaching of the Word of God is central to the service. It’s all focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, His atoning work on the cross and how to live a transformed life consistent with our faith and confession in Jesus.
What country do you live in?
Well, I live here now. But I moved from Ukraine few years ago.
What kind of rock , something like skillet ?
Maybe it’s just me but I think some unchristian songs are better then some Christian rock.
Some of it sounds scary.
I love Christian heavy metal and hard rock.
Lol. What do you like about it?
You don’t even hear the words it sounds like scream and chaos.
Electric guitar is kind of cool maybe.
You dance with rock music, or just listen? Or sing, or what people do at church service with rock music? Scream? Just wondering.
The church I go to does praise and worship music. The singer writes her own music, its all about Jesus. I dont dance, never have never will. Not even at my wedding did I dance, dont like it. I grew up on old school country music, hate it, my mom loved it. I got into punk music and the heavy metal. Go you YouTube, type in red lost in you. Red is the band, lost in you is the song, pretty mellow song by red, one of my favorite bands. If you just type in red, so much stuff
Will come up you wont know what is what. After you listen to that song, if you choose to, then other songs by them will come up. You will get an idea of what i listen to. They have 4 cd,s out. I own 3 of them and have a few songs off of the 4 th cd.
I guess I’m a little off topic here but Andy Watson told me that he was never to an LDS church service that didn’t have the feel of a funeral. I can’t verify this since I’ve never been to an LDS church service but there’s enough critiques out there if someone wants to access them. I remember Micah Wilder talking about a class he was in at BYU and the professor played a video of a Christian worship service as a bad example. Micah reflected that he thought the church service with the music etc. was good, just the opposite of what the instructor was saying.
People have different tastes in music but my opinion is that if the music brings honor, praise and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, it’s all just a matter of taste. And here’s the crux of the problem with Mormonism specifically the LDS church, Jesus is not the focal point of their religion and certainly not their worship.
The LDS folks will point out that “How can someone say that. We have ‘Jesus’ in the name of our church.” I’d say that’s a pretty good smoke screen and that’s where it all ends as far as Jesus is concerned. In my world, Jesus is the message, the Savior and the King of Kings. This is not so in the LDS religion.
Do you, guys, think it’s not too much pressure on LDS people from you? Do they ever read your paragraphs? Is this blog made by a Mormon or one of you ?
Rick,
Here you go. Time to dance!
2 Samuel 6
5 David and all Israel were celebrating with all their might before the Lord, with castanets,[d] harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums and cymbals…………………………….14 Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, 15 while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.
I never danced in church either. But maybe once on Christian concert “Jesus Culture”
If you can dance it’s cool. If I went to black church I would dance just like they do. I think it’s cool. You can be like David if you want, if it’s your style. But remember follow Jesus, not David.
Do you, guys, do everything that you know from the Bible or you just have that knowledge.
What do you think about sex before marriage, or abortions, or gay propel, or drugs, alcohol, and smoking, piercing your body… I want to know how you look at those things.
No propel – *people* ( I ment )
Dreamer, as to where we/I stand on drugs, sex before marraige and all that other stuff those are topics for private emails. This site is about mormonism. Yes we still have small talk like with dancing etc, but the focus is Mormonism.
As far as falcon goes giving me a hard time, he just does that because were friends and he and me go back and forth like that. Go to my website, I did a radio show all about abortion.
Also this site is not run and has not been started by me, or falcon or most of the people who post. Go back to the main page on mrm and you can find the info to those questions.
WOW! That’s quite a list.
Let me say that my religious philosophy is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and focus on a deep and abiding relationship with Him. I don’t like to focus on sin. If I’m close to the Lord, walking in the Spirit, I’ll put to death the deeds of the flesh. So to your list.
*sex outside of marriage…….no.
*abortion as a means of birth control………..no.
*gay people…………the people….yes……the behavior…..no.
*drugs…………no.
*alcohol………for me no. The Bible says not to get drunk. It doesn’t condemn the product.
*smoking……..no.
*piercing my body or a tattoo for that matter………..for me no. I don’t know that the Bible addresses it directly. I certainly wouldn’t shun or boot someone out of the body of Christ for it.
So how’s that? You didn’t mention gluttony, greed, sloth, envy etc. all of which I’m against. However people do sin and aren’t we glad that we have a Heavenly Father that forgives us, accepts us unconditionally and actually has declared us as righteous through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dreamer, I also did a 2 part serious on the homosexual issue, and one show I interviewed a former homosexual who lived that life for many years. That will tell you everything you need to know.
Thank you so much for your answers.
I agree with everything you say.
And sorry for the wrong subjects here.
We notice in the couplet that the Mormon god was once a man. We contend that since he was once a man then he was a sinner. If the Mormon god was a sinner than there must have been some sort of salvation plan for him, I would think. What was that plan? Did the Mormon heavenly father of this planet have mother and father parents who were gods and did they send someone to die for the sins of what would become this planets god/heavenly father. Does the same pattern get repeated by every god on every planetary system? After all, we are told that there are millions perhaps billions of these gods out there. How many gods have been produced on the planetary system of which the Mormon god of this system was part of?
So where do these notions about sinful men becoming gods come from? Well it appears that these ideas are the product of the imaginations of Joseph Smith and those who followed him as “prophets”. The only problem is that the whole thing becomes a jumbled mess but Mormons are expected to ignore it all and just believe it, even if it changes.
I don’t know if these LDS folks ever take the time to think through the doctrine of God that Joseph Smith evolved to. Then, to make things worse, Brigham Young really went out into the totally bizarre. He was so off the bubble that future LDS leaders pulled the plug on what he taught. So much for having a living prophet that speaks for God.
The facts are that there never was a “lost gospel” that needed to be restored. If someone wants to know who God is, all they need is to consult the Bible. The Mormon god can’t be found there and neither can the restored gospel.
The results of the LDS restored gospel is not knowing who God the Father, Jesus or the Holy Spirit are. It also means that the LDS restored gospel will not provide for the salvation for the LDS believer regardless of how sincere, devout and well-meaning they are.
Falcon, do you write books. I like the way you explain everything.
And you know so much about their beliefs, did you read the Book of Mormon ?
dreamer,
That’s a very nice compliment but to be honest, there are folks who have forgotten more than I know about Mormonism. I have been at this for years, however, and it’s driven by my interest particularly in Christian apologetics and the history of the early church. What I am really good at though is what I call “go find the answer”. I’m also very interested in how any “movement” manages to secure followers. I just finished watching a series on the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Not to compare Mormonism to Nazis or Joseph Smith to Hitler, but it’s the psychological power that is fascinating. Some would call it demonically influenced.
Have a ever read the Book of Mormon? No and it has driven some LDS posters in the past nuts! There are a couple of reasons that I haven’t, the first of which is that I know it’s false so why bother with it. And how do I know it’s false if I haven’t read it? All I have to know is, “Who is the god of Mormonism?” Knowing that the god of Mormonism is a false god, that pretty much slams the door shut tight. Also all of this hocus pocus with Smith and the angel that appeared to him is exactly what the Bible warns against. Paul wrote that even if an angel from heaven should appear and preach a gospel other than that revealed by Christ, let him be accursed.
Lastly, Mormons play a huge game with their directive that a person should read the BoM and pray about if it’s true and “god” will send a burning in the bosom to confirm the truthfulness. So you read the BoM, you pray about it and you get no response. The Mormon will then say that you need to be humble and sincere. Therefore your lack of a response is on you for not being humble and sincere. So you say, “I was humble and sincere.” They will say, then read it again. Basically the only acceptable answer to this to a Mormon is that the BoM is true. It’s a real fools errand and I won’t play their silly little game.
It’s so sad how Devil can get confuse so many people’s mind. And may never realize it until they die.
dreamer,
I wish i would have seen this topic earlier because i have so much to say to you! Its a little late now i suppose.
Cattyjane,
What would you like to say?
Dreamer,
you can contact me at [email protected]
Thanks.