Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Choosing The Right God


What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
With God?
Certainly not!
For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy
on whomever I will have mercy, and I will
have compassion on whomever I have compassion.’
(Exodus 33:19).
So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who
runs, but of God who shows mercy.
Romans 9:14–16

            According to many men God is unrighteous. Why? Because God does not do what they would do, the way they would do things, those areas in life they feel as though God is wrong (That is if they even believe there is a God), and they see things from their perspective and not God’s. Men in their attempt to define God anthropomorphize Him, making Him to be what He is not, carnal. Mormons do this for they believe that God is a man, and here is a quote: In his famous "King Follett Discourse" Joseph Smith taught, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret... [Y]ou have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you..." This is included as it speaks to this: What you believe about God will be what God is for you, and this is not necessarily, what is taught in the Bible: in fact to say that God was once a man is not Biblical at all. Furthermore, the doctrine of election under such false teaching as that of the Mormons deludes and dismembers the doctrine of the elect as taught in Scripture. To know God is to read His word that reveals Him to us and there is never any mention of God ever being a man. No, there is much energy put forth to disseminate what mortal man and his presuppositions wants their god to be and not what God has revealed. We must get back to the bedrock of God and that bedrock is Jesus Christ and the cross. Jesus Christ is not, as the Mormons teach; and here is another teaching by Joseph Smith: In a later sermon Joseph Smith boldly preached: "If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it." There is more and this more is so telling: As BYU professor David Paulson once put it, "God does not have absolute power... but rather the power to maximally utilize natural laws to bring about His purposes." If God does not have maximum powers and only uses natural laws to bring about His purposes therein lies a problem. Man is a god as was God a man and God, if He be God, a being outside of all other things would have no necessity to change and His laws, His moral laws. His attributes should be immutable. For the Mormons they are not for their god has made many changes in his decrees, as an examples of this would include the abandonment of polygamy in 1890, the reversal of the ban which withheld the LDS Priesthood from Blacks in 1978, and the changes in the LDS temple ceremony in 1980. Even their reversal on polygamy is an example of god changing his decree as taught by Joseph Smith. It is interesting in the least that changes were made usurping previous doctrinal positions because the government moved against their practices and suddenly their god revealed that they should abide by the government law:

Official Declaration 1: The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that monogamy is God’s standard for marriage unless He declares otherwise (see 2 Samuel 12:7–8 and Jacob 2:27, 30). Following a revelation to Joseph Smith, the practice of plural marriage was instituted among Church members in the early 1840s (see section 132). From the 1860s to the 1880s, the United States government passed laws to make this religious practice illegal. These laws were eventually upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. After receiving revelation, President Wilford Woodruff issued the following Manifesto, which was accepted by the Church as authoritative and binding on October 6, 1890. This led to the end of the practice of plural marriage in the Church.

            Men have devised for themselves a god(s) outside of what Scripture has taught and God has revealed by those Scriptures as these quotations affirm, as quoted by Mormons:

  • "The mind of man is as immortal as God Himself...God never did have the power to create the spirit of man at all" (Times and Seasons 5:615 and History of the Church 6:310-311).
  • "We were first begotten as spirit children in heaven and then born naturally on earth" (Journal of Discourses, 4:218).
  • "Before coming to this earth, all humans were begotten by our heavenly parents and were born with spirit bodies" (Mormon Doctrine p. 428, 516-17).
  • "all had a previous existence, thousands of years ago, in the heavens, in the presence of God" (Journal of Discourses 1:62).
This example of the Mormon position on God is not far different from others; i.e., Jehovah Witnesses, Bethel Church of Redding, and others teach. God is reduced to man’s presuppositions, therefore we cannot believe that God is Supreme, Sovereign, immutable, rather mutable, changeable, therefore how can we put trust in such a God? This is not Scripture, and this is not God, for God is Supreme, Sovereign and immutable and He declares to us in His Word that this is so and no man can say anything different and be true to the God who created all things from nothing, ex nihilo, and that by His Providence rules, guides, governs all things. Scripture is clear, plain, and revealing of this truth: God elects, and for His purpose: “For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I my show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth’ (Exodus 9:16). Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He will He hardens” (Romans 9:17–18).
God is God and we are His creation, therefore, either you believe what He has revealed in the Bible or not. Whether you will follow some man(s) theology or that of what God has revealed to us through the prophets, apostles, men inspired by God to teach us that God has chosen some and that God will save those He has chosen. Praise God!
           
For I am the LORD,
            I do not change;
Therefore you are not
            Consumed, O Sons
Of Jacob.
                        Malachi 3:6

Put Your Faith In The True God

Richard L. Crumb

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