Apostasy, Dispensations and Restoration

This post is to explain about the various dispensations that have been brought about in order to restore the gospel due to man's apostasy.

There have been various dispensations, which are those periods of time during which the Lord reveals or dispenses the doctrines of the gospel to men so that reliance doesn't have to be placed on past ages for this saving knowledge. It has always been easy for people to accept the words of long dead prophets but not of the living prophet. If the priesthood and keys haven't come down by proper descent from a previous dispensation, these have to conferred again by the opening of the heavens. The great or main gospel dispensations are those given to Adam, Noah, Abraham (Gal 3:6-8,18), the apostles and to Joseph Smith. Also Paul speaks of having a dispensation of the gospel in ! Cor 9:17 "17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me." This explains more: A dispensation of the gospel is a period of time in which the Lord has at least one authorised servant on the earth who bears the holy priesthood and the keys, and who has a divine commission to dispense the gospel to the inhabitants of the earth. When this occurs, the gospel is revealed anew, so that people of that dispensation do not have to depend basically on past dispensations for knowledge of the plan of salvation. There have been many gospel dispensations since the beginning. The Bible suggests at least one dispensation identified with Adam, another with Enoch, another with Noah, and so on with Abraham, Moses, and Jesus with his apostles in the meridian of time. Paul writes of “the dispensation of the fullness of times” in which the Lord will “gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth” (Eph. 1:10). The fullness of times is the final dispensation, and began with the revelation of the gospel to Joseph Smith. It is a dispensation of restoration and of fulfilment of the Lord’s plans and purposes since the world began. This explains: ApostasyIn order for you to understand the concept of dispensations, you first have to understand about apostasy. From Adam to the present, the whole history of the world has been one instance of apostasy after another. Adam received the true gospel and authority so the Church could be governed in accordance with the Lord’s will. Apostasy consists of the abandonment and forsaking of those true principles and this happened at the time of Noah, when the wicked were swept away by the flood.However, the process soon began again, with the result that there soon arose apostate individuals, groups, peoples, nations and religions. The people were rebellious in the days of Moses, and had become apostate. The first scattering of Israel took place because the people forsook their God and the true principles they had been taught. Their gathering took place as they returned to him and began obeying his laws.The Lord personally restored the gospel again in the meridian of time, but apostasy started again in the time of his apostles. In 2 Peter 2:1-2 it says1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of atruth shall be evil spoken of.
Paul recorded in 2 Thess. 2:1-12 that the Second Coming wouldn’t occur until after this great falling away had occurred:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.8 And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Another prediction applicable to the period when there should be no Church of Christ on the earth is found in Amos: 11 ¶Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a afamine of bread, nor a bthirst for water, but of hearing the cwords of the Lord:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall arun to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. That's plenty for now! I'll try and put more in my blog as soon as I have time.In order for you to understand the concept of dispensations, you first have to understand about apostasy. From Adam to the present, the whole history of the world has been one instance of apostasy after another. Adam received the true gospel and authority so the Church could be governed in accordance with the Lord’s will. Apostasy consists of the abandonment and forsaking of those true principles and this happened at the time of Noah, when the wicked were swept away by the flood.However, the process soon began again, with the result that there soon arose apostate individuals, groups, peoples, nations and religions. The people were rebellious in the days of Moses, and had become apostate. The first scattering of Israel took place because the people forsook their God and the true principles they had been taught. Their gathering took place as they returned to him and began obeying his laws.The Lord personally restored the gospel again in the meridian of time, but apostasy started again in the time of his apostles. n 2 Peter 2:1-2 it says1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of atruth shall be evil spoken of.
Paul recorded in 2 Thess. 2:1-12 that the Second Coming wouldn’t occur until after this great falling away had occurred:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.8 And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Another prediction applicable to the period when there should be no Church of Christ on the earth is found in Amos: 11 ¶Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. 

That's plenty for now! I'll refer to the Great Apostasy a little later.

That's plenty for now! I'll refer to the Great Apostasy a little later.

Confusion Caused by the Scriptures?

There has been a thread on  Facebook in which Latter-day Saints have been accused of being confused by the scriptures and being liars and blasphemers, but after some 117 postings, I have been blocked from putting our side.  Evangelicals hold that every word in the Bible is correct, no matter how contradictory it may appear, but we maintain that many precious parts of the Bible have been removed and others translated incorrectly.  And this is in accordance with many biblical scholars.  So there is going to be a series of blogs about how you can discover the truthfulness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ for yourselves, and this is how we start:
Doctrine and Covenants 9: "7 Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.

 8 But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.  "                  

It's not just reason.  You have to pray about it with a sincere heart.                                                                                  I also posted this the other day:  " Only a few fanatics among the sects of Christendom close their eyes to reality and profess to believe in what they call verbal revelation, that is, that every word and syllable in some version or other of the Bible is the exact word spoken by Deity." This explains why some Christians are confused and there are so many churches today.  However,we have the revealed word of the Lord, both through modern revelation and the Book of Mormon.   I testify that if you read the latter with an open mind, not a closed mind the way I first did some 44 years ago, that the Spirit will speak of its truthfulness:                                

Moroni 10:3-5    3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how amerciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and bponder it in your chearts.

 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would aask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not btrue; and if ye shall ask with a csincere heart, with dreal intent, having efaith in Christ, he will fmanifest the gtruth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.                                                                       This is why Latter-day Saints have a firm testimony of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Avoiding the Clutches of Satan

Yesterday I blogged about Our Saviour and how He is equal in every respect to His Father and today I am writing about the Adversary.  The reason for this is that Evangelicals call us Satan's church, and this, I hope, will dispel that notion.  This is a new photo of the London Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where we perform saving ordinances under the authority of the priesthood and make sacred covenants with the Lord to keep His commandments, to help us keep pure and unspotted from the world.

The Devil

Latter-day revelation confirms the biblical teaching that the devil is a reality and that he does strive to lead men and women from the work of God. One of the major techniques of the devil is to cause human beings to think they are following God’s ways, when in reality they are deceived by the devil to follow other paths.

Since the devil and his premortal angels have no physical body of flesh and bones, they often seek to possess the bodies of mortal beings. There are many such instances recorded in scripture (Matt. 9:32; 12:22; Mark 1:24; 5:7;Luke 8:30; Acts 19:15; cf. Mosiah 3:6). Such can be evicted by the power of faith in Jesus Christ and the exercise of the holy priesthood. Jesus gave this power to his disciples (Matt. 10:1; Mark 16:17; Luke 10:17; Acts 5:16; D&C 84:67).

The devil is called the prince of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11); the adversary (1 Pet. 5:8); Beelzebub, meaning the prince of the devils (Mark 3:22); the wicked one (Matt. 13:38); the enemy (Matt. 13:39); Lucifer (Isa. 14:12; D&C 76:26); Satan (Rev. 12:9); prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2–3); Perdition (D&C 76:26); son of the morning (D&C 76:26–27); that old serpent (Rev. 12:9; D&C 76:28); the great dragon (Rev. 12:7–9); a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44); a liar from the beginning (D&C 93:25); and the accuser (Rev. 12:10).

He is miserable in his situation, and “stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness” (2 Ne. 9:9). He tries to imitate the work of God by transforming himself nigh unto an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:12–15; 2 Ne. 9:9; D&C 128:20). He is also a worker of miracles, by which he deceives many upon the earth (Rev. 13:1–15). In fact, the scripture says he deceives the whole world (Rev. 12:9). He can cite scripture to make his point seem plausible (Matt. 4:1–11). All of this is his scheme to make man miserable like himself. Protection against the influence of the devil is found by obedience to the commandments and laws of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The message of all the prophets and apostles is that truth, righteousness, and peace shall in the end prevail over error, sin, and war; the faithful shall triumph over all their afflictions and enemies, and shall triumph over the devil. There shall be a complete and lasting victory of righteousness over wickedness on this earth, which will be done by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Comments on the Above

It will be noted that in paragraph 2 it advises how the devil and his angels can be evicted by the power of faith.  If this were his church, would he be telling us how to get rid of him?  If we keep the commandments, we need have no fear of Satan and his cohorts and  we shall have the gift of the Holy Ghost, providing that it has been bestowed by the correct authority.

The Christ We Revere

I am posting an excerpt from this artikcle as it explains that Latter-day Saints are Christians ansd that Jesus does have the same standing as God the Father.

The Christ we Revere

Jeffrey R. Holland

 We are eager not to be misunderstood, not to be accused of beliefs we do not hold, and not to have our commitment to Christ and His gospel dismissed out of hand, to say nothing of being demonised in the process.

Desirous that we not disagree where we don’t need to disagree, I wish to testify to you, our friends, of the Christ we revere and adore in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in the historical Jesus who walked the dusty paths of the Holy Land and declare that He is one and the same God as the divine Jehovah of the Old Testament. We declare Him to be both fully God in His divinity and fully human in His mortal experience, the Son who was a God and the God who was a Son; that He is, in the language of the Book of Mormon, “the Eternal God” (title page of the Book of Mormon).

We testify that He is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the Three being One: one in spirit, one in strength, one in purpose, one in voice, one in glory, one in will, one in goodness, and one in grace—one in every conceivable form and facet of unity except that of Their separate physical embodiment (see 3 Nephi 11:36). We testify that Christ was born of His divine Father and a virgin mother, that from the age of 12 onward, He was about His true Father’s business, that in doing so, He lived a perfect, sinless life and thus provided a pattern for all who come unto Him for salvation.

We bear witness of every sermon He ever gave, every prayer He ever uttered, every miracle He ever called down from heaven, and every redeeming act He ever performed. In this latter regard we testify that in fulfilling the divine plan for our salvation, He took upon Himself all the sins, sorrows, and sicknesses of the world, bleeding at every pore in the anguish of it all, beginning in Gethsemane and dying upon the cross of Calvary as a vicarious offering for those sins and sinners, including each of us.

Early in the Book of Mormon a Nephite prophet “saw that [Jesus] was lifted up upon the cross and slain for the sins of the world” (1 Nephi 11:33). Later that same Lord affirmed: “Behold I have given unto you my gospel and this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross” (3 Nephi 27:13–14; see also D&C 76:40–42). Indeed, it is a gift of the Spirit “to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world” (D&C 46:13).

We declare that three days after the Crucifixion, He rose from the tomb in glorious immortality, the firstfruits of the Resurrection, thereby breaking the physical bands of death and the spiritual bonds of hell, providing an immortal future for both the body and the spirit, a future that can be realized in its full glory and grandeur only by accepting Him and His name as the only “name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Neither is there, nor can there ever be, “salvation in any other” (Acts 4:12).

We declare that He will come again to earth, this time in might, majesty, and glory, to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. This is the Christ, whom we praise, in whose grace we trust implicitly and explicitly, and who is “the Shepherd and Bishop of [our] souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

Joseph Smith was once asked the question, “What are the fundamental principles of your religion?” He replied, “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”³

As a rule, Latter-day Saints are known as an industrious people, a works-conscious people. For us, the works of righteousness, what we might call “dedicated discipleship,” are an unerring measure of the reality of our faith. We believe with James, the brother of Jesus, that true faith always manifests itself in faithfulness (see James 2). We teach that those Puritans were closer to the truth than they realized when they expected a “godly walk” (D&C 20:69) from those under covenant.

Salvation and eternal life are free (see 2 Nephi 2:4); indeed, they are the greatest of all the gifts of God (see D&C 6:13; 14:7). Nevertheless, we teach that one must prepare to receive those gifts by declaring and demonstrating “faith in the Lord Jesus Christ” (Articles of Faith 1:4)—by trusting in and relying upon “the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” (2 Nephi 2:8; see also 2 Nephi 31:19; Moroni 6:4). For us, the fruits of that faith include repentance, the receipt of gospel covenants and ordinances (including baptism), and a heart of gratitude that motivates us to deny ourselves of all ungodliness, to “take up [our] cross daily” (Luke 9:23), and to keep His commandments—all of His commandments (see John 14:15). We rejoice with the Apostle Paul: “Thanks be to God, [who] giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). In that spirit, as one Book of Mormon prophet wrote, “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ … that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins … [and] may look forward unto that life which is in Christ” (2 Nephi 25:26, 27).

 

I hope this witness I bear to you and to the world helps you understand something of the inexpressible love we feel for the Saviour of the world in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.