19 O my sons, that these things might not come upon you, but that ye might be a choice and a afavored people of the Lord. But behold, his will be done; for his bways are righteousness forever.
20 And he hath said that: aInasmuch as ye shall keep mybcommandments ye shall cprosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence.
Poor Lehi. The guy just wants his kids to love God. I feel that I can identify with him. His heart is that the people he cares about would receive the favor of God and know Him as Lehi now knows Him. God is beyond words and the ability of man to communicate. You have this incredible mind blowing, life changing, earth shattering revelation of God and who He is, you want to tell the people you care about the most but they are simply not interested.
17 My heart hath been weighed down with sorrow from time to time, for I have feared, lest for the hardness of your hearts the Lord your God should come out in the fulness of his awrath upon you, that ye be bcut off and destroyed forever;
Lehi's pain goes far beyond the frustration I am feeling over our interactions. Ya'll are people I have known less than a year. For Lehi, these are his sons, his children. The love of a parent goes far beyond what feel. Even so, I feel I can identify with his frustration and desperate concern.
My heart is similarly weighed down concerning ya'll. I know God and listen to Him. I believe that I have revelation of Truth from Him and I wish to share it with ya'll so that you all may know the path to Him and not be deceived. Yet we get nowhere. I have truth, word upon word from the Bible and only one person as even accented to reading the articles. I feel deep frustration over this. It is like a hot passion or pressure in my chest that is trying to get out but can't because no one will engage me. Here I sit with revelation from God, for people I care about and they flat out refuse to even look at it. "My heart hath been weighed down" is a good description. And while I believe that Jesus is merciful concerning errors, pure truth is a far cry from what I see being taught in the LDS.
18 Or, that a acursing should come upon you for the space ofbmany generations; and ye are visited by sword, and by famine, and are hated, and are led according to the will and captivity of thecdevil.
Lehi can see the future coming for his children. I have experienced similar situations. It is not a supernatural ability to see the future so much as "seeing it coming." I am not sure how to explain it good. It is like watching a person riding around on a bike doing dumb tricks and watching them go toward a ramp and seeing the accident coming before they hit it. It is like watching it twice. This long range intuition can make these situations doubly painful. I have watched friends slowly destroying themselves. They do nothing to change their behavior. I can see the consequences coming from a mile away. They have continuing health issues, are progressively alienating their friends and family, and finally ending dead and in the ground before 30. This is the same sort of thing happening here. He can see their pride and arrogance leading to their self-destruction. Once the devil has you in his grip he is not likely to let go.
I would like to think that a multi-generation curse is a far cry from what we are dealing with. Truth is precious. And deception ensnares and chains. While I am glad to see passion for Christ in ya'll, I feel equal concern that the mis-truths you are being taught will lead down a wrong path. I fear that these teachings will open up inroads for the devil to hold your minds at least partially captive. Pure truth sets free and partial truth from the devil enslaves. This unassailable assurance that you already have the fullness of the truth blinds and demands you not even consider that you might be are in chains. I am not trying to force a view or a mindset on you that that I started with. Felsted and Sis D both saw me at the beginning of this journey. I came to this stance after much research and seeking. I am not being suborn because I am believing what I wanted to believe from the beginning. This passion and concern comes from, I believe, receiving revelation of God.
21 And now that my soul might have joy in you, and that my heart might leave this world with gladness because of you, that I might not be brought down with grief and sorrow to the grave, arise from the dust, my sons, and be amen, and be determined inbone mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity;
Lehi is not looking to be a buzz kill. He wants his children to prosper and have a full life. He does want them to be happy. But he also knows that nothing but misery and disappointment lies along the path they walk. He is trying to call them from the path of destruction and point them toward the path of God. He wants to be able to die happy because his children are walking the path of peace and truth. He is trying to save them from being led captive.
It is with the same heart that I keep bringing the doctrinal concerns to you. I am not trying to be a kill joy. I am not trying to attack the church in a mean spirited way. I see heartbreak down the wrong path.My heart is to know the truth and to warn you. I am not trying to raise doubt but to build faith in the truth and a more pure understanding of Jesus. Like Lehi, my happiness is not in causing strife or fighting, it is in leading you from the path of destruction to the path of Christ. That is my heart. Even if you think I am wrong, at the very least I need you to know my heart in this matter.
22 That ye may not be acursed with a sore cursing; and also, that ye may not incur the displeasure of a bjust God upon you, unto the destruction, yea, the eternal destruction of both soul and body.
Bit of a downer. I am reluctant to continue drawing the connections I have been. I choose to believe that you are all saved. Even so, we are playing with fire. Purity in the truth that Christians give to the lost must be defended. These issues have to be right. Souls are at stake.
23 Awake, my sons; put on the armor of arighteousness. Shake off the bchains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust.
I could not say it better myself. Again, I am not trying to sow seeds of doubt in Jesus. You must fight for truth. Satan will war to hide truth, repackage it and sell it combined with poison. And this is why I am making such a big deal about this. Is there truth in the teachings of the LDS? Yes. Has the devil slipped poison inside the church to corrupt and spread apostasy? Yes. That is why I am desperately trying you get you to open your eyes.
Maybe I am wrong. I doubt it, but it is possible. I am not asking you to abandon the Gospel. I am asking that you value the objective Truth of Jesus more than anything else. Revelation of the nature and character of Christ is worth the discomfort of "letting God be true and every man (possibly even Joseph Smith) a liar" Romans 3:4. Jesus is worth the search.
24 Rebel no more against your brother, whose views have beenaglorious, and who hath kept the commandments from the time that we left Jerusalem; and who hath been an instrument in the hands of God, in bringing us forth into the land of promise; for were it not for him, we must have perished with bhunger in the wilderness; nevertheless, ye sought to ctake away his life; yea, and he hath suffered much sorrow because of you.
The pleading here is absolutely heart breaking. Lehi desperately wants his family to have the truth of God. He begs them to listen to Nephi who has heard of God. He asks them to stop rebelling against the person who holds the truth. Lehi must know this request is nearly futile. He is asking the brothers to lay down their pride and submit to Nephi's spiritual leadership. This goes against their earthly sensibilities. They are the oldest. By all right, they should be the leaders of the family. In their mind, they should be the ones hearing from God. But the message comes not through them, but from Nephi, the younger. The reason for this,I think, is that Nephi's heart is set of on God and His message rather than on the honor of the messenger. The brothers are angry because they were denied the honor of being God's mouth piece. The brothers desired the glory. Nephi desired the words of God.
While I would not elevate myself to the level of Nephi, I would beg in the same way that Lehi is begging. Please, don't dismiss these problems so easily. Seek the truth. Don't flee from it. Don't let the cares and worries of this word choke you so much that you never open your eyes to see. My heart is not to bring dissent and evil doubt. I want to bring truth and it hurts that I can't seem to get anyone to stop.
And yes, like the brothers, by all rights you should be the ones who are the mouth pieces of God. You are the ones with the training. You are the ones from the church which claims to be the only Church on Earth with the spiritual authority of the priesthood. I have never been part of this true church. All of you have. By that reckoning, you are all spiritually elder to me. By all typical rules, between us, you should be the ones who hold truth. But I beg you not to hold the pride that the older brothers did. They assumed that because of their age and longer time in the family of God that they were entitled to think that they know more of God and the truth then the younger brother. Please don't have this same arrogance. By all rights of the normal world, just like Nephi, I should have nothing teaching you. Yet, my sole passion is the truth and words of God. My heart is not about the power or the glory of speaking God's truth. The point is the truth. The words of God is the meat and bread that I am seeking to share. The point is not about who is speaking them, but that they come from God. I wish you to taste and truth of God and to know He is Good. To know His truth.
25 And I exceedingly fear and tremble because of you, lest he shall suffer again; for behold, ye have aaccused him that he sought power and bauthority over you; but I know that he hath not sought for power nor authority over you, but he hath sought the glory of God, and your own eternal welfare.
I am not trying to start a cult. I am not trying to get anyone to follow me. I just want you to follow Jesus and to have not barriers of falsehood blocking you.
26 And ye have murmured because he hath been plain unto you. Ye say that he hath used asharpness; ye say that he hath been angry with you; but behold, his bsharpness was the sharpness of the power of the word of God, which was in him; and that which ye call anger was the truth, according to that which is in God, which he could not restrain, manifesting boldly concerning your iniquities.
Nephi came off as angry and harsh. He was called evil and mean for his words. The brothers, seeking to avoid facing the truth behind of the words of Nephi, used these accusations to deflect the subject. Yet, they were wrong in doing this. The sharpness was not speaking truth without love. Nephi was speaking the truth in love and simply was unable to restrain the force behind the words. How deeply painful must it be to speak truth and then have the tone of your words thrown in your face by people who did not even listen to the content?
Sometimes the truth is harsh. Yes, we should speak the truth in love as much as we can. That is sometimes a failing of mine. I am wrong in that and am deeply sorrowful sorry for this. But as the brothers were wrong to call Nephi's sharpness unloving or even sinful, i would also ask that you not allow the sharpness of my words to keep you from seeing the heart and the content. In the same way that Nephi was unable to restrain the sharpness of the words, I also had a lot of trouble holding back the frustration and desperation to get the truth across to you. Please see this. I am not trying to be hurtful. I am simply desperate for you to hear the truth.
27 And it must needs be that the apower of God must be with him, even unto his commanding you that ye must obey. But behold, it was not he, but it was the bSpirit of the Lord which was in him, which copened his mouth to utterance that he could not shut it.
Yes, some of the articles are long. This one is long. I start speaking and can't stop. But please don't be like the brothers and use the length and sharpness as an excuse to refuse to hear the words.
28 And now my son, Laman, and also Lemuel and Sam, and also my sons who are the sons of Ishmael, behold, if ye will hearken unto the voice of Nephi ye shall not perish. And if ye will hearken unto him I leave unto you a ablessing, yea, even my first blessing.
29 But if ye will not hearken unto him I take away my afirstblessing, yea, even my blessing, and it shall rest upon him.
30 And now, Zoram, I speak unto you: Behold, thou art theaservant of Laban; nevertheless, thou hast been brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and I know that thou art a true bfriend unto my son, Nephi, forever.
31 Wherefore, because thou hast been faithful thy seed shall be blessed awith his seed, that they dwell in prosperity long upon the face of this land; and nothing, save it shall be iniquity among them, shall harm or disturb their prosperity upon the face of this land forever.
32 Wherefore, if ye shall keep the commandments of the Lord, the Lord hath consecrated this land for the security of thy seed with the seed of my son.
I don't know what more I can say. Lehi, I feel for you bro. *sigh*
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