The five stages of the church

There are five church stages

The church of Jesus Christ will go through five distinct stages prior to the Second Coming of Christ.

The first two stages happen during a period which I call, the times of types and shadows. During this period, the last days prophecies are fulfilled solely in shadow forms, as types, so that they never fulfill literally and completely, nor does their chronology ever perfectly match the chronology set out in the scriptures. To give an example of a shadow fulfillment, consider the prophecies of Nephi found in 1 Nephi chapters 13 and 14. The prophetic order is:

• The book of the Lamb of God appears and goes from the Jews to the Gentiles in purity
• A great and abominable church (GAAC) is afterward formed
• The GAAC alters the book of the Lamb of God and then sends it out to all the nations of the world
• The GAAC also slays the saints of God and tortures them and binds them down into captivity
• The saints of God go out of captivity, to the promised land, carrying the altered book of the Lamb of God
• Many Gentile churches stumble because of the altered book of the Lamb of God
• New records are brought forth, starting with the complete and functionally translated Book of Mormon

Now that’s a play-by-play of some of the end time prophecies as they are going to be literally fulfilled, and that is the actual prophetic order given in the scriptures. What happened in the shadow? This:

• The primitive church apostles are killed and the church apostatizes—the saints of God cease to exist
• The Great Apostasy ensues
• The scriptures are collected and the ones considered authentic and binding are compiled into a single book, called The Bible
• One of the many Christian churches punishes heretics (not saints, for they no longer exist) in harsh ways
• Joseph Smith brings forth an incomplete and word-for-word translation of the Book of Mormon, but the other records (plates of brass, etc.) are not brought forth

In the shadow, there is no book of the Lamb of God present on the scene; however, there is a type of the altered version of the book of the Lamb of God, which is called the Bible. In the shadow, there is no great and abominable church corrupting the book of the Lamb of God and torturing and killing saints; however, there is a type of the GAAC which tortures and kills heretics to their church. In the shadow, the Book of Mormon isn’t brought forth in its entirety, nor translated functionally and powerfully; however, a part of it is brought forth and translated word-for-word. And so on.

The third stage is a reset or correction stage, a sort of preparatory stage which sets everything back in order and lays the foundation for the literal fulfillment of all the prophecies, so that all shadows and types cease at this point. Finally, in the last two stages all end time prophecies will be fulfilled every whit, literally and in their exact scriptural order. Okay, so let’s get into the details of each stage.

Stage #1: The restored church

The church was restored back to the earth on 6 April 1830. Lots of heavenly laws were revealed and initiated during the administration of Joseph Smith, such as the law of consecration, the principle of united firms (united orders), plural marriage, the law of tithing, church organization, priesthood offices and duties, two types of temples (Kirtland and Nauvoo) and so on. Problems with living all these principles and laws began almost immediately, but on November 27, 1832, Joseph Smith received a prophecy by revelation in which he learned that “the house of God” would eventually be set in order:

Stage #2: The out of order church

And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God, and to arrange by lot the inheritances of the saints whose names are found, and the names of their fathers, and of their children, enrolled in the book of the law of God; while that man, who was called of God and appointed, that putteth forth his hand to steady the ark of God, shall fall by the shaft of death, like as a tree that is smitten by the vivid shaft of lightning. (D&C 85:7-8)

Per this scripture, at some point the Father (who is the Lord God) will send the Josephite (who is the one mighty and strong) to set the house of God in order. The term “house of God” specifically refers to the temple (and thus church) priesthood records, but it can also refer in general to all the practices and beliefs and policies and organization, etc., of the church, so that after they are set in order they perfectly match the laws and revelations given in the scriptures. In other words, the term “house of God” can be taken to mean the “household of God,” which is composed of the saints themselves. This latter meaning is how Peter used the term:

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? (1 Peter 4:17)

For the purposes of this post, then, I will be using the general meaning of “house of God.”

Now, the house of God cannot be set in order unless it is first out of order, therefore the Doctrine and Covenants section 87 prophecy presupposes that that first condition must exist. Once the church is out of order, then at some point the Josephite restorer will show up and correct everything, top to bottom, using the power of God.

Getting out of order

The church began to get out of order during the time of Joseph Smith. Here are some examples of things that got out of order nearly from the get-go:

• The law of consecration. Its practice was abandoned, although the saints who go to the temple still covenant to keep it.
• The law of tithing. The initial practice of beginning tithing by consecrating one’s surplus was abandoned, and its original practice of paying $6 for every $1000 of net worth was abandoned and replaced with the current practice of one tenth of one’s gross income.
• United Firms (United Orders.) This practice was altogether abandoned.
• Plural marriage. The beginning of this practice was resisted by Joseph Smith from the time it was revealed to him (around 1831.) When he finally began practicing, after being threatened with destruction by an angel with drawn sword, it was limited to a select number of brethren among the leadership, instead of applied across the board to all members. Later the practice was altogether abandoned, but the sealing of multiple spouse has been continued upon the deaths of the spouses.
• The Word of Wisdom. Originally given without constraint and it allowed the membership to drink wine and beer. Later this was altered to prohibit consumption of all alcoholic beverages and the membership was constrained to follow it, otherwise be barred from entering the temple.
• Kirtland type of temples. The first temple to be built was of the Kirtland type. The saints had a huge outpouring of the Spirit at its dedication, and then many of them apostatized soon afterward. For the second temple, instead of building another Kirtland type of temple at Nauvoo, Joseph Smith introduced a new type of temple (the Nauvoo type), which has been used as the pattern for all subsequent temples ever since. The Kirtland type of temple is no longer existent.
• The quorum of the Twelve apostles as a missionary force. The original quorum operated as a missionary force to the world. It now operates as a regulatory quorum to the church.
• The high councils to settle all difficult matters between members. They now settle only matters of spiritual concerns.
• Preaching without purse and scrip. This practice has been abandoned. In its place the church provides for the missionaries.
• No priesthood ban. Originally there was no priesthood ban during the times of Joseph Smith, given that a black man, Elijah Abel, had been ordained to the priesthood. Later this policy was changed and the ban was implemented, and various doctrinal theories were invented to explain the ban. (In 1978 the entire First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve all received a revelation for lifting the ban, and the policy was subsequently changed back to what it was previously. This technically was not a “steadying of the ark” because it was merely a church policy being altered. In other words, the Brethren were fully in their rights to prohibit giving the priesthood to whomever they wanted, but it still took 150 years and a revelation received simultaneously by all 15 men to get them to make the alteration. Prior to that, they all feared to sin by altering the policy.)
• Gathering to the land of Zion. This was abandoned and the saints were told to gather to the stakes found in their own lands.
• The building of the city of Zion. Abandoned.
• The building of stake cities. Abandoned.
• The Melchizedek Priesthood administering the sacrament when present. This practice was abandoned and now the Aaronic Priesthood administers the sacrament, even when an elder is present.
• The use of wine in the sacrament. Abandoned. We now use water.
• The ordination of men to the Aaronic Priesthood. Abandoned. Now pre-teens and teenagers are ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood.
• The various Melchizedek Priesthood quorums doing local preaching, even when they are married. Abandoned. Now unmarried 18 and 19 year old teen-aged elders go on two year missions, never again to go on a mission until they can go as a couple missionary when they are older.
• And so on and so forth.

Each abandoned or altered practice of the church that no longer exactly matches the scriptures and laws and revelations we have in the church covenants is yet another thing that is out of order. Nevertheless, inasmuch as the works of God continue, none of this indicates a state of apostasy, but merely a disordered state.

The standing orders of the Brethren

During the time period in which the church is out of order (which is prior to the arrival of the Josephite), the Brethren, who are the leaders of the Lord’s church, have the role of keeping the works of the Lord ongoing, so that the spiritual ark of God keeps moving in a forward direction. The Brethren, then, are guided by the following scripture:

And again, verily thus saith the Lord:

Let the work of my temple, and all the works which I have appointed unto you, be continued on and not cease; and let your diligence, and your perseverance, and patience, and your works be redoubled, and you shall in nowise lose your reward,

saith the Lord of Hosts. (D&C 127:4)

These works are likened to an ark on the backs of oxen:

And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:6-7)

And when they came unto the threshingfloor of Chidon, Uzza put forth his hand to hold the ark; for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark: and there he died before God. (1 Chronicles 13:9-10)

The ark of God (the tabernacle of testimony) could only be handled by certain people: the Levites. Anyone else who came near to it or touched it had to be put to death:

For the LORD had spoken unto Moses, saying,

Only thou shalt not number the tribe of Levi, neither take the sum of them among the children of Israel: but thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of testimony, and over all the vessels thereof, and over all things that belong to it: they shall bear the tabernacle, and all the vessels thereof; and they shall minister unto it, and shall encamp round about the tabernacle. And when the tabernacle setteth forward, the Levites shall take it down: and when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death. (Numbers 1:48-51)

In like manner, the latter day spiritual ark of God could only be taken down and set up by certain people, namely, the two seers (Joseph Smith and Joseph-Nephi), and of the two seers, only one of them had authority and power to set it back in order (Joseph-Nephi.) All the other leadership in the church, as well as the membership, were likened unto the oxen, the leadership themselves being the lead oxen, who had nothing more to do than bearing the ark of God on their backs, moving it forward no matter what circumstance might come their way, and they were to use the spirit of expediency (which is the Holy Ghost) to accomplish that singular task.

Now, it doesn’t matter if the ark sways to the right or to the left upon their backs (thus getting out of order), as long as it is moving forward, that is all that God requires of the leadership of the church.

The Brethren, then, are not to concern themselves with how the ark is positioned upon their backs, whether it is exactly centered or diagonal or facing the wrong direction or leaning to one side. They are not to make any attempt at putting the ark centered perfectly back on the back of the oxen, for the ark is holy like God is holy, being a representation of His holiness, and thus cannot be touched by just any person, not even a person with priesthood keys. It takes a special kind of person, possessing the power of God, to approach and touch the ark, and to set it precisely back in order upon the backs of the oxen.

God the Father does not want the Brethren to die, therefore in order to protect them, so that they do not attempt to set the ark in order and perish, the Father expressly warns them of the destruction that will be theirs should they make the attempt:

And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God, and to arrange by lot the inheritances of the saints whose names are found, and the names of their fathers, and of their children, enrolled in the book of the law of God; while that man, who was called of God and appointed, that putteth forth his hand to steady the ark of God, shall fall by the shaft of death, like as a tree that is smitten by the vivid shaft of lightning. (D&C 85:7-8)

Thus, the leadership is expressly prohibited from steadying the ark.

Now, the Brethren understand this scriptural warning. They understand that the warning is specifically addressed to them. And so they make no attempt, whatsoever, to re-center the ark. No matter how different the practices of the church become from the actual written laws of God, they will make no move, whatsoever, to bring the ark back into conformity with the scriptures. They are deathly afraid of this warning, and for good reason.

(This is why it took all 15 Brethren simultaneously receiving the same revelation for the priesthood ban to be rolled back. It was a “We all got the same revelation, right?” moment that allowed them to venture forth and alter the policy without fear of getting struck down by God. These men feared for their lives, probably because of all the doctrinal theories that had been put forth to explain the ban and show why it would be in place practically forever, but in that moment of revelation, they were assured by the Holy Ghost that they wouldn’t be killed, and could safely alter the policy.)

Not even Joseph Smith could do it

If you look at the practices of Joseph Smith, while he was still alive, he never attempted to set the house of God in order after it had gotten itself out of order. Instead, he introduced new principles, which would keep the work moving forward. For example, when the law of consecration was introduced, and the saints failed to live it, he was inspired to introduce instead the law of tithing. Joseph’s duty was as a pure seer, restoring and installing as much of Elias’s shadow as he could, but when things went wrong, like the apostasy at the Kirtland temple, he would just restore yet another thing and move on to build yet another temple (Nauvoo), of a different type. He never attempted to recover things, to set things back in order. To do that job required a gift he didn’t have: the working of miracles.

Moving the ark of God back to its original position is like moving God Himself. It simply cannot be done. God is immovable, and His ark is likewise immovable. God allows it to move forward on the backs of the oxen, but it cannot be re-positioned. Whatever position it settles into, is the position it will remain in, until it settles into another position, by the continual shifting and stumbling of the oxen. It settles into these various positions according to the will of God, and nobody can bend God’s will. To even attempt to re-position it is an affront to God and God’s will.

However, the working of miracles can do the impossible, and God allows miracles to re-position the ark, but it requires more faith than anyone has, because it is like moving God Himself. And nobody can move God, right? Well, almost nobody.

The miracle-working seer known as the Josephite will be a person capable of walking right up the Father, and have dealings directly with Him (without the intermediary of Christ), and this will greatly impress the Father:

And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me?

saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 30:21)

The Father is impressed because the Josephite doesn’t know what impossible is. In other words, to this guy there is no such thing as impossible. His faith is so vastly great that the gift of the working of miracles can move even God Himself, and therefore, moving God’s ark is no sweat off his back. And he doesn’t wither and die before the Father, nor require hours of recuperation like Moses:

And the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth.

And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself:

Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed. But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him.

And it came to pass that when Moses had said these words, behold, Satan came tempting him, saying:

Moses, son of man, worship me.

And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said:

Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee? For behold, I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me, and I were transfigured before him. But I can look upon thee in the natural man. Is it not so, surely? (Moses 1:9-14)

Therefore only the Josephite can make the correction to the ark without perishing.

In order, then out of order, then back in order

To recap: the sequence of Elias’s shadow (Mormonism) is this: first it arrives on earth and Joseph Smith (the first seer) starts setting everything in order. But soon things start to get out of order. After Joseph Smith dies, they get ever more out of order with the passage of time, but the Brethren keep the ark moving forward, nonetheless. Then the Josephite (the second seer) is born and is later put into a spiritual box by the Father. Later he comes out of his box fully empowered and sets in order the house of God.

A natural seer, multiple office seers, then back to a natural seer

Again, Elias’s shadow starts out with a natural seer (Joseph Smith), who possessed the gift of seership independent of any priesthood office. This allowed him to use all the gifts associated with the gift of seership, including the gift of the word of wisdom, the gift of the word of knowledge and the gift to prophesy, even when there wasn’t any church of God established on the earth. Joseph Smith’s gifts weren’t tied to any priesthood office. They were merely natural gifts given of God.

Then the church of Christ was established and Elias’s shadow contained office prophets, office revelators and office seers. These were men called to various offices in the church who, in their respective offices, had access to the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of revelation. They could see visions, too, making them seers according to that definition. But outside of those offices, they no longer had these gifts. The gifts were tied to the office. Each man that entered the office got a bestowal of the gifts needed for that particular office, and made use of the modes of the gifts that likewise fit that particular office.

To put it another way, a natural prophet is a prophet regardless whether he is sustained as such or not, whereas an office prophet is a sustained prophet, only being a prophet as long as the church sustains him as such. Thus, Joseph Smith initiated the practice of sustaining stake leaders as “prophets, seers and revelators” in his day, and then later the Brethren adopted that practice and applied it to the 15 apostles, so that by sustaining their leaders in this manner, the Lord would pour out the office gifts that were tied to those offices. This reinforcing act would also give confidence both to the membership and to the Brethren, everyone remaining confident that the Lord would bestow the needed gifts.

But then the Josephite would be born, and this man would be, like Joseph Smith before him, a natural seer, except on steroids, having all the best spiritual gifts of God, as well as all the physical gifts of God (such as the Urim and Thummim.) Once out of his box, the fully empowered Josephite would then go to the church leadership, just as Moses went to the elders of Israel when he was called:

And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel: and Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed: and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. (Exodus 4:29-31)

At that point, the church would again have a natural prophet, seer, revelator and translator guiding it, as well as multiple office prophets, seers and revelators.

“Out of order” is not “apostate”

Apostates like to use the “set in order” scripture of D&C 85:7 in order to show that the church was always destined to one day be apostate. They point to all the discrepancies found between the current practices of the church and the actual text of the Doctrine and Covenants, which prove that the church is currently (and has been for some time) out of order. Afterward, they conflate this state of being out of order with a state of apostasy.

Where the apostates go wrong in their thinking is that if the church were apostate, and not merely out of order, the scripture wouldn’t call it “the house of God.” The fact that the house is still claimed by God as His own, indicates that it is not apostate, but merely out of order. The two terms are not synonymous in the eyes of God. If the church were, in fact, apostate, the Josephite wouldn’t be sent to set it in order, but to destroy it.

All apostates, then, who hold to this false idea that the current state of the church indicates that the church is in a state of apostasy, are in error. The scriptures do speak of an apostasy, but that prophesied apostasy does not consist of the out of order state of the church.

Stage #3: The set in order church

When the Josephite goes to the church leadership, he will demonstrate the power of God to the Brethren, just as Moses did with the elders of Israel, showing them signs and wonders, and he will humble them to the very dust and begin correcting them. They will then give him all their keys. He will then tell them to “go tell the saints” all the things they have seen and heard and the leadership will stand up before the saints and apologize for all their errors and teach them of the corrections they have received from him.

This setting in order will consist, at the very least, of:

• Practicing the law of consecration and stewardship of properties
• The proper application of the law of tithing
• Establishment of United Firms (United Orders)
• Practicing plural marriage
• The proper application of the Word of Wisdom
• The saints gathered to Independence, Missouri
• The saints receiving their inheritances by consecration in Independence, Missouri
• Using wine in the sacrament
• Twelve apostles as missionaries
• Quorums of the seventies as missionaries
• Establishment of high council at Zion

It will not consist of:

• The building of the city of Zion (the New Jerusalem)
• The coming forth of the complete and functional translation of the Book of Mormon
• The coming forth of the plates of brass
• The coming forth of the large plates of Nephi
• The coming forth of the plates of Ether
• The coming forth of the sealed portion of the plates of Mormon

The Josephite will establish all the things that Joseph Smith attempted but failed to establish among the saints, except that the Josephite will succeed at everything. This “setting in order” will, essentially, reset the restoration, so that it is redone properly, the kingdom of God seed being replanted properly among the saints, so that it begins to grow and thrive and take root. Nevertheless, not everything Joseph Smith did will be accomplished during the “setting in order” phase, because what Joseph Smith did was a mere shadow (and shadows never follow the proper prophetic order of things), whereas the Josephite will perform this work in perfect order, according to God’s infinite wisdom:

Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. (Isaiah 28:23-29)

So the LORD will use His staff/rod (the Josephite) to re-do what Joseph did, not in the shadow order but in the correct literal order, so that this time everything sown in the hearts of the saints will fully germinate. All the abandoned practices, once practiced again under the ideal conditions the Josephite will establish, will rapidly nourish and germinate and transform whatever seeds are found there into their mature forms, be they seeds of wheat or seeds of tares.

Because the laws of the land prohibit many of these practices, the Josephite’s correction will also apply to the United States of America, in which he will restore us back to 1776 conditions, when we operated under the Articles of Confederation, by installing a new set of perfected articles of confederation as the law of the land. This new, revealed and perfected law will allow all church doctrines, laws and principles to be practiced.

He will also reset conditions back to where they were at during the 1830’s and 1840’s, thus resetting the prophecies themselves. The American Indians, then, will be gathered back onto the Missouri lands, as they were previously. All the prophetic shadows will cease, the prophecies will reset and will proceed literally from that point on.

In addition to all of the above, which deals with the church and the nation, he will perform yet another work of restoration, with application for the entire world. I will not get into the many details of that particular work, save to say that all of this “setting in order” business he will be doing will be so that he can obtain his carrot and perform his own work, without any legal or ecclesiastical obstacles. In other words, although these things will affect the entire world for the betterment of mankind, he will be doing these things as part of his own work, not the work of the Lord. It will be just the fully empowered Josephite making the world conform to his own image.

A glory age of prosperity

This setting in order of the house of God, and of the world at large, will shift the world into a glory age of prosperity, unheard of in modern times. Perhaps even unheard of in ancient times. It will happen rapidly, via a series of many mighty miracles, so that the inhabitants of the world will have their minds fully blown. Everyone will be dazzled and astounded and wondering if the great Millennium has been ushered in.

When the book of the Lamb of God appears

I do not exactly know when the book of the Lamb of God will appear. I know, per 1 Nephi 13:26, that it appears before the great and abominable church is formed (which is formed in stage #4), and I also know that it appears after the Josephite gets out of his box (which happens in stage #3.) It may be that it will appear while he is setting the church in order, or after he has set the church in order, or even during the time of the apostasy, but before the great and abominable church is formed. I suppose, though, that it will appear while Joseph-Nephi is setting the church in order.

Perhaps the Josephite goes away?

After the church has been set in order, the church will apostatize, but the presence of the Josephite seems to make that all but impossible, therefore I suspect that the Josephite, seeing that all his works have taken root throughout the world, and seeing the world prospering and the gospel going forth everywhere, etc., might just leave for a bit. In the previous post I wrote:

This means that the Josephite, once out of his box, will divide his time between both sides of the world, outside here with us, where he was born in America, and also inside where the kingdom he will establish will be. This is absolutely necessary, for he will be performing a work of salvation that must save the whole world, both inside and out, but it also means that from time to time the Josephite will “go missing,” and during these times nobody will be able to figure out where he’s gone to.

So, to me it appears likely that the Josephite will go missing for a time, perhaps for a long time, and during his extended absence we will get a repeat of the pattern of the molten calf apostasy that happened when Moses went to talk with God on the mount but delayed coming back:

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him,

Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

And Aaron said unto them,

Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said,

These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said,

To morrow is a feast to the LORD.

And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. (Exodus 32:1-6)

The apostate church, then, appears only after the church is set in order, and apparently only after the Josephite goes missing. During the time that the Josephite is gone, both the wheat and the tares finally ripen.

The wheat and tares grow together and ripen, showing themselves

When the saints have received their inheritances by consecration, and entered into all the temple covenants, including the eternal marriage covenant and the principle of plural marriage, and have also entered into united firms (united orders), plus have witnessed the power of God manifested in the Josephite, and perhaps also had outpourings of the spiritual gifts upon them like what happened at Kirtland—if, after all of that, they apostatize, the following scripture will apply to them:

And we saw a vision of the sufferings of those with whom he made war and overcame, for thus came the voice of the Lord unto us:

Thus saith the Lord concerning all those who know my power, and have been made partakers thereof, and suffered themselves through the power of the devil to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power—

They are they who are the sons of perdition, of whom I say that it had been better for them never to have been born; for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come—having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only Begotten Son of the Father, having crucified him unto themselves and put him to an open shame. These are they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels—and the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power; yea, verily, the only ones who shall not be redeemed in the due time of the Lord, after the sufferings of his wrath. (D&C 76:30-38)

The Josephite, then, having set the house of God in order, brings them into the two-handed condition, in which from that point on they either get blessed for their righteousness or cursed for their iniquities and wickedness. While the Josephite is around, they remain righteous and the prosperity miracle goes out, so that the world’s riches endlessly increase, but once he leaves them to themselves, so that they no longer can rely upon him, but must now rely solely upon the Holy Ghost, it is at that point that all the planted seeds begin to ripen.

Once the Josephite has left, and all the seeds begin to ripen, we will finally find out who are the wheat and who are the tares. As the wheat and the tares must grow together until they are fully ripe, the law of consecration and other “growing together” or unifying laws that the Josephite will implement will allow just such a thing to happen.

Stage #4: The apostate church

At some point, iniquity will enter the church and the people will reject the office prophets, their leaders:

For behold, ye have closed your eyes, and ye have rejected the prophets; (2 Nephi 27:5)

Because of that iniquity, and because of the two-handed condition in which curses must go out immediately, the Lord will take away the leadership of the church, by covering them:

and your rulers, and the seers hath he covered because of your iniquity. (2 Nephi 27:5)

Now, as I have prophesied before on this blog, the break up of the church will occur by an earthquake which will destroy the conference center, covering and killing the Brethren and leaving the body of the church in disarray. The saints will then split into different churches, the remaining leaders vying for the top position. The church will then descend into a deep state of apostasy, entering into all manner of wickedness.

What causes the apostasy

I suppose that the initial reason for the apostasy will be a repeat of the Amalickiah situation and the rise of a new set of king-men:

And now it came to pass that after Helaman and his brethren had appointed priests and teachers over the churches that there arose a dissension among them, and they would not give heed to the words of Helaman and his brethren; but they grew proud, being lifted up in their hearts, because of their exceedingly great riches; therefore they grew rich in their own eyes, and would not give heed to their words, to walk uprightly before God. (Alma 45:23-24)

And it came to pass that as many as would not hearken to the words of Helaman and his brethren were gathered together against their brethren. And now behold, they were exceedingly wroth, insomuch that they were determined to slay them.

Now the leader of those who were wroth against their brethren was a large and a strong man; and his name was Amalickiah. And Amalickiah was desirous to be a king; and those people who were wroth were also desirous that he should be their king; and they were the greater part of them the lower judges of the land, and they were seeking for power. And they had been led by the flatteries of Amalickiah, that if they would support him and establish him to be their king that he would make them rulers over the people. Thus they were led away by Amalickiah to dissensions, notwithstanding the preaching of Helaman and his brethren, yea, notwithstanding their exceedingly great care over the church, for they were high priests over the church. And there were many in the church who believed in the flattering words of Amalickiah, therefore they dissented even from the church; and thus were the affairs of the people of Nephi exceedingly precarious and dangerous, notwithstanding their great victory which they had had over the Lamanites, and their great rejoicings which they had had because of their deliverance by the hand of the Lord. Thus we see how quick the children of men do forget the Lord their God, yea, how quick to do iniquity, and to be led away by the evil one. (Alma 46:1-8)

So, I must suppose that the prosperity miracle upon the saints, and upon the world at large, will heap the world’s riches right up into the stratosphere, and the saints in particular will become much richer than those who don’t belong to the church, and given this enormous wealth poured out upon the saints—the saints now being ripened into wheat and tares—the tares will finally make their move, showing themselves. And instead of imparting all this immense wealth to the poor, consecrating it, disbursing it through united firms, etc., they will want to retain it and lord it over their fellow man. The tares will not only set their hearts upon their riches, but they also will seek for power, desiring to alter the new articles of confederation to allow for a king.

And how will the church leadership react to this brazen dissent by the tares? By cracking down on them, calling them sinners in need of repentance, disfellowshipping and excommunicating them. And in response the tares will reject their leaders, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy. Given the anger they will feel towards them, there might even be assassination attempts by the tares upon their leaders, just as Amalickiah and his people were determined to slay Helaman and the church brethren of his time. All of this dissent, though, won’t be done by a small segment of the church population, like what occurs today among Mormon apostates, but it will be the overwhelming majority, for the wheat found within the church will suddenly and alarmingly find that they are literally surrounded by ultra wicked tares, because the prophecies of Nephi and Moroni say that the humble followers of Christ during the coming apostasy will be few in number:

And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. (1 Nephi 14:12)

They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men. (2 Nephi 28:14)

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. (Mormon 8:36)

Because the tares will hold the majority, having the voice of the people, they will have clout in the church, causing the church to descend into deep wickedness, repeating more Book of Mormon patterns:

And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land. (Mosiah 29:27)

And it came to pass in the commencement of the ninth year, Alma saw the wickedness of the church, and he saw also that the example of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another, thus bringing on the destruction of the people. Yea, he saw great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted. Now this was a great cause for lamentations among the people, while others were abasing themselves, succoring those who stood in need of their succor, such as imparting their substance to the poor and the needy, feeding the hungry, and suffering all manner of afflictions, for Christ’s sake, who should come according to the spirit of prophecy; looking forward to that day, thus retaining a remission of their sins; being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead, according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death.

And now it came to pass that Alma, having seen the afflictions of the humble followers of God, and the persecutions which were heaped upon them by the remainder of his people, and seeing all their inequality, began to be very sorrowful; nevertheless the Spirit of the Lord did not fail him. (Alma 4:11-15)

The iniquity entering the church might not be just among the general membership but also among the leadership, including even the highest councils (the Brethren.) There are scriptures that indicate that even the apostles will become infected with this apostasy:

Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth,

saith the Lord.

And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord; first among those among you,

saith the Lord,

who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house, saith the Lord. (D&C 112:25-26)

The Lord, in the above passage, was referring to the quorum of the Twelve. Notice verses 14 and 27 to 30:

Now, I say unto you, and what I say unto you, I say unto all the Twelve:

Arise and gird up your loins, take up your cross, follow me, and feed my sheep.

Therefore, see to it that ye trouble not yourselves concerning the affairs of my church in this place,

saith the Lord.

But purify your hearts before me; and then go ye into all the world, and preach my gospel unto every creature who has not received it; and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not, and is not baptized, shall be damned. For unto you, the Twelve, and those, the First Presidency, who are appointed with you to be your counselors and your leaders,… (D&C 112:14,27-30)

Also, there’s this scripture:

Behold, I, the Lord, have made my church in these last days like unto a judge sitting on a hill, or in a high place, to judge the nations. For it shall come to pass that the inhabitants of Zion shall judge all things pertaining to Zion. And liars and hypocrites shall be proved by them, and they who are not apostles and prophets shall be known. And even the bishop, who is a judge, and his counselors, if they are not faithful in their stewardships shall be condemned, and others shall be planted in their stead. (D&C 64:37-40)

So, it may be that as the apostasy progresses, the tares will vote in a new class of leaders, an iniquitous class, like what happened with king Noah:

For he put down all the priests that had been consecrated by his father, and consecrated new ones in their stead, such as were lifted up in the pride of their hearts. (Mosiah 11:5)

And thus the leadership, perhaps, would become compromised as well, bringing about the fulfillment of the prophecies of Jeremiah and others which speak of pastors and prophets and priests who are entirely corrupt, such as what is found written in Jeremiah 23:

Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!

saith the LORD.

Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people;

Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings,

saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:1-2)

I must suppose, then, that all these patterns, as well as the appearance of king-men desiring to consolidate the confederacy into a kingdom, will repeat during this apostasy, and the iniquity of the tares, being widespread, and the Brethren (that part of them still righteous) unable to hold it all in check—for the tares will outnumber them by a long shot—will cause the Lord to bring a curse upon the church, hence the conference center falling via an earthquake, removing the Brethren in an instant and causing the church to break up. After the break up there will be many churches professing to be the Lord’s church, claiming to possess the priesthood and keys (and thus the power of God.)

The great and abominable church and the tribulation of the wheat

At some point during this ongoing apostasy—whether before or after the earthquake, I do not, as yet, know (but I suspect it will be prior to the earthquake)—the great and abominable church will form. This church will form, apparently, overseas, not upon the mainland of America, and I suppose it will be formed by the most diabolical of the Mormon apostates, who have become, themselves, sons of perdition. It will be a sort of state church, except that instead of it being under the control of the state, it will have control of the states under its jurisdiction. This great and abominable church will have the distinction of killing and torturing and binding down the saints, and bringing them down into captivity, overseas. It will also be perverting the word of the Lord, specifically, the book of the Lamb of God, taking away many plain and precious parts of it and then sending this now corrupted edition to all the nations of the world under its jurisdiction.

Here in this land of America the few remaining saints (the wheat) will be scattered off the land of Zion (just as they were scattered off during the time of Joseph Smith, for all prophecies reset and then fulfill literally.) Apparently they will also be placed into bondage, for the tares will be unhinged in their wickedness. This will be a time of tribulation for the wheat, for the Lord must test His saints, to see if they will obey Him even when they are placed in the midst of a population overflowing with murderous tares. But the tribulation will come to an end when the Josephite returns:

But verily I say unto you, I have decreed that your brethren which have been scattered shall return to the lands of their inheritances, and shall build up the waste places of Zion. For after much tribulation, as I have said unto you in a former commandment, cometh the blessing. Behold, this is the blessing which I have promised after your tribulations, and the tribulations of your brethren—your redemption, and the redemption of your brethren, even their restoration to the land of Zion, to be established, no more to be thrown down. Nevertheless, if they pollute their inheritances they shall be thrown down; for I will not spare them if they pollute their inheritances. Behold, I say unto you, the redemption of Zion must needs come by power; therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man, who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel. For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham, and ye must needs be led out of bondage by power, and with a stretched-out arm. And as your fathers were led at the first, even so shall the redemption of Zion be. Therefore, let not your hearts faint, for I say not unto you as I said unto your fathers: Mine angel shall go up before you, but not my presence. But I say unto you: Mine angels shall go up before you, and also my presence, and in time ye shall possess the goodly land. (D&C 103:11-20)

In addition to being placed in bondage, some of the saints (wheat) will be killed:

And the blood of the saints shall cry from the ground against them. (2 Nephi 28:10)

And some of the saints (wheat) will be tortured by the great and abominable church:

And the angel said unto me:

Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity. (1 Nephi 13:5)

Also, given that the two-handed condition also enacts the anti-prosperity miracle, secret combinations will also be rampant, because these societies will be the only way for the wicked to obtain money and power.

Thus, apostasy will be widespread and rampant, throughout the world, just as Nephi prophesied:

But, behold, in the last days, or in the days of the Gentiles—yea, behold all the nations of the Gentiles and also the Jews, both those who shall come upon this land and those who shall be upon other lands, yea, even upon all the lands of the earth, behold, they will be drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations— (2 Nephi 27:1)

This prophecy (and other scriptural prophecies of the apostasy of the latter days) is not speaking of The Great Apostasy that occurred after the death of the primitive church apostles—and which was ended by the three-fold restoration performed by Joseph Smith—but of this fourth stage church apostasy, which will infect the whole world, all nations, so that the now ripe wheat will be fully tested by the now ripe tares. Notice, for example, how the apostasy Paul speaks of in 2 Thessalonians ends:

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled by letter, except ye receive it from us, neither by spirit nor by word, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for there shall come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, and he it is who now worketh; and Christ suffereth him to work until the time is fulfilled that he shall be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, yea, the Lord, even Jesus, whose coming is not until after there cometh a falling away, by the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. (JST 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10)

So, this apostasy that Paul speaks of will end with the destruction of the apostates at the Lord’s Second Coming. It also has a “man of sin,” who is a “son of perdition,” sitting in “the temple of God.” When the stage #4 church of God is broken up, the temples of God will fall into the hands of apostates, allowing the literal fulfillment of this scripture. In the meantime, though, this passage is shadow fulfilled by The Great Apostasy.

The return of the Josephite

The Josephite, upon his return, will find that the church has been broken up, that there are now many apostate churches, that there’s a great and abominable church and that people have entered into secret combinations and into whoredoms and drunken revelries and all manner of abominations. He will also find that the saints who kept their covenants while this enormous apostasy was going down are few compared to all the rest, that they have been scattered off the lands of their inheritance, which he gave them (which was upon the land of Zion), and that they are now in bondage. He will also discover that some of them have been killed and others tortured. This will surely infuriate him.

On the other hand, he will also find that everything has ripened, and despite the land being full to capacity with tares, there is now beautiful, glorious wheat on earth, having been ripened by keeping their covenants throughout these tribulations. This will surely make him pleased.

These two conflicting emotions—one towards the tares and one towards the wheat—will cause him to act in a big way, shifting the church into its final stage.

Stage #5: The perfected church

In this stage, the following things will happen:

• The wrath of God will be upon the gathered Indian remnant in the promised land
• A man with the Spirit of God will travel upon many waters to the gathered Indian remnant
• The scattered saints will be freed from their captivity and travel upon the many waters
• The Indian remnant will be scattered off their lands and smitten by the Gentiles
• The Gentiles will inherit the land of promise

The Holy Ghost has not, as yet, told me who the man with the Spirit of God is. I had previously thought that maybe it was the beloved apostle John, but a lot of time has passed and the Holy Ghost never confirmed that. Now, as I look at these scriptures, I think that perhaps it may be Joseph-Nephi. The reason is because I was recently pondering over President Trump’s acknowledgment of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and while I was talking to a friend about it, the Spirit manifested something new about the Josephite, something that he would do in the future, something I had never considered. (And don’t bother asking me about it, because I don’t intend to reveal on this blog what the Spirit said.) Now when I read over the following passage of scripture, I cannot help but filter it through that manifestation:

And it came to pass that the angel said unto me:

Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.

And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land.

And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.

And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten. And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. (1 Nephi 13:11-15)

The Josephite will be returning from a far away land, possibly even from the interior of the Earth. And there are many waters that separate the interior from the exterior, so his return from that place actually fits the scripture. Nephi says he “beheld a man among the Gentiles,” and I have previously taught that the Josephite will be setting up a kingdom in the interior of the Earth, and that he will be bringing Gentiles with him. Therefore, if Nephi saw the Josephite in his kingdom, he would have seen him “among the Gentiles.”

But even if Nephi saw the man on the exterior of the planet, among the Gentile nations that are overseas, it still could be the Josephite. The Josephite, returning from the interior, might not go first to America, but to those captive saints that are overseas, in order to liberate them.

The problem with this interpretation is that the saying, “and he went forth upon the many waters,” indicates sea travel, and nobody travels by boat anymore, except for transporting goods or taking a pleasure cruise. The standard mode of transportation for long distances across continents is the aeroplane, not the boat or ship. So, most Mormons reading this passage just chalk it up to Christoper Columbus’s travels by ship, which is its shadow fulfillment. However, there’s a lot more that I know about the Josephite, which I have not told on this blog, some of which I have told to a handful of people in private. What I will say here is that the Josephite will be restoring a lot of conditions that are no longer found in society. Boat travel will surely be one of them. If, in fact, the scripture does refer to the Josephite, then either it will be a boat of his own making, or it will be the very same boat that Nephi and his brothers constructed. And given that he is the restorer, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the latter one.

And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters. (1 Nephi 13:13)

This scripture doesn’t say how these Gentiles who have the Spirit of God working upon them escaped their captivity. If the Josephite is the man that had the Spirit of God work upon him, spoken of in the preceding verse, then surely once he finds out that the saints are in captivity, he will deliver them at once. The following scripture, which speaks of the Josephite, even says that he will do this:

Behold, I say unto you, the redemption of Zion must needs come by power; therefore, I will raise up unto my people a man, who shall lead them like as Moses led the children of Israel. For ye are the children of Israel, and of the seed of Abraham, and ye must needs be led out of bondage by power, and with a stretched-out arm. (D&C 103:15-17)

The man with the power who delivers the people out of bondage is the Josephite. He performs this mission in the fifth stage of the church. Therefore, he seems the likeliest candidate to liberate the captive saints from the great and abominable church. Yet Nephi writes his vision in very general terms, almost as if he’s trying to hide the fact that a miracle-working seer is on the scene, so that people will read the text and mistake the shadow fulfillment for the literal fulfillment. It’s almost as if God wanted this whole thing to be a huge surprise. If Nephi had written, instead, “And I looked and beheld a miracle-working seer among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the power of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land,” that would have changed everything. Nobody, but nobody would have thought that that referred to Christopher Columbus, and everyone would have looked at this chapter as being a prophecy still future to us. His use of “man” and not “prophet” or “seer”, and “Spirit of God” and not “power of God” allows the shadow of Columbus to exist and keeps the Josephite hidden.

Again, when Nephi speaks of the Gentiles going forth out of captivity, he gives no details as to how they were delivered. If the Josephite and the power of God was involved, and he stated so explicitly, then the shadow of the Puritans could not exist. Writing what he wrote allows the Puritan shadow to exist, while keeping the Josephite hidden. And so it goes, throughout the narrative.

The text says that the Gentiles go “forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.” This indicates that they traveled by boat. Whose boat? Perhaps the Josephite’s boat. According to D&C 61, boat travel during the fifth stage will be dangerous, but God also said:

For I, the Lord, have decreed in mine anger many destructions upon the waters; yea, and especially upon these waters. Nevertheless, all flesh is in mine hand, and he that is faithful among you shall not perish by the waters.

Behold, I, the Lord, in the beginning blessed the waters; but in the last days, by the mouth of my servant John, I cursed the waters. Wherefore, the days will come that no flesh shall be safe upon the waters. (D&C 61:5-6,14-15)

So, it may be that these faithful saints, who have passed through the tribulation heaped upon them by the great and abominable church, and thus have ripened into wheat, may be brought across the many waters, in safety, by the Josephite.

Then we get the scattering of the Indian remnant off of the lands of their inheritance and them being smitten by the Gentiles:

And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten. (1 Nephi 14:14)

Why is God so angry with the Indian remnant? Nephi doesn’t say. But I find it awfully coincidental that a man appears and then right afterward the captive saints are freed and the Indians are scattered. The man seems to me to be the cause of all these things happening. God sees His saints suffering in captivity, being tortured and killed. Suddenly a man appears with the Spirit of God, and the saints right afterward are freed. God is angry with the Indian remnant, and right after the text says that “the wrath of God” is upon the Indians, the man with the Spirit of God shows up and goes right to the remnant, and soon afterward, they get scattered and smitten (by the Gentiles.) It is almost as if the man with the Spirit of God is the one causing the Gentiles to scatter and smite the Indian remnant, as if the man cursed the Indian remnant. The destroyer fits both as a person who has the power to perform such miracles, and who has the gumption to do it. So, maybe it’s Joseph-Nephi, after all?

The text then says that the Gentiles inherit the land, and this is something that the Josephite would actually do for the saints. They were scattered off their lands by the tares, and once he returns, he would put them right back onto their lands:

And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain. (1 Nephi 13:15)

Finally it says that the power of the Lord was with them, and it is my manifested understanding that at this point the Josephite is definitely on the scene with them:

And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them. (1 Nephi 13:16)

Okay, so I will continue with the list of things that occur during this fifth stage:

• The Josephite delivers the Gentiles out of the hands of all other nations
• The Josephite first translates the Book of Mormon
• The Josephite later translates the plates of brass, the large plates of Nephi and the plates of Ether
• The saints take these records to the Indian remnant
• The Indian remnant believe the records and repent
• Many of the Gentiles do not believe the new records, and ditch using the corrupt version of the book of the Lamb of God and they go back to using the Bible
• The Josephite gathers the righteous, splitting the world into two territories: those of the righteous and those of the wicked
• The city of Zion (the New Jerusalem) is built
• Other cities of refuge (stakes of Zion) are also built
• And so on.

After delivering the American Gentiles out of the hands of all other nations, the Josephite will then proceed to re-organize and gather the wheat, who are the remnant saints, into another church of Christ, calling them the church of the Lamb of God, initiating the last phase of the church. As part of his commission, he will bring forth the additional records, to prepare the wheat for their perfection and the tares for their destruction.

A furious Josephite

Joseph-Nephi, being the destroying angel, is by nature altogether destructive. Although he’s slow to anger, when he does get angry, it knows no bounds, and nothing sets him off quite like finding that his works have been undone in his absence by wicked tares, or that the saints he has been assigned to gather together, as the fold’s sheepdog, have been scattered, tortured and killed. All of this wickedness, done in his absence, will cause his anger to spiral out of control.

A normal servant of God would desire, in such a situation, to try to reclaim the apostates. A normal servant would want to show compassion and mercy and not do anything that would destroy the tares, for the tares will be found absolutely everywhere at that time, and given the two-handed condition which will be in place, any improper move on the part of a servant of the Lord and they would become fully ripened, and thus ready for destruction, and thus lost. So, a normal servant would shrink and not want to be the means of destroying these tare-ish souls.

But Joseph-Nephi is not a normal servant of God. Upon seeing all of this wickedness, Joseph-Nephi’s only desire will be to destroy the tares. And how do you destroy the tares? By fully ripening them unto destruction. And how do you fully ripen them? By performing the Lord’s strange work, His strange act. By releasing all the records, all of them, upon the population, so that they spiritually perish, thus ripening them for temporal destruction.

Now, the records can safely be released upon the wheat, for the wheat are already ripened, and they won’t spiritually perish, but all others around them will either spiritually perish as tares, upon contact with the records, or the records will cause them to instantly repent, on the spot, so that they become instantly ripened wheat. Either way, the two-handed condition is kept intact, so that they will either be brought into salvation and exaltation, or into perdition and destruction.

So, the Josephite, in his anger against the tares, will push forward and begin the Lord’s work, even the great and marvelous work, and he will begin bringing forth the records, starting with the Book of Mormon, thus fulfilling 2 Nephi 27. And he will bring forth the large plates of Nephi, thus fulfilling 3 Nephi 21, and also the plates of brass, thus fulfilling 2 Nephi 29. And he will bring forth the plates of Ether, thus fulfilling Alma 37.

And in his anger, he will trigger the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah in chapter 28, so that plagues of tempests of hail, destroying storms, floods of mighty waters overflowing, an overflowing scourge (a desolating sickness) and even eventually unleashing the Lamanite remnants upon the people so that the Gentiles are vexed with a sore vexation (see D&C 87:5) and are trodden down, all occurs:

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine! Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: and the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. (Isaiah 28:1-4)

The whole of Isaiah chapter 28 is speaking of the return of the Josephite into this environment of apostasy, after he has set the church in order.

Now, the drunkards of Ephraim in this chapter are the apostate Mormons. In Isaiah 28 the Lord says He has given line upon line to the drunkards of Ephraim, but then they apostatized:

But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken. (Isaiah 28:13)

The Lord only gives line upon line to the faithful, who are the saints, not to the unbelieving:

For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith. (D&C 98:12)

Therefore these people are Mormon apostates that have entered into a pact with the devil, even into secret combinations:

Because ye have said,

We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: (Isaiah 28:15)

But this pact will be annulled by the Lord, because He intends to send the Josephite back, to destroy these people:

Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report. (Isaiah 28:17-19)

Given that the Lord’s servant is the destroying angel, when He sends the Josephite back to see all the ensuing apostasy, the Josephite’s anger will be kindled, and his destroying nature will manifest, and it is this fierce anger that will cause him to push forward right into the Lord’s work, which is the great and marvelous work and the restoration of all things, even the strange act and strange work:

For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth. (Isaiah 28:21-22)

The consumption is a destruction. So, the Josephite’s anger sends out these plagues upon the wicked and then, in his anger, instead of saying with mercy, “If I push ahead and restore all things, all these people will die, therefore I will not push ahead,” he says with justice, “I will push ahead and restore all things and whoever doesn’t repent and get in line, let them die.” It is the Josephite’s destroying nature that allows him to push ahead, even in the midst of worldwide apostasy. Any other prophet would have pulled back, not wanting to have so many people perish, but the Josephite is different, and will be motivated by anger.

It is the anger of the Father, through His appointed emissary of justice (the Josephite), that gets the ball rolling, that allows the strange act to occur:

And if the president heed them not, then will the Lord arise and come forth out of his hiding place, and in his fury vex the nation; and in his hot displeasure, and in his fierce anger, in his time, will cut off those wicked, unfaithful, and unjust stewards, and appoint them their portion among hypocrites, and unbelievers; even in outer darkness, where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

Pray ye, therefore, that their ears may be opened unto your cries, that I may be merciful unto them, that these things may not come upon them. What I have said unto you must needs be, that all men may be left without excuse; that wise men and rulers may hear and know that which they have never considered; that I may proceed to bring to pass my act, my strange act, and perform my work, my strange work, that men may discern between the righteous and the wicked, saith your God. (D&C 101:89-95)

And it is the wrath of the Father upon the Gentiles that causes the restoration of Israel to happen:

And it came to pass that I beheld that the wrath of God was poured out upon that great and abominable church, insomuch that there were wars and rumors of wars among all the nations and kindreds of the earth. And as there began to be wars and rumors of wars among all the nations which belonged to the mother of abominations, the angel spake unto me, saying:

Behold, the wrath of God is upon the mother of harlots; and behold, thou seest all these things—and when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel. (1 Nephi 14;15-17)

Now, notice Moses’s reaction when the Israelites made the molten calf:

And the Lord said unto Moses,

I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said,

Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say,

For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth?

Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them,

I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. (Exodus 32:9-13)

And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said,

Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them godsof gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. (Exodus 32:31-32)

We see from this that Moses tried to save them, whereas the Josephite will seek to destroy the wicked from off the face of the planet, via the great and marvelous work and the restoration of all things.

The Josephite’s anger will wax hotter and hotter and eventually even the Indian remnant will be sent to vex the Gentiles:

And it shall come to pass also that the remnants who are left of the land will marshal themselves, and shall become exceedingly angry, and shall vex the Gentiles with a sore vexation. (D&C 87:5)

All of this anger, and the ensuing curses and vexation, is what prepares the world for the Second Coming of the Lord, for it preps the wicked for their impending destruction, continuing to ripen them until they are finally fully ripened in iniquity and quite ready to be burned as tares.

The records unleashed upon the world, then, perfect the wheat, so that Ether 4 is fulfilled, so that they become sanctified like the brother of Jared was sanctified, so that the Lord is enabled to finally reveal all the records to His saints. In other words, the very sealed portion itself. And so the Josephite, after translating the Nephite records, will translate the sealed portion, the “vision of all,” so that all things are unleashed upon the world (i.e., the restoration of all things occurs), causing the wicked to fully spiritually perish, and bringing the righteous to the very heights of heavenly bliss.

The wicked Gentiles, on the other hand, will reject the gospel fulness found in all the new records:

And thus commandeth the Father that I should say unto you:

At that day when the Gentiles shall sin against my gospel, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, and shall be lifted up in the pride of their hearts above all nations, and above all the people of the whole earth, and shall be filled with all manner of lyings, and of deceits, and of mischiefs, and all manner of hypocrisy, and murders, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, and of secret abominations; and if they shall do all those things, and shall reject the fulness of my gospel, behold,

saith the Father,

I will bring the fulness of my gospel from among them. (3 Nephi 16:10)

Once the new records are rejected, the Josephite will initiate the “great division” of the people:

For the time speedily cometh that the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people, and the wicked will he destroy; and he will spare his people, yea, even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire. (2 Nephi 30:10)

The fifth phase is when the separation and two-church status happens

The fifth stage of the church, in which it gets perfected, is when the separation occurs between the righteous and the wicked. In the first, second, third and fourth stages, the righteous and the wicked dwelt together, but when the Josephite returns and begins to perfect the church, he will split the world into two territories: the territories of the righteous, controlled by the righteous, and the territories of the wicked, controlled by the wicked.

This territorial division will cause all apostate churches to join the great church, it being an “umbrella” or “mother” church, in which will be found all apostate doctrines. At that point, there will be only two churches on the planet:

And he said unto me:

Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth. (1 Nephi 14:10)

Thus, the two territories will be ruled by two churches. Each church will have dominion over their respective territories:

And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.

And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. (1 Nephi 14:11-12)

All the wicked, who live in wicked-controlled territory, who repent, will become instantly ripened wheat, and like the wheat that ripened during the fourth stage of the church, in which they were surrounded by tares and had to go through a period of tribulation, so the newly repented and ripened wheat living in the territory of the wicked will be surrounded by tares and have to go through tribulation from them. The Lord puts them into the very same trial of faith, so that they can show themselves as true wheat, having endured persecution, torture and even death, by the hands of the tares. The following passage refers to this very event occurring in wicked-controlled territories during the fifth stage:

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying,

How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. (Revelation 6:9-11)

This tribulation continues until either the wheat can escape into the cities of refuge (the stakes of Zion) that the Josephite will build, which will be in righteous-controlled territory, or until the angels are sent to pluck them out from the cities of the wicked, just before the burning.

From few to many

Although the faithful saints who survive the fourth stage will be few, once the Josephite returns in the fifth stage and starts working his mighty wonders and convincing the world, both Jew and Gentile, through his powerful translation of the Book of Mormon and other scriptures, he will miraculously turn those few stalks of wheat into many stalks by his exceeding faith:

And now behold, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you; for I, Nephi, would not suffer that ye should suppose that ye are more righteous than the Gentiles shall be. For behold, except ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall all likewise perish; and because of the words which have been spoken ye need not suppose that the Gentiles are utterly destroyed. For behold, I say unto you that as many of the Gentiles as will repent are the covenant people of the Lord; and as many of the Jews as will not repent shall be cast off; for the Lord covenanteth with none save it be with them that repent and believe in his Son, who is the Holy One of Israel. And now, I would prophesy somewhat more concerning the Jews and the Gentiles. For after the book of which I have spoken shall come forth, and be written unto the Gentiles, and sealed up again unto the Lord, there shall be many which shall believe the words which are written; and they shall carry them forth unto the remnant of our seed. (2 Nephi 30:1-3)

These many Gentiles who repent, along with all the house of Israel that repents, will be gathered together into either the city of Jerusalem, the city of New Jerusalem (which is the city of Zion) or into the stakes of Zion, which will not be like the current non-city stakes, but will be filled-to-the-brim cities of refuge stakes; and all these cities of refuge will be the territories of the righteous, into which these many righteous souls will be gathered. But compared to the territory of the great whore of all the earth, the dominion of the church of the Lamb will be geographically small and compact.

And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw. (1 Nephi 14:12)

This scripture shouldn’t be taken to mean that there will be few righteous on the earth at that time. It only means that the righteous will be gathered into specific cities of refuge that the Josephite will build, which will be places safe from the desolation and plagues that the Lord will pour out prior to His coming. The region outside of those specific cities will be inhabited by the wicked and will be vast in comparison, but the scripture is only giving a territorial comparison, not a comparison of population size. There will be many righteous on the earth at that time.

The city of Zion gets built in the fifth stage, after the records come forth

All the saints who are alive now, in this second stage of the church, who pine for Zion, long for it, and think it might be built some time soon, or when the Josephite gets out of his box, are mistaken. Zion gets built by the remnants of Israel, with whatever portion of the Gentiles that repent assisting, and that city will be built during the perfected church stage, which is the fifth stage. It won’t happen until after the church is set in order, until after the apostasy happens, and until after the Josephite gets back and begins perfecting the church and performing the great and marvelous work, bringing forth the new records:

And blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion at that day, for they shall have the gift and the power of the Holy Ghost; and if they endure unto the end they shall be lifted up at the last day, and shall be saved in the everlasting kingdom of the Lamb; and whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be. (1 Nephi 13:37)

The last days prophecies of Gentile apostasy speak only of the fourth and fifth stages

Only the fourth and fifth stages contain the Gentile apostasy spoken of in the last days prophecies. Prior to those stages, any apostasy that happens among the Gentiles is a shadow fulfillment. The Mormon dissenters who have continually claimed (from the beginning of the restoration to now) that the LDS church is apostate have been deceived. They have no understanding of these scriptures, nor of these stages. Even the mainstream Mormon mixes things up, not understanding that we are only in the second stage, and this is merely a time of types and shadows.

The sealed portion pertains to the book of Revelation

The book of Revelation begins its narrative with the opening up of the sealed book, which contains the “vision of all.” In other words, chapter 4, 5 and 6 is when the book is finally opened, and then the prophetic events ensue. The sealed portion is the revelation of all things, followed by the restoration of all things, all performed by the Josephite. All of these events happen in the fifth stage of the church, after the other records have come forth, after the world has split into two territories and into two churches. With this post, then, there is no more need for anyone to wonder, “When will the sealed portion be opened?” I have just told you when that happens. It happens in the fifth stage. Nobody need be confused by any of these things anymore.

And nobody who reads and believes this post need wonder if the things written in the book of Revelation are happening around us, yet. They are surely not. We are merely in the second stage. Also, given this new information about the stages, nobody need harp on the church leadership as being “out of tune” with the signs of the times. The literal fulfillment of all these prophecies is still to come. All we see around us are mere shadows and types.

A key: always keep in mind the first sign

And his disciples asked him, saying,

Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?

And Jesus answered and said unto them,

Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. (Matthew 17:10-11)

As long as Elias has not gotten out of his box, we will continue to remain in the second stage.

Another key: the leaders will tell the people

Paul wrote:

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled by letter, except ye receive it from us, neither by spirit nor by word, as that the day of Christ is at hand. (JST 2 Thessalonians 1-2)

The standard that the primitive church lived under was to not be shaken in mind or troubled by letter or by spirit or by word, as that the day of Christ was at hand, unless the Brethren of that time sent a letter to them informing them of the new condition. This principle—the leadership informing the membership of the prophetic timeline—is had among the latter-day saints, too. Yet I find very many Mormons shaken in mind and troubled, thinking the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is at hand. Many Mormons take the scriptural prophecies of the end times and apply them to our times, as if they have literally been fulfilled already or are literally being fulfilled before our very eyes, even though the Brethren have made no such pronouncements. Has the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve issued a letter or said that these times we are living in are the “end times?” No, they haven’t. All they say is that these are the last days and the latter days. The “last days” and “latter days” covers everything that happens after the resurrection of Christ, including the times of types and shadows. Saying we are in the “last days” or “latter days” does not necessarily mean we are in the “end times,” meaning those times in which the last days prophecies are fulfilled literally. The Brethren never use the term “end times” because they have received no information from God that we are in the end times. Why haven’t they received such information? Because we aren’t in the end times. If we were in the end times, they would receive the information and then tell us, per the principle given by Paul.

The Brethren will receive such information from the Josephite. When the Josephite comes out of his box and makes his announcement, he will afterward go to the church leadership to set the house of God in order and he will make the Brethren eat humble pie. He will demonstrate the power of God to them, in mighty signs, that will astonish them so that they are convinced that he is “the one mighty and strong” that was prophesied to appear, just as Moses and Aaron did to the elders of Israel:

And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel: and Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed: and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped. (Exodus 4:29-31)

He will receive all their keys from them, and then he will make his corrections, setting the house of God in order from top to bottom, teaching them things they never knew, explaining things they misunderstood, and so forth, and then those now humbled to the dust leaders will stand in front of the pulpit in general conference, and they will admit all their errors, in doctrine and in practice and in policy, and they will confess all their sins and faults, and they will say that a new era has officially started, that the times of types and shadows has ceased and now the prophecies will proceed literally. They will tell the saints each and every detail of the correction, as they receive it from the Josephite. And thus, the end times will be officially announced from the pulpit when it begins, for the Josephite will tell them, “The end times has now officially begun. Go and tell the saints.” So, nobody needs to guess at these things.

The Lord will not make the saints guess at the signs of the times, but will very clearly tell them these things, so that no one is left with any excuse that they didn’t know.

Call ye, therefore, upon them with loud proclamation, and with your testimony, fearing them not, for they are as grass, and all their glory as the flower thereof which soon falleth, that they may be left also without excuse—and that I may visit them in the day of visitation, when I shall unveil the face of my covering, to appoint the portion of the oppressor among hypocrites, where there is gnashing of teeth, if they reject my servants and my testimony which I have revealed unto them. (D&C 124:7-8)

What I have said unto you must needs be, that all men may be left without excuse; that wise men and rulers may hear and know that which they have never considered; that I may proceed to bring to pass my act, my strange act, and perform my work, my strange work, that men may discern between the righteous and the wicked, saith your God. (D&C 101:93-95)

And perhaps a committee can be appointed to find out these things, and to take statements and affidavits; and also to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat; and all that are in the magazines, and in the encyclopedias, and all the libelous histories that are published, and are writing, and by whom, and present the whole concatenation of diabolical rascality and nefarious and murderous impositions that have been practiced upon this people—that we may not only publish to all the world, but present them to the heads of government in all their dark and hellish hue, as the last effort which is enjoined on us by our Heavenly Father, before we can fully and completely claim that promise which shall call him forth from his hiding place; and also that the whole nation may be left without excuse before he can send forth the power of his mighty arm. (D&C 123: 4-6)

Therefore, they are left without excuse, and their sins are upon their own heads. (D&C 88:82)

All the people who have left this church believing that the end times are upon us—for a recent example, consider those who have held up the teachings of Denver Snuffer—have not understood the principle that Paul wrote about. They have thought that the church leadership is out of tune with the Spirit, out of line and unaware of the signs of the times. They have supposed that they know better than the leadership and that the end times are now upon us and have looked at the leadership as out of touch, for they say nothing concerning the end times signs. But they say nothing about this because we are not in the end times! If we were in the end times, our leaders would open their mouths, because as the above scriptures explain, it is a gospel principle that the Lord must leave all men, including His saints, without excuse.

Wrapping up the post with a stage review

Here’s a breakdown of some of the last days prophecies according to the church stage in which they will be literally (not shadow) fulfilled, and notice that not a single one of them pertains to Stage 2, which is the stage we are currently in:

• 1 Ne. 5:17-18.—Stage 5.
• 1 Ne. 13:21-25.—Possibly the beginning of Stage 4, but more likely Stage 3.
• 1 Ne. 13:26-32.—Stage 4.
• 1 Ne. 13:1-10.—Stage 4.
• 1 Ne. 13:33.—Possibly the end of Stage 4, but more likely the beginning of Stage 5.
• 1 Ne. 13:11-15.—Possibly the end of Stage 4, but more likely the beginning of Stage 5.
• 1 Ne. 13:16-20.—Stage 5.
• 1 Ne. 13:34-41.—Stage 5.
• 1 Ne. 14.—Stage 5.
• 1 Ne. 22:8-28.—Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 26:20-22.—Begins in Stage 4 and continues in Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 26:19.—Possibly the end of Stage 4, but more likely the beginning of Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 26:14-16.—Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 27:5.—Stage 4.
• 2 Ne. 27:1-4.—Begins in Stage 4 and continues in Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 27:6-35.—Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 28:1-32.—Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 29.—Stage 5.
• 2 Ne. 30.—Stage 5.
• Alma 37:3-4.—Stage 5.
• Alma 37:21-25.—Stage 5.
• 3 Ne. 16:4-20.—Stage 5.
• 3 Ne. 20:11-46.—Stage 5.
• 3 Ne. 21.—Stage 5.
• Mormon 8:16-41.—Stage 5.
• Ether 4:6-19.—Stage 5.
• Ether 8:23-26.—Speaks of conditions found in both Stage 4 and Stage 5.
• Revelation 6 to the end of the book.—Stage 5.
• Isaiah 28.—Speaks of apostate conditions which begin in Stage 4 and continue in Stage 5, and of the curses and judgments of God upon the apostates in Stage 5, put upon them by a very angry Josephite.

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

The Proclamation: An Appeal for Prayer

Another president-elect: here we go again

Five elections left—Between now and April of 2033, there are five presidential elections left.

Date:	Nov. 2016	Nov. 2020	Nov. 2024	Nov. 2028	Nov. 2032	Apr. 2033
Approximate Number of Years Left of 6th Thousand Years	16 ½	12 ½	8 ½	4 ½	½	0

The Proclamation still has not gone forth

Back in 2008, I gained the understanding that the proclamation commanded by the Lord in D&C 124 to be made by Joseph Smith “to all the kings of the world, to the four corners thereof, to the honorable president-elect, and the high-minded governors of the nation in which you live, and to all the nations of the earth scattered abroad” (D&C 124:3), still had to be issued by Joseph Smith and given to some president-elect of the nation under the U.S. Constitution. Joseph Smith never made that proclamation because he died before he could do so, so the Twelve Apostles wrote up their own proclamation in 1845 to obey the instructions found in that revelation. Their proclamation, though, was addressed to “all the King’s of the World; To the President of the United States of America;  To the Governors of the several States; And to the Rulers and People of all Nations.” Most Mormons would say that the deed was fully done as the apostles had the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and I would have agreed with that assessment, except that, as I said, in 2008 I got a new understanding, which indicated that Joseph Smith needed to come back from the dead and make that proclamation still. Not to a President of the United States, but to a president-elect of the United States.

2008 was an election year and Barack Obama was the new president-elect, so I wondered and waited and watched to see if Joseph Smith, newly risen from the dead, would show up and issue the proclamation. In January of 2009 I even received a manifested belief that Joseph Smith was now back in the flesh somewhere. This manifestation served to increase my anticipation of the release of the proclamation, but Joseph never showed up.  After the botched swearing in ceremony, in which President Obama could still, technically, be called the president-elect, I still continued to wait and watch. Eight years have now gone by and no proclamation has been made. There has been a suggestion that maybe it was issued in secret or privately, but I do not believe that. There is no evidence, whatsoever, that Joseph has returned or that the proclamation was issued to president-elect Obama. So, the prophecy remains unfulfilled.

This turns my attention, then, to the next five presidential elections.

I didn’t know

In 2008 I didn’t know anything about the Josephite, nor about the future Confederacy, nor about the April 2033 date for the end of the 6th thousand years, nor about the need for Joseph Smith to appoint Joseph-Nephi as his successor. A lot of new information, and clarification, about the prophecies has come forth in the last eight years. Back in 2008 I thought that Joseph Smith would make the proclamation, being sent only by the Lord. Now, however, having learned about the Josephite, it is my understanding that when the Josephite is empowered, Joseph Smith will appear to him and appoint him as his successor, and then the Josephite will send Joseph Smith to make the proclamation. So, the proclamation cannot go forth until the Josephite is empowered.

While the proclamation waits for the Josephite, the Confederacy waits for the proclamation. So, a New set of Articles of Confederation (NAC) cannot be installed until Joseph Smith makes the proclamation to a president-elect of the nation under the United States Constitution (for there is no president-elect under the NAC.) The proclamation is all important because it will prophesy of the future events of the 6th thousand years (and perhaps also of the 7th thousand years), that concern the kingdoms and nations of the world.

Let it be written in the spirit of meekness and by the power of the Holy Ghost, which shall be in you at the time of the writing of the same; for it shall be given you by the Holy Ghost to know my will concerning those kings and authorities, even what shall befall them in a time to come.  (D&C 124:4-5)

This leaves them all “without excuse” (D&C 124:7), for they will know exactly what will happen and the consequences of their actions.

Given the great number of things that must occur between now and April of 2033, and the fact that it all starts with the empowerment of the Josephite and the release of Joseph Smith’s proclamation—which must be issued to a president-elect of the U.S. Constitution—that leaves only the aforementioned five elections as possible times the proclamation can be issued.

Narrowing it down to one

There are approximately 16 ½ years left of the 6th thousand years. According to my understanding, here are some of the things that have to happen in this time frame—(not listed in chronological order) : The Josephite must be empowered; The Proclamation must be made by Joseph Smith to the president-elect under the U.S. Constitution; The State of Israel must cease to exist; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints must be broken up (by an earthquake); The Book of the Lamb of God must appear; The Church of the Lamb of God must be established; The United States of America must be established as a Confederacy; The promised land must be fortified; The Great and Abominable Church must be formed; The Great and Abominable Church must remove many plain and precious parts from the Book of the Lamb of God; The saints of God must be brought down into captivity by the Great and Abominable Church; The Gentiles must go out of captivity to the promised land; The Remnant must be scattered and smitten; A great war must occur between the nations of the world and the Gentiles on the promised land; The Gentiles must stumble; The Book of Mormon and Small Plates of Nephi must be re-translated; The Large Plates of Nephi, the Plates of Brass, and the Plates of Ether must be translated; The world must split into two churches; Zion must be redeemed; The House of Israel must begin to gather; The first six seals must be opened via the translation of 6/7 parts of the Sealed Portion; The Josephite must perform all the work for the dead (of the first 4000 years) and resurrect these people prior to 1823, changing the past; The 144,000 must be sealed; Wars must ensue among the wicked; Saints must be martyred; The Sun must turn black, the moon to blood, the stars fall, and mountains and islands must be moved out of their places; etc.

Right off the bat the fifth election can be crossed off. 2032 leaves only half a year, which is not enough time for all these many prophecies to be fulfilled. Even the third (2024) and fourth (2028) strike me as too little time (8 ½ and 4 ½ years, respectively.) That leaves this year (2016, giving about 16 ½ years) and the next presidential election (2020, giving 12 ½ years.) Of the two dates, my mind cannot help but think it must be 2016.

16 ½ years seems to me to be the perfect amount of time to accomplish everything. It can be broken down into three parts. First, there is half a year. In this period of time, the Josephite can be empowered, Joseph can issue the proclamation (before the swearing in ceremony in January of 2017), and the Confederacy can be installed by April of 2017. That gives us a full decade (ten years) under the NAC, from April 2017 to April 2027, in which all of the prophecies can be fulfilled minus the opening of the six seals. The last six years, then, are reserved for the opening of the seals, one seal opened per year.

Again, it seems to me that God would give the Gentiles no less than a decade (ten years) to repent, before He started opening the seals. That invalidates the 2024, 2028 and 2032 elections, because they don’t even leave ten years. Also, it seems to me that God would open one seal per year, requiring an additional six years. That invalidates the 2020 election. Which leaves this year’s election (2016) as the likeliest time when the proclamation would be made.

I may be the only one

I may be the only one that believes all this stuff. If so, then this post will have no effect, whatsoever. If, however, there are others who believe these things, then I will speak to those who believe, and perhaps some good will come of the post.

To the believers: let’s empower the Josephite

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of the status quo. I’m dying for the Josephite to be empowered, for the proclamation to go forth, for the Confederacy to be established, for the new scriptures to be translated, for the angels to start descending from heaven, for the miracles to start happening and for the prophecies to be fulfilled. Yet it all begins with the empowerment of the Josephite. There is an ideal window of about three months, between now and December, in which if he gets empowered, the proclamation can go forth and the prophecies can start to be fulfilled and we won’t have to wait until the next election in 2020.

So, let’s pray for this guy. Let’s pray that he gets empowered NOW. Let’s pray that the proclamation goes out to the president-elect this year.

It may be that the Josephite is even weaker than first thought. It may be that he needs our daily prayers and supplications, perhaps even our fasting. Pouring out our souls to God in his behalf day and night wouldn’t hurt, either. It may be that the hold up isn’t the Josephite. The hold up may be us. There are scriptural precedents for all these things.

And behold, their prayers were also in behalf of him that the Lord should suffer to bring these things forth.  (Morm. 8:25)

The ancients knew that the Josephite would be raised up and would accomplish his mission, yet they still prayed for him. How many of us believing in him are doing the same? God received the prayers of His ancient saints in behalf of His miracle-working seer. Has He received the same from His modern saints? Perhaps God requires of us the same offering of prayers that was given by the ancient saints before He empowers His seer.

We know Jesus is coming back, and yet the saints of the future will be praying for it anyway:

Calling upon the name of the Lord day and night, saying:

O that thou wouldst rend the heavens, that thou wouldst come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence.

And it shall be answered upon their heads; for the presence of the Lord shall be as the melting fire that burneth, and as the fire which causeth the waters to boil.  (D&C 133:40-41)

James taught:

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.  (James 5:16)

This is increased when there are more people involved.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them—even so am I in the midst of you.  (D&C 6:32)

For verily I say, as ye have assembled yourselves together according to the commandment wherewith I commanded you, and are agreed as touching this one thing, and have asked the Father in my name, even so ye shall receive.  (D&C 42:3)

In this case, the one thing touched, upon which all are agreed, is the empowerment of the Josephite in the next few months. When groups of people do this, God takes notice and action.

And again, I say unto you that ye shall not go until ye have preached my gospel in those parts, and have strengthened up the church whithersoever it is found, and more especially in Colesville; for, behold, they pray unto me in much faith.  (D&C 37:2)

Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, that the people in Ohio call upon me in much faith, thinking I will stay my hand in judgment upon the nations, but I cannot deny my word.  (D&C 39:16)

The saints were instructed to uphold Joseph Smith, and also the First Presidency, by the prayer of faith.

And if ye desire the glories of the kingdom, appoint ye my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and uphold him before me by the prayer of faith.  (D&C 43:12)

Of the Melchizedek Priesthood, three Presiding High Priests, chosen by the body, appointed and ordained to that office, and upheld by the confidence, faith, and prayer of the church, form a quorum of the Presidency of the Church.  (107:22)

This same principle may apply to the Josephite.

According to my understanding, the Josephite is already among the LDS population, but maybe because no one is upholding him by the prayer of faith, the Lord is leaving him in his weakness. This accords to the law and doctrine of deliverance, which requires exact obedience to the deliverer, by those being delivered. If we do not do what the Josephite (who is a deliverer) says, with exactness, the Lord will not empower him to deliver us. The Josephite hasn’t said anything, for he is unknown, but the fact that he is among the people already may put the law of deliverance into effect, through our prayers.

So, let’s cause the Lord to empower him by praying to God in much faith, and get the end time events started.

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Shutting the mouths of false teachers

And..the church…had peace…save it were a few contentions concerning the points of doctrine which had been laid down by the prophets…  (Hel. 11:21-22)

And it came to pass that after there had been false Christs, and…after there had been false prophets, and false preachers and teachers among the people…  (Words of Mormon 1:15-16)

…and their mouths had been shut, and…all these having been punished according to their crimes…  (Words of Mormon 1:15-16)

…there began to be much strife. But it came to pass that…many of [the] brethren who knew concerning the true points of doctrine, having many revelations daily, therefore they did preach unto the people, insomuch that they did put an end to their strife…  (Hel. 11:23)

In other words, for this post, in addition to the scriptures, I’m going to use my own revelations to correct the errors promoted by false teachers currently found among the saints.

There have only been three known churches of Christ

The first church of Christ was founded by Alma Nephi, when he baptized Helam (and also himself) in the waters of Mormon, followed by the subsequent baptism of the rest of the group.  This church was formed about 147–145 B.C. and began with about 204 people.  The account of its establishment is found in Mosiah 18.

The second church of Christ was founded by Jesus Christ during his ministry among the Jews.

The third church of Christ was founded by Joseph Smith, Jun., which was organized and established in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, USA, with six people, on 6 April, 1830.

Three verses of scripture mention an ancient church

Here is the first part of the entry of “Church” from the Bible Dictionary:

From the Greek, Ecclesia, meaning “an assembly called together.” The church is the organized body of believers who have taken upon themselves the name of Jesus Christ by baptism and confirmation.  To be the true church it must be the Lord’s church and must have His laws, His name, and be governed by Him through representatives whom He has appointed (3 Ne. 27:1–12; D&C 115:4).

This is true.  God Himself must recognize it as His church, it must bear His name, have His revealed word as its foundational text, be built upon His gospel and rock, and possess His priesthood.  Every latter-day saint understands this definition of the church.  So far so good.  Now let’s look at the next part of this Bible Dictionary entry:

In this sense, the church began with the days of Adam and has been on the earth among mankind whenever there were a group of believers who had the priesthood and revelations of heaven.

This is false.  If you take up the Standard Works, and look at the Old Testament (whether you look in the King James Version, or in the Joseph Smith Translation, it doesn’t matter), you will find no mention of any church during that period of time.  This is because there was no church of Jesus Christ during those times.  Prior to the establishment of Jesus Christ’s church in the Old World, and to the establishment of Alma Nephi’s church in the New World, the laws and ordinances of God were administered to the people tribally.  Continuing on with this BD entry:

The word church is used only twice in the four Gospels (Matt. 16:18; 18:17) but is frequently mentioned in Acts, the epistles, and Revelation.

This is true.  This is because Jesus organized and established a church among the Jews and it continued after His resurrection under the direction of His apostles.

The Old Testament uses the term congregation for church.

This is false.  The Old Testament uses the term congregation to mean “an assembly of persons” and more specifically, “an assembly of persons met for the worship of God, and for religious instruction.”  An assembly of persons, belonging to a tribe or tribes, meeting together to offer sacrifice to their God (to worship God) or meeting in a synagogue for religious instruction is not a church.  Nor does it constitute a church of Christ.  Such assemblies need not have entered into any covenant with God, witnessed by baptism, nor received any laying on of hands, etc., to congregate and worship or to receive and give religious instruction.  Thus, the Old Testament uses the term congregation, not church, for these gatherings.  More of the BD entry:

The word kingdom is often used in the scriptures to mean the church, since the church is literally the kingdom of God on the earth.

This is false.  The word kingdom means kingdom.  (Duh!)  A kingdom is “the inhabitants or population subject to a king.”  The kingdom of God, then, are the people that submit to the law of God as administered by His priests, whether it is administered tribally, or via the church of Christ.  Thus, in the Book of Mormon, we find that the Nephites, when they were established under kings—from the reign of first Nephi, who consecrated his brothers Joseph and Jacob as priests and teachers, all the way to the last Nephite king, Mosiah, who also had his consecrated priests—all Nephite kings had priests, for these patriarchal orders were patterned after the kingdom of God, and God Himself, who is the King of the Universe, has priests.  And these priests, in pre-Alma days, or in pre-Jesus days, operated tribally, administering the ordinances and laws of God to the people under a tribal protocol.  These tribal orders, then, were as much the kingdom of God as were the churches of Christ, which also had ordained priests to administer the gospel ordinances and laws.  Kingdom, then, can apply to both the tribal and church protocols, and does not automatically mean or indicate that a functioning church of Christ is present.

Here’s more of the BD entry:

The Book of Mormon, as it speaks of Old Testament events, uses the word church (1 Ne. 4:26), and the Doctrine and Covenants speaks of the church in Old Testament times (D&C 107:4).

The first part is true and the second part is a supposition.  It is true that Joseph Smith translated the Egyptian word found in 1 Ne. 4:26 into church, but this did not mean a church of Christ, but merely “an assembly of believers.”  In other words, a “congregation of believers.”  The Jews in the land of Jerusalem at that time cast out, killed by stoning and other means, or tried to kill all those who believed in this prophesied Messiah that would suffer and die for the sins of the world.  They in no way, shape or form belonged to any church of Christ.  But they certainly professed a belief in Moses and his law, and also the prophets (the ones that didn’t prophesy of Christ or of the Jews’ destruction, that is), therefore, this was a congregation of believers in Moses and the law and the prophets, but not in Christ, who attended the Jewish synagogue.  Joseph translated it as church, for a church is an Ecclesia, meaning “an assembly called together,” and that’s what this congregation was.  But this wasn’t a church of Christ, but merely a gathering under tribal authority and protocols.  Here is the scripture in question:

And he spake unto me concerning the elders of the Jews, he knowing that his master, Laban, had been out by night among them.  And I spake unto him as if it had been Laban.  And I also spake unto him that I should carry the engravings, which were upon the plates of brass, to my elder brethren, who were without the walls.  And I also bade him that he should follow me.  And he, supposing that I spake of the brethren of the church, and that I was truly that Laban whom I had slain, wherefore he did follow me.  And he spake unto me many times concerning the elders of the Jews, as I went forth unto my brethren, who were without the walls.  (1 Ne. 4:22-27)

Now look at the Bible Dictionary entry for Synagogue:

A Jewish meetinghouse for religious purposes. The furniture was generally simple, consisting of an ark containing the rolls of the law and other sacred writings, a reading desk, and seats for the worshippers. Its affairs were managed by the local council of elders, who decided who should be admitted and who should be excluded (Luke 6:22; John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2). The most important official was the Ruler of the Synagogue (Mark 5:22; Luke 13:14), who was generally a scribe, had care of the building, and superintended the various services. There was also an attendant who performed clerical duties (Luke 4:20). The Sabbath morning service was the most important in the week and included a fixed lesson (Num. 15:37–41; Deut. 6:4–9; 11:13–21) and two lessons for the day, one from the law and the other from the prophets. A sermon was generally preached in explanation of one of the lessons (Luke 4:17; Acts 13:15). The existence of synagogues in every town in which Jews were living, both in Palestine and elsewhere, was a great help to the spread of the gospel, early Christian missionaries being generally able to get a hearing there (see Acts 13:5, 14; 14:1; 17:1, 10; 18:4), and the synagogue worship provided in many respects a model for early Christian worship.

Okay, so hopefully that explains the use of the word church in 1 Ne. 4:26.  So now to address D&C 107:4.  Here are the first four verses of that section:

There are, in the church, two priesthoods, namely, the Melchizedek and Aaronic, including the Levitical Priesthood.  Why the first is called the Melchizedek Priesthood is because Melchizedek was such a great high priest.  Before his day it was called the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God.  But out of respect or reverence to the name of the Supreme Being, to avoid the too frequent repetition of his name, they, the church, in ancient days, called that priesthood after Melchizedek, or the Melchizedek Priesthood.

The Bible Dictionary author supposes that this mention of a church in ancient days in “the Doctrine and Covenants speaks of the church in Old Testament times,” but that is just an assumption, a supposition, a mere guess.  There is no evidence, whatsoever, that any church of Christ was found in Old Testament times, whether before Melchizedek, during his times (and he was a contemporary of Abraham, who likewise mentions no church), or after him.  As the most ancient church of Christ established on this earth was the one formed by Alma Nephi on this American continent, this D&C verse may be speaking of Alma’s church.  It need not apply to anything more ancient than that.

Stephen’s testimony in Acts 7 also mentioned a church in the times of Moses, but again, this wasn’t a church of Christ, but a congregation of the tribes.  Non-KJV bible translations use assembly or congregation, instead of church.  Here are his words in the KJV:

This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel,

A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.

This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, saying unto Aaron,

Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. (Acts 7:37-40)

So there you have it.  There are only three verses in all of the scriptures that speak of a church in pre-Jesus or pre-Alma times, and two of the verses (1 Ne. 4:26 and Acts 7:38) are really talking of a tribal congregation or assembly, while the other passage (D&C 107:4) is speaking, in all likelihood, of either Alma’s church or Jesus’ church.  That is the extent of all the “evidence” for the existence of a church of Christ before Christ and Alma.

Nonetheless, as latter-day saints know absolutely nothing about the gospel administered tribally, to deal with the apparent operation of God’s priesthoods in antiquity, they have taken the church model and protocols and applied them to the past.  Even though there is no church mentioned or found in the ancient text, they, nevertheless, using their “church filters,” cause their eyes to see an ancient church everywhere, in every time period.  “It’s there, in the word congregation!  Or it’s over there, in the word kingdom!  Lo!  The church of Christ is everywhere!  It has been here since the very beginning!  This isn’t a restoration of the church of Christ that was established in Jesus’ day, but a restoration of the church of Christ from Adam’s time!  Our religion is that ancient!”  And so the sayings go.

How the false teachers use Abinadi and Alma

False teachers, working from the same false church-from-the-beginning reference point, have crafted a false narrative by superimposing the gospel as administered tribally upon the gospel as administered by the church.  Specifically, the application of Abinadi’s prophecy to Noah and his priests and people, by false teachers and false prophets—who attempt to use it as an example that God can, and does, use outsiders to correct and call the ministers of His church to repentance—is a misapplication.  Where these false teachers err is in their assumption that Abinadi and Noah and his priests and people were actually in any church of Christ.  They weren’t.  They weren’t living under church protocols, but under tribal protocols, which are different.

The only model that can be applied to the current church of Christ, founded by Joseph Smith, is a church model.  In other words, you must use a church example, not a tribal one, to show how the church of Christ is supposed to function.  So, we’ve got three churches: one founded by Alma the Nephite (the most ancient one), one founded by Jesus the Jew, and one founded by Joseph the Gentile of Ephraimite lineage.  You can look at the Nephite church, which begins with the baptism of Helam, or at the Jewish church, which begins with Jesus’ church, and apply those to the Gentile church, but you cannot turn to Abinadi and Noah and his priests and say, “See?  Abinadi wasn’t in the priesthood hierarchy and yet God used him to call them to repentance!”   So what?  There was a tribal protocol in place during that time that provided for that and Abinadi followed it precisely.

Tribal rights are passed on through literal lineage

Not all tribal functions have been revealed, as yet, but we do know a few things.  For example, lineage played a part in tribal priesthood.  Therefore, Aaron and his firstborn sons had (and still have) a right to the bishopric, by birth.  That’s a tribal protocol which is currently found in the church of Christ.  There is literal lineage (father to son) and priesthood lineage (priesthood father to priesthood son.)  In other words, priesthood rights can be passed on tribally, through literal seed (father to son, or for Aaron and all his firstborn sons), and that is a tribal operation, but also they can be passed on via the laying on of hands, from one unrelated man to another unrelated man.  The first man becomes the “priesthood father” of the second man, who becomes the “priesthood son.”  Thus, this conferral of priesthood by the laying on of hands is spoken of as having a lineage and seed.  So, I can trace my Aaronic “priesthood lineage” from the man who ordained me (who is my priesthood father), to the man who ordained him (my priesthood grandfather), and so on, back to Oliver Cowdery, and thus back to John the Baptist.  And so forth with the Melchizedek priesthood.

An example of the two kinds of seed (literal and priesthood) can be seen from the following scripture:

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations; and I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal. (Abr. 2:9-11)

Another example is of evangelical ministers, which is a tribal office that is currently found in the church (since we need it here until the tribal functions are fully restored) :

It is the duty of the Twelve, in all large branches of the church, to ordain evangelical ministers, as they shall be designated unto them by revelation—the order of this priesthood was confirmed to be handed down from father to son, and rightly belongs to the literal descendants of the chosen seed, to whom the promises were made.  (D&C 107:39-40)

And again, verily I say unto you, let my servant William be appointed, ordained, and anointed, as counselor unto my servant Joseph, in the room of my servant Hyrum, that my servant Hyrum may take the office of Priesthood and Patriarch, which was appointed unto him by his father, by blessing and also by right; that from henceforth he shall hold the keys of the patriarchal blessings upon the heads of all my people, that whoever he blesses shall be blessed, and whoever he curses shall be cursed; that whatsoever he shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (D&C 124:91-93)

Not only were priesthood rights transmitted by birth under the tribal model, but so were gifts.  In the Nephite society, it was the seed of Jacob, all the Jacobite sons, who had a right to the gift to prophesy.  As such, any male Jacobite, filled with the Spirit, was duly authorized to preach repentance to anyone, including priests, teachers and kings.  As they were Jacobites—their surname being Jacob-Nephi—they were within the Nephite tribal congregations, therefore they weren’t from the outside.  Also, as they were Jacobites, they had a right to prophesy.

Abinadi was likely a Jacobite, descended from Abinadom.  Thus, he was fully within his rights to call these people to repentance.  The whole thing followed tribal protocols, but not church protocols, for under church protocols, we are not to command him who is at our head.

But thou shalt not write by way of commandment, but by wisdom; and thou shalt not command him who is at thy head, and at the head of the church; for I have given him the keys of the mysteries, and the revelations which are sealed, until I shall appoint unto them another in his stead. (D&C 28:5-7)

Also, the elders of the church are not to be taught by others, but are to be the ones who do the teaching.

Again I say, hearken ye elders of my church, whom I have appointed:

Ye are not sent forth to be taught, but to teach the children of men the things which I have put into your hands by the power of my Spirit; and ye are to be taught from on high.  (D&C 43:15-16)

So, God will not use outsiders to call any of the church elders to repentance.  God will only use church ministers to call them to repentance.  (This means that if you’ve been excommunicated, repent and come back in.  If you start calling any part of the church to repentance, that is evidence that you do not have the Spirit of God.)

Additionally, the record states that “there was a man among them whose name was Abinadi” (Mosiah 11:20), so Abinadi was actually a part of Noah’s people and kingdom.  So, he was in no way an outsider.

An affront to the king’s right to judge

After Abinadi gave his prophecy to the people, they were livid, and when king Noah learned of his words, he also was fuming mad, and he said,

Who is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or who is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction?  I command you to bring Abinadi hither, that I may slay him, for he has said these things that he might stir up my people to anger one with another, and to raise contentions among my people; therefore I will slay him.  (Mosiah 11:27-28)

The reason for all this anger was two-fold.  The first reason was because, under tribal prototol, it was up to the kings to judge the people.  King Mosiah later would say,

Therefore, if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, who would establish the laws of God, and judge this people according to his commandments… (Mosiah 29:13)

Also, when there was iniquity in the church, Alma went to the king to have him judge them, according to tribal protocol:

And he said unto the king:

Behold, here are many whom we have brought before thee, who are accused of their brethren; yea, and they have been taken in divers iniquities. And they do not repent of their iniquities; therefore we have brought them before thee, that thou mayest judge them according to their crimes. (Mosiah 26:11)

Secondly, it was the prerogative of the kings to call upon the prophets, priests, teachers and other leaders, as helps, in their mission of judging the people and establishing peace:

…behold, it came to pass that king Benjamin, with the assistance of the holy prophets who were among his people—for behold, king Benjamin was a holy man, and he did reign over his people in righteousness; and there were many holy men in the land, and they did speak the word of God with power and with authority; and they did use much sharpness because of the stiffneckedness of the people—wherefore, with the help of these, king Benjamin, by laboring with all the might of his body and the faculty of his whole soul, and also the prophets, did once more establish peace in the land. (Words of Mormon 1:16-18)

This was the tribal protocol for just kings. And in the whole history of the Nephite people, there had only been just kings. Jarom said, “our kings and our leaders were mighty men in the faith of the Lord; and they taught the people the ways of the Lord” (Jarom 1:7.) But Noah was an anomaly. He was an iniquitous king.  In the case of an iniquitous king, judgment reverted to the LORD under tribal protocol, but this had never happened before, for Noah was the first wicked Nephite king.

This is why Noah’s question is two-fold: “Who is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or who is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction?”  When Noah asks, “Who is Abinadi?” it isn’t because Abinadi is an unknown person, some passerby that happened to enter into the land, and it isn’t because Abinadi isn’t a part of the priests of Noah, like many of the false teachers like to assert.  No, what Noah is saying is, “Is Abinadi king, or am I king?  Who has the right to judge this people, him or me?”

Assuming that Abinadi was, indeed, a Jacobite (and if so, his name would have been Abinadi Jacob-Nephi), Abinadi had the right to prophesy, but this always happened with the king’s advance notice and approval, and under the king’s guidance, not out-of-the-blue, without any notification whatsoever to the reigning king.  So, king Noah felt affronted.

Additionally, the prophecy of Abinadi went contrary to what the king and his priests were saying.  They proclaimed celebration and prosperity, while Abinadi’s prophecy was of affliction and bondage.  Noah assumed, therefore, that as the people appeared to be prosperous and content, and they gave their common consent to all he did(!), that he must be a just king, and therefore Abinadi must be the one out of sorts.  Therefore Abinadi must be a false prophet.  And also the name of “the Lord” that Abinadi invoked must not be the real Lord, but a false god.  (This is why king Noah asks, “Who is the Lord?”)  Abinadi, then, was the obvious guilty party, under tribal protocol (assuming a just king, that is.)  And so he and his people did not believe the prophecy.  They thought it was all made up:

And it came to pass that they were angry with him; and they took him and carried him bound before the king, and said unto the king:

Behold, we have brought a man before thee who has prophesied evil concerning thy people, and saith that God will destroy them.  And he also prophesieth evil concerning thy life, and saith that thy life shall be as a garment in a furnace of fire.  And again, he saith that thou shalt be as a stalk, even as a dry stalk of the field, which is run over by the beasts and trodden under foot.  And again, he saith thou shalt be as the blossoms of a thistle, which, when it is fully ripe, if the wind bloweth, it is driven forth upon the face of the land. And he pretendeth the Lord hath spoken it. And he saith all this shall come upon thee except thou repent, and this because of thine iniquities.  And now, O king, what great evil hast thou done, or what great sins have thy people committed, that we should be condemned of God or judged of this man?  And now, O king, behold, we are guiltless, and thou, O king, hast not sinned; therefore, this man has lied concerning you, and he has prophesied in vain.  And behold, we are strong, we shall not come into bondage, or be taken captive by our enemies; yea, and thou hast prospered in the land, and thou shalt also prosper.  Behold, here is the man, we deliver him into thy hands; thou mayest do with him as seemeth thee good.

So none of this has anything, whatsoever, to do with Abinadi not being a part of the body of Noah’s priests, but this is how the false teachers would like to spin it.

Okay, so my point is that Abinadi acted under proper tribal protocols.

A brief aside

It is not my intention to fully expound this Abinadi episode, but I will point out a couple of things, before moving on to Alma’s actions.

First, Noah, priests and people were focused on the law of Moses, thinking that salvation came by it, and they discarded the Ten Commandments, whereas Abinadi pointed to the Ten Commandments, saying that those who obeyed those commandments would be saved.

The people essentially broke every single one of the Ten Commandments.  They all “became idolatrous” (Mosiah 11:6-7.)  That broke the Second Commandment.  The king and priests spoke “vain words” (Mosiah 11:7,11) to the people.  That might indicate that they broke the Third Commandment.  The king and priests did not work, but were “supported in their laziness” (Mosiah 11:6.)  That broke the Fourth Commandment.  King Noah “did not walk in the ways of his father” (Mosiah 11:1.)  That indicates that he broke the Fifth Commandment.  The people “did delight in blood, and the shedding of the blood of their brethren” (Mosiah 11:19) and also they consented to the death of Abinadi.  This broke the Sixth Commandment.  They had “many wives and concubines” (Mosiah 11:2,4,6,14) and spent time with harlots and committed whoredoms.  That broke the Seventh Commandment.  They returned from war with the Lamanites, “rejoicing in their spoil” (Mosiah 11:18.)  That might indicate that they didn’t just get their own stuff back from the Lamanites, but took (stole) additional things that the Lamanites possessed.  That would break the Eighth Commandment.  The high priests would “speak lying” (Mosiah 11:11) words to the people.  That would violate the Ninth Commandment.  Finally, king Noah levied a tax upon the people (see Mosiah 11:4,6,13.)  This would violate the Tenth Commandment (per the post, Thou shalt not “covet”.)

Second, despite breaking pretty much every single commandment of God, notice that Abinadi does not say to them that their priesthood was now null and void, that they had no more keys, that because of their apostasy and sinful ways, the “church was no longer true,” etc., as the false teachers like to spin it, but instead, Abinadi continues to recognize the authority of these corrupt priests to the very end, ending his sermon in this fashion:

Therefore, if ye teach the law of Moses, also teach that it is a shadow of those things which are to come—teach them that redemption cometh through Christ the Lord, who is the very Eternal Father. Amen. (Mosiah 16:14-15)

So, this was not a case of “Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man!” that the false teachers would like it to be.  Now, let’s look at Alma.

Alma, the priest of Noah

Alma repented of his sins, ran away when Noah tried to kill him, wrote the words of Abinadi, and then began preaching in private.

Keep in mind that the tribal protocols were still intact under Noah and his priests.  But Alma couldn’t return, because they would just try to kill him again.  He was now an outsider, but he still had priesthood authority.  He was also under the obligation to teach the people the truth of Abinadi’s words.  He couldn’t teach them tribally and then tell them to go back and submit to the tribal authority of Noah as believers in Christ, because once it came out that they believed as Abinadi did, they would likely be killed, as well. So, what was Alma to do?

The answer is that he used his priesthood to form a church of Christ.  Noah and his priests operated under the tribal model, so Alma used his faith to have his converts operate under the church model.  This would protect them from the oppressions of king Noah, for they could meet in secret, be baptized in secret and so forth.  On the one hand, they would still participate in tribal functions, under Noah and priests, as well as in church functions, under Alma.

The church rises, the tribe goes away

But notice that once the church comes into existence, Satan inspires the king to destroy it, so they run away.  Then they are found by the Lamanites and finally escape to king Mosiah.  King Mosiah, a seer with his own tribal priests, seeing that Alma’s immense faith has caused a church of Christ to be formed before Christ had come to establish it(!), starts to set in motion the cessation of the priesthood within the tribal protocols.  He turns the monarchy into a system of judges without priests, gives Alma full authority over the church and the ordination of priesthood, and hands all sacred items to Alma’s son Alma.  Alma the younger then becomes first chief judge, high priest of the church, and all priesthood is now centered in the church.  From this point on, the priesthood no longer operates tribally, but within the church of Christ, exclusively.  The church of Christ has full sway over which ordinances are salvific, and which are not.

This pattern follows with the other two churches, too.  The church established by Jesus had exclusive authority.  The church established by Joseph Smith has exclusive authority.  No ordinances are salvific without church authorization, for either of these three churches.  All those who claim that they can baptize without church authorization, using Mormon priesthood, and that those baptisms are legitimately salvific in the Lord’s view, are wrong.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints possesses the keys over all the ordinances of salvation, exclusively.

Three published revelations given to me

Okay, hopefully that covers the Abinadi-Alma point that is always brought up by false teachers.

As the cry of false teachers and false prophets is always the same—the church is apostate, the keys are no longer valid, the practices of the church no longer conform to the revelations, etc.—I am going to use Abinadi logic to deal with these assertions:

And it came to pass that after Abinadi had made an end of these sayings that he said unto them:

Have ye taught this people that they should observe to do all these things for to keep these commandments? I say unto you,

Nay;

for if ye had, the Lord would not have caused me to come forth and to prophesy evil concerning this people. (Mosiah 13:25-26)

Joseph Smith organized and established the church of Christ on 6 April, 1830.  I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 19__, at the age of nine.  About a month before my baptism, I received a revelation from the Holy Ghost, in which the Spirit said to me:

“This [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] is the ONLY true church!”

This revelation was received while I was attending a Mormon church service for the very first time, and it was accompanied by a baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost.  The meaning of the revelation was that the members of this particular church had valid ordinances of salvation.  In other words, that their priesthood authority was the only priesthood which was valid and authorized by God.

Now, all those who say that this church is apostate, or that the priesthood is no longer here, or some of it is missing, or the ordinances have changed, or that the keys are not valid, etc., and point to any point of time between 1830 and 19__, the year I received this revelation, are in error.  I say to them like Abinadi said to those priests:

Did the church become false at any time during this period from 1830 to 19__?  I say to you,

No, it didn’t;

for if it did, the Lord would not have caused me to receive a revelation that the church was true in 19__.

Now, either the church was true in 1830, and then became false, and then was restored back to true by 19__, or it has remained true the entire time, from 1830 to 19__.  As we have no record of any restoration that has occurred after Joseph Smith’s death, and, in fact, no such restoration will occur, except by the hand of the Josephite, then the church must have been true during this entire time.

So, that covers the period from 1830 to 19__, but what about the period since 19__?  Could there have been an apostasy since then?  Could the keys have been lost since the year I received that revelation?

No, because there is also this revelation, which I received in 2014:

Behold! Thus saith the Lord:

Thou shalt shut thy mouth, for none of my saints shall be authorized to speak against the leaders of my church, to criticize and correct them publicly, unless I send them. And thou shalt be sent, but the time is not yet, neither for thee, nor for any others, therefore, thou shalt heed these words and hold thy tongue.

Notice in particular that the Lord says, “the leaders of my church.”  Again,

Did the church become false at any time during this period from 19__ to 2014?  I say to you,

No, it didn’t;

for if it did, the Lord would not have caused me to receive a revelation that this was still His church in 2014.

So, this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is still the Lord’s church, as of 2014.  And since 2014, there has been no indication from the Spirit, whatsoever, that the church has ceased being the Lord’s church, therefore, it’s still true, the keys are still here, the priesthood is still valid, and the Lord still recognizes it as His.

Anybody, then, who goes around saying this church no longer holds the keys, or is apostate, or does not have the priesthood (or not all the priesthood), or the ordinances have been changed or corrupted, or the Lord has rejected the church, and so forth—anyone who teaches such doctrine is a false teacher, because they go against these revelations of mine.

There is only one response that a false teacher can say to this, and that is, “These revelations are not true.”  But they are true, and this can be demonstrated by anyone praying to God about them.  God will tell any earnest seeker of truth that the above two revelations are true, and as they are true, these other phonies are false teachers.

Now, before I address the final point that false teachers always bring up, which is the fact that the practices of the church do not match the revelations of Joseph Smith in a great many instances, I will put up the third revelation, which is the tribal revelation, to show that this tribal doctrine and protocol, in which the kingdom of God was administered to the people tribally, is not something I made up on my own, but which was revealed to me by the Holy Ghost in 2010:

Be of good comfort, for verily, thus saith the Lord:

The priesthood existed before the organization of the church and is to serve both church and tribe. Although the tribes of Israel are not gathered, yet they are known to me, along with all the tribes of the earth.

For the Lord beholds no man alone, but sees the lineage of all families, of all the children of men, and of these lines form tribes.

I have yet to restore tribal functions,

saith the Lord,

nevertheless, the church ordinances of baptism, confirmation, administration of the sacrament, and priesthood ordinations, may be performed within a tribe, as tribal ordinances, under tribal authority or keys. Thus the priesthood may operate within a tribe, independently from the church, and within the church, independently from a tribe.

Nevertheless, thou shalt not substitute the church for the tribe, nor the tribe for the church.

Yet thou mayest establish thy tribe using these priesthood ordinances, and conform your tribal practices to the revelations of my servant Joseph Smith, Jun.,

saith the Lord.

¶ Because thou fearest to sin, thou shalt not administer of the sacrament at home to thy family, as a church ordinance, unless the bishop permitteth it.

For it is not meet nor right to establish a home church, apart from the body of the saints; nevertheless, thou art permitted to administer of the sacrament, as a tribal ordinance, to those that pertain to thy tribe.

For I require the saints of my church to meet together often, to worship me as a group, and thou shalt also worship me at all times, and the church is ordained and established unto this end,

saith the Lord.

Likewise the tribe is to worship me, as a group and individually. Wherefore, establish thy tribe, if thou wilt, using the priesthood, that ye may worship me as a group, in conformity to my revelations, given to my servant Joseph, that I may pour out my Spirit and gifts upon thee and thine, that thou shalt have no more cause to mourn and murmur concerning the meetings of my church. But take care not to go beyond the bounds I have set, until I have seen fit to reveal the tribal functions. Amen.

This shows that the priesthood “is to serve both church and tribe,” which means that before the churches established by Alma and Jesus, the kingdom of God was administered tribally, for that is what existed back then: tribes of Israel and tribes of the earth.

Two published revelations given to Joseph Smith

There are also two revelations which were given to Joseph Smith that show that the church still has all of its keys.  The first is:

Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness. (D&C 13:1)

Those are the words of John the Baptist to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when he gave them the Aaronic Priesthood. Notice that he says that that priesthood will remain on earth until the sons of Levi offer a sacrifice to the Lord in righteousness. Have the sons of Levi done this, yet? No, they haven’t. Therefore, this priesthood and all its keys are still here in the Lord’s church.

Here is another revelation of Joseph Smith:

Therefore, thus saith the Lord unto you, with whom the priesthood hath continued through the lineage of your fathers—for ye are lawful heirs, according to the flesh, and have been hid from the world with Christ in God—therefore your life and the priesthood have remained, and must needs remain through you and your lineage until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouths of all the holy prophets since the world began. (D&C 86:8-10)

This does not refer to the literal seed, but to the priesthood seed and priesthood lineage and priesthood fathers. So, the fathers of Joseph and Oliver were John the Baptist and also Peter, James and John, and Joseph and Oliver were lawful heirs, according to the flesh, for these priesthoods were conferred by the laying on of hands, of flesh and bone people, therefore it was done “according to the flesh.” Some people go way out in left field and think this scripture is speaking of the literal seed, or that Joseph and Oliver had priesthood rights by birth, from their mortal fathers, etc., but no such imaginary scenario exists, for they were Gentiles and had no right by birth to the priesthood, but via ordination by the hand of these resurrected personages. And so the lineage spoken of here is not the literal seed of Joseph and Oliver, but their priesthood seed. For example, owing to my priesthood lineage, Oliver Cowdery is one of my priesthood fathers. And I am one of his priesthood sons. And so forth. I am a part of his priesthood posterity.

Now, this priesthood (which includes both priesthoods) was to remain “until the restoration of all things.”  Again,

Has the restoration of all things occurred, yet?  I say to you,

No, it hasn’t;

therefore, this priesthood and all its keys are still with the church.

There is no getting around these revelations, neither mine nor Joseph’s.  If the false teachers are teaching correct doctrines, then both my revelations and also Joseph Smith’s are false.  If Joseph’s and my revelations are true, then the false teachers are in error.  It can’t be both ways.  As all these revelations are true, everyone can expect these two priesthoods, and their keys, to remain in this church until the restoration of all things.

These are the keys

As for what keys they have, this is what the Lord says about that:

For unto you, the Twelve, and those, the First Presidency, who are appointed with you to be your counselors and your leaders, is the power of this priesthood given, for the last days and for the last time, in the which is the dispensation of the fulness of times, which power you hold, in connection with all those who have received a dispensation at any time from the beginning of the creation; for verily I say unto you, the keys of the dispensation, which ye have received, have come down from the fathers, and last of all, being sent down from heaven unto you. (D&C 112:30-32)

So, it is to the Twelve and First Presidency that we should look as key holders.  Now, notice what they have done with their keys since the death of Joseph Smith:

The church is out of order

According to the law of expediency, the church leadership must operate according to what is expedient.  In the absence of the revelations of a seer (Joseph Smith or Joseph-Nephi) they are to use this law and their keys, to keep the work moving forward, building up the church upon the foundation Joseph Smith laid, until the next seer (Joseph-Nephi) arrives to add to the body of revelation and restore the rest of all the things.

Because of hinderment, and especially if the hinderment is continual, things can quickly get out of order.  So, let’s say you start with 10 numbered blocks, from 1 to 10, which Joseph Smith restored, and let’s say that there are, in total, 1000 blocks to be restored.  Those 10 blocks represent the foundation of the restoration of all things, as well as the foundation of the church, which was accomplished by Joseph.  The order is from 1 to 10, but even in Joseph’s time, there was hinderment, so, for example, the law of consecration and stewardship had to be put on hold, and we got a new revealed block, which was the law of tithing.  After Joseph’s death, the leadership, holding the keys, had to move the work forward as best they could, under whatever inspiration they could get.

But again, hinderment comes, for Satan opposes this work, and maybe the order must be changed a little, so that there is no halt in the work.  Maybe blocks number 4 and 5 get swapped.  Later, there is more opposition, and the law of expediency requires that to keep the work moving forward, blocks 2 and 7 must be swapped.  Maybe with so much opposition, block 10 must have its practice ceased, but the block must remain, so it is hid under block 9.  And so on, as time goes on the blocks get more and more out of order.  Yet they are all still there.

The uninspired man, and in particular the false teachers and false prophets, will say that this is not the true church, for look at all the blocks.  They are out of order!  They no longer conform to the revelations of Joseph Smith!  But remember, these are uninspired, false teachers.  They cannot see the hand of God if it was placed right in front of their blind faces.

And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God, and to arrange by lot the inheritances of the saints whose names are found, and the names of their fathers, and of their children, enrolled in the book of the law of God; while that man, who was called of God and appointed, that putteth forth his hand to steady the ark of God, shall fall by the shaft of death, like as a tree that is smitten by the vivid shaft of lightning. (D&C 85:7-8)

This prophecy cannot be fulfilled unless the house of God first gets out of order.  This is really, then, two prophecies: one of the house of God getting out of order, and one of the house of God being set in order.  Those who say: “That the house of God being out of order, or it not conforming to the revelations of Joseph Smith, is evidence that it is no longer the house of God” are false teachers, for this prophecy of Joseph Smith prophesies that the house of God will first get out of order, yet it still will be the house of God, for later on it (the house of God) will be set in order.  It never ceases to be the house of God during this process.  Therefore, all those who seek to “steady the ark of God” to restore order to it, are the ones who are uninspired.  The house of God getting out of order is a state which conforms to the revelations of Joseph Smith.  And the leadership, acting under the law of expediency, and getting this house more and more out of order, are acting under inspiration of God.

It was always the intention of God to have the house get all jumbled up, and then one day He had always planned that this guy, called a mighty and strong one, would come and set the whole mess right.  So, if you want to follow a false teacher out of this church, do it with the understanding that these people haven’t got a clue as to the workings of the Spirit.

A key to discerning the time of apostasy

When did the most ancient church of Christ (the one established by Alma Nephi) go into apostasy and cease to exist?  The answer is when God took away His twelve disciples.  (Later, under Mormon, it was when He took away all of His disciples.)  And when did the church established by Jesus among the Jews go into apostasy?

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants, concerning the parable of the wheat and of the tares:

Behold, verily I say, the field was the world, and the apostles were the sowers of the seed; and after they have fallen asleep the great persecutor of the church, the apostate, the whore, even Babylon, that maketh all nations to drink of her cup, in whose hearts the enemy, even Satan, sitteth to reign—behold he soweth the tares; wherefore, the tares choke the wheat and drive the church into the wilderness. (D&C 86:1-3)

Once again, the answer is when the apostles were taken away. (The tares had been sown in the church while the apostles were still ministering, but only when they were taken away did the tares become capable of choking the wheat and driving the church into the wilderness.) And in our day, when will the church go into apostasy?

Now, I say unto you, and what I say unto you, I say unto all the Twelve:

And again, I say unto you, that whosoever ye shall send in my name, by the voice of your brethren, the Twelve, duly recommended and authorized by you, shall have power to open the door of my kingdom unto any nation whithersoever ye shall send them—inasmuch as they shall humble themselves before me, and abide in my word, and hearken to the voice of my Spirit.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people, and all flesh has become corrupt before my face.

Behold, vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth, a day of wrath, a day of burning, a day of desolation, of weeping, of mourning, and of lamentation; and as a whirlwind it shall come upon all the face of the earth,

saith the Lord.

And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth,

saith the Lord;

first among those among you,

saith the Lord,

who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house,

saith the Lord. (D&C 112:14,21-26)

Again, the answer is the same: the day of vengeance, wrath, burning, desolation, weeping, mourning and lamentation will begin first among the Twelve apostles.  (And this day has not come, yet.)  So, when the Lord removes the twelve Gentile apostles, that is the day when the tares, which are already sown among the wheat of this church, will begin to choke the wheat. But as long as we have the twelve apostles among us, the church is not apostate, it still has the priesthood, the keys are still here, the ordinances are still valid, and so forth. Even my prophecies concerning the breakup of the church and of the descent into wickedness (by the tares of this church) bear out this principle, for the church breakup and wickedness of the tares only occurs when the quorum of the Twelve are taken out of the picture. So, all of this shows that a key to know whether this church is still valid in God’s eyes, is the existence of the quorum of the twelve apostles. If that quorum exists, the church is still true.  And since we do have the Twelve among us still, this (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) is still the Lord’s church and believe it or not, all the expedient disordering that is being done with their keys is under inspiration of God.  So, hopefully this post will do something to help shut the mouths of the false teachers who are spreading lies among the saints.

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

Nothing From Without Can Defile You

there is nothing
from outside of a person
that upon entering into them
could possibly defile them
but
the things which come out of them
those are they that can defile
if any have ears to hear
let them hear

Mark 7:15-16

Well, how does this sway with our understanding that the body is a “temple of God” and that by consuming tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs we’ll “defile” that temple of God [which we are]?  Jesus said:

do you not perceive
that whatsoever thing from the outside
that enters into a person
cannot possibly defile them
because it does not enter into their heart
but enters into their belly
where it goes out into the toilet
making all foods the same

and he said

that which comes out of a person
that will be what defiles them
because from within
coming out of the heart
proceed all of one’s evil thoughts
adulteries and fornications
murders
thefts
covetousness
wickedness
deceit
lasciviousness
an evil eye
evil speaking
pride
foolishness
etc.
all these evil things come out of the body
from within
and these are what defile a person

Mark 7:18-23

What goes into the body goes right back out again.  The more important thing that Jesus was worried about is what comes out of the mouth — because our words betray the condition of our heart, and that’s the thing that makes our “temple of God” clean or unclean [not the food/drinks we consume].

Peter was told in a dream:

that which God has cleansed
thou shalt not call unclean

Acts 11:8-9

And what has God “cleansed”?

and God
having made peace through the blood of his cross
by him
to reconcile all things unto himself
by him
whether they be things in earth
or things in heaven

Colossians 1:20

Worrying about outward observances, such as “appropriate” foods and drinks, is worrying about making clean the outside of the cup and the plate — when what we’ve been called to do with the liberty given to us by Christ is to invest our efforts in making sure the inward part isn’t full of ravening and wickedness [Luke 11:37-40].

The liberty we have in Christ is the confidence that “all things are clean unto you” [Luke 11:41].  No food or drink that enters into your “temple of God” [meaning your body] can defile it.  What “defiles” that place is what occupies the attention of your heart:  the thoughts you entertain, the fantasies you imagine, the motivations/drives you act from, etc.  And that is shown by what comes out of your mouth:

a good person
out of the good treasure of their heart
brings forth that which is good
and an evil person
out of the evil treasure of their heart
brings forth that which is evil
for the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart

Luke 6:45

So we must beware of any “false brethren” who’ve gotten into the midst of the church of Christ unawares, who detest this liberty which we have in Christ Jesus — seeking instead to “bring us into bondage” with doctrines and commandments that aren’t from our Lord [Galatians 2:4].  We must be free to “stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” [Galatians 5:1].

I know
and am persuaded by the lord Jesus
that there is nothing unclean of itself
but to one that believes a thing to be unclean
to them alone is it unclean

for the kingdom of God is not about food and drink
but righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Ghost
for he that
with these things
serves Christ
is acceptable to God
and approved by others
let us
therefore
follow after the things which make peace
and things wherewith we can edify each other
instead of worrying about food
which does not affect the work of God
all things indeed are pure
it is only evil for one who eats with offense

Romans 14:14-20

And what is this liberty for?  To consume all the booze we want simply because “it’s okay to drink wine“?

brothers and sisters
we have been called unto liberty
only do not use this liberty to serve your fleshly desires
but rather
by love
use it to serve one another
for all of the law is fulfilled in one word
even this
LOVE

Galatians 5:13-14

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We are all the Rich Young Ruler

I wanted to express my heart as it pertains to something I’ve heard from LDS leaders previously — specifically because I heard it just heard it again from a member of the quorum of the 70 during this most recent General Conference.

It concerns a false interpretation of the story given in Matthew 19:

and behold
one came and said unto Jesus

good master
what good thing shall I do
that I may have eternal life?

and Jesus said unto him

why do you call me “good“?
there is none good
but one
and that is god
but
if you want to experience eternal life
then you must keep the commandments

he said unto him

which ones?

Jesus said

do not take life
do not cheat on your spouse
do not steal
do not speak falsely
honor your parents
love your neighbor as though they were yourself

the young man said

all these things have I done since my youth
what else am I lacking?

Jesus said

if you want to be perfect
go and sell all that you have
and give to the poor
then you will have treasure in heaven instead
and then come and follow me

but he went away sorrowful after hearing that
because he had amassed great wealth

This is a scripture with an obvious interpretation:  namely that if we want to follow Christ, we must first sell all of our material possessions and follow after Jesus.  And because of that, it’s something that has always been interpreted by modern men to have “some other” application that “doesn’t apply” to us today [just so we can get away from addressing what it really means for us as a society today].

Most recently, I heard Larry Lawrence [of the Quorum of the Seventy] teach false doctrine to the saints of Christ as it relates to this topic.  He said:

Let’s consider the New Testament account of the rich young ruler. He was a righteous young man who was already keeping the Ten Commandments, but he wanted to become better. His goal was eternal life.

When he met the Savior, he asked, “What lack I yet?“

Jesus answered immediately, giving counsel that was intended specifically for the rich young man.  Jesus said unto him, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and … come and follow me.”

What Lack I Yet?

Note the part I bolded from Elder Lawrence’s talk he gave to latter-day saints.  The human inclination is to read this story and ass-u-me that the counsel that Jesus gave applies only to that man in question.  The proper position that a man of God would take is to let that scripture prick conscience of the people and convict us of sin, insofar as we withhold our surplus from the needy, impoverished, and destitute.

I want to state, unequivocally, by the power of the Holy Spirit which is in me — that the counsel of Jesus given to the rich, young man in Matthew 19 was not “intended specifically for the rich young man” — this is false doctrine, and what Jesus said is true for all people who want to truly follow Him.

It is true for each-and-every one of us — that if we want to experience eternal life, then we must cease to covet the abundance we have and be free-and-willing to share all that we have with the needy, impoverished, and destitute.  And, if we are not willing, then we will find ourselves with the rest of the “rich men” — in hell lifting up our eyes, being in torment.

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What would a Nephite-based youth program look like?

Last month I took my eldest son aside and we had a talk on Boy Scouting, about why I have always disapproved of it, and why I think the church never should have affiliated with it when they were tasked to create a youth program.  I explained to him that that was a missed opportunity and that the Lord had expected them to create their own program, based on the Nephites, but they blew it and went, instead, with a Gentile-based model.

The conversation is particularly interesting given that a week or so later the church sent out a press release about Boy Scouts:

Official Statement — 27 JULY 2015

Church Re-evaluating Scouting Program

Concern expressed over BSA policy change, lack of global reach

SALT LAKE CITY —

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the following statement today after a vote on a policy change by the Boy Scouts of America National Executive Board to admit openly gay leaders:

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is deeply troubled by today’s vote by the Boy Scouts of America National Executive Board. In spite of a request to delay the vote, it was scheduled at a time in July when members of the Church’s governing councils are out of their offices and do not meet. When the leadership of the Church resumes its regular schedule of meetings in August, the century-long association with Scouting will need to be examined. The Church has always welcomed all boys to its Scouting units regardless of sexual orientation. However, the admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America.

As a global organization with members in 170 countries, the Church has long been evaluating the limitations that fully one-half of its youth face where Scouting is not available. Those worldwide needs combined with this vote by the BSA National Executive Board will be carefully reviewed by the leaders of the Church in the weeks ahead.”

So, now I’m wondering what kind of replacement we are going to get.  Others have also begun to wonder, and to offer suggestions.  For example, there is Stephen Marsh’s post, Down at the [Y]MIA — alternatives to the Boy Scouts, which approach seemed (to me, at least) to be yet another Gentile program.

As I told my son, our youth program ought to be based upon the Nephites, yet I had no idea what that would look like.  I have simply never taken the time to consider it, for the Boy Scouts is the program we have at present, and to waste time creating an alternative seemed pointless.  However, given this new opportunity, my mind has begun to think in that direction and also to wonder, “Could a Nephite-based youth program be created, considering the fact that all we have is an abridged record?”

Of course, no church committee will ever contact me to create such a program, so we will get what we will get.  And it will most assuredly be based upon Gentile ways.  But maybe the mental exercise involved in creating a youth program from the Book of Mormon would have benefits, if only for the youth of the parents who perform such an exercise and who incorporate the same into their families.  And so I ask the reader, “What would a Nephite-based youth program look like?”

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Legally or Lawfully Married? An Anarchist Solution to Yet Another Statist Problem: Part I

On January 27, 2015, in the wake of the Vatican Summit on marriage, the Church made national headlines, calling a news conference and issuing a statement defending LGBT rights. Elders Oaks, Holland, and Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve, along with Sister Marriott of the Young Women general presidency, attempted to stake out a middle ground between religious freedoms on the one hand and gay rights on the other. The conference was not so much about LGBT rights as it was about rights in general. Elder Holland best summed up the proceedings when he said, “Accommodating the rights of all people…requires wisdom and judgment, compassion and fairness.” He called everyone in the political sphere to “the highest level of statesmanship.” He didn’t elaborate on this statesmanship, but I would like to think, in the tradition of the Federalists, that statesmanship involves, above all else, a healthy skepticism of the State.

The biggest problem with the Church’s handling of the gay marriage issue thus far is not that it has clung too ideologically to the past and refused to “change with the times.” Quite the contrary. The Church has not clung strongly enough to the past, to its past, a past which included, among other things, fleeing blood-thirsty mobs in Missouri who all, incidentally, had the sanction of the State. As Latter-day Saints, we should not forget that the exodus to the Salt Lake Valley had a lot to do with escaping what was perceived at the time to be a tyrannical United States government.

How much has changed in 170 years? In his portion of the conference, Elder Oaks cited multiple examples in which he believed the State transgressed the Constitution, denying, at every turn it seemed, both the freedom of speech and of religion. These examples were instructive. What the examples should have indicated to the careful listener is that the State, as an institution of legitimized coercion, cannot be trusted to keep within the bounds it has set for itself (history has shown that self-imposed boundaries, because they are self imposed, can be changed more or less on a whim). And because the State cannot be trusted to keep within these bounds, the power it has over the populace should be radically curtailed or eliminated completely. The famous free-market anarchist Murray Rothbard said that the idea of a limited government that stays limited is truly utopian.

Elder Oaks, during his portion of the broadcast, exhibited this same kind of utopianism, you could say. He was right that the list of State atrocities against religion is “expanding”; however, the examples he provided, while indicative of bigotry and hatred, were not open-and-shut cases of rights violation. One such example was that of Christian student groups in the California university system. The student groups, according to Elder Oaks, were denied recognition by their respective universities because the groups required their leaders to share their Christian beliefs. The university system, he said, forced the groups to “compromise their religious conscience.” In situations like this, private-property anarchists are wise to point out that free speech issues are most of the time easily resolved when thought of as property issues. Though this case is complicated by the fact that the universities are state universities (paid for in part by taxes), it is clear that if one accepts a state’s right to taxation, then each university in question has property rights to its buildings, facilities, and, yes, money, and can therefore make demands on people using them. I do not, then, have a right, for example, to set up a table on a public sidewalk in order to sell my baseball cards to passersby. The State makes certain demands on people using their sidewalks.

***

In using the term “utopian,” to describe the Church’s ambivalence toward the State, I do not want to suggest that the Brethren are naïve or idealistic about the function of government. I mention Rothbard and his quotation, instead, to point to a kind of axiom that exists deep in the minds of all non-anarchists: that is, the government is good as long as, and in so far as, it doesn’t bother me. For the anarchist, though, there is no such thing as a government that doesn’t bother everyone all the time. The lifeblood of government is taxation, and what are taxes if not a gigantic bone in the throat?

During the news conference, all three speakers rightly defended the freedoms of religious people to worship according to the dictates of their conscience. Elder Holland quoted from the Doctrine and Covenants. Sister Marriott framed the debate between gay rights and religious freedom. Elder Oaks expounded principles, listed and numbered them. While he spoke, one could sense a simultaneous aversion to, and endorsement of, the State. Early in his remarks, there was a yearning for a better time, hundreds of years ago, when the government still respected the First Amendment. By the end, Elder Oaks was invoking the State and its LGBT laws—which the Church was “on record as favoring”—as if to anticipate objections from the gay community. So what’s wrong with defending the government when it does good and defending yourself from the government when it does bad? Isn’t it normal to agree sometimes and to disagree other times?

I would say, in most cases, yes. However, there is a difference between agreeing with a principle and agreeing with praxis, the process by which a principle is actualized. I might, for instance, agree with people taking home more money at the end of the week but disagree (for various reasons) with a minimum wage law. The Church—and all religious institutions—should do its best to endorse principles and, outside its own welfare program and disaster relief, leave praxis to the politicians. Some might call this “utopian.” What happens when—not if—the State violates religious freedoms? Doesn’t this thrust the Church into the political sphere?

The answer is no. Latter-day Saints should know better than most Christians that the Church (with a capital “C”) is not equal to its membership. The Church is perfect, we like to say, but the members are not. Therefore, when religious freedoms are in jeopardy, it is these imperfect members, in their capacity as citizens, the church with a lowercase “c” in other words, that should respond politically. There is a long history of church leaders speaking not for the Church but for themselves. Joseph Fielding Smith, for example, denounced the theory of evolution, while the Church remained, officially, undecided on the matter. J. Reuben Clark wrote extensively about the evils of communism. I see no reason why things should be different now. This distinction between principle and praxis—that the business of revelation exists, and should exist, independently of politics—helps to explain why the Prophet Joseph Smith ran for President of the United States in 1844. When churches (with a capital “C”) get involved in politics, it not only grants legitimacy to the State and its coercion, but it strips churches of their revolutionary potential; it makes the church, its members, and its doctrine handmaidens of the State, subject to the wiles and caprices of special interests.

***

Tithing the Widow’s Mites

It may be because tithing settlement is upcoming in my local ward, but I recently had my attention drawn to a particular story in the scriptures.  To be frank, I know that my position with how I relate to the church is idiosyncratic.  My opinion about the present order of things is far too critical for most of my mainstream peers [I admit they’re problems with how Mormonism is governed by the men in Salt Lake and I admit there are alternate ways for people to legitimately be “LDS”] — but I’m far too generous for any among the critical crowd [I believe that the LDS church is literally the true church of Jesus Christ and don’t support an “All is lost, corrupt-apostasy, JUMP ship” view of things].

In any event, this last week I was reminded of the story of the widow and her two pennies.  At a point when Jesus had already condemned the religious establishment of his day as corrupt,

woe unto you
scribes and
pharisees
hypocrites!

and when he had already tossed his hands up in derision at the apostasy he saw present in the management of God’s temple,

behold
your house is left unto you desolate
and truly I say unto you
you shall not see me
until the time come when you shall say

blessed is he
that comes in the name of YHVH

the scriptures say that:

he looked up
and saw rich men casting their gifts into the treasury
and he saw also a certain poor widow
casting in two pennies
and he said

truly I say unto you
that this poor widow has cast in more than they all
for all these have given
of their abundance unto the offerings of God
but she
out of her poverty
has cast in all of the living that she had

Here we see Jesus referring to what was obviously an abused receptacle of money as “the offerings of God”.  Here we see Jesus approving of an impoverished widow submitting what little money she had into the coffers of a corrupt and wealthy religious establishment.

To me, the same applies to the criticisms that people make about things like the encouraging of leader-worship, relying on the corrupt works of our own efforts, the lack prophecy and revelation coming from the men sustained as prophets and revelators, using the tithing funds to have sufficient for our needs and then investing the difference for usury, etc., etc.

Do I think such concerns are valid?  Absolutely.  But it is my belief that it is still the church of God that is doing those things.  We have not ceased to be the Lord’s people because of these condemnable works.  The church of Christ can remain “true” while being “dead” and “damned” [see D&C 84:54-57].

For the last couple years, there’s been a lot of attention on blogs about the “corporate Church”, [the “Church™” as opposed to “the church”, etc.] — and more especially since the whole City Creek Center things was announced, built, and opened.  Although it is true that none of us [except Thomas Monson] is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints™ corporation — it is my understanding that every latter-day saint was confirmed a member of “the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.”

While we know how to spell the name of the corporate Church, including where the capitalization and the dash goes [it’s a trademarked letterhead and defined in the corporate charter] — on the other, the name of the Lord’s true church is never spelled, it is only spoken as hands are laid on a person’s head and they are confirmed a member of it and commanded to receive the Holy Ghost.  This latter church may, or may not, contain a dash and capitalization — we don’t know.

When the Lord refers to his “church”, it is always in reference to a living body of people — not to some non-existent, non-living, non-corporeal, legal corporate entity.  That’s why you see Jesus not giving a hoot whether the temple treasury where the widow was submitting her pennies was “corrupt” or not.

Of real concern to me, is not the corruption and break-up of the corporate LDS Church — but the corruption and break-up of the latter day church [meaning seeing the members dividing into a plurality of separate, wicked churches].  That is where my focus is, on the LDS church — on the people.  We cannot call the LDS church [people] out of the LDS Church [the corporation], because they were never a part of it to begin with [the Church President is always ever the only member].

We, like the widow that Jesus observed, must assert our rights as confirmed members of “the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints” and turn the tide in the Lord’s favor — allowing for the wicked and corrupt influences to be exposed in the open light, right smack in the middle of the church, where observant people can be influenced, so that they can make an informed decision as to who they will follow [whether that be Jesus Christ or other men].

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Custom LDS Scriptures Priestcraft

Usually when I encounter priestcraft, I don’t like to give it further life by advertising it, getting other people to check it out, etc.  I don’t want to invest it with any of my mental energy — I just avoid it like the plague when I see it.  However, I’ve recently crossed paths with a “crafty” company who has appeared to have set themselves up as a light unto LDS families that they might get gain — but they seek not the welfare of Zion.  And for this one — I’m going to try a new approach to confronting priestcraft:

“Custom LDS Scriptures is a family business owned and operated by Heidi and Nick Galieti. In 2010, their oldest daughter turned eight and they wanted a pink set of scriptures to give as a baptism present. In the search for pink colored scriptures it was determined that there are several other people not only looking for pink scriptures, but  a variety of other colors than those offered through LDS Distribution, and in a higher quality genuine leather. Not finding anyone who offered such products, Heidi and Nick set out to provide custom sets of scriptures to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Custom LDS Scriptures was born.”

What sounds like a quaint origin story hides the fact that the Custom LDS Scriptures company:

• Has an F rating with the Utah Better Business Bureau
• Fails to respond to customers after failure to deliver purchased orders
• Leads those with unfulfilled orders through months-long delays for refunds
• Selectively deletes comments from customers complaining about their failures to deliver from the Custom LDS Scriptures facebook page.

This is the sort of money-driven behavior that I implicitly expect from Protestant Prosperity-Gospel peddlers writing books about the “Essential Teachings of Jesus” or “The Secrets To How God Can Make You Rich Like Solomon”.  But I’ve decided to write about Custom LDS Scriptures because I actually considered using them to purchase scriptures for my younger children and had the initial thought that I could trust doing business with them because of our shared LDS faith.  Luckily, my wife didn’t make the same error in judgment as I did — she researched them first. Is this the kind of business people should be conducting with the Word of God?  Is this the kind of business Mormons should be conducting with other Mormons?  I don’t want any LDS families, who are looking for a gift and thinking they can trust purchasing from an LDS company, to have contact with this level of priestcraft.  It’s something that shouldn’t taint honest people who are looking to give a set of scriptures to a loved one. The world of money and commerce adulterate whatever they contact.  Adulteration is literally adultery.  The root of both come from the Latin for “corrupted”.  It is a corrupting, contaminating, and corrosive agent.  Zion, however, is the pure.  That is why, in Zion, he that hath no money is told:

come buy and eat yea come buy wine and milk without money and without price

The world’s lifeblood is commoditized and monetized value.  It is saturated with money and commerce.  Besides living secretly out in the woods, to get by in this world, we have to play the game to one degree or another.  It’s a given, and it’s a level of “corruption” that I accept.  However, priestcraft [which is what it’s called when people play Satan’s commoditize-and-monetize game with the things of God] should be unacceptable to every saint. People choosing to give the gift of scriptures to a loved one is a precious thing.  That intention on their part should be treated with the utmost respect because that is a righteous desire.  For an LDS company to get an F-rating for failing to deliver LDS scriptures to LDS customers is deplorable.  It’s clear from their grade that Custom LDS Scriptures does not truly “believe that the Scriptures are books to be cherished, honored, and read from daily”.

wherefore do not spend money for that which is of no worth nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy

And do not spend money with Custom LDS Scriptures.

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Repost of “The Mormon Priestess”

The following post is simply reposted to the LDS Anarchy blog from Feminist Mormon Housewives [originally authored by Elisothel].

*note*:  It has been reblogged onto this site with permission from the author

The original source = The Mormon Priestess

[use “MormonPriestess” as the password]. 

In my opinion, the author’s expositions are based on suppositions that I do not share.  In other words, I don’t think she is pointing out sufficiently interesting doctrinal points or where she is pointing out interesting points, the conclusion she draws from them are not sound.  So this post is now here so that anyone who is interested may pick it apart according to whatever standards they hold, without the kind of censor one would get from fMh.

The rituals and liturgy of the LDS temple reflect a very consistent internal logic of gender theology.  This essay is my attempt to outline that internal logic, especially with an eye toward the temple ceremony’s messages to women about their identity and spiritual condition.

Women operate as priestesses to God in temple initiatory rituals, which were also used as the template for female-conducted healing and blessing rituals in the early restored church.  Just as the inititiatory ritual blesses parts of the body, pioneer priestesses blessed the body parts of the expectant mother, and healed the body parts of the ill.  Women also operate as priestesses to God when administering in the True Order of Prayer at an altar in the temple.

I suspect that women may start to see themselves more as priesthood actors, which is a wonderful thing.  Elder Oaks explained temple priestesshood as being Melchizedek priesthood power that women utilize under the keys of the temple president.  If only men hold keys and offices, but both men and women can use priesthood power, it is possible that, should the leaders decide it,  women’s exercise of their power in the church could recapture the female priestess practices of the early Restoration era, and perhaps even extend to other areas.

This model of women using priesthood is compelling, and I am so grateful that women and men will be able to speak of it openly going forward, but it is overshadowed by another narrative. The word priestess is actually part of the formal, liturgical temple vocabulary, but it does not denote a woman who is using godly power under the direction of a temple president.  In the temple, woman are promised that they will become “Priestesses unto their Husbands.” Women pledge spiritual allegiance to a husband who will someday be exalted as a god like Heavenly Father, whereupon the wife’s power, her priesthood, will come through the exalted husband.  In this model, the woman is eternally dependent on her husband for a connection to God the Father.

Priestesshood In the Female Initiatory: Priestesses to Elohim and to Husband

The initiatory process undertakes a symbolic cleansing, annointing, and dressing of the body.  Since the initiatory is body-centric, and since men and women have different bodies, male temple workers administer only to men, and female temple workers must administer to women.

The washing is reminiscent of baptism, absolving the initiate of sin and promising purification.  The body is then anointed to receive future blessings.  A symbolic adornment of ritual clothing called the “garment of the holy priesthood” is performed, and the clothing declared “authorized”.  Female temple workers declare authority to enact the initiatory rituals:

“Sister _______, having authority, I wash you preparatory to your receiving your anointings, and whereas you have obeyed the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a true and honest heart, and have been faithful in keeping your covenants, your sins are forgiven and you are clean every whit.”

“Sister _________, having authority, I pour this holy anointing oil upon your head [for and in behalf of _________, who is dead] and anoint you preparatory to your becoming a queen and a priestess unto your husband, hereafter to rule and reign with him in the house of Israel forever.”  

“Sister_______, having authority, I place this garment upon you, which you must wear throughout your life.  It represents the garment given to Adam when he was found naked in the garden of Eden and is called the garment of the holy priesthood.”

(Since 2005, the wording has changed to “under proper authority the garment placed upon you is now authorized and is to be worn throughout your life…”  This wording reflects the new practice of initiates already wearing the garment instead of it being presented to them. The wording “under proper authority” is also used by the men when they perform this ceremony.)

The garment each patron is given is a piece of ritual priesthood clothing.  This priesthood raiment is further developed through the endowment ritual in the shoes, robes, headwear, and other accouterments for both men and women.  Women are clothed in priesthood robes “preparatory to officiating in the ordinances of the Melchizedek Priesthood.”

Certainly, a female temple worker administering initiatories is administering ordinances….however, though the female temple worker is acting as a priestess for God when administering the ordinances, she declares that each patron’s destiny is to become  a priestess not to God, but to her husband.

Priestesshood In the Endowment

The temple ceremonies mention priestesshood only three times.  As discussed above, in the initiatory ordinance a woman is anointed to become “a priestess unto your husband.”  The endowment ritual commences with introductory wording that bridges the initiatory ordinance with the upcoming endowment:

“Brethren, you have been washed and pronounced clean, or that through your faithfulness you may become clean, from the blood and sins of this generation. You have been anointed to become hereafter kings and priests unto the most high God, to rule and reign in the house of Israel forever. Sisters, you have been washed and anointed to become hereafter queens and priestesses to your husbands. Brethren and sisters, if you are true and faithful, the day will come when you will be chosen, called up, and anointed kings and queens, priests and priestesses, whereas you are now anointed only to become such. The realization of these blessings depends upon your faithfulness.”

Modern Mormon women are not instructed on the meaning of the label “priestess unto your husband” or “queens” beyond their own personal interpretation.  No official definition is offered in modern General Conference talks, Church manuals, Relief Society classes, or official proclamations, nor is there any formal instruction for women to understand how to use their priesthood power, unless they are called as a temple worker.

The only venue that DOES explain “priestess unto your husband” is the temple itself. The meaning of the phrase is communicated over and over again in the temple rites, and we often miss it because both men and women see what they want to see – that they are all participating in the endowment ritual from Adam’s perspective.   Women are used to this.  We do, after all, largely use the language of male spirituality at church and as a community (we are to “become like Heavenly Father” even though this is literally impossible for a woman).  It is no wonder that women often seem to interpret their temple journey as a parallel version of Adam’s journey, with expectations of parallel blessings and spiritual status.

The Law of Obedience

Usually when Mormons discuss the status of women in the temple, they focus on the Law of Obedience. Before the changes to the temple ceremony in 1990, Eve said the following:

“Adam, I now covenant to obey your law as you obey our Father.”

And the female participants in the ceremony were instructed:

We will put the sisters under covenant to obey the law of their husbands. … “You and each of you solemnly covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar that you will each observe and keep the law of your husband and abide by his counsel in righteousness.”

After the changes to the temple ceremony introduced in 1990, Eve said:

Adam, I now covenant to obey the law of the Lord, and to hearken to your counsel as you hearken unto Father.

And the female participants in the ceremony were instructed:

We will put each sister under covenant to obey the law of the Lord, and to hearken to the counsel of her husband, as her husband hearkens unto the counsel of the Father. … You and each of you solemnly covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar that you will each observe and keep the law of the Lord, and hearken to the counsel of your husband as he hearkens to the counsel of the Father.

This change of “obey” to “hearken”, and the omitting of “your (the husband’s) law in the Lord” to “law of the Lord” were considered the significant changes that possibly reflected a more equitable position of women in the gospel.

However, regardless of the nature of the verb in this vow, the relationship between Adam and Eve was completely unaltered:  in both cases Eve covenants to Adam, and not to God.  Both Adam and Eve refer to Elohim as “Father” before they are called to covenant, but when called to covenant, Adam says his covenant to “Elohim”.  Nowhere in the temple endowment does Eve say God’s name (though she does say Lucifer’s name), including when she covenants.  The single time she portrays a covenant relationship, she utters Adam’s name.

The Two Endowments

The old version of the endowment contained the following paragraph, which has been removed from the current transcript:

ELOHIM: Eve, because thou hast hearkened to the voice of Satan, and hast partaken of the forbidden fruit, and given unto Adam, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; nevertheless, thou mayest be preserved in childbearing. Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee in righteousness.

This paragraph establishes the curse of Eve as an eternal God-Man-Woman hierarchy.  Though the above quote was omitted from the current version of the endowment, this hierarchy is repeated and made clear in the Law Of Obedience, where God instructs how Eve is to obtain her salvation:

Inasmuch as Eve was the first to eat of the forbidden fruit, if she will covenant that from this time forth she will obey the law of the Lord and will hearken unto your counsel as you hearken unto mine, and if you will covenant that from this time forth you will obey the law of Elohim, we will give unto you the law of obedience and sacrifice, and we will provide a Savior for you, whereby you may come back into our presence and with us partake of eternal life and exaltation.

EVE: Adam, I now covenant to obey the law of the Lord, and to hearken to your counsel as you hearken unto Father.

ADAM: Elohim, I now covenant with thee that from this time forth I will obey thy law and keep thy commandments.

God stipulates that if Eve covenants with Adam, and Adam covenants with God, then a savior will be provided for them.  That is, Adam and Eve’s redemption is contingent upon the pattern established in this exchange, wherein Eve covenants to Adam and Adam covenants to God.

This moment creates a pattern that is binding on the remainder of the ceremony.  It is the only moment where the Adam and Eve actors speak their covenants. Once Adam’s covenant to Elohim is spoken, the patrons become participants instead of observers when, immediately following the actors’ exchange of covenants, the audience makes three successive covenants for themselves: the Law of Obedience (to mimic Adam and Eve), the Law of Sacrifice, and the covenant not to reveal the first token, name, and sign.  As soon as the patrons mimic the law of obedience, they take the place of Adam and Eve for the rest of the ceremony and are represented by a witness couple at the altar.

The moment the patron makes the Covenant of Obedience, that person declares his/her God.  The One that a person ultimately obeys is the One the person ultimately worships.  Adam declares Elohim, but Eve declares Adam because Elohim told her that her salvation depended on her doing so.  At no time in the temple does Eve explicitly covenant to Elohim.  Adam is established as her master.  I posit this is true for every covenant Eve makes.

A female temple patron usually understands that she goes to the temple to make covenants with God (again, we adopt the language of the male spiritual experience), but she does not.  Female patrons make covenants to the future exalted husband.  Her future exalted husband will replace her Father as her god.  This transaction starts with the husband learning the wife’s name (a symbol of stewardship, like Adam naming Eve),  continues through the husband/wife ceremony at the veil, reaches into the sealing ceremony where the wife gives herself to the husband and the husband receives her (but does not give himself), and will progress through every successive covenant they make (second anointing, god resurrecting a man but husband resurrecting the wife, etc).

During the endowment, every covenant made after the Law of Obedience follows this wording:

“You and each of you solemnly covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar that you will each observe and keep/observe the law of (obedience/sacrifice/the gospel/chastity/consecration)…”

or:

“I, _______, covenant before God, angels, and these witnesses, that I will never reveal the (first/second) token of the (Aaronic/Melchizedek) priesthood, with its accompanying name and sign.”

In both phrasings for all remaining covenants, patrons covenant before witnesses, but the phrasing does not say to whom.  The whom is established with the first covenant: Elohim receives covenants for Adam, Adam receives them for Eve.  As the ceremony continues, Adam will administer ordinances  to Eve, not just receive her covenants, mimicking how God is administering to Adam.

We don’t readily see this because in the physical space of our view, the witness couple representing Adam and Eve are at the same altar with Elohim presiding, so it looks like both the man and woman covenant to Him and receive from Him.  However, the male proxy for Elohim only gives tokens to Adam. Also, in modern temples, it is temple workers who administer tokens to patrons so when a female temple worker gives tokens the relationship is not obvious.  But in a live session, Elohim gives tokens to Adam over the altar, Adam gives them to Eve, then Adam and Eve give them to the patrons.  All tokens women get are through their husbands, not from God.

This hierarchy of tokens is reinforced in the ceremony at the veil where Elohim accepts the husband’s tokens as his Lord, and the husband accepts the wife’s tokens as her Lord.

Two different endowments are going on, as if there are two different temples in the same room – one for men and one for women – where each individual views not just his/her own endowment, but also the parallel but distinctly different endowment of the opposite sex.  The endowment creates two individuals of different spiritual status, and acts out the relationship between the two in the veil ceremony, names, tokens, and marriage rites.

Woman, therefore, cannot have priesthood in this mortal life, because God only administers to men.  A woman’s power comes not from God the Father but instead directly through the husbandgod’s exaltation.  In mortality, the husband is not yet divine, so the woman is not yet a priestess.  Once he is exalted (calling and election made sure, which can happen after death or during the second anointing), the woman inherits her priestesshood and she can administer to her husbandgod with power.

The Two Exaltations

The dual-endowment insight suggests two different exaltations. If a woman’s deity is her husband, and she provides his eternal increase (children), and she is his priestess, this means she is not, herself, a deity. A priest and a deity have a specific relationship – one worships the other. The deity loves and upholds covenants to the priest, but the priest is not the deity’s peer.

Even when a Mormon man, who is a priest to Elohim, is exalted, this does not make him the peer to Elohim.  Elohim remains the exalted man’s god, or his Patriarch, forever.  An exalted man remains a priest to Elohim and worships Him. Every increase the exalted man gains is also an increase to Elohim, so man will never catch up to or surpass Elohim – Elohim is that man’s god forever.  Mormonism proclaims that as sons of God all men can also become gods, and this implies there are many gods…but a man does not worship them all, just the god who covenants with and exalts him.

If a woman could be  priestess unto God, she could be exalted by Elohim and unto Elohim, and become a goddess.  But she is a priestess to her husband in her afterlife, not to Elohim. Ultimately therefore, I believe the temple establishes that it is the man who has the direct access to Godly power and apotheosis, and woman has as her promise access to her husbandgod’s power (priestesshood) but NOT, under this definition, access to apotheosis.  She shall be exalted but not become a goddess.  Thus we do not worship her, pray to her, or entreat her for favor.  She is not a source of divine power to the human family, but a source of power to her divine husband.  She is a “Mother in Heaven” but not a “Heavenly Mother.”  The man alone will become a Heavenly Father, a deity, and a deity can have many, many priests (sons) and priestesses (wives).

Church leaders seem divided on the issue of whether or not women are exalted into goddesshood.  Joseph Smith may have believed they were, as is reflected in D&C 132:20:

“Then shall be gods, because they have no end;  therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them.  Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.”  (The “they” refers to a married couple, as established in verse 19.)

When Bruce R. McConkie interpreted this scripture to mean that women would be goddesses in his famous book Mormon Doctrine, Marion G. Romney – who was appointed By President McKay to identify errors in the book – listed “women to be gods” as one of those errors.

Certainly there are many women these days who believe that female exaltation means goddesshood – but few believe that a goddess is to be prayed to, worshiped, considered a source of scripture or priestesshood, or to operate in most other capacities reflective of the Mormon idea of “godhood.”  President Hinckley expressly forbade praying to Heavenly Mother in his famous 60 Minutes broadcast.  So what is the Mormon notion of female exaltation?  This is still a question.  Our most developed doctrine of female afterlife remains polygamy.

Nor does the temple shed much light on the nature of eternal womanhood.  Often women are told that men have priesthood and women have motherhood.  Elder’s Oak’s talk alluded to the power of creating life as something only women can do.  However, the power to create life depends on a mother and a father (indeed, this is the basis for the Church’s arguments against gay marriage), so men are also endowed with the power to create life.  To complicate things, in the temple, the creative triad of Elohim, Jehovah, and Michael create life without women being present at all.  Elohim and Jehovah create Michael, not Elohim and a Mother in Heaven.  If motherhood/creation is a woman’s endowment of power, where is that exercised in the primal account of creation?  It is not mentioned.  Not only that, but Elohim and Jehovah also create Eve.  And they create Eve FROM Adam.  No woman was used to create man, or woman, and in fact according to the account, woman was created FROM, BY and FOR man.  Priesthood, it seems, can create life without a female input, so how am I supposed to take the argument that motherhood is a compliment to priesthood seriously?  If indeed, a mother were instrumental in the creation of Adam and Eve, why isn’t she shown in the temple?  Would she be a goddess if she were?

Some may suggest that men and women partake of the endowment together so that each knows their place in the relationship.  The woman can know that her priestesshood to husbandgod will follow the pattern of her husband’s priesthood to Fathergod.  With this knowledge she can assist her husband (as his helpmeet) to his godhood whereby she will inherit his power as his priestess. To be the husbandgod’s priestess, I believe, means to provide progeny (eternal increase). Consider again the paragraph omitted from the pre-1990 ceremony:

“ELOHIM: Eve, because thou hast hearkened to the voice of Satan, and hast partaken of the forbidden fruit, and given unto Adam, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; nevertheless, thou mayest be preserved in childbearing. Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee in righteousness.”

To be “preserved in childbearing” is often interpreted to mean that a woman’s mortal life will not be lost during the childbirth process.  However, women do die in childbirth, and there are many women/girls who never experience giving birth at all.  If this statement by God were to apply to every women, it would have to be talking about birth/childbearing in an eternal sense – the begetting of spirit children with her exalted husband.  If we interpret the above paragraph to be discussing woman’s childbearing of spirits, then “thou mayest be preserved in childbearing” is talking about how childbearing preserves a woman’s own eternal (not mortal) life.  That is, her access to salvation/preservation, despite her curse of spiritual death (eternal separation from God), is to bear children for her husbandgod.

She disobeyed God the Father, and fell from Him, so to ensure her access to salvation, God provided woman a husbandgod, with whom she can also be a creator.  She is a creator (mother), and a kindombuilder (queen), but she does not wield ultimate authority (goddesshood) over those creations.  Her authority is limited to her ability to directly administer power under her husband.  Hence we continue to learn that the man “presides” because ultimately that is the order of things.

In this model the family is central to the gospel because the family is the kingdom that each couple seeks to build in their exaltation.  Eve’s fall (spiritual death and subsequent disqualification for priesthood) is healed not through Jesus, but through her husband’s exaltation because he is the pathway to God the Father and thus the pathway to overcome spiritual death/separation from God.

Because of Jesus and the atonement woman can be resurrected (live forever) and sanctified (cleansed from sin), but it is through the husband that she is exalted (receives power and eternal increase).  It is little wonder that wifehood and motherhood are women’s highest identities, roles, and attainments in Mormonism, since according to the temple they are the bases of female salvation.

The Two Falls (Adam’s Fall, Eve’s Curse)

In the temple version of the Garden of Eden account, the primary Fall that takes place is Eve’s while Adam remains in good standing with God.  Eve retains a curse – not to suffer during the childbirth process – but to be demoted away from direct access to God the Father, a condition that Mormons define as “spiritual death”.  The temple teaches that Eve’s fall is qualitatively different from Adam’s, and that thus her journey back to God is also different from Adam’s, requiring an eternal submission to her husband as her god.

Both Adam and Eve transgressed, yet the temple reflects that Adam’s redemption is full and allows him to become a priest to Elohim and a god in his own right, so why would Eve have to covenant to Adam and not get to covenant with Elohim, also receiving a full restoration of her relationship with Elohim?

I suggest that Eve’s “curse” was a “fall”  in that she eternally lost her potential to be a priestess to Elohim.  Her only access to exaltation is to be a priestess to another god to whom she is completely devoted body and soul, and to whom she will exercise obedience (unlike her disobedience to Elohim).  For woman, the husbandgod replaces the Fathergod.

In the temple account, Eve’s sins were to listen to Satan, and to remove Adam’s agency to keep both of God’s commandments.  Adam’s only sin was to listen to Eve, and in doing so he actually was doing mankind a favor.  The transgressions are qualitatively different.  To mend all things, Adam must not listen to Eve again but instead, she must obey him in order to set right her tragic series of events.

In the omitted text, one of Eve’s sins is listed:

ELOHIM:  Eve, because thou has hearkened to the voice of Satan….

And later, in text that is still in the ceremony:

ELOHIM:  Inasmuch as Eve was the first to eat of the forbidden fruit, if she will covenant that from this time forth that she will obey….

Both Adam and Eve had to keep both commandments (don’t eat of the tree of knowledge, multiply and replenish the earth), so as soon as Eve broke one, she removed Adam’s ability to keep both commandments even though he had done nothing wrong.  That is, her act interfered with Adam’s free agency.  After she had sinned by partaking of knowledge, Adam could either keep the fruit commandment and lose all progeny by remaining alone in Eden, or else he could break the fruit commandment but still be able to gain progeny.  Adam is put in a position where he has HAS to break a commandment, so he chooses the one that he perceives to be the most important – that is, he chose progeny (“I will partake, that man may be”).  In this context, his act was valiant.  Adam was still punished for his transgression to eat the fruit and to listen to Eve (his penalty was to die /gain mortality and be ejected from the garden) – but unlike Eve, he did NOT remove agency from another or listen to Lucifer (in fact, earlier in the ceremony he rejects Lucifer), so Adam did not lose his potential to gain priesthood unto God.

In this view, Eve’s sin was qualitatively different from Adam’s, and the temple suggests that her act was one that invited spiritual death that could only be overcome by eternally submitting to Adam’s agency, the very agency which she had wounded in Eden.  This is the temple narrative for why women must submit to men and not have direct access to God.

Our modern discourse about Eve does not reflect the temple’s perspective.  In modern rhetoric she is cast as a hero:

“Eve set the pattern. In addition to bearing children, she mothered all of mankind when she made the most courageous decision any woman has ever made and with Adam opened the way for us to progress. She set an example of womanhood for men to respect and women to follow, modeling the characteristics with which we as women have been endowed: heroic faith, a keen sensitivity to the Spirit, an abhorrence of evil, and complete selflessness. Like the Savior, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,” Eve, for the joy of helping initiate the human family, endured the Fall. She loved us enough to help lead us.”  (Sherri Dew, Ensign, Nov 2001)

Elder Oaks has put forth some of the most interesting doctrine of Eve, when he discussed the Fall at length in another landmark General Conference address, the Great Plan of Happiness, in 1993:

“It was Eve who first transgressed the limits of Eden in order to initiate the conditions of mortality. Her act, whatever its nature, was formally a transgression but eternally a glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life. Adam showed his wisdom by doing the same. And thus Eve and “Adam fell that men might be”.

Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter-day Saints! Informed by revelation, we celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall.   Joseph Smith taught that it was not a “sin,” because God had decreed it. Brigham Young declared, “We should never blame Mother Eve, not the least.” Elder Joseph Fielding Smith said: “I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin. … This was a transgression of the law, but not a sin … for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!” 

I see this as a marker of great progress and promise.  Perhaps the temple ceremony will be changed to reflect Mother in Heaven’s creative capacity, as well as Eve’s heroism…instead of ignoring one and using the other as a reason to put all women under men’s presiding power.  The temple has so much promise to exalt women! We seem to be heading in the right direction.

However, the current temple ceremony indeed teaches us that Eve fell and must submit to be reclaimed.  Man may not be punished for Adam’s transgression, but women are still punished for Eve’s.  If women are not punished for Eve’s transgression, why the need to submit to a husbandgod?  If Eve’s action was heroic, courageous, and necessary, why is Eve not commended for her sacrifice and woman anointed a priestess to Elohim?

The obvious problem with the temple portrayal of Eve’s curse and necessary submission to Adam is that the atonement of Christ should be powerful enough to overcome anything Eve did.  Why couldn’t Eve repent to fully regain her access to Elohim without a husband intercessor?  The temple doctrine suggests that woman is paying for Eve’s sin instead of letting the Savior atone for it.  Why would Christ not be her intercessor, as Christ is intercessor for Adam himself, by which she could then become a priestess to Elohim?  I believe this is the great conundrum of how women are portrayed in the temple narrative: it limits and contradicts the power of atonement.

The Two Endowment Rituals Enshrined in More Than Words

The analogy, Man is priest to Fathergod  as Woman is priestess to Husbandgod permeates the temple through ritual acts.  I could go into far more detail about how tokens, names, the headwear, the veil ceremony, the sealing ceremony, and even the second anointing reflect the relationship of God/Man/Woman and Husband acting as god to the wife.

In any case, the point is that just by virtue of being a woman, I cannot covenant to, access, or return to my Fathergod without a husband.  If I can use priesthood power under a man, great.  But how can we name a woman equal, who cannot receive a token from the Father’s hand, who cannot receive a priestesshood from Him, who is dependent upon her husband to heal her spiritual death, all because of a sin she did not herself commit?

To call a woman equal under the terms Elder Oaks described in conference would be to ordain her a priestess to Elohim, which priestesshood she practices, like her brothers, under the keys of an authorized leader.

This is not simply a question of what is a woman’s power – it is a question of who is a woman’s god, and how does a woman heal her breach with the Father, and why isn’t the atonement enough to make her worthy of priesthood?  It is a question of what is a woman’s eternal inheritance, and the nature of her future divinity.

I cannot expect the temple to change without a completely innovative, foundational shift in Mormon thought. Of course, the gospel has built-in mechanisms for change in its construct of ongoing revelation.  I do hope women start see themselves as agents of priesthood power, and are further introduced into new ways of ministering and administering in the Kingdom.  But we need more.  Our spirits shrivel in the darkness.  If this Restoration is ongoing, please, let us heal the remainder of the Great Apostasy.

Before the Restoration, our Church fathers longed for their divine Father, yearned for details of their eternal identity, and experienced a righteous desire for direct divine access without a priest standing between them and their God.  Their prayers were answered and we laud them as heroes.

Those of us who are women longing for our divine mothers, who yearn for details of our eternal identity, and who experience a righteous desire for direct divine access without a priest standing between us and our God, remain unanswered and patiently wait for the scorn from those who mock us to go away.

One day, I hope to teach my daughters that they can exercise their priestesshood power under a leader with keys.  I hope to watch them heal and bless.  I hope to teach them that Eve was a hero who sacrificed herself on behalf of humankind, and for them to learn this also when they attend the temple.  I hope they see their creative power of motherhood on display there.  I hope they meet a goddess there.  I hope to teach them that they covenant with God, and that He gives them tokens.  I hope I can witness a sealing ceremony where my daughter and her husband give and receive each other, and know each other’s names.  I hope each of my daughters knows that her identity in the universe is as a Daughter of God, not as wife of a Son of God.

For I know that to be true of myself.

I thank Elder Oaks for his bold words, and hope many more will be forthcoming about the nature of women wielding priesthood, and how we can expand our capacities.  I hope the Church leaders discern how much we Mormon women yearn for their leadership.  I hope they know there is real curiosity and real pain behind our questions.  There is so much more for we sisters to learn about ourselves.  I hope someday we get to show how much more powerfully we could build Zion, when trusted with a power and a chance.