Think Celestially

Knowing the truth is the greatest challenge facing religious people of every sect and Christian denomination. Our gracious God has provided a way to test all things and rightly divide Truth and Error. If there is only one God, there can likewise be only one truth, His truth. The Mormon people believe in many gods. However, they understand that only one of these gods is over this earth and its people. Consequently, only that god’s truth matters.

Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later.

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:50-51, emphasis added

In the spirit of finding God’s one and only truth, we will examine an excerpt from the October 2023 General Conference.

There is no end to the adversary’s deceptions. Please be prepared. Never take counsel from those who do not believe. Seek guidance from voices you can trust—from prophets, seers, and revelators and from the whisperings of the Holy Ghost, who “will show unto you all things what ye should do.” Please do the spiritual work to increase your capacity to receive personal revelation.

Russell M. Nelson, Think Celestial!, General Conference, October 2023

Those Who Do Not Believe Fail to Test All Things

People who don’t believe? This will be a perfect time to tell you what I believe and why I believe. I believe what can be confirmed when I test all things. Then I leave it to you to decide: am I one of those who do not believe, or am I a believer?

I believe this passage from the Book of Mormon.

For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.

Book of Mormon, Moroni 8:18

Because I test all things, I find biblical support for this passage.

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Hebrews 13:8, KJV

But then, there is this simple couplet from a Mormon apostle.

As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become.

Lorenzo Snow, 5th President and Prophet of the Mormon church

Questions for Mormon Bishops

• If Moroni 8:18 and Hebrews 13:8 are true, how can you believe in the Lorenzo Snow couplet?

I also believe in this text fragment from the Book of Mormon title page.

… Jesus is the Christ the Eternal God manifesting himself unto all Nations …

Book of Mormon title page

Many Book of Mormon passages also refer to the eternal God and the eternal Father. When I test all things, the bible confirms that God is eternal.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Psalm 90:2, KJV

But then, there is this evolving god of Joseph Smith.

… I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are simple. It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us …

Joseph Smith, Excerpt, King Follet Discourse. Documentary History of the Church, vol. 6, pages 302–17, emphasis added

Questions for Mormon Bishops

• How can you believe in the God of the Book of Mormon and the evolving god of Joseph Smith?

Test All Things According to Prophets, Seers, and Revelators

Bereans

In my sixty years of Mormonism, I served twice as the New Testament Gospel Doctrine instructor. I did not discover the message of the Bereans until the first time I read the bible as a Christian. It was then that I learned that I can only be noble when I test all things.

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

Acts 17:11, KJV

I was deeply troubled that, as a Mormon teacher of the New Testament, I had not learned about or even heard about these people whom the Bible called more noble. I opened my old Gospel Doctrine Teachers Manual to understand why. The section covering Acts 17 mentioned that Paul and Silas taught in Berea but did not mention verse 17 or discuss why it is crucial that we test all things.

Questions for Mormon Bishops

• The Bible calls the Bereans “more noble” relative to others who heard the gospel of Christ. Is it essential for disciples of Jesus to know about those called noble?
• Would you like to know about those the Bible calls, “more noble” so you might emulate them and be noble also?

In addition to Acts 17:11, God has given us many examples of how we can become more Berean-like and test all things.

Let Us Go after Other Gods

We are commanded to test all things that come from the mouths of prophets or dreamers of dreams.

¹If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, ²And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; ³Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. ⁴Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. ⁵And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5, KJV, emphasis added

Questions for Mormon Bishops

• When you contrast the god of the Book of Mormon with the god of the Lorenzo Snow couplet and the King Follet Discourse, do you see evidence of other gods?

Speak in My Name

We can test all things relative to a prophet and his prophecies.

 ¹A revelation of Jesus Christ unto his servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and six elders, as they united their hearts and lifted their voices on high. ²Yea, the word of the Lord concerning his church, established in the last days for the restoration of his people, as he has spoken by the mouth of his prophets, and for the gathering of his saints to stand upon Mount Zion, which shall be the city of New Jerusalem. ³Which city shall be built, beginning at the temple lot, which is appointed by the finger of the Lord, in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri, and dedicated by the hand of Joseph Smith, Jun., and others with whom the Lord was well pleased. ⁴Verily this is the word of the Lord, that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple, which temple shall be reared in this generation. ⁵For verily this generation shall not all pass away until an house shall be built unto the Lord, and a cloud shall rest upon it, which cloud shall be even the glory of the Lord, which shall fill the house.

Doctrine & Covenants D&C 84:1-5, emphasis added

I discovered this in a genuine effort to test all things and be more Berean-like.

²⁰But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. ²¹And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? ²²When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Deuteronomy 18:20-22, KJV, emphasis added

That temple lot exists today, and we know precisely where it is.

Joseph Smith presided over the dedication of the Independence Temple site on August 3, 1831, and laid the northeast and southeast cornerstones (or corner markers).

Independence Temple, https://churchofjesuschristtemples.org/independence-temple/

That temple lot remains an empty field to this day, with the exception of two cornerstones. But do cornerstones a temple make?

Questions for Mormon Bishops

• If you believe in Joseph Smith as a true prophet, do you have to reject the words of Moses as they are recorded in Deuteronomy 18:20-22?

An Angel from Heaven

When anyone, including an angel, preaches another gospel, we must test all things as the Bereans once did.

⁶I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. ⁹As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1:6-9, KJV

Questions for Mormon Bishops

• Please carefully consider The Gift of the Everlasting Gospel and ask yourself, is the Mormon gospel another gospel?

Arbiters of Truth

And this, I suppose, brings us full circle regarding Prophets, Seers, and Revelators.

Questions for Mormon Bishops

• Can you think of a Bible passage that says Prophets, Seers, and Revelators are the final arbiters of truth?

Conclusion

I am wonderfully blessed because God has shown me how to test all things and rightly divide truth from error.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John 8:32, KJV

I know the truth, and my great God has set me free!