Shawn McCraney critiques Mormon scripture interpretation by highlighting how some LDS members, like a caller he interacted with, often cherry-pick Bible verses to support their views, missing the broader context of salvation through faith rather than works. He emphasizes the importance of understanding scripture in context to avoid misinterpretation, inviting all to join weekly Bible studies to deepen their understanding.
To do the will of God, one must believe in Jesus and love others, with all other actions stemming from these foundational commands, rather than adhering strictly to religious ordinances or practices. The teaching contrasts traditional LDS emphasis on obedience to commandments and rituals with a more personal faith-based relationship with God, emphasizing belief in Christ over institutional rituals like temple marriages or the LDS priesthood as necessary for salvation.
Shawn explains that according to LDS doctrine, becoming a god requires being married or sealed to a spouse in an LDS temple, which creates a distinct separation between being saved and attaining exaltation. He criticizes this belief, emphasizing that entrance to the temple and achieving exaltation is contingent upon various qualifications such as adherence to LDS teachings and practices, which he contrasts with the biblical teaching that believing in Jesus alone grants eternal life.
Joseph Smith claimed a divine mandate to practice polygamy, presenting it as a necessary obedience to God's eternal law, which he used to justify his desires and actions in the name of religion. Despite differences between his teachings and those of Jesus, many, akin to followers of other controversial religious leaders, believed his assertions, demonstrating his persuasive influence.
Heart of the Matter
LIVE! From the “Mecca of Mormonism” Salt Lake City, Utah – THIS . . . is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. . . . “Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face.”
Show 37 Doctrine and Covenants 132 part II September 15th 2009
And I’m Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion., your host.
If you have family or friends who cannot get Heart through television give them a call and tell them to go to WWW.HOTM.TV and they can watch through streaming video from anywhere in the world!
I Was a Born-Again Mormon
We recently made the manuscript available online through a downloadable PDF. Go to www.hotm.tv and you can have the book in your hands within minutes for any size donation – or for free for that matter. If you prefer a bound copy, wait a few weeks and we’ll have them available again.
I’ve got a question for you? How well do you know your Bible? Would you like to know it better?
We meet every week throughout the year for an hour on Sundays to study the Bible verse by verseTGNN’s Bible teaching series—book-by-book, through the lens of fulfillment and spiritual liberty.. I teach at UofU at 2:30 and then at 7pm at Utah State in Logan. Marcus teaches in Ogden Wednesday nights. Go to www.calvarycampus.com for more information like location and directions. We’re finding that people from all over come and so there is a social element to the study’s as well. All are welcome.
In six weeks – Saturday Night, October 31st, 10:30pm – we’re launching our new program for teens and young adults, the Grey Generation. We need volunteers to help us with production. First volunteer meeting, Saturday morning, October 3rd, here at the KTMW station at 11:00 am. Go to www.thegreygeneration.tv for more information like directions.
Christian Musicians Wanted
How about another look at the show opener?
(RUN SHOW OPENER HERE)
Also, if you are a Christian musician – soloist, band, guitar, pianist – we would love to highlight your skill on the program. Send us a tape, dvd, or some kind of demo of your skill along with your contact information and we’ll see about giving you some time live and on the air. (www.thegreygeneration.tv)
A Moment in LDS History
On February 5th 1852, Brigham Young announced a policy of denying the priesthood to all men of black African ancestry, saying that “even if there never was a prophet, or apostle of Jesus Christ who spoke it before” the “negroes are the children of old Cain . . . any having one drop of the seed of Cain in him cannot hold the priesthood.” This LDS policy stood for the next 126 years. So where Jesus broke down ALL barriers, Mormonism put them right back up. “Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, follow the prophet . . . he knows the way.”
Well, last week, I prefaced my monologue by saying that one of the favorite activities of many LDS, aside from praising Man, was cherry-picking scriptures – you know, pulling them out of context and wrongly applying them in order to support their pet LDS perspective. When we started taking calls one Joe from Clinton, Utah, an LDS man, must not have heard my comments on the subject and, well, started in doing the “cherry-pickers waltz.” I danced with him for awhile, which is truly against my better judgment. Then just when he had danced himself into a scriptural corner using passages from the Bible, the program ran out of time.
We were talking about being saved, and in an effort to bolster his argument that we must work to receive salvation, he cherry-picked a favorite LDS verse from Matthew chapter seven, which says: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” By the tone of his voice, you would have thought he was reading something that said: “Verily, verily, believing in Jesus and confessingeth Him is insufficient, for you have to worketh your braineths out -eth . . . Shawneth.”
Joe didn’t even see that he became an actual living example of Latter-day Saint cherry-picking scripture. How? In a couple of very profound ways. First, if he had only continued to read! What does Jesus say in the next verse? He clarifies the context of why people are saying, “Lord, Lord!”
Listen! He says: “Many will say to me in that day, “Lord, Lord,” have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that…
Understanding the Work of God
The context of these passages is that people will come and say to Jesus, "Lord, Lord, look at our good Works! Our many wonderful works." The LDS interpret this passage to be saying, “Not everyone who confesses Jesus' name – Lord, Lord – will be saved," but Jesus clarifies why they are even saying, "Lord, Lord" – they are saying that in His name, they have done many good works.
His reply is, you can do what you want in my name, but if it is not from doing the will of my Father, you’re outta here. And what does it mean, literally, contextually, in the New Testament, to do the will and works of the Father? We went to great lengths last week to explain this I guess we’ll have to explain it again.
The day after Jesus fed the masses fishes and loaves, as recorded in John six, they followed Him and he told them in so many words: “Don’t work for food that perishes but for the food that endures unto eternal life, which the Son shall give you.” Well, the people replied to Jesus saying, "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? How do we do the will of the Father?" And Jesus said, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”
Belief and Love as Commands
Within the walls of Mormonism, you will hear on any given Sunday that they must obey the commandments. Obey the commandments. Obey the commandments. What are we commanded as confirmed Christians to do? Believe on Him whom He has sent and then to Love. Everything else stems from these commands. To “do the will of God” is to believe on His Son,” friends. The works we do as a result of this belief are works of, from, and based in love for God and Man.
Having said and PROVEN this, we could have then pulled out all kinds of contextual verses that prove the works of God, since the ascension, do NOT include… Sabbath-day observances. Ordinances, rites, or rituals. Mandatory tithes and offerings. Temples endowments. Eternal marriages. Faux priesthoods. Health codes and restrictions. Joining a religion or church, or dedicating all your wealth and talents to the building up of some religious giant.
Believe that He is God and love based on how this belief works within you. This, in summary, is the Gospel. And with this, let’s have a prayer.
Insights from Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants
Three weeks or so ago, we introduced the first verses of Section 132 from the LDS scriptures called the Doctrine and Covenants. We talked about how in the introductory verses of this section, Joseph Smith claimed that God said that if a person has a “law revealed to them, they MUST obey it or they will be damned.” In Section 132, which remains in the Mormon body of scripture today, Joseph claimed God revealed his will concerning polygyny – or the taking of multiple wives.
According to what section 132 says, this law MUST be obeyed, or the people who have read it will be damned if they don’t embrace it. We left off at verse six. In verses seven through fourteen, Joseph has the “Lord” lay out the conditions of this new Law, and, in essence, has Him say that no matter what is done in this world, if it is NOT done by God and His power and authority – meaning through the LDS priesthood – these things will NOT remain after men are dead – including marriage. But whatever is of or from Him and His authority, these things will, it says, “never be shaken or destroyed.” Got that?
Consequences of Marriage According to Doctrine
Then in verse fifteen, the revelation states: “Therefore, if a man marry him a wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word . . .” and the revelation goes on to say that such a marriage will end at deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God..
And if this is the case, verse sixteen goes on to say that all those who are married on earth in this fashion will be “appointed as angels in heaven, which angels are ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.”
So, according to their own scripture, accepted to this day, anyone who has not been sealed (married) to their spouse in an LDS temple will, in the afterlife, become a ministering servant to those who did! And it describes those who are married in the LDS temple as “those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory!”
Then listen to the…
LDS Doctrine on Marriage and Exaltation
For these angels did NOT abide my law (this is talking about everyone who is LDS that has not been married to their spouse in the LDS temple); therefore, they cannot be enlarged (that means have babies forever and govern worlds of their own), but remain separately and singly (that means unmarried)ation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are angels of God forever and ever.
This is saying SO much, my friends. Listen.
First it is saying that there is a huge difference in LDS doctrine between being saved and exaltation (which is becoming a god). Next, it tells us what is required to become a god: Being married or sealed to a spouse in an LDS temple. If a Latter-day Saint IS NOT married in an LDS temple, they will die without a spouse and will become servant angels for eternity because they failed where others succeeded, and gained a “weightier glory.”
Sound Christian? They say they are Christian! Does this sound Christian to you?
Requirements for LDS Temple Marriage
And what is required to enter their temple in order to receive these marital ordinances so as to become an enlarged God?
Obedience to an assortment of qualifiers including confessing allegiance only to Mormonism, Joseph Smith, modern prophets, paying 10% of your income to the church, abstaining from coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol, having no more than one piercing in your ears, and a host of other external submissions. Did Jesus say ANYTHING like this was required for people to become GODS?
What does the Bible say is required to receive eternal life? Believe that Jesus is God and you will be saved.
The “revelation” goes on to list all the glories that await people who are married in an LDS temple, and then states in verse 20 and 21, that after all these glories have been bestowed upon the faithful LDS:
“Then shall they be gods, because they have no end, therefore they shall be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things shall be subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law, ye cannot attain to this glory.”
Where God says through Isaiah:
(Isa 43:10) Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
Joseph says: “You shall be gods. And you will get there ONLY through marriage in an LDS temple.” A-MAZING!
Eternal Covenant and Sin
Amazing that in the august presence of God’s Holy Word and Jesus’ ultimate and final offering, and God’s superlative descriptions of Himself, that there are people on their earth who actually believe they can become gods – through their own efforts. Father, open their eyes.
(BEAT)
The revelation continues on where Joseph now tells the reader that IF they enter into this LDS temple covenant of temple marriage they will get their promised exaltation no matter what sins they might commit thereafter – including “all manner of blasphemies” – unless they commit murder wherein they shed innocent blood. Such a sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace. is what Joseph Smith has God call the “Blaspheme against the holy Ghost,” saying in verse 27:
“The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which shall not be forgiven in the world nor out of the world, is in that ye commit murder wherein ye shed innocent blood, and assent unto my death, after you have received the New and Everlasting Covenant.”
To restate, Joseph Smith has the Lord say in Doctrine and Covenants 132 that if you are married in an LDS temple, by one with the proper authority, and sealed by the Holy Spirit, you will be exalted as a God even if you commit any sin EXCEPT blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which is defined as murdering innocent blood.
Mormonitious Twistianity at it’s best.
Then in verse 29, Joseph shifts and segues into the topic of plural marriage by beginning to talk about Abraham. In verse 29 he says Abraham received his exaltation and sits upon his throne because he obeyed all these things. And in verses 30 and 31, Joseph Smith has the Lord tell him that he is of the fruit of Abraham’s loins, and the promises made to Abraham were made to him as well.
Then he drops the bomb – on Emma, and on the LDS world forever.
Joseph Smith and the Concept of Eternal Law
Speaking of Joseph Smith and his relation to Abraham, God says in verse 32:
“Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham; enter ye into my law and you shall be saved!”
This is a gigantic bombshell, my friends, because what Joseph is having God say to him is: “Go take on more wives and you will be saved because you are being obedient to this eternal law being revealed here.”
Justification for Polygamy
How can I say this? Keep reading verses 33-39. Now I am going to read straight from Section 132. What Joseph is doing is he is building a case for his justification for having more than one wife. Let me read verses 33-39, and stop and explain the idiocy as we go.
(READ HERE)
Joseph Smith's Abilities
Joseph Smith had the ability to do a number of things very well. The first was he had an ability to bring heaven down to earth and put earth in heaven. In his world, all of it was interchangeable. Jesus painted a very different picture.
Manipulation Through Faith
Joseph Smith also had an uncanny ability to justify his wants and wishes in the name of God. Thus sayeth the LORD. Whether it had to do with business, getting himself out of a fix, or obtaining more women, he had no problem saying God was the author of it all. And like Poe, Sun Myoung Moon, David Koresh, and Jim Jones – people believed him – even today.
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