CV75

Jesus is the chief cornerstone which supports and stabilizes the walls of the foundation, so we do build our lives upon Him. Because of this, He can also be called the foundation-of-the-foundation.

I think wealth (abundance) is different from prosperity (well-being), and that abundance tends to have comparative (competitive, prideful) elements, while well-being and self-sufficiency require a more balanced or relationship between individual and community stewardships. Labor creates both wealth and prosperity. Since the Lord labors too, it is best to go about it His way!

"Common" would be 2 standard deviations of the mean. A normal distribution renders this as 95% of the cases. Non-normal distributions are more challenging to analyze and determine what is common, and politics might fall into this category since the variables for individual decision-making, and who may exercise a voice (and how), are so complex. I agree that passing laws that remove or undermine personal (and "common" or national) liberty create a tipping point, as are laws that support secret combinations and those that fuel the symptoms of the upswing in the pride cycle. These symptoms result from an abuse of liberty where the fruits, and not liberty itself, become the primary objective.

Maybe not so much a mentor per se as observing the repeating pattern that is part of the fabric of existence. As we observe, we make choices, and he made his. However, his umbrage at a perceived misjustice indicates that he perceived a wrinkle in the pattern, so it seems he was, characteristically, acting from a very selfishly independent and parochial basis. Not the personality type for following a mentor! He probably thought he was innovatively improving things!

You didn't say, "Can I get an Amen?" so I didn't take it that way

The are also prophecies (Isaiah, Book of Mormon) that promise a future fulfilment of these promises and the land of inheritance for the remnants on conditions of repentance. I can understand a divinely inspired motivation to gather, but also the ease with which the efforts, and unfortunately the desire (ambition) are corrupted when performed without the necessary light of prophetic keys.

This part of the link to Orson Hyde's Dedicatory Prayer is very interesting to me: “…restore the kingdom unto Israel -- raise up Jerusalem as its capital, and constitute her people a distinct nation and government, with David Thy servant, even a descendant from the loins of ancient David to be their king.” Such a nation would serve the Lord. The divine impetus for the Jews to gather to the land of their inheritance, which Orson mentioned in his notes, like the Spirit of Elijah, can also be imitated and twisted into many false versions to suit the ambitions of evil and conspiring parties. Or, as with the settling of Missouri, become polluted due to “contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires” (D&C 101) among factions within Judaism. I avoid describing his impression of the “great wheel… unquestionable in motion” as “Zionism” as we see it today, for this reason. The nation-building and its declaration as such a kingdom would require prophetic oversight.

This is interesting in that Church members are Gentiles by virtue of the nation that is central to the restoration of the Gospel, and inasmuch as we live in a Gentile nation. We are also of the House of Israel, sometimes by lineage, sometimes by birth in the restored covenant, and sometimes by adoption as with coverts that are not by birth of the lineage of the chosen people. Overarching both of these is that we are beneficiaries of the Abrahamic Covenant, which preceded Israel and was eventually lost, but introduced again through Moses, recognized by Jesus Christ during His earthy ministry, extended to the Gentiles after His ascension, was again lost, and then restored yet again through Joseph Smith subsequent to that Great Apostasy.

Maybe we will finally see proof that a resurrected personage can withstand a hydrogen bomb landing directly on his head! Now that's my kind of movie!

I think your 2nd paragraph generally reflects our Church's teachings and members' attitudes. Some finer points perhaps, which I'll offer from my point of view: 1. Our Church is politically neutral, and where the state of Israel is one devised by man and not the covenant kingdom per se (e.g., as was David's), we take a theological view and really don't take sides in these kinds of conflict on religious grounds. Individual members are free make their personal political decisions however they justify them, acknowledging that the spirit of contention is of the devil and the Lord has revealed how His people are to engage in war. Related to this, Israel does not have a prophet to lead them no more than any other nation, and their constitutional freedoms and liberties are inspired of God but managed by fallible men. 2. The locale of the end-times prophecies seem very clear, but this would be the case irrespective of what government, or what kind of government, has jurisdiction over that geography. Jews will certainly there, and the Lord will fulfill His promises to His covenant people on conditions of repentance. The prophecies testify that there will be widescale repentance, sufficient to greet and worship the Savior upon Hs rescue of them at the last moment. 3. While Israel and the remnants of Israel living across the globe are indeed God's special or covenant people, the covenant is restored to them only through the ministry of the Gentiles who extend to them the covenants by way of the Restoration. This reflects the times of the Jews and the time of the Gentiles in turn from the Meridian of Time and the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. 4. God extends the covenant to both the Gentiles and the Jews since the times of Paul, and in this current dispensation. The Book or Mormon details the promises to the Gentiles that were also mentioned by the prophet Isaiah of the Bible.

The idea of two classes of human being, one being the spirit children of God (some obedient and some apostate) and the other an animal without moral accountability, recognizes that apostate, erstwhile covenant children of God may practice bestiality with primate animals in violation of the eternal principle to multiply after their own kind. The accountable offspring, when repentant, would have been adopted into the covenant as opportunity arose, and by the time of Noah, this form of bestiality ended, if nothing else by virtue of how genealogies ended at the Flood and proceeded after the Flood. Some believe that the animal in these abominable human-beast couplings was dark or black-skinned, and this animal-like, natural-man tendency or trait of instinctive behavior and non-accountability was carried through the Flood through Ham’s wife. I think Abraham 1:26 dispels that notion since Pharaoh was a righteous man and not a human-animal hybrid; his father Ham was not a hybrid (neither his mother nor Noah being animals or hybrids); otherwise, Noah and his family would not be qualified for admission into the ark (i.e., the covenant), much less build it. This of course is an oversimplification and there is as much figurative language as there is literal (since our science was not available in those days, and a temple rite is not based in science anyway), as reflected in my remark below. I do not think any child of God was ever born that did not have their origins in a covenant established for them at the start of their genealogy. Apostate civilizations once had a covenant-abiding ancestor, whether one sees that as an Adam (in the case of multiple men of God, an interpretation of the Biblical text that renders it a temple drama) or the Adam (as in the case of a literal interpretation of the Biblical text). So, I think any people on the American continent or anywhere else), no matter how degraded and depraved they may have become, had an originating ancestor within a dispensation of the covenant, whether “our” Adam’s or a subsequent restoring prophet and dispensation following an apostasy. Sexually abused animals, whatever their skin color, would have been removed from the equation long before the floods receded.

You asked about thought processes. Many kinds of intelligence and knowledge have been categorized through the ages until now, with more to come: Theory of multiple intelligences - Wikipedia, Category:Knowledge - Wikipedia, Outline of knowledge - Wikipedia, Definitions of knowledge - Wikipedia Most assuredly spiritual intelligence and knowledge are two of them, and you have experienced them. Faith is just as valid an experience and basis for knowledge as any of the others, and people argue over them only because they are biased over one school of thought or another. Generally speaking, we all use all or most forms every day, and all have their place as working models for managing the stewardship God gave us (for better or worse, depending on how we exercise our agency). We chose (hence we are here) and choose (hence we are tested) to react to stimuli, both physical and spiritual, both holy and adversarial. Quantum theory is only the tip of the iceberg, and so is the particle of faith we exercise in Jesus Christ. Don't let anyone take that away from you.

I guess a certain threshold had not yet been met! And not matter how few left, they are still friends.

...which renders neither phrasing more correct than the other... :D!

I like to take note of where the phrase "And it came to pass..." is used and how it plays with our notions of chronological sequence. For example, Helaman chapter 3: Comparing verses 19 (48th year), 21 (indeterminate birth years of Nephi and Lehi) and 37 (53rd year) indicates (in this instance of its use) that it has nothing to do with the order of events -- otherwise, Nephi would have been born in the 48th year at the latest, making him at most only 5 years old when he began to EDIT: reign, and 14 years old when he began to preach with Lehi (from 4:18 and 5:1), since he was born the 48th year, began to reign in the 53rd year (age 5), and gave up the judgement seat in the 62nd year (age 14)!!! Mosiah 29, verses 41, 42 and 46 use it in connection with Alma's appointment, the commencement of the reign of the judges (v 44), Mosiah's death, and the end of the reign of the kings (v 47), allowing the period of government transition of about a year according to the chapter headings.

That thought crossed my mind also, especially in terms of the newest places where the restored gospel is being established in the earth (e.g. Africa, Asia, including the more remote isles of the sea).

It stands to reason there was in "interregnum" including a carryover of the king's edicts at the ending of his reign and the commencement of the reign of the judges. They got permission from their father, the king. They took their journey. It does not say when they left, it could have been before, during or after the interregnum, and the first year of the judges could have also been the same year as the last year of the king. PS your first scripture quote is from Mosiah 28: 8-9.

I think context is important, of course. From D&C 64, verse 8 places the trespass to be forgiven in context: “My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened.” As long as they were still disciples and not excommunicated (see verse 12), this behavior seems to consist of ignoring the Beatitudes and other teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, falling short of the higher law of the gospel. The subject verse in the OP, 9, “Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin,” because he is not forgiven, per Matthew 6:14-15, and this because of the hypocrisy in praying for forgiveness (covered in verses 5 - 13): “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” The hypocrisy at the root of a professed disciple’s unforgiving heart is the greater sin of any in the Sermon on the Mount and ultimately has a lot to do with judging others, wresting this role from the Lord, which is the greater of any other sin He condemns, because it so thoroughly denies Him: Judging Others (churchofjesuschrist.org) So yes, in many ways a disciple's lack of forgiveness is hypocritical, unrighteous judgement and condemnation, and the greater of any other forgivable sin. Concerning our attitude toward more serious trespasses (D&C 64:12), we have in verse 11, “say in your hearts—let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds,” because “the Lord, will forgive whom He will forgive, but of [me] it is required to forgive all men (verse 10).”

I suppose a third kind might be the kind we commit against ourselves, and within this the kind that kill us and the kind we survive, and we must forgive ourselves in Christ (but the OP is about one another, our brother, etc.). Or the kind, both deadly and not, that someone commits against someone else or society in general and we indirectly feel or empathize with the negative effects, or those trespasses committed ignorantly, unawares or accidentally. In this instance, "sin" is not willful rebellion against God or our conscience, but still something that separates us from God until we learn and choose to behave otherwise.

As long as you don't forgive, the sin of an unforgiving heart remains with you. You can only forgive in mortality those sins committed against you that you survive. In the hereafter, you must yet forgive any other sins against you that ended your life. The effects of any and all sins against you are swallowed up in Christ by virtue of the resurrection: you will be healed, immortal, and have every resource with which to live. So, the greatest of all sins in not to forgive either of those kinds of sins (the kind that kill you and the kind you survive), because both have been swallowed up in Christ through the resurrection.

The term "schism" is not used by President Lee. He is speaking of wolves in sheep's clothing (bolded above) who deceive the saints. No inroad (a precedent to a schism) has been made within the "authority of the Church," and a consistent message is put forth by the President, First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. Members challenging and leaving the Church is not a schism. Wolves are typically called out before long and whether they are around or not, the governing quorums remain intact. President Lee's counsel is for the safety of the members, and not for the integrity and preservation of the governing quorums. Our leadership does not divide and label the membership into opposing camps, and I find it unwise to suggest this approach to dealing with increasing power of Satan as expressed through the hypocrites that are bound to worship among us.

I think his prayer was for the prevention of destruction (which the war would guarantee), and to allow a space for remembrance and repentance" that the famine would offer. Having the sealing power, Nephi would be exercising the keys of repentance rather than destruction in their behalf.

From the Church's recent statement, "As servants of God, we affirm that He calls upon all of us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and we pray for a peaceful resolution of all conflicts." First Presidency Issues Statement on Middle East Violence (churchofjesuschrist.org) Using D&C 98 as a template for the laws of the land (are you suggesting this approach for Israel or USA?) would require the state to become an agent of or for the Lord's people. While it may be argued that governments are such agents to the extent their free constitutions protect religious expression and other rights, at what point do the heads of state wait upon God to command their entry into battle?

Matthew 18 is about how we address personal offenses by another individual or group. D&C 98 is about how the Lord’s people address offenses by another nation, kindred, tongue, or people. He commands us to forgive in the first; in the second, He commands us to go battle only after certain conditions are met. And even then, we should have forgiveness in our hearts if not trust by virtue of common sense (forgiveness does not require trust, except in he Lord). Nephi’s killing of Laban is an interesting example of an intermingling of these two principles., wherein an individual defended his nation against an individual’s offense. So yes, I would say these verses teach about two kinds or expressions of forgiveness, suitable for two circumstances (individual and group).

Then I understand your position. We tend to justify our beliefs before creating justifications we can believe in. For example, "Since I believe (x) it's important that (y) holds and therefore (z) does not," as indicated below. But I would say, even with your semantics, that it is equally important to specifically name Jesus Christ as the source of “good” in any estate, since the eternal principle of faith in Christ exists in all of them, and our union or perfection in Him is the ultimate aim. Moroni 7 is focused on Christ: see how often the following terms are used: faith in Christ, faith in his name, faith in him, faith in me, and the context for the discussion of faith as linked with hope (through Christ) and charity (the pure love of Christ) as introduced in verse 1. It is all Christ-centered.