Voluminous light and truth is neither called out nor carefully curated. It is a firehose of heterogeneous worth.
When I was in the army, I was frequently subjected to classes on all sorts of topics. They were always extremely boring, long, and tedious. Reliably often, the teachers--knowing the limits of the material, their teaching ability, and the students' learning ability--would call out portions of the content that they knew were on the test. Many of them would stomp when they got to an important part. Others would do something else.
I know that many of you expect that the most important parts will be cut out from the rest, neatly packed, tied with a bow, and delivered to your doorstep with signature-on-arrival to make sure you understand how important they are. There are many laws relating to delivery of light and truth, and if you ever get a package in this way, I can accurately describe some of the things this indicates. First, whoever sent it to you does not have much time or truth, because if they do this for you, they will not have time to do it for anyone else, nor time to receive any more light and truth. And light and truth takes an immense amount of time to receive, process, and live. Jesus promised: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38) Trust me when I say that when you become a firehose of living water, you cannot turn it off for hours, days, or weeks in order to carefully fill one little water balloon. Second, you (the recipient) do not have much light and truth. People whose discernment is so poor that they need light and truth curated and called out this way are not living much light and truth, because it is the very same substance that drives our understanding and perception. Those who are prepared for light and truth don't need an angel stomping during the important parts of what he is saying. (Hint: if an angel is speaking to you, interpret them as stomping the whole time...*everything is important.*) Instead, they actually understand what is being said, and are synthesizing the message into their own belief map (or writing the law on the fleshy tables of their heart). When the test comes, and it always does, they merely reference their internal model of Jesus and his creation, including themselves, and do what they sincerely believe he would in their place.
A flood of truth of heterogenous worth is a sign of high holiness. When you see it, don't get frustrated that it isn't sorted out and packed up neatly for you. Instead, render your greatest possible attention and effort to parsing and comprehending it all. The water has been brought to your location. What you do with it remains up to you. You can stand in the firehose trying to fill a water balloon, or you can build the biggest reservoir you can manage[1], catching whatever meaning you presently can while cacheing the rest for later review and mining and use.
I frequently say things in YouTube videos and write things in YouTube comments that contain very important ideas, perhaps shared for the first time. I don't say anything to indicate just how important they are, and I typically nestle them among many other things that will be deemed of less import. This is intentional. This style gives me license to say things of much greater value in much greater plainness than I otherwise could, subject to the laws of heaven.
However, I am going to deviate from that practice momentarily, leveraging the foregoing preamble to satisfy those laws, in order to share with you a comment I just spent some time writing in reply to a comment left from someone else.
In my opinion, these things are worth digging for. I'd pay attention to the comments.
The original comment:
@upwardthought The Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible. For instance, 2 Nephi 25:23: For by grace are ye saved after all you can do. Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. Nephi also had said that people that believe only in the Bible are fools and that there are two churches; ones the church in the Lamb of God and the other is the church of the devil.
Original church doctrine taught that God the Father became a God through obedience to the laws and was on a planet called Kolob. The Bible says he has been God from all eternity (psalms 90:2). And another problem was that Birgham Young taught that the Father came down and had sex with the Virgin Mary to conceive Jesus while the Bible says Mary was Concieved by the Holy Spirit.
I used to be a Mormon and there are a lot more contradictions/differences in Christianity and Mormonism. My eyes were opened by God's grace and I pray that you would leave this church and trust in the real Jesus to get you to heaven.
My reply:
Hi Erik, I appreciate your concise rebuttal and you being here. First, I am not LDS, though like you, I once was. I was excommunicated because I refused to retract a book I wrote called "Teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of Men" that documented the creation and promotion of several significant traditions in the LDS church that contradict God's revealed word. Second, I do not believe in the infallibility of any man. Brigham was wrong on a great many points.
As far as the Book of Mormon contradicting the Bible, I am not aware of any case where this is true. The Book of Mormon abundantly contradicts incorrect interpretations of the Bible, such as the common Christian understanding of grace and gifts. If you look up the word and look up the full list (not just one) of Bible verses that refer to it, you will find a more than sufficient explanation that gifts in the ancient world *always* created a debt that the recipient was obligated to pay. This, for instance, is why Abraham and David each refused parcels of land that the owners desired to give them for free. Grace is not a replacement for God's justice. Instead, mercy is an extension of time or another chance for us to live up to it.
There are certainly only two churches, and the LDS church is not one of them. One is headed by Christ, and it contains few people who are the true disciples of Christ, who follow the Lamb's example in all things (see Rev. 14:4). The other consists of everyone else, who are agents of Satan, because that is the only other option. Both churches contain people of all professed faith and no professed faith.
As far as Kolob and eternity goes, if you take a kindergarten approach to college topics, you are sure to conflate your own reductions with supposed errors in the ideas themselves.
Kolob: The book of Revelation describes the place where God and his highest angels dwell as a city on a sphere made of glass and fire (for example, see Revelation 15, 4). Whether you call this a "sphere" or a planet, or "kolob" or ramalama-ding-dong is less difficult for an honest person to believe than the surrounding details provided. If you are ok with four beasts and talking eyes and whatnot, but struggle with the idea of God's throne and city and people being in an actual physical place, which is an idea much more similar to what we know than the former, you are absolutely fulfilling Jesus' description of the Pharisees, who "strain[ed] at a gnat [while] swallow[ing] a camel." (Matt. 23:24) Instead of disagreeing with others' descriptions of things you personally have not yet seen, why not focus on the things you know you need to work on, thereby coming to the point where you see them for yourself?
Eternity: If you look up references to "eternity" or "age" or "age of ages" or "ages to come" etc. in Hebrew and Greek (the website biblehub is an amazing free tool, check it out), you will find that the English translators had no idea what they meant. Time with God does not work as we commonly understand it. God's timing is based on conditions broader than mere planets orbiting stars, and is most often based on things that certain people accomplish (for example, the time period that begins when Christ comes to reign on the earth is often referred to by Paul as "the age to come.") Eternity does not mean "forever." The role of God existed before this creation and will exist still after it. Who fulfills the role will change. In this creation, Jesus Christ (the individual) is fulfilling the role of Jesus Christ (the "name" of Christ) to become the Father (the role), doing all things he saw his father (the individual) do before him. Jesus (the individual) became Jesus (the role) before this world was created, hence:
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. (Ps. 90:2)
and many other scriptures, such as:
1 In the beginning was the Word (Jesus-individual), and the Word (Jesus-individual) was with God (the Father-individual, because they were in the same place, and the Father-role, because they were fully united because Jesus was more like him than anyone else), and the Word (Jesus-individual) was God (Jesus-role).
2 The same (Jesus-individual) was in the beginning with God (the Father-individual). (John 1, parentheticals added)
Having done so myself, I can tell you that Joseph knew more about what he was talking about than anyone I have yet heard criticize him. I can also tell you definitively that the reason you have not had such experiences yourself is that you've accepted the false comfort that comes from an incorrect understanding of gifts and grace. If you will actually follow Jesus by living your life exactly as he would in your place, ceasing to sin, you will have abundant experiences where he will show you marvelous things.
My commentary on my commentary:
As you can see, one-off one-on-one responses like this require time. They make use of all the many experiences you've had in life. In giving them, you are distilling massive amounts of sacrifice and faith and resulting experiences to serve as an angel of God to form a representation of a portion of his word in order to deliver it to the individual. It is akin to everything you would need (a domicile and everything it would take to obtain and maintain it, ingredients, know how, a car, time) to bake cupcakes for a homeless person and deliver them to him or her. Without you, they cannot be saved, and without them, you will not have the opportunity to show your appreciation to what God has given you by flowing it out as freely to them as it was given to you. And without doing this, what you think you have will be taken from you in the day when God's judgment is rendered.[2]
--
[1] 2 And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil.
3 Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.
4 And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full.
5 So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out.
6 And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. (2 Kings 4)
[2] And I just gave you another example of a massive increment of light and truth humbly nestled by explaining something in greater accuracy and plainness than it has ever been given.