We Want To See You Holy Ghost Again Mp3 Download

0 views
Skip to first unread message

Terina

unread,
Aug 5, 2024, 2:14:21 AM8/5/24
to houdenmodump
Thatsounds so simple, but it is so hard because there is a Satan, the father of lies, who also knows that simple chain which will give us the companionship of the Spirit of Truth. His determination to keep you from following this chain explains the blunt language Brigham Young used to describe our challenge:

Wherefore, if ye have sought to do wickedly in the days of your probation, then ye are found unclean before the judgment-seat of God; and no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever. [1 Nephi 10:21]


And then a few minutes later, after having lunch and visiting with the person next to me, I picked up a national news magazine from the pocket in the seat in front of me and began to leaf through it. I came to the movie reviews. Only three movies were reviewed. I began to read the first, stopped part way through, went to the second, and then to the third. The three films were reported to portray real people committing acts of immorality, some fortunately beyond my powers of imagination. The reviewers warned me about only one of them, on the grounds that it would be boring, and urged me to see the other two.


But behold, I say unto you, the kingdom of God is not filthy, and there cannot any unclean thing enter into the kingdom of God; wherefore there must needs be a place of filthiness prepared for that which is filthy. [1 Nephi 15:34]


That set me to pondering. I thought of you and of me. We have a problem. We live in a world where there are voices competing for our belief. They claim the authority of truth. Some are clearly lying and some are not. And you and I need to know what is true and what is not, out of far more than curiosity. We need to know. And we need to be sure.


Your common sense and experience tell you something else. So does mine. Let me illustrate for you what I know about the questions that matter and how they are answered by telling you about the last conversations I had with my father.


He was suffering through the end of a long struggle with bone cancer. He still weighed enough and was in such pain that it was hard work to move him from a chair to his bed. Others far more heroic than I spent the months and the days caring for him. But I took some turns on the midnight to dawn shift.


God has blessed us with sure guides to truth. Some of us have been blessed with parents who knew where to find truth. All of us can listen to the voice of a living prophet to whom God speaks the truth and asks that he tell us. The words of the prophet, and the words of scripture, are the rod which Lehi saw would lead us to the tree of life.


But many have heard those words, and read them, and still have not known that they are true. The method of knowing truth requires that both he who speaks and he who hears be guided by the Holy Ghost. You and I can only know it is the truth if we can hear the Holy Spirit confirm and expand it in our own hearts. Of all the methods of searching for the truth, that is the one you and I need most.


Nephi wanted to know for himself that what his father said he had seen in a vision was true. His father had reported seeing the fearsome landscape we move across in life, either toward eternal life or toward forever being shut out from our Father. Nephi knew he had to know for himself, and so listen to how he pursued the truth:


The great Prophet Joseph Smith once had a test of patience beyond what most of us have endured. He was locked in Liberty Jail and the Saints were suffering. He pled in prayer for action, now. God granted him, in answer to his prayer, something more than he asked. He told him how he would pour out knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Saints. He talked about the priceless knowledge of knowing how to act so that we may be servants of God, worthy of his power. And then he told him, and he told you and me, how it will feel as knowledge of the truth comes. Here it is, at the end of section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants:


Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.


You may be perfectly content to accept that deception on top of the effects of the sin itself, but you pay a price. Even a man who looked with the eyes of science could see that pain. Lewis Thomas seemed almost surprised when he wrote this about lie detectors and their implications. Here is what he said:


As I understand it, a human being cannot tell a lie, even a small one, without setting off a kind of smoke alarm somewhere deep in a dark lobule of the brain, resulting in the sudden discharge of nerve impulses, or the sudden outpouring of neurohormones of some sort, or both. The outcome, recorded by the lie-detector gadgetry, is a highly reproducible cascade of changes in the electrical conductivity of the skin, the heart rate, and the manner of breathing, similar to the responses to various kinds of stress.


It is unnatural in far more than a physiological sense. It is contrary to the nature of our spirits. You are a spirit child of God, a god of truth. Whatever stress your body feels from your choosing to lie, your spirit must be torn far more. The relief of that load by confessing and moving forward to full repentance will more than compensate for whatever unpleasant consequences being honest brings upon you.


And wo unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord! And their works are in the dark; and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? . . . Behold, I will show unto them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that I know all their works. For shall the work say of him that made it, he made me not? Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, he had no understanding? [2 Nephi 27:27]


God knows all we have done. And while he cannot look on sin with the least degree of allowance, he looks on us with compassion beyond our capacity to measure. When the scripture speaks of the whole heavens weeping, I think of another picture, given to us by the Prophet Joseph Smith. This is what he said:


The spirits of the just are . . . blessed in their departure to the world of spirits. Enveloped in flaming fire, they are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith. [HC 6:52]


These words pain me when I think of those I have loved and who loved me who are surely now among the spirits of the just. The realization that they feel pain for us and that the God of Heaven weeps because of our unrepented sin is surely enough to soften our hearts and move us to action. And it is surely reason enough to avoid even the approaches, the very thought, of committing serious sin.


For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round.


Wherefore, if ye have sought to do wickedly in the days of your probation, then ye are found unclean before the judgment-seat of God; and no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever.


Could I now give two bits of practical advice? In my promptings from the Holy Spirit, I have a sense that you really are trying and you really want the gift of the Holy Ghost. I would give you these suggestions.


First of all, the Holy Ghost is and must be very sensitive. He can be easily offended. I worried as I came here today, hoping I might do nothing that would offend him. Let me give you a little advice the Prophet Joseph Smith gave to the leaders of the Church.


Here is another important item. If you assemble from time to time, and proceed to discuss important questions, and pass decisions upon the same, and fail to note them down, by and by you will be driven to straits from which you will not be able to extricate yourselves, because you may be in a situation not to bring your faith to bear with sufficient perfection or power to obtain the desired information; or, perhaps, for neglecting to write these things when God had revealed them, not esteeming them of sufficient worth, the Spirit may withdraw, and God may be angry; and there is, or was, a vast knowledge, of infinite importance, which is now lost. [Teachings, p. 73]


And I do this [speaking of this arranging of the book] for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will. [Words of Mormon 1:7]


And my prayer to God is concerning my brethren, that they may once again come to the knowledge of God, yea, the redemption of Christ; that they may once again be a delightsome people. [Words of Mormon 1:8]


It was brought to my attention recently that filmmaker Darren Wilson, who created a blasphemous documentary entitled Holy Ghost, wrote a blog that seems to respond to the critical review I wrote of the film. Whether or not he had my review in mind, many others have made some of the same accusations that I first made, pointing out the film falls far short of presenting the truth of the Holy Spirit. It is false teaching.


1. Why is the Gospel not presented in the film?

I find this one interesting, as it seems to me that a large portion of the Korn concert is given over to Todd White doing just that! He explains at length about the saving work of Jesus, the need to repent of your sins, and the need to have a relationship with Christ.


What Wilson and the Holy Ghost team at large do not understand about the gospel is this: God is a good God, and as a good God, he cannot pardon sin. He is that holy and that righteous that blasphemy against his name, which is what we do every time we sin, cannot merely be pardoned. It must be paid for.

3a8082e126
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages