1 John 4:20; “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
Our question today stems from a post I read on the Church’s LDS Media Library site on February 7, 2017. A caption under the headline reads –
“We cannot truly love God if we do not love our fellow travelers on this mortal journey.” —President Thomas S. Monson, “Love—the Essence of the Gospel”
Each time I read something like Mr. Monson’s quote above I’m immediately taken back to my childhood, living in Utah Mormonism.
To say that Mormons ostracize non-Mormons in my beloved Utah, would be a gross understatement. We acted like Fort Knox by excluding those who weren’t ‘one of us’. The verses in 1st Nephi was one of the main components that kept me in the Church for so long. I was a lot of things, but I certainly didn’t want to be a ‘whore’, as the verses so blatantly point out.
1 Nephi 13:26; “And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.”
1 Nephi 14:10; “And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.”
Life in Utah isn’t for the faint of heart, and that goes for everyone; including Mormons. For the average young church member, following the prophet, believing in the BoM (the ‘keystone’ of their religion), and heeding the conscience the Good Lord instilled you with is a rocky road. It’s virtually impossible to heed God’s warning in the Bible, and follow Monson’s admonition.
We’re praying Mormons will consider what the apostle John wrote and take his words seriously. His warnings are abrupt, but very real, and your life depends on it!
1 John 2:9; “He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.”
1 John 3:15; “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.”
Leave a Reply