.:ETERNAL PROGRESSION – HEAVENLY FATHER’S PLAN OF HAPPINESS
Mormon.org States:
“God’s plan of salvation answers life’s great questions, such as: ‘Where did I come from?’ ‘What is my purpose in life?’ ‘What happens when I die?’…Your life did not begin at birth… Heavenly Father created your spirit body, and you lived with Him before you were born on earth… Your purpose in leaving God’s presence to come to earth includes obtaining a physical body, gaining experience, and learning to make right choices. …Physical death is a step forward in Heavenly Father’s plan. …If you have believed in Jesus Christ, repented of your sins, and followed His commandments, you will be able to enjoy eternal life in our Heavenly Father’s presence.”
WHAT MORMON.ORG DOES NOT TELL YOU ABOUT HEAVENLY FATHER’S PLAN
“Heavenly Mother” and the pre-existence
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Mormonism teaches that you were born as a spirit baby to Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. While Mormon.org mentions the Mormon teaching that mankind pre-existed with God in Heaven before coming to earth, it fails to mention that Mormonism teaches that God has at least one wife in Heaven that He used to procreate the multitudes of spirit-bodies that populate the mortal bodies of people here on earth. Thus, according to Mormonism, you were born as a spirit baby to a Heavenly “Mother” wife. Can you imagine one wife populating this entire planet of several billion people? Such would be quite an enormous task! This is one reason why some early Mormon leaders taught that God has many “wives” to help Him. Note the following quotes from Mormon leaders:
“In the Heaven where our spirits were born, there are many gods, each one of whom has his own wife or wives which were given to him previous to his redemption, while yet in his mortal state. Each God, through his wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters; …for each father and mother will be in a condition to multiply forever and ever. As soon as each god has begotten many millions of male and female spirits …he, in connection with his sons, organizes a new world, …where he sends both the male and female spirits to inhabit tabernacles of flesh and bones. Thus each God forms a world for the accommodation of his own sons and daughters… The inhabitants of each world are required to reverence, adore, and worship their own personal father who dwells in the heaven which they formerly inhabited.” —LDS Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, 1853 (1990 ed.), vol. 1, p. 37
“If none but Gods will be permitted to multiply immortal children, it follows that each God must have one or more wives… But if we have a heavenly Mother as well as a heavenly Father, is it not right that we should worship the Mother of our spirits as well as the Father? No; for the Father of our spirits is at the head of His household, and His wives and children are required to yield the most perfect obedience to their great Head.” —LDS Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, 1853 (1990 ed.), vol. 1, pp. 158-159
“You will see the time when you will have millions of children around you. If you are faithful to your covenants, you will be mothers of nations. You will become Eves to earths like this; and when you have assisted in peopling one earth, there are millions of earths still in the course of creation.”—Brigham Young (2nd LDS Prophet), Journal of Discourses, vol. 8, p. 208
“For as we have a Father in heaven, so also we have a Mother there, a glorified, exalted, ennobled Mother.”—Achieving A Celestial Marriage, LDS Student Manual, p. 129
“We are expressly told that God is the Father of spirits, and to apprehend the literalness of this solemn truth we must know that a mother of spirits is an existent personality.”—The Articles of Faith (1890), 1996ed., Apostle James E. Talmage, p. 443
The Mormon belief of becoming Gods
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Mormons believe that the purpose of this life is to work toward becoming a God like Heavenly Father after you die. This doctrine of man becoming gods is a foundational doctrine of Mormonism that is noticeably missing from the Mormon.org website’s explanation of Heavenly Father’s Plan. Even Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, proclaimed: “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God…that he was once a man like us… and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves…” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith, pp. 345-346) One wonders how such “first principle” of the Mormon Gospel could be missing from the Mormon Church’s official website! Note the following statements about the doctrine of man becoming gods from many prominent Mormon Prophets and Apostles:
“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man. …It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God…that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did. …Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you…” —Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith, 1976, pp. 345-346
“The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like Himself. …We are created, we are born for the express purpose of growing up from the low estate of manhood, to become Gods like unto our Father in heaven.” —Brigham Young (2nd LDS Prophet), Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, p. 93
“Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the Eternal Father was once a mortal man who passed through a school of earth life similar to that through which we are now passing. He became God —an exalted being— through obedience to the same eternal Gospel truths that we are given opportunity today to obey. …In June, 1840, Lorenzo Snow [5th LDS Prophet] formulated the following famous couplet: ‘As man is, God once was; as God is man may become.’ ” —The Gospel Through the Ages, 1945, by Milton R. Hunter, pp. 104-106
“Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior, has given us our map— a code of laws and commandments whereby we might attain perfection and, eventually, godhood. This set of laws and ordinances is known as the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is the only plan which will exalt mankind.”—Spencer W. Kimball (LDS Apostle who be Mormonism’s 12th Prophet), The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 6
“As God’s offspring, we have His attributes in us. We are gods in embryo…” —The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, (13th LDS Prophet) 1988, p. 21
“Because we are the spiritual children of our heavenly parents, we have inherited the potential to develop their divine qualities. …Since we could not progress further in heaven, our Heavenly Father called a Grand Council to present his plan for our progression (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 348, 349, 365). We learned that if we followed his plan, we would become like him. We would have a resurrected body; we would have all power in heaven and on earth; we would become heavenly parents and have spirit children just as he does (see D&C 132:19-20).” —Gospel Principles, p. 14
“And again… if a man marry a wife… by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood… they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things… which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods… Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.”— Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-20
While the fundamental principle of the Mormon Gospel is the belief that mankind has the potential of becoming gods, the true God of the Bible clearly states:
ISAIAH 44:6, 8: “I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. …Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God; I know not any.”
ISAIAH 43:10: “Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD… 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.”
ISAIAH 46:9: “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.”
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Mormons still believe the practice of polygamy was commanded by God and that it will be practiced in Heaven. While Mormon.org admits that Mormons believe that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon and early Mormon leaders were commanded by God to practice Polygamy here on earth until 1890 (Doctrine and Covenants 132:1, 4), it fails to mention that Mormonism still teaches that polygamy will be practiced in Heaven. For example, Joseph Fielding Smith who became the 10th Prophet of the Mormon Church remarried twice after the death of his first wife Louise Shurtliff. On page 67 of the second volume of his Doctrines of Salvation books, he proclaimed: “…my wives will be mine in eternity.” And Mormon Apostle Dallin H. Oaks is currently “sealed” to two wives, one of which is deceased. He did not become “unsealed” to his first wife because Mormonism still teaches that he will be able to be married to both of them in Heaven. Mormon Church Apostle Charles W. Penrose explained:
“In the case of a man marrying a wife in the everlasting covenant who dies while he continues in the flesh and marries another by the same divine law, each wife will come forth in her order and enter with him into his glory—“Mormon” Doctrine Plain and Simple, or Leaves from the Tree of Life, by Charles W. Penrose, 1897, p.66
Not only does Mormonism teach that polygamy will be practiced in Heaven, Mormon leaders have taught that polygamy will again be practiced on earth during the future millennial reign of Christ. Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie stated:
“…plural marriage was openly taught and practiced until the year 1890. …Obviously the holy practice will commence again after the Second Coming of the Son of Man and the ushering in of the millennium.”— Mormon Doctrine, 1966, 1987 ed., p. 578
While Mormons believe that early Mormon leaders were commanded by God to practice polygamy, many Mormons mistakenly believe that their leaders only married young virgins to account for a limited supply of men and that they married older widows whose husbands had already died. While this was the case with some of their leaders, history documents that Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, married 33 wives in addition to his first wife Emma, 10 of whom were teenagers and 11 of whom were taken from living husbands behind their backs! Does Scripture agree with this practice? Most Mormons will agree that Scripture condemns adultery, but they forget that the Bible and the Book of Mormon also condemn the practice of polygamy as being “abominable” in God’s sight!
“Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord… Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none; For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts .” —Jacob 2:24, 27-28 Book of Mormon
“And now it came to pass that the people of Nephi, under the reign of the second king, began to grow hard in their hearts, and indulge themselves somewhat in wicked practices, such as like unto David of old desiring many wives and concubines, and also Solomon, his son .” —Jacob 1:15, Book of Mormon
“A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife…”—1 Timothy 3:2
“…ordain elders in every city… If any be blameless, the husband of one wife…”
—Titus 1:5-6
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