The circular nature of the present discussions with He Is The Way is beginning to grate on me, honestly. What's the point of talking to someone who is so brainwashed by a cult that they simply make a declarative statement and call it a day? EVIDENCE is needed to support such a bold claim about JS meeting God face to face, but no Mormon poster here, nor JS, nor any Mormon ever has it! Because it didn't happen!
Declarative statements are fun and all (I just made one; it was a good time), but come on...you're on the debate section of the board, He Is The Way. You should know how this works, but instead you treat the Holy Scriptures like Homer Simpson's makeup gun and just shoot your cherry pickings (mixed with sometimes the barest of 'interpretations' in the form of using bold to point out an individual word or clause, as though the presence of such things makes your argument for you -- guess what, it doesn't) all over thread, with no regard for anyone's objections to your erroneous handling of the word of God. It's annoying and stupid. Do you take us all for fools just because you have been fooled? That's about as effective as me assuming that everyone is Orthodox, or Phoebe Ann assuming everyone is Protestant, or whatever. And yet everyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear comes together in every Mormon thread to say "No; this is false and blasphemous". Does it ever occur to you why this is? How all of Christianity can be against your religion even if they don't necessarily agree with each other on every point? It's because Mormonism is so far away from anything that can rightly be called Christianity that it's immediately obvious to anyone with a solid background in any kind of the religion.
That's what you deny yourself by staying in it, or at the very least not allowing yourself to seriously consider and handle the objections of everyone here, and instead vomiting out heresy after heresy, and then returning to your vomit time and time again after each time being told that you are way off-base in your eisegesis. Why remain in this mental prison just because those before you constructed a paper-thin edifice by which obviously everyone else in the history of the world has been wrong before them? What are the chances of that?
It really reminds me of the story of the young men who came to St. Anthony, the father of monks, and asked him what they should do to be saved. After every simple instruction, they answered "But we can't do that, for these reasons", and then asked for some new guidance. St. Anthony, realizing that the men's malady was internal, not a matter of not doing things, eventually said to them: "If you can't do this, and you can't do that, what can anyone do for you? What you need is prayers."
Lord have mercy upon the Mormons. Bring them out from under the controlling power of the devils who perpetuate ever-evolving and devolving heresies against You, in the misguided belief that this is Your will, and that this is following Your commandments. We know that Your yoke is sweet and Your burden is light (Matthew 11:30), not of the complicated and futile system set up by the Mormon men who claim falsely to speak in Your name. Forgive them for following in that path, and enlighten them to the path of Your true Way, Jesus Christ, Who does not leave the sinner in his state but rejoices that he should return and live, and become in Him a new creation, cleansed from the sins and false beliefs they previously embraced in the Mormon religion or any other that represent the ever-present danger of false Christs and false Gospels, of which we have been abundantly warned. (Matthew 24:24, Mark 13:22, etc.) Again, Lord have mercy.
Did Jesus tell the Samaritans that in order for them to get to heaven they had to become Jews? No He didn't. The only stipulation He made was that they had to repent, and thereafter sin no more (keep the commandments). No one has the same exact beliefs because there is much we do not know. The important thing is that we learn how to LOVE God through serving Him and others. Jesus gave everyone the instruction on how to LOVE Him:
Sin is the vomit:
(New Testament | 2 Peter 2:20 - 22)
20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to
turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
(New Testament | John 14:15)
15 ¶ If ye love me, keep my commandments.
(New Testament | Matthew 19:16 - 19)
16 ¶ And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life,
keep the commandments.
18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
(Book of Mormon | Alma 7:15 - 16)
15 Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.
16
And whosoever doeth this, and keepeth the commandments of God from thenceforth, the same will remember that I say unto him, yea, he will remember that I have said unto him, he shall have eternal life, according to the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which testifieth in me.
(Old Testament | Ecclesiastes 12:13 - 14)
13 ¶ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
