10 March 2008

Adam showed two-and-a-half-year-old Caleb a picture of a rhinoceros the other day, and asked him what it was.  Caleb knew.  "That's a rhinahippedeemotapus," he said.  I like that.  As I thought about it, I decided that Caleb's rhinahippedeemotapus is like other churches.  They have many of the right syllables, but no idea how to correctly put them together.

I've been in deep mourning for the past month because of Jean and Tom Griffith.  I saw an opportunity to share the gospel with them, exchanged several letters, sent the missionaries, and ordered a gift subscription to the Ensign.  They served as Methodist ministers, now attend the Presbyterian Church, and call themselves "Reformed Evangelical Christians."  They turned the missionaries away and, among other things, explained that the LDS viewpoint about God differs from theirs.  Jean wrote:  "I mentioned to you in our phone conversation that we believe in the Trinity, that is, that there is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  This is truth, even though our finite minds cannot entirely comprehend.  This truth is affirmed by The Apostles' Creed and by The Nicene Creed, both of which were hammered out and agreed to by church fathers many centuries ago."

That's unspeakably sad.  They're afflicted with the rhinahippedeemotapus complex.

Mankind would rather believe in fables than the truth.  I have been impressed of late that the Protestant and Catholic Churches are full of fables—and Satan is pleased.  These fables (false beliefs) have blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of those who believe in them.  They would rather believe in a God who is a huge, indescribable, incomprehensible essence than in our personal, exalted, loving Father.

I've been thinking heavily about light, darkness, the apostasy, and of how much knowledge the Christian world lost following Christ's ministry on earth.

Jesus said many times in Doctrine and Covenants, "I am the light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."  I've marveled over that statement.  If someone was to turn on a light in a dark room, it would require a willful action for someone else in the room to ignore it.

Yet that is exactly what Jean and Tom and the world are doing.  There is so much light available because of the restored gospel, yet people willfully ignore it.  "Gross darkness covers the minds of the people," like Isaiah's prophecy said.

When I read the Book of Mormon as a non-member I literally felt light pushing darkness out of my head.  The light began at the front of my head and pushed the darkness toward the back until it entirely disappeared.

I sat down over a several-day period recently and listed the doctrines that are pertinent to the Plan of Salvation.  I came up with 52.  (See Selected Sermons, pg. 84).   I then went through them and determined which ones were largely understood and accepted by other churches.  I found 13.

That's just 25%.  The world has lost 75% of what it used to know about God and His plan!  That's how effective the adversary has been with his counter plan.  There is a 25-watt bulb shining in the lives of Jean and Tom where a 100-watt bulb could be turned on.  They think their dim light is sufficient, but their world could be so much brighter.

Such people should be made aware that the adversary has not quit working even though he has the dimmer switch turned down by 75%.  The remaining 25% of light still bothers him.  He understands the several scriptures which say "for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have."  (Luke 8:18).  Satan's goal is darkness—complete darkness—outer darkness.

All of this, it occurs to me, would make a very good visual demonstration and object lesson.  A 25-watt bulb shining by itself in an otherwise dark room would give enough light to read by, but would be very dim.  A dimmer switch could turn the intensity up, demonstrating how each new doctrine or revelation to Joseph Smith restored light to the world.

The reality is that the Restoration is more like a flood light in comparison to the candles that lit the Dark Ages.