Sunday 30 October 2016

Sermon: A Gathering Place

Much of what we take for granted in this church comes from the very foundation that God speaks to us, that he does indeed minister and revel things to us as his Latter Day Church. There are many things that we cling to in assurance that we are His people and much that we take for granted. One such thing is the gathering to Zion. many people speak of this as it is a forgone conclusion that the time will come when the call will go forth and all the righteous saints, no matter their denomination will heed and follow. I do not agree with this for many reasons, some of which are to many to mention in this sermon. However the gathering is one of the most seminal points on which the restored gospel is based, it is or was the life blood of the restoration, until things fell apart and the church was scattered and things changed and people imprinted their own world view upon the restoration and what it meant and why. In this next segment, which I have taken and altered myself for our church i would like to try and explain why it is still important and why it is still very much necessary for us to remember that the Lord has commanded that it is our Duty to gather to Zion when the Call comes.
 
This proclamation is created to help principled people find safe places to take there families during the days of tribulation that are ahead of us. Without this information you will most likely be forced to take up the sword against your neighbours in order to protect your family and your property. This document will help you to understand what it means to be free and how you retain your freedoms. This document will help you understand where to gather, when you should be prepared to start your journey, what you should bring with you when you come, what you should expect when you arrive, and who should come.
 
In the course of events of all free nations, there comes a time when men must stand up for the principles of Liberty. If they fail to stand they will find themselves in bondage to evil men who will create evil government in the attempt to subjugate their citizens. For such men to gain power they must remove God so that evil can fill the void left when God is removed from society. These evil men are surrogates for Satan. They do not want you to believe in God, to pray to God or to worship God. They will teach you that there is no sin. They will pass laws that repress your religions beliefs. They will pass laws to prevent you from praying. They will in the course of time, take away your Freedom of Speech. They will control your schools so that they can indoctrinate your children in their wicked ways. They will control your judges. They will control the media so that there is no voice of opposition. They will burden you with heavy taxes that are hard to bear and with those tax’s they will buy up unions, special interests groups, and other government officials all in a attempt to deprive you of your Liberty. They will pass laws to murder unborn children causing young mothers to suffer spiritual death and to look fearfully forward to their day of judgement. These evil men are in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity and in due time, shall suffer the wrath of a just God.
 
Many men do not realize that Freedom is based on Eternal Principles. Principles that were true yesterday are true today and will be true forever. If you fail to live those principles you will lose your freedom and you will be in bondage. For example, if there is no law against theft, so that anyone can steal your property at any time, are you free? Likewise, if there is no law against adultery so that any man can rob you of your wife and destroy the lives of your children, are you free? God created the laws upon which Freedom and Liberty are based and gave them to all of his children. If you will be free you must live the laws that preserve and protect and create Freedom. These are Eternal Laws that come from a loving Father in Heaven. When you fail to live these laws you are in bondage.
 
God will sweep the wicked off the face of the earth when they are ripened in iniquity and that will of course lead God to pour out the fullness of his wrath. In the days of Noah when God poured out the fullness of his wrath the wicked died, all of them died. In Matthew Chapter 24 the Saviour tells us that he will cause a great tribulation to come upon the inhabitants of the earth, that except those days shall be shortened none shall be saved but for the elects sake those days shall be shortened. In this scripture, relating to our time, the Saviour tells us that the wicked will be destroyed by famines, pestilence and earthquakes. Latter day revelations have warned us that these days will come as a result of economic failures by bad government and at a time when our liberties are being destroyed by evil practices and principles. Remember that when people become wicked they elect wicked rulers and soon Freedom is gone and bondage remains. Freedom can only survive when righteous principles are lived. Joseph Smith Jr said:- ‘without Zion, and a place of deliverance, we must fall; because the time is near when the sun will be darkened, and the moon turn to blood, and the stars fall from the heaven, and the earth reel to and fro. Then, if this is the case, and if we are not sanctified and gathered to the places God has appointed, with all our former professions and our great love for the Bible, we must fall; we cannot stand; we cannot be saved; for God will gather out his Saints from the Gentiles, and then comes desolation and destruction, and none can escape except the pure in heart who are gathered’.
 
As you see from the words of our first Latter Day prophet Joseph Smith Jr wickedness will destroy this all nations. The only safety will be to flee to those who have accepted and lived the principles of righteousness.  I know that this is not what the world wants to hear and it is probably not what you want to hear but the only safe and secure place you can take your families when mob rule is upon us, is to where the Saints have gathered. Where is that and how will living with the Saints make me safe? The Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ is the Lord's church restored to the earth by Jesus Christ through a young 14 year old boy by the name of Joseph Smith Jr. All the ordinances, doctrines, and principles of the gospel have been revealed to Joseph and now to a modern day living prophet. God has warned his people through his prophet of the destruction that is upon us. He has commanded us to store food and clothing for this time of tribulation. We are completely aware that we will be providing safety and security for each other. Many people form other Churches despise our efforts. Due to the persecutions they have heaped upon us, they have a lot to lose if we are God's People and I proclaim with every fibre of my being, we are his people.
 
The Lord through his church has designated two specific gathering places for the Saints; they are of course the main permanent settlement in Missouri in the United States and also Zion’s Camp in Scotland in the United Kingdom which will serve as a gathering place for those who will be chosen to proceed to Missouri. However so for now let me tell you that you will need to go to the places that the lord has commanded are to be established for the gathering places of the saints in order for them to be preserved in times of tribulation. I think this is your only secure option. If you can find members in your area and can ask them to keep you informed as to any direction given to them by the church but if you take this approach you may get caught when the destruction begins.
 
Who Should Gather to Zion & Zion’s Camp
This is my list of the kind of people who would want to live among the Saints.  The word Zion in this text refers to where "The Pure in Heart" dwell.
  • You believe there is a God of Heaven and that he loves his Children.
  • You believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He Suffered for the sins of those who repent.
  • You believe in living a righteous life (i.e. The Ten Commandments etc.)
  • You love your family and will sacrifice your own safety to protect them.
  • You love your fellow man.
  • You love Freedom and Righteousness.
  • You are not one of those who persecute God's people or his Prophets.
How should You prepare to Gather to Zion & Zion’s Camp
  • You must be prepared to leave immediately when you see society turning into mob rule. When people are rioting and plundering the stores and looting in the big cities you can not delay, you must leave. In my opinion you will only have a few days. If you wait you will not be able to obtain petrol for your journey nor will you be able to get substantial food to take with you and you may have to take up the sword to defend your family.
  • Determine now where you will be going and purchase enough petrol to get there.
  • Purchase survival food right now for one year. This would include wheat, rice, beans, sugar and oats. You need 400 lbs of survival food per adult per year. You need this to make it easier for you to fit into a community of people who have already stored food. So that it is not hard for people to share the food they have stored for their children, we will be storing food centrally in the Bishops store house, this way everyone gets according to their needs, not their wants. You can find good places to purchase your food by contacting the church direct. You can contact the church by email 24 hours a day. You can also search for "Food Storage" on the web.
  • If it is time to leave and you do not have the food you need, start your journey anyway, and get away from the big cities or the coastal areas. If you get to one of the gathering places without food do not worry you will be taken care of.
  • There are many survival items that you will need to have. Some of them are: medications, extra pairs of jeans, work shirts, work socks, thermals, walking shoes, boots, gloves, coats, bedding, sleeping bags, feminine products, bathroom products, plastic cooler, paper plates, matches, forks, and knifes.
  • If you have two cars or a trailer you may need them to bring all of your food and survival items. If this is the case make sure you have enough petrol to make your destination. There are many people who will be walking and you do not want to be one of them.
  • When you arrive you will need a place to stay. Everyone will be given a place to live with their family. Be aware that this will not be what you have left behind. You may very well be living in a bell tent for a while before other possibilities can be worked out. You may be living in with a family of saints. You may be in a trailer or caravan.
What Laws Will We Live in Zion
First we must live the laws of God and live righteous principles. Nations are not only governed by Law, they are preserved by Law. Where there is no law or the laws are not enforced, there can be no Freedom. A Nation that does not enforce its laws will cease to be a free Nation and chaos will ensue.
 
Second, these gathering places that we call Zion and Zion’s Camp are choice above all other lands and places. They are to be an “Ensign of Freedom", the "Light on the Hill" for the entire world to see. Zion and Zion’s Camp are these things because they were created by God for a special purpose and it they are to be established upon Eternal Principles. The Freedom of Religion and the Freedom of Speech allow us to teach righteous principles to all of Gods Children, to prepare the way for the Second Coming of the Saviour, when all men in all nations will be free and peace will reign upon the face of the whole earth. God established this church to help prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. We alone can not stop the ravages of the wicked. Only God can do this. The famines, pestilence, and plagues will wipe the wicked off the face of the earth and the righteous will be left to inherit the earth. So what laws will we live in Zion and Zion’s Camp? We will live the laws of God, the laws of righteousness, the laws that insure our Freedom and Liberty.
 
Third, when the years of tribulation are over, and the people of Zion and Zion’s camp begin to spread out upon the face of the earth, we will re-establish the eternal laws of God as the rule of law and peace and Freedom will abound through the whole world. If you are to be saved from the tribulations which shall shortly come upon the world, you must forsake evil and hold to that which is good. You are a child of God with great opportunities living at a glorious time. Put on the whole armour of God that you may overcome the fiery darts of the ungodly. Stand tall for truth and righteousness. Come and join the Saints of God at the gathering places and stand together all who believe on his name.
 
The Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ
The Office of The Prophet of The Church

Sunday 23 October 2016

Sermon: Our Royal Standard

From the days of my childhood to the present day. I look back and see how things have changed in the world. What was once considered to be not good, and to be bad are now considered to be good.
 
The word SIN is rarely us now in general in the world. However in the different religions in the world Christianity has become very diverse. Some fractions are saying certain behaviour is acceptable to God, and others as an abomination. Good, and evil have often been portrayed on colours as white, and black. And in-between various shades of gray. Linear measurements have also be used if one deviates from a standard measure. For example. Physical standards. One of the oldest yard-rods in existence is the cloth yard of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors. It consists of a hexagonal iron rod 5⁄8 inch in diameter and 1⁄100 inch short of a yard, encased within a silver rod bearing the hallmark 1445. In the early 15th century, the Merchant Taylors Company was authorized to "make search" at the opening of the annual St. Bartholomew's Day Cloth Fair. In the mid-18th century Graham compared the standard yard of the Royal Society to other existing standards. These were a "long-disused" standard made in 1490 during the reign of Henry VII, and a brass yard and a brass ell from 1588 in the time of Queen Elizabeth and still in use at the time, held at the Exchequer a brass yard and a brass bell at the Guildhall; and a brass yard presented to the Clock-Makers Company by the Exchequer in 1671. The Exchequer yard was taken as "true" the variation was found to be +1⁄20 to −1⁄15 of an inch, and an additional  graduation for the Exchequer yard was made on the Royal society's standard. In 1758 the legislature required the construction of a standard yard, which was made from the Royal Society's standard and was deposited with the clerk of the House of Commons; it was divided into feet, one of the feet into inches, and one of the inches into tenths. A copy of it, but with upright cheeks between which other measuring rods could be placed, was made for the Exchequer for commercial use. Spiritual Standards as we can read this in the Book of Mormon.
 
1  AND now I, Nephi, make an end of my prophesying unto you, my beloved brethren.  And I cannot write but a few things, which I know must surely come to pass; neither can I write but a few of the words of my brother Jacob.
2  Wherefore, the things which I have written sufficeth me, save it be a few words which I must speak concerning the doctrine of Christ; wherefore, I shall speak unto you plainly, according to the plainness of my prophesying.
3  For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men.  For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding
4  Wherefore, I would that ye should remember that I have spoken unto you concerning that prophet which the Lord showed unto me, that should baptise the Lamb of God, which should take away the sins of the world.
(Book of Mormon | 2 Nephi 31:1 - 4)

12  And also, the voice of the Son came unto me, saying: He that is baptized
in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me;
wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do.
13  Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Saviour down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel.
(Book of Mormon | 2 Nephi 31:12 - 13)

We know the our Farther in Heaven is unchanging in his laws. Therefore His standards do not change over time. Regardless of what the world says.

Apostle Elder Peter Barber

Sunday 9 October 2016

Official Church Statement: Transgenderism

The beauty of the restored gospel is that we know for a surety that we lived before we came here to this mortal realm, that we did indeed have a life and that we lived it in the presence of our Father who created us and that we were created in his image. We know that we had bodies were defined in to genders that we were both male and female before our mortal birth and that we were created thus by our father, our creator God. We have this knowledge because of the restoration of truth handed down to us by our founder and prophet Joseph Smith and through the restored scriptures. This doctrine gives us clear and distinct answers to questions that have plagued men for generation, Who are we? and where do we come from? I believe that we are the only people in the world to have this knowledge and because of this we should know better when it come to accepting corrupt ideologies of the world and teaching them to our children and young people. As holders of this knowledge it is our responsibility to tech the truth and tech that we are what we are because we have been created this way by a God who loves us. There are those who belong to the latter day faith that believe in the pre-existence but have taken hold of the corrupt teachings of the world and folded them in to one t make the gospel seem more appealing to the world and the younger generation. It is our duty to teach truth no matter how distasteful it is to the world and no matter how unpopular it may be to the younger generation.
 
What must be understood if we are to tackle the dangers of transgender thinking is that we lived as spirits before we were born. We lived in the presence of God in the spirit before we came here, we desired to be like him, we saw him, we were in his presence and sought to become like him. There is not one soul who has lived that has not seen both the Father and the Son and in that same state in the spirit were formed in to their gender states as they were created by God. It is true that we did not have bodies of physical flesh but we had bodies of spirit formed in full likeness of God in all their glories, in short we were full personages in reflection of our Father. However this knowledge in all its beauty has been forgotten or distorted and the dangers of the world have crept in to our homes. The world would have us think that much of what is written in the Bible and other sacred texts is of little consequence for our lives today and so dangers have arisen and one danger that I find worrying is the danger of transgenderism. The issue of transgenderism isn’t going away anytime soon, it may only become more prominent in our society. It’s just one symptom of the fierce spiritual battle that is raging in our wicked world. A secular mindset is increasingly capturing the hearts and minds of not only our young people but our society as a whole and they are being deceived into believing that morality and gender can be whatever they want it to be. Without the foundation of the absolute authority of God’s law, the world is adrift in a sea of moral relativism where man makes the rules and determines “truth.” and when this happens nothing good comes of it, in fact death and destruction follow in its wake.
 
The gospel and the restoration provides the only true foundation for our thinking on this issue. Starting with God's law laid down in the scriptures we know that gender was created by God and that people were created “male and female” (Genesis 1:29–30) from the beginning. Of course, sin has affected everything, including gender, and, as a result, some people have a real struggle with gender identity. We need to have compassion for these individuals of course, but that doesn’t mean we should accept and embrace sinful behaviours and choices! It means that we should lovingly and gently expose sin and share the life-changing message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with all people and the joy and knowledge of the pre-existence. We should as a church stand firm on what we hold true, we should never bend to popular opinion or belief just because we are under condemnation from the world, after all the world is in the pay of the great evil, Satan and are we in his pay? NO! we are in the service if God and he is for truth always.
 
As Latter Day Mormons I think that sometimes we can forget that we have a wonderful resource in the Bible, that was and is given to us by God for our education in life. So it is to the Bible I look. The Bible teaches that manhood or womanhood is not incidental, it has been given us by God as a gift. We inhabit our God-created bodies as vessels of delight, temples of the Holy Spirit, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19. Our sexuality points to what theologians call “complementarily.” Men and women are one “kind” (1 Corinthians 15:39), but we are not the same. This is true in several respects. As Scripture indicates and common sense shows, men and women are different anatomically. Adam named his wife “woman” because she was distinct from him, a man (Genesis 2:29). Only a man can provide the raw material by which to procreate; only a woman can bear children and nurse them. However from the start Gods wonderful plan for mankind was the target of Satan. he looked and beheld a wonderful perfect design and wanted to distort and twist what God had crated and ordained and has attacked the family and self identity ever since Adam and Eve walked out of the Garden of Eden. The word wide flood was sent because mankind was neck deep in sin and sinful behaviour similar to what we have today and I believe gender identity plays a big part in that. We know through scripture that the “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9), As a church we recognise that there will always be those who will use situations like gender identity to try to fulfil their own sinful lustful desires. This has created a dangerous situation as there’s no doubt sexual predators will and have always used these development to their full advantage and with Satan as their ally its easy in a sinful world for them to succeed and drag young impressionable minds with them. It is important for us to remember this comforting Scripture:
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13) What people need is not accommodation of a sinful lifestyle. They need the gospel of Jesus Christ! After all we read again:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17) And we as believers need to be equipped with solid, answers to meekly and gently engage the culture for Christ.
 
However I am afraid that all to often we see the profound tension between God’s design and Satan’s attacks on this design everyday in our lives. The Lord created man and woman and gives them specific roles to play for His glory; Satan targets man and woman and induces them to upend God’s design. God orders and structures, Satan tears down. God brings life, Satan destroys it. These tragic patterns are as old as the earth. They are not new, but they do morph with the times as we are seeing today. Western culture is making good on this rebellion. It denies the distinctness of divine creation, it tears down the uniqueness of the sexes, and it rebels against the lordship of Jesus Christ. The wisdom and design of God is rejected, and the Word of God, in sum, is reviled. I see this all to often in my home having a young man growing up in the gospel and also in the world. We as parents teach the principles of Christ to all our children and I see the dangers of how the world captures the hearts and minds of the young and the power of Satan.
 
I guess in summing up I want us to remember that we must always show love and compassion to those caught u in sin, but we must never condone their behaviour or their choices, we must never allow their lifestyle to permeate our church or our culture. The Latter Day Church of Jesus Christ stands firm on the foundation that we do not allow or condone homosexual relationships or the LGBT movement in our church, but we do not hate. I make an appeal to all those living under this cloud to seek the Lord and he will seek you in return. let us not condone sine and let us remember that we are who we are because of God and because we were created this way by him and it is not an accident but a design and meant to be.
 
Matthew P. Gill
Prophet & First Elder

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