Special Note: In this post I have again given you an opportunity of experiencing speeches from the 180th Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You will find that in the seventh paragraph from the end of this post!
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TODAY'S THEME
(The Book of Mormon) Mosiah 3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
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| This Chilean Miner |
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and this other Chilean Miner Pray After Having Been Rescued After Being Trapped 69 days Deep Underground. |
"It's only when you find yourself in a bad place that you get yourself close to God."
One of the two miners pictured above may or may not be the miner who made that statement , but obviously both of the two miners shown praying in these two pictures are deeply grateful to God for being rescued. The quote given above might possibly represent the feelings of a good number of those rescued on that occasion.
I, Neil Birch, publisher of this blog, suggest that there are several other ways to basically say what that heroic Chilean Miner, whoever he was, had to say: My own suggestion is:
We need something to jar us some (or quite a bit), to wake us up to the realities of the downward path that we may already be on along with a large portion of people who are living in our day and time on earth. We need Our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, to teach us more about how to turn to Them for guidance! Hopefully it won't take going through the type of dreadful and awful experience these two miners went through along with the 31 others who were with them, for each of us to fully realize that "we are in a bad place already."(spiritually speaking) We shouldn't wait until something tragic happens to us to get close to God! We each need to turn to God now!Actually in some of my blog posts I have singled out incidents reported in the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ, where people had been living contrary to God's will and didn't really realize it (like that miner who was quoted above) until something happened to help shock them enough to cause them to turn to God for help!
Although there are a good number of examples of those kinds of experiences in that sacred book I will give you just two examples from The Book of Mormon of that kind of "spiritual awakening."
I have told of this first incident three or four times throughout my posts in the two and a half years I have been publishing them:
Painting: Gary Kapp
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Alma the Younger and the Four Sons of King Mosiah are Chastized by an Angel of the Lord -by Gary Kapp |
Each of these five young men, sons of righteous fathers who had taught them to live righteously, had to be chastised by an angel to finally realize that they were in a "bad place" (equal, in a strong spiritual sense, to that in which those miners mentioned above, found themselves), so they could drastically change their lives! The five of them had been actively leading people away from God's Church and evidently greatly enjoyed doing so.
One of them, Alma (He is the one the angel is looking directly at), was the son of the Prophet, Alma the Elder, of God's Church in their land and the four others were sons of the king of the land. Here Alma (the younger) tells of what he experienced because of the angel's impassioned message:
Alma 36:15. Oh thought I, that I could be banished and become extinct both soul and body, that I might not be brought to stand in the presence of my God, to be judged of my deeds.
16. And now for three days and for three nights was I racked, even with the pains of a damned soul.
17. And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.
18. Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.
19. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more.
20. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! (emphasis added)Now those among you readers of this blog post who have read a good number of my posts (or read the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormon) will most likely have read of the complete turnabout each of these five friends made in their lives.
They are each listed now among the number of exceptionally successful missionaries among both the Nephite and Lamanite people of their day on earth. They helped bring many previously Lost Souls, (Spiritually Speaking) to the Lord Jesus Christ (who was yet to be born on earth) and into His church, which church they previously had been actively seeking to destroy.
Perhaps each of you readers of this blog post can see that Alma's and his four friends' experience in being in a very bad situation (Being chastised severely by an Angel sent by God) is evidence of the truth spoken by the Chilean miner:Now I try to keep from making these blog posts too long, but because this is such a crucial subject for each of us (We really don't want to be stuck in a spiritually bad condition in our lives) I will now quote from my post 33s.
"It's only when you find yourself in a bad place that you get yourself close to God."
The statement located just below the Picture of the Resurrected Jesus Christ that you will see next, was made by our Resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ from the air before the Nephites had actually seen Him.
He was introduced by Heavenly Father's voice! It occurred during the time of the thick darkness they found themselves in, which scientists say always follows in the aftermath of a such cataclysms which, in this case, completely wiping out many Nephite cities in ancient Central America, killing all of their inhabitants.
Those whose lives were spared were the more righteous Nephites but they too, were experiencing a very bad time similar in many respects to what the Chilean miners in our day experienced.
These Nephites had been grieving for their fellow, but very wicked, Nephite friends and relatives who had been destroyed who lived in other cities, by the great cataclysmic destruction that had been brought upon them! [A.D.34]
Scientists in our day verify that such cataclysms, although rarely occurring have occurred and those scientists have come to fathom the great magnitude of the destruction they wreak! Nearly Suffocating darkness afterwards is always a part of that.
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The Resurrected Jesus Whose Voice the Righteous Nephites who were saved from destruction heard only at first! They saw Him later when the clouds of darkness had dissipated and he had descended from the sky to be with them! -by Harry Anderson
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I'm sure most all of you are doing much good, but we don't fully realize how much wickedness exists in our world today. You and many others may be trying to keep yourselves out of that wickedness, but you could benefit and be more protected from evil by being active members of the Lord's Restored (Re-established) Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am so grateful for my membership in that Church as you can tell from what I say in the posts of this blog!
III Nephi 9: 11 And because they did cast them all out, (the prophets and Saints that He had sent among them to call them to repentance) that there were none righteous among them, I did send down fire and destroy them, that their wickedness and abominations might be hid from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints whom I sent among them might not cry unto me from the ground against them. (clarification added)Perhaps if I were in that that Chilean miner's place after recovering sufficiently from the bad effects of being trapped under ground for over two months, and realizing what is really happening in our world today, I would say:
"It's only when we finally realize that the kind of life being lived more and more here on earth is getting worse and worse, that we will want to change our way of living so that we can get ourselves closer to God and receive the protection only He can give."I now suggest that you review one of my past posts which will help you get the big picture of what is happening on earth in our day and which will eventually (before very long) lead us to the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Neil Birch's Post 39s
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I am now providing you with a link to an Internet page where you will be able to choose what General Conference Speeches you might choose to experience.
(You may perhaps want to view one or two of these important spiritual messages each day until you have reviewed all of them. I may continue providing this link in each of my blog posts I publish during this month of October 2010.)
October General Conference of 2010 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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DISCLAIMER
This website is not owned by or affiliated with the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes called the Mormon or LDS Church). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the position of the Church.
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TO ACCESS NEIL BIRCH'S BLOG INDEX To Either Read the Full Index Item Which Refers To This Blog Post, (Or An Item Which Refers To Any Other Blog Post You May Desire To Access): After Reading All of This Paragraph Please Click on the Following: (A Broken) Heart and a Contrite Spirit. -Post 41n. When You See the Picture of Our Savior Jesus Christ Sitting Next To A Little Boy, Please, Scroll Down In The Index To Your Target Item Or Use The Alphabetic Scrolling Device (When It Has Been Installed.)
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"Have You Really Read the Book of Mormon?" Legal /Statement. Thank you for visiting. The author retains intellectual property and creative licensing rights. Permission to use or reprint must be given in writing. © Est.2008 Neil Birch Legal /Statement.
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I deeply appreciate your readership and hope you found very beneficial that which was presented to you in this blog post.
If you have any questions about what you have read or viewed in this post or in any previous posts of mine, or if you even have a curiosity about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and or its teachings, please e-mail me. I'm Neil and my e-mail address is: jneilmelva@gmail.com. If you contact me I'll get back to you just as soon as possible.
I invite you to let your friends and relatives know about this blog if you think they would be interested. Please be advised that I also have an additional blog. It is in Spanish: Its content is translated from the English in this blog.
Neil Birch
If you have any questions about what you have read or viewed in this post or in any previous posts of mine, or if you even have a curiosity about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and or its teachings, please e-mail me. I'm Neil and my e-mail address is: jneilmelva@gmail.com. If you contact me I'll get back to you just as soon as possible.
I invite you to let your friends and relatives know about this blog if you think they would be interested. Please be advised that I also have an additional blog. It is in Spanish: Its content is translated from the English in this blog.
Neil Birch
