Jesus and satan - Brothers?

One of the claims that Mormons make is that Jesus and satan are brothers. 

I find this claim interesting as I had never heard such a thing so when the idea was presented to me it was a completely foreign concept. My mind immediately balked at the idea as the first verse that popped into my head was a verse many Christians know quite well, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (KJV). 

Some say that mormons don't believe satan is literally God's son, but that mormons believe that God is the father of all spirits, which comes from Hebrews 12:9, "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (KJV). In this sense, mormons believe that satan and Christ are brothers in the same sense that all men and women are siblings to satan. Though often also claim we are all sons and daughters of God so everyone is a brother and sister of each other, and so on and so forth. This is not actually biblically sound. 

When you are a brother or sister with someone under God it is through the Holy Spirit because you are adopted in to God's kingdom. How are you adopted into God's kingdom? By accepting Christ as your savior and through Christ being your brother, God ADOPTS you. This is backed up scripturally in several places, including Romans 8:15, "...but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" as well as Ephesians 1:5, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will," (KJV). If you were already His child, adopting you wouldn't make much sense now would it? When it is saying father in Hebrews, it is more referring to creator.

Also, satan was an angel, in Ezekiel 28:14-17, "Thou art the anointed cherub that coveter; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kinds that they may behold thee."

Something interesting about satan being an angel is the fact that Christ actually created satan as it states in Colossians 1:12-17, "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (KJV).

And we can also see the angels were made, as Nehemiah 9:6 states, "Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preserves them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee" (KJV). Thusly, the angels were created and since satan was indeed an angel, then he was created through Christ. I would say the creations/origins of Christ and satan are biblically quite different and therefore, they are not brothers..

Quetzalcoatl Part 2

This is part 2 to information about Quetzalcoatl and comparing him to Christ. If you would like to read Part 1 - please go here: http://thebomtalks.blogspot.com/2015/09/quetzalcoatl-part-1.html .

Last time I discussed the feathered serpent and a little about what serpents normally represent, regardless of what culture you look at and how that does not line up with Christ. 

I want to dig a little deeper into one of these, and that would be Mucalinda. He was supposed to have risen out of the sea and protect Buddha during a great storm. 

If you read Revelation 13:1 it says, "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy" (KJV). Seems quite similar, doesn't it?

Now, I'd like to look more at Quetzalcoatl and who/what he was. The temple of the Feathered Serpent was Teotihaucan. 

As you can see, this temple has the face of Quetzalcoatl all over it. Now, if Quetzalcoatl was in fact Jesus than this temple should be built to the Lord. One of the things that is interesting about this temple is the fact that it has more than a hundred bodies buried under it. The people are believed to be sacrificed victims. Not something that Jesus would ask for or condone. Also, it's interesting to note that this pyramid has six steps. If it was Jesus and not satan, shouldn't it have seven steps?

Now let's look at an example of what the Bible says about dragons. In Jeremiah 51:7 it says, "And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, a hissing" (KJV). In Revelation 12:9 we have, "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil..." (KJV). There are quite a few others. Basically, in the Bible, dragons are not considered good, and they definitely aren't Christ. So for Christ to be symbolized as a dragon in the context of Quetzalcoatl is obviously erroneous and inconsistent with the Word of God.

(*Please note, the photos are not mine.)

A Clever Twist of Christ's Teachings in the Book of Mormon

A Clever Twist of Christ's Teachings in the Book of Mormon

The next verse really upset me when I read it. May not be a surprise to you, but I'd read it for years and thought it matched the Bible word for word. In fact I was so sure it said the same thing that while arguing with my girlfriend she pointed out the difference. I had never noticed until this. And it shocked me.

Book of Mormon: 3rd Nephi 6:12

Take therefore, no thought for the morrow,
For the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself; 
Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof"

If you recognize this it's from Christ's preaching. But that is not what Christ said.

KJV Bible: Matthew 6:34

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 

WOW! mind blowing difference! I'm sure you are all jumping up and down with excitement at this discovery. Okay but bear with me. Satan doesn't make huge differences. We'd see through them too easily. That is how for years I thought those two verses meant the same thing. But words mean things.

The Bible is saying, only worry about the evil of the day. But in Satan's Bible, he did a half twist, moved two little words, flipped them around without even changing them! It's brilliant! The human mind expecting to see the same words, does! But in putting them in different places it means something totally different. Sufficient is the day unto the evil there of. He swapped where is and unto fall in the sentence. So now in the Book of Mormon, the day is sufficient for the evil.

The entire verse in the Book of Mormon loses it's meaning, it's guidance and power for Christians. Which is exactly what Satan wants. This is the verse that finally scared me and set me on the road to where I am now. Lets look again at the cleverness and the subtly through which that verse was desecrated and it's meaning altered.

Just to make things easier I came up with a very clumsy graphic to illustrate the swapperoo.

  

Forgive the crude graphics, but after you do that to the KJV you have the Book of Mormon's Nephi 6:12 which doesn't at all mean the same thing as the KJV Bible verse. Go read it yourself. It's just a half twist, a clever deceit, and you have millions of Mormons believing they are Christians, when they really aren't learning what the Bible teaches. If you are a Mormon like those I know who don't like reading the Bible. This is what you are missing. You are not getting meat, not even getting milk. You are better fed dish water.

In the next posts I''m going to ask my wife to help us dig deeper into the doctrinal difference in her favorite book of the Book of Mormon. Moroni. She likes to do a little swap herself.

Come back next time!

Quetzalcoatl Part 1

I am not sure how much information about Mormon beliefs everyone reading this will have but I will try to explain things as I go along. Please feel free to send me any questions you may have.

Mormons believe that the people from the book of Mormon were MesoAmericans. MesoAmericans basically lived in Mexico and southward toward South America. 

If you are a Christian, or honestly even if you are not, but have grown up in Western culture, I want you to think about something without blinders here. If you call someone an "ol' serpent" or a "dragon lady" what does that usually entail? Does it bring you warm, fuzzy feelings and make you think that person is a great person? Not typically, no. Actually, generally it typifies the devil, someone that can't be trusted, or someone that is mean and nasty. Even in the Bible, that term is generally referring to satan. Who deceived Eve? A serpent.

Mormons will try to explain this away with the serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness to signify Jesus. 

Okay, let's hold on a moment and look at this. 

Here are some pictures of the typical idea of Quetzalcoatl. 

Here is an example of the typical idea of Moses in the wilderness. 

These do not seem like similar ideas in the least. 

In mythologies, serpents typically represented fertility or rebirth due to the nature of them shedding their skin and in a sense being reborn. Hermes staff can be used to symbolize healing, however Hermes is the god of merchants, weight, oratory, literature, athletics, and thieves. He also guided souls of the dead to the underworld. Not quite Christ like. 

There is the Kundalini, a form of serpent used in eastern religions and traditions. It is the indwelling spiritual energy living within us. It is a coiled up serpent that nourishes the tree of life within us. Sounds similar to the Eve story, doesn't it? This is also sometimes depicted similar to the picture of Hermes' staff.

There is ouroboros, a Greek, tail devouring serpent that represent cyclicality and eternal return. In Egypt it is used when Ra meets Osiris in the underworld and in the text two serpents coil around the head and feet of a god with their tails in their mouths and it represents the beginning and end of time. There is Mucalinda, the buddhist king of serpents. He has multiple heads and for the little available info that can be found on him, is far from Christ-like. 

To go even further, you can look at the fact that Quetzalcoatl isn't even a snake. No, he is a feathered serpent. 

When you think of feathered serpent, what do you think? Typically a dragon which is a symbol of satan. In the bible, the whore of babylon sits on a multi-headed dragon.

If you try extremely hard, you could possibly tie Quetzalcoatl to serpents and if you try even harder you could perhaps link that to healing and then try to tie it back to Christ but you have to be looking for it. You can make almost anything line up and seem true if you are trying hard enough. However, if you step back and look at it with a non-bias eye, Quetzalcoatl could much more easily be lined up with satan than with Christ.

I will discuss this further in my next post.

(*Please note, the photos are not mine.)

Feeling The Truth

One thing that Mormon missionaries, or Mormons in general will do if trying to convert you to Mormonism is they will ask you to pray about Mormonism and feel if it is right. People will often do this, thinking if it is wrong that they would feel it in their spirit.

There are a few issues with this. One, the devil comes as an angel of light. So, why would we, as humans, think we can figure out that it is the devil? Would we not think it is an angel of light? In most instances, yes we would. Not only is the devil disguised as an angel of light, but he is a lot older than us and has been fooling humans for a long, long time. Longer than we, as individuals, have been alive. So to think we could out-strategize the devil is, well, naive.

Furthermore, the Bible says in 1 John 4:1 to "...believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (KJV). This is referring to more than just praying and feeling if it is okay. You are to actually try or test the spirits against the Word of God.

Do not, I repeat, do not test this against the inspired version that the mormons use. The inspired version was made by Joseph Smith so you should not use it to test what he said. (Though I'm sure there are areas that still contradict.) Instead, I would suggest using the KJV (or even the New KJV), or get a direct translation Hebrew/Greek to English Bible and read the actual words. These direct translations can be difficult if you have not studied the Bible much and/or you are not good with old English or the literal translations of words. However, if you are knowledgable in regards to language or Hebrew and/or Greek, then this is also a great way to go.

So, in order to test the Mormon church against the Word of God, take the Bible and compare what the Bible says to it. Or the Pearl of Great Price. Or the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was what I used to compare to the Bible and the fallacies abound. Read them SIDE BY SIDE and compare them WORD FOR WORD.

It's amazing how easily the devil can change the entire meaning of a scripture simply by moving the location of one or two words.

You can also search other areas of this blog where we do this exact thing for you and point out some of the fallacies. We, of course, have not scratched the surface of the errors and contradictions that abound.

You cannot trust what you feel. The Bible explicitly says, in Jeremiah 7:19 "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (KJV). Are you really going to hinge the eternal salvation or damnation of your soul upon feelings that came from a desperately wicked place? I would strongly advise against it.

This is no easy or simple or laughing matter. This is eternal, take the time to read the Word. You owe it to your soul to find the truth God has already given you. All you need to do is seek it.