My Father is most offended by this, President Oaks [Not polygamy, racism, temples]

My Father is most offended by this, President Oaks [Not polygamy, racism, temples] Ep.1003 of HOTM

Transcripts: This is Heart of the Matter, and I'm Grigory Rasputin. Ha, just kidding. This is Shawn McCraney or Shawn the Baptist, your host. It's October 27th, 2026. Last Saturday, we hit the Provo BYU area on our Shawn the Baptist tour down the Wasatch Front. This next Saturday, October 31st, 2026, we wrap this year's trips up at a very specific location at the far south. end of Utah, in the book of Kings, we read the following. And it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house, in that you have forsaken the commandments of Yehovah, and thou hast followed Balaam. Now therefore send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel and the prophets of Baal 450 and the prophets of the groves 400 which eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. on October 31st of this year, this Saturday, and every April and October of 2027, 2028, 2029, and then ending our tour in April of 2030, we, in the spirit of John the Baptist, who came in the spirit of Elijah, invite. the president of the Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with their so-called prophets, seers, revelators, apostles, council of the 70, to meet us in Mount Carmel, Utah, on the grounds of the historic Rock Church, just as Elijah did with the prophets of Baal anciently. This is a picture of the Old Rock Church in Mount Carmel, Utah, where we will end our Meet Shawn the Baptist tours this year. In the name of our Father, Yeshua, and his coming bride, we sincerely suggest that you take us up on this invitation as soon as possible. May his spirit lead, President Oaks. A bit of housekeeping, we have long extended invitations. Anybody who's watched us for any amount of time knows that we extend invitations to anyone who has a problem with our teachings to join us here on the show to dialogue without rancor, back and forth on what the problem is. we hate debate we find them absolutely useless egocentric but we do want to hear and be heard of whatever a critic might have every now and then over the course of our online ministry we get these people and i am going to try to be nice here who hide behind a persona and they just fire hose us with rhetoric through comments and texts sometimes emails we've recently encountered such a soul and invited him repeatedly to come out of the closet so to speak and address us face to face but all he or she we don't know what they are wanted to do was just vomit out every single thing they could think of to castigate our efforts and what we're about. And so we made two decisions in the face of this as a result. The first decision we have rarely in 20 years done. Maybe I can think of two or three times. That's a lot of events, but the first was we decided to block him. And as I said, it's something we rarely do. But more about that in the future. It's not because he disagreed with us ever. It was because he insisted on using our comment area to just blast away. Just. volumes of information against us. We want to talk in terms of context, you know, a pace and a cadence to a conversation, consideration. We have very little use for blasted rhetoric, voluminous amounts where it's almost impossible to get any kind of anything done. that is really effective. The second thing that we want to announce tonight is that we are not going to respond to online comments anymore, but on this show we may, or comments about this show, we are going to do that in our Sunday School Teachings. Every Sunday at 10, at 8 we teach, but at 10 we do something called Sunday School, and we bring up comments and texts and emails, and that's where we will respond to comments online, not online itself. We also want to reiterate that we will host anybody, anybody who is willing to step forward from the... from cowardice, because that's what it really is. It's cowardice to attack from behind the scenes of something, especially under a pseudonym, and this relentlessly blast. We will be confronted by any person, but we have a request of you, and that is... If you choose to attack us, maybe we suggest you reach out and talk to us on air rather than just spreading your fire hose venom and think that you're accomplishing something. We invite you, who we've recently blocked, who's probably watching this program, to reach out and make an appointment. Consider it, will you? Here's the way to reach us. It's right there on the screen. Delaney at yeshuans.faith. We will do a Zoom, we'll do a live, whatever it is, because we do want to face anybody who has a question, a comment, a criticism. even an attack, so long as it's done in the spirit of trying to hear each other talk. That said, our brother Todd asked the following in the comments on our last week's show, and he said, hey shawn, you said Smith made statements that were dead on and accurate. Like what exactly? I'm curious what you had in mind. I also wonder whether your examples will include Smith saying something accurate, or even morally sound, only to turn around and behave in ways that directly contradict his own words? And if that's the case, why talk about the guy like that at all? Is it merely an effort to meet the LDS leadership where they are at in order to open the dialogue? Thanks. Todd's a good brother who seeks and he's part of our group and he has no problem confronting me right there. He just confronted us in the comments and that's the kind of thing we want. First of all, I got to say, and I typically mean this, but even if we use things to meet the LDS in an open dialogue, we do not have a strategy in mind in the things that we say and share. But what do I mean when I say Brother Joseph made statements that were dead on accurate? That's not a strategy to get them to lure them in and then drop a mine on them. I believe Joseph Smith said a lot of things that were dead on accurate. And that, yeah, they have to be taken in context of other things. But nevertheless, there are dead on accuracies that he said, and they continue to exist in the LDS church today. So let's go through some graphics. orthodox biblical theology holds that the gospel centers entirely on the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is found in 1 Corinthians 15, 3-4. Brother Joseph said and taught, The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, that he died, was buried, and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and all other things which pertain to our religion. are only appendages to it, end quote. Now, you know, I know, I know what the appendages that Joseph Smith added from the spirit of man that are biblically untenable to that comment, you know, but he was not wrong in our estimation of the mediatorial work of our father, Yeshua, the Christ. There is absolutely different nuances to what he thought about who Yeshua was, and people get up in arms and that, fine. But the basic thing he said there is right in harmony with what Paul said. you know, accepting the appendages. And we'll talk about those as we go on. The second is the apostolic record emphasizes that Yeshua was entirely without sin, pure and holy. You can see that in Hebrews 4 and in 1 Peter 2. Brother Joseph affirmed this absolute standard of Christ's character, noting that Christ never transgressed a law of heaven and that no deceit was in his mouth. He further emphasized that none were ever perfected except Yeshua, who was the son of God with the fullness of the spirit. That's from his mouth. You know, we have long defended that Mormon people can be Christian easily. As much as Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostals, whatever. Mormonism has some problems. But Mormon people who understand these things, that's why they're bewildered by all these attacks about them not really looking at Christ in the way that the Bible seems to describe him. Again, he messed with the origin, an ontology of Christ pre-incarnate. We understand that. And that needs to be recalibrated and readdressed, which we're going to do in the future on these shows. But he was dead on with the perfection of our Father. He was dead on, you know. And then in accordance with the biblical passage, salvation of man comes through Yeshua alone. Acts 4.12 and 1 Timothy 2.5. Through Yeshua alone. You got that? This is a quote from Brother Joseph. Salvation could not come to the world without the mediation of Jesus Christ. I glory in plainness. I glory in truth. I glory in my Jesus, he said, for he has redeemed my soul from hell, end quote. We don't hear these things quoted because no one wants to give them the benefit of the doubt that anything good could possibly be in the LDS church. That's where they're wrong. They've always been wrong about that. In fact, there's a lot of good in that. It's just as he continued to grow in his own imagination and his own flesh, the three G's seem to have gotten to him. Glory. Gold and girls and that got under him and he became a gay thing in his own mind But it happens to a lot of mystically minded people. We're gonna try to refix that Recalibrate that as we talked to President Oaks about what needs to happen in the church for it to be steadied by the Spirit of our Father. But he changed salvation by adding exaltation of man through obedience to the laws and ordinance of the Gospels. The evangelicals cry from their chairs probably as I'm speaking. We know that. He was not dead on in a lot of things. But our God allowed it, didn't he? You critics. He allowed it, right? He not only allowed it, he used it to raise an enormous material empire in this world. And just like our father came and corrected, listen, just like our father Yeshua came and corrected the misinterpretations the nation of Israel made in an idolatrous fashion back in the Old Testament, he is correcting brother Joseph's wrong teachings and doings today. So relax, you dogmatists, faith and love, zealots. For as Paul said, listen to what he said. For some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely. Supposing to add affliction to my bonds, Paul adds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for a defense of the gospel, what then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. And I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. When are we going to wake up, believers in our Father Yeshua of Nazareth? When are we going to start to level this stuff out? Get along and unite in faith and love. Then the scripture identifies, listen to this one, Trinitarians, God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the first articles of faith that Joseph Smith constructed, it mirrors this traditional Christian expression in a stated belief in the, ready, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Right? Now, calm yourselves. I am well aware, Brother Joseph, evolving machinations of the persons of the Godhead that wound up far afield from what Yehovah is described like in the Bible, but he, like other mystics before him, allowed his imagination to take time. It happens all the time. And to be frank, if you think about it, the creedal definitions of God did the same thing. And if you want to stand on what other men said about God and how it is full of holes too, maybe you're going to start acting fair. So ancient Israel did the same thing of our father when Yeshua came on the scene, but from different motivations. They had constructed him in a different way, so much they couldn't even receive his son. We're all working toward corrections, brothers and sisters. We're all progressing alone, individually and accordingly. Our father will restead things just as he did with Israel, but this time at the conclusion of what we see as the time of the Gentiles, which we believe is heading our way in a different iteration for our day and age. How about a few more? But to be frank, He touched on several other concepts much closer to the truth than the collaborative efforts of other religious leaders before and after him. I've never denied that. Never. I just pulled out the stuff that he was totally wrong on and attacked it when I was less mature. But the Bible emphasizes individual accountability for sin. That's in James 1, 14 through 15. Brother Smith similarly supported individual free will responsibly, dismissing the whole evil views of Calvin's tulip and posited a more biblically-based two-way exchange between God and man. I mean, I've said it for years. I'll take Smith's idea of soteriology over a Calvinist's. And yet the Calvinists are embraced as just being perfectly fine. Brother Smith also taught about the importance of faith, love, charitable service, a semblance of believers becoming joint heirs with Christ, though through errant language of becoming gods like Yehovah. That was wrong, but it was his imagination. We're going to clarify those things. Finally, Brother Joseph acknowledged the cross, the resurrection of all men, though again errantly, but no more errant than Orthodox Christianity in the way that they explain it. Was he off? Oh yes, on so much. But in our estimation, he was most off. He was most offensive to our Father in what we're going to talk about tonight. And the first of our weekly topics to President Oaks on what needs alteration from the corporation of the church by him or a prophet who succeeds him. Is it Doctrine and Covenants 132 and the teaching of polygamy? Nope. Nope. Is it blacks in the priesthood pre-1978? Not in our opinion. I mean, all of that stuff is spirit of man stuff. Was it Mountain Meadows? Well, nope, because every religion has put people to death. So while our topic tonight is also from the same origin, I personally believe that our topic relative to the LDS Corporation serves as the single most offensive thing Brother Joseph ever created and what has ever been practiced by the LDS institution. Now, just to let you know how I prepare things at times, this is just an FYI. I gather all my notes and research and references and commentaries. I read through them and includes a general file of research support for things. And then I simmer, simmer, simmer it all down just like a good roux in a good recipe to come up with a workable summarization of a thing. In these shows, you're getting the workable, simmerized, simmered summarization of the topic. Some topics contain hundreds of pages of notes, others only a few. What you get on the show is just the framework on the subject, which is why when people firehose us in the comments, they're only just attacking the thing they hear here, and they don't look at our exhaustive research on subjects, which is found in all the work that we've done. Unfortunately, this leads to innumerable what we call, yeah, But whatabouts, the whatabouts, depending on the heaviness of a topic at hand, the whatabouts are relative in number. So on something like tithes. things are pretty straightforward relative to the Old Testament, when it was given, what it meant to them, how it's used in the apostolic record, with only a couple standard whatabouts from the inculcated and brainwashed. Just a couple. You know, it's standard what they'll bring up. And, you know, we've covered them, but they still want to bring their whatabouts up. But on topics like cosmology, creation, Satan, the afterlife, the nature of God, salvation, which is known as soteriology in theological circles, the resurrection of the dead, and especially, Lord help us, on eschatology. The whatabouts seem endless and serve as fodder for the trolls who hide behind their online identity and just gnash at stuff that they can give themselves some kind of reputation for. So for those of you who really care about the whatabouts of any subject we talk about here, and we applaud whatabout people, because that means you have a spirit of searching and wanting to know. We're not saying don't be a whatabout, do it. But we have a vast library of teachings and books and commentaries to address your specific queries. Right? That's it, Yeshua and stop faith. So what, in our opinion, is the single most offensive thing to our father, Yeshua of Nazareth, to Yahava, the eternal, everlasting, uncreated God that Brother Smith claimed, taught, and thrives in the corporation today? Priesthood. On the subject of priesthood, while it appears super complex, It really isn't in its essential framework. We're going to summarize it tonight in the show, and if you really see what we summarize, you'll pretty much get an understanding of priesthood from a biblical perspective. What's complex about it is what men of religion, mostly men, if not all men, from the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, or LDS positions have done with it. So tonight, President Oaks, we want to supply you and the members of the corporation, along with any other interested parties, with the essential framework of the topic. Let's begin with a simple distinction. Delaney is going to give you a graphic. is a concrete, what they call countable noun, and refers to a specific person who performs religious rites and ceremonies. Priesthood is an abstracted, what they call collected noun, collective noun, excuse me, and speaks to either the office or state of being a priest or an entire body of priests have as a collective group. The Hebrew word, Old Testament, translated to priest is kohen, K-O-H-E-N. And it was a central title and its meaning meant service, to serve. Serve how and why? We'll get to it. But that is the Hebrew essential meaning behind the whole term priest. In the apostolic record, however, the only time the countable noun priest is used by believers and followers are in the following ways. Number one, with reference to the Old Testament economy. Two, with direct application to our father, Yeshua the Christ, being our high priest. And the only time the collective noun priesthood is used in connection with the body of believers is in connection with the body of believers, male and female, in Christ. With all of them serving and having a royal priesthood from being believers. In the apostolic church bride, there were men who oversaw believers at the local level. And they were called in the Greek presbyteros. Presbyterians is another way that we say it in English and the like. And that word is synonymous in English with pastors and elders. elders were merely older believers who were mature in the faith that were elected to govern and guide local gatherings of believers in the bride of that day before the great and dreadful day of the Lord came. I hope if you didn't understand me, you back it up and you listen to that again. Bottom line, all priesthoods, all of them, ended with Yeshua our Father. Except the priesthood of the one high priest to ever live, and that's him. Not you, President Oaks. None of your counselors, none of your male members around the corporation who call themselves high priests. That is an affront to my father, and we want to explain why and how tonight. So the graphic, let's talk about priest and priesthood beginning in the Garden of Eden. There was no need for a priest to make intercession for the entire human race or our first parents. They had direct access to God himself, both of them, Eve and Adam. Because they were one in the garden. There were no intermediaries. There was no need. You see? The sacrifice and service they chose to freely make in that relationship was that they would, by faith, trust in his commandments or they would trust their own will and ways and follow them. Pretty simple. Now, we've had different people give all kinds of other things about that, but pretty simple. If you look at the scripture, that is what was going on there. Of course, they freely elected to disobey the faith that our Father wanted them to have in his directives, electing knowledge from the tree of good and evil instead, and they were removed from having a direct, unencumbered relationship with him. Because of that the need for intermediaries became necessary. Let's go to another graphic. The first priestly intermediaries in the Old Testament were the heads of households, the males, because Eve's allegiance was now to her husband because of the fall, and he was made first, according to Paul. So the head of households were called patriarchs. They were the priests of their own families. It begins with Noah. He's the first one mentioned of building an altar. And then Job and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and sons. Noah's mentioned first. Why sacrifice? Okay, listen closely as we go through this. Sacrifice visually demonstrated that sin was not minor or easily excused by God. It carries a real consequence, and the consequence is death. That's just what the overall arching theme says. God established that in this world, ready? Leviticus 17.11 says, life is in the blood. And the innocent life of a valued animal in that agrarian economy was temporarily accepted as a substitute for the guilty human party so that they did not face immediate judgment. Patriarchs and Old Testament sacrifices acted as a shadow. or a tutor that pointed to Yeshua, our Father's ultimate sacrifice, as the permanent Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world once and for all. That's in Hebrews 9. So the first reference to an altar to offer sacrifice, blood sacrifice, was not Adam. It was not Cain. It was not Abel. It was Noah. Okay? And then it was Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and sons. The blood thing is really big for people because they do not understand the incomprehensible nature and beauty of it. Why the death of a little innocent animal or big by the shedding of its blood? Listen closely. Life is in the blood of the thing. shedding the blood is the taking of its life because in many ways the sins we commit listen ostensibly take life from others okay put it this way plutarch the greek philosopher said that the whole of life is but a moment in time the whole of life is but a moment in time If you're able to see it, when you commit a sin, you steal life from someone else. You take a moment or moments of time from them of their life. Let me give you an example. When you choose to gossip about somebody and make something up about them, it takes moments of their life. to go around and try to fix and address that gossip. It takes part of their life time to mourn over what you did, all the things you shared about them. That is their life compartmentalized in what you stole from them because they have to devote part of their life to fixing what you said. If you steal something, a bicycle from somebody, that they earn money to buy for themselves. Just examples. You took the time that they gave of their life to earn the money, the work they put in to buy the bicycle, when you stole it from them. You took life from that person. Life is in the blood. The only way to recompense the taking of life from another person is through the taking or shedding of blood from something you value. In the Old Testament, it was animals. They valued those animals. They were everything to them. When they committed a sin, they took an animal to the tabernacle or the temple. They killed it. They were the ones who killed it, by the way. The priest didn't. And then the priest would then go in service and the priest would go and cut it up and do different things with it, right? That would be a blood sacrifice for the sin committed so that God's wrath would not fall upon them. If you rape a woman, or a man, you have brought on a tremendous amount of loss of life to their psyche, to their mental stability, to their welfare. Horrible, horrible crime. And that's why the law had sins listed in terms of severity. If you murder somebody, you have fully taken their life. And the only way to fix that back under the law was for you to shed your own blood. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. Do you see how it worked back then? When the patriarch's family, wife, children, himself, did something wrong, he acted as an intermediary to right the wrong by offering sacrifice that was his service to ameliorate the crime temporarily as to bring some union between God and his family and to avoid the judgment that would naturally just fall upon them. Why his judgment? Why does God bring judgment upon people who take life from others? Which is called sin. Because he is just. He is good. And if we trust him, we hope he is actually perfectly just. to then take care of the wrongs done to us, to give us some kind of connection to overcome those things and to be forgiven through the system he set up. And in the Old Testament, it was the sacrifice of animals by the shedding of their blood. Now, in Abraham's day, the scripture gives us a tiny insertion to a very mysterious figure. This is not the patriarch's priesthood that we had after the fall. That mysterious figure, his name was Melchizedek. Let's start with that name. It's a compound name in the Hebrew from two paleo-Hebrew words. The first is melech or malchi. That means king or my king. And tzedek, T-Z-E-D-E-K, means righteousness and justice. He was the king of righteousness, malchi tzedek. That's what this figure, not a man. was. And what is said about this mysterious figure, President Oaks, and the members who follow you thinking they hold a priesthood or are high priests? Look it. In Genesis 14, we read, he appears briefly as what? Melchi Sedeq, the king of righteousness. He appears as the king of Salem. Salem means peace. So he was really a king of peace. To whom? The Most High God, El Elyon. He was the king of righteousness for the city of peace. He brought bread and wine. Do you understand the significance of that offering? He brings out bread and wine. He blesses Abraham, the very father of all monotheistic faith, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. And he receives a tithe of the spoils from Abraham's battle, a victory of a recent battle. So the father of the faith actually paid tithes to Melchizedek. That's how big of a figure this being was. David prophetically said the coming Messiah would be a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. That's who the Messiah would be. And that's what Melchizedek, back in the Old Testament, pictured. That being, not a man. That being pictured the coming Christ. I think Melchizedek was a Christophany. It was him, Abraham seeing him and a future of what Christ would be in spirit. Why can I say that? Because Hebrew 5-7 chapters expands extensively on Psalm 110 to show how our father Yeshua holds an eternal priesthood superior to the Levitical Aaronic priesthood which was about to end. And we're going to get to the Aaronic one in just a minute. But we've got to cover this insertion that happened in Abraham's day. Finally, Hebrews 7-3 notes that Melchizedek It introduces him, listen to this, as being without father, without mother. Now, the only one who fits that. In the terms of the right ontology of God is Yeshua pre-incarnate, the word of the Lord. Without father, God was not his father. He was God. Without mother, there was no heavenly mother. He had no father, no mother. Melchizedek's the only biblical character that comes without a father or a mother. The writer of Hebrews says without genealogy. He wasn't created. He didn't come from man. And having neither beginning of days nor end of life. Do any of the high priests of the Mormon church come without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life? Now, men have said again that Melchizedek was a human being. Absolutely insane. When you take what the writer of Hebrews says about Melchizedek, you cannot apply that to a typical human being. He was none other than our pre-incarnate father named Yeshua when he was a man on earth who is the only being ever who could be without father, without mother, without genealogy, without the beginning or days or end of life. Melchizedek is a spiritual type for Yeshua alone. A picture and type. Why? Because Christ would offer himself up alone. He alone, instead of animals that the Aaronic priesthood did, he would offer himself up for the sins of the world, the writer of Hebrews says, once and for all, once and forever, not repeating it, doing it once for the world. Hebrews 7.24 calls the priesthood of Melchizedek, ready? Are you ready, President Oaks? The priesthood of Melchizedek, not. Why? No other being has ever offered their own blood up for our sins. None. This makes Yeshua the only high priest after the order of Melchizedek who took his own blood into the Holy of Holies above, reconciling God to separated sinful man once and forevermore. Are you still with me, President Oaks? Can you find time to listen to this outside of your busy schedule? About 450 years after the patriarchs being priests over their own families, we have another iteration of a service-oriented priesthood enter the scene. We had Adam and Eve, who both had direct access to God, their sacrifice and reasonable service, was obeying him in faith directly. To disobey him in self-will would later require sacrifices to reunite with him. Hence, a priesthood was necessary. Then the priesthood of patriarchs. Noah is the first to build an altar to God and to offer sacrifice from it as a priest over his own family. Then Job, I think chronologically. Then Abraham, insert there Melchizedek's appearance as a type and shadow of the coming of our father in flesh. Then we had Jacob, Isaac, and sons becoming patriarchs over their, or priests over their own families until Moses. Then what? We have that insertion Assertion of Melchizedek, which I pointed out to there. And he was the king of righteousness, king of Salem peace, without father or mother genealogy, neither having beginning nor end of days of life, but resembling the son of God. He continues to priest forever. And Hebrews 7.24 calls his priesthood unchangeable and non-transferable. Why? Because only he offered himself up. He was the only one worthy to do it. He was the only one that was God. And he was the only one who lived perfectly. So, after the nation of Israel entered into captivity in Egypt, they were delivered by Moses to Mount Sinai. We remember how all that happened. And Yehovah shifted the priesthood from the heads of individual family households to a line of Aaron. and the tribe of Levi as a whole, when he gave the nation his ten-word ketubah marital contract. At Sinai, Moses gave the nation a marital contract between God and them. There he married her. This established a priesthood that the Levites officiated over. and that served as a nationalized, centralized system of worship for his bride when they were on earth and when they would sin. Some think that the tribe of Levi received this priesthood because they were the only ones who did not worship the golden calf that paradoxically Aaron, who came from the tribe of Levi, had made. But the rest of them wouldn't worship it. And it seems like God said, all the rest of you worship the golden calf. The tribe of Levi didn't, even though Aaron made it. So they will get this priesthood and they will become the priests that serve. Where? In his temple, in his tabernacle, as priests among the people. So we go to the Levitical priesthood. The priests were authorized to slaughter animals, sprinkle blood, and burn fat on the altar. They received no land inheritance, but lived off the offerings of the nation for their service. The animal offered served as a substitute, dying in the place of the person or family or nation who sinned so that God's wrath was temporarily satisfied and fellowship was restored to the individual and the nation as a whole because she was his bride. And if one member of the nation sinned, the bride had sinned. That's why they all paid the punishment for one of their own doing things. And that's why they would put them to death if the sin was egregious enough. sacrifices allowed the Israelites to maintain their covenant relationship with God, perform ritual purification, and express gratitude. Because the blood lacked finality, the sacrifices had to be repeated continually, like daily and yearly on the Day of Atonement. So the service in the tabernacle and the temple was endless by these Levitical priests. The external ritual was only meaningful when it was accompanied by genuine repentance and faith in God. Mechanical sacrifices offered without a change of heart were always condemned by prophets like Isaiah and Amos. I mean, it gets to the point where they think they can mechanically just offer an animal up and sin like no more. And Amos and Isaiah say, God says, I hate these offerings. Your heart is far from them. That's called religion. Hebrews 4.10 declares that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. The Levitical priesthood served in a number of other ways too for the nation, including they were the official custodians of God's word, scripture, and were empowered to preserve, teach, and interpret the divine law for the community. That's a big task. God commanded Aaron and his sons to teach Israel all the statutes given through Moses. You can read that in those references given. In ancient Israel, the priests also functioned as supreme judges for Israel. Criminal and religious disputes when lower courts could not reach a verdict, God granted them, the priests, the authority to settle controversies. Quote, in a dispute they shall act as judges and they shall judge it according to my judgments. And Deuteronomy 17 dictates that if a case was too difficult, the people must go to the Levitical priest. The priest's verdict was binding, and anyone who refused to listen to the priest was put to death. The priest had the authority to determine cleanliness under the law, and they had the legal power to quarantine or allow people back into the camp. Priests were authorized to act as verbal conduits of God's favor, speaking official blessings over the congregation. The references are there to check it. A single Levitical high priest, a single Levitical, not Melchizedek, high priest possessed a unique mechanism to consult God directly to discern his will on behalf of the nation's elders or leaders. He carried the Urim and Thummim. They were sacred lots and things inside his priestly vestments. And Exodus 28 talks about that. When Israel's leaders needed tactical or political direction from God, the priest would use those items to obtain a divine yes or no answer. Priests and their Levitical assistants had physical custody and military-like security authority over God's sanctuary. They were like... guards, right? They were legally commanded by God to put to death any unauthorized person, any stranger who attempted to encroach upon or entered the sacred perimeter of the tabernacle or temple. And President Oaks, you give a restored version of this priesthood to 12-year-olds? First of all, restored means bring it back to the original, and as you can see, your 12-year-olds have nothing close to a restored version of what the Levitical priests did. Not in their age, not in their qualifications, not in their service, not in their work. It's a sham. So even the claim of a restoration is false. as nothing respectfully in your version relative to priesthood or temple reflects the original. Not even close. President Oaks. We're not done. The Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood in the apostolic age, the age that they call the New Testament, the New Testament particularly, especially the epistle to the Hebrews, teaches that the old Levitical system was a temporary shadow of a greater reality to come. Because Yeshua descended from the tribe of Judah and not Levi, he didn't hold the Aaronic priesthood. Instead, prophecies like Psalm 110.4 declare him to be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, who was a type and shadow of him and him alone. Unlike Levitical priests who repeatedly offered daily animal sacrifices and eventually died and needed to be replaced, Yeshua offered himself once on the cross as both the permanent high priest and the final sacrifice through his blood, reconciling the world to the Father forevermore. The tearing of the temple veil at his death signified the end of the old sacrificial covenant put up by Moses. The apostolic record replaces the framework of a Levitical priesthood with a community of faith describing all believers, all, male, female, all believers collectively as a royal priesthood. This restoring the Aaronic again is proven to be false. To the believers in that day, Peter wrote, but you are a chosen. generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should show forth the praise of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And 1 Peter 2. 9 states that the believers were to offer spiritual sacrifices, spiritual sacrifices of prayer and service directly to God through Christ, and no longer through any priestly intermediaries, rites, rituals, codes, or ordinances. At this point, some assume that our Father gave his apostles a priesthood to act and operate in the apostolic church bride. Look at the differences and distinctions of what our father gave his chosen apostles to what the apostles you claim to have on earth are and do. As Brother Danny Larson from Talking to Mormons points out, never in the scripture do we read of Yeshua laying his hands on his apostles and giving them any priesthood. And re-examine the word ordained in the record if you think that means it was a laying on of hands. Yeshua granted his apostles a distinct level of authority and miraculous spiritual capabilities exclusively to his apostles to establish and gather his church bride in that day. But we never read of his giving them a priesthood by a laying on of hands and especially never a Melchizedek. Never. Why? The priesthood was by genealogy. was being fulfilled in the Levitical sense, and his priesthood was not transferable. While all believers operated under the general authority of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, the unique delegated powers given to the specific apostoli, the sent ones, differed dramatically in function, scope, and purpose of other members of the pure elect and holy bride. Yeshua gave the twelve absolute authority to cast out all demons and cure all diseases. Their healing ministry was in our Father's name to prove Him, the Anointed One, that was prophesied. Yeshua gave the apostles the specific authority to pass binding legal and spiritual judgments for the church community. What they declared forbidden or bound or permitted loosed on earth was backed by heavenly authority. In a unique post-resurrection meeting, his resurrection, Yeshua breathed on the apostles and told them, if you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Yeshua also promised the apostles a unique permanent ruling position in eternity, stating they would, quote, they would, quote, sit on 12 thrones, 12 President Oaks, 12, not anymore. judging the 12 tribes of Israel, showing that everything was to them then for Israel. We are of a different age. And as Christ expanded, in some case, the apostles possessed the exclusive ability to act as conduits for the Holy Spirit's baptism. In Acts 8, believers in Samaria had accepted the gospel, but they did not receive the Holy Spirit until Peter and John physically traveled there and laid hands on them. That was an apostolic authority to perform a miracle of bestowing the Spirit, but it was not the only way the Spirit was bestowed. Our father Yeshua both knew, called, and trained his 12 apostles personally. Personally. They were qualified because they witnessed his miracles. They traveled with him the whole time that he was on earth. They witnessed his resurrection. And through giving their lives up in martyrdom, that's what Paul says qualified them. Have any of the apostles that you guys claim to be done that? The only time they ever replaced from their own ranks was the result of impetuous Peter before the spirit fell at Pentecost. So he's still operating by his own imagination and the law decided to hold an election by casting lots. And a guy named Matthias was elected. Our father had another one in mind who he would call, who he would train and teach, and who he would send. His name was Paul. or Saul originally. One by one, his original apostles gave their lives for their little witness of our father's teachings, miracles, and rising from the grave and ascending in the heavens with the promise of coming back. They were put to death. Our father taught them the signs of his return that they were to look for. In that day, he told them that they would not get to all the cities of Israel before they would see him come back. Do we forget this stuff? They all accepted, taught, and prepared that world for his return to save them, which he did as his prophecies state, as the apostles' prophecies state, and as secular historians like Josephus and Tacitus and Dio and these others all verified through the things they wrote, not even being believers. And the way to him was open by his spirit without any human intervention needed ever, ever, ever again. But as we know, President Oaks, and as history proves, our father gave man dominion over this world. that he reconciled to his father once and for all as our only high priest and king. And in this, during the time of the Gentiles, which started after he took his bride up, rescuing her from imminent death, what have we seen man do with priesthood? Well, let's look at a little quick graphic. We have in the time of the Gentiles from about 100 AD, you can say it was either 70, 100, 134. There's reasons for that. Out to 1830, this is what the Church of the Gentiles did pre-Joseph Smith. The Catholic misappropriated it, and they had a priesthood type to males of false authority. And what did they do? I mean, just look at what they did with that. And then we have the orthodox continuation of that misappropriation and the split at 1054 and more priesthood types to more males with more false authority. Because there's no intermediaries necessary. Then in the Protestant Reformation, the claim to there being a priesthood of believers by Luther and others, but it too is generally expressed in even Protestant churches today, mostly by males and mostly with false authority. So that's what Smith came into seeing all that done. But we come to another imaginative man named Brother Joseph Smith, and he conjured up from the spirit of man in him something new. And we go to the LDS unauthorized restoration, but allowed by God. But allowed by God. He falsely restored a priesthood formerly restricted to Levites. But worse yet, and you should read Grant Palmer's Insider's View of Mormon Origins. I think that's his book. Grant's book before he passed proves pretty much that Joseph Smith's history of receiving a Melchizedek priesthood restored to him was an entire fabrication. The whole thing was fabricated. The revelations never happened. Read that. But anyway, worse yet. Joseph Smith utterly disgraced the finished work of our father by suggesting that his exclusive, non-transferable priesthood after the order of Melchizedek could be shared by other and with other men. As a humble, broken, loser son of my father, in the spirit of John the Baptist, I am calling you out like Elijah called out the prophets of Baal as a forerunner of the events of Revelation 21 occurring again in our future. And in this reclamation period where our father is coming to reclaim his priesthood for himself and his authority and his children of faith, this will happen in the reclamation by you or your successor first from the LDS. The LDS will from the top openly renounce all claims of a Melchizedek priesthood. returning it to our Father alone who offered up himself for the sins of the world. Secondly, the LDS will from the top admit to a priesthood of all believers, all, male and female, by faith and reject all claims of authoritative, sacerdotal, I think that's how you say it, sacerdotal, sacerdotal. intercession through the Aaronic priesthood sham. No more are these 12-year-olds pretending to do what the Levites did of old in the restored gospel. Nothing restored about it. The LDS will corporately promote and teach that the world was returned to a spiritual Edenic state with all people having direct access to God by his victorious spirit given at Pentecost and that continues to abide in all people in the world today, even those without belief. And you will lead all your members, President Oaks or your successor, to look to our father alone as our only high priest and righteous king to ever exist. You have never been qualified to hold an Aaronic priesthood, President Oaks, when you were a little deacon and teacher and priest. You have not ever held the holy Melchizedek priesthood. You were never qualified to be an apostle. You were never, and you're currently not, my father's prophet. You are a president over a human, worldly, religious corporation. But worst of all, and above all other acts and claims the institution you represent has done, you, nor anyone else in your ranks or below you, has ever been a high priest. Ever. Only my father, our father, Yeshua, the Christ. Strip yourselves of the robes of your false priesthood, President Oaks. Humble yourself and those you govern to the dust. Put your face in the dust and repent for this absurdity, this tragedy. this unconscionable act that you have done against my father and the father of everybody who walks by faith in him alone. Receive him as the only high priest after the order of Melchizedek and meet us face to face to study the ark my father has allowed to even exist for these past near 200 years. Until you or your successor correct this and other things, the LDS ark will shake to the point where the dust you can now put your face in will cover you. It will cover your members. You have been warned. We'll see some of you in Mount Carmel, Utah this Saturday. We hope you, President Oaks, are among them.