Recognizing the prevalent idolatry in the church as well as my own idolatry has been a ride awakening for sure. Just this week it has weighed heavily on me after attending a well meaning primary activity where the "Yellow Brick Road" led to the temple .... Instead of the Savior.😳 Either I didn't see it before or temple idolatry is dramatically increasing. Jesus IS THE WAY! And if we are declaring more or less than this....well, than we are not following God.
I love your assessment of sports overtaking us. I quit an EQ secretary calling after three weeks because we wasted 20 minutes on sports talk. I have better things to do with my Sundays. I agree that sports often become the distraction from life and worthier pursuits.
Very good, and very important video! Thank you for making it! When my wife and I held temple recommends, we would sometimes go to the temple to pray when we needed to pray about something especially important. We didn't do this because we thought there was anything special about the temple itself (despite believing that Jesus physically visited it on occasion, which we no longer believe), but because it was a good way to cut out all distractions -- all the noise, fears, and temptations of the world -- and focus *only* on Christ and hearing His voice. We could have gone to a mountain top or even into a sensory deprivation chamber, but the temple has been the most convenient place for us to go for things like that in times past. But, given what we've been learning over the last few years and especially the last several months, we no longer see the temple that way, and it would, itself, be a massive distraction for us from hearing the voice of the Lord. I'm not sure about going so far as to use a sensory deprivation chamber, lol, but now that we live near the Appalachians, the idea of going to a solitary mountain top to commune with the Lord during a time of particularly great need sounds *amazing!* 🤩 Thanks again for the video.
I am glad you were able to come to this realization. Yes the temple is a great place. However I have thought about going to a quite place in the mountains for a few days and just communing with God. I have been "plugged in" almost my entire life and it leads to a false sense of reality certainly.
Patrick, I have been anxiously awaiting your next video and You have not disappointed. There is so much packed into this video. So many ways we can get off track. Indeed the gate is extremely narrow and wide is the path to destruction. I very much appreciate your in-depth exploration of idolatry. A few years ago I would not have considered our people to be much of idol worshipers, but now I see that it is absolutely one of the top things that prevent us from ever knowing God. Fortunately, God can remove these idols from our heart and replace them with something much better if we allow him in.
Good job. I did want to add a little more information about that statue called Christus. The original was sculpted by an artist in Denmark for a Catholic church, in 1821, one year after Joseph Smith's first vision. Joseph saw the true Jesus. The devil inspired the artist to carve the devil's face on the image. The image was made to be worshiped. A friend of David McKay had a copy of the sculpture made to present to McKay for his 90th birthday. It cost over $100000 which in today's money is over one million dollars. When it was presented to McKay, for his birthday, he was still healthy and up and about. The statue was erected in August 1966. McKay was stricken and by October conference, he was too sick to attend conference. Four years later he died, fulfilling the prediction of Wilford Woodruff that if the President of the church does something to lead the people astray the Lord will take him. Why would the president of the church put up an image of Lucifer, the devil, on church property? And why is the image of Lucifer the icon for the church. The answer is that McKay was a secret member of the Illuminati, which is part of a secret society of the Catholic church called the Jesuits. The Catholic church marks it's territory and churches with graven images. When McKay put up that image, he revealed his secret affiliation with the Catholic church, effectively declaring to the world that the church was being owned and controlled by the Catholic church, effectively making the LDS church a tributary of the Catholic Church.
@josephaney LOL. Wait until you learn about the ways that Wilford Woodruff -- to say nothing of the peso Brigham Young and the murderer John Taylor -- led the church astray! The reality is that that teaching itself is of the devil. It negates agency, ignores God's plan of salvation, and is the keystone of all falsehoods that have ever been taught in the church. If it weren't for that false doctrine, the church would be much better-off today! Thanks for sharing that info about the christus looking like Lucifer, though. I hadn't heard about that. I'll look into it.
@josephaney LOL. Wait until you learn about the ways that Wilford Woodruff -- to say nothing of the ped0 Brigham Young and the murderer John Taylor -- led the church astray! The reality is that that teaching itself is of the devil. It negates agency, ignores God's plan of salvation, and is the keystone of all falsehoods that have ever been taught in the church. If it weren't for that false doctrine, the church would be much better-off today! Thanks for sharing that info about the christus looking like Lucifer, though. I hadn't heard about that. I'll look into it.
@josephaney LOL. Wait until you learn about the ways that Wilford Woodruff -- to say nothing of the ped0 Brigham Young and the murderer John Taylor -- led the church astray! The reality is that that teaching itself is of the devil. It negates agency, ignores God's plan of salvation, and is the keystone of all falsehoods that have ever been taught in the church. If it weren't for that false doctrine, the church would be much better-off today! Thanks for sharing that info about the christus looking like Lucifer, though. I hadn't heard about that. I'll look into it.
