Choice 2: Teaching

1.

-- Bring in damnable heresies

-- Deny the Lord

-- Use feigned worlds

-- Make merchandise of you

-- Use filthy conversation

-- Walk after the flesh

-- Lust of uncleanness

-- Despise government

-- Presumptuous and self-willed

-- Speak evil of the things they don’t understand

-- Take pleasure to riot

-- Eyes full of adultery

-- Cannot cease from sin

-- Beguiling unstable should

-- Forsaken the right way and gone astray

-- Speak great swelling words of vanity

These attributes can help us realize today who we should follow and listen too. False teachers today have the same attributes, they seek after the vanities of the world and preach that which is contrary to the Gospel and the teachings of Christ. So by watching their actions and fruits they produce, we can know if someone is a false teacher or a messenger from God.

2. The dangers of returning to the pollution's of the world is that we will be even more condemned that had we never obtained the knowledge that we now have. Once we have obtained a level of knowledge of God, he holds us that much more accountable. So if we slip and fall back into sin after being enlightened by the gospel, then our punishment will be that much worse. it would have been better for us to not have ever known the gospel

Hebrews 13: Works of Righteousness

How should we treat strangers and those “in bonds”?

-         -- He councils us to let brotherly love continue and be not forgetful to entertain strangers because some have entertained angels unawares.

-         -- He also says to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them

How is marriage looked upon?

-        ----  He says Marriage is honorable in all.

-        ---  Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

What warning are given about covetousness?

-       ---   Let your conversation be without covetousness

-        ---  Be content with such things as ye have

What is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever”?

-        ---  Jesus Christ

How are we sanctified?

-         -- Through Jesus Christ

-          --Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.

How do we respond to those who rule over us?

-          ---Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves

-          ----They watch for your souls, as they that mist give account, that they may do it with joy, and not        with grief

Who did Paul ask the people to pray for?

-          ---Paul and the others that were engaged in the work

-         --- Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly

Philippians 1-4--Find Solutions in the Scriptures to Life's Challenges

--             As members of the church, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Once we have been baptized we have become disciples of Christ and need to behave as such. It does not matter what the dispute, especially petty ones that mean nothing, we cannot strife with one another. We need to be without murmurings and disputations. We cannot be blameless if we fight with one another and are not humble and lowly of heart. So we need to be as our savior and humble and obedient to what Heavenly Father has commanded us to do. When we do that we will be of on heart and one mind and the petty problems will go away. You cannot hate the person you actively love.

--             To those youth that feel that they can rely on their parents testimonies and not discover your own. There will come a time in the not so distant future in your life when that will not suffice. Just as Paul commanded the early saints to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” Philip 2:12, we all need to do the same. It is not enough to say ‘because my fathers knew it’ and expect everything to be OK. David O McKay also spoke on the matter and said “To work out one’s salvation is not to sit idly by dreaming and yearning for God miraculously to thrust bounteous blessings into our laps.” It takes serious dedication and prayer. If you do not find your own testimony to stand on, there will come a time when Satan will try you in such a way you will realize that your parent testimony is no longer to stand on and you will be left wanting.

--             This life is all about learning to submit yourself to God’s will. This inherently means that it is going to be difficult. Each one of us has our own trials, Satan does not want any of us to be happy or receive exaltation, he will do everything he can and through every stumbling block in our path to try and make us fall. But like Paul, we must be willing to give up everything we possess to find Christ. There is nothing that we should not be willing to give up in pursuit of our savior, without salvation we are nothing. Though it won’t be easy, we are promised to be strengthened as we turn to our savior. Just as Paul said “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”.

Romans 6. Baptism

1) Romans 6:1-13

- Before we can be baptized, we must yield ourselves to God and reject our sins. We have to forsake them and turn from them before we can be baptized into Christ’s death and partake of his resurrection as well.

-Christ’s baptism symbolizes His death, it symbolizes the body of sin being laid down to death that we might be raised up from the dead by the glossy of the Father. And just as we are dead in Christ we too will be freed from sin.

-Sprinkling of water does not symbolize the laying down to death. Christ died that he could overcome the body and break the chains of eternal death. He died that we might too die in him so that we can also be raised from the dead. So without our bodies being laid below the water and come forth again new and clean from sin, then we cannot partake of the blessings of baptism. It is symbolic of his death, and there for symbolic of your sinful death and renew spiritual cleansing.

- We maintain the newness of life by not yielding to sin. We must reject all sin from befalling us and making us unclean of the blessings of His death and resurrection. Because just as we have been planted in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. So we need to follow after Christ and live as he did once we have been baptized and freed from death and sin.

- According to Mosiah 3:19, we need to have the natural man die at our baptism. When we are laid below, the sinful, prideful, lustful man is what is being laid down, and when we are brought back up we are bringing a new man, with a newness of life, dedicated to following Christ the rest of our mortal days. So ideally, the natural man is what needs to die.

2)

We know whose servants we are by the fruits we bring forth. If we serve our God we will be a positive instrument in his hands, bring his blessings to his children. We will be examples and a light to the world so that they can know where the true source of happiness lies. Those around us will notice us for our works, and seek after us that they can also know of the joy that we have obtained. But if we are servants to our enemy, we will emit darkness in our lives. We will be incapable of true happiness and will seek after the whores of the earth. Just as a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, our lives cannot produce good fruit if our roots are planted in rotten ground. So we can know who we serve by the fruits that we produce, if we have pure happiness and joy, we know that we are following the Father. If we feel empty, dark, and lost, then we know that we have submitted ourselves to the enemy, to the snake to deceive our first parents, and is the enemy to God.

It is only through Christ that true freedom is found. Because of Adams transgression, we will all taste the pains of death, but through Christ, he can swallow it up for us, and we can be set free from sin and death and rise with him through the atonement and his triumph over death. Freedom comes in and through Christ only. Any other proclaimed source is an abomination and disgrace to God and is nothing more than a counterfeit of Satan, who is the antithesis of freedom.

1 Corinthians 10: How Christ Helps Us Over Come Sin

Christ is our spiritual rock. He is a rock in sense of he is an immovable foundation, if we build our lives on him we will be able to withstand the attacks of the adversary, he is the rock upon which the church is built, he is the symbolic rock the Moses struck to bring forth saving water.

The promise from Peter in verse 13 is so reassuring because it promises us that if we are built upon Christ he will always be with us. There is no temptation that we can not withstand as long as we are firmly established on him. This verse brings a new insight and appreciation for the atonement that he preformed for us. The way out that he has prepared is that atonement, because of his sacrifice, he know each one of us personally and knows exactly what we have to do in order to resist the fiery darts of the adversary. I love Christ so much for the atonement he has offered me, and I take full confidence in him that he will always be by my side and lift me up every time the world tries to tear me down.

Paul referring to Christ as a rock and then giving this promise here is absolutely perfect. He is providing the perfect analogy to describe the way out of temptation and the world. I often like to think of Satan and the world as quick sand, zero stability that slowly sucks you down till you are spiritually suffocated and dead inside. I have felt the pulling down by the world and sin on my soul and have felt the suffocating pressure that is accompanied by sin. I was literally engulfed by the sinking feeling and could see the light going out in my soul. I was left with nothing more that a massive hole, and not matter how hard or how much I pursued the things that I once thought made me happy, the hole could not be filled. I was in a virtual quick sand and I had no escape. Deliverance was unattainable until I decided to turn to my last option, Christ. I spent every resource that had once been available, just as the supposed happiness, those that help you engage in such activities are just as fleeting. When you are in the moment of need, you come to the realization that they are nowhere to be found. They can't be, the only one able to save you from that type of misery is the Savior. The reason He is the only one is because he has been there, though the atonement he not only experienced it, but found his way back. So when he says that he has prepared a way out, he literally has. Christ knows exactly what we each of us need to do in order to re build and pull us out of the quicksand we are engulfed by. And that is why I love the analogy of Christ as being a rock, it is the opposite of quicksand. A rock is a solid immovable foundation that will always support us and will always be there for us. No matter the time or need.

Alma here is expounding on the way we are able to obtain the promise given by Paul. He says that it is through humility, prayer, meekness, submissiveness, and being full of love that we are able to obtain this promise. It goes back to doing the little things. If we are able to do the little things, we will have built upon the rock of Christ and we will not fall. He will have a way, either trough bearing the burden himself, or giving us the extra strength to make it through.

Acts 19-20

Five priesthood ordinances that Paul performed: baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, conferring the Gift of the Holy Ghost, casting out evil spirits, raising the dead, and healing the sick.
1. He baptized them in the name of Jesus Christ.
2. It shows that we must be baptized as Christ was baptized, and in him name.
3. Paul bestowed the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands.
4. The saints met on the first day of the week. There is evidence that the Sabbath day was changed because Paul travels on a day that would have been the Sabbath had it not been changed.

Acts 10

When Peter clearly understood the meaning of the vision, he said, "Of truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons." To me, this means that God is above all men. There is not a single person to have lived who is greater or more knowledgeable than God. The Jewish Saints were sent a vision that told them that Peter would be coming. They knew to believe his words.