Quotes from Models – Belief Window

By James D. Harmston

WHAT IS TRUTH/BELIEF WINDOWS:

“We only see things the way we think they are because we have what we call a belief window, between what reality is and us and that acts as a filter, depending on how thick or how dark, how warped, this window is, our perception of reality may be something like this, something entirely less than what it really is.”

IF you have truth, you can be more righteous.  If you are more righteous, you can have more truth.  See how those two work together?  They are synergistic, literally; its good way to put it; they are modern terms.  The two parts are greater than either one of them.  Okay?  But you have to do that unto the end.” 

“Christ died for truth.  Joseph Smith died for truth.  Hyrum died for truth.  Truth is a knowledge of things as they really are, as they have been and as they will be.”

“Our job is to discover the truth, live it.  Our job, as the elect of Israel, a remnant, a residue, called out from among the people.  Our responsibility is to create a reclamation of the House of Israel, true Israel, those who can live it.  Our job once having done that is to establish a Zion Society with the full powers of the Priesthood, having all the ordinances, keys, rights, and powers of the Priesthood, we will then establish a Zion Society from the weak things of the earth, as considered by man”

WHAT IS ETERNITY?

“So Truth is the knowledge of things, in what condition?  As they were, as they are, and as they are to come.  Well, you don’t have to have a degree in advanced Mathematics, or Physics or anything else, to figure out what’s being talked about here.  This, obviously, is things in the past; these are things in the present; and these are things in the future. Alright, now, if you add the past to the present and those two to the future, what do you have?  You have a concept called eternity.   What is eternity?  Well, I’m not going to take you into it, but the ancients understood it.  And Joseph understood it.  An eternity is a space of time, kind of interesting, but it happens to work out to be a space of time, 2,555,000,000 years long, and we go from eternity to eternity.”

“We want to get to the truth, that’s all we’re interested in, we just want the truth and God has given us the keys to do that and we have his prescribed vehicle in place to make certain that that’s all it is, that we will not be led astray, something that’s been abandoned by the LDS church for well over a hundred years.”

“Now if we were to take all truth, if we were to take all truth, right here, and circumscribe it into one great whole, we’d have what we call the Fullness Of the Gospel.  When you circumscribe things into one great whole, it’s called the Fullness of the Gospel, because the Gospel embraces all truth.”

PARADIGM SHIFT:

“You go through, in this process, you go then through what we call a ‘Paradigm Shift.’  And out of that comes a new perception, a bigger window, hopefully, better, okay, and you are moved a little further along, right here, and can perceive a little bit more truth.”

“God will never force you to come to him, but he will put you in circumstances that forces you to use your agency to make choice.  To me, that’s kind of righteous compulsion.  To put a person between a rock and hard spot so they have to make some decisions, it’s mercy, literally.”

“The paradigm shift, once you catch on and submit your will to God’s will and quit trying to tell him how he’s going to save you, and you actually gain enough confidence in God to let him lead you along, then he will lead you into his presence and you’ll go through paradigm shift after paradigm shift and it won’t be so traumatic.”    

THE HOLY GHOST:

“What’s the mission of the Holy Ghost?  To reveal the Father, the Son, the plan!  Who administers in the Telestial World?  The Holy Ghost, the unseen God!  The Holy Ghost’s responsibility is to introduce you to who?  Christ!  Whose responsibility is it to introduce you to the Father?  Christ, okay, let’s get our orders straight.  Who forms the temporal Godhead?  The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, don’t they?” 

THE MYSTERIES OF GOD:

“So, if you harden your heart, you get the lesser portion and this goes on and on until you know nothing concerning the mysteries and then you’re taken captive by the devil and led by his will down to destruction. Those who keep the commandments, I will give the mysteries.  You mean diligently seeking must be a commandment?  Wow!   So, we’ve got to diligently seek and then he’ll give what?  The mysteries.”

EVERLASTING LIFE:

“So you have to get the mysteries, and they’re the well that springs to everlasting life.  Are you going to get everlasting life without the mysteries?  Nay, you can’t have everlasting life without the mysteries, and so if you leave the mysteries out, what are you leaving out?  Everlasting life.  That’s axiomatic to me.  How about to you?  Does that make sense?  It does, doesn’t it.  So you leave the mysteries out, and the well’s gone, so you can’t spring up to everlasting life.  There’s no way to get everlasting life without the mysteries.”

LAW OF ETERNAL JUSTICE:

“God would cease to be God if he were not the strict arbiter of the law of eternal justice.  The law of eternal justice declares that no unclean thing can enter his presence.  Paul says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” 

LAW OF MERCY:

“Well, there just happens to be a little sub-component part of the law of eternal justice called the law of mercy.  The law of mercy can be affected by one who is guiltless and allows him to pay recompense for other’s sins on conditions of repentance.  But he has to be both able and willing to do that, and so along comes the son, the Messiah, Messiah Ben Judah, and he agrees to affect the law of mercy to appease the law of eternal justice.”

WHERE DOES GOD GET HIS POWER?

“There’s a statement that’s kind of interesting that kind of shows us where God gets his power, where we have the devil saying, you know, we have Satan saying, wherefore give me thine honor which is my power.   The honor that the intelligence of the universe, the intelligence that has the capacity to act, the intelligence that has the capacity to act, the honor that they give to God is where he gets his power because then they obey.” 

“It’s like a General.  If he’s a good General and all the troops love him and follow him, then he has power, but if he’s a crummy jerk and not a very good leader, then you get the troops saying, pfftt, I’m out of here, and what happens?  He doesn’t have much power.  Okay?  Patten won wars!  Why?  Because he was a real leader.  Now some of these guys hated him, that’s true, but as a whole, they had confidence in him that he knew what he was doing.”

“And so Christ says here to Joseph, he says, I the Lord am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me and delight to honor those who serve me in righteous and in truth.  So what he’s really saying is, look, if you guys will take advantage of the atonement, of cleaning up, bringing you into my presence, and I will honor you, if you will serve me in righteousness and in truth.  In other words, I’ll share my power with you.  That’s was he’s saying.  I’m always amazed that God can say so much in so few words.”

PRUDENT MAN CONCEPT:

“What’s the prudent man concept?  Wisdom of the wise shall perish and the understanding of the prudent come to naught?  A reference to what?  Earthly knowledge, temporal knowledge.  The prudent man concept:  money, insurance plans, retirement plans, etc. etc, etc. etc. invest in the future.   I’ll never forget, this was years ago, I was listening to Gordon Hinckley and he was talking about things going very well for the Church, and he said, why we take a portion of every tithing dollar and invest it for a rainy day.  And I said, what?  You know, and I hit replay, we take a portion of every tithing dollar and invest it for a rainy day.  And I thought, huh?  I can tell you when the rainy day comes, nobody’s investment is going to be worth anything.” 

DIVINE LAW OF WITNESSES:

“You see, I believe in the divine law of witnesses:  That in the mouth of two or three witnesses can every truth be established.   That used to bug the general authorities to death because I used to tackle them on that one.  I said, okay, you’re one witness, I’m entitled to the divine witness and if the divine witness tells me not to do what you’re telling me to do, I ain’t going to do it.  I ain’t going to follow you to hell.  One general authority got so angry with me, he started stomping his feet, clenched his fists and said, listen, we hold the keys and therefore are the same as God!  You have to follow us.  Throw your tantrum, I believe in the divine law of witnesses.  I have a right to go to God and find out if it’s true.  If it’s true, I’ll do it and if its not, I not going to follow you to hell!  Period!  Bottom line!  End!  There’s no such thing as infallibility!  When there’s no revelation, that’s when infallibility enters. “

TRUE ORDER OF PRAYER:

“I was a temple worker in the Ogden temple.  And I couldn’t understand why they said, you know, Eloheim would tell Peter, James and John, go down into Terrestrial world and teach the man, Adam, and his posterity the true order of prayer.  They’d come down and teach them the true order of prayer and tell you not to use it.  I said, that’s baloney!  So I finally made an appointment with the temple president who is a shirt tale relative.  I had all the records from the past, you know, all kinds of stuff, type scripts, and journals and diaries and entries and all kinds of things.  That’s exactly, as soon as Joseph gave the brethren on the 4th of May, 1842, an endowment, that they did.  They went home, built an altar and put on their robes and started talking to God.”   

“No place to go but to God for truth, and so I built an altar; we dedicated it, put on our robes, offered up the signs, and I figured if this is wrong, in about two seconds, I’m going to be a crispy critter, cause there will be a bolt of lightning come out of the sky and consume me and it will be all over.  At least I’ll have an answer to the—you know, but guess what!  The heavens opened, and from then on.”

PERCEPTIONS OF CHRIST:

“You know, modern Christians have this perception of Christ; he is this nice little, you know, sweet little thing that went around just being kind and gentle and nice.  When in fact, if you actually got to the records, you discover he’s a pretty gruff guy, just like all the prophets, tired of putting up with nonsense, tired of wickedness and apostasy.”

“Well, who’s he calling Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrite, the leaders of the Church in that day.  You call a Jew a hypocrite and that’s about the worst thing you can do to him, besides shave his beard and strip him naked, isn’t it.  Any of you know any thing about Judaism, you call a devout orthodox Jew a hypocrite, and Holy Cow, you’ve got a fight on your hands.”

APRIL 10, 1990 – THE FINAL BLOW

“The final blow came on April the 10th, 1990 when they took the penalties out of the endowment, changed two signs of the Priesthood, the name of the sign, they took out the five points of fellowship, the Holy Embrace at the veil.  You change the ordinances and you change the Priesthood.  You change the Priesthood and it’s no longer God’s Priesthood.  I said, all Satan’s ever done from the beginning is take true Priesthood, corrupt it and call it his own.  On April the 10th, 1990, all that happened was that the enemy blatantly took over the fort.  I said all that happened on April the 10th, 1990 was simply Satan blatantly destroyed the last vestige of any truth in the temples in the Mormon Church.”

“When you see how the sealing principle has been destroyed in the Mormon Church, you will understand what Satan is doing.  You’ve got some serious repentance to deal with.  Do you comprehend anything about what those penalties deal with in a temple?  What about the ritual?  What about the ordinances?  What about the sacrifices?  The minute you take those penalties out you’ve taken Christ out of that endowment.  Yes, they can mouth the words.  And why am I exercised?  Because I know the truth. “