In the two previous parts of this series we have discovered that knowing the Lord involves dealing justice to the poor and the needy among us. We also reviewed from scripture the condemnations that rest upon the leaders of the Lord’s people who steal from the poor by requiring tithes of those who barely have means to support themselves. In this final installment we are going to explore the law of common consent and how church leaders set at defiance the word of the Lord by failing to disclose how church finances are allocated.
In D&C 26:2 (given July 1830) the Lord says:
And all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith, for all things you shall receive by faith. Amen.
This principle is further reiterated nearly 4 years later when the laws concerning the operation of the United Order are set forth (D&C 104:71). With regards to taking money out of the treasury the Lord states:
And there shall not any part of it be used, or taken out of the treasury, only by the voice and common consent of the order.
Here we have two witnesses from the Lord that financial affairs are not to be kept hidden from the church membership. Rather, the consent of the membership is required to appropriate moneys in the church.
In 1838 there was a proposal made to pay Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith salaries for their work on behalf of the church in the amount of $1,100 apiece which was the equivalent of three times the average workers salary at the time. Despite being approved by the high council, when it was noised abroad to the churches that such an arrangement had been made it caused such an uproar that the salary agreement was rescinded at the next high council meeting. (See Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess, Chapter 17. See also D. Michael Quinn, LDS Church Finances from the 1830s to the 1990s, Sunstone, June 1996, p. 21).
Anyone who is familiar with my blog will look at the date this proposal took place and realize that it was many years after the people had rejected the covenant and that both Joseph and Sidney were under the burden of making an intercessory atonement for the people. Their desire for material comforts and wealth is consistent with their taking upon themselves the sins of the people and acting them out.
Since Joseph’s death the church has been very inconsistent and sporadic in sharing financial information with it’s members. As documented by D. Michael Quinn in LDS Church Finances cited above, the definition of tithing has changed over the years as has the application of consequences for the non-payment of tithes. More significant, however, is the lack of transparency that has hidden from public view the poor financial decisions that plagued the church up through the 1950s and the use of tithes for private gain by some church leaders.
For example, there are a number of church leaders who took personal loans from church funds and then had those notes cancelled without repayment to the church.
Three weeks before he died in 1877, Brigham Young obtained a cancellation of his debts to the church extending all the way back to 1849.
In 1879, John Taylor, as president of Zion’s Savings Bank and Trust, had two notes for $50,000 destroyed by the vice-president of the bank. He also convinced the Twelve to allow him a $10,000 claim for sugar machinery.
Quinn also documents:
“Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith did not use their office as Church president to cancel their personal indebtedness, yet they allowed tithing funds to serve as a loan pool for prominent Mormons.”
Among the debtors was Apostle Heber J. Grant for a cash loan of $34,000.”
As President of the Church, Heber J. Grant convinced his counselors to accept $30,000 worth of stock at face value (who knows what the true market value was) to cancel the loans.
“In 1930, First Counselor Anthony W. Ivins computed that the Church lost $900,000 in personal loans to Presiding Bishop Charles W. Nibley. Upon his appointment as second counselor in the First Presidency in 1925, Nibley had used stocks and bonds to repay his indebtedness to the Church.”
The point of sharing these vignettes is to highlight that there have indeed been abuses in the use of church funds that have been allowed to perpetuate largely because of the lack of transparency in the process in violation of the Lord’s stated law of common consent. Who knows what is going on today? I am not suggesting their are wholesale abuses. We just don’t know. We don’t know what amount of nepotism is reflected in the choice of contractors for building work and any number of the hundreds and thousands of contracts that the church enters into in their business dealings every year. We don’t know what the chosen 15 are paid, directly or indirectly. We don’t know how much goes to support the church bureaucracy, or how much goes to support BYU or any number of other endeavors.
What we do know is that since 1959 the church books have been completely and utterly closed to public view and scrutiny by the common membership. This was initially to disguise deficit spending to build meetinghouses under the theory that “if we build it they will come.” It took nearly a decade to recover under the leadership of financial wizard N. Eldon Tanner. The financial veil that was placed over church finances in 1959 was then firmly in place to disguise the financial successes that have been the hallmark of the church during the last 50 years.
Every general conference we are greeted by the church auditing department with an insipid non-disclosure that assures us that “in all material respects, contributions received, expenditures made, and assets of the Church for the year [insert latest year] have been recorded and administered in accordance with approved Church budgets, policies, and accounting practices.”
This is meaningless mumbo jumbo. It tells us nothing of substance about how our tithing dollars are being spent. We have no clue how much is spent on the poor which is the primary stated purpose of tithing as indicated by the Lord. When the saints rejected the covenant in 1834, Joseph and Oliver took a covenant of tithing FOR THE POOR and for the continuation of blessings.
As church members we should not sit idly by and allow our leaders to violate the law of common consent. We have been indoctrinated into believing that every change in policy or position or procedure is somehow a revelation from God. This is done subtly through implication without actually having to come out and say “Thus saith the Lord.”
Jeremiah has some choice words for those who take such liberties:
Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every one from his neighbour [endlessly quoting one another]
Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith [directly or by implication].
Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.
Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the Lord answered thee? and, What hath the Lord spoken? (Jeremiah 23:30-32, 37)
My question is therefore identical to what the Lord instructs us to ask of our leaders. Exactly what has the Lord said to you? What has he answered? Did he tell you to close the books in contravention to an earlier revelation? If so, bring forth the new revelation. Let us see it and scrutinize it and decide for ourselves as a church whether it is indeed the Lord speaking or the precepts of men. It is really very simple.
There is an online petition that you can access here to petition the leaders of the church to open the books. I have very little hope that they will do so based on prophecies within the scriptures. For me, however, I believe it is important to make our voices heard in defense of the Lord’s word to us in the latter days.
In putting together this series it has become increasingly clear to me just how far afield we have traveled from what the Lord wants us to be doing with our tithes. His economic system is one of voluntary equality via covenant which allows each to fully develop their talents as documented in the parable of the talents. The systematic oppression of the poor via today’s tithing scheme in the name of the Lord can be labelled as none other than an abomination.
Finally, the following scripture is SO APROPOS today as so many are willing to hang on every word that comes from the pulpit of the conference center:
A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land;
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means [church empire of businesses and wealth]; and my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end thereof? (Jeremiah 5:30-31)
Keep Searching.
One Who Is Searching 
Excellent post. Well done. History will repeat. What happened to the Israel and to the Jews will happen again. 2017 marks the first of 7 years of judgment on the US. And following those 7 years, nature and and nuclear holocaust and foreign invasion by Russia and China (and a handful of other smaller countries) will combine to bring the US down for good. Jaredites and Nephites both fell on this very soil when secret combinations and pride reached critical mass. Nephi, Moroni, Jesus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and John all prophesied that the US is going down.
Mormon gave us the examples of the people of King Limhi and Alma Sr. to show us that 2 groups of people would ultimately survive the famine, pestilence, tsunamis, earthquakes, nuclear blasts, invasion, and occupation. Those who awake early and separate themselves from the people and those who stay behind and suffer much death and sore burdens until they finally sink into the depths of humility because they absolutely cannot free themselves from the yoke of bondage.
America is poised to go into great financial distress and civil unrest like we have never seen. By 2019 or 2020 we will descend into another civil war. 2024-2026 will see 100’s of millions of Americans die by famine and unprecedented, epic disasters. By 2027 we will be under the thumb of foreign, communist rule. They will pillage our land of every human and natural resource and scrap of material worth anything.
We may see slavery of white southerners who disagree with a socialist anti-gun agenda in the form of concentration camps in the early 2020’s, but in the latter 2020’s we will see total slavery from coast to coast among the survivors. Every large city in the country will have been decimated, and the landscape will be brown as can be from the Atlantic to the Pacific, save for tiny spots of green where the humble and righteous gather to abide a terrestrial law in carrying one another’s burdens. These alone will enjoy merciful rain where everywhere else is starvation and utter ruin.
Once America has been taken down, WWIII will commence to spread to the rest of the globe in preparation for the coming of the true anti-Christ. Note that Obama is a type and a shadow of the true anti-Christ, and when the true anti-Christ appears, many will be fooled, in part because they will think that the anti-Christ already came in the person of Obama. Foolishness! Satan knows prophecy and sends forth imitative fulfillment of everything just to throw off the very elect.
Peace will be taken from the earth, but America will be once again established as a place of refuge for the elect of Jacob to flow unto out of every nation. In Mormon’s account of the people of Limhi and Alma Sr., both were ultimately delivered by nothing short of the marvelous power of God. In the early 2030’s, so shall it be for the survivors and believers in Jesus Christ upon this soil. By divine intervention alone, the very elements and mountains and armies of heaven shall combine against our wicked foes and Communist oppressors who seek to annihilate every last shred of Christianity in this Promised Land.
Those who oppose Jesus will be driven into the sea. The world will little care about our land henceforth. We will have been wasted and brought low. We will pose no threat to anyone. We will hold no conquest value to anyone. This great and wealthy Mystery Babylon will be made more wretched and poor than every other country among the Gentiles while the nation of Israel will increase in power.
In time, however, the Lord will heal our land. The brown earth will revive to green as decades pass. The tares will have been burned and destroyed, and the wheat is all that will be left. Finally, America will have the universally humble start it needs in order to succeed in building Zion.
The Lord will assist us financially beginning in the 2040’s and 2050’s with the opening of the most lucrative gold mine in the world in Salem, UT. Its treasures will be unprecedented; indeed, it is the same gold mine that brought the Nephites to rise up in the pride of their wealth some generations after Christ appeared to them. Utah will have been destroyed by flood in or around the year 2023. (The LDS G.A.’s keep bragging about their great ship Zion, so the Lord will see fit to send them a massive flood to test that allegedly unsinkable ship.) The flood will not be the result of rain or snow melt, but of a massive underground aquifer released by a sudden earthquake. It will lay even the upper room of the Salt Lake Temple under water.
As Joseph Smith prophesied, the gold mine will have more than 1 type of treasure. In it will be ancient Nephite records and artifacts, and the Smithsonian won’t be around anymore to steal and hide all the evidence. This will be a convincing testimony to the true Christians in the land, and belief in the Book of Mormon will finally become widespread among believers of the Bible. Fame of the mine will also attract individuals with the blood of Jacob in their veins to come to America from all over the world.
Remember, peace will be completely taken from the earth; all the nations of Europe and Asia and the Middle East and Isles of the Sea will be in economic shambles. In order to make his anti-Christ universally accepted, Satan needs several convincing illusions. Expect the true anti-Christ to restore peace and financial safety where no one conceived it would be possible. Expect the true anti-Christ to be born of a Jewish mother without a mortal father. Expect the true anti-Christ to sit upon the famed lost Ark of the Covenant inside the newly built 3rd Jerusalem temple.
The Ark has been found, by the way. It was right under the spot where Jesus hung from the cross in Golgotha. Jesus was the great and last sacrifice. A mighty earthquake shook the ground right below him at his death, and his blood dripped down upon the mercy seat. Literally. This Ark has been secretly retrieved by enemies of righteousness to be unveiled and used convincingly by the anti-Christ a few decades hence.
Back to America. This land is a Promised Land. It will be a New Jerusalem. But the people upon this land must serve the true God or be swept off when their iniquity and pride reaches a fulness. President Hinckley mentioned to Larry King that he was a 3rd generation Mormon, that his grandfather was a pioneer crossing the plains. The curse is upon us to the 3rd and 4th generation. When that timer is up, the wheat and tares are fully mature. The tares make the fatal mistake of kicking the wheat out of their congregations, out of their cities, out of their midst. It is only for the sake of the few righteous that the cities of the wicked were formerly spared, however. And now they will burn. Nuclear holocaust, drought, and uninhibited raging forest fires will consume this land. The wheat shall hardly escape.
The seed of Lehi still resides upon this land. The Native American Indians will one day become as the Lord’s mighty warriors to redeem Zion. But it is prophesied that they cannot be converted through preaching of the word. They can only be converted through seeing the word in action. They can only be converted through acts of pure charity, even of Gentiles laying down their lives in the attitude of praising and worshiping God. We must become as the people of Ammon so long ago. Until this occurs, the seed of Lehi will become a sore vexation to us in the 2050’s onward.
Several decades from now, after the false anti-Christ; after the true anti-Christ; after WWIII and recovery from WWIII; after the destruction of the LDS church; after the destruction and healing of America; after the conversion of the Lamanites in this land; after the Jews have been evicted from Israel yet again and restored yet again; after all these things Jesus Christ will finally return to set his foot on the Mount of Olives. Finally, the closing bookend on the story of the House of Israel will be put in place.
At that point, the gospel of peace and repentance will finally be preached to every nation in their own tongue by the power and gifts of the Spirit. This will not be the work of man, but of angels and of God. There will not be a single individual on the face of the earth who will not be taught the truth in its entirety. This is the start of the Millennium. This is the closing bookend on the stories of the other descendants of Abraham who didn’t come through Isaac. This is the closing bookend on the stories of Ham and Japheth’s descendants. The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, and animals will cease to harm humans or one another.
But there is one last test. Who will maintain an intense and private love for their Savior in such a day of peace? Some time after 2130 and probably before 2050 there will be a rapture. The story goes that when the rapture occurs, every person on earth will either be a wise virgin or a foolish virgin. 50% of the earth’s population will be caught up to meet the city of Enoch and the saints of heaven with Jesus in the clouds. The other 50% will be left behind, and they will every one of them realize exactly what just happened.
News flash. Those who believe in Hinduism or Muhammad or New Age-ism or Atheism or whatever else besides the one true God are not called virgins of any kind, wise or foolish. So it stands to reason that only after the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord; only after angelic messengers have convinced every individual on the planet in their own tongue that Jesus is the Christ; only after these prophesied events have taken place can the parable of the 5 wise and 5 foolish virgins have its true fulfillment.
The wedding feast is not just a parable. It is a real event. There is an enormous banquet hall prepared, complete with crowns and robes (and a beautiful view of the earth, too, I’m sure). The Feast of Trumpets is 10 days long, and each day 100 notes are played on a musical instrument. What better metaphor for the Millennium and the wedding feast?
The earth must yet undergo very real and cataclysmic changes to once again be restored to a true terrestrial state. It will be burned on every inch of its surface in a baptism of fire. Those left behind will run to and fro in panic looking for a safe place to reside during these changes, but it is all in vain. After 10 years (I’m guessing), those raptured up to meet Jesus and the city of Enoch will return to the earth. The Millennium will commence (or resume) upon a land that has been restored to a clean and paradisaical state.
Satan will be bound; that is, his bounds will be set to the interior of the earth. At this point in time, he resides in the 2nd heaven between us and the 3rd heaven where the Father reigns and receives our prayers. Satan can go anywhere on the earth, in the earth (hell), and in his 2nd heaven estate. His mission is to block all prayers that ascend to the Father and all gifts and messengers that are descending to us from the Father. Only with the blessing of the fire of the Holy Spirit do our prayers have the effect we desire.
The Father’s Kingdom is one of Order, and Jesus is only granted legal means to protect us when enough prayer and righteousness reach the Father. Conversely, when enough evil deeds and martyred blood and stench of demons reach the Father, Satan has legal grounds to inflict his destructive will upon mankind as he pleases, including natural disasters. This earth is absolutely a battle ground between good and evil forces. Just because Jesus is more powerful than Satan does not mean that Jesus is permitted to block Satan. Everyone must abide the laws and bounds within which they are placed.
Around August of 2017, as I understand it, Michael and strong armies of angels will descend into the 2nd heaven and cast down to the earth’s surface Satan and all his most powerful demonic angels who reside there with him. This will set in motion a period of 42 years in which Satan’s forces will have complete reign on the earth. Anger and violence and calamity like we have never seen in all the history of the earth. It’s coming, and it’s coming soon. But this is an important step. Squeezing Satan’s realm from its current domain down to the size of this earth is a necessary precursor to squeezing all his forces into hell (the earth’s interior).
Thus, when Jesus finally comes to reign and rule upon the earth (not the same as when he steps foot on the mount of Olives some decades from now), Satan’s bounds will be set. He loves the air. While he visits hell and laughs at those suffering there, and while he visits earth to cut deals with those who will sell their souls to him and so forth, he prefers to reside in the air. He will not enjoy being cramped up in hell, and will stew in his anger there.
I personally believe that while the Millennium will be the most wonderful time imaginable to be a devout follower of Christ, it will be the most painful time imaginable to be sealed a slave of the devil. With billions more additional demons crowding the pits and spaces of hell, and with Satan himself there stewing continually in anger, the torments and tortures are sure to become decidedly worse for its human prisoners.
It is noteworthy, too, that after the earth receives its baptism of fire, it is still plagued with demons internally. To be justified is not to be perfect. Only after the earth is celestialized at the great and last day will death and hell be exorcised (expelled) from its interior. Hell is shaped like a body lying on its back, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s shaped like the devil’s body, complete with horns and all honestly. But the point is that not until the earth has been sanctified is every last demon removed. So it is with us. The laws we abide are there to preserve and sanctify us. The higher the law, the higher our sanctification. No person can attain celestial glory while willfully inviting demons to inhabit their temple. However, all who accept Jesus as their sole King and ruler may enjoy Millennial (terrestrial) joy and glory.
But yeah, Mormonism, Inc is going down hard here in about 7 or 8 more years. Love your posts. Keep em’ coming.
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JP can you maybe give some insight on where you got the information to share in your post above. I am quite curious. Thanks much.
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JP. I appreciate your kind words. I won’t try to even respond to your lengthy comment except to say that timelines are tricky things and interpretations of prophecy run the gamut. I am especially interested in what can be proven by scripture and simultaneously recognize that not all answers to how things are going to play out will be identified or recognized until after their fulfillment. The important thing is to prepare to receive the servants when they return and embrace the fulness when it is again offered. Keep Searching Brother.
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Awesome response.
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Great post, searcher. Interesting info on how the “lord’s annointed” have been dipping into the treasury. I look forward to reading d. Michael Quinn’s latest book I think this November it comes out, “The Mormon Hierachy: Wealth and Corporate Power”. That should contain some more interesting info on this same subject. Lots of hidden things coming to light. Speaking of books coming out, is it true you’ve been putting something together?
Also, I liked all the applications you made between Jeremiah and our current day. Just as Jeremiah preached the fore coming downfall of the Jewish kingdom, we know this same thing will occur with the Mormon kingdom. Just as the above commenter said, Mormon inc is going down hard! I much enjoyed his commentary on the last days. One thing I’d like to say to him is that a baptism of fire does more than justify you. We are sanctified by the baptism of fire. Justification indeed comes from receiving the Spirit, but sanctification is from the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit of Promise which is the baptism of fire. Of course no one is receiving the promise of the Father on the earth as far as I am aware.
-G.azelem
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Incredible post. Thank you for the research you have done on this topic. it is truly amazing that a private corporation controls all of the money and has virtually no accountability. You have done an outstanding job of showing how the poor have been oppressed by wayward shepherds.
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J.P…….>> While it was entertaining reading your post, I was startled by your predicts and almost prophecies? I also found some of your writings, well how shall I say it? strange and imaginative? eg: >>>Satan will be bound; that is, his bounds will be set to the interior of the earth. At this point in time, he resides in the 2nd heaven between us and the 3rd heaven where the Father reigns and receives our prayers….Satan is bound here on earth, no where else?
also this >>Conversely, when enough evil deeds and martyred blood and stench of demons reach the Father, Satan has legal grounds to inflict his destructive will upon mankind as he pleases, including natural disasters.
God the Father has full control not Lucifer at “ANY” time, moment,hour in our earthly history.
(Doctrine and Covenants | Section 49:7)
I, the Lord God, have spoken it; but the hour and the day no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor shall they know until he comes.
I am loathed to state what hour,day,month and especially year the Lord is coming back and “YOU” should be also wise also to heed that advice.
I understand in a way what you are trying to do and say but you miss the mark in alot of those?
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While I am here I would also make comment on the “loans” these past presidents have acquired? It was once stated to me [hearsay] that as any [and] every apostle called is given a loan to wipe out personal debt so that he may concentrate his time and efforts to the church and preaching. If this is true, then I would take umbridge with it as they are no better nor special than any one of us as all have to pay the debts,sooner or later?
As for opening the “books” for inspection by the church [leadership] for the church [body] and of the church members,well isn’t this what the Lord has always stated and intended, so as not to hide nor steal from us [church] as a whole and the Lord?
As for the Temples and the beauty of them [cost] “Solomon” is the example they are using, I honestly believe our Temples are worthy of such $$$$, for what is material and money it is nothing but a fading thing,as a wilted flower, means nothing actually.
Having stated this I also know and understand in this life the requirement-acquirement and need of money to build and whatever, though I hate it personally it is a necessity of life. And those monies given to the presidents could and should have gone to the needy and the poor. Considering the presidents by that time would have owned everything [personal] themselves outright?
What did Lucifer say in the endowment to Adam and Eve? >> YOU can buy anything in this world, with money.
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2 Nephi 28:13
They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries;
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