Let No Man Deceive Himself, Christ Is at the Head

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"Let No Man Deceive Himself, Christ is at the Head"

Elder William R. Bradford

March 30, 2004

Much of what I will say here today I have said at other times in other places and with other words. I have prayed that the spirit would be with each of us so that we might be inspired to both receive and act upon these words.

Sister Bradford and I are happy to be with you here today. We have traveled all over this world and have had the opportunity to see how people live. I can tell you that you are living in a privileged place. Maybe some of you have traveled and have seen what we have seen, but if you have not it would shock you to witness the poverty and the suffering and the sadness that goes with it around the world.

The saddest thing we have ever seen however, is not the poverty. It is that the people do not know that there is a God in the heaven. If I were asked what I know that is the most important and the most glorious and of the most worth to me it would be that I know there is a God in the heaven. And so the fact that most people in the world do not know this is the saddest thing.

We are so very blessed to be where we are. In almost all cases we have enough of what we need. Sure, there are some problems in each of our lives but they are mostly minor and are all mitigated by the fact that most of us know that there is a God in the heaven.

This truly is a marvelous day. We have what no other generation has had. Around us are the inventions of an educated world. We can go to the moon. We can explore the most microscopic matter. We have the knowledge to control most physical diseases, we move at speeds faster than sound. We communicate over great distances with sophisticated systems as though we were talking face to face. We can say that man is enlightened. He has books, television, great institutions where every theory and principle can be taught and learned, explored and analyzed. What a glorious time to live. Man with his wisdom can, it would seem, conquer all. Every problem with the earth and man who inhabits it, should be able to be solved with the superior knowledge and learning that man has achieved in this great generation.

Yet never before at any time in the history of this earth has there been so much misery. Man's greed and lust has taken him into acts more base than at any period that has preceded us. Crime is at an all time high and rising. We live in a world of murder, prostitution in all its forms, robbery, terrorism, cheating and corruption, dishonesty, lying, immorality, violence, divorce, and broken homes, abandonment of wives and children, abuse, filthiness, obscenity, nudity and pornography, and even the lowest of acts such as abortion and sterilization are common place.

You would think that with all the wisdom of men we could be the happiest of all people, yet millions live as slaves, burdened, many starving. Throughout the world and even among us are the thousands who live from day to day in misery. There is filth, disease, hunger and the drudgery of the days work that brings them just enough to live to the next day when they must repeat what they did the day before without hope of change or improvement.

As man struggles, he is controlled by borders, searched, numbered, taxed, counted, and restricted and dominated in his every act. Most inventions are to get gain, most governments self serving, most unions steal from the members they were organized to protect, and most advertising is designed to get you to pay the most for the least. Surely with the knowledge and wisdom of many, these things should not be.

How is this possible? What has gone wrong, what is lacking? How can it be that such a few control the wealth and subject the masses to such misery and in so doing subject themselves to live in the stink and filth of the environment they are controlling? What will be the end of all this? Will man ever find freedom and happiness? Will the wisdom of man finally save him from this condition?

It is true that each man must gain the knowledge of the things of this world in order to be able to gain a living for himself and his family. He must know how things operate and how the laws that govern them apply. All truth learned by man gives him a stronger base upon which to build and if he keeps learning and building he can surround himself with security and become adjusted to the conditions and limits of coexistent law.

It has been said that teaching is the most noble profession. This is true only of the teacher that teaches truth. A person is far from noble who would teach others things that would turn them from God and lead them into unrighteousness and lives of slavery to Satan. To be a noble teacher you must teach truth. All truth comes from God. We believe in God the Father, He who knows all truth. We believe in God, the Son to whom was delegated all power and control of all truth as it applies to this earth. We believe in God, the Holy Ghost, He is God the Witness, God the Revelator. From Him we receive knowledge of all truth which is coexistent with God.

There has never been a truth made known to any man on earth except as it was revealed to the earth by the Authority of God and through the workings of the Holy Ghost. Let me remind you that there are two kinds of light. The one we seem to know the most about is light the absence of darkness. This is a light that is a product. It requires the expenditure of energy to produce. This product is seen as rays of sunlight or fire light or electric light or in other words a product that produces the absence of darkness.

There is another kind of light. It is a communication system. The great plan of our Father uses a system to communicate by transferring truth from its source into the minds of those who are of the species of God. This system is called the light of the spirit. When we are using it we are learning truth. It is how we learned the things of God before we came to this earth and it is how we learn the things of God here in mortality. Let me also remind you that we are literally the spiritual sons and daughters of God the Eternal Father. We are sired by him. We are of His seed. A seed gives forth of its own kind and species. If you plant corn, you don’t get cabbage. We are the seed of God. Because we are His seed, we are in His image and likeness. Our minds are like His mind and have the capacity to receive truth from its source by way of the light of the spirit.

To use the light of the spirit we must be obedient to the laws which govern it usage, which is to say be righteous. The Holy Ghost is there to provide the light of the spirit to us if we are obedient and righteous. Earlier I said that the most important and glorious of all things I have ever learned is that there is a God in the heavens and that He is literally my Father. I was born spiritually of Him. Because of this, the divine nature of God is in me as it is in all of his children. To know this is to know that which has the most power to cause us to strive for that which is right and to try to live the plan that God, our Father, has given us to allow us to return to Him and live the magnificent style of life He lives.

The memory of all this was withheld from us at the time of our mortal birth but we have not been left without some knowledge of what happened and what is to come. By way of His revealed word the Father has taught us that He called us together at a council meeting. This took place before the earth was created and thus it is called the pre-mortal council in heaven. The purpose of the council meeting was to review what we had learned and to review the plan for our future progress and to take the next steps in that plan. This required that an earth be created. An earth upon which the plan could be carried out. There would need to be a creator of that earth and someone would need to responsible to govern and execute everything having to do with the plan. One of the Father’s sons was willing to be that person on conditions that he could modify the Fathers plan. He also wanted honor and glory to himself for doing it. We know this person to be Lucifer and it has been revealed to us that one third of our Fathers children followed Lucifer.

Another of the Father’s Sons stood and agreed to do what was necessary. He would follow the Fathers plan exactly and would give all honor and glory to the Father, whose plan it is. We know that this is Jesus Christ and that he was chosen by the Father. He was sustained by the Father. He was also sustained by all of us. Our being here on the earth is in itself prima facie evidence that we sustained Him. Christ took of spirit matter and subjected it to the laws of God and thus created all the systems and subsystems that make up this earth. It was worked with until it obeyed and became independent in that sphere in which it was placed to act for itself.

The Father sent us to this earth and gave us commandments. If we disobeyed these commandments there would be consequences. The most serious of these consequences is the fall which means that we become subject to death. Death is the separation of our spirit being from our physical bodies and also the separation of our spirit beings from the presence of our Father in Heaven. We do not have power in this mortal stage of the plan to overcome the conditions of death without someone to help us. In that council meeting I have talked about it was decided that if there was a fall, this same Jesus Christ would be our Redeemer. He would do the work necessary to cause our physical bodies to be reunited with our spirit beings and he would do an enabling work that would allow us take the steps that would lead us back to God our Father.

He has done that work. He has obeyed the Father. He has overcome the conditions of the fall. He has redeemed us on conditions of our obedience. I could go on and on talking about what He did and what He is yet doing. I could list for you His attributes. I could give lesson after lesson on His acts. I could teach you the Father’s gospel which Christ has provided for us. But this is an ongoing process, much of which we must do for ourselves. I hope and pray that we are all involved in that process.

Now, this is Christ’s work. He is at the head. In March of 1830, as the work in this dispensation was just getting underway, Christ revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith the following:

I am Alpha and Omega, Christ the Lord; yea, even I am he, the beginning

and the end, the Redeemer of the world.

I, having accomplished and finished the will of him whose I am, even

the Father, concerning me—having done this that I might subdue all things

unto myself-

Retaining all power even to the destroying of Satan and his works at the

end of the world, and the last judgment (D&C19:1-3).

Satan has knowledge of all these things and every time a truth has been revealed he has twisted and changed it to fit his evil plan and has taught it to everyone that he could. Think of some of the things you know about that have been changed by Satan. For example, according to God what is the most important calling of His Sons? To be fathers and create honorable and Godlike families.

Satan teaches celibacy, immorality, divorce, birth control, abortion and that marriage is of no value.

What is God's revealed word about work? It is that man should be engaged in honest hard work and should earn by their own labor that which they need to support themselves and families.

What does Satan teach? That there should be the rich that rule over the poor. That its all right to be idle and to steal and take advantage of others by corruption and unrighteous control. He teaches that we need all the “Isms” that control and subject men. Promising them welfare but giving them slavery, offering them social justice, but robbing them of their agency.

Yes, teaching is a noble profession but only when one teaches the truths of God.

Through all ages of time, man's wisdom has carried him into self-created misery. In the time of Noah it brought on the flood. In Joseph's time, men were slaves to each other and were burdened and oppressed. In Moses' day they were driven, and wandered, and their days in a promised land were short as they were overrun and enslaved by Babylonia. Christ came at a time when nations were at war and most men paid tribute to conquering Rome who ruled with greed and at the point of a sword. Christ was killed as were others who would not submit to the life style of immorality and slavery to sin and to cruel masters. The world sank into darkness where blood and horror reigned. In the name of God, who men neither knew nor followed, by the sword, nation conquered nation, greed conquered man and Satan conquered all.

Only a few could see light through this darkness and tyranny. As these few watched carefully the light increased and showed them the way to become the discoverers of new worlds. The reformers, the pilgrims, the framers of constitutions and bill of rights, the inventors, the freedom winners, the builders of foundations. Their work has caused great concern to Satan.

Could it be that it was not the wisdom of man that was causing Satan to shake and tremble? Could it be that something else was needed to bring peace and liberty, order and happiness? Surely thinking men can see that the light and truth from God above directed these great men. There was no source on earth to draw from. No man, of himself, knew how to control Satan.

It was not the learning of men that motivated a young boy in those days to seek answers from God as he knelt in fervent prayer in a secluded grove. Nor was it from the wisdom of learned men that he got his answers. He was told things from the mouth of God that no man knew and few would afterwards believe, yet the profound truths given to this uneducated youth from on High had within it the power to roll back the darkness of generations and bring peace and freedom to the world. No longer was it necessary for men to live in slavery. Now man could know how to rise up out of his filth, how to escape the weight of his burden, how to identify and forsake sin, how to act as God would have them act in His name, how to be saved.

Yet for millions this most glorious of all events has not yet come. They have not yet seen the light. They have not heard the truths. They have not felt the Spirit that led those brave reformers and restorers. They continue on, led from one act of sin and filth to another because they have not yet seen the light. They continue seeking their peace in the foolish wisdom of man. We are taught be the scriptures:

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that

they are vain.

Therefore, let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; (I Corinthians 3:18-21).

Now, you who have received the light, “Let No Man Deceive You.” Can you not see that it is you who have the only thing that can free the world? You can lighten the burden, cure the sick, free the enslaved, you can feed the starving, cleanse the filthy, unite the divided, gather the abandoned, you can teach the truths and become the light that gives vision and clarity, you can give hope and the knowledge of God. What could anyone but God do more? God gives men their salvation. You have the power to lead man to God. You will not do it if all you know and teach is the foolishness of men. To do so continues the cycle that keeps men bound down under the burden that Satan has placed upon them from the beginning.

There is a supreme, organized Being who governs and controls all truth, both temporal and spiritual. He is Jesus Christ. True freedom, happiness and success come only as we know Him, the only wise and true God.

Will you not teach Jesus Christ? He is the light, the truth, the only way to freedom and salvation. Will you not teach Christ in your actions, your spirit and by His word?

To teach Christ you must understand Him. You must know that He is. You must know that He is the only way by which happiness comes. You must know Him. Will you not then dedicate yourselves to that which is above all things most important to you and to the world? The work of saving souls.

More than a quarter of a century ago He, that is Jesus Christ, by way of His servants, called me to be an especial witness of Him. And I am that. Through these years He has been with me. He has seen to it that I have come to know Him. Thinking back I cannot remember any time in my life that I didn’t know that He lived. That is one thing, but it is another thing to know Him. By the events of my ministry and the power of The Spirit, to a certain degree and level I have come to know Him. There have been times during this ministry when I have been less than I should have been. There have been times when the Spirit could not get through to me. Even then Christ has inspired others to look after me, to teach and train me and get me moving the right direction again. To them I owe an eternal debt of gratitude.

Any fool can teach the wisdom of men for it is foolishness. It takes men and women of God to teach the light and truth of God. That you may be these men and women, I pray in the name of Him whose wisdom has all saving power, even Jesus Christ, amen.