“upwardthought” YouTube Channel

[An Eye Single]

Just can’t keep from recommending Rob Smith’s YouTube channel. He’s putting out a lot of great stuff (though, his books are better imo), and the content is just so incredibly spiritually satisfying. I wrote about his channel on my blog:

https://thewordofthelorduntome.blogspo ... d.html?m=0

Direct link to his YouTube channel is below:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC748q ... pp=desktop

[Hosh]

Just can’t keep from recommending Rob Smith’s YouTube channel. He’s putting out a lot of great stuff (though, his books are better imo), and the content is just so incredibly spiritually satisfying. I wrote about his channel on my blog:

https://thewordofthelorduntome.blogspo ... d.html?m=0

Direct link to his YouTube channel is below:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC748q ... pp=desktop

Yeah I've been really enjoying his videos as well. It's refreshing to hear someone speak with confidence the words that come to their mind by the Holy Spirit. It sure beats robotic teleprompter sermons.

[marc]

Many things he has written in his books and talked about in his videos have filled in gaps in my life which I have prayed for years to fill. I count Rob a good friend and a brother.

[Original_Intent]

I've watched quite a few of his videos the last couple of days. He strike
s me as a true messenger and I have found what he says very helpful, other than him frequently starting on a thought and then saying "No, I am not going to talk any further about that." I know he is doing the right thing, but it is still frustrating.

His video on What is a priest>" Was one of the best I have seen so far - really insightful."

[Jonesy]

I believe of those who have been wrongly excommunicated, he is one of them.

[Original_Intent]

Wow, it is incompre3hensible to me that this man is excommunicated. What a world we live in.

[Cruiserdude]

Wow, it is incompre3hensible to me that this man is excommunicated. What a world we live in.

Ditto. I'm shocked. Knowing what they've done to the likes of Gileadi helps lessen the shock... I guess.... Kinda... Maybe not

[An Eye Single]

Wow, it is incompre3hensible to me that this man is excommunicated. What a world we live in.

Right? Totally upside-down.

One thing about God’s word, wherever it is found, is that it is edifying. It nourishes us at a very deep and fundamental level. And I have been so impressed with his videos because, like Hosh said above, they are off-the-cuff and not at all lacking for being so. Quite the opposite, actually.

And, imo, they are nothing compared to his books. To me, his books are even more edifying because there is a greater amount of more concentrated information in them and because there is something about reading that forces the brain to better ponder, process, and incorporate what is being read.

[Mamabear]

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... ated_last/

The comments in this post about his excommunication are interesting.

“I declared that I had not apostatized from Christ or from the gospel. A high councilor said, "none of us think that you have. You are here for apostasy against the church and its leaders."

“Q: Do you believe President Monson is a prophet?
A: What do you mean by prophet? If you mean a title, I think he has the right to adopt any title he wants, whether it be prophet or grand dragon or whatever else, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. If you mean a description, I have yet to see a prophecy spoken by President Monson. I have yet to hear any message from him that he has claimed was spoken to him by God. Therefore, if I were to testify that I knew he was a prophet, I would be bearing false witness, because I have not witnessed him prophesy.“

[An Eye Single]

I love this playlist and hope that it helps many here rekindle the vision that Joseph Smith had for the latter days and that it causes each of us to correctly extend our own.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=d ... eo-IYlP9N_

[gruden2.0]

Many things he has written in his books and talked about in his videos have filled in gaps in my life which I have prayed for years to fill. I count Rob a good friend and a brother.

Interesting. Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated. I once wrote him I didn't think that was the case, and got kind of a 'ha ha' response. Is that how he thinks of you? For all the interesting things he occasionally posts, he does seem to have a bit of a martyr complex, even before he was fired.

[marc]

Many things he has written in his books and talked about in his videos have filled in gaps in my life which I have prayed for years to fill. I count Rob a good friend and a brother.

Interesting. Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated. I once wrote him I didn't think that was the case, and got kind of a 'ha ha' response. Is that how he thinks of you? For all the interesting things he occasionally posts, he does seem to have a bit of a martyr complex, even before he was fired.

Rob speaks from a place where he has been visited by the Lord multiple times; Rob has seen Him often. This implies that he believes God, because his demonstration of that belief has yielded fruit, or in other words, his calling and election is sure. If nobody else is testifying of the same things he knows, then their own beliefs are incomplete.

"Why call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say?"

People who believe God completely are they who trust Him completely unto the loss of their life. People who say they believe but do not do, really are saying that they do not believe.

[gruden2.0]

Many things he has written in his books and talked about in his videos have filled in gaps in my life which I have prayed for years to fill. I count Rob a good friend and a brother.

Interesting. Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated. I once wrote him I didn't think that was the case, and got kind of a 'ha ha' response. Is that how he thinks of you? For all the interesting things he occasionally posts, he does seem to have a bit of a martyr complex, even before he was fired.

Rob speaks from a place where he has been visited by the Lord multiple times; Rob has seen Him often. This implies that he believes God, because his demonstration of that belief has yielded fruit, or in other words, his calling and election is sure. If nobody else is testifying of the same things he knows, then their own beliefs are incomplete.

"Why call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say?"

People who believe God completely are they who trust Him completely unto the loss of their life. People who say they believe but do not do, really are saying that they do not believe.

I'm not questioning Rob's beliefs. I'm questioning some of his assertions.

[marc]

Many things he has written in his books and talked about in his videos have filled in gaps in my life which I have prayed for years to fill. I count Rob a good friend and a brother.

Interesting. Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated. I once wrote him I didn't think that was the case, and got kind of a 'ha ha' response. Is that how he thinks of you? For all the interesting things he occasionally posts, he does seem to have a bit of a martyr complex, even before he was fired.

Rob speaks from a place where he has been visited by the Lord multiple times; Rob has seen Him often. This implies that he believes God, because his demonstration of that belief has yielded fruit, or in other words, his calling and election is sure. If nobody else is testifying of the same things he knows, then their own beliefs are incomplete.

"Why call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say?"

People who believe God completely are they who trust Him completely unto the loss of their life. People who say they believe but do not do, really are saying that they do not believe.

I'm not questioning Rob's beliefs. I'm questioning some of his assertions.

Oh, gotcha.

"Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated."

I don't remember him saying that, but I haven't seen all of his videos either.

[Serragon]

https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comme ... ated_last/

The comments in this post about his excommunication are interesting.

“I declared that I had not apostatized from Christ or from the gospel. A high councilor said, "none of us think that you have. You are here for apostasy against the church and its leaders."

“Q: Do you believe President Monson is a prophet?
A: What do you mean by prophet? If you mean a title, I think he has the right to adopt any title he wants, whether it be prophet or grand dragon or whatever else, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. If you mean a description, I have yet to see a prophecy spoken by President Monson. I have yet to hear any message from him that he has claimed was spoken to him by God. Therefore, if I were to testify that I knew he was a prophet, I would be bearing false witness, because I have not witnessed him prophesy.“

The High Councilor was exactly right. Apostacy in any organization means opposing those in authority in that organization. Even if your belief and actions are based upon truth, if they are in opposition to what the authorities want you to do you will be ousted. People at Twitter are finding out about this principle rather quickly. It is always rather astounding to me that so many people who get excommunicated don't seem to understand that.

I agree with him wholeheartedly in his answer to the question about Pres. Monson. First, it is strange that they asked about his belief instead of whether he sustained Pres. Monson. Second, our leaders do use Prophet, Seer, and Revelator as titles instead of adjectives that describe actual attributes. This really can't be argued objectively. There is no visible fruit by which to measure them, and they themselves make no specific claims to these gifts. They almost exclusively talk about the keys and authority, but never demonstrate the power. It is clear that even among themselves they consider them to be titles.

[nightlight]

Just can’t keep from recommending Rob Smith’s YouTube channel. He’s putting out a lot of great stuff (though, his books are better imo), and the content is just so incredibly spiritually satisfying. I wrote about his channel on my blog:

https://thewordofthelorduntome.blogspo ... d.html?m=0

Direct link to his YouTube channel is below:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC748q ... pp=desktop

Thanks for this. I've been listening to His videos for the last few hours and the guy speaks to me. Great stuff

[Enoch]

Aweome definitions of in Christ's name, repentance and how through the holy ghost we change and are molded into Christ's character.

This is one of things that bothered me about church. It didn't seem or feel like we were actually working on changing the essense of who we were - to be like Jesus. Meaness, unkindness, partiality, etc always seemed present. The years in church, the meetings - preaching, didn't matter, in general we remained the same as a people. How would we become zion if we all were still a bunch of aholes to some degree or another. It was something superficial that was practiced. A kind of bi-polarism - Do good...and the evil don't worry just repent/aka place it on the Savior, but don't go digging into that deep darkness inside you, somehow you will change -- eventually...

[OurVoices]

Rob Smith's insights have been a great blessing to me recently. God bless him for his giving heart. God bless his family. A noble and great one for sure. Keep it coming, Rob.

[gruden2.0]

Interesting. Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated. I once wrote him I didn't think that was the case, and got kind of a 'ha ha' response. Is that how he thinks of you? For all the interesting things he occasionally posts, he does seem to have a bit of a martyr complex, even before he was fired.

Rob speaks from a place where he has been visited by the Lord multiple times; Rob has seen Him often. This implies that he believes God, because his demonstration of that belief has yielded fruit, or in other words, his calling and election is sure. If nobody else is testifying of the same things he knows, then their own beliefs are incomplete.

"Why call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say?"

People who believe God completely are they who trust Him completely unto the loss of their life. People who say they believe but do not do, really are saying that they do not believe.

I'm not questioning Rob's beliefs. I'm questioning some of his assertions.

Oh, gotcha.

"Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated."

I don't remember him saying that, but I haven't seen all of his videos either.

It wasn't a video, it was multiple blog posts from his original blog where he bemoaned that no one could believe all the concepts and subjects he posted about. Based on your response and other posts in this thread, there's at least a few people who seem capable of understanding the concepts he had written about.

Anyway, he might get more readers if he changed his approach. He constructs these long, logic-based essays that while correct, are a bit of a slog. For me, I had reached many of these conclusions on my own before; when he shares real spiritual insights, that's when he gets interesting.

[gruden2.0]

I agree with him wholeheartedly in his answer to the question about Pres. Monson. First, it is strange that they asked about his belief instead of whether he sustained Pres. Monson. Second, our leaders do use Prophet, Seer, and Revelator as titles instead of adjectives that describe actual attributes. This really can't be argued objectively. There is no visible fruit by which to measure them, and they themselves make no specific claims to these gifts. They almost exclusively talk about the keys and authority, but never demonstrate the power. It is clear that even among themselves they consider them to be titles.

Here's what Joseph Smith said:

The duty of the President of the office of the High Priesthood," the Lord revealed, "is to preside over the whole church, and to be like unto Moses . . . ; yea, to be a seer, a revelator, a translator, and a prophet, having all the gifts of God which he bestows upon the head of the church."

The Mormon president is sustained by members specifically as a prophet, seer and revelator. So I have to disagree about any notion of them being titles, although you might sway me a bit on 'prophet', but here's the thing: they never refer to themselves as any of those things, but seem very happy to have others refer to them as such. For a long time, Mormon presidents were not referred to as prophets until around the time of McKay. It was likely because there were still people around who knew Joseph, so they knew what a real prophet was like, so no president could credibly be called that and they didn't try. When the memory of Joseph's gifts had faded, it became easy to bandy that stuff around because people didn't know what a real prophet was (and still don't). Monson or Nelson couldn't hold a candle to Joseph, or any of the prophets of scripture.

In the kingdom of God, beings that rise to distinction have titles, and Jesus has many, but prophet, seer and revelator aren't really titles at all. I haven't heard anyone make that assertion until you did, and I don't think Mormons generally think that way (maybe that's changing). When you listen to the words in GC for the sustaining, there's nothing in there to make one think of that as a title. It's really disingenuous particularly by the fact that Joseph Smith did not treat them as titles, but as descriptors of spiritual gifts of which he was in actual possession. When you read the quote I posted above, it's very clear what they were.

What you describe is basically a bait-and-switch.

[FoxMammaWisdom]

Rob speaks from a place where he has been visited by the Lord multiple times; Rob has seen Him often. This implies that he believes God, because his demonstration of that belief has yielded fruit, or in other words, his calling and election is sure. If nobody else is testifying of the same things he knows, then their own beliefs are incomplete.

"Why call ye me Lord and do not the things which I say?"

People who believe God completely are they who trust Him completely unto the loss of their life. People who say they believe but do not do, really are saying that they do not believe.

I'm not questioning Rob's beliefs. I'm questioning some of his assertions.

Oh, gotcha.

"Rob is of the belief literally no one is capable of believing everything he has stated."

I don't remember him saying that, but I haven't seen all of his videos either.

It wasn't a video, it was multiple blog posts from his original blog where he bemoaned that no one could believe all the concepts and subjects he posted about. Based on your response and other posts in this thread, there's at least a few people who seem capable of understanding the concepts he had written about.

Anyway, he might get more readers if he changed his approach. He constructs these long, logic-based essays that while correct, are a bit of a slog. For me, I had reached many of these conclusions on my own before; when he shares real spiritual insights, that's when he gets interesting.

Can you tell me what specifically he thinks others couldn't understand? Or was that just a general assertion/opinion about those who haven't had their second comforter?

[gruden2.0]

Can you tell me what specifically he thinks others couldn't understand? Or was that just a general assertion/opinion about those who haven't had their second comforter?

It wasn't anything specific. What he stated was he didn't know a single person who didn't strenuously disagree with one or more things he taught. He seemed to take a very pessimistic view about the willingness and/or ability of people to understand and believe the things he posted and wrote about. Not saying that pessimism was totally unwarranted, he was also on Facebook and I know he got a lot of flack there for different things. I suspect those of us who frequented his blog, although that was only 200-300 people, were probably a different crowd mostly. I can't imagine most people would keep reading if they weren't getting something from it. I can say I didn't have any issue with the doctrine he taught. In fact, his view on polygamy is probably the only one I know of similar to mine. Personally I wouldn't consider it a big deal to disagree on a few points; Peter and Paul didn't see eye-to-eye on everything either.

One thing he stated to me was that he felt that everyone who knew him well hates him. If Marc spoke truly, then Rob has at least one friend, and if he kept up the email exchange with me (I followed-up but never got a reply) there would probably be at least 2. Having read many of his posts over the years it seemed some of his observations/statements about certain aspects of his ministry were incongruent, at least from my perspective on the outside. He did get a lot of grief from some quarters, and obviously a lynch mob came after his job, so some of it is understandable.

[Wolfwoman]

Has he changed his mind on the ridiculous blogpost he had about women having the most value when they are 18ish years old? He kinda lost me there.
There were also rumors that he was wanting to engage in polygyny or that he already was engaging in it. Any truth to that?

[gruden2.0]

Has he changed his mind on the ridiculous blogpost he had about women having the most value when they are 18ish years old? He kinda lost me there.

There you go Jules, now you can see what some people came after him about, among others.

There were also rumors that he was wanting to engage in polygyny or that he already was engaging in it. Any truth to that?

I suppose people can't help but spread rumors about people whom they disagree with. This post pretty much encapsulates what was going on around him.

[Wolfwoman]

Yeah, it's just so hard for us lowly folk to understand why women are the most valuable when they are 18 years old and they lose value every year afterwards.
Also it's just so hard for us to understand how polygyny could be a good deal for women.