LDS Freedom Forum

1. One kind of deception seeks to mislead us about whom we should follow. In speaking of the last days, the Savior taught: “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:4–5). In other words, many will seek to deceive us by saying that they or their teachings will save us, so there is no need for a Savior or His gospel. The Book of Mormon describes this as “the power of the devil, to lead away and deceive the hearts of the people … to believe that the doctrine of Christ was a foolish and a vain thing” (3 Ne. 2:2).

Now I wish to speak about how each of us can avoid being deceived on matters of eternal importance. I have two texts. The first is what Paul taught Timothy after giving him the warning I quoted earlier. Continue in the things you have learned and been assured of, he wrote, “knowing of whom thou hast learned them” (2 Tim. 3:14). In other words, you have been taught righteousness and assured of its truth, so stay with it. Continuing, Paul reminded his young friend “that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation” through faith in our Savior (2 Tim. 3:15). Hold fast to the scriptures, whose teachings protect us against evil.

Be Not Deceived


Dallin H. Oaks

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

We have been given many warnings about the deceptions of men in our education system.

One of the most bold is from John Taylor


John Taylor JD 20:107-8
I am told in the revelations to bring up my children in the fear of God…Now we are engaged…in building our temples…that we may become united and linked together by eternal covenants that shall exist in all time and throughout eternity. And then when we have done all this go and deliberately turn out children over to whom? To men who do not believe the Gospel, to men who, according to your faith, are never going to the celestial kingdom of God…And you will turn your children over to them. And you call yourselves Latter-day Saints, do you? I will suppose a case. You expect to be saved in the celestial kingdom of God. Well. Supposing you expectations are realized, which I sometimes doubt, and you look down, down somewhere in a terrestrial or telestial kingdom, as the case may be, and you there see your children, the offspring that God had given you to train up in his fear, to honor him and keep his commandments…And supposing they could converse with you…what would be their feelings towards you? It would be, Father, Mother, you are to blame for this. I would have been with you if you had not tampered with the principles of life and salvation in permitting me to be decoyed away by false teachers, who taught incorrect principles. And this is the result of it. But then I very much question men and women’s getting into the celestial kingdom of God who have no more knowledge about the principles of life and salvation than to go and tamper with the sacred offspring, the principle of life which God entrusted to your care, to thus shuffle it off to imbibe the spirit of unbelief, which leads to destruction and death. I very much doubt in my mind the capability of such people getting there. (Mosiah 23:14) And also trust no one to be neither your teacher nor your minister, except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments.


John Taylor above statement was said durring a time when the church had its own school system for the youth. The parents were taking their children out of the church run schools and were opting to send them to the public schools.

The early saints ignored the warnings of the prophets and sent their kids to public schools anyways. They wanted the same education as the rest of the world. So with so few of numbers in the church schools they could not support it and stopped the program.

This is how seminary program came about as an effort to still educate the youth as a last ditch effort. Because the saints had turned away from what they had been asked to do.

So ezra Taft benson said this after the transfer from church run to public school had been complete for some time.
Ezra Taft benson said

Ezra Taft Benson PPNS p.195 CR 10/64
Now these false educational ideas are prevalent in the world, and we have not entirely escaped them among teachers in our own system. There are a few teachers within the church who while courting apostasy still want to remain members in the church. For being a member makes them more effective in misleading the saints, but their day of judgment is coming.


3 Nephi 27:11
But if it be not built upon my gospel, and is built upon the works of men, or upon the works of the devil, verily I say unto you they have joy in their works for a season and by and by the end cometh, and they are hewn down and cast into the fire, from whence there is no return.


The deception of men is drilled into our youth by our public schooling little by little.

H verlan Anderson said this about it.

H Verlan Andersen The Great and Abominable Church of the Devil p. 121, 122
Instead of using government to finance and compel the worship of a Supreme Being, they use it to compel and subsidize the worship of the state and its evil leaders; rather than advocating that compulsion be used to satisfy spiritual needs, they advocate that compulsion be used to satisfy material needs; in place of the doctrine that man is a child of God who is answerable to his creator for his sins, they teach that he is merely an animal with no higher goal than to satisfy the lusts of the flesh; instead of imposing their abominable creed merely on adults on the Sabbath, they take the children from their parents at an early age and place them under the tutelage of a priestly class hired to corrupt their tender minds all throughout the week. But whether priestcraft is enforced by communists or religionists, the central evil is the same: the power of government is used to abolish freedom and compel the people to finance their own enslavement by supporting teachers who are paid to deceive them into believing that the particular brand of priestcraft they are subsidizing is the only true religion. It is veritably true that there is no principle of the communist manifesto more essential to the success of Satan’s plan than that of socialized education. If all children can be forcibly taken from their homes where the Lord intended they be trained, and during the innocence of youth their unsuspecting and defenseless minds are indoctrinated with a belief in organic evolution, atheism, materialism, and socialism the perpetuation of these satanic doctrines is systematized and imposed uniformly upon each succeeding generation.


I can't find the quote. But ezra Taft benson also said that the problems we face can be layed at the feet of our public school system.

Power over Satan

"How does Satan operate? What are his tactics? Using his superior knowledge, his unique powers of persuasion, half-truths, and complete lies, the evil one uses the spirit children who followed him (which were many), plus mortal beings who have yielded to his evil ways, to wage war against Jehovah and his followers; and they will, if they can, influence us to become critical and to rebel against God and his work. Thus he destroys the souls of men.

How, then, may we resist the evil one? In all his evil doings, the adversary can go no further than the transgressor permits him to go, and we can gain complete power to resist the evils caused by Satan through adherence to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Members of the Church may have the blessing of the Holy Ghost, the prompter, as a companion as well, and when the Holy Ghost is really within us, Satan must remain without."



ElRay L. Christiansen