Using your Priesthood Power to get out of Trouble?

[Dusty52]

Years ago I remember being told a story about 2 missionaries who were about to be attacked by a group of thugs
One of the missionaries raised his arm to the square and said something and the thugs just left not knowing what was going on
Has anyone heard similar stories?
Is this possible, are we able to do this?

[Robin Hood]

Sounds like one of those Mormon Urban Myths to me.

[Lizzy60]

Sounds like one of those Mormon Urban Myths to me.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's a Mormon Urban Myth that we are taught how to command evil to depart during our most sacred religious experience. /sarc/

[Robin Hood]

Sounds like one of those Mormon Urban Myths to me.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's a Mormon Urban Myth that we are taught how to command evil to depart during our most sacred religious experience. /sarc/

Last time I was at the temple I don't remember being taught to do any such thing.

[inho]

Whether that urban legend is based on true story or not, it has something in common with Alma's and Amulek's experience:

Alma 14
26 And Alma cried, saying: How long shall we suffer these great afflictions, O Lord? O Lord, give us strength according to our faith which is in Christ, even unto deliverance. And they broke the cords with which they were bound; and when the people saw this, they began to flee, for the fear of destruction had come upon them.

27 And it came to pass that so great was their fear that they fell to the earth, and did not obtain the outer door of the prison; and the earth shook mightily, and the walls of the prison were rent in twain, so that they fell to the earth; and the chief judge, and the lawyers, and priests, and teachers, who smote upon Alma and Amulek, were slain by the fall thereof.

It also resembles Joseph Smith's experience in Richmond jail:

One night in the Richmond Jail, as guards in “dreadful blasphemies and filthy language” boasted of their participation in the Saints’ persecution, Joseph rebuked them in the name of Jesus Christ in a “voice of thunder”: “SILENCE, ye fiends of the infernal pit. … Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS INSTANT!” The “quailing guards … begged his pardon.” Parley wrote, “Dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains, at midnight, in a dungeon in an obscure village of Missouri.”

Will this kind of rebuking work every time? Probably not. Let us remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who were brave enough to say "but if not":

Daniel 3
17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.

18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

[Lyster]

You know, the common interpretation that I've heard of Shadrach & co's statement has always been to focus on the "but if not" to denote the concept of "according to the Lord's will", kind of like a sense of "faith not to be healed".

Re-reading it made me think of it a little differently. While the word "even" isn't found, it reads to me more like "even if he doesn't, we still won't worship your gods". Like a statement of spite to show the depth of their faith, not a kind of "cop out" that they put in just in case their faith was weak.

I believe if we do have depth of faith that we can rebuke evil in whichever form. If moving mountains is doable, then turning a ruffian on his heels is also, like inho's examples.

[Dusty52]

You know, the common interpretation that I've heard of Shadrach & co's statement has always been to focus on the "but if not" to denote the concept of "according to the Lord's will", kind of like a sense of "faith not to be healed".

Re-reading it made me think of it a little differently. While the word "even" isn't found, it reads to me more like "even if he doesn't, we still won't worship your gods". Like a statement of spite to show the depth of their faith, not a kind of "cop out" that they put in just in case their faith was weak.

I believe if we do have depth of faith that we can rebuke evil in whichever form. If moving mountains is doable, then turning a ruffian on his heels is also, like inho's examples.

I like your use of the term ruffian, which is particularly English, do you have any connection?
Did you serve a mission here?

[Lyster]

I like your use of the term ruffian, which is particularly English, do you have any connection?
Did you serve a mission here?

Long ago, my people came from across the great deep to this land.
Also, I'm speaking to proper English gentlemen.
Also, I like to use less-frequently-used words occasionally for kicks, and sometimes for giggles.
I did not serve there, but in another very rainy place.

[Dusty52]

I like your use of the term ruffian, which is particularly English, do you have any connection?
Did you serve a mission here?

Long ago, my people came from across the great deep to this land.
Also, I'm speaking to proper English gentlemen.
Also, I like to use less-frequently-used words occasionally for kicks, and sometimes for giggles.
I did not serve there, but in another very rainy place.

New Zealand or Ireland?

[captainfearnot]

Sounds like one of those Mormon Urban Myths to me.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's a Mormon Urban Myth that we are taught how to command evil to depart during our most sacred religious experience. /sarc/

There's a difference between believing in the existence of a particular phenomenon, and believing every account by someone claiming to have encountered it.

For example, it's possible to believe that the three Nephites walk the earth, while remaining skeptical of stories about people running into them.

Dusty52, do we have the power to cast out devils? Yes. Just like deacons hold the keys to the ministering of angels, and faith has the power to move mountains. These are things we believe in our LDS doctrine, and yet somehow if a deacon claims that an angel ministered to him, or if someone claims to have moved a mountain, I'm going to want a little more evidence than that person's word. Call me a doubting Thomas, but in my experience fanciful stories and imaginations run wild are far more common than actual manifestations of these incredible gifts of the Spirit.

[Blessed]

The closest experience I have had is on my mission in Japan. We were out tracting, and we were about to go down a street when I received an absolute certainty that if we went down that street, my companion and I would be killed. I asked my companion casually if eh felt anything, and he said he felt sick and had chills (warm day). We went home and my comp was sick for the next couple of days - he was a very diligent missionary, he wasn't slacking.

Now many years later, I wonder if it was a true prompting, or if possibly the devil reached out to influence us away from someone down that street that was needing us or was particularly ready. There's no telling, although I tend to believe it was a proper warning that saved us.

[Blessed]

Years ago I remember being told a story about 2 missionaries who were about to be attacked by a group of thugs
One of the missionaries raised his arm to the square and said something and the thugs just left not knowing what was going on
Has anyone heard similar stories?
Is this possible, are we able to do this?

I'd say it is possible, Nephi did similar to his brothers. Whether this particular story is true or not, who knows?