Okay. I will do my best to answer your questions.Alaris wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2019, 10:46 amI saw you left this comment on my blog, but I will answer you here. First, thanks for sharing as sharing such experiences is not easy. I see there is a slight variance in accounts, so I hope you don't mind if I post a little bit of that variance below:jcb989 wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2019, 6:22 am I had a very intense spiritual experience that I have yet to understand. I also have yet to find someone who understands what I went through. I will try my best to provide as much detail about it as possible, so that you may understand how profound this was to me, and so that someone here may be able to give me some insight to it.
I was born in to a Latter Day Saint family in 1992 and baptized when i was of age. After my baptism we stopped attending church, and over time i became an atheist.
One night I was at my grandparents house in Salt Lake City at the end of 2012, and i noticed a book about Joseph Smith on the table. I asked my grandfather if i could take it home, and he happily obliged. I was curious to see what they believed (my grandparents) and read the book when i got back to my home.
As I was reading i was SO overcome by the spirit that i felt as though were on a hallucinogen. The world began to feel like a lovely dream. The feeling was so intense i began to believe i was a prophet. I began praying for hours on end every night, and would drive around all night and would speak to God, and I seemed to be receiving answers!
The peak of my experience is as follows:
I was sitting in my car watching the son rise, listening to the radio and speaking to god both verbally and mentally. He spoke to me, not verbally, but with that small quiet voice, and gave me two options, leave and let earth burn, or stay. I wept at the thought of humanity being burned, and i chose to stay.
Now not one person I have spoken to believes God actually gave me this option, they mostly think i am crazy. But I cannot deny that this happened, and the feelings associated with it are SO intense that I know it was real and that it was coming from God who is love, and i was encircled by and enveloped in his love.
This was the beginning of my sorrows. I went home and told my family that "I think i just saved the world". They immediately flew into a frenzy of rage thinking i was on mushrooms and kicked me out of the house. Since then life has not been very good to me, but i have grown infinite amounts in my faith. I have quit telling people about this experience as i have been rejected by everyone i have told it to, but I thought I may as well give it another go and see if anyone can be of help to me.
Thanks for reading! Anxiously waiting to see what you all have to say. Any questions you may have, feel free to ask.
May I ask what led you to this conclusion? Was it the fact the world would burn without you here? Did you receive any explanation as to why? Were you led to believe you were the only reason the world wouldn't burn or a part of a larger effort?
Another couple of questions:
Have those experiences stopped where you feel you are talking to God?
Have any of those experiences led to confirmations - For example, were you ever given a word or a scripture that you weren't familiar with that you were later able to verify? This may help rule out any lingering doubts of self-generated experiences, but that won't necessarily rule out evil spirits.
As for evil spirits - how does one know one is receiving revelations from God versus from the devil ala Hyrum Smith? There is both a logical test and a spiritual one. The logical test is are you receiving anything that directly conflicts with revelation, modern or otherwise. However, the flaw in that test is you are relying on your own understanding - either your understanding of A (existing) versus B (new) could be flawed.
Here are two more important spiritual tests. The first is Alma 32 regarding planting a seed. If you haven't read Alma 32 recently, or if you aren't super familiar with Alma 32, I suggest a deep dive here.
The second in Moroni 7. Evil spirits cannot lead you to Christ by their very nature.
Moroni 7:12 Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually.
13 But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.
14 Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren, that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.
15 For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.
16 For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.
17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.
18 And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged.
19 Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.
In my humble opinion, God reveals things to us in a way that leaves room for doubt - otherwise we would not require faith. Stahura mentioned mental illness - is there any history of schizophrenia in your family or delusions of grandeur? Yet on the other hand just about every prophet was crazy by the world's standards - and God's people will always stand in stark contrast to the world and the standards by which the world judges people.
Study Alma 32 and compare to Moroni 7 - search diligently, pray diligently, study diligently and move forward in faith - does the seed take root and are there experiences that confirm by the Spirit the earlier experiences?
I wish I had written the experience down so had all of the details of it. All I have is my memory of it and this was at the beginning of 2013 or the end of 2012. The options again were stay, or leave and the earth will burn. At the time I took this to mean that if i stayed the earth would not burn, but that was never said or alluded to. By the way this was not an audible voice, it was more speaking through ideas and thought. I have wondered as one poster here said, that maybe me staying would not have stopped the earth from burning, I would just get to be here for it. I did not get an explanation as to why, but I do have some thoughts.
Right before this experience I got heavily involved in conspiracy theory. I believe I came to many truths about secret societies and the like. After my faith began I was then able to realize the true endgame of these societies by learning about the end of the world in the scriptures. I felt I was on a mission to put a stop to these secret societies and their wicked plans for humanity. So perhaps in the future I will do something about these wicked people, and the earth wouldn't burn as a result. I know the end times will happen regardless but maybe I do something to keep things from getting worse than we thought possible. That is grandiose I suppose, I acknowledge it is more likely I will not do anything to stop these societies, as that would take a grand scale effort and who am I to put a stop to something as big as what they are up to. And the world will end regardless of what any of us do on earth.
These experiences where I felt unbelievably close to God have stopped. They stopped after I prayed to the devil one night at an altar at a church. Which was extremely foolish of me to do. I was overly passionate about a few things and in my youth and ignorance I rebelled against God for a time when things didn't pan out how I had hoped. I have repented and come back to God and will never ever do anything so stupid again.
Now I said that the experiences where I felt unbelievably close to God stopped and those communicative experiences stopped as well, minus one week where I had several visions with my eyes closed. These visions were not accompanied by the amazing water feeling I felt when I first found God, but they were visions none the less.
What I saw was, Obama in a robe in an underground place, getting ready to do something terrible to a baby. I saw Obama in a grim reaper outfit behind Trump who was sitting on a couch watching TV. I saw Kanye West in a group of Latter Day Saints with a suit on as if he were a Latter Day Saint. I also saw an older Latter Day Saint male studying my face. What was up with all of this? I have some ideas on some of it, other things I am unsure.
I would confidently tell you these experiences were not self generated. As far as evil spirits go, I would say with certainty the experience I initially made the post about was not of the devil. The visions, I suppose it is possible they were not of God. I could not tell you.
But the initial experience I believe to be of God and not the work of mental illness or evil spirits. If it was the work of mental illness then my entire testimony is false as this was a part of a big experience that led me to believe in Jesus and The Church in the first place. If it was only mental illness then I may as well throw the entire experience out. Also, if evil spirits cannot lead me to Christ, then this experience cannot be of evil because it led me to Christ. I also would consider it to be good because the seed did the things that it says in Alma. Swell, grow, make you feel good, etc. Sorry I am not quoting any of it, I suppose I am being a bit lazy about it. If we need further clarification on this part let me know and I will put more thought into it.
Mental Illness in the family. As far as i know none of my elders have had a mental illness other than anxiety. After this experience I was diagnosed Bipolar but as you said by the worlds standards people in the bible would also be labeled with a mental illness. My previous Doctor was not a religious man, and the notes about me said I had an "obsession with a higher power". My doctor now was even concerned that I was spending too much time on God. He said I seem fine but spending too much time praying and reading scriptures was concerning to him.
Thank you for your reply, I hope I did an okay job answering you. If you need more information or clarification please let me know.
