Remember beloved, God has forbidden us from having conversations with dead people.  Deuteronomy 18:9-12;

“When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”

At the April 2016 General Conference LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson told listening ears if they wanted to hold true priesthood power of the Mormon priesthood, they should expect to pay a price for their ‘blessing’ of doing so. See The Price of Priesthood Power. What he wasn’t clear about is how God feels about it, and what He warns us not to do.

Originally I was alerted to this speech when Melissa sent me a couple of quotes from it that she saw on the internet. We were kind of joking around when she said it almost sounded like an infomercial with Mr. Nelson asking, ‘Are you willing to pray to know how to pray for more power? The Lord will teach you’.

Here’s part of her e-mail and her insight on this talk –

Is it just me, or does this last one sound a little like an infomercial? “Do you feel run down? Not getting enough power when you pray? Need more oomph in your priesthood power? Well here’s how to get more!

I joke about it, but scanning through this talk just makes me sad for them. We don’t need priesthood power. To think so makes God weak, and less than who He is. It’s demonic to think of men sharing and having the power of God.

To that I couldn’t agree more! After clicking on the link to read the article, all the light-hearted joking quickly dissipated.

We’re going to look at a couple of the key things Mr. Nelson said in his speech with the hope Christians will get an idea of how demonic this is!

“In my last conference message, I related my devastating experience many years ago when, as a heart surgeon, I was not able to save the lives of two little sisters…one night last May, I was awakened by those two little girls from the other side of the veil. Though I did not see or hear them with my physical senses, I felt their presence. Spiritually, I heard their pleadings. Their message was brief and clear: “Brother Nelson, we are not sealed to anyone! Can you help us?”

Emboldened by the pleadings of Laural Ann and Gay Lynn, I tried again to contact their father, who I learned was living with his son Shawn. This time they were willing to meet with me. …I had the profound privilege of sealing Ruth to Jimmy and their four children to them. Wendy and I wept as we participated in that sublime experience.”

This story is ‘eerily’ similar to what Wilford Woodruff did at the St. George Temple when he said about 200 people appeared to him and said the same thing.

After the telling of his interaction with dead people, Mr. Nelson went on to say the father of the two little girls and his son became temple worthy.

However, before they could be so blessed, they first had to meet all the requirements, which in layman’s terms means ponying up 10% of their gross income, and attending endless meetings with hierarchy.

Here’s what Mr. Nelson had to say about all their ‘hard work’ to meet the requirements of a blessing;

“Only a man who has paid the price for priesthood power will be able to bring miracles to those he loves and keep his marriage and family safe, now and throughout eternity.”

So basically, the power is in the pocketbook, and you’re ‘paying’ monetarily for those so-called miracles. He also told his audience the same power conferred upon them is the same power God used to create the earth. How can this be when Joe Smith said that God didn’t have the power to create the earth, let alone people?

Nelson then went on to share how he and his wife, Wendy, were blessed by performing ceremonies for the dead people of this family in the Payson Temple, which he referred to as a ‘sublime’ experience with many hearts being healed that day. You’ll obviously note the Masonic terminology going on with that statement…good grief.

Does God only heal your hurting heart after you’ve paid him to do so?

This reminds me of my friend who happens to be a Sunday school teacher at our church and was raised Catholic. Regan was telling us the story of his mom being dirt poor all his life, and the reason was because she kept paying the Catholic Church money to bail her deceased loved ones out of purgatory. First it was her mom, and then her sister, and next it was his brother, and then his nephew. The list seemed to never end. Sadly for Regan’s mom, the money did come to an end and the poorer she got, the more she felt harassed by her local parish.

Two other comments Mr. Nelson made were rather spurious as well.

He asked his audience if they were willing to pray to know how to pray for more power. This is very odd considering that when you perform rites in the temple for dead people, you’re not offering God any of your own prayers. Any prayers offered are performed by rote based on what the leader of the ceremony is telling you to pray.

Unlike the experiences of those in the OT, Mormons don’t learn anything new while in the temples. In the OT, people would listen to scripture being read by the priest which is how they learned what God wanted them about to know about Himself. It was a time for intense learning and each week a new lesson was offered. Mormon temples are utilized to perform perfunctory rites for dead people where there are no sermons taking place, and most people are in a trance like state of mind, if they can stay awake long enough to pay attention to what’s going on.

The last noteworthy item Mr. Nelson shared was a question he posed to the audience. The wording is significant and something worth taking the time to ask a Mormon about the next time you have the opportunity. He said –

‘Why would any man waste his days and settle for Esau’s mess of pottage when he has been entrusted with the possibility of receiving all of the blessings of Abraham?’ [emp. mine]

How is someone entrusted with a possibility for something? This just doesn’t make any sense! By default the meaning of being entrusted with anything indicates the item, or subject matter, is of utmost importance!

The wording he used is a tell-tale sign the promises he’s offering are shallow, if not totally devoid, of truth. Why are you paying money, and hoping beyond all hope, you might have the chance to bless your deceased loved ones and get saved yourself?

There’s one last thing we must point out.

In the June 2016 issue of  the Friend Magazine you’ll find an article written for kids, and in a roundabout way, they’ve asked them to reevaluate their priorities. The moral of the story was that if you’re fond of ghost stories you should think about finding a new hobby. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the meat of their message.

Tell me, what’s the difference between a little kid reading a ghost story, and listening to Mr. Nelson telling the entire world about his ghost story? We’re not saying either scenario is right, because they’re definitely not up to par with God’s standard!

We don’t understand why they’ve gone out of their way to dog on little kids about reading ghost stories when one of their premiere leaders is doing the same thing on a much grander scale!