Gethsemane - Forgiveness - Repentance

This morning, I read the Gethsemane chapter in Come, Let Us Adore Him in preparation for my personal celebration of Easter (the Resurrection) tomorrow. I don't know how anyone can read it and not be sobbing by the fourth page in.

For this post, I just wanted to share a few quotes from this chapter, which is an apostolic eyewitness of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection as seen by Denver Snuffer. All emphases are mine.

To enter into the kingdom of heaven, all [people] must lay down their sins. But this they cannot do when they claim the right to restitution for any offense from their brother [meaning all other humans]. All claims must be set aside, the greater and more difficult being the righteous claim against another for their deliberate offense. Yet in asking for justice for yourself, you always require justice be answered in turn for all of your offenses. A [person] will not be given mercy if he is not merciful. (pp 228-9)

Denver talks about paired waves of torment our Lord suffered, the first being the suffering for those who harmed others (the perpetrators) and the second being the suffering for those who have been harmed by others (the victims), then he writes the following:

The greater difficulty in these paired waves of torment was always overcoming the suffering of the victim. With these waves, the Lord learned to overcome the victims' resentments, to forgive, and to heal both body and spirit. This was more difficult than overcoming the struggles arising from the one who committed the evil . . . The victim . . . always feels it is their right to hold resentment, to judge their persecutor and to withhold peace and love for their fellowmen. (pp 220-1)

In the final wave, the most brutal, most evil, most heinous sins men inflict upon one another were felt by Him as a victim of the worst men can do. He knew how it felt to wrongly suffer death. He knew what it was like to be a mother holding a child in her arms as they are both killed by those who delight in their suffering. He knew how it was for ambitious men to rid themselves of a rival by conspiracy and murder. He knew what it was to have virtue robbed from the innocent [this would include the rape of toddlers and children]. He knew betrayal, treachery, and abuse in all its worst degrading horror. There was no cruelty, no offense, no evil that mankind has suffered or will suffer that was not put upon Him.

He knew what is it like for men to satisfy their ambition by clothing their hypocrisy in religious garb. He also felt what it was like to be the victim of religious oppression by those who pretend to practice virtue while oppressing others. He knew the hearts of those who would kill Him. Before confronting their condemnation of Him in the flesh, He suffered their torment of mind when they recognized He was the Lord, and then found peace for what they would do by rejecting Him. In this extremity there was madness itself as He mirrored the evil which would destroy Him, and learned how to come to peace with the Father after killing the Son of God, and to love all those involved without restraint and without pretense, even before they did these terrible deeds. . . .

As a result of what the Lord suffered, there is no condition - physical, spiritual or mental that he does not fully understand. He knows how to teach, comfort, succor and direct any who come to Him seeking forgiveness and peace. (pp 222-3)

I share the above in the hopes that it gives comfort to some, and that it helps someone who is struggling to forgive a person or people who have caused them harm, no matter how terrible that harm.

P.S. You can forgive without putting yourself in danger, and without ever having to contact or talk to a person who is dangerous to you.

Independent Fellowships

 Before the Lord’s appearance to the Nephites, society broke down into tribes consisting of family and friends. Immediately before the Lord’s return we should expect something similar. Therefore, part of the preparation by God’s house for coming social chaos is likely to include some preliminary preparations by families and friends to fellowship with one another in local gatherings, perhaps completely apart from control by the LDS hierarchy. Only by independently functioning can they hope to prepare for social chaos prophesied to accompany Zion and precede the Lord’s return.

page 314 40 Years in Mormonism PDF

If I were to “lead” and standardize things it would be a return to correlation. Why return to what has damaged Mormonism? It is the system that has done the damage. You cannot improve that flaw by choosing to make me your new correlator. I will not do it. It will darken your minds and would corrupt me. I am no better than you, and I believe some of you to be better than I. We need hundreds of independently functioning believers adapting the Gospel to their needs. Doctrine does not change, and the scriptures are constant. Your needs will vary. Therefore you apply what is changeless to your peculiar circumstances. You can do it better than any distant authority could possibly do it for you.

When you submit to the rule of God, you then place yourself in a position where you must be dependent upon Him. Then every one of you will immediately realize your own weakness. You will be tempted to have others tell you how to please God. You must resist that temptation. You must arise and seek Him directly. Every one of you has to grapple with the uncertainty of, “is this right or is this wrong?” Every one of you has to grapple with the fact, that in answer to some questions, there is silence. You all must be forced to choose. If you choose right, you do not know you chose what was right, because He refused to answer you. Then you act in reliance on your own decision, going forward to do what is right, only later to be told, "If you had have made the mistake, I would have corrected you. But you needed that experience.” God answers prayers. Sometimes He forces you to make choices, and very often, I can't tell you how often, but very often I make the wrong choice. It is almost like I got a compass pointing south. I often choose wrong and then I get an answer correcting me. But I got an answer because I made a mistake.

page 339-40 40 Years in Mormonism PDF

 Those who are familiar with the ten lectures in this PDF will recognize that those are words Denver Snuffer said at the beginning of what we have now. (The bold in all quotes in this post are mine.)

More and more, this movement has been heading toward one religious entity that has rules all fellowships must obey. Conferences are called, votes are taken, and all fellowships are expected to abide by the majority vote, even though we were supposed to be separate so that if one was corrupted the whole would not be corrupted.

Most recently, one fellowship (or is it just a couple of women from different fellowships? I honestly don't know) are meddling with a decision made by another (with great drama posted online so the world can see how evil and contentious some of us are) - and a vote is being called (with a lot of contention from what I hear, a lot of shutting down of opposing voices during zoom calls by one particular woman, according to a ChatGPT synopsis (I have not been involved in the arguing going on, and I trust that ChatGPT reported accurately)) that all fellowships will be expected to abide by.

 I see us heading more and more into a big group with rules all must obey. It reminds me of this quote from Denver Snuffer's blog (yes, he's talking about power, but I think it applies anyway):

If you never consolidate power into a single place but every person must stand on their own—and every person has their own volume of Scriptures, and everyone has the ability to get access to the heavens through prayer—then it doesn’t matter who you corrupt, you cannot corrupt the whole.

 https://denversnuffer.com/2024/12/corruption/

When the Covenant of Christ book came out, we were told that we had permission to keep using the Book of Mormon if we wanted to. What nonsense is this? Are we children, hidden away in dark depths from God that we cannot choose what we consider scripture?

What is all this nonsense that we have created for ourselves? Truly, as it now stands, if "one" is corrupted, the whole will also be corrupted because "the one" creates great drama and does their best to force their views on the whole. And, of course, there is Denver's role in receiving revelation for the movement, when we were supposed to come to Christ ourselves and have a personal relationship with Him so that "none need say, Know ye the Lord, for they will all know him."

Do I blame Denver for any of this? Do I blame Denver for being the go-between between us and God? I do not. He does his best to stay out of the fray, but God answers people according to their idols. He answers them according to what they insist on having.

 Let's say that I'm in a fellowship that chose to use the 1840 Book of Mormon as their Nephite scripture, never took the 2017 Boise covenant because they had a previous covenant with God, peacefully never accepted the Guide and Standard (because it was a strong man model pushed through, quoting only Joseph Smith and Denver Snuffer, or maybe for other reasons), and generally mind their own business, ignoring the drama and trauma that gets shouted from the rooftops.

Let's say I'm in one like that (I'm not). I think that fellowship is doing what fellowships were originally intended to do (be independent from rules imposed by people in other fellowships, and never having Denver as a go-between between them and God. In fact, never elevating Denver nor Stephanie to any special importance other than that Denver gave us a call to repentance that we sorely needed in the 10-lecture circuit. Respecting him as a teacher, but believing he was being honest when he said, "To the extent that anyone is trying to displace your faith in God, and attract attention to themselves, myself included, that is a perversion and it will not save you. It is a distraction, it is evil, and it is wrong. It is damnable. Anyone who tries to attract your worship, myself included, ought to be sent to hell. It's why I continually remind you, talking about me is a waste of time. Talking about the things that I'm saying, talking about the content of the scriptures, talking about the doctrines that will save you, that is very important. But you can leave me out of that. You don't ever need to mention my name again in your life." (40 Years in Mormonism PDF, page 34)

 If I'm in a fellowship and we remove a man's certificate, he is perfectly free to move to a different fellowship and seek a brand new one. Now, if his wife is unwilling to endorse him, he can't do that according to the instructions given in Lecture 10. But the bottom line in all of this is that he is not going to be able to perform ordinances in our fellowship. What we do is not the business of another fellowship.

That's all.