The Strangeness of Mormonism

By Pastor Don Elmore

April 8, 2012

Scripture Reading:  Galatians 1:10-14

The British General, Lord Cornwallis, following his surrender to Washington in the Revolutionary War, made a last-ditch effort to salvage his ego; divulged the hidden agenda of the Edomite bloodlines by declaring to Washington:

“A holy war will now begin on America, and when it is ended America will be supposedly the citadel of freedom, but her millions will unknowingly be loyal subjects to the Crown.

Your churches will be used to teach the Jew’s religion and in less than two hundred years the whole nation will be working for divine world government. That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire. All religions will be permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of the Grand Architect of Freemasonry.” Legions of Satan, Jonathan Williams.

How did this happen? It all started in a very dramatic way. In the 1800s restoration religions sprang up. There were also major changes in the doctrines and practices of the mainstream churches. It began with the Second Great Awakening which coincided with the restoration movement. The spigot was turned on and the number of new churches kept on pouring out; in fact they still are. It began with the four first restoration churches:

1. Church of Christ
2. Christian Church
3. Disciples of Christ which are considered Christian by most other Christians and
4. Church of Latter-day Saints which is considered to be non-Christian.

The first three were the result of the Second Great Awakening that occurred in mainly the states of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. One of the preachers actually lived for a short time in the town in which our church in located: Burlington, Kentucky. Briefly, if you remember, the Second Great Awakening, were large group meetings in which former Baptist and Methodist preachers held meetings with a diverse large group of people for several days.

Mainstream Christianity rejected many things about the Awakening’s practices. It considered heresy some of the doctrines that were preached and many of their practices that they did. But to put it bluntly, shortly after the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, from the depths of the netherworld came a mighty force of unclean, evil and demonic entities to seduce the covenant people of God. So powerful has been this onslaught, that in just two hundred years, Christianity has been reduced to a powerless, feminized state religion. Not only has Christianity’s doctrines been altered, but the entire Western Christian culture has been turned upside down. Like numerous giant tidal waves, movement after movement has assailed their selves against the laws of America’s God.

1. Restoration Movement
2. Women’s Suffrage Movement
3. Temperance Movement
4. Abolition Movement
5. Feminist Movement
6. Man-Planned Mesmerizing Revival Movement
7. End-Time Movement
8. Evolution Movement
9. New Denominations Movement
10. The New Religions Movement
11. Adoption of Catholic Holidays Movement
12. Psychology Movement
13. Dispensational Theology Movement
14. Incorporation Church Movement
15. Federal Reserve and Income Tax Movement
16. Abortion Movement
17. Civil Rights Movement
18. Integration Movement
19. Democracy Movement
20. Rock and Roll Music Revolution Movement
21. Sexual Revolution Movement
22. Drug Revolution Movement
23. Pentecostal Movement
24. Speaking in Tongues Movement
25. Divine Healing Movement
26. Charismatic Movement
27. Church Growth Movement
28. Mega-Church Movement

In 1800, there were nowhere near the present 30,000 denominations and various cults that masquerade as Christian Churches in America. The major mainline non-Catholic churches (Protestant) included:

1. The Episcopal Church (Anglican)
2. The Lutheran Church (Calvinistic)
3. The Presbyterian Church (Calvinistic)
4. The Congregational Church (Calvinistic)
5. The Baptist Church (Some Calvinistic and Some Arminian)
6. The Methodist Church (Arminian)

The Major mainline non-Protestant, non-Christian churches included:

1. The Quaker Church (Arminian)
2. The Shakers (Arminian)
3. The Unitarian Church (Arminian)
4. Masonic Temples (Arminian)

The Roman Catholic Church’s influence was limited to the two states of Maryland and Louisiana. The Eastern Catholic Church’s influence was basically nil.

There was some remnant covenant Churches (neither Protestant nor Catholic) in America; very few.

The First Era

The first area of change was centered in the area from Maysville, Kentucky to Knoxville, Tennessee. Parts of North Carolina and Ohio also participated in the first major movement of the nineteenth century—The RESTORATION MOVEMENT.

Kentucky became a commonwealth in 1792; Tennessee became a state in 1796; and Ohio in 1803. The city of Lexington, Kentucky had a population of fewer than 1,800 people. The land of Daniel Boone and Thomas Walker was filled with individualistic, rugged, isolated pioneers who lived a dangerous, difficult life. With the constant threat of attack from savage Indians to the rigors of daily living, the backwoodsmen were basically uneducated and separated from any churches.

And the churches that were on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountain had no longer an appealed to this new breed of American who had migrated to the western side. Formal, intellectual sermons with strict, ritualistic services were the last thing the whisky drinking farmers wanted to sit through.

Thus, the time was right for a new brand of Christianity to make its appearance. And what an appearance it made—sudden and dramatic.  While widespread revivals were absent between 1745 and 1795, local awakenings kept the revival flame from completely dying out.  But in 1796, the embers were once again ignited in the hills of North Carolina. The open communal service—a tradition that was brought from Scotland by the Presbyterians—began to be practiced in America. Pastor James McGready organized some of the first. It soon spread to Logan County, Kentucky and several other locations near the border of Kentucky and Tennessee when Pastor McGready moved to Logan County, Kentucky in 1798.

Logan County, Kentucky

Logan County was one of the roughest counties, if not the roughest, in all of the state.

“The trouble was that no one on the frontier was designated to enforce the law, with the result that Congress would state, ‘the immunity which offenders experience attracts as to an asylum, the most vile and abandoned criminals, and all the same time deters useful and virtuous persons from making settlements in such society’” Great Revivals and the Great Republic, Warren A. Candler, pp. 172-173.

“Logan County attracted so many murderers, horse thieves, highway robbers, and counterfeiters that it was nicknamed, ‘Rogues’ Harbor’ by those outlaws who fled there to escape justice back east….But within a year, revival began to break out” From Sea to Shining Sea, Peter Marshall and David Manuel, pp. 60, 61.

First it happened at the quarterly command service at the Red River congregation. Then the following month they celebrated the Lord’s Supper at the Gasper River Church. A year later at Red River, then Muddy River Church, then Gasper River Church again—similar results.

What happened to these profane swearers, murderers, robbers, drunks at these communal services defied logic. As recorded by William Chandler in his above quoted book, pp. 178-179, Pastor Baron W. Stone, A Presbyterian Pastor from Bourbon County, Kentucky expressed what he saw one at one of these meetings:

“There, on the edge of a prairie in Logan County , Kentucky, the multitudes came together and continued a number of days and nights encamped on the ground, during which time the worship was carried on in some part of the encampment. The scene was new to me and passing strange. It baffled description.

Many, very many, fell down as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state, sometimes for a few minutes’ reviving and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan or a piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy fervently uttered. After lying there for hours, they obtained deliverance. The gloomy cloud that had covered their faces seemed gradually and visibly to disappear, and hope in smile brightened into joy.

They would rise, shouting deliverance, and then would address the surrounding multitude in language truly eloquent and impressive. With astonishment did I hear men, women and children declaring the wonderful works of God, and the glorious mysterious of the gospel?”

Things were happening at McGready’s meetings that had not happened anywhere in America at any church meeting, since at the end of the First Great Awakening. Word of mouth spread as to what was happening throughout Kentucky and the adjacent states.

Since there were so few churches, and fewer pastors, Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists continued to combine their churches in these special outdoor meeting. Besides their church members, the settlers, including both BLACK FREEMEN AND SLAVES, also attended.

The attendees arrived in wagons, by horses, by donkeys and by foot. Thousands came from over a hundred miles away and stayed—for several days at a time. Music, preaching, praying with extraordinary enthusiasm and excitement…soon gave way to something very strange…

It came to a climax at Cane Ridge, Kentucky—“ARGUABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT RELIGIOUS GATHERING IN ALL OF AMERICAN HISTORY,” according to Vanderbilt University historian Paul Conkin. Pastor Barton W. Stone of the Cane Ridge Presbyterian Church, after attending several of James McGready’s revivals, decided to host one himself at his church.

But what happened there even startled him.

Approximately 30,000 people traveling hundreds of miles came to the campground meeting. From Friday to the next Thursday, continuous preaching, prayers, shouting and singing took place with “godly hysteria.”

Bodily exercises, such as dropping, jerking, barking, falling to the ground motionless for hours, uncontrollable weeping, uncontrollable laughing, hugging, kissing, clapping of hands, seeing visions, talking to the distressed, talking to one another, even talking to opposers of the meeting, singing, shouting, rolling on the ground, falling into trances, groans, babble of speech, loud prayers, impassioned preaching, and singing of hymns that had the music with the beat of voodoo drums.

Needless to say, the mainline denominations were shocked and angered at what was happening at these services, but even more so at the decadence that was occurring at many locations in the campground. Drunkenness and disorderly conduct, including sexual intimacies degenerated to that of a mini-Mardi-Gras. It was a common saying that at Cane Ridge, “More souls were begot that saved.”

This week-long ecumenical, multicultural, interracial festive campground meeting cracked the foundation of Christian theology and Christian culture in America. Esteem for Jesus, expositional preaching, essential Christian doctrine and the practice of church disciple and sanctification of Holy Communion were quickly thrown away in the land west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Some believe that what happened at Pastor McGready’s meetings and at similar ones like at Cane Ridge had not happened since the Book of Acts. But was that really true? Did those in the Temple Courtyard on the Day of Pentecost and those at Cornelius’ house when Peter visited, bark like a dog after they were converted? Were they “slain in the spirit?” Were they laughing uncontrollably? Did drunkards replace the apostles and do some preaching? Were there immoral sexual behavior going on nearby? Maybe what happened during the Second Great Awakening was a counterfeit revival!

The leadership in the mainstream Presbyterian Church thought that the meetings were unscriptural and as a result that denomination soon thereafter split in two. Calvinism gave way to Aminianism in the frontier states. Church structure, order and sacraments became a thing of the past. But the Methodist and Baptist churches adapted to the “new gospel” and grew exponentially for several decades as they installed “circuit rider preachers” and continued campground meetings.

The Lutheran and Episcopal Churches had little influence in the West. Their intellectual sermons and “Common Prayer Book” services were no match for the more entertaining, socializing, unstructured emotional services of the Baptist, Methodists and Arminian Presbyterians.

The Second Era

While the effects of the Second Great Awakening were spreading through the frontier from Ohio to Tennessee, another outbreak of demonic activity occurred in the frontier area of upper New York. Along the newly built Erie Canal, settlers had flocked from their coastal homes.

This set the stage for another stage of America’s turning from its roots of essential Christian doctrine.

Again, it was from the ranks of the Presbyterian Church that apostasy sprang. After a visit from an evil spirit, the life of Charles Gradison Finney was dramatically and suddenly changed in 1821. Within a decade he became a leader of the Arminian Presbyterians and the Arminian Congregational Church—which taught against the Westminster Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian’s that had ordained him. In fact, Finney became the leader in the movement that promoted abolition and interracial and inter-gender higher education.

From the students at both Lane Seminary in Cincinnati and Oberlin College, outside of Cleveland, Ohio, they led the way to agitate the nation to its most disastrous war of history. The trend to a socialized gospel and mesmerizing techniques had taken root in a new kind of Christianity—a false Christianity—but an increasingly popular one.

With Finney and Joseph Smith and their disciples in the North; with Barton Stone, Alexander and Thomas Campbell, Walter Scott, Sidney Rigdon, James McGready in the Ohio--Kentucky--Tennessee areas; the face of Christianity was being quickly distorted; and with it, the direction of America.

South Africa

While Evangelist Finney was being supported by the Tappan brothers for the promotion of their abolition agenda, the Anglican Church of England promoted a similar agenda in the Cape Colony of South Africa. The British government instituted in 1835 radical legislation known as Ordinance 50. It was directed against the immigrants who had come to Cape Colony from France, Germany and the Netherlands (Afrikaners) many years earlier.

These former Europeans and slaves had cultivated and farmed the land inland from the Cape. But these new laws were directed against the laws of the Afrikaners’ God. The new civil rights legislation from England demanded that:

1. All policies of racial segregation were to be banned.
2. All Negroes were given full citizenship to vote.
3. Severe taxes were imposed.
4. Prohibition of the Afrikaner’s native language.
5. Insane stipulation that any repeal or amendment could only be done in England.
6. No retaliation was permitted to be taken against any Negro who raped, looted or murdered whites.
7. With the support of Anglican missionaries, interracial marriages and interracial schools were advocated.

To prove their “godliness,” many Anglican missionaries married Negro women and paraded children of both races under the banner of “we are of one blood.” Exactly, the same as Answers in Genesis and the majority of so-called Christian groups advocate today.

As a result, with a population less than half of the attendees at the Cane Ridge Revival, the Afrikaners abandoned their homes and businesses to make a dangerous Trek many miles by wagons to an uninhabited wilderness far to the Northeast—away from the jurisdiction of the British. Their faithfulness to the laws of God was vindicated with the astonishing intervention of God at the Battle of Blood River that preserved the 468 Afrikaners from total annihilation from 30,000 Zulu warriors. This ensured that there would be a Christian nation in Southern Africa for the next century and a half.

On December 16, 1838 the Afrikaners defeated the Zulus; one of the few bright spots in a time of great darkness in Christianity. As the Afrikaners began to keep the vow that they had made with their God, we will look at another strange development that happened across the world in the deteriorating Christianity in America.

Orson Hyde was born in Connecticut in January 1805. He was raised by neighbors, who took him to Ohio where he came under the influence at the age of 26 years old of former Baptist preacher—turned Campbellite preacher—turned Mormon preacher--Sidney Rigdon. After filling several Mormon missions and participating in Zion’s Camp, in 1835 he was ordained an apostle.

He crossed the Atlantic in 1837 with Heber C. Kimball to start the Latter-day Saints British Mission, which later produced many Utah immigrants. One of significance now, was the family of Presidential Candidate Mitt

Romney. Miles Romney and Elizabeth Gaskell were married in England in 1830.

In 1837, Miles and Elizabeth were on their way to the market when they saw a group of people assembled on a street corner. They were curious as to what attracted the crowd. They discovered that it was American preacher Orson Hyde, a Mormon Apostle (the church was only 7 years old), to whom they listened and were converted. In September 1839, they were baptized and left England in 1841 and gathered with the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois.

But in the year of the miraculous Afrikaner victory over the Zulus that set the Afrikaners on the right tract in South Africa, Orson Hyde in 1838 was excommunicated from the Mormon Church. Orson’s boldness and energy frequently made him the subject of criticism from his superiors. But in 1839, after making sincere reconciliation he was reinstated.

Orson served forth-three years as a Mormon apostle; twenty-eight years of which were as president of the Quorum of the Twelve. In addition to his literary contributions, he was a farmer, supervisor of Utah immigration, wagon train master, irrigation specialist, founder of new Utah settlements, railroad planner, sawmill operator, participant in the Utah War councils, regent of the University of Deseret, legislator, newspaper editor, Indian fighter, peacemaker, lawyer, judge and statesmen. Few Mormons can exceed his list of accomplishments.

While the Afrikaners were establishing their new freedom, Orson Hyde, a descendant of Esau, carried out the longest and perhaps the most dangerous mission performed by an early Mormon elder. Just eleven years since the beginning of the Mormon Church, Orson Hyde made a solo mission to Jerusalem in 1841. Why did he go there? Remember, it was just eleven years since the Mormon Church began. HE DEDICATED THE LAND OF PALESTINE FOR THE RETURN OF THE JEWS!

We will come back to Orson Hyde’s’ mission to Jerusalem later in the article.

But first, William Morgan, who was murdered by the Masons after his mysterious disappearance from the Canandaigua Jail in 1826 later, became one of the first to receive by proxy the new Mormon rite of Baptism for the Dead in the year 1841. How this came to be is quite an interesting story.

William Morgan left behind a widow, Lucinda Morgan, a petite blue-eye blonde, and two small children; his widow was 25 years of age. Just as her husband’s death became a symbol of the evils of Masonry that became the catalyzed of a political movement, Lucinda rapidly became a living reminder of her evils of a Craft that would leave a young woman a widow in the bloom of her maidenhood.

What is not known by the masses is that Joseph Smith and William Morgan were both members of the same Masonic Lodge. William’s widow was sure that her husband had been a victim of foul play and fully supported the Anti-Masonic Movement.

In October of 1827 a corpse was discovered on the shore of Lake Ontario, which some speculate might have been Capt. Bill Morgan. Lucinda examined the body and testified that she was certain that it was her husband; but a Canadian woman, possibly at Masonic instigation, claimed that it was her son. The body was buried in Canada, but the mystery surrounding the affair was never finally cleared up.

When the Mormon Church was organized with six men as members in 1830, Lucinda Morgan decided to remarry. She married a Batavia silversmith, George W. Harris, twenty-one years her elder. Four years later, in 1834, the Harrises were living in Terre Haute, Indiana. In the fall of 1834, the Apostle Orson Pratt stopped at Terre Haute and proclaimed to any who would listen to the perverted Gospel of Mormonism; George and Lucinda Harris did and became Mormons.

By the fall of 1837, George and Lucinda Harris were already residing among the Saints in Far West, Missouri. About that time, Joseph Smith and his Counselor Sidney Rigdon came for a visit. They stayed at the Harris home. Joseph Smith soon had convinced Lucinda Harris to be one of his 33 wives. She was a plural wife to him for about seven years until he was murdered. When they moved to Nauvoo, they lived right across the street from Joseph Smith.

Twelve years later, 1856, George W. Harris charged his wife with willfully deserting him; the divorce was uncontested. In 1860, George W. Harris was excommunicated from the Mormon Church and died in a state of apostasy later that year after almost thirty years in the Mormon Church he helped to build.

Lucinda Morgan was living in Memphis, Tennessee. She joined the Catholic Sisters of Charity and worked with the Leah Asylum of Memphis. She died in obscurity. Thus, ends the fascinating story of the woman who at one time was the public image of Anti-Masonry, the widow of William Morgan.

Now back to Orson Hyde and his mission to Palestine from April 1841 to December 1842. He recorded that before dawn on October 24, 1841 he climbed up the Mount of Olives overlooking the city, then both wrote and recited a prayer, which he had received in a vision in America: part of which reads:

“Now O Lord! Thy servant has been obedient to the heavenly vision which Thou gavest him in his native land; and under the shadow of Thine outstretched arm, he has safely arrived in this place to dedicate and consecrate this land unto Thee, for the gathering together of Judah's (not any of the other tribes of Israel) scattered remnants, according to the predictions of the holy Prophets -- for the building up of Jerusalem again after it has been trodden down by the Gentiles so long, and for rearing a Temple in honor of thy name. Everlasting thanks be ascribed unto Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast preserved Thy servant from the dangers of the seas, and from the plague and pestilence which have ceased the land to mourn. The violence of man has also been restrained, and Thy providential care by night and by day has been exercised over Thin unworthy servant. Accept, therefore, O Lord, the tribute of a grateful heart for all past favors, and be pleased to continue Thy kindness and mercy towards a needy worm of the dust.”

Having dedicated Jerusalem and Palestine for the ingathering of the Jews and their rebuilding of the Temple, Hyde departed the mountain after building a small altar with stones.

In 1972, the Mormon Church explored the possibility of erecting a memorial to Orson Hyde on the Mount of Olives. After several years of extensive negotiations, the Jews offered a parcel of land on the Mount of Olives for the development of a park. Funds were raised, and on October 24, 1979 the park was dedicated in the presence of Latter-day Saint leaders, Israeli dignitaries, and Arab notables. The park with its panoramic view, amphitheater, winding walks and gardens, is a fitting tribute to Elder Hyde and an appropriate gift to the City of Jerusalem; it is a place of quiet meditation for apostate Christian, Moslem and Jew to enjoy alike.

It is no coincidence that historical annals point to the 1840s as a period of awakening among Jews dispersed throughout the world. Out of this new dawn arose men of influence like Moses Hess, Joseph Salvador, Moses Montefiore, Leo Pinsker, and Theodor Herzl. Having been touched by the spirit of gathering, they began to instill in Jews everywhere the desire to return to their ancient homeland. It has grown into now a movement to where in 1948 they stole the land of Palestine and made it a Zionist State.

Mormon “apostle” Orson Hyde established “Zionism” by means of a highly occultic “dedicatory prayer circle” conducted at the very Mount of Olives where Christ walked – dedicating all of Lucifer’s “Holy Melchizedek Priesthood” power and authority to have the Babylonian Seed of Cain control the entire Middle East by means of their Satanic conjuring.

The Mormons’ look forward to the day when Moslem, Christian and Jew will resolve their differences and be united; that is an impossible situation. Christianity is a unique religion; based on the covenant that God made with a certain family. The descendants of Cain and Esau have tried to destroy Israel; and the descendants of Ishmael have been at war with Israel for centuries. God has told His people that they will never be destroyed because He has made an unconditional covenant with them.

Conclusion

What a time in history! The Mormon Church had grown at a fast rate; from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois to the territory of Utah. They had been run out of New York for the sin of fortune telling and other con related activities of the family of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young; Ohio for a failed bankrupt fraudulent bank; Missouri for armed battles between militia of the State of Missouri against the Mormons over slavery and plural marriages; and Illinois over corruption of the leadership of the Mormon Church and its masonic doctrines and plural marriages.

In spite of all of this unchristian activity: the Mormon Church insisted that the Kingdom of God was the Mormon Church. They experienced rapid growth from all over the world. In just fourteen years from the Mormon Church’s beginning, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were running for the President of the United States with a great opportunity to win!

The demonic and evil spirits were influencing many individuals who were striking Christianity down to a meaningless power in the world. Jews, descendants of Esau, were from the beginning taking a major role in the Mormon Church. Early Mormonism was based on magic and witchcraft.

While the Afrikaner’s won their amazing victory, the Mormon apostle was in a few years in Palestine proclaiming what an evil spirit had told him in a vision.

Did you notice what Orson Hyde said what the ingathering of Judah was? He specially said “Not any of the other tribes of Israel”; it was just the remnant of the tribe of Judah. This is common in the Zionist Movement. Judah was just one of the thirteen tribes of Israel. Orson Hyde incorrectly called the descendants of Judah, “Jews”; but what did he call the other twelve tribes?

He didn’t call them “Jews.” He called them “Gentiles.” The covenant that God made and swore to Israel was to all the tribes; not one. They are called “Hebrews”; not Jews. They are called “Shemites”; not Jews. They are called “Israelites”; not Jews.

“If there is one primary reason for the failure of America, it is the failure of the ministers of God to hold forth the truth in their words and their lives.

America’s pulpits are dominated by men who know not the God of the Bible, the God of Israel and they preach a god and a Jesus that is tepid, helpless and dependent on the will of the people for the accomplishment of His great redemptive goals.

Many of the pulpits are filled with men whose lives are riddled with sin of adultery, fornication, drunkenness, lasciviousness and ungodliness. Many pulpits are filled with women who cannot be called nor qualified by Bible standards to lead the church of Jesus Christ.

Many churches sin against God because they allow deacons and uncalled and unordained Elders to lead the church instead of God-called and God-ordained and God-anointed pastors to lead the church.

Most of America’s pulpits do not teach the people the difference between the profane and the holy. Churches have become cathedrals filled with entertainment and preaching of psychologically uplifting messages without a confrontation of sin, a call to repentance or a warning of judgment.

Baptisms and membership are increased with no impact on society, no change in life style and a worsening degradation of America’s Christian culture, increased violence and greed and an open sex society that would make Sodom and Gomorrah blush.

When judgment comes, the people who have been preaching milquetoast and love by their pastors will curse their pastors, cast them out and seek someone who knows God, but it may be too late to stop the judgment.

God has a remnant, but most of them are not in the churches of today. Among them, He will find a man and will raise him up as a prophet and God will find a man among them whom He can raise up to lead His people. But before that time comes, God will have to chasten, and pass His people under the rod, separating them from the love of the world.

I believe the time is soon and my prayer is, ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.’” Why Believers Are Failing To Save America, Dr. Everett Ramsey; pp. 28-29.

Blessed be the LORD GOD of Israel.