                            THE NATURE OF GOD



   There is but ONE GOD


   The BIBLE states that there has been, and presently is, and always
will be only ONE GOD.  History and the BIBLE show that the Jewish people
always believed in ONE GOD of the UNIVERSE.  The Jewish nation however,
was lured time and time again, into going after "other gods" that were
worshipped by the people surrounding Israel.  That was the sin GOD hated
and punished them for practicing.  (Jeremiah 2:11, 11:9-13, 19:13)

   In direct contrast, MORMONISM has a basic belief in many gods.  The
Father, Son and Holy Ghost (in Mormonism) are three separate gods. There
were gods before them and will be gods to follow:

    "If we should take a million worlds like this and number their
    particles, we should find that there are more gods than there are
    particles of matter in those worlds."
    (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, Vol 2, page 345 [Feb 1855] Orson Pratt)

    "Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy
    Spirit are only one God.  I say that is a strange God, anyhow -
    Three in one and one in three.  It is a curious organization ...
    all are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. 
    It would make the biggest   God in all the world .... he would be
    a giant or a monster."
    (TEACHING OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH, page 372)
    (HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, Vol 6, page 476)

    "In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the
    Gods, and they came together and concocted a plan to create the
    world and people it."
    (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, Joseph Smith, Vol 6, page 5)
    (HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, Vol 6, page 308)


   Mormons will say they worship only one God.  But, whether they
worship them or not, believing in the valid existence of many gods -- of
the same authority and reality of the one God -- makes you a polytheist!
False Prophets have always led the people of history (and the current
peoples of the earth) to go after other gods (Deuteronomy 13:1 to 13).
God's strongest wrath was then and is now upon people who worship or
believe in other gods (Jeremiah 16:10-13 and 22:8-9).  Mormonism teaches
that "Father God" is married and has many wives:

    "In the heaven where our spirits were born, there are many Gods,
    each of whom has his own wife or wives, which were given to him
    previous to his redemption while yet in his mortal state."
    (THE SEER, Orson Pratt, page 37)


   Look up John 10:34 used by Mormons to justify a belief in "many
Gods".  Jesus there, is quoting Psalm 82 in which the judges were
referred to as "gods" -- but were wicked and unjust and "die like all
men".  Anytime the word "gods" occur in the BIBLE it must be verified in
context as referring to the idols, satanic princes or counterfeit gods  -
(Isaiah 41:23 and 24 and 45:20).

                               IN CONTRAST


   The BIBLE states throughout there is but ONE GOD!  Look up these
verses:

ISAIAH 43:10-11  "Before me NO god was formed, nor after"

     44: 6-8   "I am the first and the last, beside me no other"

     45: 5-6   "I am the Lord, and there is no other"

     45:18-22  "HE created the heavens and earth-there is no other"
DEUT.   6:4      "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord"
       32:39     "There is no god beside me"
PSALM  86:10     "Thou alone art God"
MARK   12:29     "Jesus said, the Lord our God is one; no other"
GAL.    3:20     "God is one"
JAMES   2:19     "You believe God is one - you do well"
EPH.    4:5-6    "One God and Father of us all"
I COR.  8:4-6    "There is no god but me"


                             GOD IS INFINITE


    The BIBLE states that God has always been the same from all time in
eternity past and does not change.  In direct opposition to this, the
Mormon Church has the basic belief that God was once a man, with many
gods before Him and many gods to come after Him.  They further believe
that God is progressing to higher levels of power and ability:

    "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and
    sits enthroned in yonder heavens ...... it is necessary that we
    should understand the character and being of God, and how He came
    to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God.  We
    have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity.  I
    will refute that idea, and will take away the veil, so that you
    may see .... he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself the
    Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ
    did."
    (TEACHINGS OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH, page 345)
    (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES Vol 6, page 3)
    (HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, Vol 6, page 305)

    "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become."
    (THE GOSPEL THROUGH THE AGES, Milton R. Hunter, pages 105 & 106)

    "Our Eternal Father has attained His position of exaltation and
    Godhood by obedience to the great law of progression ... was once
    a mortal man who passed through a school of earth-life similar to
    that which we are now passing."
    (THE GOSPEL THROUGH THE AGES, Milton R. Hunter, pages 12 & 104)

    "Through modern revelations we learn that the universe is filled
    with vast numbers of intelligences, and we further learn that
    Elohim is God simply because all of these intelligences honor and
    sustain him as such --- But God acquired the honor and sustaining
    influence of 'all things'. It follows as a corollary that if He
    should ever do anything to violate the confidence or 'sense of
    justice' of these intelligences, they would promptly withdraw
    their support, and the 'power' of God would disintegrate --- He
    would cease to be God.  Our Heavenly Father can do only those
    things which the intelligences under Him are voluntarily willing
    to support Him in accomplishing."
    (THE FIRST 2000 YEARS, W. Cleon Skousen *,pages 355,356)

     FREEMEN INSTITUTE PRESIDENT & B.Y.U. Professor of Mormonism teaches
that God is confined to a body of flesh and bones.  He is at a particular
place at a particular time.  The Mormon "god" is a SMALL "god."  You can
have tremendous faith in a god - BUT, if that god is not THE GOD, then
all that tremendous faith is meaningless.  Elijah once challenged the
priests of "another god" to start a fire, and the "god" who was able to
do so would be recognized as THE GOD.  The priests for this wooden idol, 
with great faith and efforts prayed and prayed to their god to bring down
fire to prove his godhood.  Elijah even became somewhat sarcastic when he
asked a rhetorical question of "Maybe your god is asleep?  Maybe you
should cry out louder to wake him up?".  After all these efforts, nothing
happened!

   It didn't matter if the priest and believers of that "god" had a
great faith because the OBJECT of that faith was incapable of fulfilling
the promise of that faith.  The ONE and TRUE GOD fulfills our prayers.

    "If God possesses a form, that form is of necessity of definite
    proportions, and therefore of limited extension and space.  It is
    impossible for Him to occupy at one time more than one space of
    such limits."
    (ARTICLES OF FAITH, James E. Talmage, pages 42 and 43)

    "I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all
    description, standing above me in the air.  One of them spake
    unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other -
    'This is my Beloved Son.  Hear Him!"
    (PEARL OF GREAT PRICE, Joseph Smith 2:17)

    "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's."
    (DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS, 130, v:22)

    "God himself is increasing in knowledge, power, and dominion and
    will do so, worlds without end."
    (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES,Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Vol 6, Pg 120)

    "We were begotten by our Father in heaven; the person of our
    Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His
    Father; and again, He was begotten by still a more ancient Father
    ...."
    (THE SEER, Orson Pratt, Page 132)

     The BIBLE states throughout that GOD IS INFINITE!  We ask that you
look up these proofs:
II CHRONICLES 6:18
   "Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee."
PSALM 41:13 (90:2)
    "God is from everlasting to everlasting"
PSALM 102:25-27
   "created heavens, always the same without end"
PSALM 139:4-8
   "Omniscient and Omnipresent"
JEREMIAH 23:24
   "I fill heaven and earth"
HOSEA 11:9
   "I am God, and not man"
MALACHI 4:39
   "I do not change"
NEHEMIAH 9:6
   "made Heaven, Heaven of Heavens and all their host"
PROVERBS 15:3
   "His eyes in every place"
ROMANS 1:22-23
   The sin of changing God into image of man is addressed
ACTS 17:27
   "He is not far from each of us"
JOHN 4:24
   "God is Spirit"
LUKE 24:39
   "A Spirit has not flesh and bones"
HEBREWS 4:13
   "All things opened unto His eyes"
I JOHN 4:12
   "No man has seen God at any time"
I TIMOTHY 6:15
   "No man has seen, nor can see ..."
JOHN 1:18
   "No man has seen God at any time"
EXODUS 33:20
   "There shall be no man see me and live"

   It is clear that the BIBLE refutes the Mormon church's claims and
the claims of its prophets and leaders in a most specific manner.
Brigham Young, second Prophet and President of the Mormon Church taught
that ADAM was "our Father and our God...":

    "When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into
    it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with
    him ... He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom
    we have to do ... When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus,
    the Father had begotten Him in His own likeness.  He was not
    begotten by the Holy Ghost.  And who is the Father?  He is the
    first of the human family...."
    (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, Vol 1, page 50, April 9,1852)

    "I have learned by experience that there is but one God that
    pertains to this people, and He is the God that pertains to this
    earth - the first man.  That first man sent His own Son to redeem
    the world ..."
    (JOURNAL OF DISCOURSES, Vol 4,pg 1,June 29,1856)
    Prophet & President Heber C. Kimball

    "How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-Day Saints
    in regard to a particular doctrine which I revealed to them, and
    which God revealed to me -- namely, that Adam is our Father and
    our God ... Our Father, Adam helped to make this earth, it was
    created expressly for him .... He   brought one of his wives with
    him, and she was called Eve ... Our Father Adam is the man who
    stands at the gate and holds the keys of everlasting life and
    salvation to all his children.."
    (DESERT NEWS, June 18,1873: Discourse by Prophet and President
    Brigham Young)

   Today, the Mormon Church adamantly denies the "ADAM-GOD" doctrine
taught, and as seen above, and affirmed by "Prophet" Brigham Young. There
is overwhelming evidence that he did teach, believed and strongly
defended this belief.  By any, reasonable, interpretation of the BIBLE,
Brigham Young must be classified as a FALSE PROPHET (see Deuteronomy 13:1
-10 and 18:20-22 - also Jeremiah 23:16-17)
     ADAM is not OUR god and NEVER will be!  The BIBLE states:

    ".... then the Lord God formed man of dust from the earth, and
    breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
    living being." (Genesis 2:7)

   GOD is ONE and ETERNALLY the same.  Creator of the Heavens and the
Earth ... All powerful, all knowing, all present.  Despite the fact that
HE is INFINITE, he knows every hair on our heads and has a plan for each
of our lives (John 3:16 & 10:10).  It is far better to have a small faith
in THE TRUE GOD of the universe than to have a great faith in a small,
counterfeit god.  One should keep in mind that faith in a "counterfeit"
god is really no more than a misplaced faith in the false prophet and the
teaching of a false Prophet.  Remember - a counterfeit - to be called a
counterfeit - must "resemble" the GENUINE item.  If there are many
"counterfeit" gods, then there must be a REAL GOD, and HE is found in the
scriptures and in everything that surrounds us.

For more information see below:

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Southern Maryland Christian Information Service BBS, (SMCIS)
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