Come Unto me, And For Your Money You Shall Be Forgiven

The Temple is something that has become an increasingly heavy focus of the church in the last 10 years or so. They are being announced at an incredible rate, and they aren't cheap either. The church hasn't released the cost per temple but an estimate of an average full-sized temple in a non-developing country costs around $10-20 million, whereas larger temples in attractive, high-traffic locations may cost more than $50 million. The Rome Temple is located on 14.5 acres of propperty near the Grande Raccordo Anulare in northeast Rome. The Rome temple also has a multipurpose meetinghouse, a visitors' center, family history center, and tourist accommodation. All of this brought the Rome Italy temple estimated cost to $100 million. Seem impossible? Let's look at some the photos:

I can't help but look at the Rome Italy temple and ask myself why? Yes, the Lord did command Solomon to build a magnificent temple. But it was one temple. We have 265 (either announced or in some stage of remodeling, building, and operation). 

What are Temples for? 

To endow the living and then to redeem the dead? 

If the work done inside is what matters - then why does it matter how ornate they are? Contrast Rome, Italy with the Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo temple. 

If this temple, which looks more like a large stake center, is sufficient, I ask you - why must the rest of the temples be so ornate with marble flown in from other countries and customized - well, everything? Do only poorer countries get a cheaper model?

What of the frivolity of the Provo Temple renovation which is akin to plastic surgery to change the look of your face. 

The Provo temple was perfectly acceptable for what it was built for (to do work inside it)......are we so vain we need to change and adorn it? Yet, Mormon commanded Moroni to prophecy about these kinds of things, didn't he?

37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

38 O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God?...

39 Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not? (Mormon 8)

At what point do we stop having cognitive dissonance and start recognizing that we are suffering the needy, the naked, the sick and afflicted to pass by us? 

Yes, the church donates to charity. I received their first ever 2021 Annual Report: Caring for Those in Need email just like you probably did on Friday, 13 of May 2022. 

The church has never offered this kind of a report before and in fact, they've stopped reporting their financial numbers since 1959 in the wake of some massive spending and investment losses. Since that time the church ended its detailed public financial disclosure and instead limited its financial disclosure to the Auditing Department report. As a result of its silence about the details of its finances, members have been left to guess at the Church's wealth and the scope of its charitable spending. 

The report says that there were:

$906,000,000 in expenditures

3,909 humanitarian projects

6,800,000 hours volunteered and 

188 countries and territories served

However, it only clearly indicates that the 3,909 humanitarian projects were from 2021 yet with the rest of the offered numbers the report doesn't clearly state whether all of the other reported numbers of expenditures, hours volunteered, and countries and territories served were all in 2021 or not. 

That seems odd for someone working so hard to practice transparency.

One needs to ask the question, why? Why are they reporting this now and in this way when they have never done this before and when they refuse to disclose their finances (since 1959)? Could it be because of the former employee of Ensign Peak made a whistleblower report to the IRS alleging that the church held over $100 billion of assets in a large investment fund? The whistleblower said that the church operated fund failed to use its revenues for charitable purposes and instead used them in for-profit ventures and that the church had misled its contributors and the public about the usage and extent of those funds. 

He signed a sworn statement (meaning he can go to prison for perjury if he's exaggerating and lying...awfully big deal). He said that Ensign Peak "had scores of meetings" with their top leaders and other employees - and they always "referred to and revered all funds of EPA as 'tithing' money, regardless of whether they were revered all funds of EPA as 'tithing' money, regardless of whether they were refferring to principal or earnings on that principal." See his sworn statement in the Salt Lake Tribune here. The church produced their first ever 'annual' "caring for those in need" report eight months after the whistleblower's statement.

The $100 Billion net worth of the Church exceeds the combined net worths of the world's largest university endowment (Harvard University) and the worlds largest philanthropic foundation (Gates Foundation).  

In the church's annual report they said there were $906 million in expenditures. 

That's a curious word. 

It means "an action of spending funds" but it is a carefully chosen word. It doesn't say that it was charitably donated. It was money that was given to them and they spent it in a particular way. That $906 million is partially relating to fast offerings which are solicited from members and given back to members via Church welfare and the Bishop's storehouse projects. Perhaps you would argue that IS giving to the poor and needy? And you would be right to some degree. It is members helping other members. But if you publish a document like this saying that you have given $906 million to charity but you don't say when you gave it and how they arrived at that number, it gets questionable.

If ANY organization should be transparent - it should be the Church. Total transparency, total honesty, total openness. These are Sacred Funds! 

Furthermore, you can not enter an LDS temple unless you have paid to do so. And Moroni prophesied about this too:

32 Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins (only the "worthy" can enter the temple...or should I say, only those who pay their dues).

33 O ye wicked and perverse and stiffnecked people, why have ye built up churches unto yourselves to get gain? Why have ye transfigured the holy word of God, that ye might bring damnation upon your souls?...

35 Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.

36 And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel (did Moroni see ZCMI & City Creek, Deseret Book, News Stations, etc.?)...and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts.

37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

38 O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God?...

39 Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?

Orson Hyde spoke about tithing and the importance to pay tithing and called them, "the taxes you pay to the Kingdom of God":

"Says one, “What becomes of tithing? I would like to know whether these Priests, Apostles, Bishops and Presidents use it all up in extravagance?” I will tell you where it goes, though I am under no obligation to do so, any more than I am to tell what is done with the money I pay to the tax collector, or the internal revenue man. When you go to the marriage altar, or to be baptized for yourselves or for your dead relatives, or to get your sealings and anointings, or anything of this kind, do you have to pay five shillings or five dollars for officiating for your father or mother who is dead and gone, that they may share the benefits of the everlasting Gospel with you, or are those ordinances free to you? You do not have to pay for them, do you? Do you find beggars in the streets of Zion? I have traveled through many countries in the old world, and I could hardly pass a corner, without hearing the petition—“A penny if you please, a penny, a penny...What stops up all these channels of distress? Tithing—the taxes you pay to the kingdom of God....

"We may think that we are going to get all our sealings, anointings, our marriages and everything of that kind free, but we are mistaken about that; we have got to pay for them all. How do you pay? Tithing and offerings to the kingdom of God pay for it all. Then when you come up to have accounts adjusted, and the books are opened, and another book is opened and the dead are judged out of those things written in the books according to their works...I have married a great many couples in the ways of the world, but I never married any of them for time and for all eternity, my mind did not stretch so far then—I married them until death should separate them. Those who have paid no tithing and have not enlisted under the law and commandments of God, those who have had no faith in Jehovah and in the resurrection, are parted when they go down to the grave. Farewell to all alliance then! They have raised families of lovely children, they have passed through sorrow, tribulation and joy, tasted the sweet and the bitter together, but when they reach the grave farewell forever, an eternal separation takes place. Not so with the Latter-day Saints.

JD 15:303, Orson Hyde, Rewards According to Works—Tithing

I will end here. This is necessary to talk about but it isn't what I want to talk about. 

Jesus. It's Jesus. He is the Lover of our Souls. I Glory in My Jesus. He went into the depths of Hell to reclaim me, and you. We are weak, simple, forgetful, easily distracted, overly interested in that which has no life, prideful, idolatrous, greedy, selfish, and more. But our wandering from Him didn't make Him give up on us, it made Him give His Life in the hope to win our hearts once and for all.

Has He won your heart yet? Pray and ask to know Him as He was meant to be known. Ask to know His Father - as He was meant to be known. And open your heart to learn things you never dared to consider. To be a true Christian means you must lose your life (Matthew 16:25), and then you will find it. Life eternal is found in knowing your Father, the only True God - and His Son, Jesus Christ (John 17:3). The path of a Christian is, by its very nature, a sacrificial one. It is the path of a martyr. 

DEFENDER

by

Ryan Edgar and Nikki Leonti

https://youtu.be/OfqB-6Al7Yo