Loving and Engaging Mormons

Opening Banter and Humor Before the Main Topic

Non-rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it.

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie? Or are you going to bite?

We're being delusional. Delusional? Delusional is okay in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay.

It doesn't really hurt.

She hung up on me.

What? What?

Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Don't go into the world and make homies. Disciples.

I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, Pastor.

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

In other words, he's worried they might actually put up with someone coming and preaching a different Christ, a different gospel, and a different spirit. Having a different spirit. Hey, that's good.

Is this like the Cosby Show remix?

It's a no copyright, retro 80s, funky, jazz, hop, instrumental, copyright-free music, Sundance remix.

I like Heathcliff Huxtable.

And it's brought to you by Peps and DK. No idea who they are. Just found them for the show. It's kind of cool, actually. Let's go back to that for a second here. Hang on now.

Let's feel it. If you don't like that,.

I can't help you.

Yeah.

All right, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Apology Radio. Yes, I am alive. It's been a while.

You joined the club.

It's a miracle.

I survived the Rona. I won a T-shirt. I won a T-shirt. So it turns out God's law is actually really good.

It's pretty great.

That kind of goes without saying. By the way, I'm the ninja. That's the bear.

What up?

That's Wade and Andrew right there. You know this guy over here from Cultish. Do you know how many people I had walk up to me at the SBC, and they were like, yeah, I learned about you through Cultish.

I was like, oh, that's good. That's crazy. That's right on. Lots of people just wanted to tell you that I had two or three people, I think two I could think of, that told me that they came out of a cult as a result of listening to Cultish.

Wow, praise God.

So praise the Lord. Praise God.

Andrew Sorcini.

Yes.

Good to meet you guys for the first time.

You've been on here before, haven't you?

Welcome to the show.

No, I've never met you guys.

Look at these twinsies.

Look at all these twinsies, guys, that came out. We're going to wear the same shirt today like a bunch of nerds.

He's trying to make fun of us because he's the odd man out.

That's true.

I don't have one.

No, I have one. I just don't like green.

Wow.

That's God's color, bro. I mean, he made all the colors.

He did make all the colors. He also made snakes, which I don't like, and spiders, which I don't like. Sharks, which I'm terrified of.

Yeah.

Isn't it shark week?

I don't go too far out into the ocean because of God's wonderful creation of the shark.

Right.

We had a situation in Kauai once. Jeff and I were kind of far out. Not like far out, like we were far out of the ocean. That was for you.

We're in the water far out.

We're so far out.

And all of a sudden, we hear this guy from the beach going, Ark!

Ark!

And we're like, no!

He was saying Mark.

He's calling his son Mark. But we're like, bro, you can't. If your son's name is Mark, you can't ask for him in the water.

Did you say Ork? What are we, in Middle Earth here?

Ork.

You call his middle name or his last name. Mr. Johnson!

There should be a code name.

My son, Mark!

I'm sure that was scary.

Mark! Mark!

I was unhappy with that guy that day.

Anyway, welcome everybody to the show. Very important show for you guys today. I was saying God's law is good. Because we went, what is it, a year and a half? A year and a half, apology of church. We never shut down.

We never closed down worship. We gathered the whole way through. We had no major outbreaks. When we had somebody who caught the COVID, they got the rona from work or whatever, we had the rule at church that you immediately lock down.

You immediately lock down. And if you've been in contact with family or friends, maybe those people wait a couple days before they come back to church, just to be extra safe. We did things like as soon as service is dismissed, when it first happened, we were like, just everyone immediately depart.

No shaking hands. No hugging. Just go outside. And do your fellowship outside in the Arizona heat, which will burn up the rona, you know, sort of a thing. And we did great. We did great. I mean, Luke got the rona around Christmas time.

Wade got it. And you guys did great. You made your way through it. And didn't have any super spreader events, anything like that at all. But I went to the SBC with the assumption that God's law is sort of the standard for all of us.

And like, you know, God's laws. If you're sick, you quarantine, you know, you never quarantined the healthy in God's law, but you quarantine the sick.

Well, this is the SBC. And apparently they don't mind having people who plagiarize as their president. So law of God may not apply to the SBC. Well, just saying, just throwing that out there.

Hashtag plagiargate.

Plagiargate.

Plagiargate. I think actually Linton said that.

Did he really? He said that.

Oh, did he really?

Yeah, he just said that.

I thought it was totally original. Anyway, so apparently somebody came to the SBC, actively presenting symptoms, not breathing, not able to breathe, really, really ill.

They were breathing.

They were having a hard time. Yeah, having a hard time breathing.

They're like, what? That guy's not breathing. Nah, he's fine.

And apparently, apparently, apparently, and now I can't say the word apparently without thinking about that kid.

Without thinking about Minnie Marcus.

Apparently, and spread it to a number of pastors and their families, actually.

Wow.

So I came back from the SBC. It was Thursday when I got back. Thursday night I started feeling really, really bad. So I was fine Thursday. I got home and felt really, really bad. And Friday it was like, oh, we're in this.

And I think it was Sunday or Monday, a couple days, it was like four or five days into my RONA that I'm literally, my wife's like, you need to eat healthy, take care of yourself. So she got me an acai bowl, and it was delicious, by the way.

And I'm like three bites in. I'm like, oh, you did a great job with this. And she's like, yeah, I think this is my best one. And then I took another bite and zero flavor, zero smells. And I was like, this is weird.

And I took another bite and it was nothing. So then I went and I didn't say anything. I just went into the kitchen. And by the way, I'm staying away from my family. I went into the kitchen, even not knowing it was RONA.

You started eating it raw.

And I started like finding things to smell. And I was like, I can't smell. I can't taste. I took some essential oils and I was like nothing. And so I was like, everybody, stay far away from me. I'm confident this is the RONA.

And so I went and took a test like two days later or so. And it was like you are, capital P, positive. You are positive. So my daughter got it, which is crazy because I really did stay away, even if it was just a sickness of staying away from my family.

But I stayed away. I really worked hard to like wash my hands and like just get out of everyone's space. And then my daughter got it and she got it in a bad, bad, bad way for two days. And then we took a special treatment, which the FDA does not approve of necessarily.

And she was over it by day three. And I mean, on her feet, she's like, I'm good. Do I have to quarantine? I was like, unfortunately, yes, you are stuck with us for the next 10 days. And then we thought we were over it completely as a family.

And then it passed on to, you know, my. So basically the Durbin household has been on complete lockdown for about a month. So I haven't been at church. I haven't been preaching. I haven't been on Apology Radio.

And we're back. We're back with a very important show. We're back with a very important show. And we're back with a show that is going to announce something that if you were in Utah, if you were in the Salt Lake-y, Sandy, Draper-y, Provo-y area, you're going to want to know about this because Apology at Church, Lord willing, is going to Utah to planch, to planch, to planch.

It's been a while since I've been speaking a lot. So we're going to plant a church in Utah. And we have an announcement to make. So stay with us because I'm not going to tell you what it is until after.

But we are going to be in Utah very, very soon. And you'll be able to come and hang out with us and hear about what we have planned. And hopefully God will be blessing in the state of Utah. And so we're here.

And that is The Baird. I'm Jeff.

Wade.

Andrew. And we're going to talk about Mormonism. I have received so many encouraging messages. I just got a message yesterday, Luke, from a 16-year-old, a 16-year-old, ex-Latter-day Saint, a person who came to Christ, a sister in Christ now.

And she is now in Christ as a result of watching our content.

Praise the Lord.

Yeah, praise God.

Praise God.

And she's experiencing I pray for her. Her name is Sophia. She is experiencing a lot of persecution in her family, devout Mormon family.

And she said,.

I lived in a Mormon household for the past four years, and your sermons and videos were used by God to speak to me. One of your videos in particular prompted me to buy a Bible. My family wasn't terribly excited about me ordering a Bible that isn't paired with the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price.

Yeah, and Doctrine and Covenants. That's right. I read the Bible, and I was born again a believer. My family has essentially kicked me out of the home for professing the true Jesus and rebuking the false LDS God.

She wrote a couple things they've been saying about her. But this young woman is now in Christ as a result of the content on Apologia Studios on YouTube and Facebook, and that's something that God has done so many times.

We've lost count. It's happening globally, and we're grateful to God to be able to be a part of something like this.

Jared's on right now. He said the same thing.

What's that?

Jared is on the chat.

Oh, right on.

He wouldn't have come to Christ if it wasn't for our support.

Praise the Lord. Jared, that's right. I mean, God's given us the grace and the honor and the privilege to be able to use this platform to speak the truth, talk about the true Christ, the true gospel to the Mormon people, and God's just blessed us, and it's humbling.

And we're kind of uniquely fit as a church. It's just organic. It's just sort of how God has done this. Uniquely fit because of our love for the Mormon people and our knowledge of the Mormon faith to go to Utah to plant a church and to reach the Mormon community there.

And I've said many times before that Mormons are my favorite, and I've believed that for a long time. I often remark when people say, like, I don't know if I could do what you guys do, and you go out and it just seems so scary to go out to the Mormon temple to reach the Mormons.

And I'm thinking to myself, like, no. Like, going to the Reason Rally could be a little sketch. Like, going to the Reason Rally in D .C. with all the atheists. Like, they have just this worldview that has no basis whatsoever, no attachment whatsoever to biblical truth.

And so you don't necessarily know what you're going to get there. But going to the Mormon temple, going to Mormon events, reaching Mormon friends and neighbors, I mean, I think they're some of the sweetest people in the entire world.

I love, love, love, love the Mormon community. To be honest with you, there are some Mormons I would rather hang out with than some professing believers. We get messages.

Yeah.

We get messages.

Oh, boy.

We've had a few this week.

We get messages. And I love God's people, of course, supremely. But in terms of, like, interaction and, like, you know, hanging out and getting to know somebody, sometimes the Mormon people are just a joy to be around.

And so we love the Mormon people. We want to see you talk. Come to Christ. Come under the feet of Jesus. Come to faith in Jesus. So that brings me to you boys. Why are you doing this crazy thing?

Sure.

I mean, obviously, number one, the Great Commission, Matthew 28. We are called to bring the gospel to every part of the earth and to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, not baptize for the dead, not baptize in a plethora of gods, but to baptize in the triune God, the one true and living God.

The name.

Yeah.

Singular.

Right, the name of God.

Yeah.

And to teach and disciple and teach all that Christ had commanded. And so, number one, it's definitely Great Commission. Number two, like you've kind of already hinted at, there's a legacy, I think, at our church that, you know, most people already know, and that's all the way from Dr. James White to you, Pastor Luke, Pastor Zach, being uniquely equipped here at Apologia to reach the LDS people, all the way back from the 80s, going to general conferences, you in the 90s going to the Mesa Temple, you know, and we've been making trips, you know, the past couple years, obviously, to general conference ourselves, and, you know, there's just such an opportunity.

The fact is, it is the least Christian state in the whole U .S. So I look at that and go, okay, we send a lot of people out, we do a lot of international missions, and that's fantastic, praise God, but in a state just north of us in Arizona, it has the least amount of Christians.

It's only, by our statistics, by our own research and what we've seen, it's only 3 evangelical Christian. And so that means in a state of 3 .2 million people, there's less than, like, 95 ,000 believers, whereas there's millions of believers in other states.

So it's such a harvest. It's such a harvest.

But the problem is, in the culture we live in today, where there's so much subjectivism, and so much of a lack of concern for objective truth, and this is right, and that's not right, people will probably be asking the question, well, why are you going to a place that says they believe in Jesus Christ, they believe that He died for sins, they believe He died on a cross, they believe that He rose again from the dead, they say they believe this book, they just have some other addition, additional content.

Why would you risk your lives and put your family into this kind of suffering to reach a community that already professes faith in Jesus?

Sure. And you already read it a little bit, but we have 2 Corinthians 11. People are going to come, they're going to preach a different gospel, a different Jesus, they're going to have a different spirit.

The Apostle Paul warned us to expect that. We have Galatians chapter 1, you know, the Judaizers came with a gospel, a foreign gospel, foreign to what they had already preached. They added to the grace and the merit of Jesus Christ alone, His work alone, right?

And so we're warned about that, that there will be different Jesuses, and so that's our heart. But they're preaching and believing in a different Jesus Christ, and they have a different gospel. They have a gospel where you have to be baptized and confirmed as a member in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you have to remain active and participate in that church, you have to solidify your testimony, you have to tithe, you have to obey the words of the prophet, you have to obey the words of wisdom, you have to go through temple endowments, temple ordinances, you have to live the law of chastity, if you're a young man, you have to, typically, you know, there's pressure to go on mission, you have to be, again, sealed in the temple there.

These are all the things that were stacking up upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in Galatians, they only wanted to add circumcision, but all the things that I just said are stacked up upon the free gift of Jesus Christ.

So, that is a gospel that can't save. Again, we love them, we love them so much, but they're deluded in thinking that a gospel, a false gospel of a false Jesus will actually save them, it'll condemn them.

And so, our hope is to go there and to share that true gospel of Jesus Christ with them and see them take that faith, misguided, deceived faith and place that faith and that love, a lot of them have a love for God, generally, but to take those things and place them in the one true and living God.

That's all we want.

Andrew?

Yeah, that's good. So, in terms of when someone says, well, you know, they believe in Jesus, they talk about Jesus. I mean, their church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Well, I mean, Jesus talks about it himself in Matthew 7, 21 through 23, and this is my burden, where my heart is for these people who claim to know Jesus.

He says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So, there's a massive group of people who exist in this world who claim to know Jesus, but they don't actually believe in the Jesus of Scripture.

Right?

And so, the people group, this LDS people group, they claim to have multiple standards, right? But we know there's one that they cling to over another. So, they would use the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants to interpret the Bible.

But however, the Bible is still there, but the Bible becomes a stumbling block. But in terms of how the gospel massively reached the world after the death of Christ, how the Jewish synagogue was training up young people, they were reading the Psalms, reading the law, and it was like burdening people's hearts, getting them ready for the true gospel.

I see that the same way as what's going on in Utah right now. Like, they have the Bible, right? But it's a stumbling block for them. But at the same time, it could also be opening their hearts in a way to receive the gospel of the true and living God that breaks the yoke of slavery that they're bound to, to say, wow, here I am.

Just like how the Roman highways paved the ways for the gospel to spread massively like wildfire, I believe leveraging part of a standard that they hold to in showing the true and living God where they're at now can really open their eyes to see who Jesus is for who he really is, because he's so much more beautiful than how they even think he is, in a sense.

Yeah. So when we talk about that he's so much more beautiful, what is the Mormon story about Jesus Christ? Because they're using our terminology. Muslims use our terminology. They say Jesus Christ. They say God.

They say prophet. Jehovah's Witnesses use our terminology. They say Heavenly Father. They say Jesus Christ. They say Holy Spirit. You ask the Jehovah's Witness, did Jesus die for sin? They'll say, yes, he did.

And so we have, again, the problem, you can just take all the different religious groups that have risen up that have adopted biblical language or portions of biblical history, and they've pulled them over into their new story, and they've repackaged it.

Given a new definition. And so just because someone says the name Jesus Christ doesn't mean they're talking about Jesus Christ.

That's right.

And that's clear from Scripture. I mean, you have the Apostle John and the Apostle Paul having to deal with the early beginnings of Gnosticism in the New Testament. You can see it in their writings. And John, in one of his very short epistles, he warns the early church, who were meeting at that time in house churches, he warns them if somebody denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, they don't know God.

Right.

And so he says, you're not even going to let this person into your house. You don't let them into your worship service. You don't let them disrupt this. We're told in Scripture to earnestly contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

You have Galatians, very short letter from the Apostle Paul, where he is, modern language, freaking out over the fact that the church in Galatia is accepting this perversion of the biblical gospel. There's nothing in Galatians that would suggest that people in Galatia, these Judaizers, that they deny the deity of Christ, that they were not monotheists, that they denied the authority of Scripture.

It seems like they were on board with all those things because Paul doesn't even address it. He addresses it elsewhere, but he doesn't even address it. But in Galatians, he's addressing a gospel that sounds so stinking close.

It sounds so close. I mean, what's the big deal of just saying, trust in Jesus and at least keep this one part of the law? I mean, you've got to get these guys circumcised, for goodness sakes. That's what we've grown up with.

That's our whole history. That's a sign of the covenants. And Paul, essentially, he eviscerates them and says, basically, if you go this route, if you go the route of law, even to that degree of just keep this one part, Christ will be of no benefit to you.

You've fallen from grace. It's either grace in this point or it's law. So the point is, is in Scripture, you see the apostles, that they have the understanding that Jesus Christ and his nature in person can be understood to the degree they can also be defended over against false versions of him.

And you think, well, what are the Gnostics saying about Jesus? Well, that he just didn't take on flesh.

Right?

And John says to that, you don't know God. If you don't think he took on flesh, if you think he's some sort of spirit from some higher story, then you don't know God.

He calls it the spirit of the Antichrist.

Exactly. And Paul clearly thinks the gospel can be so understood at a basic level that he can actually tell people, you preach that anathema on you. I don't care if an angel comes down from heaven and preaches any other gospel, he says anathema, eternal condemnation.

So the gospel can actually be understood because Paul expects people to defend it, to recognize an erroneous gospel and to resist it, to fight against it as Christians. And oftentimes, I think many times we live in an age where many people on every level, you have guys wearing eyeliner, for goodness sakes.

You have guys wearing eyeliner, accepting the gender bending and gender confusion today. You have guys today who are totally accepting of the LGBT lifestyle. Again, the thing that's acceptable for men to dress like women, for men to

Being effeminate.

Being malachoic, being effeminate. And they think that's perfectly acceptable. They think all this stuff, truth is malleable. It could be sort of squished. And you have even guys, Mormons today, that will admit, yeah, my prophet was wrong here.

And I don't have to accept what he says here. Like, truth is just so malleable for them. And I know Brigham Young said that Adam, God, you know, Adam was God, our father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do.

And he said that if you don't accept that, that you're gonna experience eternal condemnation. I know he said that, but you don't have to really believe that. And I know that Brigham Young taught that unless you're a polygamist, you'll never become a God one day.

I know that, but I don't have to accept all that they said. Even though Brigham Young says that when he has given sermons and sent it out to the sons of men, it is as good as what is couched in the Bible.

It is scripture. So his words were scripture. And by the way, Brigham Young's being consistent there, isn't he? Because he says, I mean, Mormonism starts with this. When they come to your house, they tell you, you know, God has restored the church and he's restored apostles and prophets to the church.

So our prophets and our apostles, they speak for God, right? And so they're being consistent. The modern Mormon who says, I don't have to accept any of that, I don't have to believe any of that. Yeah, Joseph Smith had false prophecies.

Yeah, you know, all that stuff. You know, but I really like this culture. I really like this community. It's just this idea today that truth is malleable, that the gospel can't really be defined. And you even have people today who are evangelical, who are professing evangelical Christians that believe and act in that way.

Like, you know, the whole reformation thing that happened way back then, you know, the whole Jesuits and the whole Council of Trent and all that stuff. Like, you know, it's just Tempest in a teapot sort of a thing.

Like they believe in Jesus too,.

Like sort of a thing. It's like, not according to Paul. Paul actually says, you try to add this little addendum to the gospel call and to how a person is justified, then you're going to hell.

Yeah.

You don't know Jesus and you've thrown away grace. And Paul even, you know, he says things as an inspired apostle, like, you know, you guys like to play with knives. I hope you go ahead and cut yourselves off.

I hope you go all the way with those knives, boys.

Right.

And he says that. Why does Paul say it with a serrated edge like he does in the book of Galatians? Why? Because Paul understands that the gospel and how a person is reconciled to God is so clearly defined in scripture that there could be something that is true and something that is false.

And you can say, well, it sounds so similar. It sounds so familiar. Well, the problem is, is that could have been said in Galatia. And Paul says to the Judaizers,.

Go to hell.

Right. Yep.

Now, I'm just trying to be as bullet pointy as I can and blunt as I can, but that is what he says. Anathema is go to hell. Angel who preaches a false gospel, go to hell. Anybody who preaches a false gospel, go to hell.

That's where you're going. And so, again, when we talk about going to Utah, we're talking about going into a context of a community that, yes, they use our language. So did David Koresh. Yes, they talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Again, so did Mary Baker Eady. So have any number of cult leaders. So did Jim Jones. Right?

Right.

Just because somebody uses Christian terminology does not mean they know the Lord of glory. I mean, Jesus, he says in John 8 that his mission and his person is so clearly defined and understood and explicated by him that he actually says, unless you believe I am, you'll die in your sins.

So if you don't believe that Jesus is the I am, that he is eternal God, if you don't believe that he's Yahweh come in the flesh, then you don't know God.

Right.

And so, you know, here's the thing. Yes, there are, and I'll shut up here. Yes, there are things in scripture that are hard to understand. That's acknowledged by an inspired apostle. There are things Peter says that Paul teaches that are hard to understand.

Yes, there are high and lofty deep spiritual things that are complicated and you have to really dig deep and meditate and you have to try to hold everything together so what exactly is being said there?

And yet there are things in scripture that are so clearly understood at the bottom shelf level that the inspired prophets and apostles expect you to understand it because it is so clearly communicated at an elementary school child level that if you distort it, you're condemned.

And what we have in Utah, of course, is a community, a very large community that so desperately needs the true Christ and the true gospel. What's the goal? It's that the Mormon people have peace with God.

It's that Mormon people have peace with God. That's the goal, is you want them to know Jesus like we know Jesus, to have the gift of eternal life, and Mormonism is robbing them of that.

So.

Amen.

Sorry, I'm just dealing with guy lining Mormon trolls on here making false claims, so.

Yeah.

It's definitely a yoke, right?

Oh, absolutely.

It's no, Jesus says, you know, take my yoke upon you. You know, it's easy, it's light.

Right.

Theirs is heavy. Theirs is slavery to sin. Paul talks about, even in Romans 5, you know, being a slave to Christ. And being a slave to Christ is true freedom, right? But the fact is, going back to what you were saying about their prophets and everything always changing all the time, that would make sense, right?

If you have a God who is an elevated man who in his previous existence as a man was earning and working for his salvation under the God that he was under, imperfectly, right? And then he progressed to deity, and so a God that was once a man is always going to be changing.