Works vs. Salvation: Thought-Provoking Conversation with Young LDS Man

Apologia Utah

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What's your name, dude? My name's Nate. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I'm Andrew. This is my son, Poet. Hi, buddy. That handed you the track.

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And, uh... I'm not his son, and I'm not Poet. This big guy is Ryan. How are you guys doing?

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Good, dude. How about yourself? I am fantastic. Good. Are you LDS? I am. Well, I'm sure

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Jesus Christ is a lot of these days, but yeah. Okay. How long? Since birth. Since birth? So you've been living in Utah your whole life?

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Nope. Where are you from? I'm from Missouri. Missouri. Oh. Independence? No. Oh. Okay.

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St. Louis. Okay. Gotcha. St. Louis. Alright. So, did you go on a mission? I did, yeah.

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Where'd you go, Nate? I went to Virginia. Virginia. What was that like, man? Tell me. I met a lot of people that like to give me stuff like this.

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What did you think about that stuff, man? It was cool. Yeah? A lot of Christians really like to care about who's right and who's right, or who's right and who's right and who's right.

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But, we all love Jesus, right? That depends on which Jesus, though, Nate. Right? Paul says it.

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I know some people say that, yeah. Well, Paul said it in 2 Corinthians 11. Do you think Paul spoke with authority?

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Yeah, he said that there's people who will come that will preach a different Jesus, a different gospel, and a different spirit.

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Oh, yeah. Yeah. What do you think he means by that? I think he means that a lot of people will corrupt the message of Christ.

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Oh, I would definitely agree with that. And so, in the context of 2 Corinthians 11, he is actually warning about that.

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Because right before that, in 2 Corinthians 11, he says that I believe that you, referring to the church in Corinth, may be deceived like Eve was deceived by the serpent, corrupting your minds, taking you away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

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So, I think you are actually right on the money. So, how would you know if Jesus is getting corrupted?

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I would say it's more about it doesn't matter what you do.

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Lawlessness? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think that evangelicals preach lawlessness?

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Depends. I feel like there's false truths that are like there's people in every denomination in the world that aren't as honest as to their beliefs as they say they are.

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Absolutely. I agree with that. There's people in my church. There's people in every church. Like, are we the first one to admit there's no perfect person?

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And there's definitely a lot of people that will say the wrong thing for the wrong reason to get what they want.

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Yeah, absolutely. And I think those are the real enemies of Christianity. Gotcha.

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I'd say there's two ends of the spectrum, right? So, we have lawlessness on one end, and then on the other end is works -based salvation.

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So, I think both of those actually are on corruptions of the gospel end of Jesus Christ. So, what do you think about that?

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It depends on what your definition of works is. What do you think works are? Yeah, I'd say any work is something that is done according to the deeds of the law where you think that you can become righteous before God.

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So that when you die, that your works would be presented according to the deeds of the law before God and say,

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I did this or I did that. Right. So, we're talking about works that are causing our position before God as opposed to doing something good just because we already are in that position.

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So, is baptism considered a work to you? Baptism considered a work?

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No. Is... Not a work necessary for salvation. So, I would say it's a work in obedience to God, but it's not something necessary for salvation.

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Does that make sense? Yeah. Why not? Why not? Why? Because baptism is an outward expression of what's already happened to me on the inside.

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So, the Bible declares, like Acts 2 .38, Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. And then we also have in Acts chapter 10 where people are saved and granted the gift of the

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Holy Spirit before they're even baptized. Also, what it talks about in the

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Bible, especially in Colossians, when it talks about baptism, it says that we're buried with Christ but raised in faith.

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Not speaking of the actual work of baptism that actually cleanses us before God.

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It's more just an expression of dying with Christ and the work that He did on my behalf.

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So then, why did Jesus get baptized? To fulfill all works of righteousness in His churches.

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OK. On my behalf. Could you clarify that?

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A little bit deeper into that. So, here's kind of the situation that Jesus was in there.

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Before His ministry officially began, John the Baptist comes over. Right. And they were...

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The idea was that in Judaism, 1st century Judaism, in order to become

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Jewish as opposed to being born into the covenant, you had to go through these certain rituals.

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You know, you had to be circumcised, obviously. You had to make a public confession of faith. And you had to be ceremonially cleansed before being baptized.

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Oh! And so, in order for you to do that, if you were

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Gentile, you had to go through all this process. Uh -huh. John shows up and he says to the Jews, Actually, you guys are the ones who are unclean as well as everybody else.

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And was he wrong? No, he was right. Right, right. And so that puts Jesus in an interesting situation because if He doesn't obey the command to get baptized, then

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He's not sinless and He can't pay for our sins. But if He does, then He would be acknowledging that He is unclean and needs to be baptized.

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So He shows up and He says, I'm going to do this to fulfill all righteousness. And that's when you have

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God the Father speaking down out of heaven and saying, This is my

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Son, whom I love, in whom I am well pleased. And that's Him saying, Jesus fulfilled the law by getting baptized.

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He didn't actually have that kind of condition where He would need to show up, if that makes sense.

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Is that kind of tracking? Kind of. If it was just for that one reason, wouldn't

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He have been able to just go to anybody and get baptized? Oh, why did

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He specifically have to go to John? Yeah. I don't think there's anything that would say He would have to go only to John.

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John had other people that were baptizing for Him. Then why didn't He go to those people? Why would

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He have to? That's what I'm asking you. I'm just wondering. There isn't a specific reason that I'm aware of for why

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He would need to go specifically to John. But this is why He needed to be baptized.

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Yeah. At least that's my understanding. Yeah, yeah. So why do you think you need to be baptized, actually?

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Well, if Jesus did it, why shouldn't I do it? Gotcha. Are you perfect?

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No. Jesus is perfect. Why aren't you? How does baptism make me perfect?

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Baptism doesn't make you perfect. That's what I'm saying. So the logic would follow, like, well, Jesus did it.

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I should do it. Well, then, if... I think I agree. Logic is out the window with this stuff.

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You can't apply logic to Christ. You can't apply logic to Christ. All logic comes from Christ. In some ways.

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Like, a lot of atheists try to apply some logic to Christ.

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Well, they're misapplying it. That's what I mean. Atheists, they can't account for laws of logic because they're immaterial and transcendent.

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That's what I was meaning. I thought that's what you were trying to say, like, logic -wise. So I was like, oh. What I'm trying to...

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I'm just trying not to offend you. No, no, no. What I'm trying to understand is... I get what you're saying because I agree. Like, I should not commit sin.

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Right? Because Jesus was perfect. But I am not sinless. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in terms of being baptized, when

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Christ is fulfilling all works of righteousness, so when I stand before God, it's solely through my faith in Jesus Christ and His perfect work alone that I'm justified, declared righteous.

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Right? So it's not my baptism that justifies me. It's the perfect work of Christ.

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Totally. Even if one is baptized, in whatever faith they are in, they still commit sin.

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We're still imperfect. Absolutely. Which is why it's more important about the daily repentance, right? Like, you want to daily follow

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Christ. You want to, each day, change, become... Not as close to Him as you possibly can in this life, right?

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we won't be perfect. We won't be this. We won't be that. No matter what you hear people say, it's about becoming more like Him.

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Or as... Choosing to do what He would do, right? So, what about 1 Nephi 3 .7?

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Where it says, God has never given a commandment of men that man can't follow. So, God also says, To be perfect as your

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Heavenly Father is perfect. According to interpreting that verse through 1 Nephi 3 .7, you don't think you can be perfect?

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Not right now. Oh, so you think you can do it later? Do you not? I don't think I'm ever going to be perfect.

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The issue isn't a matter of time. It's not, well, you know, 70 years plus whatever isn't enough time to become perfect.

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You're not perfect in heaven? We become perfect in heaven because of something really important.

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The righteousness of Christ. Yes, the righteousness of Christ. So, we agree on that. Are you sure about that?

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Well, it's because of Christ that we are able to get to heaven. Elaborate.

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Yeah, I want to hear what you mean. Because sometimes LDS people believe different things about how He started.

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It's confusing. That's really unfortunate. Yeah, I've read Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball.

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And he's the 12th prophet of the LDS Church. And he would totally exegete some scriptures maybe different than you.

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But he was a prophet in his 40s. From what

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I've understood, from current, because every person's not perfect.

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Even a prophet isn't perfect. Was Moses perfect? No, Moses made mistakes. But when he spoke for God, it was all correct.

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He may have written something and was it probably mistaken and he probably had to correct himself at some point?

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I don't have actual historical evidence for that. What I have in the Bible is the words of God that are in there.

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Those are what's written. And that's what we know.

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Right, right. Okay, I track what you're saying. If he probably at some point said something wrong, and I was like, okay, let's not put that in.

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Let's not write that down. Well, that's an argument for silence because there's no evidence of that. For semantics.

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Okay. Semantics reasons. No one is perfect. So even if a prophet of my church said something.

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Well, when he wrote Miracle of Forgiveness, he was exegeting 1 Nephi 3 .7,

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Moroni 10 .32. He was explaining these passages. A lot of other people have explained them too. Right.

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But not everyone's interpretation is exactly correct. So was Monson wrong then as well after endorsing the book?

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I mean, the book is also in the history of the church library right next to him saying it's an amazing thing.

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I think even in some of the church teachings actually still contain teachings from the Miracle of Forgiveness.

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I'll be honest. I haven't read every single textbook we've written. Right. That would be very, very difficult.

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That would be very difficult, yeah. There's a lot of books that the prophets of the church have read. Well, for him, for example.

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In that book, yeah. He interpreted it that way. I haven't read it, so I can't speak for him. He says, essentially,

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I want to understand where you're coming from versus where he's coming from. He's saying, according to, I think it's Alma 34, that you actually don't have your next life to be perfect.

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You have to be perfect now. And you can be. And he actually anticipates someone's argument where they go, well,

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I'm not Superman. I can't do these things. He says, no, actually, you are Superman. You are God's embryo. And you must be perfect.

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No one clean thing can dwell before God. I believe it's in Doctrine and Covenants 54. It says if you are to sin again, all of your former sins get cast right back onto you.

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So the way he exegetes Moroni 10 .32, if you deny yourself of all ungodliness and love the

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Lord with all your might, mind, and strength, then God's grace is sufficient for you. First, it's you.

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And if you actually do that, be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, then

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God's grace is sufficient. I haven't read that book yet.

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You should, yeah, take a look, man. I think it's important just because it's the 12th prophet of the Elder's organization.

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So, yeah, some form of authority. But what do you believe personally? She's my daughter.

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That's right, I'm in a conversation. She's going to have to wait. She can talk to her dad. Yeah, sorry, sweetie.

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Yeah. What do you believe personally? I do say that I do believe, and what

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I would say is what most of us do believe is our choices matter. Like you say, you can accept the grace of Christ and you can be forgiven, but if you continually deny the grace of Christ, isn't that also bad?

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Oh yeah, if you live lawlessly. Paul says that in Romans. You have been justified by the grace of God.

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Now we are free to uphold the law because we're no longer condemned by it. He says, should you continue to live in sin so that grace may abound?

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By no means. He condemns antinomianism. According to the Bible, we would say, yeah, absolutely not.

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A sign of a heart that's been changed by God is a heart that wants to obey Him. But it's not my works that justify me, declare me righteous before God.

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The works follow the changed heart. Like Ephesians chapter 2. So the issue would be one of the distinction between becoming holy and being saved.

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So for somebody who is saved, now life is all about becoming more holy, being sanctified.

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Yeah, the fancy schmancy $10 word is sanctification. Just becoming more pure as time goes on.

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The problem is how do we become saved initially? And that's where we have our biggest...

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One of the biggest ones, yeah. It's like, I know we believe that it's both. It's by grace and it's also by our actions that we show our devotion to Christ.

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Article 3, right? And it's also in a lot of our theology. But my question for you guys is what's more important to you?

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Is it coming after people like me and my beliefs? Or is it for those that are teaching falsehoods, like complete falsehoods that go wholly against the words of Christ?

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There's a lot of things you guys disagree about my church. And that's totally understandable. A lot of people disagree about teachings of my church.

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I know so many people that disagree about the teachings of my church. You're funny, man. And that's okay.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. The good Lord will sort it all out when we all get there.

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And that is fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So restate the question for me. Sorry, my question for you guys is it more important to try and help people like me?

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Or help people that are misguided by preachers that are saying sin is okay? I would actually state that it is my priority to help people like you and people who are deceived by saying sin is okay.

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Like I said, there's two spectrums. Works and antinomianism. It's the same spectrum because what the

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Bible declares like Jesus says it to the disciples. He says who do you say that I am?

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I think knowing who Jesus is is extremely important because if you get Jesus wrong, you're going to get the gospel wrong.

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And I think, not you personally, but the LDS organization teaches a different Jesus in a different gospel.

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So if you're being taught a different Jesus in a different gospel just because you use the same words as me, it can be confusing.

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Not only that, but you could be deceived. And we're not really talking here about like having a disagreement over the fact that you guys use water during your sacrament meetings and we use the absolute worst wine that we can find.

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It puts me off of drinking so bad. You're funny. But yeah, that kind of stuff is the,

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I love the word for this, audiophora. It's a fun little word. And ironically, it means things that don't really matter.

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So there's that kind of stuff and then there's, you know, we have relationships with other

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Christian churches in the valley where we have more I don't want to say like dispute, but we have things where we're like, here's a doctrine that you guys believe that we're not entirely on board with, especially like end times kind of stuff.

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But we're like, we're solid in the gospel and the doctrine of God and we're happy to lock arms with these guys.

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The problem we have with Mormonism is its fundamental denial of who God is and what the gospel is.

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That's part of it. That's a big big part of it, but we're talking about all sorts of different things we're talking about. Did you want to go home?

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I thought we were. I thought you guys were walking together and I saw her walk off. Yeah, that was weird.

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What's your name? Mariah. You want to go home? Yeah. He seemed like he was having a great time talking to you guys.

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That's alright. We can just follow you guys home. She was harassed on the way home by some people, so no thank you.

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Oh, wow. That's kind of why I was worried. Oh, dang.

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Yeah, I don't know what's going on. You're talking to some great Christian brothers. Wait, what happened to you by the way, like just now?

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No, it was on our way home from work. It was these people that were walking from a store and they were calling her mean words.

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Oh my goodness. I'm sorry that happened to you. There's some wickedness out there.

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Let me just leave you with this, okay, Nate? Jesus Christ it says in John chapter 1.

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In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God.

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It says all things were created through him. There was nothing that came into being unless it was created through Christ.

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Colossians 1 says he created everything on heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

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That Jesus Christ is the eternal God uncreated. The Greek word for was in John 1 is in.

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And it actually referenced to no space of point of reference of space and time.

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Jesus was already there as far back as you want to take it. That Jesus created Lucifer he's not

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Lucifer's brother. Alright, Jesus created all things and the eternal

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God took on flesh and died on the cross for our sins so that through belief in him we could inherit internal life through our belief in the death, burial, and resurrection of the

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Messiah. And not a work on my own but the perfect work of Jesus Christ because we're all born sinners in need of a savior.

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The simple gospel. Just want to leave you with that Nate and Mariah. Okay? Very nice to meet you guys. You too.

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Nice to meet you Nate. Hey Mariah, I hope that doesn't happen to you guys again. I hope so too. I promise not to actually follow you guys home.