Mormon & Christian Talk at the Temple

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This church is teaching you a false Christ. You're on public property now, son. But God says,

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I am the Lord, I do not change. But he does change. The Bible says he doesn't. The testimony what

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Peter gave was going to be that foundation, that rock, and the gates of hell will never prevail against that.

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And Christ built his church on that, on that testimony, that he is the Son of God, the true Messiah.

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So that's why we're out here sharing the gospel. So which, so obviously you believe that Mormons are false, but which churches, like what about Catholics, or what about, or is everybody but Mormons, or is it certain?

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Well, it's only by the gospel and faith alone that anyone's saved and to inherit salvation.

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Like which believers, like, because I believe that I'm saved by Jesus Christ without faith on my part.

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Are you saved by faith alone? As opposed to what? Are you just justified by faith alone?

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I believe that I'm saved by grace, yeah. Through faith? It's not of works that anyone should boast?

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Right. So it's just by the Bible. Yeah, that's Ephesians 2, verses 8. Then in Mormon doctrine, 2

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Nephi 25 -23, I think, 25 -23, it says you are saved by grace after all you could do.

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So if any denomination or church or religion adds works onto faith to justify themselves before God, that's abomination.

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That's not what God has called out. It's by faith and faith alone that those are true believers.

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Yeah, that's how you interpret that. I mean, that's not saying that it's by works that you're saved.

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I've got to run. Oh, I'm going to go see Superman. Oh, good call. Good call, man. See you, buddy.

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Good night, Craig. Faith without works is dead, right? Yeah, well, faith without works, but see, with the 2

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Nephi 25 -23, the cart is backwards in front of the horse. So with faith comes works.

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Those works don't justify your salvation, but it justifies that you have faith, like this is a true believer.

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But that's how you're interpreting the Scripture. Well, that's how the church has interpreted it for centuries.

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Well, I'm not part of the church. Joseph Smith, well, you're part of a church that teaches that you're saved by grace after all you could do.

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So after all your works you could do, the grace will pick up the rest. So in essence, it's not really grace whatsoever.

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That's not actually the teaching, though. That's not the teaching, but that's... No, I mean, if you read, you know, if you read that president,

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Duke Doris Lay's talk about grace, he talks about it. He says that that's, you know, kind of a misinterpreted thing that people will think that it's, that they say after all you can do, they will interpret it as because of all you can do, which is not the case.

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Because the case is that it's after all you can do, you should be doing everything that you can to make yourself saved, right?

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Well, this can't make me saved. I know, I know, but I'm saying you should be, not because it will save you, but just because that's because you love, you know, you love your

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Savior, right? So you're out there witnessing. So that's what you should be doing. That doesn't save you, but that is just part of the gospel.

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Well, part of, like... That's part of the gospel is to be out there doing everything you can do. That doesn't save you, but that is showing that you can...

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This is Jeff, by the way. Hi. Hi, Jeff. Jeff. What's your name? My name is

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Mike. Mike. So there's a passage you're probably familiar with. It's in Moroni chapter 10.

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And it says in verse 32, Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness.

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And if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace you be made perfect in Christ.

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So have you denied yourself of all ungodliness? Well, that's what you're...

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I mean, Christ commanded you to be perfect. Are you perfect? No, I'm a sinner. Yeah, me too.

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So I think that's... I think you're kind of coming at that and, like, trying to kind of catch...

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No. Trying to kind of catch me in my words. No, no, no, no. I'm actually showing you what your own scripture says. No, but I'm saying that's what, you know, that's the commandment is be...

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No, this is beyond a commandment. It's telling you how God's grace is sufficient for you. It says if you deny yourselves of all ungodliness...

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What I'm saying is that's, to me, that's a similar commandment of be ye therefore perfect.

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Well, except Jesus, when he taught how to be justified before God, in Luke 18, said to the

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Pharisees who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, who were boasting in their good deeds before God...

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I get the whole argument. I'm just saying I don't agree with... I don't agree with your interpretation. Well, I'm just going to read it.

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Let's just say, let's just read it. Instead of interpretation, I'll just read it. He says if you deny your...

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But I'm just saying if you just read, we'll just read be ye therefore perfect. Hey, guys, none of us is perfect.

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But nothing in that passage is about justification before God. That's the difference, is that a passage, say, in Paul in Romans chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6, or in the whole book of Galatians, is about specifically how a person is justified before God.

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Right, but if you read it a certain way, you could say, okay, well, nobody's denying themselves to all ungodliness, so Mormons believe that no one will go to heaven.

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That's just not true. Well, I'm just showing you how it's the impossible gospel. Mormonism has a gospel that does not say...

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I get what you're trying to argue, but I'm just saying I disagree. Well, yeah, I know, but I'm just going to read it, though. It says if you deny yourself all ungodliness, and if you love

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God with all your mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you? So his grace is sufficient for you if you've denied yourself of ungodliness and loved

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God with heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, you and I haven't done that, and that's why we would say the

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Mormon gospel is not the gospel. It's really a message ultimately of condemnation because this is not something that anybody has ever attained except for Christ, perfect obedience to the

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Father. And so why we're here is to tell you that this church is teaching a different Christ and a different gospel, and if you have a different Christ and a different gospel, you have a

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Christ that cannot save you and a gospel that does not reconcile you to God. And so the

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Apostle Paul, when he spoke specifically about justification, how we're made right with God, declared righteous, he says, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

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And he says that if you go the direction of law in Galatians 3, he says you're under the curse of the law to fulfill all of it if that's what you're asking for.

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Now, by the way, he said that to people who were saying, it's grace, it's faith in Jesus, but also you must keep this one work of the law.

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You've got to keep circumcision in order to be justified before God. And he says anybody preaching that is anathema.

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See, they didn't deny grace. They didn't deny faith. They said it was grace and faith and Jesus, and you must be obedient to the law in order to have

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God see you as righteous. Yeah, I get the argument. I understand what you're saying. I think it's just...

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So what do you say to Paul, then, when he says that if you go that route, you're condemned? Yeah, I disagree with what you're saying about my church and its teachings.

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Does that make sense? Okay, well, help me to understand then the article of faith, the third article of faith, we believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ all mankind may be saved through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

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So it's not just grace and Christ and His work. Well, there's a difference between saying that the law and the obedience is what saves you and that your obedience to the law and to the commandments are what is showing your love and showing that you want to be saved, basically, that you accept

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Jesus Christ as your Savior. Well... I hear you, except that Mormon prophets and apostles didn't take that view.

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They actually teach... It's in the Book of Mormon. I actually listen to Mormon prophets all the time.

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I think I... I appreciate having a conversation about it. I appreciate you guys being calm and everything.

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Yeah. I would have to say that I am just around and I feel like I understand to a greater degree just because I have a little bit more influence.

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You understand that everybody has access to...

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I know, but you guys have your lives, right? You guys go do your church and your activities.

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I'm kind of involved in it to a greater degree, I guess. The influence and the amount that I'm studying and reading and listening to the words of the prophets.

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There's some times where you can just take a passage here, you can take a passage there and you can...

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We gave you three, though. You can put it together how you want to and people do it all the time.

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That's why there's so many people arguing this, because there's so many different interpretations of how you can, just one passage someone can say, this means this and another person can say...

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Let me ask you this. What would you say to me if I said Jesus commanded us to hit our neighbors.

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It's not love your neighbor, it's hit your neighbor. Would you refute that or would you accept that as a viable interpretation?

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If I said Jesus calls us to eat our neighbors, would you say you're allowed to interpret that however you please or is it on the face of it wrong?

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I guess I'm... Why don't you finish your argument? We know Jesus says in his word, he says you should love your neighbor as you love yourself.

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A guy walks up to the two of us and he says no, no, no, Jesus said to eat your neighbor, not love them.

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Would you say that that's... Because you're saying, well, it's open to interpretation but would you say that no, Jesus is clear, sufficiently clear there that it's love your neighbor and not eat them?

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Am I going to be on TV here? Am I going to be on your

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Sunday service? No, no, we do... I didn't realize there was a camera right there.

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Actually, we like to record our conversations for a number of reasons. Number one, we like to show that Mormons and Christians can break down the walls between our communities and get to know each other and have a healthy conversation because there's a lot of people that are just hateful and mean -spirited.

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I feel like I've tried to have it sometimes and it seems like it always ends up in contention of you're wrong and this is a hateful gospel and there's so much love and service and doing what

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God wants to do, it seems like there's so much work to be done with people that don't even know

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Jesus Christ. That's the crux of it. It's a different Jesus and all that kind of...

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To me, it's... I'll have to say, I just honestly think that that's not right.

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Well, you've noticed that we haven't attacked that or any other like... I guess bring it up that it's a different Jesus and it's a different gospel and all that kind of stuff.

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We're bringing up the doctrines and that is very critical because how you see the doctrines is how you live your life and how it's glorified by God.

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Your doctrines are not even one -minded. It also seems very one -way like, you know, are you really wanting to sit down at the table and listen to my side of the story?

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Yes. It seems like you're just waiting to like, OK, wait, I've got something to refute.

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What if what you believed was actually wrong and somebody came when you made a comment about what you believe about Jesus, about the gospel, it was just contrary to Scripture, how else would somebody who's sent by God to love you bring that to your attention but showing you and refuting the statement?

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Same goes for me. If I had a false belief, you, I think, would have a duty before God to love

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Him and me enough to say, no, this is the truth. So that's, you know, I think it's inescapable that there's going to be conflict like that and just as a brief thing, in Acts chapter 9, one example, the

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Apostle Paul, when he was saved, he goes into Damascus and he argues with them in their synagogues, the place of their religious worship, and he argues with them so much that some people came to Christ and some committed to kill him.

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Because he was arguing with them in their own place of religious worship. So that's just the nature of truth.

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Truth contends, truth argues. But it can be done with love and the larger issue here is this, is that, for example, when you talk about Christ and I know you say it's a different one, it's meaningful because when you say that Jesus Christ is one

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God among many gods... I just feel like it's a way to create division and to create something to say, you know, when

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I don't know it just seems to be when there's so many different teachings among, you know,

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Baptists, Catholics, Mormons you know, there's... Hey! You know, to just come to Mormons and pull them out and say, you're the ones that Well, you know that Christians, whether they're

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Baptists, whether they're Presbyterian, they all have exactly the same God and same Gospel, same Scriptures.

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There's differences that are peripheral that we have in -house discussions about, but we don't divide as brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Roman Catholics deny the Gospel. They have the same they're Trinitarian, so they believe

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Jesus is God and he was in the flesh, he died and rose again but they deny, explicitly deny the

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Gospel and the Council of Trent. They explicitly anathematize Paul and Jesus. So that's what separates them and truth does divide.

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But like, so there are peripheral... We do say that Sure you do.

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Yeah, yeah. But like, for example, when you talk about Jesus, you say he's

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Lucifer's brother, Satan's brother. So are we all. But my Christ, the Christ I think from the

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Scriptures, is the eternal God, he never had a beginning, he's always been God, and he created

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Lucifer. Now, those aren't the same Jesus. We may have the same word we're using, but one of those is real and true and one of them is false and can't save.

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One way, when you say it, is a way to bring a nice divide and a way to bring conflict as opposed to saying like you're saying with your

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Christian brothers that okay, there's some differences that we can talk about and discuss.

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I should say that's a pretty big difference though. That's not even the same person. The eternal God, the creator of Satan versus one

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God among many gods, Lucifer's brother. Jesus says I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

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No man comes to the Father but by me. He's the only Savior. And in 2 Corinthians 11, 1st century, Paul condemns false

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Christs, other Christs. That was 1st century. It's not unusual that in the 19th century you have an example of a

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Christ that's a fiction. And I don't mean that because I hate you or I'm loving you, I mean that because I love you.

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It takes a lot of love and courage to say to somebody, look, you're following a false Jesus. And I think you should say that about me.

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And I think if you're honest, I think you'd say, yeah, your creeds are an abomination, your professors, you guys are all corrupt.

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There's a church of God and a church of the devil. So I think if you really firm up your Mormon commitments you would say, yeah,

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Jeff, you have a false Christ. No, no, I don't. I go with the prophet that says bring us all the good that you have and we'll add on it.

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What about the other prophets that said we're part of the church of the devil, our creeds are an abomination. I mean, your premier prophet says that all of our creeds are an abomination.

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I affirm those, by the way. Yeah, I mean there are things that if, you know, say you're talking about, okay,

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Mormons have beliefs or creeds that you would say are an abomination.

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So anything that does go against the true gospel would be an abomination.

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Yes. Amen. So I don't think that that's too far off.

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No, yeah. If there's something that we believe that was changed from the original gospel it's just like you believe.

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Sure. Then it's an abomination. There you go. So we're exactly in agreement. So the question is what is the truth?

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What do the scriptures say, right? So in John chapter 1, just one example maybe you can think about it later.

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John 1 verses 1 through 3, it says in the beginning was the Word, Jesus. And the word there, enarke enhalagos means forever in the beginning, like no stopping point for all eternity.

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Jesus was already there. And he says He was with the Father and He was God. And that He created all things and nothing came into being that's come into being except through Him.

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So that's the Jesus of Scripture. Always existent, eternally as God, the creator of everything including

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Satan. But this church teaches that Jesus Christ is one God among many gods, the offspring of Elohim and one of His goddess wives in the pre -existence.

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He is Lucifer's brother as are we all, of course. And that you can become a god one day through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

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That's a different Christ. That's a different God altogether. God says He's the first and the last. Besides Him, there is no

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God. So the question is, who's telling the truth? Well, I think what you're saying is a half -truth of what we actually believe.

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Well, can you tell me how I got that wrong? Well, we believe that Jesus Christ is

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God and was God and has been God forever. No. Joseph denied that.

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He said in the King Follett Discourse, we've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I'll refute that idea.

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He says you've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you. He didn't believe that God's been God for all eternity.

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Not Heavenly Father, not Jesus. You know what? You're welcome to come to church with me and learn about what we actually teach and believe.

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You can pull out some different little quotes here and there and then throw it on what the church believes as a whole which isn't always the case.

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Well, can you help me with that? There are some quotes that have come about that can be either interpreted the wrong way or it could be a prophet's personal opinion.

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Then this would be a real problem for me because I need to be corrected then. So tell me if I need to be corrected.

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Elohim was once a man who had a father before him and he went through exaltation, correct?

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Well, all those types of things to me are kind of more of the mysteries.

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Except Joseph talked specifically about it. Right, but if you're talking about, if you're trying to say this is what

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Mormons believe, that's not really something that's fair to pull out.

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You know, something that's How about the Pearl of Great Price? Can I quote from that? Would you accept that?

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In the beginning the gods created the heavens and the earth? So there's a council of gods that come together and they concoct a plan to create the world and the people it?

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I think you can be talking about the father and son there.

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So the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, three gods of this earth, right? But how did Elohim get to become a god?

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He went through exaltation. He has a body of flesh and bone as tangible as man's, right? As man as God once was, as God is.

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Yeah, so you're quoting some some, and I know the quotes, but if you're talking about Mormon doctrine and you're trying to tell people this is what

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Mormons believe, I think you gotta go to church. I have.

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And the scriptures and not not Well, I have.

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I've had lots of Mormon friends. I've talked to BYU professors and state presidents and guys that taught doctrine classes.

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I have all the materials. And you'd be the first, you know, real Mormon that has denied that God had a body of flesh and bones and that he had a father before him and you'd be the first one

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I've ever met that knows your doctrine that would deny it. Well, I think denying it's different than just saying that there are things that that are mysteries that we don't know a whole lot about.

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And if we're talking about what it takes to be saved and what the doctrine of the church is, that's one thing quotes here and there from prophets about their opinions or about their what they believe is a little bit different than when it's not actually being accepted.

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You do believe that God restored prophets to the church, right? Yeah, definitely. Okay, so when they speak, would I be able to take that as truth?

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Well, that's a little bit of a... Anybody ever tell you you're really squishy?

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What's that? Anybody ever tell you you're really squishy? Well, I think that I'm I think that I'm loving you.

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No, I think there's a lot of things that people take and they they grab onto it, especially this type of stuff.

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There's a lot of things that are that we don't know. You've invited me to talk about getting together and having a meal and answering questions.

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be willing to do that with you, and I'd even buy dinner if you'd be willing to sit down and talk to me. Okay.