How to Talk to Mormon Missionaries: 2nd Edition, Pt 2 | Cultish

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That's cultish 50 for 50 % off here's to living out freedom. Welcome back to cultish everybody, where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.

01:22

This is part two of our recent series here with pastor Ross Anderson on how to respond to the

01:28

Mormon missionary message. Here we are still with pastor Wade, right? Jerry's not here again.

01:34

If you haven't figured it out by now, you'll never figure it out. Where is Jerry? Maybe he's back there in my closet.

01:40

I'm sorry. You can see a door, but we're going to have to deal with it anyways. We had a great conversation the last episode, uh, pastor

01:47

Wade, can you give us just a summary real quick of what we talked about? Yeah, sure. Um, it was really great hearing about God's work in your life, the ministry, uh, that God has really bore out of, um, uh, you know, you growing up as a

02:03

Mormon. And then, um, really we moved on from that into, um, you know, just LDS conversations in general, how this immediately can be applied.

02:17

I think we're going to go into the content, uh, more technically of the book now, but just even the fact that, um, we've got to come to their level.

02:26

We've got to make this personal. We, we can't be afraid, um, as, uh, faith people who are very much into apologetics and theology to get to the point of just telling the story of the gospel, um, you know, reaching these people on a personal level, not treating them like, uh, uh, a system, an organization of, uh, of a heresy or something like that, of course they belong to something like that, but we've got to make this, uh, personal and bring it back down to that sort of level.

02:59

And I think that's kind of, uh, where we, uh, ended. So yeah, let's do it. And so, uh, pastor

03:05

Ross, where can everybody find your book and get to know more about you? Yeah. So the book is available anywhere books are sold it's

03:11

Amazon or the publisher, wherever you like to buy books, uh, you can find it. And, and then, you know, an

03:17

Amazon, for example, has a, you know, a detailed blurb and you can look inside and it is, there's a, also our site.

03:24

Uh, we created a site to, for the book is called Mormon missionary message .com.

03:30

And on there there's a bio there's bios of all the contributors, the guys who wrote the chapters, there's some video that Corey and I talk about individually and together, we kind of talk about our story and we talk about the book and what it's all about.

03:44

And, and so there's some, all the recommendations that people have given for the book and we'll also have on that site will be, uh,

03:52

I know this is irrelevant for people who are watching this, but we will have link a link to, uh, this conversation and as well as other conversations that we've had with different podcasters, people can find out a lot more about who we are and what, what it's all about.

04:07

Wow. Nice. Good. So we built that context in the last episode to really, when you're engaging with an

04:12

LDS individual to look at them as an image bearer of God, someone who may be sincere, but also very sincerely deceived.

04:20

So our heart should break for the individuals. We must have patience with them and we need to meet them where we're at.

04:25

Cause I think Jesus would do the same thing. And the ways to be aware about that is the culture that they come from.

04:32

Uh, and the leveling with them and listening to them, asking them questions because, uh, missionaries are trained to answer questions.

04:39

So asking questions would be a very wise thing to do, but let's get into some of the content now of the book in terms of the chapters from the preach my gospel handbook, the first chapter that they like to walk the investigators through is about the restoration and then there was an apostasy.

04:55

So what does that mean exactly? Pastor Ross, I'll hand the floor to you. Okay. So those are, those are terminology that's terminology that's used in a certain particular way within Mormonism.

05:05

Um, the apostasy, of course, the idea of falling away. So they would, they believe that, and their whole basis is to claim that the church that Jesus originally established was lost from the face of the earth.

05:20

Now they will, they'll take their experience and their concept of church and they'll, they'll reflect it back.

05:26

They'll project it back on, you know, the church Jesus had, uh, created. And so Jesus created in case your, our viewers didn't really know an institutional church, very much like the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

05:39

Saints, which could be a surprise to readers of the Bible, right? But that's the concept that the Mormons have.

05:44

And, and in it, in it, in that church, there were certain roles that are ordained by God, apostles, prophets, et cetera.

05:50

So they take again, words that were used in the Bible and roles that are discussed in the Bible and they, and they reinvent them in terms of their meanings, what an apostle is supposed to be and what a prophet is supposed to be and all the rest.

06:03

Uh, but this was all lost. So the authority, the key piece is authority from God. So without, without God's authorization, then no church, no pastor, no missionary, whatever has authority to do the things that God insists that we do in order to be, uh, saved and ultimately to be right with him.

06:25

And so the authority of the priesthood, which is the authority to act in the name of God was lost, um, over time.

06:32

So this is what had to, this is the apostasy and this is what had to be restored.

06:39

And so, so God chose their story. God chose to restore that through this young boy named

06:44

Joseph Smith and all of Joseph Smith's origin stories are revolved around this whole idea of, of him being the prophet of the restoration and Mormonism is rooted in that claim.

06:57

Now. So their ideas, the missionaries are going to say, oh, don't you wish that you had, I know you go to church, whatever it's great, happy for you, but, but don't you wish you had

07:08

God's real authority to do it, you know, fully. Right. So they're, they're not in a framework where they're saying you're wrong, you're bad.

07:15

Um, now they might say some of those things in house among themselves. Um, but to, to the investigator, the person who's looking into Mormonism, they're not going to say, oh yeah, you, you're all wet.

07:26

You've got it totally screwed up. No, they'll say, Hey, what you have is great. Why don't you come in and check and see if we have, we can add anything to it.

07:35

Yeah. And we're going to, and we're going to add to it is, oh, we have a better idea of, of who God is, and we have a better picture of what it's all about.

07:43

We have a thought, we have this authority that's been lost and we've restored it. And so, oh, and we have this way for you to, um, experience your full potential as a human being and, and all those kinds of things with the restoration of original

07:56

Christianity. And that's, what's interesting to me is like going about navigating these conversations with people, even on the street, though it's not always

08:03

Mormon missionaries that we talk to, right. Pastor Wade, but, uh, there always seems to be, well, I want to talk about not what we differ in, but what we have common ground on.

08:11

But one thing I like to remind the LDS person, uh, in question form, typically it's like, well, do you disagree with what

08:17

Joseph Smith said? Right. Uh, do you disagree with the first vision account? Uh, do you disagree with here?

08:24

It is in first Nephi 14, 10. The one is the church of the lamb of God. And the other is the church of the devil.

08:30

I think in the context widely in the book of a Mormon, it's speaking of the Roman Catholic church there. But the context in terms of the first vision account would also consider all of us.

08:40

Right. So navigating the conversation with the Mormon missionary, one way to be able to disconnect from your own emotions or feelings about getting kind of angry about that would be to go, well, the truth is actually the opposite for this individual.

08:53

And they're in, they're deceived. So let's get into what, what do they say specifically was lost? What did

08:59

Jesus kind of teach? Well, who is Jesus according to Mormonism and what is priesthood authority?

09:05

That's great. And I agree because I think that all of these conversations, all of the things that the missionaries are bringing up that we could respond to, um, offer great ways to talk about who

09:18

Jesus is. And to me, that's the ultimate question. And our authors, all the authors all reflect that they would talk about the primacy of Jesus.

09:27

Um, but that's different. It's different for Mormons, you know? So we want to establish that and what that means for me. But so the idea of priesthood is that it has to be, it's sort of a functional, um, power that has to be given to you by someone who has the priesthood.

09:44

Okay. And so it's passed on by from one priesthood holder to initiate who becomes a priesthood holder and he passes it on to then his

09:51

Mormonism to your son. Uh, and Oh, by the way, only men have it. So there's a lot of things to talk about there in terms of, uh,

09:59

I think of first Peter and the priesthood of all of them and so forth, but yeah. Um, so only men have it, but it's, it's what it, so baptism is a saving ordinance for Mormons.

10:12

If you're not baptized, then you know, you don't, when you're baptized, you start on the path.

10:18

If you're never baptized, it's not, you're not going to get anywhere. Um, and there are other ordinances that are necessary and none of those are valid without proper priesthood.

10:29

So you have to be baptized by a proper priesthood holder. Absolutely. A Melchizedek priesthood holder.

10:35

Well, different, uh, different things can, can happen different levels of priesthood. There's two priesthoods

10:41

Melchizedek and Aaronic, but, um, but yeah, a Melchizedek priesthood holder that would have to do those kinds of ordinances.

10:48

So here's, here's a question. So how, how do they navigate, uh, maybe you haven't thought of this. I'm not sure.

10:54

I'm just thinking of it right now. Well, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, but Jesus didn't baptize anybody.

11:01

Uh, how did he, uh, pass on the priesthood of Melchizedek without actually baptizing, uh, the disciples?

11:08

Well, so they would say that the priesthood itself is not passed on by baptism. Baptism's an entry into the, let's say, uh, you got to climb the ladder.

11:18

Baptism gets you to the foot of the ladder. So you can climb. Gotcha. So priest, uh, so they'll look at passages like the investiture of Aaron with the

11:29

Levitical priesthood in the old Testament say, well, they laid hands on him and they had a ceremony or whatever. So, so they will say that priesthood is, um, passed on through a ritual of placing your hands on someone, praying over them and investing them with the priesthood authority.

11:47

Gotcha. That's, that's the ritual that they, that they invoked. So the assumption is that Jesus did that to the disciples?

11:53

Yeah. I mean, he washed their feet. Why not take that as a, as a right of getting the Melchizedek priesthood?

11:58

They received it when their feet were being washed by Jesus, but no, it happened somewhere, not in the text. Somewhere that we don't actually see it happen, but it's a, like I said, it's projected backwards into it.

12:08

Right. Because you have this sense of, this is the way it's supposed to be, you know, so that's how priesthood is, but that was lost.

12:14

So the idea that that was lost somehow is that, um, as the church became persecuted as the early church in the first century or second century, um, became persecuted as members of the leaders of the church, maybe began to become apostate or made false teachings move broke and broke, broke in and so forth, that there was the, the line, the chain of investiture from one to the next was somehow broken.

12:42

And so priesthood, if there's nobody who's passing it on, do that ritual, then eventually it will die out.

12:50

Yeah. And that's what they think happened. What would you say to somebody, uh, like how would you navigate part of that conversation to get the individual to understand that?

12:58

No, uh, there is no apostasy or broken chain that Jesus Christ is the

13:04

Melchizedek priesthood holder and things of that nature. How would you navigate that? Sure. I mean, I'm interested to see how they go about it, uh, in the book, but, you know, we were even talking about, um, you know, the keys of the kingdom of heaven passage and what the rock is.

13:20

And, um, you know, looking at the original language there and seeing the participles and words that are pointing more to, uh,

13:30

Peter's confession of who Jesus is rather than Peter himself. So it's actually the gospel is the rock.

13:37

It's the foundation of the church from Deuteronomy to Moses and Moses. Right. And that would, that would keep in line with, you know, uh, again,

13:46

Christ being the cornerstone and no man then becomes the stone, you know, over the main cornerstone and so it's the gospel message.

13:56

And then, you know, we, you know, when we were speaking about it, really, when you look at the context and you look at the rest of, um, the ministry of the apostles and how that spread to even people who weren't apostles and just Philip the evangelist and, um, you know, uh,

14:14

Stephen, the first martyr and things like that. And how it just propagated to even Gentile churches.

14:19

It seems as if the keys are the gospel message, you know, we get to all hold the gospel message.

14:28

And, um, I think there's this hyper -literalism that you can input into that, um, message and then therefore, um, believe that only certain men through a certain ritual can therefore, uh, you know, disseminate the, uh, you know, the gospel and then, and then men get to make a declaration on who's saved and unsaved and obviously, you know, there's, there's application,

14:55

I think for even churches and ministers to do proper church discipline from Matthew 18 and, you know, participate in excommunication.

15:05

Those are biblical things. Um, and so in that sense, you know, uh, the binding loosing language is there too.

15:12

Um, um, but at the end of the day, I think the prevailing message is, um, that, um,

15:21

Paul says invoke self -examination in a person. And at the end of the day, we've even seen in church history and in the

15:29

Bible that, you know, I, I, as a minister do my best to go based on the profession and fruit of an individual, but even so I'm going to baptize people who are not true believers.

15:41

Right. And, and so I guess the question is too, like, you're even a living testimony of someone who's left the

15:49

Mormon church. Um, you had the priesthood, right? Yeah. And so, um, that would make whoever gave it to you to be an error.

15:59

And, uh, that seems like, uh, that seems like an issue to me.

16:04

If we make it this elevated, this priesthood, this keys element, this authority element, if we make it a system of perfectionism, uh, in one sense, then let's be consistent and say, how is it failing when it's being given to others when people apostatize, you know?

16:24

Um, so we have room to understand that God is the ultimate arbiter of who's saved or not.

16:31

Uh, not me. And so, uh, I think I'm speaking too technical, but, but I, I hope

16:39

I, I hope I'm making sense. And related to what you're saying, Wade, um, the idea of this, is there a legitimate, is there, is there a place where the legitimacy of that priesthood claim falls apart?

16:50

And, and really there is because Joseph Smith taught and early apostles of Mormonism taught that if you exercise your priesthood unrighteously, so it's not just, you made a bad choice and you ordained the right, the wrong guy.

17:03

But if you yourself were not fully living up to your part and being obedient, et cetera, and then you exercise your priesthood, it's void.

17:13

So how do we know, how do I know that the, my dad gave me my priesthood how do

17:20

I know that whoever gave him his priesthood wasn't like having a bad day spiritually when that happened, they were right with God.

17:28

And, and, you know, so it really is, uh, there's a lot of broken chains along the way for the last 200 years.

17:34

Yeah. Yeah. It's like your, your priesthood authority in your salvation in general, which we'll get to the next chapter, which is the plan of salvation, but it hinges upon, uh, obedience to the gospel ordinances and principles as a priesthood holder.

17:48

So the key for the LDS individual in terms of thinking of an apostasy is number one.

17:55

I want to, I want to preface this. Well, in the 19th century, our restoration of the gospel and restoration movements were not, uh,

18:02

Mormonism wasn't alone. We have the church of Christ and the Campbellites. We have the Jehovah's witnesses in Charles Taze Russell.

18:09

Uh, we have, uh, Ellen G. White, uh, even speaking of similar things and other differences we have.

18:16

Uh, many different things going on in the Americas at that time. But one point that would be easy for Joseph Smith to be able to get somebody to be obedient to him and his teachings would be look, the free gospel that you've heard about your whole life and these individuals you see around you who call themselves

18:33

Christians, but are outwardly acting differently than what the book says. Well, guess what? The truth was lost and you actually have to have a priesthood.

18:41

But the only way to obtain that is to follow X, Y, and Z. And the only way you know what X, Y, and Z is, is by listening to me, sitting underneath me and getting the truth.

18:51

Right? So the problem though is, is whenever a different gospel comes around, it's going to come with a workspace salvation.

18:58

You don't, Hey, you don't, uh, if you see rotten fruit on a tree, you don't, uh, tie fresh fruit to it and expect it to live falls off dead.

19:08

Just within a matter of time, you actually got to attack the root system. Yeah, exactly.

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20:01

Yeah. So, you know, and the other thing is with respect to priesthood, um, is. One of the, one of the ways

20:07

I approach that is, well, the book in the book, he points out, look, this whole superstructure of offices and profits.

20:13

He said, really in how that doesn't, doesn't that take us back to the old covenant and do we really want to go back to the old covenant?

20:21

Um, you know, certainly there's truth there and relevancy there, but in terms of how we, how we think about issues like priesthood, but then oftentimes

20:31

I'll talk to people about, look, priesthood, the authority is inherent in the command.

20:39

So if my dad gives, you know, I'm a kid, let's say I'm, I'm 10 years old. My dad gives me a buck and says,

20:45

I want you to go down to the, uh, mini Mart and buy me a newspaper. Well, when

20:50

I was a kid, there were newspapers. That was a thing, you know, so it probably costs a quarter, but, um, so what

20:57

I wouldn't go like, wait, wait, does that kid have the authority to go do that? No, the authority is inherent in his, his dad told him to do it.

21:04

He gave him the resources to do it. And so, yeah, he's authorized to do it. And so Jesus tells us as the church, you know, to baptize.

21:13

He tells us to, you know, share, uh, to, uh, witness to the gospel. So all the things that Jesus tells us to do as the church, um, the authority is not inherent in some external structure that is passed on and maintained by people.

21:28

The authority is inherent in the command itself. It's the authority of Jesus that I'm acting on the basis of.

21:36

And so that's one, one way to look at priesthood. Right. Like a, like a soldier being discharged or, or I should say commissioned or sent.

21:43

By a commanding officer. It's like when he speaks before someone higher than him, it's like, he's not treated as an equal.

21:50

He's treated as if he's speaking on the authority of the sending officer who's higher than him. So it's like, it's a derivative authority.

21:57

Um, it's not inherent in ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's crucial to understand going back to the keys of the kingdom in terms of that being the gospel.

22:06

It's like, Jesus is the door, right? He is the gate. Uh, the Holy spirit is the one who regenerates and saves, and he works through the keys, the proclamation of the gospel, and that's how the door is open only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ being put in now to the believers who believe actually in that.

22:21

And on faith through the authority of Jesus who spoke for the father revealed to the son, John one 18, no one has ever seen the father except the unique and only son he has made him known.

22:32

And then going through like John, just reading chapters 13 through 15, all the Jesus is like, if you have seen me, you have seen the father, not saying he is the person of the father because he distinguishes himself, but the fact is, is the authority that we rely on for the church that we haven't lost anything.

22:48

Isn't on the applications or priesthood of men, right? It's on the authority and the power of the

22:54

Holy spirit, who's the spirit of Christ of God. Like that, that's it. Like the baptism in general was, is never a saving act for an individual.

23:03

It's a representation of the saving work of Christ. And it has authority only in so much as Jesus and faith in him actually is the saving factor of grace.

23:11

And that's a beautiful thing. And what we can see, what is apostasy according to the Bible and Galatians one is when a different gospels preached.

23:20

So the apostasy occurred within Joseph Smith when he brings about a different gospel, but the, the the benefit for him would be to say, no, that's not the apostasy, the actual historic

23:30

Christian church is an apostasy. How did that work for you? Uh, Ross, like navigating something like that when you're coming to faith at a time when there's no internet, right?

23:39

Uh, the book of Abraham was just news was just coming out that the book of Abraham was not actually a translation from Abraham, uh, given from, from Joseph Smith.

23:51

Like, how did you navigate that stuff? Well, I came to the point where the whole thing, the whole structure of Mormonism didn't have any credibility because of the historical things.

24:02

And so I had to really discover the biblical alternatives, you know, in that process of coming to faith, but initially it's going,

24:09

I'm going like, oh, well, no, well, all the claims they made every claim they make in his cat as a shadow cast over it, because you know, these other areas where they can be tested historically and tested in people's character and all the rest, they didn't measure up.

24:26

And so, you know, I had to, I had to figure it out, um, as a young believer, as an coming into faith in Jesus.

24:33

But I just, I had good, credible people. I had was surrounded by credible people. I was surrounded by a, in a church that preached the

24:41

Bible and it was boom, just straight from scripture. And so, and, and wise people in, in engaged who could answer those kinds of questions, um, for me.

24:51

So it was a process, but it was a good conditions. Yeah. You said something earlier talking about, uh, when you were young wanting to be righteous or weren't righteous enough, that brings us into the second part of preach my gospel, which is the plan of salvation.

25:04

Uh, before we get into that, what was it like for you when you realized that your righteousness, uh, that you are accredited now is through the perfect work of Jesus and it's not on you.

25:14

How did that feel? And then let's get into the plan of salvation and what the LDS believe. Yeah. So to me, that was just a huge, um, revelation.

25:22

And it was incredibly joyful, um, to go like, oh, cause, cause I was not measuring up now.

25:28

I had, I had thought I was measuring up as a, as a Latter -day Saint, honestly, to take a look at that, that that was not, it was not measuring up to what

25:37

God really wanted or what God, cause I could tell, I knew the things that were going inside my heart.

25:42

I knew the things that were hidden or secret that, uh, you know, I could portray to all kinds of other people around me, an exterior veneer, um, in a just posing.

25:54

But I, I knew, you know, um, that, Hey, this is not, there's things in my life that aren't, aren't right.

26:01

You know? And so, so when I came to faith, uh, when I heard that message about this, uh,

26:06

I heard a message about the four soils and the fruitful life that someone who receives the gospel, uh, and I go like, oh, wow, that's, that's a new idea.

26:17

That's what I need. So I knew, I knew pretty much that my righteousness by the time I had come to that point, that my own external righteousness wasn't going to measure up.

26:26

And he's talking about something, the pastor of that day was talking about something different, something that, that God does, something that's this intrinsic power in, you know, in what

26:37

God imparts to you and it, and it take, it takes your life and it changes you from the inside out.

26:43

And so that moment, and then I began to experience that from that moment on, it was like, it was radically, so it wasn't like, it wasn't like the, uh,

26:50

LDS people will parody Christianity and say, oh, easy believism, you just pray a prayer and you can just go do whatever you want and live however you want, you know, um, in their concept, they don't have a sense of the intrinsic power of the gospel working within a person.

27:08

It's all on you, you know, and so this is fake. And so it was real for me. And God began to change.

27:15

Uh, for example, um, I just really experienced a lot of radical changes within days, even within,

27:23

I just said, I became convicted of some things in my relationship with my girlfriend. And I said, you know, we need to live differently.

27:30

She broke up. So, which is great. It was God. God was giving, setting me free, you know, from, uh, from something setting me free to follow him.

27:40

Right. So things like things like that began to develop this internal righteousness. That's good.

27:45

We'll, we'll tackle, yeah, we'll tackle, um, chapter two and three at the same time then, because I think it's relevant because it's the gospel of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation.

27:53

So how is then the Mormon plan of salvation better than, uh, the biblical plan of salvation?

28:01

Well, from their perspective, it, it has, first of all, a different perspective of human nature.

28:08

And so, so the plan is the plan of salvation. They're talking about how this is where God, how

28:14

God took initiative. And this is where Jesus came in and this is your scent. There's a story of from like year zero to the future that they would say it's better because it is a different anthropology that you as a human being, you're not an abject sinner, but yeah, you sin, but you really are a

28:33

God in embryo. You really have the potential to become divine. And here's how, you know, just follow, you follow this.

28:41

And that talks more in their chapter in the gospel talks more about the how, but, but also it, from their point of view, it's better than the

28:48

Christian gospel because it offers a, an eternity that allows you to continue to, uh, develop your potential divinity, you know, it's an open ended.

29:01

So it's really, it's an aggrandized view of eternity that plays to human arrogance.

29:08

Right. Wow. And that, that speaks to a lot of people for sure. Wow. Let me, so we're going to handle it this way.

29:13

I'm going to ask you first, Wade, what the gospel is. And I'm going to ask you what the gospel is to a Mormon. So, uh, pastor

29:19

Wade, what is the gospel? Sure. Um, the gospel is the good news, um, that, uh,

29:28

God created everything. He created men and women in his own image and likeness.

29:34

And these, uh, men and women, the first ones, the prototype of all humankind, they fell in the garden and they sinned and, uh,

29:45

Adam was our federal head and it impacted all of us. The apostle Paul says all in Adam die.

29:52

And, um, and so therefore all in Adam are fallen. And so we're now at a predicament with God.

29:59

He is holy and righteous and just and good. And we are not, and if God is good, or I should say, since God is good, um, he must punish all sin, all things that are in opposition to his character, likeness, nature, and attributes.

30:16

And so that's the bad news is that we have sinned and we've fallen short of the glory of God.

30:23

And, and, and that's, what's hard is God is perfect. And, and we often bring him down to our level, but he's actually much higher than we could have ever imagined.

30:31

And the good news is, is that God sent his one and only son, uh, uh, who is

30:38

God from all eternity, according to the Bible himself, and he stepped into his own creation and, uh, he, he took on the likeness of, of men.

30:48

He became like his brothers in every respect. He endured all that we endured. He faced all that we faced, tempted in all ways and yet without sin, he lived all the ways that we could never live, that we could never measure up, uh, when the law and the commandments of God are put up against us, uh, we're, we're seen to, to be completely wanting, uh, we're desperate before a holy

31:12

God. And Jesus lived this perfectly. And then he was, uh, taken to the cross.

31:18

He died. What's called a vicarious substitutionary atonement. That means we literally should have been in Jesus's place, taking on the wrath of God upon ourselves that we deserved, but that's, what's amazing is

31:32

Jesus took the wrath for us. He made atonement for sin.

31:38

Um, and what the blood of bulls and goats could not do, his blood was sufficient for all, uh, to do on that cross.

31:48

And then he rose again, three days later, showing that exactly what he did on the cross, uh, that what he said it would achieve, it will do, it will conquer and defeat death and it will do it.

32:01

He was able to have power over death. And now he has power over death in such a way that he will raise us from the dead and grant us eternal life.

32:09

And that's the promise of the gospel. And literally it's only Jesus's finished work alone that gives us that hope in that eternal life.

32:21

Uh, it's, it's, as Paul says, it's nothing that we can do. Um, it's nothing, it's not of man.

32:27

It's not a result of works. Um, by work, by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight.

32:33

That is made righteous before God. The only way to be made righteous before God is the, is the finished work of Jesus and believing in that and believing in him.

32:44

And he gives that belief and he imparts that faith through his grace, unmerited favor.

32:50

So that's the long version. I love it. There we go. The gospel.

32:55

So what I want to hear what you would say the gospel is for Mormons, just because I've asked this question so many times on the street and I never ever get a straight answer.

33:05

I asked him, I go, well, what is the gospel? And it's never really, uh, succinct.

33:10

There's no solution. There's no good news. So what is the gospel according to Mormonism? So the predicament is the way it started with the predicament, which is where the gospel begins.

33:21

The predicament for Mormonism is yes, we are sinners and yes, we were under God's judgment, but we also have this potential, like I mentioned before.

33:31

And so we, we need to get into the, we need to be able to find the system or find the appropriate response that we can, we can be repent of our sins and be forgiven of our sins and, and then achieve this exaltation, this future, um, home in, in heaven with, with God, the father and all the things that that implies in Mormon theology.

33:56

So it's not, it's, um, it's not as strikingly much of a peril.

34:06

It's not, it's not a huge peril, especially, so it, it appeals to, to the

34:11

Mormon idea of, of being worthy and growing into, you know, being a good, a good person, whatever. But so the gospel, the good news,

34:18

Jesus has a role. It's a central role. It's a, it's an essential role, but it's not the, uh, complete, um, role that, that you've described the

34:28

Bible. There's no bad news on the backdrop. There's not a lot of bad news. There's not a lot of bad news.

34:35

Um, the bad news is that we're not, we don't, you have to know how to, how to make it work if you don't know how to make it work, but even then there's not a lot of bad news because the

34:45

Mormon system says that there's salvation after death. If you go to the spirit prison after you die, that you have another opportunity.

34:52

If you never heard the, you know, if you never figured it out in this, in this world, you've got another chance.

34:58

And so that's, that's very, not very bad news at all. Um, so Jesus has a role.

35:04

He died on the cross. He, he, um, lived a sinless life. He died on the cross.

35:09

But what Jesus did to die on the cross was to, um, give resurrection to every human being, whether good or bad.

35:19

And he created the conditions by which we can follow up by being obedient to him.

35:24

So I look at it like this. Uh, this is not how a Mormon person would describe it, but I look at it like this.

35:30

So at Jesus death on the cross, um, there's a garden and in the garden is a ladder that you have to climb to get to a lovely, you know, place or whatever up there.

35:45

Celestial view. Yeah, exactly. So Jesus death on the cross, uh, unlocks the door to the garden to give you access to the ladder, you know?

35:57

So in other words, it sets up the conditions where you can then do what you need to do to be able to prove worthy.

36:04

Jesus is a stepping stone more than the way he's not the way he, you know, he's not an, there's not another stepping stone.

36:12

He's the only stepping stone. But nevertheless, it, so it, it, it's not just, it's not just Jesus plus nothing.

36:20

Um, it's Jesus plus, then you have to do. So he opened, he opens the gate and you then have to, um, follow certain.

36:30

Obedience to commandments and certain, um, ordinances. So those, that's the key thing, commandments and ordinances, and then you have to endure to the end.

36:39

And this is what comes out in the, in the preach my gospel is this idea that you're committing yourself to this huge endeavor to prove that you're worthy.

36:50

Now here, here's the other thing about the Mormon gospel is there's no real hell. There's no, there's no ultimate reckoning with God over evil and sin and how

37:03

I've violated his holiness and offended his character and violated his law.

37:09

All of that. There's everybody goes to heaven in the end. Uh, you know, the lowest level of heaven where all the worst criminals go is better than earth.

37:18

And so it's so interesting because in all the four gospels and then in the quotes of Jesus in the revelation, we, we know through concordance and scholarship work,

37:31

Jesus speaks of hell and the lake of fire much more than the realities of heaven.

37:38

So it's like, well, why, why is Jesus mischaracterizing the afterlife?

37:44

Why, what is that place for? So only a few people, he speaks as if it's going to impact a lot of folks.

37:54

Right. It's a broad path. Yeah. Wide, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's very true. Um, so there we have it, right?

38:01

We have two different forms of the gospel. I mean, Paul says it in second Corinthians 11, four, he warns the church in Corinth that these super apostles, uh, may lead them after a different Jesus, a different gospel and a different spirit.

38:15

And then he, he argues with them and he, he says there is essentially no better gospel than the gospel that has been given to us by God.

38:23

It's not a gospel from men. It's a gospel from God. And that's because it's purely a work predicated on Christ.

38:29

And there's nothing that we can do, which is the good news to make ourselves righteous before God.

38:34

Because there's nothing you could do to satisfy the wrath of God. We read the Psalm yesterday in church.

38:39

And it's one of my favorite Psalms in Psalm 49. Uh, it states that no man can give his soul to God to ransom another man from the pit because the cost of a soul is pricely that he'll never see

38:51

Sheol. The point of the Psalm is that Jesus will rescue us from the pit. I can't ransom my life for another.

38:57

I can't even ransom it for myself. Even if I died on a cross, it wouldn't satisfy the wrath of God. That's why hell is there.

39:04

Um, and the reality is about the good news of the gospel is the simple message that it is repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ and turn to your sit, turn from your sins and look to your savior.

39:15

Whereas the LDS gospel, it's not on Jesus. Like Jesus is just the stepping stone.

39:21

The only one, but the truth is, is that your salvation relies on you. And that's not a good message.

39:27

I mean, the message, even back from the old Testament that Paul is always arguing for is that it was never the priesthood holders to begin with.

39:35

It was never the sacrifices to begin with because the original promise was predicated, uh, by a promise that God cut a covenant with himself and gave to Abraham, right?

39:45

And he said it was through faith that Abraham believed and through faith, Genesis 15, six, Abraham was accredited with righteousness.

39:52

So in Galatians, we're told it's that very same covenant, right? Just because there's different administrations of the covenant.

39:59

It doesn't make Nolan void the first covenant, right? Through the seed of Abraham, who is

40:04

Jesus Christ. We, as, uh, there's Jews, of course, that come to faith in Christ and Gentiles alike, male, female, barbarian,

40:14

Scythian, uh, crisis all in all through faith in Jesus Christ, because of that promise from Abraham, not because of what we've done, but because of what

40:21

Jesus has done. And I mean, it's that whole succinct view of the Bible. It's hard for me to, uh, understand.

40:29

Oh, or it just breaks my heart more for the Mormon individual, because they don't even get a proper understanding of the old

40:35

Testament, right? Like that's some, that's some heavy stuff. It just, it ruins everything in the story to think that even in the old

40:43

Testament, somehow people were justified by works when the clear overarching testimony of the

40:49

Bible is, do you see how Israel failed when they thought they could do things themselves? You know? Yeah.

40:54

And so like the same way they project current Mormonism back into what they think is the church Jesus started, they projected all the way back through all of human history.

41:03

Yeah. So the old Testament is really in their view. It's early, but, oh, this is how the church is.

41:09

The Mormon church was organized under, you know, Moses or whatever.

41:14

So they, they see it, they have this, this grid that defines everything that they, that they lay over everything in the

41:21

Bible. And so they're really, they're not really looking at scripture, um, and it's letting it speak for itself.

41:29

Right. Right. They're interpreting it through it, through their current grid. Man, man. I think that was a really awesome way to just kind of discover, even in this conversation, the differences between the

41:40

Mormon plan of salvation and the gospel and what the Bible says. I think it's so much easier to grasp a gospel that's from God than a gospel from man.

41:50

I remember watching a Paul Washer video a long time ago, and he was talking about how he was doing missionary work somewhere.

41:57

I can't remember exactly where it was, but these Jehovah's witnesses had come to their camp and I guess he had been doing like missionary work for a couple of days and he was extremely tired.

42:05

He finally gets back to camp. He wants to rest and these Jehovah's witnesses show up and he's like, okay, well, I'm going to be faithful to the

42:10

Lord. And so he asked them one simple question. He said to them, what is the gospel? And he let them say it.

42:16

And he said, okay, well, just so I understand, I want you to say it again. So they said it again. And then he says, okay.

42:24

So he then repeated it back to them. He said, do I really understand what you're saying? And then lastly, he says, okay, the problem is according to Galatians one, that I've been given a different gospel.

42:35

And he goes through first Corinthians 15 in order to help them understand. But he showed first by active listening that he's understanding what the gospel is.

42:42

So it's a beneficiary. If you're going to sit down with an LDS person or even missionaries, I think asking them what the gospel is, is a very good question.

42:50

And then reiterating it to them to understand, to show them that you understand what they're saying, that you're actually listening and then give the good biblical gospel with definitions is definitely a helpful thing using active listening.

43:03

So they particularly, they use the word gospel in the book, in the Preach My Gospel. They call it the gospel.

43:10

And yet there's also, it could be confusing at times when you're talking, because people, Mormon people think about the gospel as really being equal to the whole institution of Mormonism.

43:22

Right. And so they're thinking about when you say gospel, I want to maybe clarify that a little bit and say, and use that word.

43:32

How can I be right with God? What's the way that you believe that you could be right with God? What's that good news?

43:39

What's the good news that you have to offer me? Yeah. It's like, oh, really? It takes me, it takes me a year.

43:46

Sometimes I frame it like this, if I have a terminal illness and I found out from the doctor that I have a terminal illness, but now

43:53

I'm spiritually seeking, I have six weeks to live. What's the good news you have for me?

43:59

Right. Yeah. Because, you know, if I have to go to the temple, I have to be temple worthy for a year. I have to, there's no, there's no answer to that.

44:06

I guess the answer to that as well in the next life, you know, you could, you could always deal with it then.

44:12

You know, one thing I want to say real quick too is people may have noticed when

44:18

I just gave my gospel, the gospel presentation is I didn't mention things regarding sanctification.

44:27

I, you know, and I think proper categories are, are, are good to understand.

44:33

This is good. You know, the, we kind of touched on it a little bit and I guess one thing

44:39

I could have added was, and when Jesus imparts that faith to you and saves you and regenerates you and you are, as John three says, born again, then you have the capacity by the

44:53

Holy spirit and dwelling you to even participate in, according to Ephesians two 10, the works that were prepared beforehand by God that you would walk in.

45:02

And so, you know it reminds me we are not preaching a gospel that is non transformative.

45:13

We're preaching a gospel that absolutely transforms. We're not saying that Jesus saves rotten sinners and then just keeps them as rotten sinners where they were in their deadness.

45:26

It says that we're new creatures in Christ. We have new desires. We walk in the spirit, not in the flesh.

45:32

We partake in the fruit of the spirit and not in the fruit of the flesh. And so, you know, on a

45:39

Thursday I had a young lady say, you know what, I just think faith without works is dead.

45:45

And I said, I surprised her. I said, amen. And then I agree.

45:51

She's like, what? She thought that was the, uh, the clincher. Yeah, yeah. I got him in the joke.

45:56

And, uh, so I don't think she's ever heard this, but I said, look, let me, let me illustrate something for you.

46:03

So far, we've been talking about the category of justification. That's a big word. Let me tell you, that simply means that's a forensic term, but in the scope of salvation, that's how we are made right with God.

46:17

That's how we are saved. Um, and what you just said is in the category of now that we are saved, uh, what does that look like?

46:26

And let me just tell you, when Paul's talking about these things in his letters in Galatians one and Ephesians and in especially

46:34

Romans three, four, five, those are huge, uh, for justification. And when, when he says that, um, if anyone works, that's a wage owed to him, but for the one who doesn't work, it's a grace, it's a gift.

46:47

And so I talked about the fact that you have the category of salvation and that Paul is creating these theological understandings, these, these important, uh, understandings of how we are saved, um, before a holy and righteous

47:07

God. And then you go then to the letter, the epistle of James, and it starts out where he's like writing to the brothers, to the brethren in, in the

47:18

Lord Jesus Christ, in various locations, the scattered, the dispersed ones among, uh, you know, the, the

47:25

Mediterranean, the Roman empire, he's writing to already Christians, not an address, not creating a theology for people who are unsaved.

47:33

So he writes to already Christians and said, and basically he's calling them to consistency because at this point, the

47:40

Christian church has been going for a bit now, at least a couple of decades. And there have been people who have been saying,

47:47

I'm a Christian. I've had what Paul is talking about happen to me, but then their lives did not demonstrate that.

47:55

So he's like, uh, you know, faith without works is, is dead. Uh, meaning that, you know, if there's a, a good tree, then it'll bear good fruit.

48:07

Uh, uh, fig tree won't bear briars and thorns. It's going to reflect, uh, the actual, uh, reality of what happened prior.

48:17

And so all that to say, um, hopefully you, some of our listeners can hear the different categories and that we absolutely, totally think that our lives will look completely different to them.

48:33

What they were prior to, uh, us being saved. Uh, that's huge. Absolutely. That's a really great point to make because I see it all the time in conversations that I have with LDS people is there's a real confusion.

48:46

They're saying like, wait, wait, wait, you're talking about that. We believe the same thing. We believe that you have, you're supposed to live the right kind of life.

48:53

There's a con there's a confusion between what I would call root and fruit. Uh, when

48:59

I would call what the role of works is, is it causative or is it an effect of, you know, and so, but, but that's a, that's a difficult thing that there,

49:09

I think people in the LDS culture don't really wrap their head around and they have a hard time kind of going like, wait, wait, um, of making that distinction and parsing that.

49:20

In fact, one of our authors who wrote the chapter on the gospel, he reflects as it when he was, um,

49:26

LDS and he was trying to figure out, you know, whether he was still believe it or not or something or so forth, he listened to a

49:33

Bible answer man program on the radio and the guy was talking to, uh, to a

49:38

Mormon person and he was trying to make the distinction that you're making of categories and, and, and the author, our writer, his response is, well, that's all just semantics.

49:48

It's all, but you're, so it's really important that what you're pointing out is it is not just semantics. There's key, there's key categories.

49:56

And, and so what we, how we live the life of the sanctified life really, really is different in both kind of gospels.

50:05

It's great. Yeah. And I like to make the distinction in conversation too, is just because there's outward external works of the

50:13

Mormon organization, it doesn't actually mean that it's actual fruit. So in second Corinthians 11,

50:18

I love this chapter so much. Wade hears me talk about it all the time, but if you start in verse 12, I'm going to read this to you.

50:23

This is after he warns the church in Corinth about false super apostles that are going to preach a false Christ, a different Jesus, different spirit.

50:30

He says this about those super apostles in verse 12, it says, and what I'm doing, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission, they work on the same terms as we do speaking as the apostles for such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ and no wonder for even

50:49

Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, so it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as what servants of righteousness.

50:58

So externally, it looks like righteous works are occurring, but what does Paul say their end will correspond to their deeds, meaning this, that the deeds are not righteous.

51:07

Why aren't they righteous? Well, because they're not done actually under the authority in name of Christ.

51:12

They're done to try to justify themselves before. The Pharisees done just like the Pharisees.

51:18

So the works, according to the Bible, aren't even good works from the LDS organization. They're there for a specific reason to meet an end and the end will correspond to their deeds, which are death.

51:27

And that's the sad part. And our, our heart should break for those individuals because when the, the Mormon missionary is coming to our door, that's what we're seeing.

51:35

We're seeing people that are deceived by a false gospel and they think that they're doing righteous deeds, but Satan masquerades as an angel.

51:43

When Saul of Tarsus was a vigorous Pharisee, he'd look like the best

51:49

Mormon there ever was. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And he said that, he said, according to this, you know,

51:54

I measured up in Philippians chapter two. He said in three, he's talking about, Oh, if you looked at me, you would say that's the epitome.

52:03

Yeah. Yep. It's true. And heavy stuff. So continuing the conversation about the plan of salvation, what the gospel is.

52:09

Let's think again in the category of Mormonism. It goes on to then to the fourth chapter, which are commandments, right?

52:15

If there's a gospel and the gospel means that certain principles have been restored, that you need to climb this ladder now to celestial glory, that means there are certain commandments that you must follow.

52:25

How does the Mormon missionary handle that conversation within the fourth chapter?

52:30

Is this a chapter that they go to after somebody's kind of already accepted their gospel? How does it work?

52:37

Yeah, that's a great question. So they are planting the seed for a baptism, a conversion experience from pretty early on.

52:48

And so they're asking people to make a baptism decision after maybe even a week or two weeks of talking to them, you know, so, but this actually, according to the guys, the missionary guys who've written the book, this actually is more a way of counting the cost of censor, like, or like full disclosure, it's the fine print in a way, and they're using this as a way to decide, is this person an actual or really a legit candidate for conversion?

53:22

Gotcha. If they can't, if they're not willing to buy in, they're not willing to accept the authority over their life of the

53:29

Mormon church and do the things that you're supposed to do as a good Mormon, then they'll discover that here because it's not no longer just theoretical.

53:38

It's now like, oh, you're going to have to shape up, you know, so there's a certain amount of screening that takes place in this lesson, it seems like.

53:47

Gotcha. So it's not necessarily something that they walk through the individual with word for word. It's more of like a manual in terms of what to ask the individual to see if they're actually ready to be baptized.

53:56

There is some, there are some questions that they'll ask the individual to see, you know, now they'll talk it through, they'll go through what they think is relevant of the,

54:04

I mean, there's a list of like 12 or 15 items on there, but they're not going to go through every single one of them, but they're going to use that as a framework to say, oh, well, what about this?

54:15

What about this? And, um, and it becomes a bit of a grid or it becomes at least a sense of like, oh, here you're, you're buying into, because the gospel said there's certain ordinances and certain, and here's what they are.

54:28

And let's see if you still are interested. Yeah. Makes sense. Why, why, uh,

54:33

Pastor Ross, is it so imperative that they get a decision in a baptism scheduled as soon as possible?

54:42

Is there something behind that? Is it, is it, is there some sort of statistics or research even they've done where they have found as soon as that happens, there's more of a commitment level, like,

54:53

I don't know, maybe you have some research about that. Well, they are asking, do you want you to make a commitment?

54:59

I don't, I'm not aware of any research that's gone into that. I do know that, you know, in the sales world, you want to close the deal now and you don't want them to leave.

55:07

You want to have a sec, cause you don't know if you're going to have a second opportunity with them, you know? So I don't know how much of it that place in just human psychology, they're going to walk away and they're going to be thinking about things.

55:18

So, and if you make a commitment to something, then, you know, it, what happens as a result of that commitment again, human psychology says, oh, well, now

55:28

I'm going to be much more engaged in all the things you're talking about because I've somehow identified with it at a deeper level.

55:37

So I think that's part, part of it. And the missionaries do, they don't stay forever in one area.

55:42

They're, they're moved around kind of frequently, like the ones I was seeing, seeing this summer. They texted me one day and said,

55:49

Hey, we've been transferred. We're not going to be able to continue having conversations with you. We only got, I think through the third lesson, maybe, maybe the second lesson, because we had a lot of love tangents.

56:02

And so part of it is that sense of, look, we've got a fish on the hook. We ought to, we ought to reel them in.

56:08

Yeah. Yeah. So they want to talk to them again about creating an experience. Baptism is an experience.

56:14

Oh yeah. So it's a great point. Yeah. It makes me think at least with that screening, they're like, well, here's a, here's a false gospel and let me tell you how it is now, because now here's all the things you need to do.

56:26

Yeah, that's good. But are they actually fully disclosing? Everything is the question. No. What do you think that's not being disclosed?

56:33

Well, they don't disclose a lot of doctrine. They don't disclose esoterica. They don't disclose.

56:38

Whoa, wait, say that again. So esoterica was the things that are esoteric, things that are hidden. Okay. That's not a

56:44

Mormon term. I just kind of made that up. It sounds like a metal band name. Anyway, keep going.

56:52

I'm sorry. No, they don't, they don't disclose the things that are more confusing or more sensational or, or maybe more problematic for the person who, you know, who's investigating these things.

57:05

And, but they're pretty good about disclosing. I think most of the lifestyle obligations, they do talk about tithing.

57:12

Do you think that might be the one that's like, they sweep under the rug because nobody wants to give somebody money, but they do talk about those basic, they talk about temples.

57:21

They don't go into detail about the temple, but they talk about the importance of temples. And when you become a member, you'll be, you know, this is part of the deal.

57:29

And, um, so yeah, I think it's, I think it's pretty fair. Okay. Man. Okay.

57:36

So let's get into that last chapter and then let's go into what some of the differences are with the most recent preach my gospel manual.

57:42

So the last chapter is on missionary, uh, lesson five laws and ordinances.

57:50

What, what are those Ross? Well, basically they're trying to. It's really a continuation of the one on commandments and actually will pre to pre preliminary here to get into the next version.

58:03

They combined those two chapters. Oh, so those are, they're, they're really akin and it's makes it really, a really long chapter, but combine them.

58:10

But so basically they're talking about when they talk about ordinances, laws and orders are talking about, um, temple work and doing proxy ordinances for the dead.

58:23

We talked about the people who were in spirit prison and so forth and how important it is to redeem the dead and doing genealogy as part of that.

58:30

And so there's, there's this, there's two, there's 10 of two kinds of Mormonism. There's Mormonism is experienced in the local ward, which is the local congregation, and that's, you know, uh, you know, positive kind of environment, a family environment.

58:45

It's a community sense of community. It's public. Anybody could come and, and, but then there's also the

58:51

Mormonism that's practiced in the temple, which is esoteric, uh, which not anybody can walk in and which is secret.

58:58

And so it creates almost like two different churches because not everybody in the ward is qualified to go in the temple.

59:05

Oh, okay. You know, they don't, they're not worth quote, worthy enough to meet all the conditions to go into the temple. And so, um, so what's interesting is that now they're starting to introduce here that the temple aspect of it, the importance of the temple.

59:18

Again, they don't talk about the details of the temple because it's supposed to be sacred and it's not to be discussed outside of the boundaries of the temple walls.

59:27

Um, but that's, that's part of where, partly where they're going in this chapter is to say that there's these new things that you're going to experience and this is their importance.

59:36

This is where they fit. Um, and this is why we do them. It's interesting. Honestly, it, it, it makes me think of the psychology behind, um, fallen man and the desire for hidden knowledge and also the, uh, fleshly desire to be a part of something that is, um, more elite, something more, that is more exclusive.

01:00:03

It gives you a higher sense of self -worth. Um, and so, um, yeah, that's, it just, it's so, it's such a simple, it's such a stupid analogy, but I just even remember when

01:00:18

I was a child, I'd see the, the, the boys at my school walking around, they'd wear their

01:00:24

Cub Scout uniforms to school. And I said, I want to be a part of that. You know, you just, there's just something like they've got something different than me.

01:00:31

I want to be a part of that. And then there's something about going into a temple, doing rituals, um, walking in and it's my turn and it's exclusive and it's secret, uh, secretive.

01:00:44

Um, that's, that's alluring. That's attractive. Um, it's interesting though, obviously

01:00:50

I've met people who are no longer Mormons who have said that was when my faith in Mormonism first got rocked because it was so strange, but then others have said that was the moment where it validated a lot of my original desires, um, and made me feel a part of something bigger than myself.

01:01:08

So it's just, it's interesting where you get. That's a great observation. Yeah, man. It's so, uh, it's, it's interesting to think about the

01:01:17

God of the Bible offers all of himself to us, literally on the cross in his death.

01:01:23

Uh, and that's, that's him to us, but all false religion is all about what you give to God, right?

01:01:32

But the Bible is God gave all of him to us. And that's the most beautiful thing that it's not about what

01:01:37

I give to God. Anything I give back to God now is because the Holy spirit is in me testifying of the father and the son.

01:01:43

The work that he's done is prepared beforehand for me to walk in Ephesians two 10 by Jesus, given to Jesus to glorify

01:01:49

Jesus. I cast my crown at his feet. Uh, it's not done in terms of making me something before him.

01:01:57

When every false religion, it goes to, well, here is some secret knowledge and this is what you need to do in order to be different than what you were actually created to be.

01:02:06

Right. We always want to be more than the creature that we are. Uh, we want to be at the same level as the one who created us.

01:02:12

And it's the very same lie from the garden. It just repeats itself in different forms. That's why

01:02:17

Satan that masquerades as an angel of light. And it's a, it's, it's sad, but we have the answer, which is the gospel.

01:02:23

And we know that the gospel is what penetrates hearts. It's the keys to the kingdom. Right. And I like Ross, how you said that the new manual for preach my gospel isn't really different.

01:02:33

All they did was just combine chapters four and five into one chapter. Yeah. So we did after about two weeks after we sent the manuscript to the publisher, the

01:02:44

LDS church made an announcement. We thought, Oh my gosh, we're sunk. And they said they had created a new version of preach my gospel after 19 years.

01:02:54

So we thought, Oh boy, our book is suddenly obsolete. But you know, so we did some due diligence and looked into the book, into the new, it's on, it's available online through LDS church websites.

01:03:06

It'll be probably in print. Maybe right around the first of the year. So we, we said, we got to study this.

01:03:13

We got to diligently take a look at what they did. And, and we, we all agreed. All the right authors agreed.

01:03:19

There's nothing new here. And they, they follow much the same outline through the now four chapters that have five, but they all follow the chapter there for their chapter one is the same as the same topics, restoration and an apostasy.

01:03:33

And you know, it's chapter two is the same chapter four and five are combined. And they changed the structure of that just a little bit because now it's structured around, not just commandments, laws and ordinances.

01:03:44

It's now structured around. These are the covenants that you make when you're baptized. There's certain baptismal covenants, five of, or six of them.

01:03:52

I can't remember the details on that. And so they said that we're going to talk about it, but they take all the same content that they had in the old version and they just put it under a new headings, you know, essentially.

01:04:04

And so there's really nothing new in there, but we thought, okay, well, we have to deal with this. And, but we said, you know, really realistically there's nothing that's different about the content.

01:04:15

Now, what is different besides the structure you know, the chapter divisions and stuff, what

01:04:20

I noticed really stood out to me is really different. They change, they change some wording. They don't use the word apostasy anymore.

01:04:29

They use falling away because apostasy, I guess they get it. I guess they figured out for the younger generation, it's like a technical religious word or whatever.

01:04:39

They chose a word that more descriptive or a phrase is more descriptive about it. The main thing

01:04:44

I noticed is that this is written to a different audience generationally, and it's being presented by a different audience in terms of who are the missionaries now.

01:04:55

Does it have words like bet and no cap? This is the restored gospel, no cap.

01:05:02

We ain't, there ain't no bet. Not quite. It's not that far. It's not that far. Okay.

01:05:08

To look in terms of colloquialisms like that, but, but it does, it does follow the sense of what those kinds of things are getting at in the sense that.

01:05:17

Okay. So I thought, Oh, you have this sort of Gen Z group, whatever.

01:05:23

I don't know when I can't keep track of the alphabet of generations anymore, but you have these young people, they're going on a mission at age 18, age 19, whatever.

01:05:33

Um, and they have a different ethos that the culture of America, um, the postmodern secular has infected the culture of Mormonism for sure.

01:05:44

And you guys, this is why maybe one reason why everybody's got a different idea, right? Because if your idea is as good as my idea, you know, relativism, it totally.

01:05:53

So relativism fits in a lot of ways in more, but the point is that they've then they've, they don't, they don't open the door too much for that.

01:06:03

But what they do is that they've got these, this, these people who are going to be telling this message and they're doing it in, in kind of a tone and an attitude that they think that their people can, can own it also the audience.

01:06:17

So instead of the preach my gospel, the first version, it says, basically, here's the things that you need to do to live up to God's expectations.

01:06:28

It's, um, I don't know, it's, it's my English teacher from when I was growing up, here's the, you go, you gotta have, you know, these things in your essay.

01:06:37

But now they're saying like, oh, um, here's how you can experience

01:06:43

God's wonderful invitation to you and how you have all his blessings. It's the English teacher today that's saying, oh, you're all wonderful students and, and, and no, there's no rules.

01:06:52

And now there are rules in Mormonism. It's still there. It's all still there, but it's being framed more gently or more openly to a different, to the different audience.

01:07:03

And they do, you know, so I think it's a cultural change that's linked to generational changes in the culture around us, but it reads different.

01:07:12

It reads differently. The content's all the same. Um, our, so our book is still relevant, but it, but in terms of the attitude and the tone, it takes a different time to just wrap it with a different package.

01:07:22

Yeah, that's really all it is for sure. I mean, it makes sense too, in that, um, it seems like in our interactions, um, for younger people that works based or rule -based prescription commandment -based stuff is being less, um, uh, taught, taught or propagated maybe in Sunday school or at BYU or I don't,

01:07:47

I don't, I don't know. Or just repackaged. Or just repackaged. Yeah, I guess. And like that also, um, kind of spills over into repackaging what grace is for them because the whole

01:08:00

Brad Wilcox sort of idea and them trying to articulate a more biblical sounding grace.

01:08:07

But then when you simply ask after they say this wonderful thing that you can actually kind of agree with in some sense to a few things they said and go, wow.

01:08:15

Um, but then you go, so do I need to be baptized in this organization to have all that?

01:08:23

Yeah. Yes. Oh, right. It's sad. So it sounds great when it's kind of floating in midair and it's a great new theory and it makes them feel better.

01:08:35

I, and I'm not trying to be rude there. It's confusion, man. It's a spirit of confusion.

01:08:41

So they think that they're saying the right thing, but really they're just communicating the same thing that's been communicated for over a hundred years in just a different way.

01:08:51

Yeah, totally. So, so Wilcox, you know, Brad Wilcox, his, his whole, his speech, his famous speech, he gets circulated a lot.

01:08:57

You probably hear a lot. People referring to a lot. If you really dig down, you think about the audience he's speaking to, he's speaking to, uh, students,

01:09:06

Mormon students. If you really dig down all the conditionality that they associate with grace, it's all still there.

01:09:12

Yes. It's totally all still there. And if you look at the book of Mormon, which in, uh, the passage that he's quoting there, it's so conditional, even more so than he makes it sound like.

01:09:23

And so it hasn't gone anywhere. Um, but, but you're right. It's a way of framing it.

01:09:29

I think Mormonism has responded to the critiques of the

01:09:35

Christian world, not by changing, but by repackaging, like you said. So they're changing how they frame it so that it sounds just more like, you know, back to the, what we talked about earlier about how the words from they use

01:09:48

Bible words, but they use them for different, uh, with different definitions and that's their strategy, um, all along.

01:09:54

And this is, I think, yeah, it's, it's like the mother who's trying to get the child to eat more vegetables.

01:10:01

So in the spaghetti, you know, they add now more vegetables or blend them with the tomato sauce and go, finally, they're eating what they need, but the person, the child receiving it is none the wiser, you know, the vegetables are still there.

01:10:16

They're still there. Yeah. That's a good analogy. I mean, I like that. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation.

01:10:22

Uh, Pastor Ross and Pastor Wade, I thank both of you for your time. Uh, again, tell everyone what your book is called, where they can get it.

01:10:29

Yeah. The book is called Responding to the Mormon Missionary Message. And, um, it, it just came out recently in August and, um, it can be got, you can get it anywhere that people sell books, really any bookstore, a

01:10:45

Mormon missionary message .com tells more about it and tells maybe some of the specific places, but wherever you buy books, it's going to be available to be had or ordered.

01:10:55

Um, everywhere. Awesome. Well, praise God. Uh, if you are a

01:11:00

Christian and you have a heart for evangelism, go ahead and, uh, rent a Mormon, get them over to your door.

01:11:07

I've heard someone call it that Mormon rent or something, because you can get them over to your door and, uh, practice your skills of the gospel.

01:11:13

Uh, get this book, read it and be patient with them and help walk them through the truth, uh, and give them the gospel.

01:11:21

And let's pray that the Lord in due time creates more pressure on the Mormon organization to where they're not just redefining terms, but they actually come to a repentance, just like the worldwide church of God did, uh, and repented of Armstrong ism and went into the

01:11:36

Orthodox realm of Christianity. Let's pray that happens with the Mormon organization that they repent of false prophets, that they step down from being considered prophets and dismantle the whole organization and they follow the true

01:11:48

Christ with biblical grace. Let's pray for that. Cause I think in due time is the Lord puts pressure on them. I pray that that's something that will occur.

01:11:54

I know they would no longer be the Mormon organization, but, uh, Hey, I have hope that God does miracles, works miracles.

01:12:01

He destroyed one temple in 70 AD. What makes us think that he can't do it again? Right. So thank you everybody for being here on the second episode of our series here.

01:12:10

Uh, we'll see you next time as we enter into the kingdom of the Colts. What's up everybody. If you are blessed by this content and you want to support the gospel's proclamation to the

01:12:18

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