Witnessing to Mormons with Bill McKeever

It's fascinating to me how easily someone in one religion can find the fallacies and

biases in another religion.

I think that what's fascinating...

You're razor sharp on your criticism of Islam here.

Yeah.

But what I find fascinating, Jeff, is that you recognize that with other religions, but you don't do it with your

own.

Because I...

That may be the case.

And there's that confirmation bias coming up again.

Welcome to Apologetics Live.

We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible.

Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro and

Pastor Justin Pierce.

We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer any of your biblical questions, challenges,

whatever you might have for us today.

We're going to start off today's show talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter

-day Saints.

That's a mouthful.

Now, their current president got a revelation, kind of a weird revelation since he has always had

a problem with the word Mormon.

And so as soon as he became president, wouldn't you know, God gave him a revelation for what he has been trying to push

within the church for years, that God doesn't want them being called Mormon or LDS or anything other

than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.

But since we're only a two -hour show, we're going to say it a lot.

That's going to be a lot of the time.

Therefore, we're just going to say LDS or Mormon because it's much shorter.

If we do that, it is not to be offensive in any way.

It is not to be in any way trying to mock or anything like that.

It's just because it's much easier to say that.

So I'm just going to put that caveat right out in the beginning.

Before I bring Justin in, we do want to share some things just to give you guys updates.

If you want, we're running a Christmas special on the book, What Do We Believe?

It is a systematic theology of the Christian doctrine, Christian faith.

It is going to be, it's only about 200 pages, so it's not one of those real thick ones that it's intimidating.

We're having a 50 % off till the end of the year.

If you go to strivingforeternity .org, go to the store and you order it from there.

Use coupon code CHRISTMAS21.

That's CHRISTMAS21 is the coupon code, and that will get you half off of that book.

If you want to buy a whole bunch of them as Christmas presents, we encourage you to do that.

And so that's one announcement we're going to make.

A second announcement before I bring Justin in is we're going to do something as a post show discussion.

We're going to try something out.

We're trying out a new app that they're, it's a, basically they

reached out to me and said that I was one of the, in the podcast community,

I'm a top mentor.

And so they reached out to me and offered me to work with this app and they're trying to get it promoted.

And so it's called Wisdom.

And so what you could do on your phone, even right now is pull out your phone, go to the app store,

look for the Wisdom app.

This is sort of like, to me, it seems like live talk radio

where anyone can come in.

And so after the show, we're going to try this out.

We're going to do a post show.

And so what you do is download the Wisdom app and you can just look for me at Andrew Rappaport.

You'll find my profile.

So once you have that right after the show, I'm going to, I'll give me a couple of minutes.

I'll go live there and you can come in and people can join in and get 10 minutes to discuss

anything.

So that's what we're going to try to do.

So you can, you know, it's going to be right, so as soon as we end this show, we're going to do that

and I'll be able to take questions there as well.

There won't be any videos.

So for the people who don't like to have their face, they don't want to come in because, and I know some of you, you like to ask

questions in chat, so you don't have to be on camera.

This one is using your phone.

So the microphones will work that Bill McKeever, who is going to be our guest tonight is probably really glad at that because we spent

like 20 minutes trying to get his mic working.

So that should work.

If your phone works, it'll sure work.

And so check that, check us out on Wisdom.

We'll try to remember to mention it later.

So Pastor Justin, how are you doing this evening?

Well, let's try that again.

I'm doing wonderful.

How are you?

Yeah.

Unmuting yourself.

Unmuting works.

It's always a professional thing.

So let's give an update real quick.

Last week we had a debate.

There was something we promised we would do.

There were many Filipinos that were upset that we did this debate thinking we're giving credibility to a false

teacher down there.

And I just want to show some current rankings.

This is from DuckDuckGo.

If you type in Ray's name of his ministry,

you now see that he no longer holds the number one spot on Google

or on DuckDuckGo.

I could probably make that a little larger.

But if we make that larger and wider, you can see that

the very first thing that appears when you do a search is our post debate.

That post debate was less than 24 hours.

That's how quick Striving for Eternity gets hit with our rankings,

with the SEO we have, that we can suddenly jump right within less than a day.

Then we have his YouTube channel and his Facebook.

And then here is an article that you wrote, Justin, and I want to encourage everyone to do this.

Would you go out right now to strivingforeternity .org, obviously in a separate window than the

one you're watching, but look up Justin's article, Why in the World Are You Debating RA Fuentes?

So check that out.

And the reason I want you to do that is I want you to go and read Justin's

article and then share it with folks because that's the article we actually want to get in the number one spot.

We want to get that article to be the very first thing that anyone sees.

So if you guys could do us that favor and share that, that would be wonderful.

Of course, read it first.

Yeah, that'd be good.

I appreciate that.

You can leave a comment on there as well.

Let us know that you saw it.

Well, I don't think they can leave a comment on the blog article.

We don't have...

Little thing says leave comment.

I don't know what that is.

Oh.

I don't know.

I don't think...

Well, I don't know.

I'm going to go look.

Yeah.

Now you got to look at it because it says comment.

You know, it says so.

I think we have...

Yeah.

You need to tell everybody to leave comments if they can.

That's great.

Yeah.

Well, let's see.

Maybe we will have comments there.

So now you threw me off and I'm trying to think, oh, I'm trying to go through all the announcements we have

and I'll have to make some more later because, yeah.

I repent.

You're good at messing me up.

So let's bring in brother Bill McKeever.

Bill, welcome to Striving for Eternity.

Thank you, Andrew.

How are you guys doing?

Good.

Good.

So Bill is with MRM .org, Mormon Research Ministry.

Mormonism.

Mormonism Ministry.

Yeah.

Which, you know, now you have agreed you're not going to change the name of your organization just because of what the president has said, correct?

No.

I figure if enough LDS leaders of the past have used that word and God didn't seem

to be too ticked off back then, why should he be ticked off now?

So you and I met, I guess we first met, you were doing a apologetics cruise.

Yes.

The first that we met.

And I think a mutual friend of ours, I don't know that we want to admit to that, but Matt

Slick.

The birthday boy.

Today's Matt's birthday.

Oh, we've got to do happy birthday to Matt.

That's right.

Yeah.

You know, I think, you know what I think Matt should do for his birthday, Bill?

I think he should buy you a meal.

I think he should.

You know, actually, Bill, you probably haven't heard this one.

So let me play this.

It's only 16 seconds long, but you'll appreciate this because you'll get this joke.

But this was, this was what happened during one of, uh, Matt Slick was on a podcast and this happened.

Was Andrew the one that helped you get the podcast back up?

Yeah.

He did get the podcast.

He didn't help me.

He did it.

Don't you think you owe him a dinner for that?

Oh no, he didn't.

Got him.

So, yeah, that, that actually happened to Matt, but Matt did get me back.

Did you hear about that?

I heard something about that.

He was, he was pretty excited about that.

I remember you guys in Ephraim at that, that little Chinese restaurant that we love to go to in Ephraim

and, uh, you guys going back and forth.

The poor waitress and the lady, I think that owns that place probably thought we were nuts.

Yeah, that, that was, I want to get this playing for a second, but I don't want to, cause that's what we're going to play

next.

Um, yeah, that was, yeah, that was a lot of fun when Matt couldn't pay for the meal at

Ephraim and the Chinese place or at the McDonald's or actually anywhere.

You need to explain.

He wanted to, which you wouldn't have him, you know, he tried to, he actually got to that Chinese restaurant like 20 minutes before,

just so he can work it out with the manager who he didn't work it out with was the cashier.

I'm just proud that I'm kind of the originator of this whole problem, you know, I mean, when we went out and he was

going to take me to lunch and he forgot his wallet and no problem.

So he takes me out again cause he forgot his wallet the last time and he forgot it again.

Well, after two times I knew I had him, he's mine.

So, so Matt, you, you guys and you guys, you and Matt have been working together for a long time.

And, uh, I, I think even that one, he didn't, he like, he stole a article or something off.

Of your website and then some artwork, artwork.

I had an artist do a rendition of a Moroni blowing his trumpet and I

didn't care, he's always talking about taking my

stuff.

Yeah.

And so you had Matt as a, one of the keynote for that cruise and then, uh, Matt

encouraged you to invite me on and I came and we did quite a bit of speaking and we, we

got to get to know each other pretty well on that cruise.

And I discovered, I mean, I have always, and I'm sure you're not going to have any problem with me

saying this.

I've always thought that Sandra Tanner is probably knows more about Mormonism than any living person.

Oh, I think you're right.

I think you're right.

And, uh, but, but I've, I've also said that you're, you under, after Sandra Tanner, I don't know

anybody who knows Mormonism as well as you do.

Uh, Sandra grew up in Mormonism.

You did not.

No, I didn't.

So that's going to be a thing that comes out cause I think we'll wind up asking that.

But before we get into the show with this part of it, because Pastor Justin had

questions for you and wanted to learn better how to witness to him.

But I think, I think that someone sent this to me and you know, anytime I asked you guys if we could play

some Lutheran satire because, well, that's just always good to have.

So, um, let's see if we can play some loose and satire.

Here we go.

Hey Satan.

Oh, Hey, what's up Krampus?

Well, I heard you just designed another human suit where you're going to look like a faithful Christian preacher and then trick people into

believing soul destroying heresy.

Is that true?

Oh yeah, dude.

It's amazing.

Super tricky.

Gonna fool everybody.

Wow.

So is it like a humble monk or something?

Nah, dude.

I got something even more trustworthy.

Check this out.

What do you think?

What the hell is that?

I know, right?

No one's going to know.

It's me.

Wait, you're serious with that thing?

Yeah.

Why?

Uh, because you look 1000 % demon possessed.

Dude, are you saying I don't look like a trustworthy Christian?

I'm saying you look like you ate a trustworthy Christian and then wore his skin to a Lawrence Welk taping.

Really?

You look like Sir Hiss from Disney's Robin Hood had a baby with a well -dressed Chucky doll.

Come on, man.

For real?

You look like somebody shaved me, stuffed me in a circus cannon, and fired me through a men's warehouse.

Yeah, but looks won't stop people from thinking I'm speaking the word of God, right?

Unless you completely offset them with your voice, they will.

What are you going to sound like?

Like this?

Straw!

Child's win!

Heat!

I'm not missing that dedication in Jerusalem.

Are you kidding me?

You can't talk like that.

Why not?

Because you sound like a fairytale villain casting spells over a bubbling cauldron.

What book of the Bible are people going to listen to you preach on?

St. Paul's Guide to Murdering Blonde Princesses?

I don't sound that bad, do I?

You sound like if Gargamel played the closeted gay serial killer fundamentalist preacher on every third

episode of Law Order Special Victims Unit.

But what if I have a really pious aura to me?

What if I surround myself with a bunch of stuff that makes me feel like a really faithful Christian?

Like if you hung out with the poor and shunned the luxuries of this life?

I mean, I guess that might work.

No, I was thinking more like... He made that airplane so cheap for me, I couldn't help but buy it.

Oh man.

Okay, maybe we're overthinking this.

Let's just forget the whole suit thing and maybe use this whole quarantine fiasco to destroy people's faith.

Oh, speaking of that, guess what I'm going to say to people who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus?

Whatever you do right now, don't you stop tithing.

Satan, come on!

This guy you've invented is so transparently evil, there's no way that people will listen to him.

Yeah, I think they will.

No, they won't.

Pretty sure they will.

No, dude, they absolutely will not.

They just gave me 500 million dollars.

What?

Why?

Dude, humans are so enslaved by mammon and pleasure that they automatically see earthly prosperity as a

sign that they've earned the love of God that they fear was not fully given to them as a free gift in the blood of

Jesus.

Thus, they will immediately throw all their money and trust in you if you promise them health and wealth in

return.

Seriously, man, it works every time.

Even if you look, sound, and act like...

Like if someone stuffed Ebeneezer Scrooge and Charlie Sheen inside a half -melted ventriloquist

dummy?

Yeah, exactly.

Everybody take my money.

I got damaged ears.

Come tell me all the things my sinful nature wanna hear.

Wow.

I haven't seen that one.

Someone just sent that one to me.

So Satan is gonna dress himself as none other than Kenneth Copeland.

Look, I blame Justin Peters for this because...

He sent that to you?

No, but you know what I did get yesterday thanks to Justin Peters?

A Kenneth Copeland calendar.

Justin wanted to go to Kenneth Copeland's conference, so I signed us up, and now I get on his

mailing list and get all this stuff.

I bet that cost a lot of money, probably about as much as we've been hiding in the back of a toilet, right?

Yeah, well, that's it.

You're right.

So folks that don't know that story, someone robbed Joel Osteen's church.

$600 ,000.

In 2014, and they never caught anybody.

There was a plumber working in the bathroom at the church and had to remove paneling or something,

and found 500 envelopes of cash.

And that was the $600 ,000 of stolen money.

Why they hid it there, who knows what was going on.

So we do have a super chat, so we always put those up.

So Cole robbed $5 and said, I'm dying.

Now why'd you take it away?

I can't finish reading it.

I'm sorry about that.

I'll put it back up.

I'm dying.

Look up, judgment on COVID goes metal.

So I'll have to look that up later.

Thank you for the $5 donation.

So let's get into, Justin, why don't you explain why you were

asking about witnessing to Mormons.

And then we want to just kind of badger Bill with as many questions as we possibly can in a two hour.

No, we'll be nice.

Well, brother, I want to know everything you've got in your mind.

I mean, if you lay it out, I will listen to this a hundred times.

I can tell you've got five minutes to spare.

I could do that.

And I'll tell you why.

Just for the audience, for everybody, for yourself, to my

knowledge, there are literally no Mormons in my area, and I don't know that there ever have been.

So while I've researched them a little bit, nothing worth

noting, I've read a little bit on them.

I've read the Book of Mormon, like I told you probably 15 years ago.

A family just moved into our community and is now, their children are friends with our

children and I care about them.

I want them to know the gospel.

And all the research I've done says that a large majority of Mormons, when they leave

because they get disenfranchised after some time, a lot do, I don't know that all do, but a lot.

When they become disenfranchised, they become atheist and

agnostic, turn away from God completely, and they just harden their hearts, shut down, and

walk away.

I want to be able to reason with them.

I've shared the gospel with them, but I want to be able to get more in depth with things that

I can actually hold on to tight and talk with them and help them.

I want them to see their error, but I also want them to see that just because they're in error,

that doesn't mean that there is no truth.

I want to guide them to the truth of the Word of God, and I want to see God save them.

I think that's all of our hearts, is to see

people come to Christ and be saved.

That's the reason I asked Andrew, I reached out and asked Andrew, I said, do we know somebody?

And he said, well, I happen to know this guy.

I happen to know this guy.

Well, certainly there are some significant differences between our

traditions, as they would say.

I mean, let's be serious.

They have as a fundamental doctrine of their church, this idea of what they call a complete

apostasy.

In other words, sometime after the death and resurrection of Christ,

the Christian church fell into this complete state of apostasy, where it doesn't mean that there was no

truth at all still in existence, but enough truth in order to get the best

that they feel God has for his creation was certainly lost, and the means of getting it,

certainly through priesthood authority and things like that.

So there are some significant differences.

And I think what's frustrating for me is when I'm talking with a Latter -day Saint, and they try to tell me,

well, we're Christians just like you, you're Christians just like me, things like that, as if there's

really not that big of a deal, and that we're making too much of an issue of this.

And certainly to have the doctrine of the complete apostasy, I think sounds pretty serious.

I mean, if my church is, as it has been said, part of what's called

the church of the devil, and when they say that in the Book of Mormon,

it's not necessarily speaking to one type of church.

It's basically speaking of all churches who are leading people away from what the LDS

church claims to be truth, and of course is preventing people from getting to what's known as the

celestial kingdom.

So first of all, we have to understand there's significant differences.

So asking a question about that might be a good way to kind of break the ice.

In other words, get on a level playing field here.

And because sometimes a Latter -day Saint will say, well, do you think we're a cult?

And of course, I don't like using the C word when I'm talking with a Latter -day Saint.

It's a pejorative term.

I get that.

But usually when I have a Latter -day Saint ask me a question, something like that, I'll say, well, why would you think

people think that?

In other words, I want them to tell me why they think something is as it

is.

They may have a completely different understanding than what I might be thinking they're thinking.

So asking them a question, asking them questions, plural, to find out where they

are on some issues I find is always very helpful.

I often say whenever I speak in a church on this subject, one of the biggest problems that we have as evangelicals is we

want to tell people what they believe rather than have them tell us what they believe.

I don't like people telling me what they think I believe as a Christian.

I would much rather keep the conversation going as long as I can.

And usually the best way to do that is by asking questions.

And so I find that most Latter -day Saints don't have a problem with that.

I've gone to Latter -day Saints and I say, you know, I've heard this about what your church teaches.

What's your position on this?

What do you think?

And I find Latter -day Saints, they love telling me what they believe.

And they may not be as candid sometimes as I would like them to be.

They might not go into the real depths of Mormonism and maybe even wouldn't even

admit to me that they believe in a complete apostasy because they're trying very hard to cozy up to me

and sound friendly to me.

And of course, the idea of a complete apostasy sounds very negative.

And it is.

But usually asking questions I find is the best thing because you'd be surprised

how much, especially what I experience here in Utah.

There is so much what we call folklore, LDS folklore going on

that many times I'll be talking with a Latter -day Saint and I'll just simply ask them, I've never heard that before.

Where did you get that?

And it's usually never, well, I shouldn't say never, but it's not often things that they get from

their own books or scriptures, I should say, or the teachings from their leadership.

It's just something that they've kind of mulled over in a conclusion they came to.

And because they think it's true, therefore it is.

And that's what's really tough is when you're talking to an individual who thinks everything they think is true just

because they think it and because it feels good to them.

I've had Latter -day Saints tell me that they know something is true because it feels good to them.

And that's a horrible way to determine truth, that's for sure.

And so I guess just to put it simply, it's just caring

about them as an individual, wanting to know what they maybe think about us,

that's sometimes a good way to go.

There's a number of ways you can go with this, but asking questions is always first and foremost on my list.

I never accuse a Latter -day Saint of believing anything, really.

Well, let's get into one of the things, Bill, because for some folks, maybe this is brand new.

They don't know much about what Mormons believe.

You talked about the idea of the emotion, which is really a big part if we're going to talk about witnessing to Mormons.

That is a major thing, right?

I mean, the thing they're always going to go to, especially if you ask them some questions, they're going to go to what they're

going to call their testimony.

And that's really an emotional appeal to bring them back to something that they feel like, okay, this is something I can just trust in this.

So if you could, just for some folks, give an overview of what

Mormonism believes at a high level, and then we can

Well, let's go back to the beginning.

The church was officially founded in 1830, started by a man named Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith had no real formal religious education.

You might say he had what we would call a backwoods type of religion.

Not very consistent in a lot of ways, I would say.

But anyway, he claims that he went to a revival, or I should say there were

revivals taking place in the area where he lived in Palmyra, New York.

Now, he says officially, and this is in his 1838 history that's found in

their scriptures, and he claims that there was a religious revival in the area where

he lived, in Palmyra, New York.

This revival apparently ended badly, where a lot of the churches that were

involved started arguing as to where the new converts were going to attend

church permanently.

And so, of course, it came to an abrupt halt.

Well, Joseph Smith gives the impression that he was very confused by what he saw in these quote

-unquote parties of religionists and the disagreements that they had.

He said that he was concerned and wondered which church was true.

So he decided to pray about it.

He takes James 1 .5, where it says, If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and

upbraideth not.

So he decides to take James 1 .5 as his text, and he goes out to pray, asking God which of

all the churches are true.

He said that he was visited by two personages, and these personages spoke to

him.

One says to the other, this is my beloved son, hear him.

Well, obviously, who's showing up?

Well, you're supposed to draw the conclusion it's God the Father, of course, and Jesus Christ.

So when Joseph starts asking these questions, he's told by these

personages that all the churches are wrong, that their creeds are an abomination, and their professors are all corrupt.

And he's told not to join any of the churches because of this.

So you could say he leaves those woods, feeling that, well, something's got to be

true.

I mean, something's got to happen here.

There's got to be a true church.

So he feels, I guess you could say from that point on, that God's called him to start this true church.

And so that's what he does.

In fact, even in the Doctrine and Covenants, which is part of their scripture, Section 1, says that this is the

only church on earth, that the LDS church is the only true church on earth, the only church that God is well -pleased.

And so that's the position that they hold.

All the other churches are a part of this great apostasy.

As I said, a Mormon might try to be very polite to you and say, well, all churches have some

truth.

It's just we have all truth or we have enough truth in order to get the best

that God has for his creation.

So that's the real pitch.

And I think this is why, getting back to the statistic that you were citing, that many Latter -day Saints,

when they leave the church, drift off into agnosticism or atheism, because many of them, and I've

actually heard Latter -day Saints say this, that if the church isn't true, no church

is.

Or if the church isn't true, there is no church.

And they really believe this.

And what makes it difficult in talking with them is that the

well, you might say, of the Bible, for instance, has already been poisoned because in

Article 8, in their Articles of Faith, they say that they believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as

it's translated correctly.

What does this mean?

Well, to most Latter -day Saints, it means this.

It means to them that if you bring up a Bible verse that seems to conflict with what they already believe or what

their church has taught, there's a good chance that that Bible verse is not trustworthy.

Either it's not translated accurately or, in my opinion, I think to be more correct, they think

it was not transmitted correctly.

And the reason why I make a distinction between the two is because even though Article 8 says we believe the Bible as far

as it's translated correctly, I think most scholars in the LDS church would probably agree with me that

that really should be understood more as a badly transmitted

text.

That over the years, evil men purposely

made alterations in the text when it was being handwritten and copied down through the centuries,

or maybe they made some innocuous changes that they didn't mean to.

But in other words, by the time it gets down to us, the manuscripts that we

have are not to be trusted.

So even if it is a good translation, it would be a good translation of a bad transmission.

In other words, the big question mark is put over the Bible.

That's not done when it comes to the Book of Mormon.

It's not done when it comes to the Doctrine and Covenants.

They take all those as being translated accurately.

This is really what God wants us to know from him when it comes to the revelations and such in the Doctrine and

Covenants.

But the Bible is the one text that they call part of their standard works,

and they use officially the King James Version.

But that is the one text that comes with a huge cloud or a huge question mark on it.

Sometimes when talking with Latter -day Saints, and they'll try to say that, well, this Bible verse can't be trusted,

I'm not so sure that it was translated accurately.

Sometimes it's best to ask them how they came to that conclusion, and you would like them to share that

information with you and see if you can discuss this.

Because as Christians, of course, we haven't heard that kind of stuff before, and we

pretty much trust the Bible that we have.

We know that there were things, glitches, you might say, in the text going down through the years,

but we have ways of knowing what they are.

And so that's not a big deal to us.

But to a Latter -day Saint, if the Bible is not to be trusted, you can see why it would be difficult to

show them some of these verses, to get them to believe some of these verses, especially since their leaders

have told them that, well, we're not quite sure that the Bible is as accurate as those

evangelical neighbors of yours think it might be.

That's going to be a big mountain right there, I would think.

It is.

It's not insurmountable, but it's more the individual that you're talking

to.

Does he even want to know this?

You see, there's a question that I'll sometimes ask Latter -day Saints if I know I'm going to have a pretty lengthy conversation with

them.

And that is, for one, do you believe it honors God to believe something that's not true?

And sometimes it's interesting.

It takes a while for the Latter -day Saint to answer that question for me.

But I'll patiently wait and I'll think about it.

And eventually what they do is they'll go, no, I don't think it honors God to believe something that's not true.

I go, good.

Next question would be, well, if you happen to believe something that wasn't true, how would you know?

How would you know it's not true?

Good question.

For us as Christians, that's a pretty easy answer.

Well, if it doesn't conform to what the Bible says, and I'm believing something the opposite, then I'm in the wrong

here.

That's how we tend to know what is theologically true and such.

But the Latter -day Saints, it's not so easy because that personal testimony we were talking about, that feeling

that they have, that feeling tells them that something is true or something is false.

And I've actually had Latter -day Saints tell me if it feels good, it's true.

If it doesn't feel good, it's false.

Well, think about that kind of logic.

If you're talking with a Latter -day Saint, and let's say you bring up something that disagrees with LDS

theology, do you think that person is really going to feel good about that?

No, not at all, because you just contradicted something that they think is true.

Nobody likes having their truth claims challenged.

And certainly when our truth claims are challenged, especially if we don't have an answer, we don't feel good about that.

Well, you can see if that's your determinant for truth, you're going to run into some problems here.

And so that method of determining truth is obviously very, very flawed.

I had a conversation just yesterday or the day before,

and this Latter -day Saint woman was saying that she knew the church was true and she would never leave

the LDS church because she knew it was true.

And I wanted so badly, and I didn't say it because I knew it would be taken as being rude, but I so wanted to let her know.

I've heard so many ex -Mormons who said that at one time.

They really felt the church was true.

But what happened in the meantime?

Well, I think it's because evidence became important to them.

And what I mean by that is it's evidence that's going to show the Latter -day Saint that

something's wrong.

I can't deal with their feelings.

I don't have any control over that.

The only way I can work is through the evidence, and I allow the Holy Spirit to do the work.

I've often said I'm in sales, not production.

I can't do anything more than that.

I'm only here to present the message, and I let the Holy Spirit do the rest here.

It's not going to be by any type of eloquence that I might have.

And believe me, and I tell this to a lot of people, I've had many a palm -to -the -forehead moments when I walk away from a

conversation wondering, Why did I say that?

Did I have to say that?

Could I have said this a little bit better?

But Lord, use this donkey of a believer and try to bring something good out of it.

Ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit that's going to do the convicting.

And I find I felt so much better when I really started to learn that.

And it's not really up to me.

But still, it doesn't absolve us of the responsibility we have as Christians to try to

present the best case we can possibly present in the best way we can

present it.

So I'm very sensitive to that.

I've not always lived up to my own standards, but I try very hard and I hope I learn from

my mistakes, as I hope all of us will learn from our mistakes.

But I think one thing for sure is, if we can show that we have

something that the Latter -day Saint needs, I think that's a good conversation.

Can I ask you?

Sure.

Okay.

Dealing with their emotional reasoning for where they find truth or how they

find truth, I'm familiar with the burning in the bosom thing from Joseph Smith.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Because I'm thinking one of the directions to go to is, based on your questions here, would be something along

the lines of, we believe that the Bible is God's final authority, and our opinions and

beliefs must conform to God's word.

And the question I would ask is, do you agree, and you need to correct me if I'm wrong on this,

but do you agree that Joseph Smith taught that you could know truth from the burning in the bosom?

And the next follow -up question would be, do you believe that truth is found in physical emotion?

Well, again, it depends on the Latter -day Saint you're talking to.

Some would most certainly think so.

Although I've talked to a lot of Latter -day Saints who take the written word very seriously.

I've challenged a lot of Latter -day Saints when it comes to some of the Bible verses that they might not believe

readily without spinning them and trying to make them work, that they are willing to look at them.

I'm not saying that all Latter -day Saints don't take evidence seriously.

I think many do.

And many of those are the ones who come out of the LDS Church when they start looking at what they've been

told and what the evidence is showing, and they realize we have a problem here.

I can give you a good example of this.

Back in 2013, the LDS Church started producing these gospel topics

essays.

And they were meant to answer a lot of the questions that LDS members were having.

Many of these questions being raised by their non -LDS acquaintances.

And so they would take these questions, let's say, to their bishop, and the bishop wouldn't have an answer.

The bishop would take it maybe to a stake president.

They wouldn't have an answer.

It's where finally people were starting to lose their faith in the Mormon Church because they were basically

being told, well, just don't talk to that person anymore or just pray about it and hope the feeling goes

away.

Well, this started having some real negative effects on the membership.

So the church realized that they needed to come up with some answers, that just

saying pray about it wasn't good enough any longer.

It wasn't really meeting the needs in the membership.

So they started coming out with these gospel topics essays.

Originally there were 13 of them.

And they covered all sorts of topics such as are Mormons Christians, race in the

priesthood, because the LDS Church has a history of not allowing Blacks to hold the priesthood up until

1978, dealing with plural marriage.

I think there were three.

Three of the essays dealt with plural marriage alone and how the Book of Mormon was

translated, the seer stone.

That was a big issue.

And here's what's fascinating.

Even though these essays were written to hopefully answer a lot of the

questions of really confused Latter -day Saints that were wanting some answers, it

started to work against them.

And this is why.

As the church was being more and more transparent, and I do credit them with that.

I've said that many times on my own radio show.

I credit them for being more transparent.

They certainly have been more transparent than they have in the past.

They could be a lot more transparent.

But here's how it worked.

The church was being honest in a lot of these historical aspects and a lot of these theological aspects

to where the members reading this were kind of shocked because a lot of the

things that the church was now admitting to, you could say, were things that people like myself had

been saying for 30 years.

And it's nice to know that the church is finally getting up to speed on this.

But what it actually did, Justin, is it really gave ministries such as

ours and others that deal with the Latter -day Saint people, it gave us a lot of street cred

because we were saying this all along.

We had our ducks in a row.

We had our evidence to back it up.

And even though these members had been told that these were just lies from the devil and enemies of

the church, now the church itself is admitting to what they thought were

always lies.

And the problem stems from the fact that they were finding out about this information

more from outsiders.

And they were wondering, well, why was it that the church did not tell me this from the beginning?

Why did I hear this from the outside?

And then later on, now the church starts admitting all this stuff.

It caused a real crisis in the faith of a lot of Latter -day Saints.

Eric and I worked with a couple, and they're in their 80s.

They've been in the church, the LDS church, all their life.

And it was because of the Gospel Topics Essays that they wanted to come and talk to us.

And basically they were saying, what I'm learning in the Gospel Topics Essays, that's not the church I

thought I belonged to.

And here they are admitting all this stuff now.

It caused them to have a real faith crisis.

And I can understand that.

And let me just say, Justin, real quick, when Bill's referring to Eric, that's Eric Johnson, who he works

with at mrm .org, Mormonism Research Ministry.

Just take for granted that we all know.

Yeah, sorry about that.

Doesn't everybody know Eric anymore?

Well, you know, we did talk to Eric and talk about him a lot.

We were talking about the Israel trip, but that fell through.

Yeah, well, that fell through.

But I know nothing on that topic.

We start getting Bill on talking about Americans.

Bill's actually a little bit of an American history buff.

And so—.

I'm strictly amateur.

Let me—.

But we had a question that came in from Brian Harris.

And sorry that covers up your face there, Bill, because he asked a lot of information there, but we could read it.

Brian is actually an evangelism friend of mine, goes way back.

We used to do some evangelism out in California together.

And we'd always try to get together when we were in the same area.

But Brian asks this.

He says, hey, Andrew, Brian Harris here, which we kind of know, because he figured out how to allow Facebook to show his

name so we could read it.

Yeah, his name's not Facebook user.

Yeah.

So it says, there are a multitude of types of discussions we can have with Mormons.

Archeology, comparing scripture with the Book of Mormon, et cetera.

What's your recommendation to lead with?

I've been witnessing regularly to each new group of missionaries in my town.

So, Bill, let me throw that over to you because you know more about this than I do.

Where would you start?

Well, he's right.

There's a lot of things that you can bring up.

There are some things I probably would not bring up.

I don't usually go after the credibility of Joseph Smith right off the bat, because I know

Latter -day Saints are very protective of Joseph Smith.

But I'll tell you the one topic that I'm pretty much known for going after is the issue of

forgiveness.

The way I look at it is Mormonism is not worth anything if you don't know, because of

it, you don't know if you're forgiven or not.

And, of course, forgiveness is absolutely essential, even in Mormon theology, if a Latter -day Saint hopes to get to

the celestial kingdom.

There's three levels of glory.

The celestial is at the top.

Within the celestial kingdom, there are three other levels, and you need to get to the top third level, top level,

I should say, in the celestial kingdom.

Then there's the terrestrial kingdom, the telestial kingdom, and then they have in their theology what's called outer

darkness.

And the only ones going to outer darkness would be the devil and his angels, which, according to

Mormon theology, are all our brothers and sisters in the preexistence, the spirit world.

The devil and his angels are going to outer darkness, as well as sons of perdition.

Sons of perdition would be someone, let's say, who was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ

of Latter -day Saints, left the church with full knowledge, knowing it's true, and fought

against the church, knowing it's true, and died in that condition.

I don't know, well, at least I could say I never met anybody who left the church, knowing it's true, and

fought against it, knowing it's true.

I've met many people who have left thinking it was false, but not true.

But I don't even think a Latter -day Saint could qualify to be a son of perdition, but it is used as a threat.

If a Latter -day Saint was thinking of leaving the church, well, you don't want to do that.

You could become a son of perdition, you'll go to outer darkness.

And of course, that scares them into staying back in the church.

But the question I like to ask is about their personal forgiveness.

If they were to die right now, do they have the assurance that

all their sins are forgiven, all their sins are forgiven, and that if they were to die and be judged, that they

would qualify to go to the celestial kingdom?

I've had some Latter -day Saints say yes.

I like to tell the story of one guy I was talking to who told me he was sure he was going to the celestial kingdom,

knew he was keeping all the commandments.

The problem for him was his wife was standing right next to him.

I just turned to her and she's like rolling her eyes, you know, like, no, I doubt it.

But most of the time, Latter -day Saints don't know.

They'll say, well, I hope so.

I think so, maybe, or in many cases, I've had Latter -day Saints tell me outright,

no, they're not qualified.

Because the church has a lot of different definitions for words that we use,

such as even salvation.

In Mormonism, salvation is like two -tiered.

There's a general salvation, which is really nothing more than resurrection from the dead.

And then you have individual salvation, which is eternal life or godhood, celestial

exaltation.

That must be worked for.

General salvation, we don't have to do anything for that.

We can be atheists.

We can live terrible lives.

We're all going to be resurrected.

And biblically, that's true too.

However, Jesus did say there are two resurrections, one to eternal life and one to condemnation.

And this is why I find it odd when I hear Latter -day Saint leaders saying that being

resurrected from the dead is akin to being saved by grace.

That doesn't seem to make sense in light of what Jesus said.

How can you be saved by grace and to condemnation?

That doesn't make any sense at all.

But the fact is most Latter -day Saints don't know where they're going after they die.

They know they're probably going to one of three levels, but they couldn't tell you for sure where they're headed.

They'll usually use an excuse like, well, we'll all find out on the judgment day or it's up to

God or something like that.

But they can never really have an assurance that they know they are going to the

celestial kingdom.

And I think the reason why is because the requirements in order to get into the

celestial kingdom are so high.

According to the Doctrine and Covenants, it says in section 1, verse 32, that

first you must repent, keep the commandments, then you're forgiven.

Now, I'm not against keeping the commandments.

I mean, I love that quote by Spurgeon where he said something to the effect that once you know you're justified, go out and keep all the

commandments and do all the good works you want to do, have at it.

But it's our keeping commandments, it's our good works that don't justify us.

In a Mormonism, they most certainly do.

They take justification and sanctification and they mix them up.

Once you do that, you can never know if you've done enough.

Both are important, but you can't mix them up.

I love that statement by J .C. Ryle where he talks about this is why so many people don't know where they're going when they die

is because they mix up what justifies and what sanctifies us.

Well, unfortunately, because there are so many things that a Latter -day Saint must do, narrow down

to these two points, repentance and keep the commandments.

What does that mean?

How has that been interpreted by LDS leaders?

Well, repentance in LDS theology is basically confessing the

sin, forsaking the sin, never to return to that sin again.

If you return to the sin again, you never really repented in the first place.

So you could say, according to Mormon theology, that you can really only effectively

repent of a sin one time.

Because if you ever committed again, you never really repented.

Well, let's just look at our own personal lives.

We're all fallen creatures.

And as much as I wish I could repent in that kind of a definition, never to repeat

that sin again, if I ask, well, how many sins must I do that with?

They'll say all of them.

Well, who's doing that?

Sinless perfection.

Yes, exactly.

Especially when you have the Book of Mormon and Alma chapter 5 saying you have to be stripped of pride.

And if you're not stripped of pride, you're not prepared to die.

Well, I think that would probably disqualify 99 .9 % of all of us.

We all have pride issues in some area.

And you can see why that would be problematic.

And then when you get to commandments, well, how many commandments must a Latter -day Saint keep?

You ask them.

And I've done this.

I've asked them, how many commandments must I keep?

They'll say, well, you have to keep all of them.

I go, really?

How often must I keep them?

They'll say all the time.

Wow, that would be a good lead -in.

Oh, yeah.

And what I do is I'll respond by saying, wow.

I go, well, how are you doing at this?

They're not.

They're not.

In fact, I've actually used this line, Justin, where I said, I've never met a Latter -day Saint who's

going to the celestial kingdom.

Maybe you're the first one.

Can I ask you a couple questions?

Oh, that's good.

That's really good.

And usually after the first couple questions, it's clear they don't think they're going.

Would you talk to them about the second Nephi?

I don't know exactly where it's at, but you had said.

Second Nephi 2523.

Okay, so that's saved after all you can do.

Yeah.

That seems like a really.

Okay.

Yes, please.

I have it.

And it says, for we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children and also our brethren to believe in

Christ and to be reconciled to God.

For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, comma, after

all we can do.

Now, this verse, it's interesting how this verse, when you have

an LDS leader interpreting it, what this means, they basically interpret it

as they read it.

Okay.

In other words, you're going to be saved by grace, but only that grace that forgives you, that

grace doesn't kick in until you've done everything you can do.

And you've got to do it successfully.

So you have to understand that there's a grace in Mormonism that is an enabling power

that enables all the members of the church to do what they're supposed to do as far as keeping the commandments.

You might say in Catholicism, it's very similar to infusion, okay, where they believe that the member

is infused with this ability, okay, to do what they're supposed to do.

Well, in Mormonism, it's somewhat like that.

This grace enables them to keep all the commandments.

This grace enables them to forsake all of their sins.

It's up to them whether they're doing it or not.

Once they do this, then the grace to forgive them kicks in.

Because see, until you do that, you can't know for sure if that grace that forgives you of

your sin becomes efficacious in your life.

And this is work.

So this is absolute works.

I mean, this is an absolute works.

There's no denying it.

There's no denying it.

In fact, another passage that I like to talk to Latter -day Saints about, and the reason why I like to bring it up is

because I think I have the

support of the church leadership on how I'm interpreting this verse.

And that's Moroni 1032.

Moroni 1032, let me see if I can get here.

I'll read the whole thing to you just to make sure I don't mess it up.

But this passage here says, Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him,

and deny yourselves of all ungodliness.

And if you shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your mind and strength,

then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace you may be perfect in

Christ.

And if by the grace of God you are perfect in Christ, you can in no wise deny the power of God.

How have LDS leaders interpreted that?

Well, they interpret it pretty much the way it reads.

You have to deny yourself of ungodliness.

You're supposed to purge yourself of even the minutest type of sin.

Spencer Kimball, the 12th president of the church, says you must purge yourself in every area of life.

Who's doing that?

Spencer Kimball didn't do it.

I wish Kimball was still alive today.

I would love to have lunch with Spencer W. Kimball.

Just to ask him if he was doing even half of the things he said members should do that

he talks about in his book, The Miracle of Forgiveness.

And what's interesting about that book, The Miracle of Forgiveness went out of print a few years ago.

And they've got a new book now written by an apostle by the name of Anderson.

And this is supposed to be the kinder, gentler Mormonism.

But it might be nicer in tone, but still the requirements are basically the same.

I mean, Anderson hasn't backed off.

He never contradicts Kimball.

He says basically the requirements are still the same.

He's just nicer in how he says it.

And so when I hear people say, well, you need to read this book by Anderson.

I go, that doesn't seem to help as far as I'm concerned.

That still becomes problematic.

So, Bill, a question that's coming in from a Facebook user.

And folks, just a reminder, if you go to PaulJackLive .com, there are instructions on how to give Facebook permission.

So we get to see who your name is.

But a Facebook user is asking you this, Bill.

How does the LDS view of Ephesians 2, 8 through

10?

When I engage with the LDS, they say they don't disagree with these passages.

So with all that you're saying, how would they react to Ephesians 2, 8 to 10?

Well, it's funny.

They say they don't disagree with it.

But here's a good question to ask.

Remember how I mentioned how in Mormonism there is individual salvation and there's general salvation.

General salvation, resurrection from the dead.

Doesn't matter what you believe, doesn't matter what you do.

Individual salvation has everything to do with what you believe and what you do because you earn that.

All right.

So the question I can ask a Latter -day Saint is this.

What type of salvation was the Apostle Paul talking about in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9?

Was he talking about general salvation or was he talking about individual salvation or personal salvation,

exaltation?

Which one was he talking about?

If the Christian church has always believed that salvation needs to be divided up into those two categories.

Well, when you look at the passage, neither one works.

Neither LDS definition works in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

And let me explain why.

Let's say, for instance, the Apostle Paul had in mind when he was penning the words to

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

He's thinking in his mind general salvation, resurrection from the dead.

According to LDS theology, doesn't matter what you believe, doesn't matter what you do.

You're going to get that general salvation.

Okay.

Well, let's read it with that in mind.

For by grace have you been resurrected, because that's general salvation, through faith.

Well, wait a minute.

LDS leaders have said faith is not necessary in order to gain general salvation.

So Paul couldn't be talking about general salvation because he makes faith a requirement.

Faith is not a requirement in LDS theology.

Well, there's only one other choice.

He must be talking about individual salvation, personal salvation, exaltation,

godhood.

Okay, we go back and we read it again.

For by grace have you been, let's say, exalted through faith.

Good so far because faith is necessary.

And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Well, still good so far because even though Latter -day Saints look at exaltation

as a gift, it is a gift you have to work for.

It's not free.

The offer is free, but the gift itself is not free.

LDS leaders have said as much.

So it is the gift of God.

And here's where we run into problems.

Not of works, lest anyone should boast.

That's a problem because LDS leaders have made it very clear that exaltation is very

much based on our personal effort.

And they will often cite 2 Nephi 25 -23 as a proof text.

They will often cite Moroni 10 -32 as a proof text.

I don't know of any LDS leader who says that you can get into the celestial

kingdom without good works.

Number one, you have to be married in the temple.

Two, you have to pay a full tithe.

And if you talk to any Latter -day Saint who says, well, we don't believe you're saved by works, just say this.

Oh, so if I became a member and I didn't pay my tithes, would I go to the celestial

kingdom?

If they say yes, they don't know their Mormonism because they most certainly have to pay their

tithes.

And so here's, do you see what I'm saying here?

That Ephesians 2 -8 -9 doesn't fit LDS theology.

So when a Latter -day Saint says, well, they believe that, I have to ask them, what

parts do you believe and why do you believe it?

Now, let's look at verse 10, because that was the question.

What about verse 10?

And I have to admit, this is one of the areas where I think we as Christians can be very weak.

We know we're talking to people who believe in justification

that includes not only faith, but their works.

And so we're trying to convince them that, no, you're justified by faith in what Christ

did for you on the cross at Calvary.

And in doing so, we sometimes overlook the fact, and we should say this to a Latter -day Saint,

that certainly we do believe in good works, but we don't believe the

good works justify us.

I think this is missed on a lot of Latter -day Saints and why so many of them assume that we're just a

bunch of antinomians that, oh, we just go believe and we can go out and kill people.

I've actually had Mormons say that.

And that's not what we believe.

We do believe in holiness living.

We do believe in producing good works.

We are very conscious of that.

We should be.

If we're not, I think we're fair to ask an individual who doesn't see that as, well, are you

even really justified?

I mean, I'd be the first to ask that of an individual who thought they were saved and could go out and live any way they

please, because we are saved from the inside out, you might say, to where we are going to

want to do the good works that are mentioned in verse 10.

And because Paul mentions that we are saved unto good works, that certainly

does not contradict what James tells us in James 2 .20, because

Mormons will always say when you bring up Ephesians 2 .8 and 9, if they don't agree with Ephesians 2 .8 and 9, they'll say, well,

what about James 2 .20, faith without works is dead?

And I'll say, I believe that.

I believe a living faith is going to have good works.

And I think that's what James is addressing.

But you know what I find fascinating, Justin, is when a Latter -day Saint brings up James 2 .20, faith without

works is dead, I'll ask them, well, what do you do with James 2 .10?

They always jump over James 2 .10, which is very similar to what Paul says in

Galatians, where he says, if you want to get saved by the law, go ahead, you just have to keep it all.

You cannot mess up in one area.

And I like to emphasize that with the Latter -day Saints.

Look, if you want to get saved by law, that's up to you.

But here's the requirement, and Paul makes it very clear in Galatians, and James makes it very

clear in James 2.

Yeah, and that is the thing that you end up seeing is,

as with most groups that want to believe in a works salvation, they confuse

regeneration and sanctification.

So they take passages that talk about the works in sanctification, James 2.

And I always find it interesting, they never want to start at verse 14, which is asking the question that he's then

answering from 15 and following.

Right?

If a man claims he's a Christian, but doesn't have the works of a Christian, right?

And so it's always amazing they want to skip that.

And so, but it's the confusion of regeneration, which has no works other than the work of Christ.

Exactly.

Or works, and sanctification, which does have our works.

And I always find groups that want to believe in a works righteousness mix those two up.

Well, think about this.

Our works are really only as good as we are, right?

We're not too good.

Exactly.

Every work, and this is hard for sometimes for Latter -day Saints to wrap their head around, but every

work we do is somehow tainted by our fallenness.

We can't do a perfect work as much as we try.

I mean, even when the Latter -day Saint puts his tithing into the church, he's

probably beating his chest, look at what a great thing I am, or whatever they might do.

There's always this attitude of what they think they've accomplished.

And furthermore, it gets even worse than that.

And I like to bring this up to a Latter -day Saint who doesn't seem to see the problem here, that do you realize

that if your works are necessary for your exaltation, every work you

do is for yourself.

It's all motivated in self.

Now, isn't selfishness in Mormonism a sin?

They'll all admit it is.

So think about it.

I think in Christianity, you might say that we're the only faith in the world that has the

potential of doing a legitimate good work.

It's just that our fallenness prevents us from doing it.

Because we would want to do a work not for ourselves because we don't need it for ourselves.

We could do a work that totally honors God, but even in that area, our sin gets in the way.

You know, Ryan Leach has a good point here.

He says, LDS use the same words as Christians, but their definitions

are vastly different.

Their Jesus is different than the biblical Jesus.

To me, one of the most difficult things in witnessing to an

LDS member is just that.

You cannot say, do you believe the Trinity?

Because they're going to say, yes, I believe the Trinity.

You have to define the terms when you talk to them.

That is really, really important.

Because even as we started, where Justin said that this couple that he met, and they said, we're

Christians too, which I'm amazed with that.

I got to tell you, Justin, I'll tell you why I'm so amazed with it.

You have the Catholic Church, which called those of us that believe in justification

by faith alone, anathema.

We're cursed.

Now they want to say they're Christians like us.

You have the Latter -day Saints that said the church went away and had to be restored by them, but now they're

Christians like us.

You have witnesses who claim that we got it all wrong, but now they're Christians.

It's just so interesting that all these groups that said we are not the church, and yet they all want to be like

us.

One of the questions I sometimes ask a Latter -day Saint is, I'll say, but don't you think that our church, that

Christianity fell away?

It needs to be restored.

How can you be a Christian like me?

I've had one, he goes, well, we're the same but different.

That has always confused me when talking to a Latter -day Saint, is you have this idea that I'm a

part of this church of the devil, and yet you want my approval.

I don't go to bed at night upset that maybe a Latter -day Saint thinks that I'm a part of the great

apostasy.

Why does it bother them that I might question their claim to Christianity?

I don't understand that.

Why do you need my approval?

Who am I?

I'm not even considered truly saved according to your church's standards.

But it does seem like, especially in modern times here, and I say modern times because

in the early years, when you listen to guys like Brigham Young and John Taylor and those early presidents, they didn't care

what anybody thought about them.

They were pretty bold in what they said.

But now they're trying so hard to win the approval of the masses, and they want so hard to

have that label of Christian attached to them.

And it's not that they don't think they're Christians because they've always thought, theologically, their church has always said that they

are the only true Christians.

And so we're challenging that assumption because, as I've often said, one

of the primary attributes of a Christian is the forgiveness of sins.

If they don't know they're forgiven of their sins, then aren't they being a little bit

presumptuous to assume they're a Christian?

And that's one thing I was noticing as you were talking there, as I was studying this and reading.

When we're talking about the salvation issue, it is by

grace that we are saved after all we can do.

And I think Moroni 1032, as you had talked about that one as well,

I think those two are going to be very powerful movement discussion points because if it's after all you can do,

all of your repentance, your entire life, everything about your keeping of

the Mormon commandments, so you must go to the church, you must go where the and I don't want to be

disrespectful, I don't know what you call it, but the holy underwear, the marriage.

What is it?

The garments.

Okay.

So you have to do all these things.

That's part of the keeping of all you can do before faith

kicks in or grace kicks in for your salvation.

So what I'm hearing is you don't have an assurance of salvation because all you can do

equals that you must be absolutely perfect every moment and do everything you're told every moment until the moment

that you die and then only then can you hope you've done all you can do for grace to kick

in.

Am I right there?

Yeah.

To show you how confusing that can be, many times when I'm citing some of these passages to the Latter

-day Saints from their own scriptures, such as Doctrine and Covenants 2515, where you

have to keep the commandments continually.

If you don't, where God is, you cannot go.

I cite Moroni 1032 or Alma 1137, some of these verses from their own scriptures.

You'd be surprised just by citing those scriptures, how I'll have the Latter -day Saint tell me, well,

nobody's perfect.

And I'll remind them, I never used that word.

How did you draw that conclusion that these are talking about perfection when the verse doesn't say that, I never

said that, but somehow in citing it to them, they realized that's exactly what those verses are

implying.

Yeah.

One thing I noticed is that, like I told you earlier, just so everybody knows, I'm

actually looking, let's see, what is this book?

Biblical Counseling Keys for Mormons, and I pulled out a couple of quotes that they use from

Joseph Smith.

He said, one of the things he said is, I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct

of any book on earth and that the keystone of our religion, that a man would go nearer

to God by abiding by its precepts than any other book.

Justin, I've got to tell you a book you've got to get from Sandra Tanner.

I've got to hear it.

I'm going to refer to her.

She's got a book called, I forget what it is, like 4

,000 some number of changes.

3 ,913.

Okay, so you know the exact number.

3 ,913 changes.

It's like an inch and a half, two inches thick, and all it is is pictures of changes

in the Book of Mormon.

Now, let me explain why that's important because we have variances in our Greek manuscript,

Hebrew manuscripts.

However, those were written out prior to the printing press.

And so the importance here is that once we have a printing press, we can reproduce the exact same book

time and time and time again.

And so the fact that like that quote, it's the most perfect, and yet there's

almost 4 ,000 changes in it from its original after the printing press.

So these are not like a copyist who's copying it and making an error.

Okay, so that you know that what I'm looking at is following in line with

what you're saying.

I just pulled up a footnote from this.

It says it's documented from the textual changes made before 1981 by Gerald Tanner and

Sandra Tanner, 3 ,913 changes in the Book of Mormon.

And so I'm going to pull that up on Logos.

Yeah, and you're going to notice that a lot of the changes, even in my opinion, a lot of the

changes are pretty minor, but there are some textual changes, which of course changed the meaning.

And this becomes significant based on how Joseph Smith allegedly translated

the Book of Mormon.

Because the Book of Mormon came to him originally on gold plates

that were buried by Moroni when he was a human centuries ago.

He comes back as an angel.

Well, there's a false doctrine right there.

Humans don't become angels except in Christmas stories.

But anyway, so Moroni buries these plates and then comes back to tell Joseph Smith where he buried them.

They're written in Reformed Egyptian.

Now what is Reformed Egyptian?

I don't know, Egyptologists don't even know.

But it's a language apparently that the ancient Nephites and Lamanites spoke who lived on this

Western hemisphere.

So Joseph Smith doesn't know this language.

So how is he going to translate the Reformed Egyptian into English?

No problem.

According to the narrative, there were some stones buried with the plates and he would take

these stones and he would look through them kind of like spectacles.

And the Reformed Egyptian, as he looked to them through the lens, would turn into

English.

Now that's one story.

But the other story is that Joseph Smith used a seer stone.

The same seer stone that he found while digging a well with his brother Hiram in the early

1820s.

He actually told people that he could find buried treasure using this seer stone.

Well, now he's using the seer stone to translate this ancient record.

And what he does is he takes the seer stone and he puts it into a hat and he draws the hat up

closely around his face to exclude the light.

And in the darkness, the spiritual light would shine.

Something resembling parchment would appear and on it would appear the writing.

Joseph Smith would read the characters off to his scribe.

His scribe would read it back to him.

And when it was correct, it went on to the next set of characters.

So the question I like to ask the Latter -day Saint is, based on this narrative that the church now

concurs is what happened, how can you have any margin of error when it

won't go on to the next set of characters unless it's read back correctly?

Correct.

But yet we find that there were changes being made to the Book of Mormon.

Well, I think as late as 19, I know in 1981, they made about 200

more alterations to the Book of Mormon.

But the part that you're zeroing in on might not be the part I would zero in on because when he says that the Book of

Mormon is the most correct book on earth, I like to zero in on the part where it says, and a man can get nearer to God

by abiding by its precepts than by any other book.

That becomes problematic because a lot of the major doctrines of Mormonism, doctrines

that Latter -day Saints are told they must believe and practice if they hope to be exalted, they're not in the Book of

Mormon.

Yeah.

And if they're having to change it, then that tells me that there's a problem with these doctrines that they're trying to

adhere to to make their way into heaven or the celestial kingdom.

But again, I would caution your listeners, though, to not assume that a lot of the

corrections, the changes in the text, are all major corrections.

Because a lot of them aren't.

A lot of them are pretty insignificant, maybe punctuation and some spelling and things like this.

But there are occasions where it does change the meaning.

For instance, how Mary is the mother of God.

It said in the 1830 edition.

Well, somebody in the manuscript carried it above the line, son of God.

Well, that would be a huge change in the doctrines of Mormonism for sure.

So there we have some significant changes, but most of them are pretty minor.

I don't normally make a big deal about that when I'm talking with Latter -day Saints, but I do want to ask them,

and I have asked Latter -day Saints this question.

If I were to follow everything in the Book of Mormon, I believed everything in the Book of

Mormon, and I followed what it said to the letter, would I end up in the celestial kingdom?

I had a young Mormon man say, sure, absolutely.

My response was, that's interesting because if all I had was the Book of Mormon, I wouldn't even know

there was a celestial kingdom to shoot for because it doesn't talk about it in the Book of Mormon.

It doesn't talk about three degrees of glory in the Book of Mormon.

It doesn't talk about men becoming gods in the Book of Mormon.

It doesn't say anything about that.

So if a person can get near to God by abiding by the precepts in the Book of Mormon, then I think it's a fair question to ask.

Why aren't those precepts in the Book of Mormon?

I'm going to put up one more question here and then we got some people backstage.

I've got a question from Brian.

Brian, by the way, is a guy I've evangelized with.

This is a guy, I just got to tell you guys, if you want to know how to really evangelize well, Brian does it.

Even just handing out tracts, this is a guy that just has an affectious smile.

So when he walks up to you, you're immediately like he disarms you just with this smile and his just being so

polite.

But Brian asked you this question, and then we got two or three people backstage that we're going to bring in.

But he asks, did Jesus or the apostles call out others who

were in false belief?

My Mormon friend says they did not, and we should only just put

forth positive claims of our own faith and not knock others down.

And what say you?

Tell that to Peter.

Well, you were answering the question at the middle of the time.

Tell that to the apostle Peter, who was the brunt of the criticism by the apostle Paul,

who you might call, Peter was the senior apostle, Paul would be the lesser apostle.

Yet you have an Acts, or excuse me, Galatians 2 .11.

Now, when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to blame.

For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles.

But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.

So here we have the apostle Paul rebuking Peter, saying, look, you're acting

hypocritically here.

Don't do that.

Thankfully, Peter must have listened.

Okay.

But there is a case of an apostle correcting not only someone else,

but another apostle.

So if Peter can be rebuked by Paul, then why shouldn't we be

allowed to point out these inconsistencies and errors in another individual's life?

I would hope that if we really loved those individuals, that we would

want to share with them.

And I would hope if someone really loved me and saw that I was saying things or doing things,

believing things that were not true, that they would confront me on this matter.

If they didn't, I would probably wonder if they really cared about me, if what I believed was

going to have eternal consequences.

And that's what I would say, too.

And that's the argument here is, this is not about hate.

I genuinely care about these people that I've gotten to know.

I can tell you that I feel in my heart that I love them.

I want them to know Christ as their Savior.

And it's not about –.

I will guarantee you, when I have this conversation with them, it's probably going to be somewhat intense.

There's going to be things where they're going to get upset.

But that's not my intention.

My intention is to love them in the gospel, even if it has to get intense.

Like Andrew was talking with the other gentleman last week in the debate, or the week before last in the debate.

And they're trying to have this conversation.

It wasn't about hate.

It's not about trying to hate the person.

It's trying to say, look, this guy needs the gospel.

We all need to hear the gospel.

We need to hear the truth.

And even if it's not that, when we're in error, we need to know.

Well, I look at this and say, when they say that the church needed to be

restored, I don't think that's very positive.

No.

Very negatively.

We're talking about witnessing to Mormons.

And one of the things – I want to give some resources now.

Bill, you and I worked on a book together with about 22 other people.

Eric Johnson, who works with you, he and Sean McDowell were the editors of it.

It's called Sharing the Good News with Mormons.

And you were talking earlier about The Miracle of Forgiveness, this book that's out of print.

And in there, Eric talks about what he does with that book.

He goes to these bookstores, and he actually highlights the book and marks it so people he'll turn to

pages to show them what it says from their president because

many of them don't believe that.

Now, I want to – let me play a quick ad for that book.

And then what I want to do after this, Bill, is before we get to the people that are backstage, I want to ask you

what your chapter about.

My chapter was about open -air evangelism.

I really wanted Matt's chapter.

Matt Slick had a chapter on textual criticism.

I had more up -to -date information than he did because I studied it more recent than he did.

But he did an excellent job.

It was just that I guess I got stuck with the chapter no one else wanted,

open -air evangelism.

But after this, I want to ask –.

You're good at that.

You're good at that.

He's never done it before.

Don't let him fool you.

He doesn't do that stuff.

He's never done it.

Yeah.

I mean, look.

He gets other people to do it.

It's not going to work.

So let me play this ad, and then I want to talk about your chapter in there.

Looking for strategies that will help you engage in meaningful conversations with members of the Mormon Church?

Well, if so, take a look at Sharing the Good News with Mormons, a new book produced by Harvest House Publishers

and edited by Mormonism Research Ministries' Eric Johnson and Sean McDowell.

Sharing the Good News with Mormons includes 24 helpful essays from two dozen Christian apologists,

scholars, and pastors.

Pick up your copy at the Utah Lighthouse Bookstore or order directly from mrm .org.

And I should say that's also available if you go to strivingforeternity .org.

So, Bill, if you could quickly explain what you do, because I think

your way that you have in that book, and I've been able to witness you do when we go to Mormon

pageants, is really neat.

And this is the thing I love about this book is it's 24 different people giving you 24 different ways to

witness to Mormons.

And some of the chapters aren't just for Mormons.

My chapter, Open Air Evangelism, Matt's chapter, Jim Wallace's chapter, J. Warner Wallace,

his chapter.

Anyone could use those.

Now, the ones that you and Eric did were more specific, but it's very creative.

And that's what I really liked about this book, the creativity of so many different people with so many different styles

that work to evangelizing Mormons.

Well, what I do is, well, I should say my chapter dealt with using the historical

things in Mormonism that are problematic.

And so I'm using history.

And I find that, and I know this for a fact, because on LDS blog sites and

discussion boards, a lot of them have admitted that finding out about the church's history,

the true history, as opposed to the whitewashed history, causes a lot of Latter -day Saints to have a faith

crisis.

So what I've done, and there's two different areas that I deal with in the chapter, one is I

go after the first vision, the idea that Joseph Smith saw God, the Father, and Jesus, who told him that all the

churches were wrong.

Mormon leaders have said that if that first vision is not true, and Joseph Smith did not have a

visitation by God, the Father, and Jesus, just the way he said, then the church can't be

true.

So that's a good way to go then.

Let's see, was there really a revival in 1820, for instance, as Joseph Smith said?

Well, there wasn't a revival that he describes in 1820.

The revival he describes took place in 1824.

Does that become a problem?

It sure does, because Moroni shows up in 1823.

So you can't have Moroni showing up before the first vision account of God, the Father, and Jesus showing up, plus

the fact that Joseph Smith told four different accounts of the first vision, and there's discrepancies in some of those

stories.

Some of it could be harmonized, but not all of it.

But the area that I like to go after, and I think what you're talking about, Andrew, is the gold plates.

So what I had done was I had a sheet metal company, and surprisingly, this sheet metal

company is right behind the Utah Lighthouse bookstore in downtown Salt Lake City.

First explain what the story is for the gold plates, because not everyone may know the story itself.

I was mentioning earlier about how Moroni buried these gold plates in the ground, and Joseph Smith came up and

took the plates and then translated them into English.

The gold plates represent a history of the ancient Nephi

and Lamanite people.

That's what the Book of Mormon mainly is about.

There's another section in there that talks about the Jaredites, but most of it deals with the Lamanites and the

Nephites.

This record is buried in the ground.

Joseph Smith is going to translate it.

But before he translates it, he tells the story, well, at least his mother tells the story, which I assume she

got it from Joseph Smith, because how would she know otherwise?

He goes and gets the plates out of the stone box in the ground where Moroni had

buried them, and he puts them in a hollow log.

Why he does this, I have no idea.

It makes no sense to me.

But he takes them out of the ground and he puts them in a hollow log, and he goes back later to get them out of the hollow log, and he's going to

carry them home.

Now, according to his mother, the Smith home was about three miles away from where the plates were

deposited.

The story is that as Joseph Smith is going home with these gold plates under his arm,

he decides to get off of the well -traveled road.

That's the way it's described.

And as he gets off this well -traveled road and he's walking down this path of some sort, he jumps over

a log and there's a man hiding behind this log, apparently, who hits Joseph

Smith with the butt of his gun, and he gets into a scuffle with this man.

Smith is able to knock this man down with such force that he's able to run

away from him, carrying these plates under his arm.

He goes a ways down this path, and again he's attacked by someone else.

Same scenario, Smith knocks him down and is able to run away.

Well, you think two times is too much, but no, he gets attacked a third time.

Same thing, knocks the man down, is able to run away, but this time when he knocks him down, he dislocates his

thumb.

Now, a lot of Mormons reading that story think, wow, our prophet was one

amazing guy.

But I look at it in this angle.

First question, how big were those gold plates?

Joseph Smith gives us the answer.

The plates were six inches wide, eight inches long, and the stack of plates were six

inches deep.

If you measured that, figure it out by square inch or square foot or cubic foot, you

might say, that's one -sixth of a cubic foot of metal plates.

Nobody disputes the fact that gold, if the plates were made of gold, and I have to assume they were if this story is true,

because that's what the angels said they were made of.

The angels said there were gold plates deposited that had a record of these ancient

inhabitants.

Gold that size would weigh, if it was a cubic foot, 1 ,204

pounds, but this is a sixth of a cubic foot, so they would have weighed 200 pounds

if the plates were made of gold.

Try carrying 200 pounds under your arm and walking them home, running

at times, jumping over a log, fighting off three attackers, never apparently dropping the plates, because

if you drop them and it landed on the edge, gold being as soft as it is, it would have destroyed

whatever lettering was around the edges, so we wouldn't even know what the plates were saying in those characters.

But you see, the weight of the plates now becomes an issue.

And so, as you know, Andrew, what I would do with my replica plates, I would go out with my little red wagon and I'd have these

gold plates, my sheet metal plates, and I would challenge Latter -day Saints to lift my plates.

And even though my plates, being sheet metal, are not as heavy as gold, naturally,

they are still pretty heavy.

Mine weigh 80 pounds.

So when a person lifts them up, they realize they're pretty heavy, but they're not impossible.

But when I tell them that the rest of the story is because by this time I've already asked them, do you believe that Joseph Smith had

gold plates, and they'll say yes.

I say, do you believe the plates were made of the metal gold?

Most Latter -day Saints say yes, okay?

So if you want to know how heavy these plates would have been if they were made of gold, you have to take my plates, add another

stack of my plates on top of it, and then another half a stack on top of it,

that will get you to 200 pounds.

By the time I finish explaining this, they realize that's too heavy.

Nobody can do that.

And the thing that I've seen you do is, you know, you give them the stack, and you usually have it on your, so people don't run away with them

because they have them tied down.

But I remember once where you let a guy walk with, and he, you know, you told him he was, like, I think if I

remember correctly, he was, like, running track or something, and you said, okay, just run to the end and back.

And he, like, ran even halfway and then just turned around and started walking back.

He's like, this is too heavy.

And you were like, how did someone do that for three miles?

And I remember that story because that was before I had my gold plates made, and I was using 10 -pound

barbell weights attached to a pipe and a T -handle so they could pick it up.

And I had 10 -pound barbell weights, so we're talking 100 pounds, half of what

the plates would weigh if they were gold.

And I think this kid was, like, a linebacker at the local high school or something like that.

So he's going to run down to, I think, the third telephone pole, and

his father was standing there.

And he starts taking off, and he's going pretty good.

Then all of a sudden his legs start wobbling and everything, and finally he just can't go anymore.

So one of his buddies had to go down and help him bring the plates back because he couldn't even carry them back.

But I think it's a good illustration that we have a problem.

Now, I might mention, because if there's any Latter -day Saints listening, I know what they're thinking.

They're thinking, but don't you believe God could have given Joseph Smith supernatural strength?

That's what Ryan just posted.

I knew that a lot.

And the other question I got asked was from Tom.

Maybe they meant gold -plated.

Because you have an answer for that as well.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, let's answer the first one, okay?

The miracle theory.

The problem with the miracle theory is no LDS leader and no LDS apologists use

that theory.

If they really believed it was a miracle, why have Mormon apologists tried so hard to get the weight

of the plates down to a manageable level?

And what I mean by that is, I just mentioned that if the plates were gold and it was a stack the size of

Joseph Smith's states, that they would have weighed 200 pounds.

Mormon apologists say, ooh, not so fast.

These plates were made by hand.

They wouldn't have been perfectly flat.

So there would have been air gaps in between each plate.

And they theorize that the plates probably had a 50 air

gap in between the plates.

Well, okay.

But that still doesn't get the plates down to a real light level.

At best, one Mormon apologist, he's a metallurgist, really, I wouldn't call him an apologist.

But he said that with a 50 air gap, the plates would probably weigh about 53

pounds.

Now, I carry with me, usually, when I used to go to Manti for the Mormon miracle pageant, I

also had a set of 53 -pound plates.

I usually kept them covered up in my wagon to where if someone tried to use that argument, I go,

okay, well, let's try this.

And I'd pull out my 53 -pound plates and say, let's try it now.

But the trick was, I didn't have my 53 -pound plates on a wooden stand that they can easily put their

fingers under and lift it.

They have to get them out of my wagon.

And you ought to watch people trying to get those 53 -pound plates out of my wagon.

It's harder than lifting the 80 pounds with a stand.

So even though you're going to say you have a 50 % air gap, what you do is you now invent another problem.

Joseph Smith claimed he only translated the top two inches of the plates, that the rest were sealed.

And we don't know what was written on those plates.

He only translated the top two inches.

Well, if you give it a 50 air gap, your two inches now becomes one inch of

gold plates.

One inch of hand -engraven gold plates.

And you're going to tell me there's enough characters on that one inch of plates to give me a book that

originally was about 580 paper pages?

That's even more of a miracle.

Well, maybe it's the Chinese.

Every character is one word.

Wait, no, that still isn't enough.

So let's go to—we got some people backstage.

Let me bring in first Pastor Josiah Nichols, who, by the way, folks, he has

written—he's one of our recent bloggers.

And he wrote, I think, three of the articles that came from the debate where you were— some of the things

from the debate last week that RA Fuentes brought up of whether

Proverbs—sorry, Philippians 129 of granting belief.

You wrote an article on his view of John 3 .16 and also the 1 Corinthians

15.

So very good articles, short articles.

You can read them quickly if you go to strivingforeturning .org.

So you had some questions for Bill.

Yeah, I just wanted to address one thing real quick.

I sent him those articles.

He refuses to believe them or to read them.

Well, he's very open -minded there.

If he's refusing to even read the articles, I'm not surprised.

If anyone hasn't seen the debate from last week, you would realize that.

I think he thoroughly embarrassed himself.

It was—I got to admit, it was funny reading the comments.

When I asked him, I went through all five points of Calvinism without using the labels, and he agreed with all five points.

And people in the chat were just going, checkmate, got him, because all the Calvinists knew exactly what I was

doing.

He didn't.

So, yeah, so what's your question for Bill tonight?

Yes, Bill, that was—I always love hearing that story about

Joseph Smith reading the tablets through the seeing

stone in the hat.

I just love that picture.

It makes me roll everywhere.

But my question is, what does standard

LDS teaching teach about homosexuality?

I know the old ones do not agree with it, but I don't

know.

I don't keep up with the teachings of their prophets or

apostles or any of their current stuff.

I was just wondering if you could give an answer to that.

Well, they still hold to the position that homosexual behavior is a sin.

And when you look at LDS theology and what the hereafter is supposed to be like,

you readily see that it's all about procreation.

That becomes very problematic for homosexuals because they don't procreate, at least not naturally.

They can't.

So they still have a position that you can have same -sex attraction.

You just can't act on that same -sex attraction.

And as long as you don't, you'll be fine within the LDS church.

They're not going to make a big deal out of it.

Of course, that is not really satisfying a lot of the younger members in the church who

certainly have fallen into the culture and think that there should be same -sex marriage and things like that.

And the church has not gone that far.

Will they?

Within my lifetime?

I don't know.

I can't say.

But the problem for the LDS church is they don't take a firm stand scripturally on this

subject.

I've never heard them bring up anything like 1 Timothy 1 or 1 Corinthians

6 or anything like that.

And, of course, they have no scripture to back them up.

At least they don't seem to try to.

And so they're allowing a lot of the younger ones in the church to, I guess you could say dictate policy for them,

but it hasn't gotten to the point where they've made any real big course correction.

It's kind of a it's a huge elephant in the room.

That's for sure.

And I think as these millennials start getting older and start having positions in the church, there certainly can be some

changes.

I mean, you have one Mormon apostle, a guy by the name of D. Todd Christofferson.

I believe it's his brother who's a homosexual.

I'm sure he's probably maybe having some influence on his brother.

I don't know.

I would think so.

But, again, it comes down to the usual position that we hear in our culture is if you disagree

with the behavior that somehow you must hate the individual.

And, of course, there may be people like that, but it shouldn't be Christians.

It should not be Christians.

That's for sure.

And, unfortunately, that hatred, that accusation of hatred or

bigotry, the Mormon church doesn't like bad publicity.

They don't like name calling.

They don't like being called names, I should say.

And so it's going to be interesting to see how they handle this down the road.

I mean, I think the evangelical churches are going to have some difficulty with this, too, because we're facing a lot

of the same problems with our young people being influenced by our culture.

Revoice is a perfect example.

The Mormon church has had a problem with this in the past.

When you look at the blacks being able to be in the priesthood, they changed their position on that.

Plural marriages, they changed their position on that.

So we do know that the church does have a history.

I mean, it's kind of interesting because they say that they had to restore the gospel, and yet they have a history

where they will abandon their previous teachings to satisfy the culture.

So it's kind of an interesting thing from a group that says that they had to restore the gospel.

So what you've explained, Andrew, is the restored church needed to be reformed.

Yes.

That's what we have.

Now, one thing I noticed in the studies that I was doing is that the teaching that the Nephites

were white and delightsome and some

of the original language, and that the Lamanites were accursed by God because they didn't

follow.

In the Celestial War or something like that, they didn't follow and fight.

You're mixing up two accounts, and that's not uncommon because that happens a lot.

That's fine.

But the whole point had to do with the fact that that's their account for the

reason for black people.

Yes.

The way they explained it was there was a war in heaven, and

one side fought against God the Father and their brother, our brother, Jesus.

And that was Lucifer.

Lucifer is our brother as well.

We're all related according to Mormonism.

Lucifer loses this war in heaven.

He's kicked out of heaven along with all of our spirit brothers and sisters who

sided with Lucifer in that war in heaven.

Lucifer becomes the devil.

All our other brothers and sisters who followed him become the demons.

That's how they explained the demons.

There was another group, about one -third of God's spirit children, who were not as

valiant in the war in heaven as they could have been.

This is the way Mormon leaders have explained it.

They were not as valiant as they could have been.

And even though they were not as valiant as they probably should have been, they would be allowed to

take on a human body on earth and go through a mortal probation, just like everybody else.

But they would not be allowed to hold the priesthood, which, of course, is necessary

if a Latter -day Saint hopes to receive celestial exaltation.

The way the church would know who those individuals are is that he gave

them a black skin.

Brigham Young said, a black skin and a flat nose.

That just sounds terrible saying that, but that's what he said.

And that's how they would identify who were not qualified to have this priesthood.

Of course, this caused a lot of problems for the church, especially in later years.

It caused problems with BYU, who was being boycotted by other universities

for that position.

And so, naturally, something had to be done.

So, in 1978, Spencer W.

Kimball came up with a revelation and

they lifted the ban.

Now, they lift the ban, but here's what's interesting.

They still have the mark.

If the dark skin was the mark to identify who shouldn't have the priesthood, and

that's no longer an issue.

Why are they still being born with the mark?

Now, I had a missionary tell me, well, it's genetics.

I said, dude, it's always been genetics.

Doesn't that seem a little bit odd?

The only reason they're dark is because we had to know who they were.

Well, now that doesn't matter.

So, why are they still being born dark?

It doesn't make sense.

So, here's what the church is doing now.

Now, they've had what I call doctrinal amnesia.

And they don't know why they were banned from holding the priesthood now.

We just don't know why.

And they're counting all those stories about not being as valiant as they could have been as just

folklore and opinion.

Even though sometimes those things were mentioned in general conference, which that makes it official.

But there's a lot of LDS leaders who have talked about this.

And when they say, well, it was never really doctrine, that's nonsense.

Because we have statements not only from the first presidency talking about this,

but we also have other statements where Mormon leaders are referring it to be doctrine.

So, they can't just say it was a mere policy.

And if it was a policy, shame on the leadership of this church for punishing their members throughout all these years

when they didn't need to be doing that.

That kind of shows what lack of discernment they had, it seemed.

But this is what they're doing now.

Now, it's, well, we just don't know.

And that's how they tend to get away from it.

Well, when I have a Latter -day Saint say they don't know, I say, well, can I tell you what I know?

This is what your leaders have said.

I mean, how do you explain that to me?

Because if I were to join your church, and I'm supposed to put my trust in leaders like this, and they can

say stuff like that, and it doesn't bother you, I don't know if that's a church I want to affiliate with.

Yeah.

So, Josiah, do you have any other questions?

No.

Yeah, you answered that great.

Okay, I'm going to put you backstage.

While you're doing that, I want to ask you a question that really was one that was brought up, kind of

threw me off guard a little bit, about the 13 tribes of Israel and how they tried to,

I don't know, talk about how one of them—.

You mean the 12 tribes?

No, no, no.

They were saying specifically that there was 13 tribes, and one of them had been branched off and came to

America or something along that line.

They'll talk about the 10 lost tribes that came to America.

And Bill and I have a very interesting story with that, because we went—basically, the way

that they claim, and Justin, this may sound familiar

to you with some of the talks we've had with Black Hebrew Israelites, because this is the irony of this.

Black Hebrew Israelites get this same story, and the only account that I know of

of this comes from Mormons, which is interesting.

Now that we talked about this whole thing with the black skin, Black Hebrew Israelites who say they're

the tribes of Israel that came to the Americas, they say

the 10 lost tribes came in South America.

The only way I figure they got this was from the Mormons who would say that they're cursed.

It's just kind of interesting.

But the argument is that the 10 tribes came

to South America, and when we were on this cruise, we got to go to the

Mayan ruins, and that's where they say these are the—the Mayans were

the lost tribes.

And then they made their way up into North America.

That was genetically—.

The thing with this, because we're sitting there, and the guy is doing

the guide.

He's Mayan, and he's explaining some things.

And we're very interested, Bill and everyone, because this was put on by Mormonism Research Ministry,

right?

We're looking for the accounts with the Mormons' claim.

And as the guy's explaining things, he's mentioning different words.

And now I had the advantage, who I was sitting next to, and you both know who that is, my bride who was

born in Hong Kong and speaks Chinese.

As he's speaking, she's telling me the meaning of words before he gives the

translation.

Very interesting.

The other thing he mentions is that Mayans are born with what's called a Mongolian spot.

Now, for folks that don't know what that is, that is basically what looks like a large black and blue mark when a child is born on

their bottom.

It could run down part of their leg, but it usually covers their bottom.

That is something that Asians have.

Both of my children had Mongolian spots.

So it's really kind of interesting because they say this is the people from Israel, but I'm talking to my wife as he's talking.

I said, so in other words, they're genetically Asian, and they speak an Asian language.

That tells me they're Asian, not Hebrew.

And of course, the Book of Mormon gives you the impression that they are a Semitic people.

And of course, the DNA certainly doesn't support that.

DNA has not been very kind to the LDS church.

They've had to really back up on a lot of things when it comes to that.

But for years, they would send missionaries down to Central America, and they would say, hey, you guys are,

you're Lamanites.

And Russell M. Nelson believes that, the current president of the church.

They're Lamanites down there.

And of course, the DNA doesn't really support the narrative that's given by the LDS church.

But yeah, it's like I say, DNA has not been kind to the LDS church.

Let me bring in Edison Ray.

He's in the backstage.

And I actually thought when I saw the name that this was just in the Edison Ray who used to be

from Australia that used to come in here regularly and talk with us.

But no, this is a different Edison Ray.

He is from Cebu.

He's from the Philippines.

So welcome, Edison.

Hi.

Can you guys hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

So yeah.

Hi.

My name is Edison Ray.

And well, people just call me Ray, but I'm the Calvinist Ray.

Not the right phrase.

Okay.

Actually, we belong here in the same city.

I know the guy.

I know the guy.

He's very popular in terms of he's a basher with reform theology

and all that.

So actually here in the Philippines, Mormonism is

not quite majority in terms of religious groups.

Most here are Roman Catholics.

We do have our own local cults here, the Iglesia Ni Cristo.

We have some native and local cults here that are also popular.

But there are Latter -day Saints every now and then here.

We have a large temple here in our city in a place called Lahug.

Now, so that means I'm not really quite familiar with the beliefs of

Latter -day Saints, even despite my years of service or ministry in the Lord.

I do heard.

So that's what it is.

I just heard.

I haven't really studied in depth on the subject.

But I heard that they are polytheists.

They believe in many gods, and they believe that a man

can be a god someday.

So I just want to have an accurate presentation about that, if that is true, if they really

believe that or not.

Because the thing is, that's the problem with discussion.

Definition is really important.

Because when you talk to an LDS...

You've got to explain that to Ray.

You've got to explain that to Ray from last week, because he didn't believe in definitions were important, remember?

Very unfortunate, because when you're talking to an LDS, an LDS will tell you in the face, I believe

that Jesus Christ is the Savior.

An LDS will tell you that I believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And they have a totally different meaning of it.

If you're not focused, if you're not... You could say, Oh, fine, then you're a Christian.

We have the same faith then.

And they can sing the Hallelujah chorus.

They can sing that.

And so that's the problem.

That's the thing with LDS people.

You really need to...

You need to define your terms.

What do you mean?

We should be defining terms and asking that.

So, Bill, I guess the question, do LDS believe in multiple

gods, plurality of gods, that man can become God?

Absolutely.

In their Godhead, they teach that the Father is a God.

The Son is a God.

And the Holy Ghost is a God.

Three separate gods.

They are one only in purpose.

They do not hold to a Trinitarian formula of one God eternally existing in three persons.

They believe that they are three distinct gods.

Now, certainly they believe in a plurality just in that alone.

But let's not forget, as you brought up, they also believe that if they qualify,

exaltation includes becoming a god.

You see, in Mormonism, if you qualify to become a god, if you earn eternal life, earn

exaltation, you get to start your own world and populate

your world just as Elohim, the God of this world, they would say, is

populating this world with his spirit children.

We are all the literal spirit children of the God Mormons say that they worship.

Mormons believe that they are merely repeating the process that's been going on since eternity

past.

You see, the God of Mormonism is not the primary cause of all things.

He's the result of something that happened before him.

Joseph Smith taught that God was once a man.

And through his efforts, the same efforts that Latter -day Saints are going through now, he became

a God at some point in time.

So their God was once a human.

In fact, Joseph Smith said, we've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity.

I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see.

Joseph Smith denies not only Psalm 90 verse 2 that talks about God being God

from everlasting to everlasting, but he also denies Moroni 8 .18 in the Book of Mormon that says basically the

same thing.

So this is why I think it's kind of deceptive when Latter -day Saints tell us, if you

want to know what we believe, just read the Book of Mormon.

I don't believe that because the Book of Mormon doesn't teach a lot of the things that Latter -day Saints are supposed to believe.

But certainly they do believe in three gods within the Godhead.

They also believe that every Mormon male has the potential of becoming a God.

And let's just say, hypothetically, right now there's over 16 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter -day Saints.

Let's assume that half of them are males.

That's the potential right there for 8 million gods.

Wow.

All right.

Wow.

Do you have any other questions there, Edison?

How would they deal?

I never really talk or engage one because they're not really, as I mentioned earlier, not

really a majority here.

But how would they deal with passages that teaches, the one that you mentioned in Psalms, and

also in the Shema or the verses that

teaches that there's only one God.

How would they deal with that?

Well, here's the thing.

Though a Latter -day Saint might assume that those verses are not translated correctly, one thing I have found that's

very fascinating, Joseph Smith supposedly gave us a new version of the

Bible, and he claims in Volume 1, page 368 of the documentary, History of the Church, that on July

3rd, 1833, he finished this translation of the Bible.

What's fascinating is a lot of the verses we would probably use in a witnessing situation, such

as Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, Isaiah 43, 44, 45, Titus 3, 5,

Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, a lot of those verses that I like to bring up in the course of a conversation,

Joseph Smith either didn't touch them at all, or he touched them so

slightly that they still say the same thing.

And you might ask, well, why is that?

It's because at the time he did this, he wasn't believing a lot of the things that he would believe later on that

would contradict those verses.

I really believe that had Joseph Smith waited to, let's say, the 1840s

to do his translation of the Bible, it would read very differently from what it reads right now.

So what I like to do is I look up those verses, make sure they read the same in the Joseph Smith translation,

and if a Latter -day Saint says that that wasn't translated accurately, remind him that this is the way

Joseph Smith said it should read.

So they can't use that argument.

In fact, I'm trying to look on your website right now, because I know you have a

DVD, the Bible versus Joseph Smith, and then the Bible versus the Book of Mormon.

But I believe you guys even had a pamphlet, if I'm not mistaken,

where you or Sandra Tanner, of all the doctrines that are not taught in the Book of Mormon, because if you look

at the Book of Mormon compared to the Bible, the Book of Mormon is actually closer to Christianity and the

Bible than it is the Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants, which is really where

a lot of the teachings of the Mormon Church come from, is those, not the Book of Mormon.

If you go to our website and you go and look up the resources, the drop -down window for the

resources and stuff, and we have a category for the Book of Mormon.

I think the track that you're talking about we've now put online, which

talks about a lot of the doctrines that are not found in the Book of Mormon.

I'm trying to find, you had a CD many years ago.

I was trying to find it.

I couldn't remember the exact title of it, but with all these different quotations.

In their own words.

In their own words.

I'm trying to find that, if that's in here in a CD or book form.

There you go.

It's a CD, but we have a book that goes with.

This is the book.

This is the book right here.

What it is, it's thousands of quotations from Mormon leaders, Mormon professors,

Mormon pamphlets, correlated material, categorized topically.

We have this in a CD.

I'm trying to think.

That's on your website, right?

We have a store that you can go to and you can order it from there.

You can copy them and paste them and things like that.

They have the references right there.

It's really a good tool.

It's a book that we use on the radio all the time.

We're constantly referring to this because the resources are right there.

You don't have to go looking for a bunch of different articles.

I know Matt Slick, when he would join on here, he used to call that his cheat sheet.

When people would call in, he could just go and quickly search the CD and get the quotations.

That's what it's for.

That's what it's for.

Matt was using it once again.

Real quick, I want to ask you on the doctrine that they talk about where you become a god

on your own planet.

The way I interpret this is saying that basically for the men, you become gods and

the women become basically concubines.

Is that wrong?

Because I'm talking like thousands and 10 ,000 women are your celestial,

sexual partners.

It's not totally inaccurate, but they would say no, they know that they are actually a wife.

Polygamy is something that Mormons still believe today, will be practiced in the hereafter.

They've never denounced that.

It's just wrong in the Mormon church now to have more than one living wife.

It's not politically correct.

Well, it's illegal too.

But they do believe that they can have more than one wife in the hereafter.

In fact, Russell M. Nelson, the current president of the church, he's sealed to two women right now.

His first wife passed away.

He was sealed to her for time and eternity.

And he remarried and he sealed to her for time and eternity.

And not only is Russell M. Nelson sealed to two women, but so is Dallin Oaks.

He's next in line to become the president.

So they're not going to get rid of that doctrine anytime soon, I'm sure.

Now, do the Mormons...

Let me just ask Ray if he has any more questions.

Do you have any more questions?

Thank you.

That will be all.

I'm so blessed with this program.

Keep the good word tight and God bless.

You may want to come in next week.

Next week, it seems like we might have someone that wants to talk about Calvinism again.

Not a formal debate, but so you may want to join in for that.

I will let you know that, and I'm hoping that Pastor Justin will join me,

but Monday morning, 8 o 'clock our time, which I think is 8 or 9 o 'clock your time,

p .m., so Monday night, we're going to do a post -debate

discussion.

We tried to do one, but the time was off and we did it too late for you guys.

So we're going to try and do it at a time for everyone to join us.

So if you want to come in and weigh in on that, you're more than welcome to come in, just to let you know.

Monday morning on your time, so that would be...

You guys follow East Coast, like Eastern Standard?

Yeah, New York time.

I think that's either 8 or 9 o 'clock your time.

In the evening.

It'll be evening for you, yep.

So we're trying to do it for Monday evening, so you can check that out.

All right?

Okay.

So Justin, I know we're going to start wrapping up, but you had some more questions.

Yeah, I just have one last question.

We can go on.

Trust me, if you guys haven't noticed already, Bill is a wealth of

information on this subject, and I will recommend that you guys go to his award -winning podcast,

The Viewpoint on Mormonism.

It has received the Christian Podcast Community Awards, I think two years

that you guys got that.

Excellent podcast, short, 14 minutes long, every day, and man, it's