Highlight: How Do Mormons View Christians?

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Mormonism, at the very beginning, began with a lie, and the lie was that Heavenly Father came to Joseph Smith and told him to join none of the churches for they were all wrong.

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All their creeds were an abomination. All the professors, that's the Christians, were all corrupted. Easy there,

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Jeff. That's your interpretation, not ours. Hold on real fast. Very important.

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I didn't interpret anything. I quoted it. Easy now,

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Jeff. That's your interpretation. That's his response to my quoting from the

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First Vision account. That's your interpretation. Did you hear something in those words that actually confirm what we say about your church's teaching, that all of their professors are corrupt, all their creeds are wrong, all their creeds?

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Let me just go ahead and do this. I'll officially go to the website, and this is from the churchofjesuschrist .org.

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Used to be mormon .org, now it's churchofjesuschrist .org. This is Joseph Smith giving his story, at least again today, the official

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First Vision account they will read to you, of going to inquire which church is right.

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So he says this, My object in going to inquire the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join.

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No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right?

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For at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong, and which I should join.

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So what's he say there? It never entered my mind before about that all were wrong, all were wrong.

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I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong.

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And the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight, that those professors were all corrupt, that they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

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They teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.

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He again forbade me to join any of them, and many other things did he say unto me."

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So I was just quoting. So if I quote the First Vision account, and I just give the words, that's it, and you stop and say, that's your interpretation, do you hear something in those words that is

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God saying to Joseph Smith that all the churches are wrong, that they're all wrong, all their creeds are an abomination, all their professors are corrupt?

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Interesting. I think it says what it says, and classic Mormons absolutely undeniably believe that.

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They used to call us Gentiles. See, your forebearers used to call us

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Christians Gentiles, and they would happily say, yeah, there's a church of God, and there's a church of the devil.

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You, this is from the Book of Mormon, you are from the church of the devil. And so your interpretation,

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I mean, I think it speaks for itself. It says what it says. I mean, this is one of those examples, like I mentioned, this is a shift.

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Like you just said, they didn't used to think this way and refer to us this way, and what he's about to say in response to that, they didn't used to say that, that's a new thing.

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Yeah. They believed in a complete apostasy. We can do a whole entire episode just reading quote after quote after quote after quote from Mormon prophets and apostles about the great apostasy, it being total and complete, and I'll give an example here.

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Twelfth President Spencer W. Kimball, he says this in the teachings of Spencer W.

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Kimball, page 423. He says, this is not a continuous church, nor is it one that has been reformed or redeemed.

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Catch that. Spencer Kimball saying that the Mormon church is not a church that has been continued or reformed or redeemed.

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The language is not language of reformation and continuation to any degree. Mormon prophets and apostles have always decried any thought like that.

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They said, restoration. The church was gone from the earth, and so here's what it says.

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It was lost. I'll say it again. This is the Mormon prophet saying, it was lost.

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The gospel with its powers and blessings, sometime after the Savior's crucifixion and the loss of his apostles, the laws were changed, the ordinances were changed, and the everlasting covenant was broken that the

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Lord Jesus Christ gave to his people in those days. There was a long period of centuries when the gospel...

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Ready? Ready? When the gospel was not available to people on this earth because it had been changed.

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What does lost mean? What does not available on earth mean?

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That it's gone, that it has been destroyed. 13th president Ezra Taft Benson.

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As the restored church, we affirm with the passing of the apostolic age, the church drifted into a condition of apostasy, that succession in the priesthood was broken, and that the church, as an earthly organization operating under divine direction and having authority to officiate in spiritual ordinances, ceased to exist.

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Got that? Very important. Ezra Taft Benson, prophet of the Mormon church.

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He says that the church ceased to exist. This is attested by history.

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We affirm also that all this was foreseen and predicted by the apostles when they were living, yea, and by the master in his day.

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The apostasy had started during the days of the frequently by them. God the

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Son, this is Benson again, told Joseph Smith not to join any of the churches.

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Joseph was to learn that the Lord's true church was not on the earth. The Lord's true church was not on the earth.

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So I'm sorry, thoughtful faith, not very thoughtful of you. Your interpretation, we could do this for days.

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Would you want to? Would you want to go through the quote after quote after quote in context of your prophets and apostles saying that it was lost, that it ceased to exist, that it was gone from the earth, and that this is not reformation?

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We are not a continuing church. We are a restoration because it ceased to exist on the earth.

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That was Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Reports, October 1949, page 26. And Ezra Taft Benson, listen to the prophet's voice,

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Ensign Conference Edition, January 1973, page 58.

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We could go on. We don't hold that all Christians were or are corrupt.

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I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong.

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And the person who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination and a sight, that those professors were all corrupt, that they draw near to me with their lips, their hearts are far from me.

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I'm sorry. This is too easy to see. It's far too easy to see. You don't believe your own prophets.

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That's the point. You don't believe. We're not saying that God said all. No, He said all.

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Do you believe your first vision? I'm wondering, are you a returned missionary? Did you go on your mission? Did you read people this first vision account?

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If you were a missionary, you certainly did. And the word all is there. All wrong.

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All of them corrupt. That's what the text says. That's what your prophets have spoken.

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And so the problem here is not a problem of Jeff Durbin's logic and the facts that I'm drawing from. The problem is you don't agree with your own prophets and apostles.