Engaging a Mormon

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So, let's begin with our study of Mormonism.
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Last week, we looked at Jehovah's Witnesses and I said, if I came back into Sunday School, I wanted to at least give a short reference to Mormonism, at least kind of follow up.
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If you remember the track I gave you last week, the track it had on it about Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.
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And basically, the reason for that is because when you get that knock...
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Yes, sir? Do you have a knife? I do.
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And in fact, you can have this one.
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And if you don't mind, after class, remind me and we'll print some extra copies.
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But that's a great thing to, you know, laminate it, put it by your front door.
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Because it has, it has just, it's like a quick note card of the things that are helpful.
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And the thing about the reason for that, again, when you hear that knock, knock, knock on your door on a Saturday morning, you know it's probably not a Baptist come a-callin'.
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Yeah, yeah.
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It might be.
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It may be a Baptist come a-callin', it may be a Presbyterian, though I've never had that.
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Not to, not to, you know, be negative.
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I love my Presbyterian friends.
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But I've never had a Presbyterian come, I've had a Baptist come a couple of times.
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But almost every time you hear that rap, rap, rapping on your chamber door, it is either a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon.
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It's either gonna be a couple of folks, usually dressed, the man will be dressed in a suit, the woman's dressed in some kind of traditional garment, you know, some type, a dress or skirt or some kind.
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Usually they're not, usually they're not dressed down.
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Usually they're dressed in some kind of, you know, like I said, a pantsuit or something.
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They're dressed relatively nicely.
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And if you see them, it's usually Jehovah's Witnesses.
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Because the Mormons will be two men in white shirts.
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And they'll have a tag, you know, Elder so-and-so.
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They have, they call themselves Elder, that's their title, the ones who come out.
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You know, Elder Smith and Elder Rogers, Elder Jones, Elder Thompson, Elder Fossey, you know, it's Elder, Elder, it's whatever they are.
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But that's, and that's usually how you can tell if you see the guys walking together, usually holding their Book of Mormon or Bible or whatever, and they've got the white shirts on.
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And they're very, very clean cut, very, you know, very nice looking, usually, very, you know, very, very presentable young men.
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And that's the thing that I want to address this morning.
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And it's really the, it's really the crux of the lesson is that there has been a concerted effort in the past few years to expressly place into the minds of people that Mormonism is just another denomination of Christianity.
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And if I can get nothing else into your mind today, if I can plant any, if I can't plant any other seeds than this, let me plant this.
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Mormonism is not a denomination.
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It is not Christianity.
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In fact, as Dr.
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James White has said, and he is one of the foremost experts on Mormonism, he's written the book, Letters to a Mormon Elder, and a couple other books, he's done debates with Mormons.
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Here is one thing that he has said, and I agree.
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Islam is closer to biblical Christianity than Mormonism, by far.
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Islam is closer to biblical Christianity than Mormonism.
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Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah.
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They believe Jesus was born of a virgin.
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They believe Jesus was sinless.
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Now, they deny Jesus died on the cross.
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They deny He was resurrected.
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They deny He's the Son of God.
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But they do believe some of the foundational principles of Christianity as far as Jesus' Messiahship, He's the Messiah to the Jews and those things.
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So that's the thing you need to know about Islam.
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If they come to you, they're going to have some agreement with you.
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That doesn't mean they're right.
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That just means that there are some things on which you would agree with an Islamic person regarding what they would call Isa, which is the Arabic name for Jesus.
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But a Mormon looks like a Christian, and yet, Mormonism is the most polytheistic religion in the world.
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They believe, not only in multiple gods, but they believe in so many gods that it is infinitesimal.
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It's, or not infinitesimal, infinite.
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It's, there are more gods than we could ever know about.
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There are so many gods, and they go back so far.
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They have this, the idea of eternal regression, where it just goes back and back and back.
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And there's gods who produce gods who produce gods who produce gods.
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There's more gods in Mormonism than in any other religion, even Hinduism.
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And Hindus have numerous gods.
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And here's the thing.
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That removes it from any vestige of biblical history, any, by saying it has any Christianity at all.
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As soon as you step out into the idea of multiple gods and multiple universes and multiple worlds, when you believe that God was once a man who lived on another planet that surrounded a star called Kolob, and because of his adherence to Mormon teachings and doctrine, he, on his death, was created into a god, made into a god, and that god then produced many spirit children with his many spirit wives, and one of those spirit children was Adam, and he came to this world, and then one of those spirit children was Jesus, and Jesus came to this world as the Savior.
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You see where we're going with this? It's out of this world.
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It's in space-age stuff.
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It's science fiction.
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I'll read you a quote.
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Joseph Smith.
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I go right to the source.
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This is Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism.
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God himself was once, as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.
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I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form, like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man.
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It is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so, for I am going to tell you how God came to be God.
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We have imagined and supposed that God was from all eternity.
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I will refute that idea and will take away and do away with the veil so that you may see, and that he was once a man like us, yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did.
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End quote.
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That's from the Journal of Discourses, volume 6, page 3.
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Yes, sir? Another God.
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Another God.
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That's what it's about, eternal regression.
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It goes back, and back, and back, and back.
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And that's the question of questions.
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And that really is the foundational question of all this, is because it ends up being an eternal regression.
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Well, this God had a God, and that God had a God, and that God had a God, and it just goes back eternally.
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And it's an eternal...
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Where did the first God come from? Again, they say that question, you know, we don't ask that question.
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But isn't that a serious departure from what we teach? We believe God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
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God is always the same.
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God doesn't change.
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He is the only...
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He is called the I am in Scripture.
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And what I am refers to is that he is the absolute self-existing one.
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He is neither beginning nor ending.
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He is outside of time.
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God does not experience time as we do.
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God is outside of time.
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And that's an interesting concept.
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When God created the heavens and the earth, he also created time.
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And that was a new thing, because God is outside of that.
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So in the beginning...
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In the beginning of what? In the beginning of time.
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There wasn't any time before that.
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There wasn't any space before that.
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There wasn't any movement before that.
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There wasn't any matter before that, or energy.
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All of that came about in the beginning.
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Time.
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God created energy.
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Heavens.
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Space.
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And earth.
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Matter.
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The four things necessary for life...
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The four things necessary for the universe to exist all came about in Genesis 1.
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God is outside of that.
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He is not in the created order.
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We don't believe God is part of the universe.
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We believe God is outside and all around and in, but not part of.
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You understand? And that's essential.
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We talk about...
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Sometimes I say...
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I've made this analogy.
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I grant that it didn't come with me.
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I didn't invent this analogy.
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I heard someone say it one time.
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But I said, if Adam is here, and you are here...
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So this is you, and this is Adam.
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And we'll say this is Abraham.
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And we'll say this is the end of the world.
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We don't know when that's going to be, so we'll just say...
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This is when Jesus is coming back.
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You say this is the timeline of history.
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And we are here on the timeline of history.
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Where is God? Yeah, He's the board.
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You see, God's not bound by that timeline.
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But we often think...
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He's just as much with Abraham as He is with us.
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He can't be finite.
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Huh? He can't be finite.
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I know, I know.
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Just thinking about the fact that God is not bound by that line.
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We are.
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You know, we all live in a constant changing...
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You don't live in the past.
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And you don't live in the future.
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And you don't live in the now.
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Because now is constantly changing.
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Now is then, and now is now.
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But now is not now anymore, because now is now then.
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You're in the ever-changing now.
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And as soon as it's now, it's then.
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You are always moving forward.
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You can't stop time.
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Can I use that next time I'm late for work? I was here when I was supposed to be.
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Now.
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I changed my time clock to now.
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And I'm always on time.
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So, when we get back to the Mormon issue.
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I have had a few interactions with Mormons over the years.
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And I've noticed that there's an ever-increasing desire among Mormons to have their religion accepted as a denomination among Christians.
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In fact, a few years ago, probably one of the things that I've done that's reached...
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I don't say it's reached the most people, but it has reached a lot of people.
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Is I had an online interaction with a Mormon.
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It was very positive.
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I think it was back in 2011, 2010.
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Maybe it was earlier than that.
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But he sent me a question on a sermon that I had preached on Mormonism.
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So, I wrote him back a very nice answer.
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It wasn't anything like the Jehovah Witness interaction because that one was, from the beginning, was somewhat tense because he called me a pagan or called Trinitarians pagans.
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So, that sort of started rough and kind of, you know...
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There was calls for judgment and repentance on that one.
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But the Mormon, when the guy really had some questions.
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Hey, I've heard the sermon and I think you've misrepresented us.
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Here's how.
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And he sent me his questions.
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And I said, hey, I want to know.
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Because I don't ever want to misrepresent anybody.
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My fear is that someone will misrepresent me.
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So, to be fair, I would never want to do that to anyone else.
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If this is not what you believe, tell me.
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And come to find out, some of the things that I had said, he didn't understand what I was saying.
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But it wasn't that I had misrepresented him.
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He didn't quite grasp.
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Because some of the things that I said was, things like Mormonism is dangerous.
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Well, how is Mormonism...
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I don't understand why you would say that.
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Okay.
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If Satan wanted to create a religion, what would it look like? Now, here's the thing.
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People say, well, Anton LaVey.
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You know who Anton LaVey was? Wrote the Satanist Bible.
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The Occult Bible.
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You know, they did all these crazy things back in the 70s.
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You know? Nobody ever heard of Anton LaVey? Okay.
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I don't think the devil has anything to do with that.
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Because the devil is not interested in getting people that are already nuts.
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If the devil was going to create a religion, it would look nice, and wholesome, and clean, acceptable, pure.
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Because that's what draws people.
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But it would be devoid of the gospel, and devoid of the truth.
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It would be Mormonism.
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Because it's wholesome.
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It looks good.
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They're clean cut.
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They don't even drink soda pop.
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They don't drink iced tea.
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They don't smoke cigarettes.
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They don't do anything to do anything bad.
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And when you look at somebody like Mitt Romney, and you see that perfect hair, and that perfect bank account, and the perfect car, and the perfect tie, you say, wow.
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Perfect children, right? But he's devoid of the gospel.
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He's devoid of the truth.
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That's the danger.
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The devil would never package.
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The Bible says he comes as an angel of light.
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What's that? Well, not wanting to get into politics, but I do want to say this about this.
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One of the things that caused a lot of mainstream Christianity to quote unquote pseudo accept Mormonism was because of the desire to have Romney be the president.
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Because they didn't want to have Obama be the president.
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And again, I'm not here to speak about politics.
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I don't care who you voted for.
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I hope it does matter to you enough to vote.
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I hope it does matter to you enough to vote for the person who would be the most right for the job, and that he would do the right things.
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Sometimes that's hard, because sometimes there is no right.
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And they say the lesser of two evils is still evil.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And that's true.
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We talk about there was eight years of Republican rule.
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And again, nothing was done about abortion.
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Nothing was done about staving off the defamation of marriage.
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Nothing was done about these things.
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But yet, oh, we're the good side.
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No, be honest.
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We didn't do anything either.
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So now I've gone from preaching to politics, and so I better back off.
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But you get what I'm saying, though.
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The desire was we got this guy that we want to promote.
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So the one hanging chad is he's a Mormon.
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So what do we got to do? Normalize Mormonism.
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So what do they have? They have the fiery Glenn Beck come along.
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And oh, Glenn.
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He comes along with his Mormon is just another denomination nonsense.
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And he speaks.
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No, he's a Mormon.
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Glenn Beck.
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Glenn Beck is a Mormon.
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He spoke at Liberty University not more than a month ago, and he spoke about Joseph Smith.
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No, he hasn't.
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He's been a Mormon his whole life.
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I think you might be misunderstanding on that.
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Only because if he said it, he must.
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He has been a Mormon, and he has long professed Mormonism.
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I'm very certain about that.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And like I said, he spoke at Liberty University, which killed me.
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My wife has a degree from Liberty University.
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Jerry Falwell is doing this in his grave to know that they invited a Mormon to come speak.
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I wasn't a big fan of Jerry Falwell, but I know him well enough to know that's happening.
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Rolling in the grave.
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So yeah, so you've got Glenn Beck.
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And if you go back and listen to the Liberty University speech, he says, you know, we're just another denomination.
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We just have another view of this thing.
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No.
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No, man.
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You have departed.
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You're off the reservation crazy.
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Maybe I shouldn't have added the word crazy.
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Here's the thing, and this is where we'll finish today because of time.
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What is the difference between a cult and a denomination? Here's a good little nugget, like I said, because I had to limit the time.
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Here's a nugget for you.
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The difference between a cult and a denomination is very simple.
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A cult is any group which has deviated from the essential message of the gospel.
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A cult is any group that has deviated from the essential message of the gospel.
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A denomination is any group which has maintained the essential message of the gospel.
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Okay? So, when I look out at the churches, I say, you know what? There are churches out there which I would have a lot of disagreements with.
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How they do things practically.
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How they preach.
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And I would have a lot of disagreements with some of the things that go on.
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But you know what? They have the gospel.
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They're preaching Jesus and they're preaching the Trinity.
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They're preaching the truth of the Word of God.
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They're preaching God as who He is.
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And you know what? I don't like the way they do some of the things they do.
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But they're not a cult.
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They're just a church that's different than I would go to.
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And I can appreciate some of the differences.
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The tapestry that God has created.
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That's fine.
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Jehovah's Witnesses deny the very essential nature of Jesus Christ.
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The very essential nature of who God is.
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And the way in which a person comes to know God through salvation.
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Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult.
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They come to my door.
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I don't invite them in for supper.
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We talk the Word of God at the door.
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Mormons, same thing.
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Mormons deny who God is.
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How a person is saved.
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All that the Bible teaches, they are contrary to.
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They have denied and deviated from the gospel.
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So if you say, is a Methodist a cult member? No.
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Methodism teaches some things I would disagree with.
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But they maintain the essential.
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Well, let me back up a second.
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Some of the modern expressions of these churches have deviated from the gospel.
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Like modern liberal churches.
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A lot of them have deviated from the gospel.
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And thus led themselves into cult-ish status.
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And even without referencing homosexuality, which I agree with.
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But even without referencing that.
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You know as well as I do that the gospel is not the focus of the disciples of Christ.
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The gospel.
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When a representative went from Forrest to the Disciples of Christ conference.
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They were talking about, would they hand out condoms? Because it's all about sex education.
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They were talking about the diamonds in Sierra Leone.
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Blood diamonds or whatever.
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They had everything on the mind.
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Except Christ.
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Let me tell you something.
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When you go to Ligonier in September.
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When we go, the few of us who are going to Ligonier in September.
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You ain't going to see nothing but no blood diamonds in Sierra Leone.
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But you will see books and books and books in the bookstore.
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About the Bible, about Jesus, about solid theology.
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You will see men who care about preaching the word of God.
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You will see men who shun a social gospel.
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Because a social gospel is no gospel.
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You'll see men who preach the gospel of Christ.
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And that's the thing.
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You know, when we look at Mormonism.
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There is a departure from the gospel.
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And as such, when these men come to our door.
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And they knock on our door.
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I'll tell you what happened one time.
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I was driving home.
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And I'm rounding the, I think it was on Eminus.
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Which is in our neighborhood.
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Those of you who know where San Mateo is.
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I was rounding the little circle there.
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And I see two Mormons standing on somebody's front lawn.
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Now normally it wouldn't be this bold.
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But it just happens to be somebody I knew.
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And I knew the young man who lived there.
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Tommy.
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For those of you guys.
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No.
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No, Tommy.
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Remember my children were adopted.
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They have another brother who was adopted by another family.
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It was my two oldest brother.
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So he's 15 years old.
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He doesn't know anything about anything.
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And he's very impressionable.
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So I stopped.
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Not my business.
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Well it became my business.
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Because I ain't going to let this happen.
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I'm not going to let these two guys spin this young man in circles.
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So I pulled up.
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Stopped.
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Got out of the car.
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Now you've got to imagine.
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These Mormons.
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They see all 300 pounds coming at them.
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They probably were a little nervous.
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Because I was not walking slow.
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I hopped out of the car.
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I didn't have the beard then.
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So it was a little less intimidating.
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But I got out.
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And I started walking.
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And I said, hey.
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Tommy.
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I said, I don't know what they're talking to you about.
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I said, but why don't you let me talk to him and you go in the house.
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And they turned and looked at me.
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I said, that boy doesn't know enough to tell you how wrong you are.
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But I do.
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So let's talk.
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You talk to me.
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I said, that young man is a dear friend and part of my family.
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And you're not going to sit here and mess up his mind with your false teachings.
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Now, you know, that's because I care about Tommy.
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I care about his mother.
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And I care about my neighborhood.
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This, again, this is life or death stuff, folks.
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And it was, you know, they told me some stuff I'd never heard.
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Because I told them, I said, there's no evidence of the Book of Mormon.
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All the things that are supposed to have happened in upstate New York.
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And all these battles that were supposed to happen between the different warring parties.
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There's no evidence at all.
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There's no archeological evidence at all to speak of anything truth to the Book of Mormon.
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At all.
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They've never stuck a spade in the earth and pulled out anything that would resemble anything that the Book of Mormon talks about.
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And I said, where are they? Where did this group that supposedly came up? Well, they became the Mayans.
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The Mormons became the Mayans? It was the oddest thing.
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We had this very long, drawn out conversation.
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But the ultimate thing was, you know what? You're not going to bring this nonsense without it being addressed.
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And the same thing with that guy who sent me the letter.
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And you can read it.
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It's on our sermon audio page.
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It's been viewed over 170,000 times.
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It's probably the thing I've written that's been viewed the most.
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But it's a conversation between me and a Mormon.
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Been viewed over 170,000 times.
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People have read it and hopefully been encouraged by it.
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Because every question he asked, I said, this is the answer.
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And this is a question I have for you.
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And that's how a debate should go.
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A nice, civil debate.
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Yeah, I think that's correct.
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My time is way over, so let's pray.
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Father, thank you for this opportunity we've had to study together this morning.
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I pray it's been fruitful for your people and that you would bless our time of worship in Jesus' name.
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Amen.