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Apologetics Conference 2016: Answering Mormons' Questions Eric Johnson August 13, 2016
If you are interested in Mormonism, I think you're going to get a lot of information. It will be firehose. I have been told, I was told by someone a couple of nights ago, we've been at a church since Sunday, we've been at a different church every day, every night.
And so I was told by somebody from New Jersey, I said, did you get the information? Because it was fast. It was an hour long. And they said, you talk fast, but we're used to that in New Jersey. So Utah, they're not so used to it.
So it's great. I used to teach for 17 years at a Christian school in El Cajon, California. I was the Bible department head of a school that is the same where the church of David Jeremiah, maybe you've heard of before.
And so I learned how to talk as fast as I could sometimes to get the information in, but had a great time doing that. But in 2010, moved to Utah. Let me ask you a question. Does truth matter? I think it does, doesn't it?
I mean, we live in a world of truth. If you cross the road without looking both ways, eventually you're probably going to get hit. Law of gravity is something that's very narrow. It's not bigoted to say that gravity exists.
And I think when we sang that song and you were talking about Jesus, I think it was important that we didn't use the word Krishna, for instance, or Vishnu. Why not? If we started to sing to Vishnu or Krishna, would you have a problem with that?
Well, yeah. And so that's kind of like a counterfeit $30 bill that's orange, right? I mean, how many people are going to be able to pass a $30 orange bill and it's not going to work? And so you guys would say, no, that's wrong.
However, if we use the same terms and just happen to use the name of Jesus and made it look like a 20, but there were some things missing, would you have a problem with that?
I would.
And yet, is it hard to recognize? What I want to do in this first hour is I want to show you a little bit about what the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in Utah, with over 15 million members, with over 80 ,000 missionaries inundating this entire area with this temple open house.
And on the 11 o 'clock, 1130 hour, I'll be talking about the temple specifically. But what I want to do in this hour is I want to give you a good overview. And just so you know, if you could get my PowerPoint up, an online PDF file containing the notes for this PowerPoint will be on mrm .org slash Philadelphia.
So if you were to write that down, we didn't print those out for you, it's four pages. All of the quotes that I'm going to give here today are listed on that website. It's a PDF. You can print them out, four pages, including the chart I'm going to show you.
And I think if you are able to stay with me, then I think you're going to have a pretty good idea of what this religion is about. Let me tell you a little bit about this ministry. Mormonism Research Ministry was founded in 1979 by my friend Bill McKeever.
He was not a Mormon ever, and neither was I. He became a Christian at the age of 18. And all of his LDS friends, and that's the nickname, Mormon or LDS, when I'm referring to a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I'll use LDS or Mormon. They all began to try to evangelize him as they had never done before, because he became a Christian. And so he wanted to do some research, and that's how it started. And then in 1979, when he was a young man, he started this ministry.
We have a twofold purpose. Number one is we want to inform Christians about this religion. Number one, so that we can have you do the work that we can't do, just like your pastor can't do the work. You know people who we don't know, and you'll be able to have an influence with them.
And also, to keep people from joining this church, do you know that more than half of all Mormon converts come from a Christian background? Does that surprise you? Because they knock on your door, and they're so nice.
I mean, the white church, have you had them come to your door before? How many have had Mormon missionaries come to your door? Many of you have. And so they come to your door, and what many Christians want to do is go hide behind the couch, right, or they slam the door in their face.
That happens a lot. And the missionaries take that as being a martyr. Well, you know, it's obviously that we have the truth, because otherwise they wouldn't be so against it. And I would say, just as a short way to say, if you don't want to talk to them, tell them.
I'm not interested. But if you're interested, then, like Pastor Jeff, if they come to his door, he's inviting them inside, and he's going to have fun with them, right? I mean, that's, I mean, he's going to talk, he's going to ask lots of questions.
And I think, legitimately, we should be able to ask lots of questions, and not be scared.
Of that.
So we want to inform you about that, and not, I don't know how much you came into knowing about this church, and that's what we do a lot of, speaking at churches. We also want to share the Christian faith of Latter-day Saints.
We're going to be doing that this afternoon. If you come with us to the Temple Open House, afterward, we're going to be out there. My friend John and I have a newspaper that we hand out. In fact, you got that newspaper as you came in, and we like to hand those out to people who are not Mormon, so they can understand that this is different from what Biblical Christianity is saying, and also to give to Mormons.
We've had lots of good discussions out there, and we do a lot of different evangelism things with our ministry. We do have a website, and if you get nothing else out of here today, go to our website, mrm .org.
We have YouTube videos, lots of articles. I can't tell you all the information. We get about over 1 ,000 hits a day. We've been around since 1995 on the internet, so we have a short URL, M-R-M, and easy to.
Find.
We write books. I'll be talking about that at the end. You can go to our back table and see some of those. We have a daily radio show we've been doing since 2011. Let me tell you, we have a lot of Mormon listeners.
You have to understand, Utah, 60 of everyone living in Utah is Mormon, and like you would probably have a pretty large percentage here who are Roman Catholic, right? We have Mormon, and so those are our neighbors, our friends, and how many of you know a Latter-day.
Saint?
Let me ask that question. Okay, so about maybe a quarter of the room. If I ask that question in Utah, everybody raises their hands. It's pretty obvious that you know somebody there, but here, it may not be as well-known, but because of this temple I'll be talking about in the next hour that I speak, you're going to find out that that is such an important building for them, and to have that building there, they're not going to build a building like that and not try their best to grow, and so that's something that we like to do is go to places like this to be able to share, but the radio show plays in five different radio stations, but in Utah, three times a day, and we have had Mormons who have become Christians through that.
We also do podcasts, and we have over 1 ,300 shows backlogged. They're 15-minute shows. So go on to our website, go to radio, and you can see an index of all the shows, and then evangelism events, as I was talking about.
Well, here is what I was talking about at the beginning today, that there are the same terms that are being used, and yet there can be confusion, and this is one of the hard things when you're trying to detect a counterfeit $20 bill.
You first need to know about the real thing, and that's why Pastor Jeff and the church here is equipping you in understanding your Bible. Right now, you're going through the book of Ezra. You need to understand the Old and the New Testaments.
You have to have a good grasp of what the authentic is, and today, we're going to take time away from the Bible to take a look at a counterfeit. The Secret Service looks very carefully at what the counterfeits are, and I'm going to tell you something.
You can know your Bible as well as you want to know it, but if you don't understand what the other person is thinking and saying, if you don't understand his or her worldview, you're not going to be able to communicate truth very well, despite all your Bible knowledge, and I know that for a fact, because I had a professor at, I went to seminary back in the 90s, 80s and 90s, and this guy's name was Dr. Ronald Youngblood.
He was a translator of the New International Version, excellent professor, and well-known. He's now passed away and was with the Lord, but he sat with a Mormon on a plane for three hours, and he came back to class one day, and he said, he says, I have two PhDs, I have all this information, and I could not evangelize this person next to me, because I didn't know what he was talking about.
He was using the same words, and I didn't know where to go, and that was when I was, that was when I first started the seminary, and that gave me a lot of respect for a guy like that, who understood, as much as he knew, he needed to have more information, and he said, I'm, he says, I vow to you students today, I am going to do my part so that will never happen again, and I can be an effective witness for Jesus on a plane, whether I sit next to a Mormon, or Jehovah's Witness, or an atheist, because he knew his Old Testament, but he admitted he didn't know much about Mormonism, so here are the terms many Christians will ask their LDS friends, do you believe in God, and what does a Latter-day Saint say?
Yes, of course we believe in God, you didn't think we did? Of course, we're not atheists, do you believe in Jesus? And they like to, the missionaries will do this, I've seen it happen, oh, wait a minute, we have Jesus Christ on our name, the name of our church, it says the church of, and in big font, if you notice, it's Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, if you go through the temple, those of you who go through the temple today, do me a favor, I think I lost count of how many Jesus paintings there were, I saw one of Joseph Smith in the first vision, that's all I saw, I saw a Book of Mormon painting, but I'm gonna say probably 30 or 40 paintings, all had pictures of Jesus, but one thing you won't find in there with Jesus, you'll find the Garden of Gethsemane, you'll find Sermon on the Mount, but you won't find what?
You won't find a cross, the cross is not something they appreciate, they think that if Jesus died by a bullet, would you wear a bullet around, a bullet casing around your neck, they just don't understand that, they think it's kind of gross to think about where Jesus died, they'd rather reflect on his life, but for us as Christians, the cross is not foolishness, we preach the cross because that's where forgiveness of sins takes place, but they do believe in Jesus, it's just which Jesus, 2nd Corinthians 11 4 says, it's possible to have another Jesus, and certainly Paul says in Galatians 1 8 9, that there can be another gospel, if anyone preaches a gospel other than the one I preached to you, he says something pretty harsh, let him be accursed, and that's a big deal, so they have Jesus, they also will say, salvation by grace, yes, we have salvation by grace, and you go, well, wait a minute, I've heard that Mormonism is not Christian, and yet they believe in the same things we do, there's your 20 dollar bill, it's not orange, and they might even try their best to pass the tests that the secret service puts into those bills, but we have the ability to look at that closer, and so I want to take a look at this today, to see yet a Mormon answering these questions in a way that it sounds confusing, I think it's possible to better understand, so how do we answer Mormons, I think there's a couple of key rules, number one, we need to use gentleness and respect, the Bible says in 1 Peter chapter 3, it says that we're always supposed to have an answer for everyone who asks us to give the apologia, this is an apologetics conference, to give an apologia for the hope that we have, but notice, do this with gentleness and respect, we have a term for it, we call it compassionate boldness, and that might sound like an oxymoron, but compassion, we need to love the Mormon people, but there are some, including some people in higher level institutes, educational Christian institutions where they would say, you know what, they seem like they're such nice people, we just need to just get along, and so they want to be compassionate, but they're not bold in saying wait a minute, we need to call out air when it comes, and because there are people who are following this who may not know very much and are easily accepted into this religion and end up, I'm going to say, causing themselves all kinds of problems down the road, because there's going to come a time where there's going to be a resurrection, there's a resurrection of life Jesus said in John chapter 5, but there's also a resurrection to judgment, and in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says, there will be many who say, Lord, Lord, look at all the good things that I did, and what does Jesus reply?
Come on in, yeah, come into my kingdom, no, he doesn't say that, he says, no, I never even knew you, and so as good as Mormon people are, and are Mormons nice people? Absolutely, please hear me, I do not, I am not against the Mormon, people like the Mormons oftentimes will call us anti-Mormon, I'm not against the Mormon, I'm against the religion itself, just like I'm against Buddhism and Islam, I'm not against the Muslim, or the Buddhist, or the Hindu, I'm against the religion, because I believe it's taking people to a place that is eternal separation from God, and I don't want that for anyone, so we do that with gentleness and respect, 2nd Timothy 2 .15 says we need to be doing our best to present ourselves to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth, know that word of truth, and the more you know that, and then the more you understand what I'm going to talk about today, you're going to easily see this, if you don't have much biblical knowledge at all, some of the things that I'll say, you'll go over, and you'll go, what's so wrong with that?
But if you know your Bible, you'll say, how did they come to that conclusion? Ephesians 4 .14 says that we need to speak the truth, how? In love, and so I want to encourage you, especially for those of you who come down with us today, if you, after you're done with the tour, if you want to come out and try to hand out some papers, I'd love to have you be a part of that, and if that's something you want to do more of, this thing is only open for four weeks, the Mormon open house, Mormon Temple open house happens for four weeks, anybody can go right now, but in four weeks, they will close it down, and only those in good standing with a temple recommend card can actually get in, there's certain requirements, I'll talk about that in the next hour, when I get to talk about the temple, and I'll tell you a little bit about what goes on in there, now they're not going to tell you down at the temple open house, you'll go see a video, and then you'll get to go through this temple, they're not going to tell you very much at all, they'll say you can ask questions, but you're not allowed to ask questions about what they actually do in there specifically, like the ceremony itself, it's very private, we call it secret, even though they would like to say it's sacred, but I want to do all of that love, and I don't want to needlessly offend, we wrote a book called Answering Mormon's Questions, and in chapter one, we dealt with probably the most common question that comes up, there's 36 chapters in this book, and we put this number one because we know it comes up all the time, and I'm going to tell you, I was out there for four hours on Wednesday, and I got asked this question at least ten times, as I'm handing out this newspaper, and asking people, free Christian newspaper, not Mormon, and I do that on purpose, and the Mormons, about 80 of those going through are LDS, and they'll say, well we're Christian too, don't you think we're Christian?
That's the question that they're going to come up with right away, and so that gives me an opportunity to talk about what I'm going to share with you here, and so that's what we're going to deal with, this question is, why won't you accept Mormons as Christians, do you think we are a cult?
Now I'm going to tell you right now, from the very beginning, I don't think that you ought to use this question when you're talking to a Latter-day Saint, and I'm big on asking questions, I like the Socratic method, because you need to understand where they're coming from, you don't want to use words like, you believe, never tell a Latter-day Saint what he believes, rather, what do you ask?
Yeah, do you believe this? I heard you believe as man is, God once was, do you believe that? Why do you believe that? How do you know that? These are questions you can ask, and so I'm big on that, but this question is not a good one, because that puts them right on the defensive, and that's not something that's going to get very far, and especially the word cult.
We can talk about the word cult, we do in our chapter here, I think, realistically, it is a theological cult in every way possible, but I don't like to use that word, because then that word becomes a slam, and they turn off, and you don't want to do that, you want to keep your conversation open whenever possible.
So here, at the beginning of the chapter, we list some questions you can ask, to try to, that's a pretty loaded question they just came at you with, so I will ask, could you please define what the word Christian is?
Can you define that term? That's a good one, just to get them to explain what they think it is. Why does it bother you that I, as a Christian, won't accept Mormonism as a part of Christianity? For some reason, they want our approval.
When Mitt Romney was running for president, and there were a number of people who said they would not vote for him, that caused a lot of problems in Utah, they were really upset with Christians, and they say, why won't you vote for him?
And that was a personal decision, we didn't have a recommendation either way, you needed to vote your conscience, but there were a number of people who did not like the fact that it was a Mormon who had pledged allegiance to the LDS leadership, but why does it bother you?
They're concerned that we don't accept them, and so I think this is our opportunity, so find out, what do they think, and then you can respond to that. Why do you think people assume your religion is a cult?
Again, you're not calling the religion a cult, but why do you assume people think that? Well, they think that we're polygamists, we're not polygamists, I agree, you're not, people who believe that don't have a very good understanding of religion.
Or some people will say, this temple, they think that we have a marriage bed in there, and that we consummate the marriage in there. No, you don't, I know you don't, we're not teaching that, so what else, what are some other reasons you think, because I don't agree with their religion, what do you think I don't agree with?
And just get them to try to open up. One of the things that I find fascinating is they really desperately want to be known as Christian, and here's something that I will do when they do that, I'll say, okay, let me get this straight, so you are a Mormon, and you are a Christian, so Mormon and Christian are synonymous, would you agree?
Oh, yeah, okay, well, I consider myself a Christian, maybe I need to come up with another name then, huh? You know, maybe I need to come up with something else, or maybe, since Christian is the same as a Mormon, maybe I'm a Mormon.
And I do that facetiously, and I have to have a little bit of a relationship with the person to do this, and they'll look at me, and they'll say, what do you mean? I say, well, you know, I reject Joseph Smith as a prophet of God, I reject the Book of Mormon, I don't think Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet of God, but I'm a Latter-day Saint.
And what's their immediate reaction? Why? Oh, so are you suggesting that words have meaning? Mormon has a specific meaning. Historically, biblically, does Christian have a meaning? Yes. And so just for anybody to call themselves Christian, it would be like a Hindu.
I actually had a Hindu devotee, I used to take my students to these different religious venues, and he claimed he was a Christian. We love Christ, too, he was a good guru. And I said, so you're a Krishna Christian?
It kind of goes together, I guess. He goes, yeah, of course, it's all part of it. Well, come on, you know, and he's saying all these things you have to do, you have to recite the Maha Mantra so many times a day, and you can't eat dairy or meats, and, you know, okay, so call yourself a Krishna devotee, but don't call yourself a Christian.
Then we put a summary at the beginning of every chapter in this book, and it says, LDS church leaders not only proclaim that theirs is a Christian organization, but they also insist that theirs is the only church with which God is pleased.
Since even before the church was founded in 1830, incredible claims have been made that fall outside the parameters of biblical truth. Their views on the Godhead, salvation, and scripture, along with many other doctrines, separate Mormons from the rest of the professing Christian world.
And while Christians need to be respectful when discussing these topics, differences on central issues cannot be ignored. After all, truth matters. Took me all day to write that paragraph. A lot of stuff in there, but do you see what I'm trying to get at?
And this is what our chapter is about. It's vital information, we've got to use gentleness and respect, but we can't just ignore this. A lot of people in this politically correct world we live in want us to ignore it.
Just let it be. I'm so glad for Pastor Jeff and your church that you want to teach people the truth and not let your people fall into the air, and then to help others get out of the air. I can't tell you how many ex-Mormons I have met who are so excited about knowing Jesus for the first time.
It is amazing the things that we see. I get to see, because I'm on the front lines, just back in April we had a couple in 80 years old sat down in the bookstore where I volunteer on Saturdays with Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry.
It's a bookstore, it's been around since the 1960s. Sandra Tanner is 75 years of age and she's a go-getter. She's the grandmother of Christian apologetics in Utah. And so I was working with Bill, we came in and we work on these Saturdays.
They came in and they said, we are done with Mormonism. We asked why? Because the church came out with these gospel topics essays from 2012 to 2015 where they made admissions to a number of things that they had never known before.
They admitted, for instance, that Joseph Smith did not just take his finger and read the gold plates of the Book of Mormon to translate them, but he took a rock, a magic rock that he had, put it into a hat and he read off of that.
The church has admitted to that in this essay. He said, we never knew that before. He read off a rock, are you serious? And then they admitted, this really bothered his wife, that Joseph Smith had 30 to 40 wives.
This is on LDS .org, 30 to 40 wives. We've known that forever. I mean, that's just part of the church history, but the Mormons didn't know that. They thought he was married to Emma. No, he was secretly marrying women in the last few years of his life especially and one-third of his 30, it's usually used the number 33.
One-third of his wives were teenagers as young as 14 and another third were married to other living husbands. That's polyandry and a lot of people didn't know that. They knew Brigham Young had 54 wives.
They didn't know Joseph Smith. So, this couple sat there and said, we don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. Can we go to church? Is that okay? I don't, we don't even know what, we're not supposed to go there.
They tell us not to, but how do I dress if I do go to church? So, we had to kind of instruct them. I mean, the man, for sure, had already been a Christian. I mean, he already accepted. We didn't have to say a little prayer.
He already was. She was still trying to figure this all out. Long story short, they've been going to Bill McKeever's Church Lifeline. It's an evangelical free church in the Utah area. They've gone every Sunday since Easter.
Not only that, but they've been coming to my Monday night Bible study every single Monday. They can't get enough. We're studying, we're going through the New Testament and they just say, this is incredible.
We never knew this stuff before. 81 now. They're 81 years old. So, we're seeing a lot of stories like that. So, truth really does matter for people like that. This is a church manual called Gospel Principles and I want to tell you what their standard is, what their authority is.
According to this manual, which is well accepted in the Mormon world, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts four books of Scripture. The Bible, the King James Version specifically, and yet the Bible is true only as far as it's translated correctly.
What you got to see last night with Andrew about how we got the Bible was very important because they think corrupt priests change things and manipulated things. Even though they'll use the Bible to support their views like baptism for the dead in the temple, they use a verse out of context in 1 Corinthians 1529 to support that.
But, they do believe the Bible. They do accept it as Scripture. Then they believe the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is a story of two ancient peoples called the Nephites and the Lamanites who lived on the American continent.
There was a battle. The Nephites were destroyed. The white people were destroyed by the Native Americans, the Lamanites. The last living Nephite was Moroni. His dad was Mormon. That's where the book title comes from.
He had saved the plates of the records of these ancient Jews on the American continent. Jesus had appeared actually on the American continent as well according to this story. He took the plates as a human being in about 430 or so AD, buried them in upstate New York.
Palmyra buried those plates. Then in 1823, he came back from a human being. He became an angel. That is the angel that's on top of the Mormon temple. That would be the angel Moroni, a depiction of him.
Joseph Smith took those plates and supposedly translated this story of the ancient Americans and Jesus' appearance on the American continent. That's the Book of Mormon. That's the book they'll ask you to read and pray about.
We're not going to spend much time on that, but that's its own topic. Doctrine and Covenants are revelations that Joseph Smith receives from Jesus. He gets all kinds of revelations. In fact, I'll pass this around.
This is called the Triple Combination. These are their three unique scriptures. You can take a look, flip through, and get an idea. Those three scriptures along with the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price is another.
Those four books are called the Standard Works. That's very important. We want to use the Standard Works when we're doing our research and talking to Mormons and use their scripture. You'll see me using that today.
In addition to those books of scripture, the inspired words of our living prophets become scripture to us. That is very important. They have living leaders today who they trust very much. They have words that come to us through general conferences twice a year, first weekend of every April and October.
The whole church gets together in Salt Lake City as a centerpiece. Everybody here would be watching on TV as their prophet and apostles and other leaders do speak. I'll be quoting from General Conference here today.
The La Jona and Ensign magazine are monthly magazines. The Ensign is the English version. That's very important. You'll see me quote from that as well and instructions to local priesthood leaders. They don't believe in a closed canon.
They believe in an open canon. Scripture can continually be added because they have leaders that come directly from God. As far as those general authorities, here they are. We have the president. The founder was Joseph Smith.
In 1830, he founds his church. He claimed in 1820 as a 14-year-old boy that God the Father and Jesus appeared to him in what's called the Sacred Grove in the Palmyra area. You can go visit there today.
It's very important. Every Mormon knows the First Vision story of how God the Father and Jesus came. They told Joseph Smith that all the churches there were false. Their creeds were an abomination. They were not to be believed that Joseph Smith was going to restore the church that had been lost before.
Joseph Smith was the first one. Today, Thomas S. Monson. On the left-hand side in the middle, those three men there are called the First Presidency. The First Presidency, the guy on the right of Monson is Henry B. Eyring.
The guy on the left is Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Those three men make up the top three leaders, but the president is most important. We don't expect Monson to live much longer. He's almost 90, and he's suffering from Alzheimer's, so he's fading away really fast.
In fact, they limit his appearances. When they dedicate this temple in September, it won't be Monson coming to do it, as he's dedicated more temples than anybody else, I think. So, somebody else, maybe Eyring or Uchtdorf will come.
Then there are 12 apostles on the right-hand side. Those 15 men are the top leaders, the three plus the 12, and they believe that's the same structure that Jesus would have had, and then they also have what are called the Seventies.
Those are the leaders who will do most of the preaching at these conferences, and they are directing the people on how to believe. So, now you understand. We have the written scripture. We have the oral scripture given to us by these men who have been appointed, and Thomas S. Monson is number 16, so there have been 16 presidents of the church.
They also are known as prophets. Let me talk about the sixth president of the church. Give a quote. This is from Joseph F. Smith, the nephew of Joseph Smith, and this is what he said, I contend that the Latter-day Saints are the only good and true Christians that I know anything about in the world.
There are a good many people who profess to be Christians, but they are not founded on the foundation that Jesus Christ himself has laid. And you might say to me, well, Eric, that's a pretty serious quote, but that was probably said a long time ago.
I know my Mormon friends wouldn't agree with him, and that might be true. There might be Mormon friends you would have that would say, I don't agree with that. You guys are, and they'll call you Christians.
They'll say, oh yeah, you're Christians. You're doing nice things, but what exactly does that mean? And that's what I want to talk about. So, remember this quote because later I'm going to show you some current quotes from their leaders to see if what Joseph F. Smith is an anomaly or if it is accurate for today.
Gary J. Coleman is responding to a 14-year-old girl, a little Mormon girl who he called Courtney, and she was supposed to be the daughter of an LDS mission president. He says this in the Ensign, May 2007, and the May and the November issues cover General Conference.
They give you all the speeches word for word. So, those are the two most important editions, and you'll find our books that we write. We load our content with quotes from General Conference. This is what he said, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you are a Christian and I am too.
I am a devout Christian who is exceedingly fortunate to have greater knowledge of the true doctrine of Christ since my conversion to the restored church. Notice how church is capitalized. That's how they will do it because it is the church.
These truths define this church as having the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I now understand the true nature of the Godhead. I have access to additional scripture and revelation, and I can partake of the blessings of priesthood authority.
Yes, Courtney, we are Christians. So, what does he say? He says we have the true doctrine. We have the fullness of the gospel. By definition, if they have the fullness, what do you have? Less than the fullness.
You have half the story with the Bible. You need the rest of the story with the Book of Mormon, and they're gonna say that they have a better idea of the Godhead. They have a better idea of scripture and revelation and priesthood authority.
I want to deal with those specifically because these are crucial issues. Would you think that those are essential issues? And as Christians, we may have different denominations in attendance here, but one thing we can agree with would be those things.
Isn't it true? And so, that's what we want to look at. Apostle Neal Anderson, some ask, aren't there many of other faiths who love Christ? Of course there are. Notice the however. However, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having a witness of his reality, not only from the Bible but also from the Book of Mormon, knowing his priesthood has been restored to the earth.
That's very important. Let me just stop here real quick. According to Mormonism, after the Apostles died, all authority was lost. And in fact, we were in the Dark Ages for probably about 1 ,700 years.
In the Dark Ages, we had no priesthood. We had no authority until Joseph Smith brought it back. He brought back the priesthood because in 1829, the year before he founded his church with six members in New York, he was visited by John the Baptist and he and Oliver Cowdery were baptized in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
John the Baptist was there. And then later, and he doesn't remember the date, so we don't know the date in 1829, but Peter, James, and John came back and they laid their hands upon Joseph Smith and Oliver and they were given the Melchizedek priesthood.
So, the Aaronic priesthood today is given to 12-year-old boys or older, and the Melchizedek priesthood is given to 18-year-old men or older. Women do not hold the priesthood, although the feminists have been trying hard lately, working there, working overtime trying to get women the priesthood.
It's a big issue in Utah, especially, but the women do not have that priesthood. And so, he's made his priesthood available again through the Mormon Church because Joseph Smith got it and they pass it.
The only way you get the priesthood is when somebody has that priesthood. It's like a lit candle and you pass it on. And so, having made sacred covenants to follow him, they do that every Sunday in their churches called chapels or meeting houses.
A group would be called either a branch or a ward. A ward would be over 200 people and that would be there. They meet on Sundays, not at the temple. Temple's closed on Sunday. It's a place of work. They would meet in their churches like you would meet at your church and they make sacred covenants there.
They also make sacred covenants in the temple and I'll talk about that. Covenants to follow him and you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. You've been endowed with power in his holy temple. Again, this temple is a big deal.
This is huge for them. And being part of preparing for his glorious return to the earth, he will return, according to Mormonism, to Independence, Missouri, where Joseph Smith said that Jesus would return.
And we cannot compare what we are to be with those who have not yet received these truths. Who hasn't received those truths? Yeah, and that's why they even admit they will send missionaries to other Christians because you need to finish out your truth and be able to get the things that Neil Anderson says you need.
He's an apostle. I want to base the rest of my talk on a speech given, a talk given by Robert D. Hales in 2012, October 7th. This is at General Conference. In this magazine, it's the November issue and it's called Being a More Christian Christian.
I want you to hear what Hales has to say as an apostle. And if you were to read this without having me define what they mean by those terms, I think many of us would say they sound like they're Christian too.
But when you understand deeper what those terms mean, I think it's a problem. He said this, according to Hales, a Christian has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that He is the literal Son of God sent by His Father to suffer for our sins in the supreme act of love we know as the Atonement.
On face value, you do have a problem with that quote. I mean, it looks pretty basic, right? Don't you believe in Jesus? He's the Son of God, right? Don't you believe in Heavenly Father? They call Him Heavenly Father or Elohim.
But don't you believe in God? Of course you do. And don't you believe in the Atonement? Hey, we're on the same page, aren't we? But what does He mean? What does the Mormon understand those words to mean?
Well, let me tell you. First off, Jesus Christ is God the Father's firstborn Son and humanity's eldest brother. Prior to His incarnation, He was known as Jehovah. So keep that in the back of your mind and remember when He put literal.
I'll show you why He put literal and what the Mormon would understand if he studied His Church's teaching. So Jesus Christ is somebody who was created who is actually created being in this what we call the pre-existence or what they call the pre-existence.
Then as far as His Father, well, God the Father is known as Heavenly Father or Elohim who was once a righteous human in another realm who died and then became God of this world who has a tangible body of flesh and bones.
God is not spirit as John 424 says, which says God is spirit and He must be worshipped in spirit and truth. He is actually with flesh and bones. He's just like we are with bodies. As far as the Atonement provided by Jesus is suffering in Gethsemane, that is usually what's more stressed, the blood that He shed there that crosses an after effect.
And again I told you they don't have a cross there at the temple, they won't have one anywhere on their buildings. They avoid that because they don't like that. It's one of the reasons I like to wear a cross.
Many of us in Utah do because when they see that they understand where we're going. We're not part of the culture there and that is for us a way to distinguish who we are. It allows humankind to have a resurrection as well as paving the way for potential exaltation.
I realize some of these terms you may not quite have, like exaltation, that means godhood. And in Mormonism the hope is that you can attain godhood and be with your family forever. So that's what the Atonement is.
It's something that provides the way but you don't receive true forgiveness of past, present, and future sins through the Atonement. It's based on what you do and I'll show that. Then He says the Holy Spirit is a personage of spirit whose work is...
I should start at the beginning. Through the scriptures and the witness of Joseph Smith, we know that God our Heavenly Father has a glorified and perfected body of flesh and bone. Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son in the flesh.
The Holy Spirit is a personage of spirit whose work is to testify of the Father and the Son. The Godhead is three separate and distinct being, beings united in purpose. Well as far as the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost, that is a literal Son of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother in the pre-existence.
And again, I'll get to it. Don't worry. I'll show you what that is very vividly but just put this in the back of your mind. He's just a Son of God and He's the brother of Jesus Christ. In fact, we're all the brother of Jesus when it comes to that because all of us were born out of a union between Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.
As far as the Godhead, three gods they believe in. God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. They deny the Trinity the way we would hold to the Trinity. They say that these three beings are distinct in being and they're one in purpose.
And we would say as Christians, yes, they're one in purpose but they're also one in essence. The Shema in Deuteronomy 6 .4, Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one. And Jesus cites that in Mark chapter 12 when he's asked what's the greatest commandment.
He cites that first and yet Jesus calls Himself God. I mean we have John starting off his gospel. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. Verse 3 says that He created all things.
Not even one thing has been made without Him. Verse 14, the Word became flesh. Go through the book of John. How can you not see that? John 8 .58, before Abraham was? Ego eimi, referring back to Exodus 3 .14.
I am, God said, I am who I am. And they picked up stones to stone Him because you, being a mere man, claim to be God. They understood that. And Jesus accepted worship. I love John 20 .28. Thomas says, my Lord and my God.
And Jesus says, how dare you call me God? I'm not God, no. He says what? Blessed are you, Thomas, because you've seen and believed but more blessed are those who don't see and do believe. The fullness of the deity lives in Jesus, Paul says in Colossians 2 .9.
I can quote over and over. Go through the book of Hebrews. This is not just a God, He is the God incarnate. And that's what the Godhead is in Mormonism, though. So there's a difference. Joseph Smith said this, God Himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.
If Pastor Jeff gives you that statement this Sunday, I would hope after the service you'd at least go up to him and say, are you sure of this? What are you talking about? He's a man? Are you sure? No, the Bible says he's not.
But that's what Joseph Smith taught. And he said, we have 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. Now, earlier in Joseph Smith's life, he got killed in 1844.
He says this in 1844, just a few weeks before he dies, but he had changed his view in the last few years before. Earlier, he had a confused view of the Trinity and the Godhead. He did not quite get it, but he really just went off his rocker here.
He ends up actually getting put into jail, MacArthur jail. He had destroyed a printing press because he was the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois. And he didn't like what they said about him because they were showing that he was polygamous.
He hadn't come out with that doctrine yet, and they were showing how many wives he had. These former members did not like him, and so he destroyed that press. He gets put into jail, smuggles a couple of pistols in, and there's a gun battle that happens when a mob storms the jail, and he and his brother end up getting shot.
Joseph Smith ended up killing a couple of people as well in this gun battle. But this is what he was teaching, that he would refute the idea that God has always been God. But how could such a notion be imagined?
He says, I've always taught it. He had not always. The standard works disagree. For instance, Moroni 818, for I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being, but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.
Let me ask you this question. That's from the Book of Mormon. Do you agree with it? I do. Don't you agree with that? Yeah. Is God unchangeable from all eternity? Well, how did you always teach that? If your own scripture or the Book of Mormon is the most correct book on earth, and a man can get near to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book.
That's what Joseph Smith had taught. Well, that's not what it teaches, and that's not the only verse we can go to. Many, many others. Doctrine and Covenants 2017 says, By these things we know there is a God in heaven who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth and all things which are in them.
Can you agree with D &C 2017? I say amen to it. I don't agree with those two scriptures. I don't think God really said that to Joseph Smith, but I believe that those are true statements. Just like we would accept Psalm 90 verse 2, Before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
There never was a time that God was not God. God did not have a God before him, and that God did not have a God before him, and there's no potential for me to become a God at all. And yet, this is what the scriptures here are talking about.
And yet, Ronald R. Zollinger is a Mormon apologist. He said there was a time when our God was not God. Does that bother you? Is this the same Godhead you believe in? It's a much different version. James Talmadge is a very popular apostle who lived in the early 20th century, and his book, Articles of Faith, along with Jesus the Christ, are considered classics.
This is what he said, We believe in a God who is himself progressive, whose majesty is intelligence, whose perfection consists in eternal advancement, getting better, a being who has attained his exalted state by a path which now his children are now permitted to follow, whose glory it is their heritage to share.
The church proclaims eternal truth. As man is, God once was. As God is, man may be. Now, that last part right there is a little couplet. It's called the Lorenzo Snow couplet. He was the fifth president of the church, and in 1840, Lorenzo Snow came up with that and gave it to Joseph Smith, and Joseph Smith said, That is doctrine.
Your Mormon friend will know that couplet. If you cite that to him, ask him, Do you believe? As man is, God once was. As God is, man may be. If he doesn't, tell him to go to the 2012 and 2013 church manuals called Teachings of Presence of the Church, Lorenzo Snow, and also the other one is George Albert Smith.
Every year, the Mormons have to read for their Sunday school. They have to go through these books twice a month, and both of those manuals cite this little couplet. This is very much LDS teaching today.
Let me show you what LDS teaching is with this chart. This is a chart that I put into a book that just got published last week, and I brought them here on this trip for the first time. They're being sold.
It's called Mormonism 101 for Teens. This has a little pointer, doesn't it? Yeah, there we go. Here we have ruled by Heavenly Father and populated with his wives and billions of spirit children. Before God became God, he was a human being.
Lived on a planet, one leader said, nearest the star Kolob. We don't know where that is, but somewhere out in the universe, he lived as a human being. How did he die? I've talked to Latter-day Saints and have asked them, what did God do to die?
Did he possibly sin? Seven out of ten Mormons say, I have no problem to say that God may have sinned and died, because the wages of sin is death. So on his world, he's like me. I sinned too, and I'm going to die.
Many Mormons have no problem with that. That would be anathema for a Christian. But anyway, he was good enough to be able to graduate to become God of this world. There are millions of gods and millions of universes, and so God the Father had worshipped his God, who had worshipped his God, and so back, an infinite regression.
We don't know where the first God came from, and Mormons don't like to talk about it, because there's a lot of mystery to it. We have no idea. But we do know that God is the latest God. He's our God, and we worship him only.
So in the pre-existence, Heavenly Father brought his wife and wives. Polygamy was in heaven, and in fact, polygamy will be in the future for Mormons. They do believe that there will be one man and multiple women to be able to produce the spirit children for the next world.
So God did. He had these relations physically with his wives and produced all of us. You don't remember this, because your brain was washed. But you were born in the spirit world with everybody else. Now, there were two thirds of us here, and one third of us.
We had to decide who was going to be the Savior of the world. Heavenly Father said, you're going to have a choice. So Jesus made his case, and he said, I'm the firstborn. I'm rightfully the one who ought to be the Savior of the world.
I want to give people agency. I want to give them free will to choose or not choose Heavenly Father's plan. Lucifer said, no, that's a terrible plan. Let's require everybody to do this, and that's my plan.
Well, one third of our brothers and sisters in the spirit world chose Lucifer and his plan. The two thirds of us and everyone here, I can guarantee you, the reason why I know is you were born on earth.
So you chose Heavenly Father, or you chose Jesus' plan to the glory of Heavenly Father. And so what happened is one third of the spirits were cast out of heaven because they chose Lucifer and have no bodies.
You had to have a body to progress. So the first human was Adam. According to the Book of Mormon, Adam sinned that men might be. It actually, the fall was not as bad as you might have made it out to be because it gave all of us the opportunity to have bodies as well.
You needed a body to progress. You're born on this earth based on your merit. It's sort of like reincarnation and karma in Hinduism. You're born in a nice family in Utah if you are really good in the pre-existence.
You had free will up there. Those of us who weren't so good probably are headed to Africa, India, some poor village somewhere. And in fact, before 1978, the Mormon Church did not allow those with color to hold the Mormon priesthood.
Without the Mormon priesthood, you could not go to the Celestial Kingdom, the very best this religion had to offer. They took that away in 1978, but partly because they built a temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where everybody has black blood.
And so they eliminated that, but that was believed. That's one of the two major changes they've made, as well as polygamy. Before 1890, they taught in polygamy and they no longer do. Well, here you are on earth and you're all going to die.
When you die, you're going to go to one of two places. Good Mormons go to spirit paradise. Those, the rest of us, are going to go to spirit prison. Now, most of the work done in the temples, this is number 152, most of that work is not done for the living.
It's done for the dead. They believe in genealogy. They will do baptisms for the dead. They will also do sealings. And when that work is done for you, you will have a chance to have missionaries come down and share with you the gospel.
I have Mormons on my wife's side. A cousin told us years ago, he came up to us and he said he wanted to get some genealogical information. And he said, I just want you to know, when any of your family dies, my family will do that work in a year after you're dead.
And we'll have that work done for you. That's kind of hard for those of you who live in families where people don't believe. You know, Christmas can be kind of a weird time, isn't it? And that's like the elephant in the room.
And they know what I do, and so it just makes it kind of awkward. But thank you, you know. I guess I'm covered, I guess. But don't worry, you guys are covered too. Because the millennium is a time, the reason they're getting all these temples built, in 1993 they only had 46 temples.
Now they have 152. They're building them like crazy because they want to flood the earth. They won't be happy until every city has one. And then that work will be done during the millennium. They'll be doing research for you.
You'll have that chance. You'll even have a chance to accept, as does everyone. Even Adolf Hitler's had his work done for him. So here we have the judgment. And the outer darkness is kind of like a hell, but it's really not for any humans.
It's for the people who made the bad choice here, and they were kicked out, and that's where they end up. The rest of us are going to get one of three kingdoms. The telestial kingdom is where evil people go.
The terrestrial kingdom is where good people go. And the celestial is where they hope to go. The top level of the three-level celestial kingdom is godhood or exaltation. As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.
I, as a man, will be able to raise my wife up from on the resurrection day by calling her by her new temple name, and I'll be able to know the handshakes that will get me past the sentinel, to be able to get past to now go and be with my family forever.
We'll talk more about that a little later. But does that make sense, the couplet I'm talking about? Man is basically pre-God material. You are divine, and you have that potential. Fifteenth. President Gordon B. Hinckley is moving on to Jesus.
As a church, we have critics. Many of them, they say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say. When somebody tells you that they don't believe in the traditional Christ, I hope your ears perk up a little bit.
And he said that. This is what Ezra Taft Benson said, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which he performed his mission in the flesh was sired by that same holy being we worship as God our Eternal Father.
Jesus was not the Son of Joseph, nor was he begotten by the Holy Ghost, even though Matthew 1, 18 says that it was through the Holy Ghost and not through any kind of a sexual union of any kind. In a mysterious way, but it wasn't through Heavenly Father.
It was through the Holy Ghost. Family Home Evening is a night every week. Mormon families are supposed to get together on Mondays in Utah. You can get really good deals at the restaurants. And so in this manual in 1972, they wanted to help parents how to teach their kids some spiritual truth.
And they play games and do other things. So this is still going on today. But in 1972, they wanted to show what this virgin birth is all about. So they said at this point, quoting some of the things that I'm not listing here, you can go to our book, Mormonism 101, and we give you some of the quotes on that page.
At that point, discussing your own words, how Jesus was the only begotten Son of God. You might do this using the following illustration on a chalkboard or a piece of paper. Daddy plus Mommy equals you in the same way that our Heavenly Father plus Mary equals Jesus.
Now, if Mary is a spirit child of God like you guys are, what does this make this union? It's incestuous, isn't it? And I don't want to be blunt, but this has kept more Catholics from joining this church than anything else.
The idea of the virgin birth, this is how it's described. Literal, sire. I mean, these are terms that we would never use when we're discussing that virgin birth. As far as salvation goes, Hale said, a Christian believes that through the grace of God, the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, we can repent, forgive others, keep the commandments, and inherit eternal life.
A lot of Christians would read that and say, I don't have a problem with that. But what does it mean, grace of God? It's merely the enabling power to keep the commandments. It's not something you get for free, and you are forgiven.
The Mormon does not know that right now he's forgiven of his sins. Ask them, do you believe you're forgiven of your past and present sins? They might say yes because they repented of those things. There's something they had to do.
Are you forgiven of your future sins? Don't know. I have to see if I repent tomorrow. That's how their attitude is. As far as the idea of repentance, the process by which a member receives forgiveness.
True repentance involves six steps, including confession and a successful abandonment of sins. You must stop sinning. That's what the Doctrine and Covenants and Book of Mormon talk about. Commandments are laws and rules that are taught by the Mormon Church.
They have all kinds of requirements besides the Ten Commandments. Like, you can't drink coffee and tea. You have to not do anything on Sundays. No football. For those of you who are Eagles fans, sorry.
You better put it on DVR and watch it on Monday because that's not allowed. And there are other requirements as well. And I'll talk about that more in the next hour. Eternal life is gaining exaltation in the highest level of the celestial kingdom and living forever in the family unit.
That is their goal, is to have their families together. Spencer W. Kimball, 12th president, in a book called The Miracle of Forgiveness, a book that I brought with me to hand out at the temple because I want every Mormon to read this book because it has what we call the impossible gospel.
Nobody can keep it. Here's what he says. Eternal life hangs in the balance awaiting the works of men. This progress toward eternal life is a matter of achieving perfection. Living all the commandments guarantees total forgiveness.
Anybody here doing that? And assures one of exaltation, godhood. Incomplete repentance never brought complete forgiveness. Repentance means you stop doing what you were doing. He also said your heavenly father has promised forgiveness.
What do you have to do for it? Here, upon total repentance, stopping the sin and meeting all the requirements. But that forgiveness is not granted merely for the asking. There must be works, many works, and an all-out total surrender with a great humility and a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
It depends upon you whether or not you are forgiven and when. It could be weeks, it could be years, it could be centuries before that happy day when you have the positive assurance that the Lord has forgiven you.
That depends on your humility, your sincerity, your works, your attitudes. The onus is on who's back here. A lot different than Ephesians 2, 8, 9. We've been told that we have received forgiveness. It's grace that saves us and not what?
Not works. Why? Because lest any man should? I did this. I did that. What is Kimball saying? It's based on you. And I'm going to say, I can't do it. Maybe you're a better person than I am, but I don't think so.
We're all sinful people, aren't we? And we need forgiveness that's free. And yet good works are important. The Mormon will always say, don't you believe in good works? Yes, sanctification. But we believe in justification by faith alone.
The rallying cry of the Protestant Reformation. Robert C. Gay said, the Lord loves our righteousness but asks of us continued repentance and submission. This is the exchange. Do you think of your relationship with God as an exchange?
Like a barter? Like you're at the store and you pay money and you get your gift? It's not a gift. It's a wage. You have to pay it. It's an exchange, he says, the Savior is asking for us. We are to give up all our sins, big or small, for the Father's reward of eternal life.
We are to forget self-justifying stories, excuses, rationalizations, defense mechanisms, procrastinations, judgmental thoughts, and doing things our way. We are to separate ourselves from all worldliness and take upon us the image of God in our countenances.
Every world religion out there asks the question, what must I do for God? And Mormonism is firmly planted in that. Christianity is the only religion that says, what did God do for me? And I want to serve him because of what he did for me, not because I somehow earned it.
I can't earn it. It's impossible to earn. D &C 110 is cited by Hales and he says, denying ourselves of ungodly behavior is the beginning of repentance which brings a mighty change of heart until we have no more disposition to do evil.
Even Paul struggled with sin according to the book of Romans. This is supported by Moroni 1032 in the book of Mormon. Yay, come on to Christ and be perfected in him and deny yourselves of all ungodliness.
And if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you that by his grace he may be perfect in Christ. See, you have to first do the work.
Then if you do it all, then you get the grace. That doesn't sound like a gift to me. It's like asking somebody to pay you after you give them a birthday present and you say, well, that cost me 20 bucks, pay up.
You know, that wasn't really a gift then. D &C 5843 in one of their standard works, by this he may know that if a man repents of his sins, behold, he will confess them and do what? Forsake them. He'll stop doing those things.
And this is why we have a high rate of depression. Prozac is number one usage in Utah County where Provo is Utah County. John lives there. I live not far away. I live in the Salt Lake Valley and we have suicides left and right to last year at my daughter's school of 1800 students in high school.
Well, it's a lot of depression going on as much as, and in fact, they call, they call Utah County happy County. Everybody's happy because they're all drugged up, but get, get them off the drugs and it's really depressing.
We have a big problem with this. And then Hale says the word Christian denotes taking upon us the name of Christ. We do this by being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy ghost by the laying on of hands, by those holding his priesthood authority.
Well, water baptism is required. You have to be immersed and they do that. Not in the temple. That's where the dead, they'll do that at their local chapel or meeting house and immersion. They'll try to do that really early in the second meeting or third meeting, the missionaries will come and they'll try to get you to do that.
It has to be done by someone holding priesthood authority. And then you'll receive the gift of the Holy ghost. They'll have hands laid on you. And as long as you remain worthy, the Holy spirit will stay with you.
When you're not worthy, he leaves you. He loves me. He loves me not kind of a thing. So there are a lot of people walking around knowing that they're centers going. I wonder if the Holy spirit is with me.
What kind of, what kind of abundant life is that? Jesus said in John 10, 10, he came to give us a life that's full and complete, not one where we're going, man, I wonder if I'm saved today. As far as the authority, he says, the word Christian denounced taking upon us the name of Christ.
We do this by being baptized, receiving the gift laying out of hands by those holding priesthood authority, laying out of hands. They actually will put their hands on the, on the person, those who have that authority, the men, and they bestow a blessing.
And that is authoritative. And the Aaronic for 12 year old boys are older. And then there's the Melchizedek those two authorities, when they have the word elder on their name badge, that means they have the Melchizedek priesthood.
It doesn't mean that could be 18 with elder, not too many Christian elders. I know at 18, but they will have that. And that's intimidating for a lot of Christians. Well, these guys must know everything.
How many 18 year old theologians do you have at this church pastor? I don't probably not many. Would you be scared to talk theology with an 18 year old at your church? Yes, they are very well educated.
But if you know your stuff, and you know a little bit about this, you can have a positive conversation as well. Also, he said, a Christian knows that throughout the ages, God's prophets have always testified to Jesus Christ, the same Jesus accompanied by Heavenly Father appeared to the prophet Joseph Smith in the year 1820.
And he restored the gospel and the organization of his original church. So restoration means reestablishing all the fullness that was talked about the gospel principles. And the gospel is all the doctrines, principles, laws, ordinances, and covenants that you need to be able to receive exaltation by doing the things that the church says you have to do.
Bonnie Oskerson said just this last April, this is May 2016 and sign I bring this up at the end because I've given you some quotes to show you that they believe they have something better than you do listen to what she says.
We claim that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the kingdom of God and the only true church on the earth. It is called the Church of Jesus Christ because he stands at its head. It is his church and all these things are possible because of his atoning sacrifice.
We believe that these distinguishing features can be found in no other place or organization on this earth, including the evangelical free church here and any other Christian church. As good and sincere as other religions and churches are, none of them have the authority, you don't have the priesthood authority to provide the ordinances of salvation that are available in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
They want you to go through that temple. They hope you'll sign up for a missionary at the very end. There's a place to sign up and the missionaries will come and unsuspecting people who think families are nice and this building is beautiful may end up joining the church.
And the records show, their own records show, that when they build a temple the church population within three or four years is going to grow possibly up to 50%. So they are serious about this ladies and gentlemen.
If you didn't think Mormonism was a problem now because you haven't had any missionaries come to your door, I bet you in the next week somebody here is going to have a missionary come to their door. You're going to meet somebody and you're going to say, oh my goodness.
And this is like CPR. You take those classes and you think you'll never need it. That's why you're here today because maybe you've never met a Mormon but I'm going to suggest to you it's going to get really serious here in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey area.
Then he concludes this way, what with these doctrines as a foundation of our faith can there be any doubt or disputation that we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are Christian?
Would you agree with that? I would not. I'd say Christianity has a meaning. Call yourselves Mormon, call yourselves Latter-day Saints, but please don't confuse people by making it sound like you're Christian.
B .B. Warfield I think put it best, when Princeton used to be a Christian institution, I don't know if you realize that or not, he was a great theologian. This is what B .B. Warfield said, if everything that is called Christianity in these days is Christianity, then there is no such thing as Christianity.
A name applied indiscriminately to everything designates nothing. Words have meaning. And so while I will not bring up, you're not a Christian, they will bring it up. Now you've got an opportunity to talk about this very important issue.
We do have some materials. I want to just quickly go over and then we can, I went a little over, but maybe take a few minute break and then we'll have John come up and talk about imputation and salvation.
Very important topic. And then I'll follow him with the talk on the temple. We have three books that we have written. Mormonism 101 is, it's $20 and this one, Answering Mormon's Questions is $18. This one deals with an overview of the differences between Mormonism and Christianity.
We do a lot of citations. If you like what we did here, that would be a lot of what we do here. And then Answering Mormon's Questions is more of a witnessing manual. When you do talk to Mormons, the questions they're going to ask you and how you can give good answers.
This is $18, $20 and $18. If you buy both, and I'm trying to lighten our lobe because we go back next Saturday and we're almost done with all the speaking. We're going to next week be at that temple almost the entire week, Monday through Saturday.
But I have a number of these and so I want to get these out. So $20 and $18 is normally $38. The two together today will be $30. So if you're interested in both of those. People ask what would be the best source if I just wanted one source.
So I'd say these two together work well. I also wrote one called Mormonism 101 for Teens that just came out and that is $9, normally $10. So that's $9. This one is the Apologetic Study Bible for Students.
I just brought a few of these along. I only have two left, two hard copies. I was an associate editor with this Bible. John McDowell, the son of Josh McDowell, is the editor. And so we put a lot of notes in there, especially for teens.
If you have a teenager or a college student, this is a great Bible. I'm really into teens, as you can see, because I think if we don't win them there, they end up going to college and we lose them forever.
So I don't want to lose these kids. But anyway, this is normally $30. We have two left for $25 if you're interested in that. We do take credit cards as well. I sound like I'm hawking here, but I guess I am.
You know, but materials that will help you in this. We have a lot of videos back there. This is called the Bible versus Joseph Smith. And this is the Bible versus the Book of Mormon. They're very similar and yet different.
My friend Joel Kramer is an archaeologist in Israel, and he's produced these. This one he did in Israel, and he interviewed a Mormon who was just a layperson and showed how the Bible has all this, and the Book of Mormon has nothing, and the man admitted to everything.
He's still a Mormon today, but his wife is a Christian. And so anyway, that's a video. And this one deals with the same kind of evidence, because that's really important. The Book of Mormon to them is so crucial.
These are normally $10, but we're going to make these $9 now. So I have some of those in the back. And then I do have these little pamphlets for $3. If you want just one little thing to take with you, this has lots of information.
My friend Bill wrote this for Rose Publishing called 10 Questions and Answers on Mormonism. And if you liked Andrew, he's a good friend of mine, and he's an expert on what you heard last night. And this Why Trust the Bible would be a good supplement to what he talked about for $3 as well.
You did have in the back, when you came in, you got the newspaper. And let me just say something about this newspaper. We got there on Wednesday, and within five minutes, security came out. They always do.
And they interviewed me and wanted to know what I was doing. So we talked. I actually filmed it and put it on my Facebook. I have sunglasses that I can use as a camera for protection, of course. But it was interesting, because these guys were all nice.
And you know, oh, it's, you know, yeah, as long as you stay on your side. And so he, I gave him, I said, you want the newspaper. So he took it. He was the head of security for the entire place. He took it into another leader.
And the leader came out two hours later, he had read the entire thing. He came out and he said, Well, you know, I want to say, I want you to know that this newspaper is the best I've ever seen for something you guys have ever done.
I've seen a lot of bad stuff. But he said, What was in here is accurate. I wish I would have taped that I didn't, unfortunately. But and I said, You came out, I was waiting for the however or but he never came up with that.
I said, You came out to tell me you agreed with it. He said, Yeah, you even quoted our leaders, right? Whoa, you got to read this paper. Because some of the things in here, I'm surprised he said that we talked about Joseph Smith's polygamist wives included teens.
He didn't have a problem apparently with that because he said he anyway, we're handing these out. We've handed out 1000s of these. I have done open house events. This is probably my 20th one. Since 1993.
We handed out 178 ,000 newspapers in six weeks in San Diego in 1993. And we realized what a great place to witness and share our faith. So that there's more of those back there. If you want to get that.
Also our newsletter, Mormonism Research. This is every other month. If you'd like to learn about that, you can get on our list. If you want to just be on the email list, give us an email on the back table or you can get the snail mail.
And it's it's free. So that's something you'd like to do. I have missionary letters back there. And I know john does as well. So if you'd like to know more about what we do, because we're missionaries in Utah, a lot of people think that's not really a missionary, but we're the Judea and Samaria you've heard about.
And, and so and we think by doing this in Utah, it can have everlasting effect throughout the world, because everything comes out of Utah, as far as Mormonism is, and we're seeing great things happen.
So with that being said, feel free to take what five, take five minutes, use the restroom, I'll be back there if real quick, and then john will be coming up and, and we will get started right again, try to get this thing back.
