Engaging Conversation at Mormon Temple

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I don't think that that is the standard that we would have used if my wife's right here. She's right behind you right now.

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There you are. If I was to say, hey, I'm going to sleep with this woman over here, and I prayed to Heavenly Father, and I had a personal revelation, and he said it's okay.

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I don't think you would go, oh, okay. I think you'd say, we have the scriptures. We know what the scriptures say.

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Heavenly Father has been very clear about this is what is right. And so we don't have to pray about something that has been so clearly revealed to us.

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And so likewise, when he says that this is the greatest commandment, he gives us the Shema. He says,

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Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Ehud. There's only one God. There's only one Lord, right? This is the important thing.

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And in the New Testament, when the lawyer was questioning him, or Jesus was questioning the lawyer, I can't remember. What is the greatest commandment?

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The greatest commandment is the Shema. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength.

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If God saw that it was this important, that Jesus himself said it was this important, it's important, and it's been revealed clearly.

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But then we look at something like Moroni 10, right? Moroni 10 says that first you must obey the greatest commandment, love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And then is his grace sufficient for you? And we'd say, we don't want that for you.

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Because all of us, if we're honest, we'd say, I can't love God perfectly. I try, but I can't do it and I fail.

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And so if Jesus says this is the greatest commandment, and we must first love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then his grace is sufficient, we're lost in our sins.

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Because if his grace only comes after we do what it says in Moroni 10, we don't have a savior.

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We have to work to it. And I know you would say, we don't work to it. Jesus saves us all. But then you'd have to contend with your scriptures on what

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Moroni 10 says. It does say what it says. And like I said, it's a beautiful thing about modern revelation is our prophets told us beyond that.

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They've said, listen, if you misunderstood what it said in the scriptures, Christ's grace is sufficient.

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Sufficient for exaltation. It's sufficient to return to the heaven that Christianity believes in and teaches.

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I don't know. I have a genuine question. It's a real question. I'm not playing gotcha. When you say sufficient, my understanding, and I don't want to misrepresent you, is that your church teaches that you're saved by grace.

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Yeah. Right. Christ. And that gives an atonement to the atonement for people. And we all are raised bodily.

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And then at that point, this is where I'm not sure, but correct me if I'm wrong. Then at that point, have we done our ordinances?

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Have we obeyed our commandments? And if so, if we've obeyed the eternal laws and principles in the eternal gospel, then we can be exalted to the highest possible.

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Yeah. So we're saying we don't believe the same thing, because what we would say the Bible teaches is that salvation is so much more than just a bodily resurrection.

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Salvation is true unity with Christ. Salvation is forgiveness of your sins. Jeremiah 31 says very clearly that here is what the new covenant is.

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I will remember your sins no more. If every single sin we've ever committed is remembered no more, that is the essence of the new covenant, then there's no amount of works we can add to that.

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What could you possibly add to the perfection of Christ to be exalted? He says your sins are gone.

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It's finished. If your only goal is just to get to heaven, then no, nothing.

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What else do you need to add to it? But if maybe you had faith that I could be more than just a chair floating around in the forevers.

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Which we don't believe either. I know. I gathered that. Which is fine. I think that's fine.

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I think you guys will be happy wherever you end up. And I hope I'll be happy wherever I end up. I'm sure of it.

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Where will you end up? Hopefully heaven. Do you know that you'll be exalted? I know that I'll achieve heaven.

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He said the grace of Christ is sufficient for all of us. Do you know where you'll be?

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I'm not trying to be rude or push. But do you know that you'll be as close to Heavenly Father as possible?

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Do you know that? I'm hoping for it. Based on what? Based on the revelation that's been given beyond the scriptures.

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It says if you live your life according to the commandments, you follow

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Christ, follow his teachings, as we teach in our religion, make the key covenants, then you can achieve the highest degree of exaltation.

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I believe it's 1 Nephi 3 says that Heavenly Father, God has not given unto the children of man any commandment that they're not able to fulfill.

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That's a paraphrase, but I think it's pretty accurate. Lehi and the breastplates, etc. So if Heavenly Father has not given unto the children of man any commandment that they can't bring about, and he has said the greatest commandment is love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. As an honest man, you seem like a man of complete integrity. Hopefully, maybe.

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Can you honestly say that you're a loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Listen, I'm not perfect.

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Right. Nobody's perfect. That's the point. We would agree with you. Yeah, I say, you know, I wake up every morning,

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I say my prayers, I say, let me be a little bit better today than I was yesterday. Yeah. Help me work on these little details.

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Right. But I also acknowledge that I am a human being. Right. I'm going to get angry.

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I'm going to get caught up. Right. And at the end of the day, I say my prayers. I ask for forgiveness. Hopefully, I don't get caught on the same stumbles that I did yesterday, tomorrow that I did today.

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And I respect that. I think that's something we all do. And we want to be more like God. But the question that I'm trying to push out, and I'm sure you hear it, is that, okay, we want to be better.

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Great. But according to the Bible, I can make sense of that and go, Jesus's grace covers that perfectly.

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But if I'm going to read the Book of Mormon and believe the Book of Mormon, I don't know how. If I must first obey the greatest commandment, and then his grace is sufficient.

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It's like in Nephi, which I'm sure you guys have talked about. And then his grace is sufficient after what we do, after obeying the greatest commandment.

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If only then is his grace sufficient. I could say from the Bible, we're not perfect. We want to be better. We want to be like God.

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We are so thankful that Christ has died, and we can't add anything to his perfection. I could say amen to that.

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And I could say that's what we want for you, is to have that peace. But I genuinely don't understand how you have peace if there is...

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The grace of Christ, my man. But as you've admitted yourself... The grace of Christ has swooped me up in it.

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But as you've admitted yourself, you're not perfect. As Moroni 10 says, you have to be. For his grace to be sufficient for you, you have to be perfect, is what

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Moroni 10 says. I'm not a scriptorian. Sure. And... I don't even know that word, so you're smarter than me.

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If I wanted to, I'm sure we could go online and find whatever the atheists say to dunk on any

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Christian, and we can pull it up, and we can all get stumped. If I'm misrepresenting you, then please tell me, because I don't ever want to do that.

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What I'm saying is the Book of Mormon, to me, teaches me about my Heavenly Father, teaches me about these different people, just similar to the

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Bible, how the Egyptians, the Israelites, all these different people were given commandments, and while sometimes we can apply those scriptures directly in our lives and say, oh, to me,

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I can translate that to mean this to me now. I don't think any of it's meant to be necessarily translated.

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I mean, there's many ways to do it. I don't know if there's many that are meant to be translated, like literally, like, oh, it says we have to be perfect.

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Be perfect. Crap. Isn't that a standard, though? We would agree that's a standard.

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We have to be perfect. Well, I think if you're not shooting at a target, you're not going to hit a target.

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What is the target? You could say, you tell me, what's your target? I told you what my target is. Yeah, I didn't hear yours, but mine is to be like God.

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To achieve the highest degree of exaltation I can. Mine is to glorify God, yeah. And yours is to achieve the highest level of exaltation.

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Well, through my relationship with Heavenly Father. I don't deny that you believe we need grace. I'm not accusing you of that.

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I'm just saying that, and you've heard me, we can go round and round, and I want to respect your time, man. But yeah, and thank you,

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Josh, for talking with us, because we appreciate it. A lot of guys have just, again, shrugged us off. And so the fact that you've been here spending time with us, we appreciate it.

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Our true hope for you, Josh, and you've heard this a million times from us, is that when you lay down at night and you're there before Heavenly Father, you're there before God, that you can know that you know that everything that is needed to be with Heavenly Father as close as you can ever be has been finished on behalf of those that trust in Christ.

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That there's nothing we could possibly add to the perfect work of Jesus. Yes, we must work.

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We're not the Christians out here saying, don't do good works. Ephesians 2 is very... No, don't misrepresent me now.

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Ephesians 2 says, you're saved by grace through faith. But then it says after that, prepare to work, walk in the good works that have been laid before.

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I've known Daniel for a long time. Daniel tried this early dunk on me. He was like, well, do you think by what really works?

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I'm like, I think... What, what? No, wait, no, finish that sentence. We absolutely have to do good works. I said, how can someone be justified in front of God?

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We would not say good works are involved in justification. But of course, any true Christian is going to have good works.

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You know what you're trying to do, Daniel? No, no, no. I'm telling you, you're misrepresenting me right now. My brother in Christ.

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No, no, we're not brothers. We want to be though. I believe we're all brothers. I believe

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Christ created all of us and we're all brothers and sisters. Well, see,

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I think we could get caught a little bit in the details. What would you say when Jesus... Was, if you read the Bible, that Satan existed in the war in heaven and Satan led an army and rebellion against God.

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You're talking about the book of Revelation. That's a whole another topic we get into that is not correct.

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You said the Bible is infallible. No, no, no, no. I'm saying what you're saying about it. What we all say is that there's interpretations.

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The question is what's the standard by which we judge those interpretations. You're saying the Bible teaches that Satan existed eternally in heaven.

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We would deny that. I don't know if I'd say that he existed eternally in heaven. Where did he come from? Genuine question.

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Where did Satan come from? Was he an offspring of Elohim and a heavenly mother?

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That's my understanding. I could be wrong though. That's a less important detail really. Again, we get to the pearly gates and it's like, question,

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Satan came from where? And you're like, uh... But it's not that, Josh.

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But also, did you believe in the wrong Christ? Yes, listen. You believed in a different man who died on the cross for all your sins?

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Well, now listen. I believed in this Christ that is taught about the Bible. I'm like, wait a sec. Would that matter?

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But did you also believe in the Book of Mormon? He's like, yeah, I believe that too. Well, then... Josh, I hope you hear yourself right now.

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I do hear myself. So, it's burrowing through my ear bones. Real question. My ear.

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Does that matter too? I can see what you're saying. We can laugh a little bit about Satan. I do think the question under that is the important question.

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And it's actually the one you went to right after that is, who is Jesus? Does it matter who we think

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Jesus is? Why couldn't I... Where's that line? Why couldn't I say, as I did earlier, Jesus is the light post.

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Jesus is the motorcycle. And I bow down and I worship him. Well, we know it. I mean, it's a ludicrous proposal.

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Christ is only thought about in scripture. So, we know there's no... I've never seen a scripture where it says,

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Christ, the lamppost. Do you see one that says he's not? Uh... Well, Josh, I hope you recognize...

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Josh, where in the Bible did you see that God wasn't a mouse? Josh, but Josh... That's my point. That's my point.

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I hope you recognize what you're doing. You're saying we go to scripture, and that's how we know who Jesus is.

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And we're saying that if we go to scripture, Jesus had to have created Satan. And you're saying no.

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That's what you're saying. You're saying he didn't create Satan. Listen, I could be wrong.

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And you think... But here's the... We don't want that for you, though, man. Here's the gotcha for you. Again, we're back in heaven.

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Back in heaven, okay? Okay, we get there. And we're asked these same questions.

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And whoever's judging us, we're going to say God. He's going to say, Hey, question,

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Daniel. Satan was created by whom? And you say... I say

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Jesus. And he says, wrong answer. And he says you're... To hell with you.

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Do you think that... Does that fit what your belief of God is? No. But... Okay, so then what would... What would the difference between...

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Let me explain. Let me explain. Maybe we understand Jesus Christ differently. And you think

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God has so little tolerance for us that he says... No, no, let me...

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You? Yeah. Have you read 2 John? I'm sure you have. But have you read it in a while? I believe it's 2

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John. I'll be quiet in a sec. Is that this was one of the two points that the apostles really keyed in on.

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There was so much that they were open -handed about. They would give teachings and they'd say, Hey, this is a better way. But when it came to who is

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Jesus and who is the gospel, they didn't move. They said, You are anathema if you have a different Christ. You are anathema if you have a different gospel.

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And when I believe it's 2 John, I just want to... So forgive me if I'm wrong. We're talking about this issue of did

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Jesus actually come bodily or was he just a spirit? Okay. And John, the apostle

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John, the one who I believe your church says is still around and didn't die. Right? This apostle John... Yeah, that's a fuzzy doctrine.

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That's a side point. I was jabbing at you a little. Gotcha. But this John said...

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A lot of gotchas. I know them all. Said anathema. If you think Jesus did not come in the body, you're anathema.

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You're accursed. You're out of it. You've lost it. You don't have a savior. And so this was one of those issues that the apostles said it matters.

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This is an issue of salvation. And so no, it doesn't matter who Jesus is. Now, if we talk about saints...

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So if we talk about... This is important to remember. The contextuality of the Bible. These people, without being

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Bible historians or Jewish philosophers or historians that knew what was going on in the days.

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To me, this is what my religion teaches me, it says understand the Bible for what it is.

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Right? It's the disciples, the prophets of Christ teaching these people. Okay?

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Yeah. So perhaps there was a movement among the people at that time where they said, you know what? Our prophet needs to tell these people that maybe there's a movement that says, you know what?

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Maybe it's been 30 years and I've heard of the story of Christ, but I don't think it was actually real.

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And that's not important because it was only 30 years ago. Right? But 30 years and I were like, you know, were you alive for the

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Twin Towers? Did you see it? I was in preschool. I remember hearing... I know. I remember hearing through like the megaphone, they talked and said, hey, like everybody, we're going to take a like 10 minutes of silence.

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Something just happened in New York. I remember that. So I watched it. I watched it live on TV. It was insane.

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Yeah. Right. But there are people in our day now that deny the Holocaust happened. Yeah. For lack of evidence. Yeah.

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But it's important that we teach people the Holocaust is real. It's not the same with the Armenian genocide.

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Right? Yeah. Similarly, like that never happened. But they have documents. So the point is that perhaps, and I don't know.

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I don't know John personally. Sure. I wasn't there. But... And I'm also not a historian.

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Maybe someone who is a historian at that time could tell us a scriptural story and could say, you know what? At that time, it was really important that John told those people those things.

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So to me, what my religion teaches me is to take that story, take the story of John, teaching people and say, how does that relate to me in my life?

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OK. What are the... What is the prophet teaching me that maybe I'm not listening to, that I need to listen to?

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Yeah. Maybe it's something that's important. Maybe it's something that I might not necessarily have faith in immediately, but I'm like, maybe

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I should pray about it. So maybe for the time, when you're talking about the story of John, teaching those people that Christ was really their person, maybe that's the story that we're supposed to take like they took.

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Like at them, there's a huge movement of Christians that said, yeah, Christ isn't real. We're just Christians in the sense that that's what we do.

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Right? Would you have said... But do you understand my point though? Is that there's different ways to translate the

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Bible. That being one, whereas we'd say... What do you mean? Interpreting it. Interpreting it. Yeah. We take that interpretation, the literal interpretation, and that's certainly one way to do it.

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But that's not necessarily useful for me. I live in 2002, right? Yeah, I guess our question to you would be, is it important for you to agree with Jesus in the

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Bible? Or is there areas where you can say, ah, Jesus said this, but I can disagree with him? Generally, I don't know if I've seen anything in the

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Bible that Jesus said that I disagree with. No, no, no, I'm saying in general, like, could you say as a man that it's important for you that you agree with Jesus?

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Yeah. Okay, so if you disagree with him, it'd be a problem. You're trying to set me up for another gotcha.

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Well, no, no. It's because we're starting... No, no, no, it's because the way you're approaching the scriptures is this idea that the scriptures maybe in John's time, they were important for his people, for his audience, and maybe for us, they're not.

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And I would say... I think they're equally important. But again, some of the stories, like, right?

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So if we're to take the Bible literally, we say, man, the story of Noah, if I don't follow the

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Christ's commandments, I'm going to get flooded to death. Because that's again... You couldn't know that if we took the story of Noah because God promises with the covenant.

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But my point is, though, that if we take just single verses and take them literally, that's one way to interpret them.

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Is that the way? I don't know. So, no, we agree it's important that we don't do that. And all interpretation is equal.

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Does the interpretation bring you closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ? Does it make you feel His light and love?

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When Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself, right? Yeah. That means, obviously, no kidding.

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That means that I can rape my neighbor, right? That's a valid interpretation, right?

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Sure. That is. I don't know. Would you say that's a valid interpretation when he says love your neighbor? I'd say that's the interpretation you're proposing.

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Is that an OK one? It's equally true as the one you would propose? That's another weird gotcha.

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I don't think it's because the point is that I think that there's so many things that are so clear. This isn't a matter of interpretation.

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This is the Bible says what it says. Now, are there parts that are more difficult? Sure, there are.

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But who is God and what is the gospel? Those two are unclear. But big picture though, my man.

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If freaking Richard Dawkins showed up, he'd dunk on all of us. We'd all feel like idiots. No, he would not. He would not.

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Go ahead and Google some of his weird atheist rants online. I would argue atheism is absurd is absurd and has no foundation whatsoever.

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I think you should. You'd agree with that, right? That there's no foundation to atheism. Yeah, I'm pretty with you on that.

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Yeah, he might be. But anyway, so my point is, though, yeah, I was just like getting caught in the semantics of the

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Bible. Well, not the semantics. Seems beside the point. Because Jesus Matthew 22. Yeah, where you're going. Jesus, Jesus held people in his day accountable for the scriptures.

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And was Jesus wrong for doing that? How come the people that he held accountable didn't say, Jesus, you're playing semantics.

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Jesus, what about interpretation? They asked Jesus a question about the resurrection. They said, if a woman marries a man and then he dies, she marries his brother and he dies, she marries his brother.

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Who gets her in heaven? And Jesus says, have you not read what God spoke to you saying any quotes from Exodus written 1400 years before they even walked the earth?

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So Jesus is holding men accountable as if God was speaking directly to them by the scriptures.

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And so whenever we bring the scriptures to somebody in the LDS church, the response we get is, well, interpretation and semantics.

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And it seems it seems to be and maybe you don't believe this, but it seems to be the idea of we can't trust the

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Bible in terms of this is absolute truth. Let's go to it because it was tampered because men, men dealt with it.

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It was passed on through generations and years and years. And what we would say is the Lord Jesus didn't hold that view of scripture.

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So when you tell us semantics and this and that, I would say Jesus didn't believe that.

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And I don't think you actually live that way either. You seem like you live a pretty good life. Like I don't think that you say

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I don't spend too much time worrying about like the like, well, the Bible says love my neighbor.

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So I got to. I believe you. Why don't you spend a lot of time?

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I study most of the scriptures, maybe 20, 30 minutes a day. I focus on the practical application of it within my children, in my community.

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And can you know that you know that what you believe in the truth, what you read, like does it mean something to you?

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Yeah. So is it clear to you that it's delivering a clear message to you? Like I mean, here's what

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I'm saying. And I'll be clear message though. I'll give you one second. I promise I'll be quick. I don't think that you actually live in such a way where you're constantly walking around going, can

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I murder this guy? Can I eat this guy? Can I commit adultery? I live my life pretty specifically.

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I don't worry about it. Right. And I think that the Bible is so clear that we don't have to go. Well, what's the interpretation of this?

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God's word is perspicuous. It's clear. God is able, whether you understand or not,

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God is able to get his message through. Now, that's not saying that we perfectly interpret the scriptures.

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Of course, there's different interpretations. That's not the question at hand. The question is, what is the nature of those scriptures?

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Is this actually God breathed revelation? Can God lie when God says the grass, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God lasts forever?

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Did he mean it? And if so, then God can't lie. He's unchanging. He's true.

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He's given us his clear word. And it's our responsibility to believe that whether we believe it or not.

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OK, but that doesn't that doesn't remove us from the responsibility. If anything, that makes us more responsible.

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And that's why we're here. And that's that's why we're telling you about the fact that no amount of of works that we do can actually exalt us.

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Christ has done it all. And that is a clear message in the Bible. And really like that. Everything we talk about, that's we're going to come back to.

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Yeah, because that's why we're here. Here's who Christ is. And he really has delivered his message clearly.

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And he really did die for the sins of all of his people. Yeah. And so we don't have to wonder if we can have peace with God.

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You're good. We can know that we have. No, what happened? Yeah, what's your phone? You want me to call it? What's your number here?

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Well, you're on camera. No, that's the worst feeling. Yeah, let me answer one of your questions that you've asked that you've asked a couple of times.

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You said you said, well, when we're all in heaven, right at the Pearl Gates and God comes to us and he

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I don't believe he's going to ask who created Satan. But I think he will judge you on the basis of who did you put your faith in?

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Who is the object of your faith and our concern? And maybe you disagree with this is that you're not putting your faith in the same

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Christ that we're putting our faith in because of the differences. I hear you. Because I hear what you're saying.

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OK, but to me, it's like it's like you're saying it. And it's like different Christ. If that's not true, then why did

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Joseph Smith have to restore the church? Why did God through Joseph Smith have to restore the gospel in the church? If that's not the case, then we had a different gospel on a different time.

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Maybe it was a long discussion. I'm fine. The apostasy. Yeah. If you're familiar with the concept of the apostasy.

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I'm vaguely familiar with your concept of that. Yeah, my man. You're familiar that the

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Bible predicted an apostasy. I do believe that you believe that. Yes. You don't believe that?

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I think that when we're looking at timelines and that we're looking at when this happened, that that's where our discussion would be.

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But even then, that leads back to an even deeper question of how do we know which is what what

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God has said is true and how do we judge that truth? And of course, like I said, we're going to have interpretations.

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Yeah. But the question is the nature of Scripture. Yeah. Is that actually God brief revelation?

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And if so, how do we know? Not. I believe Scripture is revelation.

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And do you believe God? Do you believe God can lie? So I'm sure you talked about this earlier.

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And I just I'm curious. It's a tag that do I believe the Bible to be the infallible word of God?

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No. OK, so how do you reconcile a God who can't lie and a God who says that he's given you his word?

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A God that says that he spoke long ago at many times in many ways. Which version of the Bible do you guys study?

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I've got KJV in my Bible. We use different translations. Yeah, we don't use one. We don't specifically say one.

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The King James in my backpack right now. But which version do you guys use as the Bible? We don't we don't use a version.

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We don't use a version. Because we would actually, in a sense, agree. No, don't hear me wrong. You know where I'm going with this?

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Well, I'm saying we agree. Modern translation has said maybe there's a more accurate translation.

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Sure, that there's translation. So we would say that we would say it's been transmitted clearly.

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It's been transmitted clearly. And there are translations. And there are wise men that God has gifted to translate it.

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And we can benefit from them. The church. God says he's given teachers to the church. And we can thank him for that. But really, if you pick up a

25:24

KJV, you pick up an ESV, you pick up even an NLT. These are all going to give us the same.

25:30

What about the Red Ripper, though? These are all going to give us the same Jesus and the same gospel. There's not going to be a substantial difference between who is

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Jesus and who is and what is the gospel, however we may write with them. The substantial difference would be when we read

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Isaiah and God, who we know can't lie, says this is who I am. And then we go to a different revelation at a different dispensation.

25:52

What's up, man? Where you at? And God reveals, actually, you can become God one day. OK, yeah,

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I'm right on the corner. I'm right on the corner of Lejeune and Maine. And we believe he can't lie.

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And we believe when he says that my word shall not pass away, if we believe God at his word, then there's no reconciling something like that.

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That's not a clarification and that those are opposites. Yes, new revelation clarifies.

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I'm not sure we got type and anti -type and all kinds of good stuff about the mystery of Christ. That's beautiful. But God can't contradict himself.

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Otherwise, he's a liar and we shouldn't believe him at all. So, this always goes back to, again,

26:33

I think we believe in a fundamentally different God, not a fundamentally different Jesus Christ.

26:38

You believe in a God, from what I'm hearing. Yeah. That says, if you didn't believe in the exact Christ that you guys believe in, then you go to where?

26:50

Actually, I think we're saved by grace, group faith, right? And so, that doesn't mean... Then you're good, we're all good.

26:55

That doesn't, but we're saved, we are only saved by the true Christ. Yeah. And so, the question is, which

27:01

Christ? Which Christ? Hey, hey, he's about to fall in love. I don't know if you want to get in with Jeff.

27:07

And the Bible is never changing. The one that is revealed is having created everything. The one that says, from everlasting to everlasting, he is

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God. Or the one that became a God through obedience to gospel principles and exaltation.

27:21

Because those are different. They're different. Are you familiar with how long it took the Bible to be put together as the

27:27

Bible? Oh, if you want to talk about the 1 ,500 years of Revelation, you want to talk about... The span of when the books were written?

27:32

We are very aware. We are very aware. So... And how they were all put together? Are you aware of that?

27:39

It sounds like you're not by the way you're asking us. Are you leading to... Let me guess, you're going to the

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Council of Nicaea and Constantine, and here's when the Bible was put together. And I would say we can show that that's not true. That's historically false.

27:50

Well, the King James Version Bible. Okay. Well, that was in the 1600s, but... So the point is though, the

27:56

Bible itself covers a wide degree of... Like, time -wise. Absolutely.

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You go... And it's all consistent. Again, I've seen enough stuff online to say there's a lot of inconsistencies.

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Have you? I'll ask this question. And I'm not even worried about inconsistencies in the Bible. I love the Bible. I use the Bible as scripture.

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Do you worry about inconsistencies with your God? I'm not super concerned about it, to be honest with you.

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If there was something that like... I have a friend who's an atheist, and he says, you can't have a

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God that's all -loving and a God that's... I mean, like, whatever.

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Yeah, we've all heard that one. I'm like, it's such a childish way to... All -good and all -loving. Yeah, all -powerful.

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So my point is that I think that what you guys are doing is decently good work.

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I appreciate that. Thanks, man. You're teaching people about Christ. It's a great thing. And I support you when teaching people about Christ.

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I would hope that with the fact that in the last many years in America, the amount of Christians in general has shrunk.

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I would be more concerned about people not being taught about any kind of Christ, whether it's a...

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There's certainly Christians that probably believe exactly what you guys believe that believe that the Christ that you believe in was probably black, right?

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Probably. Yeah, we know those people. You know what I wouldn't say? I was like, you guys are wrong.

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Which is more important? If Christ is white, brown, black, or if he's the creator of all things? Creator of all things.

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More importantly, though... Is that the Christ that you have? Yeah. He created Satan. You don't get the same thing.

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Everything is everything. Everything is everything. That's a weird... Again. Everything that has been created.

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So, you lived a good life. You were saved by grace. Who created

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Satan? And then you say, Jesus did. And he says, well, you're wrong, but you could be anyway. Let me just put it this way, okay?

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Let me just quote the verse for you then and tell me if you agree with the verse, okay?

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Jesus in Colossians 1. It says, he created all things in heaven and on earth with thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all things have been created for you.

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Do you agree that Jesus created all things as that verse says? Yeah. Does Jesus... Is Satan a thing?

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You could say he's like a spirit. So, did Jesus create God? Well, for John 1...

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But like... God's not created and John covers that one. So, the thing is...

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It says all things that have been created. Okay, so does it say somewhere that Satan was created?

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Yeah, it does. Where? Thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

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But then wouldn't that encompass God then too? No, no. What we would say is that we make a creator -creation distinction.

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So, everything outside of the creator, God himself is creation. So, there are some distinctions that can be made that are subjective outside of the subjective.

31:03

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, because the Bible says, the Bible tells us that God creates all things.

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It's less important in my opinion and it's your opinion that it's more important. Do you agree with what I just said though?

31:13

I just quoted a verse. Do you agree that Jesus created all things? And I believe that you understand that to mean that Jesus created the devil also.

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I'm just asking if you agree with the verse. Yeah, and I agree with that. And I also agree that you understand it differently.

31:29

How do you interpret it? That he created everything on earth, that we see spiritually, physically. So, I'm really going to ask,

31:36

I'm not going to push my opinion. I have a clear position here. He's right there, but he's getting ready to leave. So, he might want to catch him. How are you doing?

31:44

Good, good, yeah. I don't worry about it too much. Well, I know you're the one. I think it'd be good.

31:49

Yeah, but I don't want to like... Do you think in the scripture, the people that he was teaching were referring to the metaphysical concept of heaven?

31:58

Hey Jeff, this is Peyton. Remember the debate we did? He literally created everything. One more time,

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I'm sorry. Do you think in the scripture, he was speaking to these people with... We don't make any assumptions about their knowledge of metaphysics or whatever.

32:12

Do you think he was speaking to them? I'm just explaining there's different ways to translate that. There's one way. These people have some pre -existing knowledge of the concept of heaven and the pre -existence, right?

32:23

So, or we can say maybe these people, he was teaching these people in a way that says, God created everything you can imagine, right?

32:31

Because I think when you're teaching someone, when you're teaching someone who might not have any foundational understanding of the concept of God or Christ...

32:38

He was talking to Jews that were raised on the Bible. He was talking to Jews that have the scriptures, and that's why he held them accountable to them.

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So, he wasn't talking to the apostles. We can say, hey, the apostles were talking to Gentiles. Jesus was talking to Jews who were raised with them.

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He held them accountable to them. So, even if we're gonna take what you're saying and apply it to the apostles talking to the

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Gentiles, fine. But that's not what Jesus was doing. That's not what Jesus was doing.

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He's talking to people very literate, much more literate than we are. They knew, and he held them accountable to that.

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So, I mean, we can hypothesize what of this, what of that, but the reality is he was speaking to Jews that were raised in the covenant that knew who

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Yahweh is, that knew who Jehovah is, and they knew that they were promised a Messiah in Genesis chapter three, and they knew that he was gonna come through the line of Abraham, and they knew what was gonna be true of him, that he was born of Bethlehem, born of a virgin, and they knew all of these things, and they knew that David called him his

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Lord, and this tripped up the religious people, right? Because they were like, I can't comprehend how the son can be greater than the human father.

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And you, so, do you not understand, there's a little bit of irony in that, how we're teaching, like, you're teaching that I believe in a different Jesus than you believe, and the

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Jews didn't believe that Christ, that Jesus was the Christ, because they were hoping for a literal release from bondage.

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They were hoping for a king with a physical kingdom. They were being released from spiritual bondage. And what happened to them in 70

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AD, the ones that didn't believe him? They were slaughtered. Google, hey, Google, 70

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AD Jews. Do it, do it, it'll bless you. They were destroyed. God judged them for not believing that message.

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So, the point is, though, that, this is, again, like, I'm thinking bigger picture here.

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I'm thinking, you believe in Jesus, I think it's awesome. I think I believe in Jesus, it's awesome. I don't mind that you guys think we believe in a different Jesus.

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I think it's a beautiful thing that you guys believe in Jesus Christ as taught in the Bible. I believe you guys are out here doing good work, teaching about people,

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Jesus Christ, if you understand him. I would hope that in what you guys are doing, you don't destroy anyone's faith in Jesus Christ, whether it's the

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Christ. We're here to build up faith. We're here to build you up with faith. We want you to come to a true and living faith. Unfortunately, you haven't built me up in anything that I wasn't already familiar with other than the gospel of semantics.

34:56

Can I ask one question? I promise I'll be done, this will be it. So, back, we talked about it earlier, and I don't know that I really heard a great answer.

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And maybe you don't have one, and I don't want to press you too hard, but when we're talking about Moroni 10, because that one is the hinging point for me, that as well as who is

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God. How do you look at Moroni 10 and at 2 Nephi and go, we must do these things.

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We must obey the greatest commandment, and then his grace is sufficient. And then at the same time, be able to admit and say,

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I don't love God perfectly. I don't do those things. How can you, how do you have peace with God if you know that you're not obeying

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God the way he's commanded in Moroni 10 and 2 Nephi and Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew? How do you have peace with God knowing that Jesus' grace is not sufficient for you if you read the

35:48

Book of Mormon? How would you think? I don't think you can. You don't think it? How do you find peace?

35:54

I find peace because Jesus did everything that is necessary for his people. He paid the price for everything.

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So every sin that I've ever committed past, present, future, that's paid for, but not only that, like that's half.

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Also, all of his perfect works and his perfect righteousness, that is also given to those that trust him.

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So it's not just he paid the price for my sins and he raises me bodily, but all of his perfect righteousness, his obedience to the covenants, his obedience to the ordinances, his obedience to what

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God the Father has given him to do, every single ounce of that is put upon those that trust in him.

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And so when God looks at his people, he sees the perfect righteousness of Christ, not only in the death, burial and resurrection, but in the fact that he obeyed perfectly more than we ever could.

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And why would I want my own works to take the place of something that Jesus did perfectly?

36:46

That's why I have peace. But I don't know. That's the same thing. And it's the same way I have peace. So Jesus did everything for you to be exalted.

36:53

You don't have to go to temple. Again, nitpicking here. That's a straight question.

37:00

That's a straight question. To fit your understanding of exaltation, general Christianity, living in heaven, returning to heaven, then yeah,

37:09

I don't need to do any of that stuff. You don't have to go to a temple. You don't have to believe Joseph Smith is a prophet. I believe, and our church teaches, that everyone will receive what

37:20

Christians determine as heaven, right? Through the grace of Christ. So in eternity, I can deny

37:26

Joseph Smith, not get baptized, not do the ordinances and be exalted to God. Uh, that's,

37:33

I don't know if that's necessarily in the Bible. Would that be what your church teaches? No.

37:38

So then how do you have peace? So that's the question. Because that's what I'm... We don't believe in exaltation, but I'm trying to use language that you're familiar with.

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We don't believe in exaltation. We don't believe we become God. But I want to just put in your brain... To receive exaltation, no, to receive exaltation, yes, you do need to...

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Believe Joseph, be baptized. You do need to make and keep covenants.

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And so my question is, how can you have peace that you're actually going to be as close to Heavenly Father as you possibly can be in eternity?

38:06

If you know that your works are fallible through the grace of Christ, my man, and you know that you're going to be exalted.

38:14

Uh, I have faith that I'll be exalted by the grace of Christ. I have a belief.

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I have received testimony of this through the Holy Ghost, confirming the things that I have prayed about and I believe in are true.

38:29

Um, I believe that His grace is sufficient and I pray every night that, uh, that I can do my best and be a little bit better.

38:40

Well, my encouragement then is just this, is that I don't think you can do your best. I don't think I can.

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I don't think any of us can do good enough to be... Oh, I don't believe any of us can do good enough to be good either, my man.

38:52

So my prayer genuinely for you, all, all, everything aside tonight, is that I love you and I want you to have peace with God.

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The type of peace that you know that every, not only every sin you have is forgiven. I have that peace. But that you will be side by side with Him, worshiping

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Him for all eternity, as close as you can possibly be in this universe. You'll be there and not an ounce of what you've done is going to add to that.

39:16

It's all Jesus. I'm not super concerned about the, uh, the work

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I'm doing. I said, I'm both mostly focused on just accepting His grace and sharing that message of light and love with people in the world.

39:30

Just to clear something up. I look at both your eyes and I'm not sure if I see the peace in either of you.

39:36

And I hope you do have that peace. Yeah. I get a little, I get a little bit of a, like a tension from both of you in the eyes.

39:44

This is a tense moment, isn't it? No, no. Eternity is insane. We're, we're, we're concerned. My wife's gonna be very upset, man.

39:51

I drove eight hours to get here to sit with you. We do it like this. You're talking to those weirdos. I'll say this,

39:58

Dana. They're not weirdos. They're out there. They believe in Christ. They believe in a slightly different version of God than we believe in.

40:06

We agree with that. They understand things a little bit differently.

40:11

But I think they're good people. Either they're sharing the message of Christ. They hope, I hope to people that you talk to that you don't have any faith.

40:19

That you do nothing but lift them up. All pressure aside, man. I'm just, I'm gonna go home. All pressure aside. Before God and not before me and Daniel and anyone else.

40:28

Because you believe and we believe that we can go to God. Go to God. And try to reconcile

40:34

Moroni 10 with the message of grace. My brother, I, this might sound strange to you.

40:40

But I'll tell you something, not a ton of people know. I got kicked off my mission for not being a good

40:46

Mormon. I left the church for about seven years. I studied every criticism of Christianity, of Mormonism, of every faith

40:58

I could think of. Because I wanted to pick it all apart to understand it better. And I came back full circle.

41:04

Not, not because, because there was one place I found peace. And that was in a gospel that teaches that Christ has offered his grace to me.

41:14

And I said, you know what? I want to follow in his footsteps as best I can. And from everything I learned.

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The church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints was the place for me. To follow in closest to his footsteps as I can.

41:26

And keep me on the best track I could. If you could leave us with one thing, right? Because I'm gonna go with my wife.

41:31

I'm gonna go home and have some tacos, man. It's gonna be a good evening. Yeah, tacos. If you could leave me with one thing.

41:39

What would that be? I don't know. If we don't, if we look like we don't have hope in our eyes.

41:46

Like how would you give us hope? I don't know, just, I can't give you hope. But I could say I found peace and love.

41:54

And I found the acceptance of grace in my life. As I turned to my heavenly father. And asked him to let me feel that grace that I know has been given to me.

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That has been given to me without qualification. Without anything I've done to earn it. The grace has been handed to me.

42:10

So that has brought me peace. So I hope that's what you guys could find. And that you, any kind of contention or weird feelings you feel.

42:17

I feel nothing, if I met whatever the most crazy agro -atheist. Do you know what it is?

42:23

Say, hey man, I still love you brother. Yeah, sure. I think maybe we understand things differently.

42:30

And I hope you have peace and love in your life. And I say, and I hope whatever your practices are. Whatever journey you're on.

42:36

I hope those things bring you closer to finding peace and love. And to me, as I spent a long time trying to find peace and love other places.

42:44

I didn't find it. Until I returned to what to me, had brought me historical peace and love.

42:49

Did you say you drove 8 hours to get here? Uh, 7 hours. From where? I won't offer to take you to lunch this weekend man.

42:54

Because you're obviously going home. But hey, we appreciate it. Do you have my mail? Yeah, yeah, no, no, we appreciate it man. Do you have? We would love man, even just my mail dude.

43:01

To continue this conversation. You took a track right? One of the tracks we have? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if you rip the rest up, keep that email address man.

43:08

And we would love to continue this conversation. Yeah. All right. I mean, I don't know if it's going to go where you think it's going to go.

43:15

You know, we as Calvinists, as good Calvinists. We believe the Holy Spirit. Here's what, if I, I'm not going to be childish.

43:23

Only because there's an amount of contention. And how you guys are presenting information that I don't love.

43:29

It doesn't, this isn't the most. I think you find a lot of people that are interacting with you guys.

43:36

Have we misrepresented you tonight? No, no, no. What I'm saying is what I'm, what I think if you were to ask most people that leave, talking to you, say,

43:44

Hey, did you feel by my fruits? How did you know me? And they say, did I bring you peace and love that Christ brought people?

43:52

How did, how did you leave me feeling? Didn't Jesus say he came to bring a sword to divide? Again, nitpicking in the

43:59

Bible. Every time we quote, it's nitpicking. I'm just telling you what Jesus said. And you're telling me it's nitpicking every single time.

44:05

My point is that I was trying to just dump on you guys for a minute, but wholeheartedly, you know, like, yeah,

44:13

I get it. If you meet, we're here in front of this and I get it. And we're here. What we're saying is, is you guys are wrong and we get it.

44:19

It's contentious. Here's the,

44:24

I think a fundamental difference. I don't think you're wrong. Yeah. We definitely think the Bible says you're wrong.

44:30

Yeah. And we hope we do. And that's why we're so concerned. We care about you,

44:35

Josh. You can reconcile two things. Moroni 10, Isaiah 43. And that's it.