Game Plan for Dialoguing with Mormon Missionaries by the 7 Foot Apologist

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Oh, I lost my mouse. Let's see. I'm gonna touch that.

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Do my sharing thing? No, not yet. Okay. Um, I, when

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I, we're gonna go. Ready? I'm Terry Camerizell and I'm here on behalf of Creation Fellowship Santee.

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We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how

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God created the world and all life in just six days, about 6 ,000 years ago.

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We've been meeting on this online platform since May of 2020. We've been blessed with almost 80 different speakers over that time.

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They've been doctors, scientists, pastors, evangelists, apologists, all sorts of different people who love the

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Lord and have a message to share. They cover topics that range from creation science to current events to other theology topics.

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And you can find the recordings that we have of those, of those speakers by visiting tinyurl .com

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forward slash CFS archives. That's C for creation,

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F for fellowship and S is for Santee. And while you're there, you can also click on the link to see our upcoming speakers that we have scheduled for the remainder of 2023.

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You can also email us at creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com so that you get on our email list.

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We promise not to spam, but we will send you emails to our upcoming speakers so that you won't miss out on any of them.

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Tonight, we're blessed to have back a good friend of ours, Dan Kreft, the seven foot apologist.

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If you've followed us for very long, you may recall that he's been with us three times before. One of those times was to teach us some skills for how to respectfully debate people on social media when it comes to defending our faith.

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Another time he did his one of a kind begats wherefore are the begats presentation. And believe it or not, he and I actually hosted a live presidential debate watch party one time, you know, when the world still made a little more sense.

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So with that, we're very thrilled to have him back tonight for a different topic. And I can tell you that a couple of us got to meet him in person since then, and we can vouch for the fact that he really is seven foot tall.

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We can also vouch for the fact that this presentation tonight is going to be a blessing to you.

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And it's going to be so simple that even middle schoolers can track it. Just a little information about Dan.

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Dan is a full -time apologist and full -time IT guy. So how does that work out with his time?

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Oh boy. Well, he'll explain that a little more, I'm sure. But then also he has some experience playing basketball.

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That's not a surprise. And even with Shaquille O 'Neal. So that's pretty exciting.

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So you can read more about Dan and his ministry at sevenfootapologist .com. And with that,

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I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you, Dan. Well, thank you very much for having me back. It is a pleasure and a privilege to get a chance to share with you all once again.

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Am I sufficiently shared here? Yes, it looks good.

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Alrighty then. Good. So let me make some minor adjustments here to the previews.

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All right. So tonight's presentation is a game plan for dialoguing with Mormon missionaries. This is not necessarily about how to engage in conversations with your friends who happen to be

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Mormons, but I'll be more focused on what happens when you have two guys show up at your door, looking something like this, offering to talk to you about the

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Book of Mormon and how we should conduct ourselves.

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So when you do have a couple of Mormon kids come up to your door and they're wanting to come talk to you, the first decision you have to make is what are you going to do?

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How should you proceed? So the first question we want to look at is what should you do? So you have a few options before you, as I see it.

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The first is to turn off the lights, hide and be behind the couch and be very, very quiet. Or you could take a slightly more aggressive approach and start hollering at the top of your lungs.

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Get off my lawn, you sons of perdition. You could do that. You could be a little more demure and say, well, just talk to the hand because the face ain't listening.

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Wait, there you go. Talk to the hand because the face ain't listening. Or number four, you could take the approach that is my personal favorite, and that is to invite them in.

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So I would recommend you do that. But whenever I talk about inviting

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Mormons into my house, invariably there are some brothers and sisters in the Lord who will look at me and say, well, wait a minute.

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Doesn't the Bible have something to say about this? Doesn't 2 John say not to invite them in? Well, let's take a look at the verses in question and see what

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God has to say in his word. It says, for many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not acknowledge

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Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Then you jump down to verse 10.

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If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house and do not give him a greeting.

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For the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

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So we look at this and it seems to be a pretty clear cut. Well, I should not invite them into my house because we have some clear theological differences, especially regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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But I think it's really important that whenever we look at Bible passages, we look at them in context because the number one rule in hermeneutics is that context is king.

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So you must consider the context. Let's take a look at some context from the scriptures that will help us to understand what's going on here in 2

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John. In Mark chapter 6, verse 10, Jesus commanded the 12 to stay in one house for their duration of the visit to that particular city.

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In Acts 9, 43, Peter stayed for some time with Simon the Tanner in Joppa.

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Acts 16, 14 and 15, Paul and company stayed with Lydia of Thyatira in Philippi.

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Then we jump over to the next chapter, Acts 17, 5 through 7. Paul and Silas stayed with Jason in Thessalonica.

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In the next chapter, we see Paul stayed with Priscilla and Aquila in Corinth. And then if we go all the way to the left hand side of your

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Bible to the Old Testament, we look at 2 Kings chapter 4 and we can see that Elijah stayed with a Shunammite woman in his own apartment.

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So why do I bring these up? There's clearly a difference between the 12 apostles and Elijah and your average

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Mormon missionary. Well, the thing we should note here is that during the first century, itinerant missionaries were commonly stayed in host housing because they didn't really have hotels back in the first century.

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So they would find a house that was willing to receive them and they would use that house as their base of operations, if you will, while they were in that particular city.

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So I think that's what really what's going on here is that in 2 John, John is admonishing the body of Christ not to use your house as a base of operations for false teachers.

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Because if you do, in doing so, you become part and parcel or partner with them in their ministry, the same as if you had made a financial contribution to their work, right?

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So looking at the context, hosting an itinerant preacher is not the same as inviting

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Mormons in to give them a truth. And frankly, to slow their progress in your neighborhood, right?

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Because God has sent them to you for a reason. And they're showing up on your doorstep for a reason because God is sovereign.

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And while they're there, you've got a job to do. So if you want to, this is just one guy's opinion, but if you'd like another, you can scan the

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QR code there and you can see John MacArthur answering a question from a guy during one of his Q &A sessions where he responds very similarly and talks about the context of 2

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John. And I think if you watch it, you'll see that it sounds very familiar to the answer that I just gave you.

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So yeah, sometimes God brings the mission field to your door. And I'm of the opinion that, oh,

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I want to mention one thing. Some people might not be persuaded by this. So if you're not persuaded by the context argument with regard to 2

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John, then I would encourage you, do not violate your conscience. Above all else, we need to consider what

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Paul said in Romans 14, 21 through 23, that we need to be in all things, we need to be convinced, we need to be consistent, and we need to be considerate.

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So if you do not feel like you in good conscience, invite them into your house, then don't.

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Don't let me persuade you in that direction. Have a conversation with them on your front porch, if you like, whatever, but do not violate your conscience.

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So all right, with that said, I believe that sometimes God brings the mission field to your door and it saves you a trip, right?

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So I'm of the opinion that when that happens, you should just go bananas and have fun with it. So I'm going to highlight for you a couple different approaches that I've learned in the years, over the years, and they're by no means the only approaches for dialoguing with Mormon missionaries, but these are a couple that I've, the first one that I've had good personal success with, and the second of which

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I've been looking for an opportunity to use, but the Mormons have been not been showing up at my house for the past few years.

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I don't know why. So I'm kind of sad because I want to try it out, but here we go.

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So the first approach is one that I learned from a former pastor of mine named Carl Payne and his book,

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Transferable Cross Training, book two, Apologetics. You can see there's a QR code. If you want to scan that, you can see where you can purchase this book.

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It's very, very thin. It puts the cookies on the bottom shelf for all the to get to them.

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And I asked Dr. Payne if I could use his likeness and his book and, you know, mention it in my presentation, and he said, yeah, sure, that's okay.

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So we're blessed. So Dr. Payne's approach is pretty simple. It really boils down to setting the agenda of the meeting and staying on task.

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So setting the agenda of the meeting looks kind of like this. Let's say you've got two young Mormons who show up to your door.

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We'll call one of them Luke and one of them Obi -Wan, because I don't know if you're familiar with this, but Mormons go on two -year missions.

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And when they go out on mission, there is always one guy who is on his second year of the mission.

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And the other one, that would be the Obi -Wan. And the other young, the other one would be the

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Luke of the group. He's in his first year of mission. So you have the older kind of coaching the younger one around.

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So we're going to use the names Luke and Obi -Wan, and I'm not going to call them elder because usually they're way younger than me.

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So I would go like this. Oh, hello, Luke. Hello, Obi -Wan. I'd love to sit down and talk with you. Come on in. How much time do we have together today?

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This is a crucial step. You do not, you must remember to ask them how much time you have to talk today.

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Because as we'll see a little bit, a little bit later on, if you don't establish this right off the bat, it's very, very easy for them to look down at their watch and go, oh, look at the time.

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We have another appointment to get to. So don't forget to ask how much time you have. Make sure you get that up front.

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And plus, it also helps you know how to pace yourself. So you may have to, you may have, they may say, hey, we've got all the time in the world, or they may say, we've only got 30 minutes.

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So that'll also help you pace yourself. So then you want to set the agenda of the meeting and say something, you know,

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I always like to try to build a bridge before I talk to them. And I truly do admire the dedication of these

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Mormon kids. And I know that not all of them probably want to go on mission and be away from their families for two years.

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But they do it. And for as far as I can tell, they do it willingly and happily. Actually, the company that I work for currently, six of my co -workers are

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Mormons. And so, you know, periodically, they're, you know, somebody will mention, you know, when

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I was on mission, I was here and I was, you know, they may seem to have been a pretty positive experience for them.

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So they seem to like it. And so I try to, you know, try to build that bridge and establish a little bit of a rapport with them.

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And don't just, you know, try to go right for the jugular. So I would continue with like, you know, you know,

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I really admire your dedication to your faith. Honestly, most Mormons, I know, put most Christians to shame in that department.

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You spend two years away from family, sometimes in remote places to ride around in bikes, on bikes and have doors slammed in your face.

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That is amazing to me. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I clearly have not done that myself.

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I don't know that I would. That's a huge commitment to take two years out of your life to go door to door to door and having doors slammed in your face, right?

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And yeah, so the takeaway here is be nice, like your mom said, right?

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Continue setting the agenda. But there are some things that about your faith that concern me, and it's those concerns that I'd like to focus on.

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To make sure we're maximally productive today, I'd like you to agree to limit our discussion to the following three topics.

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The nature of God, the destiny of man, and salvation.

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Now, I know a lot of other people take a lot of different approaches. Some people will focus on Joseph Smith and his prophecies and how the prophecies haven't come true.

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They'll focus on the incredible nature of the, you know, hauling around a bunch of golden plates that weighed how much and he was able to,

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Joseph Smith was able to run through the woods with them. There are all kinds of things you could talk about. And believe me, there are all kinds of rabbit trails you could go down when you're talking with Mormons, but those really aren't the most important things, right?

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What's really important at the end of the day is that you focus on who God is, where's man going, and how does he get there, right?

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So that's the important stuff. So the first approach, the one that I'm borrowing from Carl Payne, focuses on the nature of God and the destiny of man.

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So what I like to do is like to set the stage. And first of all, what you always want to do when you're having a discussion with anybody you don't agree with is you want to make sure you define your terms.

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If you do not define, one of the huge differences between the difficulties we have when talking to Mormon missionaries or just your garden variety

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Mormons you may meet in the workplace, is that they use all the same words but they don't always mean the same thing.

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So what we're going to do is say, ask two questions, and say, first of all, do you believe that God is omniscient?

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Now we want to define this term and be very, very clear about what omniscient means.

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Omniscient comes from two Latin words, omnis and scientia. Omnis means all and scientia means knowledge.

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So God is all knowledgeable, He has all knowledge. And I really like to drill down on this and say, make sure that we're crystal clear on it and say, is there anything that God does not know?

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No. So no matter how big the universe is, He knows every single square inch of the universe. There's nothing in creation that He does not know.

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Yes, they'll, you know, I've never had a Mormon disagree with me on this. And they'll agree to the terms.

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Yes, God is absolutely omniscient. There's nothing that He does not know. This is crucial. Don't forget this.

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You see, the reason why we want to define our terms so well is that words are kind of like buckets, right?

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They're like buckets with labels on them. And you see, we have a bucket that says Jesus on it.

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And the Mormon has a bucket that has Jesus on it. And when you see them at first, they're carrying their little bucket and you look at it and you go,

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Hey, look, you've got a Jesus bucket. And they're like, Hey, you got a Jesus bucket too. And you're like, Hey, brothers, right?

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Well, the thing is, words are like buckets with labels on them. And words, they're like buckets because they carry meaning.

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So what you really have to do is take your nose and stick it in their bucket and give it a sniff. Does it smell anything like what you're carrying around in your

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Jesus bucket? So when you go, Okay, my Jesus bucket smells like this, and your Jesus bucket doesn't smell anything like it.

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So they have the names are the same. The labels are the same on the outside of the buckets, but the contents are very, very, very different.

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And the same could be said with with Jesus, with salvation, with grace, just about the entire vocabulary that there's a there's a there's either a subtle or a drastic difference in meaning.

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So you have to make sure you drill down and define your terms. So is

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God omniscient? Yes, he is. Okay, we've got that established. Question number two. Do you believe as Lorenzo Snow did that you can be gods?

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Now, Lorenzo Snow was the fifth Mormon president, he was the fifth prophet of the Mormon organization.

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And Mormons, Lorenzo Snow once said, as man now is,

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God once was, as God now is, man may be.

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This is the belief that Mormons can believe that Mormons can achieve godhood, they will become gods of their own planets and have their own, start their own races.

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So normally, the response that I get when I asked this is they're like, the kids are kind of taken aback.

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They're like, Oh, well, wow, I can't believe you know that quote. Well, yeah, so they'll get

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I'll get a reluctant Yeah. But one time, these two guys came to my house, and they totally they completely blew up my whole, my whole routine, because they said, um, well, no, we don't believe that.

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And I'm like, you're not you're not supposed to say that. Like, yes, you do. Like, no, we don't like yeah, you do.

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And then I was just, I was a wreck after that. I didn't know what to say, because they totally blew up my script.

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And so I had to go to the books and dig around in their, in their works, and their standard works, and I found

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Doctrine and Covenants 88107. And then shall the angels be crowned with the glory of his might, and the saints shall be filled with his glory and receive their inheritance and be made equal with him.

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So they do believe that you can be you can be equal with God. For some reason, my remote isn't working, even though it's 12 inches away.

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And so, hang on, there we go. You can also so this is from the

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Doctrine and Covenants, right. So this is from the Mormon scriptures. So there's really not much there's no there's no room to argue with this.

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If you go to, there's a there's a book that's published by the Mormons. And they that's called

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Achieving a Celestial Marriage. And in it, it says God was once a man who by obedience, advanced to his present state of perfection, through obedience and celestial marriage, we may progress to the point where we become like God.

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In the same document a little further down, it says Elder BH Roberts stated, man has descended from God.

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In fact, he is the same race as the gods. His descent has not been from a lower form of life, but from the highest form of life.

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In other words, man is in the most literal sense, a child of God. This is not only true of the spirit of man, but his body also.

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And that comes from the course of study for priests, published in 1910, page 35. And lastly, from that same document, it says, can you see the implications of these two statements as they relate to you and your eternal destiny?

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Elder James E. Talmadge did. He declared, in his mortal condition, man is

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God in embryo. However, in any individual now a mortal being may attain to the rank and sanctity of Godship.

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So Mormons most definitely believe, if they're honest with you, that they can attain

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Godhood. They will be made equal with God. Joseph Smith, in his famous sermon called the

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King Follett Discourse, says this. This is a little bit of a lengthy quote, but I trust you'll bear with me.

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He says, quote, God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits in throne in yonder heavens.

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I'm going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was

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God from all eternity. I will refute that idea. It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us.

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Yea, that God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself. You have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.

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And that's once again Joseph Smith Jr. in the King Follett discourse, a very famous sermon of his.

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So we've asked our two questions, and we should get an answer that resembles, yes, we do believe that we can become gods.

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So now we can hop aboard the Isaiah train. One of my favorite things to do is to lead people on a trail of connecting verses through the scriptures.

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I don't know where I picked up this approach, but I really enjoy it, because I enjoy letting

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God speak for himself. And the approach is pretty simple. I start with a verse, and oh, by the way, you want to make sure that you have for yourself at least three

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King James Bibles in your house. One for you, and one for each of your two

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Mormon kids. The Mormon missionaries used to carry around Bibles, but I found that in recent years they have stopped doing that for whatever reason, probably because the

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Bible is a big book, and it's a whole lot to carry around when you're on a bicycle. Understandable. So don't expect the

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Mormons to have a Bible handy. It is one of their scriptures, so they should not have any objection to using it.

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The King James Bible is their preferred translation, not the Joseph Smith translation, interestingly enough.

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We can talk about that later if you like. So I like to make sure that I have three King James Bibles handy, or at least two, one for each one of the missionaries.

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I personally use the New American Standard. That's my personal preference, and I have my Bible marked up for this encounter, and I'll show you an example of that in just a minute.

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So what I'll do is I'll say, okay, could you hand them each a Bible, and I say, can you verify that, you know, this is like a magician, right?

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Like, can you verify that these are, you know, ordinary playing cards? This is an ordinary King James Bible, right? There's nothing fancy going on here, no shenanigans.

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So they'll look at it, and they go, yeah, it's a King James Bible. So I say, could you please turn to Isaiah 43 .10? Oftentimes you have to help them figure out where Isaiah is, because, well, they don't spend a lot of time in the

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Bible. They spend most of their time in their other three standard works. So I ask them to turn to Isaiah 43 .10,

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and then what I like to do is have them read it out loud. Why do

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I have them read it out loud? Well, because if they're reading it out loud, that means that they're reading it, taking it in with their eyes, they're speaking it with their mouth, and they're hearing the

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Word of God spoken from their own lips. So it's an immersive experience, if you will, right?

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So have them read it out loud and say, could you please turn to Isaiah 43 .10 and read it out loud for me?

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So they said, sure. And so the verse goes, ye are my witnesses, saith the

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Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.

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Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Okay, thank you very much for reading.

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I have a couple questions for you. Was there any other God before God, according to this verse?

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This is God speaking, right? So according to God, was there any God before him?

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And if they're going to be honest with the text, and they usually are, they'll say, well, no, there was no

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God before him. Okay, good, thank you. And then the second question is, will there be any

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God after him? And then if they're looking at the text and be like, well, of course there isn't because it says neither shall there be after me.

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Then you want to go on to the next verse in the train. And the way I do this, I don't have the necessarily have all the verses memorized in order.

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I know where they are, but I don't necessarily have them memorized in order. So what I do in my Bible is I do something like this. This is actually a photograph that I snapped of my

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Bible. And I got it labeled over here in the margin, Mormon start. This is where I start with the Mormons.

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You see it's Isaiah 43 .10. And you notice that down there at the end of the verse, it's where it says, and there will be none after me.

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You'll see a little arrow and a very messy scribbling. It says 44 .6. Well, that's my cue. The next verse in the train is

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Isaiah 44 .6. You notice some scribbling there off to the right.

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That's when I talked to Jehovah's Witnesses, I got a different train of verses that I take them through. So we go over to Isaiah 44 .6.

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So I say, please turn to Isaiah 44 .6. And if you would, please read it out loud. So they say, sure. And when they read it out loud, they say, thus sayeth the

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Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last and beside me, there is no

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God. Thank you very much for reading. Now I have a couple questions for you. First question, can there be anything before the first or after the last?

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Now this is, you know, we're keeping the cookies on the bottom shelf, right? We're not getting super philosophical. We're not getting theological.

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It's a very simple question. Can there be anything before the first? Well, obviously not, because if there were something before it, then it wouldn't be the first, right?

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The other thing would be the first. And likewise, there can be nothing after the last. Otherwise it wouldn't be the last.

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It would be the penultimate to use a fancy word. And second question is, is there any other

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God beside him? Well, clearly, no, there isn't, because the text is very clear about that.

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This is actually God speaking and he says, I am the first and the last and beside me, there is no God. So then we have another verse we want to go to.

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I thank them for reading. Thank them for answering. And then we look at the Bible and you'll see that I have another arrow that says, go to 45, five and six.

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So we turn over to Isaiah 45, five and six. And I say, I am the Lord and there is none else.

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And there is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me, that they may know from the rising sun and from the

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West, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none else. Thank you for reading.

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Can I ask you a question? Sure. Is there any God other than Yahweh? Well, clearly no.

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And secondly, Oh, I guess that's the only question we have for that one. So you may be wondering like,

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Oh my goodness, Dan, this is, this is so monotonous. Don't they get sick of you doing this? And you know, I get the point, right?

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You can stop at any time you like during the, you can, you can shorten the train, but by any, you know, by all means, go ahead and shorten the train if you want to.

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But in the, in the number, every time I've done this, the, the Mormon kids are, they're, they're more than happy to read it out loud.

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I think it's because they're just happy to be actually sitting on a couch and not walking around in the heat or in the cold. Right?

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So they, they're happy to have somebody to talk to and I'm happy to oblige them. So then I ask him to turn to Isaiah 45, 18, where we read, for thus saith the

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Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it, he that established it, he that created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited, inhabited.

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I am Yahweh, or I am the Lord, and there is none else.

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Now the question we have to ask is, thank him for reading, and then say, is there any God other than Yahweh?

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Well, clearly no, there isn't because the text is very clear about that. Okay, thank you. Can you please turn to Isaiah 45, 21 and 22, which says, tell ye and bring them near, yea, let them take counsel together, who have declared this from ancient time, who have told it from that time?

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Have not I, Yahweh, and there is no God beside me, a just God and a savior, there is none beside me.

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Look unto me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else.

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And I bet you can guess what my next question is going to be. Is there a

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God other than Yahweh? And clearly the answer is no, and that's the answer they should give you.

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And then we go to Isaiah 44, 8. So notice that we've gone from Isaiah 43, 10, and we've gone all the way down to Isaiah 45, but now we're going to go back to Isaiah 44, and there's a reason

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I do this, and hopefully it'll become clear once I read the verse to you. So please turn to Isaiah 44, 8, and there we read, fear ye not, neither be afraid, have not

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I told thee from that time and have declared it, ye are even my witnesses. Is there a

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God beside me? Yea, there is no God, I know not any.

30:57

Do you see why I asked them, what if God is truly omniscient? And ask him and really get specific about what omniscience means.

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Here's the question. Is there any God besides Yahweh?

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Right? If they say, if they say no, well then that's the right answer.

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But if they, but here's the point, right? It says, yea, there is no God, I know of none.

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So if God is truly omniscient, and he says that he doesn't know of anything, what does that tell you?

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There is no other God. So at this point, I like to use what's called the, what

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Greg Kokel calls the Columbo tactic in his book, Tactics. And in his book

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Tactics, this book really changed everything for me. I used to be scared to talk to atheists,

31:53

I used to be scared to talk to Jehovah's Witnesses until I read this book and I was like, oh wow, this is, this is really good stuff.

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Basically the gist of it is, the biggest takeaway I got from Greg Kokel's book is, he who asks the questions controls the direction of the conversation.

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When you don't know what to say, just ask questions. Right? So, yea,

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I use that and, you know, Columbo, if you're familiar with him, if you're of a certain age as I am, you might remember that Columbo from the

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TV show, and this is, you know, this disheveled private investigator or police officer, and he never had a pencil on him, he was always asking for a pencil and he seemed really absent -minded and he just looked like a total incompetent slob, right?

32:37

But he was brilliant. And he would play dumb and he was like, you know, I'm wondering, I'm wondering how you reconcile your belief that you can become gods with what you, you read from the

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Bible, where God says over and over again that there is no God but Him and never will be.

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Right? And there's one thing I had to learn how to do early on, is just learn how to ask a question and then shut my mouth and be quiet and let the

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Holy Spirit go to work. I made this mistake too often with my mother -in -law, when every time

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I would ask her a question she'd go, oh, and she'd start thinking and I'm like, oh no, I've lost her, she didn't understand.

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So I would keep talking and try to explain it to her and completely get her off the mental track that she was on.

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So learn how to be comfortable with sitting in silence and while they think about it.

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There are a couple of different responses that I've received in response to, the answers I've received in response to this question.

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Response number one is, well, those verses just mean that there is only one God of this universe.

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God is our God and there is no other for us. And you see, now you see why it's so important to drill down on what omnipotence is and make sure they understand that God, sorry, not omnipotence, omniscience, and that God is indeed all -knowing.

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Because remember, words are like buckets and they carry meaning. So number one,

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God is omniscient. So by definition, there's nothing he does not know. Point two, he does not know of any other

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God. And point number three, therefore, there can be no other

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God. So now you see why it is so important to define your terms, do it ahead of time.

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And it saves you a lot of grief and arguing and backtracking and all that. Another response that I've received in response to this question is, this is not the message we preach when we go to house to house.

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It's not what we really, it's not what we focus on. We want to reach people with the gospel. This is a great tactic to kind of just kind of downplay the fact that I've got,

34:53

I've asked them a question that they cannot answer. And it's like, well, you know, they kind of downplay its importance. Well, we don't, you know, you're the one who brought that up, not us.

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So it's not really important to us. So we're not going to answer it. But then I just kind of gently hold their feet to the fire.

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But that doesn't really answer my question, does it? You hold a belief that contradicts God's own words.

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And I'm really curious how you reconcile that inconsistency in your mind, right? Like really hold their feet to the fire, you know, in love, of course, you know, you don't want to be, don't want to be a jerk about it.

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Response number three would look something like this. Oh, look at the time, Elder Luke.

35:32

I just realized that we have another appointment in five minutes that we have to get to. So now you understand why it's important to say how much time do you have, right?

35:42

So then you can respond with, you know, I'm a little confused, fellas. Didn't you say we had about an hour? It seems to me that you owe me about 45 minutes, right?

35:50

So be firm, be gentle, but be firm. So we've covered the nature of God and the destiny of man.

35:59

Now I want to get into salvation. And for the salvation topic, I want to dive into a different approach that I learned from Bill McKeever, Eric Johnson, and Keith Walker called the

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Impossible Gospel of Mormonism. So there's one thing you have to understand about the Mormons is they,

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I've kind of alluded to this earlier, was that they have four scriptures that they call their standard works.

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The standard works are the Bible, the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, book called the

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Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. You all are familiar with what the

36:36

Bible looks like. It's a fairly thick book. The Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Covenants, and the

36:41

Pearl of Great Price are a much smaller volume. This is a copy that I purchased with cheater tabs, no less to help me out.

36:50

I got this from a used bookstore for about 15 bucks. So the Mormon church did not get any money for me for this one.

36:57

And it's really nice. It's leather bound and it's got somebody else's name printed on there. So thank you, Mrs. Neeson or Ms.

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Neeson, whoever you are, for giving me your standard works. So the interesting thing about it is that they only believe the

37:14

Bible insofar as it is correctly translated, which is really just code for saying, well, when the

37:21

Bible conflicts with the other standard works, the Bible gets thrown under the bus. So the books that are important to them are the

37:28

Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. I've tried to read through the

37:33

Book of Mormon. I think I got about three quarters, seven eighths of the way through it. And I just,

37:39

I really, I just lost interest. It sounds a lot like some of the stories in the

37:44

Bible. There are a lot of verses that show up in the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith has been accused of plagiarizing from the

37:53

King James Version. They sound very familiar. But you're not going to find any doctrine in the

37:59

Book of Mormon. It's more or less a history book of theirs. The Doctrine and Covenants is where you find the meat of their theology.

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So what I want to do in the approach called the Impossible Gospel of Mormonism is we want to take two of their scriptures.

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So, you know, sorry, going back, you know, when you're quoting Bible verses in the back of their mind, they're always going to be thinking, yeah, but the

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Bible is only correctly, only, you know, correct insofar as it's correctly translated. And so they're that kind of, they kind of have this out built into it.

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Like when the Bible says something they don't agree with, they're like, yeah, but it's the Bible, right? What are the other standard works say?

38:39

So the other approach we're going to take with this, with the Impossible Gospel, is we're going to use just six verses from the

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Book of Mormon and from the Doctrine and Covenants, three verses from the Book of Mormon, three verses from the

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DNC, and demonstrate from their own scriptures that salvation is utterly impossible.

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So this is a kind of, it's more of a defensive approach, I guess you could say.

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You're just basically showing them how their own worldview is inconsistent and it doesn't get them anywhere.

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They can't win with it. So we're going to talk, we're talking about salvation.

39:15

So the first thing you do is you take them to First Nephi 3 .7, and this is in the Book of Mormon. So what

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I like to do is very similar to what I do with my Bible, is in my standard works,

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I have a pink bookmark that is attached to one of the pages.

39:33

And this might not show up terribly well, but you can see there, I have a passage that's blocked, and then

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I have some questions written in the margin. So I have them on the tip of my tongue, right?

39:46

So the questions here are a little bit different. They're a little more varied, which is the reason why I write them in the margin.

39:52

So we go to First Nephi 3 .7 and have them read it out loud. I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

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And so you ask him a very simple question. Is it possible to keep all of God's commands?

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Well, it says right there in the verse, the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commanded them.

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So no, God does not give you a command that you cannot obey. So then you make it personal.

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The Apostle Paul did this time and time and time again throughout the Book of Acts in his apologias. He made it personal.

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So you make it personal to Mormons. You say, well, how are you doing at this? Are you keeping all of God's commands?

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A hundred percent? Of course, if they're going to be honest with you, they're going to say, well, no, I'm not. And so, okay, well, thank you for your honesty.

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And we turn over to the Book of Alma, also in the Book of Mormon, which says, and I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins, for I cannot deny his word.

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And he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven.

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Therefore, how can you be saved except that you inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, you cannot be saved in your sins.

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Make it personal. Ask him a straightforward question. Do you struggle with sin? We all do, right?

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We're all human. You can relate to them on that and say, hey, look, you know, I'm not trying to judge you. I struggle with sin sometimes too, right?

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Or all the time. Various things. So then you just ask him, well, doesn't this mean that you are still in your sins and unclean, right?

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Because if you struggle with sin, then you cannot be saved. So doesn't this mean that you are not saved, according to this verse?

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And then we go on to the Book of Moroni, which says, if you shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love

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God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you.

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Sounds a little bit like Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, right? For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and this not of yourselves.

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That is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. But, you know, they stop at that first part.

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That is his grace sufficient for you. And then you just ask him a simple question. Have you denied yourself of all ungodliness?

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And of course, they'll have to say no if they're going to be honest with you. Well, no. From time to time,

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I still do sin. And you say, well, doesn't this mean that you have yet to receive the grace to cleanse you?

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Because you see the conditions in there, right? It says, if you shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love

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God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you.

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So if you haven't denied yourself of all ungodliness, or if you have not loved

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God with all your might, mind, and strength, then his grace is not sufficient for you.

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It's conditioned. His grace is conditioned upon your performance. And that's what it boils down to.

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So then you ask them, if you have not denied yourself of all ungodliness, when do you think you will?

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And then there's Doctrines and Covenants. We switch over to the other book. Doctrines and Covenants 2515. Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive.

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And except thou do this, where I am, you cannot come. Just ask them simply, how many commandments must you keep continually?

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Some? Most? All? Right? It says, keep my commandments. There's no qualifier on that.

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So you would have to say it would be all commandments. And you have to keep them continually. And if it's all, then how are you doing at this?

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Because as it says here, except thou do this, where I am, you cannot come. Doctrine and Covenants 5843.

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By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins, behold, he will confess them and forsake them.

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So how many sins must you forsake? You can ask them. And have you forsaken all of your sins?

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And you know what forsake means, right? That means to repent of it, to turn from it, to never go back to it again.

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And then if you go back to it, then you haven't really repented. You have not forsaken it. You left it alone for a while, but you've gone back to it.

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So that's not forsaking. So have you forsaken all of your sins? And if not, doesn't that mean that you've not truly repented?

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Because repentance to them is forsaking the sin and never, ever going back to it again.

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And Doctrines and Covenants 131 says, for I, the Lord, cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.

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All right, so here's where we bring it down to a close. In light of all the answers you've given to all the previous questions, do you think that God will overlook your sins?

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I'll let that question sit. There's a guy by the name of Spencer W. Kimball, who is one of the former president,

45:20

I think he was a president of the Mormon organization. He wrote this book called

45:26

The Miracle of Forgiveness. And in it he wrote, this is very, very telling. One of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God.

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That belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation.

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He goes on to say, forgiveness is canceled on reversion to sin.

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Those who feel that they can sin and be forgiven and then return to the sin and be forgiven again and again must straighten out their thinking.

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Each previously forgiven sin is added to the new one and the whole gets to be a heavy load.

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So are you picking up what he's putting down? So you sin, and then you have this burden that you're carrying on your back.

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And then you repent of it, you forsake your sin, you take it off of you, you leave it on the path and you start walking again.

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Well, if you commit the same sin again, then you basically, that sin that you left behind in the path, back in your past, that sin, that guilt from that sin is heaped upon you on top of the sin that you've just created, you've just committed and the guilt that comes with that.

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And then you repent of that and you put that along the path and you start walking and then you sin again in the same manner.

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And then you have to go back and pick up those two burdens and you put them on your shoulder and then you have the additional burden of the sin you just committed.

46:54

You see where this is going. The burden just gets to be heavier and heavier and heavier and you can never escape it.

47:00

The only way to escape it is to become sinless. And none of us is going to do this.

47:08

Okay, so then Spencer Kimball goes on to say, God would never require anything from his children which was not for their benefit and which was not attainable.

47:19

Perfection, therefore, is an achievable goal. Wow. So much for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, right?

47:31

Totally unbiblical doctrine. But this is the burden that the Mormon has, is that he understands that his forgiveness is contingent upon his own behavior.

47:44

It is not grace. It is not God's free gift. It is something that he must work to deserve and to maintain.

47:52

So once you get to this point and you help them understand that there is no way they can be saved under your own system and that's when you come with the biblical truth and you say, look, about 6 ,000 years ago

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God created everything perfect. He created man and woman in his own image. God himself is eternal.

48:13

He is not created and he says, let us make man in our image. So he made man.

48:18

He made woman for the man. And then two chapters later in Genesis chapter 3, they fell.

48:24

They rebelled against God and sin entered the world and as a result of sin came death.

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But a promise was made in Genesis chapter 3 that God would send forth a descendant from Eve to be the sacrifice that would save all of mankind.

48:45

And so the Bible is all about God's plan of redemptive history for mankind, finding its culmination in the person of Jesus Christ, who as John 1 tells us, was the

48:56

Word. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God from the beginning and he is the creator of all things.

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There's nothing that has been made that is not what was not made by him. So Christ Jesus came to save sinners.

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He came to give his life and for his blood to become the atoning sacrifice to cover our sins.

49:18

As I quoted earlier, it is by grace that we are saved and this means God's unmerited favor.

49:25

There is nothing we can do to to warrant or merit God's favor on our behalf.

49:31

As a matter of fact, he tells us that even our righteousness is as filthy rags in his sight. There's nothing we can do to please this holy

49:38

God and that is why Jesus Christ had to come and die a horrible death on a cross at the hands of his own creation so that his creation would be able to have their sins covered over, their sins paid for, for all the sins past, present, and future.

49:56

If they would just, as Romans 10, 9, and 10 says, if they would believe with their hearts that God rose from the dead and confess with their mouths that Jesus is

50:08

Lord, then they will be saved. It's a matter of faith. It's a matter of belief. It is not a matter of working.

50:15

There's nothing we can do to earn God's salvation. So that is the message of hope that you want to bring and you want to make sure that you don't get to the point in your walking through all this where all you do is focus on the negative and you don't deliver the truth.

50:31

I've had too many encounters with Mormons in my house where, you know, I forget to ask them how much time we have and then the time runs away from us and they say, oh look at this, we have to leave and I haven't given them the gospel yet.

50:43

Folks, the whole point of apologetics is to get people the gospel, right?

50:50

That is the whole point. Every time Paul opened his mouth, every time he gave his apologias in the book of Acts, it was always arguing from Scripture to present the truth to people and to present to them the gospel and to get them the gospel message.

51:07

Paul says, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel. In those times when I've let Mormons get out of my house and I've not given them the truth of God's word,

51:16

I wholeheartedly resonate with Paul's message, woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

51:23

So please, above and beyond all else, whatever you do, make sure you present the truth of the gospel to your

51:34

Mormon friends or anybody who doesn't believe for that matter. So a few things to take away, a few things to remember.

51:42

Number one, prepare your Bibles and your standard works in advance. So all the little underlining and the chaining of verses, connect the verses, right?

51:51

Make sure you have those ready and on hand. So my kids know that when the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses knock on my door,

51:58

Mormons knock on my door, I said my kids, I said, go get my standard works and my Bibles, my

52:04

King James Bibles. And when the Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, I say, kids, go get my

52:11

Kingdom Interlinear Bible, they know what it is, they know where to go to get it, and bring me some of the other things that I use in talking to them.

52:19

So make sure you have your resources on hand and ready to go. Remember to ask how much time you have, set the agenda, make sure that you keep your scope very, very tightly focused on the nature of God, salvation, and man's eternal destiny and salvation.

52:41

And then remember, this is crucial. It's not our job. It's not your job. It's not my job to convince, convict or to convert anyone.

52:49

That is the Holy Spirit's job. I am super competitive by nature.

52:54

And I don't like to lose. I don't like to lose at anything, whether it be an argument or a basketball game, a game of monopoly, it doesn't matter.

53:02

I am hyper competitive. And in my early years of talking, of practicing apologetics,

53:10

I had to, this is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. I was always really disappointed when

53:16

I wasn't able to persuade somebody to come to the foot of the cross. And the

53:22

Lord had to remind me, he's like, look, Dan, that's my job. Don't try to take my job from me. Your job is to tell the truth.

53:28

Your job is to always be prepared to tell people about me. The admonition, 1

53:34

Peter 3 .15, is not always be prepared to have a chain of verses in your standard works, or have a chain of verses in your

53:41

Bible, or know all about the scientific arguments and the arguments for God's existence and all that stuff. That's not what it's about.

53:47

Matter of fact, I have a presentation called apologetics is not what you think. And that's linked to from the speaking page on my website, sevenfootapologist .com.

53:57

Take a look at that if you if this is if this is sounding new to your ears, then I would recommend that you go watch that presentation.

54:03

So just remember, it's not your job to convince, convict or convert anyone that is the Holy Spirit's job. I'd also like you to direct you to some other resources that I found to be very helpful.

54:15

These are the first three are YouTube channels. Apologia Studios is Jeff Durbin and sometimes

54:21

James White. James White, incidentally, is the author of the King James only controversy and a bunch of other books.

54:27

Jeff Durbin does a really good job talking to Mormons and anybody for that matter. He does lots of street evangelism and they've got videos of him talking to people and you can kind of see his approach and how he goes about doing it.

54:38

Living Waters is Ray Comfort. I love his approach. Ray Comfort, it doesn't matter who he's talking to, he's going to take you to the

54:47

Ten Commandments because the scripture says that the law was given as a tutor to lead us to Christ, right?

54:55

So Ray takes that very seriously. He says, you know what, if the law was given to us as a tutor to lead us to Christ, then I'm going to use the law to convict people of their sin, show them their need for a savior, and then present the gospel.

55:06

So it's a great approach. You can watch him, you know, interacting with all kinds of people, atheists,

55:12

Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, pagans, it doesn't matter. He talks to them all and he uses the same basic approach.

55:18

So it's really, really, really powerful because it's based upon the word of God, right? Mormonism Research Ministry is

55:26

Bill McKeever. He's one of the authors of the Impossible Gospel of Mormonism. He's got a few videos there on his

55:34

YouTube channel that you can look at. And then Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, Matt Slick, that is a link there to all of his

55:44

Mormon resources. Matt's been doing this for a really, really long time. The guy is basically a rocket surgeon when it comes to apologetics.

55:54

He's very, very thorough with his research and his documentation. And there's just, you probably, it'll take you a long time to run out of material to read on his website.

56:05

He covers everything. So yeah, so those are some great resources that you can use in your own endeavors to share and defend your faith.

56:14

And remember, sometimes God brings the mission field to your door. And when that happens, go bananas.

56:23

Have fun with it. And that is the end. I guess we're now open for Q &A.

56:31

Well, I have to say that we have some people in our Zoom room here who love

56:37

Minions. So that was a very appealing and fit end. So can you explain,

56:45

Leilani would like you to explain why it is that you use the King James Version and not their

56:51

Bible. I think you mentioned earlier that you talk about that. Yes, because the Mormons don't use the

56:56

Joseph Smith translation. You might find that as rather odd. Why would the Mormons not prefer the

57:02

Joseph Smith translation? He's the one who founded their religion. Why wouldn't they use his Bible? And I think the answer is pretty simple.

57:09

It's because the Bible is not used as one of their standard references so much as it is to make them seem a little less different than Bible -believing

57:18

Christians, right? Say, hey, look, we believe the Bible too. And if you've never studied this, you may look at the

57:24

Bible and say, hey, wait a minute, that's a King James Bible. I read a King James Bible. Oh, they must not be that much different from me after all, right?

57:32

So it's a way to basically grease the skids into your house and into the conversation, right?

57:39

It establishes a point of commonality. It's pretty simple. It's also interesting to note that originally

57:47

Joseph Smith, as he tells the tale, paraphrased this quite a bit, but he was apparently praying and asking

57:54

God, you know, which of all the denominations should I choose? Because he was confused. He wanted to do the right thing.

58:00

And there were apparently some evangelical preachers holding big tent revivals where he was.

58:07

And he says, he prayed and says, Lord, which of the denominations should I choose? And the answer he supposedly got was, do not choose any of them for all of them are an abomination to me.

58:18

He says, I will restore the gospel through you. So red flags waving, right?

58:24

If when somebody claims to get a special word from God and they're going to restore the gospel, which was lost for thousands of years, be on your guard, right?

58:34

So initially Joseph Smith tried to do everything he could, as did their early leaders, to distinguish themselves and to set themselves apart from the

58:44

Christian church. But it's really interesting how as time has gone on, they have done, they've now kind of reversed direction and they try to do everything they can to make them seem

58:56

Christian, right? Including calling themselves Christian. We're just another Christian denomination. So it's really interesting to see how they've kind of, they've changed over time.

59:05

It's a marketing thing, baby, right? You know, that's how it is. You win more, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, right?

59:16

Well, so I know that this can step on some people's toes, a lot of our friends toes.

59:25

But one of the things that you said is that they like to present it, that it's the same, you know, that they want to present it the same, including that we worship the same

59:34

Jesus, which became a controversial point you may know within the last couple of years.

59:42

So do you want to weigh in on that? Yeah. So the

59:47

Christian notion of who Jesus is, the way God, the way Jesus was revealed in the

59:53

Bible is that he is from everlasting, right? From everlasting to everlasting thou art

59:59

God. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I mentioned John 1 in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was

01:00:06

God, right? Jesus is from all eternity God. The Mormons will say they believe in the

01:00:14

Trinity, but they mean a very different thing than when we say

01:00:20

Trinity. So when biblical Christians say, I believe in the

01:00:25

Trinity, they mean we have one God manifested in three persons. What the

01:00:30

Mormons believe is that we have three gods, essentially. Three gods represented in three persons.

01:00:38

They believe that all of us pre -exist, had a, had a, had a, a pre -mortal existence in heaven.

01:00:46

We are the result of cosmic relations between heavenly father and his spirit bride, and all these, you know, a bunch of spirit babies were produced.

01:00:55

And the reason why Mormons typically have very large families is that they're trying to create fleshly existences for these, these pre -mortal spirit babies.

01:01:06

So they have, they can come to earth, live life, and then go back to heavenly father. And if they're good

01:01:12

Mormons and they get the, they achieve celestial marriage and they do all that is commanded of them, then they could one day hope to attain godhood.

01:01:21

They'll basically get their own planets and start their own race and do everything that God, God, the father did when he started this planet.

01:01:29

So they believe that Jesus is a created being. He is not eternal. They believe that as part of the pre -mortal existence,

01:01:36

Jesus and Lucifer were some of the two of the offspring of heavenly father and his celestial bride.

01:01:42

And that so that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers. And that the reason why

01:01:49

Satan fell it was because he had a plan for salvation and Jesus had a plan for salvation and the two plans differed.

01:01:55

Heavenly father chose Jesus' plan for salvation and Satan was subsequently thrown out of heaven.

01:02:02

So yeah, the Jesus that's in the Bible is eternal. He is eternally

01:02:07

God. He is 100 % God. He is 100 % man. But the Jesus of Mormonism is decidedly not that.

01:02:14

He is a created being, spirit brother of Lucifer and of you and of me. So very, very, very, very different.

01:02:21

You know, and Jesus says, you know, in John 8, he says, unless you believe I am, you will die on your sins.

01:02:28

And when he said that, you know, that got some people pretty upset, the Orthodox Jews of his day, because they realized that Jesus was making a direct claim to divinity.

01:02:39

He was associating himself. He was taking the name of God. I am Yahweh. And so when he did that, he says,

01:02:46

I am, unless you believe I am. In other words, unless you believe I am Yahweh, you will die on your sins.

01:02:54

So they do not believe, they believe that Jesus is a God, but he is not God almighty. Thank you for, thank you for expounding on it.

01:03:05

So um, um, all right, but here in zoom, so Jessica, um, it's not so much a comment as it is, or a question as it is some feedback, but she says, um, your entire presentation has been solid.

01:03:20

It checks off all the boxes, scripture, saturated, engaging, focused, and persuasive.

01:03:25

I, I can definitely tell he is a seasoned apologist. She says, so, you know,

01:03:32

I, I don't even, I, I, I may have talked with you about this, Terry. Uh, I, I struggle with the label apologist because I don't see anybody in the

01:03:41

Bible labeled as such. Uh, and I, I don't like to be called an apologist because I think that kind of makes it sound like, well,

01:03:48

I'm something special that you're not, or I have some special training that you don't, right. It's kind of like,

01:03:53

I call it the cosmopolitan effect, right? So if you go to the grocery store and you walk through the, uh, the checkout stand, you notice they have all the, you know, the, the glamor magazines, you've got cosmopolitan, glamor,

01:04:03

L, whatever else is there on the stands these days. And when you look at the women on the cover, what do you always see?

01:04:10

You see perfection, right? And I, I, I'm, I obviously I'm not a woman.

01:04:16

I don't even try to identify one, even though I live just outside of Seattle. Uh, I don't care to do that.

01:04:22

Uh, I don't know what it's like to be a woman, but I can just imagine trying to look at, you know, looking at magazines and thinking to myself,

01:04:29

I could never measure up to that. Right. So the reason why you can never measure up to that is because you don't have your own airbrush department, right?

01:04:38

You don't have somebody taking the wrinkles and the, and the, and the blemishes off of your skin so that other people see perfection in you.

01:04:45

And I think what happens is when we look at the, you know, the big name apologists of our day, we see guys with, you know,

01:04:52

PhDs and masters and, and they got more degrees than Fahrenheit and they're really super smart and they got really great answers to everything.

01:04:59

And there's no question they can't handle. And they say, well, you know what? I could never do that. Well, well, guess what?

01:05:05

Nobody said you had to, you know, the admonition we have in 1 Peter 3 15 is to always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within you.

01:05:15

And what is the hope that is within you? The hope that is within you is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

01:05:20

It is the gospel. It is the fact that God became a man and died on the cross and paid the penalty for your sins so that you don't have to.

01:05:31

And the only thing that you are admonished to do is to always be prepared to tell people what

01:05:36

Christ has done in your life. Read the book of 1 Peter, see what it's all about. It's all about living rightly in the face of persecution.

01:05:43

And we should be living our lives in such a way that when others, when people outside the church look at us, they go, how is it that you're able to go through persecution and people hating you and mistreating you, etc.

01:05:54

But yet you still maintain hope. You still maintain joy. How is it? You know, there's something wrong with you.

01:06:00

What's your problem? And then you could say, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you about Jesus. That's what you need to be prepared to always do.

01:06:07

You don't have to to wax eloquently. You don't have to do Zoom calls or any of this stuff. Be prepared to tell people what

01:06:13

Christ has done in your life. That's the admonition. That is the command. That is a great admonition.

01:06:20

And actually we had a speaker several weeks ago in August, Brad Dacus, the president of Pacific Justice Institute.

01:06:28

He did his whole first half presentation on that topic. It was kind of a mini sermon that we got from First Timothy.

01:06:35

So that was really great. So people who are watching tonight, go back and watch that one also. I had to catch that myself.

01:06:42

Yeah, it was really, it was, and I mean, he even stopped, stopped in when he was done with that and did a sinner's prayer.

01:06:49

And then he went on to tell us some of the court cases that they're working on. That was a really, a really great presentation.

01:06:55

So, so yeah, you'll want to want to watch that. We are pretty much up against the time, so we're going to go ahead and close.

01:07:02

So the one thing, we just had another comment come in, but it's okay.

01:07:10

Please tell people again how they can find your ministry. I know that you do go out and talk sometimes, and so let people know how they can find you, how they can reach out to you if they have questions or want to have you come to their church.

01:07:21

Yeah, the easiest way to get a hold of me is to go to my website, sevenfootapologist .com. If you don't feel like typing out the word seven, you can use the number, either way it will work.

01:07:31

sevenfootapologist .com. I'm also on the social medias, although I don't do a whole lot there because I do have a day job, a full -time job, and that does keep me busy.

01:07:40

It also keeps food on the table, so I'm happy to do it. That's the best way to get a hold of me.

01:07:46

All of my talk, the talks that I have that have been recorded are linked from my speaking page.

01:07:51

There are also links there to contact me directly. I do have a book called Jesus is

01:07:56

Not the Answer to Every Sunday School Question, but honestly, you'll get a lot more out of the presentations from the website than you will out of the three -volume book that I wrote, so save your money.

01:08:07

Watch the videos. They're free, and it's got a lot more information in them than the books do.

01:08:14

Okay, thank you for that, and once again, we are Creation Fellowship Santee, and you can find a list of our upcoming speakers by typing in tinyurl .com

01:08:25

forward slash cfsantee. That's C like creation, F like fellowship. Santee is spelled

01:08:31

S -A -N -T -E -E, although probably if you're watching this anywhere on the internet, our name ought to be underneath the video anyway, but you can find our list of upcoming speakers.

01:08:44

Next week, we're going to have Israel Wayne come back and speak to us about biblical hermeneutics, a little lesson on that, which

01:08:51

I know Dan touched on that tonight as well, so it'll be good to hear more from him on that, and then also while you're there, you can click on the link for our archives page.

01:09:02

We do have channels. We have channels on BitChute and Rumble and YouTube. If you're watching this on YouTube, you won't find that video of Brad Dacus because there are some topics that we self -censor so that we don't get banned from YouTube, but his video is definitely on Rumble and BitChute.