Refuting Ex-Pastor Turned Mormon, David Alexander

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When the tribes and Pharisees asked our Lord about the greatest commandment, He replied, You shall love the Lord your

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God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. So, why do we hear some of today's most prominent pastors saying things like this?

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It had everything to do with how we talk about the Bible. And specifically, along with that, what we point to as the foundation of faith.

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Which for most Christians, unfortunately, is the Bible. We need to do better.

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We need to love God with all our hearts, and stand unashamedly on the rock of His Word. We need to love the

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Lord with all of our souls, and respond to the worldview issues of our day with the wisdom and discernment that comes only from Him.

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We need to love the Lord with our minds, and understand the calling of God's people in every area of life in God's world.

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We need to love the Lord our God with all our strength, and face the work of building a life -giving,

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God -honouring culture. Join us for 10 days at the Runner Academy for Cultural Leadership, as we consider how the

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Gospel influences all of life and culture, and the role that we have to play in applying foundational

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Christian thinking to every area of life. Non -rockabotists must stop!

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I don't want to rock the boat, I want to sink it! Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?

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We're being delusional. Delusional is okay in your worldview, I'm an animal.

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You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay.

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It doesn't really hurt. She hung up on me! What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men, and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Don't go into the world and make homies.

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Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke,

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Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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Take an amazing journey, so you will never be the same again.

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You are my witnesses, declares the 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, no god was formed, nor shall there be after me. I, I am

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Yahweh, and besides me, there is no savior. That's Isaiah 43, 10, and 11, y 'all.

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This is the Gospel Heard Around the World. Apologia Radio. Get more at apologiastudios .com.

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Isaac Banegas. What's up? We're going to have like a little name for you. No, no.

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We should call you Talky Talkerson. Let's not worry about that right now. Let's not worry about the name right now.

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Talky Talkerson. This is the thing. Son of my love. This is what I've always said.

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They get self -appointed nicknames. Self -appointed? Yes. I didn't self -appoint my nickname.

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I didn't self -appoint. That's what people called me in high school. They called me the ninja. You can verify that.

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I could contact my alma mater. I don't know. Well, I guess, okay, Luke, I think somebody started calling

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Luke the bear. I called him the bear. Was it you? That was me, yes. Yeah, yeah. I called him the bear. And then, Joy, we were like, what do we call you?

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And I'm like, you're the only girl here. You're the girl. Yeah. That's really no fun when you self -name me. We'll figure out a really cool nickname for you.

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Talkerson. Wow. Talky Talk. Oh, dude. Extended time. Overtime.

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E .T. E .T. E .T. So, you guys know, too, this is the reason why they have me on.

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Yeah, I just wanted to have you on. This is the segment. They're like, hey, we need to have a segment where we can kind of just like laugh, hang out, chill.

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This is the truth. Isaac, E .T. E .T. Extended time. Oh, goodness.

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All right. I think this is the first time, too, us three have been on Apology Radio. That may be the case.

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Or no, when we did the Revelation one, were you on with us in the Revelation one or was that Luke? No, that was Luke. That was Luke. Okay. All right.

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First time. All right. E .T. I would have liked Conover to be on that podcast.

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Which one? That's all right. You did a good job. Oh, he would have been great. Oh, it would have been phenomenal. Oh, great. Okay. So, speaking of, this is Zachary Conover, Director at My Mouth's not working today.

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First day back from sabbatical, Director of Communications of End Abortion Now. Good to be here as usual, gentlemen.

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All right. E .T., anything going on? I always try to anticipate... Going home today or... I always try to anticipate this and so before I'm just like, how am

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I going to approach this? And then it happens and then I just don't even know what to say. You just draw a blank. I just draw a blank.

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But that's what happened too when I hosted Apology Radio a few weeks back. Which of course, I want to point out that I got more views than when

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Luke hosted Apology Radio. Yes, you did. Yes. Deservedly so. Well, he's not here to defend himself. Go ahead and throw it out there.

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It was a good episode. It was good. I love how... I love the way you spoke in that episode. It was just very focused.

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Really? And very like... I don't know. I wanted a redo. I just want to say, I'm so thankful for all of you in terms of the episodes you guys did, phenomenal.

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And then when you guys did the response on the theonomy stuff, the couple episodes you did with that was just absolutely...

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You caught some of that? Yeah. I watched all of them. I was enthralled. It was amazing. You guys did a great job. Eric did a good job too.

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Yes. Yeah. So let's get right into it, guys. So this is Apology Radio.

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We try to engage with cultural stuff and gospel stuff and theology stuff that just is a broad spectrum.

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But everyone knows that our church's ministry has a big, big heart for the

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Latter -day Saints, the Latter -day Saint community. We love Mormons, deeply, deeply love

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Mormons. And you guys have all heard me say many times before, if you've been listening for any period of time, you've heard me say that Latter -day

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Saints are some of my favorite people in the world. And I genuinely mean that. You've heard me talk about the relationships that I have with Latter -day

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Saints, the friendships that I've had with Latter -day Saints. And those are meaningful relationships and friendships.

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And I've often said that if I had a choice of a community that I wanted to live in, in many parts of this country,

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I would choose to live in some of these Mormon communities south of Salt Lake City.

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They know how to build good communities. I love the Mormon people. And I mean that. And I began my, what?

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Nothing. What? What? Just a nice big smile. What's up E .T.? No, yeah.

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I was actually laughing at the E .T. thing. Okay. All right. All right. So, my way into engaging with the

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Mormon community was because a good friend of mine was a Latter -day Saint and he was trying with his family to convert me to Mormonism.

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And so that's how I got into having relationships with Latter -day Saints and engaging with Mormon teaching and Mormon doctrine.

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And that was my entrance into this. It was a passion to reach Latter -day Saints and always has been. It's never changed.

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It's only really grown. And so much of what you've seen on Apologia Studios of us going out to the

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Mormon temple or doing Mormon evangelism, street evangelism, that was being done by us, by me and us.

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Long before we had recording devices and video cameras, I can't even tell you how many hours on the street that we spent reaching

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Latter -day Saints and our Mormon neighbors before we ever had a camera. And when we started actually recording the conversations, we saw that it was a great blessing to both

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Christians and Latter -day Saints to be able to see conversations that were respectful in nature, loving, gracious between Latter -day

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Saints and Mormons. And we saw that it was a great benefit to people to see that taking place. And so of course we were doing what we always do, go out and do evangelism and just turn the camera on so that the world can see those public conversations happening on the streets and it's broadcast around the world.

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And as a result of all of that, we have, of course, we're thankful to God for this, seen thousands and thousands of Latter -day

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Saints come out of Mormonism to know the true and living Jesus Christ, the real Christ, through the biblical gospel.

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And so with that brings us to the discussion for today. There is right now a guy on YouTube named

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David Alexander, and David Alexander, he has a testimony that he was an evangelical for decades and that he was even a pastor.

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He was a pastor and he has now in his later years converted to Mormonism.

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He's become a Mormonism. His conversion is rather recent. It's less than a year at this point, but he is on fire for Mormonism.

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He is in what I would call the romance stage of conversion. And that takes place, by the way, it's not offensive.

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I don't mean that offensive in any way towards just David. I'm not saying the romance period for David. I'm saying that that typically happens when people convert to say

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Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or to Mormonism, there's a romance period.

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Well, if you listen to the way he talks about it, the most beautiful religious expression. Greatest people on earth and all that and these shedding tears over the prophets and those sorts of things.

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So he's in the romance stage. I don't mean that offensively. I mean, genuinely, that's what takes place. And he's putting a lot of content out, a lot of videos out.

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He mentioned Apologia and me in a recent conversation that he had with somebody.

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What was it called again? It's called the Cougar Chronicle. The Cougar Chronicle.

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And so they mentioned my name specifically. It's in the title, Reaching Evangelicals.

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And what about Apologia Jeff? And there's a reason for, I think, the designation of Apologia Jeff, because he talks about another

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Pastor Jeff in another video. So he's specifically using my name and Apologia's name in his title.

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And so we thought, well, let's kind of engage with this. Now, here's the challenge. I want to say this ahead of time. The hard thing about what we're about to do is that there's no expectation from me that David Alexander is going to watch this content and interaction.

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And in a moment, you're going to see exactly why I'm saying that. So some might say, why bother doing it if he says he's not going to watch it?

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And I think the reason we want to do this is for you Latter -day Saints out there who actually do care about properly handling the

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Word of God. For you Latter -day Saints out there that do care about accurately describing what another person believes.

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And so really, this episode is for, of course, Christians who want to learn how to engage this, but it's for the

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Latter -day Saints. I'm not going to do what David has done regularly in his videos and try to make this about personality and those sorts of things.

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I really want to engage with what's right in front of us and say, okay, let's leave all the personality stuff out of it and all the slights and the jabs, and let's just engage with the actual discussion itself.

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Because David, I think anybody can see for themselves, and much of what he does, you kind of have to wade through a lot of the attacks on Christians personally and personal jabs and those sorts of things.

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I want to say, let's do this with integrity, and let's actually engage with what the man actually claims.

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Let's ask the question. This is what I would just humbly suggest to my Latter -day Saint friends. Ask the question, okay, and please just do this humbly, okay?

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You can think I'm wrong, that's fine, but just ask the question, is David actually engaging with the text?

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When David tries to respond to particular verses that are suggested by us or given by us, is he actually responding to the text or is he more waving his hand?

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Is he changing the subject and leaping out of one book and jumping to another book entirely into a completely different context to try to answer a challenge being given?

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Here's the question to ask, ready? Because all of us are image bearers of God, Mormons and Christians agree with that, and we're all accountable to God and we're all sinners.

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Mormons and Christians, common ground, we agree. We're all accountable to a holy God that we've sinned against, and we're all in God's image, and we all have to answer to God.

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And so, personality stuff aside, if we care about actually accurately handling the truth, then we need to actually demonstrate that we care by saying,

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I'm going to even challenge my favorite, right? I'm not going to show partiality. I'm going to challenge even my favorites.

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That's something we all have to be willing to do. Even our heroes need to be willing to be challenged by us.

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Are they speaking the truth? Are they speaking consistently with the word of God? Did they fall off here?

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Have they done a face plant here? And just be willing to say, yeah, that's true, they did. So that's what we're asking everyone to do today in this episode is just final thing on this, test what's being said.

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Is David accurately handling the word of God? Is he handling the objections or not?

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Are we accurately handling the word of God? And I would just challenge you, go to the text.

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Don't believe me because of my say -so. I don't want you to follow me at all.

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I want you to know Jesus. That's the truth. I want you to know Him, because that is the fundamentally most important thing.

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It isn't about me. It isn't about David Alexander. It's about the word of the living God. Who's speaking consistently with God's word?

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I think the encouragement for Latter -day Saint friends as well is to listen to the words of their own prophets.

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Brigham had something to say about this. Take up the Bible, compare the religion of the Latter -day Saints with it, and see if it will stand the test.

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So there's an invitation from your own prophets and apostles to do the very thing that we're asking for.

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Examine these things in context, and really important, not just jumping around looking for different verses to answer an issue, but stay with the text.

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See where the argument starts, where it leads, and then draw your conclusion from Scripture itself.

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Yes, and that's the key issue. There's an invitation from Mormon prophets and apostles to do exactly what we're doing today.

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So, Latter -day Saints, you've been given an invitation by your leadership to do exactly what's being done here. Go to the text.

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Is it being consistent? Test the religion of the Latter -day Saints, see if it's true. Now, here's the deal. David's put out a lot of content, and I would love to spend hours and hours and hours responding to all of it, and I'm sure we're going to do it here and there and piecemeal, but for today, this particular video has been an hour and ten minutes long.

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We're going to respond to just three parts of it, three short parts of it, and we're going to try to do it in short order here.

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So this was the opening. Make sure I have the right one pulled up here. Yes, I do. Okay. So this was the opening.

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Just to give some context on the Cougar Chronicle, David Alexander, Reaching Evangelicals, and what about Apologia, Jeff?

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I just hope any Latter -day Saints that are watching this don't go, okay,

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I'm going to go watch. This Apologia Studios characters, they don't deserve one click from a

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Latter -day Saints, man. They're just trying to destroy the most beautiful faith on Earth and sow distrust and unbelief in the hearts of people that really need to hold on to their childlike trust and their faith in their leaders, in what they've been taught, and in the covenant path.

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In typical cult -like form, don't look behind the curtain.

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Don't test. Don't listen. Don't hear what they're saying. Don't even bother engaging with what they're saying.

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You've seen that they've taken that strategy to heart. They have. That was something that people for decades were saying in my involvement in engaging with Latter -day

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Saints is, is that anti -Mormon literature? Oh, I'm not gonna look at it. I'm not even gonna bother looking at it. I'm not even gonna bother engaging.

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Very different from the ancient Christian faith, from the apostles, from the

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Lord Jesus where the Lord Jesus had no problem engaging with those who opposed his ministry and would refute them.

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The Apostle Paul in Acts 9, the very first thing he does after his conversion to Christ, after trying to destroy the faith, he goes to Damascus and he goes to the synagogues, and it says that he reasons from the scriptures, proving that Jesus is the

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Messiah there at the synagogues, and it was obviously such a moment in terms of the engagement and the contending for the faith with the

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Apostle Paul that people wanted him dead. They tried to kill him because he was actually going to engage them on their own ground.

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You see that in Apollos in Acts 18, he vigorously refutes the

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Jews publicly, proving that Jesus is the Messiah. You see the command in scripture in 1

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Peter 3 15, that we are to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts and to always be ready to give a reasoned defense, an apologia, to everyone who asks us, a reason for the hope that's within us, and to do it with gentleness and with reverence.

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That's a command from an inspired apostle, be ready with a reasoned defense. I don't see any hide from the arguments, or don't look, don't even bother engaging with.

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And you of course see in Jude verse 3, to earnestly contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

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So very different methodology suggested by inspired apostles and prophets than David Alexander is saying here.

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And also I just want to point out, I think anybody can see, and I mean this with as much respect as I can give, but I need to say it and not speak in a crooked way, but in a straight way.

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Anybody can see the rank hypocrisy in that statement from, it didn't matter if it's coming from David Alexander, from anybody, it ranked hypocrisy.

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David Alexander's channel is dedicated to refuting

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Orthodox Christianity and the Orthodox Christian faith. His channel is dedicated to belittling, maligning, critiquing, and even attacking historic

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Christian Orthodoxy, denigrating the doctrine of the Trinity, and all the rest. So he does the very thing that he's accusing us of doing towards the

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Christian faith. And so anybody, like I said, can point out the rank hypocrisy there. Let's just be honest and put the cards on the table. Let's just be honest.

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Both of us believe that we're in the truth, and both of us believe that the other is an error.

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And so yes, let's just be honest and put it on the table. Both of us are hoping that the other person's beliefs about God are ultimately destroyed, that they go away, and that the true faith remains.

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We're both doing that. And so to suggest in some way that somehow that we are the ones that are trying to destroy others' faith,

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David, friend, that's what you're doing, but you're just doing it on the side of Mormonism.

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So let's just be honest and put the cards on the table. We're both engaging with each other's religion and saying that it's false.

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And so trying to pretend that you're not doing that is just, I mean this again respectfully, it's just rank hypocrisy. Let's just be men of integrity and just speak with integrity and not set up double standards and unequal weights and measures.

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I think the motivation of our hearts too, anytime we're speaking with an unbeliever, but a

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Latter -day Saint in particular, is we're not trying to rob them of faith. No. We're trying to point them to faith in the true and living

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Christ of Scripture. And so what I would want to communicate, and I have before, and I know we all have, is that the sincerity of your faith is irrelevant.

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It's the object of your faith that matters. It's not how sincerely you believe or how earnestly you are wedded to your beliefs or your theology that will save you.

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It's the strength of the Savior himself, Jesus. If it's in anything other than the biblical

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Christ, then ultimately the faith, however sincere it may be, is misplaced. And so that's what

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I try to communicate. I know we all do to our Latter -day Saint friends and neighbors is we know that you believe in God.

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We know that you're passionate and zealous for your beliefs, that you're willing to go to extreme lengths in order to propagate those beliefs.

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There's Mormon missionaries riding around my community on bicycles, going door to door. Yeah. I've sat down with them too, those same ones, but it's not how sincere they are.

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No. It's who is Christ? Right, exactly. Who is the true Christ? The one Jesus that can save and what is the true gospel?

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Because Scripture says that there are false Christs and the Scripture says that there are false gospels. And so one Christ will save and one gospel will save.

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And so that's the key issue. And when you mentioned those Mormon missionaries are coming door to door and coming to our houses, what's the first lesson?

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The first lesson is the first vision account. And what's the first vision account? That Joseph says he's told to join none of the churches for they are all wrong.

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All their creeds are an abomination. All the professors are corrupt. They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. That's what's being given globally right now, this moment in people's homes around the world by Mormon missionaries is that every

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Christian church is wrong. Join none of them. They're all wrong. Their creeds are an abomination, loathsome to God.

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All their professors, the professors of the Christian faith are all corrupt. That's what Mormonism is propagating around the world.

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And so again, it is just rank hypocrisy. Well, we know what they believe is that outside of the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, there is no salvation ultimately.

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There's no ultimate view of exaltation, as they would put it, right? Moving on to the celestial kingdom and all that that requires.

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But both sides have an exclusive view. For sure. So we shouldn't...

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There's no negating that. We shouldn't pretend like that's not the case. Right. And what David is doing here is kind of in that vein.

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Don't even bother listening. These guys are trying to destroy people's faith. It's like, what do you think Mormon missionaries are doing when they come to every

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Christian's door with the first vision account? To dismantle the authority and inerrancy of God's Word.

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Yeah. And to get you to trust in subsequent revelation and in things that contradict Scripture ultimately.

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That's right. Here we go. So, you know, YouTube is a problem.

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It's like, people just think it's like, you can just wander onto YouTube and if something's there, you should just listen to it.

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But I personally will never click on any video from Apologia Studios again.

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Actually, these characters, a few weeks ago, you might know this, Luke. They actually made a response to me video.

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Apologia Utah. Yeah. I was not aware of this. Our response to David Alexander, Apologia Utah did a response.

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And please, you know what? I haven't even watched it. I'm not going to watch it. I am not going to be clickbait for Apologia Studios.

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So, again, respectfully, the rank hypocrisy here.

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I will not click on. You're not even going to watch. You're not even going to engage with.

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You're going to debate with an imaginary opponent with no willingness to actually talk to that person themselves.

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And I'll give you an invitation, David. You'll be treated with respect and with love and with kindness.

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And you're invited. You come on the show. Let's have a discussion. I'm open to having a discussion with you. I'd be happy to have you on.

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We'll fly him out. Well, yeah, he's from... He's in Australia. Oh, he's in Australia? Yeah, yeah. Serious. That's what they say.

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So he's in Australia. But we'll do a Zoom call. We'll even work out the time difference situation. Probably be pretty tough, but we'd make it happen.

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We'd be willing to engage with you. It saddens us that you're not willing to engage with the people that you're actually engaging with in an imaginary manner.

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And so you'll do discussions saying things that actually are patently false with an imaginary opponent, but you won't actually be willing to engage.

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You won't click on content because you said you will not be clickbait for them. But I just want everyone to look at the screen here.

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Gabe, pull this up here. This is your channel, David. Okay. Respectfully, again.

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We're engaging with what you just claimed. This is your channel, David Alexander, on YouTube, and the title of the video is

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Reaching Evangelicals and What About Apologia, Jeff? So could I say to you with the standards that you're setting up that you're just trying to clickbait using my name?

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So should I tell people, hey, guys, don't fall for the clickbait of David Alexander. He's using my name and Apologia's name in his title.

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Don't even bother clicking on it. I'm not going to watch it. See, the double standards here are just heavy, really, really heavy.

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And so again, I'm just engaging with what David is actually saying here.

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But I think that we can all see that this is rank hypocrisy, and setting up a standard for yourself that you don't want for others.

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And I think that anybody can see it. And moving on now to his next statement.

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Most comments on the comments of my videos, they say, why don't you answer? Why don't you answer our video and discuss this with us?

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I'm like, just go away, man. I'm not going to discuss anything with you. I put the truth.

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Our job is to denounce deception, and I'm doing that, and bear witness to the truth and let the truth stand on its own.

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I'm just going to declare the truth. And the truth has the power to persuade anybody that's humble and willing enough to cry out that our

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Father would open their eyes and show them if it's true. But to debate, like it's so sad.

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I hope, I hope, I'm quite sure, actually, our general authorities are probably communicating to whoever's in charge of missionary training to let the missionaries know when you run into characters like this, don't let them use you as clickbait and waste your time letting them beat you over the head and Bible bash you for an hour.

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Go find somebody that's actually thirsty for the truth. You know, to engage people like this in conversation is beyond pointless.

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So you can talk about them, but don't bother engaging with them. And I think that speaks volumes, personally.

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I think it speaks volumes, and I think it speaks to so much of the nature of the methodology of Latter -day

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Saints over the last generation in terms of don't engage, avoid, don't read the content.

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And that's a far cry from biblical Christianity and what comes from the

29:12

Bible itself. You don't see the apostles encouraging such a thing. You actually see the

29:18

Christian faith being boldly proclaimed in the world in the hardest places, like when the Apostle Paul goes to the

29:23

Areopagus, Mars Hill, he's going to the toughest place of philosophical debate and discussion, and he's engaging with the

29:31

Christian faith and he's speaking boldly. And the command to Christians is to be ready to give a reasoned defense to everyone who asks of you a reason for the hope that's within you.

29:41

How would David Alexander square that command from 1 Peter 3 .15 with what he's just said?

29:48

Don't engage with, don't bother with, don't talk to, don't look at their videos, none of that stuff.

29:55

I think you can't square it because what David is operating with right now is an un -Christian worldview, world and life view.

30:03

I think this has trickledown ramifications for the way that the average Mormon, and in particular

30:09

Mormon missionaries, engage people in order to propagate their beliefs.

30:15

I think that as you meet with Mormon missionaries and they sense from you that you are not going to be just a passive spectator in terms of just receiving their teachings and what they have to say, but you're kind of openly challenging their beliefs and taking them to Scripture and trying to have them account for these things, they will quickly get the idea that you are not one to necessarily just receive and listen.

30:45

When you're with them and you're dialoguing with them and you're giving them truth and trying to do this graciously, what

30:53

I have found in my experience, I'm sure this has been confirmed with others, is once they find out that you're not just someone looking to receive the information and join their ranks, is they tend to cut off the contact.

31:06

They tend to discontinue the meetings. At least that's what happened with me in my last meeting with the Mormon missionaries.

31:11

It was like questions, questions, and then it was like, okay, well, we're done here. We're not going to meet with you anymore.

31:18

Now that we know what you believe, you're not down with our teachings, it was over after that.

31:24

Pete And then there's, I mean, typically at that point, I think with my experience, it becomes kind of an emotional response at that point.

31:33

Absolutely. Absolutely. And just bury testimony. Yeah. Don't engage with the arguments.

31:39

Don't engage with the text. Just bury your testimony. That is what more missionaries have been taught, is that when you engage with somebody who actually is giving you stuff that becomes tough to answer, just bury your testimony, which the answer for Christians is, well, just bury yours right back.

31:54

If that's the standard for truth, just it's my personal experience. If that's what you're going to fall on, then okay, great, let's just do it.

32:02

Let's get every religion in the world to fill the room and everyone give their personal testimony about their experience. Is that how truth is discovered?

32:08

Just bear your testimony in response to a question from the Word of God. That's not how truth is grounded.

32:14

And you have missionaries tell you, it doesn't matter what you say to me. Literally doesn't matter. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet.

32:21

This is the true church. Doesn't matter what you say. Doesn't matter what you show me in there. Right. And so who has the philosophical commitment here to never be corrected?

32:30

Which is going to be his charge. It's a strange way to go in terms of if your religion says that this is another testament of Jesus Christ, if this is something that is coming from the same

32:38

God that gave us that Bible, it's a strange way to go to say, I don't care what you show me in that Bible. I'm going to believe this over that, which

32:47

I've heard so many times that I can't even count. And if this is from the same

32:52

God, if this revelation is from the same God, then it has to be consistent with it.

32:58

And that's what Christians are saying to our Mormon friends, is if it's the same God's revelation, then he needs to sound the same.

33:05

And why isn't he? That's the challenge. Why isn't he sounding the same? Why does he say different things?

33:11

Why is it a different way of salvation? Why is it a different God? Why are

33:16

Mormon prophets and apostles denigrating the scriptures and creating an entire new religion that doesn't even match that ancient revelation that Joseph said that it came from?

33:24

I mean, is this really another testament of Jesus Christ? Is it consistent with the previous testament? And that's all

33:30

Christians have been saying to Mormons since the inception, is that this doesn't match what God said about himself before, nor his gospel.

33:37

And that's the challenge. Okay. Onward from anybody in the church. Right. And so my thing partly is we need people.

33:45

Yeah. And your thing was, why is there nobody? I saw these videos and they got my goat.

33:53

I'm like, this is nuts. These characters, these characters do not know what they're talking about.

33:59

They're actually lying. Like when somebody as intelligent and well versed in church history as Jeff Durbin can say with a straight face that like he does at the beginning of this video at about 45 seconds, that the church that Christians have taught the doctrine of the

34:20

Trinity for 2000 years, I'm like, go away.

34:28

Yeah. But I think we need... I find that to be a very substantial answer, but also that's not from this video.

34:35

This video that you guys are actually reviewing is about a minute long. I think it's about a minute long. Yeah, they mentioned something about a 40 minute long video.

34:41

Yeah, but you must be thinking about a different video. But in terms of the doctrine of the Trinity, there's no question, if you understand church history, that the doctrine of the

34:50

Trinity has been believed by Christians, not just from the scriptures themselves, but from the very earliest stages of the church.

34:56

I mean, if you go into the second century of the church, you see what the church is arguing for. Even if you start earlier than that, the apostles were experiential

35:05

Trinitarians. Well, that's what I mean, it's New Testament itself. Then you go to moving into the second century, you see that the earliest fights that were beginning when heresy was creeping in, whether it's

35:15

Sabellianism or modalism, you can read Tertullian or Justin Martyr, you can go into the discussion, you see

35:21

Irenaeus, Ignatius, you can read the Didache, you can see that the earliest professions of faith were clearly

35:26

Trinitarian, clearly Trinitarian. And then you get into the creeds themselves. All the ancient creeds of Christendom all teach the

35:33

Trinity, whether it's the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, all the creeds of Christendom all affirm

35:40

Trinitarian orthodoxy. And so, yeah, the Trinity has been believed by the Christians from the earliest stages of the

35:46

Church. The term Trinity is, what is it, 186 AD by Tertullian, where you start seeing

35:54

Christians actually having coined a term towards it, Trinity, and they're just experiential

36:00

Trinitarians the whole time, and they're arguing for Trinitarian theology from the very beginning. There is no question, no question at all, that ancient

36:08

Christian religion, historically orthodoxy, has always been Trinitarian. Have there been heresies that attempted to creep into the

36:16

Church, whether it's with Arius of Alexandria or with Semeleus? Of course.

36:21

But the Christian Church actually formed together against those heresies. And so, that's not a substantial answer.

36:28

I don't know why he says what he says as far as though that statement is unsubstantiated or just foolish or outlandish.

36:45

I don't know what he's referring to. But the Mormon concept and idea of the nature of God is completely foreign to any type of historical orthodox view when we talk about from the time of the apostles to Joseph Smith.

37:02

And maybe not even up to Joseph Smith, because the understanding of the nature of God even shifted if you look at what

37:10

Joseph Smith believed earlier compared to, let's say, his later writings and teachings and things like that.

37:15

But I mean, the response he gives for you talking about Church history teaching the Trinity, it's fairly obvious, as you just stated, but is he trying to imply that the concept and understanding of the

37:30

Mormons' understanding of the nature of God can be found anywhere within Church history?

37:40

Yeah, and you have... He's about to try to substantiate something. Mormonism was in flux early on.

37:46

I mean, Joseph Smith started in a monotheistic context. And in the

37:54

Book of Mormon, you can see the mess that it is theologically. You can see that you've got movements in the

38:01

Book of Mormon of monotheism to modalism to all kinds of problems within the Book of Mormon itself.

38:07

Joseph Smith, clearly, early on, wasn't the polytheist that he became later on. You can see the transformation in his theological understanding that happens.

38:17

He goes into polytheism, very rigorous and intense polytheism, later on in his life before he was murdered at Carthage.

38:26

And so you can see even the transformation taking place within Mormon theology itself. It's not consistent in the first two decades of its inception.

38:35

And so what you do see, historic orthodoxy and the Bible teaching, Trinitarian theology from the very, very beginning.

38:42

And so what I would just say is, again, as respectfully as I can, David Alexander doesn't know

38:49

Church history. He doesn't understand Church history. He clearly doesn't know Church history. And so let's move on to the next piece.

38:55

Now, again, there's so much we could say and do, but let me jump right into the video here where they try to engage a bit with a video of us talking to some

39:04

Mormons. So this is what we've been discussing, this Apologia Studio and this specific video. And the fun thing about this is you have a lot of critiques of Apologia, but you also have some critiques about the

39:16

Church. I shouldn't say the Church, but some of the members in the Church. And you've kind of mentioned that biblical literacy isn't as high as it could be among the members, and that can lead you into some problems in these encounters.

39:28

But I'm just going to play it from the beginning, and it's two minutes long.

39:34

But if you want to say something, just say like, hold on, and I'll pause the video. PASTOR BARRY and I'll wait for the whole two minutes.

39:39

Let's just listen to the whole two minutes and let Jeff have his day here. PASTOR MICHAEL Actually, for possibly for copyright purposes, we might get in trouble for that.

39:49

So we can throw in some words here and there. PASTOR JEFF I'll interrupt him regularly.

39:57

PASTOR MICHAEL Awesome, awesome. All right, so I did skip a few seconds, and he's basically just kind of stopped like these missionaries are trying to walk past them.

40:05

And this guy is Pastor Jeff Durbin. He's like the head, one of the heads, along with James White of Apologia.

40:11

And he just kind of confronts them, stops them in the street out of the blue. So that's the setup here.

40:17

PASTOR JEFF Sure. It's all throughout the scriptures. PASTOR MICHAEL Where? PASTOR JEFF She really wants to know.

40:25

I guess you could search the scriptures themselves. PASTOR MICHAEL You know, the Bible actually says in Isaiah 43, 10, before me, there was no

40:31

God formed, neither shall there be after me. I'm the first and I'm the last. Besides me, there is no

40:36

God. Joseph taught that there were gods before God, and you could become one one day. Yeah, the scriptures condemn that.

40:44

PASTOR MICHAEL All right. So yeah, I couldn't quite hear it at the beginning. But he just confronts his missionaries like, hey, so you think you can become gods?

40:51

And the missionary is like, oh, and then he throws in that Isaiah 43 verse at him.

40:57

And he's still kind of speechless. Do you have any, what would you have done in this situation? PASTOR JEFF I would have just said, what's your name?

41:11

And when he said, my name is Jeff Durbin, I would have said, have a nice day. And I would have kept walking.

41:18

PASTOR MICHAEL There you go. You know, I mean, the spirit of the man, this is not a man that's there looking for life.

41:26

He's not a man that has a desire to know the truth. He's a man that's absolutely convinced that he already has the truth, even though he doesn't.

41:39

And, you know, there's no point in trying to answer questions that people aren't asking.

41:46

And Pastor Jeff is really not asking in any way, shape or form to know the truth about anything.

41:56

So whenever I'm talking to somebody and it's really obvious that they don't have ears to hear, what's the point?

42:07

PASTOR JEFF Okay. Now I'd say try the apostles. I mean, when they go into cities and in contexts where actually riots break out because of their proclamation of the truth, or when they preach the gospel in such a way that people are taking oaths to not eat food until they're dead, or when they're preaching the gospel in such a way that they have to be lowered out of windows to sneak out of towns because their lives are in danger, try them.

42:33

Because they're preaching to crowds and audiences that are very opposed to what they're saying. When Paul is, again, speaking at the

42:39

Areopagus, Mars Hill, he's speaking to a bunch of pagans, and he is confronting them about their idolatry.

42:46

Do they have, quote, ears to hear in that moment? It's, by the way, the sovereign grace of God that allows people to have ears to hear and eyes to see.

42:56

PASTOR MIKE Precisely. PASTOR JEFF It's not something that's in the person. There is no one who seeks for God. There's none who does good.

43:01

There's none righteous. No, not one, Romans chapter three. No one is able to come to me, Jesus says in John 6, verse 44, unless the

43:09

Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. That's the teaching of Scripture about the nature of humanity before regeneration and God saves a person.

43:21

And so this whole idea of, I'm only going to talk to people who I think are receptive to the truth, that's just not how evangelism is done.

43:30

You notice what he says about you shortly after? He says, if I sensed enough humility in him, then

43:36

I would do that. So, I mean, this is my perception of who is ready to receive the truth is not what dictates my proclamation.

43:45

PASTOR MIKE Very good. PASTOR JEFF Like that is just, it goes against, I mean, think about the parable of the sower.

43:52

The word is being sown indiscriminately. PASTOR MIKE That's right. PASTOR JEFF And who God, I mean, decides to prepare the soil for to receive that word is completely up to him.

44:02

PASTOR MIKE That's God. PASTOR JEFF But the role of the proclaimer is to sow the truth indiscriminately.

44:08

PASTOR MIKE Right. PASTOR JEFF Because let's be honest, who you think is going to respond to the message oftentimes surprises you.

44:16

PASTOR MIKE That's right. PASTOR JEFF And you know this if you're out proclaiming the gospel on any metric whatsoever. PASTOR MIKE That's right.

44:22

PASTOR JEFF The person that comes back afterwards, the hostile person rallying critiques and complaints against God and the

44:27

Bible comes back broken and in tears all of a sudden. PASTOR MIKE Yeah. PASTOR JEFF Ready to hear more. You have no idea who's ready to receive the truth and who isn't.

44:35

PASTOR MIKE Yeah. It's very man -centered. This is obviously that Mormonism is very man -centered. And so David Alexander is giving that perspective, man -centered perspective.

44:43

It's up to the creature. It's them that decides. It's them that has to have ears to hear, it's eyes to see. This person has to be willing to receive the truth.

44:50

And I would just say, look, this gets back to the same point I've already made about what

44:55

David Alexander is saying. When he tries to chastise someone like myself going out to do evangelism at the

45:01

Mormon temple, let's not forget that Mormon missionaries are going and knocking on doors indiscriminately every single day and walking up to people and spreading

45:09

Mormonism. We were at the temple because that's where Mormons are, and we're standing there with tracts in our Bibles to have conversations.

45:15

Mormons do it, and Christians do it. So trying to paint the picture, a caricature of this is a bad guy out here bothering a

45:21

Mormon missionary, let's not forget the fact that he's a Mormon missionary who's on a bicycle traveling around, finding people to talk to, to spread the message of Mormonism, which is that, joy, none of the churches, they're all wrong.

45:33

All their creeds are abomination. All their professors are corrupt. Let's not forget that. And so it goes back to the same issue, these double standards here, okay?

45:40

So let's be honest about the fact that we both believe the other is an error. And so we're talking to each other.

45:46

The question is, is what we're saying consistent with what God's word says?

45:51

That's the real issue. Let's not make it about personalities. Let's deal with what's actually being said.

45:57

You know, not that I'm going to judge them. I mean, you know, it's easy to be like that. I've been like that.

46:03

You know, somebody that was so full of myself that you couldn't tell me anything. But this is a man that is so full of himself, you can't really tell him anything.

46:12

And so... It's interesting, David, you and I have never had a conversation before. We don't know each other.

46:18

You don't know me. I have a relationship with these gentlemen in here. They know me. They know my family.

46:23

They know my kids. And, you know, I would trust their assessment of me. You know,

46:29

I'd be happy to ask Isaac or Zach, you know, how do you feel? How do you feel about how I'm doing? And do you see any shortcomings?

46:36

You know, do you think that I need to repent of anything? Because these men know my life. And I'd say if they gave an assessment,

46:41

I would want to listen to it because they know me. The truth is, David, I don't know you and you don't know me. And so, again, making this so intensely personal like this man is so full of himself.

46:50

David, we don't know each other. We could actually do the right thing, the honorable thing, the thing of integrity, and actually just deal with what each other are saying.

47:00

I think that'd be more valuable for listeners. But again, I think that we need to not make this about personal slights, but deal with what is actually being said.

47:10

You could. I mean, if I thought he could actually hear, if I sensed enough humility in him that I thought he could actually hear one word

47:21

I was saying, it would be a different story. But this man is not like that.

47:29

I could give him a whole.

47:37

I'll give you an example, OK? I could say to him, I'll just tell you what

47:43

I'd say to him if I thought there was some chance of him hearing it, OK? I wouldn't say this to him because I would have picked up immediately.

47:52

There was no chance of him hearing anything from me. But and I would have continued on my way as a missionary looking for somebody that was thirsty, you know, that was broken and needy.

48:14

And you know, I would not have engaged him in conversation for an hour under any way, shape or form.

48:23

OK, but if if he wasn't who he is, if he was a little bit humble, like if he was an evangelical

48:31

Christian that was I could sense was dissatisfied and not full of himself and full of his evangelical

48:38

Christianity in a self -satisfied, proud way, but was actually really wondering.

48:47

If me as a Latter -day Saint missionary might know something that he might not know, you know, like Nicodemus coming to the

48:55

Lord Jesus Christ, if I sensed anything like that in him and he asked me about Isaiah 43 10.

49:03

You want to know what I would say? Is that just a good time to? Yeah, yeah. So just to recap, he quotes

49:10

Isaiah 43 10. Before me, there was no God, and after me, there will be no other.

49:15

And this is presented as, therefore, the LDS conception of God is refuted by the

49:22

Bible. Thank you to Luke for bringing it back to the main point. Thank you,

49:27

Luke. Thank you, Luke. Just to recap what Jeff said was Isaiah 43 10.

49:33

Can we talk about that? I like how he wants to stay on issue. Yeah, good job. Good job to you, Luke, for trying to wrangle

49:38

David back in there in terms of what you had him on for. Like, David, you know, you're the ex -evangelical pastor.

49:44

David, you're the guy that knows the Bible. David, you've converted to Mormonism. Help us to respond to this word from God that Jeff brings.

49:52

I didn't bring you on for a psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis. Just to recap, what

49:57

Jeff brought up was Isaiah 43 10. What we'd like to do is talk about that. And so past all the slights and jabs and psychoanalysis, can we get to Isaiah 43 10?

50:08

So we want to do that in a way that is beneficial to all of you. And so we've just been today introducing you to David Alexander and introducing you to a bit of what he said to sort of start this discussion.

50:22

What we're going to do next week is we're going to actually start to engage with his attempt to respond to Isaiah 43 10.

50:31

It is respectfully abysmal. It is an absolute face plant, theologically speaking.

50:38

It's not a response to Isaiah. He jumps from Isaiah to John 17 and doesn't realize that in doing so, he theologically cuts his own legs off.

50:49

And so what we're going to do is spend time actually responding to that, refuting the claims made by David Alexander and his attempt to respond to Isaiah 43 10, one of so many texts that we would want to have a conversation about.

51:04

But what we're going to do is next week on Apollo J Radio, be ready for it, guys. We've introduced you now to David Alexander. We're actually going to respond to what he said.

51:10

We're going to go right from here right now into the after show for all of our partners in ministry with us.

51:16

You make everything we do possible. We're going to go to the after show and have a discussion about what are the main things we need to focus on in dealing with someone like David Alexander or any

51:28

Latter -day Saint? What are the foundations of this? How do we move forward in this in a way that's meaningful and a blessing to them?

51:35

And what would glorify God? And what do we need to focus in upon? But we'll save that main discussion for response to David Alexander for the live show next week on Apollo J Radio.

51:46

Jeff, do you want to say? I think we have... Sorry, I think we have a scheduled guest next week.

51:55

Do we? Yes. Well, we'll cut a... That's right, we do. That's okay, though. But I'll cut an episode.

52:01

We'll do bonus episodes, whatever. We'll get to this David Alexander thing, guys. Yeah. And give you guys a response, refuting his claims.

52:09

Again, there are hours and hours of content. Again, this is for the Latter -day Saints out there who want to have a good discussion and want to see the answers.

52:20

David Alexander has already made it clear he won't bother engaging. He's not going to click on any content. So this is really for all of you that actually are concerned with what does the

52:29

Word of God say? So that is ET. Hey. Mystery guest next week.

52:34

Zachary Conover. Later. And right here, The Ninja will catch you next week. Right here, Apologia Radio, apologiastudios .com.