October 4, 2019 Show with Paul Trask & Barb Luff on “Faith Gone Astray: Unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this fourth day of

October 2019.

And this is going to be, no doubt, a fascinating program that we have today.

It involves a returning guest and also a first -time guest.

Today we have on the program for a second interview Paul Trask, who is a

former reorganized Latter -day Saint who converted by God's grace and mercy to

Biblical Christianity and founded Refiners Fire Ministries.

We also have joining Paul a first -time guest, Barb Luff, who is the mother

of prison inmate Ron Luff, serving a life sentence for participating

in the Kirtland cult murders at the Allen Correctional

Institute in Lima, Ohio.

And it is my honor and privilege to welcome you both to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Paul Trask

and Barb Luff.

Hi, Brian.

Thank you for having me.

Welcome, Barb, for the first time.

It's a pleasure and honor to have you on the show today.

I'm sure it will.

And, Paul, if you could start the program by

giving a summary of who the Reorganized Latter -day Saints are.

And I know that they are under a new name these days, the Community of Christ.

But if you could tell us something about the Reorganized Latter -day Saint cult.

Yes, I'd be happy to.

...church in

Utah.

They changed their name in 2001 to Community of Christ.

...to them as RLDF or Community of Christ.

The distinction is that they had the son of Joseph Smith, Jr. to be their

prophet

in 1844.

And, actually, the splintering began right then by different groups going in different directions.

At that point in time was James J. Strang, who led a group on

an island in Michigan called

King James.

...was killed.

His group was so large that it actually rivaled Brigham Young's group

when people were doing in

Utah most notoriously of polygamy.

So when Brigham

Young, 16

years later,

was born

in 1860.

Those were the two names.

Others began in 1860.

And we do not marry for eternity or for

the dead either.

Now, do you...

Did the group...

Or should I say, does the group disagree with the main Latter -day

Saint group on becoming gods of your own

planet if you are a faithful person to the Bible and

to the Book of Mormon, etc.?

Yeah, that doctrine of eternal progression and godhood is uniquely Utah Mormon.

And

the RLJ ceremonies, in

terms of the Utah

Mormon church, they have nothing to do with

it.

And they violently...

Now, although they violently...

I'm assuming you mean passionately, not physically violently.

Although they reject those classic teachings,

false teachings of the main cult, what still exists within the

reorganized church of Latter -day Saints, now known as the Community of Christ, that would still

place it under the category of a cult?

As Legitimates and the Book

of Mormon is their record.

And they still believe in

Joseph Smith Mine.

So they have a number of the earmarked original church,

even though they have not gone to the extreme end of Mormonism as

the Utah church has.

And from what I recall interviewing you and some... I believe it was

Peter Elliott, another former RLDS member.

Is that his name?

I can't remember.

Off the top of my head.

Yeah, Peter Elliott?

Yes.

Peter Elliott, an Australian?

Yes, yes.

Having interviewed him and you, I also recall that the

RLDS would not be in alignment with classic, Reformational,

historic Christianity, which of course, we who are historic Protestants

would believe it to be Biblical Christianity, that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone,

in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

Yeah, no.

The intermediary works

may be theoretical.

Prefected as intermediaries between people and God.

The relationship with God could only be mediated

through this very

workspace,

and amenable with genuine Biblical Christianity.

I forget to mention one thing, that the distinctly

organized church actually holds the inspired version of the Bible

to Mormonism, together worked and

revised the King James Bible in some fairly significant ways, and then they

published it,

which obviously classified them as a cult, and distinguishes them from the Mormon church.

The work that Joseph and Sidney did on the inspired version they don't claim it as scripture,

as the actually bi -inspired version from there will be a

church of God.

Wow, it is quite ironic that they would not view that as

the supreme, if not exclusive, version to use, and I can't help but wonder if it has anything to do with the

copyright that you just mentioned being owned by another organization.

Well no,

that's a cult

thing, it

went to Utah, Emma

Smith ultimately joined the reorganized church

version of the

Bible, and so once her son became the prophet of the

R .L .D .S. Smith inspired version, and it was published, that

version, in 1860.

They can't just put it all together, because it was the work of Joseph Smith, and yet they don't want to embrace it too

closely, because it's an embarrassment that the R .L .D .S. church has sole claim to fame.

One other thing before we move on to Barb's story, Barb Luff, who if you just tuned us in,

is one of our guests today.

Barb is the mother of Ron Luff, who is serving a life sentence in

the Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio.

He is serving that life sentence for murder because he was an accomplice in what have become known as

the Kirtland cult murders, and we're going to be getting into detail about that just momentarily, but

before we go to Barb, one of the things that I recall

from our discussions on R .L .D .S. history is that

Emma Smith and Joseph Smith III both

claimed that Joseph never had multiple wives.

Is that true?

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

Joseph Smith III became the prophet in 1860.

One of his primary missions, because rumors

of his many polygamous wives and tarnishing

of Joseph Smith's reputation,

he actually made it one of his primary missions in life to clear his father's name of those charges.

He did have multiple wives.

Yes, he had multiple wives, and so did most Mormon men.

In fact, wasn't that somehow very connected to your reward in the afterlife

in the former teachings of the primary LDS cult?

Right.

But wasn't it some kind of a benefit on earth to have multiple wives for a man as far

as what kind of reward he would have in heaven or in the afterlife?

You know, in their

section 132,

the Mormons believe that you, in the

following life,

take one of your wives into that next life.

It's really the Adam

God, and as God is, man shall become.

So they actually teach that Adam world, that God, you know,

that we are on the same conveyor belt, and just like God, we are

eternally progressing as well.

It's just that he's a little bit further on down the conveyor belt from like he

was, and then we can take one of our wives who

is one of his wives, and, you

know, Eve and Adam came here to this earth to start the population here on planet Earth.

It's true for good Mormon elders.

Okay, well, now I'd like Barb.

To give a bit of her own story.

Obviously, from what we have already said,

and perhaps we didn't even say this yet, Ron Luff, the son of our guest Barb Luff,

was in a cult that was a breakaway, an offshoot

of the reorganized Latter -day Saints.

So, Barb, I'd like you to tell our listeners what kind of a religious atmosphere were you

yourself raised in, if any, and were you yourself involved

in either the RLDS or the offshoot to which your son belonged?

I had an unusual situation in my case.

My mother didn't have a

circle where we lived that I could walk to.

I was around eight years old when I went to a Bible school.

You know, if you want to accept Jesus.

And I felt very, very strongly about this.

I remember it very well, even to this day, very strongly that I wanted to accept

Jesus in my heart.

I wanted to be baptized.

And my mother had some Utah Mormon friends that told her, well, you need to have them be

baptized in the Mormon church because it's the only true church.

So, not knowing what she was actually doing, my mother had me and my sister and brother

and herself, and we were all baptized into the Utah Mormon church.

God is good, and we didn't have a car, so there was no church in our little town in Washington

state that we lived in.

So I continued to go to the Baptist church off and on

mostly, and once in a while people would come pick us up.

We went to the Utah church, the Mormon church, but I really didn't learn very much about it.

But when they came and asked me to be baptized for my dead relatives, that was very frightening to me.

I think the Holy Spirit taught me.

Anyway, he

told me,

he

said, no, he said that Utah church is wrong,

and he convinced me that the RODS church was right.

So we were actually married, and the RO, I didn't know anybody

except in his family.

I came home with him to meet his family after we were married, so I didn't know anybody

in Missouri in his

family's thinking who knew what he was talking

about.

Now, my husband is fifth generation RODS.

He had a great -grandfather that was an apostle in that church.

So he and his whole family, along with it,

that taught me about Jesus, taught me about salvation, and I

think it kind of kept me on the edge because my husband and I would have

disagreements about our...

And our kids can tell you that they grew up with our debating these things.

Anyway, when we found out about what went on, we

began to investigate, and as Paul can tell you, there's so much

history there.

In the 1830s, in fact, if you were to go to the Internet, you

could find out many things about what took place in Missouri in the 1830s.

And as we read more and more and heard more and more, we finally decided

we had to come out of that religion.

And one of the things that was strong with my husband was that he was an elder.

When we came out of that, we began reading the Bible.

We decided we'd read the Bible through and through together, and the one thing that stood out

was that it is finished.

We do not have to report

anybody else directly to him, and that was very meaningful in my life.

Amen.

Now let me ask you a question about your own spiritual journey, if you will.

When you were a Baptist, going to the RLDS church

and being married in the RLDS church...

Well, I was...

Right, well, I mean, as far as you had some connection with the Baptist church.

Right, right.

Were you under, or at least in hindsight, when you look back at it now, do you

believe that you were a saved but naive person,

a truly born -again Christian, but naive about this strange new group

that you were learning about, the RLDS, which you, as you said, were married in that church,

etc.

And your husband had a long history in that church.

Were you just kind of like a naive person who was puzzled but going along, or do you think that perhaps

at that time, you were not born again, but just had enough knowledge

from affiliation and visiting Baptist churches that there was something not quite right with the

RLDS?

Well, I believe in Jesus, that

He is the Son of God.

I don't believe you have to be a Christian.

Right.

It's a prominent thing with me.

I believe that I was a born -again Christian, and I have since believed there are some people

that are in the RLDS Christian.

I think the ones that are the strongest in this priesthood thing,

I did believe from the very beginning that the Holy Spirit did direct me, and I think He protected

me from a lot of those doctrines.

Yeah.

I have a friend who is now in heaven, William Norman Grigg, who is very

well known, especially to political libertarians.

He was a strong libertarian politically, and I interviewed Norman on a number of occasions, a

brilliant man, and he was a high priest in the

LDS cult, and he became a born -again believer while out on the

mission field, I think in Mexico, or South America, I can't

remember right now, but he became a born -again believer, and much to his later

regret, he remained functionally in the LDS for

almost two decades, I think, and then finally, he and his wife

officially left and requested to have their names removed from the rolls and stuff, but

he remained because he was just fearful of losing his marriage, losing his family, etc., and

he recognized that was wrong for him to stay that long, but he nonetheless was convinced

that he was a born -again believer all those years, even though he was functioning in the LDS.

Yeah, and they

said

that he lost

his soul because he

was denying his priesthood and all that, but it didn't shake his faith at all.

We began to go to church at a Baptist church in Independence.

We lived there at that time, but first to the

Baptist church.

We were stuck together.

It was amazing because we didn't

argue religion after that, and that church,

we got into it.

Now, my husband was re -baptized.

He felt like he needed to be re -baptized, and the Baptist church does not accept the baptism of

the Mormon, and so he kept telling me that he wanted to be re -baptized,

and we talked to the pastor about it, and I thought maybe I didn't need to because I knew I was a

born -again Christian anyway, but the morning he decided to go forward and ask the pastor

to baptize him, I went with him, and we re -churched.

Yes, I think that was a wise decision.

Not that, as you said, we do not believe that baptism is required for salvation,

but it is required for obedience, and a baptism in a church that denies the triune

God, that denies the Trinity, and denies the essentials of the faith, that baptism is not a

true baptism, in my opinion, and in the opinion of most people that I highly respect, who are

theologians and so on.

Amen.

Well, we are going to our first break, and when we come back from our first break, I want you to get more into your

son, Ron, and the spiral that he, unfortunately,

went on in his downward journey into the dark and sinister

beliefs and practices of a cult that, as we were saying, was an offshoot, an end offshoot, or a

breakaway group from the RLDS.

We'll get more into that when we return from our first break.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, please send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail dot

com, chrisarnsen at gmail dot com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -S -E -N at gmail dot com, and please give us

your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

Perhaps we even have some folks in the RLDS listening today, or in the

LDS, or any other group that is not considered by evangelicals

to be a genuine biblical church, and you don't want to call attention to yourself.

You'd rather remain anonymous if you're writing in a question.

Well, feel free to remain anonymous, but if it's not a personal and private matter, please give us at least your first name, your city and

state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

And don't go away.

We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Paul Trask and Barb Luff and our subject,

Faith Gone Astray, unveiling the Kirtland cult murders.

Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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We are now back with our guests today Paul Trask and also Barb Luff.

Barb Luff is the mother of Ron Luff who

is currently serving a life sentence at the Allen Correctional Institute in Lima, Ohio

for being an accomplice in the murders that took place

in Kirtland, Ohio and they have become known as

they have become known as the Kirtland Cult Murders.

And.

We are going to be hearing more about how our guest Barb Luff's son

wound up in this cult and what has happened to him since.

And by the way, I've got some phenomenal news for our listeners this Monday, God willing.

Ron Luff the son that we are speaking about.

The son of Barb Luff he is going to be our guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio being interviewed directly

from prison at the Allen Correctional Institute in Lima, Ohio.

So we're looking forward to that discussion with Ron this Monday.

We hope that you tune in but if anybody has any questions our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com c

-h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

Give us your first name, your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

Before we go to any listener questions.

Barb please tell us something about your son Ron's childhood.

It's obvious that you and your husband made a break from the RLDS.

Did Ron at least at some point follow suit with you and also leave that cult

and tell us how he later became a member of the cult that was responsible for the murders we've been

mentioning.

He did it and if you told him not to he didn't.

That was much to my sadness as he got

older when I see what happened I

think it's one of the reasons he got more tightly involved in Mormonism than I did.

But every

teacher he ever had had nothing but good to say about him.

He was a very good student and he only went through high school.

But when he got out of high school he joined the Navy and he went into the Navy and he was in the Navy for six years

and he became an engineer on a

on a Navy.

He never

had in any way against him.

He was just

interested in witnessing for the RLDS church and they had a program of witnessing

weekends where they would take kids and they would

church in that town people in the

and he enjoyed doing that.

He was very very dedicated to the church.

How dedicated he was.

But then when he got married he married a girl that was extremely dedicated also.

She was very very strong in the RLDS and had faith and vision

pertaining to different things and the

temple there because it was

a place that the church made a big deal about and they wanted to go up there.

When they went up there they met Lundgren who was a guide at the temple there in

Kirtland at the time and he was so knowledgeable about

so many things that Ron was very taken with him

and

really did what God wanted

him to.

And what was Lundgren's whole name.

His full name.

His name was

he convinced him that he was a prophet.

He convinced both of them that it was very very important.

Well Ron when he got out of the Navy he had a really wonderful career

very good job a

very good life.

They decided man they thought was a prophet

and that's one of the things that I think has hurt me so bad about about that because I kept

my beliefs and let him into the

RLDS.

So this was before you and your husband left the RLDS.

Oh yeah we didn't leave the RLDS church until the murders took place.

I see.

Yeah anyway we we didn't hear a whole lot

even for Christmas.

There

was a

big difference in our son he was so different

even like when he would hug me.

It was something that just was.

He tried to convince us that Lundgren was a prophet and we weren't buying it and

we were.

He pretty soon lost interest in us even being there I think.

And we left we saw we

tried

to keep in touch and all

the very next

day.

Now when you say that you.

Noticed differences.

Was it he was colder perhaps his hugs as you said were mentioning his hugs.

Was perhaps less enthusiastic.

I just felt like he was empty there was just not the same

person it just seemed like he was a different person to me.

I didn't know anything about cults at that time.

Now was.

Lundgren at this time still a part of the main

RLDS cult or had he started to break away at

this point yet.

Membership out of the RLDS church and he tried to draw other people in.

He went to independence many times to try to draw other people into the group and got some of them to

come into it.

I don't remember I think there were around 20 people I don't remember how many were

in the group altogether.

Now was the local RLDS

congregation or plural congregations who obviously there had to.

Be.

Congregations or at least one near this historic landmark of theirs the

temple.

So how were they reactioning to this claim of Lundgren to be a prophet.

Ok so.

When how long was it before you had heard that

these horrific nightmarish murders took

place and tell us as much of the details about that as you can.

I know that when I interview Ron on Monday those are questions that are off

limits.

I'm not to be discussing the details about the murders with your son just basic

theological and doctrinal and sociological mental emotional

kind of issues that involve not only his becoming a member of the cult

but also his salvation testimony having become a true born again believer in prison and

not only that but earning his doctorate.

We're looking forward to discussing a lot of those things with him but the actual murders are off

limits next week when we interview him.

Well I only

took my

time there

when they

began to be realizing that things were not right in that group

something was wrong when they the murders were committed.

There wasn't one person in that group that wanted that to

happen.

Lundgren himself personally my feeling is that he wanted to feel power that he

thought he would receive if he killed somebody.

I think the man was.

Now it was an entire family that was murdered correct?

An entire family.

I know that when each one of the families joined that group they gave

all their money to Lundgren and then he passed out money son

got a job at the

he gave his entire salary to Lundgren back enough to pay

and that sort of thing.

So each of the families had their own

and Lundgren and his

were teaching and they're getting together and all.

Ok we have to go to our midway break right now.

This is the longer than normal break that we have during the show because Grace Life Radio who airs this program

twice a day in a pre -recorded format they require of us to have a larger

break in the middle of the show so they can air their own public service announcements to localize Iron

Sharpens Iron Radio to Lake City Florida a requirement of the FCC.

So please be patient while we take this longer than usual break and use this time wisely.

Not only write down information provided by our advertisers so that you can more

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So try to patronize them as often as you can and to further ensure you will do that write down the information that they

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the topic today Faith Gone Astray unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders

and send those questions to chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com and please as

always give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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I'm so grateful to our Sovereign God that while manning an exhibitors booth for Iron Sharpens Iron, a major Bible

conference, I providentially met Pastor Andrew Smith of Christ Reformed Community Church

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Andrew is certainly the kind of pastor that is a perfect match for my radio show, and has already proven to be an

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Tell Pastor Andrew that you heard about them on.

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I'm Pastor Andrew Smith, and I'd like to urge you to consider joining Christ Reformed Community

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Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for

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Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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We always have to remind you, please tell them that you heard about them from Chris Arnsen at

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Before I return to our guests Paul Trask and Barb Luff to continue our

discussion on Faith Gone Astray, unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders, which is actually

a book, the title of the book by Ron Luff, the son of Mary Luff, I'm sorry,

son of Barb Luff, who is our guest today.

Ron is serving a life sentence at the Allen Correctional Institution in

Lima, Ohio for being an accomplice in the Kirtland Cult

Murders, and we're gonna be getting into more details on that in a moment.

And he wrote that book while in prison, and he also earned his doctorate in prison after becoming a born

-again believer.

But before we go into more detail about that, I just have a couple of announcements to make.

First of all, tomorrow and Sunday, October 5th

and the 6th, don't forget that the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

is having their conference on the theme, God is Still Speaking, The Bible's Continued Revelence,

Authority, and Sufficiency, featuring Dr. Dustin Benj, who is my guest

very recently on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, a brilliant young man, and this is going to be, no

doubt, a phenomenal conference.

I hope to be there for a part of it.

I have to get out from around some plans that I had already arranged, so hopefully I

will be able to be there for at least part of that conference.

If you would like to join me there at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg,

Pennsylvania for their conference, just go to their website at

GraceBFC, and BFC stands for Bible FellowshipChurch .com,

GraceBFC .com forward slash conference, GraceBFC .com forward

slash conference.

Then in December, I'm packing up my bags and heading down, or should I say heading up,

to my old stomping grounds in New York City.

I am going to the Foundations Conference once again, and there's no better place, in my opinion, to be during the Christmas

season than Manhattan.

So I'm looking forward to being there not only for the Christmas season and all the lights and decorations and so on, but also

for this absolutely phenomenal Bible Conference.

The Foundations Conference is for men in ministry leadership only, so keep that in mind

if you would like to register.

The speakers include Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer, Jeff Thomas, Armin Tomasian,

Richard Colwell Jr., and Andrew Quigley.

If you would like to join me Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in Manhattan at the Foundations Conference, go to

TheFoundationsConference .com, TheFoundationsConference .com, and remember this is a conference for men in ministry

leadership only.

Then in January 2020, from Thursday the 16th of January through Saturday

the 18th of January, I will be once again at the G3 Conference in

Atlanta, Georgia, actually a suburb of Atlanta, College Park, Georgia, at the Georgia

International Convention Center.

I love this conference in more ways than I could even enumerate.

This is a phenomenal event that takes place every year.

I don't know of any conference like it where the roster is so enormous and

filled with absolutely brilliant and gifted speakers.

The G3 Conference this January is going to be on the theme of

worship matters, a very crucial element of Christianity,

especially in a day and age when people divide tragically over worship

so often, and sometimes over frivolous matters involving worship.

But we hope that you could join us there, and the speakers at this conference

include, again, Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, they include my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega

Ministries, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Derek Thomas, the world -renowned

Presbyterian author and pastor and conference speaker,

and also my friend Dr. Tom Askell, the executive director of Founders Ministries,

the Calvinistic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Kosti Hinn, you've been hearing the ads announcing that he will be there, he is the nephew of the notorious

charlatan and heretic Benny Hinn, and Kosti doesn't mind me saying that at all because he has renounced the word -of

-faith heresies of his youth and of his uncle, and as much

time as he can outside of his own pulpit, he spreads the word about the dangers of

this group, the deadly, deceptive, and damning dangers of this group,

and so he is on the roster as well, and John MacArthur himself is going to be there.

I would go to this conference even if it was just John MacArthur, and many more, so if you'd like to

join me there at the G3 conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, I strongly urge you to

register for an exhibitors booth as well because they are likely going to

have over 6 ,000 people there with John MacArthur added to the lineup.

They normally, as it is, have over 5 ,000 in attendance every year, but I am certain, or

at least fairly certain, that with John MacArthur added to the lineup, they are gonna have over 6

,000 people.

Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com to register for either just to attend or also

for an exhibitors booth, and I hope your exhibitors booth is near mine at the G3 conference.

I have been manning my own Iron Sherpins Iron Radio exhibitors booth there already for three years in

a row, and this will be my fourth year in 2020, so I hope to see you January 16th through the 18th.

Last but not least, if you love this show, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to IronSherpinsIronRadio

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Send me an email to ChrisArnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

That's also the email address to send in a question to Ron Luff and also, I'm sorry,

not Ron Luff, Ron Luff is Monday, Barb Luff and Paul Trask.

We are discussing, if you just tuned in, Faith Gone Astray, unveiling the Kirtland

cult murders written by Ron Luff, who we are going to be interviewing on Monday from prison.

And this is the first time we've ever interviewed somebody who's a prison inmate, and I'm looking forward to discussing

this with Ron, especially since he is a born -again believer and even has his doctorate that he has earned in prison.

But the email address is ChrisArnson at gmail .com, ChrisArnson at gmail .com, and give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of

residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Going back to your son Ron's spiral downward,

you said you heard about the murders on the news.

It was a husband and wife and their three children that were murdered.

What was the.

Reason given by the cult as to why these murders

took place?

I'm not sure.

I was afraid they were going to try to leave, and he was trying to keep them.

He kept control of Ron by separating his family from

him at times.

That was one of the things that he did to control.

And, but I would like to say that when my out in

Ohio during the trial, so that we were there at the whole show, that the judge

to do a workup on each one of those

kids that had been in the in the cult.

And when he was on the stand and he he actually testified that the man that was in

the barn was not the real.

He made that statement logically

talking to Ron.

That's his opinion.

Now did Ron ever tell you what the reason the cult gave for killing this family?

And did he ever give you more of an explanation?

I don't.

Think anyone in the cult knew that these murders were going to take place until they took place.

Only Lundgren and his wife knew about it as far as I know.

And.

How exactly how exactly were they murdered?

Were they shot?

Were they stabbed?

Yes.

I didn't hear that.

I'm sorry.

They were shot and he ordered to bring each one

of them.

It was in the barn that he killed each one of them.

Now when you say.

He when you say he killed each one you mean Lundgren?

Lundgren killed all of.

Them.

None of the other kids killed anybody.

I will say that Lundgren's son Damon is also serving five lifetimes

at the very time that Lundgren killed the first person, the father.

And he

forced him to come back and watch him kill each.

One of the other ones.

And how young were the children that were murdered?

I don't.

Know their age.

One of the girls I think was a teenager.

I think they were all girls.

And I think the youngest was five.

Wow.

Now Ron can tell you that I think like 14 and maybe seven or eight or five

and five.

But they were you know about.

Spread apart about that three years or so.

So how.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry Paul.

Go.

Ahead.

Yeah Chris I just thought mother

actually had taught children that were murdered in a private

school east of Kansas City.

There was a private fundamentalist RLDS school by the name of Cianita.

Actually my mother -in -law ran over and did that fundamentalist

school.

So connection with us.

And when.

You say fundamentalist RLDS.

I'm assuming that you mean that those that consider themselves a remnant and more authentic and more

truly connected to the original teachings of that group including the teachings of

Joseph Smith the third and so on.

Because today the RLDS as you have even shared with us

today is a.

Largely a very liberal group.

At the time the 20th century the RLDS

church was very solidly Joseph Smith fundamentalist.

You know the whole Joseph.

And then in the 60s the church became increasingly liberal.

Hold is that in 1984 the

RLDS prophet received a very liberal revelation that he presented to the church which

started a mass exodus from the church of many fundamentalist groups.

And actually my wife and and I and Dick and Barb Luff and and their family were were a

part of this fundamentalist breakaway from the institutional church because they have become so

increasingly become liberal over the line.

A seedbed

for groups like Lundgren.

Jeff Lundgren is not the only cult leader that emerged from this meltdown in the institutional RLDS

church.

This region is littered with little cult groups.

We know of one even in Iowa that is practicing and believing some strange doctrines.

This region is littered.

Broke away from the church beginning in 1984.

So you can see where Jeffrey Lundgren seized that opportunity and became a cult

leader.

People obviously but there are many really goofy weird offshoots of the RLDS church all

over the Kansas City region.

How did the Governor of Missouri had to kill Mormons.

They could kill Mormons on sight.

Yeah I'm sorry can you repeat that Barb?

You were a little bit fuzzy there.

Yeah she was she was asking me to talk with you.

There was a virtual war

here in Missouri.

It's called the Missouri Warman.

The Missouri Mormon War and you can read about it actually and I've done this.

You can read about it on the Missouri Secretary of State's website.

There was an election day riot

investigation.

Governor Bob they didn't

leave by a certain date.

It was open.

You could kill.

As many as you wanted to charge for murder.

Wow.

You can see this was a time that were very very

the Mormons coming in here trying to take over people's

farms and things.

So there was a lot going on in the 1830s out here.

And so.

That's the reason Chris that the Mormon Church migrated from Independence, Missouri to

Nauvoo, Illinois.

They were they were kicked out of the state of Missouri in 1838 and that started that

their rise to power on the other side of the Mississippi

River.

Oh I appreciate that.

We have a listener CJ in.

Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York.

Who wants to know how were Lundgren, the cult members including your son,

eventually captured and arrested?

My son went into.

The ATF beginning to come to

himself after getting away from Lundgren.

When they now in the book it tells from the barn and

went to live at my he opened his house to them because it was getting cold.

It was in November and they were living there and

began talking to Ron and began to things began to emerge.

These kids began to start thinking for themselves a little bit and once that began Ron had

such a deep guilt the way I understand it.

He went to the ATF even though he knew he should not do that as far as the laws are

concerned because anything he said could be used against him and that's exactly what they did.

They videotaped him giving his testimony of the exact things that took

place up there in Kirtland with the killing and the whole thing and just went right into.

The ATF and told them everything.

By the way the the ATF for those of our listeners who are

unfamiliar with that term it's the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Where was Lundgren, Jeff Lundgren when the other members of the.

Cults were at your other son's home?

See my took his

wife and his

concubine headed

for California is the way I understood it probably heading

for Mexico.

Caught Lundgren then but it was my son going into the ATF that opened this whole can.

Of worms.

And so I'm assuming Lundgren is is he serving a

life sentence in prison now?

No he's been executed.

Oh he's been executed okay.

Oh yeah he's been.

Executed I forget the year.

Yeah they executed him in Ohio.

Okay and how about.

His wife and

concubine?

The

wife went with him

and I know that she was living around the.

Worms.

Okay so so how how long were these cult members including

Lundgren and your son.

How long were they avoiding capture before your son turned

himself in and.

The others were arrested?

I think it all.

Lundgren was the last one to be

caught.

And now is your son the only

one, Ron I'm speaking of, the only one that demonstrated remorse over this?

Is he the only one that repented and became a true.

Child of God?

I don't know that.

I'm a very dedicated RLDS as far as I knew.

I haven't heard anything about any of them.

How if any of them have ever come away from that religion.

I know that my Ron's wife has never come out of that religion and has done

very much against us because we did come out of it.

Wow you mean when you.

Say that religion.

Are you speaking of the the

mainstream?

I'm sorry I didn't.

Hear what you said.

I'm talking about the whole Mormon movement.

When I talk about.

That religion.

Okay but is she is she still in some kind of an offshoot of the.

RLDS or is she in the mainstream RLDS?

She's still in what they call the restoration.

Okay so.

That's like a an offshoot of the RLDS?

It's one of those offshoots that Paul was talking.

About in 1984.

Now she's cut off all connection with us so

we don't have any.

Any connection with her right now at all.

And she cut off all connection with Ron?

Yes they got divorced when she got out of prison.

She spent about 15 years in.

Prison.

Oh okay.

And she remained in that cult theologically all that time that.

She was in prison?

Well I don't know anything about her mindset or anything about it.

Now do you

know why she had less of a severe sentence than

your

son?

Each one of those men did exactly what Lundgren told them and he happened to tell Ron to bring each one of his

family down one at a time.

Okay we.

Have let's see.

We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County Pennsylvania who asks.

I'm sure you saw the spectacular evidence and demonstration of

genuine Christian forgiveness recently in the news when the brother of an innocent man who

was killed by a police officer who went into what she thought was her own apartment

and went into the victim's apartment mistakenly and killed him thinking he was a

burglar and we all saw on television the remarkable demonstration of love

in Jesus Christ that the brother of the victim demonstrated towards the police officer who was

on trial for murder.

I was wondering have you become aware of any kind of demonstration of forgiveness

and love from the families of the victims that were killed through the.

Participation of your son?

To anyone that would have

seen anything I don't know.

Anything about what happened to any of them after that.

No.

Okay and your son hasn't told you about anything after that?

No and besides that of course he's been separated from all of them since he went to jail.

No I'm speaking of your son never mentioned anything about hearing either through a letter or visit or

anything of the family members of the victims who are offering any kind of forgiveness or anything like that?

Not that I have heard.

No.

Okay well we have to go to our final break right now.

It's gonna be much more brief than the last one.

If you want to send in a question of your own please do so quickly because we're rapidly running out of time.

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Charles.

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As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in

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Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshipped and how he

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Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm Dr. Gary Kimbrough, pastor of Bethlehem.

Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi.

God tells us in James 127 that pure and undefiled religion is a visit to fatherless and widows and their affliction.

In the providence of God, three years ago, I discovered a poor, small church outside Lusaka, Zambia in a township called

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The entire need for their clothing, food, education, and some medical services is $73 per month per child.

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In this season of hope and giving, will you consider giving hope to 24 orphans?

Please send your gift of any amount to Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel,

Mississippi, 39443, or donate through our website, bbclaurel .com.

Again, the address is Bethlehem Baptist Church, 838 Reed Road, Laurel, Mississippi,

39443, or bbclaurel .com.

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We want to thank our new advertisers that will be shortly, God

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This is Grace Church at Franklin in Franklin, Tennessee, pastored by Bill Sasser, a dear

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interviews and so on.

The website for Grace Church at Franklin in Franklin, Tennessee, is gracechurchatfranklin

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Thank you, Pastor Bill, for being used of God to rescue us here at Iron Sharp and Zion

Radio out from a very difficult and frightening financial situation that we

have been enduring, and you have really made a difference in more ways that you can possibly know.

We are now in our final segment of today's program.

Our guests are Paul Trask, the founder of Refiners Fire Ministries, and Barb

Luff, who is the mother of prison inmate Ron Luff, who is serving life

in the Allen Correctional Facility or Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio,

before participating in the Kirtland cult murders, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail

.com if you have a question.

We do have a question from John in Bangor, Maine, who wants to know, how

did your son, Ron, discover the true gospel of Jesus Christ and become saved in prison?

When he was in

prison before

that, he

probably relied more on the book.

He told me that he read the Bible through twice.

Once he got his mind back from, I think,.

Praise God.

Can you tell us something about that good news that you heard from him when he first believed he was a

true child of God?

Were you and your husband at that time, I know there was something a bit

fuzzy about the timeline of when you both left the RLDS and became truly born again.

Where in the timeline was that prior to or after Ron's own conversion in prison?

Religion, and we began to study the history of the Mormon Church and

decided that was not what we wanted to be involved with.

I believe that I was a born again Christian from the time I was about eight years old.

And I have never, ever felt like I had lost anything.

I was never what you call a good Mormon.

I never did even read the Book of Mormon.

I read it in Sunday school classes and that was all I was involved with that religion, but I really just

never did accept all that.

Okay, we have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York

who asks, How did Ron start doing the

necessary studies to receive his doctorate in theology and who

encouraged him to pursue this?

Well, I pretty much encouraged him once he decided he wanted to do courses

while he was there in prison and I paid for the books and things that he needed

for that course.

And who was he doing the correspondence course with?

Where did he get the doctorate?

You know, I would have looked at his diplomas.

I have him back at the university that he went

to for this.

I can't remember the name, I'm sorry.

You can ask Ron that.

Yes, and so can you tell us something about what differences you have seen and heard

from Ron since this wonderful transformation by the mercy of God?

Well, I got my son back.

Amen.

Came back out here from West Virginia after they'd been on that

long trek.

Not the same person for a while there.

Is he actively involved in any kind of a chapel in the prison or with the chaplains or anything like that?

He does work with outside teachers that come in from time to time.

I know because he knows Greek and they have a

teacher come in and Ron to help him.

And so he helped with that class and he's done that periodically throughout his time that he's been in prison.

There have been different cases like that where he's been able to help other people.

Oh, praise God.

Do you know if he has been used of God to lead anyone to Christ in prison?

Oh, several.

He said some of these men are so highly

tattooed and some of them are black people.

And he says, have you ever seen a big tough black guy?

He talked about those things several times when, when he would be involved with them and like

talk about things that where he's done good things, though.

It's just, it's not him too much to talk about himself that way.

Praise God for that.

Yeah.

I interviewed a man who is now a pastor who became

a Christian in prison and he was the leader of a white supremacist gang in prison

and became a Christian and renounced his bigotry.

He is currently pastoring in Virginia.

I will send you an MP3 of the interview I did with him.

Perhaps Ron would like to hear that if he has access to those kinds of things.

Well, I don't know.

Well, his, this brother's interview is quite

remarkable and his name is Lowell Ivy, by the way, L O W E L L I

V E Y.

Now pastoring in Virginia.

Let's see here.

Well, I, I'd like to tell you there was a

cop that Ron worked in at one time in one of the prisons where he was

in.

He's been in different prisons.

He's now in a medium security, but he started out in a, in a very strong security

prison.

But anyway, two people that we met and were people that worked, uh,

one was a correctional officer and one was the, the run a shop.

And they both told me that they, they could have Ron as a neighbor.

They felt so strongly about what a good man he was.

And also Ron was from Tennessee and he wrote a letter when they were trying to get

a clemency for Ron.

And he wrote a letter to the governor and told him that, that, uh, he would offer Ron a job

and he would live next door to him as far as he was concerned because of his connection just through writing to

Ron.

I don't think they ever talked, but just of reading, you know, letters that a

lot of people threw out and, uh,

became friends.

And I mean, very close.

Praise God, Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, we have time for one more question.

He said, uh, I believe it is a delicate balance that must be had when one

has a loved one who has committed atrocious crimes while we want to love them

and continue in our love toward them at the same time, uh, being

overly forgiving in a premature fashion before they have repentant, I think can help

to continue a life of sin, even if it's just in the heart and mind.

How did you react first of all, towards your son after the murders?

And was there a change in the way that you forgave him after he repented?

Sometimes I was near him after, saw him when he was

still with that religion.

There was a whole different feeling about Ron.

He was just a different person to me, but it was very soon after his mind started

getting, and that's one reason he went to the ATF in the first

place.

Yeah, praise God.

Well, we are out of time, and I really was thrilled with the program today.

I thank you so much, both of you, Paul and to Barb, uh, for

being on the program today.

I want to make sure that our listeners have your website for Refining Fire Ministries.

It's help4rlds .com.

That's help4rlds .com.

Do you have any other contact information that you care to share, Paul?

No, that's the primary.

Thank you for making that announcement.

And I'm sure that's, I'm assuming that's the way that our listeners can get a hold of Barb, too, if they want to contact her.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much, both of you.

I hope that you enjoyed the interview as much as I did.

I look forward to having you back at some point.

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write.

Remember to mark on your calendar for this Monday, God willing, when we are going to be interviewing Barb's

son.

Barb, who was one of our guests today, her son, Ron Luff, is our guest from prison

this Monday, God willing, and so mark your calendars for that.

I hope you all have a blessed, safe, and happy weekend and Christ -centered Lord's Day, and I hope you always remember

for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

Amen.

Great.

Well, I'm looking forward to that.

And tell Ron I'll be praying for our interview.

Good.