Sermon: Witnessing to Mormons

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Right before Revelation, right after 3 John. It's basically a page, you might miss it.

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Jude, no chapters, just verses. Verse one, hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the

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Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.

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Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our

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God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

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Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for the gift of your word.

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Thank you for protecting and preserving your word. Thank you for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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Thank you for keeping your promises that you would have a kingdom, establish a kingdom that would last forever and would never pass away.

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We thank you, Lord, that you've preserved your word through history. You've given it to us. You've protected it.

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And thank you, Lord, that you have been moving by your spirit throughout history as you promised to bring that seed to a tree.

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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. This is, in particular, a very, the word of God is powerful.

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We're four verses in, and just think about what's said very early on in the history of the Christian church.

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Think about what Christians understood. Think about what they believed. This is the word of God. Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, the

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Messiah, and brother of James, to those who are called. Who's he talking to?

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Called by who? Called by God. Believers are called by God.

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God does the calling. Loved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.

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It's almost like Jude was just reading a book on the doctrines of grace or something, right? Called by God, loved by God the

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Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

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Now what he says here is, beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I find it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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Two things here. Christians are called by God. From very early on, you see it in the book of Acts. It was the methodology, it was the

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MO of the early church, to contend for the faith, to preach the gospel, and to defend the truth.

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In Jude, we see here, Jude says to contend for the faith. Some translations say to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints.

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Is there any idea, according to the word of God, that the faith would pass away? That it would go away?

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That it would need restoration, because it would leave a witness from the earth?

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No, the scriptures are very clear about the kingdom of the Messiah, and the church itself, the faith itself.

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It's once for all delivered to the saints. That's the story in history. It's as much the story in history that God's gonna preserve his word, and the faith, and the gospel itself, and history, as the word of God prophesies that Christ is gonna come and live perfectly, and die, and rise again from the dead.

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It's really important, because when we talk about witnessing to our Mormon friends, and family, and neighbors, it's an important thing for me.

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I'm very passionate about this, because when I first made a profession of faith, one of the first people that I met, and had a spiritual conversation with, was a

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Latter -day Saint. His name was Wade. I've told you guys a story before of him sitting down next to me in theater arts.

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We were practicing for a play. I was young, I think I was 16 years old, and I was reading a Bible, waiting for my turn to go up, and he sat down next to me, and he said, oh, you're a

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Christian? I said, yeah, I wasn't raised in church, so this was exciting. Are you a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Christian, too.

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Oh, we're Christians, and he says to me, hey, what level of heaven do you think you're going to? And I remember

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I was just a newly -professing Christian, and I had never heard that before. I didn't know much about the

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Bible at all. I was brand new to it, and so all I could say was, hopefully, the highest level, that's where I wanna go.

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Sounds good, if there are levels. And so we had this conversation. He told me he was a Mormon, and so I went right after school to this

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Christian bookstore, they still existed then, and I go in, and the man's name is Tony, and I said, hey,

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Tony, do you have anything on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, the denomination of Latter -day

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Saints? He said, Jeff, that's not a denomination, that's a cult! And he runs in the back, and he gets me a bunch of resources, and as I've told this story so many times before,

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I spent all night that night reading the Scriptures, reading original source documentation from the

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Mormon community, and seeing the false prophecies from Brigham Young, and Joseph Smith, and Orson Pratt, all this stuff, and so I stayed up all night long putting together my refutation of Mormonism, and I remember that I woke up early that morning, or sorry,

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I went early that morning, I went to a copy place, and they just copied this massive book of original source documents, and all these things, and comparing those to the

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Bible, it just looked like a mess, but when I got to school, and I saw Wade, like I threw this book at him that I had created, refuting

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Mormonism, I said, Wade, you're in a cult! And probably a better way to do it, but that's how

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I did it, and he and I spoke for a long period of time, I went with his family to the temple in Washington, D .C.,

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I sat with Mormon missionaries, I had dinner with his family over a long period of time, and I think one of the things that was most devastating to me, and also motivating to me, is that he and I were sitting in my bedroom months and months later, and we were going through the scriptures, and he finally says to me,

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Jeff, I know everything you're saying is true, I know it's true, and so I thought, well, you're ready to come to Christ now, let's turn to Christ, and he says, but I can't leave the church.

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If I leave the church, I lose absolutely everything, I can't leave the church, and so he knew the truth, but he couldn't leave the church, and I said to him,

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I was a new believer at the time, and so the verse just came up in my soul, I said, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?

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And so that started my passion for reaching the Mormon community, I devoured everything

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I could to understand the history of Mormonism, and Joseph Smith, and Mormon doctrine and theology, and so when

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I first moved to Arizona, I was living on my own, I was only 17 years old when I first moved out here,

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I was living literally on somebody's floor, and I saw a sign, and it said, it talked about the

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Mormon Easter pageant, and I thought, I love the Mormons, I'm going, and so I didn't know anybody, and so I showed up with my backpack full of tracts, and a

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Bible, and other documents, and I got on the sidewalk, and again, didn't know anybody, but just wanted to have conversations with Mormons, and that's where I, for the first time, met

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Dr. White out there on the sidewalk, and I met Jerry, he was a 16 -year -old little twerp, and we met, we actually ended up witnessing to someone together, we had never even spoken to each other, but we were both giving this guy the same gospel, we both had the same message,

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Jerry and I had never even spoken to each other, and we both ended up in a conversation with a

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Latter -day Saint, giving him the same exact message of the scriptures, the true God, and the true gospel, and when this man walked away,

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Jerry and I looked at each other, hey, it was nice to meet you, and we parted ways, and I met him years ago in a

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Starbucks, and we found out later, oh, that was you, but people used to challenge me, us, for going to the

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Mormon community, actually going to where they're at, and preaching the gospel, people would say things like, that's not how you reach those people, that's not how you reach them, and over the years, one of the most powerful things of our ministry has been the countless

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Latter -day Saints that have come to Christ as a result of that ministry, not only on the sidewalk out there in Mesa, but also because of what we record out there of the conversations, it's gone all over the world,

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I just got a message two days ago from someone that said, hey, Jeff, I just wanted you to know that my entire family was

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Mormon, we all came to Christ as a result of watching your videos, so he said, thank you for the videos, we get those all the time,

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Latter -day Saints that are coming to Christ as a result of watching the content that we put out as a ministry, the content where we go to the

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Mormon community, and we contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

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How are they going to hear if we don't go? One of the most challenging things,

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I think, that we should think about is that Latter -day Saints, Mormon missionaries, young men, sometimes very young men, dedicate two years of their lives to go out to foreign places, to hit the streets, to go door -knocking and door -to -door, and to ride their bikes around in this crazy

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Arizona heat to proclaim a false gospel about a false god, and they're fully committed to it.

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Oftentimes, we would go to the Mormon temple, and we've heard this so many times that I've lost count, they'll say things like, why are you coming here and doing this here, why are you coming to bring your message to us here, we're just here to watch this pageant, why are you doing that?

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And of course, my answer is first and foremost, because we love you, and love would demand that we tell the truth to you.

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If we know that you're perishing, we need to preach the gospel to you, but one of the things that's interesting is you can also say, well,

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I know you don't come to my church, but you come to my door. You say, we don't come to your church and do this.

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No, you come to my house. You come to my house, and you say things like,

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God the Father told Joseph Smith to join none of the churches, for they are all wrong.

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All their creeds are an abomination. All their professors, that's those

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Christians who are professing the faith, are all corrupt. They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

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You see, the beginning of Mormonism, when they come to your door, is a story that God told

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Joseph Smith that all the churches were wrong, a witness was left, no witness was left for the church, and that all the creeds of the

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Christian church were all an abomination, and Joseph Smith was the living prophet to restore the

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Christian faith to the earth. And he comes almost 2 ,000 years after the scriptures clearly say, this was the faith that was delivered once for all to the saints.

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And Christians are commanded to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

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I think one of the dramatic failures of the evangelical church in the West today is the methodology that we've adopted.

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It's a methodology that sees this right here, the Sunday service, these walls, this place, this is where people come to know

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God. This is where you do the evangelism. Brothers and sisters, this is the place for those who have already been evangelized.

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This is the place for the saints. This is for those who know Christ and worship God. If you're not a believer here today, you're welcome.

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We want you to hear the gospel, but this gathering is not the place of evangelism.

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This is the place where the people of God, saints, worship the living God, and we go out into the world with the gospel itself.

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That is the methodology that we should be adopting, using, because it is thoroughly biblical.

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So some foundations here when we talk about bringing the gospel out into the public square to the world, foundations.

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Number one, is it important? Does it even matter? I mean, Mormons will say, we believe in Jesus Christ too.

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We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in God the Father. We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in the

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Holy Spirit. Okay, what do you believe about Jesus? We believe he died. We believe he rose again.

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What do you believe about this book? Well, we believe that's his word. And you go, scratch your head and go, this is strange.

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They're saying all the same things. They're speaking Christianese. They have our language.

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They're using our words. The problem is, they've completely distorted the definition.

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Yes, they're using the word Jesus, but they mean something entirely different. Yes, they're using the word God the

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Father, but they mean something entirely different. When a Christian speaks of God the Father, God the

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Son, God the Holy Spirit, we're speaking about what the Bible speaks about. We're speaking about the consistent testimony of the entire church through history based upon the

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Bible that there is one true and living God. Psalm 90 verse two, from eternity into eternity, you are

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God. That's not the God of Mormonism. The God of Mormonism was once a man like us who worked through exaltation to become a

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God of his own planet one day. He has wives in heaven. He's a polygamist.

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He created Jesus Christ in the preexistence. Jesus isn't the eternal God in Mormonism.

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He is one spiritual offspring of Elohim, the man who became a

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God one day. Who had a God before him? Who had a God before him? Who had a God before him?

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It goes back and back and back and back. It's a story of men becoming gods, being polygamists, getting their own planet, producing spiritual offspring who will work their way through exaltation, through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel to become gods and goddesses of their own planets one day.

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The story of Mormonism is a story where the early Mormon prophets taught that Elohim, heavenly father, came down and physically created

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Jesus with the Virgin Mary, which makes her no longer a what?

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Virgin, that was the story. You see, Mormonism borrows our terminology and here's the important thing.

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We need to share with passion and love and humility and we need to share it with our Mormon neighbors. This isn't just you.

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This is something that's as old as the hills. It goes all the way back to the scriptures. You see, in the first generation of Christians, after the death, burial and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, that first century generation, the apostles themselves have to deal with false

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Christs and false messiahs already creeping into the

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Christian church. One example is in 2nd Corinthians, go there, 2nd

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Corinthians chapter 11. In 2nd

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Corinthians chapter 11, the Apostle Paul has to deal with the church in Corinth, who is going through a lot of difficulty in terms of sanctification and things that are going on with conflict within that community.

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And in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11, here's the inspired words from the Apostle in verse 1, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness.

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Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

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But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

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For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

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Another way of saying that is, I'm worried that you're just going to put up with it. Someone's going to come preaching a false

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Christ, a false spirit, a false gospel, and I'm worried that you'll put up with it. And I wanted to give you to Christ as a virgin, as pure, undefiled, and you're going to put up with people who are preaching false

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Christs. What? False Christ? What do you mean? What's that?

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Well, clearly there are people in Paul's day who are using Christian language. They're talking about Jesus.

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They're saying gospel, but they mean something entirely different. They're giving you a

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Jesus that can't really save you because it's not Christ. And they're giving you a gospel that doesn't reconcile you to God because it's not the gospel.

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It doesn't bring you peace. And Paul, early on, has to deal with these false Christs and false gospels.

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It's a problem from very early on. You can even see in the New Testament record itself, one of the greatest enemies of the

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Christian church from then till now is this issue. Gnosticism.

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Gnosticism. There are still remnants of it around today in Christian minds and thinking and practice.

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The Gnostics were the great enemies of the Christian church. Paul has to deal with them in the New Testament.

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John has to deal with them in the New Testament. And you can see one example in 2 John. Go back to where Jude was.

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In 2 John, you see a warning from the apostle, and this is concerning the

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Gnostics. Look what he says here in 2 John 7. He says,

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For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.

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Wait, what? What's he talking about? Well, early on, you had the problem of another Christ that was being taught by a community known as the

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Gnostics. Now, listen, here's what's important. They were saying Jesus Christ.

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They were using the word gospel. This is in John's day. And he says, These people are deceivers.

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Why? Because they're saying that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh.

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What is he talking about? They're saying God did not actually take on flesh and become a man.

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Their perspective was that this world is sinful, tainted, cursed, evil. God would never sully himself by taking on human flesh.

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And the apostle John says about that, These are deceivers. They're using the name

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Jesus Christ. They're saying they believe in Jesus, but they're denying that God took on flesh in the incarnation.

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And John says to the Christians early on, He says, They're deceivers. They don't know

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God. And what he says is this, Verse 8, Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

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Everyone who goes on ahead, another way of saying that is anyone who goes too far, and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have

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God. Let that hang. Does not have God. He's saying these people who profess to believe in Jesus, but who deny an essential aspect of the

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Christian message that God took on flesh, he says, You don't have God.

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How unloving. And in a culture like ours today, where everyone has a mishmash of beliefs, and you can't say that this is objectively true, and everyone can just depend on their own feelings, and men can put on women's bathing suits, and swim, as women in women's competitions.

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Why? Because they feel like it's true. Who are you to condemn my story? We live in that kind of culture, right?

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Where we can't have just objective truth that this is the way things are. John doesn't believe that. He doesn't buy it.

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He says, Yeah, they're saying Jesus, but they're denying that God took on flesh. John would say, I touched Him.

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I ate with Him. I held Him. I know Jesus, and God took on flesh.

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If you go too far, and you teach that, he says, You don't have God. And then he warns the early church.

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He says this, If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

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What's he saying there? That you can't let non -Christians into your home?

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That'd be a problem, right? When your A .C. breaks down in Arizona, it's summertime, and someone comes to the door, you're like,

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Wait! Do you bring the doctrine of Christ? Do you?

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That's not what it means. They met in house churches. And John's warning them, You don't let these false teachers into your church to disrupt your service, your worship.

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You don't let these false teachers around your people. They're deceivers, and they don't know God. So, point, principle.

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Is it possible to say the words Jesus and not know God? Yep. Is it possible to claim to be

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Christian and not actually know God? Yeah. Proof of that is in our

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New Testament record itself. The apostles have to deal with that. So that's a foundational issue.

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Is it important for us to go to communities who profess Jesus and the gospel and to preach the true

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Christ and true gospel to them if they have a false Christ and a false gospel? The answer is yes.

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Think about it for a moment. You have not just Mormonism. You have Jehovah's Witnesses. They use the name of Christ.

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They say they believe this book. But they have a completely foreign God and foreign gospel. You have the Rosicrucians.

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You have Christian scientists. You have Roman Catholicism. Which is in particular a very interesting one you have to deal with because Roman Catholicism actually affirms the

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Trinity. They'll say this is the word of God. And yet when you get into what they believe today, over all the centuries of doctrinal development, you have a foreign gospel.

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A gospel that is no gospel at all. It doesn't establish peace. It doesn't give you the story of peace and reconciliation and salvation and eternal life that Christ promises

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His people. And so it's a false gospel, but yet it's a triune

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God. And so is it important for us to reach people? Yes. Because if I love somebody, truly love them, and I see them in a place where they're perishing or believing lies,

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I need to reach them with the truth. The most loving thing for me to do when somebody is perishing is to speak the truth.

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Clearly, this is something that you see in our New Testament itself. Just two examples in terms of when we go to the

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Mormon temple on the sidewalk and try to reach them with respect and love and humility and boldness.

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Is that something that Scripture gives you any warrant for? And I want to take you to two places. Acts chapter 9.

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Acts chapter 9. There's so many places we can go for this, but in Acts chapter 9 verse 19, you have an example of when the

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Apostle Paul is converted. When he comes to Christ, it says at the latter part of verse 19, 9 -19, for some days he was with the disciples of Damascus and here in verse 20, and immediately he, that's

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Paul, proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue saying, He is the Son of God.

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And all who heard him were amazed and said, Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name?

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And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priest? They're basically saying,

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Hey, I thought you opposed this movement. What's happening? And what happens next is this.

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Verse 22, But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the

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Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the

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Messiah. How'd he do that? How do you think Paul, trained under Gamaliel, a

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Pharisee, how do you think he proved that Jesus was Mashiach? He used the word of God.

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He argued with them. He confounded the Jews. What's that mean? The Apostle Paul went into the place of the synagogue and he was preaching

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Christ, he was defending the faith. Here's the key thing, you ready? He was arguing for the truth.

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He was contending for the faith. Now you see this throughout the book of Acts in terms of methodology.

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The church goes out into the world. They go into the public square. And what you see in the book of Acts is conflict after conflict after conflict after conflict.

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They preach the gospel in the public square in such a way that it leads to riots. It leads to beatings.

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It leads to jail time. It leads to death and stoning. In the book of Acts you see the church is on the move in the culture round about them to preach the gospel.

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They're doing it everywhere. They're doing it at the synagogues. They're doing it in the marketplaces.

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They're doing it when they're told not to by the government. They're doing it at the Areopagus, Mars Hill.

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That's a place of historic debate and philosophical discussion. Paul is preaching at the

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Areopagus and Mars Hill and what's he saying? God commands men everywhere to repent.

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They're starting controversy. Godly controversy. They're being righteous troublemakers.

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Another example of this kind of methodology for the church is Acts chapter 18. Same book, just move over to the right.

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Acts 18. I love this section. Verse 24.

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Apollos. I can't wait to meet him. It says, Now a Jew named

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Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man and look what's emphasized here.

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Competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way the Lord had been fervent in spirit.

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He spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when

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Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. We could learn from that example.

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A brother is an error and instead of cutting his head off and calling him names, you pull him aside.

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Talk to him. That's wisdom. And it says this, And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.

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When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed. There it is again, who through grace had believed.

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For he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the

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Scriptures that the Messiah was Jesus. Powerfully refuted the

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Jews in public. You see the methodology of the early church? I mean, this is an amazing thing to me.

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This movement of the church comes into the world, the Holy Spirit of God is poured out, and when the gospel breaks forth into the world in the book of Acts, all you're going to see is consistent controversy, conflict, controversy, conflict, beating, all that stuff.

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But what happens as a result of it? What happens as a result of Paul confounding the

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Jews who dwelled in Damascus, proving that Jesus is Messiah? What happened? It said the church experienced peace, that it increased in number, it multiplied, and it said some people wanted to kill them.

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Sometimes a faithful proclamation of the gospel leads to people wanting you dead.

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We live in a day where many evangelical seminaries and teachers around about us will say things like, well, if you're preaching a message that's offensive to the world, or you're preaching a message that actually causes people to dislike you, you need to change your methodology.

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Tell that to the apostles. Tell that to Jesus. You see, they turned the entire world upside down in a generation.

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The gospel broke forth and was transforming the world because they went into the public square, they refuted people, they argued for the faith, they contended for the faith, they preached the truth.

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And yes, sometimes it leads to death. People say, oh, if we can only get back to the early church and how the church was just blessed and growing, that if we could only do it,

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I'd say, yeah, you know what you have to pay for that? Blood. You want that kind of movement?

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You gotta pay it with your blood. Everywhere in church history you see these grand movements of the Spirit of God where transformation takes place and the world changes.

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What do you see almost every single time, every time, what do you see? Blood. Brokenness.

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Pain. Difficulty. And let's be honest, we don't like that. We don't like to stand out on a sidewalk with thousands of people walking past us making nasty comments to us.

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Calling us names. Calling us freaks. We don't want to get roughed up by Mormon bishops like I was for handing out tracts.

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But you know what happens when you do? Eyes are open to the truth. Hearts are transformed.

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One of my favorite moments, I've probably told you this story before, I'll just say it quickly. People were constantly condemning me as a young man for going out to the

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Mormon temple to preach the gospel. I had so many other believers around me that would say things like, you shouldn't do that. That's not the way to love people.

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You kind of look like a fool doing what you're doing. But I was in those conversations.

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I was talking to Latter -day Saints and I was watching the Word of God penetrate. I was watching them break down in tears.

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I was seeing people come to Christ. One of my favorite stories is in the midst of people telling me, don't go out there and minister to them.

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Don't do it in that way. I still went. And I was there when a

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Mormon missionary came out to argue with me over a period of really two or three weeks.

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And after two or three weeks of even getting to the point of hiding literally in back alleys, like opening the

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Bible up together, he turned to Christ. And the very next day, that Mormon missionary, who was on his mission and he was stationed at that temple, the very next day, he was on the sidewalk with us, preaching the gospel to the other

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Mormon missionaries. You should have seen their faces when they saw him out there. They came running out, what are you doing?

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And I just stepped back and he just started preaching from the Word to them. He's like, it's a false Christ. It's wrong.

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Look what the Word of God says. This is all wrong. You need to turn to the true Christ. I was like, wow. Wow, look at that.

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And people said, don't go. Not going means people perish. God has his people, amen?

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He has his people. He has people for whom he died. And the way that they come to Christ is the proclamation of the message in the

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Spirit of God. So yes, we need to go. Yes, we have a warrant for the kind of methodology that says get out of the walls of the church and go preach the gospel.

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Tell the truth to the world. But we need to think about this. This goes across the board. I said at the beginning of service today, what we're talking about here with ministering to the

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Mormons, it's not just to the Mormons. It's really the foundational issue of all of life.

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Let's pull it back for a second. Forget our ministry to the Latter -day Saints. It's all over the news this week.

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The man wearing a woman's bathing suit who was ranked like in the 400s in the men's division, he decides that he's a woman.

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He's going to dress in a female bathing suit and he's going to swim and compete with the women. And now he's in first.

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Right? So he's stunk as a man and now he's in first over the women.

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We look at that in the culture and we say how could that be? Now conservatism apart from Jesus, conservatism apart from Christ and the

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Word of God just says mostly that's wrong, we hate the left, that's icky, it shouldn't be that way.

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They hate the left but it's not sin that they're worried about ultimately. From a

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Christian perspective, how do I know objectively with certainty that that is immoral and wrong?

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How do I know? Because it feels awkward? Because I find it personally icky?

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No, the truth is the Word of God says. My certainty is bound up in the revelation of the living

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God. How do I know that that's wrong? Because God says, thus saith the

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Lord. We need to stop being afraid as Christians to say such things.

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Thus saith the Lord, that's how I know. So we talk about foundations, it's not just with Mormons, it's also with the gender bending of today.

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It's also with gay mirage. It's also in the area of abortion. It's also in the area of the size of government and the power of government.

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It's also in our interpersonal relationships. You see, what we're saying here is we're not talking about side issues, things that we don't really have certainty on.

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Like, for example, it's okay as a Christian to say, ready, I don't know! I don't know!

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I'm not sure. I have maybe an opinion and some ideas but God hasn't spoken to that exactly so I don't really have a certain answer from God but wherever God has spoken,

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I have certainty. I can say that I know. There are, even within a Christian communion, within Christian churches, there are issues where we should just be able to say what to each other?

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I love you. Okay. And we just need to say, shut up, right? Don't fight because it's a side issue.

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I mean, there's some issues that are really important like baptismal mode. It's very important but how is a person justified?

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Through faith in Christ. You know, there's issues within a Christian communion like when you talk about Star Wars and the later trilogy that came.

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I mean, right, Daniel? Like, I mean, Hayden Christensen or whatever his name was, like, is he not the worst actor in history?

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Some would say yes. I would be in that camp, right? Did that trilogy series ruin

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Star Wars forever? Yes! Some of us would say yes. Amen, see?

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But, you get my point. This is stuff you go, you have your opinion on it doesn't matter, it's a side issue.

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Who cares? Who cares? Ultimately, we need to maintain unity.

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But where do we say, no more? Where God has spoken. Where he's spoken.

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The foundation is a revelational epistemology. Don't let the word throw you. People are like,

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I don't care, it's a big word. I don't care, it's philosophy. I don't care. Listen, this is the stuff of life. A revelational epistemology says this,

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God has spoken. That's true. We believe that this is how

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I know, because God spoke it. It's the word of the living God. That's how I know. That's how

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I know. And this is really the substance of everything, because when we talk about the issue of Mormonism, it comes back to the foundation of a revelational epistemology.

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The word of God says, and that's how I know. You see, when it comes to the issue of authority, you've got some options.

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A revelational epistemology that says God has spoken. God has spoken in history. The way that I have certain true knowledge is the revelation of God.

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God has spoken, and that's how I know. You have different systems of knowing, epistemologies, that people might even be, they might not even be conscious of.

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They might even just, they hold to it, they're not even aware of it. Sometimes they try to take one system and hitch it up together with another system and create a different system.

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What were the Latter -day Saints that you uh they had like, how many, like five?

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Like five different ways that they could know, right? Oh, there you are. Both are, okay. Five different ways. It's horrible, right?

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Yeah, thank you. Okay, so five different ways they could know. They were like, it's Scripture, it's the

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Spirit, it's reason, and what else? What do you, physical, like they're trying to hook up like all these different ways of knowing that all ultimately conflict with one another, right?

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And they couldn't justify them as Mormons for anything, but I won't get into that debate today, but the point is everybody has a way of knowing.

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Like, how do you know? For example, this goes to you at home. Parent says to the child, you need to honor me, you need to obey me.

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Parent says, or child says, why? First of all, no, just joking.

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Right? Like, as a parent, that meant the butt, okay?

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That wasn't like, okay. We're not going to get into that debate right now. Okay, here we go. No, the point is, you say to the child, you have to do as I say.

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Child says, why? How do you know that? Who put you in charge?

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Ah. It's a good question. It's a good question. When I say, honor your father and your mother to my children,

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I'm not pulling rank on my own authority. I'm saying you must obey me because this is God's world.

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He made you. He made the world to work a certain way. His word is you honor and obey your mother and father.

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Now watch. This is important. What if the parent is doing something that is wrong?

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Is the child required to honor and obey? No. If the parent is being sinful, the child should say,

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I can't do that or participate because that's a sinful thing. But how does the child know that's a sinful thing?

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Because the word of the living God. How about the church itself? We're a church body.

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There is pastoral authority in this church, but we're not ultimate. Should you obey your leaders, as Hebrew says?

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Should you obey your pastors? Yes. What if we're sinning? No. See?

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Even if the pastor's authority in Scripture is a limited authority, it's a delegated authority, but who's the ultimate authority?

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God. His word is the test. It's the standard. We have a revelational epistemology.

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That's how we view all of life through the lens of God's revelation. Some people will say rationalism.

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They'll say, well, the way that you know something is true is through reason.

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It's by using logic and reason. Well, you can challenge that very easily.

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If they hold to a materialist view of the world, you can ask them the question, how do you know that's the standard?

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Well, because it works for us. Oh, so it's utilitarianism now. So if it works, it's true. Well, no.

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You see, we've as a society determined that these laws of logic are the right laws we need to hold to.

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Great. So society determines what's true by these laws of logic. What if laws of logic 100 years from now are different?

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They come up with different rules for laws of logic where you're allowed to contradict yourselves. Now, if society determines the rules, then that means that the rules can change with each society.

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And so you can't really ever truly know or have certainty because it's always ebbing and flowing, right?

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Also, how do you get logic and reason, immaterial, unchanging, universal truths in a universe that is only made of matter?

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See? Or you can get empiricism. Somebody says, I only know if I can observe it and test it.

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That's how I know. I observe it, I test it. Well, challenge that. Have you observed or tested every instance of that thing in the universe?

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Well, no. So do you know it? No. And so people at times try to hitch them up together and figure out if they work.

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Or somebody might say, this is very popular today, subjectivism. How do you know that's true? And what does everybody say today?

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Almost everybody's into subjectivism. What do they say? They say, feel like it's true.

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You could say to somebody, biologically a male, obviously a dude, big broad shoulders, big old beard, got all the working parts, who's wearing a dress.

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Hey, take a look down for a second. What do you see?

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Male or female? And they'll say, no, I know that what you see here is maleness, but I feel like a woman.

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I feel like a woman. And so their test for truth and knowledge is based upon subjectivity, whatever

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I feel like. What if that changes on Wednesday? Well, then that'll change because it's all based upon how

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I feel. So subjectivism is an epistemology. How do I know it's subjective? You have a conflict where this really comes out.

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You'll feel this now. Now you'll really feel this. This'll come out in the issue of sola scriptura versus sola ecclesia.

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Ecclesia is the Greek word for church or called out ones or assembly or gathering.

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And in religious disputes, ultimately it comes down to this, whether you're debating with the Roman Catholic, or you're debating with the

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Eastern Orthodox, or you're debating with the Mormon, or you're debating with the Jehovah's Witness, it really comes down to sola scriptura or sola ecclesia.

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And what's that? Well, it's an outworking of a revelational epistemology. How do I know? Because God says

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His Word is ultimate. So Mormons for example will say, okay, we have this.

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We believe this is the Word of God. Great. Is that it? No. We have modern day revelation.

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We also have something called the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ. We also have something called the

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Doctrine and Covenants. And we also have the Pearl of Great Price. But then you can go into what

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Brigham Young taught and he said that he's never given a sermon or sent it out to the sons of men they may not call scripture.

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So Brigham Young taught as a prophet in Mormonism that his sermons were actually scripture, alongside scripture.

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And so what ends up happening in religions where they say, yeah that's the Word of God, but we also have the ultimate authority of the church.

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Rome is like that. Rome is like that. They'll say, yes, that's the Word of God.

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But we also have this sacred tradition. We have the infallibility of the church. And what ends up happening when you have two dueling standards is you can't have two ultimates.

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One of those ultimates will end up eating the other one up. So for example if there's ever a conflict between Mormon doctrine and scripture, what do you think the

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Mormon does? Do they firm up their commitment to the Word of God to say, what does the

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Word of God say? No. They go to their church authority. They go to their prophets and they say, yes,

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I know the Word of God says that, but my prophet says that this is the way

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I should view that. So where's their ultimate? Is it the Word of God? It's their church. And that, watch, it goes across borders.

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It's not just Mormonism. That version of epistemology is shared by the Roman Catholics.

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It's shared by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Everybody who says, yes, this is authoritative, but the only way to understand this is by my authority over here.

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So the question is, if the only way I can understand this is by this authority, which one is truly ultimate?

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This other authority is the ultimate. And so all of this is a question of how do you know?

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Quick things, this is a burst. What time is it? Alright, we have another hour.

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Just kidding, just kidding. Today I want to land on this.

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Because, Brothers and Sisters, this today, very important, I'm passionate about this. Please hear me. You should be passionate about this.

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This is not just about our ministry to the Mormons in our community. It's not.

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This is the stuff of all of life. Can you defend this? Right? I was speaking to somebody recently.

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You know, there's a difference. There's a difference between being a

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Calvinist, believing in Sola Scriptura. Some people might think, well,

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I'm part of a Reformed church. Yeah, we say Sola Scriptura, Sola Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Sola Deo Gloria.

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That's what we believe. We believe in the doctrines of grace. We believe those things. There's a difference of being here in this community and sort of assuming these things and actually believing it yourself.

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Actually knowing why you believe it. Actually being able to defend it. Right? You'll hear people at times say, oh,

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I used to be Reformed and I'm not anymore. Really? So now, what do you do with those whole discourses from Scripture?

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What do you do with them? What do you do with John 6? What do you do with John 10? What do you do with Romans 9?

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You can't let it speak because it says what it says. So there's a difference between me saying, hey, the

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Word of God is ultimate and then all of us actually saying, yeah, and I know why I believe that.

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I can show you where in the Bible to demonstrate that. So in terms of foundations, and this is going to go with us to the

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Mormons and everybody else, let's talk about a few things. Number one, the nature of Scripture. The nature of Scripture.

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What makes this so different? What makes it unique?

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Well, our kids know this one. Here, they've been catechized. They know this one. The nature of Scripture is 2

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Timothy 3, 16 through 17. All Scripture is what?

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Some of y 'all were in Greek. Some of y 'all were in English. That's Apologia Church. All Scripture is, the word is theionoustos.

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It's breathed out by God. That's a claim about this.

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These are the Scriptures. This is breathed out from God. This is God's revelation in history.

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This is God's revelation communicated to His people throughout history, and what makes this distinct is that this is breathed out by God.

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All Scripture is breathed out by God. That's the nature of Scripture. Next point is what's the origin of Scripture?

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Now, this you need to see. It's very important. Go to 2 Peter 1, 21. Here's what

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Peter says. Let me start at verse 16. This is actually pretty powerful. Start at verse 16. He says,

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For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

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For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory,

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This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from Heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountains.

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And he's talking about the mountain of Transfiguration. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, and to the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts.

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Pause there for a second. Did you catch that? Because sometimes we miss that. He's saying, look, here's what

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I'm saying. We were eyewitnesses. We were on the mountain of Transfiguration. We saw this. We heard

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God the Father say from Heaven, This is my beloved Son. We heard that. We were witnesses. But know what he says next?

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Where's your confidence? He says this. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, and to the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts.

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Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

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It didn't originate from man. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So what's the nature of Scripture? It's God breathed. What's the origin of Scripture, according to Peter?

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How is it so sure? How is it so guaranteed and so certain? He says men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. So its nature is breathed out by God, and the origin of it is the

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Holy Spirit of God carried people along to say and write what they wrote. This is unique.

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It's from God. Next is the example of Scripture. How does

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Scripture tell us to deal with questions of knowledge, or to deal with issues of controversy?

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This is very important. I would start in Genesis. There's so many things we could do to prove this, but when you're talking to a

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Mormon, start from soup to nuts. Give them the whole thing. Genesis. What's the conflict in Genesis?

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It's the sum of all human experience. God said, He said, you can do this, but you can't do that.

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If you do that, you'll surely die. Right? So God says, this is the way things are.

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You can do this. You can't do that. The day you do, you will die. Now watch. Ready? Who says?

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How does God know? Think about that question. I mean, Adam and Eve, they just get put into this thing.

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It's glorious. It's amazing. And now they have God and created them. He says, okay, I'm the maker of all this. I've done all this, and here's what

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I'm telling you. You can do this, but not that. The day you do, you'll die. What if Adam and Eve had said, would it even be appropriate?

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What if they had said to God, how do you know? Yeah, it's exactly. We all recognize the absurdity of the question.

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Right? Or how about they go this? They go like this. God says, this, but not that. The day you do, you'll die.

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And they go, all right. Okay. Prove it. Does everyone recognize the absurdity of that?

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How come we're laughing? Because we all recognize that if he's the eternal God, if he has self -attesting authority, if he's the ultimate authority, then there's nothing behind him, above him, below him, or anywhere else that he can appeal to.

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It's just based upon what? His word. He's the ultimate authority.

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He says this, but not that. Where's the conflict come in? Satan comes in, and what's he say?

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And it's the sum of all of life. It goes into every religion. It goes into every movement of man.

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What's the challenge? Have God said.

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So you have one voice, the voice of God, the ultimate authority. He says this, but not that. Here's the consequence.

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Satan comes in and says, did God really say that? No. You won't die. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

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In other words, determining good and evil for yourself. He says it's evil? Wrong. Do it, and you'll prove that you'll determine.

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You'll be the self -determiner. You'll say what's right, and you'll say what's wrong. And so what happened that day?

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Exactly what God said, and then he promises the Messiah. But the beginning of the conflict of epistemology begins in Genesis.

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Not on Mars Hill. Not at the Areopagus. It's as simple as saying,

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God's the ultimate authority. You've got God's voice and Satan's voice. What should

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Adam and Eve have done that day? They should have simply obeyed the voice of God, yielded to him, rejected the conflicting voice.

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You see that story run through the pages of the Old Testament revelation, where in Deuteronomy 13, 1 through 5,

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God warns his people in his law. He says, even if someone comes and has signs, and they have wonders, it looks so legit.

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It looks like this is the movement of God. Miracles are happening. We're seeing legs get extended.

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People are falling over, and there's holy laughter. We're seeing people being raised from the dead.

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We're seeing legitimate miracles and glitter falling from the ceilings. But what's the test?

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What's the test? God says in Deuteronomy 13, 1 through 5, he says, if they lead you after another

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God, God that you have not known, that's how you know he's a lying prophet.

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So for God, in Deuteronomy 13, when he gives the law to his people, what's the foundation point he gives them?

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Even if it looks real, it looks legit, it's miracles happening. But they contradict

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God's previous revelation of himself, that's how you know they're a false teacher. That's how you know they're a false prophet.

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So you see from Genesis, moving into Deuteronomy, the standard is always what? God's revelation.

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His self -disclosure is the test. That's the standard. That's how God protects his people. If they contradict what

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God has said about himself, that's how you know they're a false prophet. Another example, and we can do this again for days, in Isaiah 8, 20, one of my favorite little verses in Scripture, it says, to the law and to the testimony, if they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no light in them.

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What's that saying? In Isaiah's day, they've got the law, God's been moving in history,

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Isaiah has so much to say about Christ, and what's he saying? He says, to the law and to the testimony.

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If they don't speak according to this word, it is because they are still in darkness. They have no light in them.

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So what's the test for Isaiah the prophet? The law and the testimony,

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God's revelation. If they don't speak according to this, it's because they have no light in them. What do you see in the example of Jesus?

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Two points, Matthew 15 and Matthew 22. Just two quick points so you can grab hold of how did

56:23

Jesus do it? Because here's the deal, ready? I want to be like Jesus. Do you? I want to follow him.

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This is God incarnate. This is God taking on flesh. If we want to know what righteousness really is, if we want to know what wisdom really looks like in this world, there's no better place to look than when

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God takes on flesh. How are we supposed to think? How are we supposed to love?

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How are we supposed to move and live in this world? Well, when God took on flesh and walked among us, he showed us.

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And in Jesus' day, did you know, did you know, that in Jesus' day, the Jewish people,

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Paul says in Romans chapter 3, first section of Romans chapter 3,

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I think it's verses 2, verse 2, he says the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

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The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. God's people had been given God's word and they were entrusted with it.

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Did you know that the Jewish people in the first century had laid up in the Jewish temple the words of God?

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And guess what those words were? The Old Testament revelation that you have in your

57:40

Bible. Do you know what the Jews of Jesus' day rejected? The Apocrypha.

57:48

If you look at the difference between a Roman Catholic Bible and a Christian Bible, what will you notice? There are some added books in the

57:55

Roman Catholic canon, right? Different. They added books that the Jews themselves never accepted as scripture.

58:01

They knew they existed. Of course, Jesus and the apostles knew they existed, but they didn't accept them as divine scripture.

58:09

They accepted them as valuable historical works. They had some contradictions in them. They say that Nebuchadnezzar was ruling over Nineveh.

58:19

Where was Nebuchadnezzar ruling over? Don't be afraid. Say it. Babylon. So there's historical errors, all that stuff.

58:26

But the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. They had what was divine scripture laid up in the Jewish temple.

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These are the words of God. But do you know what else they had? They had divine tradition that was passed down, they said, from Moses himself.

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So you know it's good. They had the scriptures. They knew the oracles of God, but they also had divine tradition, passed down straight from Moses.

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If you really want to get people to believe your tradition, you connect it to someone like a heavy hitter. Like, here's a tradition we're going to be doing now, and why should

59:02

I do that? Because this is all the way back from Peter. Can you prove that?

59:09

No? Just believe it on my say -so. But it sounds good, doesn't it? Well, the Jews did that too, and they had a rule called the

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Korban rule. And the Korban rule was a particular rule about money in the temple, and they come to Jesus, and a conflict ensues in Matthew 15.

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You can go read it later. Here's how the incarnate son of God deals with a conflict between Scripture and supposed divine tradition.

59:32

He says about their tradition, he says, you say, and he quotes their tradition.

59:39

He says, but Moses says, and he quotes Scripture. And he says, thus you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

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So how does God as a man tell us to deal with religious traditions, religious claims?

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Jesus says, here's what God says in his word. Here's what your tradition says. It contradicts.

01:00:02

Therefore your tradition invalidates the word of God. Makes it void. So when

01:00:07

God becomes a man, he gives us the example of you test religious claims and religious traditions by the word of the living

01:00:16

God. Next, in Matthew 22, there was a controversy.

01:00:22

Go there and look at this, because it's a powerful way to show a lot of things. But in Matthew 22, there was a controversy.

01:00:36

In verse 29, Jesus deals with it, and it's about the resurrection. Sadducees versus the

01:00:45

Pharisees. They try to present a question to Jesus that deals with one of the controversies of their day.

01:00:53

And Jesus says in verse 29 of chapter 22 in Matthew, he says, but Jesus answered them.

01:01:01

Here's how he deals with their controversy. You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

01:01:10

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

01:01:25

And he quotes scripture. I'm the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

01:01:31

And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. But what did he do? How did he solve the controversy in his day with this religious dispute?

01:01:41

They're trying to challenge with this religious controversy they have. And Jesus says, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

01:01:48

He basically tells them, you're ignorant of the scriptures. Here's what God has said. But get this, here's the powerful thing.

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Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? He takes the word of God spoken long before this moment, and he says, haven't you read what

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God spoke to you? He brings the word of God to bear on them and holds them accountable for the speech of God.

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Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? And by the way, let's all commit to mastering that in our own hearts and minds and practice.

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This is God speaking. When you're hurting, when you're broken, when you're lonely, somebody might say,

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I just wish God would speak to me. I just wish he would say something to me. You have that.

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That's what Jesus said about the word. Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? You want comfort from God?

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You want answers from God? You don't need a modern day living prophet. You have the very speech of God right in front of you.

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These are the words of God. So in terms of foundations, God's word is the foundation, and I want to give you one more example, and we can give you numerous examples of this.

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The example of the apostles. How did the apostles buttress their point? How did they ground their point?

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Read Matthew. Read Romans. When the prophets, when the apostles, new covenant documents, are giving us the word of God, they will say, what does the scripture say?

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And they'll quote the word of God. Paul doesn't just simply pull rank on people and say, believe this because I say so.

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When he wants to demonstrate his gospel, what's he say? It's in accordance with the scriptures. You want to know?

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He says, what does the scripture say? What does the scripture say? And he quotes the word of God. He's building his gospel, his case, upon previous revelation from God, saying, this is what the word of God says.

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In Matthew's gospel, we've been doing this forever. In Matthew's gospel, he keeps saying, Isaiah says, this was to fulfill the word from the prophet here and there.

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The word of God was the foundation. That's the example of the apostles and the writers of the New Testament. They used the word of God as the foundation.

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Final words here on methodology. When we reach the

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Mormons, or anybody, we talk about the authority of scripture, and God's word is the foundation for certainty.

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We need to also hang on to this word from Isaiah in terms of God preserving

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His word. Isaiah 40, verse 8. What's it say?

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Anyone know that verse? Isaiah 48? The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our

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God stands forever. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever.

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God's word endures. I'll give you another one. 1 Peter 1. Go there. I want you to have these in your toolbox.

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In 1 Peter, here's what

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Peter says. Chapter 1, verse 24. Well, let's start in verse 23.

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Here's what the apostle Peter says. Since you've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God, for all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass.

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The grass withers, and the flower fails, but the word of our Lord remains forever.

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It's the apostle Peter confirming what they know from the previous prophets, that God's word will endure forever.

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So when Mormons and other cultists will say to you, the word of God has been destroyed.

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We don't know what it is. It's been corrupted and mistranslated. First of all, you can demonstrate that it's absolutely not true.

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It's actually the contrary. But we need to go back to this. What did God say about His own word?

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That it would endure forever. These other things in the world, they'll perish, but the word of God endures forever.

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It will not pass away. Jesus said as much in Matthew 24, 35. He said heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will by no means pass away.

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The word of God is always set against the things that perish and go away. The word of God is enduring.

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So when we talk about the foundation of our fight, when we go and minister to our Mormon friends and neighbors, we're going with the word of God as our authority.

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And we're testing the claims of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and Orson Pratt and Joseph Fielding Smith and all the

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Mormon prophets. We're testing them by the word of the living and true God. And His word endures forever.

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So that's today. Next week, I want to teach you how to get into a fight.

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Okay? I want to show you how to apply the word of God in these different areas.

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When they say to you certain claims about the corruption of the scriptures, or when they talk about particular verses in the

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Bible, how do we engage with them? I'm going to try to give you a little bit of a toolbox on how to engage with your

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Mormon friends and neighbors. Here's why. Not to win debates. Not to beat them with a

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Bible. Not to feel really good about yourself because you really humbled a Mormon. Our goal is to reach them with the true

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Christ and the true gospel so they will know God. We want Mormons to come to know

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Christ so they can experience the peace of God in Jesus Christ.

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We want them to know the true God. We're not simply trying to get people on our team.

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We are trying to reach the lost. Let's pray that God will grant to us the ability to do that. Let's pray.

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God, thank You for Your word. I do pray that as we spend time over today and next week, we would spend time not merely trying to memorize things that will allow us to refute the false claims of the

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Mormon church, but I pray that You would allow us to pray for and to develop even more of a burden for our

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Mormon neighbors and all those who are lost around us. I pray that You would grant to us the strength to love, to truly love them.

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Grant to us the ability to be humble and to see them through Your eyes. And we do pray,

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Lord God, for a movement of Your Spirit through Your word and gospel that would

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Lord, change the world and Lord, draw all of these Mormon friends and family members to You.