Jeff Durbin: Reaching Our Mormon Neighbors
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- If you want to open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 11, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, hopefully it's a section of scripture most of you are familiar with, being a part of a church like Apologia Church with a body that is as sacrificial as ours is out there.
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- This is a familiar verse because of constant engagement with the world and all the different Gospels and all the different spirits and all the different versions of Jesus.
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- In 2 Corinthians chapter 11 starting in verse 1, the
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- Apostle Paul writes to a first century church not long, this is important as you hear this from the words of God, this is not very long after the life, the death, the resurrection and ascension of the
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- Son of Man. So this is fairly recent stuff after the resurrection of Jesus.
- 01:02
- The Apostle Paul in the first century of the church has to say these words. Hear now the word of the living and the true
- 01:09
- God. I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. 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'm 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 proclaims, 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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- Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's praise God's people. Lord, thank you for your word, thank you for your truth, thank you for guarding your church by your spirit, under the rule of your word.
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- We pray God today, please Lord, bless our church with hearts that long to see our
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- Latter -day Saint neighbors come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Grant to us,
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- Lord, a humility with them, a boldness with your truth with them.
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- Grant to us, Lord, the ability to see with your eyes, to love the lost, and to be willing to sacrifice ourselves on their behalf.
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- I pray that by your spirit you give us strength, perseverance, for this mission field that you have planted us in.
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- We do pray for our local community of Latter -day Saints, that you, Lord, would open the eyes of the blind in grant faith.
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- We do also pray, Lord, globally for Latter -day Saints to come to know the true
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- Jesus and the true gospel. It's in Jesus' name we pray this, amen. So it's interesting because here we are in Mesa, Arizona.
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- We are surrounded by Latter -day Saints. Some of these Latter -day Saints are classical
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- Mormons, they understand Mormon doctrine, they understand their history. They're old school Mormons and many of them are the more modern contemporary
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- Mormons or Latter -day Saints that don't have a lot of understanding of their own church's teachings, their own church's history.
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- There has been so much change and transformation within Mormonism. And I'm talking about Salt Lake proper.
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- In the last two decades, it's been amazing to actually see where the modern
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- Mormons go now with their own theological beliefs. Very different, but it's a huge mission field for us locally.
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- You know, if we were in Dearborn, Michigan, if we were a local church in Dearborn, Michigan, I would hope that we would have regular contact in the sermons with the mission field that's all around us.
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- And what would that mission field be in Dearborn? Islam, right? If you were in Dearborn, Michigan, living in Dearborn, working in Dearborn, you'd be surrounded by a field that is ripe for the harvest of Muslims.
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- And you would want to prepare yourself as a local church to be able to interact because you're going to run into them. I mean, let me ask you this just right now for context.
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- How many of you within the last two weeks have seen Mormon missionaries riding by on bicycles or walking around?
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- How many of you guys? Raise your hands. Wow, right? That's the community we live in. And it's my hope that we would never lose sight of the fact that the
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- Lord has sovereignly planted us in a community where we can reach Latter -day Saints. And you have been planted in a church body that has a very special love for Mormons and a lot of history with reaching them and seeing them come to Christ.
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- If we were in Rome, if we were all living in Rome and a local church in Rome, who would we be preparing to meet mostly?
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- Anyone know? Roman Catholics, right? So here we are. The Lord's planted us here in Mesa, Arizona.
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- Many of us were all over the valley, but this is a place that has a very large demographic when it comes to Latter -day
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- Saints. Some of those Latter -day Saints today are nominal and some are more devoted.
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- Some are more contemporary, but we have an amazing opportunity to reach them. And so our history as a church started, if you don't know this, when
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- I was 18 years old, I had met a Mormon back where I used to live in Washington, D .C.
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- I had a profession of faith and I began to dig into Mormonism while I was there. And when I moved to Arizona, I saw a big billboard up and it said the
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- Mormon Easter pageants was going on. And so I didn't know anybody here. I didn't know any Christians. I just packed my backpack full of tracts and my
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- Bible and a bunch of Mormon books and documents. And I showed up at the Mormon temple and I was there by myself.
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- And thankfully, I saw a group of Christians out there ministering to Mormons just like I wanted to do.
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- And at one point I saw a crowd of Mormon missionaries and young Mormons surrounding a really nerdy looking scholar.
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- And they were surrounding him and they were all peppering him with questions. And what was incredible to me is to see this man
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- I'd never met before in my life answering all the questions with grace, with humility, but also with clarity and boldness.
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- And I was so inspired by it to see this person just surrounded by Mormons and they're all just trying to take a piece of them.
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- And he's answering each question in turn. And it was inspiring to see that other Christians loved
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- Mormons enough to go out and to reach them in this kind of bold way where they were all at.
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- And of course learned right after that, I asked a person that was standing there who it turns out was
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- Rich Pierce and James needs to be nicer to him. Some of you guys got that joke.
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- Not really, but Rich Pierce was there and I said, hey, who is that guy? And he said, that's
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- James White. And I was like, James White, like the King James only controversy
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- James White? He's like, yeah, that's him. It turns out that was the first Christian book I'd ever read was the King James only controversy.
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- And now he was standing there in front of me and also who was there was, I think Summer was probably there.
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- Yes, she was very small. She was there handing out tracts. And I also met Jerry there, actually engaged with the
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- Latter -day Saints for a long time, had never met Jerry in my life.
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- We just had this conversation with the Mormon. We were both engaging with him and giving them the gospel, going to scripture. And then as soon as the guy walked away,
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- Jerry and I smiled at each other, shook hands and walked away from each other. And we met each other years later in a
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- Starbucks. But that was really inspiring to me to see the Christians actually out there. Now, I bring that up for a reason.
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- When I was going out there to preach the gospel, there were times like we're about to do right now during Christmas lights where we would go out there and we would start at six o 'clock at night and I wouldn't return home till three or four o 'clock in the morning.
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- And the reason why is because we were actually out there having conversations with Latter -day
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- Saints till like three or four o 'clock in the morning. And it was some of the most amazing time of evangelism
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- I've ever had in my entire life. I fell more deeply in love with the Latter -day Saints through that mission than I ever even imagined
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- I would. But what was interesting was that we would go out to preach the gospel to Mormons.
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- We'd give them tracts. We were seeing Mormons come to Christ, but we had a lot of resistance from Christians who would hear about this ministry and say, that's not how you reach those people.
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- Or Christians that would show up to say, come look at the Christmas lights and they would just condemn us saying, you shouldn't be out here doing this.
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- This is not how you reach these people. These people are fine, leave them alone. And I always was struggling with the fact that Christians would recognize that the
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- Latter -day Saints have a different gospel. They have a different Jesus, but they weren't willing to sacrifice with their lives to go out there on the street and maybe even be vilified or to sacrifice their time to reach the
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- Latter -day Saints who were in desperate need of Jesus Christ. And so we were told, don't go out there.
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- That's too harsh. That's too heavy handed. That's not how you reach those people. But I was seeing Latter -day
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- Saints have the lights come on. I was seeing Latter -day Saints come to Jesus. I even saw a
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- Mormon missionary. You've heard this story before, a Mormon missionary on his mission at the visitor's center, installed there at the temple.
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- I even saw him turn to Jesus Christ. And the very next day he was out on the sidewalk with us handing out tracts.
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- And we were being told by local Christians, don't do that. That's not how you reach those people. And one of the most amazing blessings to me over the last two decades of ministry is to see how many
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- Latter -day Saints have come to Christ around the world through watching the contents.
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- Now, we were doing this ministry anyway before there were any recording devices or cameras or anything.
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- And then we decided to start recording the conversations to bless the church, to encourage the church. I'll be honest.
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- I think one of the main reasons that I wanted to record the conversations is I wanted other
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- Christians to shut up. Now, I don't mean that offensively. I meant stop and think for a minute.
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- Look what's happening out here. Look how God is moving out here. You can't condemn this work.
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- Look how God moves when you bring his truth to this mission field. I wanted them to see, look, you actually can go and reach these people in this way.
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- And what God has done is he's raised up so many Christians and inspired them to go out and start reaching
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- Mormon missionaries and other local Mormons in their own communities through the work that our church has invested in.
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- But I wanna say that God has brought thousands upon thousands of Mormons to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through our evangelistic efforts.
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- But I wanted to ask us the question as a church body, do we love them truly and care enough for their souls to continuously reach into that community and to preach the truth to them?
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- See, my fear for myself is that I'll become indifferent to the
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- Mormon community. My fear of myself is that I will lose the passion that I always have had where when
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- I see Mormon missionaries riding in my neighborhood, I would run to go engage with them.
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- My fear is that I'll lose that passion and love for them. My fear is that I'll lose sight of the fact that these people are made in the image of God, that they have a false
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- Christ, that they have a false gospel, that they're on their way to hell. I'll lose sight of that.
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- I'll become indifference and then I'll abandon that community. I wanna challenge myself first and foremost before I challenge you, do
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- I really love them? And then I think a bigger question to ask after that is this, do
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- I really believe that this is true? And that God has so clearly communicated to us about who he is and what the gospel it is that we can actually define it, that we can proclaim it.
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- Do we really believe that they have a false Christ and a false God that they are going to perish?
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- Do I really believe that? And am I willing to sacrifice myself for their good?
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- That's the question. Do we really believe that only Christ saves? These are the questions, really the sermon is first preached to me.
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- I want you to know that. I'm bringing this to you in terms of challenging myself as well. We're all human.
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- We all fail. We all have sin to deal with. We all have to deal with our flesh. And these are the things
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- I challenge myself with. I've seen so many Latter -day Saints come to Christ, but have I become indifferent to that myself?
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- Am I treating that like it's no big deal? Right, like we've had this conversation before, right church?
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- In one of the other ministries we have with End Abortion Now. Early on, some of you guys were there at the start.
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- Early on, if we saved a baby, it was party time.
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- It was the biggest thing ever. Tears were shed. It was just an explosive experience that there was actually a baby saved.
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- A baby is alive now that would have been killed because we were actually out there.
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- God saved a baby. And I have said that now that God has saved tens of thousands of babies through the work of our church and End Abortion Now, I'm worried about myself that I will become jaded to those stories of another baby that was saved.
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- Another life that was saved. I worry about that in myself. Do you guys worry about that for yourselves?
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- That you just become jaded to the miracles of God? That he's just saving all these babies? That these Mormons are coming to Christ?
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- I really want to challenge myself as I challenge you. Are we persevering?
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- And are we truly loving them? Or is it just something that we're saying? Is it just a mere profession?
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- That's the challenge I want to have to myself and to us as a body. So do we really believe that Christ is who he says he is and that only the true
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- Jesus saves? You know this verse. So I'm not instructing you here. You know this verse,
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- John 14 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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- What? Listen, you know that that is essential
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- Christian truth. That is like the baseline of the Christian faith. There is one God.
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- There's one mediator between God and man. The man Christ Jesus. There's only one way to salvation. That's through Jesus Christ.
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- We take it for granted, right, in a church like ours, that that's like essential stuff. That's like die by that.
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- Let goods and kindred go. Your mortal life also over a truth like that. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
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- No man comes to the Father but by him. But brothers and sisters, admit it, we live in an age where even professing
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- Christians, even the professing church in the West today doesn't necessarily believe that.
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- That it's only through Christ. And that if you don't have Christ, you will spend eternity separated from God in hell.
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- Look, that is the essence of the Christian faith. That Jesus is the only way to salvation.
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- And here's the challenging thing. Here's the challenging thing. There is such a large population of people in our community that say the
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- Christian words. They speak Christianese. They say Jesus. They say
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- Heavenly Father. They say Holy Bible. They say salvation. They say baptism.
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- They speak our language. The problem is, as though they speak Christianese, they mean an entirely different God, an entirely different gospel, an entirely different authority.
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- It is not minimal differences. So I'll give you an example right now. How many of you guys are in here have
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- Presbyterian commitments? You're Presbyterian, don't be afraid. You're safe. Raise your hands, raise your hands.
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- Okay, so good. All right, so one kid in here said, that's me, okay. We actually have a lot of people in our body that are deeply committed to Presbyterian particular beliefs about church leadership and paedo -baptism and all those things.
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- And you are our brothers and sisters. And we believe the same essential things. And we are in fellowship.
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- And we are in unity together. But we have some differences, right?
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- Between Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists. There's some differences. We think some of those differences are pretty important and have consequences, but they're not enough to divide us as the church.
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- But they are differences. And if you wanna know, well, what's the main difference between, say, Presbyterians and Baptists is that we are right, they're wrong.
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- That's the central issue. Now, okay, but I can talk, listen. Why can I talk like that?
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- Why can I even joke like that? Because there's one body. There's one body of Christ.
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- And we do have some differences. You know, some of you guys may have seen, I posted yesterday, one of my very favorites, giants in church history.
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- To my mind, I will never, and I believe this, I'm being honest with you right now and sincere.
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- I will never be half the Christian man that this man was, J .C.
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- Ryle. J .C. Ryle, who wrote the book, Holiness, if you don't have it in your library tonight before you go to bed, order it and read it as soon as you can.
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- Read it at least once a year. It will kick your teeth in and challenge you. It'll make you love
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- Jesus more. J .C. Ryle was an Anglican Bishop. He's Anglican.
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- I have very serious concerns about the Anglican Church in terms of church and state and those sorts of things.
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- But that's a giant of the Christian faith. J .C. Ryle, I mean it.
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- I'll never be half the Christian man that that man was. And if you read his writings, you will agree with me.
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- He's a giant, a prophet that God raised up in a sense. But there's differences. Christians have differences between us.
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- But those differences are on the minor issues, the non -essential issues.
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- We are together at the core. We are one unified body over the essentials. And one of the things that is a non -negotiable within the
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- Christian faith is the identity and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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- Who is Jesus? And how do I come to know God? And though the
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- Latter -day Saints around us speak our language, they are giving people a false
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- God and a false gospel that will never save. And here's the challenge for all of us.
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- You have one of the most amazing, and I truly mean this, communities of people who are perishing, who are perishing.
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- And you've heard me say this before too, brothers and sisters. People have said to me, I don't have the kind of courage you have to go out there to the temple and to reach
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- Mormons. That seems super scary to me. And I feel like this is like low -risk evangelism because Mormons are some of the nicest and sweetest and most amazing people you will ever meet.
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- Like if I had a choice to live somewhere, I had a couple choices. One of the places I'd choose to live would be right outside Salt Lake City because they built some of the most amazing communities and families and all the rest.
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- I love the Mormon people. And you have nice, decent, wonderful human beings made in God's image who are on their way to hell because they're worshiping a false
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- God. And one of the things, again, I have to ask myself constantly is, do I actually love them enough to be willing to stay consistent and to persevere for their good?
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- Jesus says, I am the way. No man comes to the Father but by me.
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- Do you believe that? Okay, do you believe it? You believe it for yourself, amen?
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- Yes? But do you believe it for them? Do you believe it for them? Simple message tonight, this
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- Sunday, is to challenge us as a church for where God has us planted. I'm not saying all of us have to go to the
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- Mormon temple. I'm not saying that. I hope you go. I hope you go. I think you'll be blessed by it. But I am saying this is where God has planted us and this massive community is all around us and they need
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- Jesus. They need him. Do we believe that Jesus Christ and only
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- Christ saves? He's the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by him.
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- One of the tests that God has given to us in his word that applies in so many different areas is in Deuteronomy chapter 13.
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- There's a number of ways to go about this, but in Deuteronomy chapter 13, a familiar verse to many of us,
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- God warns his people that even if somebody comes and they have signs and wonders, right?
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- It looks legitimately like they are from God. They're doing things that defy imagination and understanding.
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- They're doing things that have signs and wonders. It's very impressive. God says even if they have signs and wonders, but they lead you after another
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- God, a God which you have not known, that's how you know that they're a false prophet.
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- So one of the things, listen, that applies even to the ministry of Jesus and the apostle
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- Paul is that even with the miraculous happening in the first century, which was a fulfillment of prophecy,
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- God said it was gonna happen in Joel chapter two. It was happening in their day. Even with the signs and the wonders that were happening, the test, the standard still was, if this person contradicts what
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- God has said about himself, that's how you know they're a false prophet. So get that, listen, we're not applying this test simply to Joseph Smith and saying we just really have it out for the
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- Mormons. We don't like Joseph Smith Jr. And he was a charlatan and a con artist and all the rest.
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- And so that's why we don't like him. No, we're applying the testing. This is the biblical test. Now you're all familiar with this too.
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- This, how is it applied in the New Testament? Do you remember this? When the apostle Paul, clearly an inspired apostle, when he comes in to the church in Berea, what happens?
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- What does it said about the Berean Christians? What's it said about them? Is that they searched the scriptures daily to see if what the apostle
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- Paul was saying was so. Now, listen, this is interesting because this is the apostle
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- Paul. He wrote much of the New Testament that you have in your Bibles. This is the apostle
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- Paul. God uses him, of course, and the other apostles, but God uses the apostle Paul to bring the gospel around the entire known world within a generation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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- I mean, it's unmatched, unparalleled in human history what God did through a single inspired apostle.
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- And when he comes to Berea, it says this about those Christians in Berea, that they were more noble minded than the ones at Thessalonica.
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- Because when the apostle Paul, an inspired apostle, is teaching them, they are searching the scriptures daily to see if what
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- Paul was saying was the truth. So they weren't just saying, right on, Paul, I accept your authority.
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- My mouth is open and just start pouring in the teachings, right? I'll just blindly follow.
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- They said, no, no, no. My responsibility before God is to see if what you're saying is consistent with what
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- God has already revealed. That is the rule of faith. That is solo scriptura in action.
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- That the revelation of God is always supreme. And so God has given to his people for thousands of years, that standard.
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- It doesn't matter what it appears to be on the outside. It doesn't matter what it looks like.
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- If they lead you after a different God, that's how you know that they're a false prophet and they are not from God.
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- One of the texts from the Old Testament that highlights this is
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- Isaiah 8, verse 20. I hope many of you have this memorized. 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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- That's an Isaiah's date, about 700 years before the time of Christ. The prophet Isaiah is saying, if they don't speak according to the law and to the testimony, to the words of God, it's because they have no light in them.
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- What's it mean to have no light in them? They are filled with darkness. And so the test then throughout all of redemptive history is the word of God.
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- His revelation is the standard. What does God say? And I wanna say this, we can't apply this standard simply to our favorite false teachers and false prophets and say it's for them only.
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- That's the standard for you with your pastor. One of the things that we say in our membership class, you guys are familiar with this.
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- One of the things we say is we say, okay, look, here's how God's organized the church. Here's our convictions as a church.
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- This is what the Bible says about elders and pastors, multiple pastors over a congregation. And the pastors do have authority in your life.
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- But that is an authority that is under Jesus. It's a delegated authority.
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- Meaning this, if I say something to you as a pastor, that is my own personal interpretation or opinion, that is not binding on your conscience.
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- I have no right as a minister of the gospel or as a shepherd to give you my own personal likes and dislikes and bind them to your consciences or to take my own personal traditions and say, this is how you live your life.
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- And this is law for you now. You can disregard everything I say that is not consistent with the words of God.
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- So that standard of God's word and revelation being supreme is something you apply across the board to everybody, to Jesus, to Paul, to Joseph Smith, to your own pastor.
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- The word of God is supreme, amen? So that's the start of this conversation. When we talk about reaching
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- Latter -day Saints with the gospel, the start of the conversation is this, by what standard?
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- Who says? By what standard? Who says? Because listen, and you all know this.
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- If you've been in Arizona for any length of time, you've ever had a conversation with Latter -day Saints, what do they want you to do with the
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- Book of Mormon? What do they want you to do? They want you to read the Book of Mormon and what?
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- Pray. And what do they promise you about that course of action?
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- If you take this Book of Mormon, this Another Testament of Jesus Christ given by Joseph Smith, Jr.,
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- the prophet, if you take this and read this Other Testament of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will bear witness to you, and you will experience a what?
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- A burning in your bosom. That's their standard. I want you to test this by how you feel about it.
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- By how you feel. Can I ask you a question? Have any of you had any beliefs that you are passionate about corrected over the last two decades?
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- Yeah? Do you ever have something that you believed with all of your heart and now you know that you were absolutely wrong?
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- Anybody like that or is this me? Okay. But you felt like it was true. Maybe you were engaged in a certain lifestyle that you felt like it feels good to me.
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- It feels right to me. What's the Bible say about us as human beings? It says the heart is deceitful above all things.
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- It is sick beyond cure. Who can know it? We can't trust our own hearts.
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- And yet the Mormon church is telling people, it's not the word of God that's the standard. That's not what you stand on.
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- That's not what you appeal to. You want to appeal to a private experience. You want to appeal to how you feel about this.
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- You're asking people who are at war with God, who are fallen to trust their own heart, to trust their own thoughts.
- 29:38
- But what does scripture say to the law and to the testimony? If they do not speak according to this word it's because there is no light in them.
- 29:48
- And so scripture tells us that we use the word of God as the standard. I'll give you one more as a reference.
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- In Matthew chapter 15, here's what I love so much about this is that it's Jesus doing it.
- 29:59
- It is God incarnate, God in the flesh who is doing this in his day. In Jesus' day, the
- 30:06
- Jews had, of course, the scriptures of the Old Testament laid up in that second temple.
- 30:12
- Did you know that? They had certain books that if they would touch their hands would become unclean, right?
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- They would see themselves as somehow saying, I'm not supposed to even be touching this. This is so holy. Paul says in Romans chapter three, he says that the
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- Jews, the people of God, were entrusted with the very oracles of God.
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- They knew what the words of God were. They had the words of God there.
- 30:39
- And they had something else. And you've seen this in a New Testament. If you read the gospel records, you know this.
- 30:45
- They had the very words of God. They knew what scripture was, but they also had traditions.
- 30:52
- Now, listen, this is important. They had traditions that they even claimed had, you could trace them all the way back to Moses.
- 31:01
- So they had a rule called the Korban rule, a rule that you could trace all the way back to Moses, according to them.
- 31:09
- In their tradition, this is not in the Bible. It's not in the oracles of God. It's not in scripture. But we have a divine tradition handed down since the days of Moses.
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- It's the Korban rule. Now, I won't get into all the details of the Korban rule and how it worked out except to express this to you.
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- When Jesus is challenged, God incarnate, the one who gave us scripture, when he's challenged, here's what he does in his day to deal with divine tradition that the
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- Jews held to as from Moses. He says this, watch. Moses says, and then he quotes the law of God.
- 31:48
- And then he quotes their tradition. He says, and you say. He brings their tradition alongside the words of God.
- 31:57
- And he says this, thus you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition.
- 32:03
- Here is Jesus teaching his people as God incarnate. You use the very words of God as the measuring rod, even against very devoutly held
- 32:17
- Christian tradition or Jewish tradition. Here's God showing us
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- God's word, your word. You've made God's word void for the sake of your tradition.
- 32:30
- This is the standard that God gives to us. Now, when we talk about the
- 32:36
- Mormon community around us, I wanna encourage you all to think about it not in broad comprehensive terms.
- 32:46
- So for example, one of, okay. I have read so many books on the history of Mormonism, the history of Joseph Smith.
- 32:57
- I think Mormonism has one of the most fascinating histories of any cult that I have ever studied.
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- Seriously, it could be made into the most incredible television series.
- 33:12
- And it would blow people's minds to learn of all the things that Joseph Smith did and the funny money he printed and him being tarred and feathered and him engaging in sexual relationships with other women and then giving a command from God that polygamy is now a thing and his wife better follow along or she's gonna burn in hell forever.
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- I mean, that's in Doctrine and Covenants. You can read it for yourself. It is a fascinating study. It's fascinating to learn that when an
- 33:39
- Egyptian exhibit travels through town where the Mormons are and they have all of these Egyptian things, mummies and all these different scrolls and things that Joseph Smith said that,
- 33:50
- God has delivered to us the Book of Abraham and I can translate this.
- 33:57
- And he translates from this Egyptian scroll and we get the Pearl of Great Price.
- 34:04
- So today, if you have a quad, the Mormon quad where they have the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, you'll see the
- 34:12
- Pearl of Great Price in there. And it's fascinating that this exhibit comes through and listen, the contents from the
- 34:19
- Rosetta Stone hadn't really made it over to America yet. And so Joseph Smith said,
- 34:24
- I can interpret Egyptian. Now the problem was in that day, nobody could check them. Nobody could check them because he could have said anything he wanted.
- 34:33
- No one would have known if he was right or wrong. And so he gives a translation of this scroll that is now in your
- 34:42
- Pearl of Great Price. And lo and behold, we have that scroll today. He translated from and he didn't get one word right.
- 34:51
- He would translate numerous sentences off of one Egyptian word.
- 34:57
- He made the entire thing up. I find that absolutely fascinating.
- 35:03
- That level of deception is something that is beyond my comprehension, but he did it and I find it fascinating.
- 35:11
- I find it fascinating that Joseph Smith was known in his area as a local con artist and a treasure digger.
- 35:19
- I find it fascinating that in New England in that time in the area he was in, he was arrested in Bainbridge, New York for crystal ball gazing because in New England, in that area at the time, they still had biblical laws against occultism that Joseph Smith was engaged in.
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- And so he was arrested in 1827 for occultism, crystal ball gazing.
- 35:42
- How you like that? We're not a Christian nation. I find his history fascinating.
- 35:48
- And look, you could go for days talking about some strange things that happened. You could talk about Mountain Meadows Massacre with Brigham Young.
- 35:57
- You could talk about that whole strange history of the early beginnings of Mormonism. But brothers and sisters, I want to challenge you with this.
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- You could talk for hours about that and never get to light of the gospel. You could talk about Mormon underwear and coffee and, you know, they're staying away from coffee and tea and caffeine, but Mormons own all the caffeinated soda shops that are delicious, by the way.
- 36:21
- If you don't know, they're all over here at the soda shops, all Mormon. They make good soda. You can talk about the contradictions and all those things and you won't get to the light of the gospel.
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- I'm going to challenge us as a body to know what we believe about God, specifically what we know about the person of Jesus Christ and what we know and to know what we believe about the gospel itself.
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- What do Mormons believe about God? Yeah, this is where I'll let you guys talk, okay?
- 36:51
- What do Mormons believe about God? Raise your hand though so I can pick who I... We got kids raising their hand.
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- What do Mormons believe about God? God was once a man.
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- What else? Yes. That they will become gods themselves.
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- The goal of Mormonism is exaltation, becoming a god and goddess of your own planets.
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- So we have to understand that when you and I say, Heavenly Father, what do we mean?
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- From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. Psalm 90 verse 2. There is only one
- 37:36
- God by nature, one being of God. The Bible teaches that the Father is called
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- God. The Father is called Yahweh. Bible teaches that Jesus is called God. He is called Yahweh.
- 37:47
- Bible teaches that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Yahweh. Yet the Bible makes a distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- 37:54
- There are three persons who share the one being of God. That can be demonstrated by scripture. But Mormons believe when they say
- 38:01
- Heavenly Father, they mean literally he was a man who through physical relations with his goddess wives in the pre -existence produced you and I as spiritual offspring in the pre -existence.
- 38:18
- And we were then sent here. But it doesn't really start there with him because he had a father who did the same thing for him.
- 38:28
- And that father had a father who did the same thing for him. And it goes back and back and back to almost an infinite regression of gods.
- 38:36
- One Mormon apostle said there are more gods than there is matter. That's a lot of gods.
- 38:45
- That's a lot of gods. So Mormonism is polytheistic to its core. And Mormons today, modern
- 38:50
- Mormons say, well, you know, not technically polytheism because we only worship one God. You could say that about Hinduism as well.
- 38:57
- How many gods are there in Hinduism? Millions upon millions, right? Millions upon millions.
- 39:03
- And they are polytheistic. They don't worship every one of those gods. They have sometimes their favorite one, the select one they worship.
- 39:11
- They're still polytheists. Mormons believe in many gods. More gods than there is matter.
- 39:18
- So when they say Heavenly Father, they don't mean what Jesus meant when he said
- 39:24
- Heavenly Father. Joseph Smith said this in Journal of Discourses, volume 6, page 3, 1844, his most famous sermon.
- 39:36
- He said, I will prove that the world is wrong by showing what God is. I'm going to inquire after God for I want you all to know him and to be familiar with him.
- 39:46
- You will then know that I am his servant for I speak as one having authority. So this isn't his own private opinion.
- 39:53
- This is Joseph Smith speaking as a prophet. And he says, I will go back to the beginning before the world was to show what kind of being
- 40:00
- God is. God himself was once as we are now and is an exalted man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.
- 40:09
- That is the great secret. I say if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form like yourselves and all the person, image and very form as a man.
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- And here it is. It is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so.
- 40:28
- For I'm going to tell you how God came to be God. We've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil and do away the veil so that you may see.
- 40:40
- How would you respond to that? God became
- 40:45
- God. He hasn't always been God. And then Joseph goes on to say this.
- 40:52
- Here then is eternal life to know the only wise and true God. Hey, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Where's that from?
- 40:58
- Anyone know? Now, let's listen how the false prophets mix together truth with error.
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- Here's one example. I'll give you another one in a minute. Here then is eternal life to know the only wise and true
- 41:13
- God. That's from John 17. That's from Jesus' high priestly prayer.
- 41:20
- And then Joseph says, and you have got to learn how to be God's yourselves. God's not always been
- 41:27
- God. He became a God one day. You got to go through the same course that he did. And you've got to learn to become God's yourselves the same way all gods had done before you.
- 41:36
- So when Mormons use our language and they say Heavenly Father, they do not mean the
- 41:43
- God that you and I mean. They don't mean the same God that's revealed in Holy Scripture.
- 41:50
- And Joseph Smith says the whole world is wrong. Which world? The Christian world.
- 41:56
- They're all wrong. God was once a man like us and became a God one day through exaltation.
- 42:03
- So in Mormonism, when they say God, they mean a pantheon of gods. Many, many gods.
- 42:09
- You've got to learn to become God's yourselves the same way all gods have done before you. So the goal in Mormonism is exaltation.
- 42:17
- We want to, through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel, work our way through temple ceremonies, faithfulness and tithing, keeping the word of wisdom, whatever the case may be, so that we will become worthy to go through exaltation in the celestial kingdom like our
- 42:38
- Heavenly Father did where there will be polygamy, there will be goddess wives, and there will be celestial sects creating and populating planets just like the
- 42:50
- God of this earth did. That's what they believe. So now you get to the person of Christ.
- 42:57
- How do we do this? We talk about Mormon underwear and caffeine and we talk about all these differences. No, we stick to the essential issues.
- 43:04
- Who is God? What is the gospel? What do Mormons believe about Christ? That he was created?
- 43:16
- He's the brother of Lucifer? In Mormonism, when they say Jesus Christ, and this is the hard thing, admittedly, when you talk to a
- 43:24
- Mormon who passes you on the street on his bicycle and you stop him, you know, what do you believe about Jesus?
- 43:30
- Listen to what they'll say. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God. We believe that Jesus died and rose again.
- 43:38
- We believe that Jesus is Lord. We believe that Jesus is coming back again.
- 43:44
- And you sit there and you go, I thought this was a different religion I was dealing with.
- 43:50
- You are. They use our language and they pour entirely different definitions in.
- 43:58
- When they say Son of God, they don't mean what you mean. When they say Jesus died for sin, they don't mean what the scriptures teach.
- 44:08
- Mormons believe that Jesus is the offspring of Elohim, a resurrected
- 44:14
- God who became God one day. He, through a relationship with his goddess wives, produces
- 44:22
- Jesus and he produces Lucifer, Satan, and the rest of us.
- 44:28
- So in Mormonism, Jesus and Lucifer are brothers. Spiritual offspring of Heavenly Father and one of his wives.
- 44:38
- Brigham Young also taught about Jesus. Journal of Discourses, volume four, page 218.
- 44:50
- And this is taught in a number of Mormon prophets and apostles. When the time came that his firstborn, the
- 44:56
- Savior, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came himself and favored that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it.
- 45:08
- So whereas in the gospel according to Matthew, in Matthew 118, it says that the
- 45:13
- Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin Mary and it was by the agency of the
- 45:18
- Holy Spirit. It was a virgin conception, a virgin birth. Mormon prophets and apostles taught that Heavenly Father, Elohim, came down to earth to have a physical relationship with Mary to produce
- 45:31
- Jesus. So no longer a virgin birth or a virgin conception.
- 45:37
- This is taught by many Mormon prophets and Mormon apostles, which is actually interesting as we think about it.
- 45:44
- Elohim produces Jesus, Lucifer, Mary, and us as spiritual children in the pre -existence, sends
- 45:53
- Mary down to earth and then the Heavenly Father comes down to Mary and engages in incest with Mary to produce
- 46:00
- Jesus. It's a problem and a complication I don't think they really thought through, but it's there.
- 46:07
- In Mormonism, Jesus Christ, some Mormon prophets and apostles taught that He was a polygamist while on earth.
- 46:15
- They taught that His atonement began in the garden, was finished on the cross, and they teach that ultimately that Christ's atonement is not enough.
- 46:25
- It's not finished. What you must do to be reconciled, to be exalted one day, is you must, through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.
- 46:43
- That's in their articles of faith. Mormonism teaches that, yes, Jesus died, but that death is not enough.
- 46:50
- It's not able to perfect forever those who draw near to God through Him, as the writer of Hebrews says. That atonement was something that is to help you.
- 46:59
- The rest of the way depends upon you, your faithfulness, your obedience. Listen to it again in the article of faith.
- 47:05
- Most faithful Mormons will know these by heart. They're articles of faith. You can ask them to quote it.
- 47:12
- We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.
- 47:23
- Their religion is without question a religion based upon works for salvation.
- 47:31
- It is not grace through faith to the glory of God alone, as the scriptures teach.
- 47:38
- It is through their own efforts, their own labors, their own purifying themselves.
- 47:44
- They're making sure that their robes aren't stains. And another important verse, in terms of our evangelism with them, to contrast the words of Joseph Smith with the words of scripture, 2
- 47:56
- Nephi 25 -23. It's one of my very favorites because it shows the corruption.
- 48:02
- 2 Nephi 25 -23. Ready? For by grace are you saved. What would you say?
- 48:10
- By grace are you saved. And that it is not according to lest any man should.
- 48:21
- So you already know it. 2 Nephi 25 -23 in the Book of Mormon says, by grace are you saved after all you can do.
- 48:29
- Do you see? Do you see? The false teachers and false prophets will always mingle together
- 48:36
- God's truth with false teaching. They'll present Christ up front, and then when you get through the door, they give you a different version of Jesus.
- 48:46
- They give you a different gospel. They are robbing the Mormon people of God's gospel of peace.
- 48:52
- And so we focus in our evangelism with our Latter -day Saint friends and neighbors and family on who is the
- 48:59
- Mormon God, who is the Mormon Jesus, and what is the Mormon gospel? What do they teach about how a person is reconciled to God?
- 49:08
- Now, can I just challenge you all with something here? This is really important. Go to your
- 49:13
- Bibles into 2 John. It's near the end of your very, the very end of your
- 49:19
- Bible. 2 John, super short. 2
- 49:29
- John, John was the only apostle that wasn't martyred for his faith.
- 49:39
- I've told you before that church history says that Nero did try to kill John, boil him in a pot of oil, but he didn't die.
- 49:47
- So we actually have some amazing stories about the Apostle John from that next generation of Christians, those who were trained by John and then knew
- 49:55
- John and then their disciples, they all heard the stories of John. It's some fascinating stuff to learn about the history of the
- 50:02
- Apostle John and what he did after the death of all the apostles and destruction of Jerusalem. There's so much.
- 50:08
- But in this epistle, I want to point something out to us. Again, this is not long after the resurrection of Jesus.
- 50:18
- Why do I keep emphasizing that? I'm emphasizing that, brothers and sisters, because look, I'm pointing out that this has been something that has existed from the very earliest stages of the
- 50:29
- Christian church, where the Christian church has had to stand on the word of God and clearly communicate the identity of Jesus and the gospel itself.
- 50:38
- Because from the very earliest stages of the church, false teachers were coming into the church to corrupt the message of Jesus, to give another gospel, and to corrupt the identity of Jesus.
- 50:52
- So where do you see the apostles swinging? Think about this. In Paul's writings, it's one of the things we try to adopt here at Apologia Church.
- 51:02
- In Paul's writings, you see him, say, in the church of Corinth. He's trying to keep the church together in unity over, hey, just be quiet, just about those differences.
- 51:12
- Those are non -essential differences. Essentially, he's telling people, look, some people want to do it like this. Some people want to do it like that.
- 51:18
- His answer is, look, just shut up. Like, don't cause each other to stumble. Have it to yourself between you and God.
- 51:24
- Do what you do to the glory of God. But if this person wants to highlight this day, then all glory to God.
- 51:30
- Highlight the day. Another person doesn't want to do it, don't do it to the glory of God. If you want to eat meat sacrificed to idols, if it doesn't burden your conscience, eat that meat and celebrate.
- 51:39
- Do it to the glory of God. If you don't want to eat it because it violates your conscience, then don't eat it. We've tried to employ that here at Apologia Church on a number of levels.
- 51:48
- We're unified on the non -essential issues. You can have a healthy church body with Baptists and Presbyterians in one body.
- 51:57
- Amen. You can have a healthy church body with people who head cover and people who don't head cover.
- 52:04
- You could say, head cover to the glory of God and celebrate that sister who does. And you can say, don't head cover to the glory of God and you celebrate the sister who does.
- 52:13
- Amen. Yes. You can have all these differences. And in the New Testament, you see them saying, be unified.
- 52:19
- Outdo each other with honor. Forgive one another as God and Christ forgave you. Let love be without hypocrisy.
- 52:25
- Don't let it be pretending. But where do you see the Apostles swinging? And swinging hard and using a serrated edge.
- 52:35
- Anytime someone comes close to God and the gospel in terms of redefining
- 52:43
- God and redefining the gospel, the Apostles start swinging.
- 52:50
- And rightly so. We need to have that posture. Non -essentials, unity.
- 52:57
- Unity, graciousness in the non -essentials. But when it comes to the identity of Jesus Christ and the gospel itself, we swing hard like John does.
- 53:10
- The Apostle John writes this letter in 2 John. Just listen to it. He says in verse four,
- 53:22
- I rejoice greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father. And now
- 53:27
- I ask you, dear lady, not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning, that we love one another.
- 53:35
- And this is love that we walk according to his commandments. This is the commandment just as you have heard from the beginning so that you should walk in it.
- 53:42
- For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.
- 53:52
- Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.
- 54:05
- Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have
- 54:12
- God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 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.
- 54:28
- You know what he's talking about? You know what he's talking about? The early beginnings of Gnosticism that were starting to affect the church.
- 54:38
- Paul has to deal with them in the New Testament and John has to deal with them. These are people who were using
- 54:43
- Christian terminology. The Gnostics, they use Christian terminology. They talk about Messiah.
- 54:50
- They talk about Jesus. They talk about Son of God. But they taught, listen, that God would never, never sully himself by taking on human flesh because human flesh is part of this material realm and it's cursed and it's evil.
- 55:07
- God would never sully himself with taking on actual human flesh.
- 55:13
- The early beginnings of Gnosticism creep in and look what John does. He knows Jesus, by the way.
- 55:18
- He walked with Jesus. I'll take his advice. He says, there are people who do not confess that Christ has come in the flesh.
- 55:29
- Stop letting these people into your church. When he says, don't let them into your house, the early
- 55:36
- Christian church didn't have this benefit. They were kind of in hiding at times. They were on the run.
- 55:42
- It was dangerous to be a Christian in some places. They met in house churches. And so when John says, do not let them into your house, he's not talking about you not letting
- 55:53
- Mormons into your house. People have done that by the way, right? You can't allow
- 55:59
- Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons into your house because John says, don't let them into your house. We need to know our
- 56:04
- Bibles better and our history better. John's saying, don't let them into your church or even greet them.
- 56:10
- These false teachers are so dangerous. Don't share in their evil. Don't try to be nice to them. By the way, can
- 56:17
- I just say, I don't do everything perfectly. I'm still a work in progress. We all are, amen, yes. But fairly recently, this year,
- 56:27
- I can't, maybe six months ago, we had the opportunity, Pastor James and I to engage with a very, very popular false teacher today named
- 56:36
- Brandon Robertson. He's one of the leaders of the Christian LGBT movements and he's influencing a lot of people and spewing a lot of false teaching.
- 56:49
- And so we had the opportunity to get him on and you may have noticed, I hope you did, you may have noticed that I handled
- 56:58
- Brandon Robertson a little differently than I would handle the average Mormon on the streets. And I wanna say, because I wanna be guided by the word of God.
- 57:09
- And if scripture tells me to deal with false teachers like a Brandon Robertson or a Gnostic in a different way,
- 57:15
- I want to. I wanna do this in a way that exposes the evil and confronts.
- 57:21
- John says, don't even let them into your house. Don't share in their evil deeds. But why is
- 57:26
- John, think about this, why is John saying that? Because they were using
- 57:34
- Christian language, but they were denying an essential aspect of the identity of Jesus that God took on flesh to represent us.
- 57:45
- Listen, here's the thing. If Jesus isn't human, he can't represent you.
- 57:53
- If Jesus isn't human, if he didn't take on flesh, he can't be your representative.
- 57:58
- He can't save you from your sins. And so John says, these Gnostics that are using our language and trying to infiltrate our churches and look like one of us, don't let them into your house.
- 58:08
- They don't have God. They don't know him. And so as Christians, when scripture teaches us who
- 58:19
- Jesus is, we have to be willing to defend that because Jesus is the savior and the lover of our souls.
- 58:29
- The next issue that we want to make sure that we hang on, you notice I'm not doing a lot of instruction today about how to do this.
- 58:35
- I'm challenging you with what they believe and you need to prepare yourself to know how to engage these things.
- 58:43
- The gospel itself is the key issue. They don't have peace with God.
- 58:49
- They don't have peace with God. Listen, can I ask you a question?
- 58:56
- Think about this. For you, what's the most beautiful and important thing about the gospel?
- 59:05
- You don't have to shout it out loud. When you think about Jesus and what he did on that cross, when you think about his resurrection, you think about the salvation that he offers, what to you is the most precious thing about the gospel?
- 59:25
- I'll say it for me, him, Jesus. Like that to me, that's the good news.
- 59:36
- You get God. And he has you. Like the glory of the gospel is that you know him and he loves you.
- 59:48
- And you will spend all eternity with the one who laid his life down to save you and you were so unworthy of it.
- 59:56
- Like for the Christian, what makes heaven so amazing is that Jesus is there.
- 01:00:03
- And I belong to him. That's the glory of the gospel. And for the
- 01:00:10
- Mormon, it's not about knowing God and having
- 01:00:15
- God. For the Mormon, it is about progression to become a God one day of your own planet like the
- 01:00:23
- God of this earth did. It's not the gospel. It's not the Christian hope. They don't have peace with God.
- 01:00:34
- So brothers and sisters, in the bulletin today, I put as the soul food,
- 01:00:42
- I read it to you already. I'll read it again. Charles Spurgeon said, if sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies.
- 01:00:55
- And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay.
- 01:01:03
- If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for.
- 01:01:14
- I confess readily that many times in my life as a believer,
- 01:01:21
- I've lost my way. I've lost my passion. I've lost my love for the lost.
- 01:01:28
- I confess there have been times where I've just been indifferent to the loss that are all around me.
- 01:01:35
- And what I want, the Lord to do in me and in us as a church, is to have us as a body have the eyes of God for the lost and a desire to sacrifice for them.
- 01:01:50
- You see, we read those incredible stories, don't we, guys? We read those incredible stories of like missionaries who have like done crazy stupid things, right, with their lives.
- 01:02:02
- You're like, what are you doing, right? Like a missionary that goes and saves so many Chinese people that goes with like one leg, right?
- 01:02:10
- You're like, that's crazy. Or missionaries that go to places where they're going to be cannibalized, where like if they show up and try to preach the gospel, they're going to be killed and eaten.
- 01:02:20
- You know, Christians that go and set up orphanages and dangerous areas, they sacrifice their lives.
- 01:02:26
- And you think about like, that's a really special person. The person who's a missionary to some foreign land, like they're the real heroes, right?
- 01:02:32
- They're the real heroes. Those missionaries to foreign lands. Yeah, those are great stories and God gets the glory for those things and it's done by his spirit.
- 01:02:40
- Amen and amen. But can I challenge you to think about this? If you know Jesus and you know God's gospel, if this is where he's planted you, then you must be a missionary here.
- 01:02:51
- You have to think that way. I have to think that way. Will you challenge?
- 01:02:57
- This is what I challenge myself with and I'll end with this. Will you and I, if the
- 01:03:02
- Lord gives us many years, if he gives us many years and we die a death on our bed with our loved ones surrounding us and we have time to contemplate our lives and be thankful, if that's how the
- 01:03:19
- Lord allows us to go, I ask myself at times, will I then be convicted over my lack of love and sacrifice for the lost?
- 01:03:36
- Will I be convicted over all the areas of my life where I was a coward?
- 01:03:42
- Will I be convicted over all the areas of my life where I was so selfish, so self -absorbed, where I was living for the moment and not for eternity?
- 01:03:54
- I want God to give me eyes that look to the unseen.
- 01:04:00
- I want to be valuable for Jesus here in this life but I want to have a vision constantly as I look at the world into eternity.
- 01:04:12
- I pray that God gives that to us. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd bless the word that went out today that it would challenge us as your people to sacrifice and to be missionaries where you have us.
- 01:04:28
- We thank you, God, for the opportunity that we have. We pray that you would through the work of our church bring light into this local community and bring so many of this mission field to you.