Mormonism (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle

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Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio. I just wanted to say, welcome to No Compromise Radio Church.

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I guess we could turn this movement into a church. It's the latest fad, the radio station that turned into a church.

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Now, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry, which is a ministry from and out of and authorized by Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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And we do have an extension of the ministry. We have our first No Compromise Conference.

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It's going to be in Nebraska in March. And one of the listeners there has set that up. I'll be teaching high school students, several hundred high school students for a retreat, for a fellowship of Christian athletes.

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And I'll let you know more about that in a little while, but I'm excited about that. And so, you know,

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I could just turn this into some kind of vehicle to, you know, one show

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I'll say, we need money. I'll beg for money. And the next show I'll say, I need to go around the country and speak. And so I'll beg to do that.

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May God forbid. Today is the day we want to talk about Mormonism.

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I don't know if I've done a show on Mormonism or not. World Magazine's got a new article out that basically calls

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Glenn Beck a Christian. And I guess he is a Christian if you want to have a different definition of Christianity.

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If you want to say that Mormonism and biblical Christianity are the same, I guess you could do it.

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It's a free country. If you'd like to fall into the stream that is flowing quickly these days into ecumenicalism, ecumaniacism, ecumenism, that says forget doctrines, forget the person of Christ, forget the

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Bible, forget the substitutionary atonement, forget the eternality of Jesus Christ, the second person of the

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Trinity. And let's just all call ourselves Christians because after all, the world's a mess.

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The Democrats are a mess. And the way to unite Christians is to include

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Mormons, especially when the most influential Mormon now is not

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Mitt Romney, but the most influential Mormon is Glenn Beck.

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And I don't watch Glenn Beck. I don't have, I was gonna say I don't have a TV. I do have a

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TV, but I think we get one channel. I've got to put the rabbit ears up properly. I guess I could watch some kind of Fox News snippets online, but I really don't have time to be bothered with a lot of the political stuff because it just pretty much makes me mad and I can't do anything about it short of every couple of years voting.

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And so I just try to get my mind wrapped around redemptive issues and involve myself in the life of the church.

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So I thought it might be good for us to discuss Mormonism so that you here on No Compromise Radio could understand that there's actually a difference.

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There's a historical difference. There's a biblical difference. And if you want to imbibe the swill of postmodernism and say to yourself, well, you know, we all have to get along.

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I remember when I talked to my grandmother, Grandma Erna years ago, she's since passed away.

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But when I first got saved 21 years ago, I said to Grandma, she had actually a picture of Jesus, kind of that light complected

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German picture of Jesus. She was a German lady, wavy hair, kind of a feminine looking face.

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I probably have her picture of Jesus someplace. And she said,

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Mormons believe in Jesus too. When I said something derogatorily about a

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Mormon or Mormonism, and she did not like that. She did not believe that. And her view of Jesus was very shallow anyway.

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And so it's just best not to argue with Grandma. And so I don't think I said much, although she thought

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I was quite the religious freak. I would have thought she would have liked it that I was no longer some drug addict licentious person and that God had saved me from my sins and saved me unto ministry even, full -time ministry.

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I thought she would have been happy. She was proud of me when I was making a lot of money living in Sin City, but she wasn't so happy when

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I decided to be anything but a Lutheran, liberal Lutheran. So back to the story.

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I talked to Grandma and I said, well, Mormons aren't Christians. And she said, well, they love

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Jesus too. They believe in Jesus. But today we'll find out that it's the wrong Jesus.

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And Paul is very clear to the churches around Galatia. And he says, people can come to you and they can bring another gospel.

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See, there's the gospel and there are all the counterfeits that go along with it. And Paul understood that if someone preaches you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you,

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Paul says in chapter one, verse eight, he had the gospel given to him by God directly.

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He, the apostle, preached it to the churches around Galatia, to the churches of Galatia, verse two of chapter one.

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And then there was another gospel. There's a different gospel. It was not a gospel that was the same.

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It was a heterodox gospel. No, well, it was heterodox, but it was not the same.

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So Paul says, if somebody comes and does that, they are accursed. They are to be damned.

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They are to be condemned. And he said to them, I'm amazed that you were so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is not really another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

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But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed.

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Excuse me. So Mormons, by definition, believe in a different gospel.

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And today on the show, we'll just look at Mormonism in general. I do have to say early on in the show that if you have an

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ESV study Bible, I'd encourage you to get an ESV study Bible. You can also get the MacArthur study

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Bible, ESV now as well. But it's good to have a study Bible.

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I recommend things like the Reformation study Bible, the MacArthur study Bible, the

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ESV study Bible, because those study Bibles help you understand the text.

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They also have a lot of extra helps in them. And I especially like some of the things in the

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ESV study Bible. And you can find the religious cult section and you can understand what's the difference between Mormonism and biblical

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Christianity actually in the Bible. I remember when I first got my, it was a New King James, New Open study

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Bible. And it didn't hardly have any notes, just a little bit, maybe a little map here or there, why

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First Corinthians was written, something like that. Some additional things in the back with concordance.

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But now with study Bibles, I mean, they are uber Bibles, not just the way the true tone is set up or the calfskin, but things like this.

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And so some of the questions you see in the ESV study

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Bible, what do Mormons believe about apostasy and restoration?

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You know, that one maybe is a little bit interesting, but not so much. What do

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Mormons believe about God? Now, see, that's an interesting one. Mormons claim that God, the

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Father, was once a man and that he then progressed to godhood. That is, he is now exalted immortal man with flesh and bone body.

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That's found in the study Bible, which I think is excellent because of my old Bible, I'd have to just write things about Mormonism in the back,

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JWs in the back. I won't read this whole thing because you can read on your own, but I do find this interesting.

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What do Mormons believe about the Trinity and polytheism, many gods? Mormons believe that the

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Trinity consists not of three persons in one God, but rather of three distinct gods.

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According to Mormonism, there are potentially many thousands of gods besides. Then I think maybe one last question.

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Oh, let's see. No, some of these are so good. What do Mormons believe about human exaltation? Mormons believe that humans, like God the

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Father, can go through a process of exaltation to godhood. What does the

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Bible say about that? No, we won't do that one. What do Mormons believe about Jesus?

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Oh, this is gonna be good. What does Glenn Beck, if he's a card -carrying Mormon, last time

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I checked, he was. Oh, I have to take a little deviation because this will be fun. I was in Salt Lake City years ago, probably 20 years ago, and I was a new

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Christian and I had to go to Utah for some work for a medical company that I was working with, and there was a large hospital in Salt Lake City, and I was trying to sell them this large operating room laser -type device, and I was in a

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Marriott, and lo and behold, there are books of Mormon in the Marriott Mormon -owned chain.

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And so they have the Gidding Bible, and they have the Book of Mormon. And so I said I needed a book of Mormon for my theological studies, and so I didn't really wanna just take it.

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I guess I could have. But I called the front desk and said, may I please have the Book of Mormon? They said, we'll call you right back, and then they said, well, we'd like to have somebody come up, they'll explain to you what's in it, and then you can have it.

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I said, nah, I don't really wanna do that. I just had a burning in my bosom that told me not to do that.

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No, I didn't say that. Because that's basically what they were going to do, is they were gonna come up, say they believe in Jesus, say there's some new revelations about Jesus from Joseph Smith, and here's a verse in the

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Bible, pray to see if you have a burning in the bosom, read the

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Book of Mormon, read this section, and then pray to see if God confirms that through this special mystical burning in the bosom.

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I don't know why people like burning in the bosom, because I don't really like any kind of burning at all.

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And these days, at 50 years old, if I have some Ben and Jerry's late at night out there, I get a burning in the bosom.

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When I have either Chunky Monkey or Chubby Hubby, I get a major burning in my bosom, but I don't like it.

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I usually have to have some kind of antacid or Tums after I have those kind of burnings.

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Maybe it should have been a warming in my bosom. That would have been nice. This will really warm your bosom.

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I usually don't resort to such tactics on the radio, except on Tuesdays when

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Pastor Steve's here as a foil. So, where am I? What does the

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Bible teach about Jesus? Well, it's different than what the Mormons believe about Jesus.

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This is from the ESV Study Bible. Mormons believe that Jesus Christ was the firstborn spirit child of the Heavenly Father and a

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Heavenly Mother. Jesus then progressed to deity, in the spirit world. He was later physically conceived in Mary's womb as the literal only begotten

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Son of God the Father in the flesh. Well, is that the real

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God of the Bible? What does the Bible teach about sin, atonement?

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Is that the same thing? What about repentance? What about salvation? Let's find out today when it comes to Mormonism.

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I think this is a big concern because of the obvious implications with Glenn Beck and political unions.

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I think it's a big deal because it does have the word Jesus Christ in its title, the church, you know,

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Latter -day Saints and Jesus Christ. I did, here's another little sidetrack, but it's my show and so here we go.

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Sidetrack Cafe, I was almost going to do some Garrison Keillor moment there. I remember going to, while I was still in Utah, I went to a

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Desiree bookstore and that's a Mormon bookstore. And by the way, if you're not a Mormon and you are around Utah, you should go into one of those bookstores because it's a funky monkey bookstore.

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It's just a little off. It's got these weird pictures of Jesus and it's got some Bible stuff. And you know, it talks about Jesus and God the

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Father and these things, but it's just off. And the reason why it's off is because it's all

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Mormonism. You can get the very same feeling, I say, use that word on purpose, the very same feeling when you go down to the bookstore at the

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New England headquarters for the Seventh -day Adventist in Lancaster and they have study

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Bibles, they have music there, CDs, trinkets, books.

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You can actually get flour and grain and other things there, but it's just a hair off.

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It's just a LNG white hair off. And so it's just a weird feeling.

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I'm just gonna call that some kind of chunky monkey funky feeling. And so that's here on nocompromiseradio .com.

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Mormonism is a growing religion. According to Christianity Today, even about 10 years ago, it's dated but still reflective of what's happening in Mormonism.

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Mormons number in excess of 10 million members in 20 ,000 churches across 150 countries.

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And membership totals have at least doubled every 15 years since 1945.

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And in this article, John Kennedy says in Christianity Today, one prediction estimates a membership of 267 million within the next 100 years.

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Now you take that data that's old yet still reflective of the growth, and then you get the aggressive door -to -door evangelism.

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This is an important topic. It's also an important topic because eternal stakes are to be had.

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We have to make sure we understand that if we are slamming theologically, that is

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Mormonism, saying that it's wrong, saying that it's incorrect, saying that Galatians 1 applies to Mormonism.

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But if they're right, then we're damned because here, according to Bruce McConkie in Salvation, in the book

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Mormon Doctrine, page 603, if it had not been for Joseph Smith, there's a picture of him, and the restoration, there would be no salvation.

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There is no salvation outside the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints. So I think it's fairly important because we're saying they're not going to heaven, they're saying we're not going to heaven, and it would be good to be

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Bereans and actually find this out. It's good to discern. It's good to understand.

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It's good to read on your own. Nothing can happen to you if you do that because you want to find out the truth.

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Why were the Bereans more noble than other people? After all, the church at Thessalonica welcomed the word.

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They put the doormat out that said, welcome the word of Yahweh. And that's an excellent thing, and they are to be commended for that.

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But you have Bereans, and they're even more noble because not only did they welcome the word of God as preached to the apostles and was written in the

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Old Testament, they discerned to see if it was true.

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They looked it up. They didn't just hear Paul. They said, you know, we're going to check to see, and we are going to examine these things carefully.

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And what we want to do here on the show, as time's going by, I can tell this is going to be a two -part segment.

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We have to look at the word of God. Since God has revealed himself specifically only in the

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Bible, we're going to have to see, is Mormonism matching up with the

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Bible? And where does it match up? And where does it not? And it is not simple enough to be

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Grandma Erna to say, well, they believe in Jesus too. Lots of people say they're

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Jesus. There's a Puerto Rican guy in Florida who says he's Jesus. Now, just because your name is Jesus doesn't mean you're the

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Jesus. Just because you say, well, we believe in Jesus, it doesn't mean it's the Bible Jesus. And so don't be tricked by terminology, verbiage, and vocabulary that is vacuous of biblical meaning.

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We want to find out what the Bible teaches. That was a pretty good sentence there. Hmm, okay. Just quickly, when you think about any cult or any false religion,

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I want you to think of three S's. Source, Savior, Salvation.

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That is to say, think about what their source of truth is, and it will be the

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Bible plus something. The Bible plus another revelation. The Bible plus another book. The Bible plus Doctrine and Covenants.

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The Bible plus the Book of Mormons. The Bible plus what Joseph Smith said. The Bible plus you just name it.

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So what's the source? Then ask yourself the question, what do they say about Jesus? Are they gonna tell us that he is the eternal second person of the

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Trinity? The eternal God who cloaked himself with human flesh at the incarnation, died a substitutionary atonement for those who would believe and was physically raised from the dead.

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That kind of thing. So source, Savior, and lastly, tied into actually both, but tied into the second one more than the first,

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Salvation. How does a sinful and vile unholy wretch gain access into God's perfect heaven?

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That is to say, how can I be made right with God? How can God declare me as worthy of going to heaven?

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That is to say, how can God say your sins are forgiven? And what do they say about it compared to what the

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Bible says? So source, Savior, Salvation. That's just a good way. There are other issues that are involved, food laws and other kinds of things like that.

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How many times can I say funky today? Probably quite a few. I could just replay it.

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But what about the first S, source? For them, for the

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Mormons, the Bible is not sufficient and the Bible is not inerrant.

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In other words, it's insufficient and errant. This is McConkie, page 79 in his book called, in Bible.

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That's the reference, Bible, 79. Must be a book on the Bible. When the Bible is read under the guidance of the

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Spirit and in harmony with the many latter day revelations. Did you get that? In harmony with the many latter day revelations, which interpret and make plain its more mysterious parts.

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It becomes one of the most priceless volumes known to man. It isn't priceless until you view the

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Bible through the lens of Joseph Smith and others.

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McConkie goes on to say, one of the great heresies of apostate Christianity is the unfounded assumption that the

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Bible contains all the inspired teachings now extant among men. Kind of like in the book of Revelation where if you add anything to this book, you're gonna have the plagues added to you.

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Kind of like that, Bruce. Listen to McConkie in Standard Works, page 690.

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By the standard works of the church, it's meant the following four volumes of scripture.

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Wow, that's, what, like Old Testament, New Testament, Gospels, Epistles, you know that?

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The Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Covenants, and the

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Pearl of Great Price. Acceptance of the Bible is coupled with a reservation that it is true only in so far as translated correctly.

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Eighth article of faith. The other three having been revealed in modern English, so you don't have to translate correctly, are accepted without qualification.

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So not only do the ad books, they subjugate the Bible to these other books.

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Is that the way we should look at things? How about Joseph Smith, Journal of Discourses, 6 -5.

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Some learned doctor might take a notion to say the scriptures say thus and so. And we must believe the scriptures.

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They are not to be altered, but I'm going to show you an error in them. Well, early on we should be saying,

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I don't think this is quite the same God that I worship. I don't think

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Glenn Beck is worshiping the same God. Probably, you know, Glenn Beck doesn't even know most of these things.

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Sadly, just like many evangelicals don't know their Bible, I doubt many

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Mormons know all these details. Although I wish they would because they could easily see the difference.

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Mormons believe that God gives continual revelation through his prophet. What's your response to that ongoing revelation?

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Well, Brigham Young said in Journal of Discourses, 1395. I know just as well what to teach this people and just what to say to them and what to do in order to bring them into the celestial kingdom.

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As I know the road to my office. It is just as plain and easy. The Lord is in our midst.

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He teaches the people continually. I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men that they may not call it scripture.

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Oh, that's nice. I kind of wish that would happen to me. I preach a sermon and now becomes a scripture.

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I wish that, I'm glad that didn't happen to me because I'm sinful and I am errant and these aren't the days that I'm getting revelation from God.

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I have revelation from God, period, past tense. Well, today is no compromise.

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Look at Mormonism. You can quickly see that we've got a major problem here.

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A huge problem. They say according to Doctrine and Covenants 56, 4 -5 that God's word can change.

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When I revoke the commandment which was given unto my servants and give a new commandment, we've got a big problem.

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So back on point, the original point. If you're an evangelical and you want to partner with Mormons to accomplish anything that even might be good, throw some bums out of the office so some new bums can go in or bumettes according to the

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Tea Party. If you'd like to say we need to have abortion problems solved, homeless issues dealt with, the poor fed, sometimes the things that they want to happen are all good but you need to do things in a biblical fashion.

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So the bottom line doesn't count with God. Here's when we live before God and move and have our being, we have to do things

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God's way. God's business, God's way. And he cares about the how. Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, you do all to the glory of God.

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And he's told us the how. And 2 Corinthians chapter six says when you have something like this, you are not to be unequally yoked because you've got two religions and they're both not equal.

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They're both not the same. One's from Satan, one's from God. And so you can't say, well, yes, but we'll put them together because then we can have more numbers to march on Washington.

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Shame on you if you don't understand the Bible teaches that Mormonism is wrong and Glenn Beck needs salvation.

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Why don't you pray for his salvation instead of unite with him? No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.