Mormonism's Impossible Gospel with Eric Johnson

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May 25, 2023

Join Pastor Wade and Deacon Andrew Soncrant as we embark on a journey of discovery, analyzing the complex doctrines and practices that make up the foundation of Mormonism. With the help of Eric Johnson of Mormon Research Ministry, we will navigate through the intricacies of their teachings, examining the concept of the "Impossible Gospel" and its implications for believers. We'll also delve into the teachings of "The Miracle of Forgiveness" and its significance within Mormon doctrine. Throughout this enlightening discussion, we'll explore that perfection is required by followers of Mormonism as they strive to reach the Celestial Kingdom. Like and Share Mormonism's Impossible Gospel with Eric Johnson

00:00: Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to our YouTube channel. This is Apologia, Utah. We are glad that you are here with us.
00:08: You've probably seen our most recent reaction videos. We did one on David Alexander reacting to his testimony.
00:14: Then we did a reaction video to your comments if you are LDS from within that first reaction video.
00:21: And then we did a reaction video, right Pastor Wade? Right. On the 150 billion dollars.
00:26: Yeah, the potential 150 billion. Right, exactly. That was fun. And you're probably looking like, who's this guy in the middle?
00:34: Well, this is Eric Johnson from Mormon Research Ministry. And how about you introduce yourself?
00:40: Tell these people who you are. Well, as you just said, my name is Eric Johnson. I've been involved with Mormonism Research Ministry, a
00:46: Christian Evangelical parachurch organization that Bill McKee were founded in 1979. I joined in 1989.
00:53: I taught for a number of years in Southern California and moved to Utah in 2010 full -time. Bill and I do a number of things, including hosting a daily podcast.
01:03: We also have a website, mrm .org. We've written a number of books.
01:10: And so I think in the last eight years, I think I have been participated in six different books.
01:15: So yeah, we do a lot of different things, do some evangelism, talk to churches and help them to understand better what
01:23: Mormonism is all about and how we can, in a gentle and respectful way, be able to share our faith with Latter -day
01:30: Saints. Nice. So why Mormonism? What drew you into Mormonism, just for the the watcher here? Well, I first came to Utah in Salt Lake City in 1987 for a short -term mission.
01:42: I was in seminary at the time. I had done a number of things with a countercult group called
01:48: Making Disciples Ministry run by my friend Jeff Howell. And so we did a lot of things with Jehovah's Witnesses, New Age and Mormonism.
01:58: But then I came here in 1987 and I really fell in love with the Mormon people because they were willing to discuss for the most part.
02:05: They were usually very friendly, nice people. And so then that's how I got involved in this particular aim at a particular religion, which is
02:14: Mormonism. And like I say, in 2010, we did the ultimate commitment and moved to Utah like you guys have done.
02:22: Wow, a Christian living in the middle. Praise God. Utah, praise God for that. Yeah, so that that's your heart essentially for the
02:29: LDS people. And you did recently write a book. It's called Introducing Christianity to Mormons. We've given that actually out to a few people, huh
02:35: Pastor Wade? Yes. Yes. I keep a stock of it. I still have some left, but we're gonna have to buy more.
02:42: Eventually, we're just giving them out, even mailing some of them out to other states, people reaching out from California, Texas, LDS all over the country.
02:52: So thank you for that work, brother. Yeah. Thank you. That was a fun book to write. I did that during COVID.
02:58: Something good came out of COVID. But I've had a number of people who've either just left the church or are still
03:04: LDS read it, and the conversations having, being able to explain what
03:09: Christianity is all about. I had one lady just write me last night after she and her husband, who he's still in the church, and they've gone through the book, and she said,
03:19: I wish I would have known about what Christianity taught before now. Wow. So that's kind of fun to be able to explain it because she said,
03:27: I really love the doctrine of grace and what we're able to have, not based on what we do, but based on what
03:33: God has done. She's asking great questions. Excellent. I spent, I think, last night about 90 minutes answering all of their questions, and they're taking meticulous notes.
03:43: So that's fun. Praise God. I mean, and it's funny you mentioned grace, because that's what we're actually here to talk about today.
03:49: And a book like that is needed, Introducing Christianity to Mormons, because there's definitional distinctions between Mormonism and biblical
03:56: Christianity. I like to say that Mormonism gives a spirit of confusion. And I think part of that confusion comes from the definitional distinctions between Christianity and Mormonism.
04:08: So we both use the word grace, but we mean different things. Eric, and then Pastor Wade, can you guys get into biblically defined grace?
04:15: What is grace according to the Bible? You want me to start? Yeah, go ahead. Easy way to remember it,
04:22: God's righteousness or riches at Christ's expense. It's part of what we call justification. Justification is that we're saved, not by our own works, but based on what
04:32: Jesus has done. And there's a lot of nuances underneath justification. Terms that we use, and grace would be one of them.
04:39: The idea that it's only by grace and nothing else that gives us the ability to have a relationship with Jesus.
04:46: Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, two verses that I quote all the time out on the street. We're saved by grace through faith.
04:52: This is not of yourselves. This is the gift of God, not by works, lest any man should boast.
04:58: So it's a free gift that God has given Mormonism differs in the idea that grace is just a way to get you to one of three kingdoms of glory, qualifies you because you were obedient in a pre -existent life.
05:11: And so you get one of the three, celestial, terrestrial, and telestial, but now the top kingdom you're going to have to work for.
05:19: Well, that's opposite of what the Bible teaches, that it's no works are going to be able to earn that.
05:24: And part of what grace is, is related to imputation. Imputation is the idea that Christ credits you with righteousness that's not your own.
05:34: So it's not our work. It's what He has done, and it's His work that is given to us, not based on our past works, what we're doing now, or what we will do, but based on what
05:43: Jesus did on the cross. And He said, it is finished. Amen, well said. Honestly, there's not much to add to that.
05:51: I guess I could only add some nuance or some further explanation in that.
05:56: I mean, we're talking about God's action with our inaction.
06:04: You know, grace is giving us something we don't deserve, and mercy is not giving us what we do deserve, which is hell.
06:14: And that's the reality of God's grace and mercy and forgiveness, is we are a static party.
06:22: We are an inactive party. We don't even have the strength to lift a hand to receive the gift.
06:31: You know, truly, Christianity is a faith, the only faith, of resurrections, multiple in a way.
06:41: The resurrection of the Christ, the living God, Yahweh, in flesh, who took on flesh,
06:49: Jesus Christ, and His resurrection, we get a spiritual resurrection, and then we get a final resurrection.
06:57: And it's like, when you're resurrected, you're dead prior to that, right?
07:04: And so that's the reality of grace, in my opinion, and my understanding of the Bible is just God's action over our inaction and inability.
07:15: That's good. So just to try to understand deeper on how the LDS can come to the conclusion that grace is something that can happen after all you can do, where does that come from in their doctrine?
07:28: Does it come from their second article of faith, that man's not totally depraved, that there is no original sin,
07:33: Eric? Yeah, well, in 2 Nephi 25 -23 is the exact quote of what you just said. We're saved by grace after all we can do.
07:40: According to Mormonism, grace is just basically God's ability given to us so that we might be able to keep the commandments.
07:48: Because keeping the commandments is what is required for a person to get what's called eternal life or exaltation.
07:54: Individual salvation is how Joseph Fielding Smith, the 10th president, put it. And so grace is not a free ride in Mormonism, so to speak, because that's how they view ours is, oh, it's too easy, it's a free ride.
08:08: Well, in a sense it is, but there was nothing I was going to be able to do to earn that ability to have eternal life.
08:16: It was only going to be if somebody came down and picked me up and saved me. After all
08:21: I can do, the question is, how much can you do? And I think most Latter -day Saints know they're not doing enough.
08:27: They're repenting every Sunday at sacrament, which they're supposed to do, and yet their scriptures, the standard works,
08:35: Doctrine and Covenants section 58, verse 43, says that the way that you know somebody has truly repented is you stop doing the sin.
08:43: And Latter -day Saints, when you ask them, if you were to die right now, where would you go? They usually say to me, probably the terrestrial kingdom.
08:51: I'm not doing everything I can do. Wow, wow. Man. So we hear all the time on the street when we're doing evangelism, there's like a different interpretation now of 2
09:00: Nephi 25, 23, to where they're saying things like, yeah, yeah, we work, we work, but since we can't do enough, now the grace comes after.
09:09: How is that a incorrect interpretation? I don't even know if you can use like, quote unquote, exegesis of an 1830s text, which if you're
09:17: LDS and you're listening, that may offend you. But what did Joseph mean when he wrote that?
09:24: Well, he certainly meant that you didn't just try, you didn't do your best, you actually had to accomplish what you set out to do.
09:34: And so if you read what the leaders have said throughout the years, I mean, even now, they haven't changed their view that keeping the commandments continually,
09:45: Doctrine and Covenants section 25, verse 15, is still in play. That the ability to get the celestial kingdom is you keeping all of the commandments.
09:55: There are a lot of Latter -day Saints, I've heard this, said that, well, it's in spite of all we can do.
10:01: That is a very common interpretation. And you'll hear Stephen E. Robinson, now deceased, a former professor at Brigham Young, and he gave the bicycle parable.
10:11: And he says, you do your best, Jesus pays the rest. And that's in the vernacular of many people on the streets.
10:19: And so they say, I know I can't do everything, but that's where God's grace comes in. And he gives a bicycle parable,
10:24: Stephen Robinson does, where a little girl gives her 67 cents at the counter of a bike shop. And the dad pays for most of it, but she pays just a little bit.
10:33: I'm going to say, there's nothing we can do, even for a penny's worth, to be able to pay for what we have.
10:41: We have a sin problem. Romans 3 .23, Romans 6 .23 says the wages of sin is death.
10:46: I'm so glad there's a comment there, though, Pastor Wade, because it says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our
10:56: Lord. How do we get that? Paul's very clear. It's through faith and faith alone. I find myself on the street often trying to explain the difference between the doctrine of sanctification and justification.
11:14: And it seems to me that they often conflate the two, right? That justification and sanctification are often one unit.
11:24: And, you know, I guess my concern is they're not picking up what the
11:31: Bible is demonstrating. How can we get better at demonstrating that?
11:36: How can we get them to understand that we don't agree with an antinomian gospel, a lawless gospel?
11:46: And I'm sure, yes, there's been a lot of churches throughout, probably even mostly modernity in the last 100 years who have demonstrated free grace in such a way where they've lived lawlessly, and that's given the church a bad, you know, status or whatever.
12:06: But how can we combat that? Well, what's the verse that they'll use when you do bring up Ephesians 2, 8 and 9?
12:13: James. James chapter 2, verse 20. Faith without works is dead. That's the
12:19: John 3, 16, I think, Mormonism. I mean, they all know that reference. And I'll say, yeah,
12:25: I agree with that. And they'll say, well, wait a minute, because in their mind, they think that Christians just go up in front of a church, wave their hand, say that they're a
12:32: Christian, I'm saved by grace, I can go out and commit murder and adultery. I mean, if you had a nickel for every time you heard that, you'd be a rich man.
12:40: I mean, obviously, that's how a lot of Latter Day Saints think that. That's antinomian, you can do what you want.
12:46: Is that what we're supposed to do? No, we struggle with sin. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 7.
12:53: He said that, what a wretched man that I am, who will save me from this state? Only Jesus.
12:59: And that's true. Because we can't do it all on our own. But there is a difference between justification and sanctification.
13:06: Sanctification is what Philippians 2 .12 says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
13:11: But notice, it doesn't say work for. So when they bring in James 2 .20, and I say, I agree with it, they go, well, then how can you reconcile that with Ephesians 2?
13:21: Because you just said it's not by works. I said, well, it's not by works. That's justification. But then once you are a saved believer, you're saved in spite of all you can do, because you can't do anything when it comes to the perfect standard that God has set.
13:35: However, when we become a new creation in Christ, old things pass away, all things become new. We are now able to live for Him and to be baptized by the
13:46: Holy Spirit, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and to participate in the gifts of the
13:52: Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience. So I will take them back to Ephesians 2 .8 .9.
13:57: I'll say, let me go over this again, just to make sure you understand what I'm saying. I believe, according to Romans 5, that we're justified by faith apart from works of the law.
14:06: And that's what Paul is saying here in Ephesians 2. But notice verse 10. I always like to show verse 10.
14:12: A lot of people don't do this. But it says, for we are God's workmanship created by Christ Jesus to do good works, which
14:20: He prepared in advance for us to do, which goes along with Ephesians 1 .4 and 11. I mean,
14:25: He's predestined us. He's created us, elected us to actually participate. But you can't do, quote unquote, good works unless you have the
14:33: Holy Spirit. And that's the filling of the Holy Spirit. And then when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, because the
14:38: Holy Spirit resides in you, then that's when true love and joy and peace and patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.
14:48: Notice, against these things, there is no law. Because they come out of your abundance.
14:55: Because who we are is not based on what we do, but it's based on what
15:01: Jesus did. But who we are then as a Christian is going to affect what we do. That's what
15:07: James is talking to. He's talking to people who say there are faith Christians and there are work Christians. And so which one are you?
15:14: I don't have to do works because I'm a faith Christian. James is saying, no, you have to have both. He's talking to a different kind of group than what
15:21: Paul was talking to in Ephesians chapter 2, when he is telling them that don't think that your works are getting you any favors.
15:30: You're created to do good works, but it's not based on your works. Otherwise, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 says that you could boast.
15:38: Here's what I did. Here's why I deserve God's favor. And you have nothing to boast about because you had nothing to bring to the table.
15:47: Isaiah 64, 6 says that all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags. Without God's grace, they're nothing.
15:53: You can't do what God has said needs to be accomplished. He only will allow into his presence into heaven those who are holy.
16:02: How do you become holy? You have to become justified, and then you are sanctified through your works.
16:07: That's so good. Thank you for that, Eric. I think we want our
16:14: LDS neighbors to understand that more. You know, I even think about the different genres of things like the beginning of Romans, the beginning of Ephesians, the foundations of justification, how we're saved, you know, these rich doctrines that demonstrate who
16:35: God is and how we're saved, opposed to an epistle of James to a persecuted church, people who are already
16:44: Christians, right? Not demonstrating, okay, if you're not saved, this is how you are saved.
16:51: He's talking to people who already profess Christ and exactly trying to, in that whole letter, really demonstrate if you're a
17:00: Christian, this is what it looks like to be a Christian, not how we're saved. And so we have to look at those sort of distinctions.
17:08: And I love how you brought up Ephesians 2 .10, because really, it's this miraculous thing where just as salvation in the beginning, justification was so miraculous, that we're saved now.
17:23: The amazing thing is, and I really, I don't think we can fully understand the fact that He prepared the good works for us to walk in.
17:32: He who began a good work in you will complete it into the day of Christ Jesus. It's like, we're
17:39: His workmanship. He's going to make sure His bride is spotless, unblemished, brought before the
17:45: Father in such a way presented in His righteousness. And so our faith and the working out of that faith is
17:55: Christ prerogative. And there's this mysterious and miraculous aspect where we get to walk in that.
18:02: And that means now I want to obey God, I want to observe His statutes, I have a desire to do those things.
18:10: It's that outpouring, it's that outward manifestation of this inward reality that only
18:17: He could have done. And so, yeah, I think that's good. We just, I wanted to demonstrate to our viewers that distinction, and the glorious aspect of that, and how that removes the burden and weight that we can carry, and how and how easily it is, even as Christians, to go back to, well, my sanctification is now my justification.
18:39: Boy, it's been a hard week, right? So good. That's good. That's good. So we want to be able to call our
18:46: LDS neighbors to consistency, because what I hear happening quite a bit on the street is that biblical grace, because it's true grace, it comes from the character of God in terms of His rich mercy, which
18:59: He lavishes upon us, sounds so much better, because it is better, than the LDS gospel. It is.
19:05: So I hear people trying to cling to more Christian ideals, because speaking out the fact that you actually must work and present those works before God to become a
19:15: God is not a very favorable thing to tell people, right? So they're trying to use terminology from Christians, but they actually don't mean it.
19:23: So, Eric, one of the awesome reasons why I have him on is because he's developed a way to speak to LDS people to show them in their own literature that they have, that their form of grace, right, or their form of salvation does not live up to what the
19:39: Bible dictates as what salvation is and how we obtain it. Can you talk about that briefly?
19:45: Yeah, and I want to reiterate what I had said earlier. We're not saved by what we do, but by who we are, and who we are has an effect on what we do.
19:55: I think that's as simple as we can get. And so back in 2015, I was at the
20:00: Ogden Temple open house. They open up the temple for a few weeks, so anybody can go through.
20:06: I go to a lot of them. In fact, I'll be going to my 28th, 29th, and 30th here in the next two months, because they're opening them up all over the place.
20:15: And I find that to be a really good place to get into good discussions, not only with Latter -day
20:21: Saints, but visitors who are coming, who are being told that this is the house of Jesus Christ and lots of portraits of Jesus.
20:27: And so I was out there handing out a newspaper. We put together a newspaper. Still hand those out. It's a great newspaper.
20:33: You can see that, actually, if you want, at sacredorsecret .com. There's a PDF of that newspaper, and that's a website that we use to help explain why we're there, because people say, why are you here?
20:44: Well, because it's a public event. It's not a church event, but we are just trying to explain the
20:49: Christian side of things. Well, I was trying to hand these newspapers out and not having very good luck.
20:55: Well, luck, I don't know if that's a good word for us, but success, I suppose. And you guys have been in that position before, right?
21:02: Oh, for sure. It's not working. So I got frustrated. It must have been an hour and a half. Nice Mormon people on their
21:08: Sunday best walking past me and ignoring us. Would you like a free newspaper? No. They wouldn't even answer no.
21:14: So I got a little frustrated, and I said, you know what? I've got four of these books called The Miracle of Forgiveness in my car.
21:21: I told my friend Randy Sweet, I'm going to go get those. I'm going to see if I can hand those out, because maybe they'll take those. So I got those, and I started to offer them free copy of The Miracle of Forgiveness, a book by 12th
21:32: President Spencer W. Kimball. Every Latter -day Saint ought to read this book. I'm not a Latter -day Saint, but I'd like you to have a copy.
21:39: You know how many copies I handed out in the next hour of the four? How many? None. None.
21:46: I didn't hand out one, but you know how many discussions I had that next hour? Oh, wow. At least 10 or 12 different discussions.
21:52: Short, two or three minutes. Really? What are they asking me? Is that one of our books? You're not LDS, are you?
21:58: No, I'm not. Why are you handing it out? I said, I disagree. I disagree with pretty much everything that Spencer W.
22:04: Kimball said in this book. I think he's wrong on every aspect. However, I think he did a good job of explaining what you need to do in order to get the very best your religion has to offer.
22:15: It's called the Celestial Kingdom. And then I'll say, do you know what he says?
22:20: It's a very famous slogan from, if you know Michael Jordan, Nike.
22:26: What does Nike stand for? Just do it. Just do it. He was Nike before there was Nike, I like to say.
22:31: Because he says it's possible. 1st Nephi 3 .7 says that you can keep all the commandments.
22:37: God doesn't give you any that you can't keep. And they will agree with that. And I'll say, so he says that you need to keep those commandments.
22:45: So anyway, I realized at that point, Andrew, that this was going to be something more than just a one day thing.
22:53: So I went to a number of bookstores, used bookstores, and I found like 12 or 15.
23:00: Randy and I found those. And then I started taking the best parts and I would highlight them.
23:05: And so I do that with these books. I take them and I highlight them while I'm watching football. So I redeem the time, right?
23:12: And these books are filled with highlights that I want them to be able to catch. Because even though I disagree with what he has to say, he does an awesome job using the standard works, the unique standard works.
23:25: He certainly uses the Bible, and I think he's wrong when he does talk about Ephesians 2 .8 .9 and he hates that passage.
23:31: But he'll use other verses to try to support, but mainly Doctrine and Covenants and in the
23:37: Book of Mormon to support the idea that it's possible to keep the commandments. And that's what you need to do in this lifetime in order to be able to get the celestial kingdom.
23:46: A lot of Latter -day Saints over the years, and by the way, I've handed out, I don't know for sure how many, but I estimate now close to about a thousand copies of this that I have purchased on my own that I hand out at these different events.
24:00: I'll do this not only at Temple Open Houses, I used to do it at Manti, at the Mormon Miracle Pageant. I go to General Conference, of course, that's only twice a year.
24:11: I go to football games or BYU and I stand across the street. Wow, the college students want the book.
24:17: They haven't heard of it because it hasn't been published since 2015, or actually 2016.
24:23: I started to do this in 2015, so I don't know if there's any correlation to that.
24:28: But this book is not well -liked by a lot of people, so it gives me all kinds of opportunities to discuss.
24:36: And here I am, an evangelical Christian handing out a book written by the 12th president of the church.
24:42: That really throws them for a loop. Yeah, so how do you reply then, Eric, when they're like, well, that's not the standard works?
24:48: How does this have some form of authority in their lives, regardless, you know, it was written by the 12th president prophet of their church?
24:56: But what would you say to them? I do get that question all the time, and I say, well, it might not be a standard work, but he cites the standard works on practically every page, vast majority.
25:08: Maybe there's 20 or 30 pages that doesn't have a reference. But if you go through, you're going to see references all the way through, even in parentheses.
25:18: So here's the thing. Okay, he's the 12th president of the church. You might disagree with him, and you might even say what he taught was false doctrine, because there are
25:26: Latter -day Saints who do teach that. One of the things that really irritates the progressives is that he has a section there on homosexuality, that that is wrong.
25:35: And so they'll use that. I have, I know for a fact, this is a true statement, that there are people who go around to some of these used bookstores and buy up all the copies, because I went to one place where I usually had good fortune in finding the books, getting five or seven at a time, and I found none.
25:53: So my wife went up to the cashier and said, you know, we're looking for this book, and we always find, we hadn't been there for months, and there's always these books hanging out there.
26:00: And she says, oh, there's somebody who comes in every week, and they buy them, and they burn them in their barbecue.
26:08: What? They're so angry with this book. Wow. They have a campaign to take them off the market, so they'll buy them for whatever they cost, and apparently this one lady burns them in a barbecue in Provo.
26:21: I mean, that's pretty angry. But then I ask the question, why does this book so irritate you?
26:27: Well, it requires so much of us. I say, well, tell me how your religion doesn't do that.
26:33: I mean, I would like you to tell me when he does cite the standard works, show me how he's wrong. Well, I disagree with him.
26:40: I think he did a good job. I think it's the only way you can take the passages that he's talking about. I mean, the first chapter is this life is the time.
26:48: Does that tell you something? When are you supposed to do this? This life, what does he quote? You quote this,
26:53: I'm sure, all the time, Andrew. Alma 34, verse 32, he cites at the very top.
26:59: He'll always cite a couple of verses at the beginning, and he says, For behold, this life is a time for men to prepare to meet
27:05: God. In fact, he goes on later, and he cites that on page 10. He quotes the whole section here.
27:11: For behold, this life is a time for men to prepare to meet God. Yea, behold, the day of this life is a day for men to perform their labors.
27:18: And he says on page 10, the time to act is now in this mortal life. This is not the only time he says that.
27:25: If you go on in that passage, it says, If you don't do it in this life, the devil doth sue you his, and you're in his power forever.
27:32: And Latter -day Saints who have gone through the temple know that that's serious business, because that's what Satan the
27:37: Lucifer tells the audience, that if you don't keep your covenants that you've made today, then you're going to be in my power.
27:44: And so that's a real thing. That's a scary thing for a Latter -day Saint. So what you're saying is Spencer W. Kimball using
27:49: Alma, and I believe the Doctrine and Covenants, is saying to the LDS individual that in order to reach the celestial kingdom, this is the life in which you have to do it.
27:58: There's no second chances after death in order to reach the celestial kingdom. He's very clear on that. In fact,
28:04: I have a website you can go, and I document everything that I'm talking about today. It's TheMiracleOfForgiveness .com.
28:10: I always like to tell Latter -day Saints, you're not going to forget that title, are you? That website. Because it's the title of the book,
28:16: TheMiracleOfForgiveness .com, and no, I'm not going to give that website an address. And when
28:22: I go out witnessing, I'll have 10, 15, 20 people who will go and check out the website.
28:28: I have a lot of bells and whistles there. I have a PowerPoint that I will do in churches that's located there.
28:34: I have a list of all of the verses that I highlight. So if somebody wants to get just what are the best verses or best pages to highlight,
28:44: I show you. Because I have what I have in front of me right now, a copy of it highlighted.
28:50: And I just want Latter -day Saints to see, you can be as sincere and nice, good person you want to call yourself, but Spencer Kimball doesn't care.
29:01: He wants you to do everything. He says it's possible to just do it. And that's why
29:07: I think, why I still do this eight years later. I started this in 2015. I haven't slowed down.
29:13: When I go to General Conference, we saw each other out there at the April General Conference, I probably handed out all the books
29:22: I brought, 30 books. Wow. And that's just a small number.
29:27: Most people, when they walk by, say, and they like to do this with pride, imagine that.
29:32: They walk by and they go, I've already read it. So they just set themselves up. Maybe for Latter -day
29:38: Saints who walk by me, you're not going to tell me that you just read it because what am I going to ask you? Oh, so are you doing everything that Spencer Kimball said you're supposed to do?
29:47: Now I just put them in a catch -22. They can't answer that question. If they say, no,
29:53: I'm not doing everything, well, then why not? Because he said perfection is an achievable goal.
29:59: He says that in his book. If they say, yes, I am doing everything, then their fellow Latter -day
30:04: Saints start to laugh. The wives will, because I'll have sometimes a man or a woman walk and say, yes,
30:09: I have. And then I say, could I talk to your spouse real quick? Let's find out if you're doing everything. Because let me tell you guys, on page 25 under chapter 2, no unclean thing can enter.
30:21: In fact, he says unclean, less than God being perfection, you can't dwell with God unless you have perfection.
30:31: So he gives you a list on page 25 of all the things that you need to do. Isn't that nice?
30:36: Because a lot of Latter -day Saints do like the checkoff list. They like to be able to say, okay, I went to church. Yes, I did my,
30:42: I repented today. I didn't drink coffee. They have this list that they have.
30:48: He gives you a list. I mean, take a look at, it's over 80 things. Over 80 things. Murder, adultery, he starts with the hard things, you think.
30:56: But then Jesus said, if you hate somebody, it's the same as murder. Or if you lust in your heart, it's the same as adultery.
31:03: So I don't know if they're really getting off the hook. Theft, it goes through, and then it gives some quarrelsomeness, unthankfulness, inhospitality, deceitfulness, irreverence, boasting, arrogance, pride.
31:18: He puts those together. I mean, how many Latter -day Saints pridefully tell me, yes, I've read the book.
31:23: Well, I tell them to go back and read it again, and then come back and tell me that you're doing everything that he says is possible for you to do.
31:30: Because throughout, he says, this is not just for future, after you die, take care of this.
31:36: This is in this life, and if you don't. In fact, he has a place where he talks about if you don't do it in this life, which the majority of Latter -day
31:45: Saints, he's fearful, are not doing it, then you're not going to the celestial kingdom. He's pretty straightforward with that.
31:53: I like this book because I think, no, it has authority.
31:58: It was written by a man who was an apostle in 1969, so this book is over 50 years of age.
32:05: He spent over a decade working on this book. This is a book that was recommended at General Conference several different times,
32:13: Apostle Evans in 1970, and then you even have Apostles in 1995 and 2000 who said that it's a great book for you to read.
32:23: Thomas S. Monson, in his memoir, talked about how important this book is. If you go to the
32:29: Church History Museum today, second story. I don't know if you've been to the Church History Museum. Not yet. You need to go there.
32:35: It's right across the street from Temple Square. On the second story, they have the
32:41: Hall of Presidents. Underneath Spencer Kimball's portrait is a book.
32:49: Guess which book? The Miracle of Forgiveness. He wrote several other books, but that's the one they put there.
32:54: I have here a leather -bound copy of The Miracle of Forgiveness.
33:00: This was put together in 1998. I'm messing up my dates.
33:08: At Christmastime, it was given to all of the employees. You could not buy this, but it's leather with gilded pages.
33:15: It's in beautiful shape. In a little card that they gave to everybody, it says, We are pleased to present to you this classic edition of President Spencer W.
33:24: Kimball's book, The Miracle of Forgiveness. President Kimball's enlightening teachings on the atonement of Jesus Christ are a precious treasure for those who would follow the
33:32: Savior. I think that has a stamp of approval. Never has the church come out at general conferences and said,
33:41: Oh, by the way, you really don't want to look at this book. Otherwise, why in 2006 did they publish a church manual, a curriculum that the people had to do on the second and third
33:54: Sundays of every month? Teachings of Presence of the Church, Spencer W.
33:59: Kimball. Guess what book is quoted more than any other? Sixty -nine times they quote from The Miracle of Forgiveness.
34:07: That's well within the last 20 years of, I mean, if this book is not meant to be, but then
34:14: I have something else to say if they say, Well, I don't believe it. I think it's been outdated. Okay, so then
34:20: I ask this question. What you're telling me, it seems like you're saying that Spencer W.
34:26: Kimball is teaching false doctrine. Now I put them in a catch -22 because what are they going to do with that?
34:33: Yes, he was teaching false doctrine. Well, how do you know that Russell M. Nelson isn't teaching false doctrine and once he dies, just because he's living, should
34:42: I believe anything that Gordon Hinckley says? Should I believe anything that Ezra Taft Benson says? I mean, if they were not teaching true doctrine, because this is standard.
34:51: This is going to be eternal. This is the way that you get to the Celestial Kingdom, and he was wrong on this, then his interpretation is wrong, but the leaders are teaching the same thing today.
35:01: They're quoting the same verses that he was using. If they say, Well, no,
35:07: I think that he actually is a true prophet and he was teaching true doctrine, then
35:13: I'll ask, Well, why don't you believe what he had to say? You need to help me with this because here
35:19: I have all of this information and I disagree with it because I always like to say, Well, it sounds like you agree with him.
35:25: No, I agree with him only in the sense that this is what your standard works say you have to do.
35:31: Just do it. How are you doing at that? Just keep repeating that, and I think the Latter -day
35:36: Saint is now in his position of realizing he hasn't done what he is capable of doing, and that bothers him.
35:43: Right, right. So we have been establishing that this book is authoritative.
35:51: It should be trustworthy. It ought to be used. It's been heavily endorsed by the
35:56: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. It's from a prophet president. It's using resources that are the standard works of their religion.
36:10: It ought to be considered authoritative. Would you say it'd kind of be like as if,
36:19: I don't know, you could say maybe a New Testament writer like the Apostle Paul making a book and then us later on ignoring it?
36:28: Could you say that? I think you could. In fact, he was an apostle, as I mentioned earlier, and here's what people will say to me.
36:34: Well, he was just an apostle. I've actually had them say that. And I'll say, okay, well, isn't
36:41: Paul, wasn't he just an apostle? I don't think he was ever a prophet, so he was just an apostle.
36:48: So should I disregard what Paul has to say? I don't think it's a good position for them. And then he becomes president a few years later.
36:55: He's the one that decided that blacks would hold the priesthood. He's the one that our official declaration to.
37:02: I mean, he's an important man. He held the presidency for a long time. Instead of disregarding this book, he only endorsed it.
37:10: In fact, I have copies of the book. I have probably five or six copies where he autographed them. Wow.
37:16: Yes. One to Paul H. Dunn. Whoa. I don't know if you guys realize who
37:21: Paul H. Dunn was. He was a 70 who was lying about his activity in the war, and he was a
37:26: St. Louis cardinal, and it turned out it was a lie. They ended up letting him go as a 70, and he wrote to Paul H.
37:34: Dunn, best wishes. I got the copy. He gave it to all of the general authorities, but I have other copies that he has signed, five or six.
37:41: I don't know. Find them. In fact, I just found one yesterday at a store. Wow. I just found it, and there's his signature, and I know what his signature looks like.
37:48: It gets a little messier as he gets into the 70s. He dies,
37:54: I think, in, gosh, I forget, in the early 80s. So he's still signing it toward the end of his life.
38:02: Why would he sign a book that, well, you know what? I realize now that I'm the president and the prophet that this book isn't going to work.
38:11: Yeah, that does make sense. So it's authoritative, and they should consider it.
38:16: Our LDS listeners should consider this book, read it, and so tell us, Eric, what are some of the main things that this book teaches?
38:25: How is someone forgiven? How does someone receive grace according to the standard works, according to this prophet -president, according to this book?
38:37: What are they going to learn from this? Well, there's a chapter 12, and it's called
38:43: Abandonment of Sin. Does that give you a hint what we're going to talk about here? I think so. He's going to quote a verse that I just quoted earlier,
38:51: D &C 5843. By this he may know if a man repented of his sins. Behold, he will confess them and forsake them.
39:01: That is the key, abandonment of sins. He says true repentance prods one to action.
39:07: Now, we would say true repentance does prod one to action as far as sanctification, but again, it's not what you do, but who you are, and who you are has an effect on what you do.
39:17: And so one of the things that I'll do when I ask them, this is the response I'll get.
39:22: There's three responses as I ask them. Are you doing everything that Spencer Kimball said you're going to do?
39:28: And I only get maybe 30 seconds. You know how that goes. They're walking by. You get 30 seconds. You better use your 30 seconds wisely.
39:34: I ask the question. I'm just asking, and then most times they ignore me and keep walking.
39:40: Okay, but they might say, well, I am keeping them, or I'm not, or I don't know.
39:46: Those are going to be the three major reasons. But then they're going to come up with excuses if they say, and the vast majority will say, no,
39:53: I'm not doing everything I'm supposed to do. So there's their humility. But I'm trying, or I'm doing the best
40:02: I can. And so I say, oh, and I have it memorized in pages 164 and 165 in a section called trying is not sufficient.
40:13: And I'll say, trying is not sufficient, nor is repentance complete when one merely tries to abandon sin.
40:20: To try is weak. To do the best you can is not strong. You must always do better than you can.
40:27: This is true in every walk of life. He gives a beautiful story on page 164 of an
40:33: Army officer and a soldier. Can I read it? Yeah, go for it. An Army officer called a soldier to him and ordered him to take a message to another officer.
40:40: The soldier saluted and said, I'll try, sir, I'll try. To this, the officer responded,
40:46: I don't want you to try. I want you to deliver the message. The soldier, somewhat embarrassed, now replied,
40:52: I'll do the best I can, sir. At this, the officer, now disgusted, rejoined with some vigor, I don't want you to try, and I don't want you to do the best you can.
41:01: I want you to deliver the message. Now the young soldier, straightening to his full height, approached the matter magnificently, as he thought, when he saluted again and said,
41:13: I'll do it or die, sir. To this, the now irate officer responded, I don't want you to die.
41:19: I don't want you to merely do the best you can, and I don't want you to try. Now the request is a reasonable one.
41:25: The message is important. The distance is not far. You are able -bodied. You can do what
41:31: I have ordered. Now get out of here and accomplish your mission. Wow. Boom. Abandon your sin is a doable thing, is what he's saying, because abandonment of sin, he's not putting a question mark there.
41:45: Abandonment of sin? No, he's saying abandonment of sin, and I want to show you real quick the cover of this book.
41:51: I don't know if it's going to be able to be seen, but this is an anniversary edition. It was printed in 19, what was the year?
42:01: I think it was 1989, if I'm not mistaken, and I'm not seeing it. But does it say there?
42:06: Oh, no. I think it's 1989, if I'm not mistaken. Does it say that there? I think it does say 1989. 20 -year anniversary.
42:12: They put this portrait on there. Now if you look at this closely, you can kind of see what you think that is.
42:19: Yeah, that's the woman caught in adultery, the pericope adultery. Yeah, that's found in John 7, verses 53 to 811, which is interesting because most scholars say that was not in the original.
42:30: But regardless, it seems like a story that Jesus would have told.
42:35: Oral tradition, possibly. Not told, but it would have experienced. But here you have the woman, and she has her hands in her face, and Jesus is riding into the stone there.
42:46: I always like to, if I have enough time, I love these pages, pages 164, 165, this part when
42:53: I'm talking to Latter -day Saints, because I think it hits the heart of the matter. And I'll say, do you think that Jesus forgave the woman?
43:02: What do you think most Latter -day Saints are going to say? Conditionally. No, they won't even say that.
43:07: They just say, absolutely. Oh, okay. Jesus has the ability to forgive.
43:14: And I'll say, but is that really what you're, because I believe that the woman was forgiven. I do believe that.
43:20: I think there's no conditions. You're right, that's what they're thinking, conditionally. Oh, well, yeah. Well, but they don't think that way most times.
43:28: Yeah, they're inconsistent. They want, they love grace. In fact, oftentimes they come our way.
43:35: I don't see us coming their way. Right. They're always, they're like envious of. That's what I was saying earlier, exactly.
43:40: Yeah, they want it so bad. It's free, and you can have it, but you got to repent of your Mormonism. Anyways, yeah, keep going.
43:46: So this is what this says after I cited some of it earlier, but it says, no forgiveness without repentance.
43:53: Okay, we cited D &C 5843, you have to forsake the sin, right?
44:00: That's what it says. But listen to what I read and see if this is consistent with Christianity.
44:07: He says, this connection between effort and the repentance which attracts the Lord's forgiveness is often not understood.
44:14: And I would agree with that, you know, because I think for Latter -day Saints, you have to do in order to get the forgiveness.
44:21: In my childhood, Sunday school lessons were given to us on the 8th chapter of John wherein we learned of the woman thrown at the feet of the
44:30: Redeemer for judgment. My sweet Sunday school teacher lauded the Lord for having forgiven the woman.
44:37: She did not understand the impossibility of such an act. And as I'm reading this,
44:42: I'm kind of looking to see the reaction, and usually I get eyebrows raised, you know, because I'm showing them that they thought the woman was forgiven, and they weren't saying conditionally.
44:51: They were just saying, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's what he's going to say. In my years since then, I have repeatedly heard people praise the
44:58: Lord for His mercy in having forgiven the adulteress. This example has been used numerous times to show how easily one can be forgiven for gross sin.
45:09: Then he says, but did the Lord forgive the woman? Could He forgive her? There seems to be no evidence of forgiveness.
45:16: Now catch what he's saying, and this is accurate with current Mormonism today.
45:22: You have to prove yourself. You can't just have somebody tell you you're forgiven and move on like Jesus did that with the paralytic in Mark 2.
45:31: Your sins are forgiven. That caused all kinds of a fervor because the Pharisees said, how can you forgive sins?
45:37: And he didn't do anything. Well, the woman didn't do anything. All she was doing was crying and realizing that she should be killed, according to the law of Moses, for adultery.
45:47: But Jesus has forgiven her, and he's saying, but no, you can't have
45:53: Jesus forgiving her, and then she doesn't prove herself down the road. Let me come back in 15 years.
45:59: Is she no longer into adultery? And if she's not, okay, then maybe she is forgiven.
46:06: But that's all based on proof. There is no simple, boy, you are forgiven. This is the anathema of this religion because this religion says, you have to accomplish everything, and you can never know.
46:21: If you ask a Latter -day Saint if you were to die right now, would you go to the very best this religion has to offer?
46:26: I rarely find anybody saying yes. They say, I hope so. Again, I'm doing my best.
46:32: I'm trying. Those are the biggest excuses I hear. And yet we have 1 John 5 .13 that says we may know we have eternal life.
46:42: We have assurance of eternal life, not based on what I did. That's where we talked about grace and imputation, but based on what
46:50: Christ did for me. This makes Christianity completely different than every other religion because Mormonism is like every other religion.
46:58: What have you done for me lately? What do I have to do in order to attain salvation, forgiveness? Do I have to stop sinning?
47:05: How long? Years before I'll be able to ever say that you're forgiven of that adultery. But now you might have new issues.
47:10: You might have the pride issue. You might have irreverence or whatever else, that big list he gives on page 25.
47:17: And then at the end of that, he says, oh, by the way, if I missed anything, then don't let that be a reason to be a loophole.
47:23: Add that into that list. So what do we say to the LDS person, just to bring it back just a little bit, 1
47:29: Nephi 3 .7, there's no commandment that God gives that man cannot obey. So they take verses like be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect as a command from God.
47:38: And then also with John 8, they would take go sin no more as a commandment upon conditional repentance or conditional forgiveness in John 8.
47:47: So how do we as Christians help our LDS neighbor understand those things?
47:53: So because John 8, I think Spencer W. Kimball argues, he says, well, that's not the end of it. He says go sin no more.
47:59: So that must be something that she should do in order to obtain that forgiveness. Like you said, you must be perfect. So how do we help our
48:05: LDS person or neighbor understand these differences? Well, I think to understand that in the
48:12: Bible, good works are something that is commanded. The imperatives are there to do this, to do that.
48:20: Obviously, we're supposed to do things. But it's never as in a sense of trying to earn
48:26: God's favor. And so I think what I want to accomplish when I'm talking using this book is to show that if you want to say that you have to obey the whole lot, so to speak, which
48:38: Paul calls a false gospel in Galatians 1, 8, and 9, if this is what you want to do, knock yourself out.
48:46: But you're never going to be able to accomplish. You're that hamster in the wheel that keeps trying to get somewhere or the carrot in front of the horse, but you're never going to get what it is you're looking for.
48:58: You won't get forgiveness of sins if you have to accomplish those things. And I think what we need to explain is, and there's plenty of verses besides the ones,
49:06: I mean, you can go through. Just go through the book of Romans. You know how powerful that book is. Go through the book of Galatians.
49:12: Paul wrote it for people who thought that you had to do certain things. And you'll see very clearly we're not saved by the law.
49:19: We're not saved by doing. We're saved because of God's mercy and his grace, the justification that's made available for us.
49:27: But what makes this so damning for Latter -day Saints is they can't accomplish what this leader and their church, even though they're a little nicer.
49:38: There's a book called Divine Gift of Forgiveness by Neil Anderson. It was written supposedly to kind of replace this.
49:43: I have a lot of Latter -day Saints come up to me and say, oh, you know, we have a book that's replaced that,
49:49: Divine Gift of Forgiveness. I've read it. If you go to our website, mrm .org, type in Divine Gift of Forgiveness, you can see a review.
49:56: I spend a lot of time. I have charts, and I compare this book with that if this is supposed to be a replacement.
50:02: It was written about five years ago. And most of the people who tell me about the book haven't read it themselves.
50:08: They just tell, you know how that goes. Well, yeah, it's a great book. Have you read it? No, but I heard it's a great book. Okay, so do you think that it, and I'll say, do you think it contradicts what
50:18: Kimball is saying? Oh, yeah, now that's the book we use because we sell that one now. We don't sell The Miracle of Forgiveness anymore.
50:24: I say, I've read it. I read it about four times, and I have diagrammed it. I'm going to tell you something, guys.
50:32: Neil Anderson does not contradict Spencer W. Kimball. He just says it nicer.
50:39: In a 21st century, he says it nicer, but guess what? He uses the same verses that Spencer Kimball uses to support the idea that you have to do this.
50:50: Nowhere in there does he say, oh, it's by grace and grace alone, isn't that great? No, he's no different than Spencer Kimball says on page 208.
50:59: Repentant life seeks perfection. The gospel is a program of action, of doing things.
51:05: Eternal life hangs in the balance, awaiting the works of men. This progress toward eternal life is a matter of achieving perfection.
51:14: Living all the commandments guarantees total forgiveness of sins. There you go. Living all the commandments.
51:20: Every Latter -day Saint, if you ask them, how many commandments are you supposed to keep? They don't say some of them. They say all of them.
51:26: How often do you? You will ask, and they'll say all the time. Then the question is, how are you doing at that?
51:31: Just keep coming back to that. But it says, living all the commandments guarantees total forgiveness of sins and assures one of exaltation through that formula, through that perfection, which comes by complying with the formula the
51:44: Lord gave us. He quotes Matthew 5 .48. There's another John 3 .16 in Mormonism.
51:49: Be therefore perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect. Being perfect means a triumph over sin.
51:55: This is a mandate from the Lord. He is just and wise and kind. He would never require anything from his children, which was not for their benefit and which was not attainable.
52:05: Perfection, therefore, is an achievable goal. And I'll use that when they're walking by.
52:11: I'll say, you know, he said that perfection is an achievable goal. He did not. He did not. Show me.
52:17: So I'll open up to page 208, and I'll show them. Here's the thing. He does use Ephesians 2 .8 and 9.
52:22: And this is all kind of answering your question, what do we do? I want them to see Mormonism has nothing to offer you.
52:29: It has only works and commands that cannot be kept. In the Bible, he quotes
52:35: Ephesians 2 .8 and 9. He says, some people not of our church like to quote in support of that concept the following words of Paul.
52:42: He quotes Ephesians 2 .8 and 9. Then he says this. This is going to kill you guys. One of the most fallacious doctrines originated by Satan and propounded by man is that man is saved alone by the grace of God.
52:54: Do you guys believe that? Oh, my goodness. Do you believe man is saved by the grace of God alone? Christians? He says that belief in Jesus Christ alone is all that is needed for salvation.
53:04: When I'm giving this in a church, the pastor sitting over here, and I'll ask the pastor, pastor, do you believe that? He thinks it's a trick question.
53:09: He goes, well, yeah, I do believe. Okay, just want to make sure. Along with all the other works necessary for man's exaltation in the kingdom of God, this could rule out the need for repentance.
53:22: Then he quotes 2 Nephi 25 .23. What is he saying here? If you're going to get forgiven, like this woman who has committed adultery, and you just get forgiven, then you're going to, why shouldn't you continue to sin?
53:38: Licentiousness. Paul talks about that in Romans 7, doesn't he? He said, should I sin that grace might abound?
53:45: What does he say? By no means. By no means. Absolutely not. My seminary professor told me, you can't get any more definitive than, no!
53:56: You're not getting it if you think that. This is the problem in Mormonism, and I want a
54:02: Latter -day Saint to understand it's possible to have forgiveness of sins right now, not based on you, but based on what
54:10: Jesus did. You might think that's too easy, but it certainly wasn't too easy for Jesus, who paid the ultimate price, but he did.
54:18: He was the one who said, it is finished. For you to think that you have work to do in order to be justified by works, then
54:28: I'm sorry, that's not possible. Spencer Kimball, he is the deliverer of what we call the impossible gospel, because I can't do what he says, and nobody can.
54:40: Wow. Thinking back to the LDS person, when they go to sacrament meetings on Sunday, they're essentially renewing their covenants.
54:49: Can you explain briefly what is happening there? Is the covenant that they're claiming to renew the covenant to where they must be perfect in order to reach
54:57: Godhood? They might not think that, absolutely, but they are. When they are eight years old, they're starting at eight at least, they're supposed to get baptized.
55:06: At baptism, you give a covenant that you promise to keep the commandments, basically. Then when you start going to the temple, you make covenants there as well.
55:16: It's covenants that you have to keep your end of the bargain, and then God will keep his end of the bargain. There's this mutual back and forth.
55:23: It's called the covenant path. The covenant path means that, and this has been really used in the last decade especially, and we think
55:31: Russell M. Nelson probably has a lot to do with that. Just last conference, they talked about covenant path. Back the last year, both conferences, they talked about the covenant path.
55:40: It means that you are doing everything you're supposed to do. The problem is every week, as you mentioned, a
55:47: Latter -day Saint will go to sacrament where they take the bread and the water passed around by the deacons, the
55:53: Aaronic priesthood holders, and they pass around this, and you take this. What you do every week is you repent of your sins.
56:01: Okay, great. I think we should be repenting too as Christians. We are told that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
56:10: But they take that, and they're repenting, and then what are they doing? They're promising to keep the commandments.
56:19: Their covenants is to keep the commandments. D &C 2515, Jesus tells
56:25: Emma Smith, Keep my commandments continually, and unless you do, where I am, you cannot come.
56:33: And it's written for all. The next verse goes on and says it's written for everybody. So if that's important to stop sinning, according to D &C 5843,
56:43: I'm just quoting chapter 12, abandoning sin, if you have promised that, then why are you coming back the following Sunday and repenting on the same sins all over again?
56:57: I mean, Doctrine and Covenants says, it says that if you repeat the same sin, all your former sins come back to you.
57:06: That's damning as well, and this is why I think, and I'm not trying to minimize this by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that's why
57:14: Utah has such a high depression rate. Some would say, well, it's the mountains, the Rocky Mountains, and the weather and all the rest.
57:21: Partly, I'm sure it has to do with that, but I think there's a lot of well -meaning people who are trying their very best, and they're not accomplishing what they think they're supposed to do, because the leaders get up at General Conference and make it seem like they have arrived, be like us.
57:38: You never hear any self -deprecating messages from General Conference, except for simple stories that Thomas Monson used to give.
57:45: He used to tell childhood foibles, but otherwise, they make it sound like, we've been doing this, you guys need to get up on the boat, follow the covenant path.
57:54: We just had a talk given in this last conference where he very clearly, I can't remember the leader who said that, but covenant path is talked about, and they seem to, well,
58:05: General Conference seems to be a time of telling people to do good and do better.
58:11: Get back on the program. And I don't think it's working, because just recently, they did a statistic that says one out of four
58:20: Latter -day Saints have thought about leaving the church. That just came out here this past week.
58:26: One out of four, and it's much higher than any other religion. And so why is it that so many people, when
58:33: I'm holding out this book, offering a free copy if they don't have a copy, giving away 30 copies, when
58:39: I've talked to literally thousands of people in the whole day that I was there, talking to them as they walked by, because I'm standing in a very busy place going back and forth, why is it that they hate this book so much, for many of them?
58:51: Some of them say they like it, but for the most part, they just kind of look at it and roll their eyes, like why is he giving that out?
58:57: I'm giving it out because I want them to understand what Mormonism teaches, and despite the attempts of the leaders to make it sound like Mormonism is all about Jesus Christ and grace and forgiveness, which is more of the talks that we get at General Conference than they used to be back in the old days, back in the 70s and 80s, because I've been following this thing for over 50 years, and I read,
59:20: I used to read all the ensigns, now they're called Liahona, I read all of those. I watch General Conference, I talk to Latter -day
59:27: Saints, I know, and so even though many of the Latter -day Saints think that there's been great change, there has not been great change, and the only solution, you guys know, is a relationship with Jesus that's not possible through doing what
59:43: Spencer Kimball says, just do it. You know, that reminds me, just even you talking about Neil Anderson, Eric, and the softening of these concepts and these doctrines from their revelations, you know, there is recent figures who are authoritative to some of these people because right now, we are, when we do evangelism on the streets, we're starting to hear more
01:00:19: Latter -day Saints talking about some kind of shadow of biblical grace, in a way.
01:00:27: We even heard last week, it's all Jesus, was the comment from this
01:00:32: Mormon, which was surprising. In fact, I have right here, Brigham Young University professor and counselor of the young men of the
01:00:46: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, Brad Wilcox, and so Brad Wilcox gave a famous talk on grace is sufficient, and he goes on to give this story about this young lady who says,
01:01:02: I'm trying my best, I just don't get grace. I know
01:01:09: I need to do my best, and then Jesus does the rest, but I can't even do my best, and he goes on to say, sorry,
01:01:23: I just had it. Jesus doesn't make up the difference,
01:01:29: Jesus makes all the difference. Grace is not about filling gaps, it's about filling us.
01:01:35: He even goes on to articulate, it's Jesus said it was finished. He says things that we've even said.
01:01:42: So what's happening there, and I think
01:01:48: Brad is being inconsistent, very inconsistent, because then he'll go on to probably say, if we asked him, do
01:01:55: I have to be baptized in your church? Do I have to hold the priesthood? So anyways, maybe you could touch on that a bit as well, brother.
01:02:02: Well, Brad Wilcox, when he said that, was not a general authority, and a lot of the doctrines that people on the streets have come from Brigham Young University professors, and so when somebody, they bring that up all the time on the street, and I will say, well, we've written about this, you can go to our website, mrm .org,
01:02:22: we've talked about that sermon in particular, his book that he wrote, and Brad Wilcox is making it sound like, well, it's all about Christ, but I go back to Spencer W.
01:02:35: Kimball, am I allowed to do that? I mean, who was he? He was the president of the church, wrote it as an apostle. Who was he?
01:02:41: Well, now he's a 70, but that's still not one of the top 15 general authorities.
01:02:47: This is what Spencer Kimball said, which, or excuse me, while in this probation and this life, certainly meant the period of our mortal lives.
01:02:54: Okay, so we have to do this, because a lot of Latter -day Saints have this idea, oh, I can do it in the end, whatever, it's like taking care of venial sins in the
01:03:01: Catholic church, but no, that's not, where are you going to do this at? Are you going to go to spirit prison, or are you going to go to paradise?
01:03:08: I mean, if you go to paradise, I thought you were already figured out there. Are you going to go to spirit prison? You're going to have to have somebody do your work for you.
01:03:14: But then he goes on, and he says this, too late, the terrestrial for them, it could have been the celestial, it could have been exaltation, but they procrastinated the day of their preparation.
01:03:23: Of course, Alma chapter 34, the same lamentable cry of too late will apply to many of today's church members who did not heed the warning, but who proceeded, sometimes carelessly, sometimes defiantly, to bind themselves through mortality to those who could not or would not prepare for the blessings which were in reserve for them.
01:03:44: The Lord's program is unchangeable. His laws are immutable, which means they can't change. They will not be modified.
01:03:53: Okay, so that seems like a modification to me, Pastor Wade. They will not be modified.
01:03:58: Your opinion or mine does not alter the laws. Many in the world, and even some in the church, seem to think that eventually the
01:04:06: Lord will be merciful and give them the unearned blessing, but the Lord cannot be merciful at the expense of justice.
01:04:15: I mean, like, there's ways as a Christian where I can agree He can't be merciful at the expense of justice.
01:04:21: Well, because justice was placed on Jesus Christ, the cross, who was fully God, who actually atoned for my sins, the wrath of God was placed on Him, and then my belief in Jesus accredits me
01:04:33: His righteousness. So there, what he's saying, though, is that that didn't happen at the cross, and actually, justice needs to occur in your everyday life, and you need to repent and not do that sin again, or all your other former sins are going to be placed back on your shoulders.
01:04:48: Like you said, that's the impossible gospel. That's insanity, and Brad Wilcox, the question would be is, well, what scriptures from the standard work are you exegeting to come up with that conclusion, and where is
01:05:01: Spencer W. Kimball wrong with Alma 34? Where is he wrong with Moroni 1032? Where is he wrong with 2 Nephi 25 -23?
01:05:08: Can you give a historical hermeneutic for an altering of those verses from your standard works?
01:05:13: And he doesn't, and that's the thing. The law of non -contradiction says that something cannot be
01:05:19: A and non -A at the same time. Either Kimball is right, and these are unalterable.
01:05:25: You can't change this. Either Jesus didn't pay it all, or Jesus paid it all, but you can't have it both ways, and who am
01:05:34: I more likely to want to believe? Well, I would hope that the president of the church who was an apostle is going to do better than a
01:05:41: BYU professor. Maybe this gentleman who's now, now he's a 70, but maybe he's changed his mind.
01:05:48: How do you know that a BYU professor has any kind of priesthood authority to be able to declare doctrine?
01:05:53: That's not his prerogative. That's only the prerogative of men like this. Spencer Kimball did it in his day, and like I just told you, divine gift of forgiveness.
01:06:04: Maybe it does have it nicer. He's not quite as blunt, but at the same time,
01:06:10: I think that he's saying exactly the same. Now, one of the other questions I want to tell you that I get out there on the street is, did you read the whole book?
01:06:19: Well, guys, I have read this book. Every time I go through it, and I highlight 1 ,000 copies, I've done this a few times before.
01:06:25: I've been around the block. Yeah, I've read this book. Have you read the end?
01:06:31: That's what they always want to know. Have you read the end? I say, yes, I have read the end. And so I say, what in the end changes anything that he said throughout?
01:06:38: Because they say he really tempers it at the end, and he really kind of, it was hard saying, we realize what you're telling me is hard, but he really tempers it.
01:06:45: I say, okay, help me to understand this better. Page 325, maybe, the last couple of chapters, it says,
01:06:53: Your Heavenly Father has promised forgiveness upon total repentance and meeting all the requirements, but that forgiveness is not granted merely for the asking.
01:07:00: There must be works, many works, and an all -out total surrender with a great humility and a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
01:07:05: That end of the book, where he says, It depends upon you whether or not you are forgiven and when.
01:07:11: It could be weeks. It could be years. It could be centuries before that happy day when you have the positive assurance that the
01:07:16: Lord has forgiven you. That depends on your humility, your sincerity, your works, your attitudes.
01:07:23: What did you not hear a whole lot of in here? Grace. Did you hear Jesus one time? Yeah. The grace that Jesus offers.
01:07:29: I don't hear that. It's based on you, and the Latter -day Saint knows that. So I keep going, and I say,
01:07:35: Help me. Show me a passage. I'll show you a few others. This is the second to last chapter.
01:07:41: It says, He quotes from Alma chapter 13. He says, This passage indicates an attitude which is basic to the sanctification we should all be seeking and thus to the repentance that merits forgiveness.
01:07:53: Merits forgiveness. There you go. That kind of is like, my friend Bill McKeever likes to say, that's fingernails on a chalkboard.
01:07:59: For those who are Gen Z, I'm sorry. A chalkboard is something we used to use in school. But that's what you would do as a kid as you scratched on that.
01:08:08: It is that the former transgressor must have reached a point of no return to sin, wherein there is not merely a renunciation but also a deep adhornance of the sin, where the sin becomes most distasteful to him and where the desire or urge to sin is cleared out of his life.
01:08:24: This is the end of the book, second to last chapter, and he's telling me, you don't need to stop the sin. You need to get the desire to sin out of you.
01:08:31: I'm sorry, but as a human being, I'm going to side with Paul and say, what a wretched man
01:08:37: I am. So I keep going, page 360. We can hardly be too forceful in reminding people that they cannot sin and be forgiven and then sin again and again and expect repeated forgiveness.
01:08:48: And then the last chapter is called the miracle of forgiveness. Okay, maybe here, Pastor Wade, maybe we're going to get something.
01:08:54: So I've read this chapter and I go to the very last page, page 368. The last page of the whole book.
01:09:00: This is what he says. This is the comfort I'm supposed to have. He says, what relief, what comfort, what joy.
01:09:07: Those laden with transgressions and sorrows and sin may be forgiven and cleansed and purified.
01:09:12: Oh, finally, we got it. We can be cleansed and purified.
01:09:18: Oh, wait a minute. There's a word if here. I mean, let me read the rest of it here. If they will return to their
01:09:25: Lord, learn of him and keep his commandments. So how is that any different than anything else that I've read in this book?
01:09:33: That's what's interesting to me is that let me ask you a question. What is a miracle?
01:09:39: Well, it's an act of God, right? I was talking to, I can't remember if it was, it was an old time evangelist who is very old now.
01:09:49: And back when this book came out, they said there is not a miracle in it and there's no forgiveness.
01:09:55: In fact, it was somebody, and I can't remember who it was, who actually went when he was an apostle and got to speak to, back in those days, you were able to go to Salt Lake City and they spoke to him and they said, we're having a hard time with your book.
01:10:09: And he says, yeah, well, a lot of people are, but this is what needs to be done. And that's the phrase that she said.
01:10:15: She says, well, it doesn't seem like there's any miracle because it would be a miracle if you could do everything that it says you're supposed to do.
01:10:22: And the only way you're going to get forgiveness is by getting that miracle that you're going to somehow have to produce.
01:10:29: It's not possible. The true miracle of forgiveness is the God of the Bible, the
01:10:35: God of the universe, taking on flesh and dying on the cross for my sins so that I can be forgiven.
01:10:41: That's an actual miracle, not my working. A miracle is an act of God. Literally, throughout the whole book, he's saying forgiveness is something that you achieve by becoming perfect.
01:10:49: That's not a miracle, that's you. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's like, then we have to consider when
01:10:56: Jesus says, today is the day of salvation, right? When he says things like that, today you will be with me in paradise.
01:11:05: Well, did he think the wrong thought right before he died, the thief on the cross? You know, it's just, then we have to go back to every definite and clear moments that Jesus has spoken of forgiveness.
01:11:20: And we have to question our Lord then. We have to question him every time. Wow. We don't have a next life to have people doing work vicariously for us that they get baptized and get sealed to our families.
01:11:33: You're right, 2 Corinthians 6 -2 says, today is the day of salvation. Hebrews 9 -27 says, first comes death and then the judgment.
01:11:42: Yes. There is no purgatory. I'm sorry for our Catholic friends. There's no place to work out your venial sins.
01:11:50: It's done on the cross did you receive that or did you not? That's the simple way of going about forgiveness.
01:11:56: To think that you have to work out or work for your salvation in the next life is certainly not biblical.
01:12:03: And if you want to say that quite clearly, we cited from Alma 34, it's not
01:12:09: Book of Mormon teaching either. This is something that Joseph Smith came up with. Basically, it comes up with the idea of baptism for the dead that it was possible to have work done vicariously for those who hadn't heard his brother
01:12:22: Alvin dies. And so a lot of preachers in the town were saying that he was going to hell. So he didn't like that.
01:12:28: So he came up with this idea. So that's where Latter -day Saints get the idea that because they do work for the dead and on their behalf in the temples, somehow they're going to have the second chance.
01:12:38: No, the Bible and the Book of Mormon disagree with that idea. That's some heavy stuff.
01:12:43: So if you're LDS and you're listening to this right now and you're being challenged with things, good.
01:12:50: Be challenged. Be challenged. Try to reconcile what you think about grace to what actually your prophets have said about grace.
01:12:56: Talk to your bishop. If you're not getting answers, there might be a reason for that. There might be a reason for that.
01:13:03: We want to let you know that true repentance doesn't mean you never sin again. It says in John, one of his letters, that those who say they were without sin, the truth is not in them.
01:13:14: Oh, wretched man that I am, right? That you were talking about with Paul. Repentance is turning away from one thing and seeking after another.
01:13:22: It's not never doing the action again. That's just not true. My forgiveness is predicated on a covenant fulfilled between Jesus and the
01:13:30: Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the perfect covenant keeper. I will be a covenant breaker until the end.
01:13:36: There's not an excuse for my sin, but what it does mean is that I rely on Jesus fully for my salvation in Jesus Christ alone.
01:13:44: He's not a stepping stone for me. He's literally the cornerstone of Christianity. He's the cornerstone of our faith because what better can you do than what
01:13:53: Jesus has already done? Ask yourself that. If Jesus was without sin, without sin, never sinned, what better can you do when you repent and you keep repenting and repenting again?
01:14:04: There's nothing you can do. There's nothing. Come into the arms of Christ. Repent of a false doctrine.
01:14:11: Grace is free for you. It really is. There's nothing that you can do to deserve it. That's the point.
01:14:16: It's a gift. It's a gift, gift from God for you because He loves and cares about us.
01:14:22: Repent and just come to Him. Yep. Jesus didn't come to do what we could never do just to turn around and say, now do what you can't do.
01:14:33: That's not what our Lord offers. And if this book and these things from the
01:14:41: Book of Mormon and the DNCs, if these things finally reveal to you the shackles that are on you, then good.
01:14:50: Because if you can recognize those shackles, then maybe, then maybe you might turn to the only one who can remove them, that is
01:15:00: Christ Jesus. So we want that for you guys. And if nothing else, what we've talked about today,
01:15:06: I'm hoping that, especially for Latter -day Saints, who think that their theology is so similar to ours that we really don't have many differences.
01:15:15: I hope they see today that there are huge differences. They're incompatible.
01:15:21: They cannot work together. And so that's why I think I've had great success with this book in public evangelism.
01:15:29: Because an evangelical Christian handing out a book written by the 12th President of the
01:15:34: Church, gleefully wanting people to take it if they haven't read it, and then wanting to have conversations with most of the
01:15:41: Latter -day Saints, especially over 40 years of age who have read it, for them to realize they are not enough.
01:15:48: Only He, Jesus, is enough. Amen. Hey, so where can they find out more about you, our viewers?
01:15:55: They can go to mrm .org. If they want to go to the website for this book, and you can find some other fun things there, themiracleofforgiveness .com,
01:16:04: the whole title of the book, themiracleofforgiveness .com. My email, if anybody would like to reach out to me,
01:16:10: Eric, E -R -I -C, at mrm .org. It's also on the miracleofforgiveness .com
01:16:15: page. But yeah, I would love to have conversations on, wouldn't you say this is probably the most important thing that we can discuss with the
01:16:23: Latter -day Saints? Getting to the heart of the matter. We're not talking about issues of polygamy or $150 billion.
01:16:30: I mean, those are important issues. Sure, sure. This is the most important issue because it deals with each person individually.
01:16:36: Yep, amen. Also, here's his book right here. I have it. Mine's actually signed personally from Eric. But Introducing Christianity to Mormons.
01:16:43: Go get your copy. Also, if you're a Latter -day Saint and you want to get this, I think we have a few copies. Just let us know.
01:16:48: Maybe we'll send you a copy if we get to know you a little bit. Yeah, go to apologiautah .com. Our email is there.
01:16:55: Our P .O. box is there. Send us a letter. Send us an email, and we will get this book to you for free.
01:17:00: Honestly, we will. We want you to have it. So let us know. Yeah, all right, guys.
01:17:06: Thank you. Thank you, Eric, for your time. Thank you, Eric. Praise God. Like, comment, or say things you don't like about this.