Surrounded by Mormon Missionaries: Hawaii
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Jeff Durbin was with Apologia Church on our final trip before planting a church in Kauai. Our team was meeting up with some local Evangelists we connected with when we saw four Mormon missionaries. Jeff and Luke walked up to them.
This is what happened.
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- 00:00
- Hey guys, are you guys Latter -day Saints? We are! What's up? I'm Jeff. How you doing? I'm doing good.
- 00:05
- What's your name? Mendoza. Mendoza? Mendoza. Where you from? The Philippines. The Philippines? What's up? Where you from? Virginia.
- 00:11
- Virginia? Oh yeah. Where in Virginia? Fredericksburg. Is that north, south? Pretty far north.
- 00:17
- Really? Okay. Right on. Like closer to D .C.? Yeah, really close to D .C. Really? Like Sterling? Oh yeah, a little south of there.
- 00:23
- I lived in Sterling for five years. Oh, sweet. Awesome. I lived in Maryland so not too far.
- 00:30
- Awesome. Where you from? California. Where out in California? Oakland. Oakland? That's hardcore.
- 00:36
- That is hardcore. I'm in Berkeley so like. Okay, alright. But most people don't know where that is. I'm in Oakland.
- 00:41
- Okay, right on. Where you from? Utah. Utah? Oh, well. Yes. Wow, the motherland.
- 00:47
- I went to high school with this guy. Did you really? Wow, where out in Utah? Midway. Midway? Midway? I'm not sure where that's at.
- 00:54
- You know where Park City is? Park City. Yeah, okay, I know where Park City is. Okay, yeah. Yeah, right on.
- 01:00
- So, you here on your mission? How long have you guys been on your mission for? A while. Two years, over a year.
- 01:07
- These guys are going home soon. Okay, you guys are going home. You guys are... Over a year, yeah. Okay, right on.
- 01:13
- Well, that's a pretty sweet gig getting to Kauai. You said sweaty. Did I? You almost said sweaty.
- 01:19
- Almost sweaty. It is. Right now it is. Right on. So, you guys, Latter -day
- 01:25
- Saints in Kauai, on your mission. What's your testimony? Why'd you come?
- 01:33
- Come here? On our mission? Yeah. Well, like, just to tell the world or people of Kauai, or the
- 01:43
- Hawaii, people of Hawaii, that God loves them, that families can be together forever through the gospel.
- 01:49
- That's why we're here. And, you know, it's up to them. We only invite people. We don't force them. We invite them to come unto
- 01:55
- Christ, but it's still their choice. And so I've heard we do our best and we pray every day to find those opportunities that we can to help other people to come close to Christ.
- 02:07
- Right on. For me? Yeah. I feel like I kind of had to wade through a lot of crap to get to my faith to the point where it is right now.
- 02:14
- Okay. And so for me, I feel like I'm out here because I can show people where I made mistakes and where I could have gone to kind of get there faster so I can just kind of help people to gain faith and gain testimony faster than I did, easier than I did.
- 02:31
- Okay. Were you raised in the church? Yes, but I struggled with it.
- 02:37
- Oh, okay, okay, gotcha. But parents, LDS. Yeah, everyone's really strong. Okay, right on. Okay, how about you?
- 02:44
- Something that made me happy and I wanted other people to have the chance to learn about it if they want to. Okay. Did you always plan to go on your mission or sort of a last -minute thing?
- 02:53
- No. No? It was always something that was on my mind, but kind of like what I'm saying here was something that I wanted to make sure it was something
- 03:00
- I believed in before I went out and did it, if that makes sense. Yeah. So I didn't want to just do it because I was supposed to or do it because people expect me to, but I wanted to do it because it's something
- 03:09
- I wanted to do. Okay. How about you, man? I knew that Christ had died for us, right, and that this gospel will bring us closest to Christ, to be able to live and be with our families forever.
- 03:23
- Okay. Not to share that with others. Right on. So how'd you get your testimony? Like, what happened?
- 03:29
- What did you study? What did you, what happened in your lives to get you to the point where you said, just miss a prophet, and this is all true?
- 03:37
- It took some time for me. Okay. A long time. What did that process look like?
- 03:44
- Well, my family also had connections to the church my whole life, but they encouraged me not to just do it because they were doing it, wanted me to believe it.
- 03:50
- Okay. So I would go to church. I kind of learned that kind of thing, studied the Bible, studied that, went to other churches, hung out with other churches.
- 03:58
- I went to college for a little bit and had some experiences there where my friend started to kind of learn for herself, and she had questions.
- 04:06
- I just ended up talking to her a lot, and from what she was talking about, it reminded me the happiness that I felt, per se, in my childhood, the times when
- 04:15
- I felt really good. And I decided that I was looking at them, like, you know, it's times when I was living the gospel.
- 04:21
- It's times when I was doing my best to have a good life. I wasn't perfect. I still mess up all the time. Even a missionary, I still mess up all the time.
- 04:28
- But it got me to a point where it was something I wanted to pray about, to know if that's what was happening, if that's where I needed to go, and I got my answer.
- 04:36
- Yeah. Anybody else have any profound experiences? I always like to share.
- 04:43
- I just kind of got tired of a lot of people telling me that Joseph Smith was a prophet,
- 04:49
- Book of Mormon was true, and then a lot of people telling me that it wasn't. And it kind of, like, escalated on both sides to a point where I was like, all right, stop.
- 04:57
- And I just kind of pushed everything else out of the way and just studied the scriptures and prayed. That's really cool. So you were in Virginia.
- 05:04
- Yes. And so you talked to people who didn't believe Joseph was a prophet. Even were very against it.
- 05:10
- So super opposed or what people call anti. Yeah. Okay. So what did you do with that conflict?
- 05:17
- How did you resolve that when you have people coming from both sides? What did you say you went to the scriptures?
- 05:23
- What was that like? I tried to kind of, like, keep what I believe separate from what they believe, but I also tried to listen to them.
- 05:31
- Because, like, obviously they're at their point for a reason. So I tried to, like, I kept them separate from what
- 05:38
- I personally believe, but I also tried to take everyone's opinion into account. And it just got to a point where it was like, okay, either
- 05:44
- I believe something that's insane or I believe something that's true enough for people to think it's insane. And so I just kind of stopped listening to everybody.
- 05:54
- And I studied and I made, like, a big list of all the stuff that I thought didn't make sense.
- 05:59
- Okay. And I just started checking them off as I read. What was one of those things for you that you saw it as a conflict initially, and then you started looking into it, and then you resolved it?
- 06:10
- What would one of those things be? Probably the need for a restoration.
- 06:20
- I don't know how familiar you are with Mormon beliefs. A bit. Raised around Mormons. I actually live in Arizona.
- 06:27
- Oh, right on. And so it's Mesa, Arizona. I'm not sure if you know. It's, like, second.
- 06:34
- At least at one point, it was, like, the second largest Mormon population besides, you know,
- 06:39
- Utah. So I am familiar. This is my son, Stellar. Nice to meet you, Stellar. Stellar.
- 06:45
- Can we wave at your camera? Is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. Of course. Of course.
- 06:52
- We love to show dialogue between Latter -day Saints and Christians to show that there can be love and grace and respect and gentleness, and that we can listen.
- 07:05
- So what was that like? The restoration, the need for restoration for you.
- 07:10
- The need for the Book of Mormon. Okay. That was a big one for me. Okay. I had read some scriptures, been told about some scriptures in the
- 07:17
- Bible where it says, like, you don't need any more scripture. This is all you need to be saved. So I really struggled with that.
- 07:23
- So Christians probably used Revelation, don't add to the words of this book, or God will add to you the plagues that are in this book.
- 07:32
- And saying, well, that means the whole Bible when it's really referring to Revelation. Right? There'd be other texts that would say don't add to God's word, but specifically that would be the response.
- 07:41
- Yeah. Right? Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I just had a lot of good Christian friends that disagreed with me, but respected what
- 07:49
- I believed. Yeah. There were other people that did not respect what I believed. And so I just went through and I studied really carefully what the scripture meant and the background of it, and like you were saying, how it was specifically meant for Revelation.
- 08:00
- Yeah. And all sorts of different stuff. And just, it really just came down to a million little things rather than one big thing.
- 08:08
- Okay. The big stuff came later. I had to get a million little answers before I could get one big one. Good. So how do you,
- 08:15
- I mean, we live in a time, when I was, one of my good, good friends in high school, his name was Wade, sweetest family,
- 08:22
- Latter -day Saints, like, I love your community. I love you. Some of the,
- 08:27
- I think you guys are some of the sweetest, most gracious, wonderful people. And so my good friend in high school,
- 08:34
- Wade, was deeply devout Latter -day Saint family. And he introduced me to Mormonism.
- 08:43
- And so I entered into like relationships with Latter -day Saints with a close friend and family fed me all the time.
- 08:51
- And I had more missionaries in my house all the time. And so like, that was like, for me, no, it was an amazing experience.
- 08:58
- Like I cherish it because it introduced me to a community of people that I really care about, that I disagree with, but that I really, really care about and just,
- 09:06
- I've gained a lot of respect for. So in the conflicts that I had early on with Wade and I, as I was searching the scriptures and he was giving me a book of Mormon, tell me to pray about it, everything else, was my problems were like, not over the little things, you know, like people get offensive at times, even
- 09:26
- Christians, professing Christians will get offensive with Latter -day Saints. They'll say things like, tell me about that silly underwear, you know, and it's offensive.
- 09:33
- Like there's Christians that wear strange underwear that I don't want to talk about, right? So Christians will go to like silly things like how come you don't drink coffee?
- 09:41
- Like what's with the coffee stuff? So for me, it was more fundamental. And I think in the scriptures more fundamental, it's the issue of who is
- 09:49
- God and how do you come to know him? And so for my initial conflict with my good friends, it was about Jesus and how do
- 09:59
- I come to know God? And when you were studying and really trying to resolve the conflicts, now that we live in this age of freedom to access to information,
- 10:11
- Google is like just instant information. Did you do any research and look at some of the major disputes between say
- 10:20
- Mormons? And I talked to a lot of people that were really well -educated in their own religions as well.
- 10:25
- Did you? Okay. What was that like? It was fascinating. I really loved it. I talked to like...
- 10:33
- Can you get me a water real fast? I'm like dying of thirst. I talked to one lady that was a
- 10:38
- Judeo -Christian. She was Jewish, fully Jewish, but she also believed in the Messiah. Okay. And that was really cool and she shared a lot about like older Jewish stuff that I didn't know about and how it kind of enhanced
- 10:49
- Christianity. Which I should have known, but I didn't. So a Messianic Jew.
- 10:55
- Yeah, a Messianic Jew. Is that what she referred to herself? Yeah. Fascinating people, right? And just other people like pastors of different faiths, just members, like regular members that didn't know as much, but they knew what they believed.
- 11:06
- Okay. And I loved just learning about what all the other ones believed and it...
- 11:11
- I don't know if it clarified my understanding of the doctrine, but it clarified my understanding of the people.
- 11:19
- Sure was. Oh, thank you. Sorry. It's been so hot today. No, we feel you.
- 11:25
- It's been humid too. It's not just the... Yeah. It's a lot better today than it has been. How long have you guys been here for?
- 11:30
- So our... A little bit more than two weeks for me, about a week, about a week for him.
- 11:37
- Can I ask you like one question and see just how you would try to resolve it?
- 11:43
- Because for me, from the very beginning and talking to my Mormon friends, close Mormon friends, it's always been surrounding like this simple issue is who is
- 11:51
- God and how do I come to know him? So I spend a lot of time reading Joseph's writings and reading the
- 11:57
- Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Journal of Discourses, History of the Church, those sorts of things, listening to...
- 12:03
- The whole spiel, man. A lot. A lot. And the reason, honestly, and I'll just be completely transparent, it's,
- 12:11
- I think, a deep love and passion for just people in general and for the gospel for me. But honestly, in a practical level, it was the sweetness and the genuineness of my
- 12:23
- Mormon friends that caused me to want to dive in and listen. So like the
- 12:29
- King Follett discourse. Do you know the discourse? Yeah, it's pretty deep. That's some pretty deep stuff. Yeah, so it's
- 12:34
- Joseph's, it's his most famous message, and it's the one where he really communicated with clarity everything he believes about God.
- 12:42
- And he said that God himself was once as we are now and as an exalted man who sits enthroned in yonder heavens.
- 12:51
- And he says, we've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see.
- 12:59
- You've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you. So you see how much I've read it.
- 13:05
- I know it by heart. So for me as a Christian, when my friends said, you've got to read the
- 13:10
- Book of Mormon, you've got to pray about it, the Gospel needed to be restored, and Joseph was a prophet. I was actually a very young believer at the time.
- 13:18
- I wasn't raised in church. And so I had read the Gospel of John at least by then. And when
- 13:23
- I read the King Follett Discourse with the Gospel of John, I started feeling the conflict. So Joseph says that you can become a god, and that's the goal.
- 13:33
- Eternal life is becoming God. And he said that God wasn't always God. He became
- 13:39
- God. And so what do you do as a genuine, genuine, honest, sincere
- 13:47
- Latter -day Saint? What do you do with, say, a Christian who says, Joseph came almost 2 ,000 years later with a different view of God than the
- 13:56
- Scriptures had already laid down. So just one thing to aim at. Okay? In Isaiah 43 .10,
- 14:04
- God says, Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I'm the first, and I'm the last.
- 14:10
- Besides me there is no God. That's in Isaiah 44 .6. So God says,
- 14:16
- There's no gods formed before him, none after him. He's the first, the last. He doesn't even know of any other gods. Then Joseph comes along and says,
- 14:24
- They're all wrong. All the creeds are an abomination. All the professors are corrupt.
- 14:29
- Right? Quotes. I like it. And join none of them because they're all wrong.
- 14:35
- And so Christians have the Bible that says one thing about God and they've been teaching one thing historically about God for 2 ,000 years and Joseph says,
- 14:41
- They're all wrong. God was a man who became a god. He had gods before him and you can become one one day.
- 14:47
- But in just one text alone, and there's many, God says, None before, none after.
- 14:54
- Isaiah 43 .10. How do you address that? Because I believe you're sincere and devout.
- 15:00
- But how do you address that? That's two different views of God. Yeah. That was one that confused me because there are scriptures in the
- 15:08
- Bible itself that at least to me seem to contradict each other. And the
- 15:13
- Bible has very few contradictions once you actually like get into it and really understand the background.
- 15:19
- But there are some scriptures that seem to insinuate that you would go on to eternal perfection and there are some scriptures that seem to insinuate that God was the only one that could ever and would ever be perfect.
- 15:31
- And so for me, I tried to juxtapose those scriptures and they didn't match up.
- 15:38
- And so I I think I just had to change the way
- 15:46
- I saw what God was saying in that scripture. How there is no there is no other God besides God because He's the only one we're ever going to worship.
- 15:55
- And the way I interpret that scripture in Isaiah is that He is our only God that we will ever have.
- 16:00
- We're never going to worship anybody greater. There never will be anybody greater for us. And if we ever become a
- 16:07
- God someday it's going to be in a very different you know, God's not going to turn around and worship us.
- 16:13
- He'll always be there. No, of course. And that would be a mis it would be a mischaracterization of your beliefs if somebody said that. Like God's all of a sudden going to bow to you or something like that.
- 16:22
- That would be inaccurate and you guys definitely don't believe that. But say just that text in Isaiah 43 10 says before me there was no
- 16:29
- God formed. Neither shall there be after me. And he says is there a
- 16:34
- God besides me? Same text. Indeed there is no other God I know not one. He says he doesn't even know of any other gods.
- 16:41
- But Joseph said that there's a council of God and they came together and they concocted and prepared a plan to create the world and to people it in the
- 16:49
- Pearl of Great Price. Early on in 1830 in the original Book of Mormon it's essentially monotheistic.
- 16:56
- There's only one God. But by the time 1844 comes along Joseph's view has progressed and now he believes in polytheism.
- 17:04
- Many gods. That's why you see in the Pearl of Great Price it says in the beginning the gods created the heavens and the earth.
- 17:09
- There was a shift. But in Isaiah he says no gods were formed before him.
- 17:16
- None will be after him. He doesn't even know of any other gods. Now here's what when I was asking you about your testimonies
- 17:22
- I was wondering because all my Mormon friends have said
- 17:28
- I prayed about it. I had this experience. That's how I know it's true. I felt it. I felt the burning in the bosom and that's how
- 17:34
- I know that it's true. And I don't mean this as an offensive thing but I rarely find a Mormon friend who has said it wasn't my experience simply.
- 17:44
- It was the text of God's word. I tested it by scripture. So for example the test of a prophet in Deuteronomy chapter 13.
- 17:52
- I don't want to belabor the point and just keep talking but in Deuteronomy 13 one through four this is really important guys especially since you're on your mission.
- 17:58
- God tells his people the way that you know somebody is from him that they're truly a prophet of God is not the signs and wonders if they even have them.
- 18:09
- It's if they lead you after a different God. He says God says I'm testing you to see whether you love me.
- 18:15
- And the test of a prophet wasn't whether it felt good, looked good, seemed good. It was whether somebody contradicted with what
- 18:22
- God had already said. So here you have God telling us in his word that he'll preserve his word it'll never fall away.
- 18:28
- Jesus says that. The grass withers the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. The Bible is saying there is only one
- 18:33
- God none before none after and he doesn't even know any other gods. Joseph comes along in 1830 publishes the book of Mormon and he ends up teaching that it's all wrong.
- 18:43
- There are many gods gods without number. You can become one one day. God had gods before him.
- 18:49
- So God says test him by the scriptures. Did you ever do that? Did you ever test Joseph by the scriptures?
- 18:57
- Hey Gigi. What's up? How are you? You guys heard me last night? Yeah. How are you feeling today?
- 19:04
- I'm glad you're alive. Surprisingly. Yes. So did you ever test him by scripture?
- 19:13
- So by test him by scripture do you mean like reading all the scriptures and comparing every single scripture to Joseph Smith or do you mean?
- 19:19
- Well I mean I guess that would be unfair. That would be an unfair standard to say elder did you look at every verse and compare it with all the teachings of Joseph?
- 19:27
- That's a huge volume of literature but just as an example like say the basic stuff like what
- 19:32
- Joseph said about Jesus versus what the Bible teaches about Jesus. Did you do that?
- 19:38
- Or did you base it solely really upon that experience? Well I guess for me
- 19:43
- I've never had a burning in the bosom. Okay. I'm kind of jealous of people that do have burning in the bosom. Okay. That's not really my thing.
- 19:49
- Okay. But what I do based off like I told you a little bit before is based off how I feel. Because I do know when
- 19:55
- I've read the scriptures when I've read the Bible and I am no Bible scholar I'm jealous that you have all these scriptures memorized that's not really my thing.
- 20:02
- I'm just a 20 year old man not even trained to do this but it's something I feel passionately about. But when I have read it
- 20:08
- I have been told that what is leading me towards God is never going to give me the bad fruits of the spirit as they say in Galatians.
- 20:15
- Right. It's not going to lead me astray where I'm feeling awful. It's not leading me astray where I know that I'm worshipping other gods.
- 20:21
- What I can tell you is I have followed what Joseph Smith has said and I have followed the Book of Mormon I have never ever felt like I've been worshipping more than one
- 20:29
- God my Eternal Father. Now I have read this discourse I do know what you're talking about.
- 20:34
- Yeah. But as far as my experiences personally with the scriptures I never have had any doubts about worshipping my
- 20:40
- Father. I do understand that I worship him through the Savior Jesus Christ. Yeah.
- 20:45
- The Holy Ghost is a big part of my life. But I see them as three separate people who are all guiding me to one
- 20:50
- God. Same with everything in the scriptures for me. Many different prophets many different ideas
- 20:55
- Isaiah talked very differently than Joseph Smith that is true. But they're all leading me to the same person and have all led me to the same feelings
- 21:02
- I feel now. I appreciate that explanation. That's personal like for me I mean obviously that's not the same for everyone.
- 21:09
- Sure. No, no. I appreciate the honesty and the transparency. So can
- 21:15
- I give you an example that wouldn't include you and I? Please. So you mentioned Father. We're using the same language.
- 21:21
- So we're speaking Christianese right? Heavenly Father Jesus. We are right? We're using the same language but we mean so many different things so take us out of the equation for a minute and say take for example not a lot of Muslims in Kauai I've discovered.
- 21:36
- Not too many. Right? Not too many. Not many here. But if you and I walk up together to a
- 21:41
- Muslim on the street if we found one in Kauai and we said hey do you believe in Jesus?
- 21:46
- What would they say? They would say yeah he's a prophet right? Now if you and I together knowing some of our differences walked up to that same
- 21:54
- Muslim and we said you believe in Jesus? He said yeah peace be upon him he's a prophet of God and we said did he die on a cross for sins and did he rise from the dead?
- 22:04
- They would say Jesus never did that and if we said is he the divine son of God? They would say no he was a prophet a
- 22:12
- Rasul right? So here we have we're using the word
- 22:18
- Jesus but that Muslim doesn't believe in Jesus does he? Not in the way that we believe in Christ.
- 22:24
- Not in the way that the Bible says right? Because if you walk up to that Muslim and you would say who's
- 22:30
- Jesus? He'd say he didn't die on a cross he didn't rise from the dead and he's a prophet but not divine son of God.
- 22:37
- So that is the word Jesus but not Jesus. Now if we also and this is here
- 22:43
- Jehovah's Witnesses right? So if we walked up together to Jehovah's Witness and we said do you believe in Jesus?
- 22:49
- They would say yes but right they believe he's
- 22:55
- Michael the Archangel the first and greatest creation of Jehovah God right? 144 ,000 enter into paradise with God right?
- 23:03
- All that. So the point is the word Jesus is there but it's not Jesus right? So the question is this because Jesus says
- 23:11
- I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the Father but by me. He said he was the only way to God. I know you believe that.
- 23:17
- I respect that. You guys are vigilant around that truth that whoever
- 23:25
- Christ is he's the only way to the Father and you guys are dedicated to that so I respect that but 2
- 23:32
- Corinthians 11 in the first century Paul warns the church in Corinth that he's worried about them that they'll be deceived and follow another
- 23:40
- Jesus another Christ another spirit another gospel that's in the first century not long after the resurrection so the question is do you have the true
- 23:50
- Christ? One thing one major thing I mentioned John a moment ago right?
- 23:57
- It says in John chapter 1 verse 1 in the beginning was the word you can finish it right? and the word was with God and the word was
- 24:04
- God right? It says he was in the beginning with God all things were created through him and nothing came into being that's come into being except through him so Jesus it says in John 1 always existed always existed with the father and he was by very nature
- 24:18
- God he created everything nothing came into existence apart from him now
- 24:23
- I believe that but Joseph's revelation denies that because Joseph taught that there were multitudes of gods before God who created things right?
- 24:35
- and he taught that Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers Jesus isn't the creator of Lucifer like the
- 24:41
- Bible says he's his brother that's a different Christ I see what you're talking about but I guess the thing that I would say at least for me is
- 24:53
- I do believe so like what you're saying is that there were multitudes of gods before God like Lucifer and Lucifer are spirit brothers that there were multitudes of gods
- 25:30
- God like Lucifer Lucifer are spirit but that's actually heretical teaching
- 25:35
- Christians have never taught that we believe there's one God by nature three eternal coexistent persons sharing the one being of God not three beings one being three persons
- 25:47
- Joseph taught that there are three beings who are gods of this earth right?
- 25:55
- and then multiple gods outside of that but a moment ago I appreciate what you said you said you affirmed
- 26:01
- John 1 that Jesus created everything in existence you said I believe that but let me just say this and I mean this with gentleness and respect honestly
- 26:10
- Joseph's revelation doesn't allow you to agree with that because he said that Jesus and Lucifer are spirit offspring of Elohim and one of his wives so Jesus is not the creator of everything according to Joseph he's one
- 26:25
- God among many he's Lucifer's brother do you see? I do see what you're saying and I actually still
- 27:02
- I think there's some logical and biblical contradictions there and of course I mean that respectfully but just in terms of I'll give you another example it might bring more clarity to what
- 27:12
- I'm saying in Colossians chapter 1 it says that Jesus for by him Jesus were all things created whether in heaven or on earth visible or invisible says all things were created by Jesus that includes
- 27:26
- Satan so you can't have Jesus as the creator of everything including Satan and be
- 27:31
- Satan's brother that's a different Christ and according to the Bible if you have a false
- 27:37
- Christ you have a Christ that can't save and that's my deep concern for my Mormon friends is not in a sense of wanting to rob you of your faith or to injure you in some way or out of hatred or animosity it's that the
- 27:49
- Bible warns me that I could be following a false Christ and I need to examine what
- 27:56
- I believe and test all things hold fast to that which is true and Jesus said thy word is truth test what
- 28:01
- I believe test what any prophet says by the scriptures because here's the thing whatever our disagreements we need to have
- 28:10
- Christ the true Christ for forgiveness and salvation and if I'm following a false one I need to abandon it
- 28:15
- I need to swallow my pride and abandon it and come to the true Christ and receive forgiveness and salvation and I hope the same thing for you guys because no matter what we're on the tail end of this
- 28:26
- Jesus has already come the scriptures have already been laid down and now what we have to work with is God's revelation and to test so for example and I think this would be an interesting test if you put a
- 28:39
- Latter -day Saint next to a Christian next to say a Roman Catholic next to a
- 28:45
- Muslim a Jehovah's Witness a Rosicrucian a Christian Scientist and an Atheist and you said elder tell everyone your experiences with God you'd share all your experiences and this passionate experience and genuine and then the
- 28:58
- Muslim shares his experience and he says the Mormons are all wrong Jesus didn't die for sins he didn't rise from the dead this is the true experience
- 29:05
- I've had these experiences and the Jehovah's Witness goes and now we're going to align and we're all having these amazing experiences all believing in contradictory gods and gospels contradicting what each other say about Jesus but all having genuine experiences right we can't know what is true based on our experiences we can know what's true based upon the word of the living
- 29:26
- God and what God said in his word long before Joseph Smith came along was that there was only one
- 29:32
- God none before none after that you will never become a God one day that Jesus has eternally existed as God not created not the brother of Lucifer and it says in fact this
- 29:44
- Romans 3 28 we conclude that a man is justified declared righteous through faith apart from any work of law that through faith in Jesus we are credited his righteousness not because we're good not because we deserve it because of what he did
- 29:59
- Christ lived the perfect life he was perfectly obedient he died to take our place and rose from the dead so we would get a perfect righteousness as a gift we would be made new alive changed we would have good works but they would flow from a person who was already redeemed as a gift right?
- 30:17
- and it's through faith alone that's what the Bible teaches about salvation in contrast and it's the last thing
- 30:22
- I'll say in contrast and you know this better than I do I'll probably misquote it articles of faith we believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the
- 30:35
- Lord do you see that? in the first part of that I go yes through the atonement of Jesus Christ all mankind may be saved and then there's an addition by obedience so not
- 30:45
- Christ not his work not a gift it's grace plus my work my labor and the
- 30:53
- Bible says to that work Galatians chapter 5 he says you've become estranged from Christ he's become of no effect to you whosoever of you attempts to be justified by the law you've fallen from grace
- 31:05
- Paul says choose it's either Christ's work and him alone through faith or it's yours and we know that any of us who've sinned against God have broken his whole law so Michael listen
- 31:17
- I know we just ran into each other in the street we just came here with family we have some people we're meeting here and I saw you guys
- 31:22
- I love you guys genuinely care for you and let me just say this and I hope
- 31:29
- I can be as transparent as honest with you as possible I know that being on a street like this on your mission with all you've invested in this to hear a message like this if what
- 31:40
- I'm saying is true it would mean something radical in your life and it would mean it would be like it would be like a bomb going off in your life if what
- 31:49
- I'm saying is true you don't have to accept it yet but if what I'm saying is true but what if brothers okay and I mean in a humanity sense okay what if what if God sent a messenger to you today with grace and mercy while you're here on a mission and I don't mean this offensively
- 32:06
- I mean this in the sense of my passion for you you're on a mission preaching a different God and a different gospel and a person came here tonight giving you scriptures and truth and it was an act of God's love and mercy in your life what if that was what happened tonight would you would you desire eternal life right
- 32:27
- Jesus says what shall a prophet of man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul what if you kept your family what if you kept all this up but you lost your soul what is it worth right and so that's my call to you is this the
- 32:39
- Bible says that Jesus is God eternally God not Lucifer's brother salvation is a gift of God apart from any work of law repent and believe the gospel
- 32:47
- Jesus said be reconciled to God as a gift to the true Christ that's the call that's the message
- 32:53
- I have for you guys tonight okay and I know you guys are handing stuff out tonight if you would this is just just a just a message with some basic teachings here quotes from Brigham Young Joseph Smith and a contrast into the
- 33:08
- Bible on the inside awesome would you take it and just look it over let's do it yeah alright guys I only have three so one of you is going to have to share whatever just toss them back and forth the two of us we live together so we can okay perfect good and to be fair give me what if you have some material
- 33:22
- I will take it and I will commit to read it do you have any we weren't actually passing anything out tonight were you okay so I interrupted your time off maybe no no we were still talking to people okay so I give you my commitment to read what you've given me okay alright hey thank you so much
- 33:41
- I appreciate you spending time thank you so much thank you for spending time with me I really appreciate it gentlemen