Is a Mormon a Christian?

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All right, tonight we're going to be looking at the religion of Mormonism, and most of you have been here throughout our study of the Marks of a Cult.
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We did five weeks through the video entitled the Marks of a Cult, and what the Marks of a Cult did is it demonstrated for us what constitutes a cult.
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There were the four mathematical signs.
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A cult adds to the Bible, adds to the 66 books of the Bible.
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A cult subtracts from the Persons of the Trinity, or subtracts from the Doctrine of the Trinity in some form or fashion.
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A cult multiplies the works required for salvation, and finally a cult divides their people from the body of Christ, what we call the universal church.
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And even though that was a great series, and I think there was a lot learned in that series, what it didn't do is it didn't break down the individual beliefs of each of these various movements.
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So I've decided over the next couple of weeks we are going to look at some of the ones where you all will probably have the most chance, and I hate to use that word chance, there's no such thing as a chance encounter, but you're going to have the most opportunity to engage people from these various movements.
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And I would say right now, outside of Islam, Mormonism is the one that is seeking to make the most inroads in the United States.
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We see that with political personalities who are outspoken about their Mormon faith.
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We see that in commentators, news commentators who are outspoken about their religious faith being Mormonism.
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And we see it all around us.
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We see commercials.
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I play football.
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I swing on a swing.
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I can hit a golf ball, and I'm a Mormon.
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You know, whatever.
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You know, this is a big part of what we see in the television media.
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So like I said, outside of Islam, which I think is the largest religion seeking to make inroads in the United States, I would say Mormonism is right up there seeking to make its own inroads.
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And this is what Mormonism is seeking to proclaim.
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The Mormons are making the argument that Mormonism is Christian.
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That is their major goal right now, is to make the argument that Mormonism is Christian, or that Christianity and Mormonism are essentially the same thing.
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So tonight, we're going to simply add a question mark to that statement.
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Mormonism is Christian? That's the question.
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Is it really? And, of course, when we looked at the video, The Marks of a Cult, it went through the expression of Mormonism, and it taught us very clearly that Mormonism is itself a cult.
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But it didn't give us a lot of history.
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It didn't give us a lot of background.
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So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you, starting out, I'm going to give you a brief history of the Mormon church.
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I'm going to give you some of the doctrines of the Mormon church as expressed by Mormon church leaders.
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And I'm also going to provide for you distinct and specific quotations from the very founder of Mormonism himself, Joseph Smith.
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And we're going to use these to demonstrate that the question mark should be there because Mormonism is not Christian.
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All right, I'm going to be reading to you some.
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I normally don't read straight from my notes.
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But I decided tonight to bring in some notes and to read.
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First of all, I'll read a quote to you from Bruce R.
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McConkie.
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Does anybody remember who Bruce R.
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McConkie is? Bruce R.
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McConkie was a Mormon apostle.
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He was a teacher within the Mormon church.
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And this is something that he said, and I quote, Mormonism is Christianity.
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Christianity is Mormonism.
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Mormons are true Christians.
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End quote.
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So this is what is believed.
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This is what is being taught in the Mormon church, that the truest church, the true church of Jesus Christ is, in fact, the Mormon church.
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Now, I'll read to you a brief history.
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The founder of the Mormon church was Joseph Smith, born in Vermont in 1805.
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Young Joseph grew up in Palmyra in upstate New York.
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Like most boys, he had a vivid imagination.
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One of Joseph's favorite activities was hunting for buried treasure.
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He also was a spiritually sensitive person.
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And he was bothered by the conflict he saw between the various church denominations, such as the Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists.
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One day in the spring of 1820, Joseph was praying in the woods near his home when he received what he would describe as a vision of two personages.
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He called them the Father and the Son.
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He believed that he saw two persons as he was praying.
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One he describes as God the Father, and the other he describes as Jesus Christ.
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The personages told him that all of the churches and their beliefs were wrong.
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Quite convenient.
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A new church was needed, and Joseph Smith was to be the one who would start it and lead it.
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Rather than act on his vision, Smith got more involved in treasure hunting.
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He used seer stones, commonly known as peep stones, to aid him in his search.
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In those days, peep stone gazing was considered an occultic practice.
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It was actually illegal as well.
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And the peeper would place the stone into a hat, and he would put his face completely into the hat, shut out all light, and then these peep stones, or magic rocks as they were, would shine in the darkness and supposedly reveal the location of buried treasure.
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That's how they would find their buried treasure.
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They'd put magic rocks in a hat, cover their face, and the light from the rocks would display to them where they were to find their buried treasure.
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On September the 21st, 1823, Smith claimed he asked for another vision.
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Remember, he had already had one, the vision of the Father and the Son, according to him.
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This time, he was visited by the angel Moroni, M-O-R-O-N-I, Moroni.
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And he appeared to him and told him there was a book inscribed on golden plates buried somewhere near his home containing information about the former inhabitants of America, along with an account of the true gospel which had been given to these ancient inhabitants by the Savior.
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Alright, just so we understand.
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He's being told there is a book, it's written on golden plates, it's buried, he's going to get shown where it is, and it's going to tell him about a civilization that lived in America long before Native Americans, Indians, anyone like that, long before that, and that he was going to find these plates.
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Smith had to wait three years before Moroni told him where the golden plates were buried.
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When Moroni finally revealed the location, Smith dug up the treasure and began translating the Reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics.
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That was what the language of the plates were supposedly written in.
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And how did he translate it? By using a seer stone.
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I found it, so that's how he's translating it.
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He found buried, excuse me, he found the stone buried with the gold plates.
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By 1830, with the financial aid of a wealthy farmer, Smith published his translation of the gold plates, which he called the Book of Mormon.
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And he founded the Mormon Church.
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He began gaining converts to his church, his one true church.
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That's a quotation, it's the one true church.
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And from 1831 to 1844, Smith established Mormon strongholds in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.
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Now, according to, this is from a Dr.
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Hazen, he adds this, he says, According to Joseph Smith, this original Book of Mormon language, called Reformed Egyptian, was spoken and written by millions of inhabitants here in America.
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But to this point, not a single piece of evidence has been found to authenticate Smith's claim.
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There's no other writings in this so-called language of Reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics.
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Now, as the Mormon Church grew, so did the opposition.
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The state of Missouri was especially intolerant of Mormon beliefs.
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Since Smith continued to receive revelations, which he wrote down and published in various books he called Inspired Scripture, some Mormons were jailed and others were killed, but many moved to Nauvoo, Illinois.
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I think I'm saying that correctly, N-A-U-V-O-O, Illinois.
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The little town boomed as Smith became the mayor and commander-in-chief of his own army.
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He also came up with new revelations about the Godhead, the origin and destiny of the human race, eternal progression, baptism of the dead, and polygamy.
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In fact, it was the practice of polygamy, because Smith had more than 30 wives, it was the practice of polygamy that caused outsiders to object and many Mormon converts to question this new belief system.
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A group of disgruntled Mormons published a newspaper that exposed the gross immoralities among Church members.
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Smith and his city council attempted to destroy the office where the newspaper was printed, and he was arrested for rioting and charged with treason and conspiracy.
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On June 27, 1844, a mob of 200 stormed the jail in Carthage, Illinois, where Smith was being held, and they killed him, but not before Smith was able to wound some of his attackers with a smuggled gun.
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All right, so that's the history of the founder of Mormonism.
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He started out having expressed that he had had visions from God, and he grew his following separate from the church, the actual believing church, and started a church effectively of his own with writings and things that he had come up with, claiming to be from God, but effectively having no evidence of that.
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After him, the leader, which I'm sure you're all familiar with, Brigham Young, rose up into leadership.
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How do we know Brigham Young? Brigham Young University, BYU.
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So we understand that after Joseph Smith, there were other leaders who rose up.
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There was Brigham Young and then a succession of people who would take the place of Joseph Smith.
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All right, now I want to talk a little bit about Moroni.
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According to traditional Mormon teaching, the angel Moroni was the son of the prophet Mormon.
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That's where they get the word Mormon from.
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Mormon was a prophet.
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His son was the angel Moroni.
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And he wrote a book about two ancient civilizations that inhabited the American continent.
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The first of these civilizations, known as the Jaredites, came to the western hemisphere around 2250 BC, but they were destroyed because of corruption.
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The other civilization came to America across the Pacific Ocean from Jerusalem around 600 BC.
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They were righteous Jews who escaped before the Babylonians captured the nation of Israel and destroyed their capital city.
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The Book of Mormon, written on the golden plates, is the historical record of these two civilizations.
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These Mormon scriptures say that the second civilization, which eventually split into the Nephite and Lamanite nations, built dozens of cities and waged large-scale warfare.
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This is in the Book of Mormon.
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This is what they teach, is that there was these huge groups of people, the Lamanites and the Nephites, were here in the United States, in the Americas, and they were waging war.
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They had cities, and it culminated in a massive battle that took place near Joseph Smith's home in New York State.
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However, not one shred, not one shred of archaeological evidence for these civilizations or their cities exists.
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And since the angel Moroni took the golden plates back to heaven, they also are not available for inspection.
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No, sir, no one else ever saw the plates.
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Not that I know of.
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However, we are going to hear some of his quotes that are just as heinous, but I don't know that he ever claimed to be deity.
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Yes, I don't know.
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I don't know what their counterclaim on that is.
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I haven't looked too much into their claims of their own history, because I spend the majority of the time looking at their doctrines and the things that they teach, so I don't know how they would answer that question.
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It does seem like a pretty...
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I will say this, and not to defend Mormons, because I wouldn't want to do that, but it could easily be made an argument that there's no archaeological evidence for the 40 years where the Israelites traveled from Egypt to Canaan.
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There's not evidence.
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But you have to understand that you're looking at a 40-year period, which in history is not a long time, of a group of nomadic people who were living in tents.
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So there would not necessarily be archaeological evidence for such a group.
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That's a natural thing to say, okay, you have tent-living people who are carrying everything they're using with them.
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They're not leaving behind large, what we call tells.
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Are you clear with what a tell is? In archaeology, this is interesting.
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Good time to use the little board here.
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Move this out of the way so people can see.
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In archaeology, they search for what are called tells.
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A tell is any place in the ground where the ground is layered up similar to this.
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And what happens is when a group of people establish a colony or establish a place to live, they begin to build on the land.
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Well, as that colony or people go away and it's crushed and built over dirt or whatever is placed on top of that, it grows by a little bit.
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And then it grows a little bit more.
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Because usually the reason why people build in any place anyway is because there's good land.
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It's near a water source.
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It's a good place to live.
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So once this group of people has either gone away or has died out, it's natural that another group of people would come and live on that same land.
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And what they see in places like Egypt and places like that, what they look for is they look for places where the land is elevated.
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And they begin to dig.
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And what they find is the first layer.
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Well, this is the latest group of people that lived here.
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Then they dig it to another layer.
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And as they dig down further and further, they get to the bottom and they can see who the latest were who lived there.
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We don't have these in the Americas for the people that the Mormons were supposed to have lived here.
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And if they had cities, if they had an entire civilization, there would be tells.
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There would be these archaeological expectations.
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You wouldn't expect to find that from nomadic tribes, but you would expect to find that from civilizations of cities with walled buildings and things like that.
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We still have walled buildings from well before Christ because the walls of the structures that are built.
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We still have the buildings near the caves of Qumran where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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We still have the buildings of the Athene community, which was the community that we believe actually pinned the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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And we still can see what their houses look like, where they live, their community.
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So these things last.
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And one of the most interesting things, going back to the tell real quick.
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How many of you, when you're going out 295 and you're going around, you see that huge dump is what it is.
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It's a landfill.
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And it's like a mountain now.
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You know, we remember a few years ago wasn't so high, but over time it grows and they put sod on it to make it look like it's not so bad.
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That effectively is a tell.
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It's a tell because you could go up to the top of that and you could put a spade in the ground.
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You could start digging.
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And every few feet you would come to another generation.
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You would come to it.
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You would start seeing things made in the mid 2000s, then early 2000s, then late 90s, then mid 90s, then early.
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You would never see something at the top made in the early 90s.
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And that's how archaeologists often date things.
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If something's near the top, it can't be dated with something at the bottom.
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Because it wouldn't have progressed higher as the ground is laid on top of it.
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OK, so that's just one way of the one way archaeologists used to determine ages of things and what was there, what kind of people were there.
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We don't have this for what the Mormons claim.
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We don't have tells.
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We don't have any evidence at all of these civilizations, which leads us to believe since there's no historical documents outside the Book of Mormon, which itself is a tenuous historical document.
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It has no it has nothing outside the author to substantiate its own validity.
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One of the great things about the Bible is when I pick it up, it says in the fourth year of the of the of the governor Tyrenius.
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You know, it says that the beginning of the Book of Luke was talking about when Jesus was born in the fourth year, the governor Tyrenius, governor Tyrenius and Caesar was was was, you know, it talks about these historical people that we can look at other historical documents and we can say, OK, we know when this was.
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We know when this happened.
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And that helps us to authenticate not that the scripture needs authentication, but it helps to authenticate that.
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Yes, this is a historical document.
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This isn't something someone just made up out of thin air or out of whole cloth.
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All right.
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Now, yes, it's his it's his way of establishing one true church.
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You're all wrong.
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I'm right.
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I mean, maybe that's oversimplification, but that's what it is.
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They're all wrong.
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I have the truth.
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God has spoken to me through an angel.
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Remember what the apostle Paul says about angels? He says, even if an angel from heaven would preach to you a different gospel, he said, if we or anyone else or even an angel from heaven would preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have given to you, let them be anathema, which means put out because they're not telling the truth.
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All right.
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The Mormon Church holds the King James Bible as having authority, but they do not claim that it is without error.
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They say that the King James Bible has authority in as much as it is translated correctly.
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In fact, that is a statement directly from their their covenantal beliefs.
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It says that the Holy Bible is correct in as much as it is translated correctly or as so far as it is translated correctly.
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After that, though, they believe that the Book of Mormon is the perfect book.
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In fact, there's a quote by Joseph Smith.
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I thought I was going to give you some quotes.
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Here's a quote from Smith himself.
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He said, I told the brethren, quote, I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth and the keystone of our religion.
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And a man would get near to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book, end quote.
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So the Bible has errors.
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The Bible has problems.
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As far as it's translated correctly, it's OK.
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But the Book of Mormon is perfect.
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No errors.
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And by it, you get closer to God than any other book.
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This is a quote directly from him.
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History of the Church, Volume 4, page 461.
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I'm sure nobody wrote that down, but I like to throw out documentation if we're quoting somebody.
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All right.
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Now, what do Mormons believe? Here's a synopsis.
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Just a synopsis.
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Not just what they believe about Joseph Smith, but what they believe about God.
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as the Mormons, teaches that God the Father used to be a man on another planet.
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And that he became a God by following the laws and ordinances of that God on that planet.
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And came to this world with his wife, who became a goddess.
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And they produced a spirit offspring in heaven.
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The spirit offspring, which includes Jesus, the devil, you and me, are all brothers and sisters born in preexistence.
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The preexistent spirits come down and inhabit babies at the time of birth.
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And their memories of the preexistence are lost at that time.
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Furthermore, faithful Mormons, who pay a full 10% tithe of their income to the Mormon Church through Mormon temples, have the potential of becoming gods of their own planets and are then able to start the procedure over again.
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So God was once a man, as we are.
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God obeyed the rules.
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And he became God and established a world of his own, which he procreated through celestial marriage.
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All of us preexisted our own lives.
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We were born into human bodies, at which time our preexistent life was forgotten.
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We started this new life.
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And now, as long as we live in accordance with the rules and laws of the Mormon Church, we will be able to go on into celestial marriage and be able to procreate our own planet and become the God of our own planet.
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Yes.
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The interesting thing is, one of the most difficult things for the Mormons to consider is what we would call eternal regression.
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Going back, we would say that God, Yahweh, God of the Bible, is the first cause of all things.
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That there was nothing before him.
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There will be nothing after him.
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And everything else other than him is a result, not a cause.
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That he is the first cause of all things.
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Do you all understand? We're all effects of God's having created us.
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The earth is the effect of God having created it.
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The universe is the effect of God having created it.
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God's the only ultimate cause.
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Yet in Mormonism, when they call God the Father Elohim, which is a Hebrew word, and the Bible does use the word Elohim interchangeably with Yahweh, but they say Elohim is the Father and Yahweh or Jehovah is Jesus.
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That's an entirely different aspect of Mormon theology.
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But they would say Yahweh, or Elohim rather, was a man on another planet.
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And because he was a man on another planet, there was a God before him.
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Who was his God.
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And because that God attained Godhead by his being God, or being a man at another time and becoming God, that there was a God before him.
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And it would go back and there would be an eternal regression.
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It would keep going back.
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They don't have a starting point.
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They don't have a point at which there's a finalized ultimate God.
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And that's one of the most difficult theological hurdles for a Mormon to overcome.
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They have infinite regression.
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It goes back infinitely.
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There is no initial, first, ultimate cause.
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In fact, one of the important verses that you need to have at your disposal, and by the way, if you do happen to engage a Mormon, I'll give you two bits of advice on how you use the Bible.
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Number one, use theirs.
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Same thing with Jehovah's Witness.
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Well, I know where everything is in my Bible.
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Learn the books of the Bible, you can find it.
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It doesn't matter what Bible you use.
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Use their Bible.
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The reason is because if you start showing them things in your Bible, particularly if you use NIV, NLT, NASV, or ESV, they're going to say, well, those are corrupt translations.
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If you take the Bible out of their hand and start showing them things, that eliminates the initial objection.
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Second thing is have a King James ready because they may not have a Bible.
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They may not come to you with a Bible.
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They may have a Book of Mormon.
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They may have some of their literature.
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They may have tracts, but they may not have a Bible.
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Have a King James Bible.
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If you don't use one for study, that's okay.
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You can still buy one.
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Or you can get a King James Bible almost for free.
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King James Bibles are everywhere.
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Don't take one out of the hotel room, though.
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Hate the commandment.
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Moroni is an angel who is supposed to be the son of the prophet Mormon.
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This is all a part of their historical.
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Where did the prophet Mormon come from? I do not know the answer to that question.
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I don't know where he supposedly come from.
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He is within the history of that church.
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But I do not know.
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Obviously, it's not a scriptural prophet.
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They may not have a Bible.
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Yes.
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Well, yes.
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And I think that the problem that we're seeing is that that's becoming more of the problem.
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I think that they're intentionally not sharing these things.
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They would rather be mainstream.
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And when you start talking about celestial marriage and polygamy and multiple worlds and multiple gods, that eliminates you from orthodoxy immediately.
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And I think that they attempt to subvert that.
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They call that deep theology.
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If you start addressing that with somebody who does know about it, well, those are the deep things.
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Those are the things that we don't really get into.
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Yes.
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Okay.
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There is an entire issue surrounding minorities in the Mormon church that is very important.
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Normally, I don't address it, but I'm glad.
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There was a time in the Mormon church where it was readily understood that black people were cursed and that their skin was a picture of their curse.
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They were considered to be those who did not take up arms in the preexistence.
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They did not take up in support of Christ.
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And as such, because of staying neutral, they were cursed to be born with black skin.
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Okay.
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So, yes, there was a time when Mormon people were...
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You wouldn't see black people in the Mormon church.
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Well, it was a race.
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It was a form of racism.
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They saw black people as being less than acceptable for their church.
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So, yes.
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I think today, in an attempt to move mainstream, they've tried to subvert that.
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But, yes, it is very much a part of the history of their teaching.
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Very much a part of the history of their teaching.
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I didn't tell you the Bible verse, so let me go back and give you the Bible verse.
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A good Bible verse to keep in your mind.
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And this is good for any time.
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This is good for discussions with people if you're talking about the Trinity.
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This is good for any time because this one, verse Isaiah 43, 10.
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Isaiah 43, 10.
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You are my witnesses, sayeth the Lord.
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I'm quoting King James now because this is how I would speak it to them.
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You are my witnesses, sayeth the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he.
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Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
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This is God speaking to the prophet Isaiah, and he speaks very clearly.
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And you can show this to a Mormon when you say, OK, do you believe? And they may not understand this.
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But if you get a Mormon who understands their theology and you say, do you believe that you will one day be a God, that you will be deity, and that you will rule over a celestial kingdom of your own? You can go to Isaiah 43 and say, why does this say that there was no God before me, and there will be no God after me? How would you deal with this text? Of course, Isaiah 44.
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Isaiah 44 is another important passage.
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Isaiah 44, verse 6.
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Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and the last, and beside me there is no God.
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Verse 8 says, Fear ye not, neither be afraid.
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Have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? Ye are even my witnesses.
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Is there a God beside me? Yea, there is no God.
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I know not any.
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So there we have biblical monotheism.
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It doesn't deny the Trinity because it doesn't divide the deity of God.
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And yet at the same time, it is clear, we see here, that if someone claims that there was a God before Elohim, that this would violate this text.
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And that there would be gods after Elohim.
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That it would too.
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They would say that God Elohim is supreme here.
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And that's all that should matter, is that he's supreme here.
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Where we're going in becoming gods, we'll be supreme there, but he's supreme here and that's all that matters.
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Yea, he is supreme over this universe.
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Well, Kolob is the star that the planet surrounded, which he was supposedly born and grew up on.
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No, Elohim.
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The God of this world was born on a planet, which surrounded a star called Kolob.
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The name is Kolob.
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I don't know where the origin of it is, but I'm pretty sure it's in the brain of Joseph Smith.
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I always think John Smith.
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Wasn't there an American hero, John Smith? I want to connect those two.
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Alright, here's a few documented teachings of the Mormon church.
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What's the time? Okay, I got a few more.
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That's good.
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Doing good.
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Alright, Mormon beliefs.
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We've already looked at the belief of the Book of Mormon, that it is more correct than any book, any other book.
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The belief about the devil.
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If you want to take a few notes, the belief about the devil.
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The devil was born as a spirit after Jesus in the pre-existence.
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That's from Mormon doctrine, page 192.
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Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers, and we were all born as siblings in heaven to them both.
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We are Jesus's and Satan's spiritual brothers, all born in the pre-existence, all have come to earth as babies, and that has been removed from our memories.
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This is from Mormon doctrine, page 163.
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Just very quickly, that in and of itself is not Christian.
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That in and of itself would deny the very nature of who Christ is, who we believe is the eternally begotten Son of the Father, who is in Himself divine.
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That He's not the brother of Satan.
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He would be the creator of all things.
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The Bible says in Colossians that all things were made by Him, and nothing was made that wasn't made by Him.
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Alright? We've already talked about the doctrine of God.
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God used to be a man on another planet.
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This is one I think is interesting.
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Doctrine and Covenants is one of their books.
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The Doctrine and Covenants, 130 verse 22, The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man.
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The Father, didn't Jesus make a real strong point of saying God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth? John chapter 4, right? He's talking to the woman at the well.
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Here they say, No! God is physical, flesh and bones, just like us.
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Why? Because He was a man.
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Alright? Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 345, says after you become a good Mormon, you have the potential of becoming a God.
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Doctrine and Covenants, chapter 132, verse 20, He says, Then shall they be gods, because they have no end.
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Therefore they shall be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue.
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Then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them.
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Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.
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End quote.
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This is talking about those people who hold to Mormon teaching.
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They shall become gods.
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Yes? Is the Doctrine and Covenants? I'm actually not certain where the caffeine thing comes from.
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I don't know.
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I know that that's one of their moral responsibilities.
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I'm not sure if there's any Doctrine document that says don't drink or consume caffeine.
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It's because caffeine...
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Yeah, it's a part of their understanding of the temple, the body as a temple, and not to do anything that would be negative.
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So I don't think that there's a verse specific that says don't eat caffeine.
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But it's a part of understanding.
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Caffeine's bad, so we don't do it.
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One of the things, and that lends itself to an interesting caveat.
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One of the things that I often hear about Mormonism is how good they are.
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Haven't you heard that? Haven't you heard, hey, Mormons are the best people I know, man.
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They're just people.
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They're righteous people.
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They live good.
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Their families are good.
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We always hear this about them.
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And then how is that always contrasted? I've always wanted to make this point.
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I don't think I've ever made this point in preaching.
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How is that always contrasted? And all the Christians I know are hypocrites.
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That's how it's always contrasted.
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It's always, the Mormons are such good people.
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They're PTA leaders and dah, dah, dah.
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And all the Christians I know are hypocrites.
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I will say this.
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A lot of the Christians I know who bear the name of Christ very much should not because they do not live as Christ.
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They do not live for Christ.
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They have no desire to live for Christ.
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But the problem is in America, everybody who's born is born a Christian.
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His mama went to church, and daddy went to church, and grandmama went to church.
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So we live Christian until somebody tells us different.
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We changed the name of the church a few months ago.
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I hope this doesn't get heard.
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This doesn't get up and start a problem in my family.
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I've got family members who don't come to church.
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But we changed the name of the church.
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One of my family members comes up to me.
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When did we change the name of our church? We didn't because you don't come.
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You know, I don't want to sound ugly, but what do you mean we? You got a fish in your pocket? This is not a us.
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You are not a part of this.
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That's why you didn't get a letter in the mail.
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You haven't been here in years.
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The only time you come is when somebody dies.
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Is that a reality? Is it truth? Does it hurt your feelings? No, it shouldn't.
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But it does.
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But that's the truth though, is everybody's a Christian because that's the default answer.
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You go to Facebook.
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You sign up for an account.
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Default.
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You're a Christian if you're not anything else.
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I'm just kidding.
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That doesn't do that.
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But I'm just saying that's the way people treat it.
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I'm going to put up there a Christian.
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And thus we do have this bad problem in America where because everybody's a Christian and people really aren't, when somebody sees a group of Mormons and they say, okay, here's a group of people who have committed themselves to something and they're trying to live according to the teachings of it.
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And Mormonism does have a strict set of moral codes.
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And thus when they live according to those moral codes, they say, look how good they're doing.
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But my response to that has always been, it's Satan's greatest trick to give us that which is good to keep us from getting that which is good.
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And Satan provides to them something that appears good to keep them from getting that which is right.
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It is Satan's greatest trick to give us that which is good to keep us from getting that which is the best.
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And I would say that that's what Mormonism is.
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It's an expression of what Satan wants.
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He wants as many people to come as he can so he makes it look appealing.
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I truly believe Satan has nothing to do with Satanism.
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Because it's got like five people in it.
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And all of them are not appealing at all.
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Satanism is not an appealing group.
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When I was in school, there was always that one kid who was the Satanist.
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And everybody just kind of looked at him like he was a Satanist.
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That's not appealing.
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And Satan is not in the business of being appealing.
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Satan is in the business of trying to appeal to the very lust of our flesh.
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And there is nothing more lustful to our flesh than the feeling of righteousness.
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This is where Pharisees come from.
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Pharisees love to feel righteous without having to actually be righteous.
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All right.
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We have a lot more that we could cover.
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We did a lot in the video series.
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And I don't want to spend weeks and weeks and weeks on Mormonism.
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I want to stress to you, if you are interested in looking into more things about Mormonism, I'm going to give you one website that I particularly love and I use it a lot.
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The guy who does it, he is an apologist.
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It's not Dr.
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White.
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Dr.
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White is my favorite apologist, but not him.
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This guy is, and I've lost his name for some reason.
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I can't come up with his name.
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But the website is C.A.R.M.
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And it's a Christian Apologetics Resource Ministry.
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C.A.R.M.org.
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And a lot of the stuff that we're going to be talking about in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be drawing some things from there because he has so much good information, so much good research that's found on this website.
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And he does do debates.
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Matt Slick.
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I know he had a cool name.
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I just couldn't come up with it.
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Slick.
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Isn't that a cool name? It sure beats Foskey by a mile.
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But Matt Slick is an apologist.
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Obviously, not everything he says is right.
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Not everything I say is exactly right.
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I try my best.
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I think he tries his best.
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It's good, though, to know where these resources are.
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C.A.R.M.org.
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And you can find a lot of quotes from Mormon teachings.
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You can find a lot of history on Mormon teachings.
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You might even be able to find some of the answers to questions I didn't know answers to right off the top of my head.
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There are a lot of things, like I said, I could go through tonight.
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But time would leave us in the dust.
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We just don't have time to go through everything.
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Just remember what I said.
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Mormonism is itself not Christian.
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And those who claim that it is are claiming a falsehood.
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Yes, sir? Do you think it would be inresignated? So, yes.
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Absolutely.
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Walter Martin's writings are definitely at the top of the list.
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If you're going to look for books and things like that, a lot of what you'll find, if you are looking on the Web, you'll find quotations and references to Martin's works.
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Yes.
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I think that the greatest appeal that Mormonism has, and this is my opinion, you asked, I'm going to have to give you my opinion because I don't know for certain.
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I think the greatest appeal that Mormonism has had within the Christian church is that we as the church have become an inauthentic people.
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So many people that go to Christian churches today, and we've had this conversation about inauthenticity.
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Me and George have talked about this a lot.
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Inauthenticity.
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People who say it but don't practice it.
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I think they see in the Mormon church people who are actually practicing something.
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And even though it's not right, they respect the fact that they're doing it.
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And they want to be a part of that.
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Where so many people in the church.
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I'm not talking about our church.
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I would pray that God would help us recognize this and break the mold and come out of that.
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But so many people in the church at large are not seeking after Christ.
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Yes.
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And there are people who want to be in the one true church.
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And a lot of people don't know this.
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There has been a huge rise in, not when I say huge, not huge in comparison to Mormonism or Islam.
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But there's been a dramatic rise in Roman Catholicism.
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People don't realize that.
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The reason is because people want to be in the one true church.
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Mormons, or rather Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, they say we're always fighting with one another.
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Let's just go back to Rome.
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At least they're unified.
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They're not unified.
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But that's what they claim.
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They claim unity under the one head, which is the Pope.
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And people want that.
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People want to feel like, OK, we can say we're a part of that which is unified and not divided.
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And I think people seek after that.
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You take the orders from the head.
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You don't make your own rules.
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Yeah.
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And that's the division that's in the Catholic Church, is the division of a lot of churches here in America don't follow what the Pope says.
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And that's why John Paul said, hey, we can't have cafeteria-style Catholicism.
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You've got to do what I say.
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He didn't say it like that.
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He did use the term cafeteria-style Catholicism, which I thought was great, because at least he was being true to what he believes.
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And what he believes is he's right.
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No, you were saying? I think part of the reason, very keen on keeping it.
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Yeah, the church in giving up the practice of discipline has also given up the sanctity of the church and as such has harmed the church.
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They'll be a written letter saying you're no longer part of us.
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Yeah, you ain't no part of us no more.
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They won't say it like that because they can speak English.
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But anyway, all right, beloved, I hope that tonight was encouraging for you.
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As I said, there's so much more I could say, but next week we're going to move on.
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We're going to do something else.
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I've had some requests for looking into Baha'i and Scientology and a few other things, so I don't want to get bogged down that I felt like Mormonism should be first because, as I said, outside of Islam, I do believe it's the one that's attempting to make the most inroads in our land.
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So let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for our time tonight.
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We thank you for the wonderful interaction that we've had with your word and also with learning about this group that's out there that's seeking to pervert the gospel.
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We seek, Lord, your will on this church to proclaim the truth and to be able to stand against error.
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And always, Lord, be gracious but yet firm that your word is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
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We love you, Lord.
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We ask that now as we leave that you would keep us safe and bless us all.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.