Highlight: Responding to a Comment From a Mormon

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I just noticed this on the most recent video you just mentioned. This is actually a

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YouTube comment that's directed to you, Jeff. So I'll read this. This is posted on the

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Evangelism Outreach video from last night. This person says, Charles Cruz says,

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We call upon Jeff Durbin to stop fighting against Jesus Christ and his church. We ask him, in the love of Christ, to humble himself before God, to repent of his sins, to accept the biblical

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Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and to finally become a

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Christian being baptized by those who hold the proper authority of God. And then he quotes

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Mark 16, 16, He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Do you have a response to that, Jeff?

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Well yeah. Do you have an apologia? Yeah, I do. I think it's important to look at this from two different perspectives.

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One is the perspective of what the Word of God actually says. The Word of God pre -existed

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Joseph Smith and his revelations, his claimed revelations. And the

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Word of God says, and we can do this all day, in Jude verse 3, earnestly contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints, once for all delivered to the saints.

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Jesus says he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. The Bible, in Daniel 7, 13 -14, says that the

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Son of Man would be given dominion, kingdom, and authority that would never pass away. It's an everlasting kingdom.

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Jesus taught that. The apostles taught that. And so when Joseph Smith comes along 2 ,000 years later and says the church fell into apostasy, disappeared from the earth, and it needed to be restored, that is something that goes against the testimony of the apostolic witness and the

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Lord Jesus himself. The Old and New Testament deny any possibility of something like that taking place.

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And so fighting against the church, the Bible commands us to test all things, hold fast that which is true, earnestly contend for the faith which is once for all delivered to the saints.

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You can look at the MO of the early leaders and apostles of the church in the book of Acts. They would go to the place of religious worship in Acts 9, and they would argue and dispute there and prove that Jesus was the

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Messiah. The apostle Paul would go to Mars Hill, to the Areopagus, and he would command them to repent and to trust in Christ, and he would engage with their false religious system.

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The apostles would go into the world and preach the gospel and the claims of Christ, that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.

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Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.

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So Christ is the only way to salvation. But as I said to Stephan, 2 Corinthians 11, the apostle

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Paul says it's possible to have a false Christ, a false gospel, a false spirit. And Paul says in Galatians 1 that if anyone comes and preaches any other gospel, or if an angel came from heaven with another gospel, he says that that is under the curse of God in Galatians chapter 1.

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And so this issue is primarily a biblical issue where we're commanded to engage with it. But I would also point you to your own apostles and your own prophets.

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This is from Orson Pratt, 1854, The Seer, page 15. He says, If we cannot convince you by reason nor by the word of God that your religion is wrong, we will not persecute you, but will sustain you in the privileges guaranteed in the great charter of American liberty.

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We ask from you the same generosity. Protect us in the exercise of your religious rights. And here it is. Here's Orson Pratt, inspired apostle of the

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Mormon church. Convince us of our errors of doctrine, if we have any, by reason, by logical arguments, or by the word of God, and we will be ever grateful for the information and you will ever have the pleasing reflection that you have been instruments in the hands of God of redeeming your fellow beings.

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That is an invitation from an inspired apostle, according to the Mormon church, in the

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Mormon church, telling us, convince us of our errors of doctrine with reason, scripture, and we'll be forever grateful.

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And that's exactly what we're doing. And please, please do remember, this is very important, when people make claims like that.

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Please do remember that Mormon missionaries ride their bikes and drive in their cars and walk door to door on a daily basis globally, and when they knock and they tell people the first lesson, what they say is, is that God said that all the creeds, all the beliefs of the

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Christian church are an abomination to him. And all the professors, that's those who profess faith, those

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Christian professors are all corrupt. They draw near to God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him.

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And so let's please remember that it's the Christian church, in this case, with Mormonism, that is on the defense against their claims about God and revelation.

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And so it is us who are defending the truth, it is the Mormon church that has stricken the first blow without question.

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And the greatest act of love that we can show to anybody who is following a false system, a false

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Christ, a false God, a false gospel, is to tell them the truth. And we are doing so, in this case, by divine invitation by God and by invitation of the

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Mormon leadership themselves, Orson Pratt, the seer, page 15, 1854.

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Now also, another question I have, maybe to assert in regards to what this comment says here, it says that you need to be baptized by those who hold the proper authority of God.

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What they're talking about is the fact that they have the priesthood authority, specifically, they have the authority of the

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Melchizedek priesthood, and you have to submit yourself to that authority. That's what they're asserting. So are they on to something here, are they on to something there, or how do you respond to that specifically?

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Because that's what they're appealing to in this comment. They're appealing to the fact that, let me read the comment here, make sure

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I'm addressing it exactly the way he's asking it. So he says, To those who hold the proper authority. We ask him in the love of Christ to humble himself before God and to repent of his sins, to accept the biblical

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Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. I have, and that's the point. So responding to that, repent of sins, accept the biblical

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Christ, that's the point, is that we accept the biblical Christ, the biblical

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Christ of John 1, who enarque in halagas, cai halagas in prostonte, on caitheas in halagas, the one who was always existing alongside the

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Father in face -to -face intimate relationship from all eternity. The one who is

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God, the one who created everything in existence, and without him, nothing came into being that's come into being.

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That includes Satan, by the way. That's a different Christ. In Mormonism, not the biblical

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Christ, Elohim has sex with one of his goddess wives to produce Jesus and Lucifer and the other spirit children.

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So Jesus comes into existence as the spirit child of Elohim in the pre -existence.

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That's not the biblical Christ. That's Contra John 1, 1a and b.

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But in biblical theology, Jesus created everything, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities, everything in the heavens and on the earth,

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Colossians 1, 16 -18. And so we are following the true Christ.

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It is the Mormon Jesus that is not the true Christ. So when you say, accept the biblical Jesus Christ, that's what we're doing.

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That's the point. And that's our main point of contention against the Mormon community. But then he goes on to say, and to finally become a

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Christian being baptized by those who hold the proper authority of God, he who believes and is baptized will be saved.

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Well, the issue of authority, I think, needs to come two directions. Number one, how do

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I know what the authority is? Where do I go for solace in terms of what's the ultimate authority?

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The apostles are dead. They're all dead. They're real apostles. They're all dead. They died.

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They're with the Lord now. So they died and they were called by Christ as apostles. They gave us the revelation of the word of God and they're dead.

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So the only way to get back to the apostolic teaching of Jesus Christ and the apostles is to go to their inspired writings, which pre -existed

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Joseph Smith by about 2000 years. So in terms of ultimate authority, the only way I know what the apostles thought and taught by inspiration is by going to their writings, the word of the living

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God, and to test Joseph's claims and Brigham's claims by the word of God.

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And by the way, again, Orson Pratt encourages us to do so, convince us of our errors of doctrine by scripture.

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And that's precisely what we're doing. But in terms of authority, the Mormon church claims a restored priesthood.

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They claim the Melchizedek priesthood, which if you read Hebrews 7, the

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Melchizedek priesthood, if you read the word of God prior to Joseph Smith's perversion of scripture in Praxis, you'll see that in Hebrews 7, it says that Jesus Christ is

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Melchizedek and that that's the high priesthood. He holds that priesthood forever, and it's a priesthood that does not pass from one to another.

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So how are all these Mormons getting it and passing it on from one to another? If it's

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Christ's priesthood, if he holds it forever and it doesn't pass from one to another according to the inspired word of God, how are the

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Mormons getting it? So in terms of priesthood authority and the authority of the church, the question is, how do

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I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and has authority, period? Because that's where this all centers.

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Because I agree that the church has authority. I agree with that, that God's church has authority. God gives local pastors and elders, multiple elders over local congregations.

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You have gifts in the church. You have all of that, and the church does have a delegated authority under the ultimate authority of the word of God and Christ.

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Got that. We're not disputing whether or not the church has authority. No question there. But the question that really has to be asked behind this is, how do

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I know that your prophet has authority from God? And the answer is, I only know that based upon God's revelation about how do

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I actually test this prophet. I can't say, do I have really yummy feelings in my belly about this prophet?

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I like him. Feels good to me. I mean, subjectivism is popular today, but let's not call it biblical.

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I mean, because you can line the transgender activist, the LGBT person, the

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Mormon, the Muslim, the Jehovah's Witness, and the Christian scientists, line them up, and they'll all tell you that they all have yummy feelings in their hearts and bellies about their religion and their experience.

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And they feel, though I have all the male parts, I feel like a lady, right? Don't mind the beard.

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I feel like a woman, sort of a thing. I feel it inside. Subjectivity is super important today to everybody, and it's popular, but let's not call it biblical.

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Because God says in his word in Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 18, 20 through 22, he says the way you know someone's a prophet is based upon not their signs and wonders, not if it feels right, not if it looks right, but do they lead you after a different God?

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So in other words, if they contradict God's previous self -disclosure, his prior revelation, they're not a prophet of God.

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If they lead you after a different God, they contradict God's word, they're not a prophet. Second test is if they have false prophecy.

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They try to tell you the future. Before it happens, they fail. God says, that's your indication.

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They're not a prophet. If they have one failed prophecy, clearly they're not from the sovereign God, because the sovereign

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God wields history. He controls the future. He can tell you the future before it happens and get it right every time. Fallible men can't do that.

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So Joseph Smith claimed authority from God as a prophet. He fails God's test every time in terms of what he says about God, what he says about the gospel.

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He perverted the word of God. He taught polytheism. He mangled the doctrine of justification in his

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JST translation. Just look at JST translation of Romans 4, and then look at the real

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Romans 4, and see how he completely mangles it. He distorts the nature of grace, and so when someone says, like, come to the church with authority, it's like, well, how do

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I know your church has authority? Your prophet fails the test of a prophet, through and through. And so I think, hopefully that's a good start to our conversation, and I think most important, taking a look at the foundations.