Reaching Mormons with Jeff Durbin

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Christian Pastor, apologist, and host of Apologia Radio, Jeff Durbin, preaches at Cornerstone in Chandler, Arizona. Jeff teaches on the need to reach members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the false-god and false-gospel communicated by Mormons. With love, respect, and concern for members of the Mormon community, Jeff leads us through the essential elements of the discussion between Mormons and Christians. Get to know us more at Apologiaradio.com

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Does life have any purpose? What happens to you when you die?
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Is there really a God? And if so, where did he come from? Okay, so we're in the middle of a series called
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Religious IQ. And what we've been doing the last couple weeks is just taking the time to kind of compare and contrast where you and I, as Christ followers, differ from other groups and other faiths that are out there.
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And we've just been trying to do that objectively and talk about it and say, you know, what it is for what it is.
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And today we're going to talk about this, the topic of Mormonism together. And we've got a guy in the house by the name of Jeff Durbin who, just kind of cool fact,
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Jeff Durbin is a fifth degree black belt, so you do not want to make him mad. He has actually been a
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. He was Donatello, and when they were doing the whole action game thing, he was the guy.
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And he's also been interviewed by History Channel. He's a speaker that is well sought after for all sorts of conferences and camps and just an amazing guy.
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But maybe the thing that commends him most today is he's a man who has a desperate love and a heart for people within the
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Mormon faith, and just the desire to share with them the truth of Jesus Christ and to help them understand what it means to have that personal relationship.
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So I'm just going to ask you to welcome with me, give a cornerstone welcome to Jeff Durbin. Hello. How you guys doing?
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All right. Is this the rowdy crowd, the rowdiest one, or is this the one? Okay. I thought so.
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I'm a pastor of a church plant in Tempe called Apologia Church, and I'm also a chaplain, the pastor at a hospital, a drug rehab facility.
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And so I thought I preached a lot, but you guys have like 50 services on Sunday, so I'm just getting used to it.
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It's interesting. People treat us really, really well. Like, Mr. Durbin, what would you like to drink? What would you like to eat? Any snacks? Anything like that? What would you like on stage?
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Would you like a table and chair? What would you like? And I was like, how many services? How about a bed and a pillow? That's what I'll take up on stage.
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So I'm just really glad you guys joined me today to be able to talk to you and hopefully give to you guys the burden that I have in my heart to reach people who are in the
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LDS community. So if you guys would, join with me in prayer. God, I want to thank you so much,
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God, for the grace you've given me. Lord, there's a temptation in my heart, Lord, at this point to just want to take the reins and want to lead this, and I just pray,
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Lord, that you would just cause me to decrease and you to increase. And I pray with all my heart that you would open the eyes of your people to the desperate need to proclaim the good news, the true biblical gospel to those who are lost in the
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LDS church. I just want to pray you would help me to communicate truth with love and grace, but also with boldness and power by your spirit in Jesus' name, amen.
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So I wasn't raised in a Christian home, didn't go to church growing up. We didn't pray before meals, we didn't read the
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Bible together as a family. And so when I first heard the gospel, it was about 17 years old,
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I heard the gospel on television with Billy Graham. What's up, Billy Graham? And so Billy Graham heard the gospel, that it was through Christ and through Christ alone we could receive salvation and forgiveness apart from our works, but that Jesus was perfect, he was the substitute, he died for sinners, he rose from the dead, and that by turning from sin to trust in him, to come to be joined to him, to put your faith in him, to cling to him, you would receive forgiveness and salvation as a gift of God apart from works, and I came to Christ.
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But knowing very little about the Bible, I'm like a Bible fiend at this point, right? I'm going to like school, bringing my Bible with me everywhere
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I go, to the cafeteria, I'm like straight up Bible nerd, believe me. And going to theater arts class one day, and I'm sitting there reading my
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Bible, and this guy sits down next to me, he says, hey, what are you reading? I said, it's the Bible, he said, so are you a
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Christian? I said, yeah, I'm a Christian. Are you a Christian? I said, are you a Christian? He says, yeah, I'm a Christian. So I said to him, I said, hey man, isn't it great to be saved?
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And he goes, yeah, yeah, it's great to be saved. And I said, so we're talking, and so he says to me after a little while, he says, hey man, what level of heaven do you think you're going to?
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And I said, the highest level, that's where I'm going to go, the highest, aim for the highest level,
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I'm going to the highest level. And so it sounded peculiar to me, just weird, you know, what's this level of heaven?
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I was only a Christian for really a few months, and that still sounded very odd to me. And so what I did was after school,
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I would go to this Christian bookstore, it became like a fixture there by this point, I would just go after school,
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I'd sit down and put books on the floor and just sit and read and gobble it all up. And so I go to the
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Christian bookstore, and I say to him, I say, hey Tony, do you have any information on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day
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Saints? And he was like, Jeff! It's not a church, it's a cult! And he runs in the back, and he grabs some books, he comes out, he like tosses them out, he's like, here, here!
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Just take them, don't pay me for it, just go home and study, reach your friend. And so I went home that night, and I didn't sleep,
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I'll never forget it, I literally didn't sleep at all. I just stayed up all night reading this stuff, and I was astonished at the history of Mormonism.
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I'm looking at photocopies of Joseph Smith Jr.'s arrest record in Bainbridge, New York in 1826 for crystal ball gazing.
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All of the history of Mormonism, so fascinating. The false prophecies, all of this amazing history, the polygamy, all of that's there.
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But the thing that stunned me the most was the complete difference between what the Bible teaches about God and the gospel, and what
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Joseph's revelation said, and Brigham Young's, and on. And so what I did that night is, is
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I put everything together, and the next day I went to this photocopy place, before school started, and I made pages and pages and pages of photocopies of arrest records,
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Bible verses here, Book of Mormon verses there, and I had this fat, fat stack of my case against Mormonism, available outside at the booth if you guys, just kidding.
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So this fat case against Mormonism, and I went to school and I said, I said, Wade, you're in a cult here, and I thought, that'll do it, and it didn't.
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But what happened was, is through a relationship with him, I ate with his family on countless occasions.
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I went and spent time with him, and just different sets of missionaries, and dialogue, and my burden for Mormon just increased, and increased, and increased.
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I went with his family to the Mormon temple in Washington, D .C., and for the Christmas lights, and I remember after about six months of this, his parents eventually told him he was no longer allowed to see me.
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And here's why. We were in my room after about six months of hanging out together, and we're in the Word together, and he says to me one day, he says,
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I know that everything you're saying is true. He said, but I can't leave, I can't leave Mormonism. If I leave,
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I lose everything. I lose my family, my friends, I lose everything, I can't leave the church.
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And this verse just wells up inside my soul at that moment, and I was only a believer for really a short period of time,
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I don't even know where it came from, it just wells up in my soul, and I said to him, I said, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?
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And I had this burden in my heart to have someone right in front of me who clearly saw the testimony of Scripture that the
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God that he believed in was not the true and living God, the gospel that he had was not the gospel of life, and forgiveness, and salvation taught in God's revelation, but he said he couldn't leave, and I had this burden for Mormons from that day until this one has only gotten worse, and so I'm gonna give that to you.
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So, I leave D .C. and come to Arizona, and I don't really know why I'm coming to Arizona, I wanted to be closer to Hollywood, I wanted to come out here and teach some karate and do that, and I wanted to go to Bible college, but I don't really know why
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Arizona, I end up just coming to Arizona, and the first day I was here, I knew why. My friend says, here, here's my keys to my car, drive around, and so I drive down Gilbert, and I'm one mile,
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I'm like, wow. And another mile, I was like, oh, that's interesting, and then another mile, I was like, oh, okay,
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I know why I'm here. And so for the last 15 years, I spent countless hours in dialogue with Mormons, actual face -to -face encounters with scores of missionaries, and Mormon bishops, and stake presidents, and professors, and we've done public conferences inviting them, we go to the
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Mormon temple every year, and we hit the streets as missionary work to go to the temple in Mesa during their
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Easter pageant, where over 100 ,000 people show up over a week period of time, we go during Christmas lights to go reach them, to create relationships, we don't have soap boxes and megaphones, we just grab a backpack full of tracts of Bibles, and we hang out, they even come out and they give us hot chocolate, of course, not coffee, and we just hang out, we get to know them, and I wanna tell you, brothers and sisters, that after 15 years of ministry, of being out there on the street in evangelism, at this point,
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I have lost count as to how many people have left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day
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Saints to come into a saving relationship with the true and living God through faith in Jesus. So I wanna give to you guys a burden, they said,
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I said, how long do I have to teach them and give them a burden to reach missionary, as a missionary, the Mormon church?
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35 minutes. So put your helmets on. I just wanna tell you guys, also, that Tuesday, I'll be here for the mine study at 645, so if you guys would come back, we can do a little more detail work, you can ask questions,
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I would love to serve you guys in that way, because my heart's desire is not to raise up a generation of people who are just really, really in awe of how stupid
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Mormonism is, or something like that, you know, oh, it's just crazy, and underwear, and coffee, haha, and then, you know, go on about our day.
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I wanna, I hope we can be a generation of people that says, you know, enough with just the talk, let's go die and reach them.
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That's what I wanna raise up. And so what I'm gonna give you that burden now is, first, to talk to you about, number one, the nature of the problem, the nature of the problem, when we're talking about the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day
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Saints, otherwise known as Mormonism. Go to Galatians chapter one, to see the first part of the discussion today on the nature of the problem.
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Galatians chapter one, as you guys get there, I'll sort of set this up for you. The Apostle Paul wrote Galatians, and it's probably one of the earliest letters written in the
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New Testament record. And the reason why that should be something that sort of like, is you should eyeball there and go, that's interesting, here's why.
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Because Paul chooses, as one of the very first things that he writes about, to be a defense of the gospel.
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Galatians chapter one, super short letter to the church in Galatia by the Apostle Paul, relatively shortly after the resurrection of Jesus.
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Why is it significant that it's one of the first letters written? Here's why it's significant.
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Because the context of the church of Galatia is these people are coming in to the church.
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The gospel has penetrated there, people have come to Christ, they're growing, and then these people come in.
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And they're not denying, because nothing is talked about in the letter, any essential that would be obvious.
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These guys are false teachers. They obviously are not denying that Jesus is the Messiah. They're not denying that he was righteous.
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They're not denying that he was the one that came in fulfillment of all God's prophecies. They're not denying that he died.
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They're not denying that he rose from the dead. If they had denied any of those essentials, certainly, surely,
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Paul would have said it. Paul always goes for the jugular, and he doesn't mention any of those things.
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These guys came in, and they look like Christians. They sounded like us.
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But what Paul says, I think, is very important. Listen closely. Galatians chapter one, in verse six.
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Get your eyes there for a second. And I want you to consider something as we look at it. This is not like the other letters that Paul writes.
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Oftentimes, Paul will write a letter, and it's all glowing stuff, right? It's like I long to see you, and a part of the
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Spirit's a gift to you. The book of Romans chapter one, the first seven verses, one sentence.
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It's just grace and peace, and he's so excited, he can't wait to see them. But this is different. Basically, Paul, in this letter to the
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Galatians, he basically says grace and peace to you. He's like, hello guys, what's up? And he says, I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ to another gospel.
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And listen, if you can hear my heart in this, Christians, or if you're in this room right now and you're a Latter -day Saint, understand this, that that is always the issue with the gospel.
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Grace. The Bible teaches that we're saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves, it's a gift of God, not according to works, lest any man should boast.
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And the Bible teaches clearly in Romans chapter four that Abraham believed God. He believed
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God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. And Paul argues very clearly, he says to the one who's working, you're working to be declared righteous before God.
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You're working to be reconciled to God through obedience to some laws. Paul says in Romans chapter four to the working one, his wage, what he earns for his work is not credited as grace.
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Understand this, that when a gospel comes into Galatia that's contrary to what Paul said, here's the issue.
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I marvel that you're so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ to another gospel.
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And here's what he says, which is really not another, only there are some who are troubling you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
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You see what Paul is saying here is this, this, right now this problem, you guys are distorting the gospel of grace, and there's people who are coming in and they're trying to distort the gospel, and it's really not a gospel.
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There is only one message of life, one message that saves, and it's clear in the
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Bible you can have other false versions that do not bring life and do not save. And listen to how serious this is.
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And I have to confess something, this is weird for our culture, you have to admit this. We're all so influenced by American culture that even though we say as Christians Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the
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Father but by him, even though we say we believe that, even though we say we love the one who's the very embodiment of truth, even though we say that, we don't always live that way.
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Because when we see a statement like this in scripture where Paul actually declares eternal condemnation and separation from God on anybody preaching a gospel contrary to his, let's be honest, we look at that and we go, ooh, he's harsh, right?
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We look at that as Christians and we say, well I believe Jesus is the way and the truth, but is this going a little far?
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Paul says you've got one message of life that saves, one Savior, and there's a possibility you can have another gospel, a false one, a false spirit, and a false
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Christ, and Paul says this in Galatians chapter 1 verse 6, Not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to change the good news about the
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Messiah. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than we have preached to you, a curse be on him.
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Now this is important. The word there, I don't know what translations you guys have, Holman Christian Standard Bible, NIV, ESV, New King James Version, King James Version, whatever translations you got,
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New Living Translation. A lot of translations today. Whatever the translation is, the word there behind a curse is very important, listen closely, anathema.
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And it's a Greek word that's probably the strongest Greek word Paul could have chosen to use to describe, are you ready, eternal separation and condemnation from the presence of God forever.
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You can't get worse than that. How central is this issue? You see, listen, we're not talking about non -essential issues,
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Christians, we can disagree on. We're not. Chairs or pews,
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I don't care. Cigars or no, I don't know, whatever, not an essential to the gospel, not that important.
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Bells or guitars, it's guitars by the way, these are not non -essential.
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This is an issue of the gospel. Paul says this, if I come back to you or an angel from heaven,
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Moroni, in Mormonism, Moroni, the angel comes down, tells him the location of the golden plates.
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Paul says if I come back to you or any apostles come back to you or an angel came from heaven and preaches any other gospel to you than that which you have received, let me be accursed of God.
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Paul's calling down a curse of God upon himself if he should come back to them and change the message of the gospel that he's given to them.
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That's how serious this issue is. And then he uses a Hebrew device here. The Hebrew language, there's no punctuation marks.
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We get crazy silly with punctuation in this culture, don't we? The exclamation point and commas are not enough.
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We want happy faces and hearts and I'm like, you guys are creative, very creative.
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But in the Hebrew language, there's no punctuation marks. If you want to say something and you want it to be gospel, you say it once.
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If you want to say something and you want to shout it from the pulpit, you repeat it. If you want to go ballistic and scream it from the rooftop, you say it three times.
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Famous scene, right? Isaiah chapter 6. What does Isaiah catch in the glimpse of this vision of God and his holiness that the angels are flying around and they're saying, holy, what guys, holy, holy.
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And Paul is a Jewish rabbi. He's Hebrew, shalom.
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And so he uses this device. He says it again, as we've said before, so I say it again now.
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If any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. He repeats himself twice to get the point across.
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And what was that gospel, guys? It was that the people who were coming in were saying, yes,
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Jesus died, yes, he rose again, yes, you need to have faith in him, yes, you need God's grace.
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But you must also observe this part of the Jewish law.
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You at least got to keep the Jewish circumcision. And Paul says this to them in Galatians chapter 2, if righteousness comes through the law, then
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Christ died needlessly. Galatians chapter 5, Paul says to that message that's a mixture of faith and works to get justified before God, to be declared righteous before God, he says in Galatians 5 this,
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Christ has become of no effect to you, whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace.
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Galatians chapter 3, Paul basically says this, you have to choose between law or grace, no combination between the two.
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You're either hiding in Christ and have his righteousness as a gift of God through faith, and you have a perfect righteousness that is not your own.
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Paul says in Philippians chapter 3 that he wants to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of his own derived from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ.
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Paul says in Galatians 3, grace or law guys, if you choose law, you're under the curse of the law to fulfill all of it.
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And the beauty of the gospel is that God becomes man and he fulfills the law perfectly, he's perfectly obedient, born of a woman, born under the law,
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Paul says, and he perfectly fulfills the law of God, and yet he goes to die on a tree, cursed by God as though he didn't fulfill the law, and then he conquered death as a matter of historical record so that through repentance and faith in him, you are joined to him, you receive his perfect life as a gift, you're hiding in Christ, he was condemned in your place so that you have peace with God for all eternity.
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That is the message of life. Mormonism teaches a message of faith and works, and I want to get to this, the nature of the problem, why is it so difficult?
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It's difficult because of this reason, and you probably know what I'm talking about. I've had so many people say,
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Jeff, I know you go to the temple, I know you do conferences and you do public discussions and you've done radio shows and all on Mormonism, but I have to be honest,
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I had some missionaries come over to my house the other day, I'm like, okay, great, did you talk to them? Yeah, and they sounded just like us.
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So are you sure you're not wrong about them, Jeff? Um, have you run into this problem, you talk to someone that's
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LDS, and they sound just like you. And this is the problem, all the religions of the world and cults that have borrowed from Christianity, they have one thing in common, and that's this, they speak
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Christianese. They have borrowed our
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Christian ghetto language, and they speak it. And here's the problem, when you say
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Jesus to a Christian, what are you thinking? You're referencing in your mind what the very revelation of God says about Christ.
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John chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was
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God. That's so deep and so beautiful, it says that from all eternity in the past, Jesus already existed,
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He existed alongside the Father, He was God, nothing came into being that's come into being apart from Christ, and God became flesh and dwelt among us.
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That Jesus is the creator of all things, He's always existed, that's what you think when I say
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Christ to you as a Christian. But when you say Jesus to a Mormon, they're thinking
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Jesus, one God among many gods. Jesus, the result of a sexual relationship between Heavenly Father, Elohim, and one of His goddess wives in the pre -existence,
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Jesus, Lucifer's brother, Jesus, the result of a physical intimate relationship between Elohim and the
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Virgin Mary to produce Jesus, Jesus, whose atonement began in the garden, was finished on the cross, and your works have to end up being your salvation.
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You must be obedient to the laws and ordinances of the gospel to be exalted into a
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God one day yourself. In Mormonism, when I say God to a Mormon, they're thinking
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Heavenly Father, who was once a man, who became a God one day. Mormonism teaches this, if you have teenagers around you that go to seminary in a
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Mormon community, they can finish this for you more than likely, as man is,
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God once was. As God is, man may become.
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Joseph Smith in his most famous discourse, the King Follett discourse said this, we've imagined and supposed that God was
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God from all eternity. Who believes that? We do.
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The Bible teaches that. He says, we've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. He says,
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I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see. You've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you.
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Joseph Smith taught, in the beginning, the head of the gods called the council of the gods, and they came together and concocted and prepared a plan to create the world and to people it.
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In the Pearl of Great Price, the story of creation from scripture is distorted. The Bible says, in the beginning,
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God created the heavens and the earth. Amen? Amen. Totally unique.
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Praise God. Word. Okay? Pearl of Great Price says, in the beginning, the gods created.
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It is the goal of Mormonism to get to the highest level of heaven, the celestial kingdom, to become a god of your own planet one day.
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Every faithful Mormon knows this and believes this, and just because we use the same language does not mean we are talking about the same thing.
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Talk to a Muslim. They say Jesus. They believe Jesus is not the son of God, did not die for sins, did not rise from the dead.
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Is that Jesus? No. But they use the language, and you can't say, well, they say they believe in Jesus.
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Listen, you have to learn to scale the language barrier, or you're never going to reach them. Just because they carry
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Bibles, just because they use our language, doesn't mean they know God. Listen, in Galatians, these people looked like Christians, and they had a message that looked so similar to the gospel, but it was off in this area, and Paul says, if you're doing that, you should be separated from God forever.
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Those who preach false gospels do not preach messages of life. They are messages of death.
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Number two, the necessity for aggressive evangelism. We live in a culture, a
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Christian culture, that I believe with all my heart needs to die a fiery death and be reborn.
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The early Christians were willing to lay their lives down for the gospel. They were willing to receive persecution. They understood that coming to Christ meant that you came to die.
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What does it mean to take up my cross to follow Jesus? It means that you do the death march to follow him.
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You know where it ends. And we as Christians in this culture, we desire so much to live lives of comfort and ease and just relatively simple, just ease and suffering, and we don't want to come to die.
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But let me tell you right now, if you look in the first century church in the book of Acts, what are they doing? People are coming to Christ because they were proclaiming the gospel and receiving floggings and beatings and stonings, and they were shipwrecked, and they had their heads cut off, and the church was growing, and here's why.
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Paul says in Romans chapter one, the gospel is the power of God for salvation. Let me say it to you again.
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The good news is the power of God for salvation, and let me just say this to us humbly as brothers and sisters in Christ, nobody ever came to Christ by looking at you.
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People come to Christ because they hear the message of life. God empowers that message of life.
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It meets the heart of a person who is spiritually dead and alienated from God. Their heart of stone turns into a heart of flesh.
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Their eyes are open. Their ears are open. God raises them to life through this message of life, and he draws them into intimacy with his son where they fall on him to receive eternal life and reconciliation with God, and he does that through the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation.
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So if we don't tell them they're not coming, let his word be on your lips so that you can lead your
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Mormon friends and family to Christ. Look at Paul, Acts chapter 9. As soon as he comes to Christ, he goes right to the hardest place, the religious context.
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He doesn't go like, hey, let's hold a neighborhood barbecue and see if anyone shows up and maybe one day in 10 years
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I can tell them about Jesus. Nope. He goes, by the way, have barbecues please, okay.
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Here's the point. He goes into the religious context, and he goes in there and he argues with them.
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It says in Acts chapter 9 he argued with them, and it says that people were coming to Christ the church was built up, and you know what else?
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It says that the Jews, some of those Jews there wanted to kill him. People come to Christ, the church is built up, and some people want you dead.
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People say, Jeff, are you sure you should go there preaching to them? Like it's kind of like in your face kind of stuff, like, well, we're gracious and loving, like,
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I don't know. I say, well, if you look at a pattern in Acts, they preach the gospel and people wanted to kill them.
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I've been preaching the gospel and no one's tried to kill me yet, so I must be doing something wrong. I'm working on it.
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The necessity for aggressive evangelism, I'll tell you a quick story. I go to the temple, the
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Mormon temple. We just hang out out there. I'm on the west side of the temple. A Mormon missionary comes out. I'm handing out tracts, talking to a lady, he comes out, and he's sort of like interjecting and talking back and forth between him and her, and we're going back and forth, and finally after a little while, this guy reaches down into my backpack where I had a bunch of tracts.
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He puts his hand down, and I realize this dude's getting ready to bowl with my tracts, and so I look down at him, and I put my hand gently on his hand.
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I say, hey, bro, I have 75 ,000 of those. I said,
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I'm going to make a deal with you, though. You show me from the Scriptures that I'm wrong, and I'll leave and I'll never come back,
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I promise. He says, okay, that's a deal. So we talked a little bit more, and after a little bit of time, he starts to cry and he leaves.
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And then he'd come back every single day, and he'd be like, hey Jeff, hey bro, you got a verse for me? I'd say,
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Isaiah 43 .10, before me there was no God for him, neither shall there be after me. You believe there was and you're going to be a
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God. He'd go, all right. And he kept coming back, and he'd say, hey, you got another verse for me?
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And I'd throw another verse at him, and after a couple weeks, he started hiding with us in behind alleys to talk some more, like opening the
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Bible, like, right? And then finally, a friend calls him one day, he says, hey, guess what?
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I said, what? He said he came to Christ. I said, praise God. And the next day, this Mormon missionary from the temple was standing next to me with tracts and a
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Bible, talking to the other Mormon missionaries, they're like, you've been brainwashed. He was like, no guys, you're believing a false
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Christ and a false, look what the Bible says, we were duped, we're wrong, guys, turn to Christ, and I'm like, wow.
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So do we need to do this? Yes. Two things quickly, and man, this is, I'm blitzing you, I'm sorry, guys,
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I hope you have, I hope you guys don't hate me after this, I'm beating you up with stuff here. Two things, number one, number two, of things, sorry, two things, sorry, here we go, gosh.
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I want to talk about the nuts and bolts of this, the nuts and bolts. How do we do this? Talk about the critical issues, talk about God and the gospel.
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Can I just encourage us, very important, please take this with humility, from me to you, can we please stop talking about Mormon underwear?
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Here's the deal, that will do nothing, you say, hey man, tell me about that funny little underwear you wear, that's not gonna lead them to Christ, they're going to hate your guts, and don't ask them why they don't drink
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Starbucks, it doesn't matter, listen, be honest, there are Christians in this room right now who have some very strange underwear on, and I don't want to talk about it, and we shouldn't talk about it, it doesn't matter, it's not gonna lead someone to Christ, so no discussions about Mormon underwear and Starbucks and all the funny things they do, stick to who is
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God, what is the gospel, those two issues, go to YouTube, type in Jeff Durbin and Mormon, and listen to the hours upon hours of conversations we have talking to Mormons, Mormon missionaries, all those things, listen to the conversations, we stick to who is
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God, what is the gospel, very briefly, and we'll do more on Tuesday. Mormonism teaches that God was once a man who had mommy gods and daddy gods before him, and you can become a
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God one day yourself, you need to address this from the scriptures, let your Mormon friends go to the scriptures, show them in the word of God what
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God says about himself, and let them wrestle with God. God says in Isaiah 43 .10,
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before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Mormonism teaches that there was, and you can become one.
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God says in Isaiah 44 .6, I am the first and I am the last, besides me there is no
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God. God says in Isaiah 44 .8, is there a God besides me, indeed there is no other
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God, I know not one, he's the only God, and the very basis of all
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Christian belief and Jewish belief is monotheism, there is only one eternal
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God. Psalm 90 verse 2, from eternity into eternity, you are
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God. And every Jew from Jesus' day until this very day quotes this Shema all the time, and I'm going to teach it to you, it's
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Deuteronomy 6 .4, hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you're going to do it with me in Hebrew.
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You ready for this? You got to say it nice and loud, come on now, you'll wake me up, I'm getting tired here. Ready everyone? Repeat after me.
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Shema. Shema. Yisrael. Yisrael. Yahweh. Yahweh. Eloheinu.
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Yahweh. Here you go, ready? Ehud. Shalom. Alright. Shema.
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Yisrael. Yahweh. Eloheinu. Yahweh. Ehud. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. There is only one
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God. Mormonism teaches there are many gods, you can become one one day. Jesus is one God among many, and Lucifer's brother, and yet John chapter 1 verses 1 -3 says that Jesus created everything in existence, including
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Satan. Colossians 1 -16 says that Jesus, for by Him, were all things created in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones and dominions and rulers or authorities, all things were created by Jesus.
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If we believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Him, where would we ever get the idea that someone could believe in a false
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Christ and come to know God? Lastly, the gospel. Just take your friends through Romans chapters 3 and 4.
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Paul says there is none righteous, not even one, none who seeks for God, none who does good. We've all turned aside, we're all astray, and we've all fallen short of the glory of God, and it says in Romans chapter 3 verses 20 on, it says, therefore, listen closely, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be declared righteous in His sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
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What's that mean? The law's purpose was to shut your mouth, because you see in the law, the fact that you are a violator of it, and it only increases my knowledge of sin if I'm fallen and still an
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Adam. So Paul says the law will justify nobody ever. It was given to close your mouth, but the beauty of the gospel is that Christ, this perfect substitute, becomes a man.
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He lives the perfect, obedient, and righteous life in the place of His people. He is given, Paul says in Romans 3, is a propitiation.
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Hang on. The word means a diversion of wrath. It means that God displayed publicly
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Jesus so that He would remain just, to demonstrate to the world that He takes sin seriously.
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And Jesus absorbs all my sin in Himself, and He exhausts it so that He says, it is finished.
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And then He conquers death and rises from the dead, so Paul says, we conclude that a man is declared righteous through faith, apart from works of law.
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Because the gospel is very simple. It's what God has done in Christ to reconcile people to Himself.
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It has nothing to do with me. And the biggest contrast is this. You finish this for me.
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Ready everyone? By grace are you saved? Through faith.
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You got it. And that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not according to works, lest any man should boast.
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Ephesians 2. Now I want you to listen to this. 2 Nephi 25 -23,
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Book of Mormon. By grace are you saved, after all you can do. The message of Mormonism is the antithesis of the message of Scripture.
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And it matters. It matters. Our Mormon friends and family haven't seen the beauty of Christ.
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We haven't seen the beauty of God becoming man to fulfill the law perfectly in our place. They haven't seen the beauty of the meaning of the death of Christ and absorbing the wrath of God in full for all my sin, past, present, future.
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They haven't seen the beauty of the blessing of being reconciled to God and receiving life and the Spirit of God so that my life transforms after I've been reconciled to God through faith as a gift of God.
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Salvation from beginning to end is a gift through faith so that no one can boast. All praise goes to God.
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Everybody's in heaven saying, only one reason I'm here, I'm hiding in His Son. Mormonism teaches that through grace, faith, and works, you can work through exaltation to become a
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God one day. And let me just say this to us. I know how difficult this is.
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I've had people tell me, Jeff, I can never do what you do because I might run into somebody
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I know. And I always say to those people, don't you think that I've thought about that?
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Don't you think that I've had those same thoughts? I used to own a martial arts school a decade ago here in Arizona.
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I may have even taught some of you guys, so if anybody disagrees, I got little ninjas in here right now, I'm sure. I lost customers when they found out the ministry that I do.
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People came to me and said, I can't support your business any longer because of what you do, and so I'm pulling my family out of your business because we cannot give money to a man that attacks our church.
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Even after many years of relationship of love and intimacy with these families, when they found out what I was doing,
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I lost those friendships. And let me tell you something right now, I count all those things as loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing
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Jesus Christ, my Lord. And I'll tell you right now, if my whole life, if my whole life can be laid down in sacrificial missionary lifestyle so that one person who's in the
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Latter -day Saints community, so that one Mormon turns from darkness to light and comes to know the true and living
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God through faith in Christ, that's a life well lived. And my life and your life counts for the gospel when you lay it down.
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Last thing I'll say is this, the greatest act of hatred you and I can show to anybody, the greatest way to show them that we hate them with our whole soul is that when we see them chasing darkness, when we see them believing in a false
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God and a false gospel, the greatest way for us to show them that we hate them with all of our soul is to say and do nothing.
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Let's pray. God bless this group of people,
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I pray that you draw them into an intimate relationship with you and give them boldness and confidence to serve you in this way, in Jesus' name, amen.
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By the way, like us on Apologia Radio on Facebook, go to ApologiaRadio .com and we'll hook you guys up tonight with some more stuff on resources on Mormonism.