Mormons Desperately Need the Gospel

Apologia Utah

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00:01

What's your distinction? What's up? With much?

00:09

So you are, you're from LDS? I am. I just want to say, I'm not a fan. Oh yeah?

00:15

Of you guys, you know. Someone else's place of worship. Have you ever seen missionaries in front of a chapel?

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Actually, yeah. Were they like, camped there with like, tracks? Or were they just walking by? Well no, usually they just come right to my door.

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I guess your place is a place of worship. Of course

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I do. Why's that? Because...

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Oh, I've thought this through and I made it really clear before and now

01:00

I've forgotten it. I do the same thing. So you guys have to get baptized, don't you? Not in order to become saved, but because we already are saved.

01:10

Oh yeah, you're saved. You feel the love of God in your heart. And so you want to follow him.

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Because you've changed. And so then it's really easy. You want to get baptized.

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You want to help other people. Right. You want to make higher covenants in a temple if you're a member of the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. Right. And so...

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And you realize that in our church we believe in salvation and exaltation as two different things. So you can be saved, but not necessarily exalted.

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Right. And so exaltation is obtaining all that the Father has. So how would you define salvation, personally?

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How would I define salvation? I know that's like a big thing, but just like a general kind of concept of it,

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I guess. Okay, we're all fallen. We all sin. So Jesus Christ saves us.

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By removing those sins, he pays the price for those sins. And that's salvation.

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It's when your heart is pure and you're not on the hook for any of the sins you've committed.

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That's salvation. Because in the Bible it says no man, unclean creature, can enter the kingdom of God.

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Well, when you're clean, that's salvation to me. Maybe I didn't think about it enough and I need to go review it.

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That's all right. Not a lot of people are anticipating being asked deep theological questions.

02:51

So would you say then that exaltation is like returning to the

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Father, or is that becoming a God? What is that to you? Exaltation is having a family.

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So families are forever, of course. But then when you God is our

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Heavenly Father, he actually has children. And so I feel like one of the greatest joys in this life.

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I'm not married. I don't have kids. So I'm guessing you are married. You do have kids, I assume.

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Nope. I'm guessing too. No, I get where you're coming from. Having children and helping them through is one of the most beautiful in this life.

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Helping kids and watching them become their best selves. And also, when you do service for people, you feel love.

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You feel joy. So that's what Heavenly Father is like. So that's exaltation. He has a

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Heavenly Mother, a wife. He has children. And he has joy in helping us grow. You know what existential crisis is?

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Yes, I do. When you're around for an infinite amount of time, are you not going to have an existential crisis? Like, what am

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I doing? Am I just playing a harp for a thousand million years? But watching people grow helps solve that existential crisis.

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So that's what exaltation means to me. That's why it's something that I aspire to.

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Okay. Yeah. And also, it's feminist. Because women can become like God too.

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So men and women are both exalted together. So that feels nice to me.

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So when you say, like God, are you just talking about God's character, or are you saying becoming

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God's ourselves? Both. So like, I'm really interested in Confucianism.

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Confucius taught that we have to have a certain character before we can rule a country.

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If you want to rule your family, you have to have a certain character. You have to be a certain way. You have to be righteous.

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You have to be obedient before you can help your family. And then you have to be righteous to be a good ruler.

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So we have to be righteous. We have to obey God so that we can become like him. We can develop his character.

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And then we'll be able to be God. Okay. And that's something to aspire to.

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And that gives me vision every day. Okay. And so I'm worried that you're going to tell me that it's apostasy.

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And you're going to strip the purpose of my life from me.

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And that's where the fear comes in. Maybe. So what's your vision of the afterlife?

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Is it going to be an existential crisis like I'm afraid of? It's the exact opposite of that. What do we do?

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We enjoy God together. So is it just we have joy?

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Do we have bodies? Yes, actually. Okay. You guys believe in resurrection? Oh yeah.

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The resurrection is not something that people came up with like a thousand years after Christ.

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No, that was... Some denominations don't. Yeah, some are like that, but I think if I understand correctly, yeah, there will be physical resurrected bodies.

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But yeah, we don't... It's not like Renaissance paintings where you're just flying on a cloud somewhere playing harps.

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It's... The beauty of the afterlife for the believer is being with the fullness of God forever and just enjoying

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Him forever. And that's why it's not something that a person could ever become bored with or not have a sense of purpose because the purpose would be to worship

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God and enjoy Him for all of eternity. And there's never going to come a time where you've worshipped

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Him enough. Or you've seen all that there is to see about who He is.

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Have you ever been bored in church, Phil? You have Christ in your heart, but you're still bored.

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I'm not talking about going to church. I'm talking about being with Him. We don't know enough to like...

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What I'm talking about in my version, I still don't know enough about that. It makes sense to not have all the answers for what

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I'm asking just yet. And to be clear, I understand kind of where you're coming from about...

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There are some people who will react really negatively to us just telling them like, hey, what you believe is not the truth.

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The thing is, God is better. God Himself and the Gospel and everything is better.

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If my entire message to you was, man, everything that you believe in that has ever given you hope or a sense of person is false...

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I'm okay with letting go of my beliefs. That's fine. It's more like...

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families. More like what? Oh, families. That's the one thing I don't want to let go of. Do you think marriage stays eternally?

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I think marriage changes. I know Jesus said angels are not given in marriage.

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He's saying the only way to really make sense of that passage, the one you're referring to...

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Not the only way. We do make sense of it in the ODS way. How do you make sense of it?

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The way that it works is people are saying, hey, well, according to the law of Levirate marriage, this person will have been married to all of these different men.

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So, like, which one is she married to in heaven? And he's like, well, marriages stop there.

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You don't remain married to the person that you were before. Otherwise, if we say that you can actually be married for time and eternity, one,

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I would have to wonder why he didn't say that there. And two, I don't see how that can answer the objection that they're given because either she wasn't sealed to these guys for both time and eternity and Jesus could just say, well, that's the reason for why she's not married to all of them.

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Or she's just like, the truth is that she is no longer married to any of those people after she dies, and that all makes sense.

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So that's where I would go. Oh, you can understand anything any way you want.

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But the issue is God meant something. You have to understand it. You can't, like, supersede the

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Bible. Right, you can't... You can... That's why we need teachers. It's good to have people who can explain things, but the issue is the

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Bible is the word of God. Not the work of religious philosophy. I would say that the

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Bible is a word of God. Okay. Among all sorts of...

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Isn't it a new testament if anyone speaks the Holy Ghost? Like, speaketh the words of Christ?

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I'm not sure. Well, we believe what the Bible talks about.

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We believe what Jesus says, and a bunch of people wrote the

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Bible because they were there what Jesus has did. And they wrote those things because that was a special moment.

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And they wrote... They wanted to remember, right? Yeah, and they wrote the

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Bible because it's the cross for our sins.

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Resurrected from the dead. That's what they wrote about Jesus.

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In Genesis they talk about Jesus made day and night and he called everything good.

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Yeah. Amen. You're so right. It's very important to focus on the atonement, right?

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Yeah. Have you ever had any moments that were so special you just wanted to write them down?

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Remember them forever? That's good. So the issue with the

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Bible is that it's either God speaking through these people or it's just, you know, religious philosophy kind of stuff and can be wrong.

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That's a binary that I don't accept. I would imagine...

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How does the middle ground work? It was originally written in Hebrew. But it wasn't actually originally written.

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It was oral. Traditionally. And people make mistakes.

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Especially myself. I know I'm not as good as the prophets though so they're going to make much less mistakes than I will.

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But they still will make mistakes. And of course when it comes to Samuel and telling

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Saul and telling David to wipe out whole populations of people God said,

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Thou shalt not kill. What if that's just oral traditions and people adding their oral traditions? Like Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt.

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That's more easily explained as a folk tale than like to be taken literally.

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So even when I talk about the Book of Mormon or General Conference, prophets talking nowadays they're right.

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But they still make some mistakes. If there wasn't a

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Bible there would be no Book of Mormon. And if there was no Book of Mormon there would...

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Well, I don't want to say there would be no Bible because Book of Mormon is after Bible studies. Yeah, okay. Have you ever read the

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Holy Bible? I tried. I got to like...

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Where would I get to? Most people stop at Leviticus. Yeah, I actually got through that.

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I wasn't like... I was at Jeremiah. I finally like...

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I finally fell off. Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross?

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Jesus? Can you believe that? She's sharp. I do indeed. So what does that mean?

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You say he died on the cross for your sins. Well, she asked it too. She asked do I believe you need to revert again to heaven?

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Well, what if I gave you a Christmas present and you're like thank you and you just set it aside. Did you accept the gift?

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You're like thank you Jesus and you open it and then you use it. You used the gift. For example, we get the

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Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost tells us to do things or helps us know what's right.

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But if we don't use it what's the point? Okay. It's like getting a cool toy but then we never play with it.

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And so that's what the Atonement of Jesus Christ means to me. He died, he gave me a queen soul so that I can enter the kingdom of God.

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But if I don't take the steps to walk into the kingdom of God God can't force you to do that.

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So would you say that God is your heavenly father? Of course. Literally.

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Right. Okay. So what happens then if you don't do those things?

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If you don't get sealed in the temple if you don't do all of the work do you get to spend eternity with your father?

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Technically, yes. Let me understand. It's hard. We have three kingdoms.

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Celestial, Terrestrial, and Terrestrial. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So in the

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Celestial Kingdom some of those in the Celestial Kingdom will be like God. They'll have a wife, they'll have a twin family.

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They'll be with Heavenly Father. In the Terrestrial Kingdom they're allowed to be with Jesus. And you remember in the

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Bible it says Well, maybe I'm wrong. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong. It says that those who believe in my name will be my children.

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So technically you're with Jesus Christ and he's your father. That's not what

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I mean, though. Because you know in the Trinity they're the same person, right? They're the same being.

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So Jesus is technically our father. So the reality... Well, it's good that you brought that up because according to the

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Bible there is one God. Only one God. They are not separate beings, they're just unified.

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There is one God. There is. And Jesus worships him with us.

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Would you say Jesus is God? Yeah, but we don't worship him. Well, why don't you worship

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God? We worship God. But you just said Jesus is God and you don't worship him. When I get to the

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Celestial Kingdom, I will become a God. But I don't worship me. I don't worship my wife or my family.

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Well, if you do things the way that the Mormon Church says God is doing them now you will be worshipped.

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By my children? By your children, yes. Not by my father? You will receive worship.

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People would be bowing down to you and praying to you and worshipping you. But I only have one God. And those people will never know about him.

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Because remember, according to their church... Yeah, it's like family. You don't know anything about your grandfather, do you?

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But it's the truth, though. I mean, tell me something that, according to the church,

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God has revealed about his Heavenly Father. Can you tell me something that they've revealed about your

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Heavenly Mother? I wish they would reveal more. That's why I love my church.

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Because we're allowed to criticize it. We're allowed to say, hey, the prophets aren't 100 % right.

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They're like 99 .8 % right. I wish they would talk more about Heavenly Mother.

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Well, the issue isn't that they haven't talked enough. They haven't said anything. And you're arguing they wouldn't say anything because maybe it's not real.

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That's true. That's exactly what I would argue. Have you ever prayed about Heavenly Mother?

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Heavenly Mother? No. I haven't had any need to do so because there's no such thing.

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I mean, I don't mean to... When atheists would make that same argument, why would I pray about the church because there's no such thing?

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Yeah, they'd be wrong. Yeah, so what if you're wrong? What if I'm wrong? Well, God has revealed himself in his word.

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Yeah, it's totally okay to be wrong. But when God says, here's how things are, and you say, or I say, or anyone else says, no

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God, that's not the way it is. I think that's why he uses prophets. Because if God came down and said it himself, it's irrefutable.

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Exactly. What we think is that he's made up of Jesus.

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And our God is holy and just, even when he was a baby, he didn't work to be holy.

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You know? Well, I have a favorite scripture. I think it's John. I don't know.

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They're asking Jesus, are you going to eat? And he's like, my bread is to do the work of my father.

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You don't do work to get salvation. But you do have to do it in order to get exaltation.

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Yeah. You have to unwrap the gift that God gave you. You have to use the gift.

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It's like getting a brand new car and never driving it. Just driving off a cliff and then...

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Well, the problem is that God... It's a waste. Have you ever read this part? We talked about this on Sunday.

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And would you do that? Would you? If you were holy and just, would you do that and wash their feet clean and show that he is holy and he's showing you how he washes your feet, you know?

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He washes the hardness of your heart. Does that work, though?

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That's the question. And I feel like this is a sophistry. We're just trying to logically go in circles to try and prove me wrong.

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But when we actually agree that you become holy, not because you're good or whatever.

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Because Jesus loves you. And you want to and so you get healed.

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You don't... You get remission of your sins before you get baptized. Then a baptism is just, it's like washing your feet.

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You want to do it. Yeah, you would want to do it. But what happens if you don't do it? What happens if you don't do it in your church?

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Well, it depends. Because there are times when people just don't have the chance to do it and it's totally fine.

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That's how you solve the soteriological problem of evil. The one where billions and billions of people have died without learning about Jesus?

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Oh, no. That's the soteriological problem of evil. Well, the soteriological problem of evil is solved by just the fact that God is perfectly just and he knows that all of those people have rejected him anyway.

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In Romans 1, he says that he has revealed himself. It is a new... Because it's true and we don't like it.

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In Romans 1, God has revealed that he reveals himself in nature to everybody. And people, instead of saying, well,

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I'm going to worship God as he is, they decide instead to worship created things.

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You know, the birds and the plants and all this kind of stuff. I wish you were right. I am.

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That's what it says. There are so many people who have never heard the word Jesus in their life. You're saying they get a vision?

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Each one of them get like a vision? No, I'm saying you can tell just by looking at nature, like who

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God is. That's another problem of evil. How so? If people suffer because they're inherently evil, that means

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God created them to be evil. He created them knowing they would be damned.

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He could have just not created them. In which case, he is an accessory. Nasty. How so?

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Because if he hadn't created them, they would not be damned. I'd rather be in oblivion than damned.

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Well, those are basically their options. It wouldn't be their fault. No, it would be their fault. And they didn't get to choose because they didn't get to know.

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Well, of course they would. You don't believe in premortal existence, right?

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So when would they have chosen? Because God has said that there's no premortal existence. That's in Romans 9.

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Yeah. That was Jeremiah.

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And what he's saying there is that he knew who they would be because he has decreed who they would be.

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But what he says in Romans 9 is before, I believe it's Jacob and Esau, he says before they had done anything, whether good or evil, before they were born, it was declared that the older would serve the younger.

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So their fates were already sealed. But the problem isn't one of philosophy.

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The problem is God has declared as the king who is going to be saved, who is not.

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That doesn't remove... Do you believe in re -destination? That just means that we believe in the

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Bible. Then I shouldn't try, should I? What do you mean? Because I've been predestined.

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That's not how this works. What if I don't try? That means I was predestined. So then I don't have agency.

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Who said any of that? Just out of curiosity, how did you come to know what

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Calvinism was? Did a Calvinist try to teach you that? No, AP European History. Yeah, AP European History.

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History class teaching theology. This is the problem here. You've got to go to the Bible for this. Look, God is the king and the king does what he wants.

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That doesn't mean that we're not responsible at all for what we do because we know and we choose what we want.

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It's not a libertarian kind of thing. It's like every single time I've ever sinned in my life, the reason for why

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I sinned isn't because somebody literally possessed my body and forced me into it or that I don't make choices or anything like that.

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The reason I sinned is because I wanted to. That's the reason for why people are responsible for what we do.

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The reason for why somebody who has never heard of the Bible or of Jesus, why they do the things that get them to be condemned is because that's what they want to do, not because God hasn't revealed himself in some way to them.

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But in the ways that he has revealed himself, they say, I don't want that. That's the issue here.

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We see who God is and then we reject it. If you're predestined but you're still accountable for what you do, then it doesn't matter whether we call it predestined or not because you're still accountable.

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It's just... You're still accountable. It's an unnecessary thing to worry about because the result is the same.

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You're still accountable for what you do. It's the same. What I want to talk about is the original thing we were talking about.

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Then we were talking about the Bible and then we moved on to the other thing. We're talking about eternal life. OK. Eternal life.

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Eternal life. An eternal increase.

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An eternal increase. To have a family. To have children.

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To... Like... I don't think it's a coincidence that in our world young things grow into big things, you know?

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Puppies grow into dogs. It's a process. Sons grow into men.

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Daughters grow into women. We grow into the likeness of our father. And so then we have we have joy in this life.

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Anyways. Right now it's time.

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It's part of eternity. Because we believe that God is self -existent.

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He's like us. Well, God can choose right now to sin.

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He can sin right now if he wants. No, he can't. Yeah, he can. But if he sins he can no longer be

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God. OK, so you're talking about free will. Yeah. He still has that free will.

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Forever. He can always choose to end it. He's not going to. In order to make a certain recipe, you have to use certain ingredients.

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You can choose to use different ingredients, but then you're not going to make the recipe. OK. So in order to become like God you have to follow the recipe.

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Right. And so if you're living in commandments now it doesn't have to be perfect because Jesus makes up that difference.

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That bit where we can't. Where we're still struggling. Maybe we can keep some of the commandments but not all of them.

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Jesus makes up that difference. For now. But when we get, we can have the joy of eternal life.

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When we raise our children, we can understand kind of what Heavenly Fathers understand. And then when we get to eternal life, we'll be we'll be ready.

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And we'll continue to have that joy. We'll have an infinite amount of different children and they'll all be...

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Worshipping you. Not all. OK, well not all, but... OK, but you are going to be worshipped.

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By some of them, yeah. As many as possible. How can you talk about God in a meaningful way?

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You're literally saying you're going to become... Yeah, like your goal is at least in part to be worshipped.

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Like, do you not see a problem with this? I've never thought of it that way. Instead I think of it as I will worship

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God for eternity. Well, whether you think about it that way or not, it's still... In my world, it's the same afterlife as what you were saying.

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No, not at all. You said there's so much joy in eternity of worshipping

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God. Yeah, but you're talking about something different. We get to have joy in worshipping

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God. That's because it's not the only thing we do. Yeah, and you're also being worshipped as gods.

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I don't see the problem. What's the problem? The problem is that that is blasphemy. That is idolatry.

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Like, first of all, you're rejecting all the times in the Bible when God clearly says that He is the only

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God in existence. And you're just saying, no, God, that's not true.

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Other people can be gods. God says that He's not only the only one, but there will never be a

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God formed after Him. You know, that's what Isaiah 43 .10 is. 43 .10? I should have memorized this by this point.

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But yeah, He says, I am God and there is no other. He says it all throughout Isaiah 43 .9.

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Some people believe in an eternity that they're the same being, because there can't be a God after God.

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That's part of it, yeah. That's a big, big part of it, because there is only one

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God. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And they're all co -equal, co -eternal.

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There can only be one being. So, that's why the whole idea of there being different degrees of glory where you're not guaranteed to be with the

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Father, that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't work. Because to be with the

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Father is to be with the Son, is to be with the Holy Spirit. And that's something that's declared throughout

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God's Word. In the Teamester Kingdom, you can have the Holy Ghost.

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And the Holy Ghost is one of the Godhead, is he not? Therefore, I know it's another sophistry, therefore, in the

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Teamester Kingdom, you also have Godhood. Just not in his physicality. You're equivocating. And then, if you think about the old

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Greek philosophy, they believe God can't have a body. So he's just a mist, or, not mist, he's just everywhere.

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Might as well just... Well, that's the Holy Ghost, isn't he? He's everywhere.

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Well, no. Augustine adopted that into his

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Catholic, and it became a part like... And then when

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Luther broke off, he took off a lot of that. And so to this day, a lot of Greek philosophy is found in Christianity.

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Because that's not how this works. I don't care one bit what Luther said, I don't care what Augustine said,

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I don't care what my pastor says. Yeah, that's true.

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Well, it's like saying, you know, the Book of Mormon was written in English, so, you know, that's got to have all these...

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It's got Hebrew ideas in it. And some of them are just traditions of men.

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It doesn't make any... If there's mistakes, they're of men. Because God doesn't make mistakes.

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So if there's mistakes in a Bible... Well, why is God going to mingle His words with words that are untrustworthy, so you don't know which of these words are...

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Yeah, but it doesn't really... It's a ton of different books. 4 ,000 different years.

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That's correct. From Genesis to... Well, 7 ,000, isn't it? No, 7 ,000 from today.

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Yeah, depending on how you count it. Anyways, just a long time. I have something that will help you understand a lot of this, so...

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Can I talk to you about something? I'm curious. So, have you ever told a lie? Told a lie?

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I wish I hadn't, but I have. Yeah. Have you ever disobeyed your parents?

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Have you ever stole something that wasn't yours? Sadly, yes. Yeah. So that means you'll be put in a terrible place called hell, and we don't want that for you.

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We want you to go to heaven and have eternal life. And that means you can't become a god because you sinned.

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Mm -hmm. You know, Adam and Eve sinned. You know, steal.

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And we don't want that for you, right? Do you think that you can go to heaven because we're preaching the gospel right now?

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That's a good question. It's an interesting one. She does that sometimes. The question is, if you...

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Because you're sharing the gospel right now, does that qualify you for heaven? Is that what you're asking?

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What? Is that what you asked? You said something about preaching gospel. Yeah. Because we're preaching gospel, you get to go to heaven?

35:05

Well, we preach the gospel because we believe that Jesus preached to all of the people, you know?

35:12

Mm -hmm. And once he preached to everybody, everybody started to like, wow,

35:23

I sinned a bunch, you know? Mm -hmm. And we can never, we can never not sin, you know?

35:30

Because you've done all those things. I have done all those things. Everybody has done all those things.

35:37

One person, like, a regular person has always sinned.

35:43

You know? Like, even, like, everybody. Not even one person has not sinned.

35:49

No. Everybody sins. And that's regular. And you pray all those sins.

35:59

And so what I'm talking about is I want you to when you go home, read the whole entire

36:05

Bible and repent your sins. I do want to read the whole Bible. In one sitting.

36:11

If you get up out of that chair, buddy, you're in trouble. But I do want to. I accept. I don't know if I've made this clear, but, you know, she pointed out something that I probably should have.

36:25

That, you know, when we're out here, you know, the idea is not that we want to take away people's comfort or anything like that.

36:31

We understand that a lot of people have gone through difficult times or whatever and they look to the

36:38

Mormon religion for help and things like that. Our hope for you, even though we might, like, we might get frustrated with each other sometimes, the hope is that you would come to know

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God as He is and not, you know, not just that I would win an argument or we would get points with each other.

37:03

Just like, my hope when I am there with God, enjoying

37:08

Him, is that you're going to be there next to me. That's what I want. And that's what she wants.

37:14

And that's why we come out here. It's not like... Some people will act like, you know, we've done them a huge disservice.

37:23

But it's like, honestly, I understand when a Mormon comes to my door and tries to talk to me about their religion.

37:31

You know, I know that they're not just here to mess with my Saturday plans. You know, I know they're not just here to bang on my door and maybe have to get up out of my chair.

37:41

You know, but it's... Like, I get it. Like, this is something that we do because we hope that you would benefit from this.

37:50

And I just hope that that's made clear. You know. Reasonably.

37:55

Have you ever got baptized and you're like, wow, I feel really great after you got baptized.

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Do you think that when you get baptized, do you think you can become a

38:10

God if you're baptized and washed clean? I think

38:16

Jesus in his life was a God. Because I'm using a very vague sense of God.

38:28

Because he obviously had to priesthood. He could heal people. But he wanted what

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God wants. What God wants is to save all of us. He wants that so bad.

38:40

And so Jesus wanted to save people. And so he preached the gospel.

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He served people. He did what you guys are doing. He went and found people who needed him.

38:56

So that desire when you get to heaven, you just want to keep doing that forever.

39:03

Keep sharing. There wouldn't be any reason to do that because everybody else in heaven has already heard the gospel.

39:10

True. I would see that as being consistent with what the

39:15

Mormon church would say. That is the fluffiest dog

39:21

I've ever seen in my life. It wouldn't make sense with what God says in the Bible. And that,

39:27

I think, is the most fundamental kind of issue that we have here. What has

39:35

God himself said? What would we regard as being the authority in those issues?

39:42

You talked about Confucius. If Confucius is speaking for God, then we've got to do what he says.

39:50

But if he's just saying well, here's my own religious philosophy or political philosophy, then we can sort of pick and choose what parts make sense to us.

39:58

And we'd have the freedom to do that. Like I am with Augustine. I shouldn't say

40:03

I don't care what Augustine says. I like Augustine. I like Luther. But because they are theologians and not people who are inspired by the

40:12

Spirit of God, they are capable of being wrong in their writings. And so I can be like, well,

40:19

Augustine's right about soteriology. Not so much about the church. You know,

40:25

Luther was right in a lot of things. Wrong about a lot that he said about the

40:32

Jews. I would reject that kind of stuff. But like, if God has spoken, then that's the end of it.

40:40

Because God is always right. So if he has spoken in the Bible, again,

40:47

I would ask, why would he mix his word that is pure and good and perfect with just the ideas of men that well,

41:00

I know I can be wrong all the time. Why would he mix those in so that we can't discern what he said versus what maybe some 13th century monk thinks he should have said.

41:13

Because he wants us to use the Holy Ghost. He wants us to think for ourselves. He wants us to become like Jesus Christ.

41:22

Well, Jesus Christ didn't do that. Jesus Christ took the Old Testament. He thought for himself, but because he is

41:29

God, that's a totally different thing. But he didn't... Exactly. Because the scriptures are true.

41:37

He didn't say like, well... He quoted true scriptures. Oh, OK. I see.

41:44

But the issue, can you just tell me which parts of the Bible are the word of God, and which parts are just the stuff that guys made up later?

42:02

Why can't things that people make up be the word of God? So, we're talking about Confucius.

42:09

Yeah. Doesn't it say in the Bible, correct me if I'm wrong, that all good things come from God?

42:15

Yeah, ultimately, yeah. So, if Confucius said something right, he didn't say everything right, something right, is that not from God?

42:26

In the sense of like God starting creation and that kind of thing, but not... What if I have a super psychedelic dream, but then

42:34

I learn an important principle that I can apply to my life? That would be... Then I wake up, and I'm like, oh my gosh.

42:43

Could God have like... Some of them were my ideas, of course, but could

42:48

God have like inserted a revelation into that? God could have orchestrated your life in such a way that you would learn that kind of stuff, but that's not...

43:02

No. Not in my opinion, it's the Word of God. Well, there's a bunch of Bibles that are false and true, because there's only one

43:13

Bible that is true. The Holy Bible. The Mormon Bible is false.

43:21

All those different Bibles are false. Well, it's going to accidentally say some right things.

43:27

Yeah, but that's not... It's not in the Book of Mormon where they quote the Bible. Oh, there's more than a spot. So the Book of Mormon can't be truly false.

43:34

Well, it can't be entirely false, that's right. Because it quotes the Bible, and the Bible is true. Right, but it's not...

43:39

What we're saying here is not that, you know, you can never be... What I'm saying is you can learn from everything.

43:46

I can look at that tree, and I can just ponder it, and the Holy Ghost will teach me this. I can read the

43:53

Bible, and I can see... Wipe out the Danites. Kill them all. Kill all the babies.

44:01

And I can be like, should I be following the Bible? Should I go wipe out a population of people?

44:08

Should I do some ethnic cleansing? I don't like that part. You don't like that part?

44:14

But what if I say, maybe God had a reason for letting that be in there.

44:19

Maybe He's... I don't know what He's doing. I'm young and dumb.

44:25

I'm a stupid child. God is intelligent. But...

44:31

So... I just don't think God commands us to not kill people, and then commands us to kill people. You know?

44:37

That's just an example. Like... Especially the

44:46

Old Testament was not written down until the Second Temple period. It was an oral tradition.

44:55

So it's not that the prophets were wrong. They could have been. But mostly they weren't.

45:00

I'd say... Throw another number, like 98 % right. The theologians and the

45:08

Jewish priests, and later the Greek translators and the Catholic Church translators from Greek to Latin or Hebrew to Latin, and from Latin to English, Hebrew to Latin.

45:21

You know? They can make mistakes there. Sure. The people who pass it down orally can make mistakes.

45:30

They can add, oh, I didn't like those people. We should have them. We cleanse them. So let's add that into the oral tradition.

45:38

That's not the prophets messed up. God didn't mess up. God doesn't mess up. Okay. God doesn't mess up. But the

45:44

Bible can be messed up. And that's... We're not going to agree on that. That's fine. I'm okay with not agreeing on that.

45:52

Just as long as we know that that's where probably the most fundamental issue is. Because if the

45:57

Bible is the word of God, then that's the end of it. It's like we can build every single thing, everything on that foundation.

46:10

But if you say... God is an infinite being. He has an infinite many things to say.

46:18

Why is there only 4 ,000 or 5 ,000 pages of words? And some of them about ethnic cleansing.

46:26

Have you... You said before that you haven't read all that, right? He has an infinite amount of things to say.

46:35

So... It's been this hard to read the entire Bible as it is. Yeah.

46:41

You haven't read that. I'm assuming you've read the Book of Mormon, right? It's shorter.

46:47

Yeah, it's shorter. Have you read all the Doctrine and Covenants? No. Have you read all the

46:56

Book of Commandments? Book of Commandments? That is the Doctrine and Covenants. It's...

47:01

There are differences. Have you read through all the

47:07

Journal of Discourses? Have you read all the Journal of Discourses? It's okay for him not to say all his infinite amount of words.

47:15

Yeah, he could say all sorts of stuff. He can just put the important stuff in one spot. Right. And the answer is the

47:21

Atonement. Like she was saying, in following Jesus Christ. That's the important part. Okay, but you've got to know who

47:28

Jesus is. Yeah, so that's why we get a little life story. Just three years of his life.

47:35

I wish we had more. We get to learn a little bit about how he acts in different situations.

47:41

I wish I could see how Jesus acts in us. When it comes to technology.

47:48

I think that would be interesting. How would he act? Wouldn't it be nice if he continued speaking?

47:55

And he does. He does. He speaks through the Bible. And then, but the

48:00

Bible doesn't mention technology. It doesn't mention, like, movies and, like,

48:06

TV shows. Which I'm addicted to. But I'm curious how

48:11

Jesus would act. And that's why I read the Bible, but then the Holy Ghost adds.

48:18

Because God has infinite amounts of words. And so the Book of Mormon is supposed to add more. There's an infinite amount of things to know, too.

48:33

That's one of the nice things about eternal life, is you continue learning. You can know everything. Not all at once.

48:40

True. I don't know if this is just, like, the Gospel of Ryan here, but I wouldn't be surprised if we end up, like, going out into space and doing stuff like that.

48:50

I don't think we would be done exploring things. I mean,

48:55

I imagine just watching God create would be really cool. He wouldn't have to do it.

49:01

It would be neat. Is he going to create more? You know, he hasn't said that he won't.

49:10

So, you know, will he create some other new universe? I don't know. I think it's interesting to think about. Well, when

49:23

God will destroy this world, no sin, no death.

49:34

That'll be so nice. I'm looking forward to that. I've got bad knees. Hopefully it won't burn.

49:40

Probably not. And he'll be on the Earth. He'll be on the Earth forever. He'll be with us.

49:48

Yeah. First we go to Heaven. And...

49:55

And... When we go to Heaven, He judges you for what you've done.

50:02

And He says, you've sinned against Me. But if you sinned against Me, I would have to put you to Hell.

50:13

But what I've done for you to die on the cross and I've never sinned in my entire life taking the punishment of my sin for you,

50:29

He will judge you of your sins. To clarify. And again, you know,

50:38

I just hope you walk away from this with the understanding that we're not like, I don't want to beat you up or anything like that.

50:47

Ultimately, we are all born as enemies of God.

50:52

And we don't come into this world, the Bible doesn't describe us as being in terms of freedom and life.

51:03

It describes us in terms of slavery and death. What Christ has done on the cross is to take on all of that payment, not just for our sins, not just to give us immortality.

51:20

It's not just forgiveness. The Bible says in Ephesians 1 that the Christian has every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

51:28

All of it. It's all one thing. And that is given as a free gift, not to people who like you said are receiving a

51:36

Christmas gift, but people who are dead. Dead guys can't unwrap stuff. That's the situation that we're in.

51:46

But what He has said is that this is a gift that is received, if you can even really call it that, by faith alone, apart from works of the law.

51:56

The whole thing, all of eternity with Him, forgiveness, sanctification, that cleansing process, everything.

52:04

It's a free gift. And like you said, we do these works because we want to.

52:11

But they are as a result of having received all of this. Not, you know,

52:18

I have to be baptized in order to make sure that I end up in the right kingdom or anything like that.

52:26

And we will eventually spend all of eternity praising God because that is enough.

52:34

That is more than enough. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else, just being with Him. I hope that makes sense, at least.

52:42

Yeah. Well, guys, I'm going to head off. Ryan. You guys are much...

52:48

I remember talking to other missionaries at BYU. So much argument. I really felt good about you guys.

52:55

What's your name? Marlene. Marlene. Thank you for everything you've taught me today. It's been very great.

53:01

Oh, thanks, man. Thank you so much. You're Ryan. I'm Logan. Nice to meet you. Hope to see you guys again.