Mormonism (Part 3)

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What Jesus said before He was born (Part 4)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the
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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her
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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to NoCompromiseRadio .com,
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No Compromise Radio, you can write us at info, at No Compromise Radio. Today is going to be a rollercoaster ride through the amusement park of Mormonism.
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If I ask you about Mormonism, what could you tell me? Could you tell me that it is, what, biblical, it is controversial, it is, what do they really believe?
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That's the question. What do they really believe? And I think you ought to know what
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Mormons believe, because Mormonism is on the rise. More and more people are becoming
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Mormons all the time. They're aggressive in their proselytizing. We've come a long way, as the
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Virginia Slims ad would say, you've come a long way, baby. There was a time when it was almost impossible, or rather it was unheard of, for a
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Roman Catholic to be elected as president. You know, John Kennedy.
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Now it wouldn't surprise me if Mitt Romney was the next president. Now it might not happen, but in light of some of the other candidates, he's probably got a good shot.
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You just never know what'll happen in the next two years. And so we've got Mormonism all around us, including
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World Magazine's article that says things in there that I wish it wouldn't have ever said.
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But as I said to you last time, that's why I don't subscribe to that magazine. And secondly, we've got the
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Glenn Beck thing. Everybody's talking about Glenn Beck, and all the bloggers are freaking out about it. I guess this is my blog. You know,
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I've never blogged. You're probably saying, hallelujah. I've never responded to a blog. I think there are a few excellent blogs out there.
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If you don't read Pyromaniacs with Phil Johnson, you should, because Phil is very insightful, even though he won't come on my show.
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You know what? I never asked him to come on the show. I've asked him to come here to preach, and I think he needs to fulfill that promise.
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Don't you, Phil? And then I also look at Between Two Worlds with Justin Taylor, because for the most part,
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I think Justin's, well, certainly for all the part, he is on top of what's going on in evangelicalism.
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And for the most part, I agree with his assessment. But I don't really blog, but I guess this is my radio blog, although it goes out on radio here locally in central
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Massachusetts. We're about 40 miles outside of Boston in Worcester, Massachusetts, beautiful downtown
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Worcester. And we are talking today about Mormonism. What do they believe?
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So that you could know, whenever you think of cults, do this. Source, Savior, Salvation, Alliteration, three points, and a poem.
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See this is a perfect Southern Baptist kind of thing. Source, Savior, Salvation.
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What's their source of truth? And you'll find very quickly it's not the Bible alone, and that should give you a hint.
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When they say the Bible has to be interpreted in light of the Book of Mormon, doctrines and covenants, and the
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Pearl of Great Price, Houston, we have a problem, Salvation, we've got a problem,
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Savior, we've got a problem. And so once you mess up the source, everything else is wrong.
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It's just a matter of, you know, the details. For the Savior, as I quoted last week, several times you've got a tritheistic view of God, the
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Father, the Son, and the Spirit, not being three persons, one God. You have three gods.
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And so gods used to be this, and they used to be that, and we can do that, and they used to, you know, overcome that.
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I don't even want to get into it anymore because I'm kind of tired about it. I'm tired about it.
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I looked over at another sheet here and got misdirected here.
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Who could I blame for that? I just made a mistake. Couldn't I blame someone? I did find it's interesting that they have branches, local congregations, usually less than 200.
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There are wards, 200 to 800, divided by geography, headed by a bishop.
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There are stakes, yes, like a vampire stake, five to 12 wards headed by a stake president.
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You have areas, large districts taking in above, things like stakes, supervised by three authorities from quorums of the 70, and then you have the headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, in a 26 -story building.
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So that's just a little background there. Los Angeles Times said that in business terms, the church is an $8 billion a year conglomerate that employs about 10 ,000 people.
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So what do we want to think about today? We want to ask the question, what do Mormons teach about salvation?
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Go up to a Mormon friend and, you know, if they knock on the door, I wouldn't let them in, but I would say, what's your good news? How could
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I go to heaven? And you won't hear things like grace alone determined by what the
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Bible teaches. You're going to find something that you're going to have to do. Charles Spurgeon was right.
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You have two religions, the religion of doo -doo -doo, and that's works righteousness.
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I know it's Snow Compromise Radio, I'm tempted to say that's a lot of doo -doo. Are we allowed to say that, or are those one of the words that we can't say?
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Well, Dave Reno, you can cancel it out for me. Do works, do wages, do baptisms, do offerings, slay the animals, offer the virgins, offer some little piece of fruit to your cat god in the restaurant.
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Whatever it is, you've got to do something to please God. God's angry, you've got to please him. The other religion isn't a religion that's divinely accomplished.
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We are tainted, we are sinful, therefore whatever we do has a sin on it. It's like tar that you get on your hands.
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I blacked out my driveway the other day, and when tar gets on your hands, then the next thing you know it's on your nose, it's on your leg, it's on your carpet, on your shoes.
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And so too with sin. Sin affects everything we do. We are totally depraved, and therefore even the best that we do, the worshipful things we do, the things we do to God, for God, are tainted by sin.
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So we need someone who's not tainted by sin to come and save us and rescue us and deliver us.
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We need a great God who's perfect to go do that, and a God who can identify with us, and that's why we have the infinite
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God cloaking himself with humanity, and his name is Jesus Christ.
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And for this particular religion, the only true religion, it's not do, do, do.
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It's done, done, done. As John Murray would say, salvation is accomplished and applied.
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He made reconciliation. He made redemption. He made propitiation.
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He didn't make it possible. He didn't try to do what he could, and you've got to fill in the blank. He didn't do it, and then you've got to activate it by belief.
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He did it all. And he accomplished salvation to the extent that even your faith and even your repentance is a gift of God.
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How about that for a great Savior? Now as we look at this salvation here for Mormons, you're going to see that this
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God is not a God worthy of any kind of worship and applause, obedience.
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This is not that kind of God. You might as well just go give your obedience to the Patriots or the
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Red Sox or the Celtics or the Bruins or anybody else. Maybe Tom Petty. I don't know.
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Who do you like for music? Iggy Pop. Lady Gaga. I don't care who you like. Which one doesn't fit in?
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Iggy Pop, Tom Petty, or Lady Gaga. When you worship a
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God like this, there's going to be a problem, and it reflects more upon you than it does this
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God you worship because there's no such thing. There's no such thing as these false gods. Because they're made up in the minds of men, sinful men.
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That's why we needed God to come and tell us who He was through the prophets, through Moses, then in Jesus Christ.
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So let's look at this God, and you tell me if this is a God worthy of worship or worthy of disdain.
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Did you know the Mormons teach that the shed blood of Jesus is insufficient to atone for sin?
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Well, if that great sacrifice is insufficient, then we're all damned. And everybody else who's ever lived has been damned.
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From Moses, to Abraham, to Paul, to Mary, they're all damned if it wasn't able to atone for sin.
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Listen to Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 3, page 247.
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By the way, why do I give all the references? Because I want you to know. I want you to know. Somebody said to me, well, you know, what you said wasn't true.
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I said, well, just tell me what I said wasn't true, and I'll recant it. And they said, well, it was true, but you just were mean when you said it.
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Okay. There is not a man or woman who violates covenants made with their God that will not be required to pay their debt.
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The blood of Christ will never wipe that out. Boy, that just gives me the shivers. It's just horrible.
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Your own blood must atone for it. The judgments of the Almighty will come sooner or later, and every man and woman will have to atone for their covenants.
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Well, Brigham Young is a false prophet. He's a liar. He's a blasphemer, and he is one that's not teaching you about the excellencies of Christ Jesus.
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And before you get on this whole tirade about, I'm mean, I bash people, if my
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Savior is attacked and blasphemed in such a way, I will stand up and say, that is not true, that is a low view of God, it is unbiblical, and I believe in the
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Savior that's revealed in the Word of God, whose blood was sufficient, whose death did accomplish salvation, whose vicarious, vicious death did accomplish what the
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Father sent Him to do. And Jesus absorbed the full wrath of God in my place for sinners as a substitute, and I believe that.
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And if you're going to say, well, you're being too mean, well, you just look at Jesus. How does
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Jesus treat people? When people knew they had no righteousness, kind, sweet, loving
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Jesus, prostitutes, people like that, they knew they had no righteousness, tax gatherers,
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He was right there, and He loved them, and you're right. But watch Jesus around scribes and hypocrites and Pharisees and the biblical lawyers of the day, who thought they had their own righteousness, like the
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Brigham Youngs of the world, scathing. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
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You better reread Matthew chapter 23 and listen to Jesus' words. You better reread
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Galatians to think to yourself, Paul preached before the church of Galatia, the churches of Galatia.
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He preached to a Jesus, one who was publicly portrayed as crucified, and then other people come along and bewitch them.
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Paul was not too happy about it. And so too with me. When you slander
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Jesus Christ, then I'm going to stand up because it's admirable to do that.
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It's honorable to do that. It's the right thing to do, and I'm not going to be feminized into saying, you know what, you can't talk that way.
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No, I like feminine things in women, but not men.
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It's time to stand up, men, and say, we're not going to take this anymore. When people blaspheme
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Jesus, you better stand up. How about Brigham Young Journal of Discourses 157?
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Some of our old traditions teach us that a man guilty of atrocious and murderous acts may savingly repent on the scaffold, and upon his execution will hear this expression,
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Bless God, he has gone to heaven to be crowned in glory with the all -redeeming merits of Christ the
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Lord. This is nonsense. Such a character will never see heaven. So the thief on the cross is not going to be in heaven.
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And even though he was the thief, and most likely a murderer, and Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise, that isn't true.
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That's exactly what he's doing, because they have a works -righteousness -based system. And what hope does that give anyone?
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No hope. Just got to be great to the very end, or you're dust. If you let up at the very end, live a great life, you're dust.
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No, I believe that people on their deathbeds, if they truly trust in Christ Jesus the
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Lord, they will be fully forgiven. They will be fully forgiven. First will be last, and the last first.
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You can read Matthew chapter 20 to look at that. Now I think, as Spurgeon said, there's only one deathbed repentance in the
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Bible so that you might have comfort and that you might not be presumptuous. Spurgeon also said when he met someone and they were dying, and he preached the gospel to them, and they received it with affirmation, and they got better, most every one of them said, you know,
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I don't believe that anymore. So how many deathbed conversions are actually true? We'll find out in heaven.
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But this is true for sure. If Jeffrey Dahmer, who said he confessed his sins and repented and believed in the gospel of Christ Jesus, the free grace gospel, if he in fact did that before he was murdered in jail and after he had committed all those horrible homosexual cannibalistic crimes, sins, then he's going to be in heaven because Christ's death was that great.
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Christ's death was that great. Now on the flip side, if you've got a Mother Teresa who lived her whole life not understanding the gospel, not understanding lordship, not understanding grace alone and faith alone, not understanding the gospel, you could live a whole life doing good things and still not go.
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I hope she got saved at the end of her life based on what the Bible teaches, not what she believed because she didn't understand the gospel.
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She had no idea what the gospel was. And so what kind of God do you believe in?
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Do you believe in a God who sent his son to be the sufficient atonement for sins?
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If it's not his death to pay for sins, I don't know whose we can count on.
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Joseph Smith, Journal of Discourses, 6 -4. Here then is eternal life, to know the only wise and true
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God. And you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you.
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McConkie, Godhood, 9 -294. The exaltation which the saints of all ages have so devoutly sought is
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Godhood itself. Although salvation may be defined in many ways to mean many things, in its most pure and perfect definition, it is always a synonym for exaltation.
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So what's their salvation? It's exaltation. No, then their salvation is dependent on works.
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I've got to take a deep breath here and maybe have a Mountain Dew, a diet Mountain Dew or something. My throat's killing me and I'm just on this tirade.
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Some of you may be changing the channel. Some of you may be saying, preach it. This is Mike Abendroth.
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It's No Compromise Radio and we are here talking about Mormonism. What do
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Mormons believe? Now you say, well Mormons don't really believe that. Okay, well just send me the retraction of the
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Mormon leaders that say this is all blasphemous and it's not true. They're not going to do that.
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By believing the truths of salvation, repenting of the sins, and being baptized in water and of the Spirit, the seeker after salvation places himself, isn't that amazing, on the straight and narrow path which leads to eternal life.
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Thereafter his progress up the path is achieved by the performance of good works. McConkie, Good Works 301.
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It's blasphemous. It's sinful. That is not true. That is not true.
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And you're defaming the work of Christ when you add works. If you could get to heaven, think about it.
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If you could get to heaven by being good or doing something, why did God the Father send his
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Son to die in our place? Why would Jesus absorb that wrath? Why would he, he should just, he should have stayed in heaven.
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Why would he do that? That is foolishness. Listen to the third article of faith,
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McConkie, Atonement of Christ, page 59. Immortality comes as a free gift by the grace of God alone, without works of righteousness.
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Eternal life is the reward for obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. See, it doesn't make sense.
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It's just put together in this large stew, this pudding full of works, and works are damning.
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We can't work our way out of heaven. Salvation is of the Lord. It's from the Lord. Jesus is the author and finisher of salvation.
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If you look at another quote, I mean, it just goes on and on and on. The plan of salvation is the system and means provided whereby men may sanctify their souls and thereby become worthy of a celestial inheritance.
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You mean to tell me that you can become worthy of a celestial inheritance? Then why kill
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Jesus? Why the old rugged cross? Why wrath bearing?
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Why my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why do that at all?
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McConkie, page 608 to 609, Sanctification. That's where that came from.
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How about 2 Nephi? This is what I saw when I was in the Marriott Hotel in Salt Lake City, reading the
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Book of Mormon, and it sounds vaguely familiar, but one word can damn you, or a couple words can damn you.
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For we know that it is by grace that we are saved. So far, so good. 2 Nephi 25 .23.
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Maybe it's Nephi. I don't know. Nephi sounds better. 2 Nephi 25 .23.
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For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, comma. After all we can do.
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Sounds a little different than we're saved by grace through faith that not of yourself is the gift of God.
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Doesn't that sound different? I think that sounds different. You don't get baptized to receive remission of sins.
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3 Nephi 12 .2. How about Joseph Smith in the Journal of Discourses?
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Many talk of baptism not being essential to salvation, but this kind of teaching would lay the foundation of their damnation.
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So see, it's the opposite. So why follow your fearless leader, Glenn Beck, or anybody else?
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Why don't you pray for him? Why don't you send him a letter and say, I'd love to be on stage with you, and I'd love to follow your political machinations, but I've got a bigger problem.
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And the bigger problem is not, are the taxes, Bush taxes, going to be repealed? The bigger problem is you and your soul.
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Lord, save Glenn Beck. That's what we need. Lord, save our friends who are Mormons. Lord, save our family members who are
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Mormons. And it might surprise you, and it might not surprise you. I have in -laws who are
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Mormons, and if they want to listen to this show, then fine. They think I'm wrong.
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I think they're wrong. But we both can't be right. Salvation in Mormonism is dependent upon works.
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You say, yeah, Joseph Smith didn't believe that. All these other crazy guys did. He didn't teach that. Well, I think if you listen to Joseph Smith, no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith.
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From the day that the priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding up scene of all things, every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, Jr.,
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as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are, I with you and you with me.
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I cannot go there without his consent. He holds the keys of that kingdom for the last dispensation, the keys to rule in the spirit world, and he rules there triumphantly, for he gained full power and a glorious victory over the power of Satan while he was yet in the flesh, and was a martyr to his religion into the name of Christ, which gives him a most perfect victory in the spirit world.
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That's not Joseph Smith talking. That's talking about Joseph Smith, quoted by Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 7, 289.
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That sounds like, you know, Jesus' death didn't really do anything on the cross according to Mormonism.
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But when you read the life of Joseph Smith through the eyes of Brigham Young, he sounds like the
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Savior. He was a martyr to his religion, a most perfect victory. Jesus' death was less than sufficient, but his was a most perfect victory.
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Well, no wonder they have to say the
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Bible's interpreted in light of their other three books because Romans chapter 5 clearly teaches the opposite.
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Well, this is Mike Ebendroth, No Compromise Radio. The Mormons have the wrong source. It's the
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Bible plus for them. They have the wrong Savior. It's not the eternal God, man, Jesus, eternal
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Son. And number three, they've got the wrong view of salvation. How about Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses?
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Plurality of wives is not designed to afflict you nor me, but it is purpose for our exaltation in the kingdoms of God.
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Now, if any of you will deny the plurality of wives and continue to do so, I do right now, go on record,
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I promise that you will be damned. And I will go still farther and say, take this revelation or any other revelation that the
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Lord has given and deny it in your feelings. And I promise that you will be damned. Journal of Discourses 3, page 266.
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That is something wild. This is sci -fi. Some people have supposed that the doctrine of plural marriage was a sort of superfluity or non -essential to the salvation or exaltation of mankind.
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In other words, some of the saints have said and believe that a man with one wife sealed to him by the authority of the priesthood for time and eternity will receive an exaltation as great and glorious if he is faithful as he possibly could with more than one.
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I want to enter my solemn protest against the idea, for I know it is false. I understand the law of celestial marriage to mean that every man in this church who has the ability to obey and practice it in righteousness will not, shall be damned.
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And I understand it to mean this and nothing less. And I testify in the name of Jesus that it does mean that.
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Joseph F. Smith, Journal of Discourses 20, pages 28 and 31.
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Well, let me go on record and say this. If you're a Mormon, I pray that God would have mercy upon you and that you could see with the eyes of faith the
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Savior, Jesus Christ, who had a perfect life, a perfect death, perfect atonement, perfect resurrection.
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I want you to know that the doctrines of salvation that you have that say that you live an honorable lives and you'll be an heir to salvation, that's not true.
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You don't get a second chance. According to Joseph Smith, Journal of Discourses 6, 8, you get a chance either here or in the world of spirits to be saved.
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You've got one hope, Jesus of the Bible. Everything else is a false god.
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It's an idol. It's made up in your own mind. It's made up by some other man's mind. Today would be a good day to open your
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Bibles up and turn to the book of Mark and read it and look at the excellent Christ who believed in the only source of salvation, the scriptures from God, who was the eternal son and who laid down his life for sinners and was raised from the dead and bestows grace by his sovereign pleasure through grace alone, through faith alone.
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Repent and believe that today. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.
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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.
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You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.