Is Mormonism a Cult?

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So, the first thing is, let's go to Galatians, premier passage, right?

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You guys knew I was going there, Galatians chapter one. It's an important passage in light of the discussions we have with religions that ape

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Christianity and use Christian terminology and preach other gospels. So, Galatians chapter one, a little bit of background on the letter of Paul to the church in Galatia.

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This is probably the earliest letter written by the apostle Paul in the

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New Testament. That becomes important in this discussion because the apostle Paul chose as one of his first subjects to actually talk about, to tackle the gospel, justification through faith in Christ apart from any work of law.

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Now, notice that the apostle Paul, when he does this in Galatians, he writes this letter, he actually opens up in a way that he doesn't do in other letters.

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And so, I'll give you one case example. If you read Romans, you'll notice that in Romans, the first part of Romans is, well, let me just give you an example here.

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Go to Romans with one finger just to show you an example of how important this was to Paul.

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It'd be better for you to see it with your own eyes. The first sentence, if you look at it in your

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Bible, the first sentence is seven verses long.

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First sentence, seven verses long. And just look at how he opens up here. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the

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Holy Scriptures, concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead,

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Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace. An apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you and peace from our

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God and Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. One sentence, seven verses.

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Now look at the difference in Galatians, how serious this is. Paul, an apostle, immediately pulling from his authority, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the

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Father who raised him from the dead and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia, grace to you and peace from God our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our

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God and Father to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen. I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

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Now imagine for a moment now, you are in Galatia, you gather together as the people of God, you come to worship and now you hear, the apostle

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Paul sent us a letter. We're gonna read it now in service, we're gonna read the apostle

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Paul's inspired revelation to us and the pastor comes up before the church and he has a letter in front of him and you guys are ready to receive a word from Paul and he opens up and he's, grace to you and peace, and you're like, oh, it sounds so much like Paul, he loves us all so much, right?

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And you're sitting there and you're waiting to receive this word, it's a short letter really and so you're like, I just can't wait to hear from the apostle Paul, what's he have to say to us and what does he say?

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As soon as he opens up he says, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who calls you by the grace of Christ to a different gospel, another gospel, which is really not another.

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And that's what he says, it's not really a gospel, it's not another. He says this, he says, not that there is another one, verse seven, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

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They want to distort it. And he says, but even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be anathema, accursed.

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As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

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Now, watch, it's important. If you want to know what the heart is behind this kind of very, very strong language to the church, this hostile response to another gospel, look what he says, verse 10, for am

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I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am

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I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a slave of Christ.

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That's the heart. How come the apostle Paul is speaking so strongly against this other gospel?

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He tells you right at the end of it. He says, look, if an angel comes from heaven, if I come back to you and preach any other gospel to you, he says, let me be anathema.

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Let that angel be anathema. Anathema is the word that Paul draws from in the Greek here that was probably the strongest word he could have drawn from in the

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Greek language to describe eternal separation from God and condemnation forever and ever and ever, anathema.

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The apostle Paul says, look, if an angel comes through those doors and an angel preaches to you a message different from what

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I have preached to you, let that angel go to hell forever and ever and ever. And he says, if I come back to you, the apostle

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Paul, if I come back to you and I preach to you a different message, let God condemn me to hell forever.

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You think, well, that's some strong language, Paul. It's very strong. Is it really that important?

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I mean, gospel, Jesus, Heavenly Father, these Judaizers coming in, look, they're saying

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Jesus is the Messiah. They're saying Jesus died. They're saying Jesus rose from the dead. They're not denying the deity of Jesus Christ that he's

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God. They're not denying any of that. Is it really that important? I mean, it's just little differences, Paul. They're just saying you gotta keep circumcision.

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They're saying, yes, it's faith in Jesus, but you gotta at least come under this one part of the law. Receive this sign of the old covenant.

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Become essentially Jewish to follow the Jewish Messiah. Just keep the one part of the law.

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And Paul says, anybody preaching that message is to be condemned by God forever, if they hold to it, if they believe it.

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And he says this, am I trying to please men or God? I got a choice here. I'm either gonna be pleasing to Jesus Christ and be his slave, or I'm gonna try to please others and be the slave of men.

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And that's what it comes down to, brothers and sisters, when you think today in our culture, in our time, in our current circumstances, how come the church is so impotent?

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One of the reasons we are impotent is that we are lovers of men rather than lovers of God. We are lovers of the pleasure of other men and women than we are more than lovers of the pleasure of God, how he sees us and what he is pleased with and in.

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That's the thing. And this is the point. If we as a church continue to serve the emotions of other people, the likes of other people, the comfort of other people, then we are ultimately serving that master.

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Jesus says it, you cannot serve two masters. And that is what's happening here in this text.

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And the apostle Paul comes into this church in Galatia with this letter, and he's telling them, look, this is an issue of eternal death.

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Dr. James White said in his book, The God Who Justifies, I highly commend it to you.

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There's some Greek in it, but you can skip right over that and just get to the other stuff. It's really well -written. So if you don't have a knowledge of the

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Greek, it's still fantastic. He says at the beginning of that book, something that I've always remembered, he says that people who preach false gospels are soul killers.

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People who preach false gospels are committing eternal murder. They are killing people's souls.

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When you go door to door with a false gospel, you are delivering not a message of life, you are delivering a message of death.

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In the New Testament, we cannot get away from the fact that the New Testament shows us that there is a way that is true and a way that is false.

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There is a true Jesus Christ, a true and living Jesus Christ. There is a gospel that saves, and there are others that are false.

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I'll give you another example. In 2 Corinthians 11, verses three and four, the apostle

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Paul speaks, and this is powerful, in the first century, not long after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, he says that he's worried for them, that they will be deceived by the craftiness with which

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Eve was deceived by through Satan. And he says very clearly that he's worried about them, about believing in another

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Jesus, another Christ, another spirit, another gospel, which cannot save.

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He basically says to them, I'm worried that somebody will come into your church and preach a different Christ and a different gospel, and he says, and you'll put up with them.

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I'm worried about you. And in Galatians, he's dealing with the same kind of issue, not long after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

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A false gospel. Here's the problem. We have been dealing with false

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Christs and false gospels since the beginning of the church. It's not new.

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It's not something out of the ordinary in terms of Joseph Smith coming along saying he received a private revelation from Elohim that all the churches were wrong, all their creeds were an abomination, all the professors are corrupt, and he has a new way, and he gives to us a different Christ and a different gospel.

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It's not strange. It's happened before. There are religions that borrow our terminology, they ape

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Christianity, and they end up distorting the entire message. And so let's get into that discussion because it's vitally important to get because look here in this text in Galatians, think about it for a moment.

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The Judaizers were essentially respected. They looked religious. They would have used your terminology.

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They said Jesus Christ. They said Messiah. They said what was essentially orthodox.

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The Apostle Paul, and get this, the Apostle Paul does not go after other issues of orthodoxy.

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I'll give you an example. In the book, in 1 Corinthians 15, he always goes for the jugular every time.

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He goes for the heart of the issue and goes for it. In Corinthians, he says about the resurrection, look, if Jesus isn't raised, then we're most to be pitied.

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We're found to be liars because we're saying God raised Jesus from the dead when he didn't raise Jesus from the dead.

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We're still in our sins. If Jesus isn't raised from the dead, then we are lost, Paul is teaching.

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Goes for the jugular, right? In this case, the Apostle Paul in this letter doesn't address a single other issue of orthodoxy in terms of who

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Jesus was. You know what that actually says to us? That the Judaizers who came into Galatia did not deny that Jesus Christ was

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God. They did not deny that he came in the flesh. They did not deny that he died. They did not deny that he was risen from the dead.

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So they would have held to essentially, ready? Mere Christianity. Just the basics, right?

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But what did they teach? They taught, and Paul addresses it, that it wasn't enough to simply trust in Jesus Christ for salvation.

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You needed something more in order to get reconciled to God, to be justified, declared righteous.

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You had to have faith in this Messiah and keep Jewish circumcision. Just one thing,

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Paul. Just give us one. Just that, just the law. Just give us circumcision, Paul. You know what

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Paul says to him? Galatians 5. Christ has become of no effect to you.

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Whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace. He says there's two paths here.

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There's grace and there's law. You cannot get on one road and the other at the same time.

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You're either gonna get on one and be set on that course or the other. Pick one. And Paul says if you're choosing law to be justified by God, even that one law, you've chosen law,

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Galatians 3, you are under the curse of the law now to fulfill all of it. In Galatians 3, guys, what does he say to the church?

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It's amazing. You see his heart, his pastoral heart is right there on the page. He says in Galatians 3, he says,

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I wanna know one thing from you. Just tell me one thing. Did you receive the spirit through the works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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What would the answer in the church of Galatia have been? Well, we heard the gospel and we believed. He says, are you so foolish, having begun by the spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh?

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He says, don't you understand? Whoever is of the law in that respect, what they were trying to do, it's under the curse of the law to fulfill all of it.

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And don't you know that Christ became a curse for us? He was hung on that tree.

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He's the one that died and took the curse for us. And in Galatians 5, how does

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Paul, Christian Paul, our example of the master evangelist, think about it.

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He's the master evangelist. How does he deal with the false gospel in his day? Is he super sweet?

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Is he like, y 'all, I just don't know about that, y 'all, that false gospel in Galatia. I just don't know about that, right?

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You know, I just don't wanna judge y 'all's souls. Is that how Paul deals with the false gospel in Galatia?

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Read it. Read it in Galatians 5. Know what he says? Christ is of no benefit to you if you receive circumcision.

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Essentially, he says, you're done. And he says, these people, this is obviously a rough explanation of the text, but read it later.

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He says, these people who wanna circumcise you, they're gonna be judged.

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And he says, I hope they cut themselves off. Now, that means what you think it means.

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He says in the text, I hope they emasculate themselves.

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These guys who like to play with knives, they wanna bring you under the Jewish law, they wanna bring you under that law as a means of justification.

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He's not, by the way, dissing the law. He's not saying it's not good. He's saying in terms of justification and the use of the law and Jesus Christ, he's saying they wanna put you under the law.

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He says, I hope the knife slips and they cut themselves off. And it means exactly that.

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Oh, that's not loving. You see, it is love to use a serrated edge with your words when somebody's soul is at stake.

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These people are adding to the gospel. And Paul says, if you add to faith in Jesus Christ for justification, he says, you are condemned.

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It's a false gospel. You are accursed. And now we look through history, religions that ape

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Christianity, they borrow our terminology. And this is precisely the problem. How many of you guys have the kingdom of the cults in your library, kingdom of the cults?

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Okay, sell your shirt and your shoes to go buy the kingdom of the cults, okay?

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Go buy an old edition of the kingdom of the cults like Dr. Walter Martin, kingdom of the cults.

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Dr. Martin was one of my heroes of the faith. He's really one of the first ones that began this kind of counter cult evangelism on a large scale.

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He wrote the kingdom of the cults from a biblical perspective, giving you the history of the cults and a refutation of the cults according to scripture.

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And Dr. Walter Martin opened up that book, the kingdom of the cults, I think in one of the best ways possible.

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He says in the kingdom of the cults, you have to first learn to scale the language barrier. This is what

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I often run into and perhaps you've run into it as well. When you talk to people who have actually started to talk to say

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Mormons, they'll say, well, I don't understand. Like I talked to these Mormon missionaries for two hours and they sounded exactly like we were on the same page.

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You ever deal with that? You talk to a Mormon and you think, well, what's all the fuss about? I talked to these missionaries.

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They seem a little off, maybe a little strange, but they sound just like us. I've talked to people that said,

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Pastor Jeff, I had them in my house for an hour and they said they agreed with everything I said. My response to that is, well, you gotta learn to scale the language barrier and you need to know that they're taught in their seminary training and their missionary training to appeal to common ground with you, to sound as Christian as you are.

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It's part of their strategy. Scale the language barrier. The Mormon says Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, resurrection,

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Bible, salvation, cross, all those things. They use our language. They speak our ghetto language.

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They borrow it. But they pour entirely different meanings into it at every point.

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When the Christian says, ready, Jesus Christ, you immediately right now are interpreting.

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When you think Jesus Christ, you're automatically as a believer thinking in terms of what the

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Bible tells you about Jesus Christ. You're thinking John 1 .1. In the beginning was the Word and the

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Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and without him, nothing came into being that came into being.

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And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. And he is the monogamous theos, the unique and one of a kind God who is in the bosom of the

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Father. He has made the Father known. You're thinking about that. You're thinking Colossians 1. That he is the firstborn over all creation.

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Prototokos means he has the preeminence. He is the firstborn over creation. Doesn't mean born.

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It means firstborn over creation as in he is the heir over all creation. The firstborn, he is the heir, he has all preeminence.

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And it says in him, in Jesus Christ, all things were created, whether in the heavens or on earth, visible or invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things created through Jesus Christ.

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You see, we all do that, right? When you say Jesus Christ to a Mormon, they are thinking, immediately redefining

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Jesus Christ, the literal offspring of Heavenly Father, Elohim and one of his goddess wives in the preexistence.

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Jesus Christ, Lucifer's spirit brother, not the creator of Lucifer, his spirit brother.

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Classic Mormonism taught that Jesus Christ came into the world, was a polygamist. His atonement began in the garden, was finished on the cross.

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Your works end up being the basis, ultimate basis of whether or not you are making it into the celestial kingdom, the highest kingdom.

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Mormonism teaches about Heavenly Father, that he is one God among many gods, that he had a

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God before him, who had a God before him, who had a God before him. It's an infinite regression of gods.

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And ultimately the goal in Mormonism is to become a God or goddess over a planet, just like the

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God of this earth did. Joseph Smith said, many men say there is only one God in the history of the church.

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He says, the Father, the Son and the Spirit are only one God. He says, I say that's a strange God anyhow.

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Three in one, one in three, it's a curious organization, all to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism.

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He said, he'd be a wonderfully big God. He'd be a giant or a monster. He says,

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I wish to declare, I have always and in all congregations, when I have preached on the subject of the deity, it has been on the plurality of gods, many gods.

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When Joseph Smith gave the Pearl of Great Price to the Mormon people, there are four standard works, the

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Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. When he gave the

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Pearl of Great Price to the Mormon people, he redefined and retold the story of creation.

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Instead of in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, he said, in the beginning, the gods created the heavens and the earth.

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In the King Follett discourse, he said, in the beginning, the head of the gods came together and formed a council.

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The head of the gods came together in the council of gods, many gods.

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Joseph Smith says this in the King Follett discourse, his most clear message he ever gave on the subject of God.

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He says the message was given to him by the Holy Spirit. So it's direct revelation from God.

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It's not his own understanding and interpretation. He said it was from the Holy Spirit.

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And he says this, I'm gonna tell you how God came to be God. I'm gonna tell you how

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God came to be God. He says, we've imagined and supposed that God has been

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God from all eternity. He says, I will refute that idea and take away and do away the veil so that you may see.

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You've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you.

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That is the substance of the Mormon faith. It's not, listen, for the

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Christian, we say, like, what the gospel is about is that we get

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God. Piper has a book, I love it, the title. It says,

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God is the gospel. That's it. For the Christian, the good news is

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I get him. It's not, I get to go to heaven one day.

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We gotta get away from that. By the way, that's not how the apostles preach the gospel. Do you not wanna go to hell? Do you wanna go to heaven one day?

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Pray this prayer with me. Not the gospel. Not the gospel. Not how it was preached.

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The apostles preached the gospel of reconciliation and peace with God through what

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Jesus did. They call people to repentance and faith to be reconciled now. So for the Christian, we hear about Jesus and the gospel.

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We think about I have Jesus and he has me. I know God, I'm forgiven, I'm at peace.

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For the Mormon, salvation isn't simply being reconciled to God and peace with God. For the

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Mormon, it is working through exaltation to move through the different levels of heaven ultimately through your obedience, through temple service, through baptism for the dead, through genealogies, through your works of righteousness, through your tithes, not simply because of the work of Jesus Christ who's a different Jesus anyway.

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It's working through exaltation to become a God and goddess over a planet just like the

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God of this world did. But they use our terminology. And so the goal in evangelism with the

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Mormon is to get through the basic surface level Christian language. It's not enough simply to say

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Jesus to the Mormon. It's not enough to simply say heavenly father. We must address the underlying issues.

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When I say Jesus and you say Jesus, we mean completely different things. When I say

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Jesus, I'm talking about the creator of all things including Lucifer, including

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Satan. Don't you believe that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers? They'll say, well, yes, as are we all.

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Right, that's what you believe. But how do you answer John chapter one where it says that Jesus Christ created everything in existence and that nothing came into being except through him?

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How do you answer Colossians chapter one verses 16 and on where it says that Jesus Christ through him all things were created in the heavens and on earth?

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That's a different Jesus. That's a false Christ. And Jesus says in John 14 six,

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I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the father but by me.

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He's the only way to life and peace with God. The only way. Mormonism began, a little bit of history of Mormonism might be good.

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Mormonism began with a denial of what the scriptures say about Christ and his kingdom.

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This is fundamentally important. And brothers and sisters, I hope you grab hold of this because I want to say that not many people approach this subject at the beginning in this way.

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And I think it's one of the most effective and devastating refutations of Mormonism if you approach it in this way.

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Joseph Smith in his first vision account, by the way as a side, for your further research and study

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I would highly recommend two books in terms of history. One is One Nation Under Gods by Richard Abonis, A -B -A -N -E -S,

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One Nation Under Gods. It's fascinating. And the other one is No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody.

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No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody. That'll give you a good background of the history of Joseph Smith and Mormonism.

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And it really is, it reads like a novel. It reads like a movie. It is just fascinating.

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I've always been fascinated by the history of Mormonism. But Joseph Smith in one of his first vision accounts, and yes

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I said one of, there are numerous different first vision accounts.

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They changed over time. Mormonism wasn't initially based upon any first vision accounts.

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That actually progressively became part of the church's doctrine. And early on we can see from the 1830s through the 40s we can see that there was progressive change in the claim of Joseph Smith's first vision.

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So in other words, these first vision accounts don't even jive. In some of the accounts, it's different as to who was there, as to the purpose of the revelation, they don't jive.

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But the revelation that you and I get today when the missionaries come into our house, the first meeting they have with you, they are to tell you about the first vision.

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And in the current first vision account they tell you about, they tell you that Joseph Smith was confused as to which church to join.

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He says that there was so much disagreement in his time over denominations that he was confused as to which church to join.

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And so he says that he read James chapter one, and in James chapter one it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God.

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Now Joseph Smith wrongly interpreted that passage to mean that if you have a question to ask

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God, ask him and he'll give you the answer. That's not what wisdom is.

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Wisdom to a Jew, and James, Jesus' brother, was a Jew, wisdom to a

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Jew is skill in living. It is how do I live?

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It's not about simply knowledge, it's how do I apply godly knowledge and truth, wisdom.

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So James is saying, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God. What's that talking about?

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Sanctification. If you want wisdom, if you want to live for God and his glory, if you want to have skill in living, ask

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God, he will give it to you. That's the truth, it wasn't about asking a question and getting an answer from God, but Joseph did.

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According to Joseph, he asked God by going into the woods to pray, to seek

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God on this subject. And he said, and this is kind of a terrifying description, he says that he was overcome with darkness, that he was seized with this fear and darkness surrounding him.

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It's an odd way to describe meeting God. But he says that when he was about to be fully overcome by this darkness, he looked up and he saw

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Elohim and Jesus Christ, two personages, different beings and different persons, both resurrected

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God -men. He says that he saw Elohim and Jesus and Elohim addressed him. When he asked which church to join,

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Heavenly Father told Joseph Smith, join none of the churches, for they're all wrong. Their creeds are an abomination.

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Their professors are all corrupt. They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

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That was the beginning of Mormonism. Now we need to address that immediately. What's wrong with that claim?

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What's wrong with that claim? Joseph Smith didn't claim to come to restore, I'm sorry, reform the church.

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He claimed to come to restore it because it was gone from the earth. You gotta grab hold of that.

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He said there was complete apostasy and the church was gone from the earth. He came to restore it, not to reform it, big difference.

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What's the problem? What's the problem is that Daniel chapter seven verses 13 through 14,

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Daniel gives us this vision of the son of man. You know what he says? He says that he's looking into night visions.

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And behold, one like a son of man was coming on the clouds of heaven. And he says that this son of man came up to the ancient of days, was presented before him, and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

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He says his dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

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That's Daniel's vision of the son of man. Think for a moment. Which direction does Daniel say the son of man goes?

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Up. He came up to the ancient of days, and what is given to him? Dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

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It's a dominion and a kingdom that lasts forever. Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

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Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Go therefore, because all authority is mine, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. In which direction did

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Jesus go? Up. The vision of the son of man in Daniel 7, 13 through 14 is he goes up, and he's given a kingdom.

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His kingdom is never destroyed. His dominion is everlasting. Matthew 28, what's

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Jesus do? He goes up, and what's he tell us before he goes? Go get the nations. The Bible teaches that Christ's kingdom has arrived in history.

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In Matthew, the discussion with Peter, we all know. Right, Peter says, well, some, they say, well, some say you're the

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Christ, some of you say this. But he says, well, who do you say that I am? He says, you're the Christ, the

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Son of the living God. He says, blessed are you. And then what's the final summary of it all? He says,

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I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

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Joseph Smith came along 2 ,000 years later, and he said Jesus lied. He says the gates of hell did prevail against the church.

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It fell into apostasy, it was gone from the earth, and it needed to be restored. Daniel's wrong.

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Jesus is wrong with Peter. In Jude, verse three, it says for Christians to earnestly contend for the faith, which was once for all delivered.

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To the saints. If you had a single verse alone, it would come from one of the smallest books in the

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Bible. It doesn't even have chapters. It's Jude, verse three. When you say that to a new believer, Jude, verse three, they're like, which chapter?

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Which Jude, verse three? Which chapter, dummy, right? It's like, it's a single page, right?

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There's only one, it's only one, so it's verse three. Earnestly contend for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints.

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Once for all. We could go on for days. The Bible teaches that Christ's kingdom arrives in history and it is never destroyed.

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It is everlasting. He has victory. Psalm 110 .1. Brothers and sisters,

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Psalm 110 .1, did you know, is God's favorite Bible verse? You know, okay, so I guess

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I'm taking a stab at it. If it's the verse that God quotes the most, I think that's his favorite

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Bible verse. So it should probably be ours. Anybody know what

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I'm talking about, Psalm 110 .1? It's the most quoted Old Testament text in the

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New Testament. Of all the Bible passages in the Old Testament, it's the one the apostles draw from the most.

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Psalm 110 .1, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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God's favorite Bible verse. And in 1 Corinthians 15, what

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Paul says about our current circumstances, in 1 Corinthians 15, he says Jesus is seated and he's putting all his enemies under his feet and then he'll return after all his enemies are put under his feet.

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That's the timeline. Now whatever you view on eschatology is, understand that Paul puts

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Jesus on his throne, putting his enemies under his feet now, and then he returns to deliver the kingdom.

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Now Joseph Smith disagreed. Joseph Smith came up with a new system and said the church is destroyed and gone from the earth.

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That's the story to begin with. Now, how do we engage Mormons? Remember the chairs, right?

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Remember the chairs? People say, well, what's the difference in engaging a Mormon and an atheist? What do

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I do? Because I think I understand, like the atheist now, you step into their position, you refute their worldview, you call them to repentance and faith, but what about the

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Mormon? Well, let's think about what they believe. What are they standing on as their primary revelation?

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You can participate now, because we've all been sitting here for a while. We're probably getting tired, so let's, okay.

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So raise your hand, I'll point to you. What are they standing on as their primary forms of revelation?

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Yes. So Joseph Smith's teachings, okay. What, yes.

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Okay, private revelation to Joseph Smith, so what he said, they're saying that's from God, right? That comes with authority, yes.

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Okay, so that's, yeah, that's their own personal experience. So they have this experience, this private experience from God, but even that is based on revelation from Joseph Brigham, Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding Smith, Ezra Taft Benson, whatever,

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Monson. So when you think about what they're standing on, that's their worldview, right? But what's their standard works?

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The Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price.

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Now here's the thing, that's not all. They'll tell you these are our standard works, but the truth is,

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Brigham Young taught in the Journal of Discourses, he has never yet given a sermon and sent it out to the sons of men that they couldn't call scripture.

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That's actually biblical. In the sense that if Brigham Young is truly a prophet of God, then when he gives a sermon, it is inspired revelation.

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Now, of course, he's a false prophet, but he said that his sermons were scripture. Joseph Smith, the same thing.

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He'd get revelation from the Holy Spirit of God. Now, Mormons are supposed to be standing on the

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Mormon revelation. They're prophets and apostles, but here, watch this. What's inside that revelation?

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The Bible. The Bible is a part, they say, of their revelation. So Christians are standing on the

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Bible, the Word of God, and Mormons say they're standing on the Bible, the

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Word of God. But what's the problem? Is you've got two standards running side by side.

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You've got the biblical revelation and you've got the revelation of the Mormon prophets and apostles running alongside the

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Bible. And brothers and sisters, listen every single time. Do you know what happens? Do you know what happens when you have a standard that has the same authority as the

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Bible running alongside the Bible, this other standard begins to eat up the Bible?

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Think about it for a moment now. When you take Roman Catholicism, we agree on the

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Trinity, we agree on the deity of Christ, we agree on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we agree on the need for holiness, all those, right?

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But we disagree on a fundamental and that's justification through faith in Jesus Christ. We disagree on other issues in terms of worship, we disagree on the mass, the atonement of Jesus Christ, we disagree on so much, but why?

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Is it because the Bible can't be understood? Is it because we're just reading the Bible in a different way and there's just really no way to get at the truth?

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No, the reason Roman Catholics deny the biblical gospel is because they have a secondary standard running alongside the

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Bible that interprets the Bible for them. And that divine standard eats up the biblical revelation.

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Mormonism does the same thing. You've got the Bible and they give credence to it except where the

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Bible disagrees with their revelation. When the Bible disagrees with their revelation, which one is wrong?

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The Bible. And so what we need to do in evangelizing Mormons is we need to actually do what the

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Proverbs tell us to do. Don't answer the fool according to their folly or you'll be like them and then answer the fool according to their folly lest they be wise in their own conceit.

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So let's do it together, okay? If I'm standing on the biblical revelation, let's start with only two issues.

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And by the way, just say this quickly, when you're evangelizing Mormons, it's really, really important for us brothers and sisters to stick to the essentials.

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In other words, you gotta give them grace on certain issues. It's not healthy, ultimately meaningful to talk about issues like coffee, tea,

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Mormon underwear and those sorts of things. It's true. I've actually seen Christians outside the

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Mormon temple in Mesa abuse Mormons on the issue of Mormon underwear.

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They hold this as really sacred and when you take a jab at their underwear, they get very, very offended and immediately cut off contact from you because they don't think you respect them.

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Now here's the thing, there are probably a lot of Christians in this room right now that are wearing some very strange underwear, okay?

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And I don't wanna talk about that with you either, okay? And we shouldn't do it with them. Now, if they're saying that this

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Mormon underwear saves them in some way, that's connected to the gospel, we can talk about it. But to do it in a way that mocks them does not show love to them and it doesn't even show that you desire a meaningful relationship with them.

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So stick to two issues, God and the gospel. Walter Martin said something that stuck with me my whole life.

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He says, if you're wrong on your doctrine of God or the gospel, it doesn't matter wherever else you're right.

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You're wrong enough to lose your soul. If you've got the wrong God and got the wrong gospel, you lose your soul.

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So let's talk about that issue, God. The Bible says, what about God? Isaiah 43 .10,

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put that in your pocket. That's a passage that cannot be overcome by Mormons.

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Isaiah 43 .10, before me, there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

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What does Mormonism teach? There were gods before God, there'll be gods after God.

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As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.

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That's a common quotation memorized by every Mormon in seminary in high school.

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As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become. They teach that many men say there's only one

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God, strange God anyhow, three in one, one in three, curious organization, giant monster, Joseph Smith says,

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I'm gonna tell you how God came to be God. We've imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I'll refute that idea.

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You've gotta learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you. That's what Joseph says. Now the

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Bible says, none before, none after. Isaiah 44 .6, I am the first and I am the last.

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Besides me, there is no God. Isaiah 44 .8, is there a God besides me?

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Indeed, there is no other God, I know not one. What's God say? He says he doesn't even know of any other

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God besides himself, so this is about pushing the antithesis. This is about bringing their claims about God into conflict with God's own claims about himself.

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And so as we do evangelism, it is exactly as you think. What's a consistent apologetic with the

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Mormon? It's to stand on God's revelation, to take what they believe about God and say, well

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I know you say that you believe this about God, can you explain to me how you would answer God in Isaiah 43 .10

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where he says there's none before, none after? And the Mormon will usually say this. Oh, he's talking about idols.

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Take a breath and think, that doesn't answer the question. Before me there was no idol formed and neither shall there be after me.

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Does that work? It doesn't work, does it? It's a quick response, it's a meaningless response.

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What you need to do is show the Mormon that doesn't answer God. He says there was no God formed before him, no

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God formed after him. And then they'll say this. This is common responses.

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20 years of evangelism outside the temple, I've heard all the arguments, this is one of the main ones.

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Well, that's for this earth. That's for this earth.

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So okay, so before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Your response is, that's for this earth.

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Okay, it still doesn't answer the question because God says he's the first and the last, you don't believe either.

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He says he doesn't know of any other God, you disagree with that. He says none were formed before him, none after him, you disagree with that.

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But your answer is, that's of this earth. Okay, I'll bite.

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Deuteronomy chapter four, verses 35 and 39. God says he is

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God alone. In the heavens above and on the earth below, there is no other.

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So when they say, well that's for this earth, well God's addressed that too. He says that he's the only

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God in the heavens above and on the earth below. Next point, in discussing the gospel, these just quick answers, this is what you need to press with the

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Mormon. In discussing the gospel, specifically justification through faith in Jesus Christ.

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It's important to know that Mormons, when they borrow our terminology, sound so much like us.

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I was able to witness God saving a Mormon missionary on his mission.

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He was at the Mormon temple in Mesa. I was around the west side of the temple. It was dark outside and I was outside the temple gates and I was talking to this young Mormon girl and this missionary comes out.

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His name was Wesley. He comes out wearing all the stuff and usually they try to avoid us at the temple in Mesa.

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They don't want to talk to us. And so he walks up very curious and he's listening to my conversation with this girl and I have these tracks in my hand.

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We have like 75 ,000 of them. And I'm talking to the girl. So he starts to ask questions and I'm talking to him and I'm talking to her and I give him the track and he's looking at the track, talking to him, talking to her.

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And then as I'm talking to her, I notice that Wesley is starting to bend down to reach into my backpack to grab my tracks, a stack of tracks out of my bag.

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He's like reaching in to grab them all. So I see it in my perif and I bend down and I sort of put my hand on him and I say, hey,

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I said, I have 75 ,000 of those. I said,

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I'll tell you what, there's no good to steal them from me. I'll be back.

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I said, I'll tell you what, I'll make a deal with you. I said, if you can show me from the scriptures where I am wrong, from the scriptures,

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I'll make a commitment to you, I will leave and I will never come back. So there's passages, verses in that tract.

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If you can show me where I'm wrong, I will commit to never ever showing up here again. And so we start talking and as we start to talk, he breaks down and starts crying.

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And so he just stops in the middle of the conversation and he turns around and walks away. And the next day

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I came back. And when I come back, now his attitude is a little bit different. Now he comes back and as he walks up, he says, hey,

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Jeff, you got another verse for me? And I would say, yeah, Isaiah 43 10, before me there was no

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God formed, neither shall there be after me. You believe, yes, there was, and you'll become one one day. And he was like, thanks, man.

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And he would like walk away. So this happened for about two weeks, back and forth. He'd keep coming out and getting the verse.

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Now we started actually exchanging phone numbers and he started meeting us in alleys.

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Like, we was like, we're like, flip it, they're like, I mean, it looked really, really, you know, off.

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And I get a call from my friend one night, late at night, my friend Casey. He says, you're not gonna believe this.

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I just talked to Wesley. He turned to Christ. And the next day, literally the next day, we go out to the temple and Wesley is with us in plain clothes with his

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Bible and tracts. The Mormon missionaries in the temple were freaking out.

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They're running out. Wesley, you're brainwashed. They've deceived you, come home, brother. And he was like, no, you're deceived.

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The Bible says, and he's quoting scripture, scripture, scripture, and he was on fire. And he was reaching them in a way that I absolutely couldn't.

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And the bishop showed up and like roughed me up and grabbed my tracts and took off. The police were there.

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It was like a big deal. Wesley turned to Christ. It was an amazing thing. But what was important was in all of our discussions in preaching to Wesley, it was speaking about God and the gospel and it was sticking to the specific area of the gospel, justification through faith in Christ alone.

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You'll notice that Mormons borrow our terminology to such a degree that when you're talking to them, oftentimes, and they're quoting

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Mormon doctrine, it sounds nearly identical to passages in the

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Bible. So I'll give you an example. Ready? And we just did this, so this is a great one. By grace are you saved through faith.

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See, you're already continuing it for me, ready? By grace are you saved after all you can do.

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2 Nephi 25, 23. So in the Book of Mormon, it says, by grace are you saved, and Christians go, through faith and not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not according to works.

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Joseph Smith says, by grace are you saved after all you can do. After all you can do.

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And it says in the Articles of Faith, the third article of faith, it says that we believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ, all mankind may be saved.

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And as Christians, we hear that and we say, man, yeah, the power of the atonement, like God, that's unlimited power.

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That's an unlimited, that has efficacy that cannot stop. Right, the atonement of Jesus Christ, all mankind may be saved, and then it says, through obedience.

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And so you think, okay, well, there's the poison, right? There's speaking highly about the work of Christ and then poisoning it.

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What we need to know in our Bibles is Romans, chapters one through five, and the book of Galatians.

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There's no way in a short time we have together today to go through all those passages, but it's important to know some of it.

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So go to your Bibles to Romans chapter three and we'll end there for today. By the way,

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I wanna be able to have time to ask questions, I know we have lunch, so maybe what we'll do is in the next session, we'll do questions about Mormonism before we start, because there's so much more we can do and I have so many resources we can draw from right now.

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But in Romans chapter three, this is important, starting in verse 10, it says, as it is written, none is righteous, no, not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside, together they become worthless, no one does good, not even one.

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Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving. It says the poison of asps is on their lips, there's no fear of God before their eyes.

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Now watch, verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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What's that mean? The law was given to shut the world up. Why? Because you see in the law, not your righteousness, but you see your unrighteousness.

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The law was given and it stops your excuses. When a law is given, it shuts your mouth, so that the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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The law is fundamentally good. The psalmist says in Psalm 119,

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Lord, graciously teach me your law. God, I hate the double -minded, but I love your law.

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The psalmist doesn't diss the law of God, he says the law is fundamentally good. It's gracious of God for him to teach us his law.

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But however, the law given to unholy and sinful people brings death, it exposes our sin.

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And what Paul says here is that through the law comes a knowledge of sin. But now, verse 21, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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Quick point on that, quick point. Justified as a gift by his grace.

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In the Greek, Paul stuttered. He says, it's a gift, gift. How gracious is

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God's salvation? How much of a gift is it? Paul says, it's a gift, gift. It's a gift, gift.

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It's so gracious, he repeats himself, it's a gift, gift. Right? That's how much it is not through works.

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It's a gift, gift. He says, justified by his grace as a gift, gift as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forth as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

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A propitiation is a diversion of wrath. Think of the cross and Jesus on it.

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Think of God's wrath being diverted away from you and exhausted in Jesus. That's what propitiation is.

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This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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Here we go. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law?

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By a law of works, no, but by the law of faith. Here we go, verse 28.

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For we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from the works of law. People ask sometimes, they say, where do you get this notion of faith alone?

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Where do you get it? Where does the Bible say you're justified by faith alone? Well, I would say, well, where do you wanna start, okay?

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But here's a good place. Romans 3 .28, Paul says, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

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Faith apart from works of law is faith over here by itself. Faith alone, apart from works of law.

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So the Mormon says, oh, so you're saying that you could just believe in Jesus Christ, say you believe in Jesus, and do whatever you want.

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I would say, you're not listening. Because Paul says, after he preaches this justification through faith apart from works, he says in the very text, verse 31, do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

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By no means, on the contrary, we establish the law. Do you catch that,

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Christian? New Testament authors don't diss God's law. They don't say, oh, it's all grace, and it's all faith, and so God doesn't care about law anymore.

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That is a completely fictitious view of the law, not biblical. The Bible actually says, through faith in Jesus Christ, you're justified apart from any work of law, and because now that you're saved and dwelt with the

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Spirit of God with a new heart in Jesus Christ, alive from the dead, now you have a new relationship to the law.

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It is no longer death to you. You are no longer hostile to it, because God lives in you and causes you,

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Ezekiel 36, to observe his statutes. So now Christians have a new relationship with the law.

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Guess where it's not? It's not on stone tablets outside of the people of God. Guess where it is,

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Jeremiah 31, 31, in you. Do you see? Internally motivated to obey

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God's law. So when the Mormon says, oh, you just think you can say you believe in Jesus and do what you want? I would say, didn't say that.

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It's true faith in Jesus Christ that saves us. It's not merely a profession, James chapter two, not merely a profession, and if you are truly in Jesus Christ, you're alive from the dead, you desire to obey the law.

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If you don't, you're not in Jesus Christ. Stop fooling yourself. The result of the gospel is a changed life, not perfection, but if the life isn't changed, you have not come into contact with the living

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God. If you haven't changed, if your life isn't transformed, I'm not saying perfection, if nothing is fundamentally different about you, then you haven't gone from death to life.

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Final point I'd point you to is in Romans four, when he brings up Abraham, he says, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

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If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. What does the scripture say?

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Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as what is due.

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Here's the contrast. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

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Do you know how distinctly Christian that is? How unbelievably contrary to human nature and understanding that is?

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Do you see what that just said? Do you see how Christianity just came into conflict with every single world religion?

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To the one who works, his wage is not credited as a gift. That's a wage, you're earning something.

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That's not a gift, Paul says. He says, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, the wicked.

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No religion in the world teaches that wicked people are declared righteous by God.

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What do they all say? You gotta become righteous. You have to have a righteousness in yourself that God sees as acceptable.

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So he says, okay, now you're righteous. The New Testament says, no, God declares wicked people righteous and you say, how does

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God do that without perverting his justice? Because he takes sinful, wicked people and he joins them to his son so that they are wrapped in his righteousness and perfect life and their death was met in his death so that they are dead in him and alive in him.

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And so the message of the gospel is, ready, the righteousness you and I have is not our own.

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Paul says in Philippians 3, when he gives his resume, circumcised, eighth day, tribe of Benjamin, as to the law of Pharisee, he says,

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I count this all loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing

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Jesus Christ my Lord and I wanna be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which comes through faith in Jesus Christ that comes from God through faith.

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Christians stand righteous before God, not because of our deeds, because of Jesus' deeds.

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We're hiding in him. Anything, any religion that teaches that you through your own obedience need to be acceptable to God is a religion of death because it offers no life, because we are foul, we are not righteous, it is filthy rags, we have nothing to offer

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God, and I'll tell you what, you have a choice to stand before God. You can stand before God as a wretch, a rebel, a sinner, unrighteous, unholy, with your record of wrongs before God and any one of them means you transgressed the whole law.

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Or you can stand before God hiding in Jesus. United to him, covered in his perfect law -keeping.

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So the Father declares you righteous on the basis of Jesus' righteousness, your representative, not because you truly are.

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And you know what else it does? Biblical justification joins you to Jesus, gives you a new status, and it gives you new life, because union with Jesus Christ is the substance and basis of all of it.

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Christians believe, and Paul argues it in Romans 6. It's what he says to the imaginary objector.

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What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? What's the Christian message?

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Yeah, right? 21st century evangelicalism, yeah, right?

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I'll make God look really big with all my sinning. That's what Paul gets at. Do we continue in it so that grace may, like God looks more gracious, the more sin he's forgiving, he looks so great.

01:00:05

Paul says, what? No, by no means. He says, watch, how shall we who died to sin continue to live in it?

01:00:16

His answer to that person, by the way, and I know I keep saying last thing, but this is important. This is important, watch.

01:00:22

Did you notice that, Romans 6? He preaches the gospel of grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, no works, no works, no works, all

01:00:30

Jesus to God's glory. And what does he anticipate? The objection of the person that heard all about grace, so their immediate response was, oh, what?

01:00:41

So it's all grace, so you just keep sinning? Listen, if we're preaching the gospel well, then that means that occasionally we'll come across the person that goes, that hears this grace, and they say, that sounds unbelievably gracious.

01:00:59

Does that mean you can do whatever you want? If you're preaching it like that, it's kind of good that they ask that, because they're hearing the graciousness of it, but they don't fully understand that what we're saying is, by God's grace, he joins you to Jesus Christ, so that there's a death that takes place, your death in Jesus Christ, and a resurrection that takes place, your resurrection in Jesus Christ.

01:01:23

Paul says this, Christians, you died. You died, your old self, crucified with Christ.

01:01:29

You died, and you rose again. How can you still live in sin? If someone's still living in sin, it automatically reveals there was no death that occurred.

01:01:37

That's why Jesus says, what? Come, die. Take up your cross, follow me.

01:01:43

A death has to occur. If it doesn't occur, you don't know him. But there is only one thing that joins us to Jesus.