Becoming A Better Theologian (part 28)

Well, I don't know how many of you remember several months ago, there was a big controversy, a man named Rob Bell, does that name ring a bell?

Rob, I didn't intend to say that, but Rob Bell, he wrote a book, Love Wins, and the essence of, thank you very much, the essence of this book was in the end nobody goes to hell because God loves too much to send anybody to hell.

Now, you know, this is a big controversy and everything like that, Rob Bell pastors a huge church, well,

I don't know how many of you follow Rob Bell on the internet, but he has a new project, he resigned from his church,

God told him to step down, and so you know what he's doing now? It's going to be the general,

Steve Nelson, no, he's working on a movie with the former writer for the

TV series Lost, and I'm going, well, that seems appropriate somehow. You know,

I keep digressing, my wife loves it when I use that word, but this week something came up over the last week or so, and I just thought, this is pretty interesting, and one of my friends, how many of you are on Facebook, raise your hand, shame the devil, tell the truth.

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook, and I went and looked at it, and something I think

I've mentioned in the past, but it was a new article, Richard Mao, who is the president of Fuller Seminary in Southern California, in fact, we used to say at Master's Seminary if you don't like this seminary, you can go down the freeway and get a

Fuller education. Fuller Seminary, founded by a fundamentalist, stolen by liberals, he wrote an article in which he said, you know, we ought not call the

Mormon church a cult, and one of my Mormon friends posted that on Facebook, you know,

I don't like being called a cult. So I started writing an article, and I'm not done with it yet, but it's just been bothering me all week, just thinking about, you know, cult, and the first thought

I had was, how many of you are familiar with the first vision of Joseph Smith?

Okay, a few of you. Joseph Smith, if you ever have the Mormon missionaries in your home, first of all, shame on you, sorry, you just shouldn't give them a drink of water or anything, but, except for the gospel, but secondly,

I wouldn't do it, but secondly, the Mormon missionaries will want to do one thing for you, and that is, they will want to give you a presentation of Joseph Smith's first vision.

And this is the alleged scene. Joseph Smith is a young man, it's early in the 19th century, he's in New York, Palmyra, New York, that area there, and he is surrounded, according to him, by a religious revival.

Some saying, come over to our church, others, come over here, etc., etc., etc. So being confused, and even divided in his own family over where they go to church, he does the most reasonable thing, and goes out in the woods to pray.

This is the story. So he goes out in the woods to pray, and, you know, prays earnestly, because James 1 -5 says what?

And they'll give you this quote from the King James Version of the Bible. If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.

Thank you. That's many years of King James teaching. So he goes out there, let alone, you know, just leaving aside the fact that James 1 is talking about trials and all that, but he goes out into the forest, and he prays, and lo and behold, what happens?

Two personages appear to him, and you get to see all this, I mean, it's visual. And these are identical twins, this is going to sound really bad,

I mean, you see them, and they are, you know, duplicates. God the

Father, Jesus Christ. God the Father says, this is my beloved son, hear him.

And then Jesus, when Joseph Smith says, you know, what church should I join, Jesus says what?

He says, join none of them, why? Because they're all abominations.

So I'm just like, you know, everybody's outraged, modernism is being called a cult. And I just go, well, you know, you guys went first, abominations, doesn't sound all that good.

And their professors, Jesus allegedly went on to say, are all corrupt.

The churches are abominations, all their professors, in other words, everyone who belongs to them are all corrupt.

And so it's on that basis that Joseph Smith then is told he's going to get future revelation and start a new church, etc.,

etc. So the headlines this week, pastor from Texas says,

Mormonism is a cult, and everybody is pretty upset about that, including a lot of Mormons.

And I'm just like, well, you know, abomination, cult, you make the call. So I thought it would be appropriate,

I'm not going to look at Mormonism per se, but let's talk about what a cult is. And I have several examples we'll go through.

Some of the quotes are from Mormonism. Some of them are from the Watchtower. Some of them are from lesser known churches.

But these are common elements to a cult. First of all, they deify, man,

I took all this from Let Us Reason Together from Ron Rhodes, several articles that I sort of merged together.

And as I said, I'm working on this article, and the first part of it is, I really do love Mormons. I really do.

I mean, my first, you know, the first half of my life was basically in the Mormon church.

And I couldn't have gotten through my teen years without a lot of my friends and the families in the church.

But the Mormon church, other cults, they deify man, meaning they make them out.

I don't know if I go so far as Let Us Reason Together does here. They deify man, but they certainly elevate man.

And I've mentioned this before, but, you know, years ago when I first got saved and I was in an evangelism program, and I graduated from that, and so the leaders of the program wanted to talk to me about how to convert

Mormons. And so I met with them and gave them a little, you know, I had everything on three by five cards, a little ten minute thing.

And I got through saying, well, they have a wrong view of man, wrong view of God, wrong view of Christ, wrong view of sin, wrong view of scripture, wrong view of salvation.

You know, other than that, they're pretty much okay. And these guys said, well, what's the one verse? And I said, there is no one verse.

If there's a verse that you know of that goes through all those issues, I don't know what it is.

But anyway, they deify man, they elevate man, and listen to this. He says, teaching that man may become

God or is a part of God. Man needs to be part of a certain group or church to learn new revelation or knowledge to progress to Godhood.

Someone usually the leader will say they are God or has the Christ spirit in a greater way that they are commissioned or appointed to be the leader by God.

Now listen to this. The plan of the parent gods in Mormonism goes like this, and we'll develop this more, you know, when the parent gods,

I like how he says that even though it won't make any sense just yet, we will understand it. Goes like this, life for you, and this is a quote from a tract that the

Mormons hand out. Life for you did not begin here on earth. You lived before you were born.

You will live on in the spirit world after your mortal life is ended. We all once lived in the presence of God, the eternal father, in the world before you were a spirit child of his, in the world before you were a spirit child of his.

With this divine parentage, your destiny through righteous living is to become like your father in heaven and return to his presence.

What's wrong with the idea of a pre -existence other than the fact that we don't have one?

It puts you, if Peggy says it puts you on the same level as God, well maybe if not the same level, it certainly puts you on a similar level, right?

Because you existed before anything physical existed. Pam? Yeah, every false religion finds some man to follow, certainly, that's certainly true, so you know, they deify man at least in that way, yeah,

I would agree with that. Now listen, this is more from the same pamphlet. In your life before birth, before the earth was created,

God presented a plan to his children for their advancement. You were free to accept or reject this plan of salvation.

Those spirit children who accepted his plan were given the opportunity to live on earth. Those who rejected his plan were not privileged to enter mortality.

Yeah, but you know what that really refers to is the war in heaven.

And what they talk about is, instead of it being angelic beings that fought and, you know, a third of the hosts of heaven fell with Satan, they would say that this is a spirit rebellion before the world began.

And some of them, you know, some of the spirits therefore never came to be in existence here.

You know, there's a frightening thought because, you know, sometimes I say things like, according to Mormonism, even

Adolf Hitler could be in heaven. And it's true. Why? Because he was faithful, according to them, in the pre -existence.

So he would merit the lowest rung of heaven under Mormon theology. A verse that is commonly used is

Jeremiah 1 .5. And by the way, it may be an accurate application to say, you know, that we could say that God knew us before, you know, we were in the womb.

But what is Jeremiah 1 .5? What's the context of that? Is God making some kind of general statement?

He's talking to Jeremiah. Verse 4. Now the word of the Lord came to me, that's

Jeremiah, saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Okay, now that's an indication, they say, of pre -existence.

What is it actually an indication of? For loving. For knowing doesn't mean, you know, we were all hanging out together in the pre -existence.

Let's see. Anyway, they elevate man.

They have a wrong view of man. Well, you know, I'll just give you another little indication of that.

One of their articles of faith is that they believe, and I'm probably going to mix it up, and we may get back to that later, that they believe that man is responsible for his own transgressions and not for Adam's sin.

And so, again, the idea being that you are born, if you're not responsible for Adam's sin, if you have no original sin, what does that mean?

Does that have any impact on you? Does that have any impact on how you view babies?

What's the difference? That's right.

Until they committed their first conscious sin, they would therefore not be the Savior, they would not be sinful, and, you know, therefore we get into things like the age of accountability and things like that, and the

Mormons have decided that that's eight, and that you have to be baptized at eight or later on if you're born into a non -Mormon family.

But, yes, it makes sin a choice and not your nature.

That is absolutely correct. I mean, if you're born without original sin, then you don't sin by nature.

It's just simply your choice, and you are born with an absolutely free will. And, you know, that's something we toss around this term, you know, semi -Pelagianism.

This is full -blown Pelagianism, Pelagius being a man who said that every man is born with a free will.

You know, I'm not a Pelagian. I'm not a semi -Pelagian. You know, they say there was

Pelagius, his brother, semi -Pelagius. I'm more in favor of his auntie,

Pelagius, because I'm definitely auntie Pelagius. All right, so they deify man, they humanize

God. Some groups deny that God is eternal, and Mormons deny that God is eternal.

So I think we'll see that Mormonism is, in fact, it fits this definition of a cult.

Some believe in many gods. You know, I would say this. I was thinking about this this morning. What is the definition of polytheism?

I was actually thinking about it last night as I was laying in bed, unable to sleep. But what is the definition of polytheism? Many gods, but is that really accurate?

Is it just many gods? Well, let's put it this way.

If we say we are monotheists, well, what does that mean? It means that we believe there's one

God, and we worship that one

God, right? Now, if I say I'm a polytheist, I kind of think it means that we would worship or venerate or give honor to many gods.

And Mormons have really, I would say they have two gods that they give honor to.

One would be God the Father, the other would be God the Son, and they would say that they are distinct gods.

Of course, we did also sing songs to Joseph Smith during worship service, which I think some might find offensive, but I certainly do.

But other groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, teach that God's nature or state must be understood and reasonable to be true.

In other words, if finite man cannot understand something about God, then it is not true.

And I think in many ways that's what cults do, right? I can't understand God. He's just too complex, too transcendent for me.

And the things that are in his word, where he reveals himself to me, are so complicated.

I mean, who can imagine a thrice holy God like Isaiah faces, and he says, you know,

I'm an unclean man who lives with an unclean tongue in a land of unclean people, and I'm unworthy.

Better to think, gee, God used to be just like me. I can wrap my head around that.

That kind of humanizes him. It makes him understandable, comprehensible. Listen to some of these quotes.

A Mormon apostle, they have apostles now. They have 12 apostles, technically 15, but let's not get into the technicalities.

One of their apostles said this, God and man are of the same race, differing only in their degree of advancement.

Another apostle said, We'll get to that.

Why do Mormons say they need a savior, and what is Jesus to them? We will get to that. This view of man looking like God extends to man's existence on earth.

That's from one of their books, not the Book of Mormon, but something called The Promised Messiah. According to Joseph Smith, If you were to see him today,

God, you would see him like a man in form like yourselves. Another one of their presents, or actually this is

Joseph Smith again from his Journal of Discourses said, Again, just all in the context of, is

Mormonism a cult? What is a cult? Brigham Young stated that, We are created to become gods, likened to our

Father in heaven. Now you say, well, how can anybody believe that? What's that?

Well, they want to, but can I tell you just something else? My wife and I were talking about that this week, because, you know, you can go to the church for years, not hear this kind of thing taught, because they don't do this.

This isn't something, you know, every morning. Well, how are we going to be more like a God today?

They don't teach that, you know. What's it going to be like to rule my planet?

That's not the way it is. And what is instead is a really tight knit community.

I mean, your existence is not completely tied to your local word, but it's pretty closely tied to it.

I mean, everything you do, Monday, family home evening, Tuesday or Wednesday, you know, youth meeting.

Friday night, a lot of times we'd have firesides or youth activities. Sunday is pretty much all tied up at church.

You know, and during the week, you're involved in something else. There's always something going on, whether it's sports or whatever, and it pretty much is your life.

Many Mormons will say that this is not what they believe, because they don't know it. The apostle

LeGrand Richards, who wrote some books that...

I think he wrote a book called... I think he was the one who wrote Jesus the Christ, one of their books.

He wrote this, As man is, God once was, as God is, man may become.

Let's see. Anyway, so they lower

God. Third, they minimize or eliminate sin. Oh, and this is where I was going to get to. This kind of goes to the elevate man thing, too.

The biblical concept of sin is not taught or is completely eliminated by some groups. This is seen in Christian science, mind science, religious science, and New Age groups.

Meanings that are biblical are changed to their own personal interpretation. There are different groups that say sin isn't that big of a deal or the physical world doesn't exist.

I've told this story before. I can't resist. But one Saturday morning, working overtime,

Janet had come in. We had lunch together. We were out in the parking lot, and I was heading back in, and there were these two

Christian scientists who were coming from inside the jail to outside the jail, and I was super tired.

I just worked all night and was working the day shift, too. These ladies were walking around, and they said, what kind of tree is that?

And knowing that they don't believe in the physical world, I went up to it, and I go, is that really a tree? Is there a tree there?

And I was just, my wife wanted to have at me right there. But I had no idea what kind of tree it was, but I decided to have some fun with them.

Okay, listen to these articles. These are articles of faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. I went to their website.

This is, they have 13 articles of faith. I don't know why 13, but they have 13.

This is article of faith number two. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgression.

That's what I said earlier. So you have a free will. You're not responsible for what Adam did. Article of faith number three.

We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

What does that say? What's that?

You can, I mean, Jesus' death is really good, and that's the means of salvation, as long as it's accompanied by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

Well, it's right out of the Mormon church. You have to be married in the temple.

You have to take sacrament. You have to do, do, do, do, and we're going to get to that here in a minute. But they really do, in some senses, minimize or eliminate sin.

They don't understand the gravity of it, or they wouldn't so minimize the atonement of Christ. And we're going to see what they really mean by grace and other things.

I mean, they will use a lot of Christian terminology, but it's all just wrong. A fourth element of a cult, they minimize the importance of the

Bible. Most organized heresies or cults use anointed information, books, magazines, or scriptures.

Get your copy of the Watchtower. These are believed to be just as or more important than the

Bible. They are indispensable in understanding the Bible. In other words, you can't interpret the Bible on your own.

You can't know it on your own. It's absolutely impossible apart from what they tell you. Some groups strongly discourage their members from reading the

Bible alone, and some do not believe the Bible is the Word of God alone.

You know, when we say the Bible, you know, the Word of God is sharper than any two -edged sword, I've mentioned this before, but my brother, you know, was a

Mormon missionary and absolutely prided himself on the fact that he was the only missionary he knew who taught the

Mormon gospel from the Bible. And you say, well, how is that possible? If you watch them, they just kind of go from this verse to that verse.

It's like, well, you know, Joseph Smith went to the forest to pray, James 1, 5, and you lack wisdom, let them ask of God.

And they'll just kind of, it's cut, paste, cut, paste, cut, paste, and that's what he did. Well, instead, now he started reading the

Bible so that he would be more familiar with it when he was teaching people, and that caused him all kinds of problems and eventually got him saved.

So you talk about being sharper than any two -edged sword. That's what it does. It reveals the truth.

But listen to this. He's talking about revelation knowledge. And this is key when we're talking about Mormonism. Emotions, intuitions, revelations, and mystical insights are promoted over the objective word.

Again, the Mormon missionaries say, read the Book of Mormon. Pray to know if it's true because, again, another application of James 1, 5, if you don't know if it's true, pray to God and he'll reveal it to you directly.

And if you get a burning in your bosom, that's how you know it's true. Critical thinking is discouraged. Independent thought ought to be looked at as selfish and rational intellect as evil.

Now, listen to Article 8 from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, the Mormon Church. We believe the

Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the

Word of God. Let me read that again. We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly.

We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God. Noticing a difference there. Yeah, I mean, the

Bible, you know, is subject to, and it's amazing to me because they always stick. You know, it's got to be the

King James version. And, I mean, there are inherent problems with the

King James. But no modifier to the Book of Mormon. It is absolutely correct, even though they've modified it over and over again.

It's perfect. Article of Faith, so, you know, you have to have that. Article of Faith number 9.

We believe that all God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the

Kingdom of God. Meaning? No closed canon. It's still open.

Anything can still happen. All right, number 5. They have a different way of salvation.

Many organized heresies teach a grace -plus -works salvation. Many teach that man possesses at least some ability to earn eternal life by their own works, by grace perfected through their works.

Salvation by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ of Calvary is denied.

The cross is not sufficient. A system of good works dictated by the group helps the members earn eternal life.

Now, it's interesting because he mentions specifically Roman Catholicism. Sacraments, an outward sign given by Christ to give grace.

Entrance to the sacraments begins with baptism, which erases original sin. Then one is able to partake the sacraments as extensions of the redeeming acts of Christ.

Then comes confirmation, the Eucharist, confession, holy orders, marriage, etc. Jehovah Witnesses.

Yes. That's a good question.

If Mormons don't believe in original sin, why do they need baptism? Because here's, well, how do they get around Romans 5 .12?

Here's, and I just read you this part here that says, we believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.

So let me just touch on that for a minute. If you come to them and you say, well, what about Romans 5 .12?

Well, first of all, I'm sure that some Mormon scholar has written some way of saying that that doesn't apply to us.

But secondly, they would say anytime there's any difficulty, they say, well, you know what? Here's a phrase, many plain and precious parts of the

Bible were lost. Well, and Pam says

God couldn't keep them. Well, you know what? They believe that the Council of Nicaea, I mean, this reads kind of like a novel. The Council of Nicaea throughout parts of the

Bible, they have no evidence of this. But the Council of Nicaea in 325 A .D. threw out parts of the Bible they didn't like.

And, you know, the real gospel was lost. I said this when I preached on John 1 here a few weeks ago, that the

Mormons, I mean, they have so many wrong doctrines. But their view of the

Bible is this, that it's right as long as we agree with it. And it's wrong or it's translated incorrectly or it's unclear if it disagrees with Mormon doctrine.

They just don't, I mean, for example, what's that? Right. They have to have baptism, they say, because you reach eight and you reach the age of accountability where you don't have a sin nature anymore.

But you have to be baptized to wash away any sins that you have committed. And then you are cleansed by repenting of your sins individually.

But it's a constant process of being renewed. But they believe they're earning their salvation.

Talking about the Watchtower here, they say, working hard for the reward of eternal life.

This is why they are so diligently going door to door. Such works show that you are choosing life to receive everlasting life in the earthly paradise.

We must identify that organization and serve God as part of it. That's straight out of the Watchtower. So having faith in what

Christ has done is not sufficient. One must serve the organization and received or to receive what

Christ has already promised us free. Mormons say the gospel is faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the

Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. Morality, loyalty, tithing, word of wisdom, duty, celestial marriage.

That's how you get to the highest degree of heaven. Christians, and this is another book or attract what

Mormons think of Christ. Christians often speak of the blood of Christ and its cleansing power. Much that is believed and taught on this subject, however, is such utter nonsense and so palpably false that to believe it is to lose one's salvation.

Again, from by grace we are saved. Therefore, acting alone, the grace of Christ, this is what

I mean by they use Christian terminology and twist it. Therefore, acting alone, the grace of Christ is not sufficient for salvation.

The works of man, the ordinances of salvation, the deeds of service and acts of charity and mercy are necessary for salvation.

Salvation, this is another quote from the religion of the Latter -day Saints. Salvation is not a gift of God which comes to man through the decree of deity or through the sacramental action of the church.

It is a gift of God which man must work diligently to achieve. Second Nephi 25, 23 says, we know that it is grace.

It is by grace that we are saved after all we can do. Just kind of adding to Ephesians 2, right? How is any difference different from Catholicism?

I don't know. Yeah, it's a different set of rules but I mean

I would argue very similar. And they only have one

God. Roman Catholics do. Men have work to do if they would obtain salvation.

That's from their doctrines of salvation, another book. Okay, so number six, they have a different Jesus.

Virtually all organized heresies deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They teach that Jesus is not the true

God manifest in human form but something less, such as a created being, an angel, a prophet, an ascended master or just a

God. Some teach we too can be the very same as Jesus. Mormons teach that we are all spirit offspring produced by God the

Father and his wife in heaven. We are all pre -existing spirits with God which then come down to inhabit human bodies on earth.

This is a purely Mormon doctrine and not found in the Bible. In fact, as I was saying when I was teaching through John 1, different verbs used of Jesus and John the

Baptist. You know, a lot of people like to say, well, in Mormonism they teach that Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers.

Well, I'm offended that they teach that Jesus and Steve Cooley are spirit brothers. It's bad, you know,

Lucifer is one thing, but it's offensive to me that Jesus was on the same plane as me because clearly he is, was and always has been

God and I am not and never will be. Should get an amen. Thank you.

Mormonism does hold this doctrine that there is a mother in heaven was affirmed in plainness by the first presidency of the church.

They said that man as a spirit was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the father.

That's a direct quote that man is the offspring of Celestia. And so I'm just like, is Mormonism a cult?

Yes. I mean, they have whacked out ideas, absolutely crazy ideas.

Nothing in the Bible would indicate we have a heavenly mother. Nothing in the Bible would indicate that we existed as spirits before we came to this world.

In fact, everything would be against that. One of the first council of the 70, again, a general authority, an authority figure in the church said this, this dependent truth of the existence of a heavenly mother as well as a heavenly father became established facts in Mormon theology.

Brother Kimball, Spencer W. Kimball said or quoted a saying of Joseph Smith, the prophet, that he would not worship a

God who had not a father. And I do not know that if he had not a mother, and I do not know that if he would, if he had not a mother, the one would be just as absurd as the other.

Yeah, let's see. OK, how about this? Bruce R. McConkie, one of the big wigs, and he wrote a book called

Mormon Doctrine, said this, the first spirit to be born in heaven was

Jesus. This agrees with Joseph F.

Smith, the sixth prophet of the church, among the spirit children of Elohim. That's how they referred to God, the father. The firstborn was and is

Jehovah or Jesus Christ to whom all others are juniors. So he is

God's first spirit child, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So wrong view of Jesus. Final comment on Jesus.

Jesus progressed, and this is what made him God. He didn't even come to earth as God. He became

God. This gives us insight into what Mormonism defines as God. The Pearl of Great Price says this.

However, Scripture describes, or actually this is a book, Revelations from God. However, Scripture describes

Jesus as the firstborn of the Father, not only in terms of the human family, but in terms of every world and every form of life organized under the

Father's direction. In other words, this God, this Heavenly Father, and there are many Heavenly Fathers according to them,

Jesus was the firstborn and the head of every world and every form of life.

There may be life on other planets, and if there is, Jesus is the head of that too. Okay, they have a different spirit.

Number seven, they have a different spirit, different Holy Spirit. Most organized heresies tease that the

Holy Spirit is not God, but an impersonal form or force or energy that emanates from God to perform certain functions.

The Mormons call him a personage. So they have a different view, again, not part of the

Trinity. And number eight, they believe that they are the only true church. Again, as I said, you know, it's ironic that the

Mormons get all upset about being called the cult when all they do is say that every other church is an abomination. The one mark of an organized heresy that is most common is their claim to be the only group or church ordained by God.

They alone speak for God on earth today. Mormonism, 13th

Church, President of the Church Ezra Taft Benson said, this is not just another church.

This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the church and kingdom of God, the only true church upon the face of the earth.

Let's see. Here's another quote from Mormon Doctrine, again, by Bruce R. McConkie. He says, there is no salvation outside the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

Saints. And this is from the Book of Mormon. Behold, there are save two churches only, the one that is the church of the

Lamb of God and the other is the church of the devil. Wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the

Lamb of God belongs to that great church, which is the mother of abominations. Another apostle said this, salvation comes only through the church itself as the

Lord established it. Therefore, it was made clearly manifest that salvation is in the church and of the church and is obtained only through the church.

I mean, I have a bunch of quotes from other bogus churches who all claim to be the true church.

Other marks of a cult, these are kind of freebies, 8A, 8B, 8C, etc. And us against them attitude and philosophy.

Anyone who challenges the cult's doctrine is automatically branded as an enemy, which is usually anyone who disagrees.

The cultists feel, and this is the important part to me, feels that they are being persecuted unfairly. And that's the idea within the

Mormon church. They believe they have the true church and anyone on the outside who disagrees with them is persecuting them.

And that's part of what I'm going to talk about in my little essay there is, you know,

I can remember going to Mormon night at Disneyland. And on the way out, I mean, it was fun from 8 o 'clock to 1.

You know, the Mormons had the run of the place, lots of root beer being consumed.

And I mean, in those days, drinking Coke or Mountain Dew was a sin, so we didn't do any of that. But as we were leaving at 1, 1 .30

in the morning, whatever time it was, these people would be out there. I think they were from Calvary Chapel, and they would be handing out tracts telling us that we were going to hell.

And so we're like, we're being persecuted for righteousness sake. End Time Revelation, special insights into the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ are claimed.

Anybody know where the Mormons say Jesus Christ is coming back to? What's that?

No, no, he's coming back to Missouri. But not

Branson, so I wouldn't worry about that. That's just what they believe.

Well, I think that's where the Mormons were occupying at that time when the revelation came.

So they moved from New York to Illinois and then to Missouri, and that's when he got the revelation.

Let's see, distorted tithing or excessive giving. Certain members keep track of your commitment of what you give.

They may have you write down what you can give and keep you to that obligation. I remember I've said this before.

Every year you had to meet with the bishop and tell him whether you gave a full tithe or not. And if you didn't, he'd just be like, well, no temple recommend for you, better luck next year.

Article of Faith 13. Now this is where many have said Mormons are great people.

Listen to this, and I would say that this is true. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men.

Indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul. We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things and hope to endure all things.

If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things, everything except for the gospel.

Oh, I added that. These are, by and large, they're good people.

They're good family people. But the ultimate truth is they're whitewashed tombs.

They are trying to justify themselves. And why do I want to say all that? Here's my question to you this morning.

As we just think about the presidential race, who we're going to vote for, and all these kind of things,

I would like to ask anyone if they can name the last president of the

United States who probably would be 100 % comfortable being a member of Bethlehem Bible Church.

I don't really know who that was. I mean, we've had Deas, like Thomas Jefferson, who kind of did his own

Bible. You know, I'm going to take out all the miracles and all the things I don't agree with, all the things that I don't think

Jesus said. I mean, he was looking for the historical Jesus before that was even cool. We've had

Roman Catholics. We've had Quakers. We've had Episcopalians. We've had all manner of denominations.

It really doesn't matter. You know, I tell people, if you're going to wait for somebody that you agree with to run for president so you can vote for them, well, you better hope

Lewis Brown kind of moves a little closer to Washington, D .C.,

because there's nobody like that. That just doesn't exist. So what do you do?

What do you do when you're deciding who to vote for? You pray,

James 1 .5. If you lack wisdom, what's that?

Peggy. I think we want to vote for those who would share biblical values.

I think we want to... Right, either that or not vote at all.

But again, I think some kind of idea, you know, could I vote for Mormon?

The answer is yes, I could. You know, could I vote for any number of people?

Well, yes, because here's the issue. You either vote for the person you agree with the most or you stay home.

You know, and I mean, whoever that is. So, I mean, I'm sure that there are folks who will vote for, you know,

I don't know, everybody from Ron Paul to Barack Obama.

And ultimately, I mean, I just think we have to think of it as a stewardship like everything else.

And we have to look at what people say, and we have to kind of just do our best to discern what the right thing to do is.

But ultimately, we know that God's in control. And that's just reality of it,

Pam. Yeah.

Yeah, well, and that just comes right down to it right there. You know, I would say almost anybody in politics,

I'm not going to say, I can't say that everyone in politics. But if you think that a person who's in politics is going to be honest, is going to be humble, is going to, you know, seek the

Lord in all that they do and try to live a biblically worthy life.

Again, I just don't know when that has happened. You know, people want to deify this president and that president and everything else.

You know, this is the greatest guy ever or whatever. But, I mean, when you start reading what they wrote about God, it's kind of usually not so good.

So, I've never, I've yet to vote for the theologian in chief. Yes, Dottie.

And that's what politicians do. I mean, Dottie's like, you know, you need to look at what they do and not just what they say.

And that's absolutely correct. But again, it's really hard. I mean, and ultimately, I think we're going to wind up with two choices.

And, you know, it's kind of like the lesser of two evils. But this whole idea, again, I just want to give this idea of is it a cult?

I think it is. But, you know, again,

I think the modern idea of a cult has been kind of warped away from what the biblical idea of a cult, just being a false religion.

We look at Galatians 1 .8, and it says, you know, if anyone preaches a different gospel, let him be what?

No, no, you don't want to judge anybody. You don't want to curse them. Galatians 1 .8

couldn't be clearer. And so, you know, if that's our standard, then we can't vote for anyone who believes in Roman Catholic doctrine because they have a different way of salvation.

We can't vote for anybody who's a Mormon. We can't vote for anybody who believes in liberation theology. We can't vote for anybody who, you know, is a liberal

Methodist. We can't vote for anybody who's, and I mean, you just go right down the gospel or right down the list, and pretty soon we're not going to be able to vote for anybody.

We'll all be staying home. So, yeah.

Yeah, that's a great point. You know, I think if we look at it through the pastoral epistles, where Paul is writing under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, giving instruction to Timothy and to Titus, you know, how to set up the churches, how to run the churches, he never once describes what a king or a leader of a president, what their spiritual qualifications ought to be.

We don't see that. We see it for elders, see it for pastors, see it for deacons. We don't see it for presidents or kings or magistrates or anything like that.

So we're to pray for them, and that's what we need to keep in mind. Let's pray. Father in heaven,

Lord, even as we're in this political season, which will go on for the next 14 months or whatever it is,

Father, I just pray that you give us wisdom as we look at these men and women, that you would give us discerning hearts, that we would seek to honor you in how we vote and how we conduct ourselves politically.

Father, I would pray that you would raise up exactly the right man or woman to lead this country. And, Father, I would pray that those who love you would be most discerning.

But, Father, I would just pray for everybody who's running, for everybody who is already elected, and,

Father, I just pray that you would save them. What a glorious day that would be to see the President of the

United States say, I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and up to this life, or up to this point, my life has been a wreck, and just give us his testimony.

I'd like to see that press conference. Father, you have the power to do that, and I pray that you would.

And, Lord, just bless us as we seek to do what's right, but just also to restrain ourselves from doing that which is wrong and unpleasing to you.