Unforgettable Gospel Conversation: Young LDS Man Wants to Know the Biblical Jesus!

Apologia Utah

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So, I'm an evangelical Christian out here handing tracts. Giovanni, you're probably like, why would you be handing me a tract?

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I believe in Jesus Christ, right? Jesus Christ is in the name of my church. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, why would you think

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I would be handing you a gospel tract? I mean, to be honest, I actually believe because I have a testimony of my own.

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I know I don't have all the answers. I don't know everything about the scriptures. But, I do really believe in Christ.

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I don't know. The LDS church is awake. If she can meet the call, I will not die. I understand.

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So, have you ever thought to yourself, how do I know if it's the true Jesus Christ of scriptures?

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Well, not really. But, I mean, like I said,

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I have my testimony. And, I'm sticking to it. Yeah, yeah, okay.

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So, how do we know that the testimony you have, though, is actually true?

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So, I'll give you like a little thought experiment, okay? Because we can have a Muslim or a Jehovah's Witness who comes and they say they have a testimony, right?

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They're like, I testify that Charles Taze Russell brought about the restoration and that Jesus Christ was the first creation of Jehovah God, who was once Michael the

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Archangel, who took on flesh, died on a stake and resurrected as a spirit creature. I prayed about it and I know it's true.

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What would you say to them? Well, that would be you. But, I don't know.

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I mean, it's just about trying, I guess. That's right, I don't really know. Yeah, well, it's important to know who

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Jesus is, right? Like, Jesus himself, he says to his disciples, who do you say that I am? So, that's important, right?

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And, I mean, even Joseph Smith says it in the King Follett Discourse. He says that the first principle of the gospel is to know the character of God.

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And if you get God wrong, you'll get the rest wrong as well. And in 2

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Corinthians, do you believe that the Bible is the word of God? Yeah, sure. Okay, cool. When's the last time you've read anything in the

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New Testament? I was reading about, I read in Spanish, sorry.

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In English, but I guess it's about the rich and Lazarus, I guess.

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Oh, wow. That parable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he tells him, give up everything and follow me? Not exactly.

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It was about when this rich has everything and he just gives his spoils to this poor man called

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Lazarus, I guess. Oh, okay. So, when they go to afterlife, the rich is suffering and Lazarus is...

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He's like, please give this person a drink of water just for their tongue. And God says, if he had a chance to listen to Moses and the prophets, didn't listen to them, he would deny me as well.

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That there's an eternal chasm fixed between Hades and Abraham's bosom, essentially.

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Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I was reading that. I like that parable. Yeah, that's a good parable. How does that line up with LDS doctrine to you, though?

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With spirit prison? Yeah, like that, the spirit prison and...

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It seems to contradict what is taught about spirit prison, though. Doesn't it?

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I don't think so. I mean, like I said, I don't know pretty much, but I think it matches.

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What we are taught is that there is a prison which people who don't know the gospel don't obey.

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When they die, they will know about their sins. And they would like to know about the gospel now.

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And Lazarus, who was a good man, he eventually will have a rest in paradise, if we can call it that.

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So, the rich wanted... Well, what about the person that was in Hades, though, right?

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What about the person who just wanted to drink a water and Jesus said, that person wouldn't even believe me.

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Because he didn't believe in Moses. And it says that there is an eternal chasm fixed between the two, right?

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Because if I'm thinking about spirit prison from the LDS organization, it's taught that you can go down there and preach the gospel to those who once rejected it or didn't get to hear it.

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But it seems like Jesus is saying that those people in Hades, they didn't believe the words of the prophets, so they wouldn't even believe in me if I went down there.

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And that there is an eternal chasm fixed that there is no way to go down there anyways. It seems like a contradiction if you're to read that parable, right?

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Isn't that... Well, actually, I've just... Well, I know also that Jesus Christ, when he already made the atonement and died on the cross, well, the three days that he was dead, he was opening that chasm.

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Okay, so that's what you believe. He couldn't go after that. Of course, he wasn't dead already.

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He wasn't dead yet. He couldn't do that. People couldn't go to... Well, at least that's what

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I know so far. Yeah, let me throw something interesting at you that you probably have never thought about with those verses. I think you're quoting 1

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Peter 4, I believe what it is. It could be somewhere else in 1 Peter as well.

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But one thing interesting about that is in Matthew 28, it says,

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So the Bible teaches that there's a place called Sheol, the grave, right?

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Death. And Sheol in the Bible is separated into two parts, Hades and Abraham's bosom, which is also mentioned as paradise.

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Okay, so there's paradise, which is where Lazarus was. And there's Hades, and there's a chasm fixed between the two.

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The Bible teaches that when Jesus died, he descended into Abraham's bosom, right, into paradise.

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And upon that, he rescued those saints from Abraham's bosom and brought them into heaven because those saints of old were looking forward to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

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And in that, the proclamation of the gospel, it put to shame all of those who were in Hades, the disobedient spirits during even the times of Noah.

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They saw that these saints were being rescued while the people in Hades are stuck there because they denied the

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God of the universe. So I agree that something did happen.

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Abraham's bosom is no longer occupied. Now those saints, they resurrected out of their graves and they're in heaven because they were waiting for time and space for the

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Messiah to take on flesh and die on the cross for our sins. It's a more cohesive way to view

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Scripture in the totality of Scripture because without Joseph Smith's revelation of a so -called spirit prison, you wouldn't be able to bring the interpretation into the text with just reading the

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Old and New Testament. You have to hold to LDS theology in order to interpret it into the

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Bible. But without LDS theology, you can still have a cohesive understanding of what occurred during Christ's atonement at that time.

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It's a good perspective, actually. Yeah, I have more questions than answers. No, that's good. Another thing

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I think you should think about, Giovanni, is in Scripture, you can look up in 2 Corinthians. I don't even know what

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Corinthians would be in Spanish. I don't know Spanish. It's Corinthians. Corinthians, okay.

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So 2 Corinthians 11 verse 4. I want you to read this. It says that there are people who will come and they will proclaim a different Jesus, a different gospel, who have accepted a different spirit.

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So according to that, me as a Christian, a Bible -believing Christian, I go, okay, Paul, the apostle from God, apostle means messenger for the king, speaks on behalf of Jesus, tells me that there's people who will come and proclaim a different Jesus.

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So they say the word Jesus, but it doesn't mean it's the same Jesus, okay?

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So what does the Bible say about Jesus and who He is? That's the question. When's the last time you read the

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Gospel of John, Giovanni? Oh, well, probably a lot of months ago.

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A lot of months ago. Read it again, man, right in the first section of John. John 1, 1 -3. It says,

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was

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God. It says all things were created through Him. There was nothing that came into being unless it was created through Jesus.

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Alright? Because Jesus is the Word. Later in John, it says, the Word took on flesh, and He dwelt among us.

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So we know that whom is being spoken of in John 1, 1 -3 is the pre -incarnate

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Christ, Jesus, okay? But if you look at the Greek, it's what the original language was that John was written in.

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It says, Which is, in the beginning was the

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Word. The Greek word, ayn, that we translate to was, this is what it means. It's hard for our

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English language to capture the depth of the Greek. So what it means is this, as far back as you want to go, from eternity into eternity,

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Jesus was already there. And then it says in the next section of that verse, And He was with God, and He was

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God. Okay? And in Colossians 1, it says, He created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

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Meaning this, Giovanni, that the Jesus Christ of Scripture, prior to the revelations of Joseph Smith, 1800 years before He ever walked on earth, what the apostles said about Jesus was this,

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He is the eternal God, from everlasting into everlasting. Uncreated.

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Was not begotten in the form of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, and then took on flesh.

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No, no, no, no, no. That He is the eternal God who created all things, including Lucifer. Exactly, yeah.

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So we believe as Christians, Bible -believing Christians, because of what the Bible says, that God is one being in three persons.

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Right. But Joseph Smith says otherwise. He says in the

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King Follett Discourse, he says, You have imagined and supposed that God has been God from all eternity.

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He says, I will refute the idea and take away the veil so that you may see you have got to learn to become gods. In the form of like intelligences?

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Yeah. So check this.

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I think John 1 actually disagrees with this tremendously. So in reference to Jesus, it's saying that He already was

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God, and He was actually personally with the Father as far back as you want to go. Not as an intelligence, as an actual personal intimate relationship.

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That's what prostantheion means in the Greek, an intimate personal relationship. And then get this.

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When it says that He brought all things into the world, that He created all things, the verb used in Greek is agoneto.

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And that actually means the things that came into origin within space and time, meaning that He's different from all other things, visible and invisible, that those things have a point of origin in space and time, whereas Jesus eternally existed personally as God with the

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Father. Joseph Smith knew that's what Christians believed, and he said, I refute it. He says, I'm going to teach you how to become a god one day.

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There's a reason there were dozens and dozens and still are dozens of translations of the Bible. There's hundreds and hundreds of people who have disagreed.

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They continually disagree. And that's actually a bad argument, because... It is the truth.

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That's why it's an argument. No. Except for the one with the truth. Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. So listen, the

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Bible has been... The truth is independent, absolutely. And the truth disagrees with you immensely.

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Even secular scholars, they don't disagree with what the Bible says. They disagree whether or not it came from God. So listen, the

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Bible has a textual manuscript tradition, meaning that when the Bible was written by the apostles, they penned these things down, they actually sent out letters to different churches, and so people copied down those letters, and they sent them out, and they sent them out, and they sent them out, meaning that there was a free transmission of the text.

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So if anyone changed anything in the writings, it sticks out like a sore thumb. So according to the textual tradition, which is the body of manuscripts, we have...

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The claim he's making is historically inaccurate. It's more a disagreeing of whether or not these things came from God.

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So it's not a good claim to say that the Bible is translated incorrectly, because if it was, we have the original copies to look at that we constructed through the copies that they were written from.

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So any changes would stick out like a sore thumb. Even secular historians do not disagree.

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Yeah. Look it up.

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Textual criticism of the Bible is what you can YouTube it. Think about this, Giovanni. It's another way to put it.

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We're not missing anything from the Bible. We actually have 125%. Because people inserted things.

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Scribes inserted stuff, okay? But what we're trying to do is narrow down that 125 % to the 100%.

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And scholars will say today, not even Christians, okay, that the Bible is 99 .7

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% accurate to the original writing. Okay. Hold on. No, no.

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Hold on. Yeah. No, no. So the issue is we're not missing anything. We actually have more that we're whittling down.

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But Joseph Smith disagrees. Like I said, I do really believe in God. Well, I do believe in the book of Mormon, of course.

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But what if it contradicts? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, make the question. Why not?

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Make the question. Because there's tests of a prophet in the Bible. And it says if any revelation,

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Deuteronomy 13 is one of the tests, okay? It's Moses. He says if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and produces miracles, signs and wonders, but leads you after another

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God, a God which you have not known, don't believe them. Okay? So if Moses reveals to them that God is the

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I am that I am, the eternal God from everlasting into everlasting, and he says if anyone tries to lead you after another one, don't believe him.

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And then Joseph says you've imagined and supposed that God is the I am that I am. So what would I do?

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I would go, I'm sorry, Joseph. According to the first test of a prophet in the Bible, you failed. I'm not going to be deceived by my feelings or my heart, because the

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Bible says my heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? Deceitful above all things,

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Jeremiah 17 9. I trust God's word. How do we know?

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By God's word. So John 1 1 says he's the eternal

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God, uncreated creator of all things. Right? Joseph says that's not true.

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He's the offspring of Elohim and Heavenly Mother. Right? And then he says you can become a

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God one day, just like all other gods have done before. And the Bible says before me there is no

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God, neither shall there be after me. And then Isaiah 44 6, I am the first, I am the last, beside me there is no

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God. And other verses that say God shares his glory with no one. That's a big, big contradiction.

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You know what I mean? Like that's something you've got to wrestle with, man. Oh, like I said, man, I'm not really, really into scriptures.

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So everything's pretty new to me. Okay. Well, I can, I can give it a listen.

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Yeah, yeah. Like, do you have a place where you realize it?

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Where what? Do you have like meetings or? Yeah. Do you want to ever have some meetings in the future to talk about some of these things?

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It would be nice to go. Yeah. Let me, I'll get Pastor Wade is talking to Jacob's dad over there.

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I'll get a car from him. But one of the most important reasons why I like to talk about this is because if we get a different Jesus, Giovanni, we're going to end up with a different gospel.

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So let me ask you, Giovanni, what is the gospel? Well, the gospel is what

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Jesus taught us. All the things that we should follow to be like him.

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That's the gospel for you. That's the gospel for you. What if the Bible declared that that's not the actual gospel?

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I would like to know what is. You want to know what it is? I like you Giovanni. Okay. So the gospel is this.

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We are born sinners. We are born from the offspring of Adam. Right?

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The Psalms say that we're conceived in iniquity. Romans 3 says this about us. It says no one seeks

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God. No one understands God. All have gone astray. The venom of vipers is under our lips.

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Our throats are an open grave. It says that we are sinners before a holy, just, and righteous

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God. And God is totally holy and totally eternal, transcended above his creation. So if anyone defies anything that he says, any one thing of his character, you are a sinner and worthy of condemnation.

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The Bible says the wages, Giovanni, of sin are death. So let me give you an example. You're a man.

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Let's look at the Ten Commandments. Have you ever told a lie? Well, many times. Many times. What would you call someone who tells lies?

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Sorry? What would you call someone who tells lies? A liar. A liar. Have you ever looked at a woman with lust?

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Well, yeah. What does Jesus say about that? It's wrong.

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He says you've committed adultery in your heart. The book of James says you fail in one part of the law, you have failed in it all.

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And that's the part, Giovanni. This is the gospel. I know. We are all, like, always making mistakes. That's the bad news.

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It's impossible to be perfect, like, from start to the end. That's the bad news, right? But the good news is this.

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That Jesus Christ was the eternal God who took on flesh and was perfectly righteous to the law.

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Blameless, impeccable, sinless, spotless, perfect lamb. Who then died on the cross as a sacrifice for my sins.

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For my sins. He took my sins on Him on the cross. Right? And then when I believe in Him, it says this, that I'm accredited righteousness on my account.

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His righteousness. It justifies me. And the word justify is a forensic term, meaning

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I am declared righteous in a court of law. Why? Because God is both the just and the justifier.

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Meaning, when I stand before the Father, I have nothing to offer Him. That's better than what

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Jesus offered. This is it right here. Galatians 3. It says, those who seek to be justified by the works of the law, the grace of God has no effect on you.

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The true gospel is this. No, no, no. It's not striving to be obedient to the gospel ordinances and principles.

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Because Giovanni, what righteousness do you have to offer God that's better than what Jesus Christ fulfilled? None. They teach you have to.

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They teach you have to be obedient to the gospel ordinances and principles. Giovanni, what's the third article of faith in the LDS organization?

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It's the atonement of Christ. We believe that all mankind may be saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

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What's the rest? By obedience to the gospel ordinances and principles. Right? So it's not just the atonement of Jesus Christ.

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It's actually obedience to the gospel ordinances and principles. But what did Paul say in Galatians 3? Those who seek to be justified by the works of the law, the grace of Christ has no effect on you.

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The thing about salvation, Giovanni, it says in Ephesians chapter 2, is that it is a gift from God.

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Not of man. Not of yourself. Lest any man can ever boast. I believe that. We are not meant to.

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I mean, we cannot buy salvation. We cannot build it. How do you get to the celestial kingdom,

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Giovanni? Sorry? How do you get to the highest level of heaven, Giovanni? Yeah, by believing in Christ.

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By works. Yeah, baptism. There you go. You're adding works to the gospel. That's the problem.

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That's the problem. Galatians 1 .8. Galatians, in the book. Paul starts it out, talking to the church in Galatia.

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He's like, I am so quickly surprised how you have left the gospel, which I had taught you. And he condemns them, because there's...

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Let's get into that. We'll get into that, okay? So, first in Galatians, Paul is saying to the church in Galatia, there's people who have prepped in.

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They're called Judaizers. And they're telling you this. They're saying, in order to first be saved, you must first be circumcised.

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Okay? And Paul says, no. No, no, no, no. That's not true. You're justified solely by the grace of God, which declares you righteous.

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If you try to add one work to it, you no longer have grace. It's no longer a gift. You're working for it.

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Okay? And he says, he goes as far as this. He says, cut it off. If you think that's true, then you might as well cut your member off.

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And he says, even if an angel from heaven comes, but they preach to you a gospel contrary to the one that I taught, let them be accursed.

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And that one thing was just circumcision. Alright? They add a lot more than just one thing to the gospel, the

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LDS organization, okay? And then, let's go into what you said. So, since I'm saved by grace, should

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I sin then, so that grace could just abound all of the more? Paul actually anticipates your argument in Romans.

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He says, by no means. Since I have been set free from sin by the grace of God, I am free now to actually uphold the law.

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But listen, Giovanni, this is the beautiful thing. My upholding of the law does not save me. I'm already saved before.

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I'm saved by the perfect righteousness of Christ. Because the Bible says this, Giovanni. If you say you are without sin, then the truth is not in you.

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Yes, we want to be obedient, but we can never be perfect. And if you add one thing to the gospel of God, you no longer have the gospel.

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So, let me take you full circle, Giovanni. We've talked about a lot. Number one, the Jesus of the

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LDS organization is a different Jesus. Number two, a different gospel.

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Number three, you have a testimony from the burning of your bosom given to you by the Holy Ghost, right? Number three, different Holy Ghost.

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Because the revelation you've received that you feel is confirmed contradicts God's revelation.

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What did I say in 2 Corinthians 11, 4? Different Jesus, different gospel, different spirit.

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That's my worry for you, Giovanni. So, if you have a different Jesus than the one of Scripture, you don't have an atonement for your sins.

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Your sins aren't covered. If you think your works will get you to a better place before God, when you stand before Him, He's going to go,

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You rejected my son. It says in Matthew that many people are going to come to Jesus in the end and they're going to say,

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Lord, Lord, look at all the things I did in your name. And He looks at them and He says, Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

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I never knew you. Giovanni, I want you to know Jesus today. And I want you to know that you can repent from this organization and that the gospel is a free gift from God that you can be justified solely by believing in Jesus Christ and on Him today.

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Just like it says in Hebrews, Today, do not harden your heart like the

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Jews who wandered in the wilderness and then were killed off. Today is the day of salvation,

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Giovanni. Leave this place. You don't need to be here. God, I don't want any of this to happen to you, of course, but you could walk down the street and get hit by a car.

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And if you haven't repented from the sin of false worship at a false church, worshiping a false

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Christ, when you stand before God, you'll be condemned for your sins, Giovanni. The Bible says you don't have peace with God if you don't know who

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Jesus is. And I know right now you're working for peace. But you don't have to. Jesus did it for you,

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Giovanni. Today, put your faith in Him. No, actually, I have faith in Him.

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Which one? That's the question we're talking about. Yes. I wanted to raise what you referenced.

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Oh, absolutely. You know, I want to tell him something funny real quick. I'm a ginger, he's a ginger. Red hair.

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His name's Andrew. My name's Andrew. Really weird. All right, tell him. Isn't that weird?

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This is one of the passages that he is referring to. This is in Galatians. It says, Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision...

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So Andrew is talking about circumcision. Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ. You who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace.

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Because grace is a gift. Anything else devoids the definition of what it is. How familiar are you with the

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Book of Mormon? Yeah, pretty familiar. What's 1

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Nephi 3 .7? 3 .7, that is... I don't remember well.

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It was about... God doesn't give a commandment to men. Exactly. I read it in Spanish, so I barely know the phrase in English.

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Just trying to help you jog your memory. It was that Lehi was sending his son Nephi, and Nephi said,

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I will go. I know God will not tell me to do something.

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He wasn't. He says God doesn't give a commandment to men that he knows they can't follow. So, let's follow this train of thought within the revelation of Joseph Smith in 1

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Nephi 3 .7. A command of Jesus, according to LDS organization, is be ye perfect as your

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Heavenly Father is perfect. Okay? Moroni 10 .32. If you deny yourself of all ungodliness and love the

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Lord with all your might, mind, and strength, then His grace is sufficient for you. It's an if -then statement.

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In order for you to reach the highest level of heaven, you must be perfect as your

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Heavenly Father is perfect. You can't say you're trying, because God doesn't give a commandment to men that they cannot follow.

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Trying's not good enough. Spencer W. Kimball, the 12th prophet of the LDS organization, says that there's many people in the

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LDS organization that call themselves covenant keepers that break the covenants all of the time. And when they die, they will not be in the highest level of heaven.

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He says you must be perfect. He interprets the text, 2 Nephi 25 .23, by grace you are saved after all you can do, in Moroni 10 .32

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through 1 Nephi 3 .7, to state that you can be perfect. To be honest,

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I don't have an argument for that right now, but I find it very illogical, you know?

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You're disagreeing with the 12th prophet of the LDS organization? No, I mean, yeah, of course. Do you have the priesthood authority to...

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It's illogical to teach people to be perfect when everybody knows you can't.

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I agree with you. I don't know. Perhaps there is another approach for that. And this is, like, too literal.

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Well, Giovanni... Like I said, I don't have arguments right now. Well, here's the thing, though. You're giving me...

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Well, you're giving me an answer as Giovanni, and I'm telling you what, through his priesthood authority as the 12th prophet of the

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LDS organization, taught. It's still taught in the gospel handbooks today. You can look it up yourself.

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Doctrine and Covenants 82 .7. Do you know what it says? It says that if you sin again, all of your former sins are placed back on you.

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You can look it up yourself. Doctrine and Covenants 82 .7.

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Look it up yourself. I understand what you're saying, Giovanni. I like that you have a cognitive dissonance.

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I like that you're being honest with me. It's like, I don't think that's logical. Neither do I, because I'm honest with my human condition.

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I'm a fallen human being. Right? But the LDS organization doesn't teach that. What's the second article of faith?

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We deny that Adam's transgression passed on to everybody. They deny original sin.

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Okay? That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says we're conceived in iniquity. In Ephesians 2, it says we're children of wrath.

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Children of Satan, even. But then God saves our souls and adopts us into his family. I understand a lot of it right now.

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But yeah, it's a lot of information. It is. It is. I want you to look into it.

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Hey, Andrew, can you get a card from Wade for me? I want to have more meetings with you, Giovanni, because the reason why

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I'm out here is because I care for your soul. Okay? I want you to know the true Jesus and have peace with God.

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I don't want there to be... Here's a good example, okay? You have my hat. This could be a horrible example.

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God is transcendent, ultimately infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent. This hat is going to represent him just for the sake of the conversation.

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And here's me. Here's God. What's going on with you right now is you have a building in between you and God.

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An organization that is filtering all information to you through the organization.

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Okay? The thing is, is I want to remove that from you so you can be in direct relationship with God.

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Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross, it said that the veil in the Holy of Holies was split, rendering it not needed anymore.

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No temple needed. It says actually in the Bible that us as believers, if you are a believer in Christ, we are actually the stones of a living temple, a holy temple that Jesus Christ himself is shaping with his own hands.

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They build temples in direct reputation of what God's word says about each individual that believes in him.

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I no longer need that. I have one mediator between me and God, and that is the

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Jesus Christ, the Lord. Right now you don't have it because the LDS organization doesn't teach that.

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Okay, Giovanni? I'm curious. I don't know what your guys' conversation was before I got here, but...

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I mean, do you think that you can do works to gain any righteousness in God at all?

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No. Like I said, I believe we don't buy our salvation or anything, but I do love

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God. I have this reasoning. Reasoning? Yeah, yeah. That I love

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God. So, whatever he commands, I'll obey. Like I said,

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I've grown up in the church. Yeah. So far I've learned about the gospel and all the principles and ordinances.

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So, I have to obey because I really love God. I don't think that's bad for me.

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It's for our protection, for our learning, for our growing. That's it,

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I guess. If there is like, no, you have to do this or you won't have heaven,

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I don't believe that. I believe that while living the principles and ordinances, we change.

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Our heart changes. And in the end, he's the final judge. I mean,

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I can't know if by 80 years or by 70 years old, okay,

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I'm prepared. I can die now. I don't know. I will never know. It's just God. In the end, or Jesus Christ actually.

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Which one though? Gotta remember that. Which one do you put your faith in? Jesus Christ. Well, he says it himself.

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Who do you say that I am? Which Jesus? Let's flesh it out real quick because I want to hear it Giovanni.

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You said you don't believe there's anything that you can do to inherit heaven. Let me understand this a little bit further with you.

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Do you believe that you must be baptized in order to get to the highest level of heaven? Do you believe that you must be sealed in the temple?

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With a wife in order to reach the highest level of heaven? Do you believe that you must pay 10 % tithing in order to reach the highest level of heaven?

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I do. Then you do believe that works, earn your place in heaven.

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So this is a, this is really, this is really important. When I, I moved down here last year for like six months.

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And I didn't know very much about the LDS thing at all. And I had a very hard time figuring out what they actually meant by salvation.

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Because no one would ever really talk to me about like the celestial, celestial layers of heaven.

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And when I finally had someone explain that to me, I was just like, oh that explains, that just works righteousness.

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Because if you don't do that, you will not be there. Which means it's dependent upon you.

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Like you have to know that. Like that is a great, horrible burden to live your life underneath.

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Living your whole life underneath it and then standing before God. And he's like, that was pointless.

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It was worthless. It doesn't mean anything. Because you're denying the grace that is given to you through the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.

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It's so much better. In his work. Oh no, of course not. I mean like. But you can't have both of them. Like I said, like for me so far, what

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I believe is that we follow remains without.

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So far we are, I don't know how to put this. Making our efforts.

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Putting effort in changing. In being more Christ -like.

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So I guess that's it. Are you saying like you try and then like what you don't do, like he'll fill in the gap type of thing?

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No, I believe he's already paid for us. But if he wants us not to be like, like to be stuck with it and say, okay, so I don't need to do any more to get salvation.

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I can do anything. Yeah, we deny that as Christians. So I believe he wants us to become like Christ.

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So if he just says, okay, you're safe already. Not many people will follow him by far.

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I believe we somehow need that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those principles or laws to keep us.

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Think about this Giovanni. Like a father to a child. You can just leave them and be. And that's not what the

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Bible teaches. So what the Bible teaches is that when God saves our soul, he replaces our heart of stone with the heart of flesh.

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And then it says in reference to the prophecy being fulfilled, I believe it's in Ezekiel.

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It says that he causes us to observe his statutes. But again, Giovanni, our observance of his statutes, me wanting to follow him, repenting is turning away from the evil

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I once saw and turning towards Christ now. And wanting to be more like him. Yes. But my salvation is not dependent on the works, because if I fail in one work of the law, thinking it makes me righteous,

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I'm then guilty of all of it. Again, we read scripture to you. If you think you can be justified by the works of the law to reach the highest level of heaven, then you have to uphold all of it.

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The 12th prophet of the LDS organization says the same thing. He says, be ye perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Giovanni, you can do it.

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And if you tell me you're only striving, that's not good enough. He says, you're a God in embryo. Be perfect.

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Striving is not good enough for you, Giovanni. And I agree, that's a false gospel. But here's the thing. Give it up.

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Jesus Christ says his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

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Because he carried it already, Giovanni. Get rid of the organization. Have a relationship with Jesus.

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What is holding you back today? What is holding you back? Is it relationships? Is it your family? What is holding you back?

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Well, to be honest, nothing. I mean, I could do it. Then do it. But like I said, somehow

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I got a testimony. I do believe it. So does a Muslim. So does a

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Jehovah's Witness. I have new questions now. Awesome. I'm just going to look for the answers. Good, man.

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I know. I just want your stuff. I can't save you, so. You've got my information, okay?

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I am a deacon at this church. So if you reach out to that or send emails, ask for Wade or Andrew, I would love to have meetings with you, answer whatever questions you have.

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Okay, Giovanni? No, yeah, of course. I want you to know the true Jesus of Scripture and to actually have certainty that when you die, even if you were to die in this moment, that you will reach the highest level of heaven solely through the righteousness of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.

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That sounds pretty good. And no, man, I suppose I have really good conversations. Yeah, dude. Amen. I'm glad that you enjoyed it,

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Giovanni. You be safe, okay? No, of course. Good luck to you, man. Nice to meet you.

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Please reach out to us, Giovanni. I'll do it. Okay. Thank you.