Understanding Mormonism

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in many ways more interesting than Jehovah's Witnesses unless of course you have loved ones or something like that in the
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Witnesses then it's it's not but there is certainly much more to be discussed when it comes to the subject of Mormonism because as I said with Jehovah's Witnesses you have a narrow spectrum of doctrines topics and beliefs but you need to know them in depth with Mormonism it's a wide spectrum but not nearly to the same depth and so generally
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I like to give a warning before giving this presentation and that is because of the speed with which
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I have to do it the danger is I'm not presenting it in the slow way that Mormons would present it and so the result is you listen to this and you go how could anyone ever believe something like that and as a result you figure you can just go out and tackle the
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Mormon missionaries which you might be able to do I mean they're 18 years old for crying out loud you know
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I've met a few that were somewhat knowledgeable at most and not but these groups have their apologists and it's one thing for us to understand
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Jehovah's Witness apologists can be very very challenging and they can be very very good at what they do the
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Witnesses have their apologists as well the danger of this presentation is you see it you go no one could ever really believe that and yet many many many people do which is a clear illustration of the fact that intellectual capacity and spiritual understanding do not necessarily go hand -in -hand you can be tremendously brilliant I know
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I know Mormons who are engineers Mormons who are authors Mormons who are involved and there's a lot of Mormons in the police force around the world in military they are they tend to be really nice moral folks and yet they believe what
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I'm gonna tell you they believe I mean I'm not making this up I've witnessed over 5 ,000 LDS missionaries we went to the
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General Conference the Mormon Church every six months for 18 years stood outside and passed out tracks and witnessed to people for hours on end
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I've done debates in Salt Lake City against staff members from BYU and the University of Utah and and I've got
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I don't know how many thousands of volumes of LDS works in my library and Mormonism is what got me into apologetics it was two more missionaries elders
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Reed and Reese who I'm sure do not to this day wish to be known as the two guys who got me into apologetics but shortly after I was married
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I was 19 my wife was 18 my wife's an identical twin two more missionaries showed up at my in -laws home they saw this cute little 18 year old blonde and they're like oh let's witness to her and so she asked me to come over and we met on a
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Monday and a Thursday I read a couple books on Mormonism in between time and that's what started it is when we were finished with those conversations
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I was convinced of two things first of all I clearly did not know enough about what they believed to be able to communicate with them in any meaningful fashion
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I already sensed the massive language barrier that separated us and secondly
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I didn't know enough about what I believed even though I was a preacher's kid even though I had been raised in a
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Christian family and in comparison to all the other kids in the youth group I knew more about what I believe than they did but that wasn't enough
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I needed to know much more and I needed to think through it too much a much deeper level so that was what started my studies over the next number of years
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I studied Mormonism pretty much on my own I I started going to the LDS bookstore because I read all the
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Christian books I could find on Mormonism and I saw them regularly citing these other books
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Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Marvelous Work in a Wonder, Jesus the Christ, Articles of Faith by James Talmadge, Joseph Fielding Smith's Teachings of the
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Prophet Joseph Smith, Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie and so I started going to LDS bookstore and buying them and which which led me to my first interesting experience is there was a nice little lady named
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Mary at the LDS bookstore at 35th Avenue in Northern in Phoenix it's not there anymore but that's where it was at the time and and the first day
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I had to buy a fairly expensive book or a set of books and I had to write a check I didn't have the cash to do it and so I wrote out the check and and I start getting out my my check card and she says oh
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I don't need that what's your ward number so there
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I'm standing ward number what do I do do I make one up 654 and end up you know making a fool of myself or so I was honest
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I said I'm I'm not a Mormon and she says oh that's fine
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I'll take the card then but you keep reading these books and you will be soon you know it's just this sweet little lady and and so I grew my library and I read these books and as I'm reading all this stuff reading for example here's here's the
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LDS scriptures this is called a triple Book of Mormon Doctrine Covenants for a Great Price the three standard works outside of the
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King James Version of the Bible they have four standard works King James Version of the Bible Book of Mormon Doctrine Covenants for a Great Price so I read the
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Book of Mormon I read Doctrine Covenants for a Great Price I'm marking all this stuff I'm taking all these notes and I just came to the point where I thought there's there's just no way that I'll ever remember all this stuff how do
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I put all this stuff together thankfully what I did is I started witnessing to Mormons a lot going out to the
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Mesa Easter pageant in Mesa Arizona and going up to Salt Lake City dialoguing with Mormons is what solidified it all in my mind basically but for I didn't have anyone to lead me
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I didn't didn't have anyone to say okay you know let's put it into a nice compact way of understanding it for you and so what
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I'm going to present to you today is what I wish I had had this would have saved me years quite literally if I had had this presentation but I had to do that so you could have this presentation
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I guess and so I'm going to give you a graphic and by the way I just want you all to know that Thursday evening
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I completely redid this presentations graphic just for you up and I mean even the folks in Hilo last week when
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I did this same presentation they had a graphic that I put together from a word document when my daughter was in sixth grade and I performed her wedding ceremony last
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July so it was a long time ago now you'll have a nice clean colorful pretty one and you'll be the first ones to see it so pat yourself on the back give yourself whatever congratulations is in Hawaiian I'm sure it has an
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M a W a K and L and a vowel in it Wow am
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I right I bet you it does and and I can guess it does not have a
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V or a Z or end in ski in it either so anyways let's dive into it
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I like to when I started studying the Mormons I came to some conclusions without ever talking to anybody they're just conclusions that I have lived my life on my ministry it will be 30 years old next year it's been it's been full 30 years now since I met with those two more missionaries and so over three decades of this of this work now
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I've lived by the the credo basically that when you study a group for example
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Shane was trying to shame me into studying Buddhism a few minutes ago and I just looked at him and said no and if he tries to push me there are certain videos
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I have on my system that I will be playing on the screen in the next few minutes so I have
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I have some things on on Shane so he needs to be careful so besides that I have the dividing line webcast and I'm frequently on TV so just be careful what you do anyway if I'm gonna study a group
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I am going to study what they say about themselves so I was going to the
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LDS bookstore buying LDS books when I studied the Jehovah's Witnesses I bought all the Jehovah's Witness books when
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I started debating Roman Catholics I obtained all the Cairns decrees the Council of Trans and Vatican to and all the rest of stuff and now that my heart is primarily in the study of Islam my
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Islamic library grows and grows and grows and unfortunately that's very expensive it's a lot cheaper to buy
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LDS books and it is Muslim books I assure you but I you know
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I feel it's vitally important to know what a group says firsthand not just what
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Christians have said that group says because I've discovered that sometimes believe it or not even Christians can be somewhat inaccurate somewhat biased maybe even a little bit prejudiced in what they have to say about certain groups so our first series of quotations before I get to the graphic comes from the
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Achieving a Celestial Marriage student manual copyright 1992 by corporation the president of the
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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints now why do I give you all that information first of all 1992 wasn't that long ago no matter how even if you're young you're probably still around 20 years ago it was used for over a decade as the primary manual that couples who are going to be married in the
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LDS temple had to go through before they could be married in the LDS temple you had to go through and you had to take this course secondly it's from the church for the church this is the
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Mormons talking to the Mormons this isn't Christians talking to Mormons this is Mormons talking to Mormons and so you can't get much more representational than what the church itself the president which is the prophet of the
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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints this is what they copyrighted and you'll notice it's pages four through five which means this wasn't buried in the back of the book someplace this was the first thing that you were supposed to study as you and your future spouse went through this class in preparation for marriage in the temple pages four through five
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God was once a man who by obedience advanced to his present state of perfection through obedience and celestial marriage we may progress the point where we become like God since the first thing it says
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God was once a man and he progressed to his present state of perfection by obedience and through obedience and celestial marriage and God himself was married in a temple on another planet on celestial marriage we may progress the point where we become like God proclaiming the divine potential within man
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John Taylor once wrote knowest thou not that thou art a spark of deity struck from the fire of his eternal blaze and brought forth in the midst of everlasting burnings elder
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B .H. Roberts stated man has descended from God in fact he is the same race as the gods plural his descent has not been from a lower form of life but from the highest form of life in other words man is in the most literal sense a child of God this is not only true of the spirit of man but of his body also can you see the implications of these two statements as they relate to you and to your eternal destiny elder
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James E. Talmadge did he declared quote in his moral condition man is God in embryo however any individual now a mortal being may attain the rank and sanctity of Godship end quote articles of faith page 529 now by the way articles faith is a book that I've read and it is one of a series of books that is normally given as a gift to the young elders before they go on their mission now my experience is they rarely read those books before they go on their mission but they have them on their shelf someplace when they go on their mission how is this possible what course of action will bring this potential to fruition as you study this lesson look for the answers to these questions then you have points to ponder underline
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God became God by obedience to law God became
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God by obedience to law now if God becomes God by obedience to something what came first God or law the law existed before God became
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God now if you're thinking is a monotheist doesn't make any sense to you but you need to realize Mormonism is the most polytheistic religion that I know of all the religions of men
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I've had Mormons seriously defend the concept to me that there is an unlimited number of gods in the universe says unlimited infinite number one of the reasons they did that is
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I point out to them well if there's an increasing number of gods today because every worthy
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Mormon male feels he can become a god after he dies there's an increasing number of gods today then there's a decreasing number as you go back in time and if it keeps decreasing you eventually get to the first God according to Mormonism what was he before he was a
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God he was a man so who created the first man to get away from that they say no that's not that's not logically accurate because there's an infinite number of gods you can never get back to the first one so it is a polytheistic religion they prefer the phrase plurality of gods and because what you believe about God and whether God is self -sufficient whether God is the creator of all things there's only one true
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God or if there are many gods because that's the most basic element of a religious system that I suggest to you as one who has studied in depth both religions that Islam is considerably closer to Christianity than Mormonism is considerably closer
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Muslims believe in one eternal God who created the heavens and the earth the
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Muslims do not even believe God can create matter he cannot say let there be light he can only organize pre -existing matter and he himself was once a man who lived on another planet in fact the god of this world lives on a planet that circles a star named
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Kolob now you tell me which is closer to Christianity yes the
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Mormons talk about Jesus but he's one God amongst many gods as we will see and so Mormonism while they use our language they use a different lexicon to define the meaning of those words and even in this conversation we're about to read between a mature
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Mormon and a lesser mature Mormon you will see how that language difference manifests itself very clearly so here is the conversation it was late afternoon as we sat in my office but I felt the time had been well spent he sat silently now obviously contemplating the ramifications of the things we had been discussing we had talked of God of how he had become
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God and of what that meant in terms of our own exaltation finally he spoke what is this law of exaltation of which you keep speaking well it involves the whole of the gospel law everything required of us by God is associated with this law but the major crowning point of the law which man must obey is eternal marriage therein lies the keys of eternal life or as the
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Doctrine and Covenants puts it eternal lives in other words and in eternal increase of posterity let me just stop right there there's your first example the
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Doctrine and Covenants talks about eternal lives that is an eternal increase of posterity in Mormonism one of the attributes of being a
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God is that you can have children spirit children and if you are not exalted to the highest level of glory your body's changed you can't have spirit children and so eternal life for us is one thing eternal lives is the ability to have lots of spirit babies after you die now that's a massive difference that's a huge difference and yet most of us would just have that go right past us because we're not familiar with what the background is then what you're saying is that God became
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God by obedience to the gospel program which culminates in eternal marriage sub point through obedience to law we can become like our
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Father in heaven yes do you realize the implications of this doctrine as far as you are concerned
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I think so if God became God by obedience to all the gospel law with the crowning point being the celestial law of marriage then that's the only way
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I can become a God right and it is the law that assists us in reaching that potential it tells us what we must do to gain the ultimate freedom in fact it is by obedience to law that we have progressed to our present position now the next screen the second paragraph is one of the most amazing short paragraphs
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I've ever read in Mormon literature and I've read a lot of Mormon literature but notice
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I haven't put it up because every time I start telling people this they stop listening to me and read the paragraph so this time
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I just give you a warning and tell you what it's coming and then put it on the screen you mean we have always been governed by law here it is always you are an eternal being you were never created and you cannot be destroyed but you can advance progress and develop by obedience you see why
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I say Islam is much closer to Christianity Muslims believe that you are created by God and that God can destroy you
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Mormons do not even believe you're created and you cannot be destroyed you are an eternal being you know whenever I read that paragraph
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I think of a certain creature in the Garden of Eden who said and you shall be as God's and we have this in Mormonism where you don't have a
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God God himself is an exalted man you are a God in embryo we're all the same class of beings just at different levels of progression it shares much more in common with the paganism of the old world that does with Christianity the next line also proves that this was written by a frustrated
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English major from BYU then Hamlet's question to be or not to be is not the question all that is so corny that is just oh
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I laugh every time I read it right not in the ultimate sense at least order means law and that law is the law of the celestial kingdom any who come under that kingdom must obey that law anything you see that says see
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DNC DNC means doctrine and covenants that's the that's the primary doctrinal elements of the
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LDS scriptures the Book of Mormon doctrine and covenants and Pearl of Great Price but I thought
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Godhood meant freedom if I have to do things to become God am I really free you have got it wrong it was the
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Savior who said if you continue in my word that is obey the law how do you like that for exegesis you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free so by obedience to law we learn truths by which we become free but not free from the law can you see that I think so I can only be a god if I act like God exactly right can you imagine the state of the universe if imperfect gods were allowed to spawn their imperfections throughout space if beings who did not have law under their subjection were free to create worlds that sounds like science fiction to you this is coming from the
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LDS marriage manual I guess that would be pretty disastrous but I'm not sure
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I see why celestial marriage becomes the crowning apex this progression marriage doesn't seem directly related to the creation of the universes oh but don't be limited by your mortal perspective
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God himself has declared his own reasons for existing remember he said for this is my work and my glory
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I see his purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man now before you turn to your
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Bible and start looking for Moses 139 that's not in there either that's in the
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Pearl of Great Price and here you have in the Mormon scriptures their own in essence self admission that their
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God's primary purpose is wrapped up in man how else it could it be he is an exalted man how different from Christianity which involves giving birth to spirit children and saying them on the road to exaltation and if that is to be done you must have an exalted man and an exalted woman exactly an exalted man and woman who have been joined together in eternal marriage if this man and woman were obedient to all gospel laws except celestial marriage what would be the result they still could not be
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God's now I understand celestial marriage is the crowning ordinance of the gospel right I said with a smile and with that comment
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I think we can end the discussion now people normally look at me and go come on really gods and spawning imperfections through space and creating worlds
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I mean we know you're a Trekkie but really honestly this is what the Mormons believe yes this is what the
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Mormons believe so let's give you I think the easiest way to understand what the
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Mormons believe this is not an Amway chart just in case you're worried here is the new version
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I should have kept the old version around just so you could see how much nicer this is than what we had before but this is the universal translator this is the means that I have provided you of in essence translating
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Mormonese into Christianese and if you can get a hold of this then you will understand the heart and soul of Mormonism and you'll be able to at least understand why the
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Mormons are saying what they're saying and at least on your part make sure the conversation that you have with them is useful it's somewhat of a circle it starts in the upper left hand corner and ends in the upper right hand corner but as in any circle you sort of have to jump in someplace and so we start in the upper left hand corner and I'll blow that up here we start with intelligences and matter intelligences and matter are the two eternal things in Mormonism now what is an intelligence well
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I've actually met some Mormons that didn't believe in intelligences but most do an intelligence is in essence the the essence of what becomes a spirit child that doesn't make much sense to you either you'll notice spirit children is the next part it's the arrow goes down to spirit children in Mormonism any sentient being has existed as an intelligence it's a it's a disembodied not even spiritual it's just the the the intellect element of the sentient being before it enters into a spirit child now you need to understand in Mormonism even spirits are made of matter
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Joseph Smith taught that they are made of matter but it's such a refined matter that's not visible to the physical eye but it's still made of matter and so the intelligence would sort of be almost the soul or essence of the spirit child and from the
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LDS perspective all of us have eternally existed in that way we cannot be created remember we just read that you weren't created you have eternally existed as an intelligence just as well
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God eternally existed as an intelligence Elohim of this world and the
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God that he worshipped and the God that he worshipped before that and the God before that on back into eternity intelligences cannot be created matter cannot be created
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God cannot say that the Christian doctrine is creation out over into nothing that God can say let there be and there is
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Mormons say God can't do that God can only organize pre -existing matter he can change its shape he can change it from physical to spiritual in the sense of being more refined but it still matter so God is not in this box
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God is not eternal God is not eternally been God if you are a
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Mormon today and you became a God obviously not eternally been a God and so when we talk about the eternal things its intelligences and matter from this realm and a means that we will only be able to understand at the end of the chart we enter into the realm of spirit children spirit children are born of exalted and exalted father and exalted mother that exalted father and mother have physical bodies of flesh and bone no blood
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I'll explain that later even though they're physical they have spiritual offspring as we will see according to Mormonism you and I all existed as spirit children before we came here we don't remember that and Mormonism does not give us a dogmatic explanation of why that is most
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Mormons would simply say the reason we don't remember the spiritual pre -existence is because that memory has been taken away from us so we can be tested in this probationary period in a in a proper way if we remembered pre -existence and we really wouldn't show our true character but interestingly enough you must realize
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Mormonism is a very much American grown religion and especially back in the late 1800s early 1900s in Utah where believe me even today going to Utah is like going on a foreign mission field it really is you cross that border it's just weird many of those towns down you know
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Kanab and places like that in southern Utah are 98 % Mormon and it's it's
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I can't imagine what it was like back in in the day and the Mormon ladies back there had a much more sensible explanation of why we don't remember our spiritual childhood in the pre -existence because you see spiritual babies are born about the size of the little baby coming in right now and we have some other little babies with us and they make little noises and stuff like that and but the problem is even that little baby is much bigger than when the baby was born already right and when you're born as a spirit child you're born little and you grow and because remember you're made out of matter so you have little spiritual baby diapers and little spiritual baby bottles and you know you have little spiritual baby hair that eventually grows out and and little baby spiritual fingernails you have to trim and the whole nine yards it's just like the physical existence and so their theory was that you know you grow up be a six -foot tall spirit spirit being and but then when you get crushed down into the size of an embryo you lose your memory just that simple that was that was what the the
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Mormon ladies came up with it and if I were you I would not argue with the Mormon ladies about this particular subject so spiritual pre -existence let's go back to the big one here now let's go down to where the the square is and blow that up from the mortal from the spirit realm we enter into mortal probation that's where we are right now that's life on a planet and this is where we are being tested that's why it's called probation and there are two ways out of here there is one arrow that goes up to paradise and there is one arrow that goes down to spirit prison now the arrow that goes upward to paradise is of course the
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Mormon arrow it is for the members the faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter -day
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Saints and what you have here is a little a and a
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B next to it and let me go back so you can see what the a and the B are you can see down there at the bottom a is faith repentance baptism laying out of hands and be as continued obedience to gospel rules and principles so the a represents what's called the four fundamentals of the gospel the four fundamentals of the gospel absolutely minimally to get into celestial glory you have to have the four fundamentals the gospel faith repentance baptism and laying out of hands now the problem here is that what they mean by these words and what we mean by these words again have sometimes subtle sometimes major differences
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I don't have the time to go into all the differences in regards to faith and repentance but there are differences in light of the fact that they don't believe that Adam for example fell they believe he fell upward that he was placed in the garden specifically to fall and that he did exactly what
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God the Father and he had decided was going to happen when he ate of the tree he was given two contradictory commands one was to be fruitful and multiply the other was not to eat of the tree since Eve had already fallen the only way he could be fruitful multiply was to eat himself so we did the right thing in partaking of the fruit so Mormonism does not have much of a doctrine of sin on that level they certainly have a doctrine of sin they have a very strong concept of worthiness and and moral laws but their understanding of things like original sin and depravity completely unbiblical and so faith and repentance are a little bit different than we would understand them baptism has to be done by someone minimally holding the
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Aaronic priesthood and the Aaronic priesthood which was allegedly restored to the earth in 1829 by John the
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Baptist was given only to Joseph Smith and is possessed only by the Church of Jesus Christ Latter -day
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Saints so baptism by immersion must be done by someone holding the Aaronic priesthood and then laying on of hands to receive the
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Holy Ghost is to be done by someone holding the Melchizedek priesthood which was restored to earth by Peter James and John and also given to Joseph Smith and only found in the
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LDS church so baptism and laying on of hands only the LDS version thereof is acceptable okay those are the four fundamentals then the
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B was continued obedience to gospel rules and principles which in essence we would identify with generally as a works salvation or works righteousness concept there is a strong push for Mormons to be worthy of entering into the temple for example to even enter into the
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Mormon temple to receive your priesthoods if you're a male if you're to if you're to be married in the eternal marriage ceremony if you go through the endowment ceremony for somebody else etc etc you have to go through a temple recommend interview with your bishop to see if you're worthy if you're living the rules of the church to some point there are many bishops in the
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LDS church who require you to bring your tax forms with you to make sure that you are tithing on the gross and not the net that's how very stringent these these interviews can be so that's the
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A and the B now even with that there are only 14 million
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Mormons in the world and so there are six billion people in the and so that's a small percentage a very small percentage and Mormons don't even believe that all
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Mormons are going to go straight up to paradise there are many
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Mormons who are simply going to be unworthy of any and all of that but even if all 14 million went that's still a small percentage of comparison so the vast majority of folks go down from the mortal probation into the spirit prison and we've got to give the
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Mormons some credit they are a missionary people they do a lot of missions work they really really do and in fact they are so missions minded that they don't get to stop going on missions even when they die because worthy
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Mormons will come down from paradise to the spirit prison and proclaim the
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Mormon gospel in the spirit prison and I've never really figured out how it is that you could do that and not be very very successful if I'm in a prison and somebody comes and says this is how you get out of prison and they can come and go as they wish why would
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I not do what they said but from the Mormon perspective a lot of people still won't a lot of people still won't but there are some who do and hence the line that goes from spirit prison up to baptism for the dead because remember what are the four fundamentals of the gospel faith, repentance, baptism, and laying on of hands by someone with the proper authority well here's the problem a spirit can have faith and a spirit can repent but it's very tricky to baptize a spirit by immersion in water ever tried it it's very hard you know you just keep pushing down and nothing happens and it's just and laying on of hands on the head you know whoop whoop doesn't work so that's what baptism for the dead is for now you have a you have a temple here don't you where's the
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Hawaii temple at okay where is that from here okay once again it was a word with one
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L and a bunch of vowels so really helps me a lot you know is it is it on this island okay so it's on this island anybody did anybody here happen to tour it before it opened because they normally have an open house you can tour it you didn't get a chance to do that that's shame it's very interesting to do
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I finally got a chance to do that in the opening of the Brooklyn to Manhattan Temple Manhattan Temple but so you have a temple here the temple is very different from the ward chapels or stake centers you might see in your neighborhoods only worthy
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Mormons are allowed in the temple once it has been dedicated and if you were to go over to did you say
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Laie Laie Laie oh I thought
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Arabic was bad Abdullah Ibn Masood say that three times fast ha see
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I'm starting to feel dumb because I can't say these Hawaiian words but anyways if you went over to that place it starts with an
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L and on a weeknight other than Monday night and you were just park outside and watch you would see people coming in and they'd be carrying these these little bags with them and they're going in either to be baptized the dead or to go through the endowment ceremony for the dead or maybe for themselves but generally they're doing it for the dead and what they'll do is they will have done their genealogy work if you if you've ever looked up your own genealogy gone on ancestry .com
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or something it's Mormon the Mormons bought everybody else's genealogical libraries a long time ago if you want to know anything about your ancestors you gotta go to Mormons it's just it's just the way it is and so they've done their genealogy work and and they will come in with as many as 50 names it's all done electronically now it's all done digitally now it used to be you had them all written out and and stuff but now it's all done electronically and these names are put into the system and they're put on a card you bring the card in now
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I remember the graphic that I was going to I was going to grab and and stick in here let me make sure
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I can come back to this because I I thought I actually saved this graphic and I wanted to put it in here but I forgot to do so but I can
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I can grab it very very very quickly here LDS oops there it is that's a good shot right there this is the one from the
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Washington Temple and let me drag it over here for you oh that is a little bit on the small side what do you think that's because it didn't open up in the program here we go it's still a little bit small but it'll work all right there's the baptismal font in the
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Washington Temple and you will notice that it is built on the back of 12 oxen so that it is if you remember your
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Old Testament the there was a laver in Solomon's Temple that was built on the back of 12 oxen and up until the
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Atlanta Temple every baptismal font in the
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LDS temples was below ground level after that they changed that and I did notice that in the
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Manhattan Temple where they had to build a temple into a pre -existing building which is very unusual the only other one temple like that in I think
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Singapore the lowest level in the
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Manhattan Temple was where the baptismal font was so they always have that the lowest level and there you can see what a baptismal font so you can see you come down into it in the newer ones there's a computer station in it and they probably have installed one on this by now but the
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Washington Temple was built a number of years ago and again the cards put in you have one elder who does the baptisms the other elder is at the at the screen reading off the names so I baptize you in the name of blah blah blah who is dead you come up I baptize you in the name of blah blah blah who is dead up to 50 times in a session and then you leave here and you'll see the actually you can see the recorder right there is the recorders desk there right up there in that corner is where actually the computer thing would be now then you go through the doors and right nearby there will be these special rooms where the elders then will gather with you and they will go through the same list of names again and they will say for the reception the
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Holy Ghost in the name of so -and -so who is dead they lay their hands upon you they lift their hands up and they put their hands back upon you for the next person through the 50 names and then you go back to the changing room and you're done and that is baptism for the dead now what does all that have to do with this well go back to the the screen that we're looking at here for fundamentals by you're doing those things you are fulfilling the last two fundamentals by proxy for anyone who's in the spirit prison so if this person is spirit prison here's the gospel from the faithful Mormon missionaries that come down proclaim it they repent they have faith and then back on earth you are baptized in their name and you have hands laid upon your your head for the reception of the
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Holy Spirit now you can get out of the spirit prison via baptism for the dead and go to paradise they can also you can also for your dead relatives go through the endowment ceremony where you receive the priesthood authority for a man and you can also go through the eternal marriage ceremony for the dead so technically theoretically you could actually not be a
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Mormon and still make the highest level of glory as long as as long as somebody is we have 45 minutes questions as long as we have as long as you have someone who does that for you so that's how that works is baptism for the dead okay all right if that clock is wrong is it quarter till Shane because I don't have my
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I don't have my okay all right so I'm just gonna figure that six actually during the break
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I just might fix it oh Shane's gonna fix it oh good all right thank you
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Shane all right we're gonna take a 15 -minute break and come back and we got another 45 minutes and then we got 45 minutes questions too so we will press on we'll be we'll be right back after these messages he was a very ignorant man he was not well trained in anything though he claimed much wisdom as a prophet and he read 1st
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Corinthians chapter 15 and in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 it said there was a glory of the
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Sun a glory of the moon and a glory of the stars there is a celestial glory and there is a terrestrial glory and he looked at that and he said well wait a minute if you've got
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Sun Moon and stars that's three levels of glory and Paul only said celestial and terrestrial so there must be another level of glory to match the stars and so what he did is he took the first two letters of terrestrial and slapped him on the last letters of celestial and came up with a new world called telestial that no one had ever seen before in their lives but Mormons today believe in three levels of heavenly glory the celestial which is likened to the
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Sun the terrestrial which is likened to the moon and the celestial which is likened to the stars or to this earth and in fact let me show you a picture here again put this together just for you folks last night there is the
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Salt Lake City Temple and anybody ever visited the temple square in Salt Lake City okay you probably weren't looking really closely at the stones on the temple unless you were taking a tour guided by me which
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I have done in the past and the Mormons do not like my guided tours of Temple Square a whole lot
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I tend to point things out that they don't tend to point out very much and I've done it before they know who
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I am and so you know there's these guys in suits and they've got their little curly things going up in the ear and there's over on this side you know and they're following me around and I'm hi look up there anyway but if you look at the side of the of the temple along the top where the first row is you'll see the
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Sun stones and then the middle row you have the moon stones and the moon is in different phases along the side and the bottom you have what are called the earth stones or the world stones and these represent the three levels of glory celestial terrestrial and celestial and they're built right into the architecture of of the
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Salt Lake Temple there so we go back to right there celestial glory is the the highest level of glory and it's likened unto the
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Sun and you'll notice the green line is marked resurrection resurrection so the line coming out of paradise into the celestial kingdom crosses the resurrection line and so at that time the faithful Mormon or the faithful person who's become a
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Mormon even after death receives their physical body but here again the depth of Joseph Smith's ignorance is made manifest because Paul said in first Corinthians that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of heaven
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Joseph Smith taught that the resurrection body has no blood it's flesh and bone so flesh and bone no blood completely missing
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Paul's entire point but that's what Joseph Smith did over and over again and now there's an entire religion that thinks that's how you should interpret the
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Bible which is why Mormonism has never produced a meaningful exegetical commentary of any book of the Bible because it can't it is so far removed from the biblical worldview and the biblical text itself so the person is resurrected the body of flesh and bone no blood and if that if a
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Mormon man has been faithful in receiving the temple endowments receiving his priesthood authority being married in the temple to his wife's wife right now but that's only a temporary thing if you want to see a
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Mormon defend polygamy you can go ahead and ask them about it they do believe it's right there in section 132 the
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Doctrine and Covenants is currently on hiatus but of course a Mormon man can be sealed to many women after his death
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Joseph Smith was sealed to at least 80 some -odd women after his death these women will be your wives in the afterlife you bring forth your wife by the power of your priesthood ladies you have no priesthood and therefore you are dependent upon your husband's priesthood for resurrection which is a good reason to be obedient to him think about the and you organize a planet you don't create a planet you organize a planet and you start procreating remember what was that what was one of the powers of God that powers the powers of God are to the priesthood and procreation priesthood and procreation and so you begin having spirit children you have natural carnal relationships in a body of flesh and bone with your wives and they become pregnant and yet for some reason once you're resurrected the children you have are spiritual
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I'm not sure what a spiritual pregnancy would be like but the offspring are spiritual but there's a gestation period the whole nine yards and the woman ladies if you're really thinking possibly about Mormonism might be something you might want to look into keep in mind that in essence what you'd be choosing is an eternity of never seeing your toes again it's okay to laugh it's alright
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I'm serious the woman's role is to have offspring that's what she does
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I had a Mormon man intelligent Mormon man look me right in the eye outside the south gate of the
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LDS temple and say to me that his God has if I recall correctly around 60 billion offspring that's why
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Mormons have large families because they believe it is their duty to provide as many physical bodies for their brothers and sisters who were in the spiritual pre -existence waiting to get a physical body that's why you have large families when
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I when I started teaching a class on Mormonism at the large Southern Baptist Church that I was a member of at the time my wife and I went and I wish she was here for this because I'd like to see her face and I tell the story but we went to Glendale sixth ward won the first Sunday of the month just because I wanted to visit a
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Mormon church and see what it was like and the first Sunday month is called fasting and testimony
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Sunday in Mormonism and what you do is you time during the service they say if anyone has a testimony that they'd like to give of the gospel now it's time to do so and the bishop sits down and we're sitting there we're sitting there nobody's getting up and I sort of look over at Kelly and she looks over at me and goes one of those wifely things we'd only been married for like six months at this point but even then you know what the wifely thing is you know and I didn't that month instead of the the the plot was hatched and the next month she came back with me along with Mike and Linda Bellevaux the four of us were the founders of Alpha Omega Industries and one other person there are five of us and I had memorized a bunch of verses about justification by faith and so when they said it was open
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I didn't just jump up immediately I waited somebody else had gotten up and had given a little testimony so I get up I go down and right as I got up somebody got up on the other side and they beat me to the front so I had to sit down next to the bishop and I'm waiting and the person gets done so I get up now in the
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Mormon Church they don't have even a crying room I mean and there are kids everywhere so there's little urchins crawling around underneath the underneath the pews and there's this low hum roar going on all the time it's just just the way it is so I get up and I say what
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I thank you very much for this opportunity of bearing testimony especially since I'm not a member of the
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LDS Church now I kid you not there were babies going
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I mean kids with paper airplanes freezing in mid mid -motion
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I mean all the babies just free it was it was freaky everything came to a sudden halt in this place and no one's breathing everyone's turning blue it's just the most obviously it never happened there before and so I start talking
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I start down my list of verses about what it means to be justified by faith and so on and so forth I get through about four verses and this thing comes over my shoulder and lands on the pulpit and it's a folded up bulletin this is so long ago that it was one of those remember those blue mimeograph machines you know you come out in all blue and younger people are going oh what but some of you are going
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I remember a mimeograph machine before the photocopier yeah okay and on the back has been written brother white our time is up now
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I had been there a month before I knew exactly how long this thing lasted and it was nowhere near the end
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I was just get getting the bums rush here okay but so I finished up and I go sit down well the line forms on the left every missionary in the congregation is in line and they're all testifying right at me you know and then when that's done as soon as the last no and the organ is played the first counselor is right at the end of our row and says the bishop would like to speak with you okay make a long story short the only reason
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I'm telling you all this story other than it's a rather interesting story is I had some conversations with Bishop Stanley Buell and and on the phone a little bit later at a conversation with him he said by the way that was your wife with you yeah how long
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I've been married about six months is she pregnant no well
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I hope you get to that soon because you're supposed to be having kids that's what
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Mormons do because you got to have kids bring spirit babies into the world they even want us to have kids because that's still spirit babies come in the room they can the world they can send their missionaries and get them converted to so all of that is this whole push
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I mean Mormons don't like single Mormons that's why they have dances and all the rest that stuff they want to get people hooked up and start creating more
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Mormons if you go through all of that if you're sealed married to your wife etc etc when you die you go to the highest level of the celestial kingdom and here's where the language thing comes in again look at see the resurrection here the line coming from the spirit prison we'll get to that in a moment going to the celestial kingdom terrestrial kingdom celestial kingdom all cross that line so does the line coming down from spirit prison we'll explain all those in a few moments that means all those people experience resurrection but only the people in the highest level of celestial kingdom are not damned all the rest those are going to terrestrial celestial they're all damned what they mean by that is they are damned up their progression to the greatest they could be is stopped because at the resurrection only those who go into the highest level of glory their bodies their resurrection bodies have the power of procreation everybody else's body is altered so you can no longer have children that's what damning is another we use the same word means something completely different by now like I said the
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Mormons don't like single Mormons but there have been single Mormons and there have been Mormons who weren't married in the temple so what happens to them what happens to the single
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Mormon if you have not gone to the eternal marriage ceremony when you are resurrected you become an angel so Noah became the angel
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Gabriel I'm not sure how Noah didn't get the message maybe there wasn't a temple nearby
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I don't know what the story was but Joseph Smith taught that Noah became the angel Gabriel by the way
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Joseph Smith taught a number of interesting things he taught that there were inhabitants of the
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Sun who are very tall and dressed like Quakers and he also taught that the the
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Garden of Eden was in Missouri and you in Hawaii are going yeah right and that Noah built the
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Ark in North Carolina and then during the flood floated over to Mount Ararat that's how it got moved over there but it all started in the
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United States okay just so you have that background information now so you have different levels even in the celestial kingdom but to reach the highest you have to have gone through the eternal eternal marriage ceremony so let's look down at this lower section here for some reason people who do not accept the gospel in the spirit prison come out of the spirit prison and they are judged and they are sent to either the terrestrial or the celestial levels of glory
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Joseph Smith said that if you can see the glory of the celestial level which is the lowest level if you can see the glory of that level you would immediately commit suicide to get there it's so glorious so what must the terrestrial and celestial be like they must be just so much greater
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I have had many a Mormon tell me that I'm such a good moral person that I'm gonna make it to the terrestrial level of glory
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I'm not gonna be down the celestial level well I didn't really find a whole lot overly comforting in that because I happen to know that in the celestial level of glory you have your drug pushers and your pimps and your mass murderers and Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan and a few other folks like that so to say you're not gonna be with them isn't all that much of a compliment to be perfectly honest with you but they meant it as a compliment you know
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I don't to kick my cats or my dogs or things like that and so on and so forth so interestingly enough though once very early on in my time witnessing the
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Mormons my friend Mike Beliveau and I had gone up to Salt Lake City and we were tracting outside the members entrance of the of the temple actually it was the members exit as well and so they'd come out and they'd turn they'd see like Mike over there with tracks then they turn and I'm over there with tracks there's no place to go and they're like and they have to walk past us and so we'd be passing out tracks it was a warm day it was in May of I think 1984 if I recall correctly and may have been 83 and I decided
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I need a drink we hadn't brought a bottle bottles of water and like that there's a Howard Johnson's over across West Temple so as I was crossing the street on North Temple and West Temple in Salt Lake City there is this sort of curmudgeonly old
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Mormon guy with his bag and he's walking along and so I decide as I'm walking along to hand him a track and he takes a track and the
01:00:07
Mormons have this genetic thing where they automatically flip it over to the backside to see who wrote it and well it wasn't the
01:00:13
Mormon Church I guarantee you that and he looks at me and he goes go to hell I looked at him to smile and said sir according to your theology
01:00:22
I can't and he was so frustrated because he knew I was right
01:00:28
I mean I had ruined his insult by using his own theology even
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I mean it was just like oh he just wanted to explode the poor little guy it was terrible but the reason
01:00:41
I say that is because we already saw that let's look back at the major graphic here let's tie up a few lines here there is a hell down there it's nice and bright easy to see made it sort of the color of fire and there is a line that comes down and you might wonder why would there be a line because of Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler are going to be in the celestial level of glory who's left well there's a little thin line that comes down from between the
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A and the B there it goes to spirit prison those are apostate Mormons those are
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Mormons who have received a testimony that the LDS Church is true and yet have denied that testimony so they were on their way up and now they've hung a
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U -turn and they go down in the spirit prison and they don't get a chance to go to the celestial or terrestrial kingdom they go down to hell so the only humans who end up in hell are apostate
01:01:41
Mormons but there's another line out on the side there you notice it comes from spirit children down and into hell and it's marked
01:01:51
Satan and the demons and so Satan and the demons according to Mormonism in this world what happened was the
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God of this world is a God named Elohim Elohim is the Hebrew word for God or gods depending on whether it's used in the singular verb or plural verb
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Elohim once lived on another planet and he was a man like you and I and he went through the eternal law of progression and he was sealed to his wives for time and eternity and he proved to be faithful and when he died he was resurrected and he brought his wives and he lives on a planet that circles a star named
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Kolob, K -O -L -O -B, and he began having offspring and the first of his offspring after his resurrection and exaltation was a being named
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Jehovah who is Jesus so Jehovah and Elohim are separate and distinct gods in Mormonism another one of his first earliest offspring was a creature named
01:03:00
Lucifer when there were enough spirit children to begin the process of populating an earth and starting the process all over again
01:03:10
Jehovah presented to all of his offspring in a council
01:03:16
Elohim's plan now in essence in Mormon thought
01:03:21
Jesus and God the father are Arminians and Lucifer is a
01:03:28
Calvinist not by word but the point is that the father's plan represented by Jesus was that everyone be given their own free agency as to whether they would become gods or not
01:03:41
Lucifer came along and said I'll be the savior of this world and I'll force everyone to become a god so you take away their free agency votes taken
01:03:52
Lucifer loses and he gets mad and he goes out and convinces a third of God's spirit children to fight in rebellion against God they lose their cast out of heaven and they become
01:04:07
Satan and the demons now there is another group of of people who didn't fight against God but they did not fight as valiantly and Brigham Young and others said they were not as intelligent in the pre -existence as those who fought valiantly and they are born with a black skin and until June 8th 1978 blacks are not allowed to hold the priesthood in the
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Mormon Church and even when that was rescinded June 8th 1978 the theology was not changed it was just simply rescinded as far as the results of it were concerned so there is a long in fact
01:04:46
Brigham Young taught that the day that the the priesthood was given to the blacks was the day the church went into apostasy so that was
01:04:55
June 8th 1978 if you believe he was a prophet anyway so that's where the
01:05:02
Satan and demons come from but did you notice something about the line the line mark
01:05:08
Satan the demons does not cross the green resurrection line and so there's actually somewhat of a consolation prize for being a former
01:05:19
Mormon who's now an apostate because according to Mormon theology the
01:05:24
Mormon apostates who are in hell will rule and reign over Satan and the demons in hell because they got farther through the process than Satan and the demons did they have their physical bodies but Satan and demons do not so how do we make application to all this well
01:05:45
I asked earlier how many of you were
01:05:52
Trekkies and a couple of you confessed to being Trekkies how many of you younger folks don't remember this but how many of you remember a late 1970s vintage science fiction show called
01:06:07
Battlestar Galactica remember Battlestar Galactica okay not the new
01:06:14
Battlestar Galactica that was on cable that's different but this was this was fun stuff back in the 70s where you didn't have
01:06:24
CGI and so you had actors in really funky looking robot suits who were called
01:06:29
Cylons remember the Cylons and they were sort of walk along they had these eyes you know and they've they've been they're wiping out the human race and and they've destroyed all but a few of the the humans
01:06:44
Battlestars which are these these fighting spaceships sort of look like the
01:06:49
Enterprise but upside down and so they've the the the humans are trying to find their homeworld and survive the
01:06:58
Cylons and sounds like just fun science fiction but if you remember it at all you remember that the humans were led by remember who they were led by yeah
01:07:08
Lorne Green I know but he sold Alpo Adama Adama and Adama ruled over the
01:07:17
Council of the Twelve and Adama and the
01:07:23
Council of the Twelve Adama had a son his firstborn son's called
01:07:29
Apollo he was a dashing young actor you know and once Apollo and his sidekick
01:07:35
Starbuck which obviously was back before they could have been sued for using that name Apollo and Starbuck and some others are captured by these glowing creatures and these creatures say to them as we are as you are we once were and as we are you may become and I remember my uncle
01:08:01
Don was watching this TV show and I thought my uncle
01:08:08
Don had lost his mind because he began quoting scripture verses to the television set before me there is no
01:08:17
God formed and there shall be none after me I'm like oh boy he's lost it over but my uncle
01:08:24
Don was smarter than me the the humans were looking for their homeworld remember their homeworld was called anybody remember it was kobol k -o -b -o -l and the fifth president of the
01:08:42
LDS Church said as man is
01:08:47
God once was and as God is man may become every one of the original authors of Battlestar Galactica were returned
01:08:55
LDS missionaries every one didn't know that did you I look back at it now
01:09:02
I bought it all on iTunes and it's just everywhere the marriage ceremonies everything straight out of Mormonism and we don't we didn't even you know my my
01:09:13
I don't think my uncle Don knew Mormonism well enough to know that but he caught something he said there's something wrong here he sent something and it was fascinating so the the
01:09:22
LDS idea is the God the Father lives on a planet circle star named Kolob this is in the book of Abraham in the
01:09:28
LDS Scriptures his firstborn spirit child Jesus Jesus is not virgin born they will say that Mary was a virgin at the time of conception not birth but the consistent teaching of the
01:09:49
LDS Church has been that God the Father in a physical body begat the body of Jesus with Mary now given that Mary is one of his spirit daughters that causes issues but that's why
01:10:01
Jesus had the ability to take his life back because he had an immortal father and I'll never forget
01:10:07
I was staying at the West Temple of in Salt Lake City West Gate Temple Square has three gates that were open back then now they've put a sort of Southeast gate you can go in and out but the actual
01:10:23
East gate is welded shut because only Jesus is gonna open out when he returns but anyway you had a
01:10:28
North Gate South Gate and the West Gate I happen to be at the West Gate at that particular point in time and people would come across the road and I had learned from a friend of mine named
01:10:38
Wally Tope who by the way was the last person to die in the LA riots years and years ago he was beaten into a coma died 18 months later he had rather unwisely decided to go out and pass out tracks to the people who were looting stores and anyway he had taught me how to pass out tracks and so I knew that you didn't just stand there and go like this that doesn't get much done you needed to walk with somebody have a alliance like that so this guy's coming across and so I step out to meet him and then
01:11:06
I'm moving backwards with him toward the gate so he has time to see the track I have time to say something to him he takes the track and you can sort of see his shoulders go down he stops he's literally standing in the gate he looks at it he turns around he looks at me and he says you know what's wrong with you now
01:11:23
I've had that one a few times there's been a long list of things that came after this
01:11:29
I'm just sort of staying there waiting he said you know what's wrong with you you think sex is dirty now that one
01:11:36
I had not heard before okay that one was like I was left going there are a few times
01:11:42
I'm left without words I was left out words I'm like he says you think sex is dirty you don't think
01:11:48
God the Father could have had sex the Virgin Mary to create the body of Jesus and that's why you're wrong and this is the true church goodbye hands it back to me right and he goes and I'm going oh
01:11:59
I'm glad he I mean I knew what the doctrine was and the consistent teaching of the
01:12:06
LDS Church is that God the Father was for at least a moment legally married one of his own daughters to create the body of Jesus now they'll say they believe in the virgin birth because Mary was a virgin at the time of the conception that's not a miracle it happens the miracle of virgin birth is the miracle that she was a virgin at the time of the birth for crying out loud but there again and I've met some
01:12:29
Mormons who just hate that and in fact some of the BYU professors mocked me for that once we were on a radio station as being an 18th century speculation
01:12:40
I put an entire chapter in my book is the more of my brother documenting from beginning to end the consistent teaching of the
01:12:47
General Authorities the LDS Church right up to the time when those guys were around demonstrating that I was accurately representing
01:12:54
Mormonism and they were engaging in a little bit of deception and chicanery but Jesus is one
01:13:00
God amongst many gods in fact I've had Mormons say that they believe that during the Millennium Jesus could get to marry and have kids and then he gets his own planet because he had to be the
01:13:12
Savior figure of this world so he didn't get a chance to go through the temple and do all the rest that stuff and he'll get a chance to do that and then he'll get to organize his own planet and then he'll be the
01:13:19
God the father of that planet and so that's how it works out you and I are spirit brothers and sisters we have the same
01:13:30
God the father but we have different mothers Mormons will frequently talk about how there will be like two Mormon women that will be really really close to one another and they'll say
01:13:38
I'll bet we had the same spiritual mother and in fact if we went to the local
01:13:44
LDS church around here I'd be able to pull out the
01:13:49
LDS hymnal and find the hymn for you that talks about your heavenly mother it's right there in their in their music and so you and I pre -existed we now are here to be tested and if we prove faithful then we return back in the presence the heavenly father we can organize our own planet we start the process all over again except now you are
01:14:13
God the father to your planet and your offspring will worship you and then they become gods and then their children become gods and and so on and so forth and that's how it keeps happening over and over and over again ok now with that said one many verses come to mind but one in particular that I think is very relevant
01:14:40
Isaiah 29 16 you turn things upside down as if the potter were thought to be like the clay shall what is formed say to him who formed it he did not make me can the pot save the potter he knows nothing that's
01:14:50
Mormonism it's turned everything upside down to where God is an exalted man we have no creator we ourselves are not created and I think it's an excellent description of what you have now how do we share with Latter -day
01:15:07
Saints 10 points and then we'll start taking questions because I imagine you probably have a few the first point is to be patient and the reason
01:15:22
I emphasize that is that leaving Mormonism is not like being a Methodist and becoming a Lutheran it is a long process especially people who are in Utah and places like that can be very influenced by culture
01:15:33
I was talking with one of the pastors here and he had mentioned hearing numbers about the conversion rates back in the 70s 70s and 80s for every one
01:15:46
Mormon who left the Mormon Church became a Baptist 27 Baptist became Mormons so it's 27 to 1 during that same time period the average
01:15:56
Southern Baptist Church had 273 members and in an average week 274 Southern Baptists became
01:16:01
Mormons that's one church wholesale per week those numbers are not as big as they used to be
01:16:06
Mormonism's growth rate is pretty much flat right now in other words it's natural growth they have a lot of kids so you get a lot of baptisms they're still growing but not by the leaps and bounds that they once were and part of this is because Mormonism has somewhat lost its way it's lost its its direction we can discuss some of that a little bit later on anyway it takes patience you know we used to go up to the
01:16:32
General Conference the Mormon Church every six months first weekend April first week in October and we would pass out tracks and witness to people all day
01:16:40
Saturday they're back when we were young we actually drove up Friday night passed out tracks all day Saturday and drove back then we got old and that became dangerous we need this thing called sleep now and you know falling asleep driving through southern
01:16:55
Utah is not it not a good thing during the some some of the canyons down there we would still be doing that I would still be doing that to this day the
01:17:01
Mormons tried to stop us they couldn't you know who stopped us independent fundamentalist King James Only Baptists they started showing up about 2003 street preachers
01:17:11
I call them street screechers because they showed up they're poorly dressed their signs are insulting or just dumb have almost nothing to do with Mormonism and they stand there and these
01:17:22
Mormons are in long lines going into their meeting house and they're very nicely dressed and they're standing there yelling it shouldn't be
01:17:29
Mormon it should be moron and they think that's preaching and of course they poison the atmosphere and the
01:17:37
Mormons aren't gonna differentiate between us and them and so it just it just destroyed it we haven't been there since they started doing the same thing in Mesa because for since 1984 we had been passing out tracks at every single meeting in the
01:17:52
Mesa Easter pageant and that 250 to 250 thousand people attend that each year but then they showed up out there people were getting arrested the
01:18:01
Hawaiian Yards they managed to destroy all of it so anyways we'd still be doing that if it weren't for those particular individuals we started a process in people's lives
01:18:13
I remember a number of years ago we got a phone message at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church and it was a woman in Logan Utah and she was calling and she said a decade ago my husband attended
01:18:27
General Conference and someone gave him a blue book called God's Sovereign Grace I have read that book
01:18:35
I believe what that book says but I can't find anybody else who does could you please help me
01:18:43
I don't know how that happened my little book on God's Sovereign Grace is my defense of reformed theology
01:18:49
I don't even know why I would have had one in Salt Lake City evidently I had one in one of my bags I had given out all my letters to a
01:18:55
Mormon elder or something the book I one of the couple books I've written on Mormonism and maybe the conversation turned that way
01:19:02
I don't know I don't know how it happened but I passed out a copy of this book and here is this guy's wife ten years later calling said
01:19:10
I've read this book but I can't find anyone who believes this so thankfully we were doing their stuff falling out of the heavens again what is this what is this man thankfully
01:19:31
I've been doing debates up in Salt Lake City with the folks who are arranging them were from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in in Salt Lake and so I called them up and they actually started sending someone
01:19:42
Logan is not a suburb of Salt Lake they began sending someone all the way out to Logan to get this woman and to drive her in for services and the result of that was the eventually the founding of a church in Logan and the conversion of the rest of her family and now there is a church in Logan Utah ten years a book distributed doing outreach in Salt Lake City people have the idea that evangelism is you hand somebody the four spiritual laws and boom they're gonna get saved right there if you think that works with Mormons you know the four spiritual laws isn't even designed to communicate with them it's like shooting a .22
01:20:25
at a tank it just bounces off they it doesn't overcome the language barrier in any way shape or form and so you've got to be patient you've got to be aware of the language barrier and you've got to be sensitive to the individual's experience and police the witnesses present a very narrow spectrum of belief there's no question about that but Mormons are much wider especially because of BYU.
01:20:52
BYU is one of the primary influences believe it or not in liberalizing
01:20:57
Mormonism today because they have so much interaction with other viewpoints and tradition they're having a major impact and so for example back when
01:21:06
I first started studying Mormonism I could argue with little kids and they would know what they believed now
01:21:12
I can talk to Mormons and they're clueless I mean they've gone from 3 million to 14 million during that time period they didn't do a really good job in educating the people as those numbers increased and so Mormonism is changing and there's gonna be a wider variety of perspectives back in the old day
01:21:30
Mormon Doctrine by Bruce M. McConkie oh everybody read that and respected that now you've got
01:21:36
I'll find Mormons who disrespected so there is you do need to hear what they're saying and find out if they're really coming from that perspective focus upon the central truths of faith there is only one
01:21:47
God who can save Jesus Christ our creator the all -sufficient Savior and salvation is God's gracious gift who God is what salvation who
01:21:54
Christ is and what salvation is those are your your goals where you're trying to get and once again just as with the
01:22:01
Jehovah's Witnesses if you don't have a goal when you start the conversation you ain't gonna get to it you need to have an idea of where you're going and and how you're gonna get there and therefore when other subjects come up during the conversation you can look at them as just being mere off -ramps and you're always trying to get back on once you get off okay
01:22:24
I have to deal with Joseph Smith Book of Mormon but I'm gonna find a way to get back on and get to my ultimate goal don't argue about polygamy with Mormons it's not gonna get you anywhere it's a dead -end street and as I said before if you are going to say anything about Joseph Smith being a false prophet be ready to back it up I mean put yourself in their position if if if you're sitting at what's the name of the mall on a
01:22:51
Moana that's not whatever it is okay I was close you're sitting in the food court and you've got your
01:22:58
Bible out and some guy walks up to you and says that a Bible yeah you a
01:23:04
Christian yeah well you're in a cult really I read the
01:23:09
Bible no but my brother -in -law showed me a video once now how much credibility is that person have in your mind right now none zero nada we walk up to the
01:23:24
Mormon oh you're a Mormon you're in a cult I read the Book of Mormon no but I saw a movie at church about you once how much credibility do we have in their eyes none and yet that's what we do isn't it so if you're gonna say something about Joseph Smith being a false prophet then be ready to say well for example in section 114 you prophesied the
01:23:46
David W Whitmer and in company with 11 other people including himself as we go on a mission the next spring
01:23:52
David W Whitmer died that that October the other 11 people didn't die and so it's false prophecy and here's the reference to documentary history the church but most people haven't done that reading and can't do that so if you're gonna make sure you've got the material there make sure you can back up what you're saying or your credibility will be will be shot so stay on stay on the important central truths of faith if I never had to talk about Joseph Smith again
01:24:18
I my life would be complete but sometimes I have to address the first vision of Joseph Smith or the the frauds of the
01:24:27
Book of Mormon or false prophecies or contradictions in the Doctrine and Covenants or the wild zaniness of the book of Abraham oh wow that is the weirdest element of the
01:24:37
LDS scriptures is the book of Abraham which Joseph Smith claimed he translated from Egyptian papyri found in a mummy well that was great because at the time
01:24:45
Joseph Smith claimed that only about three people on the planet could read Egyptian then
01:24:51
Joseph Smith died and the papyri disappeared until about 1965 and then they found him and guess what we can read
01:25:01
Egyptian now and Joseph Smith never got a word right I mean he took he took the the word for moon and translated into like 76
01:25:12
English words I mean he just never he did well he did take the definite article the and the was in his translation amongst about 46 other words but you know
01:25:21
I suppose we should give him credit for that but I mean there's just so much stuff you can deal with that kind of stuff but you got to have the background you got to have the documentation you have to have it either on your iPad your iPhone your droid whatever to show people
01:25:34
I used to carry along I used to carry around a notebook that was this thick just filled with photocopies we called the
01:25:42
Mormon missionary master and I mean it was just had everything in it now you could put all that under a jump drive and you know it doesn't look nearly as impressive and doesn't help you do curls and stuff like that but it's you could do that make sure that you can back up what you're saying be prepared to share why you accept the
01:25:57
Bible is the perfect authoritative Word of God why because of the eighth article of faith in the Mormon Church which says we accept the
01:26:03
Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly what does that mean to a Mormon depends on the
01:26:08
Mormon you're talking to I talked to a Mormon woman once outside the Arby's that used to be at the corner near the
01:26:14
Mesa temple I went through a bunch of verses Isaiah 43 10 44 6 and 8 45 5 to 6 that talked about the fact there's only one true
01:26:21
God and she didn't say anything and I said well what do you think she said they're all mistranslated really do you read
01:26:28
Hebrew no I read a books of dealing nope how do you know they're mistranslated because they they disagree with what the church teaches now there's someone who you know you can see what their ultimate authority is you'll find a whole range of infection amongst
01:26:42
Mormons I mean the Book of Mormon says that many plain and precious truth has been removed from the Bible and the eighth article of faith says we accept the
01:26:49
Book of Mormon to be the Word of God it doesn't put a unless it's not translated correctly it's considered to be perfect it's only the
01:26:56
Bible that as far as it is translated correctly is added in so the first people that I had to deal with attacking the deficiency of the
01:27:05
Bible were the Mormons not not atheists avoid side issues that lead to blind alleys as I said polygamy things like that if pre -existing belief in Joseph Smith notice church stands in the way make sure you back up any statements you make when dealing with Smith of the church
01:27:20
I guess I already covered that don't get in over your head utilize support systems make sure the elders know what you're doing if you're going off to witness to Mormon someplace or something along those lines don't jump on your white horse and try to save the world share positive challenging
01:27:35
Christian literature don't just give them books against Mormonism give them good books on the nature of God I I gave a
01:27:45
Mormon in Salt Lake once RC Sproul's book on the attributes of God found out later he used it in his
01:27:50
Ward Chapel meetings great do it I'm not sure how you can put the two together but hey why not and number 10 live the
01:28:00
Christian life not just in being kind and compassionate but in living a holy godly life not because you have to but because you love
01:28:07
God and wish to bring him glory in other words the Book of Mormon says there are saved two churches the church and lamb the church of the devil
01:28:13
I'll let you guess which was a church lamb and that leaves us with the church of the devil and so you if you live a
01:28:21
Christian life or a walking talking contradiction to the teachings the LDS Church and so obviously there needs to be a consistency between what you say and what you do and how you live and that certainly is what the