The Law of Eternal Progression in LDS Theology

This is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And good afternoon and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is indeed James White and as per our announcement last week, this week, we will be focusing upon a presentation, a

PowerPoint presentation that a number of you have downloaded and requested on the

LDS Law of Eternal Progression. The Eternal Law of Progression, or is it the

Law of Eternal Progression? Well, that's something we'll probably get into. For those of you who are used to calling in and having various and sundry topics, we are only going to be discussing the subject of Mormonism today.

And in fact, we will probably open the phones about an hour from now and probably start taking some calls about ten minutes after the hour of three o 'clock here in the

Phoenix area, the last about 20 minutes or so. I don't know that I will actually finish dealing with the issue of the

Eternal Law of Progression today. We have plenty of time. There's no reason to rush. But if you do have questions concerning what is presented today, then feel free to call in that last half hour and we will put you on the air.

And I would encourage you to do that. Don't let especially this foundational, fundamental level type information go by or leave you in confusion.

I think we need to allow folks to ask questions because sometimes, you know,

I've presented this many, many times and sometimes someone who has presented things many times might actually assume something is understood when in point of fact it is not.

So feel free, please, to call in at 866 -854 -6763.

866 -854 -6763. Starting at about an hour from now, at the top of the hour, when we take that top of the hour break, and that way we can handle your phone calls as well.

Now those of you who have downloaded the presentation, you've received the presentation from my system, you might want to open it up and look with us.

What I will do in essence is I will simply let you know when you need to click the presentation to move to the next slide so that you can stay with me where we are in the

PowerPoint presentation. So it's for those of you who aren't looking at it, it may be somewhat annoying to hear click.

I was actually going to come up with a sound. I suppose I still could come up with a little wave sound I could play, but there's really no reason to do that.

But if you will open up the file to the first slide today, let me give you a little background and then we will get started.

The reason, of course, that we would be taking time right now to present the

LDS Law of Eternal Progression comes from something I think

I mentioned last week, and that was the fact that when I first started studying Mormonism, I was overwhelmed by the breadth of information that I felt

I needed to master. It was actually very discouraging, and I know it has been discouraging to other people as well, to attempt to keep track, in essence, of all the information that one would have to master in regards to such things as the

Book of Abraham, and the Book of Mormon, and false prophecies of Joseph Smith, and the writings of Joseph Smith, and the

Doctrine and Covenants, and the teachings contained there, and all of the ancient history of Mesoamerica in regards to the

Book of Mormon, and the theology of Mormonism in regards to the structure of the church, and all the rest of that stuff.

That would be a very daunting task, and many people who seem to feel that they have to do that end up figuring, you know what?

There's just too much here. We're not going to get into it. What I'm trying to do in this particular presentation is to sort of get past all of that.

There's nothing wrong in knowing about the Book of Mormon. There's nothing wrong in knowing about the Book of Abraham. Those things are fine, but first things first.

The first thing that a Christian needs to be able to do in sharing with the Mormon person is to give a reason for the hope that's within us, and so that means we need to be able to communicate the gospel, and here's the key, to the

Mormon in a language that they can understand. The biggest problem that Christians have in dealing with Mormons is scaling the language barrier.

And so what I try to do in this fairly short presentation, it's only 27 slides as I'm looking at here, is to provide to the people to whom

I'm presenting it what I call the universal translator, a graphic that comes along later on in the presentation that allows you to grasp hold of the central elements of the

LDS theology concerning God, and if you understand that, then this can function to, in essence, allow you to interpret what the

Mormon is saying and translate your own words into language that will be understandable to them.

It will allow you to place the proper emphasis upon those areas where the

Mormon theology, even though it uses the same language, is fundamentally contradictory to the

Christian belief, the biblical revelation of God and Jesus Christ found in Scripture.

And so that's what we're trying to do, give you the central aspects, and then once you've got that down, you can share the gospel with a

Mormon, certainly, and then as time goes by, you can expand your knowledge of other areas, always, of course,

I would insist, using those other areas as a tool to come back to the presentation of who

God is, who Christ is, and what the gospel is. Those are the things that you are always attempting to get to sharing with the

Mormon person. Everything else, whether it's false prophecies of Joseph Smith or anything else, needs to be looked at as tools, means of getting through to the

Mormon person, getting past the various barriers that the falsehood of Mormonism sets up, and reaching them with those important things that they need to understand and need to be able to deal with.

So with that in mind, looking at the first slide in the PowerPoint presentation, one more time, if you haven't gotten it, you can send an email to NA27 at AOMIN .org,

and in the subject line, and it was amazing the number of different permutations of this simple subject line

I got this week. I mean, I should have kept all of them, because it is a demonstration of no matter how clearly you say something, somebody's not gonna listen.

In the subject line, you type Request 1A. That's capital

R, then small case, e -q -u -e -s -t, space, the letter 1, and the capital letter

A. I got every possible variant of that. I got all capital

Request, space 1A. I got all capital Request, no space, 1 small a.

I got capital A's and small a's. I got spaces and no spaces. I got capitalized

R's and non -capitalized R's. You name it, I got it. It was very, very funny. So anyways,

Request 1A in the subject line. My system will then turn that around. In fact, I just received a request even as we speak for this particular...

In fact, a couple folks have requested it, even while we're doing the webcast right now, and I will process them and get them out to you even as we click the button and send them out right then.

They're on their way back to you, so thank you for doing that. Now, the first the first slide.

The first few sections are taken from a book that you can obtain at the

LDS bookstore. It is a book that is copyright 1992 by the

Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. Why do I note that? Because that indicates that it is published by the church specifically for her own people.

This is the Mormon leadership publishing material to be distributed and taught to its own people.

This isn't some quote -unquote anti -Mormon book. This is an official

LDS book. It's not canon scripture. Obviously, it's not canon scripture, but it represents the understanding of Mormon theology by the leadership of the church.

Now, those of you who have the PowerPoint presentation, I've already fixed this in the one that's currently being sent out to people, but you'll notice in that first one it says pages 1 through 2.

Actually, it's section 1. What you need to change is pages 4 through 5. I'm sorry about that. I only discovered that last evening, and I've already made that correction.

Those who want to have the exact right page, it's pages 4 through 5. You can make that change and then just save the file.

Now, why start with this? Because I have not found anywhere else in material published by the church that is specifically...

It's still modern. 1992 is less than a decade ago. It's still being used. I have never found a clearer presentation of the fundamental difference between the

God of Mormonism and the God of the Bible. Here, at the very beginning of a student manual that would be used to teach the worthy young Mormon man and his soon -to -be bride the meaning of celestial marriage.

We have some of the clearest teaching of the most fundamental difference between Mormonism and Christianity.

What is said in just these few paragraphs forever separates

Mormonism from biblical Christianity until the Latter -day

Saint prophet comes out and says what we taught in words such as these was abject, absolute heresy.

There can be no reproachment between Mormonism and Christianity. The two are absolutely contradictory systems.

Now, those are strong words, but let's listen to what is said. Here in Achieving a

Celestial Marriage student manual, we read God was once a man who by obedience advanced to his present state of perfection.

Through obedience and celestial marriage we may progress to the point where we become like God.

That is the main title. Next slide says Proclaiming the divine potential within man,

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 B .H. Roberts stated, by the way, both Taylor and Roberts, well -known early Mormon leaders, general authorities of the

LDS church. Elder B .H. Roberts stated, man has descended from God.

In fact, and listen to this very closely, he is the same race as the gods.

Notice the capitalization of G for gods and the presence of the word

S. I cannot tell you how many times I talk especially with young LDS people outside the temple in Mesa who do not know this.

That's just simply because they haven't been taught it yet. But here you have the phrase, in fact, he, man, is the same race as the gods.

Keep that in mind because this is the fundamental difference between the LDS view of God and man, the difference between that and the

Christian view. I continue. 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.

Next slide reads, can you see the implications of these two statements as they relate to you and to your eternal destiny?

Elder James E. Talmadge did. He declared, and this is a quotation from Articles of Faith, one of the classics of LDS theology, certainly.

Talmadge writes, in his mortal condition, man is God in embryo.

Man is God in embryo. However, any individual, now a mortal being, may attain the rank and sanctity of Godship.

Articles of Faith, page 529. Now, 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.

I'd like to note, just for those of you who are familiar, especially with LDS apologists, just in passing, that it is very frequent that farms and other groups will criticize individuals such as myself for quoting non -official sources like the

Articles of Faith or things like that. And yet when the Mormon church writes for its own people, they don't have any problem doing that at all.

There is a tremendous double standard involved in many LDS apologists and how they respond to these issues.

Next slide, please. Points to ponder. Notice the subtitle,

God became God by obedience to law. And let me remind you, if you're just coming in at this point, we are reading here from an

LDS church manual, Achieving a Celestial Marriage, page 4, right at the beginning of what every worthy

Mormon man and woman who want to be sealed in the temple for time and eternity, this is the subject that they, this is the material that they would be studying.

This is LDS material written for LDS. Points to ponder. God became

God by obedience to law. Now just in passing, obviously, therefore, law pre -exists

God. And God therefore becomes a position and not a person.

The person of Elohim and Mormonism attain the status of godship by obedience to law is the

LDS perspective, obviously very, very different from the biblical presentation as we shall see.

Now I continue in my reading. 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

God, and of what that meant in terms of our own exaltation. Please note in passing again that in LDS terminology, therefore, means the process of becoming

God. God himself has been exalted and we, being of the same species as God, can be exalted as well.

I continue the reading. Finally, he spoke. Next slide. 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 Doctrine and Covenants puts it, eternal lives.

In other words, an eternal increase of posterity. Now this will become a little clearer later on, but please note that change of the biblical phrase eternal life to eternal lives, one of the many, many biblical phrases brought into Mormonism and given a pagan meaning.

A pagan meaning. I do not apologize for using that term because it's perfectly accurate. It is a pagan meaning to associate the phrase eternal life with the idea that the power of God is made up of the power of the priest and the power of procreation.

That the ability to procreate spirit children is in some way, shape, or form a part of the very definition of God himself.

That's Greek with mythology. That's Roman mythology. That is the paganism of the

African bush people, not biblical Christianity. An eternal increase of posterity is the phraseology used here.

Click to the next slide, please. Then what you're saying is that God became

God by obedience to the gospel program, which culminates in eternal marriage.

And before going on, please note the gospel program. We hear often of the fact that Mormons talk about the gospel, but here we understand what the gospel program is.

What is it? It's how God becomes God. Not how our eternal creator.

Redeems in Jesus Christ. Instead, we have the gospel program, meaning the means of exaltation to godhood.

Subtitle, through obedience to law, we can become like our father in heaven.

Yes. Do you realize the implications of this doctrine as far as you are concerned? Next slide.

I think so. If God became God by obedience to all of the gospel law, with the crowning point being the celestial law of marriage, then that's the only way

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.

Next slide. You mean we have always been governed by law? Now, please make special note of the next paragraph.

I am currently in the process of writing a tract based upon the incredible statements that are found in the next paragraph, which reads, always you are an eternal being.

You were never created and you cannot be destroyed.

But you can advance, progress, and develop by obedience. My goodness.

I have to stop there. Not only is the next line very, very strange, but that paragraph encapsulates the most fundamental heresy of Mormonism.

That is the lie of the Garden of Eden. Fundamentally, every element of sin is a denial of our created nature.

If we truly understood that we are the pots and God is the potter, that every heartbeat that is ours, that every breath we take comes from the hand of God, then we would recognize that sin, the rebellion against the one who sustains us, is insanity.

It's insanity. And so to tell someone you were never created is to present a fundamental denial of the

Christian faith. There is no way that the phrase, you were never created, can be fit into Biblical Christianity or any form of Christianity whatsoever.

You are an eternal being. You were never created and you cannot be destroyed, despite the fact that the

Lord Jesus said, fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. Seemingly, that does not have the same element of weight in the

LDS faith as well the teachings of the prophets and apostles of Mormonism. One more time, always, you are an eternal being.

And please note, if man's an eternal being, God's an eternal being, well, man and God are the same species.

Doctrine and Covenants section 93 verse 29 says man was in the beginning with God. Here we have the same thing you have with Shirley MacLaine walking down the beach saying,

I am God, I am God, I am God. This is simple paganism.

And again, I'm not being mean to say that, this is paganism. It's simple identification of a completely different form of teaching.

There is no way to parallel this belief with anything in Christianity.

So you're an eternal being, you were never created, and you cannot be destroyed, but you can advance, progress, and develop by obedience.

Then Hamlet's question, to be or not to be, is not the question. Right, not in the ultimate sense, at least.

Order means law, and that law is the law of the celestial kingdom. Any who come unto that kingdom must obey that law.

And then there's the citation of Doctrine and Covenants 88 verses 24 through 29.

Next slide. But I thought Godhood meant freedom. If I have to do things to become

God, am I really free? You have got it wrong. It was the

Savior who said, if you continue in my word, that is, obey the law, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Well, there is a fascinating quote -unquote interpretation. 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 be a God only if I act like God.

Let that sink in for a moment and go to the next slide. 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?

Now, let me just stop for a moment, because at this point, we're almost reaching overload—heresy overload,

I would call it. Listen to that. Can you imagine the state of the universe if imperfect gods, small g, were allowed to spawn their imperfections throughout space?

I was presenting this to a seminary class, and one of my students said, excuse me, but do the

Mormons like L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, too? And it was a good question, because here you have the almost science fiction -like element of Mormonism's teaching of God as an alien man from another planet, or gods spawning in space in an

LDS publication designed specifically for their own people.

It's incredible. I continue on. I guess that would be pretty disastrous, but I'm not sure

I see why celestial marriage becomes the crowning apex of this progression. Marriage doesn't seem directly related to the creation of the universes.

Please note, universes— why do

I say that? Universes, plural. You say, wait a minute, there's only one universe. Many Mormons attempt to get around the clear teaching of Scripture that there is only one true

God by saying, well, that's just for this universe. You see, there are many universes, and those many universes are populated with these unlimited number of exalted beings.

Truly amazing stuff. Next slide. Oh, but don't be limited by your mortal perspective.

God himself has declared his own reasons for existing. Remember he said, for this is my work and my glory.

I see his purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Moses 1 .39,

the young Mormon responds. I would just note in passing, we have again an example of the religions of men that is

God's purpose defined on the basis of man rather than man's purpose defined on the basis of God.

Is that not the very essence of human religion over against the divinely revealed

Christian faith? It most definitely is. I continue on. Which involves giving birth to spirit children and setting them on the road to exaltation.

And if that is to be done, you must have an exalted man and an exalted woman, the other man responds.

Next slide. An exalted man and woman who have been joined together in an 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 God's. Now I understand celestial marriage is the crowning ordinance of the gospel.

Right, I said with a smile and with that comment, I think we can end the discussion. Well, I guess that's why

Noah Noah didn't become a god. Joseph Smith taught that Noah became

Gabriel, the angel. Gabriel, I guess that means that Noah did not enter into the eternal covenant of marriage and the celestial marriage, so on and so forth.

And because he became an angel. So single Mormons at death who do not enter into the celestial marriage covenant become angels and do not become gods.

Amazing stuff. How did it all come about? How are we to understand it? Well, we're going to go to the next slide, but first we're going to be taking our break and coming back.

If you haven't gotten hold of this material, now's the time to do it. Drop me an email, ne27 at aomin .org.

Request 1a in the subject line. We'll be right back. Answering those who claim that only the

King James Version is the Word of God. James White in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true

Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations old and new and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.

You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin

.org. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with us this coming Lord's Day. Our morning

Bible study begins at 9 30 a .m, and our worship service is at 10 45. Evening services are at 6 30 p .m

on Sunday and Wednesday prayer meeting is at 7. We are located at 3805

North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 26 Grace or look us up on the web at www .prbc

.org. And welcome back to Dividing Line, my name is

James White. I have made sure to send out all of the requests that have been sent to me.

They have been processed so far. We've had we're up to, let's see, how many have we we've had? Like seven since the program started.

So I'm trying to keep up with them and to talk to you at the same time. So it has gone out your direction and hopefully we'll get to you as soon as possible.

If you are just getting it, we are currently on slide number 13. Slide number 13 is where we are and when you bring slide number 13 up, you will see a graphic and I have jokingly said a number of times, those of you who have a problem with Amway, don't panic when you see it because it looks a little bit like an

Amway presentation, but it is not. This is a graphic that I developed and yes,

I could probably do a lot more with it than what you've got here. This was actually a graphic from a

Word document and I quickly, just a few weeks ago, threw it into a into a

PowerPoint presentation just because I didn't like continuing to use the Word document. So there's stuff underlined and things like that, but it communicates the material well enough.

This graphic is what I call the universal translator. That is, if you can grasp what this is saying, if you can grasp it and understand it, then you can probably convert or translate the language of many a

Mormon with whom you're speaking, assuming, and I should make this statement, assuming the

Mormon with whom you speak is orthodox and understandable.

They may not be communicating to you well. If they're orthodox, if they are knowledgeable and if they're communicating in an understandable way, then this will help you to speak with them.

Obviously, a Mormon who either has some, shall we say, rebellious attitude in them, some unorthodox ideas, or a

Mormon who maybe is a new convert to the church. Remember, Mormonism, the

Mormon missionaries will get you into the baptismal tank on the absolute minimum amount of information necessary.

They'll get you into the baptismal tank on the absolute minimal amount of information that is necessary.

So if they don't have to explain all this to you, they won't. I've met many a

Mormon missionary who couldn't have given you the presentation that I can give you.

They could not have created this chart and explained it, not because there's anything wrong with the chart, but because they just simply didn't know.

And so this is derived from the orthodox Mormon perspective. That is the perspective that is taught by the

LDS hierarchy itself. There's nothing in here that is any way, shape, or form contradictory to what you would find in the manuals of the church that we, for example, the one we just saw.

What we just read fully substantiates exactly what we have here in this particular graphic.

So, looking at this first one, once you bring it up, if you will click upon it, you will see that a red box appears and goes around a particular section of the graphic.

To make it a little bit easier, especially in public presentations, I need to expand it out.

I mean, you obviously on your screen could zoom in on if you want to do things like that, but the box will tell you what section we're going to look at.

So, if you click again and go to the 14th slide in the presentation, you will see an expansion, a blow -up of the upper left -hand corner.

Now, the eternal law of progression is a cycle. And a cycle is like a circle, and as such, you have to, if you're going to explain a circle, you have to sort of start somewhere.

And so, we are starting, and for a little bit you're gonna have to, especially we get to the subject of spirit children, just gonna have to trust me as to where they come from, because when we get to the end of the circle, where we sort of plug back in, you'll see where spirit children come from.

But the first box that you see on the 14th slide of the presentation has two words in it, intelligences and matter.

Intelligences and matter. Now, these are the two eternal things in Mormonism.

There's one third possibility that I'll mention to you in a moment, but these are the two eternal things in Mormonism.

Well, what is an intelligence? An intelligence is basically the essence of an individual mind.

It's not a spirit. An intelligence is placed into a spirit child.

So an intelligence is the essence of a mind, I guess would be the best way to put it.

You will find many Mormons who will struggle mightily to put it into words what it is, and in fact, to be honest with you,

I would say that many Mormons don't even believe in an intelligence, either because they just have problems with the idea, or just simply haven't been haven't been trained in the teachings of their leaders.

But this is why the presentation we read earlier could say you are an eternal being.

You were never created because your intelligence has always existed. And so our intelligence has always existed, and God's intelligence has always existed, and obviously at some point in time, our intelligence and God's intelligence exists at the same level of exaltation.

So I would submit that there was a point in time in the past when we were equal to God as intelligences, that God had not yet begun to progress through the eternal law of progression.

Neither had we. Therefore, at some point, I believe it is inevitable that the

Mormon position leads to the idea that we and the God of this planet were absolutely equal on an ontological basis.

So intelligences are eternal. They cannot be created. God cannot create intelligences.

God cannot create spirits. He can only beget spirits. In fact, Joseph Smith said that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all.

Intelligence are eternal and matter is eternal. Matter is eternal, you ask?

Yes, matter is eternal. Matter is not created by God. Mormon apologists like to attack the

Christian doctrine of creation out of or into nothing. They deny to God the capacity to say let there be light.

They deny to God the capacity to say let there be mountains, and there are mountains.

These are things that God simply cannot do in Mormonism.

One of the fundamental differences between the God of Christianity and the

God of Mormonism. Now, please note something. And for those of you continuing to request,

I have fulfilled all requests that I've received thus far. So if you haven't gotten anything, you sent it to the wrong address because I have not,

I have received and responded to all requests for the presentation thus far during the program.

So some folks are mentioning that in the chat channel. I thought I would mention that in in passing. Let me note that in Mormon theology, spirits are made of matter as well.

It's just, to use their term, a more refined form of matter. Hence, it is invisible to the physical eye.

Okay, so all things work along those lines. Now, you will notice the red arrow going down from intelligences and matter to the area of spirit children.

Now, where spirit children come from, this is where you're going to have to allow for me to say, well, spirit children come from celestial parents.

Celestial parents come from the end of this process. So this is sort of the point where we plug in.

So spirit children are born to celestial parents. Now, since spirit children in essence are made of a more refined form of matter, then as a result, they grow.

The idea is that a spirit being, a spirit child, will have a spiritual form that is recognizable to other spirits.

And that spirit child will grow. That spirit child will learn.

That spirit child will be educated, etc, etc. So, in essence, the

LDS belief is that before we came to this planet, or before God himself came to the planet where he lived as a mortal man, he lived in a spiritual pre -existence, and we lived in a spiritual pre -existence.

And how long we lived? Well, for many, many years. We're not talking just a few years.

It could be literally thousands and thousands and thousands of years that we live in this spiritual realm as children of our heavenly father.

The terminology that Mormons would use. Now, if you click on that particular slide, go to number 15, you again see the major graphic, the full graphic, the

Eternal Law of Progression. If you click again, a square will appear that goes around the central portion of the graphic from spirit children down to mortal probation over to baptism for the dead, so on, so forth, on slide number 15.

And if you click again and go to slide 16, you will see that section becomes blown up from spirit children down to the mortal probation.

A large red arrow goes from spirit children down to the mortal probation, and that is the period of time in which we are living now.

Unless those after death are somehow capable of receiving web broadcasts, everyone listening to this program is in the mortal probation, with the exception of one man in our chat room who can't spell anything whatsoever and is wonky.

So other than him, everybody else is in their mortal probation. Now, the very term probation speaks to what we are referring to as this testing.

Many Mormons will say that, well, you see, we've been placed into our bodies now so that we can be tested to see if we're going to be faithful enough to return back into the presence of our

Heavenly Father. And so the mortal probation is a period of testing. Now, someone might immediately ask, well, if we existed as spirit children and only now are entering into the mortal probation, uh, why don't we remember the spiritual pre -existence that came before us?

Generally, the answer that is given today and again, I would point out that the answer that has been given has changed over the years tremendously, but the answer that is generally given today is that the memory is supernaturally removed from us so that we could be able to be tested fairly.

I mean, if you could remember the spiritual pre -existence, if you could remember being with God, if you could remember the discussions that took place of what was going to happen during the mortal probation, um, doesn't exactly become a time of testing.

So most today would say, well, uh, that memory is simply removed so that we can be fairly tested.

Now, it is interesting that the, how would I describe this? The, well, what word should

I use here? The story that was told amongst Mormons, you know, when

Mormon mama, uh, would sit down with Mormon chillens uh, in 1895 in Utah and talk about these things and talk about the mortal probation.

Mormon mama would teach Mormon children, uh, that the reason we don't remember is because, well, you need to understand, you were a big spirit and you were a tall spirit.

And when you put a big six foot tall spirit into a little itty bitty baby, the shock causes you to for, to lose your memory.

That's, uh, what was, uh, taught for quite some time. Not officially, but as, uh, the around the fire with Mormon mama and Mormon, Mormon kiddies, uh, explanation.

The, uh, the chillens, uh, as someone just said in the chat room. So, uh, that's why you lose the memory of that.

Now, if you look at the, um, uh, the two arrows that lead from mortal probation, there is a small purple arrow going upwards to paradise.

And then a larger orange arrow going down to the spirit prison. The small purple arrow represents the path out of the mortal probation taken by faithful Mormons.

And next to the purple arrow is an A and a B. If you click on the slide again, going to number 17, 17, you will see what

A and B stand for. A and B stand for the four fundamentals of the gospel and for continued obedience to gospel rules and principles.

A, A is, you might want to make a note of that.

I should probably, uh, put that into the presentation someplace. Faith, repentance, baptism, and laying on of hands.

Those are the four fundamentals of the gospel. They cannot be skipped or compromised for anyone who desires to enter into celestial glory.

To enter into the highest level of exaltation, to enter into the celestial kingdom at all, even as an angel, you must experience the four fundamentals of the gospel.

Faith, repentance, baptism, and laying on of hands. Now, what do those words mean? Well, again, every word that is used in Mormonism that is also used in Christianity must be examined to see if it bears the same meaning.

And in 99 % of the time, it does not. So when you ask about faith, faith in what?

Well, faith in Jesus Christ. Well, we will see Jesus Christ is certainly different, tremendously different, uh, than the

Jesus Christ of the Bible. Uh, faith is not a gift, as it is in scripture.

Faith has a wider subject, because it would include faith in the prophethood of Joseph Smith, the

Book of Mormon, uh, the modern leadership of the church, et cetera, et cetera, uh, et cetera.

Repentance. Well, repentance from what? Mormon theology does not have a true doctrine of man's sin.

Mormons do believe that men commit acts of sin, but the idea that man is a sinner by nature, and that man is dead in sin, enslaved to sin, is simply not a part of LDS consciousness.

We, in fact, have a tract we pass out called No Man Is Able, and it is amazing to watch the

LDS response to that tract, because it is just so foreign to the

Mormon concept. In fact, uh, the Book of Mormon teaches us that Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy.

And the fall of Adam brings joy to man. It is taught that Adam, in his spiritual pre -existence, had agreed with the, uh, with Elohim, that he would undertake certain, uh, activities, and that in point of fact, he had agreed to be placed in a situation where he would have to fall that he would have to fall.

That is, he would be placed in a situation where there would be two conflicting commands brought against him.

Those two conflicting commands were do not eat of the tree, A, and B, uh, be fruitful and multiply.

Be fruitful and multiply. He was going to be placed into a situation where those two commands would come into conflict, and Mormons believe that he chose the right way.

That the fall of Adam was chosen before he ever entered into the mortal probation.

So, with that, uh, in mind, you can imagine that the meaning of the word repentance is significantly different, uh, than the

Christian understanding of that particular word. Now, let me stop for just a moment and mention that in about 10 minutes, we'll start taking your phone calls 866 -854 -6763.

866 -854 -6763. Uh, if you have questions about Mormonism, especially if you have, uh, questions concerning what

I've said up to this point, if you'd like to expand upon something that's been said, please feel free to call. But I'll take general

Mormon questions, uh, if, uh, we need to. Uh, 866 -854 -6763.

We'll start taking phone calls in about eight minutes. You might want to write that number down, um, and, uh, call in at that time, uh, so that we can talk with you live today here on the, uh, web broadcast.

Still getting requests for the, uh, presentation even as we speak. I just, uh, processed another one for Christopher out there, uh, and, uh, actually, that's the second one for Christopher.

I'm not sure why he requested it twice, but hey, uh, it has been sent out, and, uh, Andy and Adam and so on and so forth, uh, even

Dan Parker, our Jehovah's Witness friend is out there. Hi, it's me, Dan Parker. Hi, Dan.

How you doing? Nice to have you, uh, listening today. Uh, isn't it interesting that we would be sending a presentation on Mormonism to a

Jehovah's Witness? Well, hey, you know, a little bit for everybody. Faith and repentance. Now, baptism and laying on of hands.

Baptism, as it is defined as one of the four fundamentals of the gospel, must be performed by someone holding minimally, minimally, the

Aaronic priesthood. Now, I remember, uh, being asked once to go to speak to a, uh, uh, group of high school students, and some

Mormons came, and when I mentioned that, one of the Mormons said, uh -uh, uh -uh, it's got to be the

Melchizedek priesthood, and I reasoned with them, and finally they admitted, oh, okay, yeah, you're right. Minimally, you have to hold the

Aaronic priesthood to baptize, but in the vast majority of cases, those who officiate at baptisms hold both the

Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, but technically, uh, the minimum authority required for baptism is the

Aaronic priesthood. Now, obviously, the Aaronic priesthood is only found within the

Mormon church. Allegedly, in 1829, John the Baptist came back and gave the

Aaronic priesthood to Joseph Smith. I say allegedly because Joseph Smith, uh, did not, uh, claim this priesthood concept until long after the founding of the

Mormon church, April 6, 1830. That's something that I think Mormons need to, uh, recognize, is that there is a fundamental problem that, uh, exists in the history of Mormonism.

There are many fundamental problems, but most of them are unknown to your average Mormon with whom you're going to be speaking. So, baptism must be by immersion, and baptism, uh, must be performed in such a way, that is done by someone holding the

Aaronic priesthood. So, all Christian baptisms are invalid from the

LDS perspective. They do not fulfill the requirement, uh, for the individual to enter into paradise and enter into the celestial kingdom.

If you've been baptized by immersion, that may be close, but no cigar. As they say, it will not get you into the celestial kingdom.

Then, the fourth fundamental of the gospel is laying on of hands to receive the Holy Ghost. Now, you may say, why did you say

Holy Ghost? In Mormonism, uh, many Mormons do differentiate between Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit.

Realize that Mormonism has expanded at a tremendous speed over the past couple of decades, and as a result, you have a lot of converts to Mormonism who, uh, aren't fully up to speed in the terminological things, and there will be some

Mormons who do not differentiate, uh, between Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit, uh, but many

Mormons do. Mormon leaders in the past certainly have. Be that as it may, the laying on of hands to receive the

Holy Ghost must be performed by an elder. That is someone holding minimally the

Melchizedek priesthood. Now, the Melchizedek is the greater priesthood, though technically, the

Aaronic priesthood is a lesser portion of the Melchizedek priesthood, but the Melchizedek priesthood is what makes someone an elder.

And when you see those, uh, young men riding around on their, uh, 10 speeds, uh, or more than that today, uh, their, uh, 16 speeds, their 18 speeds, their 20 speeds, whatever it is, um, the, uh, uh, elders that come to your door that are 19 years old that are not your elder in any way, shape, or form, the term elder is used of a person who holds the

Melchizedek priesthood. A man who holds the Melchizedek priesthood. Sorry, ladies, but Mormonism is very much a patriarchal system, and, uh, this priesthood authority issue is only relevant, uh, to the males and not to the females.

They cannot hold, uh, either of those priesthood authorities. So, laying on of hands to receive the

Holy Ghost, and again, this should really be the gift of the Holy Ghost. Why? Because in Mormonism, the

Holy Ghost is limited in time and space. In fact, the differentiation between the two generally falls along these lines, that the

Holy Ghost is one of the spiritual offspring of God the

Father, which makes sense. If Jesus is one of the offspring of Elohim, then the

Holy Ghost could be one of the offspring of God the Father. And the Holy Ghost, therefore, is limited in time and space.

It dwells on, in a particular place, a particular time. So, a person is not then indwelt by the

Holy Ghost in Mormonism. Instead, this is where the difference frequently comes in.

The Holy Spirit is frequently seen as the influence or light of the

Holy Ghost. In fact, if you read a very common book, called,

A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, by LeGrand Richards, a very, very popular

LDS book, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, by LeGrand Richards, he uses the illustration of the sun coming into the room.

And he would say, well, we speak of the sun coming into the room, the sun being in the room, when in point of fact, it is simply shining through the window, and it's many, many, many, many miles, you know, millions and millions of miles away.

In the same way, then, the Holy Spirit coming into our lives is not the

Holy Spirit indwelling us, but is instead the influence of the Holy Ghost sending out his rays, the

Holy Spirit, to guide and direct us. Okay? That would be the understanding of that.

Someone by the nick of devil just came in the room, and unless someone warns me in just a moment, I'm going to send them through the goalposts and into the outer limits, shall we say, of, in fact,

B -Y -E. Bye! Boom. Okay. Anyways, we're going to be taking our break now, and if you'd like to start calling in now, if you have questions, 866 -854 -6763, 866 -854 -6763.

Time to get online now. That'll help me know how much time we've got to continue on with our looking at this right here on The Dividing Line.

We'll be right back. More than any time in the past,

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And welcome back to Dividing Line. My name is James White, and we are talking today about the

Mormon Law of Eternal Progression, or the Eternal Law of Progression, or whatever it is you would like to call it.

Actually, that is an interesting question. Which of those two it is, and really, that revolves around the difference between the earlier view of God in Mormonism and the current view of God.

What do I mean by that? Well, if you go and read the

King Follett Funeral Discourse which was the single longest discussion of Joseph Smith's doctrine of God just a matter of weeks before his death, you'll discover that Joseph Smith originally taught what

I call the choo -choo train theory of exaltation. Now what I mean by the choo -choo train theory is that in essence, you can't get any farther along the process of exaltation than your ancestors do.

So that was really originally the impetus behind doing the genealogical work and engaging in baptism of the dead and things like that.

We'll get to here in a moment. Was you've got to get your ancestors down the track before you can get down the track.

And the early Mormon leaders taught that God was continuing to progress in power and might and wisdom and would do so worlds without end.

Now the modern Mormon view has moved away from that. Most Mormons today would say that there is a level of perfection to which you can attain.

And God has attained that level of perfection. In fact, the Celestial Marriage Manual specifically used that terminology of reaching perfection.

And so most Mormons today would say that the level that Elohim is now at admits of no increase.

And that probably would be the way that most

Mormons would understand it. So that takes us back to whether this is the law of eternal progression or the eternal law of progression.

Because if it's eternal progression, that means God is eternally progressing. But if it is the eternal law of progression, then that would allow the idea of progressing to a point and then fulfilling this perfection concept that would be found there.

So anyways, keeping that in mind we go back to the illustration here and looks like we have one line ringing.

I'm not sure if there's anyone there or not. If you have any questions about what we've covered, if there are some questions about Mormonism that you would like to have answered today, now is the time to call.

Otherwise, I'm going to have to keep talking. That's just all there is to it. Now some folks in the room just saw that I actually can do two things at once.

I can talk about Mormonism and kick Jehovah's Witnesses out of the channel while doing the same thing at the same time.

It's an amazing skill that I've had to develop. But we just had a Jehovah's Witness asking if I counseled

Bill Clinton, too. And given that the only people I know who counseled Bill Clinton were people who are either heretical or people like Jesse Jackson, I don't take kindly to either one of those concepts.

And therefore, I just sent that particular person straight through the uprights.

It was a 45 -yard field goal, and it was good for three points. Thank you very much.

Going back to number 17, we now have the four fundamentals of the gospel.

Oh, by the way, 866 -854 -6763 is the number. 866 -854 -6763 is the number if you want to get involved in the program today.

We have the four fundamentals of the gospel. Faith, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands. You must have the four to do what?

To enter into the celestial kingdom. And everybody in the chat channel just said, the feed just died, the feed just died.

Well, we will be recording this and hopefully everybody will get it back. Four fundamentals of the gospel.

Faith, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands. Then there's a B next to the line that is there.

And that is defined as continued obedience to gospel rules and principles.

Now, what in the world does that mean? Continued obedience to gospel rules and principles.

Well, obviously something that broad can be defined in a number of different ways.

And really, it's defined pretty much based upon the bishops that you have.

That would have been defined much more closely back in 1930 than it is today.

Certainly, it means something along the lines of faithfulness of the church to find the highest level of the celestial kingdom would require you to enter into celestial marriage, to be faithful to the church, to give your tithe, to be obedient to the leaders of the church, not to question the theology of the church, etc, etc, etc.

That would be continued obedience to gospel rules and principles. And that can be expanded if your bishop is a hard -nosed bishop, or it can be more lax if your bishop is a not -so -hard -nosed bishop.

But basically, you must be faithful to the church until the end of your days. If you have faith, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands, that's not enough.

That'll get you in the celestial kingdom, but you've got to continue to be faithful. And that would obviously have something in determining how far you get.

The Mormon, then, the Mormon, then, who fulfills the four fundamentals of the gospel and engages in continued obedience to gospel rules and principles upon their death goes into paradise.

Now, if you will go to the next slide, you will see slide number 18.

And you click on that once, you will see a box that will encompass the lower portion of the display.

And if you click one more time and go to number 19, you will see that section, which includes the spirit prism, baptism for the dead, and the terrestrial and celestial levels of glory.

Now, what we have here, then, is there are about 11 million

Mormons in the world today. If all of those Mormons went directly into the presence of God or into paradise at death, which even

Mormons would not say is going to happen, if all the Mormons were temple worthy and all the

Mormons did everything that they were supposed to do, received their endowments and all the rest of that stuff and all went into paradise, still 11 million out of 6 billion on the planet is still a fairly small number.

And so the vast majority of Mormons, I'm sorry, vast majority of those in the mortal probation, excuse me, upon death enter into the spirit prison.

At our death, then, those of us who are not LDS, according to Mormonism, we will enter into the spirit prison.

Now, you've got to give the Mormons their due. They are most definitely a missionary -minded people, and they believe that faithful Mormons leave paradise, come down to the spirit prison, and proclaim the gospel.

Now, two things. As you're looking at slide number 19, you will see that there is a small green arrow that comes out of spirit prison and goes up to baptism for the dead, and a larger blue arrow that comes out splits into the terrestrial and celestial kingdoms.

Seemingly, the majority of people, even in the spirit prison, do not believe. Now, I honestly have never quite figured that out because of the fact that if I was in a spirit prison and someone came down and could come and go from the spirit prison and told me how

I could do that, I'm not exactly sure why I wouldn't believe that. Now, part of it may be that the only way out of the spirit prison is via baptism for the dead.

And, especially back when this theology was initially developing, Mormons couldn't really even imagine the day when they would have literally millions of people and that they would be able to do the kinds of baptisms of the dead and endowments of the dead that they're doing today.

But the idea was, well, we're only going to get to a certain number of those who have died.

And the rest, if someone doesn't go through the ordinances for you, you can believe all you want in spirit prison, but you're not going to be able to get out.

And if those things, if those four fundamentals don't happen, and see, a spirit can have faith and a spirit can repent, but it's pretty difficult to baptize a spirit in water.

You know what I mean? And it's impossible to lay your hands on the head of a spirit to receive the Holy Ghost because your hands keep going through because, you know, the spirit's not made of the type of material that we can touch.

So, what must happen? If a spirit in the spirit prison wants to go to the celestial kingdom, the four fundamentals of the gospel must be fulfilled in their place.

They can do two of them, and then people back on earth can do the other two. What does that mean?

That means that baptism for the dead then becomes the means by which a person in the spirit prison can be released from the spirit prison and enter into paradise and then into the celestial kingdom of God.

Now, what is involved there? Well, generally, Mormons do genealogical research into their own families, and they bring the names of unbaptized ancestors to the temple.

Generally in groups of 50, and they, of course, to even get into the temple, you have to go through a temple worthiness interview with your bishop and receive what's called a temple recommend, etc, etc.

But when they go to the temple, and if you wanted to, you could go out to any of the temples that are near you, wherever you might be.

Here in the Phoenix area, there is one in Mesa, Arizona, and you could go out there and watch as people pull into the parking lot.

They get out carrying a little bag. They go in, they come out to quite some time later, and they have probably either done baptisms of the dead, or they have done endowments for the dead, which we'll get to a little bit later on.

You go into the baptistry, and up till a few years ago, the baptistries in Mormon temples were built below ground level.

They are built on the back of 12 oxen, obviously the statues of 12 oxen, so as to attempt to imitate the laver that was found in Solomon's temple.

It is very interesting to note that the South Visitor's Temple—I'm sorry,

South Visitor's Temple, duh—South Visitor's Center in Temple Square used to have a full -size representation of a baptismal font in the

South Visitor's Center. In fact, it was right out—if you've ever seen the South Visitor's Center in Temple Square— there's this big circular glass part, and you could look through that glass and see this baptismal font.

I remember just a few years ago going in there, and poof! It was gone, completely gone.

You could see it was built on the back of 12 oxen, obviously as part of the church's attempt to look more and more

Christian, and less and less Mormon. Pretty much everything on Temple Square that could indicate the vast difference between Mormonism and Christianity has been removed.

And so you go into the temple—I'm sorry, you go into the baptismal font, and you have an individual standing there, and then you have a recorder.

Now, this is all done electronically, computerized, it's really high -tech, and the names of the people for whom you're going to be baptized for are on his screen.

And he gives the name to the person who's doing the baptism, and I baptize you in the name of da -da -da, who is dead, baptizes you when you come out of the water, then they do the next one.

And however many you're going to be baptized for, that's how many times you get baptized by that person. And then you get out of the baptistry, and you go into another room where there are elders there, three elders, they're wearing their temple regalia, and they place their hands upon you.

Again, there's a recorder, the screen, all the rest of that stuff, and we place our hands upon your head to receive the

Holy Ghost in the name of da -da -da -da, who is dead. They lift their hands up, put them back down, in the name of da -da -da -da, who is dead.

And you have now done the last two of the four fundamentals of the gospel in the place of all those people's names that you brought in.

Therefore, if you've done that for them, and they believe in the spirit prison, which you don't know whether they will or they won't, you're doing something hypothetical.

You are making a possibility available to them. If they believe in the spirit prison, then they will be released from the spirit prison, and can go into paradise, and at the resurrection go into the celestial kingdom.

Now, that's the point where we'll stop for the moment, because I hopefully next week will also remember to mention the fact that they can do the endowment ceremony in the place of the dead, and even go through the eternal marriage ceremony in the place of the dead as well.

So hopefully I'll remember to pick up at that point. We'll pick up with slide number 19, unless our first caller here doesn't take the whole rest of the time, and then

I can maybe slide those issues in while we're at it. But with only about 14 minutes left to go, let's see what

Johnny has to say with his question today. Hi, Johnny. How are you doing, James? Doing well. Good. My question has to do with the issue of how a person becomes a god, or the issue of deification altogether.

I know you've listened to the debate that took place many years ago between Dr. Walter Martin and Van Hale. I've only heard sections of it.

It's been many, many, many years since I listened to that. Okay. Well, one of the things that Van Hale brought out in the debate, and it's certain things that are kind of mysterious to me, and I say this in the context of an email that I've been going through with some

Mormons, where they say that Jesus Christ is never called

Almighty God in the Bible. And I pointed out that even their Mormon sources believe that Jesus is the

Jehovah of the Old Testament. And they said to me, yeah, but not all the time. And it has to do with two things.

Number one is Van Hale said in his debate that it is possible for someone to be a god, even though they have not been incarnated, where for example, he says that in the

Doctrine and Covenants and in the Book of Mormon, there are many verses that say that Jesus is God, and this is prior to the incarnation.

Of course, the Holy Spirit is God, and He does not have a body of flesh and bones. Being that Jesus is

God in the Old Testament, and He is the Jehovah, on what basis does the Mormon determine which verses referring to Jehovah is

Jesus, and which verses referring to Jehovah is the Father? Well, a couple things. First and foremost, and I hopefully can keep them all in my mind here.

First and foremost, one of the things to remember is that the eternal law of progression doesn't work in two out of three of the persons of the

Godhead here on this planet, because of exactly what you pointed out. That is, that Jesus is viewed as being the

God of the Old Testament before He's entered into the mortal probation, and in regards to the Holy Ghost, who has never received a body.

However, one of the things we need to note is that I will never forget walking with one particular

LDS person, and I won't use his name on the air, but an individual with whom I have spent a tremendous time in dialogue, written an entire notebook full of single -spaced, narrow -column letters on many issues regarding Mormon theology, and the

Bible, and Christian theology, so on and so forth. Walking with this individual, and he's sharing with me his firm belief that Jesus, during the millennium, will have the opportunity of taking wives so that he may gain the fullness of exaltation.

So from that perspective, that Mormon would believe that Jesus was representationally exercising the power of God, but that to gain the highest level of glory, he would have to go through the eternal marriage ceremony, take wives, so that he could then take those wives with him, and organize his own planet, and do the whole thing over there, but now is a

God the father of that planet. But wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't the Mormons believe—I mean, I've read quotations from Brigham Young, where Brigham Young said that Jesus married

Mary Magdalene and Martha? Well, this particular individual is somewhat of an expert on what they call the fundamentalist groups.

In fact, his last name would be a name that most fundamentalists would recognize as being a part of the polygamist groups in Utah.

And so it's possible that those who are having to fight the fundamentalist Mormons, the quote -unquote orthodox

Mormons, the Salt Lake Mormons, who are having to fight the what they even call Mormon cults, polygamist cults, reject those statements by Brigham Young and others as having binding validity, that they were merely musings or speculations, but not the actual official teaching of the church on the part of Brigham Young and the others.

Does that include the Adam God doctrine? Oh, of course. Yes. Yes. That fits into the whole scheme there, because those very same groups would be the groups that push the

Adam God doctrine as well. And so they would very strongly emphasize that those teachings on the part of Brigham Young were speculative and not binding upon the church as a whole.

But what about the, you know, I remember, I think there was a Salt Lake City, I don't know, magazine, or I don't know,

Ensign, I think it's called, where they said that Brigham Young was speaking how much unbelief exists in the minds of the

Latter -day Saints as to a doctrine which I revealed to them which God revealed to me, namely that Adam is our father and our

God. If Brigham Young is saying that God revealed this to him, how could this be speculation?

Well, that obviously is the problem of a religious system that is made up of uninspired men living over the course of 170, 171 years now, who are obviously going to create contradictions.

And that is why you have all sorts of arguments amongst Mormons as to what the official teaching is.

And one of the biggest questions that all of us have is how is modern

Mormonism going to handle its transition from a very small, tightly controlled

American religion in the intermountain west of the United States to a world of a world religion?

In fact, a friend of mine and I were discussing this last evening and we were talking about this issue of baptism for the dead and how there has to be genealogical records.

And we were actually watching a report last night on 2020 and we were looking at what was something was going on in Africa.

And we commented on the fact that it's one thing for Mormonism to teach you've got to do this genealogical research and bring the names of your of your ancestors to be baptized for in America.

But what good is that in the outback of Ethiopia? There are no records. There's no way that system can even work there.

So the transition of Mormonism from a tightly controlled, charismatic, there's a prophet leading us who's getting scripture from God, 1830 to 1860 style religion, to the modern

Gordon Hinckley who is big on using the press for his own ends, world religion of Mormonism that wouldn't dare add a new section of revelation to the

Doctrine and Covenants religion, is not only a fascinating study, but it's very interesting to see how they're going to handle this in the future.

Because these contradictions are many. And the Mormon with whom you're speaking, you have to find out from them.

Are they the type of Mormon? It's almost a sola scriptura Mormon who says if it's not in the standard works,

I won't accept it. Do they accept the idea of continuing Latter -day Revelation, but that doesn't require official action the part of the church to make it scripture?

Are they going to accept these statements of Brigham Young? Reject these statements? Upon what basis? Who do they think they are?

These are all issues that come up in the Mormon you're talking about. Usually the way they get at it with things like the sermons of Brigham Young or like the

King Follett discourse by Joseph Smith, what they have suggested is that the scribes may have made some mistakes.

Yeah, and there's really no evidence of that at all. In fact, the Mormons who defend that are very good at ripping that type of an excuse apart.

So there's always a way around it. Yeah, maybe he didn't say that or well, they made the same mistake over and over again.

But really you can demonstrate it is quite clear that Brigham Young did teach the Adam -God doctrine.

And Bruce R. McConkie was right in admitting that he did. But again, that's just one of many many issues that demonstrates the fundamental truthlessness of Mormonism.

But hey, Johnny, I've got another caller, so if we could make this real quick. Okay, I was just saying, so in other words, some of these

Mormons are just saying that Jesus Christ represented Jehovah in the

Old Testament, but wasn't really Almighty God. Well, they would say Jehovah was not the Almighty God that Elohim is.

Oh, okay. So they don't believe in Yahweh Elohim or something? Right. Elohim and Jehovah are two types of Mormonism.

Okay. Jehovah is the firstborn offspring of Elohim. Yeah. Well, that's funny for a

Jewish person. It certainly is. Or a Hebrew scholar like yourself. Oh, it's a very very interesting thing. Yeah, you better believe it.

There's a whole story to that too, because Joseph Smith didn't teach that, Brigham Young did. That was a later development.

That developed over time. Joseph Smith actually taught the God the Father was Jehovah. But that's changed.

And you have the statement of the first presidency in 1912, identifying the Father as Elohim and Jesus as Jehovah.

So there's it. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, Johnny. All right, let's try to sneak in John real quick before we run out of time here on the webcast today.

John, how you doing? Pretty good. I was, I live in Salt Lake City. I was discussing Mormonism with a couple of individuals.

The question, they asked me why I rejected the 1838 account, and I compared that to the 1832 account.

And you know, I even applied the, I mean, even if I don't think the event occurred from historical basis,

I mean. Right. But the thing is, is even if it did occur, I mean, how do I know? I mean,

I could play the second Corinthians chapter 11 passage that Satan can appear as an angel of light. So even if Joseph Smith did see something, he's preaching a different gospel contrary to to Paul the

Apostle. Exactly. But then they flipped over to Acts chapter 9, and I think it's

Acts chapter 21, and tried to, you know, really, you know, they used the King James Version. They tried to drop a contradiction between the

First Vision accounts of Paul the Apostle. But my question is, is why?

Now, you know I addressed Acts 9 and Acts 22 in Letters to a Mormon Elder, right? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. You know that I addressed

Acts 9 and Acts 22 in Letters to a Mormon Elder. Yeah, yeah, that is my question. My question is, why should

I accept Paul's account of Jesus appearing to him? And they asked this question.

I mean, why should I accept that? I mean, couldn't it have been Satan appearing as Jesus to Paul the

Apostle? Well, obviously the consistency—well, there's a number of problems with that.

First of all, when you test what the vision of Paul is, there is absolutely everything consistent with what

Jesus Christ taught and did, unlike the situation with Joseph Smith.

You have a clear violation over and over again in regards to what is allegedly contained in whatever edition of the

First Vision you want to say. Let's use the official account, the 1838 edition that's found in the

Pearl of Great Price. You have a clear contradiction between what God or Jesus allegedly tells

Joseph Smith and what is found in the Scriptures. There is no such contradiction between what is said by the

Lord Jesus to Paul and what is found in Jesus' own teachings in the Gospels or in the

Old Testament itself in regards to the nature of God. So if you test any vision, the vision that Paul has is consistent with the rest of Revelation, whereas the vision that Joseph Smith claims to have, whichever version you decide to use, is glaringly inconsistent with the previous revelation given of God.

So just as the Bereans tested what Paul taught to them on the basis of their searching of Scripture in Acts 17, when you do that with Paul's vision, you do not have any contradiction.

Right, but would you say Paul's conversion was a spiritually based conversion? Spiritually based conversion?

Yeah, he had the spiritual experience and then he appealed to the Word of God. And that's what these Mormons have been trying to say to me, you know.

Then he appealed to the Word of God. Hold on the line, we'll have to try to answer that because we are out of time on the webcast today.

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