Sermon: Witnessing to Mormons - Part 2

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Cultish: Looking Into YWAM (Youth With A Mission) - Part 3

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If you would open your Bibles to 1 Peter 3 .15. 1

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Peter 3 .15 Hear now the word of the living and the true God. But in your hearts, honor

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Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

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Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

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For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be God's will than for doing evil.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired Word. Let's pray. Father, I thank

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You for Your Word. We thank You for Christ's forgiveness and salvation. We thank

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You for the blessing, Lord, of the gift of knowing You, having eternal life.

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We pray, God, today that You would get the speaker out of the way, that You would teach through Your Word, that You would challenge

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Your church, that You would open our eyes to Your truth, but also open our eyes to, Lord, our duty as a people of God to proclaim and defend the

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Gospel. We pray that You would teach by Your Spirit today. In Jesus' name,

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Amen. So we've been doing, well, these two Sundays, we're doing a specific talk directed towards ministering to Mormons.

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I mentioned last Sunday that so much of what we were talking about was not just about the

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Mormon neighbors and the community around us. There was so much to that discussion that really involved really all aspects of the

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Christian life in terms of what is your ultimate authority? By what standard?

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How do you know? The question of knowledge, knowledge claims. How do you know what you know? Now, I mentioned that it goes far beyond the discussion of the conflict with the

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Mormon friend or neighbor or with the missionaries that show up at your door. This discussion is really the substance of all of life.

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It's everything. Because it doesn't just go to the conflict at your doorstep with the Latter -day

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Saint or even the Jehovah's Witness. The discussion goes into all of life. How do you know?

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How are you certain? How will you live? It's a question of authority and ultimate authority.

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Now, last week we talked about some foundations. We talked about the foundation of authority.

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We talked about different epistemologies. And I told you not to get thrown by that word. It's important we understand why we believe what we believe.

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And there's different theories of how you know what you know. If you go to the Mormon temple with us to the

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Easter pageant, you're gonna hear a theory of knowledge. It's gonna come up. They're gonna say,

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I testify to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints is the one true church that this man's a prophet.

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And they'll say, as you challenge it, well, how do you know that? How'd you figure that out? They'll say, I prayed about it. And I got a burning in my bosom.

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You know you're in Mesa when everyone can just finish that for you. I got a burning in my bosom. So really, their theory of knowledge, how they know something is true, is they say,

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I got a burning in my bosom. I had this high spiritual experience. I wanted to know.

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And so I prayed about it. And that's how I know Joseph Smith's a prophet of God. And the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints is the one true church. And the book of Mormon is this other revelation or testament of Jesus Christ.

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I know because I prayed about it and I have a burning in my bosom. That is a theory of knowledge.

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How do you know that? Well, I prayed about it. I had an experience and I felt a burning in my bosom. It's important for us to be able to engage this because we're seeing it all the time.

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I mentioned the more recent famous example of a man wearing a woman's bathing suit, pretending to be a lady, swimming and beating all the other women.

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He wasn't doing so well in the men's division. So he put on a female bathing suit and he started swimming and got first place, apparently.

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He challenged that. He said, well, wait a minute. You don't have lady bits, right?

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Like you don't have the parts. You biologically, everything down to the core of your being in terms of material, what's in front of us is all maleness.

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So how can you say that you're a female? And what's the popular rejoinder today? What do people say? I feel like I'm a lady.

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I feel like this is true. It's similar to the conflict you have on the street or on the doorstep with the

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Latter -day Saint is I prayed about it and I have this burning in my bosom. I feel in the deepest part of my being that this is true.

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Now they'll say that that's revelation of some sort from God that gave that to them. But the popular view of today is if it feels good to me, then it must be good.

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I identify as this or that, even though objectively, as a matter of fact and record, scientifically, biologically, what's in front of me is not what's being claimed, but they'll say, well,

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I know that I'm this way because I feel like I'm this way, right?

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So you deal with it all the time. I mentioned to you the importance of the discussion in terms of foundations and authority for moms and dads.

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When you are in your home and you make claims to your kids, like you need to love your neighbor, the child says, who says, right?

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It's an appropriate question to ask if you do it with humility, right? Where's that come from? Who says

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I need to love my neighbor? Because honestly, we don't think about the importance of this because we just live in this

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Western culture, of course, that's on the edge of so much depravity today and falling off a cliff.

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We don't think about the gift and the blessing from God of actually living in a culture that was so dramatically influenced by the

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Christian worldview. So we just have these assumptions today. And these assumptions are even adopted by our atheist neighbors, because they've been raised in a

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Western culture that has been so transformed by the Christian worldview and the Bible. We don't even think about the assumptions that we're making, like the assumption that, well, we ought to love our neighbors rather than eat our neighbors.

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You realize, of course, that there are tribes today in the world today, presently, who believe that it is a good, moral, and happy thing to eat your neighbors.

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And that seems so astonishing to us as people who have been living in a culture affected by Christ so dramatically to think there are people today that actually believe that.

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And the answer is yes, there are tribes today who strongly believe that. There are tribes today,

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I was just watching recently this documentary, Tribes Today, where they have a practice.

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These people are not Christians, they need the gospel, but they have a practice where when a visitor comes into their village, a male visitor comes into their village, the men in the village will even offer up their own wives to satisfy the male visitor as a blessing to them.

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Here, have my wife for the evening, right? Now, you look at that today because you're influenced by Christ and the

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Christian worldview, and you say, oh, that's immoral, that's unethical, that's evil, that's an abomination.

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How could you ever do such a thing? But, of course, they have a contrary worldview.

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They have a different foundation. Their foundation is suspended in midair. And this is a cultural thing.

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They say, no, this is how you bless visitors, you give away your wife. In Christian culture, we sit you down and give you a meal.

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In that culture, they give you the lady, your lady. And they think it's a good, moral, happy thing.

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So this question of authority goes everywhere. It really is everything. By what standard will you live?

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What's your ultimate authority? Because you have to have an answer. In this life, in God's world, you have to have an answer.

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And it's the sort of thing that's happening all the time. It's all around us, and we argue all the time that the word of God provides the foundation for authority and justice and righteousness and holiness in the world, amen, yes?

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So we even say, over the last two years, think about just the context of the last two years.

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I won't say the word, but when a certain virus impacted the world, there were all kinds of claims being made by those in authority of how you should do this or how you should do that, and even claims made towards the church.

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The church must close. The church morally, ethically must close. The church must do this or that.

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And you even have pastors who are arrested for gathering for worship. We say the word of God actually tells you how to handle that.

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Now our church is one of the only churches, this isn't boasting, but just to sort of explain the scenario in terms of what you're standing on.

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Our church is one of the only churches in the valley. There's very few that actually stayed open throughout the pandemic.

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We didn't close, worship down, although, of course, we were told to, we didn't do it.

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Why? Why not? So many other people were suggesting, no, if you wanna love your neighbor, this is how you actually love your neighbor.

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You close down, you stop worshiping, you stop the assembly, you stop the gathering of the saints.

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And as elders, what did we do? Well, prior to all of this actually falling and coming down and directives being given, the pastors of this church got together and went around the word of God.

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Well, what's the word of God say to do? How do we address this biblically? Does God's word have anything to say about quarantine?

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How does God say to do quarantine? What should we be doing in terms of wisdom as pastors when the state is telling you to close down worship?

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Well, the pastors of this church didn't just sort of say, how do you guys feel? James, what's your heart telling you?

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Right? Pastor Luke, how are you feeling today about this sort of thing? We all understood as elders, the standard for us is the word of God.

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So what principles in the word of God can be applied to this situation? Does God speak directly to a situation like this?

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And it turns out he actually does. And so for us as elders, going against the claims of certainty of government and those around us, we said we're gonna stay open for worship in this instance.

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But why? Because for us, there's a different foundation of authority. You know, for example, our church body, when we engage in the area of say abortion, you can see there's different standards being applied across the board.

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There are people even in the pro -life industry that say, well, we think that life begins at conception.

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All life is sacred. All life must be protected. And then you can ask questions like, okay, who says?

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This is where it comes out. Because you even have people on your same team, apparently, who say, well, that's human life.

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All human life is sacred. All human life needs to be protected. So you ask the leaders of the pro -life industry, okay, by what standard?

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And they'll tell you explicitly, they'll tell you proudly. We've sat down with them. We've had conversations with them, interviews with them.

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And they'll say, well, we're not Christian organizations. We're not doing what we're doing because the

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Bible says. And we don't really think that we need to use the name of Jesus and words like repentance.

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And we certainly don't wanna say the word murder. And you know, actually, we think that mothers and fathers who actually kill their children via abortion, they themselves are victims.

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So it's interesting because you can have somebody that is apparently on your own team in terms of, well, I thought you're pro -life and we're for life too.

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And you see that we're operating upon different foundations. By what standard?

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And so you can see as a church body, when we fight in that area against that issue, we're standing on the word of God.

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And we say, no, wait a second here. We have to ask the question, who says human life is valuable?

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Because we understand as you move into this, it actually isn't a biological question. Because biologically speaking, not just the word of God, but biologically speaking, what's in the womb is human life from conception.

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That cannot be disputed. As a matter of fact, those in the pro -choice industry, the pro -aborts acknowledge regularly and freely.

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Yes, what's in the womb from conception is human life.

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That's true. But they'll say, because they have a different moral authority, we still believe that a woman has the right to kill her child in the womb, even though it's human.

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So the question is, by what standard? Who says? And our argument always is the word of God is the sword.

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It's what cuts. It's the gospel that's the power of God for salvation. So when we fight in any area, we need to use the word of the living

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God. It's interesting, in this particular text, 1 Peter 3, verse 15, we're not gonna unpack this whole text today, but I wanted to start with reading that in terms of Christians being called to always be ready.

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Always be ready to give an apologia. There you go, okay. A reasoned defense.

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It's courtroom language. That's giving a reasoned defense for your case. And early on in the history of the church, we see the apostle

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Peter, who was the apostle. Think about his history for a second. The guy writing this is the guy who was in hiding the night of Jesus' betrayal.

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He's trying to stay as far away as possible to keep himself safe. And when he's challenged about, well,

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I think you were also with Jesus, he's the guy that's not giving a reasoned defense. He's actually denying that he even knows

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Jesus, but something happened in his life that transformed him completely.

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He saw Jesus alive from the dead, so now at this part of his life, we have revelation from God where he calls all believers, yes, you.

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Yes, you. This is the word of the living God to you, to always be ready with a reasoned defense for everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that's within you.

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You do it with gentleness and reverence. There's so much to this passage you need to know, and Pastor James has done a fantastic message a number of times on this passage.

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There's so much to this in terms of Christ, honoring him as Yahweh, as God, but notice what's being said to Christians, what's being challenged, and we're being told to do something.

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Be ready. Be ready with a reasoned defense for the hope that's within you. So my challenge to you is this.

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Can you defend your faith? Can you give a reasoned response?

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Or are you just satisfied saying, no, we've got the real killers in that area that can take care of that for us, right?

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We've got the R .C. Sprouls. Well, he's not with us anymore. He's with the Lord now. We've got James White.

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He'll fight the big battles for us. You know, I don't need to know all those things because we've got the guys that handle that for us.

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No, this is to you. That's yours. That's mine. Why is this important?

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As we talk about answering specific objections from our Mormon friends and neighbors, why is this so important?

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We live in a day of deconstruction. That is to say, we live in a day, let's call it what it is, of apostasy.

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Apostasy. The church throughout history has been here since the beginning. It goes in upward cycles, of course, but moments of historical judgment and brokenness and downfall and tragedy.

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You've seen in the history of the church moments where you see bright victory and light and gospel transformation, and then the next generation gets lazy, gets weak, and starts to abandon the word of God as the foundation for all of life, and we lose, and then more judgment comes.

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It's the cycle of all of history, right? It's faithfulness begets prosperity, and then the daughter eats the mother.

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That's not my quote. It's an old quote from the founding fathers. Faithfulness begets prosperity, and then the daughter eats the mother.

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That next generation that's so blessed by faithfulness ends up eating the mother, destroying the prosperity.

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Why? Because there's no faithfulness, and we live in a time right now where there is an abandonment of the word of God and the authority of Christ all about us, not just in the culture out there, but among us, within the

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Christian community, and we have to ask the question, like, where are we broken? Like, what are we doing wrong?

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Where are we falling off? And the supreme place I believe we're falling off is in terms of the authority of the word of God, the authority of Jesus Christ.

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It might say, you might say as Christians, you might say, well, I agree with that. I believe that completely. I'm there. You don't have to convince me of that.

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I know this is the authority. I know this is the word of God. I know Jesus is Lord. He's the king of kings.

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He has all authority in heaven and earth. It's great. Praise God. That's your confession. Praise the

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Lord. Let's always say that. But here's the question. Can you defend it? Can you defend it?

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Out of the mouth of babes. You see, here's why it's important.

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Because you'll see today, it's popular today amongst Christian music artists and all kinds of people.

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To talk about the issue of deconstruction, which of course, again, is just apostasy. You're just abandoning the

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Christian faith. It's amazing because you see these people making claims about why they abandoned the Christian faith, why they've abandoned

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Christ. And if you know the faith, and if you can basically defend your faith, I'm not saying you need to be a

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Dr. James White. But if you know how to defend the faith and you've fought through some of these things, I mean, even just a little bit, you hear some of their arguments as to why they abandoned the faith.

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And you think, did you never investigate what you said you believed?

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Right? Were you just comfortable with the Christian community? Like, these were just your people. It felt really good.

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I mean, yeah, Christian churches are great. There's love there. There's hospitality. There's a mutual affection.

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There's being there for each other. Yeah, I mean, this is great. This is wonderful. But you see, that only lasts so long because at a certain point in your life, suffering and trials and persecution for your faith enters in, and the question is, do you even know what you believe?

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Can you defend it at all? And I wanna say this, that the gospel, the Christian, the kingdom of Christ, the

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Christian message, the gospel, our doctrine of God does not get into the next generation without proclamation and defense.

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Just think about it. The Christian faith doesn't make it into the next generation without proclamation and defense.

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And you cannot proclaim something and defend something that you don't understand.

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You cannot proclaim and defend something that you do not understand. And so my challenge to you as my brothers and sisters, humbly, as your brother and pastor, is to know what you believe and why you believe it.

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No one's asking you to be a scholar. No one's asking you to write books and get different PhD degrees on different areas of biology and molecular biology and all these things, and how you defend creationism and all that stuff.

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All we're saying is, can you give a reasoned defense for your faith? Challenges, ready? Two challenges I'll make to you.

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Two, just two, not to make it complicated. In terms of reasoning with the Mormon at your door or the

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Jehovah's Witness, those who ape Christianity and then destroy the message of the doctrine of God and the gospel, two things.

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One, can you defend the Trinity? I like her.

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And here's why. I'm not asking you, as a creature, can you fully comprehend the majesty of the triune

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God? I am not asking that.

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Because listen, as a creature, there are certain elements of the triune

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God of the Bible, so many things that are transcendent that you have to say as a creature, that's above my ability.

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That's glorious, and it should be that way. Like when the ant looks up at the human being, if there was a way to contemplate and to explain, the ant must see certain things about the human and go, wow,

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I don't get it. Because it's above that. And there are certain things about the triune God of Scripture that we should say humbly and readily as Christians.

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I don't fully comprehend those glories. However, what God has revealed is for us and our children.

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And God is very clear in his word about who he is, about his nature, and about the triune

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God. Very, very clear. And so again, I'm not asking you, can you comprehend all the glory of the

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Trinity? I'm asking you, can you defend the doctrine of the Trinity as a Christian? And here's why, are you ready?

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Because that's the God we worship. We should stop making excuses for ourselves and saying things like, ah, that thing gives me a headache.

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I can't understand that. I had someone do that once. They asked me to come to their church and to speak on the

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Trinity. And before I went up, the pastor goes up and he said, we're doing a doctrine series.

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And he says, you know, we're doing the Trinity. And he said, that subject's like, I think he said it's difficult for him.

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And it makes his head hurt. So he had someone else come do it. That was the pastor of the church.

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A local church. There's so much I wanted to say to that.

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I try my best to be gracious and be grateful for the fact that they were actually doing a series on the

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Trinity. But we can't make the excuse like I just, that's just beyond my pay grade.

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Really? That's the God we worship. It's supposedly why you're here today. It's supposedly what your whole life is wrapped up in.

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This is our God. And to say like, well, I can't defend the Trinity. I'm not even concerned with being able to defend it.

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I mean, that's the God you worship. You say your whole life is about this God and wrapped up in this God. What do you mean you can't defend it?

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We're gifted at this church body because we have the man who wrote the book, The Forgotten Trinity, used in seminaries,

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I think really around the world. But also the man who's defended this doctrine around the world with so many different worldviews, whether it's

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Islam or Mormonism, whatever the case may be, Jehovah's Witnesses, oneness,

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Unitarians, those sorts of things. You have this great treasury as believers today to draw from to say, you know,

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I'm gonna be able to defend this. God calls me to always be ready to give a reason defense for the hope that's within me. I'm gonna defend what

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I believe about who God is. Second thing is this, second challenge. Can you defend the gospel we preach?

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And I'm not talking about just the proclamation of the fact that Jesus is God who is righteous, who died for sinners and rose again from the dead.

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Can you defend what the Bible teaches about how a person's reconciled to God? If somebody challenged you right now on that point, that we are justified by faith apart from any works in Christ alone because of his work, if you were challenged right now on that, can you defend it from the

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Bible? Not just claim that's what I believe, but can you defend it?

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I believe so many people get swallowed up into false religions, counterfeit gospels, counterfeit

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Christs, swallowed up into Rome, whatever the case may be, because they were within the

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Christian communion. It was in the atmosphere. All these doctrinal beliefs are just, of course, said in Christian churches and they should be said, but those people never actually believed it for themselves.

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They never knew why. They never actually said, okay, that's where it's at in the Bible and that's what

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I believe. Are you one of those people who you're willing to give the Christian mantra and give the

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Christian creed, but you couldn't even begin to defend why you actually believe it? I wanna challenge you on those two points.

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As a believer, know the doctrine of God, the triune God of Scripture.

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Know why we believe that. Where the Bible says it and be able to respond to those who attempt to distort that doctrine.

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Know what the Bible says about justification through faith in Christ and in Christ alone, apart from any works.

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Know what the Bible says and be able to defend it. It's essential. It's essential because if we're gonna be effective in the world around us with the proclamation of the gospel, the proclamation of the gospel comes with the necessity of a defense.

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I'm not just giving you my opinion on this, brothers and sisters, here's what I'll challenge you to do. If you wanna get into it, read the book of Acts.

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Read the book of Acts. When the apostles and the leadership of the early Christian church go into the public square with the gospel, it's not always with a positive reception, is it?

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Right? It's not with a positive reception. When they go into the public square with the gospel, there is so often resistance, persecution, oaths not to eat anything until this person is dead.

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There's people being lowered out of windows. There's riots breaking out. There is jail time and there are beatings.

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But you do see that when the gospel goes forth in the book of Acts, you see that it goes forth with the necessity of a defense, not merely a proclamation.

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Not merely a proclamation. Whether it's the apostle Paul in Acts chapter nine going to the synagogues, refuting the

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Jews and proving that Jesus is the Messiah with the scriptures. Or whether it's Apollos himself doing the very same thing, using the scriptures and confounding the

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Jews who dwell in Damascus, or Jerusalem, proving that Jesus is the Messiah. Whatever the case may be, you always see the gospels going forth in the public square with a defense.

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Can you defend your faith? Can you defend it? So, here's what I wanted to do for today.

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We talked about the word of God as foundational. I gave you the nature of scripture last week.

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Theonostos. I gave you the origin of scripture. Holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. I gave you the examples from scripture of the word of God as the foundation upon which everything else must be tested.

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I gave you the fact that the word of God in scripture is promised to endure forever. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our

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God stands forever. The fact that God promises to preserve his word. Heaven and earth will pass away.

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My words will by no means pass away. I wanted to give you a promise from scripture. This is relevant when you talk about restorationist movements like Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons.

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What they'll say is, well, the church fell away. The church fell away, and because the church fell away and it was gone, the witness was gone from the church,

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God had to restore, and he did so through our prophets. Now, all have the same claim to some degree.

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It was gone, and so now it's restored through our living prophets. Well, the question has to be asked, using the word of God, what does the scripture say?

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There are a number of examples you can go to on this particular point, but when you're talking about a restorationist movement like Mormonism, the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, you have to ask the question, really, gone? Well then, what do we do with Daniel, 7 through 13, where Daniel has his vision of the

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Messiah and his kingdom, where he comes up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him, and to him was given a kingdom, dominion, authority, that all the peoples, nations, men of every language might serve him, and that his kingdom is an everlasting one which will never pass away.

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What about that? What about the promise of scripture, and how Jesus, by the way, taught that his kingdom had arrived in history, that it was among them, and so Jesus taught that his kingdom had arrived, and scripture teaches that his kingdom would last forever and never be destroyed.

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We know, of course, the famous Christmas verse in Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, that this son who's coming, this child, he's gonna be

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El Gabor, the mighty God, and it says, what about him? That his kingdom would last forever.

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That's the promise. We know, of course, Jesus said that he would build his church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

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So what do we do with that from the Lord Jesus? Now, the Mormon story is what? Joseph Smith, born in Sharon, Vermont, 1804, in a time very different than our own in terms of Christian influence and the culture around them.

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Of course, it didn't have the communication that we have today and the ability to communicate as quickly as we can today, but there was common folklore in his day in terms of the

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American Indian, the Native American, where'd they come from, all kinds of stories in his area.

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Joseph Smith, if you read the history of Joseph Smith, you'll learn Joseph Smith was a great storyteller.

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The story coming from his family is that he would keep the family entertained for hours at night. Remember, no

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TikTok, no YouTube, no internet, no television, and so at nighttime, he entertained people with what?

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Telling tales, telling stories. He was a great storyteller. He was also a very famous con artist in his area.

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Can you imagine if like 60 -some -odd neighbors of your own all signed a public affidavit that you were of low moral character and untrustworthy?

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Joseph Smith and his family were known as local con artists. They were money diggers where they would say that they could go across your property and find buried treasure.

31:12

Joseph Smith was very low character. He had a very poor reputation, but Joseph Smith Jr. claimed that an angel came to him and revealed to him the location of some golden plates that had been buried and that he was supposed to translate those golden plates.

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That's where the Book of Mormon, claim to the Book of Mormon comes from, that Joseph Smith translated with the gift and the power of God, the

31:39

Book of Mormon from the golden plates. Now, as Mormonism progressed, you can see that early on in Mormon history, there actually wasn't a claim of a first vision account.

31:50

Now, when Mormons come to your door today, your first meeting is about the first vision. They'll come to your door and they'll say that Joseph Smith was so confused because there were so many different denominations around him,

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Presbyterians and Baptists and all these people. He didn't know which church to join. And he looked in the

32:08

Bible and he saw in James 1, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God.

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And he said, ah, I can ask God a question and he'll give it to me. And so Joseph Smith makes a claim and first vision account you'll get today with the

32:24

Mormons who come to your door, that he went into the woods. He was overcome by this great darkness.

32:30

And then above him was like this blinding light. And there was Elohim, a resurrected

32:36

God -man and Jesus Christ, a separate and distinct personage, two people, two beings, two gods.

32:46

And when he asked Elohim, heavenly father, which church to join, he was told to join none of them for they are all wrong.

32:55

He says all their creeds are an abomination, all their professors, that's you, that's me, are all corrupt.

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They draw near to me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. Now that's what you'll get when the

33:09

Mormon missionaries come to your door. Or if you see them riding their bikes around, you talk to them, they'll tell you about the first vision.

33:15

Now early on in Mormon history, there actually is no record of a first vision account.

33:20

It wasn't a part of Mormon culture early on. The first visions come up actually in the 1830s and beyond and actually there are a number of different first visions accounts that contradict one another.

33:36

So it's something that sort of grew up in Mormonism. You'll get it today at your door as the first vision account but there are actually multiple first vision accounts that actually contradict one another.

33:47

Joseph Smith claimed that he had another testament of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon. He claimed that the Book of Mormon was more correct than any book on earth.

33:57

And that a man can get closer to God by obeying its precepts than any other book.

34:04

He said that knowing all about the Bible. He said that the Bible had been corrupted and that he actually was going to fix it.

34:12

And so you'll see today if you get a Mormon quad, which is the Holy Bible, the

34:18

Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants, a quad, you'll see usually as you look at the text of the

34:25

Holy Bible and the King James Version, you'll see underneath it, it'll say at times JST.

34:31

What's that mean? Joseph Smith Translation. And this is where Joseph Smith Jr.,

34:37

the modern prophet of Mormonism, claimed to essentially fix what was missing or distorted in the

34:44

Bible, the Joseph Smith Translation. He added a prophecy of himself into the Bible. Fancy that.

34:50

That apparently was missing. He changed sections of Scripture to distort the meaning in terms of one, the deity of Christ, that Jesus Christ is the eternal

35:00

God, always existent alongside the Father, and that Jesus Christ created everything in existence.

35:06

He didn't like that. Mormonism can't have that. And so he distorted that teaching. He also distorted

35:11

Paul's gospel. In Romans 4, he can't possibly see how God could declare righteous the wicked, as Paul says.

35:19

Can't be that way. So he distorted the nature of how a person is reconciled to God.

35:25

Joseph Smith Jr. taught that we all can become gods and goddesses of our own planets, just like the gods and goddesses have done before us.

35:37

Joseph Smith was a polytheist. He believed in the existence of many gods.

35:44

Joseph Smith taught that the ultimate goal in Mormonism was to become a god and goddess of your own planets one day.

35:52

Joseph Smith taught that Jesus Christ is not, not eternal

35:57

God, always existent in face -to -face, intimate relationship with the

36:03

Father, that Jesus Christ was actually the offspring of Heavenly Father and one of his goddess wives, that Lucifer, Satan, and Jesus are spirit offspring.

36:16

They're brothers, and just like us, they're brothers and sisters. The goal of Mormonism is to become a god and goddess of your own planet one day, and the way to do that is through the

36:27

Mormon church by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. You must go to the temple.

36:35

You must be married in the temple. You've gotta do all the things necessary of obedience and good

36:41

Mormon life to become a god and goddess of your own planet one day. There are three levels of heaven in Mormon soteriology, and ultimately, it can be summed up in this, 2

36:53

Nephi 25, 23. By grace are you saved, and every

36:58

Christian goes, I know that verse, this is what theirs says.

37:05

By grace are you saved, after all, you can do. It's a message not unlike every other man -made religion on the planet.

37:16

Yes, God gives grace, but ultimately, the winning shot to reconciliation, peace, or heaven one day is up to you.

37:26

Mormonism denies the doctrine of God. It denies the trinity. It teaches the plurality of gods, and let me give you just some references here.

37:35

This is, by the way, you've heard me say this before. If you don't have this, you should get it. This is a little book called

37:41

Where Does It Say That? I've been using that since I met this guy over here when I was 18 years old at the

37:47

Mormon temple, because there are times where you can tell Latter -day Saints, well, your prophets have taught this, and they'll say, no, they haven't.

37:54

Where does it say that? You go, oh, funny you asked.

38:00

This is photocopies of Mormon documents, historical stuff, modern stuff, but let me give you some references here in terms of Joseph Smith's doctrine of God.

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Here's what he says in History of the Church, volume six, page 474 in 1844.

38:18

He says, I will preach on the plurality of gods. Hear that? I have selected this text for that express purpose.

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

38:36

It has been preached by the elders for 15 years. By the way, that wasn't true. If you look at the

38:42

Book of Mormon, you'll see that Mormonism arose in the context of a

38:48

Christian culture around about him, and what does the Christian church teach universally about God?

38:54

There is only one true and living God. Isaiah 43, 10, before me there was no

38:59

God formed, and neither shall there be after me. Isaiah 44, six and eight, I am the first and I am the last.

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Besides me there is no God. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other God. I know not one.

39:12

So you'll see references in the Book of Mormon to monotheism. You'll also see confusion where Joseph Smith didn't understand the

39:21

Trinity, but you'll see that early on. Now, Joseph Smith's theology started to transform over time in many ways, not just on his doctrine of God, but you'll see also his praxis.

39:34

You'll see also his life. It's interesting, and this is, be careful how you use this, but even the story of polygamy in Mormonism is interesting how that rose up.

39:45

Joseph Smith gets caught having an affair with a young woman, and then he gets a revelation from God.

39:51

It's still in Doctrine and Covenants today. You can go read it for yourself. He gets a revelation from God about polygamy, that now we're all supposed to practice polygamy, and there's even a word from God to his wife that basically if she doesn't accept polygamy and show mercy to her husband, then

40:08

God will condemn her with eternal fire. So, yeah, that's how it works.

40:16

You see change within early Mormonism, but in terms of Joseph Smith's denial of the

40:24

Trinity, here's what he says in History of the Church, volume six, page 476, 1844.

40:30

He says this, listen closely. Many men say there is one God, the Father, the

40:36

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

40:43

Three in one, and one in three, he goes on to say he would be a wonderfully big God. He'd be a giant or a monster.

40:53

Joseph Smith believed in the plurality of gods, that there are many gods, and that you can become one one day yourself.

41:02

Joseph Smith gave one of his most famous discourses, most quoted from probably even to this day about Joseph Smith in terms of what did he believe about God.

41:13

And in Journal of Discourses, volume six, page three, 1844, Joseph Smith tells his story at a funeral of a man named

41:23

King Follett. This is known as the King Follett Discourse. He says, I will prove that the world is wrong by showing what

41:32

God is. I'm gonna inquire after God, for I want you all to know him and to be familiar with him.

41:39

You will then know that I am his servant, for I speak as one having authority.

41:46

So he's saying he has the authority here from God as God's servant to speak for God, and this is the truth about God.

41:52

Everybody else is wrong. And he says this, I'll go back to the beginning.

41:58

Before the world was, and to show you what kind of being God is, God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.

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That is the great secret. I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form, like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form of a man.

42:23

It is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God, and how he came to be so.

42:29

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

42:35

I will refute that idea, and take away and do away the veil so that you may see. He says, it is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us.

42:54

Yea, the God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did.

43:02

Here then is eternal life. You go, that sounds familiar, right?

43:10

Here then is eternal life. Where's that come from? Jesus said those words. Jesus said them, but Joseph Smith changes them.

43:19

Here's what he says. Here then is eternal life, to know the only wise and true God, and you have got to learn to become gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God the same as all gods had done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one, from grace to grace, from exaltation until you attain to the resurrection of the dead.

43:43

Another one, Joseph Smith, Journal of Discourses, volume six, page five, 1844. He says, thus the head

43:50

God brought forth the gods in the grand council. In the beginning, the head of the gods called a council of the gods, and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and to people it.

44:01

There can be no denying that Mormonism teaches the existence of many gods.

44:09

One Mormon apostle said that there are more gods than there is matter.

44:17

So the story of Mormonism is like this. Mommy gods and daddy gods producing, ultimately, spirit children that go through exaltation like them to become gods and goddesses of their own planets, and it's this infinite regression of gods.

44:34

The god of this earth is not the ultimate god. He had a god before him. Who had a god before him?

44:39

Who had a god before him? Who had a god before him? And these gods and goddesses go through this pattern of exaltation where through obedience and even sin and failure, they become gods and goddesses of their own planets one day.

44:55

So ultimately, Elohim, the god of this earth, went through the same story that you're going through, sin and failures and all, and went through the pattern of exaltation.

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That, brothers and sisters, is not the god of the Bible. That is a lie.

45:14

That is not the Jesus of the Bible. That is not the gospel. And what's the challenge?

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We talked about it last week. What's the challenge? The challenge is, is that Mormons use our language.

45:31

They talk like us. They say they believe in Jesus. They say they believe

45:36

Jesus lived and that he died and that he rose again from the dead, and you must trust in Christ.

45:41

They say all those things. We have to be willing to define our terms, to get under all of that language and say, what do you mean when you say

45:51

Jesus? What happened on the cross? How was a person reconciled to God?

45:58

Quick thing. And then I'm gonna bring up Pastor James again to fight with him. I'm gonna play the

46:08

Mormon. I'm not really gonna fight. Everyone relax. You guys are like, what is happening in the elder board right now, okay? Dr.

46:15

Walter Martin, when he starts his book, The Kingdom of the Cults, he has one of the most important sections of the book, of course, at the beginning of the book.

46:25

And I find it to actually be the most significant aspect of actually moving into this area of defending the faith against the cults and counterfeit

46:33

Christian religions. He has a section called Scaling the Language Barrier. Scaling the

46:39

Language Barrier. And that's understanding that when we talk about counterfeit

46:44

Christ and counterfeit gospels, those who ape Christianity, the most important thing to do is to get behind the language and say, what do you mean?

46:52

What do you mean by that? Who is Jesus? What is the gospel? How am I reconciled to God?

46:58

Asking those challenging questions because you're gonna hear Latter -day Saints, as you talk to them, say things like this.

47:04

We're Christians too. Why are you attacking us? It's important for us if we're gonna reach these people that we're called to love that we know how to answer those questions.

47:14

So I thought, hey, how can we do this in a way where it has the most impact?

47:21

I think one of the most important things that ever happened to me in terms of being able to defend the faith was actually listening to it be defended.

47:30

Not just being instructed on this is the Christian faith, this is the gospel, but listening to it defended.

47:35

So early on as a young man, the first things I was listening to was Dr. Walter Martin defend the Christian faith in the gospel against Jehovah's Witnesses, Latter -day

47:44

Saints, atheists, and all the rest. I learned more from those interactions than I ever did from his sermons. And then standing outside the

47:51

Mormon temple in Mesa, standing next to Dr. White and listening to him actually defend the faith with Mormon missionaries and others.

47:58

I mean, he'd be surrounded at times by 10, 12 people, all firing questions at him. And that's where I learned the most in terms of defending the

48:06

Christian faith. And so I was gonna bring up Pastor James so I could give him, I'll play the

48:12

Mormon, and I'll give him, yeah, he's ready to go, look at him go, yeah, yeah.

48:20

Yeah. I told him today, I sent him a message, said, I wanted to get in a fight with you tonight.

48:27

He said, okay, I'll bring my .50 caliber. So I will toss out to James some of the common objections and things you'll hear at the

48:40

Mormon temple or on your doorstep. You ready to go?

48:49

Just about as far as I can go. Okay, all right. So here's what

48:55

I have a problem with is I think that what you're doing is wrong. I think it's really mean spirited. I mean, you come out here, we're just families trying to watch a pageant about Jesus Christ.

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I mean, I thought you said you believe in Jesus. This pageant is about Jesus Christ and him rising from the dead.

49:10

So we don't come to your church and stand on the sidewalk and hand out literature.

49:17

Why do you come to our church? We don't come to yours. Well, actually, I have had missionaries come to a number of churches

49:24

I was at and they were looking to get to talk to people. But as you know, your first vision says that my church is an abomination.

49:31

What I believe is wrong in God's sight. And so if I love you, I wanna come and I want to have conversation with you.

49:38

And besides that, one of your own prophets, Brigham Young, you still believe he's a prophet?

49:43

I'm not really sure. Actually, your priesthood authority probably is traced through Brigham Young.

49:49

So if you deny him, you don't really have priesthood authority, but anyways, Brigham Young said, take up the

49:55

Bible, compare the religion of the Latter -day Saints with its evil standards. Receive the truth no matter who presents it to you.

50:01

And so if you're going to listen to what he has to say, why not take the opportunity to do what he said, take up the

50:08

Bible, compare the religion of the Latter -day Saints with it, and see if it'll stand the test. That's what we're doing here. We think it's an act of love, and I think your missionaries think they're showing love to people by going door to door into their homes.

50:19

Out here, everybody can hear what we're saying. In the home, you can't necessarily verify facts, but out here, there's lots of folks listening.

50:27

Let's have a conversation as to what the truth really is. But the problem is, is that you guys are out here being contentious, you're out here arguing.

50:36

Contention is of the devil, as we all know. And that's the problem, is that you couldn't possibly be from Christ because you are being so contentious.

50:45

Interestingly enough, the Book of Mormon actually, actually, I'm sorry, it's the Doctrine and Covenants, says that you will be blessed by God when you challenge other people on their faith, and that God will be faithful to allow you to, in fact, win those types of debates.

51:00

And in fact, Joseph Smith and the early apostles were well known for going out and trying to get ministers to engage in conversation with them.

51:09

In the early days, things seemingly have changed, but the reality is, you're being inconsistent here, because the

51:15

Bible tells us to give a reason for the hope that's within us. It tells us to expose the unfruitful works of darkness.

51:21

If you believe that we, in fact, are representing a three -headed God, as Joseph Smith described our beliefs, you should be the ones coming to us, asking us to engage in these conversations and giving us the truth.

51:35

Now, let me just mention something. Let me just step out of character here for a second. One of the challenges that we're facing today is that Mormonism is changing.

51:47

And if you all watched the debate that Daniel and Oscar had, we grew up talking to Mormons who actually believed

51:53

Mormonism. And you're still going to encounter Mormons who still believe Mormonism. And so everything that's been said is relevant to those people who still believe that Mormonism is true.

52:04

But you're gonna be encountering more and more people who identify themselves as LDS, but the church has lost its rudder.

52:13

It's lost its leadership. And it's going around in circles. And a lot of its people are no longer really zealous as to what they believe being the truth over against other positions being in error.

52:29

They've slid into a subjective goo that makes them ask these questions and say, well, why can't we all just get along?

52:39

And that's not what they were doing when you came out there in your plaid jammy pants that first night.

52:46

And so things have changed. And you're going to be encountering a lot of people in Mesa where you're gonna have to, instead of what we used to be able to do, where we pretty much knew what direction the conversation was gonna go, you've gotta listen more carefully now to find out, is this a

53:09

Mormon who knows Mormonism? Or is this a Mormon who is more culturally Mormon?

53:15

Or more really just a subjectivist who happens to have some religion slathered on top?

53:22

Because you're gonna be going a different direction with them. They're not gonna, you're gonna start quoting

53:28

Brigham Young to them, and they're like, well, he may have been wrong, you know? And you're going,

53:33

I thought he was a prophet. Well, you know, and so you're gonna be dealing with different people in that way.

53:40

So that's something I'm gonna be talking about when I'm going up to Utah next week, is how we can seek to be better witnesses to the

53:50

Mormons who aren't fully Mormon anymore. As well as to the

53:55

Mormons who really are. So that's a challenge I think we're facing. Something that Jerry has said before, I thought it was such an effective way to communicate this.

54:02

With the modern Mormon, oftentimes, Pastor James is right, you're gonna run into Mormons that are actually Mormon, that believe

54:08

Mormonism, that believe they're prophets today, of course, yes. But so much of what you do on the street is you have to first convert them to Mormonism so that you can bring them out of Mormonism.

54:19

In terms of their profession, I'm a Mormon, you have to show them, oh, this is what Mormonism actually teaches. Here's what Brigham Young actually taught.

54:26

And Pastor James is right, you'll run into Mormons today that will just be, he'll say, ah, maybe

54:31

Brigham had it wrong. There's a problem with that, and that's what Brigham Young actually taught. He had never given a sermon or sent it out to the sons of men they couldn't call scripture.

54:39

So he puts his sermons alongside the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. That's how

54:44

Brigham Young thought about his own words and his position as a prophet in the Mormon church.

54:49

And modern -day Mormons will even reject even that. But the question of epistemology comes up here in terms of, okay, if you're dealing with someone who sort of has a passing sort of tip of the hat towards Mormonism, but in reality, they're not standing on the prophet's words, they're just a subjectivist.

55:06

They just believe it's all in their heart and their own feelings and their own thoughts, and you need to be able to engage with those sorts of people.

55:13

And so, again, so much of what we said tonight and last week was really about authority. What's your foundation?

55:18

How do you know what's true? This comes into contact with Mormonism and the Watchtower. Okay, another one.

55:25

Well, here's the problem. You guys are coming out here, you got your tracts, you're handing all your stuff out, you're even bringing your kids with you.

55:33

I feel sorry for your kids. Here's the problem, is that this pageant, this play is about Jesus Christ.

55:41

I mean, you see them talking about Jesus, you've got this whole thing about a resurrection.

55:46

I mean, this is about Jesus Christ. We're here, we trust in Jesus Christ. We're Christians too. We are

55:52

Christians too. Before I respond to that, one thing you all are gonna have to do, and if you're in conversations, which

55:59

I hope you are, please remember this, because this is gonna be a new pageant. We've not seen this pageant before.

56:06

So the first night, is it gonna be a Spanish first? I think they are having a Spanish. Are they having a Spanish a couple of days before?

56:13

Anyone know? No? No, okay. They used to have the Spanish one the week before. I think they sort of worked things out and then had

56:20

English after that. You have to listen carefully, especially in the garden scene.

56:26

Because what we used to do, and if it's still the same pageant, what we would do here, is we would point out the fact that in the garden scene, you have a little bit, it used to be all

56:38

Mormon. When I first went out to the Easter pageant in 1983, on a

56:49

Kawasaki 440 with my wife on the back, and the superstition ended at Country Club at that time.

56:55

When we first went out there, there was much more Mormonism in the presentation, and then they cleaned it all out, except for the reference to the atonement in the garden.

57:13

If you know Mormon theology, you know that they believe that Jesus sweat as it were drops of blood, and this is where the atonement began, and it was only finished on the cross.

57:25

And so that was in the pageant, at least all the way through the last time that I was out there.

57:33

But as soon as you guys get out there, you need to be listening carefully at that point to see if it's still there.

57:39

Because otherwise, you're gonna have to say, well, the problem is that nothing that you're presenting here is specifically what the

57:47

Mormon church says has been lost by all the Christian churches and their denominations down through the years.

57:53

You're not even being honest in being straightforward in what the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl Great Price and your own temple ceremonies teach about who

58:02

Jesus is as the begotten offspring of the Father and the spirit brother of Lucifer, and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

58:08

Now, as soon as you say that, you better be able to back it up. Don't tell a Mormon that they believe that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer if you cannot back that up.

58:17

Because unfortunately, today, you're gonna run into a lot of Mormons that go, we don't believe any such thing.

58:22

Now, there could be a Mormon standing behind me going, oh, yes, we do, but I'm not saying anything about it now. You'll encounter that type of situation.

58:30

But the point is, if they've taken all that out, then I would simply say, why are you only talking about these types of things rather than the things that specifically identify the

58:42

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints as the one true church on Earth, which is what your claims were?

58:49

And by the way, back when I first started going out to the Easter pageant, the Mormons didn't say, we're just Christians like you.

58:57

That was not their claim. They recognized that they only have the priesthood, that this is the one true church on Earth.

59:04

It's the Church of the Lamb and the Church of the Devil. Those are your options, and those are the only options you were given.

59:10

Now, ever since the late 1990s, and Mormon prophet Gordon Hinckley, there has been a substantial shift and change in the

59:20

Mormon understanding of who they are and how they relate to other denominations. And so, depends on the person you're talking to as to how you would respond to that particular question, and it'll depend on what they do with the pageant itself.

59:33

So I think that first night, you need to make sure that you're listening really carefully so we know which direction to go with that.

59:39

Right, and I can tell you so many stories, hundreds of stories, but one story that sticks out my mind that's sort of related to how you said you'll have a younger, more modern

59:47

Mormon in front of you who's really squishy or doesn't wanna say, or maybe doesn't even know, and the older one standing right behind.

59:57

So I had this young return missionary in front of me, and I was just trying to stick to one subject and just trying to say, your church believes that you can become gods one day.

01:00:06

You believe that, correct? Joseph taught that. Do you believe that? And the person was like, I don't, you know, I just,

01:00:11

I don't think we have a position on that. This is a return missionary. I don't really think we have a position on it. And I went for,

01:00:16

I mean, minutes just saying, just say it, it's okay, it's just us. Like you, just say it.

01:00:22

Like I'm not, you know, I know that's what Joseph taught. Will you just say it? And I was getting kind of frustrated. Like, can you just please just say that you believe you're gonna become a god one day?

01:00:28

That's the goal of Mormonism. Yes, just, do you believe that? And he wouldn't say it. And I think it was behind me, there was a very elderly

01:00:38

Mormon gentleman with a cane, and he was frustrated. You could see it.

01:00:44

He was more frustrated than me, just in his face. He was just like, you know, just mad looking back and forth this whole conversation. Quiet the whole time, but angry on his face.

01:00:52

And finally I said, do you believe you're gonna become a god one day? And he just lost it. He goes, yes

01:00:58

I am! And I looked at him, and he pointed his cane over at the temple, and he said,

01:01:03

I'm gonna do it right over there! And he looked at that Mormon missionary, and he was just like, shaking his head.

01:01:09

Like, he was just, you know, frustrated that even he didn't know Mormonism. Well here, but here's the problem though, is that sir, you apparently are not up to speed with all of this, you just don't know.

01:01:22

That the Bible has actually been changed and corrupted. And if you were actually up to speed and had all the information, you would know the

01:01:29

Bible is a book that's been transformed, and it's been, you know, hasn't been translated correctly, it's been corrupted, it's been changed.

01:01:37

Well, I know that's exactly what you've been taught. The reality is there's documentation, it's very clear that it's the

01:01:43

Book of Mormon that has been changed, it continues changing. The Doctrine and Covenants has been changed massively since it was originally published as the 1833

01:01:51

Book of Commandments. And we don't even wanna start with the Book of Abraham. But the reality is that of any work of antiquity, the

01:01:59

New Testament especially, we can focus upon that, has been transmitted to us with such tremendous accuracy that it is far, far more accurate than anything you have in the

01:02:11

Book of Mormon, which you first had from your prophet in a printed form.

01:02:17

The New Testament had to be transmitted in a handwritten form for 1 ,500 years, and yet it is more accurate than the

01:02:27

Book of Mormon is today as to the edits your own church has made to it. So you need to be very, very careful in making sure that you're using the same standards to analyze what you call scripture, and then attacking what the

01:02:43

Christian church has always held to be scripture. Because remember something, in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus said to men standing in front of him that they should have heard the word of God, which was written 1 ,400 years earlier, as if God had spoken it to them.

01:02:59

That means it had to have been transmitted accurately for 1 ,400 years. You can't get the

01:03:05

Book of Mormon through 150 years, but the Bible can go through 3 ,000 years and be more accurate.

01:03:11

You need to be very careful in what you're saying. Well, touche. Here's the problem.

01:03:19

You Christians, you come here, and here's the thing.

01:03:25

We've got the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. We've got Joseph Smith, modern -day prophet.

01:03:31

We have Book of Mormon. We have Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, but we're

01:03:36

Christians. The problem is that you come here, and I don't even know what you believe. Are you wearing your temple garments?

01:03:42

What's that? Are you wearing your temple garments? Am I in character right now, or am I? No, no, no.

01:03:50

Yes, I hope you are. Otherwise, we need to have an elders' meeting. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I'm wearing my temple garments, and that's frankly none of your business.

01:03:59

I understand that, but you have made covenants that you believe can only be made in that building back there, right?

01:04:07

So why are you saying we're all a bunch of Christians when the authority you believe to have to stand here and speak to me and the covenants you entered into can only be done in that building, and the only people who can go in there are temple -worthy

01:04:18

Mormons? Good point. Well, but the problem is, though, here's the thing.

01:04:25

There's so much confusion. I mean, I don't know what you are. What are you, a Presbyterian or something? I don't know.

01:04:31

Are you a Baptist? I don't know. Maybe you're Episcopalian, or I don't know.

01:04:37

There's no reason to become abusive. Yeah. I mean, there's like 35 ,000

01:04:43

Christian denominations. We have the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. It's the one true church.

01:04:49

You've got so many different sects and different denominations. I don't know who you are and what you believe, but you can't even get your own side of the street clean, and now you're coming over to mine, literally on the sidewalk.

01:05:00

Right. The problem is that everybody over on this side, and there aren't 35 ,000 denominations, but everybody over on this side who believes the

01:05:08

Bible is the word of God believes that there is one true God, and there is one way of knowing that one true

01:05:13

God, and that's the exact thing that Joseph Smith said, you have imagined, supposed that God was

01:05:19

God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see. So it's on that one issue where Presbyterians and Lutherans and Baptists, everybody agrees all the way back through history, there is one true

01:05:32

God, and that's the one thing Joseph Smith decided to deny later in his life, because the reality is there's about 167 different groups that claim

01:05:40

Joseph Smith as their founder in only a very short period of time, and some of them split off before Joseph Smith developed the idea of a polytheism, because initially he did not believe in that.

01:05:50

In fact, I've been in your church historian's department, and long, many, many years ago,

01:05:56

I read Joseph Smith's 1832 diary, and did you know that when he first recorded the first vision, there was only one person, not two persons in that alleged first vision?

01:06:04

I did not know that. And he did not develop that until 1838. I wonder why that is. Touche. Are you saying that there are different sects of Mormonism?

01:06:18

Yes, oh, definitely. I need to look into that. Um, well, but the doctrine of the

01:06:24

Trinity - You haven't been to Manti recently, have you? No. That's true. That's an inside joke, don't worry about it. You don't want to go to Southern Utah and do almost any of this, at least alone.

01:06:33

It's very interesting. Here's the thing though, you believe in the Trinity?

01:06:40

Yeah. Okay, so you believe in the Trinity. Well, the word Trinity isn't even in the

01:06:45

Bible. Just like Joseph Smith initially did when he wrote the Book of Mormon, but he was confused. Okay, I'll look into that.

01:06:51

But you believe in the Trinity, and the word Trinity isn't even in the Bible. That's true. That's very true.

01:06:58

Gotcha, then I gotcha. Well, if you want to think that you got me, that's okay. But the problem is, any word that accurately represents all that the

01:07:05

Bible teaches is an appropriate word for us to use. And so if you want to come along and say, well, it has to be in there, there's all sorts of things that have come through alleged priesthood revelations that are not in the

01:07:16

Book of Mormon, they're not in the Bible, they're not even in the Doctrine and Covenants, and yet you believe those things. You need to be careful demanding they be in those things because Joseph Smith came up with something called the

01:07:25

Book of Abraham, which has all sorts of stuff in it about polytheism, but the reality is we now understand that it was an

01:07:32

Egyptian funerary document written around the time of Christ, and Joseph Smith said it was written by Abraham. It is inaccurate in every single point.

01:07:40

And at this point, what I'd do is I'd whip out my triple and say, let's take a look at some of these things. Men is not

01:07:46

God, and all the other type of stuff that we might be able to get into at that point. But I'm not gonna do that right now because we're really running late.

01:07:56

Yeah, but let me ask you this, though. So you believe that Jesus is - I have a watch and I can actually see the clock back there.

01:08:03

These last ones, quickly. You guys wonder why

01:08:09

I talk so much and for so long. Look at the guy that taught me.

01:08:16

But here's the thing. You believe, okay, just give me this. So you believe Jesus is God, yes? That's all I need. Of course.

01:08:22

Okay, you believe Jesus is God. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but if Jesus is

01:08:27

God, then how is he praying to himself? Yes, I've never even thought about that ever in my entire life.

01:08:36

You're probably, if you're thinking about Jesus as the incarnate one, you're asking the question, would the

01:08:42

Father and the Son and the Spirit who have been in perfect union with one another through all of eternity, stop communicating during the incarnation?

01:08:51

And obviously that is not what happened. We believe that the being of God is unlimited.

01:08:57

You believe that the being of God is finite. You believe that we are the same species as God. The Bible says that is utter foolishness and it's rebellion.

01:09:06

God himself says he knows of no other God but himself, but God also says he's eternal. Moses said in Psalm 90 verse two, before the mountains were brought forth, wherever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art

01:09:18

God. So my God is eternal, he's unlimited, and therefore can be shared by three divine persons,

01:09:25

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Your God is finite, was once a man lived on another planet, and hence is of the same species as we are.

01:09:34

So where we've gotta start is exactly where Joseph Smith said. When he said, you have imagined and supposed that God was

01:09:42

God from all eternity. I'll refute that idea and take away the veils that you may see. He separated himself and anyone who would follow him from the biblical revelation of the

01:09:53

Christian faith forever. That's where we have to go, and you have to ask yourself the question, why do

01:09:58

I believe Joseph Smith rather than the combined testimony of all of the scriptures in regards to who

01:10:05

God is? That's where we need to start. Final challenge is that I know that this is the true church.

01:10:15

I know that Joseph Smith's a prophet. I know that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ because I have prayed about it.

01:10:23

I have a burning in my bosom, and you, with all your literature and all your people on this sidewalk, cannot take away that amazing experience, and I'm gonna try not to cry.

01:10:39

I'm replaying for you years and years of ministry. You're not gonna open the Book of Mormon to Moroni chapter 10 where you've outlined it in yellow and stuff like that for me.

01:10:49

And I've given my testimony at the ward a number of times, and I cry a lot when I say this, but I prayed about it, and I have a burning in my bosom, and you can't take that away from me, not with all your intellectual arguments.

01:11:01

Have you been a missionary? What's that? Did you serve your mission? Yeah. Okay, when you were out going door -to -door, did you ever run into the

01:11:06

Jehovah's Witnesses? Yes. Oh yeah, oh yeah. In fact, it was probably a bit of a bummer to run into them, especially at the same door, right?

01:11:13

Yeah. Right, okay. So let's say this person over here is a Jehovah's Witness, all right? And they look at you, and they've been going door -to -door.

01:11:21

You're on a mission for two years? Yep. They've been doing this for 20 years. And they look at you, and they say they have a testimony that the

01:11:31

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is true. They've prayed about it. How do you say to them they're wrong?

01:11:39

I guess, I mean, I'd say. They've been doing it for 10 years, 10 times longer than you have. Are you saying they're insincere?

01:11:45

I don't know. I mean, I don't know them in their heart. All I know is my experience, and I, you know. It's your experience, and that's the point, because the

01:11:53

Bible tells us not to trust in our experience. We're not to trust in our hearts. I know you've been taught to believe your heart, but the reality is the

01:12:02

Scripture says that we need a light to guide us. The heart is desperately sick and wicked.

01:12:07

Who can understand it? The prophet Jeremiah warned us about these things. The writer in the

01:12:13

Proverbs warned us about leaning on our own understanding. Instead, we are told to look to that which will be true for me, and you, and the

01:12:22

Jehovah's Witness, and the Muslim, even the Episcopalian, believe it or not. The whole group can have an objective revelation that they can look to, and that's the

01:12:32

Word of God, which is unchanging, and that's what I want to look at right now with you, and then

01:12:39

I'd open the Bible, and we'd start looking at Isaiah or something along those. Amen. All right, thank you, Pastor James. I hope that was a benefit to you all.

01:12:54

Obviously, there could be more, but we'd be here into the late hours, but I would encourage you, if you have love for your

01:13:01

Mormon friends, and family, and neighbors, you care for their souls, I encourage you to know, again, what you believe, why you believe it.

01:13:08

I gave you two challenges, the doctrine of God, and justification, how are you reconciled to God?

01:13:14

Being able to know what we believe, what does the Bible say about that, and being able to defend it. But also, we have hundreds of hours,

01:13:21

I think, of content between Pastor James and myself, engaging actually with Latter -day

01:13:26

Saints, hours of actual face -to -face conversation, conversation with Latter -day

01:13:31

Saint missionaries, public debates with Latter -day Saints, and Pastor James has even written some books on this subject, so I encourage you guys to get yourselves prepared.

01:13:42

Pastor James, on your site, AlphaOmegaAOMen .org, you still have the 100 -verse memorization system, so if you

01:13:48

Google search 100 -verse memorization system, Alpha Omega Ministries, you'll see that Pastor James, years ago, put together a very valuable resource, 100 verses you can memorize for engagement with the

01:14:01

Latter -day Saints, with, at some points, here's the verse, this is their response, and why you need to know where this is at.

01:14:08

And so I encourage you guys to prepare yourself with that, and to do pray, of course, for our mission to our Latter -day Saint friends and neighbors.

01:14:14

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word today. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to proclaim your truth, and to offer a defense for the truth, and to prepare ourselves to love the people living around us.

01:14:28

I pray, Lord, for our ministry and our mission at the temple, and to our Mormon neighbors, just regularly, whether we have missionaries riding their bikes past us, or we have relationships with Latter -day

01:14:39

Saints, I pray that you bless those relationships and the opportunity to proclaim the truth. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.