Leaving Mormonism: INCREDIBLE Conversation

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May 12, 2018

This is a very special video. It's an actual recording of a conversation between Jeff Durbin and someone who was born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was also a Mormon missionary. He made contact with us because of our online apologetics content (Thank you to our All Access partners for making that content possible). He has spent a lot of time struggling through issues related to his Mormon faith and he even showed up at the Mormon Easter Pageant to have a conversation with Jeff. Here is that content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqAYwhb3pbs&t=1538s Yesterday, he came into our studio and sat down with Jeff to ask a series of questions that both he and Jeff hope will be helpful to Christians and Mormons. We believe that this content can truly bless people and we would be so honored if you joined us in sharing it. Please pray for him and for the large segment of Mormons who are struggling with their faith. All Access Partners: You made this possible. Thank you for being our partners in this ministry. We are humbled and grateful to be doing this ministry with you. If you haven't signed up for All Access. . . what are you waiting for?! You will be partnering with us in ministry and you will get all of our TV shows, After Shows, and Apologia Academy! Partner with us and become a co-laborer with us today!

00:00: I guess my question to you is, I agree with your tract, and I don't know what to do from this point.
00:05: Okay. Why don't you give me a call? We'll meet up, hang out, talk some more.
00:11: All right? You have a good night. Yeah, you too, man. Great talking to you. So, yeah, man,
00:26: I'm just grateful, and like I said, humbled just to be able to be a part of you asking these questions, and just where you're at, your whole story right now.
00:35: Honestly, it's just incredible. Let's start with just introductions. So who are you, and I guess, maybe tell everybody how we got connected.
00:46: Sure. So, I would say, I think the biggest thing that drew me to start searching, and what started questioning my faith in the
00:56: Mormon church, is that the church has started becoming transparent, and I remember you addressing this in some of your videos, where you said you believe a lot of your back problems came from the books that you'd have to carry.
01:08: And so there's a lot of information that's available, not only in YouTube, but there's a lot of valid points that the
01:14: Mormon church is now conceding. And there's a couple of points that I, we will go over that really shortly, but those questions drove me to start doubting my faith.
01:27: And from that point, I started questioning, is there really God? Is there not? I started looking at a lot of YouTube videos.
01:36: The first one I came across was the God debate that you and Cy did a while back.
01:43: And that's what introduced me to your videos. And then I started looking for the times that you've witnessed to Mormon missionaries, because I was a
01:50: Mormon missionary. I was out in Florida in the Bible Belt. And so - Wow, what was that like, man?
01:55: It was - A Mormon missionary in the Bible Belt? I mean, the only thing I can say is, these are my scriptures that I had on my mission.
02:02: And you can tell just by the gold leafing, which one had to get used more. It was really just, if you didn't, it was know your
02:09: Bible or get out, essentially. And so, I mean, that's honestly the biggest thing that I want to address that even some of my
02:16: Christian friends have talked about, is they feel that they're so, I don't want to say scared, but they're so timid sometimes to talk to Mormons, because Mormons, they have the same terminology, but it doesn't mean the same thing.
02:29: And so, it's very easy for a Mormon. It was very easy for me to misunderstand scriptures and to believe it so much that you're willing to go preach about it.
02:39: And so, that is the biggest thing I think I want, or at least that we're going to be talking about at least, is that those misconceptions that are easily taken wrongly by the
02:52: Mormon church. And the fun thing I want to be able to do is some of the tracks that I would do to reach
02:59: Christians, I want to throw those at you so that you can come back at them and say, this is where this is wrong.
03:06: Because ultimately, what I want to give you the opportunity to do is there's a lot of times you'll talk to Mormons on the street and they'll either get embarrassed, they'll get frustrated, they'll shut the door.
03:17: You'll say something that turns them off for whatever reason. And then you can't get the further understanding in.
03:24: And so, I know the culture. I've been in the church, raised in the church, 28 years. I know what these
03:30: Mormons are asking. I know what scriptures in the Bible they rely on. And so,
03:36: I want to give you just ample opportunity to just lay it out so that it can be out in the open.
03:42: These are the scriptures of why they believe what they believe, why they say they believe in the Bible, and why they're wrong. So, born and raised in the
03:49: LDS church, went on your mission, and now you've come to a point of, well, we're at a point of a crisis of faith.
03:57: And you mentioned that you started even questioning whether God exists.
04:02: You started coming to more fundamental questions because, and this is the difficult thing for me in terms of the heartbreaking aspect of it is where you see somebody that's a
04:11: Latter -day Saint that starts to go online and starts to see a lot of the stuff about Joseph Smith, false prophecies, historic stuff, stuff that the
04:18: Mormon church is conceding today. And it brings them to a place where they turn atheistic or agnostic.
04:25: They just give up because they figure, well, maybe truth isn't even possible to be known. Maybe if Joseph's a false prophet, how do
04:31: I know that Jesus wasn't also a false prophet? And so that's always a sad thing to see. Many, many modern
04:38: Mormons that leave the Mormon church giving up altogether. That's heartbreaking for me to see that because I think, well, let's get to the fundamental aspect of the difficulty in terminology.
04:53: I think this would do that. You mentioned before we started rolling that the thing that's been causing you to want to throw your head into a wall is the definitions, right?
05:03: Because we speak the same language. But you have a particular view of a certain word or a phrase that now you have to sort of undo.
05:14: You have to challenge stuff that's core like Jesus, God the Father, Holy Spirit, Bible, faith, baptism, all of these things that meant something to you before your whole life.
05:26: It's redefining all of them, right? I had a friend of mine many years ago that he came to Christ, devout
05:35: Mormon family, and he was only 16 years old. And when he turned to Christ, his family kicked him out of the house at 16 years old.
05:42: And it was interesting because it was a year after he had come to faith. I remember we were sitting and having dinner and he just confessed to me that night because he was looking so strong and like he was doing so well.
05:52: He confessed to me that night over dinner that he was really struggling on a daily basis trying to figure out if what he was thinking was true because he had all of these different beliefs and all this baggage from Mormonism.
06:05: Even a year into his walk with Christ, he was still going, is that true? Like, is that biblical?
06:11: And he was always running to the Bible to try to figure out, oh my goodness, I could be really wrong on this because I thought one way and now it's a different way.
06:18: So just talk about that. I think the problem of definition is huge. Like one of the biggest issues that we're gonna be going over is grace, for example.
06:27: And a lot of my questions are gonna be based around, you know, we initially, when we were at the temple and we were initially talking, we talked about how
06:37: James 2 and Ephesians 2 don't wash each other out and how they don't contradict. That is a big issue.
06:43: And also one of the scriptures that I even checked on today on lds .org just to make sure that my understanding of it when
06:50: I spoke to you coincides with the LDS Church is when I brought up, I still always get it mixed up, but it's either
06:57: Matthew 19, 17 or Matthew 17, 19 when he's speaking to the young rich ruler.
07:03: And context is so important. The Mormon Church, they have discussion after talk, after general conference, and that parable is used a lot if you search on lds .org.
07:15: And they say, you know, yes, you know, this is, you know, the commandments and all that kind of stuff.
07:22: And they harbor that. And what they don't realize is they don't take what was eye -opening to me, is you've got to take it word for word, verse by verse.
07:32: And so when Christ, for example, says, I believe he calls him, you may have to refresh my memory.
07:39: He calls him good master, good rabbi. What shall I do to gain eternal life? Yes, yes. And Christ essentially says, why are you calling me good?
07:47: Because there's only one that's good. And that is the biggest context.
07:53: Mormons have used that with me to say, Jesus isn't God, God, right? Well, that's awful.
07:59: First of all. Yeah. But where is it? Matthew 19, 16 is where it starts.
08:08: And anyways, I'll go over this really quickly. It says, and behold, and one came unto him saying, good master, what good thing shall
08:16: I do that I may have eternal life? So the context of this also is that this guy is self -righteous.
08:22: He's not actually trying to figure out what to do from what I understand. And so he says, and why callest me thou good?
08:29: There is none good but one, that is God. If thou will enter into life, keep the commandments. And so the things Mormons have to ask is, is
08:36: God saying, is Jesus Christ saying that he's not good? And if you're willing to advocate that Jesus Christ is not good, then
08:43: I don't even think you have good standing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. And so you have to take the context that he's answering the fool according to his folly is that he's playing the game.
08:55: Sure, you believe you're gonna follow the commandments. Let's actually see how far you're willing to go. And so context of that is so important.
09:06: I can't tell you how long. After you and I talked, we didn't have a chance to go over that scripture because there's so many things
09:13: I threw at you at one time. But there was a time that I messaged your Facebook over social media again.
09:21: I was like, hey, can you please help explain this? Because this is killing me. I don't understand grace when
09:26: Christ is saying this, that you have to follow the commandments. And he pointed it out.
09:32: You have to understand the context. God is good. You have to understand that everybody was trying to find ways to twist his words so that they could kill him.
09:40: And so. Well, it's powerful. Just the point I think that's interesting is that point of context.
09:48: I know that in missionary, I have the missionary training manuals, missionary training stuff. There was a Mormon missionary at the temple that came to Christ once after weeks of talking in secret with us.
09:59: And when he left, he came to Christ, he left, he gave us all the missionary training manuals. And it was interesting when
10:05: I looked through a lot of those and saw a lot of the training, I saw this real forceful, this emphasis upon proof texting, right?
10:17: If somebody says this, then this is what you throw back at them. If they say you're saved by grace through faith, then you give them
10:23: James chapter two, faith that works is dead. Without any approach to the text of what actually is
10:29: James saying, right? So oftentimes when I've had more missionaries say to me, faith that works is dead, what I often say is, and what's the context of James?
10:38: What's he saying there in that passage? And I don't know, does it matter? I mean, it matters a great deal because there's this emphasis upon proof texting.
10:47: And for example, just another one, just to toss out when you say there's only one God and more missionaries are trained to say there be
10:55: God's many and Lord's many. Well, that's in the Bible. First Corinthians chapter eight, there'll be God's many and Lord's many. See, the
11:00: Bible says there's many gods. It's like, what's the context of, what's the context of first Corinthians chapter eight?
11:06: It's Paul saying there's only one God and there are lots of other so -called gods, but there's only one actual
11:12: God, one real God. And so, yeah, that becomes, I think, one of the most important things is definitions.
11:20: What does the Bible say about God? What does it say about Jesus? When you go to particular passages, what is the context of that passage?
11:27: Who's talking? What's the context? For example, in this rich young ruler passage, here's
11:32: Jesus talking to a man who actually thinks that he's obeyed the commandments of God in a way that would inherit eternal life.
11:40: And Jesus knows his heart, has his compassion on the guy, and he tells him what he's missing. And what he's missing is what the man will not give up is his stuff.
11:50: What the man has violated with his stuff, being a rich young ruler, is the law of God in terms of how to care for the poor.
11:56: Jesus knows his heart. Jesus knows how he has not kept the law of God in terms of how he actually cares for the poor.
12:03: And so, Jesus tells him, sell everything you have. Don't give it to me, give it to the poor, which I love that, by the way, about Jesus.
12:10: Every religious charlatan in the world would most certainly say to a rich person, okay, here's what you're missing.
12:17: Sell everything that you've got and give it to the ministry. Jesus says, sell everything you've got and give it to the poor, so you come to me naked.
12:23: You come to me with nothing. And he says, and follow me. So, what are you missing? Follow me, that's what you're missing.
12:31: So, the point of the question of eternal life is that you need Christ, you must come to Christ. And this man's not willing to give up what he loves more than God, and that's his stuff.
12:42: And what he hasn't done is actually obeyed God's law in terms of how he actually is supposed to care for the poor. And so, he walks away sorrowful because he has many great possessions.
12:53: And that's where Jesus gives this amazing promise after he talks about rich people entering the kingdom of heaven.
13:00: He says, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished saying, who then can be saved?
13:10: But Jesus looked at them and said, with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. By the way, killer passage there on the power of God in salvation.
13:19: What does Jesus emphasize there as he does over and over and over in the Bible is that salvation isn't of man.
13:26: It's not through your effort. It's not through what you do. It's impossible for people who are a particular way with their stuff, rich people, to get into the kingdom of God, to come into the rule of Christ.
13:38: And so, they said, well, who can do it? Well, with man, it's impossible. You can't do it with man, with man's abilities, but with God as the source,
13:47: God as the sovereign, God as the foundation, all things are possible. And then he goes into the beautiful truth about that I think every
13:55: Mormon who's watching this needs to hear. And he goes back to a story you've probably heard me tell before about how
14:02: I started even caring about reaching my Mormon friends is that I had a Mormon friend in high school who approached me when
14:09: I first heard the gospel and I'm reading the Bible at a theater arts class after school and sits down next to me.
14:17: What are you reading? I'm reading the Bible. And he's like, oh, I'm a Christian. You're a Christian too? Oh, yeah, we're Christians, great. And so, he asked me, he says, which level of heaven are you going to?
14:26: I'd never heard of that. Sounded strange to me. And I was like, well, the highest one, I hope, I guess. So, that's where I started studying
14:33: Mormonism. And so, long story, basically, I started investing myself in getting to know
14:38: Mormonism, reading the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, getting to know what the Mormon prophets and apostles actually taught.
14:45: So, I spent six months at least ministering to this friend. And we're in my room one day, after like six months,
14:52: I had like sat down with countless Mormon missionaries by this point. They were just sending them to me now.
14:57: And I was having dinner with his family. I was going with his family to the temple to go look at the lights.
15:02: And this is in Washington, DC. And I had just spent so much time in this
15:08: Mormon community and they loved me and I love them back. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with the Mormon community is because I love the
15:14: Mormon people so much. But we sat on my bed and I'm sharing with him more scriptures and he just breaks down and he said,
15:24: I know everything that you're saying is true. He said, but I can't leave the church. And I said, why?
15:31: If you know what's the truth, why? And he said, because my whole life is the church.
15:37: If I leave, I lose everything. I lose my family. I lose everything that I love. I lose everything.
15:43: And so, of course, I've said many times before that what I said to him, it just welled up within me. And I was a Christian for such a short period of time,
15:49: I don't really know how it did. But I said, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?
15:56: So what if you have your family and all your stuff and this community that you love and you're raised with and you thought was so true?
16:02: If you lose your soul, what do you gain? And this is one of those moments too that connects to that where Jesus says, everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my namesake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.
16:20: So that's right in the rich young ruler passage where Jesus is telling people, yeah, you might lose your stuff when you follow me, but you gain life and you gain a hundredfold.
16:32: And so that to me is just a great encouragement too in terms of all of us, not just Mormons, but all of us who have to abandon the community that we're in and the lifestyle maybe we've chose and the stuff that we've gained to follow
16:47: Christ, you really gain everything in following Christ and you really lose nothing.
16:52: I mean, nothing at all. So yeah, okay, let's get into it, man. What's the questions?
17:00: So initially, just to give some context on the reason we're even doing this, I wanted to make sure that the
17:08: Christians, again, understand that what we're trying to do is we're trying to create a dialogue, I guess, that can reach
17:14: Mormons more efficiently so that you don't run into the same situation that I ran into, which was you just don't get the context, you don't get the terminology and you just give up and go to agnosticism or atheism.
17:27: And so we want this to reach Mormons and at the same time, we want Mormons to come to this video and if you're watching this, we don't want this to, like this isn't anti -Mormon literature.
17:41: We don't want anybody to shut off or be scared. We're just gonna be talking about, I might reference a couple of things from LDS .org, but mainly we're just staying in the
17:47: Bible. And so what we wanna do is make things crystal clear and coming from the
17:53: Mormon, I can explain a little bit more why Mormons are the way they are, why they might be stubborn in certain situations, how you might be able to reach them in certain areas.
18:03: And so anyways, so I wanna get to the first questions that I wanna talk about, which is gonna go over grace.
18:11: And so I think the greatest thing that could have happened, but again, we didn't have enough time that night, so it was like 10 o 'clock, is to try and speak to me in the language that I understood.
18:24: And so the first question I have for you is, first off, if there are any Mormons that are watching this,
18:30: I really hope you are, we're gonna try and make this video as efficient as possible. And so we don't want
18:35: Jeff repeating the same things that he repeats in so many other videos. You already have this information out there.
18:41: And so for anybody that's at this point, and if we don't give this topic enough body, search
18:48: Apologia Studios, I want you to look up, how are we saved? Faith plus works, question mark. And I believe this is when you were out in Hawaii.
18:55: I think you had a Protestant gentleman ask you. Anyways, we're gonna get into that.
19:01: Cause I have questions directly about your response to him. But the first thing I want to ask is again, speaking to the Mormon in his language, can you use the structure of the articles of faith, three and four, and I'll identify them for you, identify where they fall short and create a true
19:16: Christian based article of faith to compare it to. So three and four is, we believe that mankind may be saved by obedience, the laws and principles of the gospel.
19:26: I think it goes without saying, that we can say man is saved by faith through grace. You can just really just stick
19:32: Ephesians eight through 10, right where that's at. More along the context of the rest of it, is we believe in the first principles and ordinances are first faith in the
19:44: Lord Jesus Christ, second repentance, third baptism by immersion for the mission of sins, and fourth, the laying on of hands for the gift of the
19:51: Holy Ghost. And so can you take that and identify where that's wrong and build something that's
19:58: Christian? And so for example, I remember you had a video where it was a two part, two week sermon that you were giving on baptism, whether it was necessary or not.
20:08: And you go over how the gospel reaches, how do you become Christian? I believe you said it was gospel, faith, repentance.
20:16: And so is there any way that you can, again, construct an article of faith that could reach a
20:21: Mormon, identify where it's wrong and show them what the actual gospel is? So in terms of thinking about what the
20:29: Bible says about grace and faith, the Bible teaches that grace is, this is often said, but I think it's a simple definition, is unmerited favor.
20:38: It's favor from God that is unmerited, it's a gift. And so you would see Paul speak this way in Romans chapter three, when he gives the universal indictment of all humanity of sin,
20:50: Jew and Gentile, none righteous, none who seeks for God, poison of asps is under their lips, their feet are swept to shed blood.
20:58: He says in that very same passage with this universal indictment on Jew and Gentile, everybody is lost.
21:04: He says that the law will justify nobody for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
21:10: And so Paul teaches explicitly about law, works of law in Romans and his explanation of the gospel itself.
21:19: He says very clearly Romans chapter three, after the universal indictment in verse 19.
21:26: Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
21:33: So Paul says there, the law's point is to shut your mouth, shut you up.
21:39: It shuts not just Israel up, it shuts the whole world up, that's everybody.
21:45: Because the law, Paul says, by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
21:53: So no one will be declared righteous in his sight through the law, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin, not just my knowledge of, oh, that's sin, but I think the law itself exasperates, long day, exasperates the problem of sin in a fallen human being when we're in the flesh, in Adam, lost.
22:17: The law comes to me and it actually provokes me because of my sinful condition.
22:23: It creates within me an intimate knowledge of sin and it's supposed to,
22:30: Paul says, be my schoolmaster to drive me to Jesus. Paul never teaches, Jesus never taught, the
22:36: Old Testament never taught that the law of God justified people before God's eyes. That's not how
22:41: Abraham was justified. He was justified and he's the father of our faith, Genesis 15, six, through faith.
22:50: I have to let that hang for a second because if somebody says, if Joseph says, if Brigham says, if the
22:57: Mormon church says that we are the restoration of the true faith, that means that you're a restoration of everything that goes all the way back to the promise made to Abraham through whom
23:07: God was gonna bless the entire world, all the nations, descendants as numerous as the stars.
23:13: You can't understand the message of Jesus without understanding Abraham and that's Paul's whole argument right here in this very passage is he gets to that point, how was
23:21: Abraham justified? By grace, as a gift, through his grace, Paul teaches in Romans three, he was justified through faith when it was before he did circumcision and guess what, it was before Isaac, 20 years before Isaac was offered on the altar.
23:38: It was also about 400 years before the law was given. So Paul's whole point is the law never can save you, it never was intended to save you, it didn't save Abraham, it was through faith alone and in this passage,
23:51: Paul says, no human being will be justified in his sight but this is what I'm gonna get to in terms of grace. Look what
23:56: Paul says here in verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, that's key.
24:03: The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
24:09: In other words, Paul's saying, this is not some new novel message. Now it's manifested apart from God's law but the law and the prophets testify to this.
24:20: The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God and are justified that is declared righteous by his grace as a gift.
24:34: Now here's what's key, this is why I wanted to quote this to you. In terms of thinking about what the article of faith says, Paul says here, everyone's a sinner, you're justified through faith and it is by his grace as a gift, same word.
24:50: So Paul does a little bit of doublespeak here. He goes, or he stutters, he stutters. He says, you are justified by his grace as a gift, it's as a gift gift.
25:00: That's how much of a gift this is, it's a gift gift. That's how much of a gift.
25:06: So he says, through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, propitiation there is a word that means a full diversion of God's wrath.
25:19: Jesus absorbed the wrath of God in our place. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, his patience, he'd passed over former sins of all of God's Old Testament people.
25:31: It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
25:39: Here's Paul's point. How can God who is holy declare people righteous who are not righteous?
25:47: They're actually wicked. Well, because he gives Jesus as the full absorption of his wrath so that God as a holy
25:55: God remains a just God because he hasn't said in any way, your sins don't matter,
26:01: I'm just gonna forget about it. That's the God of every single religion in the world. Is it like say
26:06: Islam, for example, is that he's a merciful God according to Muslims. But if you say, okay, but how does he deal with the problem of human sin?
26:15: Well, he just forgives you. So then he's not just. Because if you had any human judge in a court that had criminals in front of them who are truly guilty with the victim standing behind them and the judge says, well,
26:27: I just wanna be merciful, you're free to go. You've got a lot of problems there in terms of real crimes and brokenness that all are there.
26:36: And no judge would actually be on that stand very long if he's just letting criminals go.
26:42: Because what people would say is you are not a just judge. You can't just let people go. So what
26:49: God does is he remains just because he doesn't ignore our sin. He actually penalizes Jesus in our place and gives to him the full outpouring of his wrath.
26:58: And he justifies those who are in Christ through faith in Jesus. And so what
27:04: Paul teaches here is that salvation is a gift by God's grace. It's a gift gift through the redemption that's in Jesus.
27:11: It's apart from works of law. And this is where Paul lands. Then what becomes of our boasting?
27:17: It is excluded by what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold, we maintain that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
27:30: So Paul says here, we, we maintain, who? Him, the apostles, the early disciples of Jesus, the leaders in the early church.
27:38: We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. Some people will say, where do you get the idea that the
27:44: Bible says you're justified through faith alone? Well, I'd say, where do you want to start? Old testament or new?
27:51: But this is what I would say. Paul says, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. Faith apart from works of law is faith by itself.
28:01: Faith alone. But what's interesting here is that this little snapshot in terms of the articles of faith.
28:07: Somebody might say with the articles of faith, well, no, it's through obedience and faith. Paul says, that's false.
28:14: That's a false gospel. It can't, the law can justify nobody. It's a gift of God's grace through the redemption that's in Christ.
28:21: He says, it's, it's faith apart from works of law. So then the Mormon response is immediate. So what you're saying then is that we could just do whatever we want.
28:30: We could just send however we want. It's amazing. It's like Paul already anticipated your objection because literally two or three verses later, after he says it's faith apart from any work of law, he says in Romans 3 .31,
28:42: do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means.
28:48: On the contrary, we uphold the law. We establish it. So Paul's theology is this. Because it's faith alone, because it's faith apart from works of law, because it's faith in Jesus who is a propitiation for us, therefore we establish
29:04: God's law because now we're saved. Can you define something for me that I know Mormons are probably gonna ask and I was asking at some point.
29:11: Can you define the terminology of establishing the law? What exactly does it mean to establish it and not rely on it, if that makes sense?
29:20: So, and that's Paul's, I love it. All the modern Mormon needs, all we all need, but all the modern
29:27: Mormon needs to answer these questions honestly is one book. There's more, but Romans.
29:33: Because what Paul addresses in Romans is your very question. It's all right there and it's connected to the entirety of the
29:40: Bible, the whole narrative of the Bible. So the Old Testament says a couple places,
29:45: Jeremiah 31 .31, the new covenant is coming and it's gonna be different. That God's people broke the last covenant and God says the new one's gonna be different.
29:54: Even though I was your husband and you broke the covenant, he says, now I will put my law in your inward parts.
30:00: Now, instead of the law being outside of fallen people and stone tablets, now
30:05: God says in their new covenant, I will forgive your sins and I will never remember them. And he says, I'll put my law in your inward parts.
30:12: It's gonna go from stone tablets on the outside of you exerting pressure to now it's gonna be formed within you on the tablet of your heart, different covenants.
30:21: And then in Ezekiel 36, another promise in a new covenant, God says, I'm gonna sprinkle clean water on you. You'll be clean.
30:27: There's a cleansing there of sin. I'll cleanse you of all your idols, God says. He says, I will put my spirit within you.
30:33: I'll remove your heart of stone that's hard towards me and I'll give you a heart of flesh that's soft, malleable towards me.
30:41: He says, I'll put my spirit within you and I'll cause you to observe my statutes. There's the old covenant promise of a new covenant.
30:50: And in that new covenant, God doesn't say the law now is gone, like many foolish evangelicals would say today.
30:58: I would say reject anybody you hear today that calls themselves an evangelical that says the
31:03: Old Testament is no longer relevant or the law of God doesn't matter. I would say that that view is not only heresy, not only was it rejected by the early church in the second century of the church, one of the earliest heresies ever that arose within the church.
31:18: It's not biblical. It's also not historic. Christians have not held to that view in history because the old covenant specifically gives you promises of a new where the law of God is gonna be a constituent element of the new covenant, not in any way to save us.
31:34: It never did. It's not that in the old covenant we were saved by law and in the new covenant we're not.
31:42: It's not that way. The old covenant was also a covenant within it of grace.
31:48: The law was given, of course, with particular strict standards and curses applied to the national people of Israel.
31:55: Obey, blessing. Disobey, curse. But the law of God was never seen by Jews to be in and of itself bad or a curse.
32:04: So this is what's interesting. So Paul knows that Old Testament theology and he answers your question in this very text.
32:11: After he says, we're not justified through law but through faith alone, how is
32:16: Abraham justified? Faith apart from any works. He then moves on to the story of the two
32:22: Adams, Jesus and the first Adam. He says, everybody who's in the first Adam receives death and condemnation.
32:30: That's every human being in existence. We're all coming from the same parents, which by the way, caveat here, racism sucks because it's a lie.
32:40: We're all part of the same human race. Every one of us come from the same parents. And the problem we all have is not related to skin color or anything else, it's related to our fallen condition in Adam.
32:52: But Paul says, if you're in Adam, there's death and condemnation. He says, if you're in Jesus, you receive the gift of eternal life and righteousness and you're alive.
33:01: So then Paul says, Romans six, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?
33:08: Just keep sinning now because the more I sin, the more God's grace, right? God becomes really famous because I'm sinning, but he has so much more grace to give.
33:17: Paul says this, may it never be, how shall we who died to sin continue to live in it?
33:23: And there's where he shows that the person who truly has faith in Jesus has entered into his death to sin and has been raised with him to newness of life.
33:32: You're a new creation in Christ. So then Paul says, the old Testament gave us law,
33:39: Romans seven, and that law was holy and that law is good. The problem is not with the law.
33:46: The problem is with a person who is dead in their sins and trespasses. They can't do what the law requires and they're resistant to it.
33:57: So Paul's basic point there is, how are we ever going to be delivered from this? If the law itself only exacerbates the problem for me as a fallen person, he says, what's going to deliver me from that?
34:10: He says, thanks be to God, Jesus. He says, therefore there is now no condemnation for those who were in Christ Jesus.
34:17: You're no longer in the flesh. You're no longer dead. He says, those who are in the flesh cannot
34:23: Romans eight, cannot submit to God's law. They can't do it. They're not even able to do it.
34:29: Paul says, they can't even do what's pleasing to God. He says, but you're not in the flesh. You are in the spirit,
34:36: Ezekiel 36. What's God say he's going to do? Put a spirit within us, cause us to observe his statutes.
34:42: Paul knows that. So Paul says, if you're in the flesh and you're dead, your relation to the law of God is hostility.
34:49: You can't do it. You can't submit to it. Why? Because you're not alive. Because you're not in the spirit.
34:55: He says, but for God's people who are in the spirit, now they can actually do the righteous requirement of the law.
35:02: And Paul says, what is that? Love. Love does no harm to its neighbor.
35:08: Love is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus says that, by the way, it's not Paul's theology.
35:14: It's the biblical theology. Just consider this for a second. Jesus says, the two greatest commandments are to love the
35:23: Lord your God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. And to love your neighbor as you love yourself. He says, all of the law and the prophets are built upon these two commandments.
35:32: Those two. Love God, love neighbor. So what's interesting is that's not new covenant law.
35:38: People are like, oh, the Old Testament, all those laws, now it's just love God, love neighbor. It's like, no, Jesus says love
35:44: God, love neighbor is the foundation of every law of God. But the amazing thing in a new covenant is now that you're alive from the dead, now that your sins are washed away, now that you are acquitted in God's sight, now that you're in Jesus, now that the spirit of God indwells you, now that you can fulfill what the law required, which was to love
36:02: God and love neighbor. The Christian's relationship to the law of God now in a new covenant is now the law is in us.
36:11: Now we establish the law, why? Because we're alive spiritually. Now we're not hostile to God.
36:18: Now I have a new relationship to God and to his law, where now
36:24: I'm not hostile to God and to his law. Now I actually want to do it.
36:30: So when someone says to me, and by the way, I just wanna say this to every Mormon watching this, I would stand on the side of Mormons and point my finger at the person who professes to believe in Jesus and has no desire to follow him, to love him, to live a life of holiness, to love his law.
36:51: I would say to that person who professes faith in Jesus, says, oh, I'm saved, I believe in Jesus, but they have no hunger for righteousness, no love for God's law.
37:00: They're sleeping and living with their girlfriend outside of marriage, those sorts of things, but they're professing faith in Jesus. I would say you have every reason not to say that this person lost their salvation, or not that they haven't done enough to be saved.
37:14: I would say you'd have every reason to challenge whether or not they have ever come to life, whether they ever actually believed in Jesus.
37:22: That's interesting. I haven't thought about it that way, that it's not that they've lost it, it's did they ever have it.
37:27: And by the way, it's powerful because John is the one who actually makes that point. The apostle
37:33: John says, they went out from us in order to show they were never really of us. So he's talking about people who actually abandoned the faith.
37:40: And he says, the answer to why is that they never were of us.
37:45: Or how about Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount? It's in Matthew, the same text we were in earlier. Jesus talks about on the last day, there's gonna be people who come to him and say,
37:53: Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons in your name and do this in your name and do all these things?
37:59: By the way, popular verse used by many people as a proof text to say you can lose your salvation.
38:04: Very popular. It's, by the way, right on the heels of Jesus condemning false teachers, which is interesting.
38:12: And then he says, many will come to me and say, didn't we do all these things in your name? And Jesus doesn't tell them that you lost your salvation.
38:21: He says this, he says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity,
38:27: I never knew you. Not I knew you and you couldn't hack it.
38:33: I knew you and you didn't do good enough stuff. I knew you and there weren't enough good works. I knew you and you fell.
38:40: He says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.
38:46: There never was a relationship with me, never. And so that is a powerful point to make there in terms of this intimate relationship we have with Jesus.
38:57: Jesus connects that intimacy. Well, in Matthew there with people saying,
39:03: I didn't ever have a relationship with you. And then it's interesting in Matthew 25, same book, on the last day when
39:09: Jesus vindicates his people that they truly were his, how does he do it?
39:16: He says, he's gonna have the shining moment where he basically broadcast to the world, these people are mine and you're not.
39:23: And how does Jesus do it? He says, when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. I was hungry and you fed me.
39:30: I was in prison and you visited me. And his people are go, when, when did we do that?
39:36: And Jesus says, when you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me. So it's interesting on the last day, there will be a vindication of God's people.
39:45: Not that you did these things and so therefore you're saved, but these things are the vindication that these are truly
39:51: God's people. What? They're good works. They're good works don't save them.
39:57: They're good works are identifying the fact that they truly are the people of God. So Paul's point in Romans is that this is all part of God's narrative in history.
40:09: His plan was that he would save people through the Messiah. It was never through works of law, but now that God has brought
40:16: Messiah and we're alive from the dead, now the law of God has its proper place in the world within God's people who are now alive and they can do it.
40:27: Not perfectly, because Paul addressed that elsewhere, how to deal with personal sin. But the point is, is if somebody is truly saved, the
40:34: Bible teaches that their life goes on transforming and being renewed. Okay.
40:41: So just real fast. Yeah. And just this is one punch thing. This is just a one punch. All I would do is encourage somebody who is reading the articles of faith.
40:50: Just go to the book of Galatians, really the letter. It's very, very short. And look what
40:56: Paul says here. Where yeah. He says, Galatians chapter two. He says, we ourselves, verse 15, are
41:03: Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, so that we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.
41:22: Now, I just want to say as a quick note, he's not saying that to people who are saying, hey man, you just gotta work your way to heaven.
41:31: You gotta obey all this law like to get to heaven. Nope. He said it to people who were acknowledging that Jesus died for sins and rose again from the dead and that you needed to believe in Jesus.
41:41: But what they were saying was that you at least needed to keep this one part of the law, be circumcised.
41:49: Like you gotta at least become Jewish before like you're saved. So keep the old covenant sign of circumcision, be brought under that, and then you're good to go.
42:00: And yeah, and it's faith in Jesus too. And this is the problem with manmade religions who borrow from Christianity or the true faith is that it's so deceptive.
42:09: It's cunning, which is the subtlety, the craftiness of Satan. Paul refers to it in 2
42:15: Corinthians 11, the craftiness of Satan. And that's that most manmade religions don't ever say it's all works.
42:22: What they say is that grace is necessary. It's totally necessary. You definitely need God's grace, but only the true faith says that grace is sufficient.
42:32: Mormonism says grace is necessary, but they do not believe grace is sufficient. For Paul, for Jesus, for the
42:40: Bible, grace is sufficient to save you, not just necessary. And when you try to hook grace up with works in an effort to be right before God, Paul says,
42:54: Galatians 3, welcome to the curse. Now you have to fulfill all of it.
43:00: How you doing? That's Paul's point. Did you receive God's spirit through works of law or by hearing with faith?
43:06: Paul's point to the Galatians is guys, how did you become saved? How'd you become believers? Tell me that. Did you hear and believe or was it through works?
43:15: And every person would have gone, well, we heard the gospel and we believed. He says, are you so foolish?
43:21: Having begun by the spirit, are you now being made perfect through the flesh, through all this works of obedience?
43:27: Are you now gonna make it that way? He says, Christ became a curse for us because the law of God is an expression of God's holiness.
43:35: Paul says, if you're gonna submit to the law as a means of justification, he says that now you're under its curse.
43:43: You have to fulfill all of it. How are you doing? To which everybody has to say, not good.
43:49: And he says, that's the glory of Jesus is that he became a curse for us. Even though he didn't break
43:56: God's law, he was treated by the father as though he did so that all who are in him receive the blessings of his righteousness and he receives the curse of the disobedient.
44:08: And that's the glory of the gospel. Okay, so I have something that I know will be a stumbling block for Mormons.
44:17: That was something I remember most of our conversation at the temple was about the subject, grace and faith.
44:23: And you're driving a home point after point after point and I was just still confused. And so there's this one issue that I know
44:30: Mormons are always gonna go to James 2 and you already talk about this in the video that we already relayed. Are you saved by grace by works?
44:37: But if you could define an aspect of a Christian's life, like you said, we're saved by grace.
44:44: We established the law, not perfectly. And so the Mormon is going to ask, what do you define that as?
44:52: Is that no longer sin when we do it imperfectly? Is there a difference between an unbeliever's sin and a believer's sin?
45:00: And so the scripture I wanted to bring to your mind, if I can find it really fast, it's in 1
45:06: John 3, 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for a seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God.
45:17: Now, I would hope to say, I don't really wanna say hope to say, but it's difficult for me to say that once you accept
45:24: Christ, you will be perfect and you will never sin anymore in the way that I understand sin, which is going against the law.
45:30: And so can you explain what this is saying and what it should mean to a Mormon who is accepting
45:36: Christianity? Because it's just like I asked you before, are you swimming in and out of grace every time you make a mistake?
45:44: And so this is where they're gonna get hung up on. So this goes back to the passage, we were already in Romans 3 and 4.
45:51: What I would encourage a Mormon to do who's questioning this is I would say, read Romans 4. In Romans 4,
45:58: Paul solidifies his argument about how a person is justified before God.
46:03: How has God always done it? He goes, Abraham, our forefather, according to the faith of flesh, he says, how was he justified?
46:12: He says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. It was imputed to him, it was charged to his account as righteousness.
46:20: The word there, legitimi, has to do with crediting, charging up, accounting, righteous.
46:27: And he says, to the one who works, Romans 4, his wage is not credited as a gift, but as what is due.
46:37: In other words, if you're working for it, what you get is a wage, not a gift. But this is a gift, so that doesn't work.
46:45: He says, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies, get this, the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
46:57: That doesn't make any sense. God credits, imputes, credits righteousness to the wicked.
47:05: How does God maintain his character and his reputation as a just God when he's actually crediting people righteous who are not?
47:13: The point is, is imputation. God credits to Christ our unrighteousness, our sin, our debt.
47:23: And he credits to us Christ's righteousness. This is my point. You swimming in and out of grace?
47:29: No, because you see, the father doesn't look at me at any point in eternity, in terms of my relationship with him, in terms of my own righteousness that I've established, my own obedience.
47:41: I only have standing before God. I only stand through faith. And I only stand because I have a foreign righteousness.
47:49: It's not my own. I'm in Christ. I'm hiding in him. I have his righteousness.
47:55: And Paul says in Romans four, he says, David also speaks of the blessing of the man upon whom
48:01: God credits righteousness apart from works. God credits righteousness apart from any works.
48:08: So there's my works not counting my own righteousness, not counting, and God crediting to me righteousness.
48:16: And then it says in that same passage that God will not count my sin against me. And Paul goes on to explain in Philippians two, and this gets at the heart of what you're asking.
48:25: He says this, when he gives his resume, he says, Pharisee, tribe of Benjamin.
48:30: He says all these things. He says, but I want to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, derived from the law.
48:41: But the one that comes from God, from him, through faith. So is it in and out of righteousness?
48:47: I'm sinning, he loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not. No, Paul says this, if you're in Jesus, you're in Christ, you have his righteousness.
48:56: It's a foreign righteousness, charged to my account through faith. And so when someone has come to Christ and turned from sin to trust in Jesus and has been joined to him in his death and resurrection, you're now declared righteous.
49:10: You're now forgiven of all of your sin. You're now counted righteous in God. Now, the righteousness that I have standing before God with, which makes me reconciled to God, is a foreign righteousness.
49:21: It's Jesus' righteousness. It's his perfection. So when John is explaining in this passage in 1
49:27: John, it's interesting, because it's another example of proof texting. Someone says, ah,
49:33: Christians, if you're truly saved, will never sin again. Where'd you ever get that idea? Well, in John, he says that, you know, those who have
49:40: God's seed in them, they don't sin. They can't. So you have a lot of weirdos that will teach.
49:46: And I have a show up on this channel of us talking to a very peculiar man named
49:52: Jesse Lee Peterson, a very popular conservative commentator, who actually does believe that once you're saved, you can never sin.
50:00: Which is interesting, because I've been on his show three times and I've pointed out his sin to him that he's committed just on the shows that we're on.
50:07: But he's not buying it. But it's interesting. So talking about context, John says here in the first letter, you quoted from 1
50:14: John. 1 John 3 .9. Three, so 1 John 3 .9. Here's 1 John 1, first chapter.
50:22: He says, verse five, this is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
50:32: If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
50:38: Here's the point. His point is, if you say you have fellowship with the one who is the light, but you're walking, that's your practice, you're walking in darkness, you're lying.
50:48: So then he says, but if we walk in the light, as in it's our practice, we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one with another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.
50:59: This is interesting. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
51:07: So here's John speaking to the person who would interpret his words in chapter three as Christians don't sin.
51:16: Here's him saying, you're a liar. If you say you have no sin, the truth isn't even in you.
51:22: So there's John's context. You can't make John speak against himself. There's context, but then he says this, verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
51:36: Here's John speaking to a church full of Christians saying, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
51:45: The point there in chapter three is speaking to practice. And it's much more easy to see in the
51:52: Greek language. If you get to unpacking the tenses and what the words mean, you can see it in the context itself.
51:59: You don't have to be a Greek scholar to see this, just read it in context. But in terms of how the word is being used, it has to do with practice.
52:06: It has to do with what identifies you, what your employment is, how you live your life, how you walk in the dark.
52:14: So it is right to say, in terms of general
52:20: Christian life and practice, if somebody's walking in darkness, unrepentantly, they're walking in darkness, that identifies them.
52:27: Their sin identifies them. That's what they do. It's like their employment, right? Somebody's a thief, somebody's a drunkard.
52:33: That identifies them. Somebody is sexually immoral. John's point is that the truth isn't in you. You can't walk in darkness and be in the light.
52:42: So all these things are identifiers of whether a person actually is in the light, whether they're walking in the light.
52:50: But in terms of how you and I have standing before God, that's answered clearly in didactic script, that means teaching.
53:01: Systematically, it's explained by the Apostle Paul. It's explained in Peter. It's explained in John.
53:07: It's explained throughout the Old Testament. The way that a person has standing before God and righteousness is only through faith in Jesus.
53:15: And that righteousness is a foreign righteousness. So I guess it would be good to end this. It would just be by saying this.
53:23: I stand before God as forgiven, as saved, as justified, not ever, not now, not in the future, through my own righteousness and obedience.
53:37: I don't want it on display before God. So all my life of sanctification, let's say
53:43: I make it to 95 years old and God's been changing me and transforming me and renewing me. I don't want at 95 years old, my own righteousness is standing before God as the basis of my relationship with him.
53:55: Because even that is filthy rags before a holy God. Why? Because James says in James chapter two, whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he's guilty of all of it.
54:09: So if I'm 95 years old walking with Jesus and I sin and violate God's law,
54:15: I'm guilty of transgressing God's law, all of it. So what do I want? I want a righteousness that's not my own.
54:22: I want his righteousness. I want to stand before God, boasting only in Jesus.
54:28: If God ever said to me, and I already have a relationship with God, this question doesn't come, but if he were to ever ask me, why should
54:36: I let you into my presence? I would only point one way. I would say, because Jesus.
54:44: I don't want my righteousness, my obedience, my works, my ministry, my labor.
54:49: I want none of that on display. I only want Christ's righteousness. I only want to be hiding in him.
54:56: And that is exactly what the New Testament teaches about how we have right standing with God. It's only through Christ.
55:03: Perfect. Yeah. I like that. So the next topic that I want to jump into is baptism.
55:10: So the Mormon church is directly centered on principles and ordinances, like we talked about in the articles of faith.
55:19: And so there's a lot of the theology that's based around those ordinances, because first you have to have somebody that has the priesthood in order to perform the ordinance.
55:30: And then second, we are in the temples, we're doing proxy baptisms or baptisms for the dead because baptism is a saving ordinance in their theology.
55:40: And so the couple of questions that I had about this is very quickly with this one, and then
55:49: I want to jump into something else. Actually, you know what? I want to read this first and then I want to ask you the question.
55:55: So again, referring to that two week sermon, yeah, two week sermon that you were giving about the necessity for baptism.
56:01: Yeah. This is probably one of the more lighthearted, funnier things that you've said that I really appreciate it is that you were talking about, that basically
56:10: Paul says in the same light of circumcision, anybody that is requiring circumcision,
56:16: I would hope that they cut themselves off. And so that's as far as we'll go because we want this family friendly. Yeah, Galatians five.
56:22: Yeah, in the same sense, you would say I would suspect the same thing about baptism, that anybody that requires baptism,
56:30: I would hope they hold you under. That's how serious he is about the requirement for any amount of works for salvation.
56:37: It's faith. Exactly. Yes. And so to answer the Mormon, as a
56:42: Christian, what does baptism mean? What does it achieve? What does it do for you if it's not saving you?
56:49: And if it's not saving you, then why do it? So baptism in the New Testament is an ordinance.
56:56: Some people call it a sacrament that is the sign of the new covenant.
57:01: Every Christian's in agreement on that. It's a sign of the new covenant. While Christians in history have disagreed at times over baptismal mode, should it be immersion?
57:10: Should it be sprinkling? Should it be pouring? And some Christians have disagreed on whether or not we should baptize infants as a sign of the covenant, those sorts of things.
57:18: For example, here we have Marcus is a Presbyterian. He wants to baptize his children when they arrive, but he doesn't believe that that baptism ultimately saves that child.
57:32: That's why they're in Christ. They're saved through their baptism. He believes it's their faith in Christ alone, but he believes it's a sign of the covenant and God wants us to bring all of our children too.
57:41: So that's how they view that. But all believers believe that in the new covenant, baptism's a sign of the new covenant, that you're part of the people of God, in the family of God, it's a sign.
57:55: So in the old covenant, circumcision was a sign of the covenant people of God.
58:00: In the new covenant, it's not circumcision. It's baptism. That's the sign of the new covenant.
58:08: But what's interesting is that it's a command of Christ to be baptized. So when someone says, why bother being baptized if it doesn't save you?
58:15: I'd say because Jesus commanded it. Well, it doesn't save me, so why does it matter? You apparently don't love
58:21: Jesus because he said for you to get baptized, right? If you call him Lord, why don't you want to obey him?
58:27: And by the way, that's exactly what Jesus says. He says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do what I say?
58:33: So if somebody was to say, well, then why bother? I would say, you have a very strange perspective of Jesus' Lordship.
58:39: And I question whether you really love him if you don't want to do what he says. So we get back to the heart of the gospel, have you truly repented and believed?
58:47: But what's interesting about baptism in the New Testament is that you see
58:53: Paul and the apostles and Jesus saying over and over and over, it's through faith, follow me, repent and believe the gospel, faith, faith, faith.
59:02: And just pick, I mean, you can pick a number of spots, but say pick, let's start with an easy one that everyone wrapped their minds around.
59:10: There's only one gospel, there's only one way to be reconciled to God, always has been, it's only through faith alone. At the cross itself, you have
59:17: Jesus dying next to two criminals. Well, by the end of that day, one of those criminals has faith in Jesus and Jesus promises him, this day be with me in paradise.
59:27: Well, nobody walked up to him and sprinkled him or poured over him, or he didn't climb down from the cross to be baptized.
59:33: He believed in Christ and was saved. Some might say, well, that's a unique situation.
59:39: How many gospels are there? How many ways are there to be reconciled to God? Because Jesus said it was by coming to him through faith that happened on the cross and there was no baptism involved there.
59:48: But then someone else says, well, okay, no, but you need to believe in Jesus and be baptized to be saved.
59:56: That's part of the gospel. It's believe in Christ, be baptized, and then you're saved. I'd say, well, that's not the gospel that Paul believed in because, and I'll just give you a reference point here for this.
01:00:08: In 1 Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians chapter one, this is a little conflict happening in Corinth.
01:00:17: Is it 16? It's 1 Corinthians chapter one. Yeah, there you go.
01:00:23: You got it. I'll start by verse 10. In verse 10, he says, I appeal to you brothers by the name of our
01:00:29: Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people, that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.
01:00:41: What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow
01:00:46: Cephas, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
01:00:54: I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say to you, say that you were baptized in my name.
01:01:02: I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptize anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
01:01:13: Paul says here, in this whole controversy of people who are now going with their celebrity preacher, right, that happened in the first century too,
01:01:20: Apollos, Paul, well, I'm of Christ, I love that. Someone says, I'm a Calvinist. Well, I'm a
01:01:25: Christian, like I am only a Christian. Well, that's not a new controversy that happened in Paul's day. But notice what
01:01:31: Paul says here. He knows the gospel. He knows how a person's reconciled to God. And if baptism was part of the gospel thing about how a person is reconciled, repentance, faith, baptism, saved.
01:01:46: Well, here's the master evangelist who led so many in the Roman Empire to Christ by the end of the first century.
01:01:53: Here's the master evangelist saying, I thank God. I baptize none of you.
01:01:58: I don't even remember if I did anybody else. He says, God didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
01:02:04: He sees baptism and the gospel as two separate categories. He's not diminishing the value of either or.
01:02:13: He recognizes the distinction between baptism and the call of the gospel to be reconciled to God, faith in Jesus to be saved.
01:02:23: But baptism for Paul, here's the thing. If baptism was necessary for salvation, how in the world could the master evangelist say,
01:02:30: I thank God, I baptize none of you. Jesus didn't say,
01:02:35: God didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. So here's an example of Paul creating a sharp distinction between the call of the gospel to be reconciled to God and baptism itself and thanking
01:02:48: God. Now, if it was required that I repent, believe and be baptized and then be saved, then this statement from Paul makes no sense.
01:02:59: But further proof of this is in terms of what faith is. It's trust in Jesus. Paul says, if you have faith in Jesus, you are reconciled to God, you are justified, you're in Christ, you receive his righteousness.
01:03:11: That's peppered throughout the entire New Testament. It's faith apart from any work of law. It's faith apart from any obedience on my part.
01:03:18: But a key passage I would want to point to is Acts chapter 10.
01:03:25: Cornelius. And this is, yeah, this is the apostle Peter preaching the gospel. Now Gentiles are now involved.
01:03:33: And as he preaches the gospel, he says in verse, chapter 10, verse 43, to him, all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
01:03:43: Everyone who what? Everyone believes in him. And then he says, while Peter was still saying these things, the
01:03:48: Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word and the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, that's
01:03:55: Jewish Christians, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. Do you ever notice when some people will say, like you believe in Christ, you baptize, and then you get the
01:04:06: Holy Spirit of God? Here's Gentiles hearing the gospel and now made alive.
01:04:12: Now indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God. And what's Peter's response? It says, they were amazed because the gift of the
01:04:19: Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the
01:04:30: Holy Spirit just as we have? So here's Peter saying, they are believers now who have received the same
01:04:40: Holy Spirit as us. Should we do the water now? So they've received the
01:04:46: Spirit of God and have believed in Christ and been saved before they ever entered in the water. That is the amazing pattern that the
01:04:55: Bible shows in terms of how a person walks through this ordo salutis in a sense, right?
01:05:01: In terms of believing in Christ, all those things. They received the Spirit of God. They had believed in Christ and then the water, and then the water.
01:05:10: Okay, so I wanna do something that's kind of fun. Might be a little less for me, but so obviously as a
01:05:17: Mormon missionary, you in Jacksonville, Florida in the Bible Belt, you have to be, I don't wanna say accustomed to the
01:05:24: Bible, but you need to somewhat know your way around it. It's so hard for me to say something like that.
01:05:30: Now coming out of the church and understanding that my prior understanding was completely false.
01:05:35: But one of the major reasons, again, I wanted to have this conversation is I wanted to give you what
01:05:41: I absolutely know a Mormon's dialogue is so that you could just knock it out of the park. And so there was a time
01:05:49: I was in Gainesville. No, I'm sorry, not Gainesville, it was Stark in Florida.
01:05:55: We had a pastor's son come up to us. And he's like, hey, it was almost similar to you. I love you guys.
01:06:01: You guys are amazing. I appreciate what you guys do for the community. Can I take you guys to lunch? I wanna talk about religion with you guys.
01:06:08: And I said, absolutely. My, the guy I was working with was a little bit more timid. He's a little bit newer.
01:06:15: We went, we ate, we got our scriptures out. We started talking about a couple of things. He first talked about a couple of things trying to show, you know, like contradictions in the church.
01:06:24: And anyways, but what it boiled down to is we started talking about the thief on the cross.
01:06:32: And this is what my tract was for that. And I would love for you to just pick this apart, okay?
01:06:39: So basically the scriptures that I would use is we would talk about how the thief on the cross, all three of them are on the cross.
01:06:50: He says, be with me on the morrow, I believe is his verbiage. And then what
01:06:57: I use to the next scripture to transition what Christ is talking about is, if you could let me know, how many days was he?
01:07:05: So he died on the cross. How many days was it until he arose out of the sepulcher? Well, the
01:07:11: Jewish accounting of days, they would count any portion of a day as a day. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, three, yeah.
01:07:20: Okay, so basically what I would explain, I was trying to get things right.
01:07:26: It was either the three days that he rose or his 40 days that he stayed after that. Is that correct?
01:07:31: Yeah, so there was the resurrection and then there was the time period before the ascension. Perfect. Which by the way, we're right at ascension now.
01:07:38: I'm not sure if you knew that. This is the celebration of ascension is right now. Yeah.
01:07:44: Which is awesome. Like I said, I wish I would have known that when I was. It's a tremendously neglected part of the
01:07:50: Christian calendar that historically Christians would make a big deal out of not just Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but also
01:07:58: Ascension Day was a day that he went up, Daniel 7, to the
01:08:03: Ancient of Days to receive that kingdom, that dominion, that glory that would never pass away.
01:08:10: Ascension is huge. So go ahead, sorry. No, no, no, you're fine. There was a period of time where Jesus was presenting himself alive,
01:08:18: Paul says, by many proofs. And at one point appeared to over 500 eyewitnesses at once. Wow.
01:08:23: Yeah. I didn't know that much. Yeah. And so what I was trying to, what
01:08:30: I would piece together on my mission, what I would try to do is thief on the cross. We would go to when
01:08:36: Mary comes to him and I would, I pointed out to the pastor's son, what does Christ say at that time?
01:08:42: He says, touch me not for I have not sent it into heaven. What I would draw from that. And before I go into this,
01:08:48: I want to make it explicitly clear for Christians that are watching this. I promise you that I would say 95 to 90 % of the
01:08:55: Mormon missionaries you run into are not trying to deceive you. It's that they don't understand it and they are trying to do their best.
01:09:04: And so with this relation, I would say that, well,
01:09:11: Christ says to the thief, you will be with me on the morrow. But then he comes to Mary and says, touch me not for I have not ascended into heaven.
01:09:18: And so I drew from that, that the thief never went to heaven that went to heaven. And so then you question, or at least the
01:09:24: Mormon questions, well, where did he go? And I believe it's in first Peter. And I think there's also another section in Galatians, I believe that talks about, let me see if I can find it really fast.
01:09:38: It's in first Peter, I know that. And this is where I think you can bring a lot of context in.
01:09:50: I think I'm getting what you're aiming. Are you asking the question of what? What did he do? Where did he go? Yeah.
01:09:56: So first Peter three, it's like two verses. Let me read this really fast. So for Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust that he might bring us unto
01:10:07: God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which were sometime disobedient, which once long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark was preparing, where in few that is eight souls were saved by water.
01:10:24: So me as a Mormon, what I took out of this is that there was the spirit prison and spirit paradise, which is in the plan of salvation for Mormons.
01:10:34: And so this is how I explain it. Well, you know, this is why baptism of the dead is for important. That's why it wasn't just automatically damned because he was on the cross.
01:10:43: And so anyways, I would like to hear how you explain that so that there's more light brought to that.
01:10:48: Yeah. So in the Old Testament, we see, to be honest, there's not a lot of explanation in the scriptures in terms of what that state looked like for the
01:10:59: Old Testament saints. Those who had trusted in God, believed in God, were credited righteousness apart from works, same as Abraham.
01:11:08: They went to Sheol, they went to the grave. But then you also have those who didn't know
01:11:15: God and had not been part of God's people and they all died. And where do they go?
01:11:21: There's not a lot of explanation in terms of what does that look like before Christ accomplishes his work? What does it look like?
01:11:27: You do have this amazing little section of scripture where Jesus tells you himself, a little snapshot of what that looks like.
01:11:35: And it's in Luke 16, 19, and there's the rich man and Lazarus. Ah, okay.
01:11:41: And Jesus doesn't tell this as though it's a parable or here's some symbolism.
01:11:47: He tells a story of a rich man and Lazarus. And of course, people can read it for themselves, but we know essentially how it ends.
01:11:55: And that's that they both die. And it's 16, right? Luke 16, yeah.
01:12:02: I'll read verse 19. There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
01:12:07: And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table.
01:12:13: Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.
01:12:20: So Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw
01:12:28: Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send
01:12:33: Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and to cool my tongue for I'm in anguish in this flame.
01:12:40: But Abraham said, child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus and like men are his bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish.
01:12:49: And besides all this, between us and you is a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us.
01:12:59: Now here's the point, this little snapshot of Hades and Abraham's bosom.
01:13:05: So the basic way the Jewish thought went was that there was paradise or Abraham's bosom. And then there was
01:13:11: Hades or the place of the dead. And what we know, what we get a snapshot here from Christ about is that there was a place of torment for those who don't know
01:13:20: God who are unbelievers. And then there is Abraham's bosom or a place of paradise, but it was a place that of course was not yet before the throne of God, full redemption hasn't been accomplished yet.
01:13:33: It's like a holding place because Christ hasn't accomplished his work yet. So when he says to the thief on the cross, today you'll be with me in paradise.
01:13:42: That is that place of the old Testament, dead saints who are ultimately awaiting that redemption.
01:13:49: And I do believe that when Christ died for those days, he was proclaiming there the victory that had been accomplished.
01:13:56: They were all waiting for. And I think the beauty of what you see in the book of Revelation is you see the saints of God before the throne of God.
01:14:05: Now the people of God are before God's throne, worshiping God, they're right there.
01:14:11: So I think at least there's a start of an explanation in terms of what did it look like for the thief to go to paradise?
01:14:19: What was that like? Well, I will say this as an unfortunate thing. And that's that the
01:14:24: Bible doesn't actually tell us a whole lot about what heaven, quote unquote heaven is like, except what it looks like here on earth, which is the ultimate goal of Christ's work and redemption is that when the
01:14:38: Messiah comes, he's gonna restore and renew all that was broken in terms of heaven and earth together.
01:14:45: When the garden was created, heaven and earth are met, right?
01:14:50: When sin enters the world, there's a separation now of brokenness, sin, the curse, depravity, evil, decay, disease, all of that takes place.
01:15:01: When the Messiah enters in the world as the second Adam, he comes to restore all that had been broken in the fall and the curse.
01:15:09: So what we do know is that one day in the resurrection, God has his people here on this earth, in this world, heaven and earth meet again.
01:15:20: But what is that experience like between now and then? What's it like to be in heaven?
01:15:26: What's it like to be in God's presence at this point? The answer I have is, well, the Bible talks a lot more about hell than it ever does about heaven.
01:15:36: So I don't have a lot of answers except this. Paul says that it's never ever entered into the mind of man what
01:15:43: God has in store for those who love him. So what I do say to believers who know God now, like what's it gonna be like?
01:15:49: I'll say this, try your very best to think about how glorious it's gonna be and you're not even close.
01:15:58: No eye has seen, nor ear heard, it's never entered into the mind of man what God has in store for those who love him.
01:16:05: So try your best, dream. Try your best to think about what that's like and you're not even close. Gotcha, so.
01:16:12: So to bring it all to a close, this topic of baptism. I don't wanna necessarily give a parable, but an example that I had written down.
01:16:20: So is baptism essentially to be taken as a ring on your finger, for example, for marriage?
01:16:26: Circumcision was to marry you to God, but it didn't necessarily mean salvation. Baptism marries you to Christ, it doesn't necessarily, it's like an outward symbol.
01:16:35: It's a sign. Just because you have a ring on your finger does not mean you have a wholesome, amazing relationship with your spouse.
01:16:41: Yeah, it's actually, I think, quite a simple answer. It could be explained in tomes and shown to be beautiful and everything else.
01:16:50: But the simple explanation is, let's go back to Abraham again. You gotta go back to Abraham because that's where all this stuff begins, the promise of Isaac and Messiah and God blessing the entire world.
01:17:02: Paul's argument in Romans chapter four is that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
01:17:08: And he was credited righteousness. Paul's question is this, was it before circumcision or after?
01:17:17: Paul's argument is before. So when was he credited righteousness? Before circumcision. Oh, also before the law of God, 400 years before the law of God was given at Sinai.
01:17:27: So Abraham believes God, God credits to him righteousness. And then as a sign and seal of the righteousness that he already had by faith, he received circumcision, right?
01:17:39: So it was faith, justification and circumcision, sign of the covenant.
01:17:45: In the new covenant, it's the same. It's faith in Jesus. It's a repentant faith, by the way. It's a faith that turns to God, right?
01:17:52: And faith in Jesus. And then you receive the sign of that seal of the righteousness that you already have.
01:18:00: And that's baptism. Now, Christians disagree on sometimes the mode of baptism, sprinkling, pouring.
01:18:09: We have little in -house debates with each other over like what exactly is like, what's the most biblical way? And I'm of course a reformed
01:18:15: Baptist, but you know where I land on it. It's baptism by immersion. But we don't divide with one another over that issue in terms of now we're not the same body and now we're not the same church.
01:18:26: We just have in -house debates with each other over like what exactly that looks like. But we all agree on is that it's faith in Jesus that justifies you, that brings you to Christ.
01:18:36: And that baptism is a sign of the people of God. It's a sign of the covenant, the new covenant itself.
01:18:44: And so what does it mean? It's an outward expression of the sign of the new covenant that you are in the people of God.
01:18:53: Now, there's a lot of ways to really explain how marvelous and majestic and beautiful that all is.
01:18:59: But ultimately baptism is an external sign of the new covenant that you are part of the people of God in the new covenant community.
01:19:07: Yeah. That's perfect. Okay. Do you wanna, what time is it now actually? Do you wanna maybe end here and do another one maybe next week or something?
01:19:15: Yeah. We got a class coming right now. Yep. So let's wrap, I'll just do like a wrap up. Yep. So we're gonna wrap up now.
01:19:22: And then we'll maybe do another one, Lord willing, next week. Yeah, definitely. You okay with that? Yep. Okay. So we'll do another one.
01:19:28: Same time, same day, or just let me know. Same time. We'll do as many of these as we can. Awesome. I'm definitely open to doing that.
01:19:34: So for all of you guys that are watching this right now, thank you so much for watching. I wanna encourage you guys to be praying for us as we continue this dialogue.
01:19:42: I do wanna say to believers who are watching this, Christians, I hope that this does not become something that's a mere intellectual exercise where you take it just as head knowledge, and oh, isn't that really great?
01:20:02: If you're encouraged by this, then I would say this, go love a Mormon today. Go love a Mormon.
01:20:07: Go create a relationship with a Mormon. Love them enough to actually engage with them in a conversation. And to anybody who's a
01:20:13: Latter -day Saint watching this right now, I just want to encourage you with this. We truly do care about you.
01:20:20: We love you for Christ's sake. And we hope that this dialogue that we're having is a blessing to you.
01:20:28: And I think if I, maybe you can say some last words here too. If I could say, my greatest desire, of course, would be that everyone comes to know
01:20:38: Jesus. But my greatest desire in a conversation we're having like this would be that Latter -day
01:20:46: Saints who are watching this, who are questioning their faith, who are questioning the Book of Mormon, they're questioning Joseph Smith, would not feel like because you've been deceived once and you've dedicated your life to something once that you found out wasn't true, that you would give up on truth altogether or that you would abandon faith in the true
01:21:07: Christ because now you're afraid because you were deceived before. I want to encourage you with this.
01:21:13: This isn't about following Jeff Durbin. It's not about following any particular church, Presbyterian, Baptist.
01:21:21: It is truly about coming to Christ and knowing Him intimately as Savior. This is not about any particular organization saying, we're the true church, come to us.
01:21:34: It is about Christ. It is about salvation. It's about knowing God. I don't want to point you to so much to my work and my ministry as I want to point you to the
01:21:42: Word of God. So if I can give you a last word of encouragement, I would tell you to go read the
01:21:48: Book of Romans. Don't read it to finish it. Read it to change.
01:21:53: Read it to listen to God. Read it to get to know God. And then I would encourage you to read the Book of Galatians.
01:21:58: So those two books, Romans and Galatians. Yeah. Just the final thing that I would say to Mormons is that when you're watching videos, for example, the dialogue that we have, the previous one that we had, the future ones to come, it doesn't matter where you find the truth.
01:22:14: Any advice that I would give at this point is please do not, don't start your search for God or don't start watching these videos with a prayer in your heart that says, please don't let these discussions destroy my testimony.
01:22:32: Because I feel when that is your, and they're gonna almost hate me for it. Like, of course I'm not gonna pray for that.
01:22:38: I'm not gonna pray. But I just want a different, a change of, I don't wanna say change of mind, but a different change of perspective.
01:22:45: Don't be afraid to lose what you have. Just be encouraged and ask
01:22:51: God to just show you the truth, no matter what it is. Let that be the cause of your path.
01:22:58: Don't be afraid to ask these questions. The one thing that I would love to say as we close this is
01:23:04: J. Reuben Clark, which was the second counselor of Heber J. Grant, I believe, which was a prophet of the church.
01:23:12: An amazing quote that he gave, that's something that has led my path out of the church from this point, is he says, if we have the truth, it ought not to be harmed with investigation.
01:23:23: And if we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed. And Mormons need to realize that we have people all over the world.
01:23:33: We have people born Christian, Atheist, Mormon. God knows where you are. He knows where he placed you. And this very well could be a test as the rich young ruler.
01:23:42: Maybe he was born into money and God placed him there to see how much is that gonna be worth to you?
01:23:49: And how much are you gonna hold on to that? Make sense? And I want
01:23:55: Mormons to realize that. Don't hold your heart down and say, please don't let me lose what
01:24:02: I have. Only think about what you can gain. And so Jesus says in John 17, 17, thy word is truth.
01:24:10: So if you want truth, according to Jesus, which Mormons will always say, they believe in Jesus and they love him and trust him.
01:24:18: So if you trust in Jesus and you wanna go to, what did he say was the truth?
01:24:24: He says, thy word is truth, the word of God. And so if you want truth, go to the source.
01:24:30: And I'm really encouraged to hear you say that, to be willing to say, I'm gonna follow the truth wherever it is.
01:24:37: And Jesus tells us where it's at. It tells us where it's at. So I encourage you to go there. Thanks, man. Yeah, no problem.
01:24:42: right, so next week. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. All right. Well, that was awesome. Woo.