Mormon Evangelism | Arguing with Mormon Missionaries

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Those texts that talk about God being the only one, the first and the last, and the reason why that's important, the reason you can see why

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I'm pushing it this way, is because scripture says, is there a savior besides me?

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I know not one. So if you don't have the true God of the Bible, you don't have a savior that can take away your sins.

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That's my concern for you guys. So I mean, that would just be one issue that I would point to if we were sitting around a dinner table together, talking about our lives, talking about, you know, where we work or whatnot.

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And I wanted to get to the bottom of just exactly what you guys actually believe. These are the kinds of things that I want to talk about with you guys.

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So I know fundamentally, you guys believe you're going to become gods one day. I've shown from God's word, though, how

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God says that that's not even a possibility. And again, I don't mean it disrespectfully, but there's no answer for that.

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And the other concern, okay, maybe you guys are familiar with this text. Have you guys ever read the

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Corinthians, the letter to the Corinthians, Paul? So Paul says in 2

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Corinthians chapter 11, he's scared for the church in Corinth, okay? He's warning people.

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He's saying, I'm afraid for you because you're so easily being taken away from pure and simple devotion to the true

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Christ. There are other false Christs that have come and these false teachers that are bringing this in and you won't even keep them out of your church.

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You're letting them in the door. So Paul talks about other Christ. And I know, correct me if I'm wrong on this, okay, because I really don't want to misrepresent you guys.

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You guys believe fundamentally that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers. Is that correct? Right.

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Yeah, I know that's what you guys believe. So at bottom, Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, as are we all in the pre -existence essentially, correct?

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So the problem with that is God, what he says about Jesus in scripture, right, he says just one thing to Amen, one text, okay?

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Colossians chapter 1, all right, verse 16. So for by him,

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Jesus, talking about Jesus, were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things are made by him and for him.

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He is before all things and in him all things consist, they hold together, right? So the

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Bible says about Jesus, he's the creator of all things. He's the eternal God. He's Yahweh.

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He takes the divine name of God in the Old Testament. Remember when Moses sees the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3 and God says,

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I am that I am, right? Yahweh, he's revealing himself as the covenant

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God of Israel. In scripture, in the New Testament, Jesus takes that title and he applies it to himself.

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He says, John 8, 58, he's talking to the Pharisees, before Abraham was, ego eimi, which is the

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Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. It's called the Septuagint, Septuagint.

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He takes the divine title of Yahweh and he applies it to himself. Before Abraham was, as far back as you want to go,

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I am, he's Yahweh. So my concern for you guys is the Jesus of Mormonism of this church teaches, he's

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Lucifer's brother, he's a created being, but the God and Jesus of the scriptures is the creator of all things.

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Before I keep going, can I quote to you my favorite scripture? What's that? It's from the book of Mormon. Okay. The book of Helaman.

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I'm sorry, the book of what? Helaman. Helaman, okay. It says, and now my sons, remember, remember. It is from the rock of our

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Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, ye must build your foundation. For when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, his shafts in the whirlwind, and when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and end this world, because of the rock on which you are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build, they cannot fall.

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And I know that Christ, that scripture you're speaking of, is the Son of God, the

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Savior of the world. And you're, you're taught in your missionary training that, you're, sorry, by the way, this is

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Jeff. Sorry, I'm Jeff. Just real fast, I just want to, I heard what you said. You're taught in missionary training that you are to overcome, can

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I finish what I was saying? Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you finished the verse. I'm sorry. Sorry, yeah, we thought you finished the verse. No, no, no. You had a nice, strong pause.

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Yeah, okay. I'm sorry. Okay. A pregnant pause. Yes, I'm sorry. But, you know, I know that, that He's our

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Savior. And I know that He came down and He, He suffered for our sins so that we can return and live back with Him, Heavenly Father, again someday.

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And it's due to, to the plan of salvation, which is there since the preexistence, that we can return back and live with Him again someday.

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And it's through that, and through our Savior and His atonement for us, that we are redeemed, you know, from, from a fallen state.

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And I know that to be true. And if we build on that foundation, who is Christ? Who is Christ?

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We can, yeah. Who is Christ? That's, that's what Zach was saying. Yeah. Who is He? Is He Lucifer's brother? He's our same

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God. He's, He's our brother. Is He the eternal God? Well, Heavenly Father sent us down as families.

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Well, I just can't answer that question just directly. Do you believe that Jesus existed from all eternity? I, I know that, that our

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Heavenly Father, He, He had a lot of sons and daughters of God. A lot of sons and daughters. Well, can you answer just that question?

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Did Jesus exist? Because you said He's the foundation, He's the, who is He? So let's ask who He is.

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Who is He? I fully agree. So is the Jesus of Joseph Smith's revelation, the

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Jesus of scripture, who is, has always existed from all eternity? So, let me just preface this.

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All these doctrinal differences. Well, can you just, I want to hear what you have to say, just, just, yeah, okay, you are, okay, good.

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All these doctrinal differences, they're not, like, really, I don't view them as super major things.

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Doctrinal differences like, like, whether Jesus existed for all eternity, or whether? Whether Jesus was Satan's brother, or in his best, but we, we believe that, that Jesus Christ is

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Jehovah in the Old Testament, and that He has always existed in some form from that.

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But He hasn't been God for all eternity. And He, so is that.

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Dad, yes. Right, no, no, that's, yeah, that's, God, but you don't believe that the Father has even been

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God for all eternity. This eternity, yes. It did, so in, Joseph taught in King Follett Discourse.

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I was quoting that. Yeah, he taught that we've imagined and supposed that God was God for all eternity. I'll refute that idea and take away the veils that you may see.

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You've got to learn to become gods yourselves. That's what Joseph's revelation was. So the Yahweh, you said Jesus is

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Yahweh. The Yahweh of Scripture, it says in Psalm 90, verse 2, from eternity into eternity, you are

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God. Joseph disagreed with that. And you would agree with me that Joseph came after the time of God's revelation in Scripture.

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So we have, ultimately, a foundation of the Word of God that was there before Joseph got there.

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And then Joseph comes with a revelation that contradicts the revelation of God about himself. We believe in everything that the

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Bible says, as long as it's translated correctly. Okay, so Psalm 90, verse 2, from eternity into eternity. Do you have a better Hebrew translation than that?

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You know, I don't know Hebrew that well, so. Okay. So I. I'll give you another one. In John, chapter 1, verse 1, it says, in the beginning was the

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Word, Jesus. Can I see that out of the actual Bible? Sure. Do you have a Bible on you? In my bag.

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Oh, sure. I'll show you. John, chapter 1. Oh, they're on their mission,

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Craig. This is what they're supposed to be doing. What are they going to do there? Watch the show? Yes.

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This guy's really nice. I like him a lot. We love Craig. I've known Craig for 20 years. John, chapter 1. Okay.

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What? John, chapter 1.

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John, chapter 1. Are you familiar with that? Have you ever read that passage before? I have. But I have some memory problems from a past accident.

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Oh, no. Oh, man. So I can't remember things that well. Just, you know, just chapter 1. Say 1 through verse 3.

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Okay. And what were you saying about it?

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So, here, in the text, it says, In the beginning was the Word. And you don't have to believe me on this, but I'll just tell you what the

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Greek says. And arkein halagos means, as far back as you want to go to the beginning with no stopping point, forever ago, the

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Word was there. Yeah. And it says, and the Word was with God. That's prostanteon in the Greek. He was in an intimate relationship with the

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Father, and the Word was God. So He was always there with the Father, and He is

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God. It says, watch this. This is where it gets interesting in terms of what we were talking about. It says, the same was in the beginning with God.

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All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. Lucifer was made.

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We were made. The heavens were made. It says that Jesus created everything, including Lucifer. That's a different Christ.

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Where does it say that, that Jesus Christ created Lucifer? I just read it. It said, by Him were all things made, and without Him was nothing, not anything made that was made.

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All things. Nothing came into being, unless it came into being through Him. Well, even though I might not be able to answer all these questions,

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I know the Book of Mormon is true. Well, I know that, and this is what I was getting at, I know that in missionary training, I have the missionary training manuals.

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You're taught if you can't answer somebody's question, to bear your testimony. Yeah. And so I...

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I actually wasn't taught that. I just... I know the Book of Mormon is true. Right. It's in the manual, and I want to just encourage you to push beyond that.

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If you get a biblical text that shows you a different God, a different Christ, a different gospel, your testimony and my testimony doesn't equate truth.

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So, like, for example, there... You mentioned something a second ago, and I'm going to address it with respect and humility. You said these doctrinal differences don't matter, but I'll give you one that does matter to all of us.

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Ready? About Jesus. There are people who live right here who believe...

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They say they believe in Jesus. I just ran into one the other day. He had a shirt that said, Of course I love

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Jesus. I'm Muslim. So he says, Jesus Christ, he says he believes in Jesus. He loves Jesus, but they believe that Jesus Christ was not the divine

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Son of God, and they don't believe he died on the cross for sins, and they don't believe he rose again, and they don't believe you need him for your atonement.

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Is that true? I don't really know what the Muslim is saying. But is that what I just said? We believe all of the things that Jesus said, that he's the divine

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Son of God, that we need him. Amen. No, we're in agreement. This is not something of a dispute between all of us.

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All of us would say we believe that Jesus' atonement is necessary, and that he was the divine Son of God, that he died and rose again.

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Amen? Look, there's Mormons and Christians saying yes, right? No quarrel here among us.

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But if a Muslim was standing here right now, and they said, no, Jesus didn't die, no, he didn't rise from the dead, and no, you don't need his atonement, would you say that doctrinal difference matters?

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They're using the name Jesus just like you. That's a different Jesus, isn't it?

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It's just a different belief. Wait, are you saying that I don't need to believe Jesus died for my sins? No, you do, but...

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Okay, so it matters. Muslims just believe in a different thing than... Yeah, a different Christ? Is that your Christ? I don't know if it's exactly a different Christ.

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Okay, he's not the divine Son of God. But I don't think they might just not believe... They say he didn't die.

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He didn't rise from the dead. Just like he, I don't know... Well, you can go check it. This is not made up. That's what they believe.

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He did not die. We don't believe that. We believe in the same Jesus Christ who came and died for us. Is he

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Lucifer's brother? Yes, we're all brothers and sisters. Right, that's a different Christ. That's not the biblical Christ.

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I think that Jesus has blue eyes, and you think that Jesus has brown eyes. Does that make a difference?

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That's a category error. We're not talking about Jesus' physical attributes. We're talking about whether Jesus Christ is the eternal

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God, or whether he created Satan, or whether he's Lucifer's brother and only a created being.

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Well, we believe that Jesus is Jehovah, and I don't really think it makes a whole lot of difference whether or not he's

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Lucifer's brother. I'll give you one. Jesus is a space alien. That's the belief of the belief of the

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Hale -Bopp. They believed in Heaven's Gate, the Heaven's Gate cult. Jesus was a space alien.

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Yeah, oh yeah, I know. When were you born? Ninety -five. Ninety -five? Well, it was 96, 97, right, something like that?

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So they believed in, Hale -Bopp believed in this alien theology and everything else. So if I told you right now, you're all three wrong.

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Jesus is a space alien, and what you need to do is you need to recognize that we need to basically catch a ride on the next comet that comes by by killing ourselves and putting $5 .25

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in our pockets for the space toll. I would agree to disagree. Okay, how about this?

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I'll give you one that we can all agree with. You've got to actually get ahead. Okay, I can have sex before marriage. Believe that?

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Nope. No? Where would you go to show me that's wrong? I would go in my trusty pamphlet

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Your pamphlet is the foundation of truth? Or, where would you go? Well, I believe it. Okay. It's from the...

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From what? What do you mean, from what? If I was a young Mormon and I said to you, we're friends, and I said to you, hey, my girlfriend and I are sleeping together before marriage, and we've prayed about it and we feel good about it, how would you address me as a brother who loves me?

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How would you address me if I said, we're sleeping together, we prayed about it, we feel like God's in this with us? That's something you've got to work out for yourself.

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I'm not sure. Would you give him any scripture? I would say to read the

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Book of Mormon. Oh, I'm not sure. Find out, you know, what it is. Read the what? The Book of Mormon and the scriptures that we have.

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Read the Book of Mormon. So, what if I challenge the Book of Mormon and I say, why the Book of Mormon? Why should I believe that?

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Read the Bible. As long as it's translated correctly. Great. So, flee sexual harassment and sexual immorality is translated correctly from the

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Greek. That's what it says. So, what I would do as a pastor is I would talk to the person that says they can have sex before marriage and I would say,

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God says from his own mouth, flee sexual immorality. Not my opinion, not my feeling, the word of God.

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Jesus says, John 17, 17, thy word is truth. He says, his word is truth.

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Not my feeling, not my emotions, not my experience, but his word. And the word of God is what

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Jesus applied to people, the apostles applied that to people and that's what I think that you three would apply to a

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Mormon friend that said to you, I'm sleeping with my girlfriend before marriage and God's good with it. We've prayed about it.

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I think you'd quote scripture to him. I would just say it's against the commandment of God. There you go. That's the right answer.

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That's the right answer. We've got to go right now. Can I say one more thing? The point that we're trying to make with that,

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We totally appreciate you filming us, too. You're in a public property, though, so. Yeah, but we just don't see it. Well, we love you.

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We care about you. You're on a mission preaching a false gospel. You're going to answer to God for it, elders. We care about you guys.

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Throughout the centuries, God, our Heavenly Father, sent prophets to teach the people of the earth about Jesus Christ.

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Exactly. Jeff Durbin, I've seen you. Oh, hi. It's a pleasure to meet you. It's a pleasure to meet you.

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Nice to meet you. Hi. Nice to meet you guys. Nice to meet you. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. But like you were saying, you know, talking about Christ and how we all are all striving to you know, follow

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Him. Right. And I agree. I think the concern, the problem that's there is that the question is what

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Jesus. Because Jehovah Witnesses, for example, have you guys ever seen them? They run into you. They do what you guys do.

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You know, they're very faithful and they go knocking on doors proclaiming their message. They believe that Jesus Christ is

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Michael the Archangel, Jehovah's first creation. Now, is that is that who

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Christ is? Is Christ an angel? Jehovah's first creation? The Christ, the

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Son of God, the Prince of Peace. But I'm I'm just curious as well, like,

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I don't want to like, bash you. No, you're good, man. No. But just your purpose being here to like, to help people come unto

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Christ. Right? Well, yeah, we'll see. So primarily, the reason you're asking why we're out here?

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Yes. Well, primarily, is that all my best friends growing up in high school in Mormon had a lot of great relationships.

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We have great relationships now. In fact, Craig Ray, he's LDS. We've known him for 20 years. We're good friends.

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I love Craig. Yeah. A lot. Yeah. I love

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Craig a lot. Yeah. A lot. Danny's. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. That's right.

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Good. And primarily, it's really love and concern for the LDS people that, like,

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Proverbs 14, 12 says there's the way which seems right unto a man, but the ways that end therein are the ways of death.

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So sincere, someone can be sincere yet sincerely wrong. And Christ said this is the eternal life and you're the only wise and true

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God. And so in contrast to what God has revealed in Scripture, the

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Mormon doctrine of God, the Gospel, and most importantly the work of a person of Jesus Christ, we believe it presents a completely different message in Gospel.

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Like Paul warns and says that, you know, there's going to be other Gospels, other Christ. And if you look at God's revealed revelation and His standards for who a prophet is, it's a direct conflict with God's direct revelation.

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And so, like, for example, Isaiah 43, 10. God says, you know, God's before me, no

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God's after me. And you can be sincere, but in in also in John, one of John's epistles it says anyone who goes too far but does not abide in the doctrine of Christ has not

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God. So there is a dividing line where you push the line and go too far. Does that make sense what

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I'm saying? Does that understand our concern? And so, for eternal life, like you have to yeah.

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Anything you want to say? Well, no, you guys, you look like you're about to have to leave. Okay. Are you guys here for the rest of the week?

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ish. Maybe. Yeah. Okay. Well, if you take this,

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I know you're on your mission, but I would, I would, I would love to trade. All right, let's take this and read through it.

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Come back and just give us even one answer. Just say this would be how I'd respond to you, Jeff. That's that we're here because we care about you.

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We're not here to hurt you or beat you over the head. We're only here motivated by love for you. Of course, we're going to say hard things.

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Like for example, Craig and I, we have a relationship for 20 years. I love this man. We're going to dinner tomorrow night, but he knows and I know there's times where things will come out of our mouth that will offend each other, but I'm not going to let it hurt my feelings because I know he loves me and I love him.

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All right. So, you know, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, just take a look at it. Go through some of those verses. Just come back and just say,

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Jeff, this is what I would say to you. Okay. And I'm Jeff. This is Jerry. So, okay. Both J and J. All right.