How Is Someone Saved? (Mormons vs Christians)

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Repentance, which is what you said, right? How do you go? How does that happen? What's the process by which someone, a dead sinner, is raised to life in Jesus?

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It's repentance. No, no, no. I'm just giving you, and then I want to hear what you want to say. Because I agree, it's repentance.

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But it says in 2 Timothy 2 .24 that God grants repentance.

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It grants repentance. It's a gift. Because you have to ask for it. You have to ask for the forgiveness.

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The call of the gospel is that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh. He's the eternal

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God. He's Yahweh. He's the Messiah. He lived righteously, died for sinners, and rose again from the dead.

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And the command to everyone, man, woman, and child, is to repent and to leave the gospel.

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That's the message. He doesn't say, wait for faith, or wait for me to open your eyes.

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He says, come to me. And he grants that, that people will have a chance.

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So, if I can leave you guys with one thing, it would be that that message, the message of justification by faith, how you and I are made righteous before God, it's not by faith and curse together.

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It's purely by the grace of God so that no one can boast. And I've given you guys several texts that demonstrate that.

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It's only by faith. It says in Romans chapter four, that God justifies the ungodly person.

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Right? So, he justifies the ungodly. He chases down rebels. Right? To the one who works his wages.

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You guys have, you guys have a job? Yeah. Okay. So, what do you get when you have a job at the end of the two -week period?

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You get a paycheck, right? Now, if you went into your boss and you said to your boss, thank you so much for that gift that you've given me.

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He would be like, wait a second, that's not a gift. You earned that paycheck. Right?

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It's not a gift. You earned that. Romans chapter four says, the wages of sin is death.

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Right? I'm sorry, that's Romans chapter three. So, Romans chapter four, right? To the one who works his wages, what he's earned, you guys get a wage, right?

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What he's earned... Is not credited as a gift. Is not credited as a gift.

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Right? But as what is due. But as is due. Now, but is the important part. You guys better hear this last part. But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

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Well, back in Romans and Romans 20, I think verse 12, says each man will be judged according to their works.

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Romans chapter 20. Romans doesn't have 20 chapters. No, no, sorry. Revelations. I'm dyslexic.

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So, Revelations 20, 12. And then at the end, it says, we judged out of those things according to their works.

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So, if we're judged according to our works, why wouldn't it say we're judged according to our faith? We're judged according to the works?

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Works? What's the text you're pointing to? Revelations 20, 12.

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I would say that the works that we demonstrate are obviously the fruit, right?

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So, Jesus says no bad tree can produce good fruit and vice versa, right? So, the works that we do in the flesh, the works of our hands, the works that we do, they're a product of whether our heart's been changed or not.

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Now, obviously, I'd want to look at that verse, too, and see maybe exactly what you're referring to, because that passage,

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Revelation 20, I know John's got in mind. So, there's a book of life in the text, and those who are in the book of life are given eternal life.

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And those who are judged according to their works, death and Hades receives... Sorry, man.

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Death and Hades spits up, and they go into the lake of fire, judged by their works.

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Anybody who isn't in Christ has to answer to God for all of their unrighteousness, their sins.

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But for those who are in Christ, you have what Paul says in Philippians 3. Philippians 3, the apostle

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Paul says about his life, he says, according to the law, I was a Pharisee. He says, according to the law, blameless.

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And he says, but all of this I count as loss, all my good deeds, all my works, all being circumcised of the tribe of Benjamin, a

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Pharisee. He says, I count it all as loss, loss scubalon, which is actually a pretty thick, strong word in the

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Greek. It's essentially a way of saying crap, the worst side of that, right?

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He says, I count it all as scubalon. He says, and I want to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but the one that comes from God through faith in Jesus.

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He said that through faith in Christ, you receive a righteousness that's not your own. He didn't want his good deeds or his righteousness to even be before the throne of God.

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He wanted the one that came as a gift in Christ through faith alone. That's what Paul says all believers have is

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Christ's righteousness. And I think that's the big distinction between the Jesus and the gospel of this church and the true gospel is that we're saying that the righteousness that we all stand before God in is only

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Christ's and it's a gift. We don't stand before God with our quote -unquote right righteousness.

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God says that our righteousness is as filthy rags. Because God is so holy. That's why we believe in grace, that we try our best, we do our best righteousness.

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But in Isaiah, one second, Isaiah 118, it says that your sins will be as scarlet.

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They'll be as white as snow. Yes. There's forgiveness in God. Yes, because it is through him because we can't do it by ourselves.

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Right, so the problem is that the way the Bible says the grace, it says you were dead in your sins and trespasses.

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Ephesians chapter 2, you were dead in your sins and trespasses. And he says, but God made you alive.

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That's something God did. God made you alive by grace you've been saved. So the difference is, is this church is teaching you that if you cooperate with God, his grace and do enough good deeds of righteousness, that God will accept you.

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The Bible says you're dead in your sins and trespasses. Dead, not sick, dead.

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God by his grace must make you alive. And then he says this, by grace, you've been saved through faith.

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And that the grace and the faith, not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not according to works, lest any man should boast.

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Not according to works. If it was up to us and our righteousness in any way, even with grace, then we have something to boast in.

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But Paul says, but not before God. He said, go ahead. Oh, sorry. If you look in our scriptures, there have been accounts of people who have boasted.

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I think it's around 3rd Nephi, towards the end of Alma. It says how the Nephites, who used to be the righteous ones, they were boasting of their actions.

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And because of them, the ones who were boasted when the first coming of Christ, when the Christ died.

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That's nice. They're all wiped, right? The boasters were wiped. And it was the people who were lowly and meek in heart who were saved.

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So if we, you're right, if we do boast, we won't be saved. Well, no, but the context of Paul there. I hear what you're saying.

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Believe me, I hear the context. I understand what you're saying. But Paul's context in Ephesians 2 is that by grace, you've been saved through faith.

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And that the grace and the faith, not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not according to works, lest any man should boast.

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He says, essentially, that if you're saying that your works in any way have something to do with that, then you have something to boast about.

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So the Bible says the grace and the faith are gifts of God. This church is teaching you that through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel, you can be saved.

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That's a different gospel. So do you believe that Jesus would invite us to be perfect?

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God commands us to be perfect. Yes, and in ours, it's 3 Nephi 12, 28 for us. I'm not quite sure what it is in the

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Bible. It's been a minute since I read it. But in order to try to become like Christ, that requires action.

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We can't just wish and have faith that we should become like Christ. We have to use action. And I think that's where we're disagreeing is that action, we both agree that action isn't enough.

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But it's where, it's why, it's a good thing that isn't enough, because that's where Jesus Christ's grace comes in. So that's the point.

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The difference is how you just put that, my friend. You said actions and then there's grace, right?

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Because that's what Nephi says. By grace, you've been saved after all you can do. But the Bible teaches it's the grace of God that brings people to life, that gives them faith, that gives them repentance, that saves them.

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The actions come later. Here's one misconception that's often spread amongst Mormons. No Christian in history believes that through faith, just saying you believe, saves you.

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It's true faith in Christ that saves you. If you've been given faith by God to trust in Christ, that means you have a new nature and the good works flow from that.

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Every Christian for all of these 2 ,000 years has always believed that true faith in Christ produces good works.

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But those works have nothing to do with my justification before God. They're only a fruit of it. And I don't want

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God to even look at them as a basis of my righteousness. I only want Christ. I only want

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His life. I only want His death for me. And that's the difference. We're going to stand before God with our life of sin, our lust, our addiction to pornography, our lies, our theft, our envy, our strife, our hatred.

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We're going to stand before God with our sin and unrighteousness, or we're going to stand before God with the perfect righteousness.

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Which do you want? One's available through faith alone, apart from any works.

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And one is something that we all have, sin. So which do you want?

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I think a good talk, you won't find it in Scripture, because there was a talk at General Conferences by... Wait, do you know when it was?

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No, because I was a lot younger. This year? Oh, OK, a while ago, OK. But it was by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. And he said, he said, you will try your best to be perfect, and you will fail.

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And that is good. Because then we need him. Without us being imperfect, and without us failing, we wouldn't need

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Christ, and we wouldn't need our actions. The only difference is, I hear what you're saying. The only difference is the way the

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Bible puts it, God is so holy that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags to God. All of your good attempts to come to God are like nothing.

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And Mormonism, and I don't mean this to be offensive, so just take it as a loving critique. Mormonism teaches that I need to put some in, and then

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Jesus' work avails for me, right? It's Jesus and then me. The Bible says that we are corrupt, we are hostile towards God, enemies, rebels before God, we are dead in our sins and trespasses, that we have nothing because God is holy.

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That's right, yes. And the Bible says there's no way to bridge that gulf through a mixture of faith and works.

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And a matter of fact, and I would only point you to one thing, I know it's going to get crazy here in just a sec, right? I just point you to one thing, guys.

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Just read this tonight. And I'll commit to read something. You tell me to read something, I'll just point you to one thing that only has six chapters.

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The book of Galatians. Don't read it with anybody near you, don't read it with even me trying to influence you.

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Just read Galatians 1 through 6. Paul addresses specifically the kind of gospel that you're saying, that it's grace plus my works.

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He says that if you choose that route, you're under the curse of the law to fulfill all of it. And he says

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Christ has become of no effect to you, no effect to you. Whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace.

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Now, just forgive me for a second. He didn't say that to people who believed they had to earn their way to heaven. He said that to people who believed, yeah, it's

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God's grace. Yes, it's Jesus. But I've got to keep this one part of the law, this one part of the law to be justified before God.

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He says, anybody teaching that? He says, I hope they cut their penis off. Galatians 6, 5.

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And he really says that. I hope they, he says, he says, these guys that want to circumcise you to be justified, they say, grace, faith, and Jesus, just do circumcision to be right with God.

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He says, I hope they emasculate themselves. Yeah, so I think to go on at that point, he said, well, one of the names

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Jesus Christ is given in the Bible is mediator. That's right. And to be a mediator, it's a bridge, a gap.

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That's right. Very good. Yes, agreed. You can't have half a bridge. Right.

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That's right. That's not going to work anything. Right. You need another half. So he provides, we may even only give 1 ,000 for the bridge.

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There you go. You just said it. As much, but he will bridge the bridge. You just said it. You just, you just said it. I want to say this to you with humility.

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Everything you just said was a false gospel. The fact that you think that you even have half a bridge shows that you don't.

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I said 1 ,000. The fact that you think you have an inch of a bridge, a quarter of a bridge, your righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

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You don't have a bridge. You're on the side of the, dead bones.

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You need God's grace to put life in you, to give you a new heart. You need Jesus to give you a righteousness and to cover that way towards God all on his own, and that's only a gift.

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You keep saying that we're dead. Like, what scripture is that? Spiritually, Ephesians. Well, there's many. Ephesians chapter 2.

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Ephesians 2 says that we're dead. Dead in your sins and trespasses. He brings us up. He brings us to life by grace you've been saved.

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So to put this in a timeline sense of things. Okay. Because this is how we view this book of Ephesians.

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Is that before everything, we're dead.

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He brings us to life. We build this. This is what we do. We build as much as we can.

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He builds the rest. Right, right. We believe this. Yeah, we believe the same thing, but in a more flowing matter of things.

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No, we'd say it in a way. And I love you. You believe in a completely false gospel.

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If you believe that God gives me some and then I cooperate and I add righteousness. Bible says it's you're dead and God makes you alive together with him by grace you've been saved.

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I just told you that's a gospel of complete grace that has nothing to do with you. Nothing.

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All we have to do. You're saying all we have to do is show up. Turn to Christ and live. Trust in him.

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Participation, Reuben, is exaltation. Well, and that's another issue is when the fact that you believe you can become gods one day.

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God says before me, there was no God formed. Neither shall there be after me. You'll never make it. Doesn't Jesus Christ want to give everything that he has?

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Well, just answer that. I'll answer your question. But just I gave you the verse. Before me, there was no God formed. Neither shall there be after me.

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Yeah, and then Nephi teaches. That's Nephi. I'm talking about the Bible. I want to finish my quote.

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Okay, all right. It says, I am the beginning and the end. I am the Alpha. I am the Omega. Right? So that implies that he was here before anything.

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And he will be here after everything. But you realize you can't answer a text from Isaiah 43 with Nephi. Okay, then

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I'll just cut out. I just like the Alpha and Omega part. So I'll just keep in because I know in Isaiah, it says I am the beginning and the end.

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Can we agree on that? Okay, so while we're agreeing on that. First and the last. We're going to be coming here.

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Yes. So we can go on our sheep taxi and go over there. Yeah. So God is...

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Would you agree that God is the creator of this universe? God is the creator of everything. This universe.

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Includes this universe. And it was one thing at a time. Yeah. So... Everything. In order to create this universe, he would have to be here before.

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We agree with that. In order to be here after, he would have to create it. Right? That's a non sequitur.

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It's not necessarily logically necessary for God to have to be here, philosophically speaking, after.

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So what we believe is that since he's the creator of this universe to us, he is before everything and he will be after everything because...

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But you know you're not answering the verse I gave you though. God says, Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

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That's long before Joseph came along. He says, I'm the first and the last. Besides me there is no God.

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He says... Why would he say that he is a jealous God and put no gods before me? Because no... Yeah, exactly. Telling his people who were idolaters, worshiping false gods.

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You're to worship no other God before me. I don't want any false gods in my sight. Because his people are idolaters.

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But Joseph taught you, you can become a God one day when God says there's none before and none after. It's blasphemous to think that you can become a

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God one day. The Bible says, From eternity into eternity you are God. Joseph denied that.

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Joseph taught that God has not been God from all eternity. Isn't it also blasphemous to say that all we have to do is show up to get...

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No, I didn't say that. I said believe in Christ. Believe in Christ to show up. So it doesn't matter if I killed...

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If I'm Hitler and I killed all the Jews because you know what? They're not white. But when

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I get to the end... Because Hitler had a firm belief in Christ. You're already misrepresenting. Yeah. He did not have a firm commitment to Christ.

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That's fictitious. You realize that in history, Hitler denied the Bible's Christ. Specifically said that he did.

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He wanted a different version of Christ. No, he did not believe in Christ. He said that he didn't believe in the biblical

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Christ. He actually wanted a different version of Jesus that would fit his socialist idea.

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That's what you think we have. We have a different Christ. A different Christ. But see, that's where we're going to disagree on every fundamentalist.

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Yeah, yeah. So the question is how do we know the truth? And I would say the word of God is where we go to for the answer.

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Jesus says that word is truth. James 1, 5 through 6. Jesus says that word is truth. Do you realize that James did not teach in James 1 that you can come to God for an answer to a question and that he would answer you.

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I'm going to ask God this question and he's going to pull me into the woods to answer my question. I'll give you this real fast.

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If I said to you, hey, I'm going to pray about something right now about whether I should go steal that cop car right now.

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Is that something I need to pray about? Hopefully not. Because we know God has spoken already, right? Thou shalt not steal.

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I don't need to pray about whether I should steal something, murder someone or lie or anything else because God's already spoken.

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So when someone says to me, pray about Joseph Smith, whether he's a prophet of God, see how you feel. I know what Joseph said about God.

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Just like I know that God says do not steal and that's why I don't go pray about stealing that car. God said before me there was no

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God formed, neither shall there be after me. Joseph says there were and you can become one, one day. Joseph lied.

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But I just demonstrated to you that he contradicted God. But if you demonstrated with me with the text... You said that we don't need to pray about our actions.

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With the text that has been translated... I didn't say that. With the text that has been translated to four languages so it can't possibly as accurately...

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Wrong. Sir, do you know the difference between transmission and translation? Would you eat one of these, man? No, please. Okay. So the

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Old Testament is transmitted to us in Hebrew primarily and then Septuagint, the Greek translation. The New Testament is written in Greek.

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Now, if you don't like an English translation today, study Koine Greek and then read the original

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Greek text. We have it. So when someone says the Bible has been translated and corrupted, you do realize we can go back to the

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Greek text. We have it. We have over 5 ,700 manuscript pieces and copies of the

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Greek text. We have over 19 ,000 translations from the Greek into other languages.

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You've been lied to. They told you that the Bible has been translated and then re -translated. They've lied to you.

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I can show you exactly what Jesus said in the Greek text from the original

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Greek language. We have it. They told you it's missing many plain and precious parts, but Jesus says,

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God says in his word, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our God stands forever. This comes down to this.

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You seem like a very devoted and strong -minded person. This comes down to whether you're going to believe Jesus or Joseph.

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Do this. I'm Jeff. That's a way to get a hold of me. Read this and tear it apart.

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Refute me. You seem like a committed person. My name is Jeff. Contact me here.

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I'll take you all out to lunch. I'll listen to you. I would care about you. I'll buy you hot chocolate.

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Okay, we'll hang out, whatever. And I'll let you guys go through that text there and show me where it's wrong.

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And I promise I'll listen. Then I have something for you. Okay. I want you to read Alma 7. Alma 7, you got it.

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Specifically, 11 through 13. I will read Alma 7. I promise. Galatians is what you guys read, okay?

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Especially chapter 5. Galatians, yeah. He says it. Hardcore, yeah. He did say it.

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He did say it. All right, I'm Jeff. What was your name again? Casey. Casey, nice to meet you, man. It was great talking to you. It was. Yeah. Good to meet you.

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Thank you so much for talking to us, man. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you. You guys were so much better than the other people.

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I don't even know what his name was. I don't remember. But it was awesome. You guys know how to have a real conversation.

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All right, man. I'm glad you guys stopped. I'm glad you're blessed. All right.