Amazing Conversation with a Young Wayward Mormon who Rejoined the LDS after a Near Death Experience

Apologia Utah

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

Uh, just really peaceful experiences. I wouldn't say crazy. Yeah, well when I say crazy I mean like sometimes people will tell me, or I've heard it before, that they'll see some of their dead relatives or something like that in the back.

00:10

Has that ever happened to you? I've felt their presence, but I've never seen them with my own eyes, no. Oh, gotcha.

00:16

My name's Andrew, by the way. What's yours? Carson. Carson. Oh, you're good. Sorry for all this stuff. No, you're good, man. So, how long have you been

00:21

LDS for? My whole life. I kind of fell away for a little while. During your teenage years or something?

00:28

Uh, just after, actually. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm an addict in recovery, so I spent about 10 years in drug addiction.

00:36

Oh, okay. So, yeah, I've kind of been able to find my sobriety through the church of Jesus Christ, actually. Gotcha, gotcha.

00:43

Well, I'm glad that you're sober. Yeah. What do you think about 1 Corinthians 6? It says that such were some of you.

00:50

I would say that if someone finds Christ, the true Jesus of Scripture, that they no longer should identify as an addict, but someone who believes in Jesus, right?

00:59

Okay. So, like, a recovering addict, I understand what you're saying. But I'm an evangelical Christian. We're out here doing evangelism.

01:06

Okay. So, have you ever thought about the differences between, like, just biblical Christianity and the LDS organization?

01:12

Or your faith? I can't say I've looked into it too much, personally. No. Okay, so did you grow up in Utah?

01:18

I did. I grew up in the country down south. Oh, wow. So you grew up in the country of Utah. Yeah. A town of what, like 1 ,000 people or something?

01:25

Yeah, 2 ,000. That's a small town. Yeah. So was your family, I'm guessing, also born and raised LDS? Yes, yes, for the most part.

01:36

I believe my grandpa and my grandma, they were both converts to the church. Gotcha, gotcha.

01:42

So, Carson, one reason why we're out here is because we believe through the Scriptures that Jesus Christ is the eternal

01:50

God, uncreated, and that the LDS organization teaches a different Jesus than what the

01:56

Bible teaches. Have you ever tested the words of your prophets to what the Bible says about Jesus?

02:02

Yeah, I've gotten into some discussions with some people about how, you know, whether or not

02:08

Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God or whether He is God Himself.

02:14

I've gotten into a few discussions about that. And I can see how that can be a confusing topic. I'm terrible at pointing out exact Scriptures, but I remember...

02:24

Yeah, just tell me what you're thinking, man. Some of the Scriptures, you know, refer to Him as being one being, but then there's also contradicting

02:32

Scriptures that speak about Him being the Son of God and how there's also

02:38

Scriptures, I understand, that say that, you know, God and the Son of God are as one.

02:43

So, I can see how there can be some conflicting understandings of whether or not

02:50

He would be one person or whether there's a literal Son of God and a Holy Spirit. Yeah, okay, gotcha.

02:56

So, what the Bible teaches is that there's one God, one being of God that exists simultaneously in three persons, right?

03:04

So, not more than one being. So, the Bible states that God shares His glory with no one, but then it shows us in Hebrews 1, when the

03:11

Father's bringing the Son into the world during the incarnation of Jesus Christ, that the Father actually says to the angels,

03:17

Let all God's angels worship Him. And then the Father actually in Hebrews 1 says, And you,

03:22

Lord, referring to the Son, laid the foundations of the earth in the beginning. So, even the Father calls the

03:28

Son God. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. One God, three persons.

03:34

So, it's not like different beings, because that would be bad. If we have different beings of God, then we're not teaching monotheism.

03:40

We're now teaching polytheism, right? Or maybe a form of tritheism, which some people teach.

03:46

But what's interesting about the LDS organization, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but do you believe that Jesus Christ is the offspring of Elohim and Heavenly Mother?

03:57

Yes, I do believe that. I believe that God is the Father, but that He gave

04:04

Christ dominion of the earth and that Christ is the literal creator of the earth, but He created all things in God's image.

04:10

Gotcha. So, He is the literal offspring of God. That is what I believe He is. Okay, cool. So, Carson, pause your phone again real quick, because I want to give you some scriptures to look up a little bit later from the

04:19

Bible. Let me know when you have your little notepad pulled up. Yeah, of course. I'm trying.

04:34

Oh, no, you're good, man. I'm patient. And what's your name? Andrew. Andrew. I'm Carson.

04:41

Yep, yep. I think you told me that, but I... No, you're good, man. All right, what are the scriptures?

04:47

So, one of them is Colossians 1, starting in verse 16. It says about Jesus in Colossians 1 .16

04:55

that He created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities.

05:03

All things were created through Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. So, Colossians would state that not only did

05:10

Jesus create the earth, but He also created all things invisible, including Lucifer. Including Lucifer.

05:16

And then in John, write this one down, too. John 1, verses 1 through 3.

05:23

And in that it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the

05:29

Word was God. All things were created through Him. There was nothing that came into being unless it was created through Jesus.

05:37

And what's interesting about John 1 is the Greek. The Greek, which is the original language which the

05:42

Apostle John wrote in, it states, And the

05:48

Greek word, in, is what we translate to was in English. And it actually means as far back as you can go.

05:55

Stretch it out, as far as you can go. From eternity into eternity, Jesus was already there.

06:00

And that He was with God. Prostantheon is with God. Meaning that He was in an intimate relationship with the

06:08

Father. And that all things, when they came into being, the verb used there is eganeto, which is referring to something that comes into being within time and space.

06:19

So Jesus, according to Scripture, is before all things. In Him, all things hold together.

06:24

And He actually created Lucifer. So, if LDS theology, I want to hear what you're thinking too,

06:30

Carson. If LDS theology tells you that no, Jesus didn't create Lucifer, He's the brother of Lucifer, and you're

06:35

His brother as well, but the Bible clearly states and plainly states that no, He created Lucifer, what does that make you think?

06:43

You know, I'd have to look into it all myself, but I also take great caution when I look into some of the

06:50

New Testament and Old Testament. Because I do believe personally that there is, that over time, that some of the plain and precious things were taken out of the

06:59

Holy Bible. It's from Nephi, right? Yeah, from Nephi. And that just, the reason that I feel

07:04

I can believe that is because I've personally received my own testament that this

07:09

Book of Mormon is a true New Testament of God that is here on the earth. And it just teaches, you know, that a lot of the plain and precious things that used to be in the

07:19

Bible have been taken out, and that some of it has been made confusing. Right. And so,

07:25

I take great caution when I look into those things, but I do need to look into them. Oh, absolutely. I would assume, like,

07:31

Carson, if you're a student of the Lord, wants to know who God is, you want to test those things, right? Yes. So, 1

07:37

John 4, 1, also written by the Apostle John, it tells us to test the spirits.

07:43

Because many false prophets come out into the world. Yes. So, you have a testimony, right? Your testimony would be, can you tell me your testimony real quick, just so I know it?

07:51

For me, my testimony is in the fact that there is a living prophet on the earth today, and that he answers to Jesus Christ, who is the

07:59

Son of Father, and that through him, that Jesus Christ, through his prophets, in this modern dispensation was able to bring about the

08:06

Book of Mormon, and that I know that there was many who witnessed the Book of Mormon in the golden plates for themselves, and that even those who came to say that they couldn't believe it, even testified that, you know, they did see the plates, and they couldn't deny that.

08:20

And I just, for me, through all the experiences I've had, it's just almost every day

08:26

I'm given more and more reason to see how these things are true for me in my life. Gotcha, yeah. Thank you.

08:31

I appreciate that, Carson. So, the Bible declares the way you test the spirits is to test it according to previous revelation.

08:40

So, there's multiple tests of a prophet in Scripture, okay? One of them is

08:45

Deuteronomy 13. Another one is Deuteronomy 18. If you want, you can look those up later as well.

08:51

Then, you know, Jesus, of course, says test them, you'll know them by their fruits, right? So, what I would want to do is if I had someone tell me, or even a spirit try to tell me something, says, pray about it, if you get a good feeling, believe me,

09:05

I'd say, well, actually, I'm going to test you according to God's Word. So, in Acts 17 .11, Paul goes, and he's preaching the gospel to the

09:12

Bereans. And the Bereans, he says this in Acts 17 .11, he says, they're more noble -minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all eagerness.

09:21

That means they were listening to him eagerly about the gospel. He says, but they checked out to see what he was saying, whether it was so.

09:30

They searched the Scriptures daily to see if what he was saying was so. Meaning, they went back to the Old Testament to fact -check

09:35

Paul when Paul was going, Jesus is the Christ, attributing the title of the Messiah to him.

09:41

And he commended them. He said, you're noble. You cross -checked me to Scripture, right? So, anyone can say they have a testimony, right?

09:48

So, the Jehovah's Witness, the Muslim, all of them can tell you that they prayed about it and that they have a feeling that what they believe is true.

09:58

How would you respond to somebody if they told you, too, I prayed about it, I know it's true, yet they're giving you contradicting information?

10:07

I would ask what they felt and the exact things that were spoken to them. I would also personally pray that if what they received was from God, that God would confirm it to me also.

10:19

So, say the Muslim person tells you to pray about what he believes to see if it's true.

10:26

And what he believes is this, is that Jesus was not fully God. He wasn't God. He was just a mere prophet. He didn't even resurrect from the dead.

10:33

So, you prayed about it, and you got a feeling telling you, hey, poet, buddy, don't kick that. And then you got a feeling that what he was saying was true, you would reject

10:43

Mormonism and then be a follower of Islam? If I knew it came from God. And for me, I know that there's a few different ways that God speaks to me.

10:50

And it comes from the combination of three things. Why he is speaking to me will manifest itself plainly and clearly in my mind, as well as the burning of the bosom.

11:00

My chest will begin to burn. And thirdly, these things that are spoken to me will stand the test of time, meaning that at any time forward in my life,

11:09

I can look back and I can remember exactly how I felt and exactly what was said to me. And I know that my own brain is highly incapable of remembering what it is.

11:18

So, that's how I know it's from God, is if I remember exactly what it was and exactly how I felt. And that it was a feeling of peace, because I believe that Satan is incapable of recreating the feeling of true peace.

11:30

And that when God speaks to you, he is the only one that is capable of creating true peace within your heart.

11:35

Interesting, interesting. Because 2 Corinthians 11 actually tells me that Satan masquerades as an angel of light and that his apostles look like they're doing righteous works, but they're actually workers of unrighteousness.

11:47

It seems like they're workers of peace. He even appears as an angel of light to confuse people. I would say scripture actually declares something different about Satan.

11:54

He would actually try to make you feel comfort in order to reject the true Jesus and believe something else.

12:01

Right. And I personally have had experiences in my life where I feel he's tried to do this with me, but it always creates a feeling of confusion.

12:08

It always creates a feeling of unsurety. And even though I might feel somewhat comfortable and not intimidated, it's still not that feeling of true peace, as if knowing that, like,

12:17

I am perfectly comfortable in this moment here and there. Gotcha. And I just have never been able to see how Satan can replicate that in my mind.

12:24

Gotcha. So, with peace, when you say peace, can you help me understand what you mean by that? Peace, for me, it's a feeling of true, the art of truly being present, the feeling of feeling completely comfortable in the moment with the thoughts, with the emotions, and with the things that you see.

12:44

For me, if I'm feeling peace now, I know that I don't need to worry about what comes next in the day. I don't need to worry about what just happened behind me, but that I can stand here and that I can breathe and just take in the air and the scenes around me without any feelings of contention or any feelings of stress.

12:58

And I can just truly, truly be in this moment and be content and happy knowing that I'm in this moment. Ah, gotcha.

13:03

Okay. So, I was just trying to understand, because as an evangelical Christian, when I hear peace, I think, like, shalom, like, peace with God, that typically, since I'm from the posterity of Adam, I am born fallen.

13:16

I'm born with sin. I know that your article of faith, the second one, would state differently. It says we deny the original sin of Adam, essentially.

13:23

But I'd say that I'm born in enmity with God, and that in order for me to have peace, shalom,

13:29

I must fully rest on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who is the eternal God, who satisfied all of the righteous requirements on my behalf.

13:37

He was perfectly obedient to the law, born without sin, and then crushed and bruised for my iniquity. And through faith in Him, I, when

13:43

I die, will stand before the Father justified, which is like a forensic term meaning declared righteous before God through the righteousness of Jesus.

13:51

So, do you think you have peace with God in that sense? Because when I look at the Book of Mormon, and I hear 1

13:56

Nephi 3 .7, for example, states that there isn't a commandment that God has ever given man that man cannot actually achieve.

14:03

You can look it up. It's 1 Nephi 3 .7. And then I hear things like when Jesus says, Be ye perfect as your heavenly

14:09

Father is perfect. I've heard it taught through the LDS organization that that's a command of God, and that can be achieved.

14:16

And then coupling that with Moroni 10 .32, which says, if you deny yourself of all ungodliness and love the

14:23

Lord with all your might, mind, and strength, then God's grace is sufficient for you. My question,

14:28

Carson, would be, have you done that? Have you denied yourself of all ungodliness currently in your life right now?

14:35

Have you loved the Lord with all your might, mind, and strength, and are you perfect? I'm not perfect, but they do very clearly state that it's not just to become perfect, but to strive to find perfection.

14:47

And no one is expected to be perfect in this life, and that's why we believe in the resurrection and in the afterlife.

14:54

He's trying to teach us how to become perfect, and does not expect us to be perfect today, but expects us to work towards perfection.

15:01

And you can compare it almost like to someone playing the piano, and as you're playing and as you're learning the piano, you're not going to be a perfect pianist right off the bat.

15:09

You're going to miss notes, but that you give yourself grace and that you understand that you're trying to learn the song perfectly, and knowing that it may not happen today, it may not happen tomorrow, but so long as you're working towards it, that you can be saved.

15:21

Yeah, I believe it's Alma 34 that clearly states that it's this life is the life that you have, where you have to prepare to meet

15:28

God. Have you ever read The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball, the 12th prophet of the LDS organization? I began reading it,

15:34

I've never finished it. I'm terrible at reading. The ADHD gets to me. So he does a hermeneutics or like an exegesis to the

15:41

Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, and he actually comes up with a different conclusion than you. He actually anticipates your response when, this is an

15:48

LDS prophet by the way, he says that there's a man in this conversation that's not necessarily real, it's a hypothetical conversation.

15:56

He says, but Spencer, you're telling me I must be Superman. I can't be perfect to the commandments.

16:01

And he says this, he says, you are Superman. You are God's embryo, and you have to prepare to meet

16:07

God in this life. You don't have a chance after, in order to reach the highest level of heaven.

16:12

It's this life where you must be perfect. It says no unclean thing can dwell before God. When he says be ye perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, the way

16:20

Spencer W. Kimball interprets that, is that no actually, you must and you can. He says actually in the book striving isn't good enough.

16:27

Did he say this is the life where we have to prepare to meet him? No, no, no, he says this life is the life where you have to be perfect.

16:35

I'm telling you right now. I'll have to look into that. Yeah, I can send you some quotes if you want to exchange numbers as well later, if you ever feel, like I can send you a text and Carson, again,

16:44

I don't want you to lose faith in anything. I want you to find true saving faith in Jesus Christ, the one of scripture who says this, come to me my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

16:56

Because he's the one who satisfied everything. Grace is this Carson, it's unmerited favor from God.

17:01

It's something I don't deserve. If you have to work for grace, it's no longer a gift. That's what

17:07

Paul says. None of us are held righteous according to the law. No, we all stand condemned according to the law.

17:13

But it's Jesus and his sacrifice that gave us everything that we need to inherit righteousness. Doesn't mean

17:18

I live a life of sin. But instead when I believe in Jesus Christ on faith, the Holy Spirit takes my heart of stone, replaces it with a heart of flesh and causes me to want to obey him.

17:29

So my repentance is this. It's turning away from the things I once desired and now desiring to love and honor

17:36

God. Yeah, and I would say I have a similar definition of repentance. Oh, that's good. All right, good. Because there's weird things that I've read in the miracle of forgiveness, like where repentance is never doing the sin again.

17:47

Or I believe it's, I'd have to look it up off the top of my head. I think it's Doctrine and Covenants. I wish

17:52

I could remember exactly which one. But it says if you sin, right, you sin in this life, all of your former sins get placed back on you.

18:01

In my repentance, in my repentance and following towards God, it's not now that I have to be blameless to the law.

18:09

It's because I could never do that. It's that my desires have changed now and that I love

18:15

Jesus and I know what he did for me perfectly. Nothing that I did. So my worry, Carson, is when you get a different Jesus, when you get a different Jesus than what the

18:24

Bible gives you, you're eventually going to get a different gospel. And in 2 Corinthians 11, I'm warned that there's people who will come and preach a different Jesus, a different gospel, and a different spirit.

18:34

So if you take Jesus, okay, who, according to the Bible, is the eternal God, unchanging, the same yesterday, today, and forever, if you take him and say no, he's the offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, a mere created being.

18:48

So when he comes and dies on the cross, he actually can't satisfy the wrath of the true eternal

18:54

God. That means you must do X, Y, and Z. You must be obedient to the gospel ordinances and principles in order to reach everlasting life.

19:01

So we believe that he is the God of this earth. A God. The God of this earth.

19:06

Okay, so do you worship Jesus as you worship Heavenly Father? Yes. Oh, okay. So you worship

19:14

Jesus. Yes, Jesus is the mediator between us and the Father. He is the God of this earth.

19:19

He's the creator of this earth, but he did all things in the will of the Father. Right. Yeah, no, I would agree with that.

19:25

So, Jesus, though, just so I can understand your beliefs, because sometimes LDS people, their beliefs differ, okay?

19:31

So, you believe that Jesus is not the eternal

19:37

God, that he's the offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. He is the first begotten son of the

19:43

Father, yes. Gotcha, okay. So, he's not fully God. He's a created being.

19:50

Yet you worship him as the God of this earth, but not the same way you would worship Heavenly Father, right? I worship them one and the same.

19:57

One and the same? Okay, interesting. And that's typical for most LDS people you find? It should be. Okay, because I've heard other people tell me things like, no, they don't necessarily worship

20:05

Jesus, they worship the Father. But that's interesting to hear. We do things all for the glory of the Father, in the name of the

20:11

Son. So, we do all things for the Father, the same that Christ would, but we do all things through Christ.

20:17

Through Christ, okay. Gotcha. So, when you do all things through Christ, can you specify for me what that means, just so I can understand you?

20:25

Well, because he is the only one that's brought perfection. He's given reign and dominion over this earth because he is the one that came here and overcame the sins of the earth.

20:39

The only way that we can glorify God is by using him in his atonement. The only way we can communicate with God is through Christ, who is the literal

20:46

God of this earth, who is the creator of this earth. He is the Son of God. Gotcha. Okay, so how does his atonement affect you then?

20:55

In every way. I've had an obsession of addiction for most of my life. I prayed for a true change of heart just a couple of weeks ago.

21:03

I couldn't get myself to change, and I had a literal seizure. When was that?

21:10

Three weeks ago. You had a seizure three weeks ago? First and only seizure, and it was the only way that God could push me far enough to be able to get rid of that obsession that I had and to be able to focus all my things on him.

21:24

What do you mean by the obsession that you had? To use. So you've been clean for three weeks? At least three weeks, yes.

21:31

Gotcha. What's up, buddy? Yeah, go ahead. That's my son, Poet. Alright, so you've been clean for three weeks.

21:37

A little over three weeks. Tell me about your life a little bit then before we get back into some more of the Bible and stuff. So you've been clean for three weeks.

21:43

So you've had this experience with a seizure. Did you call your parents or something? And they're like, hey, you need to get back to church.

21:49

How'd that work? No, it was completely my idea. Oh, okay. It was completely my decision. My parents, yeah, I'm born and raised in the

21:54

Gospel, but they leave us up completely to the agency. I'm a 25 -year -old man. They're not going to try and push me. They know.

22:00

Oh, I'm just wondering what happened after you called them up or something. Yeah, they came to the hospital, and they cared for me, and they made sure

22:05

I made it back home safe, and that was that. And for me, the obsession was gone, and I knew that it was because of the

22:11

Savior and his atoning sacrifice that I was able to have that obsession removed. I knew that the Savior was the only one that could enter my heart and purify it and cleanse it.

22:18

Right, gotcha. Okay, so how do you know that it's not the Savior who sent me here to tell you that you're actually worshiping a false god, the one that contradicts previous revelation?

22:29

So if you have an experience in your life that's solidifying for you in a belief, well, now here

22:35

I am in front of you, also an experience in your life, who's then telling you this could be the chance for you to actually have salvation and rest fully completed in the sacrifice of Christ instead of the obedience to the

22:45

Gospel ordinances and principles. How would you know? Well, about 35 minutes ago

22:51

I was told the second you leave this building you're going to face immediate opposition. Okay. And I faced immediate opposition towards my beliefs in many ways.

22:59

Okay. Just within the seconds of leaving the temple. I mean, I was forewarned before I even left the temple that this would happen.

23:05

Yeah, well, on Thursdays we're always out here, so they're probably just going to tell you that because we're always here on the corner. No, someone didn't tell me that.

23:11

Oh, you felt it. I felt it in prayer. Gotcha. Okay, gotcha. All right, fair enough. So how do you know that that spirit then is from God?

23:19

Because I felt peace. I knew exactly what it was saying. I felt chills across my whole body. It was a burning from head to toe.

23:24

There's no denying God who truly speaks to me. Gotcha. So I've had an experience as well,

23:30

Carson. My experience testifies to me through God's Word that Jesus Christ is the uncreated, unchanging

23:36

God who fully satisfied the wrath of God on the cross on my behalf, perfectly obedient to the law, that he's not the offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, that he is actually the one who did create all things in heaven and on earth, even including

23:51

Lucifer, and that the Mormon gospel is a false gospel. So how do you handle that?

23:57

So I have a testimony as well. So how would you handle that? I handle it by... You see what I'm saying? By commending you for believing in Jesus Christ.

24:04

Well, which one, though? That's the question. Whichever form of your higher power that brings you peace at the end of the day, and I am going to say that I myself have a different meaning of and understanding of Jesus the

24:16

Christ. And what only one can save you, though? Different Jesus, different gospel, different spirit in 2 Corinthians 11. I believe that Jesus Christ, regardless of which one, is going to be happy with both of us for wanting to go out and teach others that there is forgiveness possible for you and for I.

24:33

How is forgiveness possible, Carson? By believing on him. You believe that, purely on believing on him?

24:38

Yes, by trying to be a better person, by trying to be a good person. So is it by trying or by believing?

24:46

By trying. By trying. Because, I mean, what is belief if you're never going to do anything on it? I feel you on that. So James chapter 2 says,

24:52

Faith without works is dead. Yes. And James is talking to believers in the context, and what he's actually declaring is that if you believe in Jesus, your heart is changed and you obey what

25:02

Jesus says, so there's fruit that comes from your belief. He's not saying that you have salvation through your works.

25:09

No, it's since you have salvation, your good works will follow. He's talking to people who are already believers. Like in Ephesians chapter 2, it says,

25:16

Faith, if you think you can be justified by your works, essentially. Shut up.

25:23

Goobs, I didn't even realize that was you, brother. I didn't mean to mess up the conversation. What's up?

25:29

I'm Andrew. I'm Andrew. We met before. Oh, okay, cool. We met at God Necessary for Ethics.

25:38

Oh, nice. Are you Christian? Yeah. Oh, wow, I'm just talking to your buddy Carson here then. Yeah, my man.

25:43

My man. It's good to see you. So have you talked to him in three weeks? No. Dude, tell him what's happened to you recently,

25:50

Carson. We say goobles? Goobies. Goobies. My last name is Goobly, so everyone does some kind of variation.

25:56

Tell him what's happened to you, Carson. Your buddies, I want them to know what's happened. So I've been to rehab five times, right?

26:04

Okay, yeah. It's heavy, heavy in addiction. I've been trying to get over it. Absolutely. I've been praying all year that I'll be able to have a complete change of heart, comparable to Alma the

26:13

Younger. Okay. That's what I've prayed for. True Alma the Younger experience. And over the last few months, I've had a very intense change of heart.

26:20

First of all, I felt in prayer. God was like, you're not going to be able to make any friends for a little while. I'm not kidding.

26:25

For about a month and a half, I couldn't make a single friend. I was completely alone. Really? And I felt true, true, true sorrow, true desolation.

26:35

And then as soon as I reached out to God after that, I was like, hey, this is what life without me looks like.

26:42

Okay, awesome. It's great to see that. I still couldn't quite get over my obsessions. I still had my addictions.

26:48

I took a stimulant about three and a half weeks ago, and I had a seizure and woke up in the hospital. It was a really long seizure.

26:54

Who took you to the hospital? My roommates called the paramedics. I bit my tongue almost in half.

27:01

It's super healed now, but they looked over and I was bleeding, and I was about to asphyxiate on my own blood.

27:08

I was about to die. They laid me down, got me to the hospital, and ever since then, ever since that day,

27:13

I've had a complete change of heart. I haven't had any desire in any way, shape, or form to use again, which,

27:20

I mean, you've known me since high school. Since high school, I've not been able to get rid of the obsession. Every single day is an obsession.

27:26

I get you. So, yeah, I decided that day I'm going to go and serve a mission. Okay. My papers are getting sent in on Monday.

27:34

Okay. So I have three months until I'm too old to serve a mission, and I just feel like...

27:39

Oh, really? I just feel like I've had that change of heart. I feel like that's the best thing for me. Yeah.

27:47

Get you away from all that stuff for two years? Yeah. Yeah, well, before I was looking at a mission almost like,

27:52

Hey, you know what? If I live that lifestyle, I'm forced away from drugs. But then I was given...

27:58

My perspective has completely changed. I feel as though I've been freed, through the grace of the Savior, from my addictions, and I want nothing more than to go out and to teach others that through the

28:08

Savior, you can be saved, and that, you know, it doesn't matter how low you've been. You can find peace.

28:14

You can find happiness in this life. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah, so, yeah, we've been talking and just chatting about things, and I was telling them it's also extremely possible that not only did

28:27

God make you have an experience with me, which may have resulted in you going to the

28:33

LDS organization, right? Yeah. But also, it's possible that God sent me here to tell you that the

28:39

LDS organization preaches a false gospel and a different Jesus, one that cannot save, according to experience, right?

28:46

So it's the question now is how do you know whether the organization is from God or someone who's preaching the gospel to you is actually from God?

28:55

And he would say that it's a testimony, right? Like he was just telling me before he even walked out of the building after doing baptism for the dead, he was like, you're going to face opposition.

29:03

And so now here I am as like the opposition to Carson. But then... I felt more opposition than just, you know, talking to people.

29:10

No, no, I know. I suffer from a pornography addiction. Okay. And almost the second I walked out, there was someone wearing shorts that were way, way, way too short.

29:18

And the butt was hanging out right in front of me. I dealt with that for a long time. And I just had to like look at the ground as I'm like walking up. I'm like immediate opposition.

29:25

And I was warned of that right before I walked outside. Yeah. So Goobles, help me out. Goobles. Is it

29:30

Goobles or Gooblies? Gooblie. Gooblie. I call him Gooblie. Okay, Gooblie. I'm never going to get it right. I'm just going to call you

29:36

Goobles. All right. So help me out because I was trying to explain the difference to him between striving for the atonement or actually receiving the grace of God through faith.

29:46

So help me out to explain this to your buddy here since you guys have good history. Well, there's no amount of striving that anyone could possibly do that would ever merit any sort of grace.

30:01

I found that on my mission. I went to Tennessee and I was surrounded by Baptists and Reformed Christians and also a bunch of cults.

30:12

And I thought, man, I have to climb that ladder. I have to have faith. I have to repent.

30:18

I have to be baptized. I have to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. I have to endure to the end. These things

30:23

I must do. Otherwise, I'm not going to be approved. I'm not going to be accepted of God.

30:30

It wasn't until I got home and started taking the Bible at its word. There were a few individuals on the mission that really kind of impressed upon me that I needed to take the

30:43

Bible more seriously than I did, in particular this old Presbyterian man named Kermit. And he would always go,

30:49

Kermit like the frog. He was amazing because he didn't try to bash me out of my faith.

30:56

He didn't try to beat my head over with the Bible to get me out of it. He just simply shared the truth with me.

31:04

And eventually, a couple of years later, that impressed me. So I started reading the Bible. And I started reading about this beautiful gift called justification.

31:13

Do you know what that is? Justification? Where you justify something? Essentially, I know what justification is.

31:19

Yeah, we said earlier being declared righteous. It's like a forensic term. And it's this beautiful act of somebody believes in Christ.

31:29

And God declares that person righteous. It's a lot like Abraham in Genesis 15, where he's already been told that him and his wife are going to have a kid.

31:39

And he's not sure about that until God says, Go outside, look at the stars, man, and count them.

31:47

Can you count them? This is what your offspring will be. And it says that in that moment,

31:52

Abraham believed God and it was reckoned or credited him for righteousness. And so there was no striving.

31:59

There was no striving. There was no work that Abraham did that made him justified in God's sight.

32:05

It was God saying, I'm going to do this. And Abraham said, okay.

32:11

So God told him to go outside though, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah. So even by simply not following through on the word of God and choosing through effort to go outside and look at the stars and have faith to do that, without doing that action alone, he wouldn't have received that knowledge.

32:25

But does the faith come from within Abraham or does it come from God? Faith is an action.

32:33

Faith is having the inspiration to do something and it's choosing to do an action that represents your loyalty, your willingness to serve

32:42

God. Not loyalty, but your willingness to serve God. I find that interesting because when

32:48

I read a passage like Ephesians 2, especially, particularly, go noodle on that whole chapter, man.

32:56

It is some powerful word. But when you get to verses 8 and 9, that famous, you're saved by grace through faith, that not of yourselves was a gift from God.

33:05

It's not the words. I know that there's certain interpretations where it says that it's not necessarily just being saved by grace that's a gift from God, but it's the faith that is also a gift from God.

33:19

God breathes into a person dead in trespasses and sins, gives them faith to believe in the first place.

33:27

That was with me. I was so blinded and hard of hearing to the truth because I was so entrenched in what

33:36

I thought I was supposed to do as a Latter -day Saint. I thought I was supposed to go to the temple. I was supposed to pay my tithe.

33:42

I was supposed to keep this and do this and do this and do this and do this. And to be honest, it got so weary to me.

33:50

It was a burden on my shoulders because, oh, I'm keeping these three things, but I'm not doing these two things. I need to overcorrect and do these two things.

33:57

Well, now I'm failing at these three things and these five things. There's so many tenets to the restored gospel, it's impossible for a man to keep.

34:07

Why do you think they ask so much? Because they're a works -based religion. Because they what? Because they're a works -based religion.

34:14

That's why I think. And usually works -based religions ask so much of their members to keep them, this sounds horrible, but to keep them busy.

34:22

But there's got to be a deeper meaning. Why do they teach that we pay tithing?

34:28

Why do they teach that we do these things? They teach tithing because they see things like Abraham paying ten percent as spoils of war to Melchizedek.

34:38

Or they look at the Levitical law and they see the tithes that certain groups had to pay to the temple and to the

34:45

Levites. And what's funny, you don't find any of that in the New Testament. What are the promised blessings from the

34:52

LDS church for paying tithing? Malachi, a quote from Malachi saying that he would open the heavens and pour out a blessing that we couldn't have room enough to receive it.

35:02

Okay, there's more. We are promised that if we pay our tithings that we will always have sufficient for our needs and that we will never struggle for money.

35:11

We may struggle, we may have to work for it, but we will never be put in a situation where we're buried financially.

35:19

We will always have sufficient for our needs. Let me help understand here real quick. Just so we can understand, as Christians, we believe tithing is a good thing.

35:27

We believe, but we do not think that it's necessary in order to obtain eternal life or the highest level of heaven that you must tithe

35:35

X amount. Because the New Testament clearly says that you must be a cheerful giver in your giving. I do believe that 10 % is a very, very good number to use.

35:45

But it's not necessary for me to do that according to reach the highest level of heaven.

35:51

It's purely on the work of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. Whereas the doctrines in the LDS organization teach in order to become a

35:58

God one day, you must tithe 10%. Why did they teach that you must be baptized? What promised blessings are there?

36:06

Well, they teach that you must be baptized because they believe that Jesus was baptized to be as an example.

36:14

But baptism in a Christian perspective, especially the biblical perspective, is you dying with Christ and being raised with Him.

36:23

It's a symbol. It's purely symbolic of you're dying to your old self and God is raising you to new life in His Son who died on the cross for all men.

36:33

And so it's not this, I don't know how to say it, it's not this rite of passage that you're walking through to receive the

36:43

Holy Spirit. You receive the Holy Spirit through faith and then you're baptized. Where the LDS church will teach it backwards.

36:49

You must believe first, then you must be baptized, then you'll receive the Spirit. The Bible teaches it completely backwards.

36:56

Okay, so what are the promised blessings of attending in the temple? The temple?

37:01

Yeah, what are the promised blessings that they teach that you will receive when attending in the temple?

37:06

I'm not sure according to LDS doctrine what the blessings would be, but according to the Bible it states that actually us people who believe in Jesus Christ, who have been justified by faith, who have been given the gift of the

37:16

Holy Spirit, who is the helper, the promise and seal of our inheritance to come, Ephesians chapter 1. It actually says that we are the bricks of the temple, that the temple veil was torn on the crucifixion of Christ, that there is no longer a physical temple that is needed.

37:30

Instead, Jesus Christ is shaping us individuals as the bricks of the temple, that I don't need works there in order to receive blessings.

37:38

I actually receive them through Jesus Christ, given the Holy Spirit, which it says in Ephesians 1 again, that he is the seal of my inheritance to come in Jesus, purely through Jesus' work.

37:48

Alright, but do you know what the blessings are? You can tell me, yeah. Okay, so the blessings, we are promised that we will be, that it enables our ancestors to be able to work in our lives and enables them to work more closely with us to be able to thwart off Satan and his temptations.

38:07

So by going to the temple, you will have a physical protection that you may not be able to see, but a physical spiritual protection that will help you to withstand

38:15

Satan and his blows. Right, you know, my protection is better than that. My protection is

38:20

Jesus Christ. He says in John 17, when he's praying for the disciples, he says that, Lord, it's your will that I lose not one of them.

38:27

And then he says, except for the son of perdition, referring to Judas, that it was predestined to occur that he would betray

38:33

Jesus. And he says, I pray this not only, not only for the disciples, he says, but all those who believe in me.

38:39

So the reason why the devil can't have me is because I'm sealed with the Holy Spirit, that he can't have me.

38:45

And in John chapter 6, it says that Jesus will lose not one of his sheep. So I'm better than my ancestors. In fact, the

38:50

Bible declares that the dead know not of what is going on on earth. Doesn't that go against Jesus Christ's plan altogether?

38:58

When you look at Genesis and why Satan was cast down, doesn't that go against it altogether by taking away the free agency of man?

39:03

Can you tell me where in Genesis it says that Satan was actually cast down? That's a good question.

39:09

It's not in Genesis. Okay, I'd have to look into that more. You're right. There's different questions on when that even actually occurred. So, if Satan was cast down, why was he cast down?

39:18

We believe that it was because that he sought to take away the free agency of man. So, if Christ is saying then that not a single sheep will be lost…

39:27

Yep. Carson, get it. Where are you going? I want to hear where you're going. If Christ says that not a single sheep will be lost and there's no free agency, then it's real cheap.

39:35

This is it. Man is free according to his nature. So, the Bible plainly declares that in Adam all die.

39:42

So, my nature is free. I am free according to my nature. My nature is sinful. If you put me up against the things of God, against the things of the world,

39:50

I am going to follow the things of the world, not the things of God. I am free according to my nature.

39:57

It says in John chapter 6 as well, Jesus says that no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

40:04

And he says, this is the will of the Father, that I lose not one that the Father has given to me, but I will raise him up on the last day, referring to all who believe.

40:11

That's what Jesus said about the gospel. And that's why it's your faith and not your works. Here's the thing.

40:17

We believe that man is free. According to our nature. Article 2 in the

40:23

LDS faith denies original sin. But it's plainly declared all throughout the Bible.

40:28

Everywhere. You can't get past it. So, we deny the fact that Joseph says that man is without original sin because the

40:36

Bible teaches something different. We deny Article 3 as well where it says we believe that all mankind may be saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ by obedience to the gospel ordinances and principles.

40:47

We deny that as well because Jesus, okay, Jesus fully, that's the second piece, you notice that?

40:56

So, we deny that as well. It's because Jesus fully satisfied all of the works of righteousness according to the law on my behalf.

41:04

It was accredited to me as righteousness. At first, it says the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our

41:12

Lord. The beautiful thing about the gospel, Carson, is this, is that while I am still a sinner, Jesus Christ died for me.

41:19

The Bible plainly declares that if you say you're without sin, then the truth is not in you.

41:25

Carson, you can never strive to do enough because when you're striving to do enough, you're actually putting away what

41:30

Christ already did and said that's not good enough. I must strive for more. Carson, what's better than the work of Jesus?

41:39

Nothing. Nothing. You know it. Nothing. They don't teach that, man. They don't teach that.

41:45

And that's what the Bible teaches that, you know, an organization like the LDS Church will teach that works is at the root of salvation.

41:53

It's faith in your works and you can be saved through this, but the Bible declares that the works are the fruit of your salvation.

41:59

You are saved and then you are filled with the Holy Spirit. You're enabled to be able to walk in Christ and stay rooted in him as Ephesians, as Colossians talks about.

42:08

And so you bear fruit for God because God is working through you. Even Ephesians 2, it says that our works are prepared beforehand by Jesus Christ for us to walk in.

42:19

So what for someone that believes in Christ but chooses to not let him work through them? What is that? Can you just qualify a little more for me,

42:26

Carson, so I can understand what you're saying? So if I believed in Christ, I knew he lived, I knew he suffered for me, but what if I choose to not have him work through me but yet I believe him?

42:33

Which Christ? That's the question. Even Jesus asked his disciples, who do you say that I am? If I believed in Christ and still chose to deny him.

42:41

Which Christ is the question? I don't know what that question means. You can both believe and deny in Christ. You could.

42:47

You'd be basically what James says, like the demons. The demons believe in Jesus. I know that you live and you're standing in front of me, but I could still choose to not follow you.

42:56

Oh yeah. I would never ask you to follow me. Right, but that's what I mean. If Jesus was standing in front of me today and I knew,

43:03

I could feel the Prince in his hand and I knew that he lived and died for me, I could still say, yeah, but I don't really want what you're giving me.

43:08

I doubt that would happen. I doubt it, but it could happen. Well, I would state this, Carson, that I actually wouldn't think that you knew who

43:15

Jesus was. So Jesus, when he's condemning the Pharisees, just listen. He says this, he says, you think you know the scriptures of the

43:21

Pharisees, but you don't even know the scriptures. You don't even know Moses. He says, you're children of Satan. He says, if you actually believed

43:27

Moses, you would know who I am because Moses spoke of me. And then in first John, it actually states that no one who knows the son knows not the father either.

43:34

If you actually knew who Jesus was, Carson, you would follow him, but no one can come to him unless the father who sent him draws him.

43:44

Judas knew who he was and he chose not to follow him. Judas was the son of perdition predestined to apostate.

43:51

And this is what it says about apostates. You still knew him though. No, not actually. This is what it says about apostates in the Bible. It says that those who departed from us were never of us.

43:59

That's also in one of the letters of John as well. There's no way he could deny the miracles that he saw from Christ.

44:05

Miracles can't save you. That's the thing. The Pharisees saw miracles. They said that I was doing it through the power of the devil. They asked for signs all the time.

44:12

And he said, it's a sign of the prophet Jonah. I just have a hard time believing that Judas didn't know that Christ was the

44:17

Christ. Well, the only reason why I believe that Carson is because what the scriptures say about apostates. The scripture says, if they depart from us, they were never of us.

44:24

According to Judas, he was an apostate. He did not love God. He loved money and other things more.

44:30

If he didn't know Jesus Christ, then how could he be held accountable for betraying Christ if he didn't know he was the Christ? Great question.

44:35

Romans 1 actually explains that. It says, for although they dishonor God in their hearts, they know

44:41

God because the truth of God is made evident through the things that God has created in the world. Right? That's called general revelation.

44:48

It condemns us. We have enough around us to know that God exists. So he didn't know that Jesus was the Christ. No, he didn't believe that Jesus Christ was the

44:56

Messiah and repent for his sins and be changed by God. He was an apostate. Those who departed from us were never of us in the first place.

45:03

I found a contradiction there, though. How so? It's either he can be held accountable for knowing that Jesus Christ is the

45:09

Messiah or he can't. No, no, no. I said he's condemned by general revelation. Number one, he has original sin in Adam. He stands condemned there.

45:15

Number two, you can say what you want. He's condemned by creation. But we're condemned by all of creation around us. That's what Romans 1 .18

45:21

declares. I'm not saying he's condemned because he knew Jesus was the Christ. He's condemned because, number one, he's a sinner in Adam.

45:27

Number two, general revelation declares that there is a God. Yet, he switches the truth of God for a lie and worships a creation, money, instead of the creator.

45:36

And therefore, he falls away and betrays Jesus, which was predestined to occur, according to John 17.

45:42

Where was his free will there? Or his free agency? You have to handle what the scriptures say. I guess you could say,

45:49

Carson, that maybe that's somewhere that's missing a plain and precious part. It says very plainly in John 17 through our manuscripts that it was predestined to occur for Judas to betray.

46:02

That's something you have to deal with. That's previous revelation. And that's why I was hitting so hard earlier, Carson. It's like, how do you know what

46:08

Joseph told you is actually true? You tell me your feelings. The Muslim can tell me their feelings.

46:14

The Jehovah's Witness can tell me their feelings. But the Bible says you test it according to previous revelation. Deuteronomy 18 states if there's one false prophecy, if someone speaks in the name of Yahweh, but they speak presumptuously and the word does not come to pass, there's one false prophet.

46:29

You can do your own research on Joseph Smith's prophecies. He has quite a few unconditional false prophecies that did not occur, that even the presidents of the church agreed with for a generation prior.

46:41

So he declared that there would be a temple built in Independence, Missouri, and it didn't happen.

46:47

What if it happens in the future? He said it would happen in that generation. In that generation, yeah. That is the generation within the

46:52

Bible. His generation. The generation of God is far different than the generation of men. He's talking about men's generation.

46:59

No, no, no. There's examples, and I can give you a resource if you want, Carson, later to look up yourself. I've heard people say,

47:05

I choose to disagree with that. So you disagree with the presidents and prophets of the church after who actually agree with Joseph?

47:12

Anywhere on the LDS .org or anywhere where there is any sites of them publicly disagreeing with a prophecy that was made with Joseph Smith.

47:20

No, they didn't disagree. They agreed that it was going to happen within their lifetime. They actually recanted that. It was 120 years later, 130 years later, they recanted and said, actually, it didn't happen when

47:33

Joseph said. I can give you the resource if you want. You can read for yourself through your own resources. I've had people point this out before.

47:39

I don't trust the sources. It's your own literature, but that's fine. Deuteronomy 13 also says, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you, produces miracles, signs, and wonders, so things look legit, but if they lead you after another

47:53

God, a God which you have not known, don't believe them. Don't be afraid of them. So the question would be to Joseph, who do you say that God is?

48:01

Well, the Bible states in Psalm 90, verse 2, God has been God from everlasting into everlasting. Isaiah 43, 10, before me there was no

48:08

God formed, neither shall there be after me. Isaiah 44, 6, I am the first, I am the last, beside me there is no

48:14

God. And then we have Joseph Smith who comes and says, you have imagined and supposed that God has been

48:19

God from all eternity. I will refute the idea and take away the veil that you may see. You have got to learn to become gods, just like all gods have done before you.

48:28

And then Lorenzo Snow, as man is, God once was, as God is, man may become. It's a different God. The Bible plainly declares in previous revelation that there's one

48:37

God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And that God has always been God. No one ever can become God after that.

48:43

Yet Joseph says, no, that's not true. The Bible is missing many plain and precious parts. You can become a

48:48

God one day. And you've got to learn to become gods. So according to previous revelation,

48:54

Deuteronomy 13 and even 18, I would go this. When I hear what Joseph says, I say, well, according to previous revelation, and God says he protects his word,

49:02

Jesus. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words by no means will ever pass away. I reject what Joseph says.

49:08

He leads me after a different Jesus, and he gives a different gospel, Carson. The gospel is simple.

49:15

It's that you're a sinner, Carson. You're a sinner, and there's nothing that you can do to earn your salvation.

49:21

It's purely by faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal God who took on flesh, Isaiah 9, 6.

49:27

And Isaiah chapter 10 calls him the mighty God and the almighty God. A term only ascribed to God throughout the

49:33

Bible. That's who took on flesh and died on the cross for your sins. So that when you die, you will be able to be clothed in his righteousness because the wrath of God was purely satisfied on Jesus.

49:45

And it says in Hebrews that if you hear the gospel, today is the day of salvation.

49:50

Do not harden your heart like the Israelites who wandered in the desert for 40 years, Carson. Don't harden your heart today.

49:57

Test what your prophets say. I can't change your heart. Obviously, I know that. But what you can do as someone who loves

50:03

God, test the words of your prophet and your scriptures to God's revelation. He says his revelation is pure and perfect, right?

50:12

Proverbs 30, 5 -6, every word of God is pure. That's the verse that got me out of it. Oh, really?

50:18

Proverbs 30, verses 5 -6, every word of God is pure. He is like a shield unto them who put their faith in him.

50:24

Add thou not to these words, lest he rebuke you, and thou shalt be found a liar. Isaiah 40, verse 8, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the

50:31

Lord, Carson, endures forever. You're following an organization that says this. The Bible is missing many plain and precious parts.

50:39

You can't trust his word. If you can't trust his word, you're going to have to rely on a feeling. You have to understand that the

50:46

Bible has been rewritten how many times? What do you mean by that? Can you explain it to me? How many times has it been re -handwritten?

50:54

That's leaving it open to the mistakes of man. Help me understand how you believe the Bible came to be. The Bible was the word of God.

51:01

It still has many things of the word of God. But the

51:06

Catholic Church, way back when, they rewrote it. They took whatever they wanted out.

51:12

How many missing chapters are there? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm getting frustrated. No, no, no, you're okay, Carson. I'm going to go.

51:18

Oh, no, we're getting to a good spot, Carson. No, this is a good spot, Carson. God, dude, this is a good spot,