The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Paul Roby with the following message entitled Evangelizing Mormons. I am going to do my best to get through all the material. There's a lot of it and so I'm I'm not gonna forbid questions because I know you're gonna have some but if you could just really think is this a question needs to be asked and you know is it gonna be helpful for maybe more than just yourself then then that's the questions we want to take. I want to start off by talking about the statistic and that is 2, 300 people doesn't mean really anything to me. We came to Utah in order to reach LDS people, and so the fact that over 400 LDS people have been baptized in the 14 years that we've been there is really the thing that we're looking at.
And at the same time, evangelical Christianity is only 1% of the population, and so we have a long way to go. I'm not thinking that we've really done much of anything with the Lord's help. The Lord's got a... He's got a lot to do in us and then through us and so our prayers that the Lord will use us, will see fit to use us for his purposes to reach as many people as possible for him. And so it's a delight to be a church planter there in Utah.
We came in 1998 to Draper, Utah, just my wife, my two boys and myself. It was one of these things called a parachute church plant where you just drop in you don't know anybody and there were many days that I would go into a coffee shop or Grocery store or something just ask the Lord give me somebody to talk to I don't recommend this type of church planting to anyone But the Lord saw fit to give us our first couple About a month after we were there and then our second couple that joined us were actually just leaving the Mormon Church They had just taken off their garments And so they were no longer interested in visiting the temple and they were on their way out of Mormonism so those were our first two converts and the fact that we were able to start with LDS people in our core really did make a difference it helped us develop a DNA of disenfranchised Mormons and so it's never stopped from there. Now, today's goal. Today's goal is to develop a heart for Mormons. It's to equip you in order to share your faith with LDS, not win arguments.
And I can't underline that enough. If you're here to be smarter and to be better than the Mormon missionary that comes to your door, you're probably wasting your time because you'll never reach them with that approach. And so I want to take as much time as I can to help you understand their mindset so that you can share effectively with them. Let's talk about Mormon evangelism. Why are we talking about evangelizing the LDS today?
After all, Mitt Romney has called himself a church missionary and pastor. So you can understand that LDS people call themselves Christians today, including Mitt Romney. And so it's quite confusing to talk to LDS people and have them claim Christianity for themselves. And yet, historically, Mormonism has not been Christian. Let me read to you something from Stephen Robinson, a BYU professor.
He says, when the charge is made that Mormons aren't Christians, the very first impression created—oh, you know what? I just realized I have to run this thing. All right, there we go. That might help. When the charge is made that Mormons aren't Christians, the very first impression created in the mind of the average individuals that Latter-day Saints don't believe in Jesus Christ.
Most often those who make this charge intend that their uninformed hearers or readers will get this impression. Yet in the arguments offered to support the assertion the only issue that really matters is never raised. Do Latter-day Saints believe in Jesus Christ? Do they accept him as Lord? Do they believe that he is the only way, truth, and the life and that no man cometh unto the Father but by him." These crucial questions are never asked, and why aren't they?
Because these critics of the Latter-day Saints know that to open the box is to lose the argument. For no one who is even remotely familiar with the beliefs of the Latter-day Saints, not even their most hostile critics can deny that Latter-day Saints believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as the Savior of the world, and as the only source of salvation available." Wow, what do you say to a guy like that, right? They're claiming to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the one true Savior of the world. The most important thing that you can understand and take away today is that LDS people use all the same words that biblical Christians use, but they have a different dictionary. And if you don't understand that they mean something different when they use the word Jesus Christ, salvation, grace, faith, redemption, all these words have different meanings.
And the list can go on and on. And so that's the first thing that we have to understand. So today's question for you is, what would you say in response to their claim to be a Christian? Now, observation number one. Historically, and I'm going to say until about 15 years ago, The LDS did not consider themselves Christian in the same way that we consider ourselves Christians.
And I've often wondered why Mr. Obama doesn't take the opportunity to bring out some of these quotes to basically embarrass Mitt Romney, But all I can think of is that Mr. Obama doesn't want his religious background exposed as well. But listen to some of these comments. This is from Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder.
Joseph Smith claimed that he had seen both God the Father and Jesus Christ and asked these personages which church he should join. He claimed he was told to join none of them for they were all wrong and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight and so basically Joseph Smith is saying Orthodox Christianity is an abomination to God now Joseph Smith grew up in upstate New York This is the burned over district following the second great awakening. Some very popular evangelists had gone through people like, Charles Finney and others. And so there's a great deal of emotionalism in the land and a lot of preaching about hell in terms to scare people into salvation. And so his message caught on in an area that had pretty much burned out on the emotionalism of the Second Great Awakening.
Now today the language has changed in the Mormon church. Christians aren't damned. Christians simply go to the third heaven, the terrestrial heaven. And so if an LDS person is sharing their faith with you and asking you to pray the prayer to see if the Book of Mormon is true, you can ask them, what happens if I don't? Where do I go?
And they will not say, go to hell. OK, so that's changed. They'll say that you'll go to the lowest heaven. I might say in response to that, well, why should I risk it then? What if I become a Mormon and then later find out it's not true and then leave Mormonism, then I'm an apostate and the only people that go to hell are apostates.
And so, you know, it kind of rigged against me if I go down that road. Another thing Joseph Smith said is, Come on ye persecutors, or prosecutors, ye false swears, all hell boil over, ye burning mountains rolled down your lava for I it's gonna be hard for me to keep up on this for I will come out on top at last." Now listen to this, I have more to boast than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it.
I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from him, but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet. When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." Okay, so he's claiming to be greater than Jesus Christ. These are the kind of things that the Mormon Church don't want you to read. They want to sanitize their history and get out of your sight as many things that Joseph Smith said is possible.
Now of course there's over 200 sects of Mormonism today and so many people have left him and the church. We have several groups of polygamists in Utah. These are some of those 200 sects. How about Brigham Young? He's the second Mormon president.
He said, when the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was groveling in darkness. That's from General Discourses 573. Should you ask why we differ from other Christians as they are called? It is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity. And then finally in the Journal of Discourses He says, the time came when paganism wasn't grafted into Christianity, and at last Christianity was converted into paganism rather than converting the pagans.
What he's referring to is the LDS belief that the church was married to the state when Constantine became emperor, Christianity became legalized, and the Nicene Creed is seen by Mormonism as another example of a creed that has been corrupted by paganism. And so they don't believe in any creeds whatsoever and they believe in the great apostasy where the true faith has been lost of course and I didn't put this in your notes you can always refer to Jude 3 where it's where we're encouraged to contend for the faith that was once and for all passed down to the Saints. And you can always ask questions, so how did that happen? When did that happen? What's an example of a doctrine in Christianity that's been corrupted by paganism?
Again, always asking questions. Let's talk about John Taylor. I don't need to have him, but he just said something so outlandish. He said, We talk about Christianity, but it is a perfect pack of nonsense. The devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the 19th century.
Wow. That's pretty damning. You know, for LDS to call themselves Christians today, they've completely whitewashed this history. Gordon B. Hinckley was just president five years ago.
He died about four or five years ago. He said this in a speech to the faithful in Paris. It was reprinted in the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News. He said he spoke to those outside the LDS Church in a gathering in Paris, France. The transcript is there for you.
He said, they say we do not believe in the traditional Christ. No, I don't. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. And so Gordon B Hinckley just a few years ago thinking that he's only speaking to LDS people made it clear that their Christ is a different Christ than Christianity. And this is a very important little thing that I use in talking to Mormons because they have an idea of what's called progressive revelation that doesn't mean the same thing to them as it does to us and that is that there's a prophet for any particular day and whatever that prophet says is only helpful and useful for that day.
It's only true for those hearers. So whatever the modern-day prophet says is what really is authoritative for the church of that day. So if you don't understand that, they're gonna throw this in your face. They're gonna say, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, doesn't really matter, even Gordon B. Hinckley.
Doesn't matter because they're no longer the Prophet. So we need to recognize that. But how about the Book of Mormon? That still has authority. Behold there are two, they are saved two churches only.
The one is the Church of the Lamb of God and the other is the Church of the Devil. Wow. So the Book of Mormon calls Orthodox Christianity the Church of the Devil. Wherefore whoso belongeth not to the Church of the Lamb of God, he's talking about the Mormon Church, belongeth to the great Church which is the mother of abominations and she is the whore of all the earth. Don't you think the Mormon Church wants this suppressed?
This is the kind of thing that makes it very hard to be a Mormon missionary. How about Doctrine and Covenants 130? It says this, the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole earth with which I the Lord am well pleased is the Mormon Church and so they believe that salvation is only found in the LDS Church just like the Roman Catholic Church forever until perhaps Vatican to believe that salvation was only found in the Roman Catholic Church. They make that same kind of claim. Observation number two.
The Mormon concept of God is very different than the Christian concept of God and therefore should be should not be considered Christian. This is a nice summary by Francis Beckwith of what LDS believe about the person of God. Consequently our chief concern will not be the historical development of Mormon theism but rather the dominant concept of God currently held by the LDS church. Do you understand why he had to say that now? Because if you're talking about what Joseph Smith or Brigham Young said, it doesn't matter anymore.
It's only the current thinking about who God is that really matters. And so it's like nailing Jell-O to a wall. It's a moving target. You can never really say Mormons believe such-and-such because there's always the option of them switching that belief or changing in some way. So anyway, he says, but rather the dominant concept of God currently held by the LDS Church, though there is certainly disagreement among Mormon scholars concerning some precise points of doctrine.
I submit that the church currently teaches that God is in effect one, a contingent being, that means he was caused or he was brought into being, he isn't self-existent, in other words he hasn't always existed as God, who was at one time not God, number two, finite in knowledge, not truly omniscient, in other words the LDS concept of God in terms of knowledge is that He's growing in knowledge. He's continuing to progress. In aberrant Christian theology, we have process theology that teaches a similar thing number three one of many gods number four a corporal being that means he has a body of flesh and bones who physically dwells at a particular spatio-temporal location and is therefore not omnipresent like the classical God, respecting his intrinsic divine nature. We are not considering the incarnation of the Son of God here, and they'll throw that at you. Well Jesus Christ had flesh and bone and he's God so why how do you say that God doesn't have a body?
That's a typical LDS argument. Number five, a being who is subject to the laws and principles of a beginningless universe with an infinite number of entities in it." In other words, there's many worlds and many gods, and Elohim just is the god of this world. And so they are polytheists in that regard. If you can, if you're talking to a Mormon missionary or somebody else from the LDS faith, try to get them to explain to you, are we talking about worlds here or are we talking about universe? Because they're very careful to only talk about this world, God being the creator of this world.
And so that is a hint, but we need to follow up on that to say, so is there gods of other worlds that created those worlds? The answer, of course, is yes. Bruce McConkie, former president of the Mormon Church, said this, endowed with agency, that means free will, and subject to eternal laws, man began his progression and advancement in pre-existence. So they believe that you were born a spirit child by Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother and you waited there for a body and then one day somebody got pregnant and your spirit entered that child. LDS actually are relatively arrogant in this regard because the better you are in the pre-existence, the more chances are that you'll be born into an LDS family and so that that kind of gives them a sense of pride endowed with agency and subject to eternal laws man began his progression and advancement in pre-existence his ultimate goal being to attain a state of glory honor and exaltation like the Father of Spirits.
So this is a pretty important thing, that God has not always existed as God, but He is an exalted man. He started just like you and I, and then one day through basically being perfected, He became God, like the Father of Spirits. This gradually unfolding course of advancement and experience a course that began in past eternity and will continue in ages future is frequently referred to a course of eternal progression. It is important to know, however, that for the overwhelming majority of mankind, eternal progression has very definite limitations. In other words, not everybody's going to become a god.
In the full sense, eternal progression is enjoyed only by those who receive exaltation. I thought it was interesting that Gordon B. Hinckley was interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle and by Time magazine. Both entities asked him this question. So, do you believe in exaltation where a man can become a god?
And he said, you know, I just don't know if we teach that anymore. So lying is okay, alright, because they still teach that, of course. Listen to Joseph Smith, he said, and this is part of what's called the King Follett discourse, I'm going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veil so that you may see." Okay, this can't be Christianity if God has not always existed as God.
It's not the same God that we worship. My most effective line of reasoning with an LDS person is to talk about Jesus Christ. Do not talk about the temple, do not talk about what happens with the holy underwear or anything like that, okay? That's just, just leave that for some other time. One of the things I like to do is talk about why classical Christians have a hard time with Mormons claiming that they're Christians as well as we are.
And I focus on Jesus Christ, and I said, do you understand the difference between the Jesus Christ of Mormonism and the Jesus Christ of Christianity? They say, no, I have no idea. What is the difference? Simply put, the Jesus Christ of Christianity has always existed as God, the Jesus Christ of Mormonism became a God. And that's why it's offensive to Orthodox Christians when you claim to be Christian because it's a different Jesus Christ.
Now I think that you have the right to call yourself a Christian as long as you understand that you're not Christians also, or Christians in the same way that we're Christians, because you do believe in a Jesus Christ, but it's the Jesus Christ of Mormonism, not Christianity. So that's the kind of way that we talk. And that usually gets through the defense mechanisms and is enlightening to them because it's the very first time they have understood that their God became a God through exaltation and that is not the truth about Christianity. So here's another quote. As man is, God once was.
As God is, man may be, or man might become. So that's from Lorenzo Snow. This is a hotly debated little couplet in the Mormon Church today they're trying to distance themselves from this because they don't like the idea of exaltation anymore it it is glaringly not Christian and so of course they're trying to push away from that. I put a little chart there for you, just kind of like an easy reference chart that you might want to use for your own purposes. And I'm not going to go through each one because of time.
Well, here's some witnessing tips. At this point the LDS person that you're talking to will ask you if you believe in the Trinity. You have to understand that they've been trained in seminary if they live in Utah especially. There's not a middle school or a high school in Utah that doesn't have a seminary attached to it within just a hundred feet 200 feet it just doesn't exist the public school system and the Mormon Church are pretty connected You can't really tell if you're at the seminary or the public school, they're just right there together. And so in seminary they train their students how to respond to Christians that are talking about their God.
And So they've found out that 90 plus percent of Christians have no idea of how to explain the Trinity. And so this is the first question they'll ask, and that is, well, what about the Trinity? The Bible never even uses the word Trinity. And you're saying that you believe in the Trinity? Explain that to me.
They will ask if when Jesus is praying, for instance in John 17, who's he talking to? Is he talking to himself is what they'll ask and it's funny because I don't care if you're talking about a sister missionary at temple square a Mormon missionary guy on a bicycle in Birmingham, Alabama or the average LDS person that's been to seminary, they all have it down pat. And that is, well, when Jesus is praying, who is he praying to? Is he praying to himself? And so you have to have an answer for that.
You have to understand the Trinity. You have to be able to articulate that God is one being who exists in three persons and then be a little bit more knowledgeable than that. Here's one way to take it. You can say it's okay to ask them to help you solve the mystery. In other words, you're not arguing, you're just saying, hey, help me out here.
Because when I read the Bible, it teaches that there's one God. For instance, Isaiah 45 22, it says, I am God and there is none else. And so there's only one God in the universe. But the Bible also teaches that each person of the Trinity is divine in nature. Jesus Christ is God.
John 1, 1. The Word was with God and was God. Okay? And so, how can Jesus Christ be God and God the Father be God, yet there's one God. And then the Holy Spirit is seen as God, and there's references there for you as well.
And so I'm not telling you that the Trinity is spoken of in the Bible in clear language or explained to us, I'm just having a problem explaining this mystery, could you help me? You see what you're doing? You're taking the defenses down. Communication continues because you're only asking a question. And so that's what you want to do.
Now, I'm saying do not attack. The idea that others are anti-Mormon, that's their favorite word for it is, if you're ever seeing the how many have been in this situation where you and the LDS missionary, the temperatures are starting to go up, and he'll say, I sense that there is a spirit of, anybody have that experience? And so can I pray? And it's kind of weird because do you really want a more missionary to pray in your home I don't know I would say sure go ahead but let me pray after you're done praying and you might pray something about God you are the revealer of all truth so help me and my brother here my friend you could say and help us understand the truth from your word it's not quite that type of prayer and so as soon as they feel attacked the discussions over And one of the things I think most Christians don't understand is that LDS have what's called a persecution complex. They celebrate the pioneers coming across the plains.
My next door neighbor has reenacted the trek several times with their kids so that the kids can can really identify with the Mormon pioneers who ran from persecution to come to Utah and so it's a part of their heritage and it's a part of who they are that they're a persecuted people and when you start to persecute them whoop they love it this is the exact it actually proves to them that they're right because you're persecuting them this is for some in some strange way they think that that's proof that they're on the right track, that they have the Spirit with them. And I said do not try to embarrass them, stick to the topics of God. I think I've already said this, stick to Jesus Christ, salvation in the Bible, do not talk about what happens in the temple or things that Joseph Smith did or polygamy everybody wants to talk about polygamy but Mormons hate polygamy it's making them look bad so they will quickly tell you that the Mormon Church does not support polygamy today. It's a ministry that our churches developed. We probably have 15 families living among our church people as they're trying to leave polygamy.
When you leave polygamy, you leave with nothing because everything's owned by the collective. And then there's all sorts of difficulty in terms of child custody because These are child brides as young as under 14 years old, and they're never legally married. So, it gets very, very difficult. But just don't try to embarrass LDS people. Observation number three.
Why don't I stop and take a question? Okay, what is just like burning in your mind right now? It's like, why didn't you say that? Or, go ahead. Stretching, okay, great.
There's a lot of sex, Mormons. Yeah. Is there a, what they all claim to be a head where they all fall under, or they would maybe claim that it is different like how Christianity has denominated? Yes. Is there anything there?
It's mostly with the fundamentalist Mormons. There's probably 15 different groups in Utah themselves. The FLDS is the Warren Jeffs group. The AUB, we have a gal living in our basement that escaped the AUB, Apostolic, United Brotherhood. There's the Kingston family in northern Utah.
They're like the mafia. They run northern Utah. I mean, this is real stuff. And the stuff about sister wives on TV or, you know, whatever, It just doesn't show the truth. There's so much sexual abuse and just emotional abuse in these families.
That's why they're trying to leave. So, all right, observation number three. Our gospel and the gospel of the LDS is very different. Our gospel is not a process of eternal progression or exaltation, and I want you to note that even though the LDS use all the same words that we use to explain the gospel, they have different meanings and different definitions for instance Mormon salvation simply means resurrection for all all right and so to be saved means to be resurrected When Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for mankind's sins, he bought for us or purchased for us resurrection. That's it.
And so if you're using like if you're saying to an LDS person, are you saved? And they go, of course I am. Everybody is. That's what Jesus Christ accomplished. Listen to Joseph Fielding Smith.
Okay, so he says, immortality or general salvation And eternal life, that means individual salvation, are two separate things. So immortality is general salvation for all people. You'll live forever someplace. Eternal life means that you're personally going to live with God are two separate things every man shall receive immortality whether he be good bad or indifferent for the resurrection of the dead shall come to all eternal life is something in addition none shall receive eternal life save it be those who keep the commands of the Lord now get this and are entitled thus to enter into his presence has there ever been a more clear statement of works righteousness okay so this is a problem in Mormon Church. That is eternal life, to swell in the presence of the Father and receive exaltation from Him.
So Some more witnessing tips. Read Romans 3 19 through 24 with your Mormon missionary or friend. Just read it together and ask them to explain it to you. Again, if you're humble and say, you know, I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around what you just said about Mormonism and salvation and eternal progression and our works righteousness, and I'm having a hard time reconciling it with this passage. Would you help me?
And so key passages here is verse 20, therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. That's just directly contradictory to Mormon theology. Verse 22, the righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There's no works there. There is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Again, I could quote verse after verse after verse, but it's just good to find one passage that clearly speaks against works righteousness and stick to that. So another witnessing tip is that you can ask the LDS person you are talking to whether or not they understand this passage. You can ask them if they agree with the Apostle Paul that they are lawbreakers who need the righteousness of Christ to satisfy God's justice. You might want to explain to them how it was essential that Jesus Christ live a perfect life, a sinless life so that his sacrifice would be sufficient to cover our sins and that it was his righteousness that was imputed to us so that we might be found righteous before a holy God. And so it's important that we all understand our own soteriology and understand how grace works.
You had a question back here? Yeah. Yeah, as it's properly translated is their term for it and I'm gonna get to that okay so hold that question the LDS person understand that the LDS person has an impossible gospel to live up to, and this is the Achilles heel of Mormonism. They have to be perfect in their obedience, so you can ask them to read and explain the following. Here's just three passages, well, two passages out of the Book of Mormon and one from the Doctrine and Covenants.
Yea, come unto Christ and be perfected by Him and deny yourself of all ungodliness and if ye shall deny yourself of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, might, and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you. That's not a Christian concept of grace. It's you have to qualify for God's grace. That's Moroni 10 32. Moses 6 verse 57, wherefore teach it unto your children that all men everywhere must repent so they can no wise inherit the kingdom of God for no unclean thing can dwell there or dwell in his presence." In other words, you have to qualify for this.
And then in D&C 58, "'Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I the Lord remember them no more by this you may know if a man repenteth of his sins behold he will confess them and forsake them and so they have a concept of forgiveness that's really interesting You can pick up a copy of the miracle of forgiveness. They sell it in all their Deseret bookstores or online or whatever. The miracle of forgiveness tells the parable of the unmerciful servant in just slightly different way that we tell that parable. In that parable, the person who is in debt comes before the master, and the master is reconciling his accounts, and so he says, what do you have for me? And the poor slave or servant says, I have nothing.
And so that's where Jesus Christ walks in and says, I'll pay it. I'll pay his debt. Then he turns to the servant, and he says, now you owe me. So it's a refi, OK? It's not a cancellation of debt.
It's a refi. And so this is the mindset of your LDS person. They owe God for everything he's done for them. Next quote is, there is, this is from Spencer Kimball, there is one crucial test of repentance. Okay so this is their prophet, this is abandonment of sin the forsaking of sins must be a permanent one.
True repent does not permit making the same mistake again. Again, if you sin in the same way, all the guilt that was forgiven you now comes back on you again. So it's double the guilt and shame that you once experienced. D&C, that's Doctrine and Covenants 82.7, Go your ways and sin no more, but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God. There you go.
A couple more witnessing tips here. You can ask them how they are going, how they're doing with a hundred percent forsaking of sins. Nobody does that well. Nobody's perfect at this. Mormonism produces hypocrites.
It produces people who fake it. In fact, there's a saying among Mormons, fake it till you make it. And so people are putting on a happy face. They're walking in with their white shirt and tie. But they're just miserable because they're weighed down with the knowledge that they haven't successfully repented of all their sins and forsaken those sins completely and forever.
Also you can point to the hope that you have in the good news of grace. For instance, Titus 3 5 through 7. He saved us not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Again, read this with the LDS person you're talking to.
And it's not a bad idea to just say, talk to me about that. Well, they'll say grace is the power to forsake sin. That's how they define grace. Of course, we define grace more like unmerited favor, getting better than what we deserve, mercy is not getting what we deserve. And so it's important that you realize that when they think about evangelical Christians they're thinking about people that have prayed the prayer and then received the grace and now are doing whatever they feel like doing, who don't care about sin because they have fire insurance.
This is what they're told about Christians and unfortunately you know they can probably make some pretty good arguments there. Okay at this point they will, because they're confused, so automatically they will bear their testimony. You all may have heard this. I prayed and God showed me that the Book of Mormon is from God it's true that this church is true and that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God. You have the same kind of thing in Islam.
In fact an interesting study is to study the parallels between Islam and Mormonism. They're both in both faiths their miracle is their book The Quran is the miracle of Islam, the Book of Mormon is the miracle of Mormonism. In both situations you had an angel giving them that message or revelation. In both situations you had a prophet that was all about money, sex, and power, and so I mean and it goes on it's both are works, righteousness, religions. Sounds like they had the same author, And so you might want to think about that.
So they're gonna bear their testimony, they will claim that no matter what you can show them, they have prayed about it, and know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God and that the church is true. They will point to Moroni chapter 10 verses 4 and 5. Probably every LDS missionary who's ever rode a bicycle has quoted this to the people that they're visiting with. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, if these things are not true. Interesting wording.
Ask God to show you that these things aren't true so now the burden of proof is on God to reverse your you're already leaning in and so now the burden is on God to lean you back out if these things are not true in if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, that's key as well. Because if you get the wrong answer, you lack sincerity. So it's it's already primed, the pump is primed. I mean, you're gonna get the answer that you're looking for here. With real intent, maybe you lacked intent, having faith, maybe you lacked faith in Christ, He will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
Now this is what they call the burning and the bosom, this feeling. Many Mormons have described it to me, former Mormons, because if they're currently LDS they won't talk about it, but former Mormons will say when there's a flyover at a ball game, there's this feeling of patriotism in the air when we're singing the Star Spangled Banner or something like that. It's that type of feeling. My big mistake is when I first moved to Utah, I diminished this. I thought oh come on.
Yeah, you're basing everything on a feeling? This feeling is so powerful that they'll stake their whole life and reputation on this feeling. This is way beyond what we think it is for the LDS person. The only thing I can think of is it's demonic in its origin because it's that real to them. They'll go to their death based on this feeling believing that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God.
And so don't diminish it. Don't laugh at it. Don't, you know, that's just out of bounds. Accept that they had a feeling. Now, you can ask them if they have ever been misled by their feelings.
That's a witnessing tip. I like to say, hey, have you ever been in a theater and there's a horror flick or something going on and you're grabbing the armrests, why are you freaking out? It's only light moving through plastic. It's not real. So our feelings fool us all the time.
Haven't you fallen in love with a loser, you know, just to find out that the guy is no good or something like that. Okay, we all do this. Now, you can ask them what they would say to a Muslim who read the Quran and prayed the same prayer and had a very strong sense that Allah had told them that it was all true. What would you say to that Muslim? They have no answer for that because if you're going to use feelings for a test of authenticity, if other people use it in other faiths, you got nothing.
Of course, you can always say that you read the Book of Mormon, you got to read it first if you're gonna say that, and you prayed and you didn't get that feeling. And their response will always be, you didn't pray with enough sincerity or faith and so you didn't get the right answer now you can ask them if they pray to know whether or not George Washington for instance was the first president of the United States or did they pray to know if there was money in their bank account no they investigated these things and that's what we're supposed to do the Bereans were celebrated by the Apostle Paul because they investigated the Old Testament Scriptures to see if what he was telling them was true. So you can point to that as an example. Do they pray in order to know whether or not murder is wrong? No, you know murder is wrong because it's in the Bible.
That's our moral compass, it's explained to us in God's Word. You can gently explain to them that we don't need to pray about things that are already explained to us in the Bible. Another idea here is that you need to know how a Christian discerns truth by looking into God's Word. For instance, here's John 1 John 5 13 says, I write, John said, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. And so his writing of God's Word was now going to be a source of assurance that we can be, you know, know that we're Christians.
And then in John 20, Jesus did many other miraculous... Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but verse 31 says, but these are written, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. And so as Christians we point to the Bible as our source of authority, we don't point to a feeling. Go down that road with these folks. Another couple ideas here.
At this point, they will tell you that not everything in the Bible can be trusted. It's interesting to me that the Bible is one of their four holy books, but they diminish the Bible, they cut the legs out from underneath the Bible in order not to lose an argument with a Christian. And so they'll say that they believe that there are too many people over time who touched the Bible or in translating the Bible it became corrupted. In their minds the Bible was passed down from generation to generation through a system similar to the game telephone. As I whisper in Ken's ear, he would say it to his son and then wife and on down the rows.
By the time it got over here, it would be completely a different message. Joseph Smith meant to say transmitted but he said the word translated. The Bible's been transmitted in written word not orally. It's been written down and copied. That's how it's been transmitted.
Everybody translates the Bible into their language, but the transmission of the Bible has taken place over a long period of time. I'll tell you something that really helps in this discussion is to point out the fact that there's over 5, 000 ancient Greek manuscripts that we can compare and contrast that if you take the other languages like Syriac and Egyptian, what are some other ones, Anyway, you can have over 20, 000 ancient manuscripts to compare with each other. And so, I like to use the illustration of a recipe, and if somebody were to write down their famous recipe for chocolate chip cookies and it gets copied and then the original is lost or stolen or just disappears somehow you can reconstruct that recipe from all the copies that have been out there if you collected all those back some of the order might be different you know might be misspellings whatever there might be but you can put that recipe right back to where it was originally by collecting those and that's exactly what we've done and so try to think of a way to explain the transmission of the Bible as historically accurate so that they can wrap their minds around it again they're thinking telephone that game and this is One of the reasons why they're all messed up.
How about the promises of God to protect His word? Isaiah 40, the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our God stands forever. Or Matthew 5 18, I tell you the truth, this is Jesus speaking, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished and so you have some promises from the Bible I'm rushing now observation number four We need to have churches that are full of grace and truth if we're going to reach LDS people. Places where exiting Mormons can lean, I should say learn, what it means to live in relationship to Jesus Christ according to the gospel. And this is a big deal to me because as a pastor I've tried to strategically design a culture that our church has now embodied that is ideal for the receiving of LDS people that have to first deconstruct their faith before they construct a new faith in Jesus Christ.
And so we have to understand this is going to take a process. And there's no way that we want to give up on truth in any way. It's important that they hear the truth, especially the truth of the gospel and the hope that's contained therein. But it's also important that we accept the fact that they're going to be in a process. And so I like to point to a quote by Tim Keller where he says, If you are avoiding sin and living morally so that God will have to bless and save you, and by the way the LDS Church is the original health, wealth, gospel ever in the United States, then I then ironically you may be looking to Jesus as teacher, model, and helper but you are avoiding him as Savior.
You are trusting in your own goodness rather than in Jesus, for your standing with God. You are you are trying to save yourself by following Jesus. Okay, we can't have a church like that. The Mormon Church is very religious and filled with self-righteous, exclusive, insecure, angry, moralistic people. And it's that type of group that these Mormons are so done with.
So if your church is filled with self-righteous, exclusive, insecure, angry, moralistic people, they're not gonna want to come to your church. It's got to be a culture of grace and truth. Let's move on. Religion can be explained this way. God accepts us because of our efforts, where gospel can be explained this way.
God accepts us because of what Jesus has done. Again, Mr. Keller from Reason for God. God's grace does not come to people who morally outperform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior. You can see how perfectly this fits Mormonism.
But if your church embodies this idea that you're trying to morally outperform others, man, they're not gonna want to come there. It's just more of the same. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. You know, this is not where they want to end up. How about religion is, I obey, therefore I'm accepted by God.
That's Mormonism. Where the gospel says, I am accepted by God through what Christ has done, therefore I obey. One more idea here is that mature Christians, I believe, should adjust to the Mormon guest without violating the tenets of scripture. These things can never go away. But certainly there's some cultural things that we can sacrifice for our guests.
Some people measure maturity by how much you know, but I think it's important that we measure maturity by how much we obey and by how much we're willing to sacrifice for the person that doesn't get it yet. And so certainly that's what was spoken of in the Jerusalem Council, where James, the leader of the Jerusalem Church, stood up and said, it is my judgment therefore that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. And so I want you to consider if you're a church leader, are you making it more difficult than it has to be? Because let's face it, the gospel itself is offensive. It humbles man and exalts God, and that's difficult for most people that in and of itself so let's not make transitioning to our churches difficult understanding that the gospel and the recognition of the truth of the gospel and the whole discipleship process is difficult enough just how it is.
I'll finish with this quote. Well I got one more final thought, but in the most radical way this I really like this from Tim Kelly, he says, in the most radical way God has adjusted to us in his incarnation and atonement in Jesus Christ he became a limited human being vulnerable to suffering and death on the cross he submitted to our condition okay so he submitted to our condition as sinners and died in our place to forgive us. In the most profound way God has said to us, I will adjust to you, I will change for you, I'll serve you, though it means a sacrifice for me. If he has done this for us, we can and should say the same to God and to others. Final thought here is that it is a long process for the former LDS person to deconstruct their old faith and construct a new one based on the truth.
And so I like this quote from former Mormon and author Sandra Tanner. She has a bookstore in downtown Salt Lake. She says, many times Christians become really impatient for a Mormon to move faster, but each person has to mature at his own rate. For instance, a person may accept Christ and still hang on to some remnants of Mormonism. My husband Gerald and I hung on to the Book of Mormon for two years after accepting Christ and when some Christians who knew us at that point found out they more or less washed their hands of us.
All I'm saying is that I think it's easy if we've never been part of an authoritative mind control cult to understand what's that what is that like to leave that where they've told you how to think what to do every step of the way they have callings for you that you must obey if you're ever going to get your temple recommend. You're told what to give and what to do and what to eat and what not to eat. I mean this is a highly controlling world that they're now stepping out of. Give them a break. All right?
They're leaving something that's very, very difficult to leave. The National Center for Family Integrated Churches is dedicated to proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life, and to the establishment of biblically ordered churches. For more information, resources, and products, please visit our website at www.ncfic.org. You