Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Mormons!



Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.
Jude 1:3

Yep... I had an encounter with Mormons yesterday. This is how it happened...

It was about 7:30PM, I had just gotten home from work, and felt the call to go to Main Ave to share the Gospel. There I was passing out tracts to people when I saw a couple of Mormons coming up the street. Mormons are some of the nicest people you will ever meet, very polite, kind, and sincere in their faith. With that said, none of these qualities can forgive someone's sins, only the blood of Christ can do that.

I gave one of them a tract and immediately he smiled and said "Thanks, I also have something for you." We exchanged literature. He saw that what I gave him was a Ticket to Heaven so I asked him, "So what do you believe someone must do to get to Heaven?" His basic response was that a person must 1) believe in Jesus Christ 2) repent 3)get baptized 4)receive the Holy Spirit 5)produce good works. YOWZA! That is a works-based salvation which the Bible condemns. So I asked him what would happen if a person didnt have time to do all that, "What if I only had 3 minutes to live? What would you tell me?" His response included the prospect of having a second chance to do all those things in the afterlife. I told him, "Sure doesnt seem like the rich man in Luke 16 got that second chance. Or did he?"

A little later on I mentioned something along the lines of whether Hitler also received that second chance; Elder Quincy's response was that repetitious murder was too big a crime to be forgiven. I took the opportunity to ask him whether he had ever hated anyone which God sees as murder. He had. After some probing, I realized that both Elder Quincy (age 19) and Elder IforgothisName (20) were self-righteous (they thought they were good people) so I proceeded to walk them both through the law of God in hopes that it would bring them a fuller understanding of the gravity and depth of their sin. Most specifically I expounded on the gravity of blasphemy. I told them that blasphemy was probably even more serious than murder "for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain." They admitted to being guilty of breaking Gods laws and deserving of God's punishment but quickly mentioned "Thats why Jesus came... so that we can be saved."

This is when things got interesting, I told them that I was a Christian and asked them whether or not Mormons and Christians believe in the SAME Jesus. They said we do, which is NOT true. After much talk, this is the recap of what we concluded in respects to the nature of God and the Gospel:

Mormons
  • Three gods (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit) who exist among other gods
  • God was once a man who became God
  • Jesus came into existence after the Father
  • Jesus is the brother of the devil
  • Salvation is by faith after all we can do

Christians
  • One God who is Triune (The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit)
  • God is eternal
  • Jesus is God who is eternal
  • Jesus created ALL things including the devil and hell
  • Salvation is by grace through faith, not of works
One particular passage that they had an especially hard time dealing with was John 1:3. Here it is in context:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
This means that Jesus of Nazareth is the Creator of ALL things. Amen.

This is what I was going for: I was trying to get them to admit that Mormons and Christians believe two different Gospels. We believe in two different natures of God, two different Jesus', two different plans of salvation. In essence, two different Gospels. Once I got them to agree to that... We turned to Galatians chapter 1:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him, that called you into the grace of Christ, for another gospel. For this is not another; but there are some who trouble you and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But should we, or an angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again: If any man preach any other gospel unto than that which ye have received, let him be accursed!
Galatians 1:6-9
YOWZA! Did you read that? Re-read it please. Notice how it says that even if an angel from Heaven... (Picture that for a moment. Imagine looking up and seeing a beautiful magestic angel in the sky! How do you think you would react to that? People usually get scared when they see that.) Anyhow, the Scripture says that even if an angel from Heaven preaches to you any other gospel than the one the apostles preached, let him be accursed. When it says "accursed" it means that the preacher of this false gospel shall be damned to an eternity in hell. What makes this extra interesting is that that is exactly how the founder of the Mormons, Joseph Smith, claimed to have received his "gospel"... from an angel named Moroni.

So I did my best to reason with them to repent of their sins and put their trust in the Jesus of the Bible! I told them that the created Jesus who is the brother of Satan cannot save anybody. That they must trust the Jesus who is Creator of all things in order to be saved. I pleaded with them that if they didnt repent of their going after false gods the wrath of God would remain upon them and they would surely lose their souls. Did they repent right on the spot and believe? I wish that I could tell you that they did but I cant. But glory to God that one more seed was sown!!! Please pray for Elder Qunicy and Elder IforgothisName, that the Lord will grant them repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus.

As an aside. Here is a verse that could have helped me in our discourse:
Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
Isaiah 43:10

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