I'll be going over the history of the founding of Mormonism, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Briefly, what they teach, it's deep. I don't wanna get ahead of myself, but essentially, you can find a number of different positions that Joseph Smith had, a number of different positions the church has had that are in conflict with each other, but there's historical accounts of them, so waiting through all this. I try to pick the closest to what they currently teach. And then we're going to have an opportunity to discuss how to witness to people that my preference is called LDS, right? So I think Mormons is not intended to be derogatory, but sometimes it can be, and then they want to change their name. So the LDS. But that's the goal. And then we're going to have a time where JT comes up and corrects everything I get wrong. Helps answer in Q&A. He is our resident expert for the day. No pressure. Deuteronomy, chapter 6. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Holy and righteous Father, Lord, help us now. Lord, we are not exegeting a text, but we're going to be discussing, Father, one of the many variants of belief That is an aberration. It's a wrong jesus and there's no forgiveness there father. Uh, we don't want to puff ourselves up Uh with with information and be prideful. We want to understand how better lord to convey The truth of christ the true christ to a people that generally speaking are very kind people. They are very Hard-working in their in their righteousness their false righteousness father even as we heard earlier and they're tired lord many of them they are Discouraged they are depressed they turn to all manner of things in secret because no man can work his way to you father It must be the true christ of the scriptures that moves in our hearts lord. So be with us now help our discussion Help us to speak clearly and well and just maybe a profitable time of education and exaltation of again the true God father We pray this in Christ's name. Amen Okay, so I have a few things for you here again. I encourage you to speak up I titled this on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormons Start off with a definition for you guys. This is a study in the cult, right, that we've been talking about. Cult, according to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, number one definition, is a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious. And so, obviously, everything that we are covering would fall under the category of cult. I use that term. It's fitting when we talk like this. I would caution you against using that term cult when you're dealing with people that are in the LDS Church because of the negative condensation, right? They're not going to hear the word cult and think, oh, they're just seeing my beliefs as not being unorthodox, which I mean, the LDS church would say that we're the unorthodox ones, right? So there's no debate there. But it just brings this idea of a small group of people in the woods burning animals and just all of that baggage there. So it is a cult by definition. We'll reference it as a cult, but I would discourage you from using that in one-on-one interactions with people because of the negative connotation. Now, a little exercise here. I'm going to describe some of the beliefs of a specific cult. Now, you'll probably get the answer. That's the topic of the study. And I want you to picture in your mind which cult I'm talking about, okay? Number one, its founding prophet was visited by an angel leading to an additional book of scripture. Again, or another preface, I'll be using a lot of terms that Mormons use, such as apostle or elder, scripture. None of these are true scripturally, but for sake of reference, we're using these terms the way they're used inside the LDS church. So hopefully that's clear. So founding prophet visited by an angel leading to an additional book of scripture a geographic area associated with the faithful followers Number two number three a specific reverence for the founding prophet Number four a belief that their religion goes back to the original Adam and all of the true prophets that came after him and Number five, a belief that the Bible, as we currently have it, has been adulterated from the original. Number six, a rejection of the doctrine of original sin and the Trinity. Number seven, an unbiblical or twisted emphasis, maybe not adultery, of the family, okay? Number eight, a belief that works are needed to obtain salvation. Not evidence of salvation, but needed to obtain salvation. Two more, number nine, a total abstinence from alcohol. That's part of their practice. And a belief that marriage can potentially continue into the afterlife. What am I talking about? And Islam, you smarty pants. Islam is what I was talking about. So why am I talking about Islam when we're learning about the Mormons? Well, all of those beliefs are shared by both cults. I bring this up to say, We know from the book of Daniel and other places that there are rulers in high places, principalities, right? We wrestle not against flesh and bone, but against rulers in high places, against principalities. The Prince of Persia held, was it Michael or Gabriel and Daniel? One of God's archangels was hindered in coming. Michael, by the prince of Persia, the demonic forces, right? The principality there. There are things in the spiritual realm that we're just giving a little peek into. It's not, the Lord does not see fit for us to be concerned with it in our day-to-day walk, but we're told that it's there. And so my idea looking over this is that Satan's never had an original thought, right? He's only taken God's creation and perverted it, twisted it, flipped it upside down. Same thing with demonic forces. It's the same lie. It's essentially the same lie. It's packaged differently for a different group of people. We have different personalities, different cultures, different things appeal to us. It looks different, but it's not even a new lie. It's an ancient lie, and it's repackaged, and it's sold to people in a different area with different proclivities. It's all aberrant. It's all wrong. So yes, very good. Thank you for that. Uh, origins and belief. So we'll get kind of, uh, the most extensive portion of this is going to be in the origins. of Mormonism, and it is not a study of Joseph Smith specifically, but obviously we'll have to cover much of his life to understand. This is all, or the majority of it, until we get into the latter portion of his life, is his account of what happened previously, but not in real time, if that makes sense. In other words, he wasn't keeping a journal. This happened today, this happened today, this happened today. Later, he said, oh, let me tell you what did happen. And so even that changed in time. But this was his recollection of what was supposed to have happened in the past. He was born in 1805. In Vermont, when he was the age of 14, or sometime between then when he turned 14, his family moved from Vermont to upstate New York. His father was a schoolteacher. I know there was some debate. I was looking whether Joseph Smith was illiterate or not. You can find that online. Definitively, it's not clear, but it doesn't make sense to me that he couldn't read at all if his father was a schoolteacher. But that's not definitive on either side. He had a vision when he was 14 This was a time where there is an intense We'll ask you this is so the first 20 years of the 19th century what's going on in New England culturally that's significant We're well into it by this time this is like 18 I think from 1795 to 1840 what is it? Second Great Awakening. Okay, Second Great Awakening. And this is important, because what are some of the things, maybe on the negative side, that are associated with the Second Great Awakening? Increased role of women in the church, sometimes to a non-biblical degree. Yes, that's what i'm looking for right there the the emotionalism the uh, or even kurt was talking about some of this this um, The they didn't have the lights and all that but I mean it's the same principle, right? You're you're you're coaxing people's emotions. It's revivalism It's it's looking to the first great awakening and saying what did they do? What's the formula? Let's do that Let's get the the anxious bench which we call the altar and and the more um decision regeneration church now They had the anxious bench. They had this whole idea of um If they could just get people's emotions right, then they could be converted, right? That's going on. It's popular when he's very young, and as he turns, he's a teenager, young man. This was going on in the area at this time. It's important to understand the context of how all this comes about. While confused over the various denominations, Smith, his own account, wanders into the woods, right? He's seeking God, he wants to be a good Christian, but all these different denominations, which one do I pick? And he calls out to God and says, God, what's the true church? What church do I join? Now his personal accounts do differ whether the manifestation that he saw was got the father got the father and got the son At this time the church holds that in the forest when he's there He sees a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ and they tell him that all the churches are apostates, right? There's no church to join and claims that everything is wrong. So I'll pause there for a second. What's wrong with that? Two major things there. God the Father, God the Son appear to him. That's one problem. And the second problem is all the churches are wrong. Correct. Do we have a verse? Do we have anything? Yeah. I didn't think of that. That's totally right. Totally right. Yeah. Past. Yeah. Glory in the rock. The glory passes. He looks. Yes. That's the other thing. Yeah. It means that the gates of hell prevailed, right? Okay. Very good. So you have some, okay. I did. Um, so this happens, he goes in, he's, he's informed that there's no true church, right? I bet you have no idea where this is going to go. Three years later, Joseph Smith, 17 now, he prays again, and God and the angel Moroni, you guys heard of that, the name Moroni? You know, is it in La Jolla or Del Mar? La Jolla, the beautiful building full of dead man's bones there. That angel on top with the trumpet, that's Moroni. He appeared and he gave a vision of golden plates that would later become, at least part of it, the Book of Mormon would come from the golden plates. Portions of the golden plates would become the Book of Mormon. After that, the next day, so after this vision he has, he's 17, he has this vision, he goes out a few miles, three miles or something like that from his family's farm, and he finds in the ground, buried, a box of these golden plates that he had in this vision. Now, Smith tries to pick these up. And he's shocked, and he's struck to the ground. And he is told that he's not ready. And he has to come back. Is it once a year? I know it's for four years. It's just once a year? OK. That was conflicting, too. So he has to come back once a year for the next four years. Yeah, that's why it's conflicting. From this time, from this story, how he met, God got these tablets. Be right yeah, it is very difficult. See it's hard to keep a consistent life. That's that's the problem So so yes and as a county comes back at least I think the church is his position is he came back once a year the same day for the next four years as God is preparing him to be able to get these these plates and Now, in the four years between his finding the plates and when he is deemed worthy to pull them out, he gets himself in a little bit of trouble. He was a soothsayer, if you will. He was known as a con man by his detractors, but he would charge people to find things lost things To speculate on minerals and things of this nature using a seer stone Okay, it was a stone that's supposed to be mystical magical. He would drop it into like a top hat he wore top hat and he put his face into the hat and evidently God or I don't know would give him the vision of where it was he charged people for this and amazingly When people would go, they would not have success obtaining whatever he charged them to find. And so he was taken to court. He was fined over these things. And there's actually debate over that, too, whether they were the church's position is that he was not a criminal. He had some processing fees associated with witnesses that were called. But he was never found guilty. Yes, people brought charges, but he was innocent. But he had to pay court costs, essentially, is their position. But there's a record of his court dealings, at least. So that's his practice for these four years. That's how he makes a living by charging people to find things and other sort of con man games now When it comes to the golden plates, we do have, and I had a Book of Mormon, and I meant to bring it, and I left it on my desk, because I wanted you guys to see this. There is 11 eyewitness accounts, they're in the front of every Book of Mormon, of the 11 people that visually saw these golden plates. That's their account. It's important to note that all 11, one of them was David Whitmer, so David Whitmer, Justice Smith, nine others, All of those nine people, direct family relations to Whitmer or Smith, okay? Doesn't mean that they're lying, but it's suspect, obviously, right? David Whitmer, by the way, was the man who first act as chief scribe For Joseph Smith. And so the the situation that Joseph Smith had with these these golden plates was They were They needed to be translated. And so he would drop his his seer stone in his hat He'd look into his hat and then he would get the translation and he would tell it to a scribe who would write it down. He had a number of scribes at this time, his first one, David Whitmer, being his chief scribe. And so that's how that's how we begin to translate the plates. The plates were believed to be engraved by the prophet historian. That's the church's title, the prophet historian Mormon. That's where the term comes from. And his son, who can guess the son's name? Mormon and his son already said it. He has a trumpet. Moroni. It's pronounced both ways, I think. I read it, so I don't know how it's pronounced. I've heard people say it both ways. Mormon and his son Moroni were the ones that etched these golden plates originally. The language is called Reformed Egyptian. You guys heard of that before? Reformed Egyptian? nobody else has ever heard of it either. Okay. Um, and there's no other examples of this in history. Um, it's interesting, right? Because this is supposed to be, um, um, I had trouble compiling this without getting ahead of myself. So I'll get ahead of myself a little bit here, but it's supposed to be the, the last 10 tribes of Israel that came over and, and transcribe these. Um, Moses got the first 40 years of his education where, in Egypt, right? Best education. He was like the Pharaoh's grandson, essentially. I'm sure he spoke Egyptian. I'm sure he wrote and read Egyptian, educated in the best schools. He wrote the Pentateuch. What did he write the Pentateuch in? What language? Hebrew, right? This idea that there's this language, not only a different language, not only an Egyptian language, but an Egyptian dialect that there's no other examples of is clearly problematic. Yes, the Mormons are not reformed Reformed Egyptian. Yeah. Okay, very good anything so far Okay, very good Now Smith began to translate these plates with the help of the seer stone as I mentioned but Smith claims that over time Guess what? He gained the ability to just do it without the seer stone like he just got that good and And he could just kind of dictate off the top of his head. I mean, that's not his account, right? He's giving the revelation, and he's speaking it, and it's being transcribed. And the uncompleted work at this time, I think there's 130-some pages. I forget exactly. 130, 140 pages had been completed. And he called it the Book of Lehi, and it was stolen. And now there's a lot of debate over who stole it. And if it really exists, there's conspiracy inside the Mormon Church that it's like the super secret information that the world can't handle, so it's retained in Utah. It's all like city, and only certain people can see it, and other people are like, no, it just got stolen. But from that point, the important point, I'm sorry? It is higher level. Oh, yeah. You're right, and I was talking with a friend who has come out of the LDS Church, is contemplating the Gospel right now, and said he likened Mormonism from its founding to MLM, to a pyramid scheme. Um, and being like the first one or like the greatest one. And it really is because it's more than just material wealth. It's like spiritual wealth in their eyes. And they, they tie directly in their doctrine. The more converts that you make and the more they make that, that's all coming back to you. So it is a pyramid structure. And then he told me, I don't know if this is true. He said that MLM programs are like exploding and have been exploding all over Utah because the structure is so similar to their, their culture. So is that true? Essential oils aren't real? Yeah, I didn't realize that. I know that because looking through my own native lineage, they've done better work than anybody else I know. I mean, I put my name in their sites and I'm like, wow, they got all my family. I know their dates. It's amazing. They're amazing historians. Well, let me rephrase that. They have done amazing, they're not amazing historians. They've done amazing work in modern genealogy. Tracing modern 18th, 19th century genealogies. They've done a lot. Very poor historians. You can cut that part out when you... I don't know if I mentioned, but so after this book is stolen, the book of Lehi, Joseph Smith says he loses his ability to do this at all for two years. So he's no more translating's going on, he's lost this ability. Now when he regains this ability, he began to translate what we now know as the Book of Mormon. So that's when that took place at this point after all of that. And again, this is his testimony after this has happened. His new chief scribe is Oliver Coterie. He joined Smith to return to the woods to pray where they were visited by, guess who? He was already visited by Jesus and Moroni. Gabriel's a good guess. No, somebody else. John the Baptist. John the Baptist. This is where he was visited by John the Baptist. He is meeting all of the top dogs. And he was informed by John the Baptist that God was reinstituting the Melchizedek priesthood. And that Smith, shocker, would be the first elder of the Church of Jesus Christ. Now we laugh at that and a lot of it is laughable I'm not trying to be mean a lot of it is laughable because of the absurdity of it But here's the interesting part. I mentioned earlier that these lies Are satanic they're demonic right and they catch a lot of nice people. They catch a lot of legalistic people It's a lot of mean people. There's there's a lie that's tailored for every personality that's out there but they are their lies nonetheless but I don't know much about Joseph Smith. You get it from what's out there. You get kind of an idea of the type of person he was. I don't really see him as being the type of person that can anticipate theological objections coming out in the future and having a robust understanding of the priesthood in the Old Testament and heading that off with a doctrine here. I just don't see that. I don't see that as a possibility. It very well could be. But what I find more logical is that Joseph Smith was actually likely, I don't know this to be true, likely visited by supernatural beings, most likely demonic forces. Okay. He could have just made it all up. Very possible. I don't know that. Um, but I do know that somebody around him somewhere has a decent idea of what's going on here, right? When Jesus came, Jesus was prophet, priest, and King, right? He was a prophet. What tribe had the prophets? They came out of different tribes, right? Kings, the kings came, at least in Judah, the right line. Judah, right, David, line in David, correct. How about priests? Levi. Was Jesus Christ a Levite? What's that? Wrong answer right there. Was Jesus Christ a Levite? He was not. He was of Judah, of the son of David. So how is he? So we get a prophet and king. How is he a priest then? Kurt preached about it. I don't know how long ago that was, brethren Hebrews. He's a priest in the order of Melchizedek, right? You guys track with me? Did I lose anybody? He's a priest in the order of Melchizedek. That is the theological wiggle room that's being provided here for them. So clearly, this Old Testament priesthood has been fulfilled in Christ, right? It's done away with. But they're like, wait a second, no, no, no. We're talking about an older one, back from the time of Abraham, when he gave tithe to Melchizedek, that priest of old, that mysterious priest from the Old Testament. That's our lineage. That's our theological lineage, is what they're saying. And of course, as I mentioned, Smith, shocker, would be the first elder of the LDS Church. Now in 1830, the Book of Mormon went into print. It's not that long ago, when you think about the power and the wealth that they've amassed, right? 1830, not that long ago. And the first organized LDS meetings began with Smith and Coterie, where they were both ordained as elders. And Smith took the title of prophet. Now, Smith continued to receive revelations and new doctrine from angels, including the practice of polygamy. It's a shocker. I'm a fallen man gathers money and a following and In his own account God's told him he can go ahead and have more wives in an attempt to build a communal society Of Mormons, he would name Zion. That was his plan. He made his first of many moves of the church out west, right? and they're starting on the East Coast moving out west and The first stop was in, Ohio Then Missouri, then finally Nauvoo, Illinois. In Nauvoo, Smith became a spiritual and political leader, which is kind of interesting too. I paralleled him earlier with Islam. Now it's political and spiritual wrapped into one. That is the same path that he is taking. In response, I'm sorry, back up here. In Nauvoo, Smith became a spiritual and political leader. The Nauvoo Expositor, that's where I was, criticized Smith's power and practice of polygamy. This is a local paper. And in response, and with the help of the controlled Nauvoo City Council, Smith, and again the city council of Nauvoo, they destroyed the expositors printing press. They went in and busted it apart. And then he became afraid. Smith became afraid for his safety. So he fled to Carthage, Illinois to stand trial for the destruction. But while he was in jail there, he turned himself in, a mob broke into the jail cell there and they shot him and killed him. He was 38 years old. It's a lot of damage he's done to a lot of lives in 38 years After Smith's death many of the church leaders jockeyed for control again They had a decent amount of followers by this time And there was some political wrangling around who would take the helm who would be in control how they're gonna work this out Another reason why I see so much demonic influence in this because if this was simply a work of a crazy creative talented guy you would think after They weren't well established yet in he's dead. You would think it kind of fizzled, but it grows Ultimately Brigham Young. I'm sure you guys have heard that or I imagine you've heard of the name Brigham Young Brigham Young University in Utah He takes control Probably more influential than Joseph Smith all things considered and what Mormonism is today, and he's the one that took To flee they kept moving because they would rouse a up the the natives wherever they were and cause tumult He brought them to Utah and at that time. It was the Utah Territory. It was not a state and that's where they've been ever since then headquartered today So that's the background, essentially, of the founding of the LDS Church. Any questions about that or comments on that? We'll have a Q&A at the end. But just any quick input there? Is it true that they got rid of the polygamy stuff so that Utah could be saved? Yes, to my understanding. Absolutely. That's correct, isn't it? Yeah. The government forced their hand. So there's just nothing like, oh, another vision. We can't do this anymore. They can't do that anymore. That's the good part. I haven't got there yet. No spoilers. Spoiler alert. OK. So beliefs. The teaching of Mormonism essentially is this, that you'll hear Mormons refer to God as, do you know what they normally say? Any idea? Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father, right? That's what I hear the most. Elohim. What's interesting about Elohim? It's a biblical word, right? Where do we see that in the scriptures? Genesis I mean, yeah all over but I mean, it's right there the beginning right in the beginning God, it's the plural of L like right now should I it's the plural one God and plurality Elohim That's that's how they refer to God and and we see the in the scriptures the Lord thy God and Lords all capitalizes Elohim is Yahweh, right? That's the or in reverse order there That's what's going on. So again, there's a lot of true things In in their teaching that are twisted perverted And mangled, right? I've heard it said like the best counterfeit money looks the most like the real thing. All right, but it's counterfeit. It's counterfeit so Elohim was a man and they're teaching just like we are and On another planet with another God and through following the principles of Mormonism living rights doing all these things He was essentially given his own planets where he and his harem of spiritual women were able to have a huge spiritual family all of these kids and And as his favorite sons, oldest sons, Satan and Jesus, oldest, favorite, mine escapes me, but they begin to discuss with all of these spirit children, right, they're without bodies, what they're gonna do, their plan for Earth, Elohim's own planet, what are we gonna do with it? And Satan has an idea that he's going to be the savior of the world, and it's ultimately rejected, Jesus says he's going to be the Savior of the world, and Elohim goes with Jesus' plan. Satan gets upset. He takes a third of the angels with him. You see the similarities, the correlation there. A third of the spirit children. And he insurrects against God. And because of this, God casts them all down to earth without physical form. And that's where we get some sort of demonic theology there in the Mormon church. What you mentioned earlier was there was a group of spiritual siblings. And interesting enough, that would make Jesus and Satan spiritual siblings, right? Blasphemy. But there was a neutral bunch. They didn't want to go with Satan's plan. But they didn't really get won over by Jesus' plan either, so they were cursed with what? They were cursed with black skin. How horrendous is that? They were cursed with black skin and sent down to the earth. They've abandoned that teaching, but it was there for a long time. The Mark of Cain, yeah. Very good. The Mark of Cain. So taking a biblical reference, the Mark of Cain, they had black skin and that's why they were not allowed to have any sort of position to do anything up until recently, essentially, very recently. So they come down, and of course the ones that sided with Jesus are all given very fair skin, come down, physical form, on this earth, and then some of this stuff, I don't even like to think about it, I don't even like to talk about it, because it's just so outside the bounds, it's so blasphemous, but their teaching is that God the Father, Elohim, I guess I should say, Heavenly Father, they don't have the God the Father, Elohim, Heavenly Father as they would refer to Him, came down and physically had a relationship with Mary to give Jesus a physical form. So as many came down and were given physical form, kind of his favorite son, Jesus, hung around spiritually with Elohim and was given physical form. They do teach that Jesus had at least three wives, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha. He was a polygamist in their view, had many children. And the teaching of the church essentially is this, that you, if you are married in the temple, if you live a good life, you do all these things, you tithe all that you're supposed to do, that not only will you have the celestial highest level of heaven, but you can become like God. And so I go back to what I started off earlier saying, Satan has no original thoughts. There's nothing original. There's twisting and perversion, right? What was the lie in the garden? What was the lie to Eve first? What was the lie that the serpent gave her? You can be as God, right? Knowing good and evil. It's the same lie, essentially. Little different here more, you know expanded. It's the same lie though. You can be as God if you do these things is the lie Of course, that's not true to gain salvation in the LDS teaching they have a Triune heaven I should say right. They have a three three levels of heaven the scriptures speak of three heavens, right? well, how did the scriptures reference them the Yes, the boat of God. Yeah, in the sky, right? Okay. So two physical, one metaphysical dwelling place of God, right? Without form, without physical form. They speak of the three heavens as being destinations in eternity. There is the highest level of heaven, Where if you if you followed all the principles of mormonism married in the temple do all these things You can be there and that's where you have the opportunity to dwell with elohim and when they have your own planet And if you've been a good mormon wife You might have the opportunity to be one of many wives for all of eternity being spiritually pregnant for time and all eternity. So um This is clearly a man-made male you know, specifically male-made scenario. I guarantee you no woman came up with the idea to be eternally pregnant. Celestial, telestial, like terra firma there. The earthly heaven is for specifically all the people that didn't adhere to Mormonism but were good people. It's terrestrial or telestial? Telestial. Oh, I got them backwards. And terrestrial is the bottom one. Okay. Okay. And that's, that's where you have Nick. Terrestrial is essentially hell, but it's not hell. It's just like not cool. Okay. It's like a, it's not hell. Hell is a place. It's the East County of San Diego. Yeah. Okay. I live in East County. Yeah. It's lakeside. Okay. Yeah. Okay, okay. Interesting. So that's a God that's okay with sin. You see that? That's a God that's okay with sin. Not that somebody as wicked as Hitler couldn't be saved, but that there's nothing that's done. Sin's not covered. He's just okay, right? Because he's the Mormon God. Elohim is a nice God, right? But a loving God, the God of Scripture, who is loving, hates sin, right? He hates wickedness. He hates murder and he hates idolatry and blasphemy because he's righteous and he's good. There's no category in their minds for that. There's also, interesting enough, what is going to be the biggest blessing in heaven? What is the greatest thing we will experience in heaven? God, God, unhindered by our sinful flesh, an eternity of perfect fellowship. No person on this earth, billions, has ever experienced this. In eternity, you will know God. You will be able to worship him, fellowship unhindered by your sinful flesh. In the teaching of Mormonism, if you're not in the celestial highest heaven, God only comes down once a year, once in a while, for a day or so. For a Christian, there's no conception of a heaven without Christ, without God. There's no such thing. Heaven is heaven because that is where God is, and that's where we'll fellowship with him, right? So you see how aberrant this is. Their idea of heaven appeals to carnal, sinful man. It is a place where we enjoy our desires, right? Not where our desires are changed to be what we were created to be, and that's fellowship with our God. You need to be baptized too, I didn't mention that. You need to be baptized in a temple and that brings up a big problem for people since the church went aberrant. When did they say the church went astray? Okay, a long time before, just over a millennia. Okay, so roughly 600 AD, the gates of hell prevail, and nothing happens until 1800. What do you do with those people? As Christians, we have a category. We understand the sovereignty of God, the revelation, He does what's right. But they have a big issue. Nobody's baptized all that time. What happened? Well, they have posthumous baptism. You can be baptized for dead people. And oddly enough, as the mores of our culture have changed, and currently the big moral position to have if you're enlightened is consent. Everything has to be done with consent. Well, Mormons got in a little bit of a hot water because they were baptizing alive people on behalf of dead people without the dead people's consent. All right, this is so absurd, these areas we get into. And so they came up with a teaching that essentially, if you're a Mormon and your great-grandmother wasn't a Mormon and you're worried about her not making it into the telestial kingdom, she could never be in the highest one, but she could get a bump up, you could be baptized for her posthumously. But then where she is, she's now given the opportunity to accept that baptism. So she has to consent to it. So nobody's offended. So proxy and posthumous. Yeah. Very good. She says she prays for us all the time. She left a Baptist faith for Moran. Did your aunt Okay, so we get in here that she said that her aunt has been baptized for her a couple of times, left a Baptist denomination because Mormons are more, what's the word you used? More accepting and friendly. Okay, and to be totally honest, being converted and fundamentalism, being in that bubble for some years, measuring against that, I would say that's probably true. that they are nicer, and Mormons are good neighbors. They're trying to work their way to heaven, right? So there's a lot they're really trying to do. It's all empty. Generally speaking, they tend to be kind of nice people. Of course, they're not more truly accepting, right? Accepting isn't, anybody can come to Christ. Or kind than regenerate believers, but there are definitely churches out there. They have the moniker of a church they probably have an orthodox statement of faith and the exclusivity of Christ and the deceits are filled with a lot of unregenerate people and and Mormons run into them right and then they get this you're running into unregenerate professors of faith. And so there's some, I think there's some reality to that, but only in measuring like the Pharisees, right? Religious unconverted people and religious unconverted people between the two. Christianity had that too, then all the people with their crystals and all their crazy new age stuff would be in like some kind of weird middle spot. What time is this over? Is it 3? They already go over. What is that? What time is it supposed to be over? Okay. Yeah, we started a little late. So at this point, there's a little more there. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to have JT to come up and help. This is a game. It's called Stump JT. And so he is, you can tell briefly your background and then, you know, some questions. Well, my whole family on my dad's side is Mormon, like Utah. We live there, like very, very LDS, very involved. My grandparents, very traditional. So they would actually adhere and affirm everything that we're saying today, whereas newer Mormons not so much. Studying Mormonism is how I actually became a Foreign Baptist because I realized I couldn't defend my faith on bad theology. That's how I got here. God having me study and leading me to study Mormonism is what actually brought me, I would say, eventually to our church. I want to praise Him for that. I spent a lot of time studying it just so I could witness to my grandparents and my whole family. And if you've ever, I'm assuming everyone here has evangelized before or witnessed to somebody, but the hardest thing you'll ever do is have to explain to your grandparents, why you don't want them to go to hell, and why you want them to know the true and risen Lord, right? And why you want them to come to a true faith and have a true relationship with the God of the Bible, not the Mormon God. It's a very difficult thing to do. It's very hard. Then my grandfather passed. No sign of repentance there, so just praying for my grandma at this point and still reaching out to her. But yeah, if you have any questions, I can try and answer them. It's been a while. Oh, lots of questions. Just kidding. Go ahead, Andrew. OK, doesn't matter. That's OK. I'll answer them all. So do they believe in health? Yeah, so I actually have a great graphic. I'll try and get it to Aaron to maybe get out. And by the way, we were both, well, we messed each other up. He was right the first time. You have three levels of heaven. You have the celestial, it is the terrestrial, and then the bottom is the telestial. The best way to remember that is like the bottom, it's kind of like the leftovers, and telestial is like a made up word, so he was like, I gotta make something up. So he made it up, he just combined the two. They do have a hell, spirit prison, and basically the way that this flow chart breaks it down is when people die here, LDS members go to what they call is a paradise, and then everybody else kind of like waits for resurrection and everything, and then They'll go to like spirit prison or spirit hell and then the LDS will come into spirit prison or spirit hell and they'll witness to people down there and give them a chance to get saved. And basically the only people that go to hell are apostates from the church and sons of perdition, so Satan and his followers. But sons of perdition meaning apostates. So Hitler, Good for the telestial. But if you were Mormon and you walked away, you're going to hell. Is what they basically believe. It's the worst thing. The best. Yeah, so they have to get married in the temple. So they got to be married. It's essential. Got to be married. Got to have kids. Got to do it all. They go, there's like three levels in the celestial itself. And so like the best Mormons, they're sealed in the temple and all that. They will go on to have their own planet. And like he said, make spirit babies. and then the ones that were not married in the temple, but were genuine Mormons. Genuine Mormons. They'll chill in the celestial kingdom, but they don't get to have their own planet. They just get to hang out with Elohim. Yes. Yeah, there's a very... Yes, and being married and baptized are the two absolute, there's no bending on that. I think all you guys had questions. I'll answer them all. Okay, so the whole thing with sin and it's a workspace. So basically, just be better. Be all around better. Like, on average, have good days and have less bad days. That's how they deal with sin. Like, hey, most of the time he was cool and he wasn't, you know. That's how they kind of look at sin. Like, he did all this good and, you know, this much bad, so you're good to go. Does that make sense? It's kind of like weighed like that. Evangelizing the Mormons is very, very hard today. because the elders or the people, elders, that's what they're called. The Mormon missionaries, you see them, right, looking snappy, and they're called elders, and that's what they call themselves or whatever. They're gonna come to your door, or you'll go and see them at an event, and you'll talk to them. If you bring any of this up, they're not gonna know what you're talking about. They don't teach this. Okay, Mormon missionaries today don't know Mormonism. So you have to convert them to their own false religion before you destroy that false religion and bring them to Christ. It's very hard, very difficult, because you're going to be telling them things that you believe from what the scriptures say, and they'll be like, yes. Yes, I agree with all of that, of course, we're both Christians. So you have to explain to them the bad, like you have to teach them what they are supposed to believe, then break it down. It's very hard to do. So the best way to do that... James White had a good way of saying this. He was talking, because he has a lot of information on this stuff, and he's dealt with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses through his whole career. And he always says, he says, with Jehovah's Witnesses, you've got to know this much, this deep. With Mormons, you've got to know this much, but this deep. And I go like one step further. You don't need to know all these things about the Temple. Just focus on Jesus. You need to know your Bible and who Jesus is. Because if you can know who their Jesus is, fake Jesus, and then real Jesus, you list that out for them with the attributes of their Jesus, and then you hit them with Scripture and show them the true Jesus. And you can't go wrong with that. That's the best way to go. If you get someone who does know more than the normal lay Mormon, Hold on to that. Keep trying to get them to come back, because that's someone you're going to want to have these conversations with and everything. But I don't know if that really answers it. But you're going to have to focus just on Jesus. I mean, I just don't... There's good information you can get to, to give them and show them and be like, see, this is what you believe. And then they go, oh, what? Okay, well then, he'll probably—and he probably was—and that was a while ago, and so at that time they were still teaching these things that Aaron was already talking about, and he barely scratched the surface. I mean, Mormonism could in itself be like a whole— Yeah, Doctrine and Covenant. Doctrine and Covenant. Yeah, and the pearl grape. What's the big, I didn't mention his famous summary, he pulled out of the curtain and revealed God. It's the King Follett discourse. King Follett discourse, I'll spell it out for you. I have lots of quotes from that, but I won't give it to you guys right now. Essentially, I actually encourage all of you, if any of you have any interest in Mormonism, and you want to take the chance to really talk to them about what they believe, you can find it on their churches. Like, go to the Church of the Latter-day Saints, and you can find the King Follett Discourse. King Follett Discourse, so King, and then Follett, F-O-L-L-E-T-T, Discourse. It's in Journal of Discourse, Volume 6. Read it. and know it, because they will at least have heard some quotes from it, and they will know what you're talking about, even the newer ones. It's a big deal. I'll just give you one quote for it, because this is probably the most important quote to know for it. But as we have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and I'll take away and do away the veil so that you may see. And basically, he goes in from there to explain how God was a man, and you yourself have to do what he did to become a God yourself. So go ahead and read it. Take the time. Print it out. Any other questions? I just wondering what's the whole deal with the elders being 18, 19. I know they go on missions, but even the word itself. I'm gonna be honest, I don't really understand the reason that they do that and the terminology for that. But being Mormon, that's your thing. Before you do anything else, as soon as high school's done, you go to your training, and then they tell you where you're going, and you go and you do your year and a half, your two years there, wherever you're gonna go, and then you come back, and then you start your life. Hopefully you come back and you get married right away, Yeah, you need to be married pronto, get sealed in the temple, and you better start pumping out babies because they're going to start asking you every day why you haven't had babies yet. I mean, here's the thing. The truth with the Mormon Church is they do put a big emphasis on the family. Sometimes an emphasis on the family that I wish Christians would would put more emphasis on the family and the church and having children right and being married like I wish that we would put Sometimes like half that effort into it. It's just that their effort that they're putting into it is totally misplaced It's all in they're putting all this effort into it because that's how you get saved where I wish we would in a sense we could take from that and and put that effort into it and really encourage young people who are getting married to having kids and stuff like that. That part of that culture, I will say for them, they do it well. They do. Yeah, so they believe that Jesus came over here, so in the Bible when it talks about their sheep that are not of this fold and everything else, but what happened was after Jesus' resurrection and everything, he came over to the Americas and he witnessed to the native tribes over here, the Nephites. There's a whole lot of history that goes into that. Essentially, they believe after Israel, he just came over here, and then he preached over here, and then he was talking about the tribes of Israel, ten tribes, and the Jews that came over here. There's no archaeological evidence for it, and they know that. Don't get into those arguments with them. It's not worth it. You will get nowhere. These are areas that I would avoid unless they bring it up, because they're going to get you nowhere. And we want to get as close to Jesus as we can, and these conversations just kind of push Jesus out of the way. But yeah, no, that's good. Take the time. Here's a book for you to read if you never read it, just for this section. It's called Kingdom of the Cults. Read the book. All these cults are in there. It's very well done, especially on Mormonism. What was your question? Yeah, actually the church is going through a big split on that right now. Half the church, it's... Not okay. And the other half of the church, it's accepting, and they're going through a very big issue with that right now, actually, particularly at BYU and on the universities. But traditionally, LGBTQ and homosexuality and all that, it's not accepted, and you will be ostracized for it within the Mormon community. I mean, that's obviously a blanket statement, but for the most part, yeah, none of them are going to know what you're talking about if you talk to them about deep topics like this. You can use all the same terminology and they're just going to sit there and agree with you because they think you're talking about the same thing. These days? Never. They don't. And the reason that they don't is because, it's like we talked about the MLA, like as they grow in the church and they get higher up and they get access to more information and more books, more things from the church, that's when they learn. But their numbers have suffered really bad at certain points, and I think they've, it really happened, When all this really changed was they found the papyri for what they call the Book of Abraham and the Pearl of Great Price. They found the papyri for that. The church themselves put experts onto this papyri to study it, to verify that Joseph Smith was 100% on with this translation. And what happened was they translated it and realized, this says nothing. Like, it's not even close. There wasn't even a single word correct that Joseph Smith got right. There wasn't a single word. And that really was hard. The church tried to hide that, and they kind of did. So basically they don't go into these things with newer members of the church anymore because they're so easily refutable, and there's so much information out there to destroy it, that they're realizing they have to reel it back now and try and keep it as close to Orthodox Christianity as they can so they can keep these members. If they start getting with the crazy theologies that their church teaches, that's when they start losing people. At the temple event? Like when they get sealed? The average woman doesn't ever go into a temple, correct? No, so in the temple the only people that go in are like when they get married and there's certain... it's a very secret thing. Very, very secret. Mormons aren't going to the temple? Oh, like in the ward? They keep that a secret too. I remember when I, no they do, I went to one and we weren't allowed to take out our phones. I went for a funeral and we weren't allowed to have our phones or listen. Basically, what it mostly consists of, like half of it, is people come up and give their testimonies. You can go to these things and you can sit in the wards during their services and the first half is people coming up and giving, I testify that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. And I've always been super tempted to go and go up there and give my testimony of the true and living God, and then getting ran out. I've been super tempted, but then I try and think, I don't know, is that the Biblical way to do this? But half of it is that, and then it's typically, they'll do a little spiel from whatever section of whatever Mostly the Book of Mormon. They're not going to teach the Bible Bible, because that's the King James Version as far as it's translated correctly, and the only way to translate it correctly is to compare it to the Book of Mormon, per se. Most of it's like testimony, though. Their whole religion and their whole faith and belief falls and holds itself onto their testimony. Their last resort, when you witness to them, is always going to be, will I testify to Joseph Smith being a true prophet. And when I prayed and I talked to God, the Holy Spirit, I felt the burning in the bosom is what they'll talk about, which is this burning in the chest. And that was the Lord testifying to me that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. And you can't say I'm wrong because you didn't feel it and I did. That's what it comes down to. It's very hard to break that. Very hard. My understanding of like on Sundays, they used to be for three hours, I guess, but they've shortened it down to two recently because it's too long. They split it into two sections. Every other week, men and women split, and they have training for men and for women. They're laity-led, so there's like a guy who's not a pastor, but he's like the guy, but he's not paid, and he's the one that does it. And they always have like a diocese structure where it's like stake and then I don't know, the other one's down to, what'd you call the local one? Award, yes. Award's a mouth stake, and there's different positions over that, but it's laity. They come together and they recite these things, and it's not true. It's just its repetitiveness. It's just constant reciting and giving your testimony. You're not going to get a Pastor Kurt in the Mormon church. You're just not going to get someone up there giving you the word and expositing on what it says. They don't get that, and that's why they are terrible when it comes to the Bible, because the only thing that they're going to memorize are the things that affirm for them Mormonism. You had a question? Well, go for it. Yeah, spirit babies. Don't think about it too hard. You'll find some contradictions. I think that's probably a great discussion. I don't want anybody to mutiny here, so I'll wrap it up. Thank you. Thank you, guys, for your patience. Two minutes. I'll wrap this up real quick. I didn't get to the evangelism portion, but you said exactly what I was going to say, essentially. I've not had a lot of experience, but I've witnessed more than a few Mormons. They will nod their head in agreement with everything you say, but they think something different than what you're saying. I found the best place of conflict, amicable conflict, is Christ. Specifically, Christ in the Scriptures. It's not all we can do plus Jesus. We do our best, Jesus does the rest. That's works. So they have that idea. That's a Mormon saying. We do our best, Jesus does the rest. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then we have, obviously, Ephesians, right? Saved by grace. Yeah. A lot of works. But for them, in the Book of Mormon, they flip it around. He basically, what does he say, he says, well he uses terrible King James English, but he says like, you've been saved by, what is the second Nephi? I'll find it for you, but basically, it's been saved by grace after all that you can do. You can do, yeah, that's what it says. And so, yeah, they gotta work it. And if you try to read the Book of Mormon, it reads like somebody 200 years later tried to write something down like the King James Version. It doesn't read the same. It just feels weird and clunky. But yeah, so Christ, who he really is, and then this idea, if you can do your best and Christ does the rest, that's not a holy God. It's not a holy God. That's a God that's not offended by sin. So what do you do with your guilt, right? They have the shame. They have the guilt. They can suppress it. They're heavily medicated. Depression's huge. What do you do with your guilt? Come to the Christ of Scripture. We'll take that away. Your best can do anything. It's Christ. So that's the point of Angels in the Mirth of Christ. Thank you. Let me pray. And please continue to talk. And you don't have to feel guilty if you want to get up and leave. Our Lord and our God, thank you, Father, for a time of discussion. Thank you for our brothers and sisters' willingness to kind of go back and forth. What an amazing thing it is, Father, to discuss Christ, the true Christ, the one that has saved us, Father. I pray that you would give us opportunities to put these sort of things into action, Father, too. We don't have to learn, as my brother said, all of the broadness of the Mormon's teaching, we need to know the real Christ and where they falter from that, Father. Thank you for this time, Lord, and thank you for the Lord's. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.