Mormonism and Christianity - Lynn Wilder - Is there a Difference?

to say God I'm adding you into my equation adding you into this problem and when I got a purpose first pepper just like he has a purpose for your pet that you're into he's not gonna let you down when you believe the Bible and the Bible alone I said that's what we want suddenly one day you're gonna wake up you're gonna be like really have animosity towards that person anymore but I promise you that I think today you'll be really really encouraged at the very end because I learned something I never even thought okay welcome to our women's Bible study today for those of you watching us by Roku or online DirecTV any of our different venues to watch we're glad that you joined us today we have a very very special guest and she's going to share her story and the question that we want to answer today is is there a difference between Mormonism and Christianity and so we have brought in lynn wilder and she is a former BYU tenured professor she was a mormon for 30 years and we brought her in to share with us the differences between these two different ways of believing in God I guess is what what it will be and we're so excited they're here so welcome to you I am still kind of overwhelmed every time this opportunity comes our way what I'm overwhelmed about is what God has done in the last say eight years never expected this but we do this so that he might be glorified this is his story and he is my god and I'm going to tell you a little bit about my god that I know now and the god that I knew before about two years ago when I got up and I was in prayer in the morning asked me to write a book that told our story from Mormonism to the god of grace and it's called unveiling grace the story of how we found our way out of the Mormon Church and always like to add and into the arms of grace look at those pants aren't those the best things ever this is 1977 Mike and I were 25 years old married three years and no kids and looking for a church he had been raised Baptist and I had been raised Presbyterian but the two of us did not know anything about the word we understood Christian faith very very little I would say we were nominal Christians so we wanted Jesus we love Jesus so we were looking for a church and about that time I read the Old Testament and it talked about Israel returning right in the last days and so I went oh these must be last days Israel just returned to her homeland and then two missionaries knocked on my door and their badges said the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints and they said they knew all about the latter days and then they told me a story that we were fascinated by and we joined the Mormon Church the people are wonderful they just were immediately family to us took us in loved on us and it was that way for 30 years Mormons are just wonderful kind loving people Christians can learn a lot from that next well we were baptized October 28 1977 this is the evidence next and we were sealed in the Washington DC temple that at the time that we found the Mormon Church we lived in Indiana and Mike and I before we had kids actually went to the Washington DC temple and were sealed together now Mormons believe that you can be married in this life and married in the next life if you earn your way to get a temple recommend and you go to a Mormon temple one of the things that happens in the temple is a marriage ceiling and that means you're married in this life and for the next life and that's what we did and so this was probably 85 when we had three of our four kids next now how many here have read the book unveiling grace anyone okay in the book I tell the story of how 14 nights in a row God wakes me up at 2:00 a.m. remember the story of Samuel where God calls us his name in the middle of night and he sits up and he keeps thinking Eli's calling him well it was a really similar experience to that God calls my name in the middle of night at 2:00 a.m. I sit bolt upright and then I can't go back to sleep so I get up and I get my Mormon scriptures out and I pray and I'm you know in the Mormon word and praying all night long next night 2:00 a.m. same thing next night 2:00 a.m. same thing next night 2:00 a.m. same thing 14 nights in a row until I was so irritated I had kids and I had elderly in-laws always taken care of I had a part-time job finally about 5:30 6:00 in the morning I said to God and in Mormonism you're very respectful to God you don't talk to God like this then I was quite irritated I said if you have something to tell me just tell me because I cannot stay up another night and the Lord spoke to me and said I need for you to go back to school now I'd gotten a master's degree before my kids ever came along and Mormon women typically stay home and have children that's what we were supposed to do so it was unusual it's seemed like contrary to what the Prophet was telling us the Prophet had actually had a fireside in like 1987 or 88 telling women come home from your typewriters you know come home and have your children and stay home but this was a profound experience with God and he told me to go back to school I took one class I hated it and I didn't go back again that's how obedient I was right a couple of years later I was in a serious automobile accident and laid up for about a year and a half and while God calmed my spirit lying on a physical therapy table he kept reminding me I told you to go back to school I need for you to go back to school had no idea what this was about or what would come of this but this time I obeyed I got a doctorate my daughter was probably fifth grade and my kids my oldest college-age and then I got hired at BYU and that was a great honor in Mormonism to get a job at BYU I actually had to go downtown Salt Lake and be interviewed by a general authority of the Mormon Church who had to approve that I was worthy and that I could be hired at BYU my second year at BYU I was assigned to teach diversity this is a long story I'll make it very short while I taught diversity my students at BYU started telling me that there was a curse given to Cain and the curse was black skin now I really didn't know anything about this so my brain went oh that must be in the Bible you know you can't trust the Bible as the Mormon I thought sometimes the Bible was mistranslated but then I got to read searching the idea that black skin was a curse wasn't in the Bible but it was in Mormon scripture and to this day there are 26 scriptures in Mormon scripture that teach that black skin is a curse and it actually says in the Book of Mormon that when if you have dark skin and you become righteous your skin will turn white this is still in the Book of Mormon okay but Mike and I were happy in Mormonism we had a good life we actually had worked in the Chicago temple for ten years Mike and I we had taught LDS seminary and we were active I was a Relief Society president twice if you know anything about that a congregation kind of has a male leader and then there's a woman leader that that kind of leads the adult women so I was a Relief Society president so just to tell you that Mike and I really believe that we had strong testimonies in Mormonism next this is our family in 2001 that's mount Timpanogos behind us on the left is our oldest son Josh and the tall one then is Matt and on this side is Micah and that's Katie next our oldest son Josh served his LDS mission in Russia and in Belarus this gentleman that he's talking to is somebody that he converted to Mormonism he was a general during World War two a Russian general next here's Josh yes and here he is with five cute little Russian orphans it's really a wonderful experience to go on an LDS mission besides you know bringing people to the Mormon faith often they do some wonderful service next this is Josh's family today he married a beautiful blonde girl from a Mormon family and these are their children they live in Salt Lake next second son Matt was a piano performance major at Brigham Young University had both an academic and a music scholarship he served his mission in Denmark next this is a Copenhagen temple it opened while he was there next and this is Matt's family today they live in Florida that's my grandbaby Tessa next now third son I don't know if you know but in Mormon culture it's nice if your sons can do form it foreign missions it's almost like an honor to do a foreign mission so Josh had gone to Russia Matt had gone to Denmark and Michael was supposed to go to Mexico City we really thought we were blessed by the Lord because our sons were serving these wonderful foreign missions well God had a plan that wasn't ours when my going into the Missionary Training Center the MTC in Provo which is actually just a few blocks from my office at BYU his lung collapsed very unexpectedly out of the blue nobody quite knew why he was playing basketball but nobody had elbowed him and he ended up in the hospital with kind of a serious condition now what to do the Mormon prophet had said his mission was in Mexico City but Mexico City is really high hard on the lungs and the the medical attention there isn't so good so Mike and I pretty much knew that Michael was going to have to be reassigned to what Mormons say stateside a stateside mission here in the United States we thought it would blow his testimony of the Mormon prophet to think that the Prophet had said he was going one place couldn't he see that he really was going somewhere else so here I am in the hospital with Micah he was so zealous for his faith as you can see he's got his missionary badge pinned on his hospital gown there we are in the emergency room next probably of all of our children Micah was most zealous for Mormonism before he left on his mission he asked the temple president at the mount Timpanogos temple if he could work in the temple for 40 hours a week rather than working and earning money like we expected our kids to do because they have to pay for their missions you know the Mormon Church does not pay for those missions the families pay for them the Micah had worked in the temple was a very zealous young man here he is in Florida Micah was three weeks out and he tried to convert a pastor a large african-american former football player Pentecostal pastor he and his companion pastor Sean now a very wonderful friend of ours Micah said he taught them the discussions he told the young men that that was not the gospel of Jesus Christ in the New Testament he told Micah that one day he would be like Paul a great minister of the gospel and then as the young men were leaving pastor sha grabs Micah and out loud starts praying over him God braked the spirit of blindness over this young man like I said it was kind of scary I mean he'd never kind of been confronted like that right but also he'd never heard that the gospel of Jesus Christ that he knew might not be the same one in the New Testament okay well the end of this is a couple of months later Micah encounters a second pastor he actually tried to he believed that if he could convert the pastor to Mormonism the entire congregation would come he literally believed this so he they went into a Baptist Church on a Sunday night it was raining and so they didn't want to knock doors so they they go into this Baptist meeting afterwards they go down to the past or set up an appointment to teach him the Mormon gospel they teach him the Mormon gospel and that pastor again opened the Bible showed him where the the gospel that Micah had just taught him was not the gospel of the New Testament not the gospel that Jesus himself had taught Micah said he was madder than a Hornet at the end of that one he pulled out a verse from the Book of Mormon that condemned him to hell for not believing the Book of Mormon and was quite angry now this anger is a typical reaction I would say it was my reaction when I began to hear the truth I did not want to hear it I did not think it was true and I was mad now now what does that do to people around you when you get mad like that they want to go away and then they want to back off but I can tell you when the Holy Spirit works with people sometimes they are mad anybody know what I'm talking about yeah so if you're sharing the truth and someone's mad don't be afraid of that just love them through it work through it and don't be afraid to have Crucial Conversations right this is what you believe this is what I believe let's look at this and let's not be afraid of it let's not just shut it off right let's have these conversations and not be afraid of them next whoops somehow we went back okay so Micah was challenged by the second pastor to read the New Testament he promised Micah that if he read the New Testament God would open his eyes and he would never be the same again Micah said I went home that night looked at that Bible and said am I gonna read it am I gonna read it if I'm gonna read it well I guess I'm gonna have to read it if I'm gonna keep bumping up against these evangelicals in the Bible Belt in Florida right so he starts to read it starts to get up an hour before his missionary companion to read the Bible so all you have is a young man 19 a Bible and the Holy Spirit in the early morning day after day he said he was so intrigued by what was then there now I don't want you to think that Mormons don't read the Bible they have four standard works of scripture the Bible is one of them but there are three standard works of Mormon scripture they believe are the truth and infallible they believe the Bible is sometimes not true sometimes mistranslated is what they say okay so he starts to read the Bible while he's on his Mormon mission while he's a leader on his Mormon mission and he reads the New Testament about 15 times over over about an 18-month to 20 month period of time and one Monday afternoon he's on his knees and the full import of reading the New Testament hit him this is not the gospel of Jesus Christ that he himself taught in the New Testament and if I believed my Savior and if I loved my Savior then I need to give my life to the savior of the New Testament which is what he did that afternoon and he said I said to the Lord in prayer you have so profoundly changed me from the inside out who do you want me to tell what do you want me to do with this Michael was three weeks from the end of the mission of his mission when this happened to him he gets up from his knees in prayer and the phone rings isn't this our God right thud phone rings and who is it it's his mission president he's leader in the mission Micah you're going home in three weeks I'd like for you to stand between 60 to 80 missionaries in front of them and bear testimony of what you've learned over the last two years he just asked God who do I tell he told me once it was like standing on the edge of a diving board and going yeah this God can catch me either he's real or he's not now the mission president had noticed that Micah was only bearing testimony of Jesus Christ and His grace and not of Joseph Smith not of the Book of Mormon and not of the Mormon Church well if you know a Mormon testimony it needs to include those things so before Micah stood to do his testimony his mission leader did a two-hour training on you don't have a proper Mormon testimony if you don't believe in Jesus or Joseph Smith if you don't believe Joseph Smith was a prophet if you don't believe the Book of Mormon is true if you don't believe in the living prophet today and he said he noticed that at the end of that was Jesus Christ almost as if it was an add-on that what was most important were these things about the Mormon Church so having set that up for two hours then Micah was invited up and he said I looked out at these elders that I loved and I said I've been reading the New Testament over the last couple of years and it says that I'm saved by grace not by works last no one can boast I believe that Jesus died for my sins I do not believe that I need a man between myself and the Savior it says in the New Testament that Jesus is the only mediator between man and God he's the only one who holds who is a high priest who holds the milk has it it priests hood those things are very contrary to Mormon doctrine and at the end of that testimony he had read in isaiah 53:10 that when our savior paid the debt for our sin he saw his offspring and Micah said I read that and realized that meant that when he hung on the cross he paid for my sins he saw my face and that his love was so intense for me so he then bore testimony did you not know that Jesus loves you so much that when he paid for your sins on the cross he saw your face as he was bearing all of that pain for you now one of the missionaries that was in the audience tells this he said that was hardly a dry eye that's very nice very much unusual testimony to hear in Mormonism but again it's so different from Mormonism that they didn't quite know what to do with it Mike and his companion went back to his apartment two days went by the phone rang and the mission president called Mike in and said I need to inquire about your faith the Inquisition took probably two to three hours it was very hard Micah was very honest about what he'd read in the New Testament now you have to realize how pure this is he's got no one to talk to doesn't know any Christians he doesn't have access to anybody to ask questions from he's only read the New Testament scene where there were conflicts with Mormon doctrine and then decided that he would follow the Jesus of the New Testament which again set up a knowledge base for him that perhaps these were not the same Jesus's if they teach different ways to salvation right when Myka got out of that Inquisition he did something against the missionary rules he took his cell phone and called his parents I don't know if you know when Mormon missionaries are out they are they don't talk to their parents for two years except they're allowed to call home on Mother's Day and Christmas for kind of a brief conversation it's a real time of acculturation into Mormonism kind of a male rite of passage you know with the men leaders and the young men Micah called me told me what had happened said he thought the church would try to excommunicate him whoa were we shocked right we're just a strong and Mormonism as anybody can imagine and yet we trusted the kid's heart and so this was going to be tough for us soon after that my husband got a phone call from our church leader there our stake president there in Utah he told us that our son had the spirit of the devil in him that he was an antichrist that he was unworthy to be a Mormon missionary they were sending him home and they were trying to decide whether he should be excommunicated whether they would kind of sweep it under the rug or whether they were going to make it a public affair and make a you know make it public for him they said they had to call the Brethren in Salt Lake and that they would make the decision and then they would get back with us they put my gonna plane the next day he came home our stake president called us when we were at the airport on the way home and said bring him straight to my office it's like 10 o'clock on a Saturday night Mike and I do and that man let us know Mike I had the spirit of the devil in him called him referred to Alma one which is a story of a guy who used priests crafts to lead people to hell and then he asked us to bring Mike in front of the High Council the next morning which would have meant he'd have been excommunicated had he professed the god of grace instead of the God of Mormon laws and ordinances which is a God of works right Mike and I were so confused because we thought as Mormons we believed the God of the Bible right we honestly thought that they were the same the God of Mormonism and the God of the Bible because we just assumed that what was in the Bible except when it's not translated correctly that Mormon doctrine was true because we were confused Mike and I did not take him in the next morning and two days later put him on a plane and got him out of Utah until we could figure out what was happening to our family next this is Micah's family today his sweet little Elisha was his high school sweetheart he started writing her letters on his mission and saying read this passage of Scripture and tell me what you think and then she's writing back going wow did you read this did you read in Hebrews it says that Jesus is the only high priest and then the Holy Spirit was working on both of them so that by the time he was kicked off his mission she too had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and surrendered her life but she's the oldest in a very strong Mormon family and actually ended up getting a job out of the state and then calling her parents on the phone they called to let all of us know they were getting married in a Baptist Church and that was that was a big deal next I do not know what experience mica and the Lord had on his mission but when he became born-again he knew from the beginning that he would have a ministry and he knew that it would have a band and so from the day that he left Utah he was 20 at the time he started this ministry called Adams Road these are all former Mormons three of them former Mormon missionaries they have a Christian band that puts the word to music the word like Ephesians 2:8 9 the things that help show the differences and they travel and speak and what they do is mostly bear testimony then they'll play a song mostly bear testimony play a song it's just miraculous ok next this is our youngest daughter this is how good our God is one of those missionaries listening to Micah's testimony that day began to read the New Testament by the time he left his mission and went home to Kaysville Utah he surrendered his life to Jesus lost his Mormon fiance parents were displeased actually all of our daughters and sons and lost families are very strong LDS and very confused with what's happened to all of us but my daughter then ended up following falling in love with Micah's old missionary companion who then came to Jesus and also joined the mission the the ministry praise God he is yeah nobody could make this right what God does next yeah before my could got on the plane he he said to us mom and dad just read the New Testament please promise me you'll read the New Testament he didn't have time to talk to us you know his life was moving on but he challenged us to do the same thing that that pastor had challenged him to do that the pastor had challenged him to read the New Testament as a child with no preconceived notions and God will open your eyes next I began to read the New Testament then Mike and I sat up in bed at night trying to figure out what Jesus I only wanted to read the exact words of Jesus because I figure if I trust anybody to know the truth Jesus does so I started with those red letter words the Mormon Bible doesn't have red letter words but I got an NIV and it had red letter words so I knew exactly which ones came from Jesus and I started to read the Bible same thing happened to me that happened to Micah can't put it down becomes an obsession don't want to go to work don't wanna do my hair do my makeup all I want to do is read the Bible don't want to make dinner at night Mike loves to say that you know all of a sudden like he had to do stuff for himself because his wife was reading a Bible all the time this is what Mormons believe about the Bible I've alluded to this before we believe the Bible this is from there they have 13 articles of faith that's part of their scriptures it's the eighth article we believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it's translated correctly okay do you get that so they say a lot of the same things about the Bible that atheists will say about the Bible you know oh it's just been handed down and there are all these errors down through the years so it's the Mormon prophets that have to correct those kind of things in fact Joseph Smith actually did the jst Joseph Smith translation of the Bible so the Bible that the Mormons use now is the King James version but down in the bottom there are these footnotes to the Joseph Smith translation because Joseph Smith clarified some of those verses that weren't quite translated correctly next this is what Joseph Smith himself said about the Bible I believe the Bible is it read when it came from the pen of the original writers ignorant translators careless transcribers or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors so one of the things I had to deal with was could I trust the Bible and then this also comes from the Prophet Joseph Smith the founding proper of Mormonism there are many things in the Bible which do not as they now stand accord with the revelations of the Holy Ghost to me now the rizzoli ghost was talking to him and it wasn't according with the Bible next this is from the ensign magazine you know the ensign Mormons have a magazine that comes once a month that's called the ensign and it teaches them their doctrine and what they believe this is from about 10 years ago let's read this passage the Book of Mormon is the key stone in our witness of Jesus who is himself the cornerstone of everything we do it says in the introduction to the Book of Mormon this is the most correct book on earth that is what they believe that it bears witness of his reality with power and clarity and then it goes unlike the Bible which passed through generations of copyists translators in corrupt religionists who tampered with the text ok there you go you get the idea that when you talk to a Mormon you have to deal with the whole idea that they don't trust the Bible next the very first first that I read in the Bible with it was this John 1:1 in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and I went wait a minute the word is Jesus he was with God from the beginning and he was God from the beginning I had been taught for 30 years that Jesus had started out as a mortal man and worked his way to godhood the father also started out as a man and worked his way to godhood they were not God from the beginning from eternity to eternity the very first verse I read it's not like I hadn't read this before I taught the Bible in Mormon Seminary I think God opened my eyes okay next you'll love this this is Joseph Smith's new translation the Bible next this is what Joseph Smith did which on 1 1 in the beginning was the gospel preached through the son and the gospel was the word and the Word was with the son and the son was with God and the son was of God not the same meaning next when I began to read this wonderful New Testament one of my favorite verses was John 6:44 no one can come to me Jesus says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and when I read that verse I went I think I am being drawn all of a sudden everything was changing and you know I had loved to BYU couldn't wait to get up in the morning and go to work and now I could hardly force myself to go I just wanted to read his word the next thing I came upon that that really blew my mind was this now remember we'd worked 10 years in the temple the God who made the world and everything in it is the lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands that's a direct contradiction to what Mormons teach I was taught that I could get closer to God in the celestial room of a Mormon temple that's why you build them so people will go there and pray that's one of the reasons but that's not what the Bible says the Bible says the opposite and over and over and over and over I ran into doctrines that were contrary and then this one we are the Temple of the Living God and then I began to realize once Christ came there was no more need for the temple he split the curtain and now we have direct access to God through the Lord Jesus Christ you know all of those things became real to me then next as I've told you I didn't really trust the Bible but this is what I read in the Bible Matthew 24:35 having a nurse will pass away but my words will never pass away well what does that mean is he able to keep his word together or is he not and I went wow we've got a God here who's big enough he's able to keep his word together and man can't mess with it that's a pretty cool God and then in Isaiah it says so is my word that goes out from my mouth it will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it what works to bring people to Jesus he tells us right there it's the Word of God and what worked for me was to see where the Word of God was in direct contradiction to what I was believing and it set up a decision do I believe this or do I believe this because you can't have them both cuz they're opposite next I also believe that the Mormon Church was the Church of Christ on the earth I believe that when Christ returned he was going to rule and reign the government from the Mormon Church does that help you understand why it's important to have Mormons in the military and the CIA and in the government because then Jesus can come and rule right okay say I also was taught that before Jesus comes again he will come to the Mormon priesthood for a priesthood meeting in Missouri but this is what I read in the Bible and I tell you you are Peter and on this rock who's the rock Jesus is the rock who's the rock the Mormon Church says the rock is the rock of Revelation to their living prophets but when I when I read this my eyes were open to the fact that Jesus is the rock he builds his church he's the cornerstone and the gates of hell won't prevail against it Mormonism teaches that when the last of the Twelve Apostles died when Joe well it wasn't John because they believed John is still alive and walking the earth it says in their scriptures that there are three Nephites from the Book of Mormon that are still alive until the second coming and that John the beloved is still walking the earth they don't believe that he died but they say that when the last of the eleven apostles died the church went into a great apostasy now now think of this for a minute so Christ established a church but it failed it didn't survive for very long and then it failed right it failed when the Apostles died they also believed that Christ after his resurrection appeared to the Book of Mormon people in America and he established 12 apostles there and he established his church there but it also failed so Jesus has failed twice now who and then there's a quote from Joseph Smith that boasts that he's done more than any man to keep a church together even Jesus was unable to do what Peter was unable to do what Jesus was unable to do it but the Latter day Saints have not run away from me yet if you read the book that quote is in the book where does it come from it comes from their own history one of Joseph Smith's secretaries wrote it down and it's part of part of their history but this says that he established his church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it so either ones true or the others true but think about what that means if the church went into a great apostasy then when the whole Council of Nicaea all of those things that happened down through the ages are not Christ Church that's what they believe and then when the Protestants came along and Martin Luther and Calvin and the Reformation us that's not Jesus Church Jesus Church had to be restored by Joseph Smith in 1830 and that Jesus Church did not come back to the earth after the great apostasy until Joseph Smith and that Christ will then return to rule and reign from the Mormon Church and never again will there be an apostasy again that's very different than what the Bible teaches next I read the Bible day and night lunchtime I really was obsessed to find out the truth and eventually I trusted not just the words of Jesus but then it was like see I'm a researcher and I'm talking okay that's a that's a first source that's a primary source Jesus okay now I'm gonna trust a secondary source those are his disciples because they were with him right okay then I'll trust that and then maybe I'll listen to what Paul has to say who knows that was the way I went but I'm reading this Bible and then Mike and I step out to go to a Protestant church two hours away we drove two hours away from our house because Alpine Utah is 98% LDS and we don't want anybody to see us stepping out and going - that's a huge I mean send in somebody goes to tell your bishop then he calls you in then you're honest and all of a sudden you've got a problem I'd have lost my job at BYU because I'd have lost my temple recommend and you have to have one to stay at BYU ten months of reading the Bible and one night I saw the movie Luther has anyone seen the movie Luther and the Spirit was just talking to me I felt like Martin Luther for hiding against all this legalism these laws and ordinances and all I needed was Jesus and at the end of that movie I was at the end of myself and weeping and my husband and daughter went to bed and I laid facedown prostate on the floor and I cried and I put my arms out in the shape of a cross and honestly I did not even know I was a sinner all I said was I'm yours save me that's exactly what what Martin Luther had said and from that point on the strangest thing started like God was answering prayers what is that about I mean I had put up these ritual prayers we were taught exactly how to pray and there was a pattern for prayer and you had to say the end now in order to be respectful there was none of this hey Jesus you and me hanging together relationship stuff he's a big God the one who puts the hammer down you better be nice to him that was the way I thought of him right and now all of a sudden I'm talking to him it's sometimes he's talking back freaking me out you know answering my questions like I'd read sup in the Bible not know what it meant and then the next week I'd go to church the pastor what answer it's like oh that was a strange coincidence or somebody would walk up to me and answer a question I had you know this new life and Jesus was a strange kind of supernatural I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone and it it really was kind of frightening because it was so different from religion that I had known before and I truly believe that was the night that I became born again that was October of 2006 our second son was already there his girlfriend from BYU was already there my daughter was already there and my husband was a little bit behind us um he was enjoying his priesthood privileges and like he said he didn't like the fact that I wasn't making dinner much anymore next ah so this really this really was what all of us had to figure out it says in the Doctrine and Covenants which is Mormon scripture that the LDS Church is the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth was with which I the Lord and while pleased so I believe that Christians had a little bit of the truth it was my job to give them the fullness of the truth says the Book of Mormon is the fullness of the gospel right so they add on of course and they have up extra biblical scriptures next Mormons believe that you are say this is again from their articles of faith by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Mormon gospel what does the Bible say you are saved by faith in Jesus by grace through faith in Jesus alone amen is this works based if you ask a Mormon if they have a workspace faith they'll say no we don't we don't do works to be saved but but to a Christian is that works based if you have to obey the laws and ordinances look at this from the Book of Mormon for we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do and what did the prophets teach us what did the ensign teach us that means you have to do everything that you are told to do you have to keep a temple you have to earn your temple recommend you have to keep it you have to bravely go to the temple you have to do genealogy so you can get names of the dead people will Satan take them to the temple so that they'll be saved in the next life I mean you have to do all these things I was on a gerbil wheel extraordinaire it never ends if you have some held es friends reach out and love them pray with them just pray with them trust in Jesus the Jesus that they know requires quite a bit of works and part of those works are going to the Mormon temple next you you know this change is almost daily so I'm not even sure if 142 is up to date they're building a new one near us in Fort Lauderdale Florida and I know you have a new one here and then another one coming as well you cannot go to a Mormon temple you know they have Mormon meeting houses for Sunday and for evening activities just like Christians have but they also have temples but you have to earn your privilege to go to the temple and there are 14 things that you have to do things like keep the word of wisdom which is a health code that you have to live profess faith and Joseph Smith attend your meetings pay your tithing for at least a year oh wait a minute you have to pay before you can get a temple recommend well what does the temple recommend get you it it's you life in the next life with Jesus and Heavenly Father to a Christian that's heaven right but to a Mormon there are three degrees of heaven it's kind of universal salvation doesn't matter what you do you can get to the bottom one the middle one is for good Christians and bad Mormons and then the upper one is for those who go to the temple and the upper one has three different levels it's called the celestial kingdom and at the top of the celestial kingdom you can work your way to godhood while men can you can work your way to godhood live polygamy in the next life have your own world and people it now this is not a doctrine that you like to talk about and often like youth won't even know this until they've been in priesthood for a time but it's right in their scriptures I can show you all these things right in the scriptures okay next purposes of the temple well the first reason you go there is to receive instruction to know how you can be exalted to the highest heaven but you know what you never know if you're saved in this life because you have to do your works and endure to the end and then like that verse says saved by grace after all we do you don't know if you've done enough until you get to the end of life and then it says Jesus grace will kick in and do the rest but because you don't know you're constantly working working working working right okay so you go to get instruction what they are you learn handshakes and you learn signs and tokens and you make covenants when you're in the temple what I know now that I'm out of Mormonism it's a lot of that is Masonic Joseph Smith was a Mason he stole it from the Masons and put it in the Mormon temple had no idea about that when I was a Mormon didn't know anything about masonry second reason you go to the temple to is to receive saving ordinances so you can't be saved without the laws in the ordinances what are the ordinances baptism have to be baptized you have to be baptized into the Mormon Church Mormon priesthood holders have to lay hands on your head to give you the gift of the Holy Ghost then males need the priesthood and then you receive washings and anointings in the temple the endowment is your instructions so you know how to get to the highest heaven and then marriage sealing those are some of the things that go on in the temple those are the more kind of normal things that go on in the temple and then the last thing that goes on in the temple and of course you can see this is from their scriptures Doctrine and Covenants 128 and 138 is redeeming the dead it says in Mormon scripture that you can't be saved without your ancestors you you understand that when families are huge if you've been warming for generations it's very hard to come out because you feel this obligation to your fathers and their fathers you know there's all this heritage and it says in the Doctrine and Covenants that you can't be saved without your dead so they believe there's this chain from you all the way back to Adam so you have to do your genealogy find out who's connected who's connected who's connected and then you take their name to the temple and I would take my female ancestors name to the temple and go through all the ordinances I'd be baptized for her and her name even though she's dead I'd receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for her do Washington oins for her the endowment and seal her in marriage and then on the other side we believe that everybody would accept the Mormon Church you probably know the Mormon Church actually took all the Holocaust victims through the temple and made them warming there was actually a lawsuit with the Jews over that the founding fathers you know they've taken through the temple and that is what ancestry.com is all about I noticed they announced maybe last week that ancestry.com is now free if you remember the Mormon Church so you know and you can get on there if you're in New York and wear the Statue of Liberty is then you go in there you know you can get on ancestry.com and look up your ancestry next what does the Bible say about ordinances being secret I was shocked when I read this jesus said I have spoken openly to the world I said nothing in secret could I talk about when I went on in the Mormon temple I actually took an oath to have my throat slit or my bowels cut out if I told anyone what happened outside of the temple and that was in the temple until 1990 so think of all the people you know that would have made that covenant for someone to kill me if I is that secret well how did you say about secret what'd I tell you in the dark speak in the daylight what is whispered in your ear proclaimed from the rooftops there is nothing that he taught that should be secret Mormons talk a lot about milk before meat we don't tell them everything right away because they can only accept this so when the Mormon missionaries go to the door they offer the Book of Mormon which by the way is very much like the Bible part of it's something like 20 some chapters plagiarized right out of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon Matthew 5 the Beatitudes Plato right in the Book of Mormon so it's gonna sound very Christian but they're not going to give you the Doctrine and Covenants or the pearl of great price which are the other scriptures that they call meat okay they don't like to talk about the things the deep doctrines and then Matthew 12 6 I tell you something or someone greater than the temple is here is that not a verse to be sat out on your church marquees around that new mormon temple something greater than the temple is here Jesus himself said that amen okay next the Jesus the Bible says salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we may be saved amen I certainly never intended to be in ministry this has been all God's doing do you see God created the story one day I was in tears telling Micah I'm so sorry I taught you something that I now believe is not true all of your life and he said to me mom do you not realize that God is at his hand on this story from the beginning for His purposes what are his purposes they're always to bring people to Jesus yes so that people might receive salvation tens of thousands of Mormons are leaving the church do you know that are you aware of that the estimates that I've heard are possibly as high as three hundred thousand and that's about the amount that they baptize every year so it might be that they're just holding steady now Mike and I hear from people every day leaving the Mormon Church now what happens they get on the internet they find out about the history they find out that Joseph Smith had thirty three wives 11 of them were Mary two other men at the time then he said those men on missions you know and and there were women as young as 14 and they go whoa something's wrong here and then they're done with the faith but because they thought they had Jesus Christ they are done with him does that make sense there has never been a time when evangelizing folks who are lost is so critical God is raising many people like our family up who have come to know Christ who were reaching back that's a huge mission filled tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of folks who were disaffected and we advertise in the public because often a lot of those people will come here and for the first time know that their Jesus is a different Jesus than the biblical Jesus and the biblical Jesus is powerful to save and we give him all the glory for what he has done and for what he is doing and we pray while we're here that we can equip you to have some desire to reach out and some knowledge about how to do that and I say this in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus you

Channel: Women's Bible Study

Views: 7,625

Keywords: Bible, Study, Lynn Wilder, Mormonism, Christianity

Id: p6YW4gzYp6I

Length: 61min 19sec (3679 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 10 2014