Unveiling Grace: Leaving the Mormon Church | Lynn and Mike Wilder

they're so will you join me in prayer please god I'm I'm praying to you now because even something like this talking about Mormonism having people come into our into our church here today at uh on a Saturday afternoon we can do nothing good apart from you so god any good thing that comes from this we recognize that it's you it's your work it's your doing and so I ask you please be active in this room use our time use the speakers use use all of us to make much of Christ's let us see him for how wonderful he is let us see him and all of his glory and goodness in the way that you have worked in lives and changed lives and are using lives for for your kingdom and your glory God we we want that more than anything else we want you to shine your light brightly in this room and so please God be gracious to us please God be present and active in our midst in your name I pray Jesus amen all right before we get started I want to introduce Andy Andy's coming to church here and he's going to introduce our speakers today and so uh Andy take it away thank you Pastor John all right so I'm really grateful to be here today to introduce Lynn and Michael Wilder I first want to tell you a little bit why they're having me come up here and say anything at all is I was born and raised LDS and I am NOT like Micah or any of the others in his family I didn't trust the Bible I believe the Bible was corrupt because of what I had been taught and so on before I believed in anything I had to be convinced about the reliability of the Bible I'm really jealous of Micah I'm really jealous of Lynn and Michael and how they came out because what they did is they just took the Bible in hand and they read it like a child to find out what it said I wish I would have been like that but I had to go the hard route to get there and so I'm very grateful to be here today and to introduce both Lynn and Micah or Michael I'm sorry keep getting Micah in there Michael Wilder today if they want to come on up to and tell their stories today these it's unbelievable background that with Mike I don't know if you guys know the story of Micah but Micah was out on his LDS mission and was challenged by a pastor just to read the Bible like a child and so he started doing that and he became converted to Christianity and had to leave his mission early because he converted and said he only needed Jesus and he didn't need Joseph it's a great story though it's a God story but here's the deal he told this same thing you know when I went to my family members I just thought if I could sink the Joseph Smith boat and I fired all my bombs at Joseph Smith my family still won't talk to me today still won't talk to me about anything that has to do with religion why because I sunk the the bridge between us to be able to have a conversation what Micah does is he just goes to Lin and he says into his father and says just read the Bible like a child and you'll understand what I'm talking about and for whatever reason they decided to do that and so I like them to come up and before I steal all of their thunder and tell their story I'm very grateful for them to be here to here's Lynn in Michael Wilder thank you first it made your first mistake okay we'll have to Craig you do not crack clap for us okay you clap for him okay we're just a messenger we just preach the good news we preach what God has done there are wise but we do appreciate that so instead of clapping you destroy us money later on but we do this for the money yes yes so I have to admit you know Andy's you know Andy's got really good taste in clothes you know that blue shirt but when you a work we're glad to be here and now always and I was driving in and I see the church and when I see a church with a cross on top of Isis that's a good church okay that's that's where I want to want to go for we know and Corinthians 1:18 for the preaching of the Cross is to those who are perishing right but to us who are saved it is the power of God so so anyway we've just had a great time here we get a chance to travel from all over the you know from from England to California and we really have a chance to eat out it look really a lot of nice places in England um you know we ate in a pub that was built in 1450 Darwin even ate there and actually across the street he gave the money he gave a lot of his wealth to form a Baptist Church I guess he didn't like the Church of England or something but so you know and we're here in this valley we're really enjoying the great food the other night we ate at Whataburger um and it was just fantastic and the other night we ate at Culver's and they had unlimited caffeinated drinks I was just amazed and I just told Lynn I really I said this is so good you can even have an ice cream tonight so at Culver's but they did make a mistake and I looked at the bill I can't believe that they gave me a senior citizens discount but they didn't get one to live I have no idea why so you know scientist I keep marching on well anyway wait wait but the most important place we recently was Walmart yes you can get a footlong subway for five dollars and 74 cents and all the mayonnaise you can carry it but anyway let's let's March on here so this is the lens book it's about us here oh that's great Lin take this part here if there are any LTS with us we welcome you we love you to death we were LDS for 30 years and very very active LDS certainly believed it was true Mike and I worked in a temple I mean the next slide will show you some of the things we did but so I was a tenured professor at Brigham Young from 1999 I was there too 2008 my doctorates in emotional and behavioral disorders I was in the department of counseling psychology and special education all of our sons we have three sons they all served LDS missions we taught early-morning seminary when we lived in Indiana kind of preparing the high school youth for their missions and the last the last calling we had was co-chairs of the Redeem the Dead Committee so we'll tell you a little more about that but yeah we were really really I back in 2005 I absolutely believed that you had to belong to the Mormon Church you had to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saint if you're a man you had to receive the priesthood you had to be a temple endowed you had to be dead sealed your wife to live in the presence of God and you had to keep doing that's the rest your life and hopefully you would do enough at the end that grace would kick in I truly believe that okay I used to refer to myself as a religious righteous holy man until Jesus got ahold of me then you realize them I'm not so righteous but we state this not the boast because there's only one thing we boast of and what do we boast of Jesus and the the cross okay so so we'll just move through here very very quickly we love this this is not just applicable to us this is applicable to Andy to every person here when you read this put yourself in that spot look at this who saved us and called us to a holy calling not because of our works not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace which he is which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began Wow that's hard to absorb I think the idea that before the ages began God would call you to himself for a purpose it that just took me quite a while to absorb and in our story I hope you'll see that God was working with us for a long time and we had no idea and then all of a sudden everything became clear yeah so this is going back a few years now as you can see I have not changed any my lineal lover okay so that's us those pants are stealing my closet they're going to they're gonna come back any day now but can he get them well that's the question okay so so here's the empirical evidence that we were baptized October 28 1977 and here we are at the Washington DC temple we lived in Muncie Indiana now Muncie Indiana is a very important city it's the home of Garfield the cat David Letterman came out of there so all kinds of important people come out of munching so so here we are at the temple that was our temple okay we drove from Muncie Indiana to the Washington DC temple as many times as we could during the year we were not wealthy then and we're not wealthy now but but we took all of our money to do this now when you look at this picture it's not like we went in the temple and came out with three children okay so we got those the normal way okay the the usual way M&D is right the OTS temple that's where we went and served for many many years in Washington DC that picture we would actually hire a babysitter go get a hotel room get multiple rooms the babysitter would stay with the children all day long and then we would go to the LDS temple and do endowments for 10 to 12 hours from the beginning when they opened to the very end and we do this for three or four days that's how dedicated we were then the life got really easy later on when we were called to work in the temple to be ordinance workers in the temple while we were to drive from Muncie Indiana to Chicago and that was only four hours so that was an easy trip okay to work in the temple but that's how dedicated we were okay so in 1999 we move from Muncie Indiana to a Utah and ten started her job as a professor I had the business in Indiana and then I expanded my business and Utah and things were going this is our Mormon family in 2001 okay life was wonderful okay our sons were going on missions we were all active land became a tenured professor BYU my business was doing great life was just as good as it could be love living in Alpine Utah 99.99999% LDS great place in the beautiful mountains we looked into it a wall search range life was great and tell this Jesus gets in the picture it's just you know it just as Andy was kind of indicating with with so so our oldest son serves a mission of Russia okay very hard mission he goes out at 200 pounds he comes back 150 pounds it was a very almost lost his life a couple times very hard mission Matt our pianist our middle son went to Denmark he travelled to land and sea is what he likes to say and this is Micah our most zealous son okay he this is the mission call if you've been called on a mission when that happened that's that's just a wonderful time in an LDS family's life and if people say their sounds going on mission order dollars you should be excited for him you know I mean just kind of participate with them you know you it's sad and away but but you know try to find something common to talk about on that so the the post office called us at 5 o'clock in the morning said hey Wilder's we've got your sense of mission call here would you like to come pick it out yeah we drive in that crazy we drive down to the post office pick it up this is our back in our home at 6 o'clock in the morning ok and mike is getting ready to find where god wants to call him on his mission ok this is a calling from God through the prophet okay so Micah is called to the emergency room okay that's his calling well not really but God has everything in control he knows the beginning from the end and Micah was originally called to Mexico City okay to serve there on his mission so we were really proud boasting parents because all of our kids have served outside the United States and there's a weird written Mormonism that if your culture are called outside to a foreign mission we are more righteous than family so even though we're converts but that's that was the saying you know and not not all people but but that's what we felt that's these how I felt okay because remember I'm enriched really just righteous holy man so um so here we are in the emergency room and God who he's an athlete ran track basketball his lung collapse at the MPC and Provo okay missionary training stationary training center okay so they call us we live in Alpine we left 45 minutes away we go down to the emergency room because I asked now this is how trained I am when they called and said Micah's in the emergency room I said well that's that's terrible I wasn't even going to go I'm that trained he's on his mission and the guy said would you want to come wait I guess I was okay and he said yeah yeah it's okay so we we actually go I mean that's how I'm thinking okay so we go through this and this is the family this is how we felt well then you can read this better than I can because I can't see what that like so but this is the Jews Paul speaking Paul's talking about the Jews and this is applicable to our family ourselves he says my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved this is now our heart for the Mormons for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God do you know any mormon who doesn't love god who doesn't want God who doesn't believe they're following the right God that doesn't believe that they're following after Jesus right would you say they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge the knowledge that's in the Bible right in the scriptures for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own righteousness right which we were doing by paying our tithing holding callings attending church living the word of wisdom having a temple read recommend standing our kids on missions all of those things I believed made me righteous before God and gave me kind of this higher standing right Christians don't do that we're all wretched sinners only what Jesus did for us makes any sense right but as a Mormon I was seeking to establish my own righteousness and I did not submit to God's righteousness I would not have understood this verse at the time right so God changes his mind at least from a Mormon concept where Mike is supposed to go and this is a logical change because they don't want to send him in Mexico City the LDS Church because it's high altitude and pollution and he has anak it doesn't doesn't go well can you hear him okay yeah okay can you hear me can you hear me now so so God decided to send Micah to the happiest place on earth and where is that Orlando Florida so so that's where you went so this is in Florida and as Andy was teaching and we can't go through the whole store we'd spend 45 minutes 60 minutes just explaining that story but this basically summarizes what happened Micah that he tries to convert a couple pastors in the Bible Belt didn't work out well to Mormonism yeah to Mormonism you know he thought if he could convert the pastor he convert the whole congregation he mycological thing and the one pastor really challenged him to just go back and read the Bible as a child you know to just take away and Micah said you know he says I was so upset because he taught him the gospel he never heard the gospel before so he was challenged so Micah left and Micah decided to read the Bible from his own arrogance and being stubborn and his own pride because he said I am going to study the Bible and I'm gonna prove Mormonism is correct from the Bible and I'm going back to that pastor and prove to him that he's incorrect God can use your own pride our own arrogance against us and that's what happened to Micah so he becomes he becomes born-again with like three weeks left on your mission and when you're born again and your Mormon missionary that just does not work out very well right but but he's born again and he's not knowing what to do and he's called at the last second his leader says Micah you're going to go home you've been a leader in our you've been zone leader and you've done this you've done that district leader everything we want you to speak to the group and tell everybody what you have learned in the last two years of your mission so as a young man of twenty you can do two things you can stand up there and lie but he couldn't and he testify of Christ only about the work he did on the cross and we have friends who now come become Christians who was in that same congregation returned missionaries they said there was not a dry eye in there they had not heard a testimony like that of Jesus before and but the problem with Micah's testimony he only testified of Jesus and that Jesus is enough instead of testifying that the Mormon Church is the only true church upon the face of the earth the Book of Mormon is the word of God the only correct Word of God that we have a current Mormon prophet today and that Joseph Smith was a prophet and restored the LDS Church he left out those four other pillars Micah just testified at Christ and so what happened the mission president called him in and ask him what he believed and it was we call it the Mormon Inquisition so so he you know he just told the president that he didn't need a man between him and God that his relationship with God was direct from him through Christ Jesus to God that he didn't need a prophet he didn't need an organization to save him or a man to give him authority and I think over well okay so Micah was sent home that was in the private mean he didn't say that openly to everybody else he just spoke of Jesus but privately that's what he said to the mission president he was sent home he was called an antichrist he was called he had the spirit of the devil in him and here where did the active Mormon family just as happy as could be and our zell son I get a call from my state president now you have to understand I'm a high priest okay he's made a high priest when I was a ranking old age of 36 and that my state president has authority over me he basically has my salvation his hands and the state president calls me on a phone at my office and I he says brother Wilder is the president so and so we've got a problem with your son and I thought you know maybe he's in an accident or something he says your son has the devil in him he specifically said that to me and again I am so trained did I even challenge the state president you know I just said what do I say when somebody tells you your son has the spirit of the devil in him so anyway comes home and as Andy said earlier he's there we don't know what to do life is totally confusing so we get Micah home and it looks like they were going to try to excommunicate him so we said yeah let's get him out of Utah so I get a ticket but and he's only home for less than 48 hours he comes home and we get him back to Florida okay until we can figure what the heck's going on but Micah said one thing at the airport when we were leaving and as we were having we doesn't greet her son after two years now horse they can goodbye to him again he says mom and dad I plead with you go back and read the New Testament especially as a child take away your preconceived notions of Mormon we know what you Billy he didn't say the word more he just said what you believe and I love my son I have a lot of respect for him I love all my children and I said I'll do it expecting the same thing that he did well as the more I study the Bible you know I will prove Mormonism correct so we go on here and life is great so so that's what he said to us and this is actually a picture of a the Sea of Galilee in the we've ever have a chance to go to Israel we've been there three times we just go we just love going to Israel but but anyway this has lens story so I'll let you take still got some Brie stirred in okay well you know I probably will stand to the side here because and Linda's great and she's a professor okay now remember when she speaks you have to take notes and at the end there would be an exam and if you pass it you're saved and if not but the but anyway so I you know last week she made a mistake when she was speaking them had a gently correct her so she was talking about the gospel was for all mankind and I said you mean people kind so according to John Durban it's human coming in here okay well anyway take it away Lyn your show I'm never sure what he's gonna say it's always a little scared yeah and he may interrupt yet and say something that scares me I have nightmares so we knew something so profound it happened to this kid because he didn't seem like the same kid that we'd sent out on a mission and he was so sure that he was right right and he just kept talking about Jesus and we had no idea what he was talking about most of the time I remember when he got sent home telling us mom and dad I'm gonna have a ministry you know as a Mormon I had no idea what a ministry a Christian ministry was I remember saying does that mean you're gonna start your own church and actually the rumor went around BYU that my son had gotten kicked off his mission and started his own church it wasn't true thank God it stayed around the students and never got to the professors that I was working with had all of that hit above me things would have been really hard but here's the issue I didn't trust the Bible I was taught not to trust the Bible because it sometimes mistranslated right that's actually Mormon scripture so Mormons have four books of Scripture three of them are perfect came directly from Jesus to Joseph Smith got written down supposedly and then we have the Bible but it's sometimes not translated correctly those would be all four Mormon scriptures together in a quad if you've never seen one of those this is Mormon scripture we believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it's translated correctly so you've got this caveat honor but the Book of Mormon is the most correct book on the face of the earth that's what I believed all those years so when Micah challenged us to read the Bible I honestly did not think I could find truth in the Bible and I went to the Book of Mormon looking for the red letter words of Jesus thinking I just want to hear what Jesus has to say because that's what I trust I'm looking through the Book of Mormon going oh oh no direct words from Jesus right except one little place in the Book of Mormon 3rd Nephi where Jesus supposedly visits after he resurrected visits people in the America and he speaks to them I'm thinking here we go here's truth and I read it and it's the Beatitudes out of Matthew 5 and my brain goes I guess I'm gonna have to go to the New Testament in order to hear the words of Jesus well here's the thing I'm a trained researcher so Jesus is the primary source right I think I can trust maybe what he says and then if I get through that stuff and it makes any sense then I'll start reading from the Apostles cuz that's a secondary source because they were with him and they heard what he said right so that's how I went after it but this tells you how much Mormonism does not trust the Bible these are quotes from Joseph Smith I believe the Bible is it read when it came from the pen of the original writers atheists will sometimes say this but ignorant translators careless transcribers or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors is that true that's not true how do we know I'll tell you in a minute and there are many things in the Bible which do not as they now stand a chord with the revelations of the Holy Ghost to me so some Holy Ghost was talking to Joseph Smith and it wasn't lining up with the Bible so he's believing his Holy Ghost is that a problem according to the Bible that is a problem according to the Bible this is right in the Book of Mormon still there today after the Bible had gone forth through the hands of that great and abominable church that be the Catholic Church and the Protestant church right there are things taken away from the Bible and because of these things which are taken out of the gospel and exceedingly great many do stumble yay in so much that Satan has great power over them that's what I believed about the Christians who believed the Bible but as I'm reading this Bible because Michael Micah challenged me I'm starting to run upon things that Jesus himself said about the Bible heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away do you know the Bible says 3,800 times the Word of God do you think he's trying to tell us something that it's reliable but we don't just have the words from the Bible to trust we have evidence reason logic and not only do we have a little for the Bible it's so overwhelming it's crazy what God has done 25,000 archaeological digs that prove the people place events of the Bible happened right we have secular historical sources of people from the first century who said Christians were going around saying Jesus had risen from the dead and they weren't even believers but they wrote that down they were historians right we have more than 5,800 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek alone so okay the Mormons say some passengers are mistranslated so I might have 800 copies of the same passage do you think if somebody gotten something got mistranslated I'd be able to trace it down or figure it out God has made the evidence for the reliability the Bible so overwhelming it's as if this God of love actually wants people to believe him and find him that was a huge AHA for me whoa it's not hidden it's not like just a few people can go to the temple and learn the truth right this is a God who makes it really clear and not just clarified overwhelming that we should believe the Bible and listen to him we also have linguistic evidence botanical evidence it just goes on and on and on and on but as a Mormon I did not know your Bible had this evidence no Christian never told me that have you ever told anybody that or do you just like assume it right what about the Book of Mormon how many archaeological digs are there do you know the Mormon Church actually has one in Israel now that they say is father Lehigh's house I'm pretty sure soon it'll be like Disney World with busses going back and forth but I've talked to archaeologists actually in Israel that say what the Mormons say it is it is not and there are a number of reasons for that well I started getting really interested in what the Bible was say see the little sheep with their head up yeah I felt like all those years I've just been following along blind faith we even called it Mormonism just following along and all of a sudden I'm paying attention wait this might not be what I thought it was and part of that's because I think I went to bu are you I know I'm in the heart of things and general authorities are bumping up against us do you know that the Mormon prophet is always the president of the board of directors of BYU and six of the Twelve Apostles sit on the board of directors they beware you that they call it the school of the prophets it's the place for training future church leaders but also training future secular leaders who will go out and then influence other people for the Mormon Church so someone like Mitt Romney for example goes to be where you undergrad goes on a mission goes to BYU undergrad gets a good worthy temple recommend holding wife right that's what you go to be where you for right to get your Mrs degree is what the women used to say well actually this is this was typical in my neighborhood that the husband would go on a mission come home from his mission marry in the temple and they tell him within six months get married right away right get married right away in the temple marry a girl often right out of high school at least in Utah where I was so you've already got an age difference between the man and the woman and then the guy goes on and gets his advanced degrees she works right so in the end you have a man a few years older with a little bit of priesthood authority you have a woman younger who ends up was not as much education and so you set up this kind of unequal thing lots of that in my neighborhood I had 18 young women who were laurel seniors in high school that I was teaching I'm talking to them about independence and how excited to live on your own and go to college and this was in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Alpine do you know within one year of graduation every one of those 18 girls were married that is typical in the culture very unusual for Christians I know as I'm reading the Bible I just started bumping up against things that were anti-mormon things that were the exact opposite of what I'd learned in Mormonism this one threw me God doesn't live in temples made by human hands I'd been taught we're actually gonna talk a little more about the temple today because we were asked to address that and then we're gonna do a QA so you can be thinking about whatever questions you have Mike and I worked in a temple for 10 years we know all the ordinances all of that kind of stuff we we're not disrespectful we're not going to show you any garments or anything like that but this was another huge thing for me do you know that the Book of Mormon teaches prosperity gospel this is what it says those that keep the commandments of God are blessed in all things both temporal and spiritual so you're gonna be spiritually blessed and temporally blessed well we thought because we had good jobs nice house that those were good things that were blessings from God because we were righteous and living the commandments that's a huge burden right that you're Mormons friends have running on this gerbil wheel trying to keep up with the Joneses and all of that kind of stuff it's hard but the Bible I started reading things like if you're gonna be a believer you're gonna have persecutions trials when you're weak that's a good thing then Jesus can be strong that you should be happy when you face trials that trials can actually be good that they build character or that kind of stuff that was an exact opposite gospel for me and that went through me big-time it's a great story in the book unveiling grace that tells our story about how Micah went on a ward Trek one time pulling a hand cart they were sleeping outside in Wyoming and sheep country he gets bit by a tick he gets Rocky Mountain spotted fever we come back to the ward he's between life and death for twenty-one days and I can't get a Mormon to come give him an oil anointed blessing mike rizzo to town one day and i'm pounding on my neighbor's doors begging somebody to come give him an oil anointed blessing so so he doesn't die and then it occurred to me I bet they think either Micah or I have done something wrong that would cause this trial to come into my family so think about it in a Mormon family if somebody gets cancer or somebody dies you have to have great sympathy to love folks who would believe that that would be a result somehow of their actions right that somehow it's all about you our ministry motto now is this actually came from Micah Jesus is enough right now have my wristband on I tweeted that out one day Jesus is enough period and the Mormon Church tweeted back you all in caps are enough period therein lies the major difference either you're responsible for being good enough that God would be pleased and pour his grace on you or Jesus did it all on the cross and it's a free gift hugely different Gospels write hugely different this one two blew me away and I'll run through this fairly fairly quickly in the beginning was the word the Word was with God and the Word was God wait a minute Jesus wasn't God from the beginning he worked his way to godhood right that's what I had been taught so I actually went to the footnotes in my Mormon King James and here's the thing about our Mormon King James Bible it cross references to other Mormon places and the footnote sometimes have Mormon explanations so there's something called the Joseph Smith translation I don't know if you know before Joseph Smith died he went through the entire Bible and fixed all the things that were wrong with it it's called the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible I didn't know that he had done the whole Bible but I did know that the footnotes in here sometimes took me to the jst and when I looked at John 1:1 in the Mormon King James Version it took me to the jst and so Joseph Smith had changed that verse and this is what he changed it to 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 that's not the same thing and then I realized Joseph Smith had changed the whole first chapter of John which is the nature of God and then I began to think the Mormons and the Christians might have a different God and maybe that's why Micah was in so much trouble and they tried to excommunicate him maybe someone knew that and I hadn't figured it out right great apostasy the church teaches there was a great apostasy I can tell you just about anything that the Mormon Church teaches there are going to be Bible verses and words of Jesus himself that refute that teaching well I read the Bible for about 10 months and I really was blown away because it was so different from the gospel of Mormonism and one day I hit this first Matthew 10:38 no that's not the one I'm getting there it was as if God was talking right to me see I've been reading these scriptures I'm intellectually taking all this in I'm sorting Mormonism teaches this but Jesus himself said the exact opposite what am I gonna do with that and then I hit this first it was as if God was pointing his finger right at me these are the scriptures these are the very scriptures that testify of me I mean you can read them intellectually but you refuse to come to me to have life man this was a whole new gospel I didn't understand this I had to somehow surrender everything to Jesus I had what does that mean come to you trying to figure that out and then when I hit this one I thought okay this is my answer whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life you don't have to wait till the end of your life to see if you've done enough good works that God's grace might kick in that is exactly what islam teaches Mormonism and Islam are twin faiths almost exactly the same you just would not even believe it Islam has five pillars one of them is sometime in your lifetime if you want to be saved you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca do you know that if you don't get to make a pilgrimage to Mecca in your lifetime that after you're dead someone can go in proxy for you in your name so that in the next life that might add to your good works does that sound familiar how do I know this because this book unveiling grace now we have muslem converts who have been on the harsh amazing stuff God's up to Joseph Smith called himself to second Muhammad another angel brings another gospel has this demonic experience you know at the beginning of the first vision in Mormonism Joseph Smith says he's overwhelmed by darkness he thinks he's gonna die and then all of a sudden he sees light with the father and the son same thing happened to Mohammad in the cave with his angel workspace' faith never know on this in this world if you're saved right and yet the Bible over and over says you can know right now you can have eternal life it's simple you don't have to work yourself crazy and then and then figure out so whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged won't be at the white throne judgment to be judged for my works but is crossed over from death to life and there came a night a cold October night in 2006 when I lay facedown on my carpet and I begged the Lord to cross me over and all I said was I'm Yours I don't know where the heck I'm going I don't know even what this means but I know that I need to surrender the rest of my life to this amazing God of the Bible I've been reading about I believe you exist and so that night I crossed over now I don't know that I immediately noticed a difference but Wow I wish I could tell you everything that God did he did these amazing amazing amazing supernatural answers to prayer leading us places I knew I couldn't stay at BYU life moved on and life was so good here's the here is all of this in a nutshell and this is gonna take us to the temple the basics of any faith is this who's God I mean even Islam right or Hinduism or or any of the face the basic is who is your God so the question in Mormonism and Christianity is do you have the same God you know I had to look at these gods and decide if they were the same and the other basic of faith is if there's a God don't we want to be with him in the next life and how does that happen how do you get reconciled of this God because God's Way up here we're just human sinners down here how does this reconcile reconciliation happen those two basics between Mormonism and Christianity are hugely different so you cannot say it's a Christian faith because even the basics don't line up there God is very different why is he different God the Father has a body of flesh and bone he has to eat yesterday have sex that's the Mormon God the Father right the one in the Bible is all-knowing all-powerful he can be all places at once he's a spirit those are very different gods Jesus is different this is Lachesis of Mormonism he was he's a created being born at one point in time to a heavenly father and a heavenly mother as a spirit child he wasn't a God yet he's the older brother of Lucifer and then you and me then he atoned for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane sometimes Mormons don't say that anymore they say on the cross it was a partial atonement because according to their scriptures his atonement doesn't cover all sins there's some unforgivable sins that's a very different gospel the cross is not revered in Mormonism I wasn't allowed to have one on BYU campus it is salvation by works you work work work work work your way to get a temple recommend and then you have to keep going back to the temple and doing all these ordinances for the dead because their scriptures say the dead without the living are not saved the living without the dead are not saved and that Jesus worked his way godhood we all know if you're Christian that that's not the Jesus of the Bible so I began to realize this is a real problem here right Mormons want to say we're Christians too we're Christians too we have the same God we're saved the same way we're saved by grace even the basics don't line up even the basics don't line up now I'm gonna have Mike talk a little bit about the basic of eternal life because that's how you get saved and Mormonism their definition of eternal life is families forever and that takes temples so we're gonna talk a little bit about temples huh very very good job you might mean to give her an a but you know as you get into the study of the scriptures always do not be ashamed of your Christian faith do not be ashamed of it regardless who you speak with and always remember and this always confuses our Mormon friends you are a Christian first and a member of a certain church second I spoke here today it's wonderful lutheran churches down the street we spoke there always as telling says you know your Christian first and a Lutheran second you are our Christian first and a Baptist second you are a Christian first and a Methodist second because as Micah always says in his presentation it's not about the name above the door of the church it's about the name above all names the church doesn't save you Jesus saves you and that's a hard thing for our Mormon friends to understand so always be you know patient with them but do not be afraid to engage the Word of God the Word of God is powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword and it will stand on its own and so the let's get into some of these other things here okay the Bible says it's one of the things one of the things when you speak with your dear Mormon friends if you happen to be talking about the temple they jump off and say well there's many things I can't talk about because it's sacred okay and this this is always a good way to maybe start the conversation and when you you don't need to make a statement when you talk with your Mormon friends about this is what it is but make a statement make it take a question when you can replace it with a statement okay so explain to me why you have to have temples explain to me why you talk about sacred things in the temple explain to me well Jesus said he spoke openly in other words always do it that way never look like you're the authority let them be the authority on Mormonism you be the authority on the Bible with questions going back and I love this verse Allah puts up here well yeah Jesus spoken of 1820s it's not me no I can see I've got my glasses on that I see so I have spoken openly to the world I have said nothing in secret so if you go back to that whole thing you remember when he was arrested he's taken into the Pharisees and they were judging him and said well Jesus what do you teach don't ask me what I teach I was taught openly asked my disciples what I teach there's nothing bayen top secret and in the first one you know in Matthew at pin 27 this is Jesus speaking to his disciples he says what I tell you in the dark speak in the daylight what I what is whispered in your ear proclaim from the roof see you know we've been to Israel three times I've been on Temple Mount I can visualize everything going on there I you know as a Gentile I remember reading a sign and says you know on the Temple Mount if you were a Gentile you could not go beyond this point on the Temple Mount or you would be killed okay okay but but we knew what went on in the temple right you can go to the Old Testament and read exactly what they did in the Old Testament it was sacred that I couldn't go inside because I was a Gentile but it was not secret see that's what you had to explain and you have asked oh so your temples are just like what they did during the time of Herod the Great Temple or King Solomon's Temple and so forth you know use those questions that open it up and you just never know where it might believe need people of thinking so you remember as we talk about eternal life you remember that verse linstedt earlier now this is a question this is a quiz now okay what was a verse as she mentioned about it says this is eternal life if you believe in Jesus this is eternal life that you have what Passover from yes life what John 5:24 so now we're going to talk about eternal life this is one of the third articles of faith this is currently in the Mormon scriptures it says we believe that through the atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved and we should put a period there as Christians right but Mormons for the comma there by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel so every time at one another time but a lot of times when my Mormon friends will say well we believe we are saved by grace that's it man I am really confused doesn't your third article to say that you all mankind may be saved Nessa well we believe we're saved by grace but your your articles therapist says you are saved by obedience to the laws what laws and what ordinances the temple laws and ordinances okay the Mormon gospel that's a huge difference and then Book of Mormon no 2nd Nephi 25 23 you know and he knows us very well for we know it is by grace that we are saved period should be good as Christians after all we can do so if we have to do after all we can do we're all doomed right we can't do enough it's impossible that's an impossible statement so I just remember one time we were on on TV and they had a call-in show and the person said well we we believe you're saved by grace and then I brought up this thing says well after all you can do well yeah I do basically all I can do I said really that's it where were you last Saturday afternoon oh um I was at a football game BYU football game well you know you could have gone to the temple to do works for the dead that day so did you do all you could do that day and it was silence so knowledge and understanding questions you know you kind of can draw us in so that makes it impossible that statement itself now our dear Mormon apologists as it says well that doesn't really mean that it means in spite of what we can do or regardless of what we can do and I said oh really so so that's not translated correctly okay moving on here then it's gonna tell me now be nice so so this is a work that says celestial diet this is and the this is what Spencer W Kimball this is our first profit when we join the LDS Church he was prophet he says Celestra life eternal life may be had by every soul who will fulfill the requirements to know is not enough one must do and I just was thinking well you know in John chapter six I can't remember what verse it is Jesus tells his apostles with that know they were wandering have we done enough works you remember the previous chapter if you if you read that you may be the rich young ruler he says I've done all these things and Jesus knew his heart and simple sell everything you have come follow me he goes away and then the apostles are going oh my goodness have we done enough Jesus have we done enough we've left family we've left friends we've left jobs to follow you you know what Jesus says to them it's amazing he says what is impossible for man to do is possible for God what he's telling says you cannot save yourself by your works but I can save you by the work I will doing across that my brothers and sisters that's the good news right amen he can do it forth it's not because of what we can do it's because everything he has done okay we can't we have nothing I'm in business I deal with a lot of contracts and everything and I have nothing to negotiate with with God by the good works I do I have nothing to bring to the further cross with my faith in Christ so Jesus goes on and tells his apostles in John 6 he says this is the work you were to do to believe in him Jesus whom God has sent that's the start okay that's the work we're to do not all this other works and temples in this that there's nothing wrong with doing good works we should do good works you know Ephesians 2:10 for we are created in Christ Jesus to do good works but it never says we do good works to be saved James never States we are to do good works to be saved it should be a byproduct but there's no works and salvation but our faith in Jesus Christ so move it on here so we go to the preach my gospel this is what the Mormon missionaries would teach it says eternal life defined in the Mormon preach my gospel missionary tool tool means to live forever as families in God's presence and we go to doctrine covenants 1:32 19 through 20 okay to achieve eternal life one must be temple and doubt now we've had you know terrible events that's happened the last few weeks we had those children shot in Florida and parkland Florida but not to actually just across the state from us pray for those family and those children and and pray that God can lift them up and you know Billy Graham you know has has died and and but you know it's sad for us when Billy Graham died but there's there's great joy in heaven and he's hearing those words well done you know I remember when I was a young man I used to listen to Billy Graham and then I got off track into Mormonism his Crusades the few years ago I was flipping around and I saw a sermon by Billy Graham and he was teaching about 1958 teaching about the blood the cross and the resurrection and that was that it was wonderful and what was so beautiful about it that sermon as as a pertinent in 1958 as a thousand years earlier as it is today as a thousand years from now truth is truth and does not change and I can take you to all kinds of sermons in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s by LDS leaders they would never ever talk about those today a book of mormon a book given to us called Mormon doctrine given to us at our baptism everybody thought this is the book you came and buy it and an LDS bookstore today so it's it's but the gospel the true gospel is consistent period after period okay so moving on here here's the temple there's the jerusalem temple well that's a model of it okay and the Mormon temple and we go in here these are things that are required you have to do for eternal life John 5:24 is a lot different than this one this is what you have to do I mean we could spend a lot of time on all these but you have to be you know you took for a man okay I had to be I had to join the LDS Church be baptized while a person of authority we made a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints and received the Holy Ghost I have to receive the ironic priesthood then I worked and I received them Oh Kazik priesthood I did all my callings I attended sacrament meeting all my church meetings you know every week year after year of the year I earned a temple recommend took my wife to the temple we were sealed for all time and eternity continue to go back to the temple you keep doing this your whole life and then you do genealogy work and you do this and you do this and you're doing open it all kicks in so this is you know this is all the things we talk about okay so moving on here it states here that LDS scriptures state that their scriptures anything you read a book of Mormon and doctoring cabinets and everything else it is pure truth and utterly reliable that was stated by President Monson is that correct Linh or it was from their website so but that's what they believe okay now regardless to understanding to do an everlasting covenant okay this is this is where you go to the temple now we're talking about how to truly be saved Lynn mentioned it earlier and doctrine Covenants 128 verse 15 that's crazy have to remember these verses in Mormonism but I do you know Joseph Smith states that for their salvation speaking of the dead is essential for our salvation for they can't be saved without you and you can't be saved without them this is why we have to go back to the temple we go to the temple to save ourselves then we go back to save the dead it's not optional it's not grace it is works I have to earn a temple recommend I can't just give it I said I believe in Jesus and they give me a temporary that doesn't happen so again this is what's doesn't doctrine Kevin is 132 it talks about a man has to take a woman to the temple to be married and sealed for all time and eternity okay and once they do this it says and is sealed to them by the Holy Spirit of promise and to him who is anointed and whom has authority then it says once you do that then shall we be written in the book in the Lamb's Book of Life is that the way we're saved as Christian you don't know my last testimony meeting I gave and God has drawn me out in a Mormon Church and I spoke and I stated this which I stated in error because I will correct it now but but I was I was beginning to see and I said I pray at the very end as talking about Jesus I'm talking about Joseph that I says I pray that my name may be written in the Lamb's Book of Life by the blood of the Lamb well you never talk about like that in the LDS Church blood you just don't talk about that that says I pray that my name may be written in God's in the book of life by the blood and lamb you know why I state today I know my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life by the blood of the Lamb a huge difference so moving on here it says and then it says and they will pass by the Angels bite by doing this by being exalted by being lifted up they will pass by the angels and the gods okay then it goes on and says and they shall be gods let's talk about the people what's going to the temple being sealed now you've probably heard your Mormon friends will press that oh we don't believe we can become gods well praise God I hope they don't but this is what surah scripture state ok so it just goes on and on and on and says and they shall be gods because they have all power and the angels are subject unto them angels are subject not through God's Authority angels are having unique being to serve God they don't serve me they serve God for my purpose if he wants to they may protect me or they may do that but I have no control over them Mormon scripture okay now let's see what the Bible has to say I love the book of Galatians okay how many people love the book of Galatians everybody raise your hand come on okay that's it's a great six chapters and and again you know it's so easy for people to get off tangent and you know Paul taught the Galatians and then he finds out of all his weird things are teaching so he goes back and he writes this book the Galatians and I truly believe if the Apostle Paul was here he could take exactly the same book cross out Galatians that says to my Mormon friends I that's the way I read it but you know what do I know I'm just reading from the Bible okay so you read this and you get into Galatians you know I just you know chapter 2 Paul this does an outstanding job here he talks about the Jews and I'm just gonna read here from the scriptures I'll be reading King James Version here so you know Paul starts in the you know chapter 2 verse 16 he says knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the by the faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we may be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified whoa and he goes on he says I am now crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not as i but Christ liveth in me we become a new creation in Christ once Christ comes into us and he's in us then everything we do is not of our works of its of his will we are King James has a new creature other ones so you new new creation kind it's beautiful but then we get into verse 21 I mean yeah verse chapter 2 verse 2 Invensys he says for righteousness he says I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness comes by the works of the law in Christ died in vain I remember as I was reading these books I used to have a temple recommend active temple recommend in my pocket this first hit me pretty hard how'd you not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness comes by the works of the law then Christ died in vain and we go on in chapter 3 real quickly here you just need to understand you know there was a purpose of the law no God has everything you know why did why did God give the law to the Jews it was a purpose he says but before faith came we were kept under the law shut up into them of faith which should have afterwards be revealed wherefore the law was our schoolmaster okay to bring us to Christ that we may be justified by faith but after faith has come we are no longer under the schoolmaster for you're on all the children of God by the faith in Jesus Christ okay for there is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither bond nor free there is neither male or female for we are all one in Christ we haven't become part of Abraham's family adopted by our faith in Jesus Christ not by any works that we have done and the schoolmaster does one thing I mean I remember when I was in the fourth grade the teacher asked us to do something and you know maybe I wasn't paying I've got the wrong thing out and put on my desk and she said that's incorrect I had to hold out my hand and she took a ruler and hid it in front of all these kids oh I mean I remember that pretty well and that's the way the law was it was to bring us to our knees it was to bring us to her the foot of the cross saying Jesus I can't do my own Breivik 18 the parable of the publican and a Pharisee you can't do it on your own and you can never be justified before God through your own actions so we start going through this and it says you know he just teaches us you know dead works it says you know English tainted Hebrews this is how much more will the blood of Jesus blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit of offering himself without blemish to God purify our consciousness from dead works to serve the Living God okay Ephesians four all the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life there's that word again he turned a lot free gift is eternal life never ever to be worked for in Christ Jesus our Lord and this is eternal life that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent so when you speak with your Mormon friends about eternal life it's a big difference right no your scriptures be prepared and ask questions this is an interesting study by the Pew Research people then you want to you want to take some of this here yeah do you know that the majority of even Christians don't believe that you're saved alone by grace that you have to do works for Catholics something like 83% of Catholics 8281 whatever that says up there believed that you have to do works in order to get into heaven right even evangelical Christians often believe that we have this human thing where we think that somehow we have to do something or we can do something that pleases God that gives us better standing than the next guy none of that's true salvation is a free gift we become part of God's family and remember the very first verse before the ages began he called us for his purpose what's the purpose for our lives I would never have done it been a BYU professor but God woke me up in the middle of the night one time in 1990 and told me to go back to school I was Mormon I was Relief Society president I didn't even know God could talk to you but because I went back got that doctorate ended up it be where you micah goes on his mission gets saved on his mission when does that happen and because Mike and I'd worked in the temple he's a high priest I've been at BYU even Mormons listen to the story God's purpose for such a time as this we are nothing but conduits took me five years to get my head straight there are so many things I believed in Mormonism that are not true that I had to get in the Bible for five years until I figured every one of them out and our ministry has taken 40 teachings that Myka teaches but Oh Mike I helped to put this together Mike on that forty Mormon topics like temples pre existence eternal life and put all the Scriptures together that tell the truth from the Bible on that topic this is a wonderful resource it's on our website and on the Adams Road website LDS doctor and topical guide where you can pull scriptures off so you can be familiar with what God says on all those LDS topics five years and I was in prayer one day I mean there were times during that transition where I was face down weeping nearly suicidal I'd lost all my friends I had to walk away from my job at BYU I didn't know a soul in Florida didn't even know how to dress outside of the Mormon culture I didn't know anything you lose your entire identity when you leave Mormonism it's very difficult and sometimes people give their lives to the to Christ and six months later run back tomorrow ISM it's just too hard and Families put pressure on especially if you're a young couple in your 30s and you're Mormon sometimes your mom still calling you every day and so if you've left the church and you've got that kind of family pressure Wow Christians you need to step up and be that kind of loving family to those people and you need walk with them day and night for a very very long time right five years it took me and one day I'm in prayer in the morning and I felt like the Holy Spirit spoke to me again after years and said I need for you to write all I'd ever written before in my life were really boring professional papers right and I had no idea how to write and God began to download this and then and I realized this was his work and I was just the conduit and then he took this book has made it a best-seller and all these Mormons flooding out of the church right now it's hard for Christians to believe because they don't see them right but God is working through the hearts of Mormons they are flooding out we talk every day every day tomorrow's leaving they are flooding out they never think to come to you for answers you don't tell them how awesome your God is you don't tell them this life's the luck for you you don't tell them they're bound you don't tell him you're God's different you don't tell him he's real you don't tell me answers your prayers I didn't have those kind of experiences and Mormonism but when I gave my life to this Jesus freaked me out he was real he was alive he would show up as I'm reading the Bible and answer my questions but he did some very dynamic real things here's one Mike and I are living in Florida but we still had a house in Utah that we were renting out and we keep asking God are you gonna take us back to Utah's it's just temporary in Florida you're gonna take us back to Utah we're new Christians we don't know where our life's going right and in honor of John 3:16 we write out our official letters to have our names removed from the Mormon Church on March 16th 2008 a couple of years after I'd given my life to Jesus took me that long to get to that point felt like I needed that umbilical cord broken it's such a process right Mike gets on a plane actually he had business in Utah and flew the letters downtown Salt Lake to the office building to hand carry these to the debtor that's a whole separate story we don't have time for it it was fun but we had been praying Lord are you gonna keep us in Florida you're gonna take us back to Utah what is your will now it's all about now not us but what God's purpose is for us and what his will is for us right the day after we gave up our membership we lived in Alpine Utah one block from National Forest no one just drove through our neighborhood the day after we gave up our membership a couple from California just happened to drive through our neighborhood saw that we had this law for sale by owner sign it was just now starting to show under the snow that they'd had that year up on the mountain cause Mike's cell number he calls the renter's the renters let him in the house 2008 does that ring a bell and economically no the downturn people walk through the house within a day or two offered us cash cash in 2008 for our house at Alpine coincidence maybe one of those is a coincidence what if you've got another and another and another and another and another and God just keeps moving you in this direction when you give your life to him he's in charge of your life and he does he literally just moves you in a direction he answers prayer he gives you truth and if you've lost relationships that are dear to you in giving your life to Jesus guess what he's a redeemer and a replacer and the one that he brings you is gonna be more emotionally healthy and mentally wonderful than where you were before except as the Mormon you can't even imagine it because the god I knew never did that kind of stuff the god I know meow is real and living and he's so worth it that you know the kind of things that mattered to us before having a nice house and appearance and all that kind of stuff those are worldly things that matter nothing anymore I've just recently retired from the University in Florida that God supernaturally sent me to gave me a job in Florida I never even applied for that never happens in academia but that's this God right just retired from there and then all of a sudden we get one invitation to come to Phoenix and within a couple of weeks and some very blessed friends we end up with 13 speaking engagements in 13 days I don't know what God's doing with my life but wherever he's taking me I'm going if I have to sell my house and live in a trailer and travel right and tell how awesome he is and wherever we go God brings people questioning Mormonism or on their way out or newly out right or people who have Mormon family who need to be encouraged to tell them about your God we do not suggest you hit against Mormonism you do not have to say Joseph Smith had forty four wives and eleven of them were married to other men when he took over me you don't have to go there all that does is tear down their belief in Mormonism that does not bring them to a better place and those folks are often end up in this very angry place all they do is hit back at the church hit back at the church hit back at the church what you want is to move on to something better when you find a God that's real and a community that's authentic and honest and doesn't have secrets and everything doesn't have to look perfect it's a wonderful wonderful place to be yeah it's it's amazing you know when Lynn said you know they don't care about appearance that's why she's still married or she really doesn't see very well but I do have beautiful hair he always tells our granddaughters I have more beautiful hair than you you know we're going to we're going to open Q&A yeah we're gonna I want to hit because we really didn't get a lot to my story but I want to hit this one section here there is there is a section I'm not going to get into that but there's a chapter in here called breaking the Pharisee guess who that's about so but God is this just amazing but as I'm coming out of Mormonism and I know it's not true he just keeps hitting me with things after things after things you know wasn't just one thing and then it was another thing there's another thing that's what God does he never gives up yeah he just keeps chasing you chasing you chasing you and Lynn had you know given up we bought a cross for her and that's the whole story about going down to one Christmas over for Christmas she's coming out I'm still a high priest I'm still because I'm on the humor we'll get her across she's gonna come back I'm gonna save my family you know you know the old thing I'm the priesthood holder this is all gonna come so we go to Provo Utah to go to the mall now this is gonna be simple we're gonna buy a cross okay so we go into the mall and we go to the nice jewelry store and I'm looking I said well this is a Moroni pin this is something about Joseph Smith and this is something yeah ma'am do you have any crosses here and Chicago's yes but we keep him in the back so she comes out with her crosses okay and great I'm serious this is and she brought him out and we found the one that Lynne liked here and as we were leaving there so the guy standing there he's listening to us this is okay let's get back serious again but that's that's true not about the guy but everything else is true okay yeah he's from New York no no no no New Jersey probably but one morning Lynne had quit going to the oldest church and it was just like God had blinded all the leaders in our local congregation they just say Houston doing she would be there for two months I'd be there oh she's doing fine okay great I mean to keep her job I had to go in and pay her tithing at the end of the year she even go in for tithing settlements but she had to do that you still and it's blinded the eyes at that point but he took the veil off our eyes so we could see the Bible you have to understand your Mormon friends have a veil they don't see the Bible the same way you did and then when he took the veil off my eyes and I started reading whoa it just comes to life so Katie our daughter she's a senior that year so we go walk in the church he would go with dad supportive of dad and I was sitting in the sacrament meeting there on the right hand side about three rows out and we get there and they'd say well today our opening hymn is praise to the man we're going to sing praise to the man and I'm gonna really read some lyrics about this and then I'm going to tell you who this man is okay so here's the lyrics it says praise to the man who commune with Jehovah Jesus anointed a prophet and seer blessed to open this last dispensation Kings will exalt him and Nations Revere great is his glory and endless his priesthood ever and ever the keys he will hold faithful and true he will enter his kingdom crowned in the midst of the prophets of old and it goes on and on and on this is a song about Joseph Smith okay and you know God has been hitting me with some pretty heavy things and so I stand there and he starts singing the song and I could not sing those words I could not see those words but I've that I was a worried about what other man thought it's kind of like when you know the Jews who believed in Jesus but were afraid to speak out for Jesus because of their fear of the Pharisees you know that's in Hebrews or someplace that's like me oh I didn't want anybody of authority in the LDS Church you know or the neighbors to see me not sing so I started just to mouth the words I could not sing the words out loud I just mouthed the words and God spoke to me in my mind he said to me - not even mouth fills words for this song is an abomination for me for you shall sing praise to no man but the man Christ Jesus I mean I just stood there and just stopped it wasn't a physical voice it was just in my mind and you know when God speaks to you that way I couldn't never I used to sing this song with all my heart just six months before that but before that time I God was pulling me out draw me out you sing praise to no man in Christ Jesus and I will commit that I will always do that to my dying days where he is my Savior he is my god and he saved me not because of anything that I have done because everything okay questions okay anything else you wanna say questions we have a few minutes for questions than if any of you are ldeas and this.mb sincere feedom okay give them you know diet cokes I submit Romney I get them always confused Mitt Romney drinks Diet Coke but the no just just love them okay and have them explain and then come back with questions I'm confused I don't understand that concept well when you read this verse in the Bible yeah you stopped here but can you read the rest of it so it's we understand what it's talking about and just love on them and you know the other thing I'd rather have the missionaries talking to you then out around the area talking to unbelievers who get converted to Mormonism and gas for their converts come from we bring the Book of Mormon we bring the Bible to the doorstep according to the Pew Institute 83% of the people that go into Mormonism come right out of difficult faith I was raised Presbyterian he was praised raised Baptist if we did not know our word we knew nothing about false Christ's false Gospels false apostles we just thought it was a Christian option and that's exactly what happens weak nominal Christians believe it's a Christian option reach out love them bring them in and you never know it be a person just like Micah you may say a verse that may ponder in that person's mind and heart for 10 years and anything yeah so here's an interesting one that says well let me finish that for a sec if if if you're familiar with Greg cocles Columbo technique he says never make a statement when a question will do and that is the least offensive thing to do with Mormons certainly do you mind if I ask you a question about your faith they love love love to talk about their faith let them talk and then as they talk begin begin to use questions you need to keep the relationship not be confrontation this one I'll take this one all right this was too hard I can't handle them my sister-in-law posted that they don't believe in the hell this is the LDS Church is that true yes and Mormonism D do not teach of Hell like the Christian health per se okay because in Mormonism you have three degrees of glory okay but but when Christ died and was resurrected he saved all mankind whether they believe or not it's kind of universal you know terraeum concepts which is what just as smithers another ones I do believe and so what they believe is that you will be a lot was that truth that I can trace down but you'll be saved to one of those kingdoms so even even Hitler is not in hell he's at the lower kingdom okay but there is a place they call outer darkness an outer darkness is where Satan will go and his minions and we will go because we have been sealed the mirror I was talking about the holy promise being sealed in the temple we have been sealed in the temple we have been temple endowed we were very active in the LDS Church and now we have left and now we speak out against the old issues we are apostates therefore we are now doomed for outer darkness so but you guys are ok so but this is you know I I always say you know people will say no and this is actually a true statement they say well where will Billy Graham go well as of now Billy Graham will go to the Middle Kingdom ok and the other people that go to the metal kingdom will be Mormons that drink bill beer so it's in other words it's where the Christians will go the middle body the upper body you have to be a Mormon ok to live in the presence of God the Father that's this way it is but everybody else is saved to a lower kingdom yes this is a great question and Mormons are so often confused by the things that I mean Christians are confused by things Mormons say they'll say I believe Jesus died on the cross we're saved by grace I love my Savior right those are the same words you might use there's not one word in Mormonism and biblical faith that have the same meaning their grace is an enabling power that God gives them so that they have the power to live the commandments so that they can work their way to eternal life that is not your grace your grace as a free gift so when you're using the same words and you're confused like this person said they feel like they are you have to drill down those are mine ok what you have to drill down and you have to ask them what do you mean by that who is Jesus to you where did he add Tom what did that atonement means you do you have a relationship with him with us what's that relationship like ok you can't stop at the surface but you have to drill down so she says I see fruit and the love of Christ or maybe this is a man in my Mormon relatives it's confusing to me and I don't know how to share with them when they seem to have it all together okay let's stop and think for a minute can we tell someone's Christian by their behavior well the Bible says you will know us by our love you will know we are Christians by our love right but love according to the Bible has to do with knowing truth Jesus is true so to a Christian love is being honest and truthful but in a kind way to Mormons love is being nice so you would never say anything offensive you're always gonna say what you think someone else wants to hear there's this real appearance thing of being nice and yes it's nice and we all like nice then that's why people join the Mormon Church but to a Christian is it more important that you act nice or you have an honest conversation so let me say this my parents were Christian they got radically saved after I left home 30 years in Mormonism I had Christian siblings in Indiana I had Christian neighbors I worked with Christian people I don't recall one time though who Christian ever even spoke about Jesus tried to tell me how you were saved or even tried to have a conversation with me about my Mormon faith or what I believed I had no idea that we were opposites we were taught Mormonism that you guys have a little of the truth we because you just have the Bible and we have the fullness of the truth because because we have four books of Scripture that's what I believed and so when people decide to done with Mormonism never in a million years occurs them to come to you for any truth you were the lessers why don't you tell somebody that your Bibles reliable that your God is real that he answers prayers that he changes lives yeah isn't that the great it's not the great suggestion it's the Great Commission as a commandment is it not so the term fruit you know yeah can be interpreted in many many different ways and when you talk about the freedom Mormonism you can really talk about what is the treat of Mormon everything we've talked out are you saved by works or saved by grace that's the fruit of Mormonism the the concept of why we have polygamy in the United States at all today is a fruit of Mormonism through Joseph Smith practicing polygamy how we look at the Bible that is not that we don't believe in it is is the truth Morgan and yeah there's a lot of pieces you know you know because they have a love for Jesus you know let's let's hope that they truly do have a love for Jesus but there's so many other things in there that can kind of mess things up so that's a it's really a hard question and again it's very hard to to see that to this a look at more and so well they must be Christian too because the way they behave well I have Muslim friends that are very wonderful and kind and nice and they don't believe in Christ but they do believe in Jesus and he has a function see so you have to look at it differently so they can believe all the stuff but already true Christians that's the different question here's a real easy question I'll take this one what does a typical Sunday service consists of in LDS okay well if you're not in the leadership position you go to usually they can be you have sunday school classes okay and it can be the first meeting or the last meeting then you have what we call priesthood classes after Sunday School priesthood classes and Sunday School you have it for the adults and then children you know young men young men have their own Sunday School classes and so forth and then after that you have what we call priesthood and release Society okay so the men get together I was in a high priests quorum okay and we would get together and have lessons the lamb would be in another Relief Society group the young women would be in another group the young men would be in another group and then they had primary four children going on at the same time and then we all come together for a sacrament meeting and that's their main meeting at last about 70 minute 70 minutes so and they usually have speakers usually three speakers a youth speaker and then they have a lot of times a lady speaker then I'll have a priesthood man speaking so you know why I used to travel a lot and I would speak in sacrament meetings as a high councilor okay and I you know as I spoke all the time and and so one time I dreamed I was speaking in sacrament meeting and I woke up and I was so so there is sometimes you're not the most exciting meetings so I would encourage somebody to go there sometimes it's always a joke about the high councilors were the most boring speakers in the world and probably that could be true so okay moving on here here's another one about how do I speak with love um the true gospel to my neighbors well again you don't have to know a whole lot about Mormonism you just have to know your own word why not practice in front of the mirror actually telling somebody the last time God answer to prayer for you we tend to be kind of private about these things or only talk to Christians about them well that doesn't save anybody right you know we can all make ourselves feel good but you need to learn to talk to folks outside of you and I say always be praying that God will send you someone in a neighborhood first of all I'd have a relationship I didn't fight that person over I'd have their family over for barbecues you need a long-term relationship you gotta learn to love the person and you need to learn to hear their heart here's a real quick story one day I was in Salt Lake in a radio station and I came out of the radio station and there's an atheist professor former Mormon wanting to bash with me right tell me why there was no God so I go into the cafeteria it was a calvary chapel and i sat with him for two hours and at first time fashioned back and forth and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said just shut up and I let him go through everything that was in his heart for about two hours and two hours in he got to the point where he was nearly in tears over a divorce that had happened because he decided Mormonism wasn't true he'd left the church and his wife had not left and he'd lost his relationship with his kids and his wife there was the vulnerable point there's something that matters to him there is a starting point for introducing Jesus we don't just throw Jesus at people we have to love them enough to know them and know what their questions are right we don't preach it people we learn to know them enough to find out what they're interested in and if they're interested and whether they even want to hear it and what parts what topics interest them so certainly ask people about their faith and and see if there's kind of a point where they might have an interest so and then it's a long-term relationship I mean you love these people you don't just be nice to them to try to convert them to Christianity that's often what we did as Mormons that's not genuine faith right here's never crazy hey it's the same question earlier you know what whether they have on Sundays this is a is it like our Christian churches know and sacrament meetings you do not have drums okay it doesn't exist you only have the organ and a piano there's no guitars there's no singing and as it you know it's it's not really it again it's unique okay I won't say any more on that so but yeah if you want to go to one sometime and you'd be amazed what you'll hear and find out so okay so just let me get this have all of our children left the LDS Church yes we got that one there's a one here three of our kids are in ministry to my sister-in-law's Mormon and my brother an unbeliever yet she goes to the temple how is that happening when she's not in good standing well even if you're unequally yoked as long as she's worthy she can go to the temple but without a worthy man she's not gonna go to the top of the top heaven she's just gonna be able to go to the top heaven but often when people come out of Mormonism they're their marriages do break up because the one left in Mormonism wants somebody worthy to take them to the highest heaven in Mormonism humane no Jesus does not resurrect you if you're temple worthy if you're a woman your husband resurrects you and if you're a man your priesthood holder resurrection yeah I remember I was talking to a lady one time and she was you know she was divorced and you know she was temple and doubt she would go to the temple on a regular basis and so she was not sealed to another man and she was saying I'm so thankful that there will be practice of polygamy in a hurry after so our lease will be sealed to some man yeah you know I mean I just kind of said no you know I mean I I don't believe that and but that was her hope of polygamy you know because there's gonna be I mean they used to talk about this we would say there there's gonna be more women in heaven than men and therefore we will have to have women CEO to multiple I'm a sedan the LDS doctrine so I mean it'll practice it today but it's you know it's there so so certainly find us on Facebook thank you very very much with you as helpful as we can we'll keep cranking out materials that we think are helpful [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Redeemer Bible Church

Views: 8,015

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Keywords: Jesus, Bible, Redeemer Bible Church, Arizona, Gilbert, Mesa, Bible Church, Truth, Understanding, God

Id: gNfWv5rDSzY

Length: 108min 16sec (6496 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 03 2018