So You Want To Talk To Mormons?

It's good to see you all. How was dinner? Good. Good. Great. Okay. So, let's get started with prayer.

Father, thank you for uh the opportunity to come once again as your people to learn from your word and to consider how we can reach this massive massive community of people who are so lost following a false god and a false gospel. Lord, I thank you even for this moment um to be able to to speak to the saints, to speak to your people and to pour into them uh truths that would help them to be effective in ministering to these lost people. And I just I do pray Lord somehow that you by your spirit would create within uh us and even particular individuals in this room a passion uh for the Mormon people uh to reach them to to see them come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. We just pray that you would help us, Lord, to reach that community so that ultimately all of it is put under your feet as foottool for your feet. We do pray that you would have victory over the evil of Mormonism. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

What a privilege. I was just considering as I was walking back into the room here, um I wanted to tell you how I got into reaching Latter-day Saints and specifically how I sort of fell in love with this community. I was thinking about, you know, being 16 years old, um, starting to talk to Mormons and to study and devour things on Mormon theology, Mormon doctrine. I mean, I remember I was in high school and I got in trouble numerous times, numerous times in high school because I wasn't listening to the teacher and to the class. I had Mormon materials, old Doctrine and Covenants, Journal of Discourses on my desk. I was ignoring everything in math. Um, which is probably why I'm so poor in math, to be honest with you. I was ignoring everything and I got in trouble numerous times because I wasn't paying attention to the class. I was reading stuff on Mormonism and Joseph Smith and all those things. And I was thinking what a privilege and an honor it is to now be at this point in my life and speaking to other believers who are wanting to listen to uh what do we do to reach Mormons? It's such such a privilege especially because back then I didn't really know any Christians that were interested in reaching Mormons or had any concern for the Mormon community. It was uh uh it was I was hardressed to find anybody that wanted to do what I was doing to get on the street and to reach Mormons. And so I do consider this just such a gift from God just to sit in a room of people who want to figure out how do we reach the Latter-day Saints. And so my story is um uh not particularly important in terms of how do you reach Mormons, but just so you can understand where the passion came from in me and how that God has used that through his word and the truth to save thousands upon thousands of Mormons out of Mormonism and coming into a saving relationship of Jesus.

So I wasn't raised in a Christian home. I wasn't raised going to church. Uh heard the gospel for the first time from Billy Graham when I was around 16 years old. uh made a profession of faith in Jesus and knew nothing about the Bible. Knew nothing about Christianity ultimately. Uh there was a Bible on my stereo, my parents stereo. I was a military brat, so we traveled around the world. Grew up in Holland, grew up in Japan, Washington DC. And that Bible always stayed on the stereo and it collected like an inch of dust wherever we went. And I just knew that there was someone named Jesus. He said he died and rose again. And that was his book. That was about the extent of it. I was so ignorant about Christianity that at shortly after my profession of faith, I was reading the Gospel of John just over and over and over again. And I went to my first uh church, a little Baptist church, a Bible Baptist church in uh uh right outside of DC in Maryland. And uh I had just been reading John and I went up to the pastor, Pastor Charles Maine. And I was so excited about Jesus and the Bible and my faith in Jesus. And so I was like, "Yeah, pastor." So, I was reading uh the Gospel of John. He's like, "Yeah." And I was like, "And so like you know Jesus Jesus is God, right? Like like that's all I was reading was John and I got that like Jesus is God." And I was afraid to say like am I right or what? Like he's God. Like that's that's what we're believing, right? He's like, "Yeah." I was like, "All right, good. I got that down." And so I I didn't I didn't really know much at all. And so I was in um I was I was a a thespian. Uh all right. Hope you know what that really means. Calm down. This is not like a, you know, liberal denomination or anything. So, I mean, I was a thesian. I was big into theater and stuff. And so, I was in theater class after school. We were rehearsing for a play and I was reading the Bible and the stuff was going on in rehearsal. And so, a friend sits down next to me. He's like, "Oh, you're reading the Bible?" I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "So," he's like, "Uh, are you a Christian?" And I was like, "Yeah." And so, he I said I said to him, I said, "Isn't it great to be saved?" And he was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Right. Isn't it great?" And then he goes, "So, what level of heaven do you think you're going to?" I was like, "Uh, I didn't know." I was like, "Hopefully the highest one." Is that I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. And so that's that's where I and so he he told me then that he was, you know, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. And at the time, as I told you earlier, I became like a fixture in the local Christian bookstore just after school going there sitting down reading all the books. And so they all knew me. And so I come in after school that day. I was so curious levels of heaven and all that Mormon. And so I walked into uh the guy who knew me, his name was Tony. I was like, "Tony, do you know anything about this uh the denomination called Mormons?" And he was like, "Jeff, it's not a denomination. It's a cult." And so he he runs in the back. And so he go gives me this big stack of books on Mormonism, Mormon history, all kinds of Christian apologetics books on Mormonism. He's like, "Here, take it. Just go take it." And so I go home and uh I sat down. I remember it was just becoming evening. I sat down started reading these books on Mormonism and I stayed up all night reading these books on Mormonism and I was just so stunned at the history of Mormonism and the false prophecies and all this stuff. And so I stayed up all night long. I got up in the morning and I went to a local copy shop where you can, you know, make copies of things. And I go in and I just start making photocopies of Mormon documents and pages of scripture. And I come in with this book which is like my case against Mormonism. This is within 24 hours, guys. My case against Mormonism. And I come find my friend in school and I was I threw it. I was like I was like, "You're in a cult." And you know, very effective. Very effective. He was like, "Oh, I'm there." Okay. So, so uh this began a relationship between he him and I where I would come to his house. His family were they were devout Mormons. They weren't jack Mormons, lay Mormons. They were devoutly Mormon uh temple Mormons. They uh would have Mormon missionaries come over while I had dinner at his house to come and try to convert me. And uh didn't go well for them. And then um uh I would go to the Mormon temple with the parents just to go hang out and talk to missionaries. They worked on me for months and I also worked on my friend with the gospel and with the truth. And I remember after months of this relationship, we're in my room one day and we're we're sitting on my bed and I'm opening scripture and I'm pointing stuff out and he says to me, he says, "Jeff, I know that everything that you're saying is true. I know that it's true." He said, "But I can't leave the church. I can't leave the church." He says, "If I leave the church, I will I will lose everything. I know what you're saying is the truth." And I didn't even know how this verse came into me at the time is totally the spirit of God. It just came right up to me. And I was a new believer at the time. I said to him, "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?" And so I deeply fell in love with the Mormon community there because I had such a passion for these people who were very zealous and some of the sweetest people on earth who were so lost following a false Christ and a false gospel. And so I began to even devour even more and more and more and listen to things and just get original source documentation. This was before Google and the internet. I mean at the time we probably had AOL but that's about it. And so if I wanted to get stuff, I had to go and and get cataloges and order original source documentation and get those books. And so I through the providence of God ended up in Arizona. I didn't know anybody at the time. I was the world champion of martial arts. I wanted to be closer to LA. I was doing a lot of different work. I was in Mortal Kombat, the live tour at the time. And so I came to Arizona to teach karate, be closer to Hollywood and those sorts of things. But I didn't know anybody in Arizona at all. I had no friends. Didn't know anybody. I was living on a guy's floor and uh one day I'm out driving in Mesa and I see this billboard and it was a billboard for the Mormon Temples Easter pageant. And so I was thrilled. And by the way, when I got to Arizona, I don't know if you know if anyone's ever been to Phoenix or Mesa, um you're if you drive a mile, it's a Mormon Ward. Turn left, Mormon Ward. This way, Mormon Ward. And I I landed there not even knowing that. Totally the province of God. Probably an accident. Um, and uh, so I'm driving and I see the billboard and I thought to myself, there's going to be Mormons there. I'll go. And so I grabbed my backpack and I filled it up with books. It's probably why I have arthritis in my back right now. And filled it up with original source documentation, Mormon materials, Bibles, all that stuff. Big fat heavy backpack. And I go to the Mormon temple in Mesa just to see if I get in conversation with some Mormons. And so I on the sidewalk in front of the temple, hundreds of thousands of Mormons come during about a week-l long period. And so I walk onto the sidewalk and I see this crowd of Mormon missionaries and young Mormons and old Mormons surrounding this guy that looks like a total nerd. I mean, total nerd. This is like scholar nerd stage James White. Okay, he's in the middle. I'm 18 years old. He's still relatively young. He's in the middle surrounded. And I walk up and I see this guy who is answering all of the Mormons. They're firing questions at him. He would answer one side over here and give their own prophets statements. He's quoting it from memory. And he's going to this next guy. Then this missionary is asking a question. James is just spinning in a circle answering all the questions. Church history questions, Bible from memory, their prophets from memory. I am stunned. And I'm thinking to myself, you mean there's other people who love Mormons that want to reach them? And so it was a limited crowd. It was just Alpha and Omega Ministries like Rich Pierce, James, and a a handful of other people. Jeremiah Roberts from Cultish. He was there. That's the first time I met Jeremiah was that night. Um, and so when it was all over and everyone walked away, I walked up to Rich Pierce at the time whom I didn't know. I said, "Hey, who who is that guy? Who is who is he?" He said, "Oh, that's James White." And here's what's funny is that the very first Christian book I ever read ever was the King James Only Controversy. Somebody handed it to me when I didn't know which Bible to buy. And the guy said, "You need to read this one." Because I had a KJV only and like an NIV only noniest um right here. And they were telling me like he was like, "The Bible's corrupt. That Bible's corrupted." And the guy Tony walked up. He said, "Hey Jeff, read this book. First book I ever read, King James only controversy." Now I'm on the sidewalk. Rich says that's James White. I said, "James White, King James only controversy." He said, "Yeah." I said, "Wow." And so that's probably an accident, too. But um so became friends with James, fell in love with Dr. White, and uh you guys have heard maybe the story before. He's my spiritual father in the faith. He's the man who's, you know, been like a father figure to me, a mentor in the faith. And since that time, since I was 18 years old, we've grown and grown and grown our relationship over the years. But it was seeing him that inspired me to to to realize this is right to do. And here's what I wanted to say about this. At the time there and and for a long time after Christians would criticize the ministry that I would do and Dr. White would do by saying that's not how you reach those people. That's not how you reach them. You know, confronting them in that way, going to their events and standing out there and doing evangelism. You're never going to reach them like that. You need to create relationships with them, you know, invite them to barbecues. Just sort of love on them. And by the way, if you ever say love on them to me, I get physically ill. That's it's like it's one of those Christianes things that we say and everyone sort of adopts it when you go to church. You just got to love on them. That's really gross. Stop saying it. Okay. Um, but people say that, you know, just got to love on the Mormons. And I'm like, I am loving on them. I'm going to bring the gospel to them to to show them that they're believing in a false god and a false gospel. When people would say, "Don't do that. That's not how you're going to win those people. You don't go to their places. You don't stand out there." It's not like we were screaming at them. We were just going to say, "Hey, can I have a conversation with you? Do you believe you're going to become a god one day? Why do you believe that? Why do you believe Joseph Smith as a prophet of God?" And what I was seeing at the temple is as we're handing out tracks and getting in conversations, I was seeing people's lives being transformed. I was seeing Mormons and even Mormon missionaries come to faith in Jesus as a result of that work. people were saying, "Don't do that. That's not how you reach those people." Or maybe it's not worth it. They're too lost. They're too far gone. And let me give you just two stories to hopefully encourage you and inspire you.

So, uh, it's not always easy. You know, you hear the good stories of this, you know, amazing moment of God's act of mercy and grace in somebody's life where they come to Jesus, but there's times where it's it's just not easy. I mean, I've had a Mormon bishop try to rough me up and um, you tear my tracks up and throw them in my face. Uh, Dr. Dr. White's had like, you know, Arby's sandwich thrown at his head and, you know, it's not hard to miss. Uh, it's, uh, it's all right. He'll never see this. Um, and, uh, no, he probably will. Uh, it's it's not easy. We've had people try to hurt us. We've had, you know, people threaten our lives. We've had literally people threaten to kill us for doing this. Um, yeah, we we've had a someone named the Lone Day. If you know anything about the day knights, uh you know the hit squad for Brigham Young to kill people. Someone called the lone day knight who was you know saying he was going to harm us and kill us. And so it's not always easy but the fruit of it has been incredible.

So um one year I am out on the Mormon temples uh front uh uh sidewalk and uh surrounded by Mormon missionaries, young Mormons. And at the time they actually stopped to engage you. Mormonism has changed dramatically over the years dramatically. you know, uh, 20, 30 years ago, Mormon teenagers were equipped in seminary, just right off of public school property to go to class there to learn how to debate and argue with Christians. There was Mormon apologetic um um, organizations equipping Mormons to have engagement with Christians. And so it was the case that you would go out to the Mormon temple just 20, 30 years ago and you would have Mormons coming to you to challenge you and to open the Bible to say, "Here's where the Bible proves Mormonism. Here's where your Bible is contradictory." But it has changed dramatically since that time. Now it is far more um appealing to subjectivism and personal experience or they just don't care. You're Christians and we're Christians, too. when 30 years ago they referred to themselves as the Christians and we're the Gentiles sort of a thing. Uh there's one church of God and there's a church of the devil they would say and you're the church of the devil, we're the church of God. Things have changed dramatically. But we're surrounded out one night and uh there is this Mormon girl and she is just really hostile towards me and uh she's yelling at me. She's angry with me and I'm giving her scripture and she gets really mad and she takes my tracks, she rips them up, she throws them in my face and she spits on me and then she walks away. And then I thought that was a really successful night. And so I went home, of course, after a night like that. And you think to yourself, of course, I'm only human. Lord, was this worth it? And you know, why am I sacrificing time away from family to do this? And uh you know, it's just it's tough. And so you have moments like that.

About a year later, we had a bunch of Christians uh coming to my house one night for all night prayer. And so we were kind of weird like that. We would, you know, eat food and then pray and then stop and sing songs and then hang out a little bit, then pray some more. and we just kind of pray throughout the night. And uh and so about midnight, there's a knock on my door and I open the door. It's my friend John. And uh John's there for the all night prayer. And then he has this girl that I don't recognize behind him. And he says, "Hey, uh I was at Starbucks and she heard we were doing all night prayer and she asked if she could come." And I was like, "Oh, sure." And so she starts crying. And so I say to John, I was like, "Hey, why is she crying?" He goes, "I don't know. I just met her." And so so we come in and she's crying and I don't know what's going on with her. So she kind of like moves around the crowd of people goes to the corner of the room and she sits in the corner of the room and just kind of sits there with tears in her eyes and we're all kind of ignoring her not knowing what's going on. And so we're all sitting down at one point in the living room kind of in a circle and then uh she eventually breaks into the conversation. She says, "Jeff, do you recognize me?" And I said, "Um, no, I'm sorry I don't." And she said, 'About a year ago, you were at the temple in Mesa with your friends and you were handing out tracks. And I said, 'Oh, okay. And she said, 'Ye, I I took your tracks and I tore them up. I threw them at your face and then I spit on you. And I said, uh, no, I don't remember that. No. So, I was like, "Oh, oh, yeah." I said, "You were you were very angry with me." She's like, "I was." And she said, "What happened was is that when I left you, I went and got one of your tracks and then I went home." And she said, "I went home and I committed myself that I was going to master what you were saying, find out how to utterly refute it, and then I was going to come back the next year and I was going to make a fool of you in front of everybody." And I was like, "Okay." And she said, "And after about three or four months of getting into your tract and getting into the Bible," she said, "God saved me. I came to Christ." And God brought her to my door at midnight from Starbucks. Isn't that wild? Just the providence of God. Like God just going, "Hey, let me just show you the fruit. Keep going. Keep doing what you're doing."

One more story to encourage you about the investment. So go to the Mormon Temple in Mesa. Uh this was I think during Christmas lights. It's actually coming up now. It's about a month and a half where they do Christmas lights around the temple. All the community comes to simply look at the Christmas lights and they use it as an opportunity for them to promugate Mormonism. The missionaries are out in out in full effect handing out stuff trying to create appointments. And so we would go out there to talk to the missionaries and the people and to warn them about the false god of Mormonism. And so I'm out on the side of the temple where the temple entrance is and this young Mormon missionary comes up to me and we start getting in conversations. So we would have a conversation. He'd come back the next day. We'd have a conversation. and he was very hostile towards me, very spirited, very zealous. And so I have a backpack full of tracks. And uh I end up in a conversation one night with my tracks next to me right here on the ground to with some Mormons that are coming out of the temple. And so he is here and he's talking to me. I'm answering him. I'm answering them. And then I see out of the corner of my eye, I see him bend down towards my bag with the tracks and try to grab a handful of tracks to like run off with them. And so I can see him and I've got some ninja skills. And so my ninja senses are going off. And so as he bends down to grab them, I just sort of lean down like this real slow, put my hand on his hand. I said, "Hey, bro." I said, "I have like 30,000 of those." I said, "Running away with those isn't going to stop me." And so he goes, "Okay." And so he stands up and I said, "Why don't I just have you do this? I'll give you a verse. You go study it and you come back with an answer. you don't have to answer me right now. Just I'll give you a verse, you study it, you come back, we'll talk. He said, "Okay." I said, "So, here's the verse." And so, he's go, "All right." So, I come back the next day. And he would sort of pass by. He'd say, "Hey, Jeff, uh, what's the new verse?" And I would say, "Uh, Isaiah 43:10. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. You believe that there was, and you're going to become one one day." He was like, "Thanks." And so, he would go, and next thing you know, is day after day like that. And then it ended up where he and I started sneaking away in these dark alleys in Mesa, Arizona to hide. We're in an alley, right? Two dudes in a dark alley with a Bible open like this, flipping through the Bible like just like looking for people. It was it looked very sus, but it was, you know, and so what ended up happening is he was on his mission as a Temple Mormon missionary. And it takes a lot to get that position, by the way. And so he was, you know, very connected in the church, very respected in the church. They loved him because how zealous he was. He comes to Christ in a dark alley in Mesa, Arizona while in his missionary outfit. The very next day, he was on the sidewalk with me in his plain clothes, reaching the other missionaries with tracks and the gospel, saying, "Guys, you're following a false Christ. This is all wrong. You need to read the scriptures." And so God saved a Mormon missionary right at the Mormon temple through this work. And so when people say to me, "No, these people are too far gone. It's a it's a waste of your time and your effort." I want to say the gospel is the power of God for salvation. What we have to do is be available and be willing to sacrifice for the sake of somebody's soul. You just have to be present. You just have to preach the word and let God bring the increase. Amen.

So I have many more stories. I have Mormon missionaries that have come to Christ as a result of the ministry we have on Mormons who have come to Christ as a result of the ministry that we have online that I've baptized that are even have become members of our church. Mormons around the world have contacted us through the evangelism videos. They came to Christ and are in a saving relationship with Jesus now. And so that's what I wanted to say to you all is simply this. Go and reach the Mormons. Go speak the truth to them.

So uh the standard the foundation that we laid down earlier was simply this. God says God has spoken. A revelational epistemology says that you know with certainty because God has spoken. And so when you want to reach Latter-day Saints, I would argue the most important thing to do is to bring them to the word of the living God. Are there issues that you can talk about with Latter-day Saints that are vitally important issues that are outside of, you know, who God is and what the gospel is? For sure. You could talk about the Pearl of Great Price. You can talk about the Book of Abraham and how how Joseph Smith demonstrated without question that he was lying to the world and to the Mormon people about his ability as a seer to uh translate dead languages. You have all the evidence in front of you. The man was a fraud. His neighbors knew that he was a fraud. He was a con man. He provably lied to the Mormon people. We have all the documentation to demonstrate that he lied through his teeth to the Mormon people about being able to translate dead languages with the Book of Abraham and the Pearl of Great Price. We have the papyrie that he translated from and we have the Pearl of Great Price translation today in the the standard works of the Mormon church. You can see he didn't get one word right in the translation. He perpetrated a fraud upon the Mormon people. You can demonstrate those things. Absolutely. Are they important? Without question. But I would argue that when we reach Latter-day Saints or Jehovah's Witnesses or Muslims or anybody, we need to stand on the word of God as the ultimate as you have that conversation. It can look different in different contexts with different religions in terms of what you make contact with, how you talk about it, which verses you're appealing to. But we start with God's revelation. God's revelation. And so I would argue that when we're talking to Latter-day Saints, we need to focus upon some central issues first and foremost before we get to all the other issues. We need to speak about the authority of scripture. The authority of scripture. And within that also would be the preservation of scripture. Has God preserved his word? Because Mormonism denies that. We also need to talk about God because it doesn't matter what else you talk about that you can convince them of with scripture. If they've got the wrong God, they have a false God that can't save them. We need to tell them about who the true God is. We need to warn them against against false Christs, false messiahs, false spirits. We need to give them the gospel, the biblical gospel, because the gospel is the power of God for salvation. Amen. And so that's what they need to hear from us. They have what is similar and common uh to all man-made religion. The same kind of false gospel. They all have different flavors, different versions, but is essentially the same thing. It's what I can do through obedience some way to become righteous enough to be accepted by God or the goddess or the gods. And Mormonism does precisely that. And next, we need to talk about the test of a prophet. So, I would say you don't need to master everything about Mormonism. You need to be able to talk to Mormons about four primary issues. The authority of scripture, God, the gospel, and a test of the test of a prophet in scripture.

So, a couple things um in Mormon teachings. Now, in one lesson, there's no way for me to give you a comprehensive portrait of Mormonism and just how dark and evil it actually is and how perverse theologically it is, but I'll try to give you some foundational things. And if you go on to Apologia Studios on YouTube, type in Mormonism and all that, you should be able to find lots of resources and more comprehensive teaching on this. So, Mormon teachings with regard to scripture. In the eighth article of faith of Mormonism, they believe that the Bible is the word of God in so far that it is translated correctly. That's their eighth article of faith. And so, the average Mormon will have memorized the articles of faith of the of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And in the eth article of faith, they teach that the Bible is the word of God in so far that it is translated correctly. And what that really means to them, it's actually a very poor way to articulate what they're trying to communicate. But what it really means to them is that anywhere the Bible anyway the anywhere the Mormon the Book of Mormon or Mormon doctrine contradicts the Bible, the Bible is translated incorrectly or the Bible is wrong. And so that's essentially how it works itself out. The Bible is the word of God in so far that it is translated correctly. And so you have of course the Joseph Smith translation. Joseph Smith who did not understand the the biblical languages who did not understand historical languages. Joseph Smith gave the JST, the Joseph Smith translation. Any of you guys ever seen the Mormon Quad? You know what that is? So um do you have a lot of Mormons here in Pennsylvania? Do you? Yes. Okay. Good. Okay. Amish. Okay. But those aren't Mormons, right? Okay. Mormons. So, Mormons will have what's called the Quad, and it's their standard works of the Mormon, the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's the Holy Bible. You have Doctrine and Covenants. You have Pearl of Great Price. And so, you have the the Quad. And in the Quad, it has the King James version of the Bible. But underneath the King James text are notes. And you'll see notes that say JST and then it'll give um a different version of the text that it's referring to. The JST is the Joseph Smith translation. Joseph Smith corrupted the Bible. He literally changed the words to to change the meaning of the biblical text to Mormon doctrine. Um, he twisted scripture with the Joseph Smith translation. It is not a translation by any standard imaginable. And he also added a prophecy of himself in at the end of Genesis. Um, but Mormons will say that we believe the Bible is the word of God in so far that it is translated correctly. And they also teach in First Nephi 13 that the Bible is missing. And this is something that they will know. This is part of their own um cultural language and things they adopt themselves. They also teach that the Bible is missing many plain and precious parts. Meaning that the Bible has been corrupted. They teach that the church fell away from the earth, that there was a great apostasy. Uh not that the church needed to be reformed, but that the church was gone from the face of the earth and that it needed to be restored. Christianity has always and ought to always reject any restorationist movement. The idea that the church has fell away, that the gospel has been lost and the church needs to be restored is something that scripture does not teach. It militates against that idea completely. But Mormonism teaches that the Bible has been corrupted. It's missing many plain and precious parts and that um the church has also fallen away and was needed. A restoration was necessary.

Uh Mormonism teaches about God the father and Jesus. The story is incredible that there one Mormon and prophet and has said that there are more gods than there is matter. You can't think of a more polytheistic system than Mormonism, right? Uh Mormonism is is Mormonism puts Hinduism to shame in terms of the amount of gods. It it truly it truly does. Mormonism teaches essentially an infinite regression of gods. It's mommy gods and daddy gods producing when in polygamous relationships little spirit offspring who go through a course to become exalted to become gods and goddesses of their own planets. One day the god of this earth god the father Elohim is one god among many gods. He had a god before him who had a god before him who had a god before him who had a god before him. And your ultimate goal and my ultimate goal is through u progression obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel to work through that same pattern of exaltation that Elohim did to become gods and goddesses of our own planets one day. The ultimate goal of Mormonism is exaltation through progression in the celestial kingdom to become a god and goddess of your own planet one day. That's what temple marriage is all about. That's what temple ceremonies are all about. That's what the tithing is all about. That's what the word of wisdom is all about. All of that is ultimately working towards becoming a god yourself like Elohim did in this planet. Mormonism teaches that God the Father through a sexual relationship with one of his goddess wives um produced Jesus and us as spirit offspring in the pre-existence. Mormonism teaches that Jesus and Lucifer, Jesus and Satan are spiritual offspring and brothers of Elohim and one of his goddess wives. That's what Mormonism teaches about Jesus. Mormonism also teaches that Jesus was uh produced when he came to this earth in the the womb of Mary, he was produced through a physical sexual relationship between Elohim and Mary. That that's how that actually took place. Which is interesting because if you follow how Mormonism tells the story, Elohim first created Mary as a spirit child in the pre-existence. Then she comes to earth as a human being. And then he comes down and he does what? He has a physical sexual relationship with who? His own spiritual daughter to produce Jesus. I don't think they thought that through when they were telling that story.

Mormonism has uh as one of its most famous messages from Joseph Smith, the King Flet discourse. This was a funeral discourse uh given for a man named Elder King Flet. And this was done by Joseph Smith. There's no more quoted sermon or message from Joseph Smith Jr. the first president and prophet of Mormonism than the King Flet discourse. You can find this in um Journal of Discourses volume 6 page two and um page three. And um here's what Joseph Smith says. My first object is to find out the character of the only wise and true God. and what kind of being he is. But if I fail to do it, it becomes my duty to renounce all further pretensions to revelations, inspirations, or to be a prophet. In other words, this is serious. And what I'm doing now is from God and the Holy Spirit. He says this, "I will prove that the world is wrong by showing what God is. I'm going to inquire after God, for I want you all to know him and to be familiar with him. you will then know that I am his servant, for I speak as one having authority. Now, here's what's important about this discourse here is Joseph Smith is not claiming to just be a teacher or just a a a a mere pro a a a a mere good teacher, a seer in some sense. Joseph Smith is claiming here to speak with the authority as a prophet from God. And here's what he says. I will go back to the beginning before the world was to show what kind of being God is. God himself was once as we are now and as an exalted man and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. I say if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man. It is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so. For I'm going to tell you how God came to be God. We've imagined and suppose that God was God from all eternity. He says, I will refute that idea and take away and do away the veil so that you may see. He said is the first principle of the gospel to know for certainty the character of God and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another and that he was once a man like us. Yes. That God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did. And here's this. Watch this. See if you guys can see how these false prophets twist the truth. Finish this verse for me if you can. Here then is eternal life to know the only wise and true God. What's the next part? And Jesus Christ whom he has sent. So there is again ready here then is eternal life to know the only wise and true God. And then the Christian goes I'm that's uh John, right? John 17. Okay, I know that. I know where that's from. And you finish it off and it's and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Here's what Joseph Smith says. Here then is eternal life to know the only wise and true God. And you have got to learn to be gods yourselves and to be kings and priests to God the same as all gods have done before you. Namely by going from one small degree to another and from a small capacity to a great one, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation until you attain the resurrection of the dead and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings and to sit in glory as do those who sit enthrone in everlasting power. That's the story of Mormonism. That's the God of Mormonism. Clear, fullthroatated, 100proof. That's the God of Mormonism. A God who has a body of flesh and bone as tangible as man's who became a God through progression, sins, failures. Mormon prophets have taught that the God of this earth, Elohim, is progressing in knowledge even to this day. Even he's growing in knowledge. And so the God of Mormonism is a God who has grown in knowledge, who has sinned and got up again, who has developed and exalted into becoming a God. And you and I are on that same path to become a god like him.

Here is um more from the journal of discourses uh volume 6, page 5, 1844, talking about the gods. He says, "Thus the head god brought forth the gods in the grand council. In the beginning, the head of the gods called a council of the gods, and they came together and concocted and planned to create the world and to people it." That's Mormonism. Mormonism is polytheistic to its core. It is many gods. The goal in Mormonism is to become a god or goddess of your own planet. It's not eternal life. It's not worshiping Jesus and glorifying God for all eternity. It's not fellowship with the triune God of holy scripture. is not honor and blessing and glory to the true and living God as creatures worshiping and honoring the true God. Mormonism is a story where God is brought down to the level of man. That's where he began and he is just like us in every way. He sinned like us. He grows like us. He has to become a god one day. That is a god that's not worthy of worship. Not worthy of worship. So that's the the portrait of God the Father. In Mormonism, Jesus again is Lucifer's brother, one God among many gods. Early Mormon prophets taught that Jesus was probably a polygamist in his ministry. Jesus um had his atonement began in the garden, was finished on the cross, and ultimately your works have to be combined with the blood of Jesus for salvation and exaltation. Mormonism also has taught some strange We could do this for days. We could we could have probably six messages on the strange teachings of Mormonism and it gets weird. Really really weird. Here's one. Brigham Young. Young taught this about God. He says, "Now here," this is Journal of Discourses, by the way, volume 1, page 50. This is in April 9th, 1852. He says, 'Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and sinner, when our father Adam came into the garden. He came into it with a celestial body and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the archangel, the ancient of days, about whom holy men have written and spoken. He is our father and our God and the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christian or non-professing, must hear it and will know it sooner or later." So Brigham Y. Young taught the Adam Godd doctrine. That the way that this earth started is that God brought one of his polygamous wives with him as Adam to start the first human family. And Brigham Young taught very clearly that if you deny what he's teaching here, he says this, you will be damned. So what's interesting about that is Mormons will see this and go, you show them. This is a photocopy. By the way, if you want to do ministry to Mormons like this, this is a great book to get. It's really all you need in terms of some foundational things. Where does it say that? So, you know, I would quote Mormon prophets and apostles. I would just quote them and they say, "Where does it say that?" I say, "Well, it's um funny you said that." Um, here's a book that just says that. Um, photocopies of original source documentation. These are photocopies of their pages. And at times you can bring them statements from Brigham. Young or Joseph Smith or Orson Pratt. You can bring them statements and say, "Your prophets have taught this or that." And they'll say, "Uh, well, he's just a man, you know, um, he he he may have just been giving his opinion." And so you read him the Adam Godd doctrine from Brigham. Young and Brigham Young says this very strange thing about heavenly father and Eve and producing us that he Adam is our god and uh then they'll say well I don't really believe that and then I'll say well Brigham says you're damned that if you reject the Adam god doctrine you are damned your prophet is speaking from God and he says that if you don't accept this you are damned to go to hell and so Mormons have struggled with that of course again Mormonism has taught that um Heavenly Father produced Jesus through a sexual relationship with Mary. Um I'll I'll skip that graphic portion.

Uh now on the gospel on the gospel just quickly uh two particular points of contact. There's so much but here's two things to memorize in terms of here's what Mormons believe. They're familiar with this. This is a good place to start a discussion. Mormons teach in 2 Nephi 25:23. Are you ready for this? Finish the verse for me. Ready? By grace are you saved? No, don't give me the Mormon one. Okay, give me the Christian one. Give me the real one. Okay, Mormons. Dang it, Eli. Um, was it

Not you? I, I, I heard it come from this direction. Who said it? Is it you?

Ah, okay. Sorry, Eli. Forgive me.

Book of Mormon.

Oh, okay. Okay. I falsely accused you. There were not that one witness was accusing you. God's word says two or three, right? Okay. Um, second Nephi 25:23 goes like this. By grace you have been saved. Now, as a Christian, finish the verse for me.

Through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not according to works, lest any man should boast. Right?

Okay. Now, Mormonism again twists the word of God. This is how Satan always does it. It's the same tactic universally. A little bit of truth and then poison. And so in 2 Nephi 25:23 it says, "By grace are you saved." He says, "After all you can do." What? That's not grace. That's not how the Bible describes grace. That's a satanic distortion of the gospel. That's a perversion of the gospel. By grace you've been saved after all you can do. So it is merit and works and obedience and then the grace. That's not the gospel at all. That's a perversion of the gospel.

Another in terms of just some simple things that the average Mormon will know. They will have this probably memorized. In the third article of faith, it says that we believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. So there it is again.

What does, what does every counterfeit Christian religion do? What does it always do? It uses the Christian language. It talks about Jesus. They'll say things like grace and faith and atonement, all those things. And so we go, "Oh, okay. It sounds kind of Christian to me." And then the poison, "We believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ, all mankind may be saved." And Christians go, "All right, kind of like how that sounds. Sounds pretty good." And then they say, "Through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel." It's a twisting of grace. It's a twisting of the gospel.

And this gets to a really, really important point. You've probably already heard this a hundred times. Counterfeit Christian religions will always do this. They speak Christianes. They use our language. They say Bible. They say word of God. They say Jesus. They say son of God. They say Messiah. They say died on a cross. They say atonement. They say resurrection. They say eternal life. They use our language. And that's how they kill people. They literally murder people's souls through borrowing Christian language and then creating entirely new definitions.

So if you are talking to a Mormon as you're passing by the street, you say, "Hey, do you believe in Jesus?" They say, "I believe in Jesus." Great. Have a nice day. But if you stop for 30 seconds and you say, "Is Jesus the eternal God uncreated? Is there only one true and living God? None before, none after." They would go, "Uh, no, uh, no, no, no. Jesus was, uh, spirit child of heavenly father." No, no, no. There's many gods. I'm going to become a god one day, hopefully. And so, you have to get beyond the language barrier.

So, Dr. Walter Martin in his book, Kingdom of the Cults, is still a classic. It's still super useful. You should get it in your library for sure. In The Kingdom of the Cults, he starts that work off in the most perfect way. He starts it off with this chapter. It's called "Scaling the Language Barrier." And that's what's most important when talking to members of non-Christian cults or counterfeit Christian cults. You need to scale the language barrier. Understand that you're using the same terminology, but they don't mean what you mean from scripture as you're talking about that. Scale the language barrier. And that's especially important when you're talking about the gospel.

Next, prophets. Mormons teach that the way that you ultimately know that Joseph Smith Jr. was a prophet of God. The way that you'll know is by praying about it. And so that is really the test that Mormons want you to take. Is they'll give you the Book of Mormon and they'll tell you to read this and they want you to pray about it. And if you pray with faith and you seek God and you ask him about what you've been handed and you're reading it, if you have a pure heart and a pure mind and you ask God to reveal himself to you, "Is this from your prophet? Is this the word of God?" That you'll receive a what? Burning in your bosom. A burning in your bosom. And you will know that the Holy Spirit is testifying to you that these are the very words of God.

And so Mormonism begins the introduction to others as to, "Is Joseph Smith a prophet of God? Is the Book of Mormon the word of God?" With pure subjectivism. You sit in the judge's seat. You personally look for this experience to see if you feel like God is testifying to you about this book. Now, here's the challenge with that kind of test. It's totally unbiblical. First and foremost, God has spoken explicitly to this issue of how do you know somebody's a prophet of God.

But if you lined everybody up on stage right now, let them all have their moment on stage. The Rosicrucians, the Christian Scientists, you can have Muslims, you can have Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholics, you can go all the way down the line, the Hindus, the Buddhists, you can have all of them on stage and ask every single one of them, "Have you had a spiritually profound experience in your religion?" What are they going to say? Yes. They'll all have their own testimonies. I mean, there are, there are Muslims that have, um, addiction recovery treatment centers for Muslims, and they use the Quran and and those standards to get people out of addiction to drugs and alcohol. They do that, too. And you have people that are Muslims today that say the Quran is the word of God. Muhammad is his prophet, peace be upon him. And they'll say all of that because they've had a religious experience and they have felt that it's true. But that's not a test for truth. What feels right for you or feels wrong for you.

By the way, you can put all the people up on stage who have a religious commitment, professed religious commitment, and then you could add to that the atheist, the transgender, the homosexual. You can get them all on stage, too, and they can give their own experience and say, "I feel like this is right to me." That is not how you test truth, but that's how Mormonism begins. "Tell me how you feel about this. Pray about this. Get a burning in the bosom."

So they say to test the prophets of Mormonism by prayer. And I'm not diminishing the value and importance of prayer. But if I'm praying about things that God has already explicitly condemned, I'm in the wrong. In other words, let's put it like this. "God, I want to ask for your will here. I'd like to move in with my girlfriend, and I want to live a life like we're married. God. And, um, I'm going to do that in a way that's pleasing to you. So Lord, I'd like you to give me a good feeling right now as to whether I should move in with a girlfriend." Oh, that feels good. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. See what I'm saying?

What would you say to the buffoon that prayed that prayer? Hey, bro, you don't need to pray that prayer. God's already answered that question, right? "Lord, I really need to pray about, you know, throwing a punch at that guy over there because he really angered me." You know, something like that. You don't need to pray about those things. You don't need to pray about whether Joseph Smith's a prophet of God. You need to test Joseph Smith's teachings and his prophecies. Like scripture says, you don't need to pray about this. You don't need to pray about whether or not there's more than one God. You need to open God's revelation where God has spoken as to how many gods there are. And so the test of a prophet is not subjectivism as Mormonism teaches.

So here's some refutation rather quickly in five minutes. Okay. Scripture first. Has the Bible been corrupted? Has the word of God been corrupted? Well, first let's go to what scripture says in Isaiah 40:8. God said, by the way, we could do this over and over and over. I don't want to overload you with scripture right now. Just some important ones. What scripture says about God's preservation of his word. The scriptures say, "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God, what stands forever." There's so many. "Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens." Jesus says in Matthew 24:35, he says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will by no means pass away." Scripture teaches that God has spoken his word. It is the very breath of God. It is theustas. It is breathed out by God. Peter says that holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So God is the origin of this revelation. God is the preserver of this revelation. He says that it would keep the re, the revelation. And when Mormonism teaches that the Bible is missing many plain and precious parts, they are contradicting the very words of God.

And so, how do you combat the prophets of Mormonism who are corrupting what scripture says there? You bring them the word of God. You say, "That's impossible. Joseph lied to you. Brigham lied to you because scripture says that the grass withers, the flower fades, that stuff goes away, but the word of our God stands forever." So, who do I believe? I've got two voices here. I've got the voice and testimony of Joseph Smith, a con artist from Palmyra, New York. A known con artist from Palmyra, New York, a known liar, a known fraudster, a man who practiced the occult, who was on record arrested in Bainbridge, New York in 1826 for crystal ballgazing, an occult practice. He was an occultist. He was a Mason. He a wicked, wicked man. I have his voice and then I have the voice of the true and living God. Who do I believe? And that's what you need to press to the Mormon that you're speaking to. You need to press that. These are the claims of a 19th-century American prophet, a man who said that God spoke to him. But God had already spoken long before Joseph came along. Who do I believe? Joseph Smith or Jesus Christ? Who do I believe? The words of the living God or this con man from Palmyra, New York. Who do I actually believe? We need to press that.

In terms of the standard in scripture, we need to give this to the Mormons. The authority of scripture. This, by the way, we're going to get into some of this tomorrow when we talk about Roman Catholicism. We're going to limit our conversation Roman Catholicism to what I think are the most important elements to simplify it. So, some of this will be repeated tomorrow. But in Isaiah 8:20, listen. Soloscriptura and the revelation of God as, as the primacy of scripture is not something that is an invention of the Reformation. You find it in the church fathers, but more importantly, you find it throughout the scriptures, Old and New Testament, that the revelation of God is the reference point always and every time. In Isaiah's day, Isaiah 8:20, Isaiah the prophet says this. He says, "To the law and to the testimony." To the law and to the testimony. "If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no light in them."

Now, watch this. Isaiah is a prophet of God. He's saying that in a time where God is speaking actively through prophets and giving new revelation. That's a, that's a powerful moment in history to be in, living prophets. Isaiah is one of them. And the living prophet of the day says this about others who were speaking about God or from God: "To the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no light in them." If you want to know if this prophet is from God or if he has darkness in him, see if they are speaking consistently with God's law word that he's already given. That's what Isaiah the prophet says in Isaiah 8:20.

Another one in terms of the standard of truth. Jesus says in John 17:17 in his high priestly prayer, he says, "Father, sanctify them in your truth." What are we trying to get at when we're, when we're communicating with Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or Roman Catholics? What are we trying to get at? We're trying to get at the truth. And Jesus says, "Father, sanctify them by your truth." He says, "Your word is what?" Your word is truth.

Another example, and we're going to do this in some detail tomorrow to communicate to Latter-day Saints using the Bible to press this, is Matthew chapter 15. How did Jesus deal with controversy in his day related to people who said, "I believe the Bible. The Bible's the word of God." But we also have this tradition over here that we also think is divinely inspired in a sense. You know, it's running alongside the Bible. Who has that? Every false religion in the world. They have, "Oh, yeah, we affirm the Bible." Yeah, we the Bible's the word of God. We're not saying it's not. All right. I mean, it's kind of corrupted, but, you know, it's, it's the word of God. You've got Jehovah's Witnesses that say that. And what do Jehovah's Witnesses have? They've got a corrupted version of the Bible, the New World Translation, and then they have the teachings of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society running alongside. They read the Bible, a corrupted translation, by the way, next to the New World Trans, the New, sorry, the, uh, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society's teachings, and they read the Bible through that filter, right? This tradition becomes supreme to the Bible.

Roman Catholics have the same thing. What do Roman Catholics have? Roman Catholics will affirm the Bible. Now they also have the Apocrypha that they've officially canonized much later that even popes have rejected the Apocrypha. Apparently the Vicar of Christ doesn't know what books are supposed to be in the Bible, apparently. But you've got the Bible and the Apocrypha and then you have what is essentially seen as divine tradition running alongside the Bible. We've got divine tradition. We've got the teachings of the church. We've got the papacy. We've got the councils. And so we've got the Bible which we affirm. And then we have this, what is essentially sacred or kind of divine tradition.

Mormonism has the same thing. Sure, we believe the Bible, but we also have Journal of Discourses. We have the History of the Church. We have Pearl of Great Price. We have the Book of Mormon running alongside the Bible. Well, in Jesus' day, there was something sort of similar to that in that you had the law and the prophets, the Torah, the Tanakh, you had all the writings and everything. You had that. They knew what the Bible was. They had all of our Old Testament. By the way, this is just an amazing thing to know. Your Old Testament and my Old Testament, those identical books were what the Jews affirmed as the scriptures, not the Apocrypha, no other writings in the Jewish temple when this moment was happening in Matthew 15. The Jews had laid up in the Jewish temple the holy books, scripture. And what books were in the temple? Your Old Testament and my Old Testament. Same books, same revelation. They did not have the Apocrypha because they didn't recognize it as scripture. They had the Old Testament. However, even though they knew their scriptures and they knew what books were a part of the Bible, they also had their traditions and they had these traditions that allegedly, according to them, went all the way back to Moses. And they had this rule called the Corban rule. And it had to do with money that was supposed to go to mom and dad, but it would go to the temple instead. And so Jesus has a conflict with them and he says this about their tradition in Matthew chapter 15. He says, "God says," and then he quotes scripture. And then he says this about their tradition. He says, "But you say," and he quotes what they think is a tradition from Moses that is divine. "God says, you say two things that collide with each other. They can't both be true. Jesus says, God says, he quotes Moses, but you say," and Jesus says this, "Thus you invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition." He says, "These people," he quotes scripture, "these people draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."

And so, how does Jesus, the incarnate God-man, deal with people in his day that affirm the scriptures but also have a teaching or tradition running alongside the Bible? What does he do? How does he deal with them? He deals with them like a presuppositionalist. He says, "These are the words of God. These are your words. These are false. This is the truth." So, in terms of methodology, I want to reason like Jesus when I'm dealing with religious people. In Matthew 15, that's what Jesus did. He took God's word. He says, "Here's what God says. Here's what you say." And when we're dealing with Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, any other religion, I want to follow Jesus' example. I want to say, "God says, and you say, 'Thus, you invalidate the word of God because of your teaching.'" That's what we should be saying.

Simple as that. So, next, the issue of God. Mormonism teaches many gods. We could do this all day. This is my favorite one because the Bible is so filled with monotheism. There is only one God. I mean, it's the basic profession of every Jew. It says, "Times up. I'm not listening." Okay. Um, it's the basic profession of every Jew. Even in Jesus' day, even in Jesus' day, the morning and evening prayers, I mean, to this very day, it's the same. Jews do the same thing to this day. Deuteronomy chapter 6:4. Let's do it together. Say, "Shema."

Oh, that was so weak. You know what? I'm tired, too, guys. Okay, so let's wake up. Say, "Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad." "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." That is what Jesus would have said in the morning prayers. That's what Jesus would have said in synagogue. That's what Jews to this very day say. It is the very foundation of the Christian faith. There is only one true and living God. And you're to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as you love yourself. We all know that. It's the very foundation.

Mormonism says there were gods before God. You can become a God after God. There's almost no end to these scriptures that you could use, but you better have some ready. You need to give these verses to a Mormon and say, "Hey, take a look at that. Go look at that. Read that and and see how you would answer that as a Latter-day Saint because God seems to be saying something completely foreign than what Joseph gave you." What does God say in Isaiah 43:10? "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior." "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." Mormonism teaches that there were gods before formed before God and you can become a God after. And you just need to simply give that to the Latter-day Saint and say, "Would you spend some time looking at this? Let God speak to you." That's God speaking to you. Let God speak to you. Get into that verse. Get into those, those sections of scripture.

Another one in the same text. That's Isaiah 43:10. Isaiah 44:6. God says, "I am the first and I'm the last. Besides me, there is no God." And then God goes on and says this. "Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other God. I know not one." I just read to you from Joseph Smith's own discourse where he said, "In the beginning, the head of the gods called a council of the gods and they came together and concocted and prepared a plan to create the world and to people it." But the God of the Bible says, "I don't even know of any other gods. Don't even know." And Joseph Smith says, "There's a council. They work together, make a plan to create the world." It's a fiction. Mormonism is a fiction. There is only one true and living God.

Brothers and sisters, of course, we are creatures with three-pound brains and very limited capacity. All of us, even the sharpest minds among us, we are just creatures. And of course, there are things about God that must be preserved by us as incomprehensible. And by the way, that's the glory of our faith. That God is a true and living God. And he is transcendent and amazing and powerful and glorious and majestic. And he's not the kind of being that can be put on the same level as us and understood by us. He is so massive that there are things about God that are incomprehensible and have to be because he's God. I mean, try explaining calculus, you know, explaining calculus to a room full of cockroaches. Sorry about the analogy, but it's kind of the same, right? At a certain point, the creaturliness in front of you kind of breaks down. Amen. And so, are there things about the Trinity that are incomprehensible? Yes. And we should be so happy about that, right? That it's not something you could just, you could just put on a piece of paper and describe perfectly. However, it is completely apprehendable. In other words, God has specifically taught and spoken as to his nature and his being. And what we can do is say, "Here is what God says about himself."

And so, brothers and sisters, you need, you need, I'm going to challenge you on this. No excuses. No excuses like, "That's too tough." I mean, I'll tell you one story. I was, um, years ago, years ago, a big mega-church in Phoenix asked me, of all people, to come and teach on the Trinity, which is always weird when big churches ask me to do that. I'm like, "Do you know what you're getting into?" Like, you just because there's a lot of controversy that surrounds apologetics at church. And so, like, at times we have, like, um, you know, people show up at our church and protesting. And we have, you know, pink-haired women and, you know, you know, Planned Parenthood and women dressed in the, um, the, what's it, what is the show, Handmaid's Tale things. We've, you know, having me come is not always a great idea. Anyways, this pastor comes, uh, asks me to do a, a message on the Trinity. And when he comes out to introduce me, I'm off stage, right, in this massive stage. And he goes out and he's like, you know, "I asked Jeff to come today." He says, "Because, you know, uh, I wanted him to teach on the Trinity and he's smarter than me." And he goes, "And, you know, uh, I don't want to teach on that subject. Every time I think about it, it makes my head hurt." And so, you know, "I asked him to do it for me. So, let's have Jeff come out and teach Trinity." And I was thinking, "Oh my gosh, he's a pastor." And he just went out before his church body and was like, you know, "I think about the Trinity, it makes my head hurt." And I thought, that's just such a, a terrible way to lead our people in terms of this subject. Because listen, here's the deal. When we talk about the Trinity, we're talking about the true God. Like this is a central thing. Becoming a Christian is knowing and worshiping the true and living God. If we don't want to learn about the God that we worship, then what are we doing? And then what are you doing?

And so I, I would say before you read, like, Jezebel's prayer, what's a JZ, what's that, what's that, uh, prayer of JZ? I call it Jo. Sorry, I said it wrong. It's the same thing. It doesn't matter. Um, before you read any stupid books like that and invest time and things like that. I'm sorry if I, uh, hurt your feelings just now. You should be reading books on the Trinity to know what you believe, why you believe it, and be able to defend it. And so, when you're talking to a Mormon about the true and living God, you should be ready to defend the monotheism of the Bible. You should be prepared to defend the deity of Jesus Christ, that he's the creator of all things, that he's eternal. And to be able to do that from the scriptures, you need to be able to defend that the Holy Spirit of God is a "he," not an "it" or a force. He is God. He speaks to Paul in scripture. He convicts the world of sin and righteousness. You need to be able to prove that the Holy Spirit is God, not just sort of a piece of God or, you know, a low-level kind of God. That there are three distinct, co-equal, and co-eternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who share the one being of God. If you can't defend that, you need to drop everything else you're studying right now and you didn't make sure that you study the Trinity and being able to know what it is and how to defend it. Amen.

Next, and I, I will do this, uh, we'll spend more time on this tomorrow. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it right now. The gospel. Mormonism teaches a perverted gospel. It is a faith plus works gospel. It is a gospel that God does his part. You need to do more. And that if you have a level of righteousness acceptable to God, then it's not just about salvation. You'll become a God and goddess one day. You need to be able to defend the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone from the scriptures. Tomorrow we're going to do that with Roman Catholicism.

And finally, you need to be able to demonstrate to Latter-day Saints that God has already given a test of a prophet. He's already given a test of a prophet. And it's not, "Pray about it." It's not, "Seek a burning in the bosom." It's not, "Seek an experience." God explicitly warned his people against false prophets. And you need to show them in the word of God. What the missionaries came to your house with to test Joseph Smith in was not what God already said to do. Long before Joseph came along, God laid down the test of a prophet. Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and Deuteronomy 18:20-22.

In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, God says this to his people that even if a prophet comes and has signs and wonders, now pause there for a second. There are so many religious movements even in the last 20 years where some legitimately weird spiritual things have happened and people have seen those things and experienced those things. Now, sure, there's charlatans. There's people who will be like, "Hey, look, I made his leg longer." It's like, you know, stuff like that. You know, of course, there's stuff that's not overly impressive, but let's be honest, there are some really, really strange spiritual things that occur in some of these movements. People have had visions and strange experiences. And God says this to his people that even if the prophet has signs and wonders, but he leads you after other gods, gods which you have not known, God says to, to the people of God. He says, "That's how you know he's a false prophet." In other words, think about this. Early in Israel's history, early in Israel's history, very early on, God is already laying down the test for the people of God. I've already revealed myself to you. You have my revelation. You know how who I am. I've spoken to you. And he says, "If this prophet comes and he gives you a different God, even if it looks real, it looks legit. It seems like the spirit of God is here working miracles, there's signs, there's wonders." He says, "If they lead you after another god, gods which you have not known, that's how you know they're a false prophet." So even early on in Israel's history, we're talking about like the first five books of the Bible, Deuteronomy, that early in history, God's saying this, "I've revealed myself. Test them by what I've already told you about myself. You use my word, my previous revelation to test these prophets."

And then the other one I think is spectacular because this is something unique to Christianity, biblical faith. Deuteronomy chapter 18:20-22, a question is asked, "How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?" That's the question about like, "I don't know, this prophet says he's speaking for you. He says he's from you. How do I know? How do I know if Joseph Smith is speaking for God? How do I know if David Koresh is speaking for God? How do I know if Mary Baker Eddy is speaking for God or Charles Taze Russell or Judge Rutherford? How do I know if they're speaking for God?" Well, God says this. "If you say in your heart, how should we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? When the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing follows not, nor comes to pass, that is the word which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him."

And do you know what the consequence was for a single false prophecy in Israel? Do you know what the consequence was? Death. That putting words in God's mouth is such a sin and a crime. It is such a devastating thing to do to somebody's soul that God says that what that is worthy of is death. To say that I said something that I didn't say is worthy of death. Now, here's what's unique about it. The Bible is filled with prophecy. Filled with prophecy. Specific prophecy, direct prophecy, time prophecy, location prophecy. It is filled with prophecy. And think about this. The Bible is putting its own, God is putting the veracity of the Bible on the line by saying, "One false prophecy, one false prophecy. This entire thing is fiction." How you like them apples. Which, by the way, also means this. To be fair to the Mormons, you have to hold Jesus to that same test. If Jesus has a single false prophecy, by the Bible's own standard, he's a false prophet. And you can say that with confidence because it's the truth and this is the revelation of God and Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus is God. You can say it boldly. Jesus has no false prophecy. The Bible's filled with true prophecy throughout. It's an incredible, incredible thing.

Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde, Joseph Fielding Smith, all the way through gave false prophecy and spoke falsely about God. And so there are, there is example after example. And I would just encourage you to go study this on your own because it's getting late. I can give you example after example. You can grab this book. Don't take mine. But buy this book. Um, I think, um, Mormon Research Ministry has these now. You can get copies of this. I would really encourage you to buy this. It is filled with photocopies of the pages of prophecies of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, Orson Hyde. Prophecies about the temple built in Jackson County, Missouri before they all died. They all said it. It never happened. That Joseph Smith was going to remain in the priest's office until Christ came. Oops, he was murdered. Um, that Jesus Christ was returning in that generation before they all died. That didn't happen. That they would never be allowed into the union unless they denied polygamy, which they would never do. And then God had a change of mind. And then they stopped doing polygamy and they're part of the union. You can go on and on for days. False prophecy after false prophecy.

Um, I want to leave you with this, uh, incredible quote from Joseph Smith that I like to read to Christians, honestly, to get you, uh, riled up and, um, on your feet. Joseph Smith in History of the Church, volume 6, page 408-44, said this. He said, "I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I'm the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from him. But the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me." Yet you know my daily walk and conversation. The man was a fraud. The man was a false prophet. And through his work, he has led millions of people astray.

To preach of, uh, to quote my hero of the faith, my mentor, Pastor James White, to preach a false gospel is to commit eternal murder. And we need to see the world in that way. When missionaries are riding down the street, we need to recognize that this is a gospel that they are delivering to people that is killing their souls in a sense. And so we need to have the, the love and the courage necessary to reach this community with the light of the gospel. And so I want to challenge you if you feel passionate about the Mormons, I want to challenge you to invest your life to know their religion better than they do and to know the word of God in such a way that you can bring it into contact with what they believe to see that God would save the Latter-day Saints. That's the ultimate goal. Not to destroy them, but that the light of the gospel would actually bring light to the darkness of Mormonism. And let's do that together. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word and this privilege I had to be able to communicate to your people. Use us for your kingdom and glory to reach Latter-day Saints in Jesus name. Amen.