Greetings to all!
What another great year at the Mormon Miracle Pageant! It was a wonderful time to bring the truth and light of Jesus.
On the first day I was there, I stood on the sidewalk where people were passing by and I asked individuals if they could answer a quick question that I have concerning the introduction to the Book of Mormon. The introduction to the 1981 edition of The Book of Mormon says, “The Book of Mormon is a volume of Holy Scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains, as does the Bible, the fullness of the everlasting gospel.”
So, my question to them was, “If the Bible is already the fullness of the everlasting gospel; why do we need the Book of Mormon and other scripture?” I used the illustration of a glass that is full of water. I explained that you cannot add more water to something that is already full. They understood my point.
I was hoping that the conversations this year would lead the LDS people to question if they believed that they had forgiveness of sins. I have used the Impossible Gospel approach in the past years. The Impossible Gospel is an evangelistic approach using only LDS resources to show Mormons that it is logically impossible to live in the Celestial Kingdom with God the Father, Jesus Christ and their family. You can find out the resources used in the impossible gospel by going to http://trigrace.org/Visual_Aids_files/Miracle%20of%20Forgiveness%20Reference%20Guide.pdf. I did use it some this year, but to my surprise most of my conversations turned to the nature of God and the reliability of the New Testament.
Most LDS people do not know what they believe concerning the nature of God. I asked the LDS people if they agreed with Joseph Smith’s sermon called the King Follett Discourse. For the people that did not know that sermon I explained to them that it was a sermon given on April 7th, 1844 in which Joseph told the LDS people that God was an exalted man, and that he had to obtain godhood. Every LDS person that I talked to agreed with Joseph’s teachings of godhood.
I told them that this concerned me because the Book of Mormon teaches the total opposite in Moroni 8:18 which says, “For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.” When the LDS people said that they agreed with that statement in the Book of Mormon, I explained to them that both cannot be correct. Either God was once an exalted man that obtained godhood or He has existed as God from everlasting to everlasting. Many people said that they would look into it while others said that it did not matter which viewpoint of God was right.
But it really does matter which viewpoint you have of God because God in Scripture says: “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none LIKE me.” (Isaiah 46:9). No one is “like” God. In fact Lucifer himself was kicked out of heaven because he said: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be LIKE the most High.” (Isaiah 14:14). By trying to be “exalted” to be “like” the most High, the Mormons are falling into the snare of Satan and his lie, when he told Eve you will be “as gods” if you eat the fruit in Genesis 3:5.
Jesus Himself warned that not everyone is a “child of God”. In fact He told those who opposed him, “Ye are of your FATHER THE DEVIL, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and ABODE NOT IN THE TRUTH, because there is NO TRUTH IN HIM. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44). So believing Satan’s lie in Genesis 3:5 and denying what the Scriptures teach about who God is and the fact He never was a man like us (Hosea 11:9), places the Mormon under great condemnation. For he too will fall as Satan did if he continues down his path of trying to exalt himself to be “like” God as Joseph Smith taught.
The other topic that we talked about is the reliability of the New Testament. Mormons are taught to believe that there are many errors and mistranslations of the New Testament. Mormons get this belief from the 8th Article of Faith which says, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” 1 Nephi 13:28-29 in The Book of Mormon talks about there being “many plain and precious” truths taken out of the Bible. Most LDS people are unfortunately unaware of what occurred in the First Century. I explained to the LDS people that the Bible is reliable and accurate. In 70 AD the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed. As the temple was being destroyed the people went all different directions to save their lives. The people in Jerusalem took the New Testament with them. I then explained that the only way for the New Testament to be corrupted is for an evil man to get on his donkey, and travel hundreds if not thousands of miles to grab all the manuscripts. Once that evil man gets to his destination; he has to find the where Christians are hiding. They saw how unreasonable it was. I had a tract showing a map of where the people went with the New Testament. I also showed them on the tract that there are 5,780 ancient hand copied manuscripts of the New Testament. So, to corrupt the New Testament manuscripts in the first century would have been impossible.
So, it was another great year as always!
