Dr Greg Bahnsen - Introduction to Apologetics: Methods XIII Mormonism (Part 23)

All right, let's begin our apologetics class tonight with a word of prayer. Lord, as we come into your holy presence again this evening, we are humbled by the fact that we are so small and finite in comparison to you and all of your grandeur, but humbled also by the fact that in our smallness we are also sinful and often don't think in ways which are pleasing to you. We are capable of such confusion and error. We come to you tonight grateful that you allow us into your presence and that you do so for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Savior, who has redeemed us, has called us out of the world of sin and the kingdom of darkness, and translated us into a kingdom of light and truth. We thank you for our Savior Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. We thank you for the life we have in him and the forgiveness that is ours because of his redemptive love. We also honor him and thank you for the truth that is represented by Him. We ask that you would make us better ambassadors of that truth, that we would better appreciate its importance and also be better at defending it when there are those who ask a reason for the hope that is in us. Toward that end, we ask your blessing upon this class period tonight. In Jesus name, Amen. Paul says in second Timothy, chapter two but refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach patient when wronged, with gentleness, correcting those who oppose themselves, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. And I have taken that one expression here who oppose themselves and use that kind of as the theme for our class over the last must be what, three months now? Two months, whatever. Almost more than two months. Three months we've been looking at different worldviews and trying to show that, as the Scripture says, those who will not affirm the authority of God nevertheless have to answer basic questions about reality and about how we know what we know and how we should live our lives. And the way in which they propose to answer these questions proves to be a snare to themselves. They oppose themselves. It's not just that we stand opposed to them. But they can't live, they can't think, they can't abide by their own most basic presuppositions. And so in terms of Secular, unbelieving, atheistic, materialistic, naturalistic ways of thinking. How do you like that stream of adjectives? We have seen a number of contradictions, internal contradictions, or, if you will, incoherence in the worldview. I'll take just one example quickly. Here you have someone who says, there is no God, everything that exists is material in nature and yet wants to hold to human dignity and rights. You just can't bring those two together. And you need to learn to be able to point that out. And you can do that even to unsophisticated, uneducated people, that they can't have it both ways. So in terms of the secular and unbelieving worldviews, we've seen a lot of incoherence when we turn to the attempt to have a spiritual answer for things like ethical absolutes or the laws of logic or the uniformity of nature or human dignity. Any of the things that we've been talking about previously about the unbelieving worldviews, the atheistic worldviews, the spiritual counterfeits that are offered, whether it be Plato or the world religions, all tend to be arbitrary. So you have incoherence on the one hand and arbitrariness on the other. And I just want. I have said this in the past, and I want to make a point tonight, reminding you those are the two biggest weapons you have, incoherence and arbitrariness. When you're talking to somebody, just remember that. Say, are they playing fairly? Do they say one thing in terms of their basic principles here and then go against their own basic principles later? Look for those kind of incoherences, but then also look for arbitrariness. Because, you see, that is the second key sin for a philosopher is just to say, well, I believe this because I believe it just to be arbitrary. And the interesting thing is most people have the impression that that's what Christians do. They just believe it. You know, they think it's true because they believe it. It's faith in faith, you know. And yet we of all people should be against arbitrariness, because if you're allowed to be arbitrary, you're allowed to play God. And we think only God can tell us what to believe. Only God can be our authority. So we're not allowed to be arbitrary anyway. You look for incoherence, look for arbitrariness. As we looked at the religious, more religious options for worldviews, we looked at Plato and saw some of his arbitrariness, and we started looking then at the world religions, and I broke them down into three general classes. And I'd like you to remind me of what the three classifications of world religions are. And I'm going to go to my row of star players over here. Patty, what are the three classifications of world religions that we've been using?

Incorporate Hinduism.

Okay. What is that one called? You remember where Hinduism is the key illustration. Religions of. Here, we'll do it by charades, Kathleen. Oh, okay. Okay. Transcendent mysticism, that which goes beyond man's experience and emphasizes a mystical understanding or misunderstanding of life. Okay. And then a second classification typified by religions like Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, would be religions of what gene. Eminent moralism near at hand. They are this worldly in their emphasis, and the stress is placed upon moralism, laying down rules for life and so forth. I said, however, there are other religions that fall into a third category. And what is that third category? What's that? That's right. Perversions of Christianity. Those which in one way or another draw upon or ape Christianity. Okay, but I broke that group down into various kinds of perversions of Christianity, too. Unitarian, polytheistic and pseudo messianic. And tonight I'm going to try to get through the polytheistic and pseudo messianic illustrations. Okay, Kathleen? Yes. Yes, I can. But my class that I'm so proud of will do it for me, I'm sure. Glenn, what is an example of a Unitarian Christian perversion? Mickey? That's right. Islam. Islam says there is but one person that is God, Allah. And it nevertheless draws on the Bible and tries to incorporate Christianity and Judaism in it. And we saw how that doesn't work very well.

Why did you change? He said Muslim. He said Islam. Muslim is the nation. Islam is the religion.

Yeah, I don't hang around enough with it to say this with confidence, but from what I have read, technically Muslim is not the description of their faith. They are the. And, well, the religion is that of Islam. Used to be a Pokemon.

Does dualism qualify as monotheism?

No. Zoroastrianism being dualistic is not mono anything. It emphasizes two ultimate principles, Ahura, Mazda and whatever the other one was. I forget. Okay, let's talk about a polytheistic perversion of Christianity. What example am I going to talk about tonight? The Mormons. Exactly. It's been demonstrated without question from the county records of Bainbridge, New York, that prior to Joseph Smith assuming the role of prophet for the new religion, he was tried and convicted as Joseph Smith, the glass looker. Anyone know what the expression glass looker refers to, it'd be similar to a crystal ball. But technically, in the 1830s in particular, well, glass looking was a confidence game in the first place. Okay, do you know what, did they.

Have something to do with like cut stones or something?

Yeah, he had a piece of glass that he would put in his hat, and then he would look into the hat and claim to be able to find buried treasure or a source for a well. And so he'd go and he'd sell his services. If a farmer wanted to find a well, he'd say, I'll look into my glass and I'll slide. It's so hard to understand when we look back to another culture in 1830 is far enough away that it really is another culture. Why would anybody fall for that sort of thing? But they did. Well, why do people fall for confidence games today? I mean, I suppose 100 years from now, people look back at the confidence games that were popular and think the same thing. But anyway, apparently he was very good at convincing people to give him money to find buried treasure or a source for a well. And as I say, it has now been demonstrated within the last 20 years because we have found in the musty basement of Bainbridge, New York, the court receipts for the keeping of Joseph Smith when he was on trial, you know, for his meals and so forth. They used to, this is interesting, they used to farm out the keeping of prisoners. So a person would submit a bill to the court, you know, for so many meals and so many nights, lodging and things like that. Anyway, we have the records on this man, Joseph Smith, the glass looker. Joseph Smith was an imposter who claimed to find treasure and mines and wells through a peep stone. Smith admitted to this at his trial. And his defense at his trial, interestingly, is not that he didn't try to use a glass to find such things, but that he never sought out customers and so he shouldn't be prosecuted. People came to him, by the way, that too is disproven. He did seek out customers. For our purposes as apologists, you need to know. He admitted that he did that sort of thing, and he admitted it in trials of 1826 and 1830. This is not a real good place to begin a critique of Mormonism, however, because Mormons are very sensitive when you start talking about Joseph Smith and his bad reputation. So knowing that, why am I starting here anyway? Because I'm going to leave this for a minute. I'm going to tell you a story about the development of Mormonism. Then I'm going to come back to this because I want to show you in terms of opposing themselves, that in the end a person has got to part with his sanity in order to become a Mormon. I know that's strongly put, but everything is going to come down like an inverted pyramid to the credibility of Joseph Smith. Because if Joseph Smith is not credible, Mormonism falls apart. Joseph Smith Jr. Was born in 1805 in Vermont. He settled in Palmyra, New York at the age of 11. He did not choose to join the Presbyterian Church. A few years later, when the remainder of his family did so, he was perplexed as to which denomination he should join. So he went to the woods to pray. At the age of 14, allegedly two personages appeared to him in the woods. And one said, this is my beloved son, hear him. And Joseph Smith was told to join no church since they were all wrong and their creeds were an abomination. All the available churches were corrupt and hypocritical. In September of 1823, he had another vision. We are told it was repeated twice in the same night. Moroni came to his bedside. Moroni is the messenger of God's presence, according to the Mormons. Moroni came to his bedside and said God had work for Joseph Smith to do and that his name should be had for good and evil among all the nations. That a book that was written on golden plates giving an account of former inhabitants of this continent, North America, and the fullness of the everlasting Gospel was delivered by the Savior to these ancient inhabitants were deposited on a hill outside his village. The next day, Joseph Smith, according to the story, went out and found them in a stone box with the Urim and Thummim. Urim and Thummim, of course, being the Old Testament high priestly, probably stones for determining what God wants us to do in a difficult situation. He couldn't take them. But he was to return to the same place on the same day for the next four years. And then in 1827, he was given them for careful keeping. Now, some months previous to this, he had eloped with a woman named Emma Hale of Harmony, Pennsylvania, because her father had refused to give consent to a marriage with a peep stoner. That's understandable for a father to say he didn't want his daughter to be marrying a peep stoner. Later he returned to his father in law's house due to persecution he was facing, where he began copying characters and translating these by means of the Unum and I mean the Urim and Thummim Martin Harris, who was a New York farmer, proposed to publish the book that Joseph Smith was writing. But he wanted assurance that the plates from which he was translating were genuine and that they were being properly translated. And so Smith gave the copied characters and translation, which he said was in reformed Egyptian, to Martin Harris, who had them confirmed by allegedly a certain Professor Charles Anthon in New York City. And what he confirmed is that these characters were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic. It seems to me that at that point you stop the story and say, that's not a language, but the story goes on. 1829, a former school teacher, Oliver Cowdery, became an amanuensis as Smith was translating. Cowdery was not allowed to see the plates. They had to put up a sheet and Smith would go on one side, he'd do the translation, and Cowdery on the other side would be writing down what supposedly the plate said. A month later they went to the woods to pray and were conferred with the priesthood of Aaron by John the Baptist, who descended as a heavenly messenger. They then began to prophesy and to understand the Scriptures. Later, Peter, James and John conferred the milk as a Deccan priesthood on them at the banks of the Susquehanna River. March 26, 1830. Finally, the Book of Mormon went on sale. On April 6, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was officially organized and incorporated. At first they had six members, the oldest being 31 years old, and within a month they had 40 members. They did missionary work among the Indians in Kirtland, Ohio. It was at this point that Joseph Smith received the revelation of the Doctrine and Covenants. He also revised the King James version of the Bible. Then he received a revelation that Jackson County, Missouri was the land of promise and the place for the City of Zion. For that reason, many followers settled at Independence, Missouri. However, mobs attacked them and led them to change to the city of Far West Missouri. The state militia intervened. After a number of battles between settlers and the Mormons, Smith and a few other Mormon leaders were imprisoned. They escaped and they moved to Illinois. In 1839, the city of Nauvoo on the Mississippi river was founded. The Nauvoo Legion. A small standing army was organized and when an anti Mormon newspaper published material that was unfavorable to the Mormons, Joseph Smith ordered the press to be destroyed and its copies burned. A complaint was brought to the governor of the state and this led to Smith's arrest. He was later released and then rearrested with his brother. A mob attacked the jail in Carthage, Illinois, and he was killed, which, by the way, may have been probably the worst political thing you could have done because it created a martyr. Mormonism, I think, would have gone away of its own ridiculous stature if it hadn't been for that. Nevertheless, there was a struggle then within the Mormon Church for leadership. Many of you probably know the rest of the story. That struggle was won by Brigham Young, who became President of the Twelve Apostles. In February of 1846, the state of Illinois expelled the Mormons. That's back in the day when they didn't worry about pluralism very much, did they? The state said, we don't want Mormons. You're gone. And they did. They left, and they had a very troubled journey, which makes for interesting reading about the Old West. And finally, In July of 1847, they founded the city of Salt Lake City in Utah. It is said that over 3,000 converts pushed handcarts from Iowa City, which was the end of the railroad at that point, from Iowa City between the years 1856 and 1860. And in 1877, when Brigham Young died, there were 140,000 Mormons. In 1962, there were about 2 million Mormons.

So, yes, I was wondering, with so many crackpot religions, what was it about Mormonism that caused such violence, violent opposition?

You're kind of beating me to the punchline of my story tonight. No, you don't have to withdraw it. I just want to decide how much to tell you. We're going to hear some fascinating things about some plates that Joseph Smith had out in the forest. There's a religious interpretation of what those plates were. There's also a counterfeiting interpretation of what those plates were. Joseph Smith advocated polygamy, which in the 1830s was of course abominable to the general Christian culture of America. If you do much reading, and I'm not going to emphasize all the horrible stories you can tell, but the Mormons were at that time, very violent people. I have a book in my library that tells in great detail the story of a massacre that was ordered by the Mormons of some travelers through the state of Utah because they were traveling from a state where Mormons had been persecuted. So there's a lot going on here beyond just the claim about certain religious things, about visits of angels and the story of early inhabitants of America. Let me tell you a bit more about Mormon teaching. What is the authority for their teaching? Obviously, you hear these sorts of things. On what basis do you say this Article eight of their Articles of Faith says we Believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. That kicker always should tell you something. I mean, in other words, it's not going to be an objective matter of linguistic translation. It's going to have to be our group that does the translation. 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. Do you notice that there is no reservation given as to the Book of Mormon's translation? The reason why there's no kicker there about the Book of Mormon is because the translation of the Book of Mormon is inspired according to the story that not only do you have the Book of Mormon, but Joseph Smith was inspired to translate it. And so that puts the Book of Mormon kind of in a step ahead of the Bible, because there is no inspired translation of the Bible, but there is an inspired translation of the Book of Mormon if you believe the story. But Smith's revision of the Bible is far more than a corrected translation of the Bible. You need to be aware. In fact, Smith's version of the Bible is a simple rewriting of it in the light of his new revelations. Let me just give some illustrations. Genesis 3 now includes Satan's offer to God to redeem mankind, Satan's offer to redeem mankind and his subsequent rebellion. Genesis 6 relates Adam's baptism by immersion in Joseph Smith's translation. There's a long prophecy by Enoch given in the Book of Genesis. And we learn in the Book of Genesis in Smith's translation that a man's ability to propagate sexually rests on his fall into sin. And in the 50th chapter of Genesis, amazingly, we have a prediction of the future appearance of Joseph Smith in his translation of the Book of Genesis. I have too many notes to give you all tonight, so I'm doing a little editing here. Okay? The Book of Mormon becomes very important then, since the Bible, as you have it, proves to be so unreliable. The Book of Mormon. Have you all read the Book of Mormon? I'm going to tell you why I asked that question. I was pretty sure most of you would say no, but you must read the Book of Mormon. You see, that's a strange thing for a Christian pastor to insist upon. Why must you read the Book of Mormon if you want to deal with Mormons? What do you do when someone rejects Christianity and you say, well, have you read the Bible? And they say no? You say, well, then you don't know what you're talking about. Do you if you don't read the Book of Mormon and they ask you that question, they're going to say, well, then you just have some party line that you're spewing. So you need to read the Book of Mormon. Let me give you a reason. Here's another reason to read it. It's really fascinating. The Book of Mormon is the account of two great waves of immigration to the American continent. The first wave of immigration is the Jaredites, who came here about 2250 B.C. from around the Tower of Babel on eight barges. They landed in Central America. But after a savage battle in Central America, there were only two survivors who recorded the history and died. That's the end of that. That's one part of the Book of Mormon. Now you're going to ask yourself, well, what happens to the Jaredites? Why do we learn all this stuff? Later on, it will be shown that Joseph Smith has taken these stories about early inhabitants of America, has plagiarized them from other writers who are doing novels, you know, imaginative things about. And I think he just. He got started on one. He said, this is not going anywhere. That becomes the Jaredite civilization that dies out. And he continues with another one. And now we have the story of Lehi and his descendants. Lehi was a Jewish prophet, we're told, at the tribe of Manasseh around 600 BC who was forced to leave Jerusalem due to persecution arising from his indictment of the wickedness around him and the prediction of destruction coming from God. So he went to the Red Sea area. His sons were sent back to get brass plates of the Pentateuch, various prophecies and Lehite's genealogy, all recorded on brass plates from Laban. His son, Nephi, Lehi is the priest that took off. Nephi built a ship in response to divine revelation, and he and his cohorts landed on the coast of South America. How they did that in the area of the Red Sea? Navigators haven't figured that one yet. Anyway, now Laman is the son of Lehi. And Laman was rebellious and his skin was turned black by the Lord. Get rid of that guy. Nephi. Was made the king by others who came to South America. They were obedient to him. Eventually they migrated to Central and then to North America. According to Nephi's prophecy, Jesus Christ came to the earth in AD 34. He prescribed baptism by immersion. He called 12 disciples, he instituted bread and wine, and he gave the Sermon on the Mount. After this prophecy by Nephi, all were converted and peace ensued between the Lamanites and the Nephites. A period of hostility later arose and then constant warfare. And in 385 A.D. a final battle took place at the hill Cumorah in what is now New York State. All the Nephites were killed except for one by the name of Moroni, whose father was named Mormon. Can you remember that? Next time someone says, why are they called Mormons? Remember, because Mormon was the father of Moroni, who was the one guy who was left after this great battle. Mormon had been recording the history of the Nephites on golden plates, and this process began with Nephi himself and was carried on by other Nephite historians. Mormon summarized the secular history from the large plates and added an entire spiritual history on smaller plates. And then he hid them in the hill prior to this battle. And later Moroni, his son, added the books of ether and Moroni and in421 reburied them. 1400 years later, Moroni, who has now been changed into an angel. You can only keep it in so long, right? I mean, this is. You start giggling at this stuff. That's true. And other places too. He appeared to Joseph Smith who later said, I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct book on the earth and the keystone of our religion. And a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book. Okay. The distinctive doctrinal teachings of the Mormons are found then in their translation of the Bible, the Book of Mormon. And then I need to add a couple. A book called the Doctrines and covenants published in 1876, which is a series of revelations through Joseph Smith. Many of these revelations through Joseph Smith are about rather mundane things. One of them says, and I quote, harris pay the printer. That's one of the revelations he got. He got Revelation. He got revelations about houses in Kirtland, Ohio. This is a good 1. Revelation 1:32. Joseph Smith's wife is ordered by God to receive Smith's additional wives on pain of eternal destruction. That's a convenient little device to have when you're having trouble with your wife, Right? The Lord says, you're going to go to hell if you don't agree with me. Doctrines and Covenants, teaches baptism for the dead, teaches celestial marriage, teaches polygamy. Obviously. The other book you need to be aware of is the Pearl of Great Price. It contains the Book of moses covering Genesis 1:6 and Smith's inspired version of it. And also the Book of Abraham, which teaches polytheism, the pre existence of souls, the plan of God to prepare an earth for these souls, a plan for their probation, the organization of matter for forming the heavens and the earth, and for some reason, Matthew 24 in Joseph Smith's translation of the King James Version. There's also a history of Joseph Smith, the Prophet and the articles of Faith. All right, these are the authorities. Then for the Book of Mormon, one has to be added. They believe further revelations for the Church can be given through the President of the Church or the Council of Apostles. Since the Book of Mormon claims to take the Bible and then expand on it, what test are we going to apply? The test of Deuteronomy 13 and 18. If a prophet comes speaking in new revelation, what he says is going to happen must come true. But beyond that, what he says must be in conformity to previous revelation. I'm now going to take a few minutes to try to prove to you that what Joseph Smith taught is not in conformity with previous revelation. According to the Mormons, there are a plurality of gods. Each God has his own universe. And yes, it is his own universe. Women who engage in celestial marriage will have the privilege of bearing children for all eternity. That's what they're good for. And these baby souls that they bear will then come into human bodies as they are provided. Turns out that the God of this world's name is Adam, the first human here. And God, all gods are material rather than spiritual beings. And gods undergo change. Now, does the Bible teach that God is a material being? God is the Spirit according to Jesus. Does God change? Jehovah declares I change not. That's why you're not consumed. House of Israel. Is Adam the God of this world? According to the Bible, not only is Adam out of this world. I have here a photo reproduction of the Journal of Discourses of Brigham Young for the date April 9, 1852. And we read when our Father Adam. I'm just picking and choosing some of the juicier things here. When our Father Adam came into the the Garden of Eden, 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, the only God with whom we have to do. Every man upon earth professing Christians or non professing must hear it and will know it sooner or later. Okay, let's see if we have this right. Adam with a celestial body brought Eve one of his wives, to this earth. He is also Michael the Archangel. When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family. And when he took a tabernacle, it was begotten by his Father in heaven after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve from the fruits of the earth. The first earthly tabernacles were originated by the Father and so on in succession. Virgin Mary was not a virgin. She had relations with our Father Adam, who, remember, if you can keep the story going here, is also Michael the Archangel. But it gets worse. Changing columns. It is true that the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely Elohim, Yahweh and Michael. These three forming a quorum, as in all heavenly bodies, in an organizing element perfectly represented in the Deity as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Okay, you have Elohim, Yahweh and Michael, who also is the Holy Ghost, who is also Adam, who is also the one who impregnated Mary. Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden and who is our Father in Heaven. Now let all who hear these doctrines pause before they make light of them or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation. This is heavy stuff. If you don't believe this, you're going to be damned. That's what he said. Is any of this consistent with the Bible? Is Adam our God and Father? Is he Michael? Is he the one who impregnated Mary? And this is bizarre. And I know I've been warned that if I make fun of it, then my salvation is going to be jeopardized. But you look at this kind of thing and you begin to wonder, were these guys on peyote or what? This is really strange stuff. And they want us to believe it. And they're saying we will not be saved if we don't. I want you to remember that the threat, eternal damnation for questioning. This kind of stuff.

Does the Mormon version of the regular Bible excise these embarrassing passages?

It retranslates them so that they come out right.

I'm sorry, does it do a complete job of it?

A Mormon expert would do better at answering that than me. Elric, what I will tell you is that Mormons are very efficient at creating recensions of their documents. For instance, just try to find an original edition of the Book of Mormon. If you do, it's worth thousands, maybe millions of dollars. The Mormons have done a very good job of destroying all the originals and not only that many of the revisions since then. Because though the Book of Mormon was the most perfect book on earth and inspired in its translation, it ended up saying some things that are nevertheless kind of embarrassing. Joseph Smith claimed that if he looked through his peep stone, he could see people walking on the moon. Okay, the Book of Mormon makes a number of claims that are just outlandish, but you don't find them in later editions. So my guess is, in answer to your question, they probably have been cleaning it up and cleaning it up and bringing it into closer conformity as best they can with these other revelations. Okay, what is their view of Christ? According to them, Christ is not equal with the Father. He was the Messiah, but not begotten by the Holy Spirit. And Christ is our Messiah because he was a polygamist. You didn't know that until you read Mormon literature. The Holy Spirit is not a person and not equal to the Father. The Mormon doctrine of man is that man can become God. If you engage in celestial marriage and you're a good Mormon, eventually you can become God and have your own universe. You can almost see crass, you know, TV announcements like used car salesman. Have your own universe. Join our group. That's what they promised to man. The doctrine of salvation is that you must accept the teaching of Joseph Smith, his books and his revelations. The atonement provided by Christ covered only original sin, the sin of Adam. We will be saved through baptism. Now, some of your relatives who didn't have the advantage of this revelation that you have have died and you can be baptized for the dead so they can be saved as well. They believe that when we're baptized, we're regenerated. That is the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. As I've said, they are polygamous with respect to marriage. And there are two kinds of marriage for Mormons. Marriage in the temple, a sealed marriage, and as binding for eternity. And then marriage outside the temple as simply being married but having no eternal consequence.

It's interesting that if my information is correct, that the consummation of the marriage in the temple is witnessed by appropriate priests.

But no one's supposed to know about that. El Re. And you shouldn't have said that publicly. Well, Elrine are on the same wavelength. That is all supposed to be. Yes. There are also people who used to be in the higher echelons of Mormon ritual and so forth that have, by God's grace, been rescued from that have talked about some of the things that take place in these ceremonies. And it's. I mean, it's as occult and voodoo and weird as anything you've ever seen. My brother taught school in Utah? No, actually in Nevada. But there are a number of Mormons in Nevada, too. And a number of Mormons wear special undergarments. You're aware of that. You know, with the heart over the heart and so forth. There's just a lot of superstition and a lot of weird things, and that is one of them. But that's supposed to be a secret. That's why I was tongue in cheek telling you not to say that.

Can only certain Mormons be married in the temple? You have to be a good Mormon.

Yeah, you have to have approval to get married in the temple.

It's always Monday.

No, you just can't go in and say, hey, it's time for my celestial marriage. I mean, you have to have approval. Okay, well, why am I bothering with all this? Because I want you to see that this comes down to the credibility of the Book of Mormon, doesn't it? Let's talk about the credibility of the Book of Mormon. I have to go real fast here. We'll run out of time. Obviously, there are many contradictions with the Bible, Numerous contradictions with the Bible, and the biggest one is that there are many gods and that God is a material being and that you can become a God. And this really concerns me. A few years ago, when I was still living in the city of Orange, we had a couple of Mormon female missionaries come to our door. Interesting. They're usually men, but when I have enough time, I almost always invite these people in for a innocent chat about religion. I'm interested in religion, of course. Come on in. You know, and so when they started, you know, telling me where they were from, I said, well, then you believe that there are many gods. No, we don't. I said, well, you're Mormons, right? Yes. You believe there are many. No, we don't. I said, the Book of Mormon teaches there are many gods. No, it doesn't. So I go down to my study and I get my Book of Mormon and I come back and I open it up and it goes. It says it right here. And here's. This is a missionary. And she reads this and she goes, well, that isn't what it means, really. And so I tell you this because I think there are a lot of people who are Mormons who I would Call social Mormons. They're not theologically astute. They don't even understand what the distinctive of the faith are. They see the family life and they do take care of each other. They're a real close knit group. They've done a lot. I mean if you've ever been to Salt Lake City and seen what you can see of the temple, I mean they do some grand things, impressive things, but a lot of people don't even know what they really believe. Well, there are these contradictions with the Bible though, and you can't get around it. Yes, let's talk about the languages of the Book of Mormon. The Bible as you know, came to us in the common language of the recipients of the Bible, Greek and Hebrew, but now the Book of Mormon. Accordingly, God's new revelation has been given in a language which no one is able to translate without another miracle. The miracle of translation of reformed Egyptian, which is really a combination of Chaldean and Syriac and so forth. In fact, the Book of Mormon at chapter nine, verse 32, if you want to put this in your notes, says that Reformed Egyptian is not a human language. Says so. Not a human language. There are no manuscript copies for scholars to study and discuss. By the way, we have thousands of copies of the Bible in part or in whole for comparison and so forth. And it comes down to taking one man's word for the existence of such reformed Egyptian, much less the miraculous and inerrant translation of it. Now why would God go to the problem of revealing himself in a language which couldn't have lexicons and grammars which had to be miraculously translated? Why didn't he just give it in a translated language? Why the double miracle? It just doesn't make any sense. Why the unnecessary miracle of teaching Nephi, who was a Jew in Jerusalem, remember Egyptian, where did he learn it? Well, Mormon tells well all Jews came from Egypt, remember that's where he learned it. Since all the creeds of the churches were wrong and all the churches were an abomination, I think you'd especially expect go God to send the revelation that corrects these things in an easily understandable language available for checking in the original. And now listen to this. Book of Mormon 9:33 admits Hebrew would have been more perfect. Would have been. But the plates weren't large enough for the Hebrew script. Why then didn't God make bigger plates? I mean these are obvious questions. We're supposed to be told God's going to do the miracle of translating this language that's not human. But he finds that he's restricted to these plates. I mean, I want to use Hebrew, but I guess I'll have to use reformed Egyptian because they're not big enough. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, when God can intervene and not intervene becomes very arbitrary. What did I tell you? Start watching for arbitrariness. The transmission of the Book of Mormon. We have no other instance of writing on metal plates from antiquity. You should know that. And yet, allegedly the entire Old Testament was once put on brass plates about 600 BC. Since Smith was inspired in translation, the Book of Mormon must be inerrant and self authoritative. However, as I already told you, many changes have been made in the Book of Mormon since the original edition was published in 1830. Some are obvious grammatical errors, others are more doctrinal. In the first edition of the Book of Mormon, the Lamb of God was identified with the Father rather than with the Son of God. Inerrant translation. That's a big mistake, isn't it? And then I have some notes here about the alleged confirmation of this by Charles Anthon that is recorded in the Pearl of Great Price. Anthon denies it. This is a real embarrassment to Mormons. But I'm going to give them Charles Anthem as having confirmed the reformed Egyptian the Book of Mormon. And what I want you to do then is look at the book of Mormon 9:34, which says, and I quote, but the Lord knoweth that none other people knoweth our language. Therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof. Premise. The Lord knows that nobody can translate this language. And yet the Mormons claim to have gone to a linguistic scholar in New York who later under affidavit denied that it happened and said that Charles Anthon said it's reformed Egyptian. But you see, by their own book no one would be in a position to do that because no one knows our language. So how does Charles Anthon, who's not even a Mormon, know their language? You see what I'm getting at? When you're in the snare of the devil, you contradict yourself. You can't. Human beings cannot put together a religion and a worldview that's going to hang together. This makes me all the more have respect for the Bible when you think about being produced by men like Peter and farmers, Amos and these sorts of people. And yet the book hangs together. It's just remarkable. Oh, how much more do we want to know about this? Okay, let me finish this up by going back to the beginning. Why did I tell you about Joseph Smith? Because when I bring all these things out to Mormons. And I've done this many times since my days in college. I couldn't tell you the number of Mormons, not just that I've talked to for 10 minutes or so, but I've had like three or four encounters with come back, come back, come back. And the thing that impresses me is that without fail, they always bring it down to the credibility of Joseph Smith. Because when I say the Bible says this, the Book of Mormon says that. They say, yes, but your Bible's not translated correctly. When I say, well, the Book of Mormon has all these problems, they say, yes, but Joseph Smith has integrity. And so you have to believe him. He's the prophet of God. And I finally tell them, then what you're saying is that I have to rest my eternal salvation on the credibility of a man, the only man who saw and could translate a language that nobody else has access to, that God did not show to the human race for 1400 years for some strange reason, and appears to contradict everything that we know in terms of the doctrine of God taught in the Bible. It all comes down to the Book of Mormon and then finally the credibility of Joseph Smith. Yes, and I trust him. And that's when I say the court records of Bainbridge, New York show that in the very year that he started the new religion, he had been convicted of being a con man. Would you like to entrust your eternal salvation to a person who became the prophet of God after being a peep stoner? Does that sound mean and nasty and ad hominem attacking this wonderful man, Joseph Smith? Now, I want to suggest to you that even philosophers get to the place where they say the evidence for the credibility of somebody is so poor and there's so many contradictions with what we know otherwise. To be a credible religion, we have to say we have to walk away from this. I'm not going to put my eternal salvation in the hands of someone who saw people walking on the moon. Okay, questions about Joseph Smith tonight or the Book of Mormon or Mormonism? Yes.

What do they preach? What do they preach in their services?

Good work.

And they're so deceptive that people, you know, sometimes think that this traditional mainline.

Type of religion, well, they preach good works, that's the heart of it. And they do a pretty good job of it. They talk about family values, patriotism, community values, helping one another, and they do talk about redemption and so forth, but they try to couch it as much as possible in evangelical type language. One of my very best friends in this world dated A girl who was a woman Mormon, against my advice, and eventually she was converted, praise God. But to talk to Leanne now, you know, and I'll ask that kind of question, what were you hearing? And so forth. And she said, well, these people were just so warm and accepting. I don't think I really was paying attention when they said all these strange things about, you know, atonement and who Jesus was and all that. She said it wasn't emphasized and I was just taken in by, you know, they're what we would consider non intellectual factors, which I think we as Christians ought to realize. That should be true for us too. Not that we want people to turn off their minds as Mormons succeed in making people do, but people are really convinced by our lifestyle and that's what it was.

Yes, Patty, I'm saying I'm a service because when I was a nurse, I've been raised in a Christian church or anything, but I went to a service, they sang out it's almost Christian hymn book. Some of the choirs sang, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's nothing, nothing. That song was just down there real popular. And I had never heard of Church of Jesus Christ as being part of the Mormon. So my girlfriend and I, who were both Christians, had gone there. The only way we found out what it was was that it was Sunday school time. It's like we were down there and it's like nobody else was around but us, you know, her and I and you know, probably an elder in their church who sat down to discuss it and suddenly realized where we were, where they were coming from. But you can't tell from that service that they knew anything other than, you know, an evangelical curse.

They sing A walk today Where Joseph walked. All right, all right. P.S. here on Joseph Smith and his credibility. Some people believe that there is evidence that the Mormons have systematically been destroying, that the plates that Joseph Smith was so interested to hide out in the forest were counterfeiting plates. And this is one of the things that got him into trouble everywhere he went is all of a sudden they showed up with a lot more money than you would expect them to have, and all looking real clean and new. And I can't verify that I've seen articles suggesting it. I do know the Mormons are active in suppressing evidence. When I was a student at Westminster years ago now, who knows how long ago that was. I remember I was looking for something in the library once and I went to the library and I said, I can't find this out on the shelf where it Belongs. And he goes, oh, well, that's in the cult section. In the cult section. Where's the cult section? It was down in the basement where no one, unless you asked the library, you would not be able to find it. And I asked him why that was, and he said, because they found out at Westminster over a period of time that they were losing material on various cults, including the Mormons, that people would walk in. And in the good old days when we trusted people, they didn't have those electronic devices, you know, to catch you walking out of a library with a book. And apparently people were coming in and they were taking the resource material out and destroying it. And they're not the only ones who do that, by the way. But the Mormons are very active in doing that.

Vicki, don't they try to suppress the thing about Adam being.

Yes. The reason why I said I have a photocopy of the very journal that was published by Brigham Young is just because Mormons are embarrassed. But they say that's not true. And you'll find sometimes Mormons will say, well, you shouldn't believe what any of these cult experts like Walter Martin tell you, that you need to go to Salt Lake City and look at the originals. And so what has happened is people like the Tanners and others have been publishing photocopies of these things so the people will know we didn't make this up. It's right here. And so you notice when I got my head turned around here, I was reading from the photocopy of that about Adam, and it's bizarre stuff. All right, any other questions? Mike, there's a reorganized Church. How did they do? Yes, well, remember I said there was a struggle for leadership after Joseph Smith died. And if I have the story right, you have Brigham Young, who won, But Joseph Smith Jr. His son split off and that became the reorganized Church. Yes.

Is that the Church of Christ who always say they're not Mormons?

Yes, that's right. They make a point of saying they're not Mormons. Well, I just.

Wanted to observe that the rank and file apparently don't get fed enough weird stuff to spoil them from being a very decent folk, in fact, more so than some that we.

Would be much closer to.

But I heard on one program, on the authority, I guess, of. Of someone who had come out of that church, that they lose most of their leadership when they become initiated into priesthood. They learn so much that they can't stand it and leave the church.

That's an interesting observation. I mean, if that's True. I can see why it would be true, yes. What would you say now, budding apologist, if someone said. Now wait a minute. You may say they believe all these weird things, but they're such good people and they do so many wonderful things. Now how are you going to respond to that? Now you could give the straight out. Well, it really doesn't make any difference how good they are, they still don't have the truth. But I think you need something a little more persuasive. I would suggest you reflect on this. You might tell people, if you were the father of lies and you wanted to persuade people to follow a lie, would you have the lie attended by notoriously wicked things or by things that look outwardly pious and good, which is going to be the most deceptive way to poison people theologically?

Angel of light.

That's right. And that's exactly what I'm reading. And Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Okay, were you going to say something?

A quick question about. You mentioned when you were reading the fifth pent up of Mormon about the sin of Adam. What could he have sinned against? If he was God, how could he? I mean, wouldn't anything he have done been right?

Not on the Mormon view of God. That's true. Adam was our God. But he messed up and things got to be taken care of. Now I wish I could. I probably should know what exactly the sin was. It's sexual in nature. That's another thing. This group is really obsessed with sex. They have been in the past anyway.