Mormon Coffee

The March 2008 issue of Tabletalk included a good article on Jesus’ words found in Matthew 7:21-23. The article is here reprinted with permission.

——————————————————————-

The Most Frightening Words

by Tom Ascol

As Jesus draws His Sermon on the Mount to a close, He makes one of the most frightening statements to be found in Scripture. Martyn Lloyd-Jones calls His declaration the most solemn and solemnizing words ever uttered in this world.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart form me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt. 7:21-23).

It is hard to imagine anything more devastating than to hear the meek and lowly Jesus Christ utter these words to people who were expecting to be welcomed into heaven by Him. These are people who have been deceived. They lived their lives believing a lie.

Think about the kind of people Jesus describes here. They are not irreligious. They call Jesus “Lord.” They know the lingo and even make a proper profession about Christ. Furthermore, they have been very active in the practice of their religion. They have been preachers, exorcists, and miracle workers, and they did all of their religious works in the name of Jesus.

On that fateful day, however, neither their religious fervor nor their activities will save them. They have deceived themselves into believing that they know Christ, but in reality they have missed Him. They profess to having a saving relationship with Him. He professes never to have known them. And Jesus’ profession is the one that ultimately matters.

Self-deception is an insidious condition. You will never meet a person who knows he is self-deceived. By definition, those ensnared are completely unaware that they are.

This is why God gives us so many warnings to be careful in our walk through this world (Acts 13:40-41; 2 Peter 3:17; Heb. 3:12, etc.). It really is a dangerous journey.

John Bunyan graphically depicts this in the final scene of The Pilgrim’s Progress. After describing the glorious reception that the king gave Christian and Hopeful into the Celestial City, Bunyan describes the outcome of the character he called “Ignorance.”

His name is not a commentary on his intellect but on his lack of understanding of the true way of salvation. Earlier in the story we learn the Ignorance is quite confident that he will make it to heaven because, as he says, “I know my Lord’s will and have been a good liver; I pay every man his own; I pray, fast, pay tithes, and give alms.” Furthermore, he speaks freely of Christ and says that he often thinks of God and heaven and genuinely desires to go to them.

Despite Christian’s and Hopeful’s best efforts, they are unable to dissuade Ignorance from his confidence, ill-founded though it is. He has not been born again. He is not trusting Christ alone to justify him before God. Thus he is not living by faith in obedience to God’s commands.

So in that final scene that takes place at the very threshold of heaven, Ignorance’s self-deception is exposed when he is not allowed to enter. The king has him bound hand and foot and taken away. “Then,” Bunyan writes, “I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven.”

That is the very point that Jesus makes in the Sermon on the Mount. Why does our Lord speak these frightening words? Is it simply to scare us? Is it to make us worry about our salvation or keep us from assurance?

No. It is to warn us and to spur us on to “make our calling and election sure” (2 Peter 1:10). It is to motivate us to “examine ourselves to see whether you are in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5). Jesus speaks these words not to rob us of joy but to help insure that we do not miss the joy that comes from knowing Him savingly.

At the end of the day, what matters is not a profession of religious zeal and activity. What matters is that we are known – savingly known – by Jesus Christ.

Those who know Christ and are known by Christ follow Him by obeying His commandments. They don’t obey in order to be right with Him, but because they have been declared to be right with Him.

This, after all, is the basis on which the Lord will make His shattering pronouncement on the Day of Judgment. Heaven is reserved for those who do the will of God. Those who do not do His will will be exposed as “workers of lawlessness” and, despite their religious professions, will be removed from His presence forever.

It is a great kindness that our Lord speaks so plainly to us in His Word. We are without excuse. He warns us of self-deception and instructs us in the way to avoid it. He speaks frightening truth in order to save.

Dr. Tom Ascol is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, and executive director of Founders Ministries.

—–

Reprinted from Tabletalk, March 2008, volume 32, number 3. Used by permission of Ligonier Ministries, home of Renewing Your Mind.

On Monday (April 14, 2008) the Salt Lake Tribune ran an interesting article by Michael Nielsen, one of nine on the editorial board of the independent publication Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. The opinion article addresses the query regarding “How the LDS Church could address the polygamy question.” Dr. Nielsen rightly notes,

“To deny polygamy’s importance to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormonism is, well, to be in denial. Many Latter-day Saints prefer to avoid polygamy or to think that it has no bearing on the present, but this is pointless if we are to consider what other people think of the church…

“From my reading of newspaper letters, article comments and blogs, it seems that defenders of the church too often provide information that is clear but inaccurate or incomplete. For example, it strikes an observer as disingenuous when told ‘the LDS Church has nothing to do with polygamy,’ as I’ve read in the comments to several newspaper articles in recent days. Clear? Yes. Accurate? Not so much.”

These LDS members have taken their cue from late President Gordon B. Hinckley. He made a similar statement during the Church’s October 1998 General Conference:

“I wish to state categorically that this Church has nothing whatever to do with those practicing polygamy.”

Clear? Yes. Accurate? Not so much, given that the specific religion he refers to is a splinter group with roots in the LDS Church, and the polygamy they practice is in obedience to alleged revelations clearly emanating from Joseph Smith and subsequent LDS prophets.

Dr. Nielsen concludes his Salt Lake Tribune article with several suggestions regarding what the LDS Church could do to address the polygamy issue. These include acknowledging and clarifying the LDS Church’s past history of polygamy as well as encouraging the public to understand past and present polygamy in context. His suggestion that is most likely to draw fire, however, is this:

“Develop a new understanding — a revelation, even — regarding Doctrine & Covenants 132, the section of Mormon scripture that forms the foundation for polygamy and celestial marriage. As part of this, discontinue the policy allowing men to be sealed to more than one woman. Such a change would make it clearer than ever that polygamy is in the past. After all, the LDS hymnal asks, ‘In the heavens, are parents single?’ to which it answers, ‘No.’ That the current policy suggests parents are not only wed in eternity, but are sometimes even wed to more than one spouse, seriously undermines the claim that polygamy is in the past. Instead, it suggests that polygamy is in both the past and the future, and that current policy is the exception rather than the rule.”

The circumstances under which a person is born into this world directly correlates to the individual’s behavior in the pre-existence. Or so Mormon General Authorities have freely taught. Born Black? You are cursed because of your behavior in the pre-existence. Born in China with “dark skin”? You were less obedient than you could have been in your first estate. Born among the “starving hordes of India”? Your lack of pre-mortal worthiness is to blame. In 1954 LDS Apostle Mark E. Petersen explained,

“These are rewards and punishments, fully in harmony with [God's] established policy in dealing with sinners and saints, rewarding all according to their deeds….” (delivered to the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, Brigham Young University, August 27, 1954. For the sources of the other statements made above, see Alvin R. Dryer, “For What Purpose?”; Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:61. Sources gleaned from the Faith Promoting Rumor blog)

“Old news,” some may say. “Outdated personal speculation.” Yet the doctrine continues to find life in Mormonism.

On March 11, 2008 Terry B. Ball, professor and Dean of Religious Education at BYU, presented a devotional address titled, “To Confirm and Inform: A Blessing of Higher Education.” Dr. Ball said,

“Have you ever wondered why you were born where and when you were born? Why you were not born 500 years ago in some primitive, aboriginal culture in some isolated corner of the world? Is the timing and placing of your birth capricious? For Latter-day Saints the answer is no. Fundamental to our faith is the understanding that before we came to this earth we lived in a pre-mortal existence with a loving heavenly father. We further understand that in that pre-mortal state we had agency. And that we grew and developed as we used that agency. Some, as Abraham learned, became noble and great ones.”

Unlike past LDS leaders, Dr. Ball did not suggest that a non-Caucasian earth birth is a curse or somehow reflects poor pre-mortal behavior. Instead, his comments are built around the idea that God chose the circumstances of each person’s birth based on growth needed to reach one’s full eternal potential. Nevertheless, the basic theme, from early Mormonism to today, is the belief that by a person’s behavior in the pre-existence, he merits the position and advantages he possesses during his mortal life. As past LDS Prophet David O. McKay is quoted in Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual,

“From this revelation [Abraham 3:23], we may infer two things: first, that there were among those spirits [in premortal life] different degrees of intelligence, varying grades of achievement, retarded and advanced spiritual attainment; second, that there were no national distinctions among those spirits such as Americans, Europeans, Asiatics, Australians, etc. Such ‘bounds of habitation’ would have to be ‘determined’ when the spirits entered their earthly existence or second estate. . . .

“Now if none of these spirits were permitted to enter mortality until they all were good and great and had become leaders, then the diversity of conditions among the children of men as we see them today would certainly seem to indicate discrimination and injustice. . . .

“. . . Our place in this world would then be determined by our own advancement or condition in the pre-mortal state, just as our place in our future existence will be determined by what we do here in mortality.

“When, therefore, the Creator said to Abraham, and to others of his attainment, ‘You I will make my rulers,’ there could exist no feeling of envy or jealousy among the million other spirits, for those who were ‘good and great’ were but receiving their just reward.” (page 14 [chapter 6])

Mormonism is a relentlessly merit-based religion. Even when and where we are born (according to Mormonism) is directly tied to our worthiness (or lack thereof) as demonstrated by our choices in the pre-existence.

As in mortal birth, so too for eternal life. LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie taught,

“Jesus…makes a pronouncement of wondrous import: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. This is the sum and substance of the whole matter. Salvation, eternal life, rewards in all degrees and varieties—all come by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. Salvation must be won; it is not a free gift… But what of grace? Grace is the love, mercy and condescension of God in making salvation available to all men. ‘It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.’ (2 Ne. 25:23) Eternal life is freely available; salvation is free in that all may drink of the waters of life; all may come and partake; but none gains so high a reward as eternal life until he is tried and tested and found worthy…” (The Mortal Messiah 3:302)

Salvation must be won; it is not a free gift. We are saved by grace after all we can do. Only those who prove themselves worthy gain eternal life. The Messiah never said such things. Instead, He said,

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works…” (Ephesians 2:4-9)

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

On April 10, 2008 the Reuters blog, FaithWorld, discussed the “fundamental” PR problem the LDS Church is facing these days with the shakedown at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ YFZ Ranch in Texas. Blogger Ed Stoddard wrote somewhat sympathetically about the unfortunate “polygamous Mormon” stereotype being perpetuated among an undiscerning public. The general trend is to recognize no distinction between LDS Mormons and FLDS Mormons; to most people there is no difference.

I agree that this misunderstanding is unfortunate. Mormonism (and Fundamentalist Mormonism) should be evaluated based on what it actually is, not what it is perceived to be. I think most Mormons would agree with me in theory, yet in defending their Church their declarations sometimes rely primarily on faith-promoting perceptions. Consider this comment left by a reader of the Reuters blog:

“When I hear about these psycho polygamist sects making national news and the news agencies referring to them as ‘Mormons’ and ‘followers of Joseph Smith,’ it just makes me sick. These people are about as much followers of Joseph Smith as terrorists are followers of the Muslim faith! There practices are considered apostate and evil, and anyone who abuses a child, in OUR faith, is worthy of death (subject to the laws of the land, which we put before our own laws). Oh, how I wish people would search out the truth about us instead of believing what they hear from whoever they hear it from.”

This Mormon’s perception is that Fundamentalists have nothing to do with Mormonism’s founding prophet. He doesn’t seem to realize that the polygamists do follow the teachings of Joseph Smith, though they do not follow the marital teachings of later LDS prophets, from Wilford Woodruff on. The Mormon commenter calls the Fundamentalists “psycho” polygamists whose practices are “apostate and evil” and says anyone who abuses a child is worthy of death. But Joseph Smith himself engaged in marriage to young girls, sometimes resorting to threats and manipulation in an effort to secure them as plural wives.

Another interesting comment on the issue is found in a reader’s response to an article in Deseret News:

“I am LDS in Texas. FLDS, and all others who practice polygamy in Texas, Utah, or wherever, are nothing more than pedophiles and slavers who use laws protecting religious freedom to get away with it.”

This Latter-day Saint’s faith-promoting perception is like that of the Mormon quoted earlier. She does not seem to recognize similarities between FLDS polygamy and polygamy in the early days of her own Church. If these modern day polygamists — practicing The Principle for the very reasons Joseph Smith and Brigham Young claimed God required plural marriage — are “pedophiles and slavers”, what does that make the founders of her faith? How were they any different? She might argue that they were commanded by God to do what they did, but the FLDS members believe they are obeying God as well.

Certainly the parallels between Joseph Smith and Warren Jeffs’ FLDS teaching and behavior are not exact, but history confirms that the FLDS understanding of God’s requirements for exaltation are more closely aligned with Joseph Smith and early Mormonism than are the doctrines of today’s LDS Church. While ignoring this truth might be a welcome faith-promoting perception for Mormons, it causes me to echo the commenter on the Reuters blog: “Oh, how I wish people would search out the truth about [Mormonism] instead of believing what they hear from whoever they hear it from.”

One of the first LDS Apostles, Parley P. Pratt, was hastily buried near Van Buren, Arkansas on May 14, 1857. Murdered in cold blood and considered by many Latter-day Saints a martyr to his Mormon faith, Parley’s dying wish was to have his remains brought back to Utah to be buried among his friends. In early April (2008) an Arkansas judge granted permission for Parley’s descendants to disinter his remains and move him to a burial spot in Salt Lake City. Husband of 12 women and father to 23 children who survived him, Parley will be laid to rest in a reserved grave surrounded by four of his wives. (Addendum: Parley’s remains were sought but could not be found. The family gave up the search.)

The story of Parley’s death is an interesting one. This is an account excerpted from History of Utah, 1540 – 1886, by Hubert Howe Bancroft, published in 1889, pages 546-547:

In May of 1857 Parley P. Pratt was arraigned before the supreme court at Van Buren, Arkansas, on a charge of abducting the children of one Hector McLean, a native of New Orleans, but then living in California. He was acquitted; but it is alleged by anti-Mormon writers, and tacitly admitted by the saints, that he was sealed to Hector McLean’s wife, who had been baptized into the faith years before, while living in San Francisco, and in 1855 was living in Salt Lake City.[1] McLean swore vengeance against the apostle, who was advised to make his escape, and set forth on horseback, unarmed, through a sparsely settled country, where, under the circumstances, escape was almost impossible. His path was barred by two of McLean’s friends until McLean himself with three others overtook the fugitive, when he fired six shots at him, the balls lodging in his saddle or passing through his clothes. McLean then stabbed him twice with a bowie-knife under the left arm, whereupon Parley dropped from his horse, and the assassin, after thrusting his knife deeper into the wounds, seized a derringer belonging to one of his accomplices, and shot him through the breast. The party then rode off, and McLean escaped unpunished.[2]

[1] The account given in the Millennial Star, xix. 417-18, is that McLean, after treating his wife in a brutal manner for several years, turned her into the streets of San Francisco, and secretly conveyed the children on board a steamer for New Orleans, where the woman followed him; but finding that her parents were in the plot, set forth for Salt Lake City. Returning to New Orleans in 1856, she rescued her children and fled to Texas; but was followed by her husband, who had previously returned to California, and now regained possession of the children. Parley, who had already befriended Mrs McLean, had written to inform her that her husband was in pursuit. Hence the prosecution. McLean and his wife finally separated in San Francisco in 1855. See also Autobiog. of Parley P. Pratt, app. Stenhouse relates that Mrs McLean was married or sealed to Pratt in Utah, that she met Pratt in Arkansas on her way to Utah, and that the apostle was acquitted on account of her assuming the responsibility for the abduction. He admits, however, that the apostle did not abduct the children. Rocky Mountain Saints, 429. Burton says that Pratt converted Mrs McLean and took her to wife, but on what authority he does not state. City of the Saints, 412. The fact, however, that Mrs McLean arrived on the scene of the apostle’s assassination just before his death, as mentioned in the Millennial Star, xix. 478, wears a suspicious look. In the S. F. Bulletin of March 24, 1877, it is stated that the apostle made the acquaintance of Mrs McLean while engaged in missionary work in San Francisco; that her husband, who was a custom-house official and a respectable citizen, ordered him to discontinue his visits, and kicked him out of the house for continuing them surreptitiously; and that the woman was so infatuated with the Mormon Elder that she devoutly washed his feet whenever he visited her. On arriving at Fort Smith (near Van Buren), McLean found letters from Parley Pratt addressed to his wife, one of them signed ‘Your own,——. ‘The McLean residence in San Francisco, on the corner of Jones and Filbert streets, was in 1877 a dilapidated frame building, a story and a half in height. As to the apostle’s assassination, the Bulletin merely states that he was overtaken by McLean and shot within eight miles of Van Buren, and that he died of his wounds an hour afterward.

[2] This account of Parley’s murder is based on the testimony of Geo. Higginson and Geo. Crouch, whose letter, dated Flint, Arkansas, May 17, 1857, was first published in a New York paper. Copies of it will be found in the Millennial Star, xix. 478, and Burton’s City of the Saints, 419,-13, note. They state that the tragedy occurred close to the residence of a farmer named Win, and was witnessed by two men who were in the house at the time, and from whose evidence at the coroner’s jury the above version is taken. Pratt lived long enough to give instructions as to his burial and the disposition of his property. The account given by Stenhouse, in Rocky Mountain Saints, 429-30, does not differ materially, except that he makes no mention of any accomplices.

Robert J. Grow, descendant of Parley Pratt and president of the Jared Pratt Family Association is not convinced that Eleanor McLean’s legal marriage to Hector should be considered a factor in Parley’s murder. Mr. Grow states that women in those days (and especially women involved in questionable religions) had very few legal options when contemplating an end to a marriage. In addition to those considerations, however,

“It should also be noted that with respect to the ‘laws of marriage’ the Latter-day Saints at that time believed the laws of God superseded the laws of men, and a divorce from Hector may have been viewed by Eleanor as an unnecessary formality.” (“Finding Parley:” A Family’s Quest to Fulfill Apostle Parley P. Pratt’s Dying Wish pdf file)

It is said that Parley’s final testimony was this:

“I die a firm believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and I wish you to carry this my dying testimony. I know that the Gospel is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, I am dying a martyr to the faith.” (Steven Pratt, “Eleanor McLean and the Murder of Parley P. Pratt,” BYU Studies 15 [Winter 1975]: 248.)

For discussion, given the circumstances of Parley Pratt’s death, in what way do you think he understood himself to be a martyr to his faith? Do you agree?

Since Jeffrey Holland quoted N.T. Wright on the issue of Biblical authority (or lack thereof), it seems appropriate that we become familiar with Wright’s position on the matter