If you were visited at home by Mormon missionaries and only had a few minutes, what seed would you plant?
I would first ask them to bear their testimony, and then thank them, and then say, “Would you mind if I shared a testimony?” They always say yes.
If you don’t have time for that you can just skip to this part:
“Can I see your quad for a moment? Thanks.” Open to Isaiah 43:10, put your finger under it. “The testimony I have to share isn’t my own. It is God’s testimony. God bears his testimony in Isaiah 43:10 that, ‘Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me.’ If we consider the testimony of man, how much more should we consider the testimony of God?”
Notice how I speak of scripture to them strictly in terms of “God’s testimony” — not as “scripture” or “God’s word” or “the Bible”. I am trying to drive home the directness of the inspiration of scripture by a fresh use of terms.
Isaiah 43:10 addresses the very heart of the traditional Mormon understanding of the Lorenzo Snow couplet, “As man is God once was, as God is man may be.”
Grace and peace!
Aaron
JACK
I am sorry that you have gone astray from the true faith, and hope that you will someday see the error of your ways.
The arguments I have presented, and those that Ralph have presented, make perfect sense to anyone who actually used their intelligence to think about things.
Shem,
Okay, we’ll go where you want. The arguments presented by Christians use the Bible as the foundation. Your arguments’ foundations come from outside the Bible. You are proud of that, which is why I say that you need to repent. You want to insinuate that I have no intelligence. Well, I don’t want to play that game with you. However, I will say that you are following a false spirit. It is a spirit that has emboldened you to speak the heresies you speak without any regard for real biblical exegesis. You see, I used to think just like you. I used to think I was as intelligent as you think you are. I had to repent, and that is the road you will have to take to come to the point that you see that you are following a false religion. You won’t be able to escape that path, Shem. When you come to know the true gospel, I will be there to welcome you into the true kingdom of the Living God. I will not say, “I told you so,” but will praise God that He never gave up on you. I have a vision for that day, Shem. It might seem ridiculous now, but God works in mysterious ways. He loves you, Shem, and He is presenting the truth to you in abundance. I pray that your heart will soften, so that you might hear the whisperings of the True Spirit of God. His whispers are compatible with God’s Word, the Bible. If you are hearing whispers that lead you astray from God’s Word, which is only the Bible, Shem, then you are listening to a false spirit. Again, I am praying for you, Shem. Remember, your wisdom is nothing compared to God’s wisdom. I had to learn that for myself, and so will you.
Peace and Grace to you, that you might not fear the Light, and come out of the darkness of Mormonism into God’s abundant grace!
Jackg,
I do not claim to be intelligent, in fact I usually claim the opposite. While I have a small knowledge of how a car works I do not know how to fix it when it breaks down. I know basic first year uni maths but I am not in anyway a mathematician. The list goes on and on about what I do not know or understand. Likewise I do not know or understand everything about God, His will nor His wisdom. But I do know that I can approach Him in prayer as a humble, submissive child of His, and He will answer my prayer and give me the knowledge and wisdom I seek about Him and His work and glory. I look to Him for the truth and to His appointed mouthpiece, the Prophet, for His word for me in this day and age. I look to the Bible and BoM for inspiration and learning about God and His plan and His love and mercy. But the main thing I do is I listen to the Holy Ghost, as He is the way God communicates to me, revealing what is truth, what God wants me to do and warns me of dangers in my way. Again, I get all this from praying to my Father in Heaven by my faith in and through the name of my Saviour, Jesus.
I have done much research about the LDS church and I have stayed because I know that this is the one true path back to God. I know this because God has told me. I am sorry you feel the way you do about the truth.
For me, wisdom and intelligence are two separate things, and they’re not always present in equal quantities.
I might be stretching the English language, but intelligence is about the ability to hold information (to “know” stuff) and wisdom is about being able to make the right life-decisions (to “live” rightly). Thus you can have unintelligent people who seem to be able to make right choices, and intelligent people who are complete idiots.
In the corpus of scripture, I think wisdom is valued above intelligence, but intelligence isn’t regarded as a handicap.
Ralph,
You said: “I look to Him for the truth and to His appointed mouthpiece, the Prophet, for His word for me in this day and age.” Therein lies the error of your ways. You paint a picture that appears to be congruent, but it’s not. The mouthpiece you listen to and call a prophet does not speak the Word of God. If he did, it would align with biblical teachings. As for the Holy Ghost leading you, as I said before, if you are hearing whispers that contradict God’s Word, the Bible, then you are hearing a false spirit. This is not a knock on you, but the realization that false spirits exist and lead good people away from the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not you or any other Mormon I have issue with, it’s the heresies of the gospel you believe. I know what you have been taught and how you’ve been taught, because I have gone through that same process. But, now, I have been freed from the lies and deception of Mormonism. You can test the words of your founding fathers against the biblical text, and to make it work you have to add the qualifier that the Bible is true so long as it is translated correctly, which, in itself, is an erroneous statement since JS never translated anything; original manuscripts are necessary for that. He interpreted and made things up (like Kolob). There is nothing Divine in the process he undertook to perpetrate his lies to the world. So, I don’t see where you can say that God told you something that clearly contradicts His revealed Word, especially regarding the ontology of God. I don’t see how you can continue to claim that God is an exalted man, and that you will one day become a god as He is. Your words sound nice, but they hide a multitude of false teachings. The approach of Mormons regarding the Holy Spirit is post-modern: God told me this, therefore it must be true, even if what is claimed as coming from God contradicts His previous revelations. Earnestly praying for you.
Peace and Grace!
JACK
The Pharisees denied the devinity of Christ because he taught against their religion (the one that Moses gave them). They denied Peter was a prophet, and John, and James, and Paul.
God gave his Gospel to Moses, who delivered it to Israelites. By the time Christ came it had been so corrupted that Christ had to start over. He never denied the scriptures, but did deny the interpretations that the Pharisees had taught for them.
Joseph Smith did the same thing. After the Apostles the church became corrupted, like it has in every age of the world. A simple rformation was not sufficient, so, under the direction of Christ, Joseph Smith reorganized the church (just as Christ did). Not once did Joseph Smith deny the Scriptures that were already had by men, but he did deny many of the false interpretations that had crept in, just as Christ did.
I have not yet heard a doctrine taught by the church that I have not seen supported by the Bible. This may not be an obvious, straitout statement, but it is all there. One just needs to know what they are looking for.
And I did not mean that you were not intelligent. I think you are. What I meant is that you don’t use it. Yes this was an insult, but then what you said wasn’t that much better. If you don’t like this explain to me how my arguments and Ralph’s don’t make sense. Brake it down logically, step by step. Do not simply tell me I am brainwashed ans so I can’t possible have the intelligence to make a logically statement concerning my faith.
shem,
Praying for you.
Peace and Grace!
JACK
Thanks.
I am praying for you as well.
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