Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Turn your Bibles, please. The Galatians chapter #1
Galatians chapter #1 this morning.
And I will say I had mentioned last week after we finished our
series on the Jehovah Witnesses, that we will be moving on to the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, also known as the
group called the Mormons. And then obviously for me saying
that on Sunday morning and then Sunday afternoon, we all saw the
awful, what I would call terrorist attack that took place
against the Mormon church where a gunman went into the church
and then shot several people, as well as a burning.
It seemed to be that church down almost to the ground.
And so I want to make clear, obviously this morning that that
type of violence is tragic. There's no doubt about it
whatsoever. It's awful and evil and wicked,
but at the same time, I did have to just search within myself.
Is this may be a study that we should be putting off for a few
weeks? Is it in poor taste maybe for us
to be able to look at that? And I do believe that it's
important for us to continue to look at that while still
acknowledging what took place last week was horrific.
But at the same time, what we want to do this morning is what
we've been doing well for the last several months as we've
been looking at the different types of world religions and
cults, is that we are not attacking the adherents.
Remember, those adherents, those are the people we want to win to
Jesus Christ. We want to see more Muslims come
to Christ. We want to see Jehovah Witnesses
come to Christ. We want to see Mormons come to
Christ. And we'll name all types of
other groups as we continue on in this study.
But at the same time, we do want to make sure that we do attack
the articles of faith and the authorities of these different
groups. And the Mormons are no
exception. So I do believe that we want to
move ahead here this morning with that understanding.
And we'll do so by starting in Galatians chapter #1 which I
hope you turn there. We'll get there in just a few
minutes after I give you a short introduction, and then we watch
a video from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
You know, in many ways they are probably the most fascinating of
the cults, at least to me. I've had the most experience
interacting with Jehovah Witnesses just through the
years, whether it was at my door or whether talking to them at
their literature stands. But the Mormon church is one
that is very fascinating because it is just absolutely filled
with contradictions. Consider this, in many ways they
are almost obsessed with lifting the name of Jesus Christ, but
yet at the same time they blasphemy the name of Jesus
Christ because as they lift his name they are teaching a Jesus
that is not found in the Bible. They desperately want to be
considered to be Christians. The Mormon church has a
desperate feel or desperate need to be counted as Christians,
just as we are, but yet they don't hold to any of the core
doctrines that Christians do. It's contradictory.
They they're concerned about looking good.
They have a almost obsessive nature about making sure that
they have this clean public image.
But when you start to get down deep, you see the seedy
underbelly of what their doctrines lead to.
You see that they have this opulence.
I mean, have you ever seen a Mormon temple before, Whether
it's the one in Salt Lake City or any of the others that have
built over 200 around the world on six different continents?
Opulence, but yet spiritual bankruptcy.
They're very secretive in so many ways.
They're probably the most secretive of any religion that
you will find. And not just talking of
Christian cults, but perhaps even the religions themselves.
These false religions, the Mormons are so secretive, while
at the same time they have this great public push and also
they're continually asking for money.
They constantly want to have a steady stream of income.
The Mormon church does, but yet from the research that others
have done, they have somewhere in the bank.
And of course we understand they don't just have one bank account
that has all of their money in it.
But by the best estimates that we can find somewhere that the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has control of
somewhere around 300 billion. Not million, but billion dollars
with an endowment of over $200 billion.
In essence, because their operating expenses are somewhere
around 1 to $2 billion a year, they could literally fund the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints just off the interest
of their endowment for perpetuity.
But yet, this constant need for money, the Mormon Church, is a
contradiction in every possible way.
And there's a lot that I want us to look at over the next few
weeks. This morning, we're going to be
introducing the Mormons to you, and we're going to do so, as has
been my habit over the last several weeks, not by showing a
video debunking a certain group, but by showing a video that
comes from a group. And so we watched many from JW
u.org over the last few weeks. And so today we're going to be
watching an introductory video about Joseph Smith from the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
And so just go ahead and watch as you watch on your screen at
home or right here in the front. Who was Joseph Smith?
He is most well known as the first prophet and president of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Latter Day Saints believe that God called Joseph Smith to
restore the fullness of his gospel to the earth.
Let's start at the beginning. Joseph was born on December
23rd, 18 O five. He was the 5th of 11 children
born to Joseph Smith Senior and Lucy Mac Smith.
They were a close knit family of farmers who struggle to make a
living. They were often forced to move
throughout the northeastern United States in order to
support themselves. Eventually the family settled in
upstate New York. The Smith family were devout
Christians. They read the Bible as a family
and attended several churches in the area searching for one that
fit their beliefs. Yet Joseph was confused by the
conflicting teachings. Joseph loved the Bible and the
teachings of Jesus, but he was confused by the conflicting
opinions of the various churches.
One day while studying the Bible, Joseph read a verse in
the New Testament that said, If any of you lack wisdom, let him
ask of God. After careful reflection, Joseph
decided to do as the Scripture directed.
He would ask God which church he should join.
On a spring morning in 1820, Joseph went to a Grove of trees
near his family's farm to pray. Joseph knelt and prayed.
Joseph said that as he prayed, I saw a pillar of light exactly
over my head above the brightness of the sun, which
descended gradually until it fell upon me.
When the light rested upon me, I saw two personages, whose
brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me
in the air. One of them spake unto me,
calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other, This is
my beloved son, hear him. Joseph asked the Lord which
church he should join. The Lord instructed him not to
join any of them. That experience, which came to
be known as the First Vision, set in motion what the apostle
Peter referred to as the restitution of all things.
That is, Jesus Christ would call Joseph to restore his true
Church to the earth. Joseph would go on to learn that
Christ's true Church, the one with his authority that he
founded during his time on earth, had been lost from the
earth after the martyrdom of the original Church's leaders.
Three years after the First Vision, an Angel visited Joseph
and instructed him to unearth an ancient record hidden in a
nearby hill, which Joseph translated by the power of God.
This ancient record was the Book of Mormon, another testament of
Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon contains an
account of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the
Americas, and Latter Day Saints believe it is scripture, another
witness of Jesus Christ. Along with the Bible, the Lord
also sent Peter, James, and John to restore his priesthood, that
is, the authority to act in the name of God.
Joseph Smith also received revelations from the Lord that
taught and clarified eternal principles such as the
importance of baptism, the need for temples where we make sacred
covenants with God, and the marriage performed by the
restored priesthood can last eternally, not just until the
end of our mortal life. On April 6th, 1830, the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was officially organized
and Joseph Smith was sustained as the first elder and leader of
the church. So who was Joseph Smith?
Latter Day Saints believed the Lord worked through Joseph Smith
calling him as a prophet to reestablish the true Church of
Jesus Christ on the earth. Latter Day Saints call this the
Restoration. As part of the Restoration,
Joseph Smith received revelation from God, bringing back lost,
eternal truths by the gift and power of God.
He translated ancient scriptures and clarified the meaning of
existing scripture too. He also received the priesthood,
God's authority to act in His name.
Joseph Smith accomplished all of this while facing great
persecution throughout his life. Indeed, from the time of the
First Vision to his death at the hands of an angry mob when he
was 38, Joseph faced great opposition because of his
message. Nevertheless, he never ceased to
testify that Jesus Christ was the Savior of the world and that
His true Church had been restored to the earth.
Joseph Smith was the first in a line of modern day prophets who
have likewise received revelation and guidance from God
for all His children. Even today, as in ancient times,
the Lord's modern day prophets teach us of Him and guide His
Church on the earth. Joseph Smith's life and the
Restoration show us how much God loves us.
He wants us to know the truth, and He wants us to know Him.
Now you know. Of what you just heard was that
until Joseph Smith met Jesus Christ, that there was no church
on the earth, that the church had just kind of dissipated.
Whatever was called a church was not truly the Lord's church, and
that after some period of time an Angel appeared.
The Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith with these golden
plates, which were then translated, which became the
Book of Mormon, and then from the Book of Mormon, as well as
the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price and the doctrines and
covenants that all of these are to be scripture, not just the
Bible in which we use. This is the general consensus of
what it means to be a Mormon. And I say that because there are
many different groups of Mormons that are out there today.
We always think of Mormons as the group that has the big
temple in Salt Lake City, but there are also splinter groups
of Mormons that are out there as well, more so than there would
be of Jehovah Witnesses. But there are fundamentalist
Mormons. There are those who still hold
to polygamy. Some of those have been on
television in the last few years as well and actually have been
turned into reality shows. Those will be fundamentalist
Mormons. There are many other Mormon
groups that are out there on top of just the very normal, what I
say normal, but the the group that is the most mainstream of
all of them, which would be the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints. But I kind of want to just take
a few moments this morning to just pick apart some of the very
basic allegations that have been made about this man named Joseph
Smith. And to do so, I want us to go
ahead and look at Galatians chapter #1 and we're going to go
to a couple different Bible passages here this morning.
So you follow along with us so that we can look and see what
the Bible says about this idea of someone coming along and
basically saying that for 1800 years mankind has missed the
mark about Jesus Christ. And there's really another to
gospel, there's really another way of teaching that has been
obscured over these years. What does the Bible itself say
about that? Well, it says this Paul, an
apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God
the Father who raised him from the dead and all the brethren
which are with me unto the churches of Galatia, grace be
unto you, and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus
Christ who gave himself for our sins, that He might deliver us
from, from this present evil world according to the will of
God and our Father. By the way, verse #4 is not my
message, but verse #4 should be underlined in your Bible.
Amen. The fact that He has given
Himself our sins and He's delivered us from this present
evil world. By the way, that's not just
talking about heaven. That means that we can have
deliverance from the power over sin in this life as well.
That salvation isn't just about waiting until heaven, but that
we've been saved from the power of sin in this life, not just
the penalty of sin in the life to come.
But then it says in verse #5 to whom be glory forever and ever,
Amen. Now walk in here, starting in
verse number six. It says, I marvel that you are
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of
Christ unto another gospel. You say, well pastor, you mean
there's more than one gospel? And my answer to you would be,
yes, there are many gospels. We just talked about the Gospel
of the Jehovah Witness. So we could talk about the
gospel of the Muslims. We can talk about the gospel of
many different groups, but hold on.
You start to get uncomfortable. You say, pastor, I thought
there's just one way. I thought it's Jesus Christ and
Christ alone. I am the way, the truth and the
life. No, you're on the right path.
In fact, you're on the only path, I would say.
But there are other gospels. But what does Paul say about
this? It says this, which is not
another meaning. This.
It may look like another gospel, but it is not.
It may look like another way. It is not another way.
They may portray themselves to be another gospel.
They are not another gospel. And the Mormons are portraying
that there is this other gospel that is out there, this other
way that mankind can be saved. That what has been said from the
Bible is not adequate, is not enough.
In fact, we'll look at this in greater length as time goes on,
but basically this, that Jesus Christ became a God.
Did you catch that not saying that Jesus Christ is God, he
became a God, which means he was not a God before and listen to
this, you can become a God too. Hey pastor, they don't really
believe that. They believe that and more.
That's not another gospel friend.
What is it? They may call it a gospel, but
that is a road that sends you straight to hell, which is not
another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert
the gospel of Christ. Now I want to consider that word
pervert here for just a moment. Sometimes we use the word
pervert and we talk about it in a different way.
But really the idea of being perverted is this.
There is something that is normal and there's a deviation
from that that is normal. That that's the definition that
there is something that is normal and there's a deviation
from that which is normal. Do you know what is normal?
Listen to this, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for
your sins, and that you're a Sinner and that only Jesus
Christ can save you through his precious blood.
Anything from that listen is a perversion.
Anything from that is a deviation from that which the
Word of God says. And So what does that mean?
It means this. It means that it is maybe called
another gospel, but it is truly not another gospel.
What is the Mormons believe? In reference to verses 6 and
seven, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
teaches that the Book of Mormon serves as another testament of
Jesus Christ, presented as an additional witness that confirms
and expands biblical truths or ranging from the ancient
originating rather from ancient prophets records.
Translated by Joseph Smith, this book introduces doctrines like
their plan of salvation involving temple ordinances,
eternal marriages, and baptisms for the which Latter Day Saints
doctrine frames as essential restorations of Listen to this,
the Fuller Gospel. If you ask a Mormon, are you
saved by grace? Their answer would be yes.
But listen, if you are saved by grace and the word but follows
it, you're not saved by grace because they don't understand
what grace is. If they believe that you have to
earn or achieve grace in its very definition, you cannot earn
or achieve grace. We're saved by grace through
faith and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should
boast. And they would say, well, you
need to make sure that you have a, a temple marriage and you
need to make sure that you live a good life.
And you need to make sure that you tithe enough and you need to
make sure that you have a baptisms for the dead for those
who have gone on before you. I don't know if you're aware of
this, but genealogy.com, that website that has been so famous
over the years, was run by a subsidiary for many years until
I believe the year 2020 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints. They are deep into genealogy.
Why? Because they want to know how
many people are in their a family history so they can
baptize on behalf of their dead with the hopes that those people
could someday be saved. I mean, Can you imagine how
backwards that is? And So what do we see here?
Is it another gospel? They may call it another gospel,
but it's not another gospel. Look at verse #8 But the WE or
an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you. But let him be accursed.
Central to Mormon origins is the 1823 visitation of the Angel
Moroni to Joseph Smith, who revealed the location of the
gold plates and then help with the translation of those
according to Joseph Smith, which then became the Book of Mormon.
Again, this was revealed by an Angel.
But does the word of God cover this for us this morning?
But the we or and what Angel from heaven, I'll be honestly, I
believe that he saw some type of angelic form, but I say it was
demonic. I would say the Lord had nothing
to do with that which was taking place.
What Joseph Smith believed that he saw, because it says if an
Angel of heaven came and preached another gospel, let
that Angel be a cursed. I believe it wasn't a cursed
Angel which came and gave him a different gospel, because
according to the word of God, that cannot be.
But the Mormon Church will hold up the Angel Moroni.
Again, Mormons, that term that we get from that, or they get
from that we see is from this angelic visitation, verse 9.
And as much as we said before, so I say now again, if any man
preach any gospel unto you, then that you've received, let him be
accursed. Again, Mormon salvation doctrine
affirms grace as enabling power of Christ atonement, but insists
it requires human effort to achieve full effect.
Faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, temple
endowments, enduring obedience to the covenants.
Official teachings state that while grace saves from sin,
works like ordinance and service are necessary alongside it for
exaltation and eternal life. Again, have you ever wondered
why many go on a? Mormon, a missionary trip when
they are in their early adult ages.
What is that about? That is all about achieving
eternal life. That's all about following those
teachings that are there. Well, they'll go to these
far-flung areas, 18/19/20 years old, young men, young women,
what are they doing? They're doing that purposely so
they can just grab hold of eternal life.
And anytime man tries to get involved with the gospel, they
make it so much more complicated than what the gospel truly is.
So we see that in First Galatians, but why don't you
turn a couple pages back to 2nd Corinthians Chapter 11.
Second Corinthians Chapter 11, the Word of God so particularly
condemns the very teachings that the Mormons will hold onto.
And what's interesting about the Mormons, what would be
interesting for you in talking to a Mormon is this.
What was the one of the problems that we found in talking with
the Jehovah Witness, that no matter how much we talked to
them about the Bible, they would discard it because they believe
the New World translation is the only way that they can
understand the word of God. And so it's difficult for us to
be able to talk to people about salvation because if we go to
John 11, in the beginning was the Word, the word was with God,
the words was God. And the same was in the
beginning with God. Verse 2.
They would look at that and say, Nope, that's not what it says in
my Bible. And they would just ignore us.
Well, we learned last week how we can use the New World
translation, how God has preserved some ways in the way
that only God can, that we as believers can show them in their
own New World Translation that yes, there's verses that still
speak to the deity of Christ. But what is good about talking
with the Mormon is the fact that not only do they typically use
the Bible, but they oftentimes use the King James Bible as
well. The problem with them is that
they also use three other books they believe are Scripture, and
that is the Book of Mormon, the Doctrines and Covenants and The
Pearl of Great Price, all of which were written or
compilations of of the works of Joseph Smith.
But we are able to use our Bible and show them different places.
And so I love that Second Corinthians 11 talks in a way
that would be able to help us to show that Mormon doctrine is
condemned here in the Word of God.
Second Corinthians 11 verse one would to God you would bear with
me a little in my folly and indeed bear with me, for I'm
jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I've espoused you
to one husband that I present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ. Now what is Paul saying here?
He's saying that when I came to you people in Corinth, I taught
you good doctrine. When I came to you in Corinth, I
taught you Bible doctrine. Can we put it that way?
Even though he's still writing the Bible, the Bible is still
being inspired. But we could put it this way,
that everything that Paul was teaching them was Bible doctrine
in the sense that he was teaching them that which we find
in the word of God. Everything he was teaching was
true. And he says this.
I have a godly jealousy for you. Now this isn't a green eyed evil
type of jealousy that we think of today.
No, no, this is the fact that Paul says this.
I've taught you good doctrine and I want to make sure you
don't get involved in the bad stuff, taught you good doctrine,
don't get involved. And maybe you ask sometimes
pastor, why do you talk about these false teachers that are
out there? Why do you mention certain false
teachers that they they name the name of Christ, but yet you talk
about them as they are false teachers.
Shouldn't just you shouldn't do that with other Christians.
You shouldn't do that with others who name the name of
Christ. And I do so not to be mean.
I do so not to be arrogant on my part.
I do this because as your pastor, I have a godly jealousy
over you. Again, not the green eyed wild
type of jealousy that's out there, but I want to make sure
you have good doctrine. I want to make sure that if you
listen to a sermon from another church, I want to make sure that
if you listen to a podcast, that if you read another book that
you understand what good doctrine is so that you are not
beguiled by these false doctrines that are out there.
I've watched too many times over the years, even people who had
this fascination with the end times.
And again, I think we should be fascinated by the Book of
Revelation. I think we should.
Why? Because one of the 66 books of
the Bible, we ought to know it. But I've watched people who've
gone down the wrong Rd. who have gotten bad doctrine.
And what happened was they got so deep in that doctrine.
Listen, they're not even in church anymore.
They're not even following the Lord.
And so, yeah, do I have a godly jealousy over you?
Again, not an evil one, no, but but I want you to get good
doctrine and this is what Paul was telling the people of
Corinth he says in verse 3. But I fear let's by any means as
the serpent beguiled E through his subtlety, so your mind
should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Now let's be clear about this. Is the doctrine of Jesus Christ
so deep that we could preach upon his characteristics, that
we could preach upon his life, we could preach upon everything
that deals with him and that we could never exhaust that
teaching and preaching for the rest of our lives?
Our God is big enough that you could do that.
But I'll also say this, knowing that Jesus Christ, knowing that
same Jesus Christ is also very simple, that we don't need to
overcomplicate him. Who was he?
Who is he? He is the Son of God.
He is perfect. He died on the cross for your
sins. That seems pretty simple.
Do you know how I know it's simple?
Because right now Diane is in the back with children and she's
teaching him that very thing. There's going to be a few more
children at 11:00 and Miss Cassandra is going to be back
there as you be teaching them the very same thing.
And then a five year old, a six year old could bow their head
and truly trust Jesus Christ their Savior just as much as you
can. What does that speak to?
The simplicity that's in Christ? But yet that same 5 year old who
gets saved could go their whole life if they live 3 score years
and 10 and perhaps of that eighty years or more on this
earth, that they could learn about that same Jesus the rest
of their life and still never get over it and still never
exhaust it. I never get to the place to say,
you know, I haven't learned anything new about Jesus for
years now. There's not new things in the
Word of God. But I will tell you this, as the
Holy Spirit is your teacher, He illuminates you and guides you
and helps you learn more. You know, there's nothing new in
this Bible. We're not Mormons, we don't
believe that there's going to be another testament just added to
it. But we do say this, the Holy
Spirit as your teacher and God continues to show you that
although Christ is simple, you can spend a lifetime getting to
understand him and by the time you meet Him in glory, you won't
say this. Well, I already figured
everything out about you. He'll be whoa, holy, holy, holy
as Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up as we see in
Revelation chapter 4 and Revelation chapter 5.
That's celestial scene that's there.
I can't even imagine what that would be like.
There'll be nobody bored because they figured it all out while
they were here. But yet he's exceedingly simple
to understand as well. Verse 4 for he that cometh
preaches another Jesus. We've not preached, or if you
receive another spirit which we have not received, or another
gospel which we have not accepted, you might well bear
him. This is what he's saying.
He's saying, I fear this, I fear Church of Corinth.
Because remember, they were immature in their faith.
They were doing a whole lot better in Second Corinthians
than they were in First Corinthians, but they still had
a lot of problems. And as he's talking to them, he
says this. You know what I'm afraid of
That. If someone comes to you with
another Jesus, if someone comes to you with another spirit, if
someone comes to you with another gospel, here's what I'm
afraid of, you might listen to them.
I'm not talking about listening like we, we watched 5 minutes of
their propaganda here this morning, but I'm talking about
listening as in taking it to heart.
I didn't watch that this morning and say, well boy, I sure hope
the people in this church don't fall for that.
You know, I wonder if anyone's going to going to fall for that.
I wonder if anyone's we can listen to that and listen to it
in a way where we understand with discernment, with the
Spirit inside of us, that that's false.
But Paul's afraid they'll listen to a false teacher and they
might bear it meaning this, they might fall for it.
So don't listen to another Jesus.
Don't listen to another gospel. Don't listen to another spirit.
There's only one Jesus. There's not another Jesus.
By the way, Jesus didn't walk the Americas after he ascended
into heaven. This is what the Book of Mormon
teaches. Jesus did not wander around to
indigenous peoples that have never been found in history that
are mentioned in the Book of Mormon.
I'm pointing at this. This is not a Book of Mormon, by
the way, so I'll point to it a random area over here in the
Book of Mormon. This, these things did not
happen and I know who I'm speaking to this morning, but
this is what they're teaching. They're not teaching Jesus
Christ from the Bible. They're teaching another Jesus
and the book and the Jesus from the Book of Mormon, that Jesus
from the Doctrine and Covenants, that Jesus from the Pearl of
Great Price may be called Jesus, but he is not Jesus.
He is another Jesus. What do they believe, just very
quickly about who Jesus Christ is?
They believe that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer.
I'll say that again. They believe that Jesus is the
spirit brother of Lucifer that comes from the Pearl of Great
Price, the book of Moses chapter 4 verses one through 3.
The Latter Day Saints teach that all humans including Jesus and
Satan are spirit children of the Heavenly Father Elohim in pre
mortal existence, making Jesus and Lucifer literal brothers who
volunteered in a heavenly council.
They believe that Jesus was the first born spirit child of the
Heavenly Father. Christ is portrayed as the
eldest spirit brother among God's offspring and their pre
existence, not eternally begotten, but created as the
first among equals. They believe the Godhead
consists of three separate gods, not a Trinity.
Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three distinct beings, gods
united only in purpose. Jesus is a separate God who
progressed to divinity. They believe that Jesus
atonement actually occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane, not on
the cross. The suffering and blood
atonement for sins habit in Gethsemane according to the Book
of Mormon, Mosiah chapter 3 verse 7, with the cross merely
finishing what began there, emphasizing his emotional agony
over his sacrificial death. Jesus visited and ministered to
people in the Americas after his resurrection.
Book of Mormon Third Nephi verses 8, chapters 8 through 11.
Post resurrection, Christ appeared to ancient inhabitants
of the Americas teaching and performing miracles as recorded
in the Book of Mormon. Also, Jesus progressed to good
godhood through obedience as part of eternal exaltation.
Like humans, Jesus advanced from Spirit child to exalted God by
keeping Father's commandments, modeling the path for believers
also to become gods. Doctrines and Covenants 93
verses 12 through 14 and doctrines in Covenant 76 verses
58 through 59. What do we see here that they
get Jesus Christ all wrong? They get him wrong.
So what do we do? We discard the line of thinking.
We do not listen to it. We don't bear it.
We make sure we win these people to Christ.
I asked this question this morning as well.
What about this fact that the church just disappeared?
Now we've seen a version of this teaching through the Jehovah
Witnesses, but even the Jehovah Witnesses, they tried to put on
this veneer. Do you remember watching some of
their videos where they tried to hold up certain historical
Christian people and tried to hold them up and basically said,
well, they weren't Jehovah Witnesses, but they were, they
were decent people. They tried to do that.
The the Mormons have no desire to do that whatsoever.
In fact, they said basically that once the apostles were
gone, that biblical Christianity was gone.
But do you think that Jesus would have ever spoken about
something like this? Do you think Jesus would have
ever brought up the fact that maybe the church would just
disappear after his disciples were dead?
Well, I would submit to you that he did very much bring this up
during his life and made an emphatic defense about why that
would not be the case. So turn to Matthew chapter 16.
And this is one of those chapters where Peter says
something good. And we like that, don't we?
Matthew, Chapter 16. All right, look at verse #16
actually, let's go to verse #13 When Jesus came to the coast of
Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men
say that I, the Son of Man, AM? And they said, some say that
thou art John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremias, or one
of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say
ye that I am? Because here's the question, it
really doesn't matter what other people think about Jesus Christ
as it deals with your eternal soul.
Here's the question, what do you think of Jesus Christ?
Again, not that what you think of Jesus Christ changes who
Jesus Christ is. Listen, he is who he is whether
we get on board or not. But when it deals with our
eternity, the question is not, were your parents believers?
The question was not, are your grandparents believers?
What was your dad, a pastor? Those aren't the questions.
The question is this, What think ye of Christ?
And so here's Peter, God love him, what does he say?
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Peter gets it right. And Jesus answered and said to
him, Blessed art thou Simon Bart Jonah, for flesh and blood have
not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.
And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. Now there's a couple things
going on here in this verse that I want to make clear.
Verse #18 is oftentimes used by the Catholic organization.
Why? Because it is a proof text for
them that Peter himself was the first Pope.
Now there is nothing within this text that would indicate that
Jesus was, or rather Peter was the first Pope.
It doesn't come up, it's not mentioned.
There's no historical information or biblical
information that Peter ever made it to Rome.
Peter made it very clear that Jesus was the chief cornerstone.
He said that more than once that Peter himself would not have
been the vicar of Christ on the earth.
In fact, he would have thought it to be repugnant to be called
the vicar of Christ here on this earth.
He would have had nothing, nothing to do with that.
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.
When he's saying that Jesus is saying this Peter, the
declaration that you just made that I am the Christ, the Son of
the living God. That declaration will be of the
foundation upon what the church is built upon, because what is
our church built upon? What is any Bible preaching
church built upon? It's built upon Jesus Christ.
And so he's not saying, Peter, you are the one of which the the
church is going to be built upon that that is wild fantasy by the
Catholic Church. But what he's saying is that the
declaration you just made the statement that Jesus is the Son
of God. Yes, that is.
And you could even have looked at it this way, that that Peter
even or that Christ is talking of himself, that thou art Peter.
And upon this rock, again, the same connotation.
Upon this rock I will build my church because again, Jesus is
taught by Peter as the chief cornerstone.
But getting on to that, because I'm getting off course with the
Mormons, I, I'm going over to the Catholic Church and that's
not where we're supposed to be going this morning.
And it says this and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Now, what does it say?
The gates of hell will not prevail against the church, The
church. Now, what's interesting about
that? The gates of hell means this,
that the church is making forward progress.
The church is making forward progress and is marching against
the very gates of hell. A lot of times I think we get
this idea that what Jesus is preaching here and what Jesus is
saying here is that listen, just hunker down in the church.
Just hunker down. You just get down low.
Don't talk to anybody, don't make waves, don't get out there
in the world and listen, Satan will will fire his arrows at
you, but as long as you stay safe in the church, you won't
get hurt. What's the opposite of what he's
saying? In fact, he's saying this.
Go forward, go boldly, go up to the very gates of hell and
attack them, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
thee. Why?
Because of us? No, because of him and because
of his protection. Meaning this, that we go out in
the world and we try to win as many as we can from Satan's
Kingdom, and to try to bring them into the Kingdom of God,
into the Church of God. But it says this, that Satan,
the gates of hell, shall not prevail against the church.
But yet the Mormons would teach that the that Satan prevailed
against the church for about 1800 years.
They made Jesus to be a liar. Well, the Bible makes it clear.
Were there times where the light was dim?
Well, you look at the dark ages and you look at the
strangulation of the Catholic Church upon real believers and
you'll find this. There were time the light was
dim, but the light was never extinguished.
They're always Bible believers and Bible believing churches.
How can you historically say that?
How, how, what proof do you have?
My proof is Jesus Christ said that's what it would be.
And so that's what it was. Well, that's exceedingly simple,
pastor. Well, he's a simple Christ.
I think we covered that, didn't we?
He said it, we believe it. And by the way, history proves
this to be the case. We can look at history and find
that there are records that even the Catholic Church itself,
Cardinal Hoshus, would have gone back to say these Baptists have
basically been around for about forever.
So yes, we know. And there are other Bible
believers as well, not just Baptist or groups that align
with Baptist teaching that weren't necessarily called
Baptist, but they've always been believers.
But the Mormons that have you believe until Joseph Smith came
along, people were getting it wrong.
They got the Bible wrong because they didn't have the other three
books. They got Jesus wrong because
they believed that he had always been God.
They got the Godhead wrong because they they, they were
teaching 3:00 and 1:00 instead of three separate entities.
And they got it wrong because they weren't teaching people
this, that if you keep your nose clean and you stay right, that
you can be a God like Jesus someday too, friend.
That's blasphemy of the highest order.
There's nothing gospel related about that.
It is another gospel which is no gospel.
So Joseph Smith perpetuates this.
Brigham Young follows as the second of the presidents and
continues this as they move to Salt Lake City and as they start
to build Salt Lake City for it to become what it is today.
There's a lot of that that I was hoping to look at today, but we
took a lot longer in our text than I had anticipated.
But that's OK because I think we laid a good foundation this
morning for what is to come, because I want us to see these
things. And we'll look at this next
week. We'll look at who Joseph Smith
is. And we'll learn that while the
Mormon church will call him a martyr and a hero, he was
anything but. We'll look at the fact that
Brigham Young continue to grow the Church of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and most people are
actually more familiar with Brigham Young than Joseph Smith
because they're familiar with the name Brigham Young
University and they're used to the football team or something
like that. So they've heard that name
before. We'll look at the words that how
you worship in the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints, but also the temples as well that there are over 200
temples and more under construction all the time around
the world. Believe it or not, there is a
temple according to Mormon Church in Boston.
And I use the term Boston like this because, you know, people
who don't live in Boston think that everybody lives in Boston.
If you live within a 50 mile radius, you know, they think
people that live in, you know, Springfield probably live in
Boston. You know, that's kind of the way
it is. There's a Mormon temple, the
100th Mormon temple actually, that was built, was built in
Belmont and it is there in operation today.
And only members in good standing are allowed to go
inside. One of the reasons why is
because of the practices that take place inside.
I would call them a cultish practices, some of them which
came from Freemasonry many years before.
And we'll look at all of those ties and how all those go
together. And I didn't get nearly where I
thought I'd go this morning, but I think we got where we needed
to go. Praise the Lord by going through
His words. So I hope that was a help to you
this morning and that maybe lay the groundwork for how we look
at the Mormon church in upcoming weeks.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.