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Vanaze

New Member
Last week, some Mormon fellows stopped by my front door to tell me about Jesus Christ and His "True Church". I gladly obliged, sitting down to a 2 and a half hour talk about why I find it impossible to follow the Mormon church, and that I am happy believing what I believe now because it is the truth.

They now seem to be my best friends, coming by again today, with plans, as they said, to visit again next week.

I have no problem talking to them, though I got some funny looks by the neighbors since we were sitting outside on the porch. My beliefs are firm, as a person called to the ministry of God, I simply hope I can perhaps plant a seed of truth into their rather corrupted version of Christianity.

I might make a few people in here upset, but I told them I was in no position to judge them as they are not in any position to judge me, and I also said that so long as they believed in Christ as the Son of God, Savior of the world, I'm also in no position to tell them that their eternal destination is hell.

I post this here in a prayerful mood, hoping that the members of this board could perhaps give insight into their own personal experiences with Mormons and their own views on the church that is LDS.

God bless,
Vanaze
 
Aye, I agree.  I think there are a lot of Mormons that joined thinking that it was just another Christian church and truly believe that Christ is their savior.  I have confronted several mormons about their beliefs and they are often in disbelief about the teachings of LDS over the last couple hundred years.  There must be a lot of smokescreens around the stranger teachings of the LDS.  I would guess the average member doesn't get clued into their stranger beliefs until they are well established in the Church and are less likely to leave.

It was funny, a couple of years ago when I was a youth leader at our church, some of our youth were dealing with issues witnessing to mormons at their school.  So I put together a study on different cults.  Well, one of our students told their mormon friend that we were having the study and we had two represenatives of the morman church stop by our youth group meeting that weekend.  We let them give their presentation on the church which consisted of a video that is ripe with Christian themes.  After the video they let us ask questions.  Thankfully I was very prepared that evening and confronted them on several issues of their beliefs.  Specifically the shady origins of their beliefs (golden tablets and the seeing stone that was used to decipher them).  They did not have a response.

There are some very good apologetic resources out there that you may want to look into so you can be prepared for you next meeting.  www.carm.org is a good site and I like Josh McDowell's books.

*Edit: Fixed some typos
 
hey we learned how to apologize to Mormons on a missions trip this summer.  I mean some apologetics things that might be helpful.  *opens apologetics book* bleh these are really bad notes... there are blanks that i didnt fill in and funny pictures.  Anyway heres some of the stuff I remembered to write down that you might find useful:

Epistemology and Revelation
how do we know what to believe specifically?  Are the Mormon prophets true prophets?
Mormon view-- Sources of truth include
*The bible "in so far as it correctly translated"  (That means that as they choose that they can believe stuff that is in the bible or not, as I understand it.)
*The book of mormon and other mormon scriptures.  Like Docterines and covenants and Pearl of Great Price.
Bibilical tests of Prophets
Deuteronomy 13:1-5 -- Do they lead us after God?
ie  Does it agree with what we know to be true?
Deuteronomy 18:22  Do the prophecies come true?
(look them up... it'l make more sense.)
An important thing to note here is that the Mormon view on prophets differs from the bible's. They believe that the newer prophets can change the things of the prophets of old. The bible is different. It uses the things in Deut. , taught by the prophets of old to test the new prophets

*ahem*


Theology Proper
If any truth claims that it is religious in nature, a basic question is, "Who is God?"  IF a religion or prophet is fundamentally wrong about God, it is wrong.  God has set up this as one of hte basic tests of a true prophet.  This is the critical area to address with our mormon friends.


Mormon Doctrine of God
God's immutability (unchangeableness):  "As man is God once was; as God is, man may become." -Lorenzo Snow (mormon prophet) If you start this quote most mormons will be able to finish it.

God's singularity:  Teaching of the prophet Joseph Smith, "In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods."  p.349 (see also Pearl of great price; Abraham chapters 4 and 5; Doctrines and Covenants 76:58; 121:32, etc.)

Mormon response: But their doctrines indicate that there is only one God for this planet.

*God's nature
Doctrines and covenants 130:22  "The Father has a body of flesh as tangible as man's; the Son aslo, but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personae of spirit."

Bibilical Doctrine of God
*God's immutability
Malachi 3:6 "For I the Lord, do not change..."

*God's Singularity
Deut. 4:39 "There is no other."
Deut. 6:4  "The Lord is One"
Isiah 44:6-8 "There is no God besides Me."
2Sam 7:22 2sam 22:32

Principle

*God's nature
God is invisible - Colossians 1:15, 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 John 4:12
No one has seen God (the Father)- John 1:18; 1 Timothy 6:16

But what about...
Genesis 1:27-- Image of God
2 Chron. 16:9, describing God with various body parts

The concept of Anthropomorphism
Psalm 91:4; Deuteronomy 4:24
_



What about Baptism for the Dead?
1cor 15:29

Did The true church vanish?
Mathew 16 18-19
On this Rock I will build my church and even the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

Are there 3 levels of heaven?
hmm... the verse listed here doesnt have anything to do with that (I think)  1 cor 15:38...
But I remember what he said after I pulled this one out of the 66 pack.  I had read it before and what the speaker was saying confused me.  2 Corinthians 12:2
I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know--God knows.
And he said what was ment in that was "Heaven" in the Jewish language had 3 meanings.  1.  The sky 2.  The stars above  3. Heaven with God

Thats about all I have thats useful.  Hope it helps you out some. If all your arguments fail you can still make fun of the fact that the main Mormon priests wear special underwear.

*edit* added some background infromation and a sentance to the closer.
 
Sounds like you're handling things very well. I'll pray for you as you continue to discuss the Truth with them.
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[b said:
Quote[/b] (Fleck @ Jan. 19 2004,2:05)]God's singularity: Teaching of the prophet Joseph Smith, "In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods." p.349 (see also Pearl of great price; Abraham chapters 4 and 5; Doctrines and Covenants 76:58; 121:32, etc.)
Click to expand...
Yeah...the Church didn't do a great job after 325 of following up on this crap...
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Last time I answered the door for a Mormon missionary I was wearing one of my larger crosses. His eyes kind of bulged, and he said "I'm sorry, wrong house". He smiled and left.

I'm praying for you, may God guide your thoughts and words.
 
If your going to witness to Mormons, I suggest watching the 2 films Titled "The God Makers" (I and II). They are sort of an erie look into the higher ups of the morman beliefs.

Cory
 
I have a good friend here at work who is Mormon so this topic is close to home.

There are several good books out there I've found helpful on this topic.  One of them is called "The Maze of Mormonism."  I'm sure you've heard about it and you've found your own resources though.

Here's a page that has some resources on it (watch out for the stupid popups on this page though!):

http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/mormonism.html
 
Vanaze... I now need to know how the situation is going... you can't just post in this topic one time, not tell me if the information I gave you was useful, and then not update us along the way!
tounge.gif
 
It's a long read, but I've heard the best book for information is 'One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church' by Richard Abanes.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I have a good friend here at work who is Mormon so this topic is close to home.
Click to expand...
I can understand that one of my really good friends is mormon. Reading through some of the stuff looks like some good info ill have to try with her ^_^
 
yeah, Ive been through the whole mormon ordeal myself. I sat down and talked to a couple mormons a couple times and heres what I got from thier story.

They say Joseph Smith was a prophet who saw a bunch of different versians of christianity and prayed for God to lead them to the right one. Shortly after an angel came down and handed Joseph some golden tablets that had the book of mormon writen in some language(can't remember) and Joseph translated these tablets that were supose to be from 500 bc. After joseph and 14? other men got done translating the angel took the gold tablets back and we are left with the "original translation" of the book of mormon.
 
I thought it was nice of them to lend me thier time and talk to me. I have been a Christian for a long time and still am. I think its amazing how I a Christian haven't ever gone out witnessing to my own neighborhood and these mormons were going out and witnessing. It was kind of an eye opener. I of course went into the conversation skeptical and armed with Galations 1:6. But I had never heard thier side of the story or how they believe mormonism came to be. One problem I ran into is the book of Mormon plagerizes alot of the old testament and some of the new testament, so trying to disprove all of it, is trying to disprove parts of the Bible, and they thouroughly believe it was written 500bc, and not copied from the Bible.

 The problems I had with mormonism was that they believed we can eventually become a God. They gave me the verse about how we are the children of God and told me they took it literally. Then I gave them the verse about how we are the Bride of christ and they were not so quick to take that literally. They had no comment to that one.
 Then I pointed out that God never had any part in the making of thier book. An angel supposidly gave them tablets translated by 14? men. 2tim 3:16 I believe says that all scripture is God breathed.
I also pointed out that the old testament had approxamately 15,000 original translations and was colaborated by outside sources. Thier book had one original translation and no trace of the original.
I also told them I thought the book of mormon contradicted the Bible, but all I could find was somwhere the book of mormon says that not everyone at the tower of babble had thier language changed, and the Bible says that everyone had thier language changed. I only had one day to scan through the book they gave me, and that was all I could come up with.
All in all I wish I had been better prepared because they really know thier stuff, and inspires me to be a better christian, because they in a cult and putting more into it in some aspects than me.

Good luck Vanaze
             -Corey
 
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