Heart of the Matter: Mormonism and Biblical Christianity
LIVE! From the “Mecca of Mormonism” Salt Lake City, Utah – THIS . . . is Heart of the Matter . . . “Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face.” Show 39 – Toward Statehood September 29th 2009
And I’m Shawn McCraney, your host, AND . . . the best home teacher you’ve ever had. If you have family or friends who cannot get Heart through television give them a call and tell them to go to www.hotm.tv And they can watch through streaming video from anywhere in the world! We have also archived hundreds of hour long programs for your enjoyment.
Resources and Outreach
“I was a Born-Again Mormon” We recently to make the manuscript available online through a downloadable PDF. Go to www.hotm.tv and you can have the book in your hands within minutes for any size donation – or for free for that matter.
Are you involved with anything meaningful, creative, and exciting that is aimed at doing good in Jesus name? This Saturday we are holding the first volunteers meeting for our up and coming television program, “The Grey Generation.” Become part of our ground floor staff in this unique outreach to America’s teens. We need telephone operators, runners, graphics people, camera people, studio people and just general help. The show will air weekly and late – beginning Saturday night, October 31st at 10:30 pm. All committed volunteers – teens or adults – are welcome. Take a minute and watch the shows opener to give you a feel of where we’re headed with this program: Volunteer meeting this Saturday 11 am, here at the studio 314 South Redwood Road. Go to www.hotm.tv for more information.
Several weeks ago we had a young woman call and tell us she was about to become the second plural wife of an FLDS man. I recently learned through a phone conversation that she did NOT go through with these plans, in part, from calling the program, but is stepping back to examine the whole matter. Pray for her.
Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar
Last week we finished our examination of Joseph Smith’s so called revelation on plural marriage known as Doctrine and Covenants 132. In that revelation, Joseph has God state that Sarah was justified in having Abraham take Hagar her handmaiden so that He could produce children and fulfill God’s promise – God’s promise – that Abraham’s seed would be proliferated. The biblical lesson, friends, is that Abraham and Sarah ought to have waited on God to make good on his promise to them but instead took matters into their own hands. This is a great picture for all the decisions we make as Christians – do we wait on the Lord or do we take matters into our own hands?
Mormonism, because of their theological model relative to the fall, pre-existence, and salvation by grace and works tacitly says otherwise, as evidenced by Joseph actually justifying the actions of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Using this very event of Abraham and Hagar as an allegory, Paul compares Abraham's union with Hagar as an act of the flesh representative of Law but the production of Isaac – which was what God promised – as a work of the Spirit which is founded in liberty. Furthermore, he goes on in Galatians 4 and compares the literal birth and existence of Ishmael as representing flesh which wars against the literal birth and existence of Isaac, who represents spirit, saying:
29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.
By using this specific story out of scripture, Paul is saying several important things – all of which fly in the face of LDS teachings, beliefs, and doctrine: First, he makes the point that Abraham’s polygamous choice did not originate from God but from the flesh of Man. Second, he points out that such decisions end up afflicting men and women, not helping them, just as Ishmael and his progeny ended up afflicting Isaac and his progeny to this day! Third, Paul tells us, through scripture and citing the allegory, what to do when we have created problems for ourselves through our flesh:
30 "Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." 31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.
Think on this concept a while.
The Word of God
You know, I want to talk to you a minute about the Word of God. Lately I have really been impressed with the importance, power, and reliability
The Power and Origin of God's Word
It is living, and true, and good, and powerful. It is from God’s mouth to our ears and God takes it very seriously. In Psalms 138:2 God says He has: “magnified His word above all of His name.” So powerful, so reliable, so trustworthy is God’s Word that when Jesus was approached by Satan in the wilderness, he cited IT three times, saying: “It is written . . .” and then He quoted scripture that was just as old to Him in His life as the New Testament is to this generation! It is written. It is reliable. It is from the mouth of God. Every single man-made religious leader that has ever sought to introduce his or her own ideas to the world has claimed that the written Word either – Cannot be trusted, Or they altered it by either removing and adding parts to it.
The Biblical Authors
Where did the Biblical contents originate? Who were the authors? From those who wrote the inspired – or “God breathed” – words of God. In the Old testament, these were prophets who were moved to write that which they did not even understand. And in the New Testament, these were apostles who, as first hand witnesses of Jesus and His gospel, were also moved by the Holy Spirit to write. In Ephesians 2, Paul describes the church as a building made up of believers, and speaking to individual believers, beginning at verse 19, he says: 19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20 . . . are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
The Foundation of Believers
And what does this Household of God look like? Well, let’s first look at the household’s foundation? Paul says that the believers who actually frame this spiritual building. The prophets who foretold (in writing) Jesus and the apostles who witnessed Him and also wrote of Him. This is the foundation. It was laid by the inspired witnesses of Jesus Old and New. We are not “prophets or apostles” with a capital P or A, but when we read and cite their words, we stand on the very same authority with which they once spoke and wrote. The Word is our foundation, with Jesus Christ – also the Word – being the chief cornerstone. Paul goes on now, and speaking of believers, says: Meaning, that as believers, we are framed together upon this foundation of the Word and we individually and collectively grow into a holy temple of the Lord. And what purpose do we serve as believers that now actually form the new covenant temple? Paul says (verse 22) As believers we are living receptacles wherein God dwells. There is the household of God. This is the temple of God today. When someone comes along and says: “I am a prophet,” or “we are apostles” we are built upon a foundation of the Word’s of true prophets and apostles and can compare what new prophets and apostles claim, and what our foundation states as truth. In this way we can be certain who are liars, deceivers, and false. Where Joseph Smith said, as quoted in History of the Church 5:425 “There are many things in the Bible which do not, as they now stand, accord with the revelations of the Holy Ghost to me.” And the late Apostle Neil A Maxwell said, “By faulty transmission, many plain and precious things were taken away or kept back from reaching what later composed our precious Holy Bible” Any Christian can firmly stand side by side with Jesus by simply stating “It is written.”
Let me speak as plainly as I can. Please hear me. Mormonism teaches that if a Law is to be considered true and real and of God, it must be eternal, and not temporary in nature. Doctrine and Covenants ______ verifies this. Eternal Laws are so important in Mormonism that even one of their Articles of Faith states: “We believe that all mankind may be saved by (listen to this) by obedience to the Laws and Ordinances of the Gospel.” We just finished an examination of the Doctrine and Covenants section 132
The Doctrine of Polygamy in LDS History
Where Joseph Smith has God tell the world that this revelation is eternal and binding and must be kept in order for men to become god’s. The doctrine of polygamy was considered a true Law, an eternal principle, and by virtue of this, must be practiced, according to Joseph Smith. Joseph wasn’t alone in this teaching. LDS prophets who came after him were dogmatic in this doctrine and practice.
Brigham Young? Emphatic that it is an eternal principle and law that must be “entered into in order to become Gods.” John Taylor, 3rd president of the LDS church? Emphatic. The law of polygamy must be kept, he insisted, saying that the men and women who oppose it are “on the high road to apostasy.” (JOD 11:221) Speaking of polygamy, Taylor also said: “The United States cannot abolish it. It was handed down from God. No nation on earth can prevent it, nor all the nations of the earth combined. I defy the United States. I will obey God.”
LDS Prophets' Views on Polygamy
Wilford Woodruff, even the 4th president of the Mormon church? “Do away with polygamy, then we must do away with prophets and Apostles, with revelation and the gifts and graces of the Gospel, and finally give up our religion all together and turn sectarians and do as the world does, then all would be all right. We just can’t do that, for God has commanded us to build up His kingdom and to bear our testimony to the nations of the earth, and we are going to do it, life or death. He has told us to do thus, and we shall obey Him in days to come as we have in days past.” (JOD 13:166) In 1870 Utah Saints sent a memorial to Congress describing plural marriage as, “a principle revealed by God, underlying our every hope of eternal salvation and happiness in heaven.” Ten years later Wilford Woodruff received a revelation that polygamy was “absolutely essential to godhood.”
Today, we have an altogether different take on the practice. And the spin can range from comical to down right evil. Not knowing the command to practice it remains in their own book of scripture many of today’s LDS act as if polygamy was something that “weirdo Mormons” started doing back in the day or that it never had or has a place in the “true Church.” What they don’t realize is “weirdo Mormons” or the FLDS today – are a better picture of doctrinal Mormonism than the religion they think they embrace. Other Latter-day Saints today speak of the practice as though it was just a “temporary thing,” and part of God’s church being “restored” to the earth or something only very, very few men were expected to do.
The End of Polygamy
As a means to diffuse the practice in this modern world and condemn those who still practiced it, Twelfth president of the LDS Church, Spencer W Kimball, diminished the eternal law by saying, “Remember, the Lord put an end to this PROGRAM many decades ago through a prophet who proclaimed the revelation to the world.” So, “what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” We have God tell Joseph it is an eternal law, and many other supposed LDS prophets and apostles standing by it and then we have Spencer W Kimball referring to it as a “program” that has been discontinued. Why did it end? How could it end? Has it even ended?
In spite of the LDS claiming allegiance and undying dedication to “God’s eternal law of polygamy,” the United States government, beginning around 1866, began a number of attempts to end this twin relic of barbarism. The Wade Bill was introduced and failed. Then came the Cragin Bill, the Ashley Bill, the Cullom Bill, the Voorhees Bill and the Logan Bill – none of which passed the House and Senate to become law but all which raised the national sentiments against the practice of what I call “lot’s o women” for one man. In 1880, US President Rutherford B Hayes articulated the nation's attitude toward Utah quite well, saying: “Utah is virtually under theocratic government of the Mormon Church. The Union of Church and State is complete. The result is the usual one, usurpation and absorption of all temporal authority and power by the church.” He continued: “Laws must be enacted which will take from the Mormon Church its temporal power . . . as a system of Government it is our duty to deal with it as an enemy of our institutions, and its supporters.”
The Decade of Raids on LDS Polygamists
This began what is called the decade of raids, a ten-year period where the United States hunted down LDS polygamists. In 1885, LDS president John Taylor and his two counselors fled the country with two hiding in Utah and one of them, Joseph F. Smith, fleeing to Hawaii. Two years later, politicians passed the power-packed Edmonds-Tucker Act, which allowed wives involved in polygamy to actually testify against their husbands in polygamy trials (which they could not do in monogamous relationships). It also made adultery a felony and hit the Mormon Church where it cannot stand to be hit – in the pocketbook. The Church was dis-incorporated, and the seizure of any Church real estate valued at over $50,000.00 could occur.
Add to all this the fact that 3rd President John Taylor died while in hiding, and suddenly, low and behold, the Mormons started to publicly deny the practice altogether – again. With Joseph Smith, polygamy was a secret practice. With Brigham Young and the Utah Territory, it was open and mandatory. But when the Government turned up the heat, plural marriage went underground again.
The LDS Church's Approach to Truth
Now there is something that really needs to be understood. By pointing it out, I am going to ruffle some feathers and be even more than ever considered a hateful anti-Mormon individual than I already am. I can’t document it, but I must present my observations. When you are dealing with true believing LDS and/or defenders of the LDS faith, truth is secondary or even tertiary. And while this is present at times in their business practices (which is why Utah, over the years, is always one of the biggest scam capitals of the nation), this fact is never more true than when you are having a discussion with a Mormon about God, religion, the Bible, or their history.
The reason this is true is due to a few factors. First and foremost, Mormonism grew from a deceptive seed. Joseph Smith, the founder, used deceptive practices and methods throughout his life, whether in his treasure-seeking escapades, the story of the BOM origins, the feigned book of Abraham translation, the Kinderhook plates, and even in dealing with Emma over his multiple secret wives. He was a deceiver. And from this seed, sprung the tree called Mormonism. Secondly, the LDS believe they must protect the church at all costs because it is the Church that means the most to them. And being an institution of men, it will have faults. Faults need to be white-washed in order for people to embrace something, therefore, Mormons whitewash – cover – the truth of their doctrine, history, and practices. Someone who has a relationship with Jesus and not a religious affiliation is never put in this predicament because He is Truth – and for Him, there is NEVER a need to lie.
The Semantics of Polygamy
In an effort to protect their practices from those who wouldn’t understand, Mormonism, under the fire of the federal government, began to do what they do best – spin. One way they did this is bifurcate the practice of polygamy and make the practice an expression of the LDS priesthood but NOT part of the LDS leadership and authority. It was a game of semantics. How it worked is Church leaders would publicly say that the Church no longer sanctioned polygamous marriages, all the while knowing that the priesthood of the church was the one practicing it.
When one Brother Brown was asked about his views on plural marriage while under oath to become a juror, he said he did not “believe polygamy” to be right. But the US prosecutor knew that Brother Brown was an ardent Latter-day Saint and polygamist. So the federal government charged him with perjury or lying under oath. At the perjury trial of Brother Brown, the faithful Mormon explained that his testimony was not false, because his adherence to polygamy was not a matter of “belief,” because he did not believe it was right, he knew it was right.
Anyone who has listened to our show, anyone who has ever dialogued with a self-appointed LDS apologist, or listened to the missionary discussions, know this spirit of deception is alive and well in the presentation of Mormonism today.
