Heart of the Matter Broadcast with Shawn McCraney

Introduction

April 27th, 2010 – Episode 17

From the “Mecca of Mormonism,” Salt Lake City, Utah, this is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology., “Where Mormonism Meets Biblical Christianity Face to Face.” I'm your host, Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion.. 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!

“I was a Born-Again Mormon” is available online through a downloadable PDF. Go to www.hotm.tv and you can have the book in your hands within minutes.

Teaching and Broadcast Information

Sunday Bible Study

In a world of extreme opinions and endless philosophical views, how about going straight to the Word of God in a never-denominational way and hearing what He has to say? Join us each and every Sunday at one of our CAMPUS Bible studies for a verse by verseTGNN’s Bible teaching series—book-by-book, through the lens of fulfillment and spiritual liberty. examination of God’s word. Go to www.calvarycampus.com for more information like times and directions. By the way, all the teachings – except a few – have been recorded so you can go to the site and HEAR the Bible taught verse by verse right from your own home!

Radio Programming

Every Sunday afternoon, from 1 to 2 pm, Heart of the Matter is broadcast for your listening pleasure on KUTR The Truth AM 820. The Truth offers some tremendous radio programming and has graciously added Heart of the Matter to its radio programming. Check it out – from 1 to 2 pm Sunday afternoon – right there on your radio dial AM 820 – KUTR, the Truth!

Personal Reflections and Defense

Perhaps since this ministry began back in 2005, LDS defenders of the faith – primarily in blogs, forums, and emails – have attacked my person. This is a standard operational procedure for people trying to defend and protect their group or organization from defectors or attack. In the book, “The God that Failed,” the author details that the first tactic communists take when dealing with a defector is to assassinate their person.

“He Vas never a communist!” “She vas too veak to be a communist!” “There vas somesthing dark vithin him – ve could see it from the start.” Mormon defenders are no different. Since forming the ministry, these self-appointed apologists – along with some Christians too – have accused me of almost every immorality and failure you could imagine.

Every now and again, like just recently, well-meaning Christians, when they read some of this stuff about me, will ask: “But, it really isn’t true, is it Shawn? I mean, you’re not a homosexual are you? Or “you really didn’t commit adultery did you?” Or you’re not a pedophilic transvestite who hurts baby seals, are you?”

Let me make some points very clear – please try and hear my heart. In my flesh, I am capable of doing and being nearly everything God deems reprehensible. I am not personally, by nature, and even at times, by intention, a good man. Where Jesus was perfect, and holy, and worthy of all adoration, I am His negative reflection.

I am not worthy, do not want to be viewed as worthy, do not want to be seen as anything but a sinner saved by grace. This position of mine makes some people very uncomfortable because people want heroes in life. You want a hero? Look to Jesus. You want someone who is worthy? Look to Him and Him alone with all your heart. With Jesus being all things light and good, you can view me as all things bad and wrong but KNOW THIS… I believe in Him, I have been saved from myself by Him, He is my King and it is to Him that I redirect and point all people all the time. In my spirit, I am holy, saved, and loved by God as His friend, while in my flesh, if I let it rule, I will always, in some way or another, serve the law of sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace..

Understanding Mormonism

Generally speaking, there are very few things that really freak me out when it comes to Mormonism. This might be because I was an active member for forty years and possess sort of an inside view which allows me to rationally understand most of what they do. Certainly, there are disturbing factors about the religion, but most of it, when contextually understood, can be neutralized historically and/or theologically. For me, “ffffffffreak out” topics include the Mormon teaching that God was once a man, that Jesus and Satan…

The Anti-Christ and a Mark of Economic Governance

Are our spirit siblings, and the fact that in their temple films, after members promise to keep a whole bunch of impossible-to-keep covenants, an actor playing Satan warns them that “if they don’t live up to every covenant that they have made in the temple that day” they will be in his power.

YIKES! Recently, I found another major freak out factor to add to my list. And it only serves to remind us how vital it is to trust the Word of God over the inspiration of men who claim to speak for Him.

Most Bible believing Christians know that the time will come when a man known as the anti-Christ is going to show up on the world scene. Christians know that he is going to be trusted and that he will demand that all worship him – not in a religious sense but in a civil sense – in a sense of “economic governance.” He is going to require, according to Revelation, that all receive a mark or a graven image in their skin. Some have supposed this to be a bar-code or an ID number which will allow those who have it to engage in commercial trade – to buy and sell. Faithful Christians also know, whether they are pre-trib, post-trib, or Salt Lake Trib in their eschatologyStudy of “last things”—TGNN teaches all biblical eschatology was fulfilled in 70 A.D. More, to refuse any mark in their flesh which would be required. On this the Bible is emphatic.

Tattoos and Religious Beliefs

Now, interestingly enough, Christians are not too legalistic about getting tattoos. While some believers do not personally like them, many believers get them and think nothing about it. Mormons however are highly legalistic about tattoos, and have condemned them as unholy and impure from the get-go.

So there is the Mormon/Christian stage for what I am about to reveal: Christians trust the Bible and what it says. Mormons trust modern revelations of men they call prophets, seers, and revelators OVER what the Bible says. Christians today often get tattoos without a care but Mormons have made them anathema. Christians, however, would NEVER get a government ID or mark in their skin. And the Mormons? With their high allegiance to wealth and both the corporate world and one world, what will the Mormon leaders tell their people to do when it comes time to be able to buy and sell only by the mark.

Listen to this advice from one Bruce R. McConkie, who, though now deceased, was highly esteemed as an LDS “Prophet, seer, and Revelator” when he was alive. Speaking of tattoos, McConkie wrote in his Mormon Doctrine, page 775:

“Tattoos are permanent marks made on the skin by puncturing it and filling the punctures with indelible ink. The practice is a desecration of the human body and should not be permitted, UNLESS ALL THAT IS INVOLVED IS THE PLACING OF A BLOOD-TYPE OR AN IDENTIFICATION NUMBER IN AN OBSCURE PLACE.”

Unbelievable! Could it be, my friends, that a time may come when millions of LDS people could be led by their leaders, who represent more authority to them than the Bible, to take an ID mark in their skin? Could it be they are actually setting themselves up as a one world power? Think, then run like hell in the opposite direction.

Elijah and His Biblical Significance

Well, we continue on going through alphabetically and comparing what the LDS say about certain biblical themes and what the Bible actually teaches. Tonight we come to the “E’s.” And while our topic is fairly straight-forward – ELIJAH – the LDS have put a twist on this that is frankly mind-boggling.

In the last book of the Old Testament – Malachi, chapter 4:5-6 – it reads:

In fact, no prophet is more frequently referred to in the New Testament. There are a number of things to consider about Elijah, but in reference to the Malachi 4:5-6 verse, he is a powerful image coming from the Old Testament who pictured a powerful being in the New – John the Baptist.

First of all, they were outwardly quite similar. Elijah lived closely to the wild wilderness, including a long retirement in the dry and barren desert. Suddenly, Elijah, like John the Baptist, entered his ministry with an abrupt and startling beginning. Elijah and John the Baptist even wore similar clothing as 2nd Kings 1:8 says of Elijah: “He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins.” And Luke 3:2 says of John the Baptist: “And the same John had his raiment of camel's

Prophetic Parallel Between Elijah and John the Baptist

“Hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.” This picture was also fulfilled in the way both he and John the Baptist were stern and powerful in their reproofs which they without hesitation aimed at anyone who stood in the way of their message, including powerful men of politics. In other words, John the Baptist, in the spirit and power of Elijah – who was austere in his manner of life and in his zeal for the truth and renunciation of the world – he would come and prepare the way for the Lord.

The Question of Identity

It is not an accident that John the Baptist would be asked repeatedly over the course of his ministry if he was Elias, which is just the Greek way of saying Elijah. (Example: Matthew 11:13,14; 16:14; 17:10; Mark 9:11; 15:35; Lu 9:7,8; John 1:21). So, under the impressions of the Holy Spirit, Malachi offered this prophetic utterance as an indication of what would precede the Messiah’s coming, and here the Old Testament concludes.

Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

What does this mean and then what do the LDS twist it to mean? First of all, Elijah was a tremendous prophet of the Old Testament. Now, this coming of Elijah was so prominent in the Jewish mind that anytime someone popped up that was powerful or wearing leather girdles, they wondered if he was the promised prophet.

The Role of John the Baptist

So anxious were they for his reappearance that at their marriage-feasts they always set a chair and knife and fork for him, whom they supposed might be invisibly present. But we have already seen that John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of our Lord, was the person designed. In another chapter of Malachi, the previous chapter 3:1, it was also foretold that this messenger would come to “prepare the way for the Lord.” It reads:

“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Then of course, when John the Baptist began his ministry, Mark described him as (Mark 1:3) “ . . . the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Scripture interprets scripture, folks, and we know from what the New Testament writers said the exact meaning of these Malachi prophecies.

Interpretation of Prophecies

Turn with me if you will to Luke, chapter 1 and read starting around verse 13. Here, an angel appears to a faithful Jew named Zacharias, to tell he and his barren and aged wife Elizabeth that their lives were about to change. Well Zacharias was quite afraid, and the angel said to him (beginning at verse 13) Luke 1:13 “Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
14 And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.
15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
16 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Luke took the Malachi prophecy and applied it directly to the child John called the Baptist. Well, what does it mean that John, in the Spirit of Elijah, would “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

There are a number of potential meanings, all of which are quite viable. First, and in the bigger picture, gross ignorance had taken place in the hearts of the Jewish people and they were certainly in need of a passionate, fearless instructor. John could be seen as such. From the plenitude of God's Spirit that dwelt upon…

John the Baptist and His Impact

Him and his continual self-denial, to his ardent zeal to make Christ known and his fidelity and courage to rebuke the powers that be a reformation was effected among the people; reviving among them the spirit of the patriarchs, and preparing their hearts to receive the Lord Jesus. In this very expressive figure of speech, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the patriarchs, are represented as having their alienated hearts turned to their children of unbelief and disobedience because of John’s work to bring them to repentance.

Secondly, in the time of John the Baptist, the Jews were divided into a number of different sects. They were violently opposed to each other and pursued this opposition with great animosity. I am certain that this opposition found its way into families, and divided parents and children from each other. John came that he might allay these animosities and produce better feeling. By directing them all to one Master, the Messiah, he would divert their attention from the causes of their difference and bring them to union. He would restore peace to their families, and reconcile those parents and children who had chosen different sects. Finally, had the Jews turned to God, and received the Messiah at the preaching of John the Baptist and that of Christ and his apostles, the awful final solution would not have been executed upon them.

Malachi's Prophecies

These passages in Malachi present three remarkable predictions – to Christians.

1. The advent of John Baptist who would come in the spirit and authority of Elijah.

2. The manifestation of Christ in the flesh.

3. The final destruction of Jerusalem, represented under the emblem of a burning oven, consuming everything cast into it.

These three prophecies were announced nearly four hundred years before their occurrence and the New Testament makes it very clear what they meant. Then along comes Joseph Smith and his Mormonism in 1820.

Joseph Smith's Interpretation

And what does he say Malachi 4:5-6 means? Mormon temple work. Doing vicarious temple work for people who have passed on so that they can accept it after this life is over and be exalted. In nearly ANY LDS manual on temple work, you will find them using these passages from Malachi and telling their members that this prophecy was fulfilled – but not through John the Baptist coming to turn the hearts of the fathers to the Children” but through none other than Joseph Smith! James Talmage, whose book, Jesus the Christ is mandatory reading for most LDS missionaries, said on page 375:

“Malachi’s prediction, that before “the great and dreadful day of the Lord” Elijah the Prophet would be sent to earth to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers,” did NOT reach fulfillment in the mission of John the Baptist, not in that of any other Elias, its complete realization and inauguration on the third day of April, 1836, when Elijah appeared in the temple at Kirtland Ohio, and committed them to… Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.”

Why? Because Joseph would, with the so-called Spirit of Elijah, introduce vicarious temple rites that would supposedly turn the hearts of the Fathers to their children (and vice versa) by doing Mormon temple work for those who had died. I am not kidding. Twistianity at best, folks. And another example of where the simple, beautiful, prophetic meaning of God’s word is tweaked and applied to a counterfeit faith.

Run like hell.

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Hey, we announced last week that beginning on Tuesday June 8th Heart of the Matter will begin to have a national presence by airing on the NRB network and Sky Angel. We want to take a minute and remind you all of where we have been, and where God is leading, with a Heart of the Matter highlight reel. Let’s finish tonight by taking a fond look back.

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Well see you all next week, here on Heart of the Matter!