Heart of the Matter Broadcast

Show 29 Seventeen Points XI
Trinity – Part I
July 8th 2008
Live!
From the Mecca of Mormonism
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

“This is Heart of the Matter where Mormonism meets biblical Christianity face to face!”

And I’m your host, Shawn McCraney

Ministry Announcements

Remember, our ministry has three websites for your benefit:

• www.bornagainmormon.com
• www.HOTM.com
• www.lordsword.org

Some events we REALLY want you to attend, if applicable:

First, this Saturday, in Logan, an “open water baptism” celebration for Northern Utah! If you want to publicly demonstrate your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ come join us! And if you just want to celebrate with us afterward with food and friendship and fun, join us too! (MAP) That’s this Saturday, four pm, right off the main highway at the _________________ Golf course. Look for the balloons.

Second, on Monday, July 14th from 9am to 6pm, we invite you to come to our studios and share your story of coming out of Mormonism. Don’t be shy. I will interview you right here on the set for a special one-hour show that will follow HOTM. Let's look at a map, which is also available on the HOTM.com website.

Finally, for the month of July, we will be holding a book signing at New Like Christian Bookstore in Layton, right there at 1550 North Main street from 6-8 pm. One way or another, I would love to either baptize you, eat with you, interview you, or sign a book for you – all this month. Go to www.bornagainmormon.com for more details.

Project Abandon Ship

Have you gotten the nerve? Taken the time? Send a message loud and clear, my friends: “Until you change, LDS church, I want nothing – no part of your organization – REMOVE MY NAME."

Regarding Abandon Ship, Bill in Idaho wrote: (see email)

Wally from SLC also had some comments on Project Abandon Ship, saying: (see email)

Send a message loud and clear, my friends and “Arise, you have nothing to lose but your chains!”

Emergency Broadcast Tests

Seems the hour Heart of the Matter airs here in Utah – Tuesday nights between 8 and 9 pm mountain time is coincidentally the exact same time that the weekly mandatory Emergency Broadcast Test signal is being sent out to television stations across the state. Who is responsible for this test signal for television broadcasting for the state of Utah? KSL – Mormon owned television. Interesting….

People say all I do is pick on Mormonism. But hey, my disdain for all religious manipulation cuts in every direction:

A good friend sent me this disturbing article from the SL Trib dated July 2nd of this year. Headline: “In case of Rapture, email my good friends.” The article goes on to describe a LLC that has been established for people who are fearful that their assets will not be properly allocated when they are caught up in the air with Jesus, or raptured.

This Christian company, for an annual fee, assures its customers that in the event they are taken up to be with Christ, sixty-four of the unsaved family and friends who have been left behind will be notified and supplied with important legal documents relative to the administration of their estate. A-freaking-amazing. I went to their website and checked them out. It’s true!

First of all, who is going to be around in this supposedly Christian firm to send the emails out post rapture? What, do they hire reprobates to work for them so as to insure proper dissemination of these notices? And do they really think the “raptured” are going to care about their earthy assets at this juncture? This is not a good witness. Not good at all. It’s embarrassing.

Communication Sensitivity

Before we get into tonight’s topic – which I am really excited to explore with you – allow another few minutes of monologue.

Tired and trite as this statement has become in our age, the ground swell for being communicatively correct has reached an all-time high. We have to be so very careful of what we say, how we say it, and even of facial inference. Special interest groups are constantly crying foul to anyone who voices an opinion that even whispers against them receiving “everything” to which they personally feel entitled.

I received yet another email from an insulted homosexual. Cheryl wrote: (See email and my response) “Word-demands” from any special interest groups is funny business. On the one hand, we have people-groups who insist on being accepted as they are despite the fact that they do not qualify and on the other hand, we have people who qualify for categorization who refuse to be labeled. It’s an entomological nightmare.

The Term "Christian"

Let’s look at the word Christian for a minute. The LDS claim to be Christian. Christians say they

The Importance of Definitions

Who is right? Can anyone lay claim to a title just because they “feel” like it’s applicable?

C.S. Lewis gave a superb illustration on this very subject in the book Mere Christianity. He used the word gentleman as an example. You see, the word or title of gentleman was once defined by fact – a gentleman was a man who had a coat of arms and owned land. Period. These were the “facts” of a gentleman. How he behaved or what people thought of him were all irrelevant to the title. A gentleman was a man who had a coat of arms AND owned land. The definition was based on FACT. As time marched on, a gentleman became someone not defined by facts, but by opinion. It became subjective. Before long, a gentleman didn’t need to have a coat of arms or own land, but just had to be subjectively polite to another individual. In other words, a gentleman was defined not by objective fact but by subjective opinion.

Which, because it merely becomes a subjective compliment based on a person’s opinion, it in the end becomes a meaningless term! One person may say that a man is a gentleman because he will not make advances while another may say a man is a gentleman because he refuses to make advances on the first date! A man who opens a door may be called a gentleman and a man who refuses to open a door, may, by some, be considered a gentleman too. The point is, when words lose their factual meaning and are used based on personal opinions, the words themselves become meaningless. Now let’s look at the term “Christian.”

Definition of a Christian

The first time the word is used in the Bible was in Antioch. Just as Platonists were followers of Plato and the Pythagoreans were followers of Pythagorus, Christians were followers of Jesus Christ, their master. This means they embraced His teachings, and credited their doctrines to Him. The disciples were called Christians because they took Christ for their teacher, crediting their every way to his doctrines, and followed the rule of life laid down by him and His appointed apostles.

A Christian believed in their heart and confessed with their mouth and knew they were saved. A Christian was baptized as an expression of this faith. A Christian worshipped one God. Never did Jesus Christ teach that marriage must occur to reach a “celestial kingdom.” Christians did not have to pay tithe, they did not have to honor a day of the week, they did not have to wear garments, or enter into temples to receive rites. People who embrace these teachings and doctrines follow the rule of life laid down by someone other than Christ. They are not – based on the factual definition of a Christian – Christian! In the case of Mormonism, they are far more Smithstian than Christian. And I am not saying this mockingly.

Things get a little murky when personal opinion slips in and starts to assign the title “Christian” to others. Here, the title loses meaning because it is subjectively applied and all it is really saying is: This person fits my personal idea of what a “Christian” is or is not. Christianity is not defined by personal opinion. Neither is it defined by “goodness or badness.” A person is not a Christian because they are good or bad. They are a Christian first by virtue of their beliefs, and can then be described as a “good Christian or a bad Christian,” as a means to categorize their devotion. Unfortunately today, people like the LDS have used subjective opinions to determine a person's or group’s Christianity instead of the facts.

And with this, let’s have a word of prayer.

Prayer

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER

PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER

The Trinity in Christianity vs. LDS Beliefs

Tonight we are going to begin to hash out and study a very large term of debate in the Christian/LDS discussions: The Trinity. We’re going to do this in reference to two separate points listed in the LDS’s “Seventeen Points of the True Church” which say: “The True Church must teach that God and Jesus Christ are separate and distinct individuals” and that “the true Church MUST teach that God and Jesus Christ have bodies of flesh and bone.” I don’t think there could be any two statements, contextually understood, that could be more antithetical to Christianity. These pose HUGE theological and doctrinal issues which tend to split the LDS / Christian debate more than any other. Latter-day Saints are SO indoctrinated with their distinct idea of God being the Father and Jesus only being the Son – and that they both have physical bodies of flesh and…

The Trinity: Exploring the Concept

This is going to be a multiple week teaching – maybe four or five parts. And so tonight is going to be Part I of “The Trinity.” I am going to strive to give as an exhaustive analysis of the issue as possible, giving both the LDS view and the Biblical teaching on the matter.

A number of Christian thinkers have summarized God – or the Trinity – in the following manner: “Within one Being that is God, there exists three co-equal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” “Within the nature of the One God, are three eternal persons." Latter-day Saints have been coached with the teaching that this concept of One God of three parts is the construct of creedal influence emanating from Nicea. As a result, Mormonism claims that “truth needed to be restored” to the earth, which would include the “true” understanding of God and his make-up.

The late LDS prophet Gordon B. Hinckley claims that Mormonism has “a perfect knowledge of the nature of God which came through the first vision of Joseph Smith.” He also said that, ”when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of all the ages.” For Gordon B. Hinckley to be right, I would strongly suggest that the Bible is wrong. I would also suggest that the creeds established at Nicea and other places were ecclesiastical in nature and were a biblical response to heresies which were cropping up like weeds in the Church. An unfortunate result of all this is a misunderstanding of what the Trinity is from both the LDS side and even the Christian.

Understanding the Doctrine of the Trinity

And while we have covered this topic before, let’s see if I can do a better job of it this time. If we go back to one of the Christian definitions for the Trinity, it allows us to see some basic tenets of the doctrine. Listen: “Within one Being that is God, there exists three co-equal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

First, it reads: “Within one Being that is God.” From the Bible, Christians know and trust the idea that there is One God – ONE.

Monotheism vs. Henotheism

MONOTHEISM: Do you believe and accept MONOTHEISM? It is the doctrine that there is one God, only One God, has only been One God, will only ever be One God, and there has never been a God before, during or after this One God. All of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity agree with the Great Shema, which means, “hear:” “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is One Lord.” Faithful Jews recite this prayer every single morning.

Now Latter-day Saints maintain that while they agree there is “one God with whom they have to do” there are other God’s out there – including God’s Father. This is called Henotheism. Two questions: Do you want to die a Monotheist or do you want to die a Henotheist? and Are true Christians Monotheistic or can a true biblical Christian be Henotheistic?

Now, Latter-day Saints have attempted to say that the Great Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) allows for Henotheism. But the Hebrew word for one is echad refers to somebody with “no family, and when tied to the name Yahweh, it means He does not belong to a family of Gods either.” (you can read about this in The New Mormon Challenge article by Paul Owens, page 274.)

And what does the Bible say about there being just one God? Is this point obscurely pointed out in the Word or does God make it plainly clear that He is truly, the first, the last, the beginning of all things, and the end? Listen:

Deuteronomy 4:35 Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.

Isaiah 43:10 “. . . before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.”

Isaiah 44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

Jesus reaffirms the truth of the Great Shema that the Lord our God is One. Paul repeats this truth, as did Jude, James and John the Beloved. Upon this first foundation we MUST stand: There is, there always has been, and there only will be, ONE God. One.

Maybe we could approach this pillar of Truth in some other directions to give it some depth. There is either NO God. Or there are many God’s. Or there is One God.

Understanding Henotheism in the LDS Context

Most ancient and reliable book – the Bible support? And what position lends to the greatest allegiance to deity?

No God certainly flies in the face of the Bible, nature, and space. And many Gods is a philosophical nightmare for how can a person love, worship, and trust MANY Gods? They can’t. And all the teaching does is muddy the clear waters of a straight shot relationship with the Almighty.

Pride and the Appeal of Henotheism

In closing tonight, and as the operators open up the phone lines:

(801) 973-TV20
(801) 973-8820

Ask yourself a question relative to the LDS position about God:

First, what would be the draw to Henotheism? Why would a Latter-day Saint embrace the notion that God has a father, who has a father, who has a father? Simply put – PRIDE. First of all, doctrines that make God more understandable are much more appealing to our flesh. I mean, if I can understand the nature of God, I am someone rather “ahem, advanced in my theology, aren’t I.” Pride. Additionally, Henotheism in the context of Mormonism’s other teachings on eternal progression, allows men and women to believe that they too are headed toward Godhood. Again, Pride. It’s tantalizing. But completely and totally oppositional to who the Bible says the true and living God is – The first, the last, uncreated, without family, the alpha, the omega, the original source of ALL things. Let’s go to the phones.

Events and Invitations

Three minutes left:

Hey this is my last opportunity to invite you to come to two important events around this coming weekend. Our open water baptism on the road to Logan from Wellsville in a river – 4pm – Saturday – look for the balloons. Then join us for a celebration afterward. Then on Monday, July 14th, join us right here at the studio between 9 am and 6pm to be interviewed for our show special. God bless you as you day in and day out take it all to the LORD. See you next week here on HOTM!