Wednesday, October 19, 2011

HOLD FAST

What if your son or daughter fell in love and planned a wedding...but you were not permitted to go to the service?


Sound strange?  Mormons believe that weddings in their temple are sealed and eternal and therefore desirable.  But non-Mormons cannot go into the temple.


Well, maybe Mormons are exclusive, but they MUST have other redeeming features because they live such clean lives!  Who can argue with THAT?


Yes.  Their lives appear clean.  But it's so important to put more weight on what God says than what we think.  He's the Judge who sees hearts.


How crazy is it to think that such a theological discussion would be at the top of today's national news?  But here we are.  May I offer just four examples of how Christianity and Mormonism disagree?  Christianity believes God is

     ...THE one true God (vs many gods) who has always been (vs a god who was once as we are now, a body of flesh and bones).

     ...Provider.  He's the One who gave Jesus, the accessibility hinge into His kingdom (vs Jesus being Satan's spirit brother).

     ...Sanctifier.  Jesus' blood makes forgiveness possible (vs salvation by progressive deification according to works).

Finally, God warns of a serious penalty for adding or taking away from Bible words.  And the Mormon writ is not complete without Joseph Smith.  

 In fact, Dr. Albert Mohler says Mormonism…"does not claim to be just another denomination of Christianity. To the contrary, the central claim of Mormonism is that Christianity was corrupt and incomplete until the restoration of the faith with the advent of the Latter-Day Saints and their scripture, The Book of Mormon. Thus, it is just a matter of intellectual honesty to take Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, at his word when he claimed that true Christianity did not exist from the time of the Apostles until the reestablishment of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods on May 15, 1829."    http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/10/10/mormonism-democracy-and-the-urgent-need-for-evangelical-thinking/

Christianity didn't move; Mormonism did.  While the world rushes by with an inclusiveness drumbeat that encourages the "tolerant" embrace of all faiths, we want to be hearing what God has both declared and authenticated.  Has Joseph Smith authenticated any of his writings? 

There are two Mormon candidates for the Republican nomination.  This is not to say that either would not be able to run the country.  Martin Luther was reported to say he would rather be governed by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian.  But if we learned ANYTHING in the last election, we learned that a man's worldview is important.


God is distinctive.  Titus 1.9 calls us to "hold firmly to the faithful message as it has been taught".  Each heart must decide what the message is...and then hold firm.


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