When Mormon Missionaries Come Knocking – PART 2

“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).

Please read the first article, When Mormon Missionaries Come Knocking, Part 1, of this series before continuing. Thank you and YeHoVaH bless you.

And now, the continuation…

The Mormon Missionaries have come knocking on your door. You’ve greeted them with a smile and invited them into your home to have a seat on your living room couch. With love and sincerity, you’ve offered them a glass of water and have taken a seat across from them to listen to what they have to share—already knowing that they’ll be sharing some stories and doctrines of Mormonism that’ll be completely contrary to the Holy Bible.

They’ll undoubtedly begin by explaining that as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, they’ve come to share the message of “The Restored Gospel” with you. They’ll talk about the “prophet” Joseph Smith—the founder of Mormonism—and his experience praying in a grove of trees in the year 1820. With great fervor and possibly even some emotion edging their voices, they’ll say that he then saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in answer to his prayer. They’ll continue by telling you that he was later led by an angel to a hill near his home in western New York, to a location where he uncovered some ancient golden plates. These golden plates, they’ll explain, were then translated into the English language by Joseph Smith by the power of God and made into what is called the Book of Mormon—a book which contains, they’ll say, the “fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

As they’ve been sharing, the words of the Apostle Paul to the believers in Galatia have more than once entered your mind:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1:6-9).

But you don’t say that to these young Mormon missionaries.

And the reason you don’t say that is because you understand the sad reality that these are just ignorant boys and girls—kids fresh out of high school that have been indoctrinated literally from the cradle to believe in the lies of Mormonism. You know full well that these inexperienced 18-year-old boys and girls are not to blame for the beliefs they’ve come to hold dear.

Satan is!

Joseph Smith is!

The LDS Church leadership is!

The ones who are truly under God’s curse are the creators of the false religion and the lying leadership that perpetuates it.

The two Mormon missionaries sitting before you on your living room couch genuinely do not know any better. Always remember that.

Also, as you listen politely to what they have to say, you realize that had you been born and raised in their exact circumstances, you would have ended up believing exactly as they do. And with this sudden realization, your heart begins to hurt for them. You now see them as they are: two beautiful souls sitting before you that God and Christ love intensely; two souls that God has graciously put in your living room, for you to help draw them away from the lies and guide them toward the truth.

But how to go about doing that?

What would be the best method to reach these two Mormon missionaries?

As someone who not only was born and raised in Mormonism but also served as an LDS missionary and even as an apologist for the religion from 2012 to 2015, the most important piece of advice I could give anyone that’s trying to reach a Mormon with God’s Word is to first understand how Mormonism deceives its membership into believing in the religion in the first place.

It’s entirely through SUBJECTIVE testing.

Allow me to explain.

As those two Mormon missionaries are sitting on your couch and sharing with you how they “know” that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God, how they “know” that the Book of Mormon is true, how they “know” that the LDS Church is the true church, and also how they “know” that the church is led by true prophets of God, they’ll say that they came to this knowledge because they PRAYED ABOUT IT and received a “confirmation” from the Holy Spirit.

This is absolutely pivotal if you are ever to understand how Mormons have been indoctrinated in their way of thinking!

Mormons—from the earliest age—have been taught that if ever you want to know whether something is true or not, the answer lies in prayer – pray about it and ask God if is true. God will, then, confirm to you the truth of that thing through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This dangerous idea comes from Joseph Smith and is recorded in the final chapter of the Book of Mormon (see Moroni 10:4-5).

After someone reads the Book of Mormon for themselves, they’re taught that they then need to pray about it and ask God if it’s true. They’re told that if they do they’ll receive a “burning in the bosom” confirmation from the Holy Spirit that it’s true.

This is how Mormonism works. This is what Mormonism is built on. This is how Satan deceives so many millions of people to believe Joseph Smith and the false religion he established.

They’re told to simply pray about it and to believe whatever spiritual confirmation they receive to their prayer.

That’s exactly what I did when I was a Mormon many years ago, and I also had a spiritual experience (multiple, in fact) that seemed to confirm it to me.

“Wow!” I thought at the time. “The Book of Mormon must be true! And Joseph Smith must be a true prophet! And the LDS Church must be the true church!”

Wrong.

Here’s the problem: Literally NOWHERE in any part of the Holy Bible are we commanded to pray in order to know the truth concerning any particular matter. Instead, we’re commanded to TEST all things to the authority of the Word of God and see if it is in harmony or in conflict with what God has already said.

If the message is found to be in harmony with God’s revealed Word, then it is to be embraced.

If, however, the message is found to be in clear conflict with God’s Word, then, it must be rejected.

Think of the Berean Jews from Acts chapter 17. They were willing to listen to what the Apostle Paul had to teach, but none of them prayed about his message to discover if it was true or not. Rather, what they did do was they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).

There’s nothing SUBJECTIVE about that.

That kind of testing is entirely OBJECTIVE.

God’s method of testing doesn’t rely on your prayers. It doesn’t rely on your emotional state. It doesn’t rely on you having had a personal, spiritual experience. Objective testing through “examining the Scriptures every day” is the type of testing God teaches us to practice whenever anyone claiming to be a prophet or an apostle comes among us. God even permits these false prophets to come among us as a test to see if we love Him and will remain faithful to Him.

“…you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. YeHoVaH your God is testing you to find out whether you love Him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is YeHoVaH your God you must follow, and Him you must revere. Keep His commandments and obey Him; serve Him and hold fast to Him” (Deuteronomy 13:3-4).

Objective testing rather than subjective testing is God’s prescribed method, the way to know the truth of any given matter. We are to test objectively because Satan—the Great Deceiver—has the power to manipulate our emotions and send “spirits” to us that are not from God.

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but TEST THE SPIRITS to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

Subjective, emotional, and fleeting spiritual experiences are a clever tool used by Satan to deceive and destroy souls. Such personal experiences ultimately rely on the heart to determine truth, a heart that we know from God’s Word that is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

If you’re seeking truth, never rely on that thing that is “deceitful above ALL things!” That’s a guaranteed way to be led astray. Moral relativism and doing what’s “right in [your] own eyes” (Judges 21:25) are always the result of relying on your own heart.

We must remember how our Lord Jesus tested everything when he was tempted by Satan three times. In every single instance, he proved that what Satan was telling him to do was false. How? “IT IS WRITTEN” (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10) is how Jesus responded to all of Satan’s temptations, quoting passages from the Torah each and every time.

That is how we are to test everything.

There are a total of three objective tests provided in the Torah to determine if someone is a true prophet or a messenger sent from God. They are:

(1) Do they add to or subtract from the commandments that YeHoVaH gave to Moses? (see Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32)

(2) Do they teach you to follow any other god than YeHoVaH or walk in any other way than the Torah? (see Deuteronomy 13:1-5)

(3) Have they given a prophecy that did not come to pass? (see Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

Notice how none of these tests require us to pray about the person or their message. All of these tests are entirely objective. They require that you first know and understand God’s Word, and then they require that you carefully test any message received to that absolute standard of truth. This is obviously for a very good reason. God knows that whenever we rely on our own wicked hearts and unstable emotions to determine truth, we always will go astray.

Mormonism teaches its membership to test everything SUBJECTIVELY.

The Holy Bible teaches us to test everything OBJECTIVELY.

And if the individual claiming to be a prophet or a dreamer of dreams or an apostle fails in any or all of these three objective tests provided in the Torah—as Joseph Smith and all Mormon leaders do—then you can be absolutely sure that that person is a false prophet.

God and Christ are both so pleased when we do this, as we can see in Christ’s message to the believers in Ephesus:

“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have TESTED those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be liars. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary” (Revelation 2:2-3).

Getting back to the two Mormon missionaries sitting on your living room couch. Understand that they are not your enemy. The religion and its leadership are. Those two young kids on your couch have simply been deceived, and they’ve been specifically trained to invite you to read the Book of Mormon for yourself and then pray about it.

Here’s where you have a grand opportunity to plant a seed of actual Biblical truth in their minds.

Explain the danger of coming to “know” the truth of something through subjective testing. Help them to understand that God’s Word, as revealed in the Holy Bible, is the ultimate authority and that all things need to be tested objectively to that absolute standard. And whenever they counter with their programmed Mormon doctrines, always in love bring it back to objective vs. subjective testing.

“How do you know that to be true?” you ask kindly.

“Because we prayed about it,” they’ll say. “And God told us it was true.”

“But that would mean God has contradicted Himself—something He cannot do,” you respond, and then you open up the Holy Bible and show to the Mormon missionaries where the truth can be found and how it can be known.

That is most important: Always, always lovingly guide their minds back to the authority of God’s revealed Word. They need to see, for themselves, that the Holy Bible can and should be trusted.

Please remember that your objective is NOT to offend them or make them feel like their beliefs are stupid. Never attack them over what they believe. Mormons have been trained from the youngest age that as soon as they feel uncomfortable, they shut off entirely. They’ve literally been taught that that uneasiness they feel when their beliefs are challenged is Satan trying to destroy their souls. If they get defensive, their programmed barriers will immediately go up, and those walls have been constructed over a lifetime to be very high and very thick.

Once a Mormon gets emotionally defensive about their beliefs, I guarantee you won’t be able to reach them.

Your objective is simply to get them to question their reality. Get them to question their methods for coming to know what they believe to be true. Get them to doubt the validity of their subjective experiences.

If you can successfully get them to question their own beliefs, then you’ve succeeded at helping them take their very first baby steps out from Mormonism and into a purer and more beautiful relationship with God and Christ.

And finally, instead of having them give you a copy of the Book of Mormon, you give them a copy of the Holy Bible. They’ll likely decline the offer and say that they already have a Bible. However, you need to be aware that the LDS Church’s version of the Bible has been heavily modified and corrupted by Joseph Smith. Kindly insist that they take the copy you provide them—as it’s a gift from you to them. Encourage them to read it every single day.

And be sure to invite them to come back for more Bible discussions. Understand that Mormons have been indoctrinated over a lifetime. It takes a lot of time and patience and love to break through all those thick chains of indoctrination. If you are filled with God’s love for these young souls, I promise that our Father can use you as a powerful instrument to help in that liberating process.

YeHoVaH willing, those two Mormon missionaries knocking on your door just may end up being the greatest blessing in their lives—the day they met a loving follower of the Messiah that loved them enough to help guide them out from darkness and into the light.

HalleluYAH!

Please be sure to read next week’s blog article (“When Mormon Missionaries Come Knocking, Part 3”). In this upcoming final article of the series, I’ll share with you some additional thoughts about how to reach Mormons with the truth of God’s Word.

Until then, YeHoVaH bless you and keep you.

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

When Mormon Missionaries Come Knocking – PART 2

“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).

Please read the first article, When Mormon Missionaries Come Knocking, Part 1, of this series before continuing. Thank you and YeHoVaH bless you.

And now, the continuation…

The Mormon Missionaries have come knocking on your door. You’ve greeted them with a smile and invited them into your home to have a seat on your living room couch. With love and sincerity, you’ve offered them a glass of water and have taken a seat across from them to listen to what they have to share—already knowing that they’ll be sharing some stories and doctrines of Mormonism that’ll be completely contrary to the Holy Bible.

They’ll undoubtedly begin by explaining that as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, they’ve come to share the message of “The Restored Gospel” with you. They’ll talk about the “prophet” Joseph Smith—the founder of Mormonism—and his experience praying in a grove of trees in the year 1820. With great fervor and possibly even some emotion edging their voices, they’ll say that he then saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in answer to his prayer. They’ll continue by telling you that he was later led by an angel to a hill near his home in western New York, to a location where he uncovered some ancient golden plates. These golden plates, they’ll explain, were then translated into the English language by Joseph Smith by the power of God and made into what is called the Book of Mormon—a book which contains, they’ll say, the “fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

As they’ve been sharing, the words of the Apostle Paul to the believers in Galatia have more than once entered your mind:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1:6-9).

But you don’t say that to these young Mormon missionaries.

And the reason you don’t say that is because you understand the sad reality that these are just ignorant boys and girls—kids fresh out of high school that have been indoctrinated literally from the cradle to believe in the lies of Mormonism. You know full well that these inexperienced 18-year-old boys and girls are not to blame for the beliefs they’ve come to hold dear.

Satan is!

Joseph Smith is!

The LDS Church leadership is!

The ones who are truly under God’s curse are the creators of the false religion and the lying leadership that perpetuates it.

The two Mormon missionaries sitting before you on your living room couch genuinely do not know any better. Always remember that.

Also, as you listen politely to what they have to say, you realize that had you been born and raised in their exact circumstances, you would have ended up believing exactly as they do. And with this sudden realization, your heart begins to hurt for them. You now see them as they are: two beautiful souls sitting before you that God and Christ love intensely; two souls that God has graciously put in your living room, for you to help draw them away from the lies and guide them toward the truth.

But how to go about doing that?

What would be the best method to reach these two Mormon missionaries?

As someone who not only was born and raised in Mormonism but also served as an LDS missionary and even as an apologist for the religion from 2012 to 2015, the most important piece of advice I could give anyone that’s trying to reach a Mormon with God’s Word is to first understand how Mormonism deceives its membership into believing in the religion in the first place.

It’s entirely through SUBJECTIVE testing.

Allow me to explain.

As those two Mormon missionaries are sitting on your couch and sharing with you how they “know” that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God, how they “know” that the Book of Mormon is true, how they “know” that the LDS Church is the true church, and also how they “know” that the church is led by true prophets of God, they’ll say that they came to this knowledge because they PRAYED ABOUT IT and received a “confirmation” from the Holy Spirit.

This is absolutely pivotal if you are ever to understand how Mormons have been indoctrinated in their way of thinking!

Mormons—from the earliest age—have been taught that if ever you want to know whether something is true or not, the answer lies in prayer – pray about it and ask God if is true. God will, then, confirm to you the truth of that thing through the power of the Holy Spirit.

This dangerous idea comes from Joseph Smith and is recorded in the final chapter of the Book of Mormon (see Moroni 10:4-5).

After someone reads the Book of Mormon for themselves, they’re taught that they then need to pray about it and ask God if it’s true. They’re told that if they do they’ll receive a “burning in the bosom” confirmation from the Holy Spirit that it’s true.

This is how Mormonism works. This is what Mormonism is built on. This is how Satan deceives so many millions of people to believe Joseph Smith and the false religion he established.

They’re told to simply pray about it and to believe whatever spiritual confirmation they receive to their prayer.

That’s exactly what I did when I was a Mormon many years ago, and I also had a spiritual experience (multiple, in fact) that seemed to confirm it to me.

“Wow!” I thought at the time. “The Book of Mormon must be true! And Joseph Smith must be a true prophet! And the LDS Church must be the true church!”

Wrong.

Here’s the problem: Literally NOWHERE in any part of the Holy Bible are we commanded to pray in order to know the truth concerning any particular matter. Instead, we’re commanded to TEST all things to the authority of the Word of God and see if it is in harmony or in conflict with what God has already said.

If the message is found to be in harmony with God’s revealed Word, then it is to be embraced.

If, however, the message is found to be in clear conflict with God’s Word, then, it must be rejected.

Think of the Berean Jews from Acts chapter 17. They were willing to listen to what the Apostle Paul had to teach, but none of them prayed about his message to discover if it was true or not. Rather, what they did do was they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).

There’s nothing SUBJECTIVE about that.

That kind of testing is entirely OBJECTIVE.

God’s method of testing doesn’t rely on your prayers. It doesn’t rely on your emotional state. It doesn’t rely on you having had a personal, spiritual experience. Objective testing through “examining the Scriptures every day” is the type of testing God teaches us to practice whenever anyone claiming to be a prophet or an apostle comes among us. God even permits these false prophets to come among us as a test to see if we love Him and will remain faithful to Him.

“…you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. YeHoVaH your God is testing you to find out whether you love Him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is YeHoVaH your God you must follow, and Him you must revere. Keep His commandments and obey Him; serve Him and hold fast to Him” (Deuteronomy 13:3-4).

Objective testing rather than subjective testing is God’s prescribed method, the way to know the truth of any given matter. We are to test objectively because Satan—the Great Deceiver—has the power to manipulate our emotions and send “spirits” to us that are not from God.

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but TEST THE SPIRITS to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

Subjective, emotional, and fleeting spiritual experiences are a clever tool used by Satan to deceive and destroy souls. Such personal experiences ultimately rely on the heart to determine truth, a heart that we know from God’s Word that is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

If you’re seeking truth, never rely on that thing that is “deceitful above ALL things!” That’s a guaranteed way to be led astray. Moral relativism and doing what’s “right in [your] own eyes” (Judges 21:25) are always the result of relying on your own heart.

We must remember how our Lord Jesus tested everything when he was tempted by Satan three times. In every single instance, he proved that what Satan was telling him to do was false. How? “IT IS WRITTEN” (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10) is how Jesus responded to all of Satan’s temptations, quoting passages from the Torah each and every time.

That is how we are to test everything.

There are a total of three objective tests provided in the Torah to determine if someone is a true prophet or a messenger sent from God. They are:

(1) Do they add to or subtract from the commandments that YeHoVaH gave to Moses? (see Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32)

(2) Do they teach you to follow any other god than YeHoVaH or walk in any other way than the Torah? (see Deuteronomy 13:1-5)

(3) Have they given a prophecy that did not come to pass? (see Deuteronomy 18:21-22)

Notice how none of these tests require us to pray about the person or their message. All of these tests are entirely objective. They require that you first know and understand God’s Word, and then they require that you carefully test any message received to that absolute standard of truth. This is obviously for a very good reason. God knows that whenever we rely on our own wicked hearts and unstable emotions to determine truth, we always will go astray.

Mormonism teaches its membership to test everything SUBJECTIVELY.

The Holy Bible teaches us to test everything OBJECTIVELY.

And if the individual claiming to be a prophet or a dreamer of dreams or an apostle fails in any or all of these three objective tests provided in the Torah—as Joseph Smith and all Mormon leaders do—then you can be absolutely sure that that person is a false prophet.

God and Christ are both so pleased when we do this, as we can see in Christ’s message to the believers in Ephesus:

“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have TESTED those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be liars. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary” (Revelation 2:2-3).

Getting back to the two Mormon missionaries sitting on your living room couch. Understand that they are not your enemy. The religion and its leadership are. Those two young kids on your couch have simply been deceived, and they’ve been specifically trained to invite you to read the Book of Mormon for yourself and then pray about it.

Here’s where you have a grand opportunity to plant a seed of actual Biblical truth in their minds.

Explain the danger of coming to “know” the truth of something through subjective testing. Help them to understand that God’s Word, as revealed in the Holy Bible, is the ultimate authority and that all things need to be tested objectively to that absolute standard. And whenever they counter with their programmed Mormon doctrines, always in love bring it back to objective vs. subjective testing.

“How do you know that to be true?” you ask kindly.

“Because we prayed about it,” they’ll say. “And God told us it was true.”

“But that would mean God has contradicted Himself—something He cannot do,” you respond, and then you open up the Holy Bible and show to the Mormon missionaries where the truth can be found and how it can be known.

That is most important: Always, always lovingly guide their minds back to the authority of God’s revealed Word. They need to see, for themselves, that the Holy Bible can and should be trusted.

Please remember that your objective is NOT to offend them or make them feel like their beliefs are stupid. Never attack them over what they believe. Mormons have been trained from the youngest age that as soon as they feel uncomfortable, they shut off entirely. They’ve literally been taught that that uneasiness they feel when their beliefs are challenged is Satan trying to destroy their souls. If they get defensive, their programmed barriers will immediately go up, and those walls have been constructed over a lifetime to be very high and very thick.

Once a Mormon gets emotionally defensive about their beliefs, I guarantee you won’t be able to reach them.

Your objective is simply to get them to question their reality. Get them to question their methods for coming to know what they believe to be true. Get them to doubt the validity of their subjective experiences.

If you can successfully get them to question their own beliefs, then you’ve succeeded at helping them take their very first baby steps out from Mormonism and into a purer and more beautiful relationship with God and Christ.

And finally, instead of having them give you a copy of the Book of Mormon, you give them a copy of the Holy Bible. They’ll likely decline the offer and say that they already have a Bible. However, you need to be aware that the LDS Church’s version of the Bible has been heavily modified and corrupted by Joseph Smith. Kindly insist that they take the copy you provide them—as it’s a gift from you to them. Encourage them to read it every single day.

And be sure to invite them to come back for more Bible discussions. Understand that Mormons have been indoctrinated over a lifetime. It takes a lot of time and patience and love to break through all those thick chains of indoctrination. If you are filled with God’s love for these young souls, I promise that our Father can use you as a powerful instrument to help in that liberating process.

YeHoVaH willing, those two Mormon missionaries knocking on your door just may end up being the greatest blessing in their lives—the day they met a loving follower of the Messiah that loved them enough to help guide them out from darkness and into the light.

HalleluYAH!

Please be sure to read next week’s blog article (“When Mormon Missionaries Come Knocking, Part 3”). In this upcoming final article of the series, I’ll share with you some additional thoughts about how to reach Mormons with the truth of God’s Word.

Until then, YeHoVaH bless you and keep you.

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *