Secrets Mormons Don't Want You To Know (13 page)

Well, I had never heard this but I knew I deserved it because I had sinned. The Bible said that Jesus died to pay for my sin. When he died on that old, cruel cross two thousand years ago, my sins were placed on Him. Jesus died so I might live:

“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

I had always heard that Jesus died for me, but that, I was told, was only for my physical resurrection. To get myself into heaven, I had to work. Then I wondered, “How much work would it take?” Even if I repented and went back to the LDS church faithfully, went through the temple, paid my tithe and did my work for the dead, would it be enough? How would I know when I had done all I needed to do?

I wondered if, when I died and stood before God, He would say I was $1.00 short on my tithe or I missed one week too many of church to get into the degree of heaven I desired to attain. How would I know?

The Jesus of the Bible died not only for my physical resurrection but also for the salvation of my spirit and soul. He is able to forgive all of my sins and save me:

“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him…” (Hebrews 7:25)

As a Mormon, I was taught that baptism washed away my sins, and I was baptized at the age of eight. Can you imagine all of the sins I had accumulated since then?

Mormon doctrine also states that once I repented, if I sinned again, every previous sin would come back.
⁴⁵⁹
This was terrible. If God would not allow sin into His Heaven, then I would not be allowed in.

I never knew that I was a sinner in need of a Saviour. I thought I could get into heaven on my own merit. But Jesus said:

“…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

(John 14:6)

I finally started to understand that only Jesus could get me into heaven, not my church, my water baptism, or all of the wonderful good works I could perform. I learned from the Bible that:

“…all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6)

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us…” (Titus 3:5)

I also began to see that only by the blood of Jesus Christ can we have forgiveness of sin:

“…Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood…”

(Revelation 1:5)

Unlike my religion, the Bible said salvation is a gift from God:

“…the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23b)

I knew that a gift is something I did not have to work for, only acknowledge it was being offered and receive it.

I finally realized I was a sinner, and I recognized the penalty for my sin. I understood that I could not get myself into heaven. I saw that, by faith, I needed to trust Jesus Christ alone, plus and minus nothing, and ask Him to forgive me and save me:

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10)

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

I now knew that my religion could never get me into heaven.

In the book I was reading, after the Biblical plan of Salvation, there was a sinner’s prayer. I went into my bedroom and knelt down by my bed and simply read the prayer as it was written in the book:

“Lord Jesus Christ, come into my heart and life. Cleanse me from all my sin by your shed blood. Make me a child of God. Give me your free gift of everlasting life, and let me know I am saved, now and forever. I now receive you as my very own personal Lord and Saviour, in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

As soon as I asked the Jesus Christ of the Bible to forgive me and come into my heart and life and save me, my life was changed forever.

I then realized I had been wandering around in spiritual darkness all of my life. But when I trusted Jesus Christ alone as my Saviour, my eyes were opened and I could see. I came out of the darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

I knew at that moment that everything I had been raised with and had been trusting in for my eternal life was wrong. I realized that no religion could get me into heaven—only a relationship with Jesus Christ could do that.

My New Life In Christ Begins

My life had been changed in a moment. I now had a personal relationship with the living Lord, Jesus Christ. I had been forgiven, saved and born again into God’s family, becoming His child (John 1:12, Ephesians 1:5). I knew salvation was instantaneous and not a process of works (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8-9).

I had to tell someone, so I told Richard. I had to admit to him that I had been wrong, but that didn’t matter. I now had peace and I knew for certain where I would go if the rapture occurred or when I died. I would be in heaven with Jesus, not because of anything that I had done, but because of everything that Jesus had done for me on the cross.

By the grace of God, Richard and I started rebuilding our life together. It was only by that grace that we are still married because of the bitterness and resentment we had for each other. It has taken time, but God has restored our love for each other and has even given me a greater love and deeper respect for my husband.

Rejected by our Families

We knew it was time to tell our families that we were no longer attending the LDS church. We hoped they would be happy that someone was finally sharing the truth with them from the Bible.

Were we ever wrong! They had the same reaction with us that I had with Richard—anger, resentment and unbelief. Our families couldn’t understand how we could do this to them.

The closest Richard has ever come to being physically assaulted for the cause of Christ was from his own family. Our relationship with them has never been the same. Some of them wanted nothing to do with us.

Our hearts break for our friends and family because we know the bondage they are under, trying to live up to the expectations of thinking they can become a god. It cannot be done. There is only one God and no one will ever become one.
⁴⁶⁰

In Genesis chapter 3 in the Bible, we learn that it was Satan who first introduced the doctrine that man could become as god:

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods…”

This is Satan’s number one doctrine. It was because of this belief that Satan was cast out of heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15). All creation was cursed because of the fall of man. It was not a fall upward, as Mormonism teaches.
⁴⁶¹

We Are Not Attacking—We Are Defending

Please understand that we are not attacking anyone. Jude 3 tells us to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” We are defending the Lord Jesus Christ’s claim that He established His Church, and His promise to keep and preserve it.

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18)
⁴⁶²

The LDS church was started because Joseph Smith claimed that all Christian Churches were wrong, their creeds were an abomination in God’s sight and their professors were all corrupt.
⁴⁶³

Joseph Smith said the Church that Jesus Christ started and promised to preserve had gone into apostasy, and he was called to restore it.
⁴⁶⁴

The Lord Jesus Christ said not even the gates of hell would prevail against His Church.

Which One Will You Believe?

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15)

BEGINNINGS:
HOW MORMONS BELIEVE IT ALL BEGAN

1. We all existed as spirit children of God the Father in heaven before we were born on earth.
⁴⁶⁵

2. Our Father in heaven deemed it necessary for his children to further their education and experience.
⁴⁶⁶

3. He called a council in heaven of all the gods and leading spirits.
⁴⁶⁷

4. Options were offered on how this new experience would be conducted.
⁴⁶⁸

5. Lucifer, one of God the Father’s spirit children, offered to be the savior of all mankind and save everyone.

6. Jesus, God the Father’s oldest spirit child, offered to be the savior of mankind and allow all to have the freedom to choose to follow God’s plan for salvation and future exaltation, as they had done on past worlds.
⁴⁶⁹

7. Jesus’ plan was accepted, Lucifer’s was rejected. Lucifer then led a rebellion in heaven, convincing one third of his spirit brothers and sisters to rebel against God the Father. Lucifer became the devil and those who followed him became the demons.
⁴⁷⁰

8. After losing a battle in heaven, Lucifer and the demons were cast out. The spirit children who fought valiantly in heaven were born to white, LDS families. The spirit children who did not fight were cursed with the mark of Cain, to be born into families with dark skin.
⁴⁷¹

9. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden and were given conflicting commandments: not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or to multiply and replenish the earth.
⁴⁷²
They took of the fruit and were cast out of the garden, which was a fall upward towards salvation and exaltation.
⁴⁷³

10. Adam was baptized and then he received the Holy Spirit after the Lord had revealed to Adam that he was forgiven of all his sins. He received the priesthood and became the first patriarch on the earth.
⁴⁷⁴

HOW MORMONS BELIEVE THEY
CAME TO AMERICA

11. Jared and the Jaredites (later known as the Lamanites, believed to be the American Indian descendents) came to America on ships.
⁴⁷⁵

12. The Nephites came from Jerusalem to South America about 600 B.C.
⁴⁷⁶

13. The Nephites’ wickedness even surpassed that of their brothers, the Lamanites (American Indians). The Lord allowed the Lamanites to annihilate all the Nephites except Moroni. He was commanded by the Lord to bury the record of his people on golden plates (known today as the Book of Mormon) in the hill Cumorah.
⁴⁷⁷

HOW MORMONISM STARTED
WITH JOSEPH SMITH

14. Fourteen hundred years after Moroni buried the golden plates, he appeared as an angel to Joseph Smith and directed him where to find them.
⁴⁷⁸

15. Joseph Smith, at age fourteen, said that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him not to join any Christian Church, as all were an abomination; all the workers were corrupt and the Church that Jesus Christ had established had gone into complete apostasy.
⁴⁷⁹

16. Joseph Smith was given the responsibility to restore the church and translate the golden plates to English from reformed Egyptian.
⁴⁸⁰

17. The LDS church, first known as the Church of Christ, later The Church of the Latter Day Saints, now known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was started on April 6th, 1830, with 6 members.
⁴⁸¹

18. Joseph Smith was killed in a gun battle while being held in the Carthage jail for ordering the destruction of the printing press that exposed his teachings on polygamy and plurality of Gods.
⁴⁸²

19. Brigham Young, second president and prophet of the Mormon church, led a majority of LDS followers to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1847.

20. The Manifesto was signed, denouncing the practice of polygamy by the LDS church, yet still considered an eternal and unchangeable doctrine for godhood.
⁴⁸³

21. The doctrine banning dark skinned races to hold the Mormon priesthood changed.
⁴⁸⁴

22. Today, Thomas S. Monson, 16th President and prophet of the LDS church presides over 14 million members, with 60,000 Mormon missionaries around the world, and 40,000 more home missionaries.

Now that you have all of this knowledge about Mormon doctrine, there is one more important practice you need to be aware of before you go out and start talking to Mormons about their religion.

You need to know that under certain circumstances, Mormons are not only allowed, but encouraged, to lie right to your face.

For example, if lying will help protect the LDS church, they are encouraged to do so.

Or if it will help recruit you into their religion, lying to you is permitted. They call it, “Lying for the Lord.”

“For the Mormon, loyalty and the welfare of the church are more important than the principle of honesty, and plausible denials and deception by omission are warranted by an opportunity to have the Mormon organization seen in the best possible light.”
⁴⁸⁵

“And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me;”
⁴⁸⁶

Let’s say you are talking to a Mormon and you say, “I heard that your religion believes that men can become gods.”

You continue, “I can’t believe your religion really teaches something that bizarre. Is it true?”

Since the Mormon detects that this belief offends you and could stop you from becoming a member, he or she is authorized to say, “Absolutely not. Our religion has never taught that.”

Then, once you are incorporated into the church, and you learn the truth, they will tell you they couldn’t tell you back then because you simply weren’t ready for it. They justify it by calling it “Milk before meat.”

But no matter what they call it, it’s still lying.

So when you go out and begin asking Mormons about their strange doctrines, don’t be surprised if they deny everything. That’s what they’ve been taught to do. To them, it’s a good thing to lie … as long as it’s “for the Lord.”

Of course, you can’t assume they are always lying. Some Mormons might honestly not know some of the more bizarre doctrines of their religion. So give them the benefit of the doubt and show them the facts before assuming they are lying.