Stand on the Rock of Revelation Part 3

Answering Mormons questions by Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson deals with 36 commonly asked questions by your LDS friends and neighbors. It's a great resource for Christians want to share their faith with friends and loved ones. We should pick up your copy today at your favorite Christian bookstore viewpoint on Mormonism program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint when Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect.

And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry and with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at M. R.

M stand on the rock of revelation that is the advice of Elder Lawrence E core bridge.

He's listed as an emeritus member of the 70 and an article by that title is in the October 2020 addition of & magazine were going through this article and talking about some of the things that he happens to say you know it's interesting, Eric is when you do your homework and I do my homework and then we compare our highlighting of the various articles we read separately.

It's funny how we highlight a lot of the same things because these are issues that probably do need to be addressed in yesterday show. We were talking about a spectrum of deception that's the phrase that Mr. core bridge uses and on page 28 of this article and I just want to recap this as we go on today. He said there are many who deceive in the spectrum of deception is broad at one end, we meet those who attacked the restoration the prophet Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon. Next, we see those who believe in the restoration but claim the church is deficient and is gone astray. Others claim to believe in the restoration but are disillusioned with doctrine that conflicts with the shifting attitudes of our day. So it appears that the problems that he is discussing are very similar problems that we would say exists in the Christian church as well. We certainly seen people who are disillusioned with doctrine that conflicts with the shifting attitudes of our day and many times will hear of Christians who because they have a loved one or a friend someone that they care about, engaged in a certain type of behavior that the Bible strictly criticizes and condemns. They would much rather in the name of love.

Quote" reject what the Scripture has to say and express some kind of condoning for that friend or loved ones behavior.

I would argue in doing that they're not really showing a biblical definition of love, but they might not see it that way.

So I understand what he saying in this paragraph, but then he goes on going from this spectrum of deception to what he calls the other end of the spectrum. What is a say in the At the other end of the spectrum, we come to an entire universe of distractions. Never has there been more information misinformation and disinformation, more goods, gadgets and games and more options places to go and things to say and do to occupy time and attention away from what is most important. All of that and much more is disseminated instantaneously throughout the world by electronic media.

This is a day of deception and I would not disagree with and I think he's absolutely correct. This is the day of deception.

A lot of it is through electronic media.

A lot of it is not, but some of the things I think are easy to discern, such as goods gadgets games options places to go and things to see and do to occupy time and attention away from that which is most important that to me sounds like it's pretty easy to recognize those distractions. I think what gets more difficult is when he's talking about.

Never has there been more information misinformation and dis-information that becomes more difficult. Discerning what information is true and must be believed as opposed to information that is false and should be rejected becomes much harder for it. Not only I would say a latter-day say, but I would also say for us. Within the Christian church as well.

Discernment is not something that usually just comes because of DNA. It's something that you have to work at. You have to use wisdom and you have to have a proper base of knowledge and he's going to talk about knowledge in the next section, but you have to somehow come to the conclusion that the knowledge you have is correct because only knowledge that is correct can be considered true truth is that which conforms to reality and that becomes I think much more difficult that when he talks about electronic media. While the LDS church has electronic media they have a website church of Jesus Christ.org and so that is something that we would look at and we would say there's disinformation on that website as much as they would look@mrm.org and say that our website is disinformation. So what we need to do is we need to take an objective look at what is truth.

When we look at these different websites because there is much good on the Internet. There's also much bad and it comes down to, not just what you think or you feel, but we have an objective standard, and as Christians we believe in the inherent word of God that God has given us special revelation that we can use as a standard as like a ruler and when we are a little bit off.

We need to correct ourselves.

But if you don't understand that and you're not using the Bible in the way that was meant to be used, then yes, you could be easily deceived as a latter-day St. believing that the Church of Jesus Christ.org is an appropriate website and disagreeing with the website of Mormonism research ministry, I think, in an earlier broadcaster you brought out a similar thought you said that we we have to be objective and not all of us can ever be 100% objective market biases are going to steer us in a certain direction.

The trick is to try and set those biases aside as much as possible and to be as objective as possible but yet when you talk about special revelation. The word of God. I don't really get that impression from what he's saying when he uses the word revelation.

The way he's using Revelation in this article, and he's going to bring it out later on he talks more about the still small voice. The subjective revelation we would call it. And yet, of course, that revelation has to coincide with what the church is already telling its members. If you go in the direction of the church, then obviously you're going off in the right direction, but the question for us becomes, how do you know what the church is telling you is true.

It's almost as if you have to automatically have that conclusion settled in your mind in order to know which way is the right way. Therefore when he's arguing for this still small voice kind of revelation. It could easily contradict what God has already revealed in his word and of course as New Testament Christians we would say would have to be from the Bible. Many latter-day Saints don't see that they don't see it that way at all and I don't think Mr. corporate sees it that way either. And were going to see this come out as we go on in this article Bill when we talk about being objective. I think we can recognize as you say that we don't necessarily have all objectivity available to us because we do have presuppositions. But what I see when I read this article is it feels like what he is saying is that Mormonism is true bottom line.

There's no other way. He doesn't seem to leave open the option that he might be wrong but as Christians would we accept the possibility that we could be wrong.

I would argue yes we could and I told that to Latter Day Saints and I've qualified it by saying I've not read something that shows me that I am in this particular area that were discussing, but I could possibly be wrong but it is funny and it is interesting that you mentioned that many times we talk to Latter Day Saints. It's always, I know this is true, as if there's absolutely no way they could be wrong will guess what latter-day St., if you're listening. Just about every ex-Mormon that we've ever talked to use to say that right but at some point in their life. They realized they could very easily be wrong, and in fact were misled by the church that they trusted for many years and so as Christians what we want to do is we want to take a look at the evidence as objectively as possible and we want to head in the direction where the evidence leads. The next section is called knowledge is crucial and this is what is written truth enables us to see clearly because it is the quote knowledge of things as they are and as they were and as they are to come" and that comes from doctrine and covenants section 93 verse 24 knowledge is crucial to avoid deception to discern between truth and air, and to see clearly and chart a course through the hazards of our day. The prophet Joseph Smith said, quote knowledge is necessary to life and godliness.

Knowledge is revelation here. This grantee knowledge is the power of God onto his salvation." He continues. People say quote, you should be true to your beliefs."

While that is true you cannot be better than what you know most of us act based on our beliefs, especially what we believe to be in our self interest. The problem is we are sometimes wrong. The question I want to ask though. Could Mr. core bridge be susceptible to that statement that he just made there. Most of this act based on our beliefs, especially what we believe to be in our self interest. It calls to mind the statement by Jeffrey Holland that we have talked about many times on the show. Mormon apostle Jeffrey Holland in the video that they shown before you visit and Temple open house has him talking about heaven and being with his family and he makes a statement and I'm paraphrasing that it would not be heaven without his wife without his children, it just would not be heaven to me now. Is he not believing this because he has his own self-interest.

He wants to be with his wife. Do you think he's going to take those verses seriously when Jesus tells the religious leaders of his day you do error. Not knowing the Scriptures, but you're going to be as the angels in heaven and we read nowhere that angels are married would Jeffrey Holland want to take those verses seriously. As Jesus said, it probably not because his self-interest is to be with his wife and his children and he believes according to the teachings of his church that if he does everything he supposed to do that will be his reward.

Interesting enough, Jesus is in the part of Mr. Holland's equation, he never mentions his desire to be with Jesus for eternity because of Mormonism. He's not there for your eternity and he's not the only one we talked to many Latter Day Saints who have said that they want what Mormonism promises the ability to be with their families forever, and oftentimes they have a stereotype of what the heaven is for Christianity, it's sitting on a cloud plane, a harp and singing to God or something and I always when they say that I like to point to a verse from the book of Mormon.

This is what Mormon 77 says, it says, and he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world talking about Jesus whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, onto the father and onto the sun and onto the Holy Ghost which are one God in a state of happiness which hath no end. That's not a belief that most Latter Day Saints have that somehow they're going to be dwelling the presence of God by singing ceaseless praises, but really I want to be in the presence of Jesus, but many Latter Day Saints like Jeffrey Holland are more interested in being with their wife and their kids than they are with Jesus himself. I remember Latter Day Saints mocking the idea of being in the presence of Jesus. And I remember telling him that the reason why that probably does not have the attraction to you as it does to me is because I don't think you have the relationship with Jesus that I have. Thank you for listening you would like more information regarding his research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter Mormonism research. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint is