Thanksgiving Thanks — Part 2

One member is examining 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 additional viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM will tomorrow is Thanksgiving day, the day that we have been commemorating in the United States officially since 1864 when Pres. Lincoln put forth a proclamation to make the fourth Thursday will begin really might say, in 1863 was really the first one and then the next year or Pres. Lincoln decided to do this on a regular basis, but before we begin today show Eric you wanted to read something from a letter that Lincoln wrote, and I think it's very appropriate because our nation has a history of being a praying nation. I might even mention even before it became a nation we have been known as a people of prayer because of the Christian roots that our founding fathers had and I know you might say will not everyone of them were really a Christians but maybe that might be true but let me tell you some folks at least they were sympathetic to Christianity. Unlike what we are seeing today but record what you read that portion that you are telling me about before we started recording. This is from Washington DC October 3, 1863 by the president of the United States of America, a proclamation it's a paragraph, but I will read the whole thing, but he talks about some of the things that we have to be thankful for and this is what Lincoln said they are the precious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins have nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwell within the heavens. I think that's pretty cool that in a government letter written by the present United States so much is credited to God in a proper understanding of God. What was that letter signed October 3, 1863, October 3, so that means 1863 we had just gone through Gettysburg that Took Pl. in July at about 50,000 casualties there. You could say that was a result of sin.

But the fact is, like you mentioned before, we have been known as a praying people in this United States throughout our past history and what we've done as a tradition since starting viewpoint on Mormonism several years ago is we've always wanted to set aside this part of the year to talk about the things that we as a ministry are thankful for and to go through some of the letters. Some of the emails that we have received from folks like you talking about how Mormonism research ministry has affected your life, and we might mention that we are about to close out our 40th year of ministry and we do thank you for all those who have written to wish us a good anniversary and it certainly was a good anniversary.

We were able to accomplish a lot of things during this 40th year celebration, but I might mention all the things that we have seen God do over the past four decades. It's hard for me to imagine that I'm even still doing this. After four decades, especially since I'm only 41 years old. What's really cool is over the course of a year we get emails from people. Also, phone calls, but the emails we have record of and we have emails of people who are telling us of how much they appreciated or benefited from our ministry and for those of you who write us like that. It means a lot. I know whenever Bill opens up one of those emails.

There's a big smile that will happen on his face when he gets to read that and he'll share with us and we want to share that with you here in these next few days. So what we want to do is go through some of the correspondence that we have received from like I said folks like you and talk about a little bit because many of these you might recognize were in our newsletter Mormonism research but we just put them in there.

We don't really talk about them so this gives us an opportunity not only to show what people have said, but to also offer a little bit of commentary on some of these as well.

Some of them are pretty self-explanatory. There's not a whole lot we can say but let's go through some of them in the first one just start off was one that simply wished us well on our 40th year of ministry as a gentleman, congratulations on 40 years while praise God for all you do, I might say that yet. Wow is a pretty good word because as I mentioned earlier, it's just amazing that even think that we been around that long on that same theme.

Somebody wrote thank you for 40 years of perseverance, commitment and love for the Lord in your ministry you make a difference and I hope you will continue for many years to come.

And we certainly do to let me read the next one we have on this list. Your ministry has been a big help to me when dealing with Mormonism. Your teaching on how repentance is defined in Mormonism has been invaluable. I use that quite often with Mormons and I have to admit I personally do to a lot of people right and tell me that they're going to be talking with Latter Day Saints. What do I bring up what subjects do you think are more important than others.

In my first answer is always dealing with the repentance issue repentance and forgiveness. I think that that's a central topic that needs to be discussed with Latter Day Saints and as we mentioned many times on the show when you look at their definition of repentance because that's very important because they have a doctrine of repentance and of course, as Christians, we have a doctrine of repentance. But those doctrines are certainly defined quite differently between our two traditions. Well let the audience know what does that mean in Mormonism when you talk about repentance will very quickly, repentance has been defined in Mormon circles is not a mere confession of any sin that you are heartily sorry for committing but it also includes an abandonment of that sin never to repeat that sin again. And though we would not argue against a person's effort to never repeat a sin again. That's certainly commendable and I think all of us who are sorry for sin should have that kind of a mindset that we certainly don't want to be repeating sins that we know offend God. But in Mormonism. If you do not abandon it completely. According to what their leaders have taught you've never really repented in the first place.

So as we've often said technically accordingly Mormonism you can only repent of a sin.

One time, because if you repeat that same sin again.

That shows you were never truly repentant in the first place. And that's certainly what makes a huge difference between Mormonism and Christianity another person wrote.

I read every one of your newsletters with real interest and really appreciate the work that goes into them. It has been helpful for me to understand the teachings and change and teachings of the church over time.

Thank you and please renew my subscription now of course they're talking about a subscription to our free newsletter. It's called Mormonism researched and if you would like to receive that publication. You can do so by going to our website.

It's MRM.org/newsletter and that will take you to a page that will simply ask you do you live within the United States or outside of the United States and the only reason we asset mainly is because I think the form is a little bit different that you fill out and we would be glad to send that to you, it comes out every other month and usually contains articles in it of things that are probably going on at the moment. Although we do deal with a lot of historical and doctrinal issues as well, but we like to keep people informed as to what we're up to as a ministry and really what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is up to and on the odd months. What we have is a update that we send out to those who financially help support what we do here at MRM, so if you want to get something every month and you gave a little bit.

We would be able to send that to you as well. We certainly do appreciate all of you who have prayerfully considered supporting this outreach as part of your missions giving in and really that's how you want to look at that is because we are not only dealing with apologetic subjects, but we do consider ourselves a missionary organization. Eric and myself Aaron to Aaron shuffle if he is here in the state of Utah wanting to minister to a particular people group just as people who feel called to go to. Let's say a foreign country like China or perhaps Africa and we've done that as well. Eric you were in China ministering. I was just recently in Africa several months ago and plan to go back as well, but we do feel called to minister to the people who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the ideological missionary effort. You might say we know we are dealing with religious beliefs of a particular group. We certainly do understand the sensitivity of dealing with an individual's personal religious beliefs and hopefully we can share some of our expertise and how to do that with folks like you that listen to the show. Here's another comment. God bless you and the entire MRM team.

When I first moved to Salt Lake City. MRM became one of the first and most important resources for me.

I truly appreciate all you do.

There is a way that encourages me. Eric is because how many people live we come across who live in the Salt Lake area where we are based who will come up and say how long have you been doing is I've never heard of you before and you tell him well. We been around for 40 years.

They look a little embarrassed and I'm actually kind of embarrassed that they didn't know about us either. Obviously were not doing as good a job as we maybe should be doing in order to allow people to know were here. I don't know what else we can do to change that. I mean we have a web presence in a radio show newsletter that goes out post speaking engagements. I don't know what more we can do to change that.

But I'm appreciative when people do find out about us and is this person says he appreciates all that we do and I think you might admit Eric we certainly try to do as much as we possibly can with the resources we have available.

While I think this radio show and the podcasts that we have are helpful for a lot of people to get to know us, because they'll maybe be turning the radio and that they happen to run into us. In fact, here's a note that somebody wrote. I have really enjoyed your archive of podcasts. I have listened to hundreds of them.

And you know we do get people who write us and they'll say I have binged listen to all of your radio shows, which is a credible because we have over 2000 over 2000. Now we admit that some of them are repeats and you probably notice that to the reason why we do play past shows is because many times either.

Eric is out of town or I am out of town or both of us are out of town and we just don't have the time to record and edit. So that's the reason why sometimes were going to play recordings from the past but a lot of them are still very pertinent on the very timeless I mean. Things don't change and so were able to play shows, even from two or three years ago where the information is still valid and were plain what we think are some of the better series that we've actually run over the year and there are some shows of course that we can't rerun because they are dealing with a timely issue at that particular time, and it probably would make a whole lot of sense to play that to maybe three years down the road, but I hope you do appreciate the fact that we sometimes have to do that. I think you for all that you have meant us for those of you who listen to this ministry.

All of you who pray for us and support us financially and tomorrow we want to continue going through some of these letters and just offer our thanks for what God has done for this past year. Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding this research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter research. We hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint is in their own words collection of Mormon quotations compiled as a research ministry. Still McKeever is a valuable resource when wanting to know what Mormon leaders have said on a given topic. Pick up your copy of Utah lighthouse bookstore MRM.org